“Stop it,” she kept saying as the tree dropped apples around her, trying to vex her. “The more you drop, the more I bury. And you know it takes you a week to grow more.”
It dropped a small apple on her head.
She looked up at the branches, which were twitching slightly though there was no wind. “I said stop it.”
“Is that your secret?”
She turned to see Tyler standing on the grass. How long had he been there? She hadn’t even heard him approach. The tree had been distracting her. Damn tree.
“My secret?” she asked warily.
“Your secret to this garden. You talk to the plants.”
“Oh.” She turned and gathered more apples in her arms. “Yes, that’s it.”
“Dinner was great.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” When he didn’t move, she said, “I’m a little busy.”
“That’s what Sydney said you’d say. And she said to come out anyway.”
“Her confidence is attractive, I know, but I think she just needs a friend right now,” Claire said, shocking herself. She never meant to say that. It sounded as if she cared. Sure, she wanted Tyler to turn his attention elsewhere. But not to Sydney. Claire closed her eyes. She thought she was past all that jealousy.
“What about you? Do you need a friend?”
She glanced over at him. He was so comfortable with himself, standing there in his loose jeans, his button-down shirt untucked. Just for a moment, she wanted to walk to him, into his arms, and let that sense of calm envelop her. What was the matter with her? “I don’t need friends.”
“Do you need something more?”
She didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but she understood what he meant. She knew what those tiny purple snaps around him, the ones you could see only at night, meant. “I like what I have.”
“I do too, Claire. You’re beautiful,” he said. “There, I said it. I couldn’t keep it in any longer.”
He wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. He seemed to welcome it. One of them had to be sensible. “That thing about me being busy: I meant it.”
“That thing about you being beautiful: I meant it too.”
She walked over to the hole by the fence and dropped the apples in. “I’m going to be busy for a long, long time.”
When she turned back around, Tyler was grinning. “Well, I’m not.”
Feeling uneasy, she watched him as he walked away. Was he trying to tell her something? Was it a warning of some sort?
I have all the time in the world to wiggle my way in.
CHAPTER
5
The Matteson mansion looked the same as Sydney remembered. She could probably walk up to Hunter John’s bedroom with her eyes closed, even now. When they spent time alone in the house, she used to pretend they lived there together. They would lie in bed and she would go on and on about their future. But when he broke up with her at graduation, he said, “I thought you understood.”