He frowned. “There were things in the attic?”
“Yes. They literally look like they have been up there since the sixties or seventies. Or at least, most of the things are from that time.”
“Weren’t there...spiders?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Why would that bother me?”
“It bothers most people, Violet.”
She wondered if spiders bothered him. Maybe she’d put one in his boot.
“Nothing is going to happen,” she said. “Anyway, even if a poisonous one bit me, as long as I got treatment I would be fine.”
“You’re pregnant,” he said.
She winced. Because she hadn’t really thought of that. She was just focused on the fact that she actually had some energy. She wasn’t really thinking that perhaps moving around industriously wasn’t the best thing to do. Although, Kate Garrett was pregnant and she was still working the ranch like it was nothing. Whatever she had done before, she continued to do. So it seemed reasonable enough. She wasn’t going to start training for a marathon or anything, but she knew her body.
Spider bites notwithstanding.
“I didn’t get bitten,” she said. “Besides, I don’t like sitting around. I intended to rest, but it’s not something that I really get a lot out of. I like to be useful. And in this case, I was being useful to myself. So here we are.”
“I’m not a big fan of Christmas,” he said.
“I am,” Violet said. “I love Christmas, and I’m going to miss Christmas in Copper Ridge, so I’m going to have some Christmas cheer here.”
“I really don’t like it,” he said.
“Too bad,” she said, unwilling to back down. Because there was a whole host of things that she didn’t like, and he hadn’t consulted her on them.
“Doing really well on the starting-over thing.”
“How am I failing? I gave you every chance to come in here and be grateful for the fact that you have chili and cornbread waiting for you, and that I cleaned your house and put up this beautiful Christmas tree, and you’re being a grinch.”
“Thank you for the food,” he said. He crossed the space and went over to the stove, lifting the lid on the pot and looking inside. He looked over at her, and something flickered across his face. Shock? But it was deeper than that.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“No, sometimes you look... Sometimes you look like there’s nothing inside you. And it scares the hell out of me, Wolf. Because I met you, and I looked at you and saw someone charming. And sexy. And I think those were the things Iwantedto see. After you left I thought I’d made it up. That what I saw in your eyes was a trick of the light. And that’s how you like it. But then sometimes you look like that. And I don’t know what’s going on in your head. And sometimes you look sad. You just look really sad.”
“Can I eat my chili without psychoanalysis?”
He grabbed a bowl and started to pile it high, then took two thick pieces of cornbread. There was no table in the little cottage, so he sat down heavily on the couch. Violet got a bowl of chili and sat down in the chair opposite him.
“Psychoanalysis is the cost of my chili,” she said. “If we are going to live together, then I want to understand some things about you. And mostly... I want to know... Why exactly do you want to be in this child’s life? I mean, really. Why do you want this? Because I just can’t... I can’t figure you out. You do look sometimes like the kind of man who doesn’t care about anybody. But none of this suggests that’s true. And I also can’t... I can’t figure you out. Bottom line.”
The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Many have tried. None have succeeded.”
“And then there’s that. You just go right to that. Wolf Garrett. Push everything off.”
“The alternative is sitting in it,” he said. “And I’m not sure that’s any better. Are you?”
“What are we sitting in? Reality? Because you know, that you have to deal with. You have to deal with the people in your life.”
“I think I’m the one that just told you all about the ways that I’m connected to people. And why I have a responsibility to...”
“To what? To perform at a certain level? To pretend you’re a good person even if you don’t feel like being one?”