Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(36)
Eventually, Maylee put down her utensils and steepled her fingers over her plate. She was still smiling, but there was something serious about her gaze, too, and Viv had the sense of a curtain being swept aside.
“Look,” said Maylee, and her voice was softer, pitched just for Viv. “I like you.”
Viv cleared her throat as that comfortable feeling evaporated, replaced with a jumble of emotions she couldn’t sort out without time to claw through them. Time she suddenly didn’t have. “Uh, I guess I sort of figured that out,” she said, lamely. And then lower down, “Don’t know why, though.”
Maylee arched a speculative brow. “Well, I woulda said it was when I first saw those arms, ’cause … eight hells! But really it was when I saw you waitin’ in line. Watchin’ the careful way you moved around the other folks.”
Viv’s cheeks went hot, and she couldn’t find any words. She suddenly didn’t have the breath for it.
“All real cute. And okay, then I talked to Fern, too.” At Viv’s widening eyes, Maylee laughed. “She didn’t spill any secrets, hon. But maybe I got a peek at you. Enough to know I’d like to know you better.”
Her smile slipped, and there was something distant and sad in her eyes. “You know, there’s a lot of people out there. Lot of noise. I love what I do, love it every day, but none of us sees more than a tiny piece of all the world, like we’re lookin’ out a little-bitty window. And I saw you through mine, and somethin’ inside me said, ‘That’s somebody you oughta know.’ Simple as that.
“I know you’re gonna be gone,” she said. “Maybe in a couple weeks. You know what, though? Doesn’t matter to me. I’m just gonna make it real simple for you. Do you think you oughta know me?”
Maylee tried to say it casually, but Viv wasn’t so dull she didn’t feel the thread of tension running through those words.
Viv stared at her entirely too long as words turned to vapor in her mind, and all the while she felt that line of tension grow tighter. And when she couldn’t bear for it to break, she suddenly had to answer.
“I’d like that,” said Viv. And while that was true, part of her knew it was a truth with an edge to it. One that might cut them both later.
17
“You own a boat?” Viv looked bemusedly at the dinghy moored to the smallest of the four piers, which benefited from the sheltered, stiller waters off the cove. A long sandbar curled out in a narrowing arm, and the promontory with the unrecognizable structures overlooked it all.
Seawater slopped along the hull of the tiny boat as it seesawed gently back and forth. Viv eyed the size of the vessel with trepidation, having some difficulty mentally fitting herself into it. “I’ve gotta say, I figured it would be … bigger.”
Other watercraft, none terribly large, bobbed in a ragged line down the length of the jetty, which was mostly populated by gulls and terns toward its end.
“I just borrow it when I feel the need to. This old sailor who comes by every day for biscuits lets me use it as I please. Don’t know why he even keeps it, since he’s out on a trawler all day.” Hanging on to one of the pilings, Maylee stepped into the belly of the boat. “Hand that over, hon,” she said, gesturing at the wicker basket on the boards.
Viv obliged, passing along the basket with a soft clatter and clink.
The dwarf tucked it behind the plank seat near the prow and glanced back, brows raised. Viv’s doubt must have been plain on her face, because Maylee laughed that delicate laugh, sparkling as the seawater. “C’mon, you know how to swim, don’t you?”
“I know how,” said Viv. “But it doesn’t seem to matter much. I still sink like a stone. And with a bum leg? I’m definitely headed straight for the bottom.”
“Well, I never learned, so if we capsize, we’re goin’ down together. It’ll be very tragic and very romantic.”
“You don’t know how to swim, and you like to go out on this tiny boat?” Viv made a show of eyeing her from head to toe. “Guess you didn’t give up the mercenary life for lack of bravery, huh?”
“Enough stallin’. Untie that, all right?”
Viv laid her walking staff against a piling where she was reasonably sure it wouldn’t roll off, then unmoored the ship, tossing the rope into the boat. Maylee held it steady to the pier with one hand, then leaned to the side to make room and said, “You can do it. Left leg in first.”
It had been a few days since their dinner together, and Viv had managed to walk down to the pier with only a moderate limp and the aid of her staff. Still, she couldn’t help hissing and wincing as she made her ungainly way into the boat. There was a bad moment when she hiked her wounded leg after her, wobbling precariously, and then Maylee’s hands were on her waist to steady her.
She slowly lowered herself onto the stern seat, next to the shipped oars. Cool air billowed out from the shadowed water under the pier.
“You know how to row?” asked Maylee.
“Seems like something I could figure out.”
The dwarf gave her a considering glance, then held her hands out. “Eh, pass the oars to me.”
Maylee rowed them away from the pier toward the center of the cove. The sunlight shattered to pieces on the gentle, scalloping waves. A brace of terns followed them, scolding with their harsh, burring voices.