Brenda Novak - Discovering You

Rod had never particularly liked red hair. He usually had a preference for blondes. But India’s hair, which fell long and straight to her shoulders, was between a bright orange and a dark mahogany, and somehow it worked with her pale skin and almost translucent blue eyes. She was different, unique, delicate in appearance.

The more he looked at her, the more he liked what he saw. But based on what he’d gathered from their conversation since she’d started to drive, she was still in love with her dead husband. She teared up when she talked about him, and yet she wouldn’t say how he died. When Rod asked, she told him she didn’t want to “go into that.” Then she fiddled with her wedding ring the rest of the way to town. The only thing he could get out of her was that it’d been eleven months since the “tragedy” that’d taken Charlie.

“When will your daughter be back?” he asked, hoping she’d be more comfortable if he changed the subject.

“After the Fourth of July,” she replied.

He shifted to ease the terrible ache in his leg. “That gives you three weeks on your own.”

“Yes, too long for me, but I plan to make good use of that time.” She turned toward the river, where they both lived.

“Doing what?”

“Using that potter’s wheel you helped me carry into the house.”

“You do ceramics for a living?”

“Hope to,” she said. “To be honest, I haven’t made much money on it in the past, but I’ve never seriously pursued my art. I plan to open my own studio one day.”

The smile that curved her lips when she said that—as if it had always been her dream—lit her whole face.

“Here in Whiskey Creek?”

“Yes.”

“Not out of your house...”

“No. I’m picturing a cute little shop downtown. But first I have to build up my inventory.”

He was glad she didn’t expect folks to find her place along the river. He didn’t think she could be successful there, not tucked away as they were. “Don’t you have stuff already? I mean, haven’t you been doing it for a while?”

“Since high school, but not with a business in mind. What I created before belongs to a different era in my life. Now that I’m starting over, rebuilding, I’d like to take my work in a new direction.”

Her husband must’ve left her well-off, Rod decided. She’d essentially told him that what she planned to do wouldn’t cover her bills—and he knew she’d paid quite a bit for her house. Although it’d once been a cheap rental, some investors had purchased it and renovated with the intent of reselling. They did a lot of work and put some key upgrades into it, so it’d been pricey by the time they were done.

Of course, Rod would’ve been able to tell by her clothes—or that rock of a wedding ring—that she wasn’t hurting for money, even if he hadn’t known how much she’d paid for the house, or noticed the expensive furniture the movers carried in when the van arrived a few hours after he and his brothers had helped set up her potter’s wheel. “So you’ll work from home every day?”

“For the next year or so, until I can determine if I have any chance at succeeding.”

“You can make it,” he said. “There’re quite a few artisans in Gold Country. There’s a glassworks place not far away, in Sutter Creek, if you haven’t seen it.”

“I have. It’s wonderful.” She stopped at the four-way, the last turn before the route home took them along the river. “What about you? What do you do?” she asked. “From the way the paramedics were talking, I wondered if you’re a professional fighter.”

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “My oldest brother, Dylan, used to do MMA. Made good money at it, too. But he didn’t want the rest of us to get involved in it. He needed us to work in the family business, which started doing well after he took over.”

“From...”

“My father.” Rod didn’t state the reason or say anything about the circumstances. He knew how his history would sound to someone who wasn’t familiar with it, especially someone who came from a better class of people—and India’s clothes, her interest in art, even her language, suggested she came from a better class of people.

She tucked her silky-looking hair behind her ear. “What kind of business?”

“We own the auto body shop.”

“And you work there?”

He could smell her perfume. That, too, seemed to hint at money. “I do. Probably always will. But that’s okay. There isn’t anything I’d rather be doing. Maybe you’ve seen it. Amos Auto Body. It’s a couple of blocks off Sutter Street.”

She shook her head. “Don’t think I have.”

“I’ve been fixing smashed cars, trucks and motorcycles pretty much all my life.”

“Given the state of your bike, that experience should be useful,” she said wryly.

He opened and closed his right hand, which was beginning to swell. “I rebuilt it the first time. I can do it again.”

“It was insured, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“That should help.”

He leaned over to check her speedometer. He felt he could push the damn car faster than she was driving. “You realize you’re ten miles under the speed limit.”

“I’m a little rattled.”

“Why? I’m the one who got into a fight.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Which proves there’s no telling what you might come across out here!”

He chuckled. “This is a quiet area. I think you’re safe for the rest of the night. And I would like to get home before morning,” he added, just to rib her.

Her jaw dropped open. “You have no shame,” she said. “Here I am, being a good citizen and helping you out, and you’re criticizing the way I do it.”

“Nope. I’m only suggesting you make more of an effort.”

She hit the gas, and the car surged forward. “Happy now?”

“Happier.”

“I aim to please.”

He studied her profile. “India’s a different name. You’re the first India I’ve ever met.”

“My mother loved Gone with the Wind. Named me after India Wilkes.”

“Shouldn’t it be Scarlett or something like that?”

“India was a secondary character.”

“I guess I skipped that book,” he joked. He’d skipped a lot of books, hardly ever shown up for class. It was surprising he’d graduated from high school. He wouldn’t have, if his big brother had been willing to accept anything less. “Where does your mother live these days? She still in Oakland?”

“She died when I was eighteen.”

She’d had to deal with two family deaths? “I’m sorry. So it’s just you and your father now?”

“No, my father died before she did, but I didn’t know him very well. They were divorced when I was three. He was an alcoholic, wasn’t part of my life.”

He could relate to her situation there. His own father had turned to alcohol. “So neither of your parents knew Charlie?”

“No, we were only together the last six years.”

“Where did you meet?”

He expected her to say college. The timing would’ve been about right. But she didn’t. “I was waiting tables at a restaurant near the hospital where he worked. He and some of the other doctors used to come in quite often.”

“Doctors.”

She nodded. “He was ten years older than me.”

“And he was a doctor.” Rod repeated that because it wasn’t good news. It confirmed that she was, indeed, way out of his league.

“A heart surgeon,” she said.

Shit. Just what a guy wanted to hear when he’d never even attempted college.

“If he’d had another fifteen or twenty years, who knows what he might’ve accomplished,” she said softly, almost reverently. “I believe he would’ve made a real difference in the world.”