Amber Williams - His Rebel Heart

As she pulled into her driveway, she chanced a glance over into James’s neighboring one. Yep. There was that black sportster sitting on the cracked pavement. She fumbled her keys as she walked briskly to her front door. Even in her hurry, she avoided the grass she tended so carefully, sticking to the footpath that skirted her front beds. There were the annuals and perennials she and Kyle had planted together. The hydrangeas were blooming like crazy and she was pleased to see Kyle’s favorites, the citrus trees, coming back from the harsh winter.

If James saw her come home, he didn’t hail her in time to stop her from escaping inside the cottage and bolting the three locks she’d installed on the door when she and Kyle had first moved in. She couldn’t avoid him forever. She knew that. But she could damn well try...

Breathing a sigh, she walked back to the kitchen and shed the light crocheted sweater she’d left the house in that morning. Opening the window over the sink to let in the scent of Kyle’s sweet olives, she took a moment to indulge in the light, cool breeze that blew through the screens and over her bare arms. She opened the half door to the back porch and smiled at the sound of birdsong. Feeling close to relaxed, she covered her shorts and tank top with a red apron and got to work.

Any mother of an seven-year-old boy knew that silence was a rare thing. So she worked without music, unless the birdsong and the jangle and ting of wind chimes counted. Humming to herself, she melted wax and cut wicks. She dyed the wax, except what she set aside to use with one of her bestselling scents, gardenia. She’d discovered over the years that gardenia had its own hue, turning the wax a lovely shade of green.

Carefully, she measured out her various essential oils. Each reacted differently with the wax and some could even eat through plastic or remove paint so here the process became a bit intricate.

Just as she was beginning to measure and stir, a deep, bass note rent the quiet, making her flinch. The scent, wax and dye mixture she was currently working on tipped over and spilled across the hardwood floor of the kitchen. She shrieked in alarm, then again in anger when the clash of drums and guitars of Audioslave followed.

James was, indeed, home. After doing what she could about the mess, Adrian threw the ruined bits into the sink and glared out the window above it, raising herself onto her tiptoes to look over the fence line. But her honeysuckle vines prevented her from seeing anything. The whine of a power saw joined the musical blast. Her teeth ground together as she fought back a growl.

She had half a mind to go pound on his door. She was a few steps from her door when she realized what she was doing...

No. No way in hell was she facing the embodiment of her problems. Balling her hands on her hips, she glared again through the window at the fence and the small bit of James’s house that was visible through glossy green leaves.

Muttering, she walked back to the sink and salvaged what she could of the wax. One of the other neighbors would surely be as offended as she was. They’d go over, put an end to it...

But it was early afternoon. Most of the neighbors were at the office. The kids were in school.

She was on her own.

Cursing, she went back to making her candles. As the hour stretched into another and the sounds of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” followed closely on the heels of Van Halen’s “Eruption,” her movements became jerky. She broke two mason jars, spilled more wax on the floor, cursed up a storm...

Adrian figured he was baiting her. She’d avoided coming into contact with him since his visit to Flora days ago—when he’d promised to prove his worth as a man, a father. This had to be his way of getting her over there, face-to-face so they could hash it out again....

“Moron,” she muttered, mopping up another mess. If this was his way of showing her he was a changed man, he was failing miserably. Just as her gardenia mixture failed... She thought seriously about murdering him.

Another half hour. Zeppelin was replaced by Sublime, Guns N’ Roses and finally Red Hot Chili Peppers. She scowled as she affixed her labels to the fronts of the finished mason jars. Yep. He knew all he had to do was play a little Chili Peppers for her to remember...

It took her back instantly to that night she’d driven him home. Or, rather, when she drove him to the harbor where his father’s boat was moored. He’d invited her aboard for a drink. There had been something different about him that night. All that day, in fact. Where friendship had smoothed the rough edges between them with ease, and even jokes and laughter, there had been something amiss that night, a shift back to the haunted shell she’d found in the barn nearly a week before. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to just leave him, so she followed him onto the deck of the Free Bird , the daysailer that looked as if it had seen better days. There was a tattered pirate flag flying off the stern and more than a little rust to be seen, but all in all, she was a clean boat, one James took pride in. She could see it in the way he ran his hand over the mast and helm.

She’d followed him belowdecks where he admitted to sleeping most nights. He’d told her how he couldn’t bring himself to go home—to his mother, his stepfather, the disappointment and feelings of hopelessness they generally cast in his direction. She’d taken his hand because she understood, at least to some degree. It didn’t take a genius to see that her mother felt the same way about her—and she told him as much. His hand had squeezed hers a moment or two before he released it and got up to grab them both a beer.

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