Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

If this jerk dropped this bookshelf on my foot I was gonna kill him. And by how unserious he had been about the whole thing till now, there were no promises.

“Careful!” I squawked as my hip collided with the doorway we were navigating the unit through. My hip ached angrily, but I just channeled the pain and annoyance at him. Which was easy enough.

With a quirked eyebrow and a lip curled in sadistic amusement, he met my glare. “Chill, Barbie .”

My mouth fell wide open in shock and I almost lost my grip on my shelf. Of all the childhood nicknames I had been preparing myself to hear when I moved back to my childhood home, that had not been one of them. The little boys—the rude ones—used to call me that. A ballet-obsessed little girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes; I was an easy target.

And so what if I was? Barbie was awesome. But the boys didn’t know that. What they did know was that there was no better way to call someone a sissy.

“I’m sorry, what?” I seethed through gritted teeth.

His smirk grew to a grin. Spencer nodded to me, looking down. “You seen yourself in the mirror today?”

My cheeks felt hot and I bit my cheek. Involuntarily, I glanced down to find, to my chagrin, I was wearing a faded pink shirt with ‘Vibes En Pointe’ written across a graphic of pointe shoes. Dang.

“It was the last shirt I had after packing, okay?” On the last word, I shoved the rest of the way through the door frame, jolting the loser man-child back into motion on the other end of the bookcase.

“Whatever you say,” he dismissed with a singsong tone.

I was so gonna kill him after this. “Just shut up and keep moving, would you? This thing is heavy.” I readjusted my grip again.

“As you wish!”

Looking back now, it was stupid of me to think that would be the end of it. Pure wishful thinking that that would have been the last time I would have to see him. I’d spent too long living in a city where you had to make plans if you ever wanted to see anyone twice. Small town Carolina was far less forgiving.

The next time I saw him was about four days later. I had spent some time just settling back into my new place, stocking the fridge, scouring flea markets for trinkets and furnishings to make the place feel a little more like me, but after four days indoors, I was starting to feel a little stir crazy. Not that I hadn’t had breakfast with Nana and Papaw, or seen my best friend Anna, but still, I felt the call of the mountains, the need to get out under the blue Appalachian sky and feel the sacred earth beneath my feet.

Nostalgia won out, and I found myself being handed a bucket and shovel from Judy at Mason’s Mine, ready to dig for native rubies.

Anyone from Franklin knew gemstones, whether they wanted to or not. Our history with mining was rich in this neck of the woods, and rubies and sapphires were an unavoidable part of our town identity. If someone managed to grow up here and they hadn’t gone ruby mining at least once I would be incredibly shocked. So of course, my need to get out and moving landed me right back at my favorite mine from my younger days.

Judy had offered a salted bucket—the kind peppered with semi-precious gems from all over, not just from here—as she always did, but as always, I had chosen to keep searching for my own local stone. Unfortunately for me, that meant digging.

I blew a raspberry as I eyed the little quarry, a giant patch of clay and dirt cut from the side of a mountain with little streams of rain water cutting through its uneven surface. The little trek up the hill to the dig site hadn’t been as easy as I remembered already, and this time I had no dad or brothers to help me dig.

I reached up to adjust the red bandanaI had tied around my head and over my hair, already regretting some of today’s decisions. The knot at the base of my head was already digging in and an uncomfortable ache was warning of an impending headache. Sure, it was cute, but time would only tell if being cute at a dirty mining site, where there was no one to see me anyways, would be worth a day’s worth of migraine.

With a rich thwunk, I stuck my long handled shovel into the dirt and leaned on it, surveying the outdoor mine as the June sun beat down on me, trying to convince me to give up before I even started. Which is when I heard the sound of a man clearing his throat behind me. I jumped slightly in surprise and spun around to see whatever poor customer my indecision had inconvenienced.

“Tired already, Barbie?”

And there he was. My own waking sleep paralysis demon.

Spencer Williams, in a sweat soaked Mason’s Mine t-shirt and jeans covered in dirt raised a bronze brow at me. There he was looking all handsome again, mocking me with his sun-kissed appearance and well toned body, as he leaned against a rickety fence at the edge of the quarry. “Need some help?”

My eye twitched involuntarily. I would rather eat my sock, is what I wanted to say. But I swallowed the words down and forced a sickly sweet smile onto my lips instead. “No thanks, that’s sweet of you to offer though. I’ll manage.”

His expression shifted to a pantomime of surprise. “Oh! You thought I was offering?” He pointed to his own chest with a dirty gloved hand. “No, no, no.” Spencer shook his head. “Gettin’ to watch Big City Girl get her hands dirty free of charge has gotta be a once in a blue moon experience. I wouldn’t dream of buttin’ in.”

He looked me up and down, pursed his lips, and shook his head slowly. “Just looked like you needed some, was all.”

Was… was he trying not to laugh?

“Hm!” I tried to laugh dismissively, but truth be told he’d been annoying when he was seven and he’d only gotten more annoying with age. “Well, maybe you should get your eyes checked.” My smile turned devious as I just realized what I said. “...Again,” I decided to twist the knife.

That seemed to hit the mark and I watched as his hidden laughter died. His jaw twitched, and he narrowed his eyes at me, smoldering with the begrudging recognition of a good burn.

Now, I know what you’re thinking—Leah, that’s so mean! Why would you make fun of someone’s eyesight like that? He can’t help it!—Well… I have no good excuse other than we’d simply always been mean to each other, and I guess old habits die hard. All I can say is, bear with me, the story’s not over yet.

With a flick of my long golden hair, I turned away, back to the mine and the sea of red dirt. I tried to focus on finding a good spot, trying to remember how it used to look last time I’d come and where the rain water may have washed the dirt, so I could find the most likely spot to be hiding the earth’s precious minerals. And a spot soft enough I could actually dig in it.

But I was distracted. Why was he here, of all places? Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? Was he still there? Was he watching me? Did I look stupid? I almost cast a glance back over my shoulder before I caught myself.

Ignore him, Leah! I commanded myself. Easier thought than done.

When I did finally start digging, it wasn’t a pretty sight. I was much weaker than I used to be. I’d lost a lot of muscle mass after my injury, and it wasn’t like my arms had ever really been that strong to begin with. Back at the dance company in Atlanta, none of the teachers had ever pushed for much arm strength-training. Female ballerina’s didn’t have much need for it. Better to keep your lines light and clean, unencumbered by pesky muscles.

A lot of good that was doing me now. I could hear his snickers from behind me. He wasn’t there all the time. I guess he went down to check on the mining-flumes a couple times, but I felt like I could hear him chortling even downhill. Thankfully, whatever blush it may have summoned was hidden by the redness I gained from effort and the sun.

It had already taken too long. I’d been at it for nearly a half hour, and my bucket was only three quarters full, when I hit a big hunk of rock. It sent a jolt up my arm and I yelped slightly in surprise. My heavy shovel clattered to the dirt.

“You good?” his voice chirped from the base of the hill, quickly followed by the sounds of him bounding up the old trail.

My eyes squeezed shut as I lamented inwardly. Could he not have been anywhere else?

“Yeah…” I called back with a groan. I looked up the little gully I had climbed down for the good dirt, to see him coming over the edge looking… concerned? Nah. Couldn’t be. He was probably just doing his job. Yep, that made more sense.

“You sure?”

“Yeah I—” I paused. Glancing between my shovel, the partially filled bucket, and the dirt, I considered the aches building in my body. My calves, my bad knee, the back of my head. I scratched my hot cheek. “Hm… Actually…” I sighed. If I was going to make it out of this dirt hole and back to the flumes before wearing myself out…

I cleared my throat. “Actually, I could use some help.” Oh, how those words stung.

“Su—” he started answering instinctively before catching himself. Amusement lit his hazel eyes again. I know I’d made a few less than kind comments about them since meeting him again, but looking at them from this angle in the sunlight they were actually quite pretty. He smirked at me.

“No way, Big City.” He shook his head. “You already told me you could manage. Come on, show me what you got!” Spence beamed a teasing smile and gave me an encouraging couple of claps.

My lips became a hard line and I fixed him with a withering glare. There was a little war raging inside of me, but ultimately I decided I had to be a woman of my word. I said I could manage and by thunder I would. I cocked my head to the side and put a hand on my hip.

“Okay.” My assent was chipper yet challenging. I knew this was going to be more of a challenge for me than for him, but clearly he was rooting for me to fail and there was no way I was going to give him that little victory.

Something about his expression shifted, but I couldn’t put my finger on how. At least he seemed to respect my gumption. Which was already a little win in my book.