“If you want total honesty,” David replied, “I thought maroon would be fine, but now that we’ve started, I can see what you mean. The maroon would’ve been really dark.”
“Right. When you have a small space, even with these high ceilings, you want to open it up with a light color.”
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Maddy had been combating the problem by occasionally dunking a bandanna in water and then tying it around her head. She felt like she had already sweated off about two pounds in water weight.
A trickle of sweat ran past her forehead, stinging her eye. She straightened up carefully and tried to wipe it away with her forearm, since that was one of the only parts of her body not sprinkled with paint. She cast a surreptitious glance at David. He had taken off his shirt long ago, pointing out that it wasn’t very comfortable wearing a piece of sweat-soaked cotton all day in ninetyfive-degree heat. His tanned back was smooth and muscular above the waist of his baggy shorts. He was carefully painting the walls with a long roller. As a result, a gentle shower of paint had covered his curls, face, arms, and shoulders. He looked like he’d been dusted with powdered sugar.
“See—this is why we make a good team,” David said, spreading wider and wider swathes of bright cream onto the dingy plaster. “If this was all left to me, it’d be maroon with whatever furniture I saw first at Target.”
Maddy knee-walked over to a new section. David’s words sent a warm feeling all through her body. “You’d be fine,” she told him. “But maybe there is something to what they say about a woman’s touch. . . .” She tied up the bottom of her old tank top, exposing her sweatbeaded stomach. 144
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David set his roller carefully in a tray of paint and turned around to wipe his face with his T-shirt, which he’d flung over the back of a chair. A wicked thought occurred to Maddy. She rose and padded silently across the floor toward him. “Then there’s this sort of touch too,” she said to his back, and lifting her wide brush, she painted a long cream streak between his bare, sweaty shoulder blades.
“Hey!” he yelped, swinging around at the touch of the brush. He swiped at his back and came up with a palmful of wet paint. Giggling uncontrollably, Maddy retreated to the other side of the room.
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “It must be the paint fumes. . . .”
“Riiight,” David said, advancing slowly across the floor, roller in hand. “I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded too. . . .” He raised the roller and charged at her as she shrieked and retreated behind a ladder, laughing so hard tears spurted from her eyes. For a moment, they feinted right and left, and then Maddy lunged toward the door. “Don’t even think about it!” David yelled, tossing aside a chair and running after her. Maddy burst outside and flew across the soft green grass, splashed through the stream, and came to a halt in the field on the other side. She turned around, grinning. David was standing on the other side of the stream, roller still clutched in his hand. “Come here, 145
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little Maddy-Mae,” he wheedled, stepping into the stream.
“Stop. Stop!” she cried, holding up her hands.
“Truce! I just couldn’t resist.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll forgive you if you come over here and get this paint off my back—here, I’ll even put the roller down.” He ostentatiously placed it several feet away. Maddy stepped back across the stream gingerly. She searched around for something to wipe his back off with.
“Wait, hold on,” she said, and dashed back into the tasting room. She returned with his discarded T-shirt. David was sitting on the grassy stream bank. “Here, turn around.” She dipped the shirt into the icy water and wrung it out. She knelt next to him and scrubbed, watching his skin turn red. They were quiet as she worked, and suddenly Maddy felt guilty—as if they were doing something wrong. But we aren’t, she told herself. It wasn’t like she was cheating on Brian or anything. They were just goofing around—and it wasn’t even like they had chosen to spend all this time together. They had to. Maddy was startled out of her reverie by the sound of a horse’s heavy breathing. She looked up.
Rain brushed her sun-kissed hair out of her face as she smiled down at them. “Hey, guys. I had a break in my schedule and thought I’d see if anyone wanted to go for a ride.”
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speaking to both of them, Rain hadn’t actually looked at her once. She quickly glanced over at David, trying to gauge whether he was excited or annoyed by the interruption. His face was frustratingly blank.
“Hi, Rain.” David squinted up at her.
“Looks like you’ve had quite a morning,” Rain continued, her offer going ignored. This perked David up. “You could say that,” he laughed, smirking at Maddy.
Maddy set the wet shirt aside. “Well, the paint’s all gone,” she said. She lay back on the cool grass and put her hands behind her head, staring up at the sky. A pale daytime moon was just visible overhead.
“Wow, thank you so much for cleaning up your own mess.” David grinned.
“So, anyone up for a ride?” Rain hopped down from the commanding gray horse. She reached into the saddlebag and took out a brush, giving the horse’s mane a few strokes.
David looked down at Maddy. She shrugged her shoulders, the warm grass tickling her arms.
“Actually, we’ve got a lot of work to finish up today. Maybe another time,” David offered without much enthusiasm. Rain looked surprised.
“Oh, well, okay. I should probably be getting back anyway.” She gracefully swung herself back up into her saddle. “Bye.”
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As Rain rode off, David sank back next to Maddy. He stretched his arms overhead.
Maddy turned to face him. “No riding with Rain for you today?”
“No,” David said, keeping his eyes glued to a passing cloud. He paused, as if unsure whether or not to continue. “She’s a little superior all the time, you know? Like anyone who’s not just like her is beneath her somehow?”
Maddy turned away so David wouldn’t see how broadly she was smiling. “Yeah,” she replied. “I got that vibe too.”
They chatted about the paint job for a while, and then David mentioned that the Robertsons, who had hosted the pre-harvest dinner, had asked him to cook for one of their upcoming parties.
“What are you going to make?” Maddy asked idly, gazing at a cloud that looked like a mushroom. David nibbled on a blade of grass. “I think maybe lamb ragout. People usually get a kick out of that, and everyone likes it.” His voice was slow and sleepy. They lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes, drinking in the sunshine like warm honey, letting the dragonflies buzz over their inert figures.
Then Maddy spoke. “I think I’d like to learn to cook sometime.” The words seemed to bubble out of her of their own accord. For a moment, she felt surprised. You would? “Yeah, I would,” she said aloud. 148
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David removed the blade of grass from his mouth and turned his head toward her. Maddy turned hers too, and they looked at each other from only a few inches away. Maddy realized for the first time how close they were lying. She could almost feel his breath on her cheek. “Maybe . . . you could give me some lessons.”
“Yeah . . . sure.” For a moment, they just stared at each other, both smiling. “What, um, do you want to learn to make?”
Maddy considered this. “I don’t know—a soufflé?”
“Do you like soufflé?”
“I don’t know.” She laughed. “I’ve never eaten one. You just always hear about people trying to cook soufflés and messing them up.”
He laughed too. “We should do something easy, so it’ll actually be edible at the end. Okay, how about this—
what are your favorite flavors? Like, mine are lime, mango, anything roasted, and anything battered and fried.”