Finding Home #SYTYCW15 #SpecialEdition

Finding Home Part 4

Chapter Three

Conner scrubbed at his still damp hair with a towel as he stood in the middle of his living room. There were two good things about his apartment; it was near the water, with a nice view of the lake and it had a cozy little wood stove with glass doors so he could watch the flicker and leap of a fire. Otherwise, he hated it.

The apartment was small and nearly every day something would break, or stop working. The little bit of furniture he'd managed to save after he split with Bridget still wasn't enough to fill the minuscule place. Even though he'd tried, it certainly didn't feel like a home.

Not that he'd ever known what a home felt like, at least not first hand. He tossed the damp towel over one of the metal and plastic dining chairs and moved into the kitchen. He dug through the cabinet, found a non-stick skillet that was only slightly dented and slapped it down on the stove. In a few minutes, he'd scrambled up a big batch of eggs, cooked in too much butter, exactly the way he liked them. He grabbed a phone book before he sat down at the table with his eggs.

He flipped through the directory, intending to find a sanitation company with dumpster services, but as he put the first bite of egg in his mouth, he let the book drop. It had been years since he'd first learned to scrambled an egg. It wasn't his mother who'd had the time and patience to teach him; it had been Andie's mom, Sheila Turner.

It wasn't that his mom hadn't loved him, because she had, with a love that had stood over him like a tent, a thin barrier that shielded him from the worst of his father's harshness. But she'd loved his father as well, which he hadn't understood, not when his father's love had come not unconditionally, but thoroughly tied with an endless list of rules and regulations.

One of those rules was that Conner was not allowed to cook. According to his father, that was women's work, and because his mom loved his dad, he'd been banned from the kitchen.

It had been Shelia who had shown him the basics. He'd spent several hours in their kitchen, the scent of garlic and onions, of broiling steaks and baking lasagna, of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies filling the kitchen. It was a good thing he'd taken the time to learn, because he'd been cooking for himself for eleven years now. Eleven years he'd been on his own, kayaking, biking, hiking and flying from one wilderness area to another, with only himself to rely on. After all this time, he was still alone, still the only one he could count on.

He finished stuffing the eggs in his mouth and carried the plate to the sink, but he couldn't stop thinking about the Turner's kitchen. He'd spent more time there than he had at his own home, and after those first cooking lessons, Andie had been the one to take over. Their kitchen had quickly become his favorite place to be, in that steamy room, the air redolent with scents that made his mouth water, working side by side with Andie.

Andie. He thought of her now, the way that one sunshine colored curl of hers kept tickling her face despite her best efforts to keep it ruthlessly pinned back, the way her golden brown eyes looked at him like they saw every secret he'd hidden. But he had a hard time tying this Andie, the woman, to the girl he'd known.

She's always been cute, but now, with her features honed and her body filled out with luscious curves, she was downright beautiful. But that wasn't what bothered him, what niggled at him constantly whenever he was with her.

It was that her personality, the very core of her, had changed. Yeah, there was a layer of hurt and anger painted across the surface of it, but he could see past that easily enough. And what was underneath had become damaged and fragile.

Andie'd always been so spontaneous and outgoing, and almost as wild as he had been. Hell, she'd been a terror on that sharp red snowmobile that she used to bomb around on, going faster, farther and taking more risks than he ever had.