Sunny Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Viktor sat on the herb box where Sunny had put him. The broken knife handle lay in his lap. His hands stayed flat on the wood, as if the wood might save him. Sunny watched him try to work out how to leave without turning his back on her. He couldn't. She was standing between him and the gate, one hip cocked, humming again. "You're sweating, sweetheart," she said. "Let's fix that." She hooked a thumb under the left strap of her overalls. The brass clasp popped. The strap fell against her ribs. Viktor's eyes tracked it down and stuck there. His jaw worked. Sunny undid the right clasp with the same thumb. The bib dropped. She wore a plain, work-worn undershirt beneath it. Sixty-two years of hauling beams and mixing plaster had built her like a draft horse. Her shoulders were round and hard. Her chest was broad and freckled from working outdoors in the heat. A smear of white plaster ran from her collarbone down the front of her shirt. She had muscle in places most men didn't. She let him look. Viktor looked. He tried not to. He looked again. His face went from pale to red in about four seconds. The broken knife handle rolled off his knee and hit the dirt. He did not pick it up. "There," Sunny said. "Now we're being honest." "I came here to kill someone," he said. His voice cracked on the last word. "I know." She stepped closer. The herb box creaked when she put one hand on it beside his hip. Her arm was thicker than his thigh. "But now you’ve found someone else to focus on." He didn't answer. He was staring at the plaster smear like it was a map out. "Me," Sunny said. Gentle. Not a question. "Yes." "Good boy." She grinned. "Touch me." His hand came up an inch. Stopped. Shook. Dropped back to the wood. Shame won, the way she'd known it would the first time. He was not ready. He wanted to be, and he wasn't, and the gap between those two things was the best thing she'd felt all week. Sunny laughed, short and warm. She left the bib down. She lunged, grabbing him in a sudden bear hug and pinning him against her for a second. She cackled as he tried to wriggle free. Just before he could pass out, she released him. "That's what I thought," she said. "Off you go. Come back tomorrow." Viktor slid off the herb box. His legs held. Barely. He walked to the gate without picking up the knife handle. At the gate he stopped and looked back at her once. Sunny flexed each of her arms. He ran. She stood in the yard, straps down, and watched the dust settle where his boots had been. She'd shown him. He'd looked. He'd bolted. Tomorrow he would come back angrier and hungrier, and she would have to decide how much further to push a man who still hadn’t seen all of her.