The Realist Read online

  The Realist

  Abbie Zanders

  Published by Abbie Zanders, 2014.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE REALIST

  First edition. December 3, 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 Abbie Zanders.

  ISBN: 978-1519956538

  Written by Abbie Zanders.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Realist

  Before You Begin

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Thanks for reading Travis and Rissa’s story

  Like short contemporary romances...

  About the Author

  Also by Abbie Zanders

  The Realist

  Clarissa

  “Earth to Rissa.” Travis’ deep voice rolled through me like a wave, tugging me away from my reflections. His shortened address felt warm, intimate. No one had ever called me that before. “If you’re finished ogling me, I’m going to head back to my place.”

  I felt the heat rise in my face. Yes, I had been ogling him, but I’d zoned out for the last couple of minutes. I don’t know what bothered me more – the fact that he’d caught me in the act or that I’d wasted several minutes of prime ogling time.

  “I’m done,” I said casually, waving my hand in a shooing gesture. “You can go now.”

  He grinned cockily. “Lasagna.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I want for dinner. Lasagna. With lots of meat and that chunky homemade sauce of yours.”

  I blinked, looking at him blankly.

  “Our deal,” he reminded me. “You get manual labor. I get food. Your roof is fixed. And I’m hungry for lasagna.”

  “Right,” I nodded. I knew that. I did.

  He leaned down and petted Ripper, the stray mongrel that had become my shadow. The scent of clean male sweat and heat-activated deodorant tickled my nose and I discreetly filled my lungs with it.

  “I’ll be back around sundown. And Rissa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t stare at my ass while I’m walking away. It’s objectifying.”

  I openly gaped at him, but he just winked and strutted – yes, strutted – out of my kitchen like a big male peacock.

  I showed him, though. I stared at his ass the whole way.

  Before You Begin

  WARNING: The Realist is first and foremost a love story. However, due to occasional strong language and steamy scenes of a sexual nature, this book is intended for mature (18+) readers only.

  Prologue

  Clarissa

  Human beings really are extraordinary creatures. We are the only known species that can alter our perceptions at will to deal with our realities.

  Feeling lonely? You just haven’t met the right one.

  Lose your job? It’s an opportunity to do something else.

  Depressed about getting older? Don’t worry, there’s a cream, lotion, or scrub that will reduce those fine lines and wrinkles.

  I could go on, but you get the point. What we don’t like, we rationalize and somehow always manage to convince ourselves that it is not our fault.

  I know what you’re probably thinking – I’m a pessimist, a glass is half-empty kind of girl. I’m not. I’m a realist. And because I look past all of the facades and see and accept things for what they truly are, I’ll venture that I appreciate things more than you do.

  Or maybe it’s because each day is a gift I didn’t expect to have.

  It doesn’t matter, really. I’m here now, and doing just fine, thanks.

  Chapter 1

  Clarissa

  I swung the ax, feeling the power ripple through my arms, down my back, through my core, and into my hips, fighting the urge to grunt. The sound that came out of my mouth was much softer, much more feminine than that.

  I didn’t split the log down the middle, but I did create a nice crack. One or two more mighty swings and the pieces would be just the perfect size for the hearth. My aim had improved dramatically over the last few months, so I was fairly confident I could pull it off. To be sure, though, I choked up my grip on the handle a little. Doing so would reduce the power, but increase my precision.

  “You’ll get more power if you hold it near the end of the handle.”

  I didn’t acknowledge the deep male voice of my sinfully gorgeous neighbor, echoing my thoughts. I held fast to the belief that if I ignored him, he would go away. I redistributed my weight, hefted the ax back above my right shoulder, focused on my task, and let loose. It landed exactly where I wanted it to, cleaving the dried maple in two.

  I resisted the urge to turn around and smirk in triumph. He might view it as encouragement.

  Picking up my two perfectly-sized pieces of firewood, I stacked them neatly on my ever-growing stockpile and reached for the next one.

  “Want some help?” he asked.

  My aching muscles screamed and whined to take him up on his offer. Travis Maxwell was well over six feet of solid male muscle and broad shoulders. He could probably make short work of the rest of it while I sat back, sipped a cold beer, and watched all those delicious muscles put on a show just for me.

  But that would be wrong on so many levels, the most important of which being that I did not want him or his rippling muscles here. Nor his damn fine ass, which was probably the nicest-looking ass I’d ever seen on a man. The man could make a living modeling snug-fitting blue jeans.

  “No.”

  I balanced the log on the much wider stump - the one that accurately portrayed my wood-chopping learning curve with its many cuts and gashes - and swung. This strike was off-center, but still much improved from when I had first started. Rather than grouse over the fact that I didn’t hit the center line, I adjusted accordingly. This log would become thirds instead of halves, I decided.

  I would never sweat the small stuff again.

  “If you plan on spending the winter here, you’re going to need a hell of a lot more than that.”

  Surreptitiously, I eyed my beautiful stockpile of firewood, geometrically balanced and pretty enough to be featured in some magazine devoted to living in the great outdoors. It had taken me forever to do that much. Discovering that it was inadequate was disheartening, to say the least. My aching back, my throbbing leg, and my calloused and blistered hands agreed whole-heartedly.

  The upside was that it was only mid-August. I had plenty of time.

  Swing, hit. Swing, hit. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of revealing my disappointment. Let him think I already knew how insufficient it was.

  “No one likes a chatty Kathy. Jesus, woman, let a man get a word in edgewise, will you?”

  Okay, my lips might have quirked a little on that one, but don’t judge me. Travis Maxwell was a force of nature. Oh, his friendly banter seemed harmless enough, but even the gentlest stream had the ability to carve a path in solid rock, given enough time. I’m a force of nature, too - a great, unyielding glacier. I can’t help it that my neighbor had global warming written all over him.

  “Ha! I saw that!” he said in triumph. “You smiled. My job here is done.”

  There were no more words of sage advice, no more friendly banter from my neighbor. When I set the ax down and gathered up the pieces to add to my aesthetically pleasing store, he was gone.

  I shook my head but allowed myself a small grin. The muscles around my mouth felt
awkward, as if they couldn’t quite remember what to do. It made sense. I didn’t smile much these days.

  I wasn’t unhappy. On the contrary, I was as content as I’d ever been – on the inside, where it really counted. Solitude didn’t work for most people, but it did for me, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my gloved hand, I drained half of the BPA-free, ecologically responsible, reusable water bottle. I used that as an excuse to tip my head back and glance through half-slitted eyes toward Travis’ neighboring property. There he was, propping a ladder against the side of his cabin. Of course, he chose that exact moment to turn around and wave.

  I pretended I didn’t see him, and hoped to hell he couldn’t see the heat infusing my cheeks at being busted. Smug bastard. But geez, if anyone had a reason to be, he did. It was just my luck to move to an isolated piece of real estate with the intent of becoming a modern-day hermit and discover that not only was I not alone, but the only neighbor for twenty miles had to look like that.

  I turned and stepped just into the tree line, dumping the rest of my water into the bowl I’d set there. A stray dog had been hanging around the last week or two, and I’d gotten in the habit of putting out food and water for him in the hopes that he would learn to trust me a little. It seemed to be working. The dog, which I had named Ripper, watched me from afar almost as much as my neighbor did.

  I didn’t see either Travis or Ripper for the rest of that day, but that wasn’t unusual. Ripper was people-shy and Travis was kind of like a bear, ambling around the mountains, sometimes venturing in for a closer look but primarily keeping his distance.

  Oddly enough, though, when I got up the next morning, my wood supply seemed to have mysteriously doubled overnight.

  I sighed as I sipped my coffee with my mildly blistered and bandaged hands and looked at the much bigger pile. The additions weren’t quite as neat as mine, and he hadn’t wholly conformed to my “smallest on the left, largest on the right” sizing scheme. But I wasn’t going to complain. It was a nice thing that he did.

  I couldn’t openly acknowledge it, of course, but my innate sense of right and wrong would not let his kindness go unanswered. I refilled the dog’s water bowl and put some peanut butter toast and kibble in the one next to it, then went back inside to answer his kindness. I didn’t like feeling indebted to anyone.

  Travis

  Mountain air. There is nothing like it. No pill, no drug, nothing manufactured that could make a man feel as good as taking in a lungful of that crisp, clean, unpolluted air. I sucked it in, the stiff pull across my back letting me know that maybe I had overdone it with the Paul Bunyan imitation, but it was worth it.

  Clarissa Sullivan. My prickly, petite neighbor. My lips curved at the corners as I imagined her stepping out on her porch this morning, coffee in hand, wearing those shaggy slippers that looked like Yeti feet, and registering that her wood cache had doubled. She would lean one jean and flannel-covered hip against the post and offer one of her rare smiles. It was harder than it should have been to resist high-tailing it over there to witness it, but I’m made of some strong stuff.

  The woman was stunning when she smiled. It was a good thing for me that she didn’t do it often, and never in my company. Those little quirks at the corners of those Cupid’s bow lips were all I got, thank Christ. If she ever turned the full power of a genuine smile my way, I might just be tempted to burn my man card and lay at her feet, no better than that stray that was hanging around her place these days.

  And that was some scary shit.

  No, no smile for me. What I would get would be a week’s worth of whatever fruits and vegetables were in season. Given that it was August, I could look forward to smacking my lips with those juicy peaches from her orchard, sweetened with just a hint of vanilla syrup, and maybe a couple of jars of her homemade chunky tomato sauce, perfectly seasoned and thick with big chunks of fresh peppers and onions from her garden. I would really have to make a better effort to put some of those aside for the long winter ahead, but damn, the woman had a way with produce.

  I tried not to think of her on her knees in that big garden of hers, ass in the air while she pulled at stubborn weeds and carefully aerated the soil around each individual plant. Nor would I think of her stretching her little body to its limits atop the top step of that rickety old ladder to pick the ripe fruit she would spend the rest of the day washing, blanching, cutting, and canning. And I definitely refused to consider the images of her limping across the less-than-level stretch of land that separated my property from hers, pulling that God-awful rusty red wagon containing a case or two of mason-jarred goodies.

  Because all of those visions had the unwanted effect of setting off uncomfortable sensations in various parts of my body, including, but not limited to, my chest, my gut, and my groin – in that order.

  Not for the first time, I wondered over the source of that limp. Was it something she had been born with? Or was it the result of some kind of injury or accident? The rest of her looked fine (better than fine, actually), with no obvious visible scars or deformities.

  Then again, some scars were harder to see than others. I hid quite a few myself. And since I preferred to keep them that way, I could not fault her for wanting to do the same. Maybe, like our seemingly shared desire to retreat from the outside world, we had this in common, too.

  Along those lines - and for exactly the same reason that I had waited until well after her lights went out last night to deliver the wood - I would do us both a favor and head into town a bit later in the day so I wouldn’t be here when she came by with her culinary thanks. It was a game we played, she and I, pretending as if neither one of us did nice things for the other. I’m not sure why she needed those boundaries, but I sure as hell knew why I did.

  Despite the fact that she rarely acknowledged my presence and communicated with terse, one or two-word responses, I liked my neighbor. In fact, the fact that she didn’t seem at all interested in forming any kind of overt relationship was the only reason I would even consider doing what I did. If there had been any indication of interest on her part at all, I’d be the freaking invisible man. The last thing I needed was someone who wanted anything from me. Even if I wanted something more – which I didn’t – I had nothing left to give besides an occasional meaningless act of simple human kindness.

  The rest had been violently removed. Some was splattered in some God-forsaken desert halfway around the world; the rest had been hollowed out by my ex-girlfriend, Sienna, and my former best friend, Cal. My lips curled into a snarl subconsciously. If any two people deserved each other, it was Sienna and Cal. While I was overseas getting my ass blown up, proving with my life’s blood that Semper Fi was more than a catchy motto on a bumper sticker, they were doing other things with their asses and exchanging other bodily fluids.

  Shaking off those bitter thoughts, I took another deep breath and released the anger on the exhale. Ancient history, that’s all it was. I’d since taken a vow of noncommittancy (I don’t think that’s a real word, but it works for my purposes).

  As if on cue, I heard the old farm tractor sputter to life a quarter-mile away. There she was, right on time, heading out to the orchard to pick my peaches.

  I puttered around, doing a few minor repairs, making a list of things I’d need to start accumulating now that it was almost autumn. This would be my third winter up here on the mountain, and it could be pretty rough if you weren’t properly prepared. The higher elevation meant significantly more snow and ice accumulation, as did the big lake just to the west. Add in the narrow, winding roads and the fact that only a couple of us were crazy enough to live up here and it meant that we couldn’t depend on any outside help from the townies.

  I’d learned a lot that first year. Even more last year. This year I was golden. Third time’s the charm, right?

  But what about my neighbor? Did she have any clue what to expect? She seemed pretty capable and had a hell of a l
ot of heart, but that wasn’t going to get her through a bad winter, especially when it was common to lose power for days, sometimes a week or more.

  Before Clarissa had taken up residence a few months ago, I’d done some scouting around the old property. I was pretty sure I’d seen a generator in the old barn. Had she thought to try it lately, just to make sure it was working properly?

  Maybe I would take a run up there and check it out myself, just to be sure.

  Gathering wood and canning were two indications that she had at least given some thought to the upcoming change in season. What about dry goods and a water reserve? Did she know that now was the time to also start stocking up on things like batteries, fuel, and lamp oil before the townies ran out?

  Maybe while I was in town I would grab a little extra, just in case.

  I waited until I was sure Clarissa had returned from the orchard safely before washing up and getting into my truck to head into town. I didn’t worry about her, exactly. That would imply a level of connection neither one of us wanted. But I did have a cock and was a Marine, so it was kind of preprogrammed into my DNA to look out for her, especially when she so very obviously didn’t want me to. That just made it fun. I guess there was some hard-wired need all guys had that made us want to pull the pig-tails of the pretty girl ignoring us.

  Except Clarissa was no girl. If I had to guess, I’d say she was around my age – about thirty or so – though she had one of those faces that was kind of ageless, if that makes any sense. Her figure was still pretty youthful, too. I couldn’t cite specifics; the clothes she wore were more for function and comfort than fashion or display. My vivid male imagination painted her with big breasts that spilled over my large hands, a tiny waist I could easily encircle, and a lush, heart-shaped ass I could grab onto. My trained eye suggested that my imagination probably wasn’t all that far off.