by Holly Jacobs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Holly Jacobs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477820070
ISBN-10: 1477820078
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954785
To Katie, this one’s for you!
Contents
Start Reading
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue The Other Side of the Line
Note from the Author
About the Author
Sometimes healing begins with one step, with one friend . . . with just one thing.
It was a Monday. I finished my day’s work, fed Angus, and headed for the bar.
I went to The Corner Bar every Monday.
Why Mondays?
Well, Fridays and Saturdays were for dates and desperate people looking to “hook up” with others. I wasn’t dating, nor was I interested in hooking up. Sundays were for church, and it seemed wrong to go to a bar that day, even though I wasn’t attending church anymore . . . God and I weren’t on speaking terms. Still, no bars for me on Sundays.
Midweek was filled with work around the cottage.
So, Mondays were my day.
I spared the briefest glimpse in the mirror as I left and couldn’t help but notice the grey hair that had started to weave its way through the darker strands. I fingered one particularly wiry piece, thought of plucking it, but in the end, I let it fall back in place.
I walked the mile down the long dirt road to Mackey Hill, a tarred and chipped country road, then down it another mile to Lapp Mill.
The people in town said that if you blinked as you drove through Lapp Mill, Pennsylvania, you could miss it entirely. Though it was home to a thriving Amish community, the northwestern Pennsylvanian town didn’t get the attention that its eastern cousin, Lancaster, did. It was a small, quiet community. It didn’t have a grocery store, though it did have a post office, two churches, and a bar.
I passed by the churches and the post office, then walked into The Corner Bar and sat down on my stool.
Sam, the bartender, served me a Killian’s in an iced glass. He was tall with dark, shaggy hair and light blue eyes. I’d only noticed his eyes on my last visit, but the hair—I’d wanted to tell him to trim it for weeks, but I’d refrained.
“Hey, why does she get special treatment?” a regular at the other end of the bar shouted as he eyed my iced glass.
“She’s prettier than you; that’s why,” Sam shouted back. Then he looked at me. “One thing.”
“One thing,” I agreed.
I’d been coming to the bar for about six months. Six months of Mondays.
The first four months I kept to myself and everyone pretty much let me be. But eight weeks ago, Sam had insisted I tell him one thing before he’d serve me my Killian’s.
What was different that week? What had made the taciturn bartender change our newly formed routine? I didn’t know, but I didn’t argue. Telling him one thing about myself seemed easier than arguing.
I started with my name that first week. Lexie McCain.
As I got older I thought about forgoing my nickname and using my more formal given name, Alexis. Lexie seemed like a younger woman’s name. A carefree woman. I wasn’t that. But in the end, I kept Lexie. It’s who I’d been my whole life and I couldn’t change that now.
The following Monday, Sam issued the same ultimatum—one thing in exchange for a Killian’s. I told him about the cottage I lived in. It was never intended as a long-term residence, but it was working out just fine.
The rest of that week I noticed things about the cottage I hadn’t noticed in a long time. I noticed that the creek that had tripped merrily in the spring had slowed to a mere trickle under the summer’s unrelenting sun. I noticed that there was a squeaky board on the porch. But mostly, I noticed how quiet it was at the cottage. That silence was like a balm. I reveled in it.
During the weeks that followed, I told him about Angus, my horribly ugly Irish wolfhound. I told him about the wood I’d split, preparing for the winter to come, even though it was still August. I told him about the spring at the edge of my eighteen acres. It gurgled along, even during the hottest, driest summer days, and fed the small pond. I told him about the vegetables from my garden that I froze for winter, and explained I liked freezing much better than canning.
I told him that I liked crafts—I didn’t say art because I’d always thought it sounded pretentious to call what I do art. I taught art, but I’m more of a crafter. I brought Sam a small clay jar I’d made a few years ago. It wasn’t one of my best works, but it was sturdy and honest and in that respect it reminded me of Sam.
I told him that I liked Guinness more than Killian’s. He offered to stock a case, but I assured him bottled Guinness wasn’t the same. Only draught would do. I’d stick to Killian’s in a bottle.
Last week, I told him about the month I spent hiking through Ireland during the summer of my college freshman year.
And now, he waited for tonight’s one-thing.
“I was twenty when I got married,” I told Sam . . .
Lexie Morrow was using her sweatshirt as a makeshift blanket in the middle of the quad, cursing Robert Boyle, a fellow Irishman who was considered the father of chemistry. It hurt her heart to curse someone else who’d come from Ireland—her father had instilled a great sense of Irish pride in her from birth—but the reality of the situation was simply that the subject sucked.
Lexie had rapidly come to the conclusion that you were either a chemist, or not.
It didn’t take any great insight to realize that she was not.
“This seat taken?”
She looked up. There in the dappled sunlight she saw a cute guy with dishwater-blond hair, standing. He sat down on the grass next to her without waiting for a response.
She wasn’t quite sure how to react. Men didn’t generally seek her out. Her mother would have scolded her for undervaluing herself, but truth of the matter was, Lexie was ordinary. Not ugly, but not beautiful. Not rich, but not poor. Not brilliant, but not a dolt. Though at this moment, staring at this strange, cute guy sitting next to her, she felt decidedly doltish.
“What on earth are you studying that makes you growl like that?” he asked.
“Uh, chemistry. It is the bane of all things holy. And probably some unholy things as well.”
The guy’s hair was on the longer side and was already receding, though he couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties. “Julian McCain.” He grimaced as he said his first name.
“I go by Lee now. I would have in school as well, but Mom and Dad shelled out for a good Catholic education and the nuns didn’t hold with nicknames.”
He waited, looking at her expectantly. There was nothing to do but introduce herself as well. “I’m Lexie Morrow, Lee. My mother tried to make me an Alexis, but the name just wouldn’t stick. I’ve always thought I was more of a Lexie.”
“Lee McCain and Lexie Morrow. They fit. I mean, if we got married, we’d share monograms.” He laughed at himself.
Lexie couldn’t help but laugh, too, though normally if someone else had mentioned marriage within seconds of introducing himself, she’d have been put off. But there was something about Lee McCain that couldn’t be put off or ignored. There was something infectious about his chuckle. It dared her not to laugh, too.
“So, Julian? You’re not overly fond of the name?”
He sighed. “It was my grandfather’s name. I was the second son. My brother is John—named after my dad. I got Grandpa. John won the family name lottery.”
He grinned as he made the proclamation and Lexie found herself laughing again. “Your parents gave him that name. There’s nothing much he can do with John. But you gave yourself the name Lee. That’s a powerful thing—naming yourself is rather like charting your own destiny.”
“I never thought of it like that.”
“Looking at something in a new way, that’s what every artist tries to do.” Lexie realized that sounded rather pretentious. After all, she wasn’t really an artist; she was just a college student studying art. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she was the next Van Gogh. She wanted to teach kids, and inspire them to love art as much as she did.
“An art major, huh?” He scooched a bit closer, edging his way onto her makeshift blanket.
“Well . . .”
“And that was that.
“Lee sat next to me for two hours on the quad and we talked. He was the second of two sons, liked the certainty of numbers, and hadn’t dated anyone seriously since his last girlfriend, the year before. We talked about my loathing of all things chemical, my love of pottery, and my plans to become an art teacher.
“Lee told me that he had a bachelor’s in accounting. He was working at a local firm, but still took classes because he was working on his master’s.
“And I was right. He was twenty-five to my twenty.
“He was right as well. We fit. Not just the names we’d chosen for ourselves or because of our monograms. Us.
“Two months later, I married him.
“I know it was fast and I’d throw a fit if my daughter did something like that, but I was young and in love. At the time, I believed that kind of love was invincible.”
“You married a man you’d only known two months?” Sam sounded incredulous. “How’d your parents react to that?”
“They were pissed. They refused to pay for any more of my college. But thankfully, Lee and I were poor enough that I qualified for all kinds of grants.
“We lived in a small apartment two blocks away from campus. I painted the walls yellow and decorated it with thrift-store treasures.
“We were happy. Poor and busy, but really, really happy,” I told Sam.
He’d listened attentively as I told him this week’s story. Oh, we were interrupted on occasion by customers, but Mondays were a slow day at the bar, so there weren’t too many.
“Where is Lee when you come here on Mondays?” Sam asked.
“He’s no longer with me,” I said simply, though there was nothing simple about me and Lee.
I’d finished my beer. Just one. I never had more than that. I never had less than that. One Killian’s because Sam didn’t have Guinness on tap.
“I’ll see you next Monday,” I said as I left the bar.
I walked back to the cottage in the early evening dusk. The sun seemed to want to hang on to each moment of the summer as much as I did.
I loved the smell of summer evenings. The air spoke of damp green things and dirt. But tonight, I caught the first hints of decay. Of plants that were done with their summer’s work and ready to rest.
Rest.
The one Killian’s and a long walk to and from the bar were enough that I knew I’d sleep tonight with Angus at my side.
He was a bed hog. But there was a comfort in curling up on my little corner just like I’d done since I was twenty and married to Lee.
I’d forgotten how to sleep in the middle of the bed.
That night I dreamed of my wedding day.
Lee and I eloped to city hall. It could have been a sad way to start a marriage, but we’d written our own vows. Maybe that’s why I remembered the simple civil ceremony with such poignancy. Lee went first.
“Chemistry studies the structure and composition of matter and the changes it undergoes during a chemical reaction. That totally describes my relationship with you, Lexie. My life had a structure before you came. It had the same rhythm and certainty as the numbers I work with. But that changed when I met you. That day on the quad while you were cursing your chemistry class, there was a chemical reaction that fundamentally changed the reality of me. After that moment, I was no longer a man who saw life in black and white—you’ve shared your artist’s vision and I can see so many colors and nuances in everything around me now. You are a part of me—the best part of me, Lexie—and this marriage only formalizes that.”
He took my hand and slipped the ring on my finger as he whispered, “I love you, Lexie. Always.”
It was a lovely memory.
A lovely dream.
I got up before the sun rose the following Monday. While I no longer taught school, the need to get up and go somewhere was deeply ingrained. I’d developed a new rhythm here at the cottage.
I got up on weekdays and took Angus with me while I walked to the top of the cottage’s long drive to get the paper. I went inside and read it as I drank my coffee. Afterward, I worked in the garden, or I went to the barn that served as my studio. The rough hemlock walls were dotted with prints by friends and other art I’d collected over the years. There was a potbellied stove that at this time of year got very little use, but would soon be lit daily. My pottery wheel and kiln stood in one corner and the huge, handcrafted loom in the other. In the middle of it all was a long, wide table that I could use for various projects.
I ran my fingers over the loom. Lee and I had found it while we were in Montana. He’d gone for an accounting conference for work, and I’d come along. We’d spent a day touring the countryside. Just two kid-free adults. We did all the things the kids would have whined about. We ate a long lunch. We walked through a cowboy museum.
Lee had spotted the loom at an antique store. I’d protested that though I’d once woven a rug in a college art class, I didn’t know anything about weaving. I’d protested that it was too big, that it cost too much, that we had nowhere to set it up. Lee had bought it anyway and brought it here. He started converting the old barn at camp into my summer workshop. “Make me something beautiful,” he’d said.
Lee had been on my mind all week, since my one-thing last week.
Thinking about him didn’t hurt as much as it once had.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Just as I wasn’t quite sure if Sam’s one-things were good or bad. They interrupted my hard-won, quiet peace. They stirred up my thoughts and displaced the static I’d cultivated for the last year.
I worked at the loom all day. I threw the boat shuttle through one last time. Other than that one ill-made rug, I didn’t know anything about weaving, though I’d read enough to muddle my way through. I’ll confess; I liked the freedom that came with not being overly educated about its history and rules.
I studied my project for a minute. Sighing, I covered my work. Though the barn was as sparkling clean as a workshop could be, I made it a habit of covering the tapestry, not only to keep dust off it, but also to put it to rest in my mind.
It didn’t really help. The tapestry was th
e only project I was thinking about these days.
I ate a salad made from garden vegetables for dinner and fed Angus. He ran amok in the woods for about fifteen minutes, chasing anything that moved, and probably a bunch of things that only existed in his mind. Tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he came back and collapsed on the braided rug in the living room where he’d sleep until I returned.
I left for Sam’s.
It was a bit chillier than last week. One step closer to winter.
And winter here in northwestern Pennsylvania was long and cold.
Would I still be able to walk to Sam’s? I’d driven the first few weeks I’d gone to The Corner Bar, but I’d walked ever since. It was only a couple miles. That wasn’t a bad distance during the spring, summer, or fall, but maybe it would be too much when it turned cold? I wondered if I was forced to drive in the winter, would it change the feel of my Monday evenings?
I reached the weathered, cedar-clad building and opened the door. Three tables were occupied and there was one guy sitting at the bar. I recognized him after all these weeks and nodded. I walked to the far end and to “my” seat. Sam smiled as he slid my Killian’s in its iced glass to me and announced, “One thing.”
“Lee and I had three children.”
“Constance, Conner, and Gracie, get off the roof.” The twins were eight and Gracie was seven. The garage roof was their preferred playground, no matter how many times Lexie hollered.
Heathens.
She thought she’d simply said the word in her head, but realized she must have said it out loud because Lee laughed. “You wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Maybe I would,” Lexie countered. “Someone’s going to end up falling off the garage and breaking something. And seriously, between the three of them, I’m on a first-name basis with all the staff at the emergency room. If I take them in too many more times, someone’s going to call Children’s Services. I mean, when I have to tell the nurse that a child rode her bike into a parked car, it sounds lame, even to me.” Gracie still had a slight scar below her lower lip from where she’d put her tooth through it. Her face had left a slight dent in the car that belonged to one of the college kids renting the house down the block. It was a clunker and he’d said of all its dents, that one would be the most interesting. Lexie smiled as she remembered and wondered what he was doing now.
