She studied the piece on her computer screen again. She did want it. But this decision seemed bigger than whether or not to go pick up an antique. It seemed like a chance to decide whether to move forward with her life.
“Okay.” She turned toward Nate and nodded. “Okay.” She said it again, with more certainty. “Let’s do it.”
A slow grin spread across Nate’s face, traveling from his lips to his eyes. Seeing it reassured Violet she’d made the right decision.
After so many years stuck in her grief and fear, traveling out of the city would be the first step on her journey forward.
Who knew what would come next.
Chapter 19
There was a light tapping on the door, and Nate gave Tony a last pat on the head and closed his crate.
“Sorry, buddy, not this time.” The dog gave Nate his sad puppy look and sighed. Nate passed him a treat. It amazed him how quickly the dog had managed to work his way into Nate’s heart.
Another tap on the door. Nate glanced toward it with a smile, even though he couldn’t see her yet.
Tony wasn’t the only one who had worked their way into his heart.
He grabbed the bag of snacks he’d put together and headed for the door. The moment he opened it, he caught his breath.
She was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a blue tank top, but she managed to make the ordinary clothes look stunning.
He was grateful she finally seemed to believe that he would do whatever he could to make sure she could keep her store.
He only hoped he didn’t disappoint her.
“You ready to go? I packed snacks.” She held up a canvas bag.
He held up his own plastic bag. “Me, too.”
“Ooh. Let me see.” She grabbed his bag and peered into it. After a second, she tossed it back at him. “Those aren’t road trip foods.”
He peeked into his bag. “What’s wrong with apples and bananas?”
“Nothing, for everyday food. But road trips are special. You need special food.” She opened her own bag and held it out to him.
He burst into laughter. “Exactly how long do you think this drive will take?” She’d packed two packages of chocolate bars and a party size bag of M & Ms.
Violet echoed his laugh. “I guess I went a little overboard, huh? But I’m an M & M fiend. I might even share some if you’re nice.” She led the way out the door and to the parking lot.
Nate stared at her car. “Um, I don’t want to alarm you, but I don’t think that hutch is going to fit in here.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’re going to pick up a trailer when we get there. And then I’m going to figure out how to drive with a trailer hitched to my car.” She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket and fidgeted with them, shifting from one foot to the other as she fingered the key chain. “Unless you want to drive?”
Nate kept his head down. “I can’t.” He only hoped Violet wouldn’t ask why. He tried to convince himself he wouldn’t lie if she did.
“It’s okay, I trust you with my car.” Violet held out the keys to him.
If only that were his concern. “No. It’s not that.”
Violet tilted her head to the side. “I thought guys liked to drive.”
Nate forced a laugh. “It’s not that either. It’s just―” He watched an ant scurrying on the sidewalk. “I don’t have my license.”
Violet’s mouth went slack for a second as if she thought he might be joking. “You drove me to the hospital when I broke my arm.”
“That was an emergency.”
She studied him, as if she wasn’t sure he was serious. “So you really never got your license?”
Nate stood stock still, unable to decide how to answer her question. He hadn’t said he’d never gotten his license. Just that he didn’t have one now. He wouldn’t have one again for another year.
Before he could say anything, Violet was talking again. “Well, I guess that settles it. I’m driving.” Her voice shook.
Nate wished he could do more. That he could be the hero she needed him to be.
He took a step closer and cupped her hands between his own. “I’ll be right next to you.”
She took a shaky breath, looking at their interlocked hands. Nate pulled his away gently and walked around to open the driver’s door for her. Just because he couldn’t drive her didn’t mean he couldn’t be a gentleman.
Violet’s arm brushed against his as she climbed into the car, and Nate fought off the wave of longing. He had to stop thinking of this as a day to be alone with Violet and remember he was just doing his part to help save her store. End of story.
But the way his heart forgot to beat for a second when she smiled at him told him he was kidding himself.
Hopefully he was doing a better job of kidding her.
Violet tried to keep her hands relaxed on the wheel, but the closer she came to the edge of the city, the tighter her shoulders tensed.
She couldn’t do this. Not even with Nate here next to her.
It was too hard.
She opened her mouth to tell him they had to turn around, that she didn’t need the piece that badly, but he spoke first.
“So, how did you and Cade end up with an antique store?” He was looking out the window, but Violet suspected he’d noticed her tension and was trying to ease it.
She focused on answering, ignoring the landmarks going by that said she was almost to the edge of town.
“Completely his idea,” she said, letting herself remember his excitement as he’d shared his plans with her. He had been so sure this was what they were meant to do―to save other people’s history and pass it on to new owners who could add to that history. “I was an art major working at a dead-end office job I hated, and he was a business major waiting tables in a supper club.”
“Sounds glamorous.”
“Yeah. Not exactly what we thought our future would be when we graduated from college. But we didn’t want to wait until we had established careers before we got married, so we settled for the first jobs we found.”
“Makes sense.”
She nodded. “Anyway, we hadn’t even been married a year yet, and we took this trip up north. We stopped at a rinky-dink garage sale, and we were standing there looking at all this stuff. Cade said what a shame it was that most of it would end up in a landfill. And I could see that it broke his heart, but I thought, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ But that’s the thing: instead of wondering what to do about it, Cade solved the problem. He said we should open an antique shop to rescue―that’s the word he used, rescue―all these memories. He had some pretty romantic notions for a businessman.”
She glanced at Nate, who nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Anyway, it took him a while to convince me, which was odd, since I was always the more whimsical, impractical one. But I couldn’t see how we were going to make it work.” She’d been terrified they’d end up homeless, with nothing to show for their efforts.
“But he wrote up a business plan, got approval for a loan, found a storefront.” She swallowed past the memory. “He blindfolded me and brought me there. The place was a mess―the last renter had been a pottery studio―but he had a picnic spread out on a blanket and he’d written Hidden Treasures in big, messy letters on a piece of poster board and hung it on the door. He had the worst handwriting, but―” She shook her head. Her husband had been so full of charisma. “How could I say no?”
Violet pulled herself out of her memories, glancing at Nate to see if he was still listening to her ramble. Not that she would blame him if he wasn’t.
But he was staring at her as if he’d never heard anything more interesting. “Sounds like he was very persuasive.”
“You could say that. He was―” She didn’t know what word to fill in next. Cade was so many things. “He was my everything.” The words came out as a whisper, but in place of the usual tightness she felt whenever she thought about Cade, the pressure that had constricted her chest for the pas
t three years eased a bit. She never talked about him with her friends―they had all known and loved him, too, which meant they already knew all there was to tell about him.
By instinct, Violet switched on her signal light to turn onto the highway that would carry them across the state. She hadn’t noticed when they’d crossed out of the city, which must have been at least twenty miles ago. To her surprise, her hands were loose on the wheel, her shoulders relaxed. Apparently, she could do this after all.
Nate continued to ask her questions about the shop, and she told him about how they had grown, collected new pieces, made their first sale―an antique trash can of all things―speaking into the welcome of his silence.
By the time she needed a break to stretch, she had gotten to the part a few months before Cade’s death when they had started to experience financial trouble.
“I thought it was time to close the shop,” she confessed as she pulled into a gas station. She’d never told any of her other friends that. It wasn’t that she was afraid they’d judge her; more that she feared they’d tell her maybe she’d been right and she should give it up. But she knew she couldn’t do that―not now. Not when it’d be a worse betrayal than refusing to go with Cade that day.
“What did Cade think?” Nate hadn’t made a move to get out of the car but instead was studying her in that uncanny and yet somehow inviting way of his.
Violet waved a hand in the air. “Cade was the most optimistic guy you could meet. He said everything would be fine. We just had to trust God.” The words seared against Violet’s heart. She hadn’t exactly been doing a good job of trusting God lately. She took a deep breath.
Maybe this trip was the first step on that road.
Nate washed his hands, then ran them through his hair, taking a deep breath. Listening to Violet talk about Cade was both easier and harder than he’d thought it’d be. Easier because the guy sounded so likable. Harder because it was obvious Violet still loved him, and the raw pain in her voice tore at his insides.
He ripped a sheet of paper towel from the dispenser. He was grateful she’d shared so much with him. He could tell she needed the release. He’d almost been able to see the weight lifting from her shoulders as she talked. If that meant the weight on his own shoulders grew heavier, so be it.
Violet was already behind the wheel when he ducked back into the car. She gave him a sheepish grin as he eyed the handful of M & Ms in her casted hand. “Needed a chocolate break.” She offered him the bag, and he grabbed a handful, popping them all into his mouth at once.
“Hey, that’s not how you do it.”
Nate tilted his head at her, unable to open his candy-stuffed mouth.
“Like this.” With her good hand, she picked one piece of candy out of her other hand, lifted it to her mouth, and chewed before taking another.
Nate swallowed his own mouthful and grabbed another handful. “But I get more this way.” He stuffed the candy into his mouth, letting her laughter wash over him.
“Well, don’t come crying to me when you have a tummy ache.”
The words sent a jolt through Nate. That was exactly what his mom would have said. Once upon a time anyway. Now she probably didn’t care whether he had a tummy ache or even if he was alive.
Nate caught himself. That wasn’t fair.
And besides, now was not the time to dwell on his family.
Violet popped another M & M into her mouth with a dainty flourish, then pulled out of the parking space.
Nate waited, wondering whether Violet wanted to talk about Cade again. He was more than willing to listen. But he didn’t want to press her if she didn’t want to.
She looked over at him and smiled, and he settled into the comfortable silence.
After a few minutes, Violet turned up the radio, which had been only a low, nearly indistinguishable drone in the background. Static blared through the speakers.
She scanned through the stations. “What kind of music do you like?”
He lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Whatever you like is fine.” Seven years ago, he could have talked about the topic of music for hours. But now he did his best to avoid it.
“How about this?” She stopped on an oldies station, grinning at him. She obviously thought he’d protest, but he just shrugged.
Her lips lowered in a frown that was kind of cute on her. “You don’t like music?”
“I’m indifferent about music.” He hated to lie to her, but he didn’t want to get into this discussion right now. The discussion about how music had been his life―until it had ruined everything.
“No one’s indifferent to music.” She scanned the stations again, stopping at a country song. “How about this one?”
“This is fine.” Country had never been his favorite genre, but at least he wouldn’t be tempted to sing along.
“Fine isn’t good enough.” She pressed the button again, bypassing a classical station, three talk stations, and something rather polka-like.
When she finally stopped, she gave him a hesitant look. “Is this okay?”
His chest tightened, but he nodded. If he’d been indifferent about the other radio stations, he’d have to be indifferent about the Christian station, too. He clamped his mouth shut, so he wouldn’t start singing out of pure instinct. Even if the tunes still called to the musician in him, he didn’t believe the lyrics anymore.
He settled back in his seat and watched the cornfields zipping by out the window. He tried not to picture the last time he was on a stage. Not to recall how he’d thought his whole life was made that night. Not to remember how it had splintered into a thousand irreparable pieces instead.
“Uh, Nate.”
“Yeah?” He kept his gaze directed out the window. The corn stalks were taller than him, but every few seconds they bent almost in half in the hot breeze that had kicked up. Nate wondered if they ever bent so far, they broke.
When Violet didn’t answer, he turned to look at her.
She flicked her eyes toward his lap, and he glanced down. His fingers were lifting and lowering in time to the music. He had been playing the piano chords along to the song on the radio without thinking about it.
On the one hand, he was fascinated that his muscle memory was still so strong after seven years.
On the other hand, he’d promised never to play music again. And this came a little too close.
He shoved his hands under his legs and turned to the window, but he could feel Violet looking at him.
“Were you playing lap piano?” Her teasing note caught him off guard.
“I guess I was.” He let himself laugh a little.
“How do you know this song?”
“My band used to play it.” The words were out before he could consider them. He immediately wanted to reel them back in. Talk of his band was leading to dangerous territory.
“You had a band?”
He couldn’t help but look over at the incredulity in Violet’s voice. It wasn’t that far-fetched was it? “Yeah, a long time ago.”
“Well, were you any good?”
He gave a stiff nod. “We were almost signed by a record label. But like I said, it was a long time ago.” Hopefully she’d get the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“Wow. What happened?”
Nate’s throat constricted. “It fell through at the last minute.”
“Oh.” When she didn’t say anything else, he started to relax.
But after a second, she broke the silence again. “Was your family supportive of your band?”
He grunted. “Hardly. My dad insisted I study business. For when my music failed.” It didn’t matter that Dad had ultimately been right. It still stung that he’d never thrown Nate a crumb of support. Not even when they’d been on the cusp of signing with the label.
“I’m sure your dad is glad to have you in business with him now, though.”
An ironic snort erupted from him. “Sure. He loves working with the
biggest mistake of his life.”
Violet’s head snapped to him. “I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”
Nate looked away from the compassion in her eyes. “His words, not mine.”
Violet’s gasp was only half stifled. “He couldn’t mean that.” Her voice was firm, as if she didn’t believe any parent could ever think that of their child. But then, she didn’t know that his dad had plenty of reason to say that about him.
He stared out the window, hoping the conversation was finally over.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Nate’s stomach clenched. Talking about his family was the last thing he wanted to do. “No thanks.”
She nodded and looked away. He hated that he had disappointed her, but she’d be even more disappointed if she knew he deserved everything his father had said about him.
“You know, sometimes when I don’t want to talk to people about something, I talk to God.” Violet didn’t look at him as she said it.
Nate tensed. He didn’t want to have this conversation, either. “I gave up talking to God a long time ago.”
Violet met his eyes for a second. If he wasn’t careful, he would let those eyes capture him.
“Why?”
Nate looked away. “Because God gave up on answering.”
“Maybe―”
But the GPS on Violet’s phone blared out instructions to exit the highway.
Nate allowed himself a relieved breath as she turned her attention to getting them to the trailer rental place. He had a feeling that he’d narrowly avoided a conversation that would have blown their relationship―whatever it was―to bits.
It was a conversation he couldn’t avoid forever.
But he was safe for now at least.
Chapter 20
The car whined as Violet pressed the accelerator, nudging it up the steep hill. Driving with the trailer behind her wasn’t as nerve-wracking as she had anticipated, not after conquering her fear to drive all the way across the state.
She couldn’t have done it without Nate.
Not Until You (Hope Springs Book 3) Page 13
