The Shadow of Your Smile

by Susan May Warren

  And if she felt brave, she’d pull out a couple tunes from the Blue Monkeys. Bring Kelsey along tonight.

  She unlocked her apartment, the rush of the opportunity making her shiver. She hadn’t sat under the spotlight, just her . . .

  Ever. The thought stopped her, made her stand for a moment in the quiet apartment. She’d always played with Kelsey at the mic. Sure, she’d had her solos and had played for Ritchie when she’d auditioned, but other than her open mic nights, she hadn’t landed a solo gig.

  She picked up her guitar, held it to herself, and remembered suddenly Kyle’s arms around her as he’d swept her up, carried her out into the alley.

  Oh, who was she kidding? She should be back in Deep Haven, not here in St. Paul, trying to hustle up a musical future. Why had she left—no, fled—Deep Haven?

  Certainly not because any of her accusations to Kyle were true. Convenient. She wasn’t sure why that word flew out of her mouth. Probably she just wanted something to spring her out of the magic spell Kyle seemed to cast over her. Within twenty-four hours she’d seen herself returning to Deep Haven, gigging at local restaurants . . . or even better, starting a life with Kyle. Teaching music to the youngsters in town, maybe even working for the music association, organizing events.

  She hadn’t run from Kyle. Or Deep Haven. She’d run from the fact that it felt too good, too comforting. Too perfect.

  She still couldn’t wrap her head around Kyle’s retort when she suggested she should have died instead of Kelsey. Do you seriously think I’d be angry with you for being the one who lived?

  Why not? She was angry at herself.

  Or maybe she was angry at God.

  Emma hiked her guitar over her shoulder, then jogged down the street, the fight still so fresh, she thought he might appear.

  It’s easier to ignore the memories than to believe that God can fix them. It’s easier to walk alone in your pain than to share it.

  Maybe. Because going back to Deep Haven would mean that she’d have to let God heal her. And frankly, she was just too angry at all He’d taken from her. It was easier to walk alone.

  The heat of the kitchen burned away the chill of the street, and she shrugged off her jacket, hung it on the hook next to her hat, then made her way to the front.

  “I delivered your shepherd’s pie to table five,” Carrie said as she knelt next to Emma, helping her pull out her music and arrange it on the stand. Emma tugged the strap over her head, began to tune the guitar.

  “By the way, a couple people came in, said they knew you. From Deep Haven? They’re sitting in my section. Although the entire pub is my section now, isn’t it?” Carrie winked at her.

  Emma glanced toward the booth by the window. Nicole, looking tan and happy, waved. She waved back, forcing a smile. What was this, some sort of cosmic reminder of what she’d run from?

  She plugged in her guitar, set the levels, then slid onto the stool and finished tuning. Finally ready, she leaned into the mic. “Hey there, everyone. I’m Emma Nelson. I know that I was just waiting on you, but Carrie’s gotcha while I fill in for our missing guitarist. I hope I can do him justice. Thanks for listening.”

  She sat back on the stool, took a breath, then started the chords for “Blue Bayou.” The words had curled inside her, aching to roll out as she watched Nicole and Jason hold hands at the far table.

  “I’m going back someday,

  Come what may.”

  Even as she sang it, yes, she wanted the courage to return. She didn’t really believe her mother would move away—she was simply hurt from Eli Hueston’s actions.

  “Where the folks are fine

  And the world is mine . . .”

  Maybe that was the problem. The night Kelsey and her father died, Deep Haven became a foreign place. Kyle had made her see it as hers again.

  Oh, she missed him.

  She ended the song, received a hearty round of applause, and followed with James Taylor’s version of “You’ve Got a Friend.” So maybe she wasn’t going to play her usual blues list. This one felt more healing, perhaps. “‘When you’re down and troubled . . . just close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there . . .’”

  Kyle appeared in her mind, his nose red and cold as he kissed her. She could stay warm, right there in the pocket of his embrace.

  The image gave heart to her song, and the crowd whooped for her when it was over. If she had a drummer, she might have tried a little Steely Dan. Instead she dove into “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker. She would have enjoyed remaking “Up Where We Belong,” but she’d need Kyle for the duet.

  Wow, her little gig had her imagining all sorts of fantasies for a girl who had left him standing on the shoulder in the dirty snow. Apparently she wasn’t done dreaming about Kyle Hueston in her life.

  The romance of the night, the rapt attention of her audience, led her to end the set with “Hooked on a Feeling” in the old B. J. Thomas style.

  She sang it as if Kyle might be in the crowd. Since he wasn’t, she wasn’t exactly risking her heart. But she poured it out anyway.

  She noticed that Jason held up his cell phone like a lighter through the whole song. Cute.

  “I’m going to take a break and see if Carrie needs any help with refills. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

  Emma set her guitar on the stand, then headed over to Carrie, leaning against the bar. “What can I do?”

  Carrie grinned at her. “You’re making tip money like crazy, girl. Just keep playing those oldies. By the way, the couple at table five wanted you to stop by.”

  “Probably mad about their cold shepherd’s pie.”

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “Take a compliment, will you? They’re waiting for a couple Irish coffees, by the way.” She lifted two mugs of Killian’s, overflowing with foam, onto her tray and headed off to her table.

  When the barkeep put up the coffees, Emma carried them by the handles to the table, setting them in front of the couple. “Carrie said you wanted to talk to me?”

  “I’m Brenton O’Hare, and this is my associate Terese Lawton. We’re music producers for Peace Records down in Nashville. We were in town reviewing a couple acts.” He handed her a card. “You’ve got a good voice, and I see you know your way around a guitar. Do you have anything original you could show us?”

  She drew in a breath, swallowed. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “That’s great. We’re actually on our way out of town, but we’ll be back in a couple weeks. How about you give me a call tomorrow and we’ll set up an audition time.”

  Emma nodded, smiled, nodded. Tried not to hear the tiny siren in the back of her head. Original songs. Maybe she could find something that she and Kelsey had written.

  Brenton picked up his coffee. She backed away, nearly fleeing to Nicole’s table.

  “What are you guys doing here? I thought you were on your honeymoon.” She tried not to let her glance boomerang to table five.

  “We’re on our way home. Can’t you see the tan? Cancún, baby.” Nicole lifted her sleeve. “You were awesome.”

  Emma was staring at Brenton’s card.

  “What did they want?”

  She looked up.

  Jason grinned. “The table behind us. We saw you talking to them.”

  She handed over the card. “They’re record producers. He wants to audition me.”

  Jason read it, looked at Nicole, then at Emma. “That’s fabulous. You were amazing. In fact, I got the whole thing right here. Just posted it to YouTube.”

  She froze. “You did what?”

  “You need fans, Emma. Let us be the first to sign up for the official Emma Nelson fan club.” He returned the card, glanced at his phone. “Hey, I already have a view.” He scrolled down, reading something. Smiled.

  “Fan number three appears to be Kyle Hueston.”

  “C’mon, pick up, pick up.” Kyle let the phone ring until it rolled over to voice mail, but he didn’t leave a message. Maybe he’
d turned into some sort of lovesick fool to believe the song Emma had sung on YouTube might be directed at him.

  As he’d watched her sing, despite the grainy darkness of the video and the raspy, crackled audio, he’d traced her face, let her sweet voice churn up all the memories he’d tried to bury this past week. Only a week? It felt like an eternity.

  Why do you like me, Kyle?

  He’d stopped trying to figure that out, just retorted—in all his imaginary conversations, of course—I just do, okay? Does everything have to make sense?

  But see, he’d nailed the problem, the one thing that had kept his finger off the dial all week. Everything in his life made sense—at least the things he could control. His career choice, returning to Deep Haven. Even his cabin on the hill. It all fit into the plan he’d envisioned for his life after Kelsey’s death, as he watched his mother unravel, his father turn into a walking corpse. He would never let life destroy him like that. Never live on the edge.

  Never find himself helpless. Without a plan.

  And Emma fit perfectly into that plan. Hometown girl. She even loved music.

  “I’m hooked on a feeling . . . that you’re in love with me.”

  Kyle couldn’t actually pinpoint what love might feel like—was it wanting to hear her voice, thinking about her smile, tasting her kiss as if she were right there with him? Was it longing so badly to be in the audience there in St. Paul that he carried his cell phone out of the restaurant where he’d been listening to the local band JayJ Bump and played the YouTube video? The video had posted to Jason’s Facebook page, appeared on Kyle’s news feed.

  Okay, so maybe he’d been rude to surf Facebook while sitting with the other deputies, but he couldn’t listen to any more shoptalk. Not when it meant remembering that he still hadn’t found his mother’s attacker. And a murderer—not just in Harbor City, but here in Deep Haven.

  Kyle had spent the day tracking down the alibis of the fish house workers whose names Bonnie had given him. Every one of the seven employees, with the exception of Billy and the currently AWOL Hugh, alibied out. He had stopped in to a couple restaurants in town, asked if they employed a man matching Hugh’s rough description, but no one seemed to recognize him.

  At the very least, he wanted Hugh for questioning.

  If only Billy’s girlfriend hadn’t gone missing. That bothered him more than he wanted to dwell on.

  Especially when Marc called from Harbor City with the report that Duluth Pawn had a class ring matching the description of Billy’s, pawned only two days earlier. They were sending him the digital footage from their surveillance camera.

  Whoever had murdered Billy and Cassie Mitchell and hurt Kyle’s mother could be seated at the tavern right now and he wouldn’t even know it.

  Facebook seemed the only escape.

  Now Kyle sat down on a cold bench outside the restaurant, in the park overlooking the harbor, flakes still drifting from the sky, and replayed the YouTube video. So beautiful. So—

  His phone vibrated in his hand.

  He was smiling before he answered and probably betrayed himself in his eager “Emma?”

  “Sorry I couldn’t take your call earlier. I was finishing my second set.”

  “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have called you so late.”

  “It’s not late—oh, well, I mean, we just closed up here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m walking out of Mulligan’s. Made about twice as much in my tip jar as I did waiting tables tonight.”

  “I’m not surprised. You were . . . you’re amazing.” He wished he could see her, although he already knew she was wearing a pretty blue shirt with sequins and a pair of jeans. Her hair up but waterfalling around her face. He wanted to yank out the hair band, let it fall over her shoulders, weave his fingers through it. He took a breath. He had to remain calm. Remember that the last time he saw her, she had broken speed limits escaping from him. That should keep the sweat from piling up on the back of his neck. That and the way his words crystallized before him as he spoke in the sparkling night.

  Behind him, the restaurant pulsed out Bump’s beat. The fresh snowfall glistened on the ground, the sky above moody.

  “Thanks, Carrie. Good night.”

  “What—?”

  “Oh, sorry. My roomie. She walked home with me.”

  He heard the sounds of doors closing, and then her voice turned quieter, more intimate. “I need to apologize to you, Kyle. I was . . . Well, it was a good weekend, wasn’t it?” The lilt in her voice, one that spoke of hope, warmed him to his bones.

  “A very good weekend.”

  Emma sighed. “I thought of you all week and the way I behaved, and I think . . . I wasn’t ready for the way you made me feel about . . . Deep Haven.”

  It was a start, anyway.

  “You know I don’t think you’re convenient, right? If anything, you’re inconvenient, all the way down there, five hours away.”

  She laughed, something precious and healing in it. “You want to know a secret?”

  “Always.”

  “There was a record producer from Nashville there tonight. He gave me his card and wants me to audition for him.”

  He hesitated for only a half second. “Emma, that’s wonderful.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He wants me to play some original stuff for him.”

  “So?”

  “So I haven’t written anything new—I mean, I haven’t completed a song since . . . Well, see, Kelsey was the lyricist. She always had the right words. I had the tune.”

  “You two were an amazing pair.”

  “That was the plan. We’d go on the road together. We’d follow the dream together.”

  “And now you’re following it alone.”

  “Right. Without Kelsey. Without her words. A half act.”

  “Babe, I think you’re the whole act.”

  She drew in a breath, and for a second he thought he heard a shudder. “You’re sweeter than I thought you’d be, Kyle. Much sweeter.”

  “What, did you think I’d be a jerk?”

  She paused. “I guess I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I shouldn’t have lumped you in with . . .”

  “With whom?”

  She drew another breath. “Aw, you know. Guys.”

  Somehow he didn’t think that’s what she meant, the way her words came so easily, so without emotion. He got up so he could walk through the park to keep warm. “I wish I could help you write your songs, Emma.”

  “I know you do. You don’t do helpless well.”

  He could almost see her, almost see the twinkle in her blue eyes, feel her hand on his face.

  He cut his voice low as he zipped up his coat all the way, tucking his chin inside. Must be below zero. “I believe in you. You have the words inside you—you just have to find them.”

  “I have a couple weeks.”

  He was already calculating his schedule.

  “Where are you right now?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to stay warm, walking along the harbor. I was at the basketball game earlier tonight. We won, and it was parents’ night. It felt strange to see my mother accept a rose from Kirby, knowing she has no memory of attending every game since fourth grade.”

  “It’s nearly championship season, isn’t it?”

  “Play-offs start this weekend. We’re a good team. Kirby has a few schools scouting him.”

  “Do you ever wish you hadn’t lost your scholarship?”

  “I wish I hadn’t let it go to my head, hadn’t become so out of control. But I know being a deputy is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  “You’re a good man, Kyle.”

  He smiled into the phone. “Is that your way of saying you like me?”

  “Not fishing or anything, are you?”

  “Cut a guy some line here, Emma.”

  “I like you, Kyle. You win.”

  Oh, he wished he could
reach out, kiss her. “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m staring out my window, watching a drunk guy skate out to his car while his buddy wrestles the keys from him. Ouch! That couldn’t have felt good.”

  “Come back to Deep Haven. I’ll keep you safe from the troublemakers.”

  She said nothing. Oh, why had he said that? But yes, he wanted to. Hated that she was down there.

  “I believe you would if you could,” she said finally. “But I’m not sure that’s in your hands. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? We want it to be, and when it isn’t, we get angry. But the funny thing is, even when we are in control and it doesn’t turn out, we still get angry. Either way, we want a guarantee that everything will turn out all right.”

  He drew in a breath, Bonnie’s words ringing through him. Sometimes life just backfires on you, is all.

  Not anymore. Not on him.

  “You’ll have your lyrics, Emma; I promise.”

  She’d spent the entire day studying the life of this beautiful young woman, entering into the history of the Hueston family and seeing her own face among the pictures. Noelle would do almost anything to retrieve the memories that lurked just beyond her grasp. Pictures of their family gathered around birthday cakes, of sand castles and snowmen and Christmas trees and every major event in the past twenty-five years, told her that they’d been a happy family. A family that laughed together. A family she wanted to belong to.

  Headed by a man who had suddenly started to withdraw after the closeness of yesterday’s revelation. She’d felt it beginning this morning, the moment Eli began to unload from his truck the cartons of family mementos, Kelsey’s belongings. He’d piled them in the living room while she stared at him, admittedly thunderstruck.

  “You packaged all this up and took it away?”

  Eli wore his padded jean jacket and a baseball cap, his boots leaking snow onto her freshly mopped floor. He looked at her with such remorse in his eyes she didn’t have the heart to say anything else.

  She remopped the floor after he delivered it all and returned to the garage to tinker with something in desperate need of repair, no doubt.