echristian-epub-ee8a4ba5-94c3-4982-ae55-299db4e26c11

by Unknown

“Jay. Good to see you. That cabinet you built for the office is working out great.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He glanced at Emma. “I’ll be on my way.”

  After Jay closed the door, Sam turned to Emma. “Jay is going to do the repairs?”

  “Yes,” her chin shot up as if daring him to say she was wasting money.

  “Broootheeer. You must be loaded.”

  “With experience,” she muttered.

  “Jay will get the work done, but it will take months.” Sam left, leaving her to wonder why he hadn’t stuck around to follow through on the kiss … .

  She picked up the lamb’s-wool wand and beat it against the wall outside the door, then attacked with vigor dusting shelved books.

  Elizabeth came in from the post office. “Was that Sam I saw pulling away from the curb?”

  “I’m going to do a little painting at the house; Sam is going to help.”

  “He is?” Elizabeth hung up her coat.

  “The house is half his.”

  “Oh, yes, teamwork. That’s nice.” She looped her wool muffler over her coat. “What are you going to paint?”

  “The parlor first.”

  Elizabeth almost laughed. “Sorry, but Emma, there are fifteen rooms! Rooms, I might add, that haven’t been touched since 1902.”

  Emma had to smile in return. “Well, it’s probably not been that long, but it’s pretty bad. And the colors are … well … awful. The paper in my room is so faded it looks like the walls have been papered with grocery bags. I’d forgotten that it’s always been that way.”

  Elizabeth handed Emma a red marker. “Be my guest. Go home and draw you some pretty flowers.”

  Sam picked Emma up in his SUV at nine o’clock on Saturday. Emma slid into the warm vehicle, rubbing her hands together. “Did you look at Jay’s estimate?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And?”

  “Most of the projects are doable.”

  “I’ll split the cost with you.”

  “You bet you will if you insist on selling the house.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Had breakfast?”

  “I’m good until lunch.”

  “Then let’s get to work.”

  The drive to Durango was beautiful. Called the Gateway to Mesa Verde National Park as well as to the San Juan Mountains and National Forest, the landscape was breathtaking. To the east was the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge railroad. Vallecito Lake was beyond that. The four-corner area was as picture perfect as tourist advertising promised. Emma drank in the beautiful scenery, but she was even more aware of the man beside her.

  The paint department of the large home-improvement store was huge. The rack of paint chips offered twenty different shades of white.

  “I want something subtle but within the colors of the era of the house,” Emma said, reaching for a shade of pink.

  “Thought Victorian houses had whitewashed walls.”

  “Some do—maybe ours won’t.” She picked up two shades of turquoise.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” He picked up a butter yellow. “What about this?”

  “I’d never find a border to go with that,” she chided. “How about blue for the parlor?”

  They quibbled over colors for an hour before settling on a pale peach and equally pale turquoise, though Sam grumbled he wasn’t dipping a brush into the turquoise. Clearly relieved when they checked out, he quickly ushered her from the store.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll change your mind again.”

  Emma laughed. Though they disagreed over everything, she’d enjoyed choosing the colors. She was sure they weren’t entirely within the era of the house, but they’d definitely brighten the place and make it more appealing. And they were colors that fit into what she saw in her mind as backgrounds for the tearoom.

  “How about lunch?”

  “Sounds good.”

  They found a sandwich shop and settled into a booth near the window. They both ordered club sandwiches. Then, spotting the pie on display, Sam ordered a generous slice of French silk, and Emma settled on lemon.

  “Have you been able to get into Lully’s computer files?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Lully wouldn’t have jotted the password down somewhere? In case she forgot?”

  Emma shrugged. “I haven’t found anything. Of course, I haven’t gone through all of Lully’s personal things.” She ran a fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. “I haven’t made myself do that yet. I’ve been concentrating on all of those boxes in the basement. I have no idea what’s in the attic. It will take forever to go through everything.”

  “One day at a time.”

  Sighing, she noted. “One hour at a time.”

  It was midafternoon when they reached Serenity, and Sam stopped the SUV in front of the Mansi house.

  “We can leave the paint on the porch,” Emma said.

  “No,” Sam said, stepping out of the vehicle. “Too cold. Might freeze. Then I’d have to do all that paint choosing over again.”

  The house, for once, wasn’t blistering hot. She’d left some windows open in hopes of avoiding an inferno.

  Impulsively, she stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed. “There’s still some daylight left,” Sam suggested.

  “You want to paint now?”

  “No time like the present. But you’re in charge of the turquoise stuff.”

  They painted the easiest room, the parlor, working together in companionable silence. Finally Sam dropped the roller in a paint pan and stretched.

  “I’m through,” he announced, twisting at the waist to stretch his shoulders.

  Peach-colored paint speckled his face and hair, splashed from the roller even with the splatter protector piece attached. Still, he looked so … appealing. She wanted to go to him, step into his arms.

  No, she didn’t have the right. No right at all.

  Emma gladly dropped her roller “I made chili this morning,” she offered.

  “Shredded cheese?”

  Emma laughed, feeling suddenly very good about everything. He’d always liked cheddar on top of his chili.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re on.”

  Sam washed the rollers and pans at the outside faucet while Emma picked up drop cloths and pushed furniture back into place. They ate chili as they sat at the kitchen table. The dim, yellowed light gave the room a strange cast. How many times had she and Lully eaten a silent meal at this same table? How she wished she’d not treated Lully so cruelly in her later life. Lully had, after all, done the best she could—at least what she considered best for Emma. Mrs. Gold’s actions had not been so warmly motivated.

  “This is nice,” Sam said, setting aside his empty bowl.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Emma returned, sipping her milk. “I’ll take a good bowl of chili over steak any day.”

  His gaze traced her lightly. “I meant this, sitting here with you, without arguing, without resentment.”

  Emma studied her nearly empty bowl. “I think I need to apologize to you … for a lot of things.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  She finally looked up. “I had a lot of anger. Still did even when I came back here.”

  She laid her spoon aside, carefully aligning it next to the bowl, and then rubbed the almost indistinguishable initial cut into the handle with her thumb. “It’s taken me a long time to get to this point, able to admit that I’ve been angry with you for far too long.”

  “You had a sound case against me.”

  “I thought I did but now I don’t know.” She released a long breath while staring at the discolored ceiling. “That was such a bad time, when I left here. I was a hopeless romantic, didn’t think any further than—” She stopped there. “I didn’t see the reality of life. We were too young, had no idea what we were doing.”

  His features had turned somber. “Hauling us out of that Motel 6 in
the middle of the night was not the best approach. Too many people knew about it. Made your life miserable, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”

  Her voice softened. “It was a very bad time for everyone. The whispered conversations that stopped when I went by, the open taunts. And we hadn’t done anything. We’d just wanted to get married. Not even Lully would understand that nothing happened, that we’d both decided to wait until we were married to …” She let the words trail off. “They wouldn’t listen.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma. I failed you. I’ve lived with that knowledge since the day you left.”

  They studied one another for a long moment. Her gaze went to his mouth, remembering the kiss. How different it had been from fifteen years ago, how different from kissing anyone else. He was different from any other man she knew. Unique. One of a kind.

  “I didn’t intend to desert you, let you take the blame,” Sam said.

  “I was pretty hateful to you after—”

  “You were hurt. So was I.”

  “Were you?” It was a question she had wondered about for fifteen years.

  “Do you really have to ask that?” he asked softly.

  She studied his face, seeing pain and sorrow etched in mature lines. “I think I did; I need to know, Sam.”

  “Did you think that I could walk away from you? Never realize what I’d given up? Never lay awake at night thinking about you—where you were, how you must feel that I betrayed you.”

  “You did walk away.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “That wasn’t exactly how it happened.”

  “When a man turns his back and leaves that’s walking away.” Emma pulled her hand away.

  “I never got to explain to you what happened.”

  “No.” Emma traced the pattern on the worn oilcloth on the table. “Maybe I never gave you the chance.”

  “You did, but I couldn’t explain.”

  He was making little sense. “You didn’t have to. Your mother didn’t see me as a daughter-in-law. Or a Gold.”

  “She threatened to send me to military school the next day.”

  Emma looked up in surprise. “Military school?” That had been the best kept secret in town—or the world. She could have sworn that she’d seen him around later—or had she? Too many years had passed. “Why?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up at the irony of that long-ago scene. “Because I lacked discipline.”

  She turned her head to hide a grin. “You? Why, because you ran wild all over the country on your motorcycle, stayed out late every night, tried to marry Emma Mansi—who in their right mind would think you lacked discipline?”

  He grinned. “So, she had a point. There was Ken to consider. She thought I was a bad influence.”

  “In order to keep you away from me and to keep Kenny from being corrupted, she sent you to military school?”

  He nodded. “That’s about it. Kemper Academy in Missouri. Good school. But the longest years of my life.”

  She frowned. “That is bizarre. I—Lully never breathed a word.”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “It would have explained a multitude of things.”

  “I wrote you, Emma. Hand delivered the letter to Lully to mail to you.”

  “I didn’t get it—either Lully didn’t mail it or it got lost in the mail.”

  “Just so you believe me. I wrote the letter, explaining what happened. I loved you, Emma, but I wasn’t given a choice.”

  She smiled. “And now?”

  He toyed with his spoon. “My plan was to wait until you were eighteen. I’d be twenty-one and we wouldn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do anything.”

  Emma’s heart ached and tears pricked her eyes. “But, I left,” she whispered.

  “You left. Without explanation, without giving us another chance.”

  Only the dripping kitchen faucet broke the silence between them.

  “I guess I never thought about what my leaving might mean to you. I thought … how could it concern you?”

  “It did,” he said simply, without explanation.

  “What happened after you graduated?”

  “Lully searched for you. I talked to the sheriff, kept after him to have law-enforcement agencies look for you but you’d disappeared into thin air, and he’d heard the rumors so he decided you were old enough to make your own choices. He didn’t put a lot of effort in the project. You were gone for good. So, I enlisted in the Marines.”

  Emma bit her upper lip. She’d thought Lully hadn’t tried to find her. “And then what?”

  “When my hitch was finished I came back here. Dad was gone by then and mother’s health was failing. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but the sheriff was retiring so I ran for his job. Not many people had my experience, so I won.”

  “Do you like your work?”

  “I do. And if a teenager runs away, I’ll do everything I can to find her.”

  She had to smile at his attempt to lighten the atmosphere but sensed he was dead serious. “The sheriff was right, you know. I couldn’t stand all the taunts, the whispers, so I made the choice to leave, and I made sure no one could find me before I was of legal age.”

  He reached over and took her hand, his fingers linking with hers. Their gazes met and held. “We came so close, Emma.”

  She wanted to cry. “Yeah … so close, Sam.” Close didn’t matter, except with hand grenades and horseshoes.

  “Why Seattle?” he asked.

  “That was as far as my money could take me.”

  “You finished school, and you’ve got a good job, one you like.”

  She nodded, smiling. “I always enjoyed puttering around with Momma’s roses, so I decided to study horticulture and it was a good choice. I love my work.”

  He grinned. “Lully always said those old roses would bloom again.”

  “They will.” She squeezed his hand.

  “Never married?”

  She caught his gaze and held it. “No. Didn’t have time for relationships for a long time, then I wasn’t that interested in anything long-term. You?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t find the right woman?”

  “Lightning rarely strikes twice,” he admitted softly.

  Something inside her started to thaw—something she hadn’t realized was frozen. As infuriating as he could be sometimes, she wanted to be able to go back, to be able to say she loved him … again. Just once.

  He scooted his chair back from the table. “I’d better go. Have to check in with the office.”

  She walked him to the door and grinned when it stuck and he had to yank with both hands to get it open.

  “This is on the list, isn’t it?”

  “Front door. Top of the list.”

  He stood with his hand resting on the doorknob, framed by the open doorway. “Today’s been the best, Emma.”

  She smiled, tilting her head to one side. “Even though you detest turquoise.”

  He bent then and brushed a kiss across her lips. Her eyes automatically closed, and she relished the feel of the once-familiar hold. He deepened the kiss, kissing her thoroughly.

  “Even though,” he whispered against her mouth. Then he was gone.

  Emma watched him drive away until the red taillights of his SUV disappeared into the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday morning Emma woke to the smell of fresh paint. Closing her eyes, she recalled the parlor with its new coat of peach bliss. She stretched sore muscles. She was tired but the room had never looked prettier.

  Snuggling deeper into the blankets, she turned on her side and stared at puffy cotton-ball-sized flakes dancing around Ezra Mott’s tombstone. In the distance, church bells tolled their clear, musical tones ringing over the sleepy countryside. It was a decidedly comfortable sound. When she gathered sufficient nerve, she swung out of bed and winced when her feet hit the icy floor. Double-stepping to her
slippers, she slid her toes into the chilly fleece. The fire had died down in the woodstove, and the upstairs rooms were as cold as meat lockers.

  Gismo moseyed in from the kitchen when Emma knelt in front of the stove and wadded old newspapers. She tossed them into a bed of dying embers and quickly slammed the iron door. She heard a whoosh and saw through the sooty window that the newspapers had disintegrated into charred pulp.

  “Wood,” she muttered and gently moved Gismo aside.

  Stacking two big logs in the crook of her arm, she edged back to the stove, trying to work the door open with a free index finger while keeping the dirty wood away from her clean housecoat. The largest piece slipped. She jumped, but not in time to prevent the heavy oak piece from bouncing off her slipper.

  Yelping, she sucked in a breath and danced around before dropping to her knees. The other log rolled across the floor. Gismo barked and backed away, his, eyes anxiously assessing the situation. Tears rolled down Emma’s cheeks as she held her toe in both hands, afraid to look at it. The pain was excruciating. She had once dropped an iron on her toe and it had hurt less.

  Rolling to her side, eyes closed, she held her foot, trying to absorb the pain. Gismo edged close, licking her cheek. She threw a hand up against the comforting assault, laughing and crying at the same time. The pain was so bad she got the giggles.

  Crying and laughing, she tried to push Gismo out of the way so she could sit up. Only then did she hear the pecking on the glass at the front door. She got to her knees and peered out.

  “Sam?”

  Jerking her housecoat over her bare legs, she scrambled up and hobbled to the door. Brushing a tangle of hair out of her face, she pushed back the dead bolt. Sam stood there, Stetson in both hands, looking mildly amused.

  “Hi,” she managed, reaching out to unhook the screen. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  His gaze skimmed her from head to toe. “You and Gismo taken to wrestling these days?”

  “I was putting wood in the stove,” she said, peering around a broad shoulder. “Where’s your patrol car?”

  “I walked this morning.”

  “You’re up early, aren’t you?” She hitched the sash of her robe tighter. It was one of Lully’s heavy wool sarong-type garments that served as a dress and sleepwear.