Right then, Gwen realized that Freddie was right.
There was far more to Hank Ellis than she could ever have imagined.
They left Mansfield with the sun beginning its slow fall toward the horizon. Freddie had filled them with cookies and lemonade. Hank had sketched out a rough drawing of the chest she wanted, this one to be decorated with a flock of birds soaring across the front of each drawer. When it had been time to go, the old woman had hugged them both tightly, then waved from the porch as they drove off.
“Freddie is wonderful,” Gwen said.
“She’s a heck of a lady, all right,” Hank agreed. “Now do you understand what I meant when I said she was a little different?”
“She’s eccentric, that’s all. She reminds me of my aunt Samantha.”
“Really?”
Gwen nodded. “She’s the same kind of colorful soul, walking to the beat of her own drummer, not caring what anyone else thinks.”
He shrugged. “That sounds an awful lot like Freddie.”
“How did you meet her?”
Before answering, Hank turned onto the main road headed back to Buckton, his arm lying lazily along the open window, a hand loosely gripping the wheel. Through a break in the trees, sunlight flooded the cab, coloring his skin such a bright yellow that Gwen had to look away.
“It was at an art fair a while back,” he explained. “I go around to towns in the area, Vicksburg, Thornton, Quinn, and the like, and set up a few pieces of furniture—a table, some chairs, or a dresser, whatever I’ve been working on. Freddie came by and liked what she saw. We started talking, she wanted a bookcase, and the next thing I know I’m making regular trips to Mansfield.”
“She sounds like a good customer.”
“The best. I just wish I had a dozen more like her.”
It was faint, but Gwen thought she heard a touch of dissatisfaction in his voice. Tentatively, she asked, “Is it hard making a living this way?”
Hank shrugged. “Some times are better than others, but what’s the hardest is that I have to look so far and wide for a sale.” He paused. “Most folks in Buckton would rather spit on me than give me a dime. I understand, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
Gwen was quiet for a moment, weighing whether she should voice the words in her head. Finally she plunged ahead. “I’m sorry about Pete.”
Ever since she’d made up her mind to thank Hank for saving her, Gwen had wondered whether she should mention his brother. She worried that he might get upset or ask her to leave. Undoubtedly it was a sore subject. Still, ignoring Pete’s death felt wrong. In the end, she decided that even if Hank was responsible for what had happened, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be sorry, for the both of them. She’d gotten the chance, and taken it.
In answer, Hank nodded, then fell silent.
Gwen thought back to the first leg of their journey. When talking about Kent had grown uncomfortable, Hank had respected her silence and hadn’t pried, so now she did the same for him.
But even though she chose not to ask more about Pete, that didn’t mean she wanted to stop talking altogether.
“What’s it like to work with your hands?” she asked.
Just like that, the chill that had descended over Hank thawed. “It’s peaceful,” he told her, flashing a wisp of a smile. “I usually start with an idea, then lay out the tools I’ll need, all in preparation to carve that first notch in the wood.” By now, he was gesturing with his free hand, excited to talk about his profession and passion. “It’s funny, but most jobs, I still make plenty of mistakes. I cut up my hands or find out that what I want to do isn’t possible. But when I’m done, when I see someone’s face light up like Freddie’s did, it makes all the troubles worth it.” Hank paused. “Still, days like today are hard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a tough time letting pieces go,” Hank explained. “I always see more that I could have done, another knock of the chisel, another detail.” He chuckled. “You probably think I sound completely nuts.”
But Gwen understood all too well. She thought about her writing, about how she agonized over each word, frowning as she took one out, adding another in its place, all in an attempt to make it perfect, working and working until she was finally satisfied. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“You do?” Hank asked curiously.
Gwen wondered if she was revealing too much of herself to someone she hardly knew. She considered lying, making up some story to cover her misstep, but somewhere, deep inside, she felt that there was something about Hank she trusted, a part of her that understood she could tell him the truth.
“I want to be a writer,” she said simply.
In the brief interlude before he answered, Gwen realized that she was holding her breath, waiting for his reaction.
“Even though I’ve always worked with my hands, they’ve never been much good for writing,” Hank explained. “But because of that, I’ve got nothing but respect for those who can. Are you any good?”
She nodded. “I think so.” She told him about submitting her article to a magazine and the joy of seeing it published. She talked of how everything she saw held a story, no detail too small to ignore. Once she started talking, it was as if the gates had been thrown open and all that she’d been holding back came pouring out. She even spoke of her journals, of how one being blown from her hands had ultimately led to his rescuing her from the river.
“Did you manage to grab it?” Hank asked.
Gwen shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s gone for good.”
“So what happens next? Do you want to write a novel, work at a newspaper, teach, what?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “All I know for certain is that when I have a pencil and a piece of paper in front of me, I’m happy.”
“Kent must be awfully proud of you.”
In for a penny, in for a pound…
“No, he isn’t,” Gwen said with a frown. “Kent’s old-fashioned. He thinks that a woman’s place is at home, raising children, taking care of the house, and supporting her husband. He doesn’t think that I should have a career.”
“Is this why you haven’t agreed to marry him?”
“Yes,” she replied truthfully.
Hank was silent for a while, the only sound coming from the countryside rushing by outside their windows.
“Kent’s got it wrong,” he finally said. “My folks didn’t agree on everything. They argued from time to time, just like any husband and wife, especially with two boys underfoot, but they always supported each other, no matter what. I reckon your parents are the same way.” Hank looked over at her, his eyes strong yet gentle. “If you want to be a writer, you need someone by your side who will help you succeed, not hold you back.” He paused. “This is just me talking, but if I was you, I’d have some serious thinking to do.”
Gwen didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. She knew that Hank was right. In a way, she’d known since the moment Kent “announced” their engagement. Watching the tall grass that filled the ditch blur by, she understood that she had to do something, though she wasn’t exactly sure what. A decision felt just out of reach yet tantalizingly close. Gwen hazarded a glance at Hank, but his attention had returned to the road. He’d been honest, telling her things he had to know she might not want to hear. But she hadn’t been angry. She was grateful.
It was true. Hank Ellis was full of surprises.
Gwen sat behind the wheel of her parents’ car, the engine idling softly, her hands on the steering wheel, but she made no move to put it in gear. Hank leaned against her door, an arm draped across the roof, flashing an easy smile. Outside the windshield, the sun was brushing the treetops, painting the sky a darker shade with every passing minute. Odds were it would be dark by the time she finally got home.
“I had a nice time this afternoon,” she told him.
“Me, too,” he replied. “I enjoyed the company. It’s a lot more fun making that drive wi
th someone along for the ride. Talking to myself gets boring.”
Hank laughed easily, a sound Gwen was starting to like. She thought back to how nervous she’d been on the drive over, how she had even considered turning around and going home. She was glad she’d seen it through.
She smiled. “Thanks again for saving my life.”
“Any time.” Hank made like he was going to step away, but then stopped and leaned closer. “Would it be all right if I saw you again? I know you’ll be going back to Chicago soon, but I thought that if you were still here in a day or so, we could get a cup of coffee and talk some more.”
Gwen’s heart sped up. She nodded. “I’d like that.”
Another moment of silence stretched between them. Finally Hank pushed himself away from the car. “I’ll be seeing you.”
With a slightly shaking hand, Gwen put the car in gear and began backing down the drive. Hank watched her go. Starting for home, she realized that there at the end, before he’d stepped away, she had expected something else to happen.
She thought he’d been about to kiss her.
Gwen wondered what it meant that she wouldn’t have minded if he had.
Chapter Twelve
WHEN GWEN ENTERED the kitchen through the side door off the driveway, both of her parents were waiting for her. Her mother looked up from the small table where she’d been flipping through the pages of a magazine. Her father froze in midstride, turning at the sound of the door’s hinges. It looked as if he’d been pacing.
“There she is!” Warren declared. “Where have you been?”
“You were gone an awfully long time, Gwendolyn,” her mother added.
Gwen didn’t need to look at the clock on the wall to know that they were right. It was late. When she’d first gone to see Hank, she had assumed that her visit would be short. But that was before he’d invited her to Mansfield, before she’d accepted, before they had talked…Now the sun had gone to sleep for the night, leaving thousands of stars to fill the cloudless sky in its place. Gwen had been forced to drive the last couple of blocks with the car’s headlights on.
“I’m sorry,” she answered sheepishly. “I must have lost track of time.”
“That’s one heck of an understatement,” her father huffed with a frown. “We ate without you. By now, yours is likely cold as ice.”
“I can heat it up,” Meredith said, getting up from the table to turn on the oven. As she passed her daughter, she gave Gwen a kiss on the forehead. “We were worried, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Warren?”
Her husband gave a grunt and a nod.
“He’s just mad because he had to walk home from the bakery.”
Gwen’s stomach fell. When she’d borrowed the car, her father had had only one condition, that she be back in time to pick him up from work. Somewhere during her drive with Hank, it had slipped her mind.
“I spend all day on my feet, bakin’ or helpin’ customers,” Warren explained, sounding a little put out. “When it’s quittin’ time, all I want is to sit on my duff and drive home. I’ve earned it!”
“Oh, Dad,” Gwen said, slipping her arms around his ample waist to give him a hug. “I’m so sorry. I forgot.”
Warren Foster had a gruff exterior and could talk a blue streak, as Hank well knew, but the one person who had always been able to cut through his bluster was his daughter. Fortunately, this time proved to be no exception.
“It’s all right, Gwennie,” her father replied, giving her a gentle squeeze. “It’s like your mother said, I was just startin’ to worry. All that matters is that you’re home. So tell me, did you have a good time?”
“I did,” she answered truthfully.
“Where all did you go? Who all did you see?”
“I…I just drove around…”
Her father frowned. “For all the time you were gone, I was hopin’ for more details than that.”
Flustered, Gwen said, “I drove through some neighborhoods, down Main Street, across the river, up into the countryside, all over, really.”
I went to see Hank Ellis.
He asked me to go with him to Mansfield, so I did.
I had a great time talking to him and didn’t really want it to end.
Gwen had already lied to her parents enough. She didn’t want to fib further, but she couldn’t be completely honest with them, either.
Fortunately, her mother chose that moment to place a plate of food on the table, giving her a bit of time to collect herself. She took a seat and her parents sat down opposite her.
“Did you have a chance to visit Sandy?” Meredith asked.
Gwen shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”
“Well if you didn’t go see Sandy, then what the heck were you up to?” her father prodded, sounding a bit suspicious.
“I told you, I went for a drive.”
“One that lasted the whole day?”
“Stop it, Warren,” her mother said. “I know exactly what she was doing.”
“You do?” Gwen asked, a forkful of food hovering before her open mouth.
“Of course. I did the same thing the first time I went home to Pennsylvania after being away. I visited all the places I remembered. I went to my old schoolhouse, drove by the homes where my friends used to live. I even visited the cemetery, looking at the tombstones of people I’d once known. It felt like another memory was waiting around every corner. All I had to do was find it.”
Her father grumbled. “It’s a shame you went and got involved with a crumb bum like me and got taken away from all that.”
Meredith reached over and picked a bit of bread off her husband’s shirt. “You got the crumb part right.”
As her parents laughed, Gwen couldn’t help but wonder how they would react if she were to admit the truth: that she’d spent the day with Hank, and that it was likely she would see him again. In a way, her father perplexed her. He was an outcast from her mother’s family, rejected for being too far beneath them in standing and station, too poor to measure up, too uneducated to be worthy of their daughter. So why was it so hard for him to understand what Hank was going through? It wasn’t the same—her father wasn’t responsible for someone’s death—but it wasn’t so different, either. Couldn’t he sympathize, even a little?
In the other room, the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Meredith said, rising from the table and leaving Gwen alone with her father.
“I had a customer at the store today who made me think of you,” he told her.
“Who was it?”
“Myron Ellis,” Warren answered. “He looked like hell, his clothes all rumpled, his eyes as red as a fire hydrant.” Her father shook his head in pity. “The way I see it, what that son of his did ruined him.”
Gwen was about to rise to Hank’s defense, to try to convince her father that he was wrong, when her mother stuck her head in the kitchen.
“The phone’s for you, Gwendolyn,” she said, sounding excited. “It’s Kent.”
Just like that, what little appetite she had vanished.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire…
“…and Hutchinson still hasn’t interviewed the woman at the cosmetics counter like I wanted. If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a dozen times that I need that testimony, but he keeps saying ‘I’ll get it, I’ll get it.’ I swear, if he doesn’t come through, I’ll go to Smithers and he’ll be out on his ear!”
Gwen struggled to pay attention as Kent went on about work. From the moment she had picked up the phone, he’d been talking a mile a minute, scarcely pausing for breath. She wasn’t even sure if she’d said “hello” before he had started in. He hadn’t asked a single question, not about whether she was feeling better, nothing about what she’d been up to, and not a word about how she was holding up alone with her parents in Buckton. Everything was about him.
Just like always.
“Then yesterday, out of nowhere, old man Pritchard shows up and right there in front of everyone invites me to his of
fice for a drink. He poured me a cognac from the most ornate crystal decanter I’ve ever seen and said…”
Lifting the telephone from its stand, Gwen walked down the short hallway that led to the bathroom, trailing the cord behind her. She sat beneath an open window, the night air cool on her skin. Even though Gwen didn’t think that her mother or father would eavesdrop, she wanted to be alone.
“…practically see my name on the letterhead now! If even half of what Pritchard told me is true—and I have no reason to doubt him, he’s a partner after all—then by Christmas at the latest, I figure they’ll have…”
Even as Kent’s one-sided conversation continued, Gwen recalled what her father had said about Myron Ellis. She couldn’t imagine what the man had experienced, having lost both his wife and his youngest son. No wonder he was so distraught. Slowly, a shred of doubt crept into her thoughts. Maybe she was wrong about Hank. While he’d been charming, incredibly kind to Freddie Holland, and even supportive of her becoming a writer, none of that changed the fact that he had gotten drunk, crashed his car, and killed his brother. Maybe instead of agreeing to see him again, she should’ve—
“I’ve missed you.”
Kent’s simple, soft-spoken words surprised her.
“You have?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said with a chuckle. “Even though I’m working from dawn to dusk, and most days later than that, I’m always thinking about you. I know I haven’t called like I promised I would, that’s entirely my fault, but you’re right here with me in my heart.”
Gwen knew that Kent was a smooth talker. Many a jury had fallen under the spell his tongue could cast. But what he’d said had touched her, so much so that the anger she had been feeling toward him began to fade.
“Do you remember the picture I have on my desk?” he asked.
She most certainly did. Gwen had framed it and given it to him on his birthday. The photograph was of the two of them standing in front of Lake Michigan, her arm around his waist, his across her shoulders, smiling brightly for the camera. Back then, she couldn’t have imagined the troubles that now threatened to pull them apart.
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