by Jillian Hart
She moved her lips, as if repeating a Dewey decimal call number, trying to memorize it. Then she shoved the tiny drawer shut and took off in the opposite direction, walking quick and sure, on a mission.
His soul ached when she disappeared into the stacks.
Brought back to reality, he realized he was standing in the middle of the aisle with a book held open in his hands. Shutting it, he clasped it by his side and followed her.
There was no denying what he felt. No denying that what felt like an elastic cord stretched between her spirit and his. He’d felt this before, but not this strong. Not so incredibly intense.
She reappeared, carrying a thin book, and that’s when she saw him. Recognition brightened her features and her smile moved through him like spring wind through new leaves. Shaken, he gripped the solid wooden side of the book bay, but it didn’t save him. He was falling, not physically, but in another way. His heart was tumbling, his senses spinning, his soul quieting until there was only her.
“Hey, I’m glad you showed up,” she whispered, coming closer, the pad of her sneakers rasping loudly in comparison to the absolute stillness in the library. As if uncomfortable, she glanced around, folded a lock of hair behind her ears, and didn’t meet his gaze. “Mrs. Pendleton is making up a card for you, on my account. Make sure you remember to get it.”
“Are you on your way out?”
“Yep. I’m going to sit in the shade and read until school lets out. My errands have taken about six times longer than I thought they would.”
“You have somewhere to go?”
“Home to clean my house. Now that Paige is back, I can get to the things I got behind on.”
“I noticed your house was a complete mess. Terrible.” It had been perfect, comfortable, tidy and homey. With just the right amount of chaos, like the toys on the floor, to make a person want to sit down on that deep-cushioned couch and stay forever.
Maybe it wasn’t the comfortable living room that made him feel that way. Maybe it was Amy.
“I see you’ve found a book. Excellent. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’m working the breakfast shift. It’s Jodi’s day off.” She took a step back, maybe needing distance, maybe wondering why he was staring at her without saying a word.
He knew why she was edging away, talking about work and acting as though nothing had changed between them.
Everything had.
“I’m done looking. I’ll head out with you.”
“Oh, sure thing.”
He couldn’t tell if it was surprise or fear that had her retreating.
As they walked together to the front counter, a calm sense of rightness breezed through him. It was as if that calmness took root and spread. It was odd, this link he felt with Amy. They moved in synchrony. He’d bet they were breathing with the same rhythm. Their hearts pumped at the same pace.
He had no business doing this, walking beside her as if he’d be there for the rest of forever. Waiting while she added the book to a small stack on the counter and glided it across the sparkling clean countertop to the librarian. He watched her bend to dig through her purse.
She produced the small laminated card and snapped it on top of the books. “Mrs. Pendleton, this is the man I was telling you about. Heath Murdock.”
“Hello, ma’am.”
The middle-aged woman peered over the tops of her glasses to give him a surly once-over and frowned as if he fell short of her standards. “I’ve got the card made up. Let me get it.” Tight-lipped, she turned to sort through a small stack of paperwork.
Amy’s nearness danced along his awareness, filling his senses. The apple-sweet scent of her hair and skin. The curve of her jawline as she lifted a graceful arm to check her watch. The rhythm of her light breathing, timed with his. She was color in his world of darkness and shadow. He wanted her more than he had the words to say.
Or the right.
Chapter Twelve
The librarian returned, took his book with tight-lipped suspicion and scanned the book and card. He watched, not at all surprised that the system was still the stamped date on the pocket card instead of the efficient computerized system he’d known in Portland.
Listening to the thud of the stamp, the snap of the book closing and the hush of the dust jacket sliding across the counter took him back to his boyhood days of checking books out of the country library. Good memories.
“It’s due back in two weeks.” Mrs. Pendleton gave him a look that said she’d hunt him down if he dared to be late or mistreat her book.
Yeah, the librarian when he’d been a boy was just as protective of her books. Not blaming her at all, and knowing she needed reassurance since he was a stranger, he managed his most doctorlike tone. “Yes, ma’am. I won’t be late.”
Her brow shot up, as if in surprise, as if he just might meet her approval. Then she dealt with Amy’s stack of books. Two hardbacks on astronomy and an inspirational paperback.
“For your boy?” He nodded toward the science volumes.
“We had to special order them, you know, the interlibrary loan thing. He’s had to wait forever—well, according to him—so this will be a great surprise for him.”
“Has he always liked astronomy?”
“Moon was his first word.”
Mrs. Pendleton finished with her work and presented Amy with the stack of books. “It was good seeing you again, Amy. You tell Westin I’ve ordered a brand-new book on quasars, like he was asking me about last month. It’ll be a few weeks yet before it comes in, and I’ve got to catalogue it, but I’ll save it for him. He’ll be the first one to read it.”
“Oh, thank you!” Amy tucked her library card away in her purse, grabbed the books—all perfectly ordinary things.
She was not ordinary. Not to him. Looking at her made his eyes burn, like someone who’d lived too long in the dark. Walking beside her made him ache from the intensity of being next to her.
He held the heavy glass door for her. With a quick, “thanks!” she waltzed past him, leaving him dizzy. He followed her out into the afternoon where leaves whispered and birds chirped. Perfect clouds sailed across a sky that was as blue as a dream.
Amy checked her watch again. “I’m going to wait here until school gets out. No sense in going home only to turn right back around.”
“Doesn’t he take the school bus?”
“We live too close, and he’s only in kindergarten.” She tucked that strand of hair behind her ear again. “I suppose you’re heading back to the apartment?”
“Hadn’t really figured on what I’d do next. Maybe I’ll just sit here with you for awhile. It’s been years since I’ve had the time and the inclination to sit in the shade and read a good book.”
“There are some benches over there, beneath the maples. That’s where I was going to wait. I can see the front doors of the school from there.”
“Sounds good.”
Amy chose the wooden bench that gave her the best view across the street and sank against the hard wooden back. It felt good to sit, she’d been on her feet all day, even if she hadn’t put in a full shift at the diner. She’d worked the last three weeks almost straight through, sometimes a fourteen-hour shift. So she didn’t feel a bit guilty thinking of all the things she still had left to do.
She let the sweet wind sweep over her and tangle her hair. Let the warmth of the afternoon soak through her. “It just feels good to relax for a minute.”
“I don’t suppose single moms get a lot of relaxation time.”
“No.” She laughed at the idea of lounging around in her robe and slippers. “Everything would fall down around my ears if I did that.”
He took the end of the same bench and set his book next to him on the long length of boards between them. He stretched out his legs, drawing the denim fabric tight around his muscular legs. “It must be a lot to shoulder alone. A child, a home and a business.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got my sisters, a
nd boy, do I owe them. There hasn’t been a day that has gone by since Westin was born that Paige or Rachel weren’t doing something to help out. Paige doesn’t have a lot of spare time since she has a teenage boy and handles most of the business end of the diner. Yet she still finds time for me.”
“She seems the type.”
“Ben, that’s our brother, he’s half a world away in the Middle East. He’s in the air force. And as busy as he is being an airman, he sends a monthly package of stuff for Westin, just to help out. I can’t tell you how blessed I am.”
Of course, she realized, it might not seem that way to him. She lived humbly, stretched every penny to make ends meet and sometimes she couldn’t. Her car wasn’t new, her house wasn’t fancy, and her clothes were department-store discount.
But across the street in the third classroom down, where bright cutout flowers decorated the big windows, her son sat in the second row, fourth desk over. He was safe and happy and loved, with an extended family who cherished him.
Heath cleared his throat, his gaze following hers. “You seem pretty lucky to me.”
His infinite sadness filled her. Tears burned in her eyes. “I learned long ago, the hard way, that I already had everything that mattered.”
“The hard way?”
Oh, she didn’t want to tell him. Nobody knew, although she suspected Paige had an idea, and Amy didn’t want the clear respect in his gaze to dim or fade away. He’d see her differently. But she felt compelled, as if it was inevitable that she would tell him her secrets, the way he’d done his best to tell her his.
She took a shaky breath to fortify herself. To take time to find the right words. “I wasn’t always the squeaky-clean Christian you probably think I am. It’s not that I never lost my faith, I just took it for granted. Like living here in this small town where everybody knows everything about you because they remember when you were born and watched you grow up. I know you come from a big city, so this place must seem lackluster to you.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. It must be tough, on one hand, because I’m guessing Westin’s father is around here somewhere. Is he not involved?”
“Oh, no. When things got…complicated, Westin’s father told me that he didn’t want any entanglements tying him down—and if I thought he was going to be committed to anyone or anything, then I was wrong. He packed my bags and put me outside in the middle of a Seattle rainstorm. In November. Without the money from the paycheck I’d just cashed.”
He remained silent, but she knew this story of hers wasn’t what he’d expected it to be.
“I was just eighteen and I thought I knew it all. I left this place I thought was small and boring and dumb. I didn’t even wait to graduate from high school, I wanted out of here so badly. Paige did her best, but—”
“Paige?”
She sensed his unspoken question. Why not your parents? “Dad died when I was seven in a hunting accident. Mom died two years later from lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker. So, Paige was sixteen and the state said she could keep us. She left school to run the diner. She got her GED but it was hard for her, handling so much responsibility, and I didn’t make it any easier.”
“I have a hard time picturing you as a rebellious teenager or living in a big city.”
“The Lord looked over me or else I never would have made it. There were times when I was broke. I’d saved up my tip money from the diner for two years, and I had twelve hundred bucks in the bank. I thought it was a fortune. It went like water downhill. My car died halfway across the state, in a mountain pass, and the tow bill alone took a quarter of my cash.”
“Not good.”
“No. By the time I’d found a room to rent in a house in Seattle and paid first, last and the deposit, I was broke. But, like I said, I wasn’t alone. A great job came my way. I started out bussing for a really nice waterfront restaurant. It was beautiful along the water. Seattle is so green, and the water is brilliant on sunny days and a soothing gray on rainy ones.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to remember. Wishing more than anything she could go back and change her decisions. “Westin’s father was the bartender at the restaurant. He was charming and about five years older, oh, I thought he was so smart and suave. Distinguished. I’d never had a drop of alcohol before I met him. I’d never done a lot of things. I was young and naive and I thought it was sophisticated to drink and go to parties, and when he asked me to live with him, I thought he loved me.”
“You were in love with him.” It wasn’t a question but a statement, as if he understood.
Ashamed, that’s all she felt now, but yes, she’d been so deeply in love. “I was just some innocent romantic girl who wanted to be loved when all he wanted was a maid and someone in his bed. Someone to borrow money from. I knew it was wrong, but I justified it. I wanted so badly for someone to love me, to really love me. And I just…compromised everything I believed in. Six months later I was pregnant, penniless and fired from my job for fraternizing. The restaurant, come to find out, had a strict policy against their employees dating.”
“Was Westin born here?”
“No. I found a job in a diner, not in the good part of town, but the finer restaurants where the tips were good didn’t want a pregnant teenage waitress, for some reason.” She shrugged, trying to hide her pain.
There was no way she could hide anything from him. Heath breached the distance between them by laying a hand against her nape. The instant his skin contacted hers, a jolt of emotion so strong and pure rolled through him, from her heart and into his. A wave so dark with regret and hopelessness that his soul beat with recognition. She’d run from home looking for love and she’d found pain and betrayal.
In her heart she believed she was unlovable. That if she loved like that again, so wholly and true, it would never be returned.
He could picture how hard she worked, hounded and broken, spending long hours on her feet and her back screaming with pain as the months passed. He knew without asking she worked until she went into labor. And was back at work shortly thereafter. Exhausted, afraid, alone. Scared.
She saw that he understood all that she didn’t tell him. It was odd, how they could speak without words. How he could know.
She sighed, a painful sound. “I came home two weeks later. I’d called Paige to ask if she could wire me the bus fare. She took me and Westin in and never said a word. She never scolded. She never made one mention of all the times she’d told me this could happen. She just…loved me. Like a big sister should.”
Heath didn’t say anything, so she kept talking. “That’s why I’m here. I look around at the town I thought was so lame and boring, and I see people I’ve known since I was little. Friends and relatives and neighbors who say hi to one another and who pitch in if there’s trouble.
“Did you know Mr. Brisbane and his morning group started a donation jar to help with the cost of the windows? It’s not the benefit of the money, it’s the thought behind it. I want to raise my son in this community of good people, well, mostly good people. I know how lucky I am.”
She studied the elementary school again, growing quiet.
Yeah, Heath thought. In his opinion she was pretty lucky. “You put the battery in your smoke detector, like I asked?”
“As soon as I walked through the door.”
“Good.”
Was it his imagination, or was she leaning into his touch? She seemed to be, her skin warm and smooth, pressing toward him. He dared to come a few inches closer. Then it was as if nothing separated them, not distance or pain from the past. Not the fact that he had no future and that she didn’t believe a man would love her enough to stay.
He only knew that he wanted to try. And he couldn’t. “As you probably guessed, my wife and son died in a house fire. When our house caught fire, it was because of a short in the wiring. I had a late-night call—I used to work in an emergency room.”
“Like a doctor?”
“Yeah. I was a doctor.” He sh
ut off the memories forcing their way up, memories that would break him all over again. He couldn’t let them run wild, he could only take out one and leave all the rest buried.
Not easy, but he tried to find words for the past he’d never told another living soul. “There was a bad accident, a drunk driver took out a car full of high-school kids coming back from a football game. They were good kids, driving responsibly according to witnesses, no alcohol. The driver did everything he could to avoid the pickup coming at him, but there wasn’t much he could have done.”
“Did they all die?”
“No. Two kids died on impact, but three others were so critical the medevac didn’t think one of them would make it alive to the landing pad.
“I worked nonstop in the OR. A whole team of us, I was working on just one kid. I got a letter from her mother, the day I walked off the job. Her name was Kari, I don’t know why I remember that after all this time, but she’d been accepted to one of the Ivy League colleges on full scholarship. She had so much promise. I didn’t know that when I was working on her, I just saw someone who needed me. I didn’t think she’d make it.
“I tell you, I’d never been so exhausted, but we got her stable enough, closed, and got her into recovery. She did time in ICU, but she recovered. Instead of going home, I went in to assist another surgeon. It didn’t make any difference, we lost the young man, and I was heading home, just coming out the ER entrance to go to my car when the ambulance pulled up. And my son—” His voice broke.
“My son.” He couldn’t say any more and put his face in his hands. “He was on the gurney and I—”
He shook his head. There was nothing more to say.
What could a person do to ease so much suffering? Amy felt helpless. This big powerful man so mighty and strong felt so fragile. Not weak, no, never that. But he’d been broken.
She laid her hand on the vulnerable nape of his neck, where his sun-browned skin was hot. Comfort. It was all she could offer him.
It was a while before he straightened, all the color drained from his face. He took her hand from the back of his neck and she thought, here it comes, he was going to push her away. It was what she expected.
