Set Me Free

by London Setterby

  We walked along one of the island’s winding back roads, alone apart from a lonely bird singing in the glittering, snow-dusted treetops. This was as relaxed as I’d ever seen Owen—and, for the first time in a very long time, I felt the same way. When he looked at me, little sparks of desire zipped through my bloodstream, as if I were a normal girl with a normal past and could feel however I wanted, without guilt or shame or worry.

  Claire’s coffee shop was vibrant with gold light and the sweet smells of cinnamon and coffee. It was also packed with both tourists and locals. The press of conversation was overwhelming after our calm, quiet walk.

  Claire waved to us from behind the counter. She was pouring a coffee for a police officer who’d been there with Not-Rhys after the fire, poking around the wreckage from the Lodge. He matched stares with Owen, his jaw set.

  Several other customers I recognized from around town straightened up, too, staring at Owen with a mix of nervousness and curiosity. I stepped closer to Owen protectively, wondering why he attracted this kind of attention. At least there were more tourists now, talking too loudly and eating Fiona’s Famous Fudge, with maps of the local hiking trails draped across Claire’s small café tables.

  Claire fixed us both coffees and cinnamon buns, then asked Fiona to watch the shop for a minute while we popped up to Claire’s house.

  “Just wait until you see him,” Claire enthused as we followed her through the stockade fence. “He’s shy, but such a sweet boy. He’s still a little scared of the big dogs, so I have to keep him crated, which means I have to check on him all the time. Poor Fiona has been so helpful since I got him.”

  We said quick hellos to Byron, Coleridge, and Blake and crossed the deck into Claire’s kitchen. I hadn’t been to Claire’s house since that day at lunch; it was strange to be back, without Jenny here, and with me as…whatever I was to Owen now. So much had happened since then: the party, the fire, our conversation last night. I had told him about Rhys, and he had believed me.

  A whine pulled me from my thoughts. In the far corner of the kitchen, a puppy nose poked through the bars of an enormous purple dog crate. Claire went to him and knelt, cooing as she opened the crate door. He whimpered again.

  Owen peered over his mother’s shoulder. “He doesn’t look like a Dane. Where did you get him?”

  “Marianne found him,” Claire said. “He was wandering around on a back road all alone, with no tags. She thought I should keep him here while we try to find the owners, but so far, nothing. I’ve been wondering if he was abandoned.”

  “Abandoned?” I echoed.

  “Some people,” Claire said primly, “throw their dogs out on the side of the road like garbage.”

  “He’s got some scabs on his ear.” Owen crouched down next to the crate.

  “Yeah.” Claire sighed. “It looks like he’s been roughed up, doesn’t it? He’s got this notch on his nose, like a bite mark, see it?”

  “All I can see is a black fluff ball,” I said, embarrassed by my ignorance.

  Claire took hold of the dog by his scruff and eased him out of the crate. He was still only perhaps a third of the size of Claire’s other dogs, but for a puppy, he was absurdly huge—probably forty or fifty pounds already. His longish black fur looked wonderfully soft, in contrast to the short sleek coat of the Great Danes.

  “He is adorable,” I said.

  “Sit down and let him sniff your hand.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Claire but did as she told me, sitting between her and Owen.

  “Here, give him one of these.” She dug around in her back pocket and produced a square of some dark-colored mystery meat.

  Trying not to make a face, I offered the mystery meat to the puppy. He took a few steps forwards on large, fluffy feet to sniff it.

  “What do you think he is?” Owen asked Claire. He rested his arms on his thighs. His black T-shirt clung to the concave arc of his abdomen.

  In my moment of distraction, a sharp little tooth dug into my thumb. “Ouch!”

  “Oops, I’m sorry, Miranda! He still has his puppy teeth,” Claire said. “He wasn’t being aggressive—just clumsy, I think.”

  “It’s okay.” I blushed. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Owen nodded at the puppy licking my fingers. “He likes you.”

  “He likes treats,” I corrected him, smiling.

  The puppy stared up at me with big, soulful eyes.

  “I think he’s a Newfoundland, or maybe a Newfie-Great Dane mix,” Claire said. “Which means he’s going to be one big beast.”

  “You’ll have to name him after a really big poet,” I teased her.

  “Well, that’s just it, I can’t think of a poet to name him after!” Claire laughed at herself, sweeping strands of dirty-blonde hair behind her ears.

  “What about Robert Burns?” I suggested. “Although I have no idea how tall he was. And he was Scottish, not English.”

  “He doesn’t look much like a Burns to me,” Claire said.

  The puppy lunged for my hand, but instead of biting it off, he slobbered on my palm and very gently chewed on my pinky finger, as if he knew he shouldn’t be doing it.

  “‘I might call him a thing divine,’” I said with a soft laugh, “‘for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.’”

  “What’s that from?” Claire asked eagerly.

  “The Tempest. My namesake, Miranda, says it when she sees the stranded prince, Ferdinand.”

  Claire clapped her hands. “That’s perfect!”

  “What?”

  “Ferdinand! That’s what I’ll name him.”

  Owen and I exchanged an amused glance.

  “Watch him for me, Owen? I’m going to get more treats.” Claire sprang up and darted out of the kitchen.

  I patted my lap, and the puppy climbed up and licked my face, making me laugh helplessly again.

  “She always finds good ones,” Owen mused. “Even the mangiest strays turn into good dogs after my mom has them for a little while.”

  “How could he not be wonderful? Just look at that face.” I smoothed the hair back from Ferdy’s bright brown eyes, so that his nose was even more prominent. “‘If the ill spirit have so fair a house, good things will strive to dwell with ’t.’”

  “Should we go get lunch somewhere?” I asked later, as we walked out of the coffee shop’s parking lot, back to the quiet, tree-lined street we’d taken here.

  Owen gave me an odd look. “You want to?”

  “Why not?”

  “You haven’t noticed the way the people here act around me?”

  I frowned at the sunlight reflecting off my bangles. Of course I had noticed. How could I not have, after the fire, and today in Claire’s shop?

  “Jenny refused to go out in public with me in Fall Island,” Owen said.

  I stopped walking, overcome by a desire to slap Jenny in her perfect face. “That’s terrible!” I took a deep breath, and another, fighting off a flare of anxiety. “Owen…tell me what this is all about. Why people are so weird around you… Violet, the fire, the death threats. If you tell me, maybe I can help—”

  He was already shaking his head. “It’s an old, shitty story. If I was smarter, I’d just move… But then my mom wouldn’t have anyone to help her with all—well, seven dogs. And I… Anyway.” With a ragged sigh, he rubbed his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you.”

  “You will?”

  “I will. I promise.” He took my hands in his. “I’ll tell you everything—but maybe not all of it at once. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The early spring sunlight highlighted bands of cerulean and turquoise in his eyes and played over his full lips, contrasting with the angles of his nose and jaw. He was stark and beautiful and almost unearthly.

  “Maybe I can show you something,” he said. “Maybe that will help.” He drew his hands away and hugged his arms to his chest.

  We walked back to his red house together and went up the narrow
stairs in his living room to a second-floor landing with a door on either side. Through the left-hand door, I could see into Owen’s bedroom. It was as neat as the rest of the house, down to the crisp, dark blue sheets on the huge four-poster bed. Owen would have a heart attack if he saw the clothes and shoes and art supplies scattered across my attic.

  Owen turned away from his bedroom towards the door on the right. To my surprise, he dug a key out of his pocket. Hardly anybody locked their front doors in Fall Island. A locked interior door was just…strange.

  “This used to be my music room,” Owen said, as he pushed the door open. “But, as you can see, it isn’t any more.”

  There was no carpet, just a scuffed wood floor. A cello stood on a stand in the far corner, next to a long, dark curtain covering the room’s only window. Otherwise, the room was empty.

  Confused, I glanced up at Owen, but he just gestured behind me, his expression grim. I turned, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. On the largest wall, the one next to the door, there was a painting. A portrait.

  Dismay sank low inside me, like a fog.

  It was unmistakably a Suzanna White painting, with that same use of color, that heavy brushstroke, that sheer, unimpeachable beauty. It reminded me of the portrait of Owen that had been lost in the fire. But in his portrait, the mood had been peaceful, joyful, something you wanted to touch.

  This painting’s mood was all violence. Dark blue—the exact same shade as Owen’s eyes—stormed in the background, mixing with whorls of amethyst and blackest-black, and contrasting vividly with the subject’s flame-red spiral curls. The way her hair twined around her neck and shoulders looked oddly familiar, and so did her cherubic nose, her pouting mouth.

  It was Suzanna White herself. It had to be. I recognized her from her angel monument, and somehow I just knew. Her clear hazel eyes stared straight ahead, as if she saw God-given inspiration somewhere out of my reach.

  I had expected her to be beautiful, and she was, with her mouth painted to a mirror-shine, and her high cheekbones dusted with freckles. I hadn’t expected her to be so tempestuous. Her angel statue’s serenity was completely baffling.

  “She always painted in sets,” Owen rumbled from behind me. “There was a portrait of me at the Lodge before the fire. That portrait of me, and this self-portrait, were mates.”

  “I can see it,” I replied. “She was stunning.”

  “Yes, she was.” His laugh was strained. “She was beautiful and brilliant, and she had an awful temper. She knew all that, too. She hated doing self-portraits because she couldn’t stop herself from capturing all her worst qualities, along with her best.” He sighed. “She only did two self-portraits during her career. This is one of them.”

  “What happened to the other one?”

  “She gave it to Jonas Whittaker. Another man she said she loved.”

  I tore my gaze away from Suzanna to look at Owen.

  “‘Loved,’” I echoed. “You mean—you and Suzanna dated?”

  “For three years.”

  Three years. My relationship with Rhys had lasted only a year.

  “When you told me you were a painter,” Owen said, looking away, “it reminded me of her.”

  You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?

  The question rose to my lips, but stopped there. I didn’t want to him to confirm what I already knew. I would be a fool for believing anything else.

  I felt a stab of sympathy for Jenny. No ordinary woman could compete with Suzanna White, the dead genius, Beloved By All—something that Jenny had known, I was sure of it. It wouldn’t matter that Suzanna had been dead for seven years.

  I sighed. The sound seemed to shake him out of his thoughts. He glanced at me, his expression softening.

  We left the room in silence, as if we’d been visiting a graveyard, and Owen locked the door behind us. He walked me to the front door again, like he had the night before.

  “Please don’t tell anyone about the painting,” he said quietly. “I gave the rest of her work away, but that one…”

  “I understand,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I did. He had made a shrine to his dead girlfriend across the hall from his bedroom. He was still in love with her. She had been Suzanna White.

  He raised his hand to touch my arm, but stopped himself. “When’s your next day off?”

  “Thursday.”

  “If you wanted to do lunch that day…I could pack us a picnic. We could go someplace flat.”

  I started to say the words I can’t. I can’t date a man so soon after Rhys. I can’t date a man who’s still in love with his dead girlfriend—a painter who was far better than I would ever be.

  He was looking down at me, his forehead creased. The sadness in his expression made him look older, more careworn.

  One thing I could not understand was why, in her portrait of him, Suzanna had painted him as if he were one hundred percent happiness. Not that he was unhappy, not really—just that, with her talent, she could have conveyed the full depth of his complex personality, and yet she hadn’t. Maybe he’d always been happy around her, because they’d loved each other.

  Maybe he’d been all happiness until her death had changed him.

  I knew enough about grief to know that it never truly went away, even after seven years. Sometimes it was just a stone you carried around with you, hardly remembering it was there, and other times it hit you with its full shrieking malevolent force—always at the strangest moments, like when you were driving, or at the bank. If I’d found love as a teenager and lost that person after just a few years… It was too terrible to imagine.

  I cleared my throat and smiled up at him. “Someplace flat. I’ll cook this time—you bring the wine.”

  Chapter 11

  That night, I dreamed about Suzanna. Her curls were made of fire: they twined around my arms and legs in scalding scarlet ribbons, until I choked on the smell of my own burning flesh.

  When I woke up, I realized I was tangled in my sheets, and the slight acrid smell was coming from my tiny pink lamp, which I’d forgotten to turn off last night. Right. Of course.

  I sat up and put my head in my hands. I was still sitting like that when my alarm went off, telling me it was 10:30 and time to get ready.

  After a quick shower, I dressed in a simple sea-foam-green dress and a big, glittery necklace. I didn’t look at the painting on the easel by my window, though it was right next to my dresser. Up until yesterday, I’d been working on my first self-portrait in years. How ironic that I’d been trying to capture some of Suzanna’s super-saturated use of color, instead of my usual Vermeer-like darkness. Now I wasn’t sure I’d ever finish it. How could it compare to the self-portrait hanging in Owen’s house?

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I said goodbye to Kaye and Andy. As usual, they were on their way out the door for a jog. “Want to come?” Andy asked me with a grin.

  “I’m going to walk to the beach in a bit. That will be my exercise for the day,” I told him airily. “And then I’m going to sit in the sand and drink wine.”

  My crazy housemates finished their stretches and ran off, leaving me alone in the house. I had no idea where Scott was, but his truck wasn’t in the driveway. He was gone a lot.

  I rummaged around in the fridge for the food I’d bought last night. I made chicken salad sandwiches with grapes and walnuts, trying to lose myself in the process. But cutting grapes in half didn’t usually make my heart race.

  In the parking lot, I shut the car door, looked out at the beach, and had a moment of complete panic—there was no other word for it. I blinked away the sand and the salt spray and shook myself out of it. I wanted to be here—badly. I wanted to see him.

  I shouldered the tote bag with our picnic in it and crossed the lot to the beach. Pale sunlight shimmered through the sea mist, highlighting the white foam in the waves and the specks of crystal quartz in the pebbly sand.

  “Hello, beautiful.”

  Owen stood ten feet fr
om me down the beach, seemingly immune to the cold with his sleeves rolled up and his cheeks flushed. He was smiling at me as though I were the cherry on an ice cream sundae.

  Looking at him, I didn’t feel cold anymore, either. I already wanted to touch him, run my hands all over him.

  “I didn’t see your truck out there,” I said, grasping at conversational straws.

  “I walked.”

  “You walked? From your house?”

  “Always,” he replied. “Though most of the time I have a couple of dogs with me. Right about now, I’m usually trying to stop one of them from rolling in a dead fish.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try to restrain myself, for your sake.”

  “How flat is flat, by the way?” he asked. “Do you want to stick to sand, or would you walk across a few rocks?”

  “Rocks are fine.”

  He grinned in a way that made me wonder if I’d just agreed to scale a cliff. Still, I fell into step beside him. We walked north along the beach, where the mist grew steadily thicker, blurring into the ocean.

  “Did you work this morning?” I asked.

  “Yeah, one of my regulars is back for the summer, so I had a few things to do to make him happy.”

  “He has a summer home here?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Though it’s not exactly your typical summer home. It’s an estate. A mansion on North Beach. Must be worth millions.”

  “I had no idea there were millionaires on Fall Island.”

  “There’s a few. They all live up on the northern side of the island, where it’s nice and private. The island is funny like that. Lots of invisible dividers. The rich folks live up north, the fishermen in the south, and then you have us. Townies, or Easties, or whatever.”

  “I’m not an Eastie yet. Everyone here still sees me as an outsider.”

  “Me, too,” Owen said dryly, “and I’ve been here since I was sixteen.”

  I supposed that could be the answer: that a stranger had moved in and started dating the town’s precious Suzanna. Maybe Suzanna’s friends had been jealous, or scared that she would leave someday. It seemed like a strange reason to hate him, seven years later.