by Ellery Adams
She grinned when she saw June. “When did you get here?”
“Twenty minutes ago. Thanks again for letting me have my little pop-up shop for the afternoon,” June said, straightening her checkered tablecloth. “Since I knit when I’m stressed or can’t sleep, I’ve been doing a lot of knitting.”
The table was covered with June’s colorful, scented socks. Their soft fabric begged to be touched and few passersby could resist the urge. A woman ran her hand over a pair of purple, lavender-scented socks and said that she wanted them for herself. She also bought a pair of yellow socks with orange cat faces on the cuff for a friend.
“These smell like a summer in Florida,” she said, holding the cat socks to her nose.
June bagged the socks and said, “Oranges, sunshine, and hugs.”
The woman smiled. “I love this town. Everyone is so nice. I came here to try the hot springs. The waters are good but other things have made me feel even better. A scone from the bakery. A walk in the woods. The chance to sit and do nothing for a few days.”
“And the heart of this magical place is the bookstore! Why not come inside?” Sheldon gestured at the open door.
“Why not?” The woman grinned at Sheldon and practically danced into the shop.
Sheldon gave Nora a nudge. “Time to trade spots. I need vitamin D and some quality time with Ms. June.”
Nora was more than happy to get out of the sun. She went straight to the ticket agent’s office and drank a big glass of water. She then cruised around the shop, putting away strays, collecting dirty coffee cups, and pointing customers toward their genre of choice.
As she put a book called Lights to My Siren back on its shelf in the Romance section, she thought about last night. And about Jed.
Jed had shown up with raspberries and blackberries and a can of whipped topping.
“I brought dessert,” he’d said.
The berries were bright as jewels. They’d reminded Nora of the first time she’d wanted to touch Jed. She’d been picking wild berries when he’d suddenly appeared. There, at the edge of the woods, surrounded by fireflies, she’d watched him pluck berries off the bushes and drop them into her basket. She’d watched his lips move as he spoke. She’d wanted to silence them with a kiss.
Last night, she and Jed had talked about that memory.
“You looked like a fairy queen,” Jed had said as they sat on Nora’s deck. “And you smelled like honeysuckle and blackberries. Whenever I smell either of those things, I think of you.”
Over bowls of berries and whipped topping, they’d talked. Nora told Jed that she didn’t always know how to convey her feelings to him. Jed had talked about his mom, and how Henry Higgins’s training was coming along. He mentioned Deputy Wiggins a few times, but Nora hadn’t been jealous. Jed liked and respected Angela, just as Nora liked and respected Grant McCabe.
They’d talked for hours, under a dome of stars, until Nora could no longer hide her yawns.
“Stay with me,” she’d told Jed when he got up to leave.
Jed had stayed. He’d held Nora, lightly rubbing her back or running his fingers through her hair. For the first time since she’d seen Danny in the river, Nora had felt truly comforted. And when she’d woken in the middle of the night to find Jed beside her, she’d curled against him like a cat, seeking warmth from his body. He’d stirred in his sleep and put an arm around her waist. They’d stayed like that until morning.
Nora’s memories of last night were interrupted by a soft cry. A young man had dropped his coffee cup. There were shards of ceramic and a puddle of coffee on the floor.
The man headed for the napkin dispenser at the ticket agent’s window, but Nora intercepted him.
“I’ll get that,” Nora said. “I have a rag.”
Though the young man offered to pay for the mug, which had a golden crown design and the text BOOK QUEEN, Nora told him not to worry about it. Later, when she rang up his purchases, she noticed that he’d added another book to the pile of paperbacks he’d originally selected.
“I know why you’re grinning,” June said when she came inside for a bathroom break. “Because you hired Sheldon. I only have four pairs of socks left, and I started with sixty! That man could sell swampland.”
“He’s the Wizard of Sales.”
“A half-Cuban Dumbledore.” June’s laughter trailed after her as she rounded the corner of the Fiction section.
A few minutes later, she returned to the front and approached the door. The moment she opened it, angry shouts erupted from outside. A man dashed past the sidewalk tables.
This was followed by more shouting. Shrill and urgent. It took a second for Nora to hear words among the cacophony.
“Stop him!”
“He stole the cash box!”
“Get him! That man in the white T-shirt.”
Nora’s muscles went rigid. She couldn’t move.
As the noise outside escalated, she finally made it to the door. She and June stood in the threshold, shoulder to shoulder, watching the man cut through the crowd.
“He just took it and ran!” Sheldon cried, catching sight of June and Nora. “I’m so sorry.”
There was a commotion farther up the street.
A voice cried, “They got him!”
Nora and June gravitated toward the ring of people gathered in the middle of the street. They saw two deputies. Andrews was crouched over the man in the white T-shirt. Fuentes was darting glances between the man on the ground and the circle of observers.
“Stay down,” Andrews commanded. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
Fuentes motioned for the crowd to back away. His eyes kept returning to his partner and the man sprawled in the middle of the street.
“Place your hands on your head,” Andrews ordered. “Slowly, now.”
Cursing angrily into the pavement, the man complied.
“He stole that lady’s cash box,” one bystander told another.
Andrews cuffed the man’s hands. Then, he and Fuentes hoisted the man in the white T-shirt to his feet. Keeping a firm grip on his arms, the deputies propelled him toward a patrol car.
Nora and June stood directly in their path. Both women were transfixed by their proximity to the man who’d vandalized their property. Who’d tried to color their lives with red paint and fear.
Nora took in the dark stubble covering half of his face, his wild, hate-filled gaze, his dirty clothes, the untied laces of his bedraggled sneakers. She’d never seen the man before.
She turned to June. Her friend’s face was shiny with sweat. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and she swayed. Nora grabbed her by the arm and gently lowered her to the ground before she could pass out.
“My baby.”
Nora raised her hand to block the sun from landing on June’s face. Her skin was a sickly, ashen hue.
“What?” Nora whispered.
June opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She pointed at her throat, as if trying to say that a dam of words was caught there.
She cried. Tears streamed down her cheeks, fast-flowing rivers of agony.
Nora held her friend and looked at the man being herded their way. The man with the venomous stare.
June had called him her baby.
Nora stared at him, her heart banging like a drum as the truth hit her.
The man in the white T-shirt was June’s son.
Chapter 16
Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.
—Leo Tolstoy
Nora knelt on the ground with June’s head in her lap. She stroked her friend’s hair and softly murmured to her.
Suddenly, Jed was there. He knelt beside June and asked, “What happened?”
“She almost fainted. I think she’s in shock.”
Jed spoke to his partner and together, the two men carried June to a shady spot in the park. After putting her dow
n in the grass under a tree, Jed coaxed her into drinking a little water. His partner put an ice pack on the back of her neck.
June took hold of the ice pack. “You don’t have to fuss over me.”
“It’s an honor to fuss over you,” Jed said. “You’re going to be my favorite customer today. You’re my first patient who didn’t eat too many funnel cakes.”
The ashy color ebbed from June’s face. She looked more like herself.
“I’m better now. I just want to sit for a few minutes.”
June leaned back against the tree trunk and stared at the children in the playground. Her eyes were dark with grief.
Nora took June’s hand and enfolded it between her own.
Jed closed his kit and stood up. “Leave that ice pack on for a few more minutes and keep hydrating. I’m putting Nurse Nora in charge.”
June didn’t reply, but Nora mouthed a “thank you.”
Jed gave his partner a clap on the back and the two men walked away.
The women sat in their oasis of grass and shade. The noise and endless movement of the crowd didn’t seem to reach them.
“Did you know?” Nora asked. “Before today?”
June let out a weary exhalation. “Yeah. When we watched the video at Hester’s. I could spend fifty years apart from my boy, and I’d still know him. The way his ears stick out. The shape of his mouth. His long fingers. I saw the way he moved on that video. Like a cat. That easy, slinky stride. It had to be my Tyson. I called him my little black panther when he was a kid.”
Nora made June drink more water.
“What does he want?”
“All I know is that he came here, looking for me.” June’s voice wavered. “My baby’s here. In my town. He’s angry. He’s up to no good, but he’s here. I can look at his face. I can talk to him.”
Nora understood why June hadn’t told anyone about recognizing Tyson. She didn’t want to miss her chance to connect with her son—a chance she’d been dreaming about for decades.
“I figured he’d get caught, and that was okay,” June went on. “If the sheriff brought him in, my son would be off the streets. He’d have a roof over his head and a bed to sleep on. He’d have food. You saw him, Nora. He’s too skinny. He’s dirty. My boy is lost.”
Tyson Dixon was no child. He was a man in his thirties. A man who’d denied his mother’s existence and moved to California after she was sued for risking the well-being of her elderly charges by taking them to a carnival.
June never stopped reaching out to her son. She sent him money. She sent care packages and letters, but everything came back unopened. She’d even hired a private detective who tracked Tyson to a club in LA where he worked as a bouncer. The club was a popular hangout for drug dealers. June had called the club many times, but Tyson refused to speak to her. Tyson wasn’t on social media. He had no address or phone number on record.
He’d gone to California and become a ghost.
June squeezed Nora’s hand. “I’m sorry about your window. And the bird in Hester’s mailbox. I won’t make excuses for my son, but I need to see him. I need to help him. I’ve been waiting a long time to make things right with Tyson.”
She stopped talking when she saw Deputy Fuentes making his way to their spot in the shade. He dropped into a catcher’s stance and offered June her cash box. “Should be all there. The perp didn’t get a chance to open it.”
“I need to come with you.” Ignoring the box, June got to her feet. “That perp is my son.”
If Fuentes was surprised by the news, he didn’t show it. Instead, he straightened and put a steadying hand under June’s elbow. June passed the ice pack to Nora.
“I’ll meet you after I let Sheldon know what’s going on,” Nora told her. Water from the melting ice pack ran over the burn scars on her wrist and forearm.
“No.” June’s tone was firm. “I don’t want anyone there. I need to do this alone.”
Nora stood under the tree as June and Deputy Fuentes melted into the crowd.
She knew she should hurry back to the shop, but she ended up watching a little boy in the playground. He sat on the top of the slide, looking nervous. Eventually, he let go of the handrails and slid down, right into his mother’s arms. She swung him around in a circle. The boy’s face was lit with joy. So was his mother’s.
June had memories like this from Tyson’s childhood. But she’d missed seeing her son grow into a man. She’d missed experiencing his life. She hadn’t had the chance to create new memories.
Though Nora didn’t expect the meeting between June and her son to go smoothly, she desperately hoped that the long-awaited reunion would allow June to forgive herself. June had been paying for an innocent mistake for years and years. But it was time to let go of the past.
“Did they catch the guy?” Sheldon asked when Nora entered the shop.
“Yeah.”
Sheldon fanned himself with a Nora Roberts cover flat. “There’s never a dull moment around here.”
Nora didn’t feel like talking. “You should head home. Today’s been crazy.”
“I’m going horizontal for the next twenty-four hours. Tomorrow will be all about reading, stuffing my face, and a long, hot bath.”
“That sounds like heaven. And you deserve it after today.”
Nora wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow to read. Tonight, she’d have Rose’s diary in her possession, and she refused to sleep until she’d read it cover to cover.
When the sidewalk sale finally showed signs of winding down, Nora sent a text to Hester, asking her to stop by after closing the bakery.
Hester entered the bookstore and dropped into a chair. Her cheeks were pink from exertion and her blond curls were wilder than ever. Her shoes were dusted with flour and she had dried chocolate on her chin.
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Why am I here? I’ll be sitting right here in a few hours and I’m dying for a shower.”
Nora told Hester about Tyson.
Hester’s mouth fell open. “After all this time, he tracked down his mama just to scare her? How could he write that on June’s house? And why mess with us?”
“I don’t know, but we need to support her however we can.”
“Let’s postpone our meeting until tomorrow night. We can be waiting here for June when she’s ready to talk.” Hester touched the chocolate on her chin and grimaced. “Besides, I still haven’t finished this week’s book.”
The sleigh bells banged against the door.
“That’s my cue,” Hester said to Nora on her way out. “I’ll call Estella. Let me know if you hear from June.”
By closing time, Nora saw that she was going to need to update her display window. There wasn’t enough inventory to replenish all the banned books she and Sheldon had sold. Also, the glass company was repairing the window on Monday, which would ruin the overall effect.
Nora looked at the signs Sheldon had placed behind each banned book.
RELEASED BY A READER.
If those books had been birds, they’d be flying by now.
With visions of books and birds in her head, Nora drove to the Inn of Mist and Roses.
* * *
The inn’s front door was ajar, and Nora could hear someone crying inside. The crying was interspersed with soothing tones. Nora recognized Patty’s voice. Then Lou’s. A man spoke next.
Patty and Lou were with Micah’s parents.
Nora didn’t want to attract attention, so she quietly slipped into the front hall and looked around. On a narrow table placed under a large mirror, there was the guest registry and a package wrapped in white tissue paper. A note with Nora’s name sat on top of the package.
She read the short missive.
Please return this as soon as possible. I won’t tell Lou that you have it until tomorrow. Tonight, we’re having dinner with Micah’s parents.
—Patty
The meaning of the note was clear. Take the book and go. Nora left the inn, n
oiselessly closing the front door behind her.
As much as she wanted to crack open Rose’s diary, Nora needed to check on June and touch base with Jed first. Both calls went straight to voicemail, so Nora left messages for her friend and her boyfriend. She then ate a quick meal of soup and salad.
Normally, she’d eat and read at the same time, but Rose’s diary wasn’t an ordinary book, and Nora wanted to cradle it in one hand while carefully turning pages with the other.
After wiping off her little café table, she parted the layers of tissue paper. Rose’s signature scent drifted into the kitchen.
“We finally meet,” Nora said, gingerly opening the cover.
She was completely immersed in Rose Lattimer’s world by the end of the first page. Rose’s writing style was witty and conversational. She painted a detailed picture of her life as a young, married woman living in a beautiful house near the busiest intersection in town. The Civil War had begun, and her husband was gone, fighting alongside his fellow Southerners. Rose was worried about his safety, but she seemed more concerned about those already wounded in battle and the welfare of her neighbors.
It didn’t take long before Rose stopped worrying and sprang into action. She took in the wounded from both sides. Turning her home into a makeshift hospital, she either nursed the men back to health or buried them in the churchyard. Though many shunned Rose for her behavior, others saw it as their Christian duty to help her.
One of the regular volunteers wasn’t from Rose’s social circle. He was a Cherokee named Chea Sequah. Rose wrote his name once. After that, she referred to him as C. It didn’t take many pages for Nora to suspect that Rose had fallen in love with Chea. Rose wrote about C being big and strong. About his long, shiny, raven-colored hair. C was quiet. C was wise. He knew how to bind wounds, make poultices, and ease pain.
Because Rose penned her diary entries before bed, many pages were splotched with candlewax. Rose likely picked off the wax once it had hardened, leaving a pale, circular stain behind.
One night, as she sat at the ladies’ writing desk in her bedroom overlooking the garden, Rose wrote an entry that was nearly impossible to read. Half of the page was covered by wax, as if Rose had been interrupted and had abandoned both her diary and the burning candle. Two lines midway down the page had escaped the wax. They read,
