“I was wondering whether you’d show.”
Marshall had one hand on the police station entrance. He used the other to shield his eyes from the sun as he angled his gaze behind him. Sam Ross stood at the curb next to a squad car.
“Come on.” The man motioned to the car, sunglasses tipped up over his forehead. “Get in.”
Okay. Despite the glare of the midmorning sun, a thin sheen of frost still reflected off the sidewalk and covered grass yet withered by winter’s cold. A near-white sky looked primed for snow, never mind that April was only a week away.
He dropped into the vehicle, impressed at the smell of new leather and the shine of the dashboard. Instead of a traditional mounting bracket and laptop, the vehicle boasted an in-dash camera and touchscreen with consolidated communication controls. “Pretty nice for a small-town department.”
Sam flipped down his sun visor. “I’ll try not to be offended that you sound surprised.” He started the engine, flicking at the radio control as soon as the first beats of a song rang out. “Maple Valley’s no Milwaukee, of course.”
“I wasn’t trying to go ‘town cop, country cop’ on you. Didn’t mean anything by it.” But he couldn’t blame the guy for having his guard up. Last night Marshall had been mulish and difficult. He’d taken out his black mood on Sam Ross for no other reason than the man had picked a lousy time to approach him.
If not for the fact that his headache hadn’t turned into a migraine, he might still be brooding.
Sam pulled away from the curb. “You ever find that pharmacy last night?”
“Uh, no.”
Because anything that would’ve given him what he truly wanted—a dulling of his memories, a blunting of the pain he’d failed to leave behind in Wisconsin—required a prescription. And because there was just enough of Beth’s voice in his mind or maybe his own conscience persisting to hold him firm.
Instead, he’d walked to the river in an aching daze, stood at its edge and traced the rise and fall of its bank until the cold had numbed his hands and chapped his cheeks.
Then he’d found his truck, intent on returning to the Everwood, though he’d taken a longer route back. He’d followed the river for a stretch, passed a well-lit arched iron bridge and an ensemble of storefronts decorated with awnings and flowerboxes. He’d circled the town center with its spacious lawn, trees wrapped in twinkle lights, and a band shell in the corner. Eventually, as he turned the truck from town, the city lights faded, replaced by a star-studded sky.
The drive had helped clear at least a little of the fog.
Mara had finished the job. “Kindness is its own shade of heroism. And whatever else you are, Marshall, you are that—kind. And I’m grateful.”
How many times had he replayed her voice in his head in the ten hours since? Was he really so hollow inside that such simple but earnest words could fill him so poignantly?
And how the heck were they going to pull off everything that needed to be done around the Everwood in three weeks? All the more reason to get this meeting with the local police chief over. He rubbed his palms over his jeans. “Where are we headed anyway?”
“Dispatch got a 9-1-1 call from Eunice Hathaway. Apparently she was near-frantic, kept talking about Frank Roosevelt. She asked for me specifically.” Sam gave Marshall a sidelong glance before tipping his sunglasses into place. “Frank is her parakeet. He’s gotta be something like 120 years old.”
“I . . . see.” Marshall shook his head. “Nope. Nope, I don’t see.”
“Like I said, this is Maple Valley, not Milwaukee.” He made another turn. “I wasn’t sure you’d actually show up, so I figured I’d deal with Eunice and Frank real quick. And you’d either be waiting for me when I got back or you wouldn’t.”
No lights or siren, so Sam must not have been that worried about the woman and her bird. “You said you have questions. You mentioned the Everwood’s owner. I’ve only been here a few days, so I’m not sure how much help I can be.”
Sam waved at a letter carrier before turning off Main Avenue, steering the squad car toward a residential area. “Well, first off, you can assure me you don’t have anything to do with the woman’s—Lenora’s—disappearance.”
“I’ve never even met her. And since when did we get from thinking she abandoned the property because of an impending foreclosure to ‘disappearance’?”
“Since my gut kept me up all night after meeting Mara Bristol.”
“Some Pepto-Bismol may help with that.”
Sam’s eyebrows lifted above his sunglasses as he pulled in front of a small ranch-style house. “Put yourself in my shoes, Hawkins. You meet a sweet, older woman who seems like she has her heart set on settling down in this community and running the local B&B. Later, you come to find out she’s left town with, apparently, no word on where she’s going.”
“People pick up and move all the time.”
Sam pocketed his keys and stepped out of the car, waiting until Marshall followed to go on. “But now, a woman who by all accounts has been hiding out at said B&B and a stranger—that’d be you—with no discernable connection to this town, are making like they own the place.”
Marshall rubbed one hand over his grizzled jaw. “Okay, when you put it that way—”
He was stopped by the sight of a woman in a tangerine pantsuit half-jogging, half-waddling from the house. “It took you long enough, Sheriff Ross.”
It was all Marshall could do not to laugh at Sam’s blink-and-you’d-miss-it grimace. “I’m the chief of police, Eunice, remember?”
“Does your title really matter at a time like this? When Frank Roosevelt’s life hangs in the balance?”
They followed the woman into a house that smelled of potpourri and felt overly warm. Practically balmy. She rushed them through a cramped living room and into the kitchen.
Where her parakeet lay in a nest of blankets atop a table. Dead as its namesake.
And Sam, for all his nonchalance earlier, seemed completely stumped. “Uh, Eunice, I assumed Frank had escaped his cage again. This looks a little more . . . serious.”
“Maybe it’d be better to call a vet,” Marshall offered.
Eunice appeared to notice him for the first time. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll thank you not to interfere.” She waggled a finger at Sam. “Well, do something.”
“I’m just not sure what it is you’re wanting me to do, Eunice. Bury him?”
“Of course not. I’m starting to wonder how you got elected.”
Sam took a long breath and Marshall barely quelled another chuckle. “Ma’am, I wasn’t elected. Again, I’m the police chief, not the county sheriff.”
“Then act like it. Why do you think I called you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”
She threw up her hands. “Your taser. I want you to try reviving Frank with your taser.”
And that was it. Marshall pitched from the room before the laughter clogging his throat could make it out. He burst outside and let his amusement free. Oh, this was worth giving up an hour of work at the house.
By the time he reached Sam’s squad car, he had his phone out, ready to text Beth. She’d love this. Alex would get a kick out of it, too. He’d probably tell the rest of the precinct and Captain Wagner’s laughter would boom the loudest.
But with one glance at his screen, his mirth ground to a halt. A missed call. Penny.
He stared at her name, at the little photo underneath it. Russet hair in tight curls just like Laney’s. The shape of her lips, her wide-set eyes—also Laney’s.
But she had my chin. Everyone said so.
He pressed his eyes closed, but when he opened them, Penny’s name still looked back at him.
No voicemail and he might not have listened even if there was. What could she possibly want? It’s not as if they’d left any dangling threads between them. Everything had been divided, all the papers signed. The divorce lawyer had declared theirs one of the swiftest he’d ever wrapped up.
Penny had found herself a whole new life. A new baby with a new man. They’d probably even finalize things one of these days, get married.
The driver’s-side-door opened. “Welp, if I were an elected official, I’d have just lost Eunice’s vote.”
Marshall turned over his phone, screen hidden against his knee. “That’s . . . too bad.”
Sam tipped his head. “Kind of expected you to be out here busting a gut.”
“I was. I just . . . ” He turned off his phone entirely and stuck it into his pocket. “So what happened? You weren’t in there long.”
“When I wouldn’t tase Frank, Eunice kicked me out. I asked her if there was anybody I could call, told her how sorry I was, but she wouldn’t have any of it.” He started the car.
“Tough day on the job.”
Sam snorted. “Not as bad as Frank’s day.”
Laughter found him again, and he pushed away Penny’s intrusion. Sam started the car and in seconds, Eunice’s house disappeared from the sideview mirror. “Listen, I actually do need to get back to the B&B soon. And I still need to stop at the hardware store.” In other words, time to pick up where they’d left off.
Eyes on the road, Sam nodded. “All right, then. Look, Hawkins, I’m not above admitting that maybe I’m just hankering for some real police work. But I can’t kick it—the sense that there’s more to Lenora Worthington’s disappearance than first appears.”
That word again—disappearance. “Mara knew her, though, and she seems to believe the woman capable of skipping town.”
“How much do you know about Mara Bristol?” Sam propped one elbow on his door’s armrest.
“You don’t think she had something to do with Lenora’s leaving?”
“I don’t know what to think. Other than something feels off. I trust my gut. Maybe there’s a simple answer. Maybe not. But I aim to find out. Hard to know exactly where to start. It’s not like anyone’s filed a missing person’s report.”
Which likely meant he hadn’t gone as far as checking cellphone records, street cameras, or credit card activity yet.
But from the look on his face—lips pressed into a thin line, expression grim—he wanted to. “So.” Sam pushed his sunglasses out of the way and glanced over at Marshall. “Feel like a little detective work?”
The dining room table didn’t feel nearly sturdy enough under Mara’s feet. Both arms strained around the glass bowl of the tarnished brass chandelier. If her position was precarious, Jenessa’s was shakier still. She perched on a stepladder atop the table, reaching over her head to fiddle with the chandelier’s chain.
“I’m really starting to think we should wait for Marshall’s help with this, Jen.”
The knees of Jenessa’s cropped jeans were eye level with Mara. How did she manage to make denim and a long-sleeved plaid shirt tied at the waist over a white tee look fashionable?
Mara had barely finished cleaning up the muffins and scrambled eggs she’d thrown together for breakfast this morning when she’d heard Jenessa’s knock on the B&B’s new front door.
Marshall had gone in to town a while ago and promised to return with a paint sprayer. The first-floor ceilings were in for a makeover today. Mara’s job in the meantime was to move or cover furniture, lay tarp over the floors, and attempt to remove this beast of a light fixture.
“How very un-feminist of you, Mara. We don’t need a man to get this job done.”
“Hey, if there were any brawny females around, I would happily accept their help, too, but—” The chandelier’s weight dropped into her as Jenessa loosened the chain. “Whoa. Give me some warning.”
Jenessa clasped the chain with her fists, leaning from the stepladder. “I’ve still got it. Kind of.”
“Yeah, well, my arms are about to give out, so—”
“What in the blazes?”
Both women jerked. Lucas stood in the dining room doorway—something between a glower and a smirk on his bronzed face, a backpack slung over one shoulder. Jen wobbled on her ladder, one hand abandoning the chandelier to steady herself.
Leaving Mara with even more of the weight. Oh dear. She felt her legs bend, her arms weaken. “Oh no, oh no, oh—”
The whole table shook as Lucas jumped up to help, his arms shooting out to rescue the bobbing bowl, its dangling glass trinkets clinking against one another.
Jenessa let out an exasperated sigh. “And here I was just saying we didn’t need a man’s help.”
Muscles bunched underneath Lucas’s long-sleeved T-shirt. “Well, you needed something.” His voice was taut as he helped Mara lower the chandelier to the tabletop. “You could say thank you.”
Mara wiped dusty hands over her faded overalls. Had the light fixture ever been cleaned? And—gross—were those dead bugs inside the bowl? “Well, I’ll say thank you. I would not have loved for my obituary to declare death by chandelier crushing. I appreciate the help.”
Lucas had pulled his long hair back today—half-ponytail, half-knot. He looked even less like Garrett when he allowed himself to grin. “That makes one of you.”
Jenessa gave him a mock glare. He returned it and hopped off the table, pushing up his sleeves as he landed on the floor. Then, with a hurried jerk, he yanked them back down.
But he hadn’t been quick enough. Mara could barely stifle her gasp at the sight of the red, mottled skin of his arms. Scars that could only have been produced from horrific burns.
He looked away and retrieved his backpack. “I’m heading over to the orchard, but if it snows, we won’t get far on pruning. I’ll probably be back early. Um, if you’re still painting or whatever, I can help.”
Mara slid off the table. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I feel bad enough that you’re a paying guest here and the place is in disarray.”
“Doesn’t bother me. I like staying busy.”
Jenessa eased off the stepladder then jumped to the floor. “I’m covering a school board meeting, so I won’t be here later. Coming for Sunday dinner, Luke?”
“Don’t I always?” He turned and moments later the sound of the front door closing echoed through the house.
Jenessa was quiet for a long moment. “Afghanistan,” she finally said, low and meaningfully. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Do they go all the way up his arms? The scars?”
Jenessa nodded, her gaze on the window that overlooked the parking lot, compassion or maybe concern filling her eyes as she watched Lucas toss his backpack into his truck.
“How do you know him?” Mara stacked one dining room chair on top of another. “And Sam too. You seem like an unlikely trio.”
Jenessa turned, blinking away her emotion. She pulled the stepladder from the table, folded it up, and leaned it next to the stacked chairs Mara had slid over to one wall. “We’re friends because we’re three single adults in our 30s in a town full of minivans. People don’t realize what it’s like being single when almost every community and church event is set up for families. It’s a bummer sometimes. But it’s less of a bummer when you’ve got a group. Sam and Luke are much more than my friends. They’re my . . . my family, I guess. Maybe it sounds silly.”
“I don’t think it sounds silly at all.”
Because hadn’t Mara gone half her life wishing for the same thing? Someone to fill in the gaps left by Dad’s physical absence and Mom’s emotional abandonment. But she didn’t have siblings and, pathetic as it sounded, she’d never really had friends either. At least, not the kind who stayed with her from one season of life to another. There’d been too many moves, never enough time in one place.
And though some of the families she’d nannied for had been plenty kind and welcoming, she’d never truly felt a part of their circles.
“You’re lucky to have them, Jen. And they’re lucky to have you.”
“I really am. And they really are. Especially considering I’m making lasagna this Sunday. It’s already assembled and in the freezer.” She dragged the last dining room chair to the edge of the room. “Sam and Lucas come over every Sunday after church. Well, Sam comes over every Sunday. Luke spends half the year working on a fruit farm in Mexico. But when he’s in town helping his sister with the orchard, he never misses dinner. Though he usually skips the church part.” She turned to Mara. “You should come too. To Sunday dinner. And church, if you like.”
Church. Huh. It’d been, what, seven or eight years since she’d attended a service? She’d always felt a little out of place. Her faith, a little too flimsy. Her life, a little too unimpressive. She believed in God, though. Uttered a prayer now and then—like on the night she’d arrived at the Everwood.
“No pressure, of course,” Jen added quickly. “If church isn’t your thing, I hope you’ll still come to dinner. You can even bring Marshall. I’ll play reporter, and we can uncover all his secrets.”
“How do you know he has secrets?”
“A handsome man with mysterious gray eyes arrives in town during a thunderstorm . . . He has to have secrets. Otherwise, it kills his whole vibe.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’d take more than lasagna and a round of Twenty Questions to get him to spill them.” She’d never even gotten a straight answer out of Marshall as to why he’d left that meeting last night. The man was a hundred kinds of helpful, but so far, he didn’t seem at all inclined to talk about his life prior to blustering into her world.
She knew his profession, though. And from a couple of comments over breakfast this morning, she’d picked up that he was on some kind of extended leave of absence from his job. Though she got the feeling if she ever asked why, he wouldn’t be eager to share.
Mara inched the chandelier to the edge of the table. What were the chances she and Jenessa could heft it out of the dining room?
Jenessa leaned the stepladder against the wall. “Speaking of secrets and mysteries, did you know your friend Lenora isn’t the first Everwood owner to up and vanish?”
Mara abandoned the light fixture. “What?”
“I wasn’t joking last night about doing a story on your quest to save the B&B. I was doing a little fact-checking, looking through some newspaper archives. Turns out back in the early sixties, this young couple who’d run the place for about seven years simply disappeared. It’s Maple Valley’s own little cold case.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The police tried to track them down, but they never got a single lead.”
Mara gripped the straps of her overalls. “Why were the police involved? I mean, it’s not a crime to leave town.”
“Yeah, but it was the way they left—one night they were here, the next morning they weren’t. They didn’t tell a soul and it didn’t make sense. They’d made a home here. They had a whole life. They had friends.”
That hadn’t stopped Dad. He’d had friends. He’d had a whole life. Mara’s hands slid from her overall straps to her pockets. Two decades and still the hurt found ways to resurrect itself. It’s why she never listened to the radio anymore. The chances were just too high she’d hear one of Dad’s songs and feel the old ache.
“Not to mention they had a thriving local business,” Jenessa went on. “Guests were staying at the Everwood when they vanished. Police wouldn’t let the guests leave town until they’d been questioned, but they didn’t get any leads.”
Two sets of disappearing B&B owners. Nearly sixty years apart.
Except Lenora hadn’t vanished. She hadn’t disappeared in the middle of the night. She’d packed a suitcase and walked out the front door in the light of day.
Wait, Lenora . . .
“Did the articles you read mention a kid?”
Jenessa’s forehead wrinkled. “Hmm . . . I dunno. I was skimming pretty quickly. Why?”
“Lenora’s parents ran the Everwood for a while when she was young. I don’t know the specifics of the timing, but what if her parents were the owners who disappeared?”
Jenessa’s eyes lit with intrigue. “Forget uncovering Marshall’s secrets. I’m beginning to think this house has a few of its own.”
The image arose of that little room behind the fireplace. “You have no idea.”
Marshall found Mara in the attic, surrounded by boxes and cloth-covered furniture. A burning sunset streamed through the lone circle window, casting an orange-ish hue over the room. Dust clung to the air, along with the stuffy scent of old cardboard.
He climbed the rest of the way into the unfinished space, tufts of insulation peeking through the attic’s wood walls and ceiling. He made a mental note to look at the roof tomorrow, see what he could do about patching leaks. “I wondered where you’d disappeared to.”
Mara piled one box onto another, the window’s light adding golden hues to her red hair, which was currently laced in two haphazard braids. He’d showered after a full day’s work, but clearly she hadn’t allowed herself the same luxury. She still wore those overalls from earlier, now splattered with paint, and her arms were covered in tiny flecks of white thanks to the sprayer he’d used on the ceiling all afternoon.
“She was looking for something up here.” Mara bumped into an ornate standing mirror. An antique? Why was it stuffed away in the attic? A little polish and it’d make a nice fixture downstairs.
“You’re talking about Lenora?” If so, it was handy timing. He’d been meaning to broach the subject all day, talk to Mara about Sam’s concerns, confess his growing interest. He’d tread lightly, of course, but the more he thought on it, the less he was able to dismiss the strangeness of it all.
But Jenessa had been around when he’d first returned to the Everwood and, later, Lucas Danby.
Mara huffed and the strands of hair that’d escaped her braids fanned around her face. “I heard her puttering around in the attic all the time. Why didn’t I ever ask what she was looking for? Or better still, offer to help her go through all this stuff? Was I just that wrapped up in my own mess?”
There was a trace of something frantic in her eyes. If it’d been there earlier in the day, he’d missed it. But it was there now, as obvious as it was troubling. He wanted to ask what had brought this on, but even more, he wanted to ask about her “mess.”
“How much do you know about Mara Bristol?”
He’d bristled earlier at Sam’s question and whatever it might imply. Yet he’d be lying if he denied his own curiosity.
But prying into Mara’s life was not the reason he’d followed the sound of her thumping footsteps to find her here. “You never ate supper, Mara.”
She finally looked at him—more than a spared glance this time—and noticed the bowl in his hands. “You brought me cereal.”
“In a bowl. With milk. And a spoon. The way it’s meant to be eaten.”
“I’m so hungry I can’t even think of a good retort.”
He sidestepped an old dresser and handed her the bowl. “Are you looking for something up here?”
She shook her head. “Thank you. And no. I just had the silly idea that if I came up here and took a look around, something would click into place and I’d suddenly understand . . .”
“Why she left?” he finished for her.
“Or why she bought this house in the first place.” She dropped onto a plastic tub, folded her legs.
And he had the instant and foolish but irresistible thought that she was just plain endearing in this moment. Maybe it was the braids. The overalls. The paint smudge on her cheek. Made him think of the cover of Laney’s beloved Anne of Green Gables. All Mara was missing was a straw hat.
She’d looked pretty in that skirt and sweater last night. But this Mara charmed him to his core.
And that . . . was a problem.
Because he hadn’t come here for this—here to the attic or here to the Everwood. Last night had proven that the darkness could still reach him here. A few good nights of sleep, a few days without the numbing effects of pills didn’t mean he’d suddenly transformed into the Marshall Hawkins of a decade ago.
Someone healthy and whole. He’d even been a man of deep faith at one time.
But that was then. He might find solace here in Iowa. Temporary relief. But healing? The kind of happiness and sturdy trust in God he used to know? Those things didn’t happen in a few days’ time. And if there was one thing Penny had made clear when she’d left, it was that the broken man he’d become in the wake of Laney’s death wasn’t fit for sharing a life with anyone else.
Which meant he had no business whatsoever being attracted to a woman in any way, shape, or form.
Never mind that her way, shape, and form tugged on strings inside him he hadn’t acknowledged for years.
“So have you found anything cool up here?”
She gulped down a bite of cereal. “Not much. Ratty furniture. Mothballs. There’s a box of old film reels. I recognized some of the titles. His Girl Friday. My Man Godfrey. Hands Across the Table. They’re classic movies. I guess that counts as cool.” She pointed toward the box.
“You guess? That’s definitely a sweet find.” He towed over a wingback chair with torn fabric then sat across from her. He glanced inside the box she’d gestured toward, pulled out a reel, and read the title. Love Before Breakfast. Next to the title, a set of initials scribbled in white marker. J.S. “If you come across a projector and screen, that’d be even better.”
“Not so far, but I can’t guarantee they aren’t around here somewhere under a sheet.” Mara set her bowl down beside her. “Oh, and I found this.”
She pulled a small photo from the front pocket of her overalls and handed it to him. A man and woman in sepia tones—the man leaning against a fireplace mantel and the woman grinning up at him. It’d been taken in the den downstairs, that much was clear. He flipped it over to see their names scribbled in blue ink. Arnold and Jeane.
“Do you know who they are?”
“No, I just love the photo. They look so sweet and innocent. Young and in love.”
He passed it back to her. “So, Mara Bristol is a romantic.”
Her smile was too small and too brief. She returned to her cereal, but only a couple bites in, she set it aside again. “I’ve felt so guilty all day.”
“Guilty? Why?”
“I’ve been assuming Lenora abandoned the Everwood.” Mara stood. “But today Jen told me about this cold case, other missing B&B owners, a police investigation and . . . I never thought to talk to the police, Marsh.”
She paced a few feet away. “What if Lenora was in a horrible car accident? What if she was mugged or . . . or hurt? What if she left because she was in some kind of danger?”
He rose. “You’re freaking yourself out—”
“That’s the point. Why wasn’t I freaked out earlier? I was a little worried, sure, but if I’d been thinking . . .” She shook her head, dropped her hands into the pockets of her overalls. “But I was thinking. I was thinking she’s just like Dad. Another person who chose to walk away. Once again it was all about my pain, about me. Just like it was with Mom—”
“Mara.” He said it softly but firmly.
She bit her lip, hands in her pockets, one strap of her overalls falling down over her shoulder.
And the urge was almost too much—to close the distance and pull her into a hug of comfort. Like he would’ve Laney.
No. Like he would’ve Penny.
Instead, he sat on the tub she’d abandoned, moved her cereal bowl, touched her elbow—enough of a gesture to prompt her to lower next to him. He rummaged around for words, for the right question to ask.
But she made it easy on him. “My dad left when I was eleven. You may have heard of him, actually. Stephen Bristol. Ring any bells?”
“Sounds a little familiar.”
“He put out a few albums over the years, but his real success was in songwriting. Turn on any country station for more than ten minutes and you’ll probably hear a Stephen Bristol song, even if he’s not the one singing it.”
Her dad had traded in his family for a stint in the spotlight. Marshall curled his fingers over his knees to keep from forming them into fists. “I can’t fathom leaving my . . . a father leaving like that.”
“He came back once, around my twelfth birthday. I had this childish thought that if we cleaned the house and made his favorite dinner and dressed up, maybe he’d stay. I talked my mom into going all out.” She looked up to the ceiling, cobwebs clinging to cedar beams. “Of course, he didn’t stay. Mom was upset we’d even tried. She never got over it and we were never close after that.” Her gaze lowered then. “She died right after my high school graduation. A heart attack. She was only forty-three.”
He couldn’t help it then. He reached over, gripped her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” She shifted, her knees bumping his, her palm still encased in his. “I always told myself I wouldn’t be like Mom—bitter, assuming everyone else would let me down just like Dad. But that’s what I did when Lenora didn’t come back. I should’ve—”
He squeezed her hand. “Mara, you’re human. You’re entitled to your pain.” He said it with a conviction born of experience. Because isn’t it what he’d told himself over and over since Laney’s death? The pills, the desperation, the recklessness at work . . . He had a right to be a mess of a person.
Because God or fate or maybe just circumstance had made a wreck of his life.
“But I don’t want to spend my life letting my pain be the lens through which I see the world.”
“I’m just saying, it’s not your fault if the things that hurt you affect how you react to the events in your life now.”
Mara looked up at him. “But we always have a choice, don’t we? To let our hurts forever weaken us or . . . or instead find some way to draw strength from what we’ve been through.”
His gaze moved from their clasped hands to her face, tracing the pattern of her freckles. “I guess so.” It sounded nice, anyway. But he wasn’t sure he could ever look at all he’d lost in the past two years and see any of it as a chance to grow stronger.
But then, this was about Mara. Her past. Her pain. Her desire to choose hope over bitterness. He could admire her for that.
The orange light of dusk had faded; the attic, dimmed. Silence idled between them, neither one, it seemed, in a hurry to move.
Until, finally, Mara cleared her throat, slipped her hand from his. “Sorry, I, um . . . I’m not sure why I told you all that.”
“I’m a natural listener.” It’s what Penny would’ve said once upon a time.
“That’s how Lenora was too.” She sighed.
He wasn’t going to get a better opening. “About Lenora. I met with Sam Ross today. He, uh, he wants to look into her whereabouts.”
“He does?”
“And that means coming out here. He’ll want to look at her computer, go through anything she may have left behind. I think it’s a good idea and from the sound of things, maybe you do too?”
He could see her resolve as she stood, nodded, shook the dust from her overalls. “Yes. I should’ve talked to him weeks ago.”
“Hey, no more ‘should’ves,’ all right? Be a little nicer to yourself, Mara.” He bent to retrieve her cereal bowl, then rose. “You gonna stay up here for a while?”
“No. I didn’t know what I was looking for anyway. Maybe Sam will find something.” She rubbed her palms over her bare arms. “What I should be doing is working on that business plan for the city council. Figuring out how I’m going to fill up this place with guests.”
They started toward the stairs that led to the second floor, the creaks and moans of old floorboards a chorus underfoot. “For what it’s worth, Mara, I hate country music.”
He thought she might laugh. Instead, she stopped him in his tracks when she lunged into him—arms around his waist, head against his chest, the leftover milk spilling from the bowl in his hand. He felt the warmth of her voice through his shirt. “Thanks, Marsh.”
Not two seconds later, she’d broken away and started down the stairs. Leaving him stunned. Frozen in place. Happy.
Yes, he definitely had a problem.