*“I messed it up, Jazz. I cornered her. It was a douche move.” Cam sighed as he wandered restlessly around the front room of the Amy K. Sweetman Center for the Arts, staring moodily at an exhibit of photographs of the Ohio. They were amazing—sunrises and sunsets over the river with the sky all shades of pink and orange and red. Aidan Flaherty’s showboat, the River Queen, chugging down the river, a glorious view of the Kentucky hills all decked out in fall regalia across the river. He turned to face his cousin Eli’s wife. “These are incredible.”
Jasmine Walker nodded. “Aren’t they? I asked for river stuff in any medium and a woman showed up on the doorstep one morning with a portfolio of photos that blew me away. I couldn’t choose which one I liked best, so I took them all and gave her a wall.”
“Brenda Stephens,” Cam read from the tag on the wall by the display and peered closer at the picture of the photographer. “Oh wait, I recognize her. Isn’t this the woman who runs the visitors’ center down by the River Walk?”
“Yeah. It’s funny how two people can live in the same town their whole lives and yet never meet until something like this brings them together. She’s charming and an amazing photographer.”
“I want this one.” Cam pointed to a particularly spectacular view of the River Walk spring redbuds backlit by an early morning sunrise.
“I’ll put a Sold sign on it.” Jasmine grinned. “So go back and apologize.”
Cam scowled. “I doubt she’d agree to see me. She looked so … so frail and sad.”
“I don’t know the whole story, but I do know she’s young and widowed.” Her expression was a mixture of sad and curious. “Dunno details, except that her husband was killed in the Middle East somewhere, fairly recently. Like a couple of years ago.”
Cam furrowed his brow. “There’s no fighting there right now.”
“Well, like I said, I don’t know exactly what happened.”
“He was in a Humvee that rolled during a training exercise in Kuwait.” A quiet voice from the center hall spun them both around. “There was a sandstorm.”
Cam blinked at the young woman who stood in the doorway, a shaft of sunlight from the transom above the front door highlighting golden strands in her long dark blond hair. It was Harper. She was tiny. He’d be surprised if she reached his shoulder, and she appeared almost too thin in jeans and a black cardigan over a gray-and-white button-down shirt. And she wore those crazy red high-tops. Round sunglasses hid her eyes, but he remembered they were Fraser fir green. For a moment, a shaft of sorrow arced through him. This woman was in real pain.
He glanced at Jasmine, who stood staring at her. One of them needed to say something, so he strode closer, his leather flip-flops, which he wore all year round unless there was snow on the ground, slapping the old wood floor. “Hello again.”
“Hi.” She didn’t move or extend her hand or even smile.
“I’m Jasmine Walker.” Jazz stepped up then, past Cam to the doorway. “But everyone calls me Jazz. I’m so very sorry to hear about your husband.” She offered Harper a welcoming smile. “However, I’m glad to finally meet you. Your aunts told me what a gifted artist you are.”
“Thank you. Nice to meet you.” Harper’s voice was small, like the rest of her, strained, almost as if the words had been forced through the holes of a sieve. She shoved the sunglasses up on her head, and when she gazed up at him, Cam suddenly felt huge and lumbering.
Then she turned to Jazz. “My aunts asked me to come and meet you.”
Her eyes were remarkable—that deep forest green. A shade he’d never seen before. But purple smudged below them, and the green was shadowed with grief.
“I’m glad you came. You’re so welcome here. It was Cam who was looking for you, actually.” Jazz gestured toward the back of the house. “Why don’t you two come back to my office. You can talk there privately.”
Harper’s expression remained closed. “No need, thank you.” She focused on Cam. “I already told you that I don’t paint on furniture.”
The chill emanating from that petite frame nearly sent a shiver down Cam’s spine. This woman was closed up good and tight with the remnants of her sorrow. He recalled how his brother Joe’s girlfriend, Kara, had shut down after the death of her grandfather a few months ago. Something told him to resist the urge to try charming her into smiling.
Instead, he pointed to the room across the hall where Jazz had created a little shop with books and other small art-related items. “Will you come with me for a second? Please?”
Everything from coffee table art books to how-to books on oil painting, watercolor, sketching, and sculpture filled the built-in shelves on three walls around the room. In the center, a pair of easy chairs on an old oriental rug with a table between them made a cozy spot for visitors to peruse books. A couple of spinning racks of bookmarks, calendars and planners, and other artsy-fartsy tchotchkes for sale, while on the far wall a long glass-topped counter held scarves, socks, neckties, earrings, tote bags, and other paraphernalia with arty themes. In a windowed alcove across from the doorway sat a small bistro table and two chairs, which was where Cam led Harper.
She didn’t sit at his gestured invitation, but rather stood by the pretty tableau staring out at the autumn leaves that had fallen from the great oak tree that shaded the house.
Cam didn’t know if he should say something about her loss, but she was so aloof, he didn’t want to blurt out the wrong thing and scare her away. Unsure of how to reach her, he just went for it. “I’m a carpenter. I do the finish work for my family’s construction company. But as I told you yesterday, I’m also a cabinetmaker, and in my spare time, I build custom furniture.”
Still no response, not even a quirked brow as he offered up his credentials.
“I’m currently building a dower chest … it’s a Christmas gift for my mom.” He paused. “Know what that is?”
She nodded.
“I need someone to paint it for me—do the Pennsylvania Dutch kind of designs and then put on a finish to make it look old. Not selling it as an antique; like I said, it’s a gift for my mom. I only want to give it the appearance of an old dower chest from the eighteenth century. I need some help.” He thought he saw a gleam of interest in her eyes, but it was so brief, he may have imagined it.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “That wouldn’t be me.”
“But you paint, right?”
“Watercolors, charcoal sketches, pencil drawings.” She crossed her arms over her chest as her lips drew into a tight line.
He held up one hand and pulled out his phone, scrolling to his photos. He tapped one that he’d taken recently of the poplar chest he was crafting and handed her the phone. “This is the piece.” He was immensely proud of the chest, which was complete except for the finish. That was where he needed Harper’s help. “See? It’s ready for painting.” He gave a little self-deprecating shrug as she gazed at the picture. “I have zero artistic skills. Anything other than stain and finish, I’m hopeless.”
“It’s very nice.” Harper gave him back the phone. “But I’m not sure I’m right for the job.”
“Wait.” Quickly, he darted to the bookcases and searched. He was sure Jazz had a second copy of the Pennsylvania Dutch furniture book he’d bought from her a few months ago. Aha! He pulled it out and carried it to where Harper stood, stiff and not exactly unfriendly, but a little forbidding. “Here, look.” He opened it to the three-panel dower chest he’d modeled his own after. “This is what I need. This stylized look.”
“Surely she”—Harper lifted her chin toward the room across the hall where Jazz was working—“can find an artist who can help you.”
She was right. Jazz probably could find someone else who could do a perfectly good job on his dower chest, but for reasons he couldn’t adequately explain, he wanted Harper Gaines. It was a feeling in his gut. She was the one, and he always went with his gut. “I’ve seen your designs. They’re perfect. You can do this. Please take a look.” He held the open page toward her.
This time the gleam was real. Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath as she looked at the page, at the glorious dower chest colorful with birds and flowers and other designs, and she reached for the book. “This is extraordinary.”
“I know, right? I was thinking it might be fun to try making our own buttermilk paint, maybe research old ways of dyeing it, ochre and soot and other natural colors. There are companies who make buttermilk paint, but I want to try to keep this whole piece authentic, you know? Mixing the paint ourselves, we could make the texture and colors exactly what we want. The design doesn’t have to copy this one, but this is the look I’m going for. We could even do some faux-graining on the poplar. It’s one of the easiest woods to paint or do a faux wood…” From the look on her face, he realized he was talking too fast and with his hands, which he had a tendency to do if he was jacked up about his work. Probably scaring the poor woman to death. He made himself pause for a breath.
She was staring at him as if he’d suddenly grown horns, and he became aware that in his enthusiasm, he’d moved closer to her and was once again towering over her. He backed up a step and then another. “What do you think?”
She closed the book and placed it carefully on the table beside them, clearly shutting herself off as well. “I don’t think so but thank you for asking me.” The words were perfunctory, as mechanical as her straight-backed pace to the doorway, where she nodded to Jazz and with a murmured, “Thanks,” walked out the door.
*
“That is one shut-down woman.” Cam wandered back across the hall to the gallery where Jazz was pounding a picture hanger into the wall.
“Give her a break. She’s been through a terrible tragedy.” Jazz pointed to a large painting resting against the small round banquette in the center of the room. “Will you hang that for me?”
“Sure.” Cam positioned the painting where Jazz indicated—an exquisite rendering of the icy river with snow banked on either side of it. He didn’t recognize the name in the corner, but the artist had really captured the Ohio River in January.
Jazz stood back, her head cocked to one side. “Up on the left a little.”
He slid the heavy picture on its wire—the whitewashed barn-board frame was weighty.
“Good, a touch more.”
It looked straight to him, but he was too close to be a good judge. He nudged it a bit more.
She clapped. “Perfect!”
“What do you know about Harper Gaines?” Cam asked, backing away from the painting.
“Not much. Only what Dot told me, and now of course what she just told us.” She shuddered. “I can’t even imagine.”
“How old is she?”
Jazz shrugged. “Late twenties maybe? Dot said she was an art teacher in an elementary school up in Detroit, before her husband died.” A sound from a small monitor clipped to her belt turned her head. “Whoops, Leo’s awake. Come on.”
Cam followed her into the office, which was actually the butler’s pantry off the kitchen of the old house, where her baby was cooing in a little portable crib next to her desk.
“Hello, lovey.” Jazz laid a plastic pad on her desk and did the fastest diaper change in the history of moms as far as Cam could tell. She’d gotten to pro status in no time, according to Eli, who still sometimes got sprayed in the face when he did a diaper change. Cam had seen it happen and laughed his butt off at his cousin’s chagrined expression. Eli only gave him the stink-eye that seemed like a warning. Your time is coming, coz.
Cam doubted that. He wasn’t even dating anyone right now. Hadn’t been in a serious relationship since the wedding debacle five years ago. His whole focus had been the current custom homes that Walker Construction was building. And the furniture pieces he was creating—the dower chest, a child-sized table and chairs for Tierney and Brendan Flaherty’s kids, and a small rocking chair for the fifteen-month-old baby that Sean and Megan Flaherty were adopting—a little girl whose parents were killed in an airstrike in Ukraine. Happy as he was for all his friends who were breeding like rabbits, children were way out of his wheelhouse.
Jazz moved into the big airy kitchen, sat down at the table, and tossed a blanket over her shoulder to nurse the baby as she continued to share what she knew about Harper. “Dot said she quit her teaching job when the semester ended and just took off. Drove all over for several months before finally ending up here.”
Cam turned one of the oak kitchen chairs around and settled into it, resting his arms on the pressed-wood back. “Is that normal for grieving widows? I mean…” He struggled for the right words. “Wouldn’t she want to be with her family? Or his? Seems like that would bring her more comfort than being around a bunch of strangers.”
“Everyone grieves differently, I guess.” Under the blanket, she shifted Leo from one side to the other.
Cam looked out the window to his left where fall’s colors were a carpet of bright leaves now that Thanksgiving was over. “Shouldn’t she be getting over it by now?”
Jazz’s expression became thoughtful. “I had a friend in DC whose husband died suddenly of a massive heart attack. She mourned for a good five years. Couldn’t even mention his name without getting weepy.”
Cam shook his head. “Didn’t mean for that to sound callous. But I remember when my Grandfather Fletcher died. Even though Gran was sad, she kept on living her life.” His mind drifted back to his grandfather’s memorial service. He still missed the old man who’d taught him woodworking. Grandpa had made several of the pieces of furniture in Cam’s house, and he treasured them. His greatest dream was to be the kind of cabinetmaker that Grandpa Fletcher had been—creative, original, inspired. The dower chest was in honor of that dream. His mom would love it and if it turned out the way he wanted, he would add Pennsylvania Dutch pieces to his repertoire. One day, he hoped to open a shop in town and make building furniture his full-time career, but that dream was several years off.
“That was different.” Jazz turned her back to him and spoke over her shoulder. “Your grandmother was quite a bit older than Harper. She’d had a lot of years with Duke, and he’d been sick a long time.” She passed Leo to him. “Here, take this child. I desperately need to go to the bathroom.”
His tiny hands curled into fists, Leo lay in Cam’s arms, smiling in his sleep. Cam tucked him closer and leaned down to press his lips against the baby’s fine hair for a second. What was it about the scent of a baby’s head that made even the most macho of guys turn to mush? At thirty-one and counting, he wasn’t longing for a family. Yet for some reason, holding Leo made his heart ache just a little. The baby squirmed and stretched his arms above his head, then opened his eyes and gazed at Cam. Walker eyes—storm-cloud gray with hints of blue that went from silver to almost black depending on their mood. They all had them, except his sister Annabelle and his cousin Jack, whose eyes were piercing blue. Right now, Leo’s were sleepy-leaden as he blinked at his cousin before yawning widely and drifting back to sleep.
Jazz came back into the room wrapping a length of fabric around her torso. It was one of those complicated baby carriers that swaddled the child close to his parent’s chest. Eli had had Leo snugged next to him in it at the last Monday morning meeting of Walker Construction’s board. She took Leo and enfolded the sleeping kid, kissing the top of his head after she got him all cuddled against her. “I’m going to go work upstairs,” she explained, tightening the carrier. “I prefer to keep him with me when I’m up there, especially when I’m open and the door is unlocked.”
Cam smiled. “I’m outta here. Big meeting at two with the other builders and the Japanese car guys. Pretty sure they’re going to use the co-op to build houses up on the farm since they were so impressed with our Orchard Hill homes.”
“I know Eli was overjoyed that they loved those houses. How’s the house for Mr. Yoshida and his wife coming?”
“Getting there. They won’t be moving in until summer, so it sorta got back-burnered while we built up on Orchard Hill.”
“Eli said you’re doing all the cabinetry yourself. That’s a huge job, Cam.”
“It is, but Mrs. Yoshida wanted native hickory cabinets. She’s way into the whole Indiana vibe, and I want to make it work for her because her husband has sorta run the show with this house. It’s been a bear getting all the wood I need.” He followed her out into the foyer and paused by the stairway, which led to the rooms above where she had more art displayed and two classrooms for workshops. Cam was proud of what his cousin-in-law had accomplished for the local arts scene. Jazz was exactly what River’s Edge had needed to bring focus to artists and artisans all along the river. He even had two small hanging cupboards and a half-circle table displayed upstairs. Be nice if someone bought them.
She stood on the bottom step, both hands cupping Leo’s small body. “Word of advice. Don’t give up on Harper Gaines. Something tells me she needs us.”
Cam put one hand on the front doorknob. “Us?”
“All of us … but maybe you and me most. Dot says she’s truly gifted. Art is where she’ll find comfort and opportunities when she’s ready.”