The Whispered Word

by Ellery Adams

Because she’d left her front door ajar, Nora could hear the tread of Jed’s work boots as he mounted the deck stairs. The moment he entered her house, Nora’s skin erupted in gooseflesh and her heart began to pound like a drum.

  When Jed saw her, he didn’t smile or speak. He just stood on the threshold and stared. His gaze slowly traveled down the length of her body. His gaze lingered on every part of her. It was like a caress. A prelude to his touch.

  Just when Nora didn’t think she could wait a second longer, his eyes met hers. What she saw in his eyes was an acceptance of her silent invitation. Jed had understood that her phone call, her open windows, her lack of words, and her bare feet were inviting him to do one thing. She wanted him to touch her.

  Without speaking, he closed the space between them, took her in her arms, and kissed her. His mouth was hungry. His hands were hungry. They slid over her shoulders and under the straps of her dress. His fingertips moved down her back, hurrying to find purchase on the curve of her hips. He used her hips as leverage to press the length of her body against his. She didn’t resist. He tugged on her hair, forcing her neck to arch, and when he kissed her throat, she moaned and melted into him.

  Jed’s hands were strong and callused. The stubble covering his chin and cheeks was rough. She liked how he felt. All of him. This was exactly what she’d wanted. This feverish, fearless release.

  She was unaware that her dress had pooled to the floor until Jed picked her up, wrapped her naked legs around his waist, and carried her to the bedroom.

  * * *

  Later, as they lay tangled together in her dark room, Nora spoke for the first time since Jed had walked into her house. “Any chance you brought that fruit I left on your porch? I could make us a reenergizing smoothie,” she joked.

  He laughed. “I barely stopped for red lights. I was burning for you. I’ve been burning for you since the day we met.” He suddenly cupped Nora’s cheek in his palm. “Shitty analogy. I’m sorry.”

  “You can use fire metaphors with me. I can take it.” She gave him an elbow to the ribs to restore the playful mood. “You’ve tested me out. I don’t break.”

  “No, you don’t. And I find your toughness very sexy.” The smile had returned to his voice. “That, and many other parts of you. But I’d rather explain myself by showing instead of telling.” Using his hands and his mouth, he demonstrated his appreciation of Nora’s parts so thoroughly, that it was quite some time before either of them spoke again.

  It was Jed who eventually whispered into the silence. “Does this mean that you’re ready to tell me your story? When you were in the hospital, you asked if I wanted to hear it. I did then. I still do.”

  Nora, who’d been on the cusp of sleep, said, “I’m close to drifting off, which is your fault for wearing me out, so I’ll give you the abbreviated version.”

  “I’ll take whatever you want to give,” Jed said in a soft voice. “I’ll just close my eyes and listen.”

  Nora liked that he’d offered to close his eyes. The darkness and the feeling of Jed’s warm body touching hers allowed the words to flow from the deep well in which she stored them. “I used to be a librarian. And I used to be married. I thought I had a good life until I discovered that my husband was having an affair. A serious affair. It was New Year’s Eve when I learned about his double life. I also learned that his mistress was pregnant.”

  “Wow,” Jed whispered.

  “The discovery ripped me apart,” Nora said. “People use that expression without really knowing what it means, but I know what being ripped apart feels like. There was a tearing in my heart. A partial death. In one night, I no longer recognized my life. And before the night ended, I lost far more than my marriage. I lost my job, my house, and my friends. My reflection in the mirror would never be the same either. That was my fault, not my bastard husband’s.”

  Nora paused before telling Jed the terrible truth about how she got her scars.

  “When my husband didn’t come home that New Year’s Eve, I looked on his computer and found things that cut me so deeply that I felt like I’d been stabbed a thousand times,” she eventually continued. “I wanted the intensity of the pain to stop, so I drank. And drank. When I’d had way too much, I drove to the other woman’s house to confront my husband.”

  Nora stared upward where the moonlight streaming through the window had painted a glowing opal in the center of the dark ceiling. Jed sensed her hesitation and laid his hand on her arm. It was a comforting, reassuring touch, and it gave Nora the courage to finish her story.

  “I screamed at the two of them, but I knew it was useless. I was no longer wanted. Blinded by fury and hurt, I got back in my car. My emotions made me crazy and I hit another car on the highway. The car caught fire and I had to pull a mother and her toddler out of the burning wreckage. The mom was okay, but the boy suffered some burns to his lower legs. He healed beautifully. The very young heal so beautifully . . .”

  There was more Nora could say. She could explain how her guilt had burrowed deep into her bones, where it would always stay with her. She could tell Jed that the end result of that night was that she lost the will to live—that she spent weeks in the burn unit praying for death. But she didn’t tell him these things.

  She listened to Jed’s rhythmic breathing and was glad the first part of their night hadn’t included words. It was one thing for Hester, Estella, and June to accept Nora after hearing her secret, because they had secrets of their own. But Jed? Whatever dark thing he was hiding could hardly be comparable to hers.

  She prepared herself for his withdrawal. He might not leave right now, but he’d surely want to escape her with the dawn.

  Jed covered Nora’s hand in a protective gesture. “I don’t know the details of your marriage and I don’t need to know them. Your idiot husband’s loss is my gain. I also don’t know what you looked like before. I don’t need to know that either. To me, you’re the most beautiful woman on this earth. And I’m not feeding you a line, Nora. I’ve told you before. I don’t see your scars. I just see you. Do you know why?”

  Nora felt his eyes on her in the dark. She moved closer to him. Their faces were an inch apart. Their exhalations mingled. He slid his arm around her waist and she slid hers around his. With their knees and the tips of their toes touching, they were like one body instead of two.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Because my mom’s beautiful. And she’s a burn victim,” he said. “She’d smack me for saying victim, but there’s a reason I chose that word. A victim is injured due to an accident, an event, or someone else’s action. In my mom’s case, that someone else was me. I caused the fire that burned her. It was an accident, but what does that matter? If there’s another person in Miracle Springs that gets what it’s like to have guilt chewing away at you, it’s me. I’ve seen June and her cats walking in the middle of the night, because I don’t sleep well either. One memory keeps me up. I caused a fire. I created a victim. Two, actually. Mom and Henry Higgins. That’s why I asked you for books on canine anxiety when we first met. He can’t sleep, and neither can I.”

  Nora moved her hand through Jed’s hair and shushed him. “Tonight, you’ll sleep. You’re going to let these heavy thoughts float away like balloons. Let them go. See them drift into a clear, blue sky.”

  Jed released a weighted sigh. Nora continued to rub his head, slowing her passes through his hair each time. “The balloons are rising higher and higher,” she whispered. “There are so many colors. Purple, red, green, yellow, orange, blue. In the sunlight, they glow like Christmas lights. They’re like gumballs rising into space. They’re getting smaller and smaller. There’s no sound. It’s completely silent. There’s only sunlight. Brilliant sunlight and the big, wide, sky.”

  Jed was asleep before she finished speaking, and Nora hoped that he would wander in a lovely dream until morning. She didn’t anticipate a restful night for herself. It had been years since she’d shared a bed with a man, and there was a huge dif
ference between rolling around in the sheets with someone and sleeping through the night next to someone.

  Nora was accustomed to flopping on her belly, stretching one leg over the edge of her bed, and curling an arm under her pillow. None of these actions were possible with Jed slumbering away in what was normally her side of the bed.

  Still, it had been a long day. Nora’s emotions had been through the wringer and her body had had quite a workout, so she managed to grab a few hours of sleep before the sensation of being cold pulled her toward consciousness. Searching for the edge of the top sheet, which she expected to find within reach, she encountered her naked hip. It took a second for her to remember why she wasn’t wearing pajamas and that she wasn’t alone.

  Her skin was cool to the touch and the sheet didn’t warm her fast enough, so she turned around and backed into Jed until their bodies resembled a set of quotation marks.

  When she woke for the second time, Jed was gone and she was on her belly with her right foot and calf dangling off her side of the bed. The light in the room was bright. Too bright. Nora lunged for the clock in a panic. She then grabbed a T-shirt and shorts from her hamper and hurriedly put them on.

  Jed was in her kitchen. He was dressed and his hair was damp. He smiled at Nora.

  “You showered?” she asked, her tone slightly accusatory.

  “Guilty as charged,” he said. “I made coffee too. Tell me how you like it and I’ll fix you a cup. I won’t expect you to be civil before coffee. No one should have to be.”

  This earned Jed a small smile. Nora said that she liked a teaspoon of raw sugar and a splash of half-and-half.

  “I brewed this pot with an extra scoop of grounds,” he said, handing her a mug. “In case you needed the extra get-up-and-go. I don’t. I slept like the dead. I haven’t slept like that in ages and I have you to thank for that bit of magic, as well as all the other magic tricks you showed me last night. After I thank you up close and personal, I’ll leave you to get on with your day.” He put his mug down, crossed the room, and kissed Nora softly on her coffee-laced lips. “Hm, there’s nothing like the taste of coffee to start the day off on the right foot.”

  Nora, who felt self-conscious because she hadn’t brushed her teeth or her hair and was wearing dirty clothes, retreated a step. “To be continued? At the festival tonight?”

  Jed grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  Nora watched him walk to the door. He opened it, paused, and turned back to face her. “You’re beautiful. Every bit of you. Your scars, your messy hair, your painful past, your wrinkled T-shirt, your bare feet, your fiery eyes, your perfect mouth—all of you. You are so damn beautiful.”

  With a final wave, Jed left.

  Nora stood in the kitchen, cradling her coffee mug. No one had ever spoken to her like that. No one had ever looked at her like that or touched her the way Jed had last night. It was unnerving, frightening, and exhilarating. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to break into song. She wanted to hide.

  * * *

  That afternoon, June poked her head around the corner of the mystery section shelves and said hello, causing Nora to startle.

  “Who put the twinkle in your star?” June asked.

  “What do you mean?” Nora fixed her gaze on the back cover of a Louise Penny mystery.

  June put a hand on her hip. “You can’t fool me. I’ve been watching you from my favorite purple chair for the past fifteen minutes and I can tell there’s something up with you. I actually think I heard you hum.”

  “I’m not important right now. Hester is.” Nora gestured at the purple chair and June resumed her seat.

  After giving Nora an assessing stare, she shrugged and reached behind her to fluff the throw pillow imprinted with the text, WARM TEA, GOOD BOOKS, SOFT PILLOWS, GOOD COMPANY.

  “When Hester let me inside her house last night, I thought everything would turn out okay. It didn’t,” June said, settling deeper into the chair cushion. “She thinks we’re jumping to conclusions about Abilene without a lick of proof. I can see her side of things, Nora. We have some oddball coincidences, but no proof.”

  “None of us believe in coincidence.” Nora sat in the crimson velvet chair next to June. “I don’t pretend to understand any of this, but there’s a reason Abilene won’t tell us how she came by that dress. There’s a reason Deputy Andrews wouldn’t discuss the cause behind Amanda’s death. I asked him point-blank if she swallowed those pills from the bottle you and I saw on her kitchen counter, but he refused to answer. Lastly, there’s a reason Kenneth Frye hired an attorney to contest his mother’s will. He wants her book collection. And I think he wanted it before he understood its worth. Everything seems to come back to Amanda.”

  June held up a finger. “Abilene is only connected if she was wearing Amanda’s dress, but how could we ever be sure of such a thing?”

  “I’m going to ask for help,” Nora said.

  “Like Jack asked for Estella’s help last night?” June chuckled. “I know you were there too, but Estella isn’t one to share a man’s attention.”

  Nora leaned closer to June. “Did she call you?”

  “No, I bumped into them as they were leaving Virtual Genie. I didn’t have to work at the pools today, so I did some errands around town. If I had something to sell, I could have investigated Virtual Genie myself, but I put everything I have into my house or a savings account for my son. He’s never made a withdrawal, but this mama keeps hoping.”

  The laughter immediately left June’s eyes and Nora responded with a sympathetic nod. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. What comfort could she, a childless woman, offer a mother who’d trade everything she owned for a single word from her child?

  Though June had been estranged from Tyson for well over a decade, she never stopped trying to reconnect with him. She wrote him letters and mailed him birthday and Christmas gifts. More often than not, these packages came back unopened, but June vowed to continue sending them.

  Though June had recently been promoted to a managerial position at the thermal pools run by the lodge, her income was still modest. Nora hadn’t realized that her friend had set up a bank account for her son, and it saddened her to think that June might be denying herself small material pleasures in order to put money aside for a grown man who’d made it quite clear that he never wanted to see or speak to his mother again. Tyson blamed June for ruining his chance at a college education and for forever altering his destiny. He blamed her, refused to forgive her, and ultimately, denied her very existence.

  “So what happened with Jack and Estella?” Nora gently changed the subject.

  “Other than the fact that Jack has clearly fallen under Estella’s wicked spell, you mean? God help him.” June put her hands together as if in prayer and glanced at the ceiling. She then resumed her narrative. “Since Jack had to hurry back to the Pink Lady to prep for the dinner rush, Estella was able to tell me about their visit before she was due to meet her next client. Here’s what happened: Jack gave his box to Griffin Kingsley to sell and Estella gave me a copy of the consignment agreement to go over with a fine-tooth comb.”

  June produced a pink sheet of paper and set it on the coffee table and the two women bent over the document and began to read.

  Nora skipped the blank lines asking for the consignor’s personal information and moved down to the middle of the page. The terms of the contract were neither lengthy nor difficult to understand. The consignor agreed to a sixty/forty split. Sixty percent of the selling price would go to the consignor and forty percent would go to Virtual Genie. In addition, Virtual Genie would deduct priority-rate shipping and insurance costs for each item. Items would be auctioned online for a period of one week. If unsold, they’d be relisted at a slightly lower price. If, after four relistings, the item remained unsold, the consignor would be contacted to reclaim the item or have Virtual Genie lower the price even more.

  “This seems reasonable to me,” Nora said when she’d finished reading. �
�The only additional fees I saw, other than the shipping costs, are here.” She pointed at the bottom of the page. “If a consignor cancels an ongoing auction, they have to pay an early termination fee of five percent of the item’s list price. That might seem harsh, but I suppose it makes Virtual Genie look bad when an ongoing auction item is canceled, especially if the item already has bids.”

  June grunted. “So far, this seems legit. There’s more on the back.”

  The flip side contained a paragraph of legalese stating that Virtual Genie did not guarantee the safety of the consignor’s items. The company carried only fire and liability insurance and the fine print on the reverse made it quite clear that they were not responsible for the loss of an item due to theft, flood, or a natural disaster.

  “While not reassuring, it’s also not surprising,” Nora said. “Imagine the insurance premiums if Virtual Genie had to provide coverage for every treasure they agreed to sell until it was shipped out.”

  “After reading this, I think we can confirm that Virtual Genie is playing fair, Kenneth Frye’s a jackass, Abilene remains a total mystery, and your twinkle can only be the result of one thing.”

  Nora was spared from having to respond because a customer stepped up to the ticket agent’s booth with the intention of ordering a beverage.

  After taking her drink order, Nora asked the woman, “Would you like to try a book pocket to accompany your Dante Alighieri?”

  “No, thank you,” the woman answered. “Unless they happen to be gluten-free.”

  Suddenly realizing that she’d never ridden to the Gingerbread House to collect pastries that morning, Nora told the woman that she didn’t carry any gluten-free treats.

  “That’s okay,” the woman said. “I had a huge lunch at the lodge. Not that my full tummy stops me from wanting all of your gorgeous cookbooks. I’m a self-professed cookbook hoarder. I don’t cook. I just like looking at photos of food.”

  “You’re into food porn,” Nora said.

  The woman frowned. “I’m not a fan of that term. Porn objectifies people—mostly women—while food is nourishing. It doesn’t seem right to combine the two terms.”