by Maisey Yates
Right. Well the last thing she needed to do was start melting over how he looked.
But there was something else that felt changed too. It wasn’t her, that was for sure.
Apparently you could avoid your hometown for years, except to see your family. Limit the amount of time you spent wandering around. Do anything, absolutely anything, to forget the biggest heartbreak of your life.
And he could walk into a room covered in grease and oil, wearing nothing but worn jeans and a dirty white T-shirt, and you could find yourself right back where you never wanted to be.
Hopeless and desperate for a man who didn’t love you.
Fantastic.
His blond hair was darker, pushed back off of his forehead. His cheekbones were sharper, his face covered with stubble. But the scar on his cheek was still visible. She remembered how he’d gotten it. Running underneath the bleachers and colliding with a support beam beneath it. He hit the side of his face and tore it open and it had taken a fairly legendary amount of stitches to close it back up again. The end result was a groove that ran just beneath the corner of his eye to the edge of his cheekbone.
She remembered him before and after that scar.
He had a beard now. But that didn’t do anything to hide the lips that she had spent a whole lot of her teenage years staring at, composing poetry about them. Poetry that would only ever exist in the secret pages of a diary that had been burned long ago.
She could look at him and see a map to her past, but it felt distant. Far away.
She could see the exact moment recognition sparked through him. His blue eyes flickered over her, then stopped, and then clashed with hers.
He didn’t smile, and somehow she wasn’t surprised. Because there was something about his bearing now that didn’t suggest he smiled all that often. There was a groove worn between his eyebrows, but he was missing lines by the corners of his eyes.
“I heard you were in town,” he said.
Well she’d heard blessed little about him. Certainly not that he was running this auto shop which would have been nice to know.
Sure, but you pretend you’re not avoiding and you’ve done it so well no one has noticed that your friendship didn’t just fade away from years of neglect.
Right. That friendship that had been one of the most important, essential friendships in her life. Except she’d gone and fallen in love with him when she was fourteen.
While he’d gone and fallen in love with the other most important person in her life. Her friend Keira.
And they’d been a golden couple.
Still were, she was sure.
“I am. Obviously. I... I’m running Gram’s shop. Though it’s not...candy anymore.”
“I wondered.”
“Well. Wonder no more.” Wow. That was so lame. She was so lame.
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, but she would never call it a smile. “What brings you in?”
“Oh. My car won’t start. Which you know is... I mean I could walk back to The Dowell House. I’m staying there.” Too much information, Lark. “But the car thing will be a problem at some point and I saw you were open and...and.”
Ben had been her very first experience with hiding emotion. Letting feelings out had been a catharsis for her all her life and she’d never thought of them as dangerous.
Until keeping how she felt about him shoved down deep for fear it would ruin her friendships, and therefore her life, had taught her that she sometimes needed to keep things to herself.
And then...oh then when she hadn’t. When she’d exploded and done the very thing she shouldn’t have...
“Where’s your car, Lark?” he asked. “I was about to leave, but you know I’ll help you out.”
There was something about the way he’d said that. A familiarity to his words that melted the years away.
And now it was just right there, in her mind, a full Technicolor view of that night.
With wine and potato chips and a movie playing in the background that neither of them watched. He’d just been so... Broken. Because Keira had left him and broken off their engagement. And Lark was going away to school, so he was losing her too.
She could still remember seeing him like that. Like he was missing a piece of himself. And she’d thought...finally. Finally he’s missing something too.
Because she had been missing him her whole life, at least it had felt like it.
She’d let her desire free. All the spontaneity and feeling and need she’d pushed down with him—only ever him—and she had touched him.
Not like a friend. She had touched his face, like a lover might do, and dragged her thumb over his bottom lip. And the next thing she had known he was kissing her.
It was so much like every fantasy she had since she’d been fourteen years old that she hadn’t been able to say no. She hadn’t wanted to. Even though she’d been certain at the end of that particular road would be heartbreak she... She hadn’t wanted to say no. So she hadn’t.
So she’d given Ben Thompson her virginity on the floor of his parents’ daylight basement with the DVD menu of Mean Girls playing on repeat in the background. Which was maybe the most dated memory she possessed. And also one of the sharpest. One of the most devastating.
And they had never talked about it. Not ever. Because by the time she had quit hiding from him he had gotten back together with Keira. And it had been time for her to go to school. So she had.
Hadn’t come back even for their wedding.
Hadn’t spoken to him since.
“Do you have to... You don’t have to be home?”
With your wife.
Your wife, who I also care about and miss. Your wife who I’ve totally accepted you have because it’s been sixteen years and of course it’s fine and I’m not hung up on you at all even if you are still hot.
“Nope.”
She wanted to ask questions, but she didn’t.
“Great. Lead the way.”
She walked out the door, and he paused, turning the sign so that it said Closed, and when the cold air hit her, so did the reality of what was happening. It settled over her suddenly that she was walking down the street with Ben Thompson and rather than feeling like she was back in her sixteen-year-old skin, she felt like that girl was watching her, like she was both the Lark she was now and that girl from then. There had been a time in her life when he had been the dearest person in her world.
Her friend. In a deep, real way. But the problem had always been that she had felt for him in ways that a friend wasn’t supposed to.
And Keira had been her other person. Her friend from childhood she’d shared everything with. Until she’d found herself loving the same person she did, which took the sharing thing a little too far.
For Ben it had always been Keira, never Lark.
And if there was one thing she had never wanted to feel again for the rest of her life, it was that sense of being with him and not really being with him.
She shoved all that introspection aside, and focused on the sound of her feet connecting with the sidewalk. The sole of her shoe on the cement, the vague crunch of dirt and sand that was nearly invisible on the uneven surface.
She let it consume her. Her thoughts, her chest.
That mundane action. It was so much better than memories.
“This is it,” she said, stopping in front of her little red hatchback.
“Okay then.” She’d never heard two words so heavy with judgment.
He muttered an expletive under his breath as he rounded to the front of the car and popped the hood. “What exactly is going on?”
“It won’t start. I mean, it took a couple of tries this morning, and I went to the store, and when I came back I tried again and nothing.”
“Probably spark plugs or wiring. Connections. That ki
nd of thing.”
“Right. Well, I don’t know what any of that means, so if you just want to give me a bill when you figure it out, that would be great.”
“You don’t want to know what you’re paying for?”
“I’m just telling you it’s not going to make sense to me even if you explain it.”
“Fair enough. I’d probably feel the same if you started telling me about the crafts that you do in here.” He gestured toward the cottage.
“Well, give me too much detail about the car engine, and I will.”
She watched him work, bent over the car, the muscles in his arms shifting. He had tattoos. He had not had tattoos when they were younger. She was fascinated. He’d put art on his body, permanent art, and art was only ever personal. But when you inked it down beneath your skin it had to mean something truly deep.
She wanted to ask.
He looked up at her and their eyes caught, and so did her question. He just stared at her for a long moment. She had no idea why this man had the power to tilt her world on its axis like this. With one look.
She was saddest right then that they weren’t friends anymore.
“You look the same, Lark,” he said, a husky note in his voice telling her his own feelings were tangled up right now too.
But that wasn’t possible.
Or fair.
He never had been. Neither had her feelings for him.
“You don’t,” she said. “I mean... I...you have tattoos.”
He looked down at his arms. “Yeah. So I do.”
Why? What do they mean?
“When did you buy the shop?” She asked that instead, because asking about work was easier.
“Twelve years ago or so. Marco retired. At that point I’d been doing most of the work anyway for a while. It was an easy transition. And hey, people react differently when you say you own a garage than when you say you’re a mechanic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a mechanic.”
He huffed a laugh, but there was no smile with it. “Agreed. I wasn’t talking about what I think.”
“I’m a professional artist. I’ve heard a variety of reactions. Just in my own family.”
“Good for you,” he said. “That you ended up doing art, I mean.”
His blue eyes lingered on hers for longer than she was comfortable with. She looked down at the sidewalk, her touchstone.
“Thanks. I mean, good for you too. I’ve always thought... Getting to own a little piece of Main Street is pretty amazing considering the history here.”
“It is that. I certainly don’t mind it.” He straightened, wiping his hands off on a rag that had been in his back pocket. “I’ll bring the parts over and fix your car up. You need some connections tightened and a couple new spark plugs. And you need your oil changed. But I’m going to have to get it into the shop for that. So let’s get it running.”
“Thank you.”
“Did Addie leave you this place?” he asked.
“Not me by myself, no. But we’re all kind of taking different roles in the inheritance. Hannah is spearheading turning The Dowell House into a vacation rental.”
“Sounds like hell.”
“Yeah, it kind of does to me too. But she wants to handle it. And Avery and my mom can manage it.”
“Hannah’s not staying?”
“No.”
“But you are.”
“I am. Hey, thanks. I have to... I need to get the café open. Just bring me a bill, or something. And tell Keira hi for me.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. It... It was good to see you again.”
“You too.”
She turned away from him and walked into the café, and when she closed the door behind her and the silence settled around her she found it was difficult to breathe. She didn’t understand how... How that had just happened and it had been so... Nothing. So casual and... Easy. Except it didn’t feel easy. She felt like her insides had been rearranged. And yet, it had been easy to talk to him.
Not the same. Not even close. But not impossible either.
She might have called it a miracle if it didn’t feel so anticlimactic.
“He’s going to fix your car. You saw him.”
She had. And she had survived it. And if it felt like there was something sharp in her chest that was difficult to breathe around for the rest of the day, she was still going to call it a win. Because she hadn’t collapsed.
“All these years, and you managed not to collapse. One encounter with him isn’t going to do it.”
You’re not in love with him anymore.
Bolstered with that, she began to unload the sparkling water from its case. This had been the right decision, coming home.
She was even more certain of it now than ever.
7
The grass is like the sea. It goes on forever and makes waves in the wind. The vastness of it terrifies me, and I don’t know why I’ve left the comfort of everything I’ve ever known to take a teaching position in such a new, wild place. But home was not home to me. Not anymore. This alien prairie isn’t home. Oregon won’t be home either. I’m destined to be homeless forever.
Anabeth Snow’s diary,1864
Avery
Avery checked on her chicken, and then went over to the box of fabrics that she had brought over from her sister’s place two days ago. She hadn’t had the chance to go through any of it, and she was dying to.
She opened up the top of the box, and removed a bolt of marigold fabric, finding the brocade curtains beneath. She traced the blossoms and leaves with her fingertips, and then pulled one of the panels out, a piece of paper fluttering out from underneath.
She unfolded it, and saw that it was a small, handwritten note.
The parlor curtains, which hung in the window in Boston, then made a journey on the Oregon Trail, to hang in the windows here.
She looked up, out her own windows, past the sensible cream-colored curtains that were nothing half so dramatic as this beautiful set was. She looked at the sedate view. The perfectly manicured lawns and lovely homes. And she wondered what sort of woman would trade beautiful Boston views and bring these curtains, and herself on a journey across the country. Swapping out city views for what must have been something much more rugged.
Same curtains. Different windows.
She pressed the note to her chest for a moment, rooted to the spot. To her view.
And then the front door burst open and her kids came in, bickering.
Hayden threw his soccer bag down by the blue decorative table in the entryway.
“Good to see you too,” she said to her son as he stomped into the house.
Her daughter was focused solely on her phone. “What’s for dinner?” she asked.
“Chicken.”
“Ew.”
Avery let out a slow breath. “Did you want something else, Peytona?” She used her daughter’s childhood nickname, as she looked her directly in the eye, since they were the same height now.
“Something that isn’t gross?”
Avery shook her head. “I don’t know what that means since everything from chicken to the wrong lip gloss is gross to you.”
“I might be a vegetarian.”
“Great, green beans then.” She’d had green beans on her mind because of Gram. “Because I’m making chicken. I need more advanced warning if you’re going to adopt a lifestyle change. No last-minute vegetarianism.”
Peyton rolled her eyes and headed for the stairs, her brother bowing his head, avoiding eye contact and following her.
“Hey,” she said. “Not so fast. How was school, Hayden?”
“Great,” he said, in the same monotone he always did.
Always great. Never any details she didn’t pry out of him.
&
nbsp; “Homework?”
“Yeah.”
“When are you going to do it?”
“Sometime.”
They were desperate to get away from her and up to their rooms and she felt...like she should make them stay downstairs. Like she should make them talk to her.
But she couldn’t make them want to spend time with her. Hayden wanted attention from David, who was too busy to give it.
And none from her, of course.
But she had some disgusting chicken to go make that Peyton would pick at morosely, so who said being a mom was a thankless job?
At least Peyton didn’t leave any debris lying around for Avery to deal with. She should call Hayden back and have him pick up his things.
She knew that she should correct all of the attitude that had just blown through the room.
But sometimes it was just a lot less work to pick up a soccer bag than get into a fight with a fourteen-year-old.
She’d pick it up in a minute. She stared over at where he’d thrown it and noticed that there was a chip on the wall behind the table, where he’d thrown the bag, and she frowned. The house wasn’t that old. But old enough that they were starting to have some patching up to do.
She lost herself in sorting through the fabrics and looking at the copy of the design for the quilt Lark had sent home with her.
She started mentally mapping out her part, which fabrics she would use where to create the intricate design that required thin cut strips of fabric laid together to create a woven look.
It would look rich with the parlor curtains and some of the gold and cream fabrics that were also in her box.
She touched the curtains again and wondered about that woman, because it had to have been a woman who brought her curtains with her.
A woman who did what she and her sisters had just been talking about.
A woman who pulled up and left everything behind for a whole new view.
She heard her kids thumping overhead and suddenly realized that time had passed.