Always on My Mind

by Susan May Warren

  He stood there, struck, but he refused to let her words find a soft place. “No, I won’t let it go. We are friends, Raina. Maybe you don’t want to search for Aggie’s story anymore, and if that’s the case, yeah, I’ll walk away. But if this is because of what I saw the other day—Monte standing at the door like he owns you—”

  “He doesn’t own me.” She gave him a terrible, dark look. “But we are dating, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

  He understood that—or should. Maybe he had let Monte’s behavior stir his jealousy. Because, yeah, with her words, he could nearly taste it, the acrid poison of envy lining his throat.

  He refused to be that guy.

  “Okay, fine. You’re right. I don’t want to come between you and Monte.” A lie, but what choice did he have?

  Casper shoved his hands into his pockets, hunkering against the cold. “I just thought you’d be interested to know that I figured out how Thor and Aggie met. He was a delivery boy for the trading post, back when it was owned by the Zimmermans.”

  She seemed to relax, glancing past him, then nodding. “I read it in Aggie’s journal. They met that summer.”

  “Do you think she ran away with him?”

  “I don’t know but—”

  He lowered his voice. “I understand that you’re dating Monte. And if you’re happy, then that’s great.”

  See, he could say that in one even flow without a hint of rancor. “But . . . if you’re still serious about hunting up old pictures of Aggie, I’d be happy to plow so you can get in there.”

  Her gaze softened, and she seemed to be considering his words.

  “What if Aggie is the heiress of those missing US Steel bonds, Raina? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we found her living an ordinary life in the woods?”

  “Aggie wasn’t exactly ordinary. She ran one of the first women’s shelters. And did you know that her funeral was the largest attended in Deep Haven history?”

  He listened as she told him about her conversation with Gust.

  And watched as the tight knot of panic inside her seemed to loosen.

  In fact, for a moment, she seemed to glow.

  “Raina,” he said, “I get off work in a couple hours. Let me pick you up and take you to Aggie’s. We can look for clues to what happened between Duncan and Thor. Maybe find some hint about the bonds.”

  The shadow reappeared across her face.

  No, Casper didn’t hate people. He hated Monte Riggs.

  He shook the thought away. Especially when she nodded. “I’ll walk over to the Wild Harbor.”

  “I’ll be the one breaking up a fight over mukluks.”

  A smile edged her face, and he let it sink in, feasted on it the rest of the afternoon.

  Raina arrived just as he started to wonder if he should drive over, track her down. She climbed into the cab. “I stopped at home to pick up Aggie’s diary.”

  She read him passages about Aggie meeting Thor, ending with an entry about Aggie fearing that Duncan would return. She closed the book. Stared out the window at the fog over the lake.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know—it’s what she said at the end. I know she loves Duncan, but when she talks about Thor, it’s like she’s alive.”

  “Duncan doesn’t truly love her,” Casper said, trying to keep his thoughts from veering too close to the present. Really, it wasn’t his business. “He’s not a good guy.”

  “But maybe he’s good enough. He can give her a home and a life. Safety.”

  “Maybe that’s not what she truly wants.”

  She looked at him, frowned. “Of course it is.”

  He pulled into the driveway, lowered the plow. “It’s a bit icy out, so hang on. It could get bumpy.”

  He drove slowly, pushing curls of snow onto the side of the road, through the jagged, icy trees that scraped his windshield. He finally parked in front of the house.

  Raina made to get out, but he stopped her. “Let me shovel a path to the door.” He got out, grabbed his shovel, glad he’d stored a pair of Sorels in the car, and cleared a path to the stairs.

  Then he turned off the truck and helped her out.

  “Such a gentleman,” she teased, and the sudden change in her demeanor could knock him over.

  He followed her up the path and into the house. A chill hung in the air as he closed the door behind him.

  “It’s been unoccupied since Aggie went into the nursing home over a decade ago, and since then, it was only used as a summer vacation home for the family,” Raina explained. “I don’t think anyone really did any packing up. Her granddaughter finally hired Monte to clear it out and put the estate up for sale.”

  She moved from the foyer into a large living room. “I’ve already been through all the drawers in the built-ins and packaged the pictures and books.” She gestured to the empty shelves. “And I worked my way through the upstairs, with the exception of Aggie’s closet. I found a bunch of vintage clothing and a number of boxes on a shelf. Maybe they have some old pictures.”

  She led the way upstairs, leaving him to marvel at the oak detailing of the banister, the molding, his inner carpenter appreciating the handiwork. Darek would love this place.

  Casper followed her up and found her in a dark closet. He turned on the penlight on his key chain and shone it in.

  “Aren’t you a Boy Scout?” she said, reaching up to grab a stack of boxes.

  “Always prepared—” He caught two of the top boxes before they fell on her. “Careful.”

  She brought the boxes to the bed, set them on the bare mattress. The light of the day had begun to dim, casting shadows in the room. She opened the top box. Postcards, a shiny medal on a blue ribbon, a pair of dainty white gloves.

  “This looks like a World War II medal,” Casper said, picking it up.

  “Could be Thor’s?”

  He put it back, reached for another box. This one held letters, all addressed to Aggie and sent from Paris.

  Raina took the letters, bound together with ribbon, and ran her thumb over the script. “She was ninety-five when she died. Which meant she lived through two world wars, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, and even our war in the Persian Gulf.”

  “She saw the advent of telephones to cell phones.”

  “Television to computers.” She put the letters back in the box. Opened another one. “Pictures. Black-and-white.” She held one up. “This is Aggie and a little girl.”

  He picked out another one. “And in this one, she’s sitting on the beach, laughing.” He put it away. “I’m freezing. Let’s take these back to town, grab a bite, and we’ll look at them there.”

  She put the handful of pictures she’d grabbed back in the box. “I have the fixings for pad thai at home that I’ve been dying to make.”

  “Let you cook for me? Any day.”

  She smiled, something shiny in her eyes. He boxed up the pictures and the rest of the collectibles and carried them outside.

  A bluish hue from the setting sun hung over the forest. The snow crackled when he walked and he could sense her behind him, quiet.

  He put the boxes in the cab, and she climbed in, shutting the door.

  Still quiet.

  Casper fired up the truck. “You okay?”

  She sighed, nodding. Then suddenly shook her head. “It’s not fair.”

  “What’s not fair?”

  Her voice dropped so low he could barely hear it over the car engine. “Why do some people get to live happily ever after and others don’t?”

  “Raina—”

  “She fell in love or something in Paris—she wrote about it at the beginning of the diary. Her father called her tainted and sent her to Chicago. Then she fell in love with a man history calls a gangster. Except how could she be so wrong about that? It seems more like a legend than a fact. But she still married the man of her dreams and it all worked out for her. Why did she get everything—her home, her family? Her dreams?” She pressed a hand to her mou
th.

  Casper had the terrible urge to pull over, take her in his arms. “I don’t know. But I do know that just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you have to live in it for the rest of your life.”

  She turned to him, narrowed her eyes. “Spoken like a man who is working in a job he hates because he’s too afraid he’ll fail at what he loves.”

  His mouth opened. He closed it. “I’m not afraid of failing.”

  “Then why are you still here, Casper? Why aren’t you on some remote island digging up treasure? Why are you still stuck in this cold, miserable, dark forest?” Her voice had risen now, and it cut through the motor noise, sliced clear through to his heart.

  You.

  The word filled his chest, rose into his throat.

  You, Raina.

  He’d never seen it so clearly before now. But looking at her, her beautiful brown eyes glistening, her lips pursed and tight, he knew the truth.

  Oh, how he loved her. And instead of going away, that truth had only deepened over the past few weeks as he thought about her, prayed for her, knew her grief. Her courage, her sincerity, her sacrifice—it all made him love her past his hurt. Wow, he wanted her to be happy. Whole.

  Even if that meant without him.

  His hands tight on the steering wheel, he stared ahead, trying to scrounge up an answer that didn’t require him to pluck his heart from his chest. “I’m helping my family get back on their feet. The resort is . . . floundering.”

  Lame, but he had no other words.

  “Oh,” she said softly as if his answer had unseated her. Then she wiped her cheek, stared out the window.

  “But I’m leaving as soon as the summer season starts.”

  “Good,” she said. “You should.”

  They drove in silence, the excitement of the pictures—and the dinner awaiting—vanishing. Casper hadn’t a clue how to resurrect it. Or if he wanted to. Because a guy could only handle so much pain.

  Still, as he stopped at her house, Raina sat in silence, not getting out, her hand on the boxes. He finally put the truck in park.

  “For what it’s worth, you’re going to live happily ever after, Raina. I know it. You will find someone who deserves you and loves you and you’ll have the family and everything you want,” he said, his heart breaking with each word. “I know you will because that’s what you do best. You keep hoping, keep believing, keep loving, even when life lets you down.”

  He touched her hand on the seat. “You just have to get past this fog to the sunshine.”

  She turned her hand over in his, and he felt her squeeze it. Then she met his eyes with a smile. “Still want some of that pad thai?”

  Casper sat in the breakfast nook, weeping.

  “Really, you had to give me the onions?” Tears dribbled down his face as he took another napkin and wiped his cheeks.

  Raina laughed, something sweet and freeing after her crazy breakdown in the car.

  Somehow, seeing Aggie’s happy life spread out in a handful of pictures had reached down, fisted her heart, and twisted.

  But maybe Aggie deserved her happy ending.

  And then she’d blurted out the question that pinged inside. Why are you still stuck in this cold, miserable, dark forest?

  She probably had no right to ask—and especially no right to want the answer to be her. No right to wish he’d pulled over on the side of the road and taken her in his arms.

  No right to ask him to keep driving out of Deep Haven and show her a world like Thor had shown Aggie. Maybe not a safe life, but one that radiated joy and laughter.

  A strange, almost-horrified relief had washed over her, though, when he didn’t. Because then she wouldn’t have to tell him how wrong he was in still caring for her.

  She wasn’t a fool—no man in his right and clear mind would want to be with her after . . . Well, the baggage simply seemed insurmountable. Probably that included Monte too. But with him, she got a fresh start. He didn’t have to see her the way Casper always would, look at her and see the destruction she’d caused.

  “Do you need a hankie?”

  “Leave a man alone when he’s crying,” Casper said, finishing the onions. “Next, O cruel one?”

  She threw him a towel and picked up the cutting board with the onions. “That’s enough for now.” On the stove, sesame oil sizzled in the wok. She tossed in a handful of chicken, stir-fried it, then added carrots and onions. In a moment she’d add the bean sprouts, red pepper, and crushed peanuts.

  Water for the rice noodles boiled on the back burner.

  “I love to watch you cook,” Casper said. He leaned back on the bench, arm over the top, his legs extended on a chair, crossed at the ankles. He had hung his black parka by the door, toed off his boots, and now sat in his socks, his black tailored dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and rolled haphazardly over his elbows to reveal strong forearms. His curly hair hung below his ears, and a thick five o’clock shadow on his chin suggested he’d risen early to shave. Professor Jones, in the flesh. He opened a shoe box on his lap, casually flipping through the photos.

  She’d forgotten how easy he was to have around, how he radiated a sense of peace, even humor, his smile like a balm to her tired sorrow. You just have to get past this fog to the sunshine.

  She dearly wanted to believe that. She stirred, and the fragrance of the onions could make her weep too. Her stomach reminded her that she’d eaten barely a piece of pizza after returning to Pierre’s to fetch it for Gust.

  It only added to the turmoil inside from Casper’s words about Monte. She couldn’t bear for them to be true. Monte standing at the door like he owns you—

  Monte didn’t own her. Like she said, she just didn’t like to make him mad. And she’d told Casper—clearly—that she and Monte were together.

  So having him over for dinner meant zilch. Friends poring over clues to an old mystery.

  She added fish sauce to the stir-fry. It sent up a decaying, acrid odor.

  “I think I found it.” Casper set the box on the table. Got up. “Here’s a picture of Aggie and Thor—I think this must be at the trading post in Mineral Springs. She’s holding a baby in a christening gown—it looks like a gown we have at the historical center.”

  He walked over, stood beside her, so close she could feel him, his body warm and solid, as he held the picture up for her.

  She grabbed a towel. Wiped her hand and reached for the picture. “Stir.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  She took the picture, moving away from him and the way he made her pulse ratchet up. The grainy picture showed a young woman standing on the steps of a rough-hewn store, holding a baby, her husband behind her. He was dressed in what looked like a pair of breeches, the woman in a simple shirtwaist and skirt. Her hair up, she smiled at the camera, a shine in her eyes.

  “She looks happy here.”

  “As opposed to . . . ?”

  “Well, that’s certainly not the same man from her wedding photo.” She set down the photo. “Add the peanuts and cilantro. I’ll be right back.”

  She went into the next room, retrieved the Bible, brought it back to the table.

  “What’s that?” he asked, glancing at her.

  “Aggie’s Bible.” She flipped to the front. “Here it is. Otto T. Wilder and his birthdate. May 1931.” She closed the Bible, then took a stack of pictures from the box. “This picture is of the curio shop in Mineral Springs.”

  “I was thinking the lean-to attached to the store could be their apartment.”

  She found another, this one of a man standing in front of a winterized delivery cart on skis. He wore a fur hat, a thick coat, leather moccasins.

  Another showed a little boy, maybe age four or five, riding bareback on a horse, a beaming father holding his leg.

  “Hey, I think this is one of early Deep Haven. This is the antique shop.” She brought it over to Casper, and he glanced at it, lowering the heat on the stove.

  “Yeah, that’s th
e old smithy shop, before Gust and Noreen turned it into the junk place.”

  “Collectibles and antiques,” she said.

  “My bad,” he said and winked at her. “I’m sure there are plenty of finds.”

  “There are.” She set the photos in the box. Closed the lid. “Like today—Gust dragged out a box of glass insulators. They used them on old—”

  “Telegraphs and railroad lights.”

  “Yeah.” She pulled two plates from the cupboard, then set them on the table in the kitchen. “Gust washed them and put them in the window. They were beautiful . . . like a stained-glass window.”

  “I have no doubt,” he said. “Actually, Gust was one of the culprits who got me into treasure hunting. He used to sponsor the great Deep Haven medallion hunt every year.”

  She drained the noodles and added them to the wok. “Medallion hunt?”

  Casper was paging through the Bible, examining it. “He was on the chamber of commerce, and I think he made it up to draw tourists, but the tradition stuck. Every year, the chamber hides a medallion during our annual Fisherman’s Picnic, with clues posted in the paper. The winner gets a check for $100.”

  Raina brought the wok over, and he put the Bible away, grabbed his plate. She dropped noodles onto it.

  “You’re looking at the medallion champion of 2003 and 2004,” he said.

  “Two years?”

  “Yep. Even got my name and picture in the paper. My mom cut it out and taped it to the fridge, next to all of Darek’s and Owen’s hockey headlines and Eden’s article about some variety show she was in. I think Mom still has it.”

  Raina pulled up a chair. “I have a feeling you could find the Holy Grail if you put your mind to it.”

  He scooted in his chair, giving her such a disarming look that a blush rose in her face. “What?” she asked.

  “That’s about the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.”

  Raina picked up chopsticks, handed him a pair. And of course he knew exactly what to do with them. She lifted a shoulder. “It’s true. You say I always believe in love—you always believe there is something worth finding out there.”