by Nika Dixon
Unlike the cold sterility of her apartment, this living space welcomed her in.
Lucy turned into the first door on the right, stuffed the blanket she was carrying into the bottom drawer of a dresser, then rushed off with a “be right back.”
Emma explored every corner of the small bedroom, letting her fingers trace over the various textures of the different surfaces. It was so tiny compared to the enormity of her room in the penthouse, but unlike her cold, unfriendly living space, everything here carried the same soothing energy. She placed her palm on the warm, polished surface of the wooden dresser, reading the strength and pride that had gone into its construction.
She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. The evening’s roller coaster of emotions overtook her, sagging her shoulders beneath a deep yawn. Tonight would be her first real sleep in a week. She eyed the pillow, wanting very much to simply fall over and close her eyes.
Lucy bustled into the room, struggling with a large cardboard box she could barely see over. A furry white blur sped through behind her. The cat launched itself onto the top of the dresser.
“Tink,” Lucy admonished, setting the big box onto the bed. “This isn’t your room.”
Emma stroked the cat’s back. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“That’s Tink. Short for Tinkerbell. Weird, though. She doesn’t usually let anyone else pet her. She must really like you.”
“We’ve already met. Didn’t we, Tink?”
Lucy opened the flaps on the box and pulled out several articles of clothing. “Dad said you lost your stuff in the river. These came from my cousin, Shannon. She goes to university in Denver. It’s all hand-me-downs, but they’re way too big for me. They should fit you, though. There’s no underwear, so you’ll have to keep what you have until we can go to the store tomorrow.” She turned and held up a green tank top, plastering it against Emma’s front. “Yep, this one’s perfect! It makes your eyes really go all green!”
Emma clutched the shirt to her middle. “Lucy, I can’t take these.”
“Sure you can.” The girl held up a pair of jeans. “Hmm. These might be big.”
Guilt washed over her. She’d been expecting the worst of this family of strangers, yet they were not only giving her a bed and a room for the night but clothes, as well.
Lucy continued to rummage through the box. “Grandpa says you probably don’t want to go around wearing Mrs. Horvath’s garden dress.”
“Mrs. Horvath’s what?”
“Her garden dress. She used to wear it all the time whenever she was going to Pikes Falls to get stuff for her flowers. Grandpa says she had a real green thumb. Anyway, everyone in town knows it’s her dress, so…unless you want people thinking you’re the new Mrs. Horvath, you probably shouldn’t wear it anymore. Just saying.”
Emma nodded, deciphering the conversation down to the point the people in town wouldn’t take kindly to her wearing the beloved woman’s dress. “I was just borrowing it. My dress was dirty. I’ll make sure she gets it back.”
“Eww.” Lucy giggled. “She died. I don’t think she wants it back.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Lucy shrugged.
A voice called out from downstairs. “Lucy?”
Lucy stuffed all the clothes back into the box. “Okay, well, anything you want out of here is cool. And there’s fresh towels for you in the bathroom so you can shower. Oh, and I found you a toothbrush. It’s on the counter. It’s pink. And you don’t have to worry about anyone walking in on you. Dad has his own bathroom, and Grandpa and Uncle Marsh use the big one downstairs. This one up here is just mine—well, ours.”
Emma’s head whirled at the girl’s description of the bathroom assignments. “Wait. You all live here?”
“Well, yeah.” Lucy pulled her into the hallway, then turned and pointed back to the bedroom. “This used to be Grandma’s sewing room. That’s why there’s no closet. We made it into a guest room last summer. I got to paint the walls, but Dad had to help me with the corners and stuff.” She waved to the bathroom across the hall, pointing out a plush brown towel and bright-pink toothbrush on the corner of the counter. “Those are for you.”
Without waiting for feedback, she tugged Emma into the pink-and-purple-painted bedroom beside the bathroom. “This is me,” she said proudly.
Before Emma could get more than a brief peek at the shelves piled with stuffed animals, music CDs, and books, she was towed down the hall to the master suite at the end.
“This is my dad’s room.” Lucy pointed to a door to the left of the bed. “That’s his bathroom, so you and I can have the big one just for us girls.”
“Lucy!” The shouted call came again.
Lucy returned Emma to the guest room. “I have school tomorrow, so I won’t see you until I’m back. Dad says we can go to the mall and get you some ‘girlie things’ after,” she said with a grin, making quotes in the air with her fingers as she backed away. “See you tomorrow!”
Emma closed the bedroom door and sagged against it. The warmth of the pretty room was now chilled by the girl’s admission it wasn’t only the grandfather she would be staying with, but the whole family—including the local sheriff.
Sneaking out at the crack of dawn just got a whole lot trickier.
She moved the box of clothes to the floor and sank down onto the bed. Tink launched herself off the dresser and flopped down beside her. She rubbed the cat’s head. “What do you think, Tink? Clean up, get couple hours’ sleep, find something less noticeable to wear, then be on my way?”
Tink chirruped in agreement.
Heading out in the dark, alone, and on foot wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had.
Chapter Nine
Emma awoke to the dull gray light of predawn. A flicker of panic at the strange surroundings was quickly buried beneath the comfort and security of the soft bed. Her night’s strange adventure came back to her, and she groaned. She brushed her fingers over her temple, feeling for the tender lump. It didn’t seem to be as swollen, and it certainly hurt a lot less when she poked it.
She still couldn’t remember what happened with Georgie and the car accident—but she did remember exactly whose house she was sleeping in.
She glanced at the window. So much for her plan to escape under cover of darkness.
Although…having a full night’s sleep did feel wonderful. Naps in bus station seats were anything but restful. One night in a real bed was just the battery charge she’d needed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up, eager to get moving.
With a purring chirrup, Tink rolled onto her side and showed off a dramatic, toothy yawn.
“You were supposed to wake me,” she whispered to her new friend.
Tink executed a perfect Halloween stretch then hopped off the bed. She padded over to the closed door and started to dig at the crack in the bottom.
Emma flipped the covers aside. “Just a second, Miss Impatient.”
She quickly sorted through the box of clothes Lucy had left, selecting a pair of denim capris, the green tank top the girl had liked, and a light-gray hoodie. She grinned at her choices. It was an eclectic mix of discount store styles that would have sent Alan into a fit.
Her smile faded as she clutched the material. He would, indeed, have a fit if he caught up to her. And when he did, what she was wearing wouldn’t make any difference in the world. He controlled everything. What she wore. What she ate. Everything. Going against his wishes caused a deadly backlash. But this time she wasn’t just defying his orders about her attire or her work, she was defying him.
If he caught her, it wouldn’t just be her freedom he took, it would be her life, and the lives of anyone he believed was helping her.
She hurried to the door. Gripping the handle tightly, she gave it a tiny turn, praying it wasn’t going to squeak. It released its hold silently, and she inched it open.
Tink shot through the gap and disappeared down the stairs.
She pause
d in the opening. The other bedroom doors were still closed, and the house around her remained silent.
She tiptoed across the hall and into the bathroom. She eyed the bathtub with longing. A week of restroom-sink bathing had kept her cleanish, but a tub soak would be heavenly. If only it wouldn’t make too much noise. Using the washcloth Lucy had left for her, she did her best to clean up. After brushing her teeth, she snooped through the drawers for a comb to untangle her hair, making sure to put everything back exactly where and how she’d found it. She removed the borrowed dress and folded it into a neat square, leaving it on the counter so it could be returned to the doctor. Then she quickly pulled on the hand-me-downs. The tank top was a perfect fit, the capris a little baggy, and the hoodie absolutely huge, but they were clean, comfortable, and much more functional than the yellow sundress she had been wearing for too many days.
Placing her ear to the bathroom door, she listened to the quiet beyond before taking the chance of opening it. She hurried back across the empty hallway to make the bed and brush the cat hair off the corner.
She gave the little room a final, parting glance before creeping down the stairs to the dark corridor on the main floor. She hesitated between making a run for the entrance and finding the kitchen. She needed food. An apple. A granola bar. Something small they wouldn’t miss.
She moved quietly toward the back of the house. A corridor split off to the right, but it was a dark dead end. She couldn’t tell if the doors along it were open or closed, so she held her breath and scurried past, praying the floorboards wouldn’t creak.
She stepped into the kitchen.
“Morning.”
Jumping back from the unexpected voice, she bashed into the doorframe.
Standing in front of the open refrigerator, Hank smiled and waved her forward. “Come on in.”
She clamped her hand over her racing heart. “Sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be up.”
He snorted and turned back to rummaging through the fridge. “Those lazy boys of mine haven’t voluntarily seen a sunrise in years. Lucy won’t be up for school for another hour yet, so it’s just you and me for breakfast. Grab a seat.”
She bit her lip. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure if she should accept. Taking off now was her best move, but thinking it through, things might go better on a full stomach.
“I make a mean omelet,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“If it were trouble, I wouldn’t have offered.” He set a package of eggs on the counter. “Now, sit yourself down and I’ll put the coffee on.”
Accepting his grumping that the others were still asleep and would remain so for a while, she moved farther into the kitchen. Her attention was snatched away by the postcard-perfect scenery through the uncovered patio doors to her right.
The land behind the house sloped down into wide valley, its greenery crisscrossed by white fences stretching back to the forest in the distance. At the bottom of the hill, two cherry-red barns splashed bright color against the background of dark pines. The scene was framed by the snow-capped mountains, painted with tips of gold from the rising sun.
She placed her fingertips against the cool glass. “It’s so beautiful.”
Smiling, Hank slid the patio door open. “After you.”
The early-morning chill tingled her lungs with its crisp freshness. It reminded her of winter in the city and those rare mornings where a fresh fall of snow crushed the odor of car exhaust, dust, and garbage. While her visible landscape had changed drastically over the last week, not once had she recognized how much different the air was.
She crossed the cool wooden deck to the railing and took a deep breath. “It smells like heaven.”
“If I had to lay a guess on what heaven should smell like, I’d be inclined to think this would probably be as good a choice as any.”
It took her a moment to hear his roundabout reasoning as agreeing with her.
He left her on the porch and returned to the house.
She stared out across the fields, wishing she could absorb the beauty flowing out of the world around her. Her fingers mimed the brushstrokes she would use to bring the mountains into focus while she considered the right shades of green to use to give life to the forests.
It would make a stunning painting.
Energy swirled within her, rolling across her skin and down into her arms. She shifted her weight from foot to foot as an all-too-familiar itch crept across her hands. She curled her fingers into fists, stabbing her nails into the flesh of her palms. It did nothing to ease the pressure of the image fighting to come out.
Alan called it her gift.
But to her, it was a curse.
Her palms burned with the need to get the picture out of her head—out of her body. When she could take it no more, she went back inside, eyeing the cupboards with an uncontrollable sense of desperation. Kitchens were for food and dishes. Not art supplies.
Hank set a frying pan onto the stove. “Something wrong?”
She scratched at her palms, the itching beneath her skin nearly unbearable. “I was wondering if you might have a piece of paper and a pencil I could borrow?”
“Yup. Should be some in the middle drawer right there.” He pointed to the hutch behind her.
She rummaged through the drawer, finding a pad of note paper and a collection of randomly sized pens, pencils, and markers. Grabbing one of the sharper pencils, she hurried back out onto the porch.
When she placed the tip of the pencil to the page, the itch in her hands faded with the first swipe. The energy of the image flowed through her fingers with speed and precision. The barns took shape first, shaded in black with dark lines and sharp framing. A lighter press added the rolling hills that ran out to meet the mountains, and the peaked tops reaching for the sky. She shaded in the forests and the fence line and added the crooked apple tree in the corner of the nearby field. Before she could consider it finished, her hand moved to the edge, where she quickly added the silhouette of an all-black horse.
A sense of completion washed over her. Relieved to be free from the image, she carefully separated the drawing from the pad of paper.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
She jumped, cursing herself for getting so lost she hadn’t heard Hank approach. She almost hid the picture from him, but he was standing at her shoulder, staring down at it with a wide smile.
“You did all that just now?”
“It would look a lot better if I took my time,” she confessed, noticing a multitude of flaws in the shapes. One of the barn walls was crooked, the apple tree was missing too many branches, and the central mountain peak was too tall in comparison to the one to its left.
“Better?” he exclaimed. “Missy, I’d be damn proud to hang this on my wall as it is. Just frame it up and put it right there in the den where I can see it. You sure do have some kind of talent. And would you look at that.” He pointed to the horse she’d added at the end and grinned. “You even managed to get Devil in there. Damn horse. Surprised you saw him. He doesn’t usually come this close to the house.”
She didn’t bother to look at the hills for the horse. He wouldn’t be there. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a few minutes. Or a few hours. Or even as long as a few days.
At some point her sketch would precisely duplicate the turn of time.
Problem was, she never knew when.
Chapter Ten
With breakfast finished, Emma insisted on helping clean up, even though Hank grumbled that in his house the guest didn’t do dishes. She supposed most people would have stopped arguing at his scowling bluster, but she didn’t miss the smile he tried to hide when she ignored him.
Despite Alan’s repeated insistence that cleaning was for the paid help, she wasn’t a stranger to washing up. The penthouse had a dishwasher, but it took her a week to dirty enough dishes to fill it. Leaving them in the sink for someone else t
o do seemed incredibly rude, so she always cleaned up after herself. It gave her something to do to break up the boredom of being alone.
Drying her hands on a towel, she took a moment to enjoy the landscape through the window over the sink. Alan always said people would pay millions for her penthouse view—but other than the occasional sight of people on balconies or rooftop patios, there was never any life to the image. Not like this. The beauty unfolding in the golden glow of the morning sun was a painting come to life. The nearby trees waved their leaves, flipping back and forth from the light side to dark. Birds dashed from branch to branch, fighting with the squirrels for the best perch. Drifting clouds morphed shapes, teasing her to decide what object they resembled most.
The explosion of motion and color made her wish for a way to flip the switch on the direction her life had gone. To say no to that too-good-to-be-true offer years ago. To tell her younger self not to believe the lies.
A pipe clanked in the walls, banging twice then falling silent. The noise snapped her from her retrospective, and she turned her back on the window.
“That’ll be Marshall,” Hank explained. “The downstairs shower makes a nice little racket when the hot water kicks in.”
Despair rose through her stomach, smothering her whimsical retrospective of what might have been and burying her in what was. Staying for breakfast had been a mistake. She should have grabbed a snack and left immediately. But Hank had been so accommodating and friendly, the food and casual conversation had drawn her in. He hadn’t asked anything she was afraid to answer, didn’t pry into her past, and to his credit did, indeed, make a delicious omelet.
For years, all her time had been spent either in solitude or trapped in the company of Alan and his men, neither of which offered much chance for normalcy. Spending time with someone who asked nothing of her was so wonderfully welcome, it had made her forgot all about her plan for a hasty exit.