by Nika Dixon
He waved her toward the exit. “Come on. We should get a seat before the rest of the town shows up.”
She followed him into the afternoon sunshine. “Bobby, I—” She struggled to find the words to thank him for giving her a morning where she hadn’t once remembered why she was there or why she had nowhere else to go. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me stay. You didn’t have to do that. It…it means a lot. So, thank you.”
He pulled his ball cap off and scratched his head. “Well, shoot, it was my genuine pleasure.” He switched the hat from one hand to the other. “Was no trouble. Kind of nice having someone to order about for once. Besides, if you’d been in the way, I’d have told you to git.”
“You would have been done hours ago if you didn’t have to wait for me to find everything. I’m a terrible assistant. I should buy you lunch for putting up with me.”
He snugged the ball cap back onto his head and winked. “Tell you what. Next time you steal a car and drive it into the creek, lunch is on you.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Deal.”
He stuck his arm out for her to hold. “Shall we?”
They crossed the street and headed toward the diner. Inside, a few patrons held court with Maggie at a booth by the windows, but the rest of the seats were empty.
“’Bout time you two showed up!” Maggie waved them closer. “Where’s Marshall?”
Bobby took his baseball cap off. “Had something to do, I guess.”
“He left?” She frowned at Bobby, then shrugged. “Well, no mind.” She switched to a grin and pointed her finger at Emma. “Grab a seat. I’ll be right back.”
As she hurried off to the kitchen, Bobby waved his hand at their seating choices. “Table, booth, or counter?”
“Counter.”
“Always my favorite spot.”
Maggie hurried out of the kitchen, an excited grin on her face. With an enthusiastic flair, she set a large sketch pad and a bright-yellow box of colored pencils onto the counter. “I heard you say you could really do something if you had the right supplies. I don’t know if these are right, but…”
Emma’s fingers tingled in anticipation. Could she do something with them? Oh, yes. The view from the Boyers’ back porch, only this time in the rich shades of autumn. The twisting road she’d traveled with Georgie, the asphalt shadowed with deep-green pines. A golden eagle silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky.
For the first time in years, the choice of what to draw would be hers alone.
She started to reach for the colored pencils but hesitated.
Gifts never came without a price. And not knowing what Maggie’s price would be had Emma shaking her head. “I can’t take these.”
“Yes, you can,” Maggie said firmly. “Consider it a gift.”
Emma gripped the edge of the counter, refusing to touch either item. A deep sadness ripped away the layers of her happy morning. She had hoped that by gaining her freedom, she could close the door on her old life and become a whole new person. Someone strong. Someone who didn’t need anyone’s help. Someone who wasn’t afraid to live her life the way she wanted to, not the way she was told to. But leaving her former self behind wasn’t going to be easy.
She was being given a present for no reason other than kindness, and her first reaction was to look for a hidden meaning? Not acceptable. That was the old her—the woman who lived her life in fear, trapped behind the windows of a penthouse apartment—not the woman who was free to go where she wanted, see whom she wanted to see, and accept gifts from whomever she wanted to get them from.
Maggie picked open the top of the pencil box, pulled out a forest-green pencil, and scrawled a crooked happy face on the top corner of the art pad. “Ruined. Guess I can’t take it back now.”
Bobby snorted.
Emma glanced over at her lunch companion, who grinned, then shrugged. “I heard you draw a mean sunset.”
The teasing laugh in his eyes firmed her decision. She pulled the sketchbook closer, thanking Maggie profusely.
“Oh, it’s no matter! Figured this way you can draw me a picture to stick on my wall, right? Can’t very well have Hank Boyer with the only Emma original in town, now can I?”
“How do you know about that?”
Maggie laughed. “It’s a small town, hon. Now, why don’t you give those pencils a test drive while I whip you two up a couple of specials. Burgers and home fries that’ll knock your socks off.”
Making herself comfortable on the round stool, Emma flipped the cover off the sketch pad to expose the first blank page.
Food for a sketch was definitely a price tag she could afford.
She couldn’t ever remember feeling so happy.
By the time the lunch crowd had come and gone, she was both physically and mentally exhausted, but neither state made any difference beneath the super-charged level of energy she pulled out of the tiny diner and fed into her wounded soul.
The first picture to take shape had been of a grinning Bobby driving an old red convertible, which prompted a rousing discussion among the lunch-goers as to how much the car looked like the one he had been trying to buy off a crotchety owner from another county. She wasn’t about to tell him that at some point in the near future, he would be doing as the picture proposed—driving around in his very own red convertible—so she let him think it was a good-luck omen instead.
Not everything she put to paper came with a premonition. But Bobby and his car were accompanied by the burning itch in her hands, so she knew the image would come to pass, eventually.
For the others who had come into the diner, she had drawn what was requested—a vase filled with wildflowers, a caricature, a dream vacation on a sandy beach. Each drawing was met with an overwhelming echo of positive responses, and a request from those missed for a picture of their own the next time they came in.
Everyone had been so happy about what she’d done, she hadn’t wanted to stop. But after Emma finished a seventh sketch for yet another patron, Maggie shooed everyone away with warnings of no more food if they didn’t stop pestering the artist.
When a lack of noise made her ears ring, Emma was shocked to discover the diner was completely empty. “Where did everyone go?”
“Back to work, I should hope.”
“Oh. Even Bobby?”
Maggie laughed. “Him, too.”
Emma glanced at the window, knowing she couldn’t see him but trying anyway. She was embarrassed over not thanking him again for letting her spend the morning with him, and for missing a chance to say goodbye before he went back to work.
Maggie pressed her hand to her forehead. “Gracious! I haven’t had that much fun serving lunch in years!”
“That was fun?” It seemed like the lunch hour had been more like sixty minutes of craziness than a good time for the hostess, having to serve food for all those people without help.
“Heavens, yes! Usually I get the same crowd ordering the same food and chitchatting over the same old stories. Today was more like a grand opening of an art show.” She laughed as she filled two glasses from the pop dispenser. Handing one to Emma, she asked, “What are you going to do with the rest of your day?”
Emma took a drink, mulling over her options. The insurance man wasn’t coming today, so her plan to make her way to Pikes Falls was dead. She might have considered asking Marshall to take her, but the abrupt way he’d disappeared this morning made her unwilling to give it any further consideration. He obviously couldn’t be bothered with her.
She was stuck in Absolution, at least for another day. So, how to spend it? She could go back over to the garage, but then what? Bobby had been incredibly kind and generous with his time this morning, even though she knew he must have been rolling his eyes at her sad attempts to help. So, no, that wasn’t the best idea.
Exploring the town was a possibility, but with two blocks to its credit, that would take all of a few minutes.
&
nbsp; Her third option was to head back out to the farm, which was probably the smartest choice. There was a good chance Bobby had already told the sheriff she hadn’t been able to get a ride, so they would be expecting her to turn up.
“This place is a mess,” Maggie said with a sigh, heading for the kitchen. “I’d better get my ass in gear to get things ready for supper.”
Emma offered to help, even though she hadn’t the faintest idea what would be involved.
“Heavens, no,” Maggie called out. “I’ve kept you here long enough. You go enjoy your day.”
Emma put the colored pencils back into their box and closed the cover on the sketchbook.
Maggie returned with a brown canvas bag. She put the sketchbook and pencils into the wide pocket, then folded Emma’s hoodie and tucked it inside, too. She lifted it by the strap and held it out. “This will be easier than trying to juggle everything. And before you go arguing, it’s an old one I’m not using, so if you don’t take it I’d be throwing it in the garbage.”
Emma bit back a smile at Maggie’s challenging stare. She slipped the long strap up over her shoulder. The bag flopped against her hip, settling into place with a comfortable swing. “It’s perfect. Thank you, Maggie. For everything.”
“Honey, you are welcome here any time. And that’s the truth.”
As Emma left the diner, she found herself wishing more than anything she could take Maggie up on her offer.
If only her world were a different place.
Chapter Sixteen
Emma had the whole world to herself—a living landscape painted in a rainbow of colors and accompanied by the musical whistles and chirps of the birds. The air smelled of grass and dust and sweet flowers, the sky was an artist’s dream of gradient blues, and the land was a picture-perfect postcard.
She spread her arms wide and spun with a laugh.
She was free!
Free of the tower-top prison. Free of the glass windows that separated her from the world. Free of Alan.
Instead of having to watch life go by without her, she was finally living it. Her room was the world, and no one was going to lock her away from it ever again. She could talk to whomever she wanted, go where she wanted, and draw what she wanted.
That was quite possibly the best part of all.
She stopped her spin, giggling when she stumbled dizzily. Suddenly it no longer mattered if she didn’t have a ride to Pikes Falls. She wasn’t living by anyone’s schedule. If she missed it today, she’d catch it tomorrow. That was how it was supposed to work, wasn’t it?
As she continued down the dirt road, she wondered what it would be like to have access to this bright beauty, color, and sound every day. To open your door and have nothing but land and sky and mountains. No buildings, no traffic, and no people.
Well, maybe one or two people would be nice. People like Maggie and Bobby. Doc. And Lucy. Especially a girl like Lucy. If Emma had a house of her own, she’d want them all to visit. Anytime they wanted.
With each step, the daydream grew.
It would be a nice house. Small. Nothing too extravagant. It would be filled with furniture that never matched. The kitchen would be bright and wide, with windows open to the breeze. There would be shelves and shelves of books and trinkets and statues, and anything else she wanted to collect. There would be pictures all over the walls. And a room for her art. She could paint for people…murals, or portraits, or, heck, even walls and houses! She would earn enough money to get by—only as much as she would need for food and clothes and bills.
A familiar burn crossed her palms. Scratching at her hands, she leaped over the ditch and hurried over to the base of a nearby tree, digging into her bag for her art pad. She had the pencils out and a blank page open before she was even sitting down.
At this rate she’d be out of paper before nightfall.
When the energy finally left her, she was surprised by how far the sun had moved. She had no way to track time, but the kink in her neck suggested it must have been an hour or more since she’d sat down. She leaned to the side to stretch her muscles. The sketchbook slipped off her lap and flopped facedown into the grass. Flipping it over, she exposed her first drawing.
From corner to corner flowed a honey-yellow house with a wide wraparound porch and white-framed windows. In the front yard grew a tree so wide she wouldn’t have been able to wrap her arms around it. From its sturdy branches dangled a rope swing.
She ran her hand over the paper, the image filling her with a sense of peace and happiness. She wasn’t sure when she would come across it in her travels, but she looked forward to seeing it in person. It gave her hope that her escape from the city was going to last. At least for a little while.
Eager to see what followed, she turned the page. The second sketch was of an open window, its view from the inside out. Beige patterned curtains lifted in a light breeze. In the distance, snow-capped mountains were set against a clear blue summer sky.
She held the pad up and tried to match what was on paper with the horizon, but nature’s skyline didn’t copy her drawing. Pointy peaks and snow, sure. But not the right sequence of shapes. For a brief second, she felt a flicker of disappointment that the pretty yellow house wasn’t in Absolution. She pushed it away. If it wasn’t here, then it was somewhere else, which renewed her resolve to keep going west. If the mountains didn’t look the same from this side, then maybe they would match from the other side, looking back.
She flipped to the next page, shocked to see that the picture was incomplete. Only half the paper had been used, and the lines in the center of the page were scattered and scratchy. Her premonitions were 100 percent solid. Unless someone had torn the page away while she was drawing on it, there was no reason for the image to be less than whole.
She traced her finger around the outside of the image, afraid to touch it. The colored lines revealed the edges of a small room and a table covered in art supplies. An easel sat in the corner holding an equally half-finished watercolor of the mountains.
An art room.
Her art room?
She flipped back to the previous two pages. The progression was logical. The house from the outside, the view through the window from the inside, and…the art. The shape of the mountains on the easel matched the shape of the mountains in the picture of the window.
Tears pricked her eyes. She sensed it all could be hers, might be hers, but it wasn’t set. It might not come to be. That was why the image wasn’t finished. It was a half-truth. A maybe. If the first two were solid, then they were a real place. A real house. A real room.
It was what she was going to do with it that was the unknown.
Hope filled her, driving away her worry that something was going to keep her from her dream. She would go west. She would find her yellow house. She would paint her mountains.
Relief and happiness to have a plan—a real plan—made her laugh. She was going to do it. She was really going to do it!
Dabbing the moisture from her eyes with the tips of her fingers, she reached down to close the sketchbook. A puff of air picked at the edge of the paper, showing colors on the page beneath.
There was a fourth picture? Strange. She never drew more than three in a series.
With a tentative touch, she peeked at what might be underneath. The moment she recognized what was on the page, she slammed the cover closed with a shocked gasp.
It was a portrait of Marshall.
After a long moment of staring at the mountains, she checked the picture again, then clapped the cover closed. Yep. Still there. And still him.
Exasperated with herself, she cracked the book wide and exposed the page in full.
Unlike her half-finished art room, this drawing was complete. She gave it a narrow-eyed perusal. It was as perfect a representation of his face as she could achieve with a box of dollar-store colored pencils. The scruff on his jaw. The sharp slope of his nose. The shadowed forehead from the brim of his hat. Every element was perfect.
Except for his eyes. She hadn’t had the right combination of colors to give them the level of intensity they deserved.
She checked the following pages, relieved to see they were blank.
Closing off any more thoughts of Marshall, she packed everything into her bag. He’d made his position clear—she was a distraction, not a welcome addition—which meant her future called her somewhere else.
To a yellow house with a view of the mountains.
With renewed resolve, she headed down the road once more. The distant grumble of an engine turned her around. A long yellow school bus lumbered down the gravel road toward her. She kept walking, waiting for it to catch up and pass her by. As it pulled alongside, a screeching shout made her jump.
A raven-haired girl hung out one of the windows.
“Emma!” Lucy shouted gleefully.
Emma waved back, but the girl had already ducked back inside.
A moment later the lights on the bus blinked with alternating brightness as the yellow beast creaked to a stop. The doors snapped open, and Lucy hopped out, her ponytail swinging as she ran back to Emma. Behind her followed a hefty boy with brown hair.
The bus closed up and continued on its way.
“I thought that was you!” Lucy exclaimed. “What are you doing all the way out here? Were you coming back to my house? It’s really far! You should have told Dad you wanted a ride instead of walking.”
“It’s not that far.” Certainly not far enough to be calling the sheriff.
Lucy’s eyes widened. “It’s, like, ten miles!”
“Almost five by now,” the boy corrected. “My place is next and I’m between you and there, so, five.”