by Leah Atwood
“What are you doing?”
“You’re smiling that author-picturing-the-perfect-scene smile. Only for once it’s a real life possibility you’re picturing. So we’re getting this show on the road. Literally.” Remy buckled her seat belt. “Drive, Grant. My iPhone and I will figure out the farm’s address. You’re going home to pack a suitcase and you’re leaving today, before you change your mind.”
* * *
Winnie wouldn’t even look at him.
“You just can’t go breaking into a school, Win.”
Winnie’s only answer was to cross her arms. The same stony silence she’d greeted Drew with when he found her in the principal’s office had accompanied them all the way home. He’d waited for her to bolt from the passenger seat of his truck as soon as he pulled into the circle drive in front of the farmhouse.
But she hadn’t even taken off her seatbelt.
At nearly seven-thirty p.m., frothy stretches of sunset’s color had long since given way to star- dotted black. He studied Winnie’s profile—she looked so much like his sister. High cheekbones and stick-straight blonde hair currently knotted behind her head with a pencil poking through.
“I know it’s hard getting used to a new school—”
“How would you know? Mom said you guys went to MVS your entire life.” Finally, words. Never mind the sarcasm. “Speaking of your mom—”
“Don’t tell her.” Winnie swung her gaze to him with the plea. Bangs slanted over her forehead and the sky’s remaining wedge of sunlight tinted her cerulean eyes. And suddenly it wasn’t Leigh he saw in his niece.
But Colin.
Restless. Frustrated. Trapped.
He swallowed. Hard. No chance he was letting her end up like his little brother.
“She’s your mom. I have to tell her.” “She’s a flaky mess.”
“Don’t say that—”
“And anyway, she won’t care.”
He couldn’t have deciphered the emotion in his niece’s voice if he tried. Maybe a bunch, all knotted together.
And he wished he had any idea how to begin untangling them. He’d known Winnie wasn’t excited about moving to Maple Valley when Leigh had agreed to the plan. But had she really been happy in that cramped apartment in Omaha? The huge school?
So many reminders of what she’d been through?
“Your mom loves you, Win.”
Winnie’s focus reverted to the window. Tire tracks dirtied the snow. So much for shoveling. “My mom loves pills.”
All the breath seeped from his lungs. “She’s clean now. You know that.”
“For now.”
“For good.” Maybe he said it with more conviction than he felt. But he wanted to believe it. For Leigh, for Winnie.
For himself. And the conscience that could never quite let go.
If you’d just paid attention…
“Why’d you do it? Break into the school, I mean. Just tell me that much.” No answer.
“I want to make this work, Winnie. I want you to be happy here.”
“How am I supposed to be happy in a stupid small town that has eight thousand antique stores and not one single bookstore? Sleeping in a lumpy bed that’s like sixty years old? Eating your horrible cooking?”
“Man, tell me how you really feel, why don’t you?” He tried to joke, but she only grabbed her backpack from the floor and pushed her door open.
He climbed out of the truck and followed her stalking form toward the house. Why couldn’t he make this better? Find the right words to connect with her? Get her to see he only wanted to help?
“Winnie—”
“I’ve got homework.”
He clamped down on a retort about the irony of her being concerned about homework when she’d just barely escaped suspension. “I have to tell Leigh.”
“Whatever.” She flung the word over her shoulder before suddenly halting, her head tipping back. “What the—?”
He stopped short just before running into her, followed her upward gaze. And saw what she saw.
A figure perched on the lattice that climbed up the side of the porch. “Is someone seriously breaking into my house?”
Winnie’s backpack dropped into the snow. “Finally, some excitement around here.”
Chapter 3
Maren’s limbs went numb the second she heard tires crunching over snow and gravel.
Bad enough she’d taken Remy’s advice, let spontaneity or maybe just desperation get the better of her and hit the road for the three-hour drive. She’d started chiding herself as soon as she crossed the Minnesota border into Iowa and didn’t stop until she reached Maple Valley. Surely Colin Renwycke had never meant for her to actually take him up on his invitation.
Besides, what if the family had sold the farm sometime in the past year? Or what if it sat abandoned—no water, no electricity? How was she supposed to write if she couldn’t pop bags of microwave popcorn—her “inspiration food”—or charge her laptop? Writing a book by hand might sound quaint and poetic, but please, the hand cramps alone would take her down.
’Course none of that mattered now that she was probably about to get arrested for trespassing. While dealing with temporary paralysis. Her gloved fingers gripped the lattice, both feet propped in the gaps between crisscrossed wood that suddenly felt about as stable as a tightrope.
“Can we help you?” A man’s voice—baritone and hovering somewhere between curious and irritated.
She angled her head just enough to see him. He stood with a wide stance, arms folded over a stretching plaid flannel shirt. No coat. Dark hair, dark eyes, stern jaw. He almost looked like—
“Well?”
A gust of wind clamored through the lattice, jostling the rickety structure. Her grip tightened. “C- Colin told me there was a key hidden in the rain gutter. Which seems like a weird place to me but the door was locked and I…” Rambling. Another whoosh of cold air and she slapped herself against the lattice. When did the ground get so far away?
“Colin?”
“Uncle Colin?”
The voices sounded in sync, the second one coming from the girl that stood a foot behind the man. Three thoughts registered then:
1. Colin had a niece.
2. Which probably made the guy her dad, which made him the older brother Colin had mentioned on their date.
3. And this lattice wasn’t going to hold her weight much longer.
“When did you talk to Colin?” Intensity pulled the man’s tone, his expression taut.
“Maybe we could continue the interrogation after I get down?”
He dropped his arms. “No one’s stopping you.”
She tested one foot, tried to lower herself to the next gap in the lattice, but the movement shook the entire structure and she froze all over again.
If this is how she was going to die—trying to extricate herself from an unsteady trellis while an angry handsome man watched—
Her thoughts cut off at the feel of a hand on her waist. She willed her neck to turn. While she’d huddled into a helpless state, he’d climbed onto the outside of the porch. His feet were perched under the base of its railing and one hand held on to the lattice beside her.
“People who are scared of heights shouldn’t go scaling a house.”
She gritted her teeth. “Not scared of heights.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m great with heights. It’s just that this thing’s unsteady.”
He held the lattice in place while she descended until they were face to face on the outside of the porch railing. “That’s because it was meant as a decoration, not a climbing wall.”
This close, she could tell he had a few years on Colin. And unlike his brother’s sky blue irises, this Renwycke’s eyes were darker, inkier. If he’d shaved today, he didn’t look it now.
Stop staring.
“When did you talk to Colin?”
“Why aren’t you wearing a coat?”
His eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Not much with the warm welcome thing, are you?”
Impossible to tell whether that was a grimace or a smirk. “I can be perfectly welcoming when I know who I’m welcoming. And when they knock on the front door like a normal person. I found you trying to break in.”
She shook her head. “Not breaking in. I told you, Colin said there was a key—”
He gave an exasperated grunt and swung one leg over the porch railing, then the other, and faced off with her across the wood barrier. The tips of his shoes touched her boots and his hands griped the railing on either side of hers. He stood so close she could smell a faint rustic hint of aftershave or cologne or…she didn’t even know but “nice” didn’t come close to doing it justice.
But suddenly there wasn’t a hint of joking or amusement or even curiosity in his expression anymore. Only a glint that demanded answers edged by something else—what, she wasn’t sure.
“Please, just tell me when you talked to Colin. We haven’t seen him since last Christmas.”
She pinpointed it then, the softness rimming his features. Concern—maybe even worry.
“Almost exactly a year ago.” Why the urge to apologize? To do something to erase the disappointment lurking over his face? She didn’t even know this man.
Just like she didn’t really know Colin, much as she’d liked to pretend over the past months. Oh, what in the world had she been thinking, coming here?
You were thinking you’d find Colin and he’d sweep you off your feet all over again. Ha.
Yeah, well, apparently she wasn’t the only one wondering if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. The girl who’d stood in the yard now climbed the porch steps, floorboards creaking under her shoes. No missing the family resemblance or the spark of recognition playing over her face.
“Hey, you’re…” She stopped beside Colin’s brother. “You’re Maren Grant, aren’t you? Uncle Drew, she wrote that book, the one Colin’s on the front of.”
Uncle Drew? Not her dad then.
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, his flicker of emotion evaporating as if forced.
The girl pushed around her uncle, and she reached for one of Maren’s hands, motioning her over the railing. “I recognize your picture from your website. I loved your first book. I’ve already got your second one pre-ordered online. Usually I like to buy my books in store but this dumb town doesn’t have any bookstores.”
She flashed a look at Drew. Other than the tick in his jaw, his face had gone unreadable.
She should leave. Just drive away and pretend this never happened. Go ahead and let go of any fantasy involving a future with Colin, too. Because if his family ever did get ahold of him and they told him the story of finding her climbing up the lattice…
“I can’t believe I’m really meeting you.” The girl again. “If I go get my book, will you autograph it?”
“Of course.”
She pivoted and at the slap of the door, Maren turned back to Drew. She couldn’t quite look him in the eye, but even so, she knew he stared.
“I really am sorry about how you found me. It’s just Colin said no one lived here. He told me if I ever needed a place to write, I should come here. My second book is a wreck and it’s due in a month and a half and I’ve got a few weeks off teaching so…”
Drew didn’t say a word, only watched her from behind midnight eyes.
“I didn’t really plan to come. It was pure impulse. I have this best friend and she tends to talk me into doing things I wouldn’t normally do and she told me to stop asking what-if questions and make my own big moment happen, which probably doesn’t make any sense to you, but…”
Rambling. Again.
It’d help if Drew would say something. Anything to keep her from babbling. But he just stood there…mute.
The door squeaked open and the girl returned, the familiar spine of Maren’s first book visible from under her arm and a Sharpie in her hand. She budged past her uncle and passed it to Maren, Colin’s face glinting on the cover.
Maren cracked open the cover. “What’s your name?”
The girl handed Maren the Sharpie. “Winnie. Stupid name, I know.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid.” She made the inscription out to Winnie, then signed her name.
Winnie stared at the signed page as if entranced. “I seriously can’t believe this is happening.”
“At least something good came of me showing up here, yeah?” She chanced a peek at Drew. Still with the folded arms, the probing stare.
Apparently not a talker, this one. Not at all like Colin.
But then, “You were just going to squat in someone else’s house?”
“Yes?” She squeaked the answer. And oh, how ridiculous it sounded. Because that’s exactly what it was. Who drove three hours on a whim, actually packed a suitcase with enough clothes for a couple weeks, planning to camp out in a house that might or might not be abandoned?
Of course, she’d told herself on the way here she could always find a hotel instead. If nothing else, spend a few days in the town Colin had talked so much about. Maybe find inspiration for her book’s setting, Ethan Whitney’s hometown.
Drew spun, raking his fingers through wind-tousled hair, voice lowering to mutter. “That’s just like Colin. No thought…”
Winnie ignored her uncle. “Are you still writing the second book now? Is Ethan Whitney really going back home? He kept saying in the first book he’d never go back and I’m dying to know why. Can you at least give me a hint?”
“To be honest, I’m still figuring it out. I’m only a few chapters into the new story. I was going to work on it here, actually.” Drew still had his back to her, his stance rigid. “But um, I should probably get going. Is there a hotel in Maple Valley?”
“No way. Uncle Drew, you can’t make her go stay in a hotel. We have plenty of room here. Let her stay tonight.”
At Winnie’s protest, Drew turned. “Win—”
“I’ll tell Mom what happened today, the whole thing. I’ll stop complaining about my bed and Maple Valley and everything. Please. This is the only cool thing that’s happened since I moved here.”
She could practically see it happen—the unraveling of Drew Renwycke’s resistance. His shoulders dropped as he sighed and he turned from Winnie to her. “Do you have any luggage with you?”
* * *
He blamed Winnie’s smile.
How was Drew supposed to say no to letting the author stay the night when Winnie’s grin—the first he’d seen in weeks—sparked with genuine delight?
Drew plopped Maren’s suitcase on the bare mattress in the sprawling attic space that still smelled of freshly sanded wood. Built-in bookcases flanked a curtain-less window that peeked into the yard, the window seat underneath piled with clean sheets and a quilt.
Maren’s whispered “whoa” sounded behind him as she ascended into the attic. “What a cool room.”
“An empty room, you mean.” Because he hadn’t planned on a guest. Not until Christmas anyway when Mom and Dad had promised to fly in from Arizona.
But that was still weeks away. Right now he had his hands full enough with a niece who didn’t want to be here, a sister who was still trying to settle in while working too many hours at the restaurant, a farm in desperate need of attention.
“It’s not entirely empty.” Maren strolled past him. She walked to the window, brushed her hands over the shelves. “These are beautiful. And the window seat? It’s so cute.”
Not the word he would’ve chosen, but all the same, he couldn’t help a swell of pride at her woods. He’d only finished sanding the oak shelves last week. One of these days he’d stain them to match the beams running overhead. And then he’d make a desk for the opposite wall. Maybe see if he could cut a window over there, too, one that overlooked the grove and the west fields. Eventually he’d add a wall and install a master bathroom.
Maren sat in the window seat n
ow, legs stretched out in front of her. Her pale pink scarf hung loose around her neck and her white coat, unbuttoned, had slid off one shoulder. Did she know dirt streaked her jeans from her attempted climb up the trellis?
“This is so perfect. The window seat and the view and the quiet. Colin was right. All I’d need is my laptop and…” She clamped her lips shut, turning a guarded gaze his way.
And for a solid, uncanny second, the concerns of this day dropped away—Byron’s words, Winnie’s problems at school, even the strangeness of this author showing up tonight. Because sitting there in front of the attic window, she just looked so…right.
Some of her brown hair framed her face in unruly straggles, the rest of it pulled into a messy ponytail. Pale green eyes, a smattering of light freckles and pink cheeks. Probably from the chill in this room.
“I can, uh, get a space heater from downstairs. The house is drafty. It might get cold up here tonight and—”
“That’s what Colin said.” She stood as she interrupted him.
He hadn’t noticed how tall she was earlier—almost enough to look him in the eye without craning her neck. “What’d he say?”
“He said the house was drafty, but he liked it that way. He said December is his favorite month here.”
There was actually something Colin liked about this place? The thought grappled through him. She had to have seen Colin just before he had last December. Before the argument…
“Anyway, I realize this is probably a major imposition, me being here tonight. Like I said, it was a total whim, even showing up here and I had no idea what I’d find and I certainly didn’t expect this or…or you. I really can stay in a hotel.”
He nearly cut her off. “You don’t need to stay at a hotel.” Because suddenly, for a reason that made absolutely zero sense, he didn’t want her to.
“Well, I’ll leave in the morning.”
He nodded, except now he had the stray temptation to argue that, too. Tell her to camp out in the attic as long as she liked.
It was an impulse he couldn’t shake. Not as he helped her make up the bed. Not as he explained where to find the second floor bathroom. And not as he walked her through the rest of the house—the narrow hallway with the cluster of bedrooms on the floor below the attic, the living room and dining room downstairs with the original crown molding and French doors.