As if he was running interference. Protecting her.
No words, either, for the feeling, ever since the morning she woke up in the guest room, that something had changed. A presence lingered deep inside her and left her with the sense that she wasn’t alone.
Even if she had no idea who was wrapping an arm around her neck, hugging her into a mohair scarf.
“When I heard about your fall, and then you weren’t here last Sunday, I thought, Oh no. Not more trouble for this precious family.” The woman had fluffy white hair, kind eyes. She wore the purple scarf over a black two-piece leisure suit.
“Thanks, Edith,” Eli said.
Apparently a leisure suit was appropriate attire for church.
Do I wear sweatpants to church? She’d hollered this out the bedroom door this morning, downstairs to where Eli sat reading. Perhaps his Bible, although she didn’t get a good look.
“Sometimes!” he hollered back. “But mostly jeans.”
Jeans? To church? Instead she found a pair of gray wool pants in the back of the closet, a black sweater, and tied her hair up into a sleek bun. Then she’d added a pair of silver earrings, a necklace, and heels.
Eli stared at her all the way down the stairs.
“What?”
“You look nice.”
She wasn’t sure why the compliment warmed her—she still hadn’t rooted up any real feelings for the man. But a girl could love a look of appreciation, right?
Now she nodded at the white-haired woman as Eli steered her away. “Usually we go home for lunch, but I thought maybe I’d take you out.”
He held up her coat while she slipped into it. “Really? I cook on Sundays?”
“Pot roast. And yes, you cook every day.”
She shook her head. “I am a terrible cook.”
He opened the door for her, offered his hand as they skated out into the slick parking lot. “You were a terrible cook. You got better. Lots better.” He covered her hand with his—a simple gesture, but it heated her to her bones. “I was hoping you might give me a haircut this afternoon.”
Kirby caught up to them as they reached the truck. Eli opened the door, helped her inside. Kirby hopped in the back.
Noelle waited until Eli climbed in the opposite side. “A haircut? I cut hair too?”
He started the truck and turned down the heat until the engine warmed. “Uh-huh. You’ve been cutting my hair for twenty-five years. Still shave Kirby bald every summer.”
“All that luscious, curly hair?”
Kirby leaned forward. “See, now, two weeks ago you would have called it a greasy mop.” He winked at her as they pulled out.
She snapped on her seat belt. “I don’t know, Eli. I can’t remember my haircutting days or techniques. What if you end up bald?”
“Hair grows. And I have hats.” He drove down the hill, braked at the stop sign, then looked to pull out.
She followed his gaze.
“Hey, there’s Kyle,” Kirby said.
Indeed. Standing at the passenger side door of a red Subaru, dressed in his uniform. He seemed to be arguing with the driver.
“Probably a local trying to talk him out of a ticket,” Eli said.
His cynicism jarred her. “People do that?”
He laughed as he pulled away, nothing of humor in his tone. “Everyone is hiding something. But that’s the problem with being a small-town cop—when you recognize someone, you can’t treat them like a criminal.”
“Even if they broke the law.”
“Depends on what law they broke. But yes, you have to live next to these people. You have to watch how you treat them. Unfortunately, that kind of mentality can get people killed.”
His face had changed as he spoke, grown harder, and briefly he returned to the man she remembered from last week.
Angry. Hurt.
Something had happened to him on the job. The realization jolted her, and for the first time, she wished she knew his life, more than her own. What must it feel like for him to lose his wife, to get back this stranger?
“I’m sorry my memory hasn’t returned.”
He glanced at her and frowned. “The doctor said it would take a while. You’ll get it back.”
“I really do want to remember.”
“I know.”
But the little lilt at the end of his voice made her wonder.
They dropped Kirby off at a fellow player’s house—apparently he planned on working out after church, joining his teammate’s family for lunch. She missed him already as he slid out of the car, lifting his hand to them as they drove off. What had she been thinking—a greasy mop?
Noelle and Eli ate at a tiny hometown diner with pictures of past football and basketball teams hanging on the wall and sat at a table under a poster-size map of Lake Superior. Next to it, smaller pictures depicted the town in the early days—1910, 1930.
Eli ordered the voyageur’s special, a venison-and-wild-rice omelet. She opted for the yogurt parfait, a glass of orange juice.
“You mentioned that we used to have family in the area,” she said, sipping her juice and looking at him over the rim of the glass. “Why did they move away?”
He fiddled with the gold ring on his hand. “My parents died, actually, and my brother and his wife live in Ely. He’s with the border patrol.”
“Oh. I suppose they move people around a lot. Like the military.”
He nodded but didn’t look at her, appearing almost relieved when his meal arrived.
He did need a haircut—his dark hair long and curly, brushing against his collar. But after Noelle appeared in her outfit, he’d cleaned up for church, wearing a pair of brown dress pants, a white shirt, a patterned blue-and-brown tie.
“You like your parfait?”
She nodded. “I gotta figure out where my girly shape went.”
“Three babies,” he said, then stiffened.
She stared at him, the words like a knife through her. “Three babies?” Oh, no wonder they had a guest room. Probably, at one time, she’d wanted to fill that with another child.
He didn’t look at her. “We lost one.”
She reached out to take his hand. “I’m sorry. I wish I could remember that. Did we know if it was a boy or girl?”
His breath leaked out, tremulous, and he pulled away. “A girl.”
A daughter.
She’d had a daughter. Was it a miscarriage? Stillborn? She longed to ask, but suddenly she felt like a voyeur into his grief.
Eli had returned to his food, as if he’d very much like to drop the subject.
Okay. Well, she’d give him his privacy. At least until she remembered more.
But the silence opened between them as they finished their meal, the chatter of the café rising to fill the void. As Eli paid, she could read trouble on his face.
He didn’t speak again until they reached the truck. Then he stood at the door, considering her. She shivered, her wool jacket too light for this northern breeze.
“I have to show you something,” he said quietly. He opened the door and helped her in, then went around to the other side and put his key in the ignition. “I’ve been trying to figure out how for the last couple days. See . . . I didn’t know about it, and I have to admit I was a little shocked. But I think maybe it would help.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Eli backed out, drove them away from Main Street, up the hill, took a left, and finally stopped before a quaint little white church.
“What is this place?”
He sighed, opened his door. “The art colony.”
Noelle met his eyes as she got out, holding on to his arm. “The art colony?”
“Yeah. It’s a place where local artists rent rooms to work in.”
Meaning pulsed between them. “And you just found out about this place?”
He raised his eyebrows, and she heard his voice ring back at her. Everyone is hiding something.
Why would she hide a ro
om at the art colony? What had she been doing there?
He held out his arm for her as they crossed the street, but stiffly, without welcome. The door was unlocked, and he opened it, followed her in. “Upstairs, to your left.”
She liked the place. A wooden floor in the main area downstairs, posters advertising everything from pot throwing to textile classes to print work—even a dancing class. Framed art lined the staircase as she climbed to a loft.
“Your space is to the right.” He held out a key dangling from a key ring.
Your space. The words rippled inside her.
She inserted the key, turned the knob. The door swung open.
If she could design a space to create in, it would look exactly like the room before her. Bright windows overlooking the town, the lake, an armchair with an ottoman, sketchbooks stacked on the floor. Pictures dangled from yarn stretched across the far end of the room. And along the wall, canvases of finished watercolors.
“I do paint.”
“Yes,” Eli said, his voice sounding funny. “Apparently you do.”
Noelle walked over to the unfinished picture of a rocky point. A sketched form of two bodies in the middle evidenced more to paint. “Who was I going to put here?”
He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. For a moment, her heart went out to him, the way he stood at the door as if afraid to enter. He appeared old. Forsaken.
“You didn’t know about this place?”
“I just found out a couple days ago. Kirby knew, but he didn’t bother to tell me.”
“Why would I keep this from you?”
The question played on his face, emotion ringing his eyes. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
She turned back to the painting, tracing the unfinished outline with her finger. “It looks like a couple of girls . . .”
“It’s your painting.”
It was her painting. As were the rest. She picked one up. “Why would I paint red Chuck Taylors?”
Eli shrugged again, and if his feet hadn’t been standing completely still, she would have guessed he was in an all-out sprint away from her.
Wow, this room really hurt him.
She picked up another painting. This one of a tree. “I love the angle of this picture. As if I’m standing at the bottom, looking skyward. Did I take this photo?”
He turned away, not answering.
She put down the painting, walked over to him. Touched his shoulder. “I don’t know why this room bothers you so much, Eli, but don’t you see—this is good news. I didn’t lose myself all these years. I recognize my style in these paintings. Maybe if I try to paint something, my memory will come back.”
He looked at her then, his eyes wet. Then he breathed out, a long exhale. As if he’d been holding in something for far too long.
“I would be very happy if you would paint me a picture, Noelle.”
“How old is this house?”
Jenny Carlton entered the house in front of Lee, stopping to admire the fireplace, the beams overhead in the front room. Lee wanted to retort something along the lines of “About ten years older than you,” but that wasn’t quite accurate. Jenny had to be at least twenty-one, right? She wore her blonde hair down, tumbling out of her lime-green knit hat. She had a matching lime-green ski jacket and a pair of mukluks that on anyone else would have looked like a fashion faux pas. But apparently you could get away with anything when you were young and skinny and not an old widow who whittled away her youth every day dragging in logs for the stove her husband had insisted on building and cleaning off a walkway that got longer with every snowfall—
“Mrs. Nelson?”
Lee dropped a pile of wood in the bin and closed the door behind her with her foot. “About twenty-eight years old. My husband and I built it together, piece by piece.”
“It certainly is beautiful.” Jenny took pictures of the stone chimney before she stepped into the kitchen. “Although you’re going to have to make some upgrades if you want a fair investment out of it. Most people want granite countertops.” She smoothed her hand along the Formica counter, tested the water pressure.
“We have our own well. And delicious water.”
“Lovely,” Jenny said, but Lee had the sense she hadn’t heard her. “So you’ll be pulling up this carpet, then?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Why?”
“Carpet in the kitchen?” Jenny made a face.
Okay, when Lee went to talk to Robby at Seagull Realty and he said he’d send out his best agent to help her prepare for her listing, she expected someone older than this middle schooler here. “The floor gets very cold in the winter.”
“Maybe you could install an electric floor pad under the wood—everyone loves a wood floor. Bamboo is really in, recyclable and all.”
Bamboo. Didn’t you eat bamboo?
She followed Jenny into the bathroom, where she received the expected nose curl at the pink tub. “I like my pink tub,” she said before she could stop herself. Or maybe not wanting to. “It’s big. And rare.”
“And pink.” Jenny had pasted on a smile. “The entire bathroom could stand a redo.”
“My husband bought me that pink tub.”
Jenny raised an eyebrow but left her words mercifully unspoken.
Lee drew in a breath. “You’re the real estate agent. You know what sells.”
“I actually do, Mrs. Nelson. I’ve sold more houses in this area, even with the housing slump, than any other agent in the county.”
Lee didn’t want to comment that it might have something to do with her jean size.
No! No, that wasn’t right. If Clay had suggested that, she would have popped him upside the head.
“That’s wonderful. Thank you for coming out.”
“It’s a lovely house. It just needs some decluttering, new floors, an updated bathroom . . .” She disappeared downstairs and Lee braced herself. “And probably carpeting on the floor down here.”
“I thought cement floors were in.” Lee descended the curved staircase.
Jenny stood in the middle of the room, peering into the heater at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s this?”
“When we first moved in, we lived in the basement. This was our source of heat.”
“And do you still heat with wood?”
“Yes. We also have a gas furnace in case we run low.”
She closed her notebook, took a few more shots. “That will be a selling point.”
“How about the fact that we have nearly two hundred feet of lakeshore?” Should she take the girl back up to the front windows, show her again the view of the lake?
“Oh, most definitely, Mrs. Nelson. But the fact is, buyers who can afford lakefront property usually also expect a certain level of . . . amenities.”
“My husband and I added amenities as we went.”
“I can see that.”
“Well, can you see the craftsmanship in the beams here? How each one is hand-carved? Clay did that, one by one, every Saturday for a month before our wedding . . . before we even had a house to put them in.”
“They’re lovely. But really, it’s very dark down here. You may want to consider painting them white.”
White.
“Get . . . out.” Lee didn’t realize that the words had slipped out until she saw Jenny’s expression.
“What?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this.” This was nicer, and she added a smile. “I’m sorry, Jenny.”
Jenny set her camera down. Her smile gentled. “Listen, I understand. My parents put their house up for sale last year and moved to Florida. It nearly killed me to see the place go—watch them paint over the lines in the doorway where they measured our height, and repaint and carpet the room where I doodled my high school pain on the walls. But they moved on, and they’re loving their life in Florida.” She touched Lee’s arm. “And you will too.”
“I’m not moving to Florida,” she said softly.
Jenny picked up her
camera, wandered to Emma’s bedroom for a picture. Oh, Lee might never forget the expression on Emma’s face yesterday when she told her what happened between her and Eli.
She hadn’t meant to—it just came out.
Moving? What do you mean you’re moving?
Emma’s voice had shrilled and Lee raised a hand to silence her. “I haven’t exactly told Derek yet.”
“When, Mom, do you plan on moving? And when were you going to tell your children?”
She had grown up so much in the past two years—probably from life in the big city. The best thing Emma ever did was move away from this town.
“I’ll move after Derek is done with school.”
“But what about your life here—our life here?”
“Emma, you don’t have a life here anymore.” Oh, she hadn’t quite meant it how it emerged, betrayed in Emma’s flinch. She softened her tone. “I mean, of course, Deep Haven will always be your home, but you’ve moved on; you’re building a life in the Cities. Soon you’ll meet someone nice and get married.”
Another flinch. With it came the slow, cool realization that perhaps Emma had already met someone. Maybe that’s what had kept her out late the last couple nights.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head, turned, and opened the fridge. She stared into it as if it might contain some answers. “Nothing. I just think you should have told us you were moving.”
“Have you met someone?”
She shut the door. “I don’t know.”
“Is he from Deep Haven?”
The rise and fall of her shoulders suggested he might be.
“Honey, this is a bad idea. This town is too small for you. You need to build a life outside Deep Haven—”
“Why, Mom?” She’d whirled around, her pretty blue eyes lit up. “You seemed to do just fine here.”
“Really? Because last time I looked, I was alone here, Emma. Alone.” She regretted her tone, but someone had to wake up her daughter. “And there’s no one knocking at my door, asking me out on a date.”
The Shadow of Your Smile Page 17