AM13 - Alice: Bride of Rhode Island

by Anna J. Stewart

  “Clearing ten years worth of weeds.” He pulled off suede gloves and swiped his upper arm across his sweaty forehead. “Clears my head.”

  “Uh-huh.” She hefted the pie plate. “Well, you have had a busy week. I had some extra blackberries. Thought you might like it.” Oh, please, could the cohesive-thought fairies land on her with some inspiration? She sounded like an idiot.

  “You baked me a pie?” He looked as if she’d brought him a truck full of gold.

  “Charlie and I did,” Holly explained. “She’s been getting a little bored with Simon and his comic books so she asked if I’d teach her to bake. The lattice crust is a little crooked, but—”

  He moved toward her, his gaze alternating between what she’d brought him and...well...her. She swallowed, trying not to think about how nervous he made her or the fact that he was most definitely a male of the species. Or that it had been nearly two years since she’d even thought of looking at a man the way Luke was looking at her...pie.

  “Thank you.” He tucked his gloves under his arm and took the pan from her. “Come on in.” He whistled. “Cash! Inside!”

  The dog came racing along the same path Luke had taken, darting between them and diving into the house before Luke had the door completely open.

  “You have him trained.” Holly stopped cold in the doorway. The house was so...gray. She could see a coating of dust on the sofa and coffee table. The ancient TV set may as well have been from a 1950s sitcom and the yellowed flower wallpaper had begun to peel free, as if trying to escape. She didn’t see any hint of a history, no pictures or remnants of the eighteen years he’d lived here. There was nothing except the bare necessities. No wonder he didn’t spend a lot of time here. She was getting depressed just looking at it.

  “You can see why I’m thinking about tearing it down.” Luke was watching her with nary a hint of emotion on his face. “Not much to salvage. Definitely not much to look at.”

  “It needs some...light?” she mentioned hopefully.

  Luke shook his head. “You really do look for the silver lining. The kitchen’s better. Come on back.”

  “Oh, I really just came by to bring you the pie. The bonus of having two waitresses now. Paige and Twyla are holding down the diner until I get back. Business is picking up again. Thanks to you, actually,” she added, as she followed his voice. Oh. She blinked against the sun streaming through the windows. The kitchen was definitely dated, with its thin cabinetry and chipped Formica countertops. Did they even make appliances in buttercup yellow anymore? But the room had been given a good scrubbing, from the scarred wood floor to the small kitchen table situated near a bay window beside a china cabinet stuffed to the gills.

  “Better, right?”

  “Much.” She set her purse on the counter. At least there was some color in an otherwise dreary dwelling. How could anyone, let alone a young boy, ever have flourished here?

  “Stay for some coffee. And pie.” He angled it in her direction. “I hear it was made by a master baker. I need to clean up first.”

  She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t... “Sure.” She hadn’t felt this jittery in a long time.

  He pulled off the foil and looked at what was clearly a seven-year-old’s first baking attempt. “Perfect.” Luke grinned. “Just the way I like my crust. With homemade character.”

  Holly’s heart clenched. He always said the right thing. “You know if I tell her you said that she’ll go all googly-eyed on you for months.”

  “That kid won my heart yesterday.” He hit the button on the automatic coffeemaker. “Did she and Simon tell you about the rats we found out back of the center?”

  “Simon’s not great with rodents.” Spiders and insects were another story, and hermit crabs...? Holly shuddered. She’d lost count of the number of vacated shells she’d stepped on over the years.

  “So I learned.” Luke chuckled. “Charlie went right in and scooped them into a box. Asked me to drive her into the grove on the other side of town so she could let them go. Carpooling rats. Who would have thought? I’ll be right back.”

  Holly frowned. “Didn’t she realize how dangerous—” She stopped following Luke when she realized he was headed upstairs, probably to his bedroom. She spun around to search the cabinets for plates and flatware before making quick work of the pie.

  The pipes whined and knocked and Holly killed the time by checking her calendar and texting Paige she’d be later than expected. Paige’s reply sent a new rush of color racing to Holly’s cheeks. One day, Holly was going to play matchmaker for her.

  “Sorry,” Luke said when he returned, skin freshly scrubbed, hair damp as if he’d run wet hands through it. All sparkly, shiny new. Holly returned her attention to the pie. “You were saying about Charlie?”

  “I wondered if Charlie knew how dangerous rats could be?” Oh, boy. Holly swallowed. Since when did Luke take up so much space? Looking at him made it difficult to focus on anything else.

  “Hmm.” He poured them each a cup of coffee. “Your father filled her in and made her promise not to go trying to help any other critters without supervision. Those flyers you passed out worked like magic. I can’t believe how many people have turned up to help at the center. Shouldn’t take more than a couple more days to get the place up and running. And we’ve got a dozen sign-ups for the camping trip.”

  “A number of the volunteers came into the diner for dinner afterward.” Holly accepted her mug and her pie and wandered over to the table, embracing the warmth of the sun streaming through. “Someone apparently made the suggestion.”

  “Just spreading the wealth.” Luke sat across from her. “So. What really brought you by?” He scooped up a chunk of oozing berries and crispy crust and bit in. “Oh.” His grin went from ear to ear. “Well. Okay. Charlie’s got another talent. This is good.” He dived in. “Spill, Holly.”

  Holly took a deep breath, her nerves eroding any desire for pie. “The other day, when you told me about the accident. There was so much going on when it happened, what with Dad’s surgery and recovery and me being so angry—”

  “Rightly so,” Luke interrupted without looking at her. “Listen, Holly.” He set down his fork and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “It would be really great if we could get past this at some point. Not that I expect you to forgive me or forget, but rehashing the accident every time we see each other.” He shook his head. “I’d like it if we could agree to be friends and let the past lie.”

  “No, no. I totally agree,” she said, wishing she’d found a better way to say what needed saying. Friends. Why did that word suddenly seem...disappointing? “I realized there’s something you need to know about the accident. When they brought Dad into the emergency room, they weren’t sure he was going to make it. They thought he might have lost too much blood. They told us he’d be lucky to keep his leg given his injuries. As it was he had kidney damage and lost his spleen, and a pretty bad concussion. Mom couldn’t take it. She walked out on us before Dad came home.”

  “If this was meant to make me feel better—” Luke looked a little green.

  “Uh, this is not coming out right at all.” She rested her forehead into her hands. “After the surgery, when we were sure he was going to pull through, the doctor said whoever had tied the tourniquet around his leg saved his life. It stopped him from hemorrhaging.” She sighed. “So. Yeah. I thought you should know, you saved his life. I was wrong to blame you, Luke. It was a combination of things, of circumstances conspiring against everyone.” She took an extra beat because he looked as if he needed it. “I’m sorry I held on to the anger as long as I did. I know now it’s been as hard on you as the rest of us, and as much as I wanted to blame you for my mom taking off the way she did, she’d been looking for an excuse for years. Dad always told me to get over it, but I wasn’t ready to hear him, not when I still had to work through
my issues with Gray. You were an easy, if not misappropriated, target.” At least that was how her father had put it last night over dinner. In Jake’s typical no-nonsense way, of course. She’d felt like she was a teenager again being reprimanded for sneaking out after curfew.

  Holly exhaled twelve years of anger and hostility. She could breathe again. Was that what forgiveness and acceptance did? Was it this...freeing?

  “I didn’t know.” Luke seemed as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “I remember sneaking into the hospital, waiting in the hallway until I heard he was out of surgery, but I never thought I’d actually helped. Not when I’d caused...”

  “Stop.” Holly covered his hand with hers, gripping his fingers in her palm until he looked at her. “We were both wrong. And you were a kid trying to do the right thing from the second you got in that car. I’m just glad my father saw through all the anger and other stuff and did what he could for you.”

  Luke was silent, as if processing what Holly had said. “When I went into his room at the hospital, all I could think was this was it. I was going to jail. I’d spent so many years wishing, wanting my father to be locked up, and in the end it was going to be me who would go down for doing something unforgivable. Do you know what Jake said to me the second I walked in?”

  Holly shook her head, gripping tighter when he tried to pull free.

  “He said, ‘You’re better than him. You always have been. Now you need to prove it to yourself.’ He was in so much pain,” Luke continued. “Yet he told me he was proud of me, because I’d done what my father had never been able to do—I accepted responsibility for what happened. I was ready to take whatever punishment Jake and the courts saw fit to bestow.”

  “And less than a week later you were gone.” That was the one part she’d never understood. How he could have just left.

  “Your dad pulled some strings with an old navy buddy of his. It took some convincing, and I had to turn eighteen. My father never would have signed off on me going into the service. The morning of my eighteenth birthday, I went back to your father’s hospital room, signed the papers and was on a bus that afternoon.” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure if he should go on.

  “What?” she prompted.

  “I remember Jake saying one day I’d come back and prove he hadn’t made a mistake. He told me he had faith in me, that he was proud of me.”

  Holly’s eyes burned as he tightened his hand in hers.

  “No one had ever said those words to me before.” Still holding her hand, he reached up and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing his biceps and a tattoo, partially obscured by burn scars. “And I never forgot.”

  She leaned forward to read the intersecting words—Be Proud and Believe—and under, the date of her father’s accident. However easy it had been to breathe moments before, her lungs felt constricted.

  “I never let myself forget what I was capable of, Holly. Or what I was responsible for. And I swore, as I was getting this inked into my skin, I would never be like my father. No kids, no family. It doesn’t seem to matter how many years pass, I’m still a risk and I won’t burden anyone with the monster that could very well be sleeping inside me. Despite that, I swore to do whatever it took to make your father worthy of the faith he put in me.”

  “You’ve done that.” Holly’s heart twisted as she wished she’d been kinder, more understanding, more forgiving. Or that she’d taken the time to listen to her father when he’d tried to tell her the truth about that night. That it was a perfect storm of horrendous events that everyone was equally responsible for. That Luke would take things so far as to believe he was capable of becoming his father made her ache inside. She’d never imagined one man could put himself through this much pain over one mistake. That she might have played into it with her repeated reaction to him was something she’d have to come to terms with. “You’ve done that and more. You’re one of the most decent men I’ve ever met.”

  Luke pulled his hand from hers and got to his feet, carried his plate and coffee to the sink and stashed the leftover pie in the small fridge.

  “Well.” Holly cleared her throat. “I guess this means we’ve cleared the air once and for all.” She reached down to pet Cash as the dog came over and nudged her leg with his head. She scratched behind his ears, wishing she had something more profound to say. “I’m glad we’re finally friends, Luke.” As she expected, the words tasted bitter and somehow disappointing on her lips.

  “Is that what we are?” He kept his back to her, hands braced on the sink as he bowed his head.

  “Wasn’t that the word you used? What else would we be?” The second the question was out of her mouth she wanted to call it back. The danger sign that had blazed on in her mind the night of Simon’s near arrest blinked to life. This was not a road she could go down again. No matter how much she might want to.

  She stood, tugged the hem of her T-shirt down over the waistband of her jeans and went to grab her purse. But when she plucked it off the floor and turned toward the door, she found him behind her, his presence all but surrounding her. Enveloping her. She closed her eyes, inhaled the scent of soap and the barest sweetness of berries. Her head spun. “Luke.” She blinked her eyes open, she saw his hand come up, felt him cup her cheek in her palm. She leaned into his warm touch, fought every instinct roaring to life within her. He inched closer, his eyes pinned to hers as his lips descended, slowly, so slowly she might have screamed in frustration. And then he kissed her. Soft, gentle, a promise, a hint. Nothing more.

  “Thank you for the pie, Holly,” Luke murmured once he lifted his head, but he pressed his forehead against hers and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he was afraid to look at her.

  She reached a hand to his face, feathered her fingertips against his cheek, his lips, as she felt his warm breath brush against her skin. “You’re welcome.”

  He released her and opened the door.

  Holly didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop moving until she was outside again, through the yard, past the gate and out of sight.

  Only then did she stop to breathe, clutching a fist against her throat, unable to stop the smile from spreading against her still tingling mouth.

  “Friends,” she whispered even as she thought of—and wanted—more.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SITTING ON THE reinforced wooden bench on his front porch, with Cash curled up at his feet, Luke sipped steaming coffee and watched the first flitting butterflies of the day awaken under the warm morning sun.

  The already established, protected butterfly sanctuary was only three miles north, and occasionally the monarchs found their nightly nests in the eucalyptus trees outlining the Saxon property. To Luke it felt as if the more at peace he became with himself, the more butterflies found their way here, as if confirming that he had found his way home—the same as they had.

  The Pacific chill and the flitting of wings settling the unease still churning inside him made getting up early worth it. It had been nearly a month since he’d returned to Butterfly Harbor. It didn’t seem possible time had gone by so fast. In some ways it felt as if he’d never left. In others, he heard a clock ticking as if he was on borrowed time.

  For so long he’d dreaded coming back. Now he began to dread leaving again.

  Luke sipped and closed his eyes, embracing the invigorating cool air. Inch by inch, building by building, person by person, Butterfly Harbor was coming back to life, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

  But he wasn’t back. Not all the way.

  Not yet.

  Holly’s face came to mind, how the memory of kissing her weakened the wall he’d built around himself. Going to the diner for breakfast, and sometimes dinner, too, had become routine. He found he couldn’t go for more than a few hours at a time without seeing her beautiful smile or that amused glint in her eye. Hea
ring her tease him or tell him about her day. She made his day—every day—better.

  Interacting with her and Simon made him realize how much he’d missed growing up, but instead of resenting his circumstances, he embraced what he’d been given: the second chance to see what was possible.

  This house that lurked behind him had never been a home. Not when Luke had planned out escape routes from any room of the house by the time he was ten. Staying here now had been his own form of penance, a penance he’d more than overpaid. There was nothing for him in these walls other than bitterness and hatred and memories he no longer wanted. He’d let this building haunt him, control him, drag him back into circumstances he’d long ago pulled himself out of.

  Luke set down his mug and picked up the bolt cutters he’d taken out of the trunk of the patrol car yesterday. He got to his feet and walked down the porch steps, around the side of the house and into the thicket of trees housing his father’s shed.

  The closer he got, the more knots twisted in his gut. He could remember staring at that padlocked door, crying, his lungs burning as his fingers were scraped raw from clawing at the wood, his throat all but bleeding from his screams to be let out. It had taken too long to realize he’d always been safer behind that door.

  Luke snapped the lock with the cutters, ripped the chain free of the handles and wrenched open the double doors.

  The smell of fertilizer and cheap booze hit him full-on. He covered his face with his arm, eyes burning as he turned his head away. His eyes watered as he stepped inside, heart hammering against his ribs. The shack was smaller than he remembered, and the workbench he’d sometimes huddled under for nights on end was piled high with rusted tools and empty bottles. Cobwebs hung thick in the two square windows, spiderweb cracks letting the wind whistle in as an odd companion.