The Wonder of You

by Susan May Warren

  “You didn’t even do anything wrong!” Ethan flung the satchel’s shoulder strap over himself.

  “I kept secrets. I lied to her—made her think I was someone else.”

  “You had no choice.”

  “I had every choice. I was a coward.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, walked over to the window, leaned against the frame as he stared at the tower. “Just like I have been all my life.”

  Behind him, Ethan sighed. “I know you have demons, mate, but you’re hardly a coward.”

  But Ethan didn’t see the rest, the man afraid to face the way he’d disappointed God. Or the fact that God kept reminding Roark he couldn’t outrun His wrath.

  With Amelia, it had all dropped away. The fear, the regret—as if being with her made him new. Or better.

  A man worthy of winning back the woman he loved.

  “Didn’t her family practically throw you out? What makes you think they’ll be all, ‘Glad you popped by! Come in for a spot of tea’?”

  Roark smiled at that. “I have an in with the family—a local who claims to know their bark is worse than their bite. And a job.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m working in a coffeehouse.”

  Ethan put his hand on the door latch. “I know you like to live on the edge, fast and loose, without a plan. But this might take more finesse than you think. In the case that you don’t come back, though, I want the keys to the Fiorano.”

  “Don’t be coy. I know you already have a set. Just keep it clean.”

  Ethan smiled. “You really don’t have even a smidgen of a plan, do you?”

  “Just one. Win her back, then tell her the truth. Beyond that, I’m following my heart, hoping it’s enough.”

  “You might consider going at that backward. Secrets first, then love.”

  Roark sighed. “But in that case, how will I know it’s real?”

  A pulse of camaraderie passed between them. Then Roark took a breath. “I’ll be back in two months. With the woman I love.”

  WAGING WAR FOR Amelia’s heart in the picturesque town of Deep Haven had its benefits. Like the view of the harbor from Roark’s efficiency-apartment window, with the pristine blue lake washing the shore, the cry of gulls to awaken him. The fragrant, bushy pine trees standing sentry around the north shore hamlet. He’d rented it two weeks ago, just before leaving town, as security against his courage tucking tail and fleeing.

  He pulled up to the tiny coffee shop with the second-story apartment accessible via outside stairs, parked the used Ford Focus he’d picked up in Minneapolis, and got out.

  Jensen Atwood stood in the lot—Roark’s inside man, his compatriot in battle. Rusty, Jensen’s collie, ran up and pressed his nose into Roark’s leg.

  “Hey, Rusty,” Roark said, bending down to rub the animal behind the ears.

  “The British are coming,” Jensen said, ambling over to clasp his hand. “One light or two?”

  Roark found a smile. The grime and fatigue of the past three days of traveling from Paris, finding a car in Minneapolis, buying meager supplies, and driving five hours north had scoured away his good humor.

  “Let’s get you unloaded.”

  Roark popped the boot, where he’d stashed a crate of kitchen utensils, some linens, and his suitcase.

  “The life of a vagabond, I see,” Jensen said. “Well, cheer up, old chap. Deep Haven is a splendid place to put down roots.”

  Roark didn’t correct him; his Good Samaritan didn’t need to know that he had no plans to stay. That this was a two-way trip to amend his mistakes and return a champion.

  Finally.

  However, he did owe Jensen the credit for knocking him out of his doldrums after the miserable row with Amelia’s family last month.

  If it weren’t for his run-in with Jensen on his second mournful day in town licking his wounds, Roark might have thrown it in and would now be setting up his station in his uncle’s sleek offices in Brussels.

  Jensen, it seemed, knew a little about being judged prematurely and awaiting acquittal. And he’d been the strategist behind Roark’s return to Deep Haven to win the hand of the fair maiden Amelia. Now he seemed to also be his stalwart companion, a brother in arms.

  “Roark. Hello, Roark?” Jensen said.

  Roark came to himself. “Sorry, I was off with the fairies.”

  Jensen raised an eyebrow.

  “Perhaps you’d say, off in thought.”

  “Right. Maybe keep the fairies thing to yourself. Still, I’ll bet you’re thinking about what you might say the first time Darek Christiansen sees you hanging around Deep Haven. I know this was sort of my idea, but I’ve had two weeks to think about it, and maybe . . .”

  “I should leg it out of here?” Roark led the way up the stairs, inserting the key into the door, swinging it open.

  “Righto,” Jensen said as he dropped the box of utensils on the table. “But before you do, Peter Pan, my wife, Claire, says that you have to come up to the house for dinner. You can unpack your suitcase and these wobbly boxes in your spacious new pad when you get back.”

  Jensen was no doubt eyeing Roark’s one-room flat, with the living room cluster of a faded red sofa and brown rocker facing the electric woodstove, and the L-shaped kitchen that housed a four-burner unit, a tiny refrigerator, and a wooden table.

  Roark set his suitcase on the bare, gray-striped mattress of the single bed and stared out the picture window to the foamy wash of Lake Superior along the rocky shoreline. The sun hovered low, the day holding fast to a feeble strip of fire along the horizon. The rich aroma of brewed coffee wheedled up the stairs from the downstairs eatery, a coffee emporium aptly named Java Cup.

  His new employer and landlord.

  Of all the places he thought he’d end up, here, learning to brew a cup of American espresso, seemed the last. But he’d made worse choices over the years, right?

  “Listen, I once lived on a sailboat for three months in quarters the size of a shilling, so this is indeed spacious.” Roark smiled as he took a leather jacket from his suitcase and pulled it on over his T-shirt, twisted a scarf around his neck, and added a tweed cap.

  “All you need is an Aston Martin,” Jensen said. “If you want to lay low, lose the cap for a tuque and throw on a sweatshirt.”

  Roark frowned and made to pull off his hat.

  “It’s fine. We’ll soon be under the cover of darkness. Let’s go.”

  Roark followed Jensen outside, where the collie waited in the bed of his truck. He opened the tailgate and the dog jumped out, then into the cab, where he climbed on the seat.

  “Rusty, get down.”

  “I’ve got it sorted.” Roark climbed in, and the dog settled across his lap, paws over the seat’s edge. He ran his fingers into the fur around the back of the dog’s ear and rubbed. “How old is he?”

  “Not sure. He’s a shelter dog. Just needed a good home. Some love.”

  Didn’t they all?

  Roark said nothing as they drove through the town. He had already gotten his bearings on his first runabout two weeks ago—met the locals, tried to devise a plan. And convince himself that he wasn’t completely barmy for hanging out where he wasn’t wanted. He hadn’t settled on a verdict.

  “You’ll like Claire. By the way, she lived in Eastern Europe as a kid. Her parents are still missionaries in Bosnia.”

  Roark bit back a noise that would betray the sudden churning of memories.

  “We run the resort across the lake from the Christiansens’,” Jensen said as they climbed the hill out of town. “If you look behind you, you can see the lights ringing the harbor. It’s beautiful.”

  Roark obliged and indeed, twilight fell around the hamlet, red-and-yellow lights like diamonds against the velvet swaddle.

  The kind of place where he might have decided to settle down if he didn’t have obligations.

  They turned toward Evergreen Lake, silvery now with a fingertip of moonlight parting the middle. Hous
es sheltered in towering pine remained dark, yet well-groomed, and when Jensen stopped at a security gate and keyed in a code, Roark realized he’d entered resort property.

  Jensen drove into the complex, heading toward a three-story, timber-sided lake home.

  “Blimey.”

  Jensen laughed. “It’s not mine—we’re renting from my father. I work as the caretaker of the community. But it’s a nice view.” He parked inside a lit garage, and Rusty climbed out, wagging his tail as he ran up the stairs to the house.

  “It’s just you here? No concierge?”

  “I am the concierge. And the maintenance man. And the housekeeper—when needed—and the front desk receptionist and the general manager.” He hit the garage fob to close the door. “Mostly these are private homes, but sometimes the owners rent them out. I’m on duty to make sure the guests are treated right.”

  He opened the door, and the rich redolence of tomatoes and beef stewing on the stove could make Roark weep. He hadn’t had a home-cooked dinner in . . . Well, he couldn’t actually put a finger on it. Perhaps a decade.

  “Hey, honey, this is Roark,” Jensen said, walking over to a petite brunette who wore her hair in two pigtails. She sported a pregnant belly that appeared ready to pop any moment.

  “The infamous Roark,” she said, pulling off an oven mitt to shake his hand.

  “Infamous?” he said.

  “You have no idea.” She winked, then turned to her husband. “Hey, handsome,” she said to Jensen and lifted her face for a kiss.

  Roark looked away and wandered past the leather sofa, the trestle table set for dinner, to the wide picture window that overlooked Evergreen Lake. His gaze found the glittering lodge on the opposite shore. Evergreen Resort. Amelia’s home. When the investigator he’d hired to track Amelia down mentioned that her family owned a cottage in the woods, he’d pictured something quaint with a garden perhaps. But the Christiansen lodge, made of peeled logs, exuded the stately aura of history, a landmark hewn from the lush landscape of the north. The land held a wildness reminiscent of the places he’d visited as a child in Russia.

  Maybe that’s why it called to him. Or maybe he simply heard Amelia’s voice lingering in his memory. Stories about fishing with her brothers or swimming in Evergreen Lake, hiking back trails in search of grouse, pheasant, eagle, and beaver. Tracking down the perfect photo. Behind her words, he’d seen the pieces of her—adventurous, brave, breathtaking—and they’d captivated him.

  She had the courage he longed for. That drew him, perhaps, the most.

  Now, thanks to the moonlight, he could easily trace the scrub trees along the shore, the smattering of newly rebuilt cabins, the wasteland of devastated forest beyond the lodge. The wreckage stopped just west of the lake, at the tip.

  “It’s from the forest fire,” Jensen said, coming up beside him and handing him a cold root beer in a glass. “Almost two years ago. Darek and I dug a fire line with his bulldozer and stopped it just along our property.”

  Roark pointed to the lodge with his free hand. “Nice view of the Christiansen place.”

  “Four generations it’s been in their family,” Jensen said. “Lodge, cabins, and outfitters.”

  Roark took a sip, studying the cabins, wondering what they rented for, then dismissing the question. He wasn’t in that business anymore. Or yet.

  “Suppertime,” Claire said, setting a Caesar salad on the table. She went to the stove, grabbed her hot pads.

  “Oh, let me get that,” Roark said, setting down his drink and fast walking to the stove. He put on the hot pads and grabbed the pot.

  Claire untied her apron, grinning.

  “Thanks for that. I was just about to help her,” Jensen said. “I’m watching you, 007.”

  007? His frown at Jensen elicited a laugh.

  “It’s what they called you in town. ‘Bond. James Bond’—that sort of thing. You raised a few eyebrows with your appearance. And subsequent disappearance.”

  “I had to attend to things at home.” He threw his leg over the bench on one side of the kitchen table.

  “Home being . . . ?” Claire said as Jensen pulled out the end chair for her. He sat opposite Roark.

  “Brussels. Oh, this smells delicious.”

  “My grandfather’s recipe—old shoe soup, he calls it, but it’s really just beef stew.” She sat and held out her hands. Jensen took one.

  Roark hesitated only a moment before he took the other.

  Claire bowed her head.

  Oh.

  Roark bowed his too. It just seemed right.

  When she finished, Claire reached for the first bowl to dish the stew up, but Jensen grabbed it away. “I got this.”

  “You’re a good influence, Roark.”

  “Please,” Jensen said but handed him a filled bowl of stew.

  “Okay, Roark,” Claire said, buttering a piece of crusty bread from a basket in the middle of the table. “Jensen says you’ve landed a job at the Java Cup.”

  He took a sip of the stew, the flavor of thyme settling into his bones. “I’ve rented a flat above the shop. I start Monday.”

  “You should take the weekend to see the sights. Go up to Cutaway Creek, hike the falls. It’s cresting with the spring runoff—gorgeous,” Jensen said.

  Roark nodded, reached for the bread.

  “And then what?” Claire said. “Jensen told me what you’re up to, and I have to say . . . I’m not sure you have my vote.”

  “Give the man a chance, Claire,” Jensen said, taking his own bowl.

  “I’m all for true love, but I’m trying to figure out why a guy who stepped out on Amelia thinks he deserves a second chance.”

  Oh. “It wasn’t quite as she suspected, but I know I hurt her.” And if that didn’t take him right back to the beginning, stymied by a truth he loathed to tell.

  He swallowed, dove into his stew.

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “I’m giving you mercy here. Amelia is the Christiansens’ guarded child. The youngest. She not only grew up with three brothers, but she’s as stubborn as they are. So tell me, Roark St. John, why is Amelia so important that you’d hop a plane and camp out in Deep Haven to win her back?”

  He could start, perhaps, with the way they met, how the sight of her waiting for the sunset to paint the perfect version of the sky upon the Vltava before she captured it with her camera had rendered him breathless.

  He could talk about how Amelia laughed at his insistence she make a wish and hoped that yes, she’d return. How he had wrangled his way into the same photography tour group and how the city took on new brilliance when they explored Týn Church and Old Town Square together.

  How, when he discovered her age, he’d planned to ease out of her life, until she made it okay. By then, perhaps she’d suspected his feelings—even before he did.

  The weekends they spent traveling to nearby villages, then on to Germany and even into Switzerland, finally to Paris.

  How, when he found her standing in Notre-Dame Cathedral, streams of light fanning over her, he wondered if she’d been divinely sent. And how it scared him that God might be reaching again into his life, this time without rancor. Maybe even with forgiveness. The thought tasted too raw, the hope pricking his eyes.

  He’d debated, then, telling her about himself—about his past, his future. So much of their friendship was spent in the present. But it was that—just a friendship. Until New Year’s Eve and the kiss.

  The kiss. Quick, but awakening something inside him that told him the truth. Enough to reach out to Cicely to ask her permission.

  Which, of course, turned out badly for everyone.

  “Have you ever met someone who so completely made you feel like yourself?” The words snuck out to betray him, and yet hearing them gave him resolve. He looked up at Jensen, then beyond him, to the Christiansen lodge. “As if that person awakened inside you the person you’ve always wanted to be—and should have been all along? And the more you’re with her, the more ho
nest and right it feels? Such a person makes you want to lean into everything you could have, reluctant to let it go. You can’t envision a life without her because such a life wouldn’t be worth living.”

  He saw Jensen’s hand creep across the table to take Claire’s. “Yes,” he said quietly.

  Perhaps Jensen was more an ally than he’d suspected. Indeed, his luck was turning.

  Roark put down his spoon. Met Claire’s eyes. “Claire Atwood, I know you don’t know me. I have blown in off the eastern wind and taken up residence in your town, and I am an interloper. But I am not the scoundrel you suppose me to be, and I am here with honorable intent. I have committed no crimes except for unbearably poor timing and abysmal communication skills. I desperately long to set things right with Amelia, to reveal to her the truth behind our regrettable row. I hurt her, and it deeply pains me.”

  He swallowed, took a drink of his root beer. Met her gaze again. “However, I promise you this. If Amelia, bearing all the facts of my case, still chooses to reject me, I will walk away and be content to leave her in peace, despite my broken heart.”

  Something flickered in Claire’s eye. A flare of trust?

  “I humbly ask if you will give me a chance to prove myself, to do as Jensen suggests and earn the respect of the Christiansen family and win back Amelia’s trust. I promise I will not let you down. Nor Amelia.”

  Claire stared at him. Jensen didn’t move.

  He felt it then, the weight of what he’d come to do. To prove not only to Amelia, not only to her family, but apparently to the entire town that he could win the heart of the damsel of Deep Haven—and deserved to do so.

  Finally, from Claire: “Okay, then. Jens, please pass Roark some more bread.”

  National Geographic wouldn’t come in search of Amelia or laud her photographic achievements after today’s not-so-epic shots of Troop 168 and their buckets of sudsy water, but it might be enough to land her the freelance job at the Deep Haven Herald.

  “Lindy! Alice! Marissa! Show me some smiles and hold up your sponges!” Amelia positioned herself on top of the fire truck, capturing the gap-toothed joy of the soggy Girl Scouts as they scrubbed Edith Draper’s Ford Escape. Water sprayed into the cool air, caught by the breeze and turning to kaleidoscope bubbles against the blue sky and laughter of the fifteen-plus girls working the crowd in the Deep Haven EMS parking lot. A small line of locals, pledging their support of the troop’s fund-raiser for a playground addition, stood around slurping coffee, holding ten-spots, and waiting their turn to get their vehicle sudsed up and sprayed down.