She sighed and walked back toward town. It was time to go to work, and that prospect was daunting enough. She’d ponder the state of her soul when she didn’t have to guard her psyche. It was not easy to guess what to expect from Steve. He obviously doubted her, yet he trusted her with a key to his store. He suspected her motives but gave her a job, groused at her, insulted her, then kissed her. The man was clearly confused.
She would only think one day through, then face the next when it came. She was not giving up that Mustang until God left her no choice. In the meantime, it seemed she was stuck in Charity. And looking around her, that was not such a bad thing. Maybe she was following the halo after all.
Steve was focused at his computer when she entered. His face, caught in the bluish glow of the monitor, looked stark, though his hair was in some semblance of order. By the aroma, it must be a red cinnamon disk bulging his cheek, and a slow sucking was his only motion besides the clicking of his fingers on the keys. She didn’t bother him, just took off her jacket and arranged the display of holiday books that had been messily perused.
Then she busied herself studying the titles on the rare-book shelves. After a while, the first male customer she’d seen rushed in. He had the look of a pigeon: round bulging eyes, a tiny beak of a nose, and a declining chin; his head bobbed forward in little jerks as he walked. He said, “I need a book for my wife’s stocking. If she doesn’t find one in there Christmas morning she’ll never forgive me.”
Alessi smiled. “Pastor Welsh said seventy-seven times, and I’ll bet you’re not even a repeat offender.”
He laughed. “She would definitely have an opinion on that.”
Alessi helped him choose a humorous holiday romance from the paperbacks, then asked what he liked to read. Taken aback, he said, “I haven’t thought about it.”
“If your wife’s a reader, she’d probably love a cozy companion on winter evenings. With snow like this and two good books …”
He glanced around the store. “I really haven’t read since high school.”
But she could see his interest was piqued. “Steve has some great classics. When people like a book for a long, long time there’s usually a reason.” She pulled a hardback off the shelf. “Take this one by Cervantes. Who hasn’t heard of Don Quixote? And can’t you just see the knight with woeful countenance?”
He looked uncertain. “I guess so.”
She took another from the foreign author section. “Or Les Misérables. That one makes you cry and cry. Well, it might not make you, but it did me.”
He laughed. “I guess I’m just not much of a reader.”
“Have you tried the American classics? Maybe you’re more of a Hemingway guy—A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises—or Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. That one got a Pulitzer and they made a movie out of it.”
“I’ll try that last one. I’ve heard of it, anyway.”
She showed him several copies from the used-classics shelf. “This one’s in good condition.”
He took the book and studied the cover, then nodded.
As she completed the sale at the register beside Steve, he stayed focused with his usual brusque, preoccupied manner. Not at all the mellow companion who had brushed his lips on her cheek last night. Maybe he was bewitched, only showing his true self in magic moments that she must watch for to set him free. She was just the sort of hapless heroine the fairy tales called for, and he’d already admitted himself the beast. Or was it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
“You know your literature.” He spoke without looking away from his screen.
She half turned. “I’ve read a lot.”
“Not everyone reads classics.”
She slid her fingers over his smooth glass paperweight. “Mom and I spent a lot of time in the library. We started with fairy tales, stories she hadn’t been able to read as a child. She had made up her own versions from the parts other kids talked about, but she loved hearing the real stories. When I’d read most of those, she got a list from the librarian, and we moved on to literature.”
Steve turned from the screen. “You read Hemingway at eight and Steinbeck by nine and a half?” Not quite sarcastic but clearly skeptical.
“Ten or eleven. We started with Johnny Tremain, The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. We read at least something by most of the names people recognize. When Mom got sick, she wanted more hopeful themes. So we read The Pilgrim’s Progress and Hinds’ Feet on High Places.”
“And Les Misérables?”
Sadness slid over her like a tight-fitting sheath. “I read Les Misérables by myself.”
He eyed her a moment, then said, “Can you package the orders I’ve started in the back room?”
“Sure.” She guessed he didn’t want to hear about her loss or think of his own. She could understand that. It had taken a long time for her to talk about her mom. Of course, that was partly due to living with Aunt Carrie. Alessi had guarded her mom’s memory like a holy secret.
She boxed the orders and turned them over to the UPS driver who came to pick up. The store was surprisingly busy with people ostensibly coming for gifts, but by the overheard comments, curiosity about Steve’s Christmas date was much more of a draw than his books. Alessi wished she’d never started that business. But she had, and now it was like the make-believe scenarios she and Mom had devised to get through less-than-delightful duties. They’d been masters of imagination, and she was glad she’d honed the skill. It took some stellar acting.
She lifted the stack of books Steve had processed, and as she shelved them, she wondered what made them important. Was it age or scarcity? The words on the pages or the date of publication? The author or the message or the story? And who was out there looking for this book or that? She imagined someone learning the very copy in her hands was found and available, maybe a title the person had despaired of finding. Maybe one with a deep and personal meaning, memories of someone special or a time looked back on fondly.
“Why, yes, we have that book. I know right where it is.” Her placing the tome in his hands would be as momentous as dipping the cup into the pool that would heal the ailing mother or the mute child or the dying father. Dropping to her knee and parting with the most precious—
Steve touched her elbow. “Let’s get some lunch.”
She jumped, then clutched the book to her chest, reality flooding in. “I was going to search for my car over lunch.”
He slid the book out of her hands and set it on the small end cap. “You do have to eat.”
She had skipped breakfast to search earlier. “I’ll just grab something while I look.”
“A good hot meal will hold you better. My treat.”
He had provided most of the meals she’d had lately, and she guessed another free meal was worth the time she’d lose in searching. He motioned her toward the door and set his return time on the sign. It didn’t seem to occur to him that if they went separately he could keep the shop open, but that would mean leaving her alone with access to the register—a little different than having everything shut down and locked up when she slept there at night. He led her down the sidewalk toward Moll’s.
It was the first time she’d seen Charity in the sunshine. Every snowcovered surface was dazzling bright, more so than noontime glare on the beach. It made her think of the light in C. S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader as the adventurers drew nearer and nearer Aslan’s country. Mom had loved that story best, and Alessi imagined her now, seeing everything with perfect, brilliant clarity. Her own eyes, however, squinted nearly shut until they stepped into the relief of Moll’s dim interior.
Alessi ordered through Steve—who had direct communication with Moll—a meal she’d never eaten before: chicken fried steak. It was sinfully good. She’d have had enough comfort food by the time she left Charity to last her a lifetime. Steve laughed when she told him that, then grew pensive and dropped his gaze.
“Although, there is something to be said for avocado a
nd sprouts, hummus and tofu,” she added.
He winced. “You’re speaking a foreign language.”
“You don’t get fat on that food.” She dug into the crispy edge of her steak.
“You’ll be back to your bikini in no time.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going back to the coast.”
“Been there, done that?”
“Bought the T-shirt.” She laughed. “Or rather I sold it—about a hundred times.” She dipped a wad of mashed potatoes in the creamy pepper-flecked gravy. “There’s too much else to see.”
“In what direction?”
“I think I’ll head for Alaska. You made it sound stupendous.”
He sipped his coffee. “You know your way around?”
She shrugged. “Have any maps or travel books?”
“Only a few hundred.” He wiped a drip of coffee from his chin.
She smiled. “I’d love to find that waterfall on your wall.”
He didn’t reply. Maybe the place had painful memories. Maybe he thought Alaska was another place she didn’t belong. But she was getting pretty good at drifting. People around them sent curious glances but didn’t come forward and congregate as they did at some of the tables. Alessi guessed Steve might normally be something of a loner, and people seemed to accept that, especially since they’d warned the ladies off with their supposed holiday liaison.
Alessi liked people. Except for the years with Uncle Bob and Aunt Carrie, she had never been without friends. None of them knew her real living conditions because, if she wanted to bring a playmate home, Mom always suggested a park or a beach instead and adjusted her work schedule to take them. The hard part was that she never kept her friends for long because they’d have to move. There’d be days with no school while they looked for a different place to live, and then she’d have to start all over in a new school.
She learned to make friends quickly—until she’d been rendered uncertain she deserved friends, and then her grief had closed her up in a way that warded people off. But after leaving Uncle Bob’s utopia, she had chosen a broad spectrum of companions. It seemed people her age were either college bound or self-destructive. Being neither, she got along better with people like Ed. Here in Charity, she had already connected with Ben and Dave and even Diana and Karen. And, though based on their early interaction she would not have named Steve, there he was.
If she got her car back and headed for Alaska, his life would go back to normal. But could she actually tour the wilderness and not wonder about Steve any more than she’d not think of Ben and Dave every time she pulled into a filling station? So many lives had touched hers and melted away, walk-ons in her memory. But these people were sinking in.
Moll brought a box for the rest of her lunch as soon as she noticed Steve was done. Alessi thanked her even though she would have liked to finish it there. “It was delicious.”
No answer. Alessi hardly cared. Whatever the woman’s issues, she sure could cook. They walked out and Steve hooked an arm over her shoulders, obviously convinced their charade was working. She had to remind herself it wasn’t real. What he did in public was no more than hanging garlic around his neck.
Eighteen
STEVE RESTED HIS ARM ON THE SHOULDERS just inches lower than his. His stride matched Alessi’s. He smiled at the neighbors they passed: Benjamin Stone, an elder in the church, Judy Soren and her three toddlers. His stomach was full, his gait easy, and his mind … Well, he wasn’t trying to think too hard.
Working with Alessi was making the assimilation of the new estate easier than any he had done before. He no longer considered the job a favor he’d done her. Besides the obvious interference factor with the women of Charity, she did have the training to handle the store and help with his orders and inventory during the only busy time of the year. It probably was true that she had worked in a bookstore, and maybe even the part about the old guy she called her best friend. She was certainly strange enough to be best friends with a seventy-year-old man.
He hated to admit he found her strangeness refreshing. Even things like reading Steinbeck with her mother—before the age of twelve. He’d have liked to be a fly on the wall for that one. Pretty heavy-duty language and subject matter for a little girl, but then, he couldn’t picture Alessi as a young child any more than he could imagine her old. She seemed sort of ageless. And that was very strange, since she was twentyone and he was almost a decade older.
He took his arm off her shoulders. She was a young woman, stranded, maybe deserted, maybe in trouble, maybe trouble itself. He knew nothing about her. As Cooper said, they had no proof of even her name. Yet he kept acting in ways he couldn’t fathom, playing a role he had rejected completely. His arm had gone around her with no effort from his mind. As their fingers brushed now, he thought of clasping her hand in his, then realized he already had.
Thank God they had reached the store. He unlocked it, then stood, half blocking her entrance until she looked up. Her hazel eyes were laced with green, the lashes a light brown only slightly darker than the freckles across her nose. Her brows were peaked and tapered and rose now with consternation. She thought he was going to kiss her.
And he was, but she slipped inside and held the door for him. He needed a book on parapsychology, unexplained mental phenomena. She was a mind snatcher. Yet it went deeper than that. He slid her jacket from her shoulders and carried it to the desk. The sooner he got back to work the better. But he couldn’t concentrate. Something was not copacetic. He sensed it, even if he couldn’t put it to words.
Yesterday he had visited people he’d known most of his life—and felt a disconnect. Now he spent an hour with someone he’d met only days ago and experienced a bond of supernatural intensity. He was way off course. He forced his mind to tackle the facts.
She had drifted into town with enough sun streaks in her hair to make Florida a possibility. Ben had seen the car; the car had disappeared—until the other night. Did he believe her? Say he did. What then? A missing car was not a lost wrench. It was criminal. So what again?
Charity had developed a mindset that didn’t allow for this scenario. The pact had created expectations, and no one wanted to admit there was trouble. It all came back to the premise: If evil no longer existed in Charity, then a crime could not have happened.
But if it did …
Steve shook his head. He wasn’t sure if people truly believed the pact on a spiritual level or if the idea was simply enough to determine behavior. Was there a difference? Ben and Dave had reached out to Alessi, had given her assistance. He provided employment and shelter.
If Cooper—
The front door opened and Carl came in, his eyes scanning the dim room like a waking owl. Steve had suspected he was only talking about an interest in literature to make an impression, but there he was. Steve started to go forward, then realized Alessi would handle it just fine. He glanced around the back shelves but didn’t see her.
Carl, however, seemed to. At least something had attracted his gaze, and Steve doubted very much it was a book title that drew that particular expression. He frowned. Carl was what, seventeen? Perhaps Steve was making more of it than there was, but the kid ducked behind the front shelf as Alessi rounded the corner into the aisle. She looked forward, expecting a customer no doubt, and started that way.
“Alessi.” Steve stood up as she turned. He thought fast. “Can you get something for me?”
She came, and he felt an inordinate relief. Ridiculous.
“I need a ream of paper. For the printer.” He handed her the truck keys. “Remember the way to Wal-Mart?” He had lost his mind.
Her brow puckered. “I don’t have my license.”
He frowned. “If Cooper stops you, remind him he’s supposed to be finding it.”
She chewed her lower lip. “He’ll think I stole your truck.”
“Just go. He’s home napping with his cat.” He nudged her toward the doorway to the storeroom. “The truck’s out back.”
“One ream of paper?”
“Get another bag of these.” He held up the bowl of hard candies.
As soon as she was out the door, he started for the front. He was making a total fool of himself. The kid only wanted a book to read. Maybe he was shy; maybe he was … gone. Steve scanned the front. He circled the racks, the tall shelves, all the way to the back. He rushed through the storeroom and pushed open the back door. The tiny lot was empty; Alessi had taken the truck.
He scanned the area, then walked around to the front, looking both ways along the street. What on earth was he thinking? He had provided her with new transportation. She could take his truck and head for Alaska. He had panicked because the pastor’s son looked funny at her.
Steve rubbed his face and wondered once again if something had taken over his brain. He went into the store and paused where Carl had stood with that strange expression. There was a direct line of sight to where Alessi had been working. Steve narrowed his eyes, counting off the seconds Carl had stood there watching and then ducked aside.
Steve cocked his jaw and considered the situation. Why would Carl come in, then leave like that? Maybe he forgot something. But why would he hide from Alessi? Steve paced the aisle. Twenty-nine miles there and back, time to look for the two things he’d requested and maybe browse a little herself … It could take two hours.
He set the time on his door sign, then locked up and walked to the station. Ben was talking with Matt Smith. Steve went through and looked into the garage. Dave had a Buick in the bay and was up to his elbows in grease. Steve circled the video wall until Matt left.
Ben joined him. “What’s wrong?”
Steve turned. He’d probably telegraphed his foolishness to everyone. “Tell me about Carl, Ben.”
Ben looked at him with the slow, measuring gaze that questioned his sense, then said simply, “What about him?”
“Does he have a girlfriend? Is he dating?”
Ben slid his hands into his jeans pockets, obviously unsure how to answer. “Well, I …”
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