Christmas Sanctuary

by Lauren Hawkeye

  What he’s doing doesn’t matter. Taking a deep breath, she focused on positioning a new piece of scrap metal.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” She nodded, exhaling sharply when he curled her fingers around the torch with his own this time.

  Together, they struck the metal, and Emma’s shield darkened—this, he’d explained, was to protect her eyes from the UV light. When her vision had adjusted, she watched with fascination as the metal seemed to melt—Nick called this building a weld pool—fusing the pieces together.

  He turned the torch off, and as soon as the crackling had stopped Emma lifted her shield. The smell of the torch’s fuel was thick in the air, so sharp it burned the inside of her nose, but as she looked at the little pile of metal that she was helping to shape, she found that the smell was addictive.

  “Not a heart.” Careful to steer clear of the hot metal, she traced the lines in her head on the dented metal table. “A tree. It’s a Christmas tree.”

  “It can be whatever you want.” Nick grinned at her, his shield lifted; she couldn’t stop the way her heart fluttered when their eyes met.

  A loud snort cut through the moment. Emma and Nick both looked over at Mike, who was shaking his head.

  “If you want to learn how to sculpt with metal, find someone who knows what they’re doing, not some young pup who thinks he knows it all.”

  Nick smirked in reply, but his hand came to rest on her shoulder, a show of support.

  The polite thing to do, long ingrained in her, was to simply ignore the somewhat insulting comment.

  Lifting her own hand to brush over Nick’s, she figured she’d left the need to be polite back in Georgia.

  “Are you offering?” Tensing as she spoke, she looked at Mike with as steady a gaze as she could manage.

  The flash of uncertainty was gone quickly, hidden again beneath the grizzled exterior. Still, she knew she’d seen it, so she didn’t turn away.

  “First lesson,” Mike said as he returned to his piece, “don’t let the kid give you wine. Alcohol and fire don’t mix.”

  Her temper sparked. “I think you lost the right to give me lectures about safety when you left.”

  She wasn’t sure if she’d expected some kind of reaction; at any rate, she didn’t get one. Shrugging, she turned back to her own piece.

  As she struggled to place the newest scrap of metal, she was surprised to hear him speak again—to her. “Piece needs balance. You don’t weight it properly, it’ll topple right over.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she looked at Mike, the way his hands moved expertly over his own work, then regarded her own statue.

  “Where should I put this piece, then?”

  “Along the bottom.” He fired up his own torch. “You put it above those feathery bits like you were doing, it’s going to be top-heavy. Not pleasing to the eye.”

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, Emma tried his suggestion, trying to weld the scrap closer the bottom. After the way he’d acted, it irritated her to admit that Mike was right. It looked a million times better than the way she’d had it.

  Nick helped her attach it. Eager now, she selected some wire, brow furrowing as she worked.

  She was aware when Nick quietly moved away, leaving her with the torch and only the supervision of Mike—of her father.

  They worked in silence for an hour. When Emma finally set down the torch, Mike was standing next to her. She realized with a start that her posture mimicked his own—feet shoulder width apart, one arm crossed over the chest, the other raised so the chin could rest in the hand.

  It was unnerving to see herself echoed in a stranger.

  “Well.” Mike regarded her creation wordlessly, but from the corner of her eye she could see his lips twitching. “It’s…hmm.”

  “It’s a hot mess.” She grinned when he huffed out a relieved breath.

  “It’s your first try,” he said, and she held a hand up as she laughed.

  “It’s hideous.” Stepping forward to run her fingers over one of the crudely attached branches of the tree, she laughed again. “Here, you keep it. Consider it a lifetime’s worth of grade-school art projects.”

  An awkward silence stretched out as she realized what she’d said. Sneaking another glance at Mike—why did she find it so hard to look at him fully?—she saw his face set in somber lines.

  “I’m not the best person,” he said abruptly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Never claimed any different. But I’m not cruel. I had my reasons for leaving you.”

  Emma waited for him to continue, to tell her what those reasons were, but he turned his attention back to his own work.

  The conversation was over.

  Chapter 22

  Her footsteps on the narrow wooden staircase were nearly silent. She’d assumed the splintered door led to a closet until she’d noted Nick disappearing into it when Mike had been helping her with her sculpture. With the older man now gone, she headed up the stairs on chilly bare feet in search of Nick.

  Halfway up the rickety staircase, she heard his voice. Suddenly craving his company, she hurried the rest of the way, stopping when she reached the top.

  The ladderlike staircase opened up into a single room. It was as rough as the space downstairs, with honeycombed concrete walls and a bare wooden floor. A section of unfinished counter held a stainless steel sink and a hot plate, an old fridge humming quietly beside it. A card table and two folding chairs had been jammed into a corner, a laptop sitting quietly on top.

  A simple box spring and mattress with forest-green sheets had been angled into the one beautiful thing in the small space, a huge window that framed a swath of velvety night sky and a brilliant half moon. Nick was perched on the edge of that bed, body angled away from her as he held his phone to his ear and rubbed his other hand through his thick, dark hair with agitation.

  “Hannah, I’m not going to have enough work done for a spring show.” She hadn’t heard him speak like that yet, his voice more like vinegar than whiskey. “Yes, I know that I haven’t had a show in a year.”

  He paused, listening to whoever was on the other line—a woman, Emma thought, the voice barely audible but far lighter in tone than Nick’s. She stayed silent as he sat, tension radiating off him in waves until he sliced a hand through the air, as if reinforcing that he was done talking about the matter.

  “Look, Hannah. I promise I’m still working. But what I have…I don’t have enough for a show, and what I do have isn’t good enough. I’m still stuck.”

  He huffed out a sound of pure exasperation. “Yeah, Mike’s stuff is good. Brilliant. I don’t know if he’s on track for his show; talk to him. No. No plans to move back to Vancouver. Look, I’ll call you when I have something.”

  He ended the call without saying good-bye, stabbing a finger at the phone. Emma swallowed thickly as he tossed it aside, his face in his hands, before he looked up and saw her.

  There was no hiding that she’d heard the call. And she was very curious about what she’d heard, but the expression on her face told her that whatever it had been about, it was not open for discussion.

  “Mike gone?” His face was shuttered, so completely closed off that Emma wanted to stay rooted to the spot. She nodded. When he held out a hand, she had to push through the invisible wall that that phone call had constructed. “You okay?”

  “I think so.” When he stood, tugging her into his arms, that distance melted, transforming into a low heat that sealed them together. She found herself burrowing her face against his wide shoulder. Inhaling his warm scent, a bit of soap, a hint of torch fuel, and his own skin.

  “I have some more wine up here. Want some?” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and Emma felt her gut clench.

  “I drank most of that bottle downstairs by myself,” she reminded him, though the warmth suffusing her veins had nothing to do with any leftover buzz from the alcohol. “Seems like you’re trying to get me drunk.”

&
nbsp; “Now, why would I do that?” She couldn’t put her finger on the moment it changed, but in one second his face expressed concern, and in the next something far more wicked. “Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

  “Nick,” she sighed, tilting her head to the side as he kissed his way down her neck. Her eyes settled on the spare room, the lack of anything personal in the space. Unless she had very much misunderstood, Nick was a well-known artist. This space would have looked barren even for a college student with no money. Surely this wasn’t where he lived?

  And yet, the bed that he guided her to smelled of him. If this wasn’t where he lived, then he spent a good deal of time here. She wondered why someone young and successful like himself was hiding out here, on a tiny island, with her father.

  It didn’t fit her idea of him, just like those shadows that occasionally flickered in his eyes seemed like they should belong to someone else.

  The sudden urgency in the grip of his fingers on her hips, in the press of his lips on her own spoke of need. The way he played her body as they sank together into the mattress was a distraction, though, and her last thought before she couldn’t think at all was that he’d been there for her so much already—no matter the reason behind the sudden desperation radiating from his skin, the least she could do was be there for him, too.

  Chapter 23

  Nick hadn’t had any intention of bringing Emma up here, to the Spartan quarters he’d called his for over a year. He’d been about to go back downstairs to check on her and Mike when his agent had called.

  He didn’t like talking to Hannah. Didn’t like being pressured about his work. Didn’t like any reminder of the life he’d led back in Vancouver, the one in which he’d been too busy enjoying his low-level fame as a hot new artist, too busy wining and dining and bedding sleek city women to pay attention when his mother needed him.

  He knew he was still grieving. He knew it was hard for another person to understand why he’d changed his lifestyle so drastically, and he’d never intended to have a woman up here, asking questions he didn’t want to answer. Yet he found that he didn’t mind lying here with her, wrapped around each other in the dark.

  “Thank you.” Emma sighed contentedly, burrowing in even closer. He liked the way she nuzzled her lead into his neck.

  “Not sure I’ve ever been thanked post-sex.” He smiled into her hair as she laughed softly.

  “I meant for downstairs. For standing up for me. Then for giving me space.” Pressing a kiss to his neck, she rolled away, settling on her back. He could just make out the lines of her slim frame in the dim light. “I…I can’t explain how strange it is. Seeing myself in a complete stranger.”

  “How did you find out?” Normally he despised pillow talk of any kind, not because he was cruel, but because it just wasn’t part of the deal that he offered up front. The life he’d carved out here didn’t have a place for lasting, intimate relationships.

  With Emma? He wanted to know. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, to do with that, so for now he just went with it.

  Reaching for his hand, twining her fingers through his, she explained about the marriage certificate, anger faint but clear in her words.

  “I thought my life was one thing.” Her voice was soft. “The rug was pulled out from under me, and now I wonder if it’s not meant to be something else.”

  There it was—the slightest tendril of unease. He opened his mouth to tell her that this—whatever this was—couldn’t evolve into much more. Couldn’t become a relationship the way she likely thought of it.

  That could make her leave, and he might be confused about his feelings, but he knew he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to hurt her, either. He should say something.

  He opened his mouth to do just that, but instead of what he’d expected to say, he found himself talking about a subject he hadn’t spoken about with anyone for a year.

  His mother.

  “This place isn’t much to look at, huh?”

  Her pause was full of unspoken words. “I did wonder at the lack of a flat-screen. Don’t all males have one of those? The bigger, the better?”

  “I thought it was women who wanted things bigger.” Rolling onto his side, he laid his palm over her chest. The steady thump of her pulse calmed him. “And I actually do have one of those in storage, just haven’t had a chance to drag it up here.”

  “There goes the starving artist image,” she teased. He stroked his hand over her skin, still savoring the steady thud thud thud.

  “The simplicity is by design.” His mouth was dry; he wished desperately for a glass of water, but didn’t want to leave the warm cocoon of the sheets to get it.

  She waited, her patience a balm on his skin. The last thread of hesitation snapped, and the flow of words started.

  “In Vancouver I had—have—a condo. A big one, right downtown. Art district.” Damn, he wanted that water, but he wanted to keep his hand on her pulse more. “My career had taken off. I had money, I was making a name for myself. More friends, more women than this former geeky art student knew what to do with.”

  Pausing, he waited for the inevitable pissy comment about mentioning other women while he was in bed with her. It didn’t come.

  “Anyway. I was caught up in that, and other—relationships—fell by the wayside. Some friends that I’d had since elementary school stopped calling. More than that, though, I didn’t return my mom’s calls that often. Missed a couple of visits back home.”

  “Where’s home?” Mimicking him, she placed her free hand on his chest, stroking gently.

  “A place called Saskatchewan. Know where that is?” He didn’t expect her to. Canada only had ten provinces and three territories, most of them big, but the rest of the world didn’t seem to pay too much attention.

  “Let’s see. There’s Toronto. Vancouver. And the North Pole. That’s all Canada has, right?” Her voice was wry, teasing. “I know where Saskatchewan is. Right above Montana and North Dakota, yes?”

  He was impressed, but didn’t comment on it. “Anyway. That’s where I’m from. That’s where my mom, Sarah, still lived. My dad died when I was a kid, and I don’t have any siblings, so when I moved to Vancouver she was alone.”

  Again, he waited for a comment, and again, Emma simply listened.

  “Mom was always prone to…well, as a kid, I thought of them as her dark times. Now I know she was depressed.” Grief was familiar, a mouthful of bitterness that clung to his tongue no matter how much he swallowed. “I was so full of my new life that I didn’t realize that she didn’t really have any friends, either. She was just alone out there. Reaching out to me, but I was always too busy to visit, or to call her back.”

  “I found out after that I hadn’t spoken to her in a month, but to me it felt like no more than a weekend. I was in my own little world.” His pulse started to pick up the pace—thudthudthud—as he got to the part he had trouble examining, even by himself and in the dark. “She had no one. No one to realize that she was planning to kill herself.”

  “Nick.” Emma’s fingers dug into his chest. “Oh, my goodness.”

  “There was a lake by our house. She walked into the water and didn’t come back out.” He heard the words, knew he was saying them, but detached himself from the emotion. “I had no idea until the police called me.”

  “Nick.” He expected judgment, wanted it, even. “Oh, Nick.”

  “I don’t know if I could have stopped her. I really don’t.” He heard the defensiveness in his voice and tried to tone it down. “The fact remains. All those things that I thought were so great—the house, the career, the friends and women. Even without them I might not have been able to stop her, but I could have at least let her know I cared before she died. I’m not sure she understood that, not at the end. I sure didn’t give her any reason to.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Emma’s voice was soft.

  “There isn’t really anything to say.” He smiled, but knew the expressio
n was twisted. “I moved here to try to live a different life. A simpler one.”

  “How did you wind up with my—with Mike?”

  He hesitated. In all likelihood, she had no idea about Mike’s own tendency toward depression, so he couldn’t tell her that heading out here had both served his purposes and also allowed him to do some penance—to keep an eye on the friend prone to the same illness he hadn’t noticed in his own mother until it was too late.

  “We were friends. I knew he lived on an island and spent half his time wandering around in the trees. Seemed like a good fit.”

  The silence stretched out for moments, minutes…he couldn’t judge, he was so tense, waiting for her reaction. When it came, it wasn’t what he’d expected.

  “Thank you for telling me.” No judgment. No disgust. None of the things he felt for himself.

  Using their intertwined fingers, he pulled her to him, tugging her up onto his chest so that she was sprawled across him. There he hugged her tightly, enjoying her squeak of surprise.

  And holding her just like that, they fell asleep.

  Chapter 24

  Nick woke up in a panic.

  Jolting against the mattress, his fingers scrabbled at the sheets as he fought for breath. He’d dreamt that he was surrounded by water, water as black as the night sky. He’d been drowning, but instead of fighting against the burning of his lungs, struggling to get air, he’d welcomed it—a cool embrace.

  Was that what his mother had felt? Relief? Even in the worst throes of his grief, he didn’t think he would have welcomed death.

  Sitting up, placing his feet flat on the floor, he let the chill of the unfinished room act like a jolt of caffeine. He needed to shake it off.

  He wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t going to drown.

  “Nick?” Rough with sleep, her voice reminded him of bourbon. “Everything all right?”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up next to someone. Her concern was sweet, but he didn’t want anyone there worrying about him.