I was surprised he knew where I lived, since it was only my second week at the house. But word got around fast on an island this small. Besides, he and Andy had been friends since high school.
“Better come to my place.” Owen sighed. “It’s the closest thing around.”
“Oh, no, I don’t want to impose—”
He frowned, eyes flashing in the sunlight. “It’s the least I can do if you won’t let me take you to a doctor. Can you stand?”
I nodded and got painfully to my feet. I could feel the cut now, and it ached more with every step. We made slow progress down the path, with Owen carrying my things for me and helping me down the steeper parts. At the base of the mountain, we reached a narrow, wooded street. It was a different street from the one I’d taken this morning, and I no longer knew quite where I was.
Owen led me up the road to a red house with a massive attached garage. When we went in the front door, I wasn’t sure what to expect—a Viking beer hall, perhaps—but it certainly wasn’t this spotless farmhouse kitchen. I stared at the big book on French cooking on his kitchen table with a sudden, overpowering lust. He cooked, in addition to being gorgeous.
“We should wash that up before we bandage it.” He reached for my elbow, but I jerked out of his reach involuntarily.
What the hell was I doing in this man’s house? Especially injured and limping. No one in the world who knew where I was, apart from the two of us. I hardly knew where I was.
My heart thumping, I looked up at Owen, expecting to see his usual gruff expression. Instead, his dark eyes were solemn and steady.
It’s all right, I told myself. Owen was all right.
I nodded at him to show me the way. Without a word, he led me through a tidy living room into a small bathroom. I couldn’t help noticing there were no women’s hair products or extra toothbrushes or any other signs of Jenny staying the night. Strange. Unless maybe Jenny was just as neat as he was?
I sat down on the edge of Owen’s bathtub with a sigh of relief at being off my knee.
He handed me a washcloth and a bar of soap that smelled like allspice and nutmeg. “First thing is to rinse the blood off so we can take a look at it.”
I took my shoes off and got my hurt leg into the tub, wincing. Rinsing the wound stung, but not enough to distract me from Owen standing a foot away. If I’d reached out my left arm, I could’ve touched him.
But I wouldn’t, because he had a girlfriend and I had at least some instinct for self-preservation. Even if he did know how to cook.
I snuck a glance up at him and was taken aback by the dark flush across his strong cheekbones and at the base of his throat. He was staring at the hem of my dress where it met my wet, soapy thighs. My stomach tightened in an immediate, visceral response.
Tearing his gaze away from me, he stared instead at my espadrilles, which were lying on his bathmat. “Um…want some coffee? Think I might make a pot.”
“I never turn down coffee.”
“No wonder my mom likes you so much. Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
By the time he came back with two steaming mugs of coffee, I was sitting on the edge of the tub with my hurt leg stretching out to the floor. Owen handed me a coffee and set his own mug down on the sink. He pulled a roll of gauze and some surgical tape out of his medicine cabinet and sat down next to me on the edge of the tub, so close I could catch the sweet spicy scent of his soap again, but this time warmed by his skin.
“It’s still bleeding,” he said. “Sure you don’t want to go get stitches?”
“It’s slowed down a lot. Thank you, though.”
He dabbed at the cut with an ointment-soaked gauze pad, wrapping his free hand around the back of my knee—a place that suddenly felt vulnerable and intimate.
“You’re really good at this,” I said, then blushed again. “I mean…wounds.”
His mouth crooked up, but he kept his gaze focused on my leg. “I do a lot of woodworking. Cut myself pretty good a couple times.”
“That explains the scars on your hands.”
This time, he met my eyes, his eyebrows rising. “Yes. Just glad I haven’t lost a finger yet. A lot of woodworkers do, eventually.”
I shuddered. “How awful.”
He shrugged and reached for some more gauze.
“What kind of woodworking do you do?” I asked curiously, as he taped the gauze to my cut.
“Well, for my business, I make arbors, pergolas, railings, that kind of thing. But at home, I make instruments.”
“Instruments?”
“Violins, mostly. Started a cello, but it’s slow-going.”
“That is so cool,” I said, which made him laugh. “Seriously,” I insisted. “I’d love to see them.”
“Really?”
He’d finished taping up my cut now, but one of his hands was still resting on my shin.
“Yes, really.” I’d seen plenty of painting studios, but I’d never seen a violin workshop. And…I didn’t want to leave yet, as selfish as that was. “Unless you’re busy? I don’t want to—”
“No,” he said. “I’m done for the day, anyway. How’s the bandage feel?”
“Good, thanks.” I moved my leg experimentally.
Owen stood and offered me a hand up. My fingers vanished inside his callused palm. He had the hands of a manual laborer. It would have been hard to imagine him making something as delicate as a violin, if it weren’t for how gently he’d bandaged up my leg.
I slid my shoes back on and followed Owen back into his living room. We crossed through a mudroom filled with L.L.Bean parkas and dog leashes and went into the gigantic garage I’d seen from outside. Violins in varying stages of completion lined the walls. Under the violins were rows of tools. The rest of the garage was filled with standing machinery, workbenches, and more instruments: an upright piano, an acoustic guitar, a viola.
I realized my mouth was hanging open and shut it with a snap. “This is amazing.”
“You like it?”
I grinned up at him. He was blushing again, too. I’d never seen anyone make a blush look so sexy. “I love it. Is that the cello you’re making? On the workbench?”
“That’s right.” We threaded our way through some of the bigger machines—an electric saw, I guessed, and maybe a dehumidifier. At the workbench against the far wall, Owen picked up a piece of wood and handed it to me.
“Oh, look!” I exclaimed. “It’s the neck, and the whatsit!”
“The scroll,” he supplied, smiling.
I traced the spiraling wood at the end of the scroll, bewitched. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not quite done yet. I haven’t even made the peg box.”
I pointed at two meticulously carved pieces laid carefully on the workbench. “What are these?”
“This is the back plate, and this is the front plate. They’ll be the body of the cello, eventually, after I make the ribs.”
“The ribs?”
“The sides of the cello body. You bend them around the cello mold, to make them curved, and then glue it all together. Tell me if I’m boring you yet.”
“Not at all.” Owen was truly an artist. “So you made all of these?”
“Almost all of them. Some of them I got used so I could try out fixing them up, back when I was first starting out.” He reached up and plucked one of the violins off the wall. It looked like a child’s toy in his hands. He offered it to me, and I took it as if it were made of crystal. It weighed so little, and its striated varnish was incredibly lovely.
“It’s so pretty,” I said. “How are you so good at this? When did you start doing it?”
“Seven years ago.” His tone flattened. My skin prickled at the sudden change.
He cleared his throat and scraped his knuckles over the blond stubble growing in along his jawline. “Are you musical?”
“Kind of. My dad had me take piano and voice lessons starting when I was a kid. He’s really into that stuff—b
eing well-rounded and accomplished. I had private tutors for everything—ballet, French, horseback riding…you name it.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I mean, he’s a Shakespeare professor. I think he lives in a different era from the rest of us.”
“I have no idea what it’s like to have an eccentric parent.” His mouth quirked.
I laughed. “I really like your mom. She’s been so nice to me.”
“That’s what she does. She’s all heart. Which is good—no one else would’ve made it this long in this town.”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but he turned and went to the upright piano. “What do you remember from your piano lessons?”
“Nothing, probably.” I set his violin carefully down on the workbench and followed him across the room. He gestured for me to sit on the piano bench.
“All those private tutors, you must remember something.”
Placing my fingers on the keys and toeing the pedals with my espadrille, I tried out a couple of blues scales. “I remember more of the stuff I picked up in high school, not the proper classical stuff my tutor taught me,” I admitted. “So you won’t get much Bach out of me, I’m afraid.”
Owen was watching me, that wry smile back in place. “What did you pick up in high school?”
“Well, Tom Waits was my favorite.”
He nodded at the keys.
I tried out a few notes as the song slowly assembled itself in my head. Finally, I leaned into the keyboard the way Tom Waits did and sang a few lines about drinking to forget my lover before letting the song fade out. “I can’t remember the rest.”
“That was fantastic.”
We grinned at each other. I slid over on the piano bench and patted the seat beside me. “Your turn.”
“I don’t play piano.”
“Nonsense,” I said, channeling my inner Claire. “Why would you have an instrument you can’t play?”
With a sudden flare of embarrassment, I remembered that Jenny was a piano teacher. It had to be for her. And she could probably play Bach’s Goldberg Variations without breaking a sweat.
“I use the piano when I’m tuning the strings on my violins,” Owen said. “And I can’t play the violin, either.”
“Really?”
“Really. I was a cellist, but I stopped playing years ago.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.” Once again, his tone went flat, his face became shuttered. Every time he started to open up to me, something went wrong, and he stopped himself.
Frowning, I picked out a couple of notes on the piano, playing the parts I could remember from Tom Waits’ Martha, a ballad off his first album. “I’m sure playing the cello would come back to you. Like riding a bicycle.”
“I don’t think it’s going to come back.”
I ran through the song in my mind, humming bits of it, then started playing again. “I feel like that with my painting at the moment. But I’m sure if I—”
“You’re a painter,” he interrupted, his voice filled with revulsion.
Surprise and indignation flared through me. “Is that bad?”
He turned and stepped away from the piano, his wide shoulders tense. “Of course not.” He sighed, still facing away from me. “I’ve got to go meet Jenny.”
God, I was an idiot.
I jumped up—and staggered into the piano, cursing, as pain lanced through my knee.
“You all right?” Owen was beside me, his hand on my arm to steady me.
“I actually forgot about my leg. Stupid.”
“I’ll get you some aspirin.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine now. Thanks.”
He took my hands and drew me in towards him, between the piano and the bench. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at his chest, his flat stomach, his narrow hips. He rubbed his thumb across one of my rings—a silver-and-gold songbird—but otherwise we stood perfectly still. The seconds ticked by while Owen studied my face, my lips, with his dark, inscrutable eyes.
He pulled away and stepped backwards, shaking his head.
I swallowed and hugged my arms to my chest, ashamed of how disappointed I was.
“Jesus, Miranda.”
“What?” I looked up at him and realized he was looking at my scoop neckline, where I’d squashed the girls together rather provocatively. “Ah. Sorry.”
“No, don’t be—I’m sorry.” He exhaled in a sheepish laugh and rubbed the back of his head, making his hair even messier than usual.
“It’s all right.” I bit my lip. “I should go.”
“Me, too.”
Neither of us moved. Finally, I shuffled forwards, and he tried to step away but instead we bumped into each other. We both laughed awkwardly while I scurried away to keep myself from touching him again.
“Can I give you a ride home?” he asked at the front door.
“That’s okay. I’ll call Kaye for a ride. She won’t mind.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Thank you for bandaging me up.”
“’Course.” He cleared his throat. “Will you be at the party this weekend?”
“Andy and Kaye’s It’s-Slightly-Less-Shitty-Out Beach Party?” I said, quoting Kaye’s hand-made invitations.
He smiled. “That’s the one.”
“I’ll be there.” Not that it mattered, since he’d be bringing his girlfriend.
Chapter 8
Towards the end of my lunch shift, as my tables thinned out, I slipped outside for a smoke break. I was desperate to get away from Margot, the other painter, who never stopped scowling at me. And now that I had a few more weeks’ wages under my belt, I could actually afford cigarettes. Moving up in the world.
Digging in my apron pocket for my lighter, I bumped into a man standing in the cool afternoon fog. “I’m sorry.” I stepped backwards.
He was middle-aged and expensively dressed. Unlikely to mug me, then. I supposed no one on Fall Island was likely to mug me, but you never know.
“No apology necessary.” He had a smooth, velvety voice, and he was handsome in an elegant way, with his dark hair and refined profile.
“Are you waiting for a table?” I asked curiously. There was no one else in the parking lot. Just him, alone in the fog, smoking a cigarette.
“Just enjoying the sea air before my lunch.”
I could understand that. I fumbled a cigarette loose from the pack and took a long drag. There was no need for me to be nervous about Kaye’s party tonight. It would be fine.
“Are you in town for the summer?”
The constant question. “I moved here a few weeks ago. To stay.”
“Well, welcome. James Emory.” He offered me his hand, and I shook it.
“I’m Miranda.”
“A pleasure.” He smiled. “You have a very pretty sense of personal style.”
I was wearing some new work clothes: a black mini-dress over black leggings, with a ton of silver and brass chain necklaces piled around my throat. I liked the outfit, but it wasn’t anything special.
“Where did you get the jewelry?” He didn’t have a Maine accent. I’d gotten so used to the way the townies talked that he sounded strange to me now.
“At a few different thrift shops. I mixed and matched different pieces from each.”
“Very pretty. Artistic, really.” His gaze slid up from the necklace to meet my own. “Are you an artist?”
“I’m a painter.”
“How interesting. What do you paint?”
“Um,” I began, releasing a breath, “portraits, mostly. Sort of dark, gloomy portraits.” Rhys had always called my paintings dreary.
James Emory raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have guessed that, looking at you.” He tapped the ash from his cigarette. “Do you have any pictures of your work?”
“Actually, yes.” I dug my phone out of my apron pocket and pulled up a picture of a painting I’d finished before I’d met Rhys. It was now hanging in my dad’s flat. “This
is a portrait I did of my mother.”
The painting showed her sitting on a couch, one slender knee crossed over the other. She held a rose on her lap, twining its long stem between her fingers. I’d painted the background black so her olive skin and the rose would stand out, while her ink-black hair, which was so much like mine, faded into the background.
The painting was dark—literally, because it looked like an old Renaissance painting, but also figuratively, because it was from when my dad was sick, and I had been so lonely back then, and so desperate for someone, like a mother, to help me care for him.
But my mother was smiling in the funny little way she always did in photographs, and working on it had made me feel better. I was proud of it, even if it couldn’t compare to a Suzanna White.
James’ brow furrowed as he gazed down at my phone. “You’re very talented. Do you have any others?”
“Lots of them.” I’d done many more of my mom, all based off photos, of course, and several of my friends—Rosa, Everett, and Johnny, especially. I had a few character portraits, too, of Ophelia or Rosalind or my namesake, Miranda.
“Are the others of this caliber?” James asked.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Have you ever tried to show your work in a gallery?”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Just a few art shows in high school. And I had a few paintings hung in local pubs.”
He shook his head. “That’s a disgrace.”
I stared at him in dismay, and he smiled. “Someone should have snapped you up by now,” he explained. “Your work is excellent. I could introduce you to some people if you like.”
I had no idea what to say.
“I’m serious,” he added mildly.
I frowned up at him. Could that be true? Did he really like the painting, or was he just flirting with me?
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll think about it. I’d better get back to my tables, though. Maybe I’ll see you inside.”
“I’d like that.” He inclined his head in farewell. I half-expected him to bow. Talking to him had been like stepping into a different era, with top hats and horse-drawn carriages and women in evening gloves. “Very nice meeting you, Miranda.”
After work, I stood in front of the cheap full-length mirror leaning against my slanted wall, wishing my very pretty sense of personal style would make an appearance and tell me what to wear. The outfit I had on was one of my favorites—skinny jeans and a flowing top—but it didn’t make me feel as confident as I’d hoped. On the other hand, I didn’t like the top I had just picked up, either. I was not in a pink mood.
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