by Nicole Deese
“I had a bit of a setback at the bakery today, and well, I could really use an extra set of hands to make up for the lost time.”
As if waiting for the punch line, he only blinked in response.
“What I’m asking is, what if Brandon helped me with the mural? Ya know, on the days you were at the clinic? I probably have about three weeks of work to finish up, and of course I’ll have the library, too, and possibly a couple of smaller projects.” I shrugged again. “Corrie and Collin will be around, too, most days. But I do realize that Brandon assisting me would mean he’d have to miss his days at the garden club . . .” I did my best to fight the smirk on my face as I added, “But I think we’ve both seen his dedication to that as of late.”
Davis set my drawing down and pondered my offer—this time without a trace of cynicism on his face. Even still, the seconds ticked by.
“I consider myself to be quite intuitive, but you make it really hard to figure out what you’re thinking,” I said.
“I’m thinking you’re one of the most generous people I’ve ever known.”
“I could easily say the same about you.”
“I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow, but there’s not a chance he’ll turn that offer down.”
“I hope you’re right,” I added playfully. “Because at this rate, I’m never going to be able to pay off my debts to you before . . .” But I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence. I wasn’t ready to think about moving away. Not from Clem and Chris and the kids. And not from the Carter family either. “Before I get taken to the Davis Carter collection agency.”
He picked up a colored pencil and tapped it on the table. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one in your debt now.”
I shook my head. “Let’s agree to be even.”
“Yes, let’s,” he said through a grin.
He pushed out from the table and took a step closer to the shelf. “I saw Brandon’s sketchbook tonight.”
I whirled around, a marigold crayon pinched between my fingers. “Really? He showed it to you?”
“Not exactly, no,” he said, touching a wooden box of pastel paints. “But I saw the robot, the one from the laundromat. It was like flipping through a wordless comic book.”
I couldn’t help but grin at his on-point description. “He’s incredible, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” But in that one word, I heard a note of dejection.
“You’re worried.”
He let a beat of silence go by before he answered. “I’m still trying to sort it all out. I never figured creativity into the mix of my parenting plan. Sports, math, science, biology—those subjects are in my wheelhouse, but this world?” He drew an imaginary circle around the room using an emerald green pencil. “This is a mystery to me.”
“A lot of people think the brain functions in either concrete or abstract, like there’s some kind of dividing line that separates the population.”
“You obviously disagree.”
I lined the color-coded mason jars up in ROYGBIV order before answering. “It’s not that I disagree there are two types of thinking, I just don’t see them as mutually exclusive. There are moments I can switch my natural response process from emotion-based to systematic when I need to. I may have to work harder for it, but still, I can do it.”
“I’m not so sure I can turn off the way I think,” Davis said. “I see an apple only as an apple. It elicits zero emotional response from me.” He trailed to the jars and shoved the green pencil into the jar of yellows. Was he trying to challenge my color system? “But regardless of my comfort level, I’m committed to supporting my son.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said as gently as I could before returning the pencil to its rightful place and making my way back to the workstation. “But he’ll need more from you than just buying supplies and paying for his classes at the community college.”
“Before you get any ideas about me holding a paintbrush, let me assure you that Brandon did not get his artistic genes from me.”
“Art is so much bigger than you realize, Davis.”
The beginnings of an idea brewed in the recesses of my mind. No matter what he believed about own his creative capabilities, there wasn’t a living soul who escaped the power and connection of art. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” He chuckled. “You’re not going to make me list my favorite comfort foods, are you?”
“Nope. I’ll leave that game to Shep.” I waved a hand over Davis’s face, as if to close the curtain of his vision myself. “Now, trust me and do what I say.”
With a wry smile, he closed his eyes, the dark fringe of his lashes a detail I’d save to memory.
“I want you to picture the most memorable place you’ve ever visited—but don’t tell me where it is.”
He thought for a long moment. “Okay.”
“Now, place yourself in the center of that setting. Look at where you are in position to the world around you. Memorize the colors, the shapes, the feeling you have when you take it all in.”
He said nothing, yet his features softened as if he were following every last detail of my instruction.
“Now, stay there. Don’t open your eyes. What do you see?”
I slid noiselessly onto the stool across from him and reached for my sketch pencil and drawing pad.
“There’s a mountain range in the distance—white-capped from a hard winter’s snowfall.”
“What else do you notice about them?” I asked, lightly shading in some peaks near the top of the page.
“The largest mountains are straight ahead. Massive, really.”
“Perfect. And are they just ahead of you or . . . ?”
“No, the range curves around to either side of me.”
I continued shading. “What about the sky? What kind of day is it?”
“Mostly sunny. A few clouds overhead. A bone-cutting chill in the air.”
“And what’s under you? Where are you standing right now?”
“I’m floating, actually. In a small fishing boat. Two hard benches with tackle gear between the seats.”
“Ah.” I smiled. “And the water?”
“Reflective like glass. Calm. Some spots so deep it looks almost black.”
“You’re making me cold,” I said with a shiver.
“You’re the one asking the questions.”
I laughed softly. “Tell me what else you see.”
He was better at this than I had anticipated. The landscape had come alive in my head like a postcard image.
“There’s dense timberland on the shore to our left. Boulders, shrubs, mossy sticks covering the ground. And no people but us.”
“Who are you with?”
“My father. Back when he was healthy and strong. He wore a ridiculous fisherman’s hat that I teased him about for days.”
Sadness crept into his voice. I’d nearly forgotten. His father’s death had been the catalyst for bringing him back home to Lenox. But I’d heard something else in his voice, too. This memory was among his most precious.
“What does it feel like to be out there with him—just the two of you?”
As if reeled in by the imagery he described, I rocked forward onto my forearms, waiting. My pencil rested in the crook of my finger and thumb as I watched him draw a steady breath.
After a few more seconds, he opened his eyes. “Like I never want to take another minute of this life for granted.”
His focus was as intent and unwavering as my own. Though I didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink, every part of me seemed to be reaching for him.
He blinked first. “Did I pass?”
“You tell me.” I pushed my sketch his way.
He stared down at the page and touched the image of the boat in placid water, the ghostlike outline of two men—one with a wide-brimmed hat—floating in a lake surrounded by mountains.
“I’m sure my interpretation is far from the beauty of the real thing, but you can see how your word choice created a
n essence I tried to capture on the page. A presence.” I glanced down at the lines and smoothed my finger across the top of the weighty paper. “I can feel the security of the mountains and the serenity between the men on that boat, but I can also sense a sadness in the stillness of the water. A foreboding that life will soon change.”
When he lifted his head, eyes meeting mine, my knees almost gave out. “You felt all that?” Davis asked.
“Only because you felt it in here first.” I placed my hand over his heart. “Our connection to art has less to do with talent and more to do with the emotion it stirs inside us. And perhaps our willingness to feel that emotion. This drawing could provoke an entirely different response from one person to the next. The same way music does. It’s the perfect balance of individual expression and shared intimacy. You can know this with Brandon, too, Davis.”
He raised his eyes to mine, and a flood swelled within me.
Chemistry, I could conquer. Attraction, I could tame. But this connection, this ever-present, ever-persistent ache that drew me in like a swift current now caused every one of my doubts to scream for a life raft.
But I refused to throw them one. Because I wanted them to drown.
Davis pushed up from his chair and bridged half the expanse of the tabletop with his body. . . I did the same. And in that moment, everything became astonishingly simple, as if a thick layer of fog—all the complexities of life—had finally cleared away, long enough for us to truly see each other.
No titles stood between us. No roles or rules or responsibilities. We were simply Davis and Callie, two people with different dreams and goals and heartaches.
Two people who dared to meet in the middle.
When his fingers grazed my cheek, I waved the proverbial white flag. The fight in me was nothing more than a distant, fleeting memory. Somewhere outside myself were the words I’d spoken a dozen times, a rehearsed relationship code I’d lived by for so many years because . . . because . . . I couldn’t even recall the reason anymore.
His mouth hovered inches away from my own, his warm fingers a whispered caress across my cheek. “I want to kiss you, Callie.”
“I want you to kiss me, too.”
At my confession, his hand moved to cradle the back of my head. And just like that, as if someone had poured water over a chalk drawing, the last of my resolve vanished. I gave in to the tender feel of his lips on mine and invited the ache in his kiss to spread through every hidden pocket of my heart. To every banished dream and desire.
In less than a dozen heartbeats, Davis had exhumed a hope long buried . . . that maybe my father was wrong about me.
Maybe he was wrong about a lot of things.
Chapter Twenty-One
DAVIS
As Brandon tossed the tennis ball into the thick grass at the dog park, my thoughts rolled back once again to the evening prior. Kosher’s agility and strength test was no competition for a sassy, sweet-lipped artist.
“Good boy!” my son praised as the Border Collie retrieved the ball with ease and carried it back to him, tail wagging. “See? He’s doing great.”
I’d X-rayed his wounded leg earlier this morning—at Brandon’s request, as he was positive Kosher was healing at a faster rate than I’d originally anticipated. He wasn’t wrong.
“He’s made exceptional progress,” I said, kneeling in the well-irrigated grass. Despite numerous distractions—pet owners, dogs, small children chasing each other—Kosher’s focus remained locked on Brandon alone. The bond and companionship between them was obvious. And while Brandon still hadn’t come straight out and asked if he could keep the stray, there was no question about what he wanted.
I stroked Kosher’s thickening fur, impressed with how the changes to his diet, as well as his daily supplements, had affected his coat, skin, and teeth for the better. “You’ve taken great care of him . . . which is why I think it’s time we should discuss his future.”
Brandon’s gaze flicked to mine, a cautious hope lurking in his eyes.
“There’s someone interested in him—a retired man who recently lost his dog,” I said.
Brandon pulled Kosher to his side and looped his arm around his neck protectively. “What? No, I thought—”
“But I told him today that Kosher already has an owner.”
It took a minute for my words to sink in, but the instant he comprehended my meaning, all pretense fell away, like a shadowed face being exposed to sunlight for the first time. “You mean . . . Kosher’s mine? To keep?”
“If you want him.”
“I—I, yes.” Brandon gawked, as if not quite sure what to do with himself. “Yes, I want him.”
“Good, because I’m pretty sure he already chose you.”
On cue, Kosher rolled onto his back, wiggling side to side, anticipating a belly rub. We both obliged him.
“I’ll take good care of him,” Brandon said, his eyes on his dog. “Whatever he needs, I’ll do it.”
“I know you will.”
Rising up to his knees, Brandon swallowed and met my gaze briefly as if sensing there was something more I wanted to tell him. There was.
I reached out and gave his shoulder a short squeeze. “I also think it’s time we adjust Kosher to staying out in the backyard during the day, instead of keeping him in his crate. He’s stable enough now.”
Brandon scrunched his brow. “You mean while I’m with Grandma?”
“Actually, Callie mentioned she was in need of an art assistant. On her mural at the bakery. She wondered if you might be interested.”
He blinked numerous times before any sound came out of his mouth. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m . . .” He looked at me again, quizzically. “It’s just that you . . .”
“I want to salvage the remainder of our summer, so I cut my hours back at the clinic. You’re free to help Callie when I’m at work, but when I’m off . . . maybe we can figure out a few things to do together.”
His mind seemed to work on overdrive as he contemplated this new reality—what it meant for him. And for us.
Kosher twisted his way to standing and slurped a wet kiss onto Brandon’s cheek, knocking him flat on the ground.
“What do you think about inviting Callie and the kids over tomorrow afternoon? You can ask her more about the mural.”
For what felt like the first time in years, Brandon rolled his head to the side and looked me in the eye. “Uh, yeah, that’d be cool.”
To some parents those five words might seem trivial, forgettable even.
But to me those five words were priceless.
Chapter Twenty-Two
CALLIE
“You’ve never had an indoor picnic during a rainstorm?” I asked, gathering supplies from Davis’s kitchen. “How is that even possible when you spent your childhood in this rainy town?”
“I was deprived.” He leaned his elbows on the countertop, apparently content to watch me at work. “Good thing you’re here to enlighten me.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing indeed,” I shot back, not missing the way his gaze trailed down my figure when I pulled out the cutting board to slice the apples. “Hey—stop slacking. You’re the official sandwich assembler—make sure to cut them into pie fourths. Like an X.”
“Into pie fourths?”
I turned at his confused tone. “Yes—you cut them like that because, well . . . hmm.” Rumpling my face, I tried to recall the reasoning behind the rule before finally loosing a laugh. “I guess I don’t actually know why Clem always cut them that way, but that’s how we always ate them.”
“Well, consider it done. I wouldn’t dare mess with your sister’s indoor picnic methods.”
I tossed another glance over my shoulder at him, struck anew at the lopsided grin that had appeared during a brutally long game of Monopoly—a game in which Collin and Brandon had bankrupted us all, causing Corrie to blink back tears when she lost her coveted Park Place.
“Y
ou’re awfully cheerful today.”
Though he didn’t reply, his eyes told me what I’d known since the moment I walked into his house. He, too, had been thinking about the kiss we’d shared in my studio two nights ago. While the kids had argued about whose turn it was, or who had more money and deeds, we’d been distracted, stealing secretive glances at one another every chance we could.
We shared a blooming grin that made me want to clutch at my heart and swoon like a boy-crazy teenager. Who was this giddy woman I was becoming?
By the time I finished chopping, my apple wedges were so thin they were nearly translucent.
“Okay.” Needing to redirect the fluttering of energy inside me, I gave a quick clap of my hands. “The last thing we need for our picnic is some good ol’ ants on a log. That’s Corrie’s favorite: celery, peanut butter, and raisins.”
“I love those!” Corrie hollered from somewhere unseen.
I tipped my head to the side in a see? gesture.
“I keep the peanut butter in the cupboard at your shoulder there, and the raisins are on the third shelf in the pantry,” he said, pointing to the walk-in storage closet to the right of the fridge.
Eyeing him, I stepped inside the cramped space. Marveling at organizational skills that would earn him major brownie points with my sister, I searched for the standard white container with purple lettering near his cereal stock. No luck.
“I’m not seeing it in here,” I called out, placing the step stool on the floor to get a better view of the fourth shelf. “Of course, I’m used to a pantry a fifth of this size so . . .”
“Is this your official damsel-in-distress call?”
His voice at my back sent my pulse into an arrhythmic stutter. Though he hadn’t touched me, I could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of my blouse. Whatever low-threat distress signal I had sent out prior to this unexpected shift in proximity had just ratcheted up to a level nine.
“Am I only allowed one?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure it’s wise to use that calling card on a missing box of raisins. What happens if I’m ever in real danger?”
“What kind of danger?” His words, whispered into my hair, spread goose bumps down the back of my neck. I fought to balance on the step stool while staring straight ahead at a box of Honey Nut Cheerios as if it were a Rembrandt.