A Stillness of Chimes (30 page)

Pulling into the driveway, he spotted her on the far side of the porch, facing the mountains at the rear of the house. He decided to use the front door for a change, to see if she was remembering to keep it locked.

He carted the instruments and his duffel bag up the front steps. The door was locked.

“Good girl,” he said under his breath, juggling everything while he found his key.

Leaving his things in the living room, he walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Laura still leaned against the railing at the far end of the porch.

She’d pulled her hair into a neat, schoolteacher-ish bun that wasn’t half as sexy as the messy, curly ponytails of her tomboy days. Sexy enough,
though. He wanted to sneak up behind her and kiss the nape of her neck, but Elliott had taught her some painfully effective ways to discourage unwanted attention, using nothing but her hands and feet.

Reluctantly ending his unobserved survey of her, he shut the door and stepped onto the porch. “I’m back.” Then he felt like an idiot for stating the obvious. No doubt she’d heard his truck from a quarter mile away.

Looking over her shoulder, she gave him a wary smile. “Did you accomplish much today?”

“I did.” He wanted to add
I kicked Dale out
, accompanied by some chest thumping, but it wasn’t something to brag about.

“Did you bring any work with you?”

Careful not to crowd her too much, he joined her at the railing. “A little bit.”

“Some guy from an alarm company stopped by with information. I told him I’m not interested. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.” It was her house. Her life. He couldn’t make her decisions for her.

A blue jay sailed past, its feathers bright against the dusky sky, and lit in the feathery branches of a pine. Ten feet below the jay, a woodpecker rattled against the furrowed, moss-patched trunk. Two birds on one tree, when they had hundreds to choose from.

How many millions of pines were there? How many thousands of tree-covered ridges? When he’d gone online to search satellite images of Prospect and the surrounding mountains, it had been daunting to see so much wilderness so close to town.

The mountains were full of ruined cabins, hunting shacks, bat-haunted caves. Abandoned gold mines and logging camps too. Then there were the
primitive campsites on federal and state land, or a man could create his own little spot. If Elliott could avoid the meth labs and weed operations that plagued public lands now, he could find a new hiding place every night. But what had he been trying to pull, making everybody think he was dead and gone if he was only … gone?

Laura shifted her position, placing her elbows on the railing. Resting her chin on her clasped hands, she studied the ground below as if it held something fascinating. “Sometimes I wish I could have a do-over for high school and—and everything.”

Startled, he answered without thinking. “I’d like a do-over for that poorly timed marriage proposal.”

She shook her head so hard that a bobby pin dropped from her hair, bounced off the railing, and hit the porch. Her bun began to slip from its moorings. “It wasn’t even a real proposal.”

“You think it was a phony one?”

“It was your kind and honorable attempt to take care of me when we thought my dad had died. But it was unrealistic.”

“You’re right. I had no business talking about marriage. We were just kids. I didn’t even have a job because my boss had just disappeared. I didn’t have any plans for my future except college, maybe, and having my own workshop someday.”

She frowned up at him. “I’m glad you can see how impractical it was.”

“We should have talked about it years ago. The elephant in the room.”

“Bigger than that. A brontosaurus, maybe.”

“Can we start over, then? Friends?”

“We’ve never
not
been friends.”

“You know what I mean, though. Even friends have a hard time communicating when a brontosaurus keeps butting in.”

“You know it’ll never go away completely,” she said.

“Maybe not,” he admitted. “But maybe we can shoo it far enough away that we won’t keep stepping in brontosaurus, uh, poop.”

She laughed out loud, her eyes softening as she searched his face. He could practically see her heart softening too, as if talking about the awkwardness had begun to erase it.

Slowly, she extended her right hand, apparently expecting him to shake hands. Instead, he captured her hand in his left hand and turned toward the mountains. Taking her cue from him, she faced the mountains too.

Standing side by side, holding hands, he felt more connected to her than if he’d had both arms around her. She held his hand tightly, like a child. It took him back to the days of skinned knees and scraped chins. The games they’d played on hot summer nights. Green-plum wars, kickball games, watermelon-seed spitting contests.

He stole a peek at her just as she stole a peek at him.

“Don’t look at me that way,” she whispered.

“Sorry. Can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one looking at you.”

She smiled, barely, and returned to her study of the high ridges.

That brief smile was enough to keep his hopes on life support. The hand holding was a bonus. Anything else would have to wait until Laura was ready.

Six-thirty in the morning and there they were again, having their coffee in the living room like some old married couple. Except she’d slept in her room and he’d slept on the couch—or he’d tried to, anyway. It was too short for his long legs.

“Why didn’t you use the guest bed, Sean? I moved the clothes and things off.”

He drained the rest of his coffee before he answered. “I want to be between you and the door.”

“Oh, you’re so paranoid.”

“I don’t mind if you call me paranoid, as long as I can call you safe.” He glanced at the grandfather clock and set his empty cup on the coffee table.

“Sorry to run off so early, but this is Wednesday. Trash day. I don’t want to miss the truck.”

“Go then, and stay as long as you need to.”

He sat there, staring straight ahead. Maybe he was thinking what she was thinking: if they were an old married couple, he wouldn’t walk out the door without a kiss.

But she hadn’t kissed him since his eighteenth birthday, moments before he’d made that goofy, tender, hopelessly ill-timed marriage proposal.
The sheriff’s dive team had still been dredging the lake. She’d been a wreck.

She still was. She was afraid of the baggage she brought with her. Afraid of Sean’s baggage too. Afraid of Dale and his hatred.

If her dad was back, Dale would be cruel to him. No doubt about it.

She brought her mug closer. Staring into her coffee, she relived the moment, days ago, when she’d dropped the angel mug in the sink and stared into the eyes of the man at the window.

Her dad—or not? She’d never seen him with a beard and long hair. He’d always been clean-shaven, clean-cut, and in good physical condition. But he might be in terrible shape now—physically, mentally. He’d be no match for Dale.

Sean stood up. “I should go. Although I’d like to stay.”

“Go. I’ll be fine.”

He sat beside her to put on his boots. Then he reached under the couch, pulled out his gun, and laid it across his lap.

“Please stop hauling that thing around with you, Sean. We said no guns, remember?”

“That’s what we said on Monday. The day you’d planned to stay at the Brights’ house. My exact words were ‘no guns while you’re gone.’ You came back.” He stood up, pointing the barrel at the floor. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.”

“But you could load it in no time. Would you actually start shooting if somebody showed up?”

“Only if that somebody proved to be a threat. And if it was a clear case of self-defense.”

“What if it’s my dad? And how could you tell the difference between
him and a stranger? We don’t know what he looks like now. Not really.” She got to her feet and backed up, putting some distance between herself and the gun. “Get that thing out of here. And don’t bring it back.”

Sean let out a sigh of exasperation. “Yes ma’am. It’s your house.”

He walked toward the door, still keeping the barrel down. Always so safety conscious. But holding that big gun, he looked like a soldier going off to war.

Her stomach went queasy. If the unthinkable happened, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She’d spend the rest of her life knowing that her fear of Dale had robbed her of her chance to love Sean.

She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t. He had to come back, safe and sound.

“Come back,” she whispered.

Sean must have heard. He leaned the gun against the wall, turned around, and started back.

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean—”

It was too late to explain. He was there, reaching for her. He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her like he had when they were teenagers in love, making her heart pound and her common sense fly out the window.

She hadn’t expected everything to happen so fast, and she hadn’t expected it to feel so right. So natural. Their lips fit together like they always had, like they’d been designed for a game of giving and taking pleasure.

He pulled away, studying her so somberly that the romantic moment shattered in her sudden recollection of his reasons for being there. His reasons for carrying a gun.

“I’d better go,” he said. “Call if you need me. And keep your doors locked.”

“I will.”

“Whatever you do, don’t forget the most important thing.”

She held her breath, trying to guess what kind of warning he’d give her this time. Whatever he meant to say, he was taking forever to get it out of his mouth.

“What?” she asked, finally. “What’s on your mind? Say it.”

His eyes twinkled. “I knew you wanted me to say it again. I love you, Laura.”

Oh, no. She wasn’t ready for
that
.

“I know you do,” she said gently. “Because we’ve been friends since we were little kids.”

“Don’t play like that, sweetheart. You know what I mean. I
love
you love you.” He curved his hand around her cheek and gave her one more kiss, then took the gun and walked outside, into the artificial light. He locked the door behind him.

With her knees about to buckle, she collapsed on the couch and dragged the quilt up to her chin. She tried to organize her chaotic thoughts into neat little categories, but everything was interconnected. Sean. Dad and Mom. Gibby. Dale’s vicious grip on her arm. Bluegrass and kisses, wind chimes and guns. Over it all hung the fear that if her dad came home, something would go terribly wrong.

Sean parked in his driveway and sat there for a minute, trying to understand why he didn’t feel more victorious. He should have been celebrating Laura’s wholehearted participation in those kisses, but some unnamed worry kept getting in the way. He couldn’t pin it down. Whatever it was, it had been bothering him ever since he’d left her.

His vague uneasiness might define itself as he whipped through part of his routine. He needed to put the trash out. Shower and shave. Then he’d spend some time in the shop, doing the bare minimum and picking up something to work on. He needed to proofread that brochure, too, and get it to the printer.

Laura wanted him to stay away all day, working. Maybe she was right, but he hardly cared if his competitors sewed up all the orders this year. There would be other years, other festivals.

Operating in a blurry fog of stress and exhaustion, he climbed out of the truck. He grabbed his trash can from its spot at the side of the house and rolled it out to the curb. Even if the world was falling apart, he couldn’t miss trash day.

Sean looked up and down the block. He half expected to see a lean figure lurking in the early morning shadows, but friendly, overweight Wally Morse came around the corner with his yellow Lab tugging him along. Glad to see something so normal and right, Sean lifted his hand in greeting.

Wally waved back while the dog paused to sniff the fake flowers at the base of Mrs. Gibson’s mailbox post. They’d blown over again. It happened with every storm.

Like the flowers in the cemetery—