Always on My Mind (11 page)

He nodded. “Here’s what I do. I start by going through the house and collecting all the personal items. Pictures and journals and letters
 
—anything that would be difficult to sell. Then I box it up and sometimes it goes to the family, but in this case, you could see if the historical society wants it. Aggie and Thor made a mark here in Deep Haven. The Wilders owned the Wild Harbor Trading Post for years and ran a hotel on the harbor. I’m sure there is memorabilia the town might appreciate.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Then go room by room. We have an account with a moving box supplier, so feel free to order china boxes and anything else
you might need. I know the prices on much of this, but we’ll hire an auctioneer, so you don’t have to tag anything.”

He jogged down the stairs to the first level. “You can leave the furniture behind
 
—we’ll arrange for a tour and then pictures on the day of the sale so we don’t have to haul everything out of here until later.”

“Okay.”

Monte reached the bottom and turned. She stood two steps higher, now suddenly at eye level. She placed him at six foot three, maybe. Strong. Capable.

For a second, a strange, enigmatic emotion passed through his hazel eyes.

She smiled, not sure what to make of it.

Then he said, “I know we just met, but . . . I’ll be back in a few days, and, well, would you like to go out to dinner?”

Her mouth opened. Closed.

He made a face. “Too soon, huh?”

His words caught her
 
—but he couldn’t possibly know she’d had a baby. And perhaps a date would chase any lingering memories of the Casper nightmare from her brain.

“Just dinner?”

“Pizza, if that’s easiest.” Was that a press of red on his cheeks?

“How about a burger someplace?”

He nodded, warmth in his eyes. “I know just the place.” He pulled his keys out. “You sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?”

“Yeah. I’m going to just put together the personal things, like you suggested. Hopefully the historical society will still be open when I’m finished.”

He stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. “Welcome to Deep Haven, Raina. I hope you find a reason to stay.”

Casper might be able to charm a customer into laying down a thousand dollars for an Armada AR7 and Full Tilt Booters ski package, complete with Marker Griffon bindings and Völkl Phantastick poles, but his real joy came from identifying the origin of a pair of spectacles he’d found in the bottom of the first box he opened at the historical society. After examining the class pictures from the one-room Mineral Springs School, he named Lyman Woodard as the owner.

So far, he’d mapped out the town’s main buildings based on sketches from Carl Linnell’s journal, including the Indian curio shop and general store, the post office, the Oakwood School, and the Congregational Church. He counted a total of forty-six households and even found the location of the cemetery.

And he managed to clear from his brain for two whole hours the fact that Raina had returned to Deep Haven.

He’d also refrained from glancing out the window toward the antique shop on the off chance that he would see her leave.

See. Not stalking.

Over her.

Forgetting.

Putting the past behind him.

He set the glasses on a tray and wrote out an index card labeling the object for Edith, as well as the picture of the six students in the 1932 class.

His stomach growled and he glanced at his phone. If he didn’t leave now, the grocery store would close, and he’d be eating a baloney and peanut butter sandwich.

But really, he’d sacrifice food for the opportunity to spend the
evening with a slice of history. Still, he had to be at the Wild Harbor early, thanks to Ned’s management training program. Apparently that included having Casper open the shop so Ned could waltz in around noon.

He got up, turned off the light to the back room, and grabbed his jacket. Edith had walked out around the time he’d walked in, but she’d left the light burning. Now he grabbed his keys and was just reaching out to flick off the lights when he heard a knock.

He opened the door. “We’re closed
 
—”

“I just have to drop off a box!”

Raina?

There she stood in her powder-blue jacket, her hair held back by earmuffs.

Her eyes widened, and had she not been holding a box, she might have turned and bolted based on the expression on her face.

“Hey,” he said, drinking her in again. Shoot, but his traitorous heart resurrected the feel of her in his arms, the memory of her smile as he kissed her.

Apparently he would have to work harder to break free of this spell she had on him.

She stared at him. Looked at her box. Back to him. “What are you doing here?”

“Here as in Deep Haven? Or here as in the historical society?”

Perhaps it didn’t matter because her face paled under the overhead light. He watched her breath form in the air as she considered what to do.

He couldn’t take it. “Come in, Raina. I promise I won’t bite.”

She managed a slight smile as if he were joking. But his last conversation with her played in his mind, and yeah, maybe he’d be a little gun-shy if he stood in her shoes.

He’d worn out their conversation at the hospital, replaying it, and decided that he might have been gentler. He put that regret in his voice now as he took the box from her. “How are you?”

She stuck her hands in her pockets. Wouldn’t look at him. “I’m fine. I . . . I’m working at the antique shop up the road, helping to catalog an estate, and . . . Why are you not as shocked to see me?”

Oh. He swallowed. “I saw you a couple days ago . . .” He lifted a shoulder. “You told me to leave you alone, so . . .”

She nodded. Sighed. “Thanks for that.”

They stood a moment in silence, their past boiling to the surface. Then she saved him by pointing to the box. “These are personal things we found at the estate. The owner doesn’t want them, so I thought I’d drop them off here, see if you
 
—the historical society
 
—was interested.”

He set the box on the table. Opened it. Pulled out a few of the framed pictures, studying them. Family photos from the forties, fifties, and later.

“It’s the estate of Aggie and Thor Wilder.” She stepped up to him, reaching for a photo. A middle-aged couple sat on a green sofa, hands folded together, smiling into the camera. “Is this them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I never met them, but they’re famous. They helped build the hotel in town and owned the trading post. They had one child, a girl, but she moved away long ago. Aggie is a bit of a legend around here for her philanthropy work. She was famous for her huge summer lawn parties too.”

“Apparently Aggie fell and broke her hip and never returned. The house looks like she left it yesterday, if you ignore the dust.”

He pulled out a journal, flipped through it. Poetry. A letter fell out and he picked it up. Opened it. Beside him he felt Raina lean in as if peering over his shoulder.

He held it lower so she could read it with him.

“It looks like it’s in a man’s handwriting,” she said. “The letters are choppy.”

Casper read it aloud.

“Dear Aggie,

By the time you read this, it’ll be too late for you to judge me, but I pray you will be gentle with my memory. I think, in fact, you’ve known the truth about Duncan for years. In my defense, I did what every husband would do to keep his family safe. Every day I look to the Lord for peace, and I find it in your eyes. Loving you has been the greatest reward, and I found redemption in the joy of our rich lives and in your surprising faith in the Word of the Lord. You are His light to me. Thank you for the treasure of your great love.

Thor”

He finished and glanced at Raina.

“What do you think it means?” she asked.

He read the letter again. Set it down. No, it couldn’t be.

“Casper, you know something.”

He looked at her. Wow, seriously, she could read him that easily? “There’s local lore about this guy named Duncan Rothe.” He shook his head. “Certainly Thor didn’t have a run-in with Duncan Rothe. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not? What’s the story?”

He tucked the letter back in the book. Set it in the box. “It’s just a legend. Probably not even true, but according to the stories, Duncan Rothe was a gangster and bootlegger back in the Roaring Twenties. Some say he robbed a bank; other stories tack on
murder. Whatever the truth, all agree he escaped north with a million dollars of US Steel bonds in his possession.”

“Did he come through Deep Haven?”

“Yes. The law came looking for him, but he’d disappeared.”

“Like . . . maybe met up with Thor Wilder, who killed him?”

Oh, she had pretty eyes. They could distract a man, if he let them.

“I think that’s a reach
 
—Thor wasn’t even around then. The Wilders didn’t open the trading post until the forties, I think.”

She smiled then, and he’d thirsted for it so long that he drank it in. “Sounds like a mystery.”

Casper nodded, searching for his voice. “Actually, the Duncan Rothe mystery was one of my first curiosities. Back in the nineties, someone found an old 1920s roadster in the woods
 
—near Mineral Springs, actually
 
—and it set off all sorts of speculation about Duncan Rothe and where he might be. US Steel offered a 10 percent finder’s fee for the bonds, and it stirred up a few treasure hunters sniffing around. One of them stayed at Evergreen Resort. He regaled me with the Rothe rumors and for three long months, all I could think of was finding that million dollars.” He closed the lid on the box. “Silly, I know.”

But she wasn’t laughing. “Not silly. Sweet, actually.” She smiled at him again. “It’s nice to see you, Casper. But . . .” Her smile fell, and she lifted a shoulder. “I’m really trying to move on. It would be better if maybe
 
—”

And then he said it. Without thinking, without letting her decide their fate. “We can still be friends, Raina. No one has to know anything.”

She swallowed, a sudden rawness on her face, and he realized
that in an instant, he’d opened her wounds. “I mean
 
—I’m so sorry
 
—I just thought, you know, maybe we could be friends.”

“I don’t think . . .”

“Claire and her band are playing for Valentine’s Day. You remember her from last summer . . .” His voice trailed off as he became aware how close their conversation treaded to danger, to memories and hurt.

“I have a date.” She looked away, her expression rueful. “Sorry.”

Oh. Right. He tried to shake off the sense that he’d been jackhammered in the solar plexus. A date.

I’m really trying to move on.

And he should be too.

“That’s . . . great.” He forced a smile. Wow, that hurt, the words like fire in his chest. “That’s really great.”

“I gotta go.”

“Okay. If you . . . um, ever need any help hauling things from Aggie’s house or . . . Well, you know where to find me.” He wanted to wince or crawl under something.

But Raina was merciful. “Yeah. Thanks, Casper.” She turned, not looking at him. “See ya round.”

Then she was gone. Just like that. Moving on.

And he was stuck right here in the past.

No wonder bears hibernated. Maybe Raina should go to bed for the next three months, sleep away this terrible emptiness, the cold that seeped into her bones.

Although she had a wretched feeling the cold wouldn’t vanish with the advent of the sun. Like a shadow, it hovered over her soul, chilling it from the inside out. She stood by the stove, willing the
brass teakettle to whistle, staring at her wan reflection in the dark window
 
—her hair pulled back, her face freshly washed.

She knocked her spoon against the counter.

And why did Casper have to return, walk right into the debris of her life? Looking good, too, in a pair of khakis and a dress shirt under a zip-up flannel vest, as if he were respectable and not about to jump on his motorcycle and roar out of her life. He still hadn’t cut his deliciously dark-brown hair, though, and it lay long and curly against his collar.