Christiana was in much better shape than Shane was, and this was no more evident than when they went on their first bike ride together.
“Come on, Bellamy,” she called back over her shoulder, grinning. “Race you back home!”
He shook his head, breathing hard and coasting for a moment. She slowed as well, weaving gently side to side on the paved trail, standing on the pedals with her head thrown back, enjoying the stormlight. Leaves fell from the trees all around her like autumn snow, catching in the wind and fluttering across the path. Occasional gusts lifted whole rafts of them and swirled them like miniature cyclones. They crunched under Shane’s wheels as he caught up to Christiana.
“Not everything is a competition, sweetie-pie,” he panted, a little sourly.
“It is if you keep on calling me sweetie-pie,” she said happily, still looking up, watching the steely sky and the low clouds. “How else are you going to work off that piece of cherry cobbler?”
Shane had treated Christiana to lunch at the diner in Bastion Falls after riding their bikes there. He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Men don’t think about working off their desserts. At least not straight men.”
“Straight men don’t worry about having clean finger nails or wearing clothes that match either,” Christiana chided mildly.
“I guess it’s a good thing gay men are gay,” Shane replied, pedaling alongside her. “Otherwise us straight guys would never get a date.”
“Damn right,” she agreed, and sighed.
Shane squinted up at the low sky, following her gaze. After a moment, he asked, “So, is
this
a date?”
“Do you see any fabulous non-gay gay guys around?” she replied, pretending to peer around the woods as they coasted by.
“They’re a little scarce around Bastion Falls, I guess.”
“Hmm…” She glanced aside at Shane, smiling a little. The gray daylight was soft on her face, flickering dully in the shadow of the trees. “Then I guess I’m stuck with you.”
“I could clean my finger nails, if you really want me to.”
“Nah. Don’t raise my expectations like that. Let me fall in love with you just as you are.”
She was joking, but a mild thrill trickled down Shane’s back. There was still a strange, almost deliberate ambiguity to their relationship. She came over to the cottage nearly every day now, and there was certainly a not-quite-platonic affection in the way they touched, the way they snuggled up on the couch sometimes, or even the way she looked at him across the patio when they sat outside and watched the twilight over the river.
And yet, they had never kissed. They had talked about a lot of things, but never about the relationship that seemed to be growing up around them, like summer vines climbing a trellis. More than once, it had reminded Shane of Earl Kirchenbauer and his story, about how he’d come to work at the Riverhouse back in the spring of nineteen-forty.
I was never officially hired
, he’d recalled ruefully;
they just never told me to go home
. Shane smiled and shook his head as he pedaled, picking up speed.
“Hey,” Christiana said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I thought you said this was a race?”
“You bastard,” she called delightedly, standing on her own pedals.
Shane grinned and pumped as hard as he could, driving his Trek forward, leaning over the handlebars. She caught up to him but didn’t pass him. Together, they leaned into the curve as the path angled toward the Valley Road. She began to overtake him on the inside of the curve, but he pushed as hard as he could, grinning into the wind, and began to pull ahead of her again. She laughed with delight, her voice almost lost in the cool, rippling air.
“Last one back is a Stinky Pete!” she called.
Shane glanced back at her, glimpsed the corona of her black hair whipping around her face as she smiled grimly, her dark eyes twinkling. She was behind now, but she’d beat him in the end, and she knew it. Shane didn’t mind. A very male part of him knew that coming in second behind Christiana, at least on a bike ride, was not such an unattractive prospect.
Something
popped
suddenly. It sounded like a pellet gun, or an inflated paper bag. Immediately, Christiana began to lose ground, and her bike began to wobble uncertainly beneath her.
“Damn!” she called, looking down at the flat tire on her rear wheel. “Damn, damn!”
Shane was amused to realize that she was mostly angry about losing the race, rather than about blowing her bike tire. He braked his Trek gently, then swooped around on the path, heading back toward her. She hopped off her bike and held it by one handlebar, looking critically down at the rear tire.
“Must have hit a sharp stone on the path,” Shane said, stopping his own bike next to her.
“I guess that makes me a Stinky Pete,” she frowned.
“I guess it does,” Shane agreed solemnly. “But there’s always next time.”
She sighed—her characteristic brisk exhale—and looked up at Shane. “So what should we do? You want to ride back while I walk?”
Shane was a little put off. “Of course not. I’ll walk with you. We’ll leave both bikes and I’ll come back with the truck later and throw them in the bed.”
“I’m a big girl, you know,” she said, but Shane could tell she didn’t mean it. She pushed her bike off the path and lay it in the tall grass on the side away from the Valley Road. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but it would do until Shane came back with the pickup.
“You could just ride on my handlebars, of course,” Shane said.
“Just like when we were kids, right? I think my bum’s a little too big for that nowadays.”
“Shut your mouth,” Shane said, scowling.
He ditched his own bike in the tall grass behind Christiana’s and they began to walk along the path. After a minute, Christiana touched Shane’s hand with her fingers. They held hands and walked together, following the path as it curved back toward the woods and the river beyond.
Neither spoke. The silent snowfall of autumn leaves drifted down around them, making a sort of magical tableaux. Soon enough, Shane recognized the curve of the path ahead of them, saw the brightness of the clearing beyond the trees.
“So that’s where it used to stand?” Christiana said, slowing, looking out over the weedy grass and concrete bunkers.
Shane nodded, stopping alongside but not letting go of her hand.
She shaded her eyes with her free hand. “Is there anything left of it?”
“Just a bunch of dirt where they filled in the cellar. And the front porch. I guess it was too heavy to carry away and too much work to break up. You can’t see it from here. It’s behind that big pile of mulch down there at the end.”
“I want to see,” Christiana said, and before Shane could respond she’d pulled her hand away from his and walked into the watery light of the yard.
He followed her, looking around warily. If they had been on their bikes, this would have been much easier. She never would have been curious enough to interrupt their ride, especially if they were racing. Now, Shane felt a cold apprehension that had nothing to do with the gray stormy air. After all, if Marlena wasn’t haunting the cottage anymore, then this was probably where she had retreated to.
Shane caught up to Christiana and walked alongside her, watching the trees on either side of the yard, and especially watching the dead dirt of the Riverhouse’s old foundation. He was pleased to see that the strange, ghostly shadow of the house was not in sight. Even so, nothing had yet begun to grow in the dry dirt of the foundation, not so much as a single weed or bloom of crabgrass. The yellow bulk of the front loader sat on the remains of the brick driveway, its bucket raised to the sky, a black stain of oil glistening on the weeds beneath it. They passed it slowly and Christiana broke away, angling toward the portico.
“I recognize this much of it, at least. From your painting. How did you know how to paint it?”
“Well, I’d seen it plenty of times before they tore it down, riding past on my bike.”
“Maybe, but I bet it didn’t look like it does in your work. Did you research it?”
Shane shrugged, but Christiana wasn’t looking. “Yeah, sort of. Most of it just, sort of, came to me.”
She glanced back at him, her brow slightly furrowed. She had one foot on the lowest step of the portico. “This place has a hold on you, doesn’t it?”
Shane felt his blood cool. He began to follow her. He opened his mouth to answer, but she interrupted him, turning to climb the shallow stone steps.
“I guess that’s how it is with all artists and their subjects. I can see how an artist’s wife could get jealous of him and his work. Especially if he painted other women.”
“I hardly ever use live models,” Shane said inanely, following Christiana up the portico steps. The circular scars of the pillars looked up at the sky, two on either side of the long expanse, like the ghosts of gargoyles. “I use pictures, mostly, and my imagination. I find most of my resources online.”
“But not all of them,” Christiana said, turning back to Shane and smiling. “You painted this place. It’s real, or at least it used to be. You’re not above using real live models.”
“Well, like I said, that was pretty unusual,” Shane said, stopping on the gritty floor of the portico as Christiana approached him again. “Most of the time I—”
“Would you paint me?” she asked playfully, and struck a pose there on the stage of the portico, cocking her hips and raising both arms, clasping her hands behind her head. She looked out over the Riverhouse foundation, toward the river, her chin raised and her eyes sleepy, half-lidded. Shane couldn’t help smiling.
“You’ve seen too many movies,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not like that. Posing is hard work, believe it or not, especially for a painting. You have to maintain the pose for
hours
.”
“I could do that,” she said, dropping her arms. “I’m patient.”
Shane nodded and shrugged, but before he could reply, she had stepped into his arms. A thrill of sudden delight welled up in him as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against him. She rested her head against his shoulder and he curled his arms around her.
“I’m patient,” she said again, more quietly.
Shane nodded. He knew what she was talking about. He was afraid to say anything in response, lest he say too much and spoil the moment. The fact was, they were
both
being patient, waiting to see what was really happening between them, unwilling to force it or even acknowledge it. After all, Randy had not even been dead for a month yet. It wasn’t that Christiana needed to get over him or grieve for him, and yet
some
grief had seemed necessary—grief for all the lost time, for all the humiliations and shameful secrets.
Shane knew that. He’d expected it to take months for Christiana to become ready to move on. And what about he, himself? It had only been a year since the loss of his pregnant wife. Could he possibly be ready to move on?
Maybe this was a mistake,
whatever
this was that was happening between himself and Christiana. Maybe they were both simply clinging to each other because it was better to cling to someone—anyone—than to be alone with the memories. That was hardly a basis for a healthy relationship, was it? The responsible thing to do would be for him to end it before it even began.
He pushed Christiana away slightly and looked down at her. She raised her face to him, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him.
It wasn’t a long kiss, but it wasn’t a peck, either. Her lips were cool and soft, the breath from her nose warm on his cheek. With that kiss, all of his concerns suddenly vanished. It was as if a gust of wind had come and blown every thought clean out of Shane’s head.
He knew it was foolish. He was making the age-old mistake, believing the lie that because something felt good, it
was
good. But maybe sometimes it wasn’t a lie at all. Maybe some things really were as simple as they seemed. It was good that Shane had found Christiana, and that she had found him. In the fleeting moment of her kiss, Shane realized something rather shocking. All of his fears and worries about them, about this secretly growing relationship, all came down to one simple thing: he was terrified of allowing himself to fall for her, because falling for her was the first step toward losing her. He’d already lost one woman he’d loved, her and the baby inside her. If something like that happened again…
But the kiss swept it all away. It didn’t make the fears insignificant—just the opposite, in fact—but it made them inevitable. Shane could no more stop himself from falling in love with Christiana than he could stop the river from flowing along the bluff beneath his cottage. All he’d needed was to know that she felt the same way.
When their lips parted, Shane looked down at her. There were tears standing in her eyes. She swiped them away impatiently and pressed her face against his shoulder.
“Why the tears?” he asked curiously.
She shook her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know.” She sighed briskly, and her breath was hot against him. “I don’t know. I didn’t know if you…” Her voice trailed away.
“You didn’t know if I what?”
She looked up at him again, smiled, and then looked away. “I didn’t know if you felt the same way I did. I’m… I’m kind of damaged goods. You know? I wouldn’t have blamed you for…”
“You’re serious,” Shane said, wonderingly.
“Of course I’m serious. I’ve been waiting and wondering. I mean, you’ve been so good to me, but maybe you’re just, you know… the nice guy. Maybe I’m just the hurt little bird. Maybe when my wing heals up, you’ll just put me out and expect me to fly away.”
Shane studied her face. He wished this was a movie. If it was a movie, he’d have the ideal words to say, something that perfectly summed up his feelings for her, the ever expanding width and breadth of her in his heart. He had a feeling that if he tried to come up with something on his own, some pithy, romantic response that would explain everything to her and put all her fears to rest, it would come out sounding silly and contrived. Some things, he thought, were just too big to cage with words.
Christiana misunderstood his long gaze. She dropped her eyes and stepped back. “It’s all right. I understand—”
