LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      ANGIE WAS FEELING STRONGER, already, as she set down the first box, and Jefferson passed her another. Finally, he unearthed the dolly and managed to wrestle it out of the shed.

      He brushed himself off while she looked at the dolly. “It’s covered in spiderwebs. We just need to—”

      She caught Jefferson taking a giant step back out of the corner of her eye.

      “What?”

      “I don’t like spiders,” he said.

      “You’re kidding, right?”

      He made a face. She was aware he was not kidding, not entirely.

      “For someone who does not want to be mistaken as a knight in shining armor, it was a very brave thing to go inside that shed if you’re afraid of spiders.”

      “I don’t recall using the word afraid.”

      “Maybe we’re all afraid of something,” she said gently.

      He rejected her gentleness. “I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t like them.”

      “Look! There’s one crawling up the handle. It’s huge.”

      “Don’t touch that!”

      She ignored him and let the spider crawl onto her hand.

      “Put that down.”

      “He’s cute. Look.” She held out her hand.

      Jefferson stepped back. She stepped forward. He scowled. She giggled. She took another step forward. He retreated, then turned on his heel and darted through the trees.

      She shrieked with laughter and went in hot pursuit of him. He plunged through the trees and leaped over fallen logs, shouting his protests.

      She followed on his heels, shouting with laughter.

      Finally, when they were both gasping for breath from running and laughing and leaping logs and dodging trees, Jefferson put the huge trunk of a live tree between them. He looked out from behind it. She lunged one way. He went the other.

      Then his hand snaked out from behind the tree and grabbed her wrist.

      “You made me drop him,” she protested. In actual fact, she was pretty sure she had dropped the spider a long time ago.

      “Thank God,” he said. He threw himself down on the forest floor and lay on his back, his hands folded over his chest as if he was monitoring the hard beating of his heart. “It’s already hot,” he said.

      It felt like the most natural thing in the world to lie down on the forest floor beside him. It smelled of new things and ancient things, blended together perfectly. She looked up through the tangle of branches at a bright blue sky. And then she turned her head to look at him, drinking in his strong and now so familiar profile.

      New things. The way she felt about him.

      Ancient things. The way men and women had come together for all time and against all odds.

      “Are you really afraid of spiders?” She suspected he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be lying here in all this forest duff if he was afraid of creepy-crawly things, would he? “Or were you just distracting me from my own fear?”

      “Maybe you were right. Everybody’s afraid of something.”

      “What are you afraid of? Really?”

      He was silent for a long time. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked quietly.

      She thought of that. She thought of him being an orphan and first losing his grandparents and then his wife. She thought of his extreme isolation. Of the fact that he didn’t even want a housekeeper who was chatty.

      He was afraid to let anyone in. He was afraid to lose anything else.

      “Yes,” she said, “it’s obvious.”

      “It’s too hot to move furniture today,” Jefferson announced, obviously not prepared to probe his fears any further, obviously fearing he had already said way too much. And so there it was. Full retreat.

      Except it wasn’t. She recognized a miracle when it was presented.

      “You want to go out on the boat?” he asked softly.

      Angie thought of the boat and how safe she had felt there through the storm, and how much it must have taken for him to offer her this. She thought of the boat as the place where pure magic had unfolded between them.

      “Yes,” she said. “I want to go out on the boat. And suddenly, I’m starving. I knew cookies were not a good breakfast! Should I pack a lunch?”

      “Sure. And don’t forget your bathing suit.”

      “How do you know I have one?”

      “It was on the bill.”

      She thought of that bathing suit. She was pretty sure she did not have the guts to wear it in front of him. On the other hand, he was testing his courage. Maybe all of it, all of life, was a call to courage.

      He got up and held out his hand to her. She took it and he never let it go as they walked to the house together.

      * * *

      “What is that?” Jefferson asked, when Angie met him at the boat a half hour later.

      “What?”

      “What you are wearing.”

      “It’s a bathing suit cover.”

      “It looks like a cross between a monk’s frock and Mexican serape. Where did you unearth it?”

      “I made it,” she said, as if she was quite pleased with herself. “I mean I didn’t sew it. I didn’t have time. I just found some fabric and cut it. I’ve always been good at making things.”

      “Hmm, good might be a bit of a stretch,” he said, and realized he felt comfortable teasing her. It was a terrible thing, but he felt glad about that phone call this morning. It had broken the impasse he had created between them.

      He wanted to give her—a woman who had suffered just a little too much—carefree days of summer. He wanted to do that, even if it cost him.

      He took the boat out onto the lake, and they did a tour of some of its hundreds of miles of coves and inlets and arms. And then he brought them back to a place that was not that far—and yet a world away—from where his house was located.

      “Let’s go ashore here for lunch,” Jefferson suggested.

      “What is this place?” Angie asked, handing him the picnic basket and then taking his hand and letting him help her out of the boat.

      “Watch the pier. It’s a bit rotten. This is where my grandparents’ house used to be. You can still see the foundation.”

      She wandered over and looked at the crumbling stone foundation. “What happened to the house?”

      He went and stood beside her, nudged a stone with his foot. “It burned down a few years ago. It had been abandoned for some time.”

      “What a beautiful spot.” She reached for the basket and pulled a blanket from it. She set it out and they both settled on it. “I’m surprised you didn’t build your new house here.”

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