LITMIR.BIZ

      She’d texted back that she’d be there by 6:15 p.m.

      His reply had been a wholly unenlightening See you then.

      Since he’d indicated he’d be in meetings, she hadn’t called to see what he wanted. She hadn’t talked to him at all since he’d closed her out at the dock last week, even though he’d told her to call if she had any questions.

      She had dozens. Between online catalogs and searches, she’d figured out the answers to most of them, though, and talked herself out of contacting him about the rest. Those she simply added to her list to ask at their next meeting. Partly because they weren’t urgent. Mostly because she suspected that what she really wanted was more of the relief she’d so briefly experienced when he’d assured her that she and Tyler would be all right. The sensation hadn’t lasted long enough to do much more than tease her with the hope of finding the security she hadn’t truly felt in forever, but she desperately needed to feel something positive about the more personal aspects of her life—and that wasn’t something she should be seeking from him at all.

      There also existed the unnerving little fact that she’d just wanted to hear his voice—something she insisted she shouldn’t even be thinking about, considering that she was nothing more than an obligation to him.

      That glaring bit of reality mingled with her turmoil over her in-laws as she turned onto the gravel drive just past the store. Through the silvery drizzle, her headlights illuminated a black, bull-nosed pickup truck loaded with something large covered in plastic.

      She’d barely pulled into the garage and gathered her groceries from the backseat when Erik strode up and plucked the heavy sack from her arms.

      “Anything else back there?” he asked.

      Raindrops glistened in his dark hair, beaded on his leather jacket. His impersonal glance swept her face, his brow pinching at whatever it was he saw in her expression.

      Not about to stand there trying to figure out what that something might be, she turned away. “Just one bag. I can get it.”

      Ignoring her, he reached into the car as Tyler raced around the back bumper and came to a screeching stop.

      One strap of his green dinosaur backpack hung over his shoulder. The other dangled behind him as he looked up with a shy “Hi.”

      Erik straightened, looking down at the child looking up at him. “Hi yourself, sport.”

      Anticipation fairly danced in her little boy’s hazel eyes.

      As if unable to help himself, Erik smiled back and held out the bag of apples he’d snagged off the seat. “Do you want to take this?”

      At Tyler’s vigorous nod, he waited for the child to wrap his arms around the bag, then nudged him toward the warmth of the house. With Tyler doing double time to match Erik’s long strides, Rory punched the remote to close the garage door and hurried to catch up, clutching her shoulder bag and keys.

      She couldn’t believe how pleased Tyler looked to see him.

      “Were you on the ferry?” she asked, torn between her son’s growing fascination with the man and trying to imagine why he was there.

      “I took the long way around. I had a meeting in Tacoma,” he told her, speaking of a town at the south end of the sound, “so I drove. Jake was on it, though. He should be right behind you.”

      “Jake?”

      “One of our craftsmen.” Rain glittered through the pool of pale yellow light that arced from the neat back porch. Even in that spare illumination, Erik could see strain in the delicate lines of her face, could hear it in her voice. “I’ll explain when we get inside.”

      He watched her hurry ahead of him. Her head down, she unlocked the door and ushered Tyler inside, reminding him to wipe his feet on the way.

      The mudroom, with its pegs for coats, cabinets for storage and the double sink his grandmother had used for repotting plants, opened into the kitchen. The warmer air held the same welcome it always had, but no longer did it smell of the pine disinfectant his grandmother had used with abandon when mopping the floors. Now lingering hints of lemon soap gave way to scents of cinnamon and orange as Rory distractedly flipped on lights and told him to set the bags anywhere.

      The island of the neatly organized kitchen seemed as good a place as any. As he set the bags on the laminate surface, his glance cut to where she’d left on a lamp at the far end of the long, open space.

      She’d just moved in last week, yet everything appeared to be in order. Furniture had been pushed, pulled or shoved into place. Drapes and pictures were hung. Not a box remained in sight.

      Not a hint of what had once been familiar remained, either.

      The walls had been bare for over a year. Having walked through that empty space a dozen times, it no longer felt strange without the chaos of floral patterns and knickknacks his grandparents had acquired living there. But with that blank canvas redecorated, the sense he’d had the other day of no longer belonging there, of having lost a piece of himself, threatened to surface once more. He didn’t doubt that it would have, too, had the unexpected ease of what she’d created not distracted him from it.

      The well-defined spaces now bore his student’s decidedly understated stamp. The heavy wood pieces he’d carried in were dark and substantial enough to make a man feel comfortable, but balanced by shades of ivory and taupe that felt amazingly...restful.

      The rustic refectory table with its high-backed chairs held a large pewter bowl filled with glittered pinecones and cinnamon potpourri. Beyond it, the deeply cushioned sofa faced the stone fireplace at the end of the room. A long, narrow sofa table behind it held a trio of thick cream-colored candles. The two armchairs he’d brought in had been positioned to one side, a heavy end table stacked with books and a chrome lamp between them.

      He turned to see that she’d left her raincoat in the mudroom. The apples and her shoulder bag had landed on the desk by the now child’s-art-covered refrigerator—mostly red-and-green construction paper bells. Sinking to her heels in front of her little boy, she worked his jacket’s zipper.

      “You’ve been busy.”

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