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Evan shook his head, telling her he didn’t want a justification. “Lucy, do you want to go on over to the car now? I’ll follow you in just a sec.”
“All right.” The girl threw Rose another shy smile and turned away, her pale hair lifting off her neck as she reached the field and started to run.
Rose stretched her neck to see past the branches. Practice was over; the boys had departed. She tucked in her bottom lip and swallowed.
“Thank you,” Evan said.
Rose blinked. “What for?”
“You made Lucy laugh. She doesn’t do that a lot.”
Rose didn’t reply. She wasn’t accustomed to handling sincerity and appreciation.
Evan spoke haltingly. “Her mother died. Less than two years ago. She’s been very quiet and shy since. Easily frightened.” He looked down, crossed his arms over his chest, kicked up leaves with the toe of one running shoe. “I try to encourage her. But she always wants to stay near me. I didn’t think she’d actually go into the woods. She says the creaking of the trees scares her. You know, as if they’re alive.”
He looked up to the forest canopy. The sun had lowered in the sky. What remained of the filtered, dusky light dappled his face and inside Rose there was a stirring…an attraction. So unfamiliar it startled her.
Logically, she could see that Evan Grant was a handsome man. He had short brown hair that matched his eyes, and an open, friendly, intelligent face. Very clean-cut and vigorous, with his workout clothes and healthy air.
On the surface, he wasn’t the type to look twice at a woman with Rose’s reputation, but she knew that what men said in public and did in private were often very different things. Sixteen years ago, no one had believed that Rick Lindstrom, star athlete and the most popular boy of the senior class, could possibly be interested in awkward, unsophisticated Wild Rose Robbin.
She pushed the thoughts away. Flying under the radar was the only way to survive.
“Well, you know…” She coughed. “The trees are alive.”
Evan laughed, carving grooves into his cheeks. “Please don’t tell Lucy that. I had to cut a branch off the oak beside our house. It was scratching her window-pane.”
“She has imagination.”
“Too much, I think.”
“Uh.” Rose was feeling all choppy again. “Nice kid, anyway. I guess.”
Evan glanced over his shoulder. “I should leave.”
Rose couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to get on her about spying on the practice.
“I promised Lucy we’d go to the diner to pick up some takeout and have our dinner at the picnic tables by the harbor. Maybe you want to come with us?”
Rose had been ready to take off. Instead she froze. The man had to be kidding. Or he was a kindly soul throwing her a pity invitation. She got them occasionally, from the motherly owner of Bay House B and B, or Pastor Mike’s do-gooding wife. Rose almost always said no.
“No,” she croaked, not looking at Evan. “No, thanks. I have work soon. Night shift at the Buck Stop.”
“But don’t you have to eat before you go on?”
“I get something at the store.”
“Shrink-wrapped burritos. Twinkies. That stuff doesn’t make a good dinner.” He smiled at himself. “Listen to me. Lecturing you like you’re my daughter. Who is sure to insist on deep-fried, unidentifiable chicken bits and Mountain Dew.”
Rose was too unnerved to play along. “Do I look like a health nut?”
He was too nice a guy to take the opportunity to check out her boobs in a tank top that had shrunk in the dryer. His gaze stayed on her face, but that was bad enough. She had to meet his eyes. And he had warm, charismatic eyes—not confrontational. Not judgmental.
Which was confusing to Rose. She had little experience in being affable. Her fringe role in the community was established. Nothing much was expected from her, and she liked it that way. If feelings of desolation began creeping in, she always had Roxy Whitaker, who could be called a friend in a casual way. They’d gone berry-picking just a month ago.
“Next time,” Evan said with a shrug. He turned to go.
Rose exhaled. “Yeah.”
Tickled with shivers, she untied the hooded jacket from around her waist and pulled it on. There wouldn’t be a next time if she could help it.
CHAPTER TWO
“DADDY? DADDY…”
Lucy’s high-pitched voice woke Evan from a light doze. He reacted before his brain was at full speed, lurching up from the easy chair and stumbling over the ottoman that had skidded out from beneath his feet. The yammer and glitz of a familiar late-night talk show filled the room. Around midnight, then.
Evan shook his bleary head, coming awake enough to stop and listen, hoping that Lucy would settle on her own. As much as he wanted to reassure his daughter’s every fear, the clinginess and anxieties hadn’t abated as he’d been told they would. Her mother, Krissa, had been gone for a year and a half. More. Nineteen months. Roughly a third of Lucy’s life.
Nineteen months and the worry that his fumbling efforts were hurting Lucy more than helping her still sat in Evan’s gut like a leaden weight. With a tired exhale, he found the remote control and Sports Illustrated he’d dropped when he stood, then clicked off the TV.
Lucy’s call escalated to a panicky howl. “Dad-deee!”
Evan’s foot crunched down on a bag of pretzels as he hurried from the living room. But he didn’t stop. “Coming, Lucy.”
Her bedroom door was directly across from his in the modest single-story house. Butterfly night-lights were plugged into outlets in the hall and in Lucy’s room. They’d helped some, but she continued to wake during the night, frightened of dreams, of shadows, of trees, of thunderstorms, of being alone.
Lucy was a small, huddled shape in the bed. Tears glistened in her eyes. Although Evan’s heart went out to her, he kept his tone matter-of-fact. “What’s up, honey? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“There’s a m-m-monster in the corner.”
And in the closet. Under the bed. At the window.
“You know monsters aren’t real. Why didn’t you turn on your lamp to see?”
Lucy drew in a shuddery breath. “I was too scared to move. The monster would eat me.”
“Go ahead and do it now.” According to the book he’d found in the library, Comforting the Timid Child, he should try to get Lucy to take her own proactive steps to combat the fears.
Reassured by his presence, she pushed aside her covers and leaned over to reach the bedside lamp. He’d bought her a new one recently, easy to turn on by a switch in the base.
Click. Light flooded the room.
“See there?” Evan said. “It’s just a lump on the chair from the extra blanket and your jacket. Hey, little girl! Weren’t you supposed to hang that up?” Lucy was usually orderly. Too much so, he thought. He’d like to see her noisy and laughing, barreling around the house, even breaking things.
But that was how he’d grown up, with three brothers and parents who only threw up their hands in cheerful surrender as they rounded up their sons like bumptious sheep. Raising a little girl like Lucy was a different matter. There were times he felt that he’d never get it right.
“I’ll do it just this once,” he said heartily, taking the jacket to her closet. Lucy watched with big eyes, probably thinking a witch would jump out when he opened the door.
As Evan put the jacket onto a hanger, he felt something in the pocket. He pulled out a piece of stiff paper. “What’s this?”
Lucy held out her hands, suddenly smiling and happy. “My picture!”
He glanced at the small painting, finding it innocuous enough. Yet it had made Lucy forget her fears, at least for the moment.
“Rose gave it to me. She painted it.”
“Ah.” Evan approached the bed, studying the picture more closely in the lamplight. He’d have expected Rose’s artwork to be bold and graphic. This was soft, romantic. She’d painted a stone house, covered with climbing vines and pink flowers, surrounded by trees.
Lucy took the painting. “It’s a fairy-tale house.”
“Did Rose tell you that?”
“I just knowed.”
Evan sat on the bed beside Lucy, putting an arm around her. “And does a princess live there?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh. Tell me a story about her, Daddy.”
He could have handled swashbuckling pirates or even a talking skunk that wore a beret, but princesses and other girly things? He didn’t have that much imagination.
“You tell me,” he urged. “What’s the princess’s name?”
After some thought, Lucy said, “Princess Kristina,” and Evan’s heart gave a thump. The choice, so close to her mother’s name, had to hold significance, even if it was only a subconscious wish.
Lucy went on, unperturbed. “A wicked fairy godmother put a spell on her.”
“What kind of spell?”
“Princess Kristina has to live in the enchanted forest forever. Or a big ogre will chop her head off.”
“Ouch.”
“He’s twenty-ten feet tall. He’s green all over and he has stinky breath.” Lucy giggled. “Like me when I kiss you good morning.”
“Pee-ew! That’s bad.”
“Really bad.”
“Is the princess scared of the ogre?” Lucy’s favorite movie was Shrek, so the story might go the other way.
“Oh, yeah. Really scared. ’Cause he’s gonna chop her head off, ’member?”
“Right. But maybe the ogre is a nice guy inside.”
“No, Dad. He’s mean. Very, very, very mean.” Lucy made a growling noise. “He scares the princess so much she has to stay in her house all the time. She never gets to go home to see the king and queen.”
“They must miss her a lot.”
Lucy nodded over the painting.
Evan decided it was time to quit. The story wasn’t heading in a direction conducive to sleep. “There has to be a way to break the spell. Do you think that maybe a prince will come to defeat the ogre?” No, better to encourage her by having the princess rescue herself. “Or maybe the princess will find a way to become the ogre’s friend. But for now, the princess is safe inside her house.” He took the picture and propped it up on Lucy’s table lamp. “You can tell me more of the story tomorrow night, Luce. I want you to get some sleep.”
She breathed a quiet sigh. “Okay.”
“Slide down.”
She burrowed deeper under the covers and he gave her a snuggle before rising from the bed. He checked the curtains—they had to overlap so no monsters could peek in—and went around to peck Lucy’s forehead before shutting off the lamp.
Her voice stopped him at the door. “Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“I like Rose. She can draw real good and—and—”
Evan waited. Lucy’s fingers clutched the edge of the blanket. Her pale hair lay across the pillow, as fine as any princess’s. His heart swelled, and he vowed once again to protect her from as many ogres as he could.
“Rose isn’t afraid of the woods,” she said.
“No, she certainly isn’t.” He thought of Wild Rose Robbin, lurking in the forest shadows. An ogre or a princess? Time to find out for sure, with his daughter’s interest so captured.
“We were going to color in the leafs…” Lucy’s voice was fading.
“Shh, now.” Evan left the door halfway open. “Sweet dreams.”
ROSE CLOSED the Buck Stop at midnight, exiting through the back door where she’d left her bike against the tar-paper wall. Although she used her mother’s car during the winter and bad weather, the bike was her favorite transportation. The autumn months were particularly precious for her, with the crisp air and falling leaves and the need to hold on to each day for as long as possible. She was old enough to regret how often she’d wished her life away. Particularly a certain nine-month span of time…
In retrospect, it was hurtful to remember how slowly she’d believed the days of her pregnancy had passed, and how fiercely she’d longed for it to be over and done with so she could escape her pain. She’d had no clue.
But she’d been barely seventeen. So confused, and raw with the horror of what had happened to her. She hadn’t known how her perceptions would be altered by the baby boy she was sure she didn’t want.
Rose wheeled the bike past the rutted gravel of the convenience store parking lot, onto the paved road. There wasn’t much traffic at this time of night. She had a headlamp and reflector patches, so she was safe to ride on the road, even in the dark. In fact, she preferred it. She was never as free as when she coasted along in the darkness with no eyes upon her except the glowing circles belonging to the porcupines and raccoons staring at her from the trees. She could breathe. She could fly. The couple of miles to town sped by.
Usually she tried to keep her mind blank during her bike rides. On this night, she found herself thinking about Evan and Lucy Grant. She knew very little about him—them. What she’d learned now that she was paying attention had only roused her curiosity further, but she couldn’t see herself asking around to learn more. That would be obvious and embarrassing.
Her older brothers, Jake and Gary, had laughed and teased mercilessly when they found out she had a crush on Rick Lindstrom of the hotsy-totsy Bay Road Lindstroms. Later, in private, when she’d been spotted in Rick’s convertible and the gossips were slurring her name, sure that Rick was only interested in one thing, Jake had warned her away. He’d said that Rick was playing her.
She hadn’t listened. And look where that had gotten her—alone and brokenhearted.
Evan Grant would be another mistake. He wasn’t as far out of her league, but he was an upstanding citizen, in a position of influence, expected to hold to high moral standards. Regardless of the pity invite, he must have some idea of her reputation. Even if he was willing to buck expectations, she wasn’t.
She always learned her lessons the first time. Her father had only had to hit her once before she knew to keep quiet and out of his way. And that one horrid encounter in the woods near the cottages had been enough to send her away from home for more than fifteen years….
Her head filled with bad memories, Rose reached town before she knew it. The streets were vacant and quiet. The only businesses open at this time of night were the bars, thriving even without her father’s patronage. Black Jack had closed them down on frequent occasions before coming home to roar at his wife and children.
Rose pedaled faster and faster, until she reached Blackbear Road, a country lane that led north out of town. A few farmhouses and newer ranch homes dotted the landscape. A big dog rushed down a driveway, barking as Rose whizzed by.
The road sloped down toward the river. Finally she slowed and turned onto the driveway of her home, such as it was. The sign announcing Maxine’s Cottages was faded and worn, as it had been for as long as she could remember. There wasn’t much reason to replace it. Very soon the business would fold.
