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Penelope rolled her eyes, wondering how much work she would have to do when her grandmother’s mood ended this time.
This wasn’t the first time Mavis Moon had done something extreme, even by Penelope’s own generous definition of the word. About once a year Penelope would come home to find her grandmother acting strangely. The last time Mavis had planted a crop of marijuana in with the corn out back, determined to do for terminally ill patients what the health care system wouldn’t.
It was all Penelope could do to stop her from being charged. She had, however, been arrested.
She let out a long breath. “I’m going to the store. Do you want anything?”
“A man.”
Penelope stared at her grandmother’s back.
“I can feel you looking at me, girl. Stop it right now.”
“Where would you have me look?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe at yourself in the mirror.” She gave the wall another smack, creating another ugly dent. She gestured with the hammer. “You and me…we’re not getting any younger, you know. This morning I swore I could hear time passing.”
“It was probably your pacemaker.”
Mavis glared at her.
“Do you want anything from the market?”
“I told you what I want.”
“And short of dragging Old Man Jake home with me, it’s not going to happen.”
A thoughtful expression came over her grandmother’s face. Penelope turned on her heel, collected Max’s leash and went out the front door.
She only hoped that there would be a house to return to.
Chapter Three
What could have been minutes or hours later, Penelope stood on the old wooden bridge about a half-mile away, down the road that spanned the Old Valley River. She stared at the water rushing by below and pondered why every now and again life didn’t make any sense at all. Even Max seemed to contemplate the question, lying on the old planks under their feet that shuddered whenever a car drove over. Which, thankfully, wasn’t often.
Penelope had studied the stars last night, trying to map out the future, catch a clue on where things might be heading. The same way she did every other night when there was no significant cloud cover. Only nothing had prepared her for today. She’d seen no hint of Mavis’ latest mood. No sign that she would look into Aidan’s eyes that morning and feel a tingling awareness that she hadn’t been able to shake ever since. No trace that she would be standing at the bridge now, staring down at the river wondering if things would have been different if her mother hadn’t committed suicide by jumping off the other side of this same bridge and landing on the outcropping of rocks there.
The early evening sunlight hit her full on the back and seemed to outline her reflection in the water. She couldn’t make out her own features. The blurry image resembled what little she could remember about her mother’s features beyond those she saw in the countless photos Mavis had of her.
After Heather Moon died, no more photographs were brought into the house. Penelope couldn’t even remember seeing the old camera her mother had once owned. Maybe Mavis had buried it with her.
She recalled the way Mavis had mapped out the old photographs on the wall like some sort of puzzle missing half its pieces, or like a map leading to nowhere. She shivered.
“Cold?”
She looked up, startled to find she was no longer alone.
Aidan stood on the bridge next to her. He had probably been there for a while, given his relaxed stance next to her. He too was staring into the water.
“No, I, um…”
Her voice drifted off as she realized the question was probably rhetorical. She smiled. “I think you’re about the last person I expected to see way out here.”
Aidan shrugged, his forearms leaning against the broad wood railing, his strong, masculine hands clasped tightly together. She couldn’t be sure, but given the grooves on either side of his mouth, he had been thinking heavy thoughts too.
She squinted at him, remembering the first time she saw him ten months or so ago. He’d been walking down the street outside her shop, much as he did every morning. But back then he had looked more anxious somehow. Terribly alone. And his brown eyes had held a sadness that seemed to reach out and clutch her heart.
She remembered it so clearly because she was seeing the same expression now.
“I went out for a walk after dinner and lost track of time,” he said by way of explanation.
Look at me, Penelope silently found herself saying.
“Did you say something?”
He finally looked at her, and the full impact of the soulless shadow in his eyes nearly took her breath away.
Max barked, startling them both, then laid his head back down on top of his paws.
“No,” Penelope said quietly. “I didn’t say anything.”
Although, it was the second time that day that he had appeared to hear her thoughts.
The first time she had silently willed him to kiss her.
She felt her face go hot, then she turned back toward the water and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You know, my mother used to say that there are only a few people in the world who are capable of hearing another’s thoughts.” Actually, her mother had told her that there would be one other person capable of hearing her thoughts, and that one person would be the one she was meant to spend her life with. But she wasn’t going to say that to Aidan for fear that he would think her strange. Most of the townspeople already thought that. She couldn’t bear it if he believed the same.
“My… There was another woman who told me that once.” Aidan said it so quietly that the light breeze that had kicked up nearly stole the words before they reached her ears.
Penelope shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with a chill, but rather a burst of heat.
She pushed from the railing and looked down at her watch. It was already after seven. “I didn’t realize it was getting so late.”
“Do you have a date?”
Penelope laughed, then stopped when she realized he was serious. “No. I don’t have a date. I, um, was just heading to the market to pick up a few things.” And a man for my grandmother, she reminded herself.
Maximus lumbered to his feet, nudging his cold, slimy nose into her hand. She absently patted him, then picked up his leash.
“I’ll walk back with you,” Aidan said.
“Okay.”
They’d gone a ways, Max keeping pace between them, when suddenly the tree-lined route curved into a two-lane street and the trees morphed into buildings.
Aidan looked at Penelope walking leisurely beside him. It had been a long time since he’d been with someone who didn’t demand that every second be filled with conversation.
But Penelope…
“What?”
He blinked, realizing she’d grown aware of his attention and was even now playing with her leather bracelet in that way she did when she was nervous.
He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing. I was just thinking that I never did get a straight answer to the question I asked this morning at the shop.”
She seemed to think back to that morning, when they’d shared that heated moment of awareness. But the image of the sheriff eyeing him suspiciously wiped it out of Aidan’s mind.
“What question?”
“Hmm? Oh. Well, since I could really use some help with putting together the Fourth of July town celebration, would you consider coming to the next meeting? It’s tomorrow night.”
Her gaze flitted away and she fell silent.
“At the rate things are going, we’ll end up with something that could have been cut and pasted from the 1950s. I could really use someone to back me up, help me urge everyone into the new millennium.”
She still didn’t say anything.
“Is everything okay?” He leaned forward to capture her gaze.
She smiled, but there was no happiness there. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“It’s just that you got awfully quiet there for a moment.”
“I was just thinking…”
What? What had she been thinking?
Aidan refused to speak the question aloud, but he found he was curious about Penelope in a way he hadn’t been curious about a woman in a long time. While capable of walking in companionable silence with her for long stretches, he was filled with a desire to reach out and touch her, to urge out whatever it was she was holding in her mind…in her heart.
They’d come to a slow halt, a block short of the General Store. Max sat down, panting while Penelope turned to Aidan. To thank him for his company? More than likely. But she hesitated when she looked into his face.
What was there? he wondered. What did she see?
He found himself reaching out to cup her chin. Just a gentle play of his fingertips up along the delicate line of her jaw. So soft. She blinked those big dark eyes, appearing startled yet curious as her tongue darted out and moistened her lips.
Lips that Aidan wanted more than anything to kiss.
And in the next instant, he was doing just that.
First there was the welcoming shock of skin against skin, his lips pressing against hers, tenderly, tentatively.
He’d closed his eyes, but he opened them now to see that she watched him through a fringe of black lashes. He read fear, surprise and a wistful yearning that shot straight through him. His throat tightened to the point of pain, and a craving for this woman, so urgent, so overwhelming swept over him, paralyzing him with its unexpected power.
“Mmm,” she whispered. “That was nice.”
Aidan had experienced his share of kisses, and what they had just shared was definitely not simply “nice.” It was honest. It was sweet. And it was hot.
He stepped back away from her even as a voice deep inside him protested the move.
What was he doing?
He’d promised long ago that he would not involve anyone else in his problems. Would not subject them to what he had lived with for so long that it seemed as natural as the shadow that followed him. Especially since everything finally seemed to be coming to a head.
Yet a few minutes with Penelope found him shoving all that aside, left him seeking a bit of something outside himself. Something that called out to him from her.
He remembered her on the bridge when he’d first walked across to stand next to her. Her expression had spoken of a woman with secrets that seemed to run as deep as his. And he found himself feeling connected to her in a way he hadn’t felt connected to anyone in a long time.
Only, Penelope’s secrets didn’t have the power to hurt others.
She laughed nervously. “I’d…better get going before the store closes.”
Aidan blinked at her, wondering how long they’d been standing there looking at each other. What others thought didn’t concern him. But what Penelope thought did matter. Maybe a little too much.
He offered a smile. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
She wrapped the end of Max’s lead around her hand. “What question?”
“Whether you’ll help me out with the Fourth of July celebration.”
She fell silent again, but it wasn’t a companionable silence this time, but rather a tense one. He silently berated himself for making her uncomfortable. Of pressing her to do something she so obviously didn’t want to do. Especially since he didn’t know if he would be here in town much longer.
“I can’t,” she said simply.
Aidan slid his hands into his pants pockets, reluctantly accepting her answer.
“I’d better go,” she said.
Aidan found himself reaching out to lightly grasp her wrist. She looked back at him, curious, questioning.
“I’m…” he began.
The only sounds were of traffic farther up the street and of Max panting patiently at Penelope’s side.
“I’m not who you think I am, Penelope,” he found himself admitting.
She smiled as she reached out to hold his hand. “Right now, I’m not sure I know who anyone is, Aidan.”
Chapter Four
Penelope lay awake late into the night, stretched across the twin bed that used to belong to her mother, thinking about Aidan and his words. And, even more acutely, her own words.
What had made her say what she said? That she wasn’t sure she knew who anyone was anymore?
She caught her fingertips lingering against her lips and yanked her hand back to her side, then turned over, trying to ignore the incessant hammering coming from the next room. She’d returned from the General Store with the makings of spinach pasta, but Grammy hadn’t touched a bit of it, too consumed with her house renovations. Penelope sighed.
Life in Old Orchard had always been trying for her. Still, there wasn’t anything she could do to change it, so why bother trying? From what she understood, her mother had fought the same losing battle…until giving up the fight in a very real way.
Suddenly she realized that she could hear crickets instead of a hammer pounding away. She propped herself up onto her elbows, bunching the simple white nightgown she wore around her waist. What was Grammy doing now?
