The Shadow of Your Smile (12 page)

Kelsey lay in her bed, curled into the pink afghan their grandmother had knit for her.

No, no, not Kelsey. Mom.

Kyle stood in the hallway between his room and Kelsey’s, unable to move.

Mom
lay asleep on Kelsey’s bed, wrapped in Kelsey’s blanket.

Had her memory returned?

For a moment, as he’d tiptoed down the hallway, he’d seen the open door and a crazy old memory rose. Kelsey, collapsed on the bed, having dragged in late from work, the sun draping lazy early morning arms over her body, her hair golden upon the pillow.

It could take his breath away as he half expected—no, desperately longed for—Kelsey to roll over and flash him an annoyed wrinkle of her nose.

Crazy hope, because of course, it could never be. Yet his breath deflated and he felt a terrible scrape of disappointment inside when he realized his mother had wrapped herself in the afghan and fallen asleep on Kelsey’s pillow.

“She’s been having trouble sleeping.” Eli tiptoed up behind him, wearing a pair of sweatpants, wet hair plastered to his head, a bathrobe hitched at his waist. He moved past Kyle and shut the door. “Don’t wake her.”

Kyle kept his voice low. “What is she doing in there? She hasn’t stepped foot in Kelsey’s room since . . .”

Eli lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.”

His dad seemed more rested today. Last night at the game, sitting beside his mother, Eli nearly resembled the father Kyle knew, the man who’d attended his home games, the man who’d drilled into him the three-point shot.

He hated how much that memory wooed him.

He wanted to sit in the stands, cheering his own sons. Longed to set an example they might follow.

“What are you doing here so early?” Eli said.

Kyle turned in to his room. “I came to pick up my drum kit. I’m playing this weekend at a wedding. By the way, the forensics guys are done looking at Mom’s SUV. I have a pal driving it up from Harbor City later today.”

“Thanks, Kyle.” Eli stood in the doorway, watching as Kyle began to unscrew his high hat.

Kyle didn’t look at him. “Do you remember Emma Nelson?”

“Emma?” His father’s voice hitched just a little. “Yeah, sure. Lee’s daughter.”

“I saw her last weekend in the Cities. She was playing at a blues club. Got into a bar fight—”

“Emma got into a fight?”

“No—there was a fight around her. She got hurt—”

“She was hurt? How bad?”

He glanced at his father, at the worry on his face. “She’s fine, Dad. A couple stitches. But that’s not the point. I was just . . . Well, we had a good time together. She’s the one I’m playing with this weekend.”

“Which is why you’ve decided to sharpen your rusty drum skills.”

“I’m not that rusty, and frankly, I was pretty good.”

“I remember a lot of noise.” His dad smiled at him, teasing in his eyes.

Kyle had missed that. “Uh, about the hospital—I’m sorry, Dad.”

Eli looked at the floor, examining it as if there were a vital piece of evidence there. “Me too.”

Kyle set the high hat on the bed, then turned to the cymbals.

“Just . . . remember, she’s getting on with her life. You don’t want to mess with that.”

He didn’t? He glanced at his father, who was now staring at something out the window, lost for a moment.

Maybe he was thinking of Kelsey, how he’d feel if Kelsey had fallen for a hometown boy. Only, that didn’t seem like such a crime. After all, his father had been a hometown boy, and his mother hadn’t objected to living her life so far from the city.

Kyle finished with the cymbals, loading them and the high hat into a padded case. He lifted the snare from its stand and slid it into the container.

A weighted pause behind him made him glance up. His father always had a presence about him—the way he walked into a room and folded his arms could cause his sons to sit up at attention. He wore his cop look, the face that said,
Tell me your story and I’ll see if I believe it.

“You’re investigating the incident, aren’t you?” Eli said.

“What makes you say that?”

“I saw Norm yesterday in town. He mentioned you’d received the autopsy report on the victim.”

“A courtesy from the guys down in Duluth. She was shot with a 9mm Glock. And cuffed across the face, leaving a welt.”

“Anything suspicious on the log? Did they dig up anything from the witnesses?”

See? His father couldn’t stay away either.

“Nothing that’s flushed out any leads. However, Jason Backlund was out plowing, saw Ryan Nickel’s car in the ditch. He’s had a few tickets, so I tracked down the plate and registration on the car—apparently he still owns it. Seems he might have been on the road about the time of the incident; maybe he saw something. I’m headed up to the Nickels’ place today.”

“It’s imperative that we nail this guy, Kyle.”

The smallness of his voice, the worry in it, rattled Kyle. In that moment, his father appeared not like the Deep Haven sheriff but like a victim. Lines creased his face, his eyes troubled. “If this guy took a look at your mom, he might believe she’s able to identify him. The longer he goes free, the more danger she faces. We’ll let our guard down and one day—”

“I’m not going to let that happen, Dad. I’m not going to let him find Mom.”

Eli met his eyes, the cop in him now searching.

Kyle returned his gaze. “You just help her get her memory back. I’ll find this guy.”

Eli nodded, a sigh rattling out of him. “We spent the entire day yesterday going through her daily life. It jogged nothing, not even the game. She . . .” He glanced at the closed door. “She even saw Kelsey’s picture in the case at school and didn’t have a blink of recognition.”

“Then why is she sleeping in her room this morning?”

Eli scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’ve been thinking . . . maybe it would be better if she never remembers—”

“Don’t say that.”

Kirby stood behind Eli, skinny and bare-chested, his hair in knots. He needed a cut, but he’d filled out over the year as he’d lifted weights. He wore a sort of desperate fury on his face. “She’s already remembering. She made me breakfast yesterday, and I saw her in the stands. She was her normal self.”

“Her normal self before Kelsey’s death,” Eli said, then laid a finger to his lips. “Keep it down. She’s in there sleeping.” He nodded to Kelsey’s room.

“See. She
does
remember. Maybe she just doesn’t know it yet.”

“We all hope so, Kirby, but what you’re seeing isn’t memory. It’s who she is. When I first met her, I took her to a few games. She loves to cheer. And I think you stole her breakfast from her.”

Kirby’s mouth pinched into a tight line. “She remembers. You just wait.”

“But is that what you really want for her? To remember losing her only daughter?”

“She still has us, Dad,” Kirby snapped.

“Yes, she has us . . . even if she never gets her memory back. But before, she was so distraught, so beaten. Maybe this is better.”

“She was getting better. Much better. You just didn’t see it because you were never around.”

Kyle recognized his brother’s tone; he’d heard it in himself.

“I was around, Kirby. I just couldn’t take losing your mom, too.”

“Is that why you cleared out Kelsey’s stuff?” Kirby turned to Kyle, his eyes venomous. “Did you know that he came home one day and packed it all up? All her clothes, her journals, her pictures. He took down the family photos, the scrapbooks, the photo albums. Everything. He even stripped her bed. I came home from track practice, and she’d vanished from our lives. Mom was hysterical, but guess what? Dad was gone.”

“Yes, you told me,” Kyle said softly. He turned to his father. “You can’t erase Kelsey from our lives.”

“I wasn’t erasing her. I was trying to get us past it without a daily reminder of who we lost. She got better after that, didn’t she?”

“I’m not sure she ever forgave you, though.”

Eli swallowed hard. “Now do you see why it’s better that she doesn’t remember?”

“So she’ll forgive you?” Every emotion Kyle had tried to ignore since the hospital rose. “I can’t believe how utterly selfish that is.”

Eli rounded on him. “You know what? Maybe it is. Maybe I want the woman I fell in love with back. I want her to be like she was—”

“She was trying!” Kirby’s voice rose, and Kyle shot a look at the door to Kelsey’s room. “She even started painting!”

Eli hooked Kirby’s arm, dragged him into the kitchen, Kyle close behind. His voice ground to low. “What are you talking about?”

Kirby shook out of his grip. “At the art colony. They rent out space. She had a little room there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sometimes on Fridays.”

“How do you know?”

“It wasn’t a secret, Dad. She showed me some of her work. It was pretty good.”

But clearly it had been a secret, at least to their father. Kyle watched the truth dawn across his face. He looked away and for the first time felt sympathy for his old man.

Still, the bruises from the fight at the hospital lay fresh on him. He drew in a long breath. “Dad, I’m thinking that in order for you to help Mom get her memory back, you might want to learn who the woman you lost was.”

Lee lay in bed, staring at the exposed beams of her ceiling, the morning sun having already flushed through her room. Derek had left over an hour ago for school, and she’d done the practical thing on a frozen, below-zero morning, after she’d stoked the woodstove and lit a fire.

She’d returned to the heat of her bed.

At first, after Clay passed, she’d hated lingering in their double bed—had even slept downstairs on the sofa for a few weeks. But she liked the view from their loft, overlooking the lake, split by a trio of birch and the shaggy outline of black pine. Here, too, she felt less alone, although she’d long ago washed Clay’s smell from the sheets and started to sleep in the middle of the bed.

She closed her eyes, remembering Eli’s hand on hers.
I don’t know what I would do without you.

Something dangerous had moved inside her then. An emotion she shouldn’t linger on, an urge that frightened her. She’d smiled, then bid him good night and escaped the truck.

But the emotion remained, settled in her chest.

I don’t know what I would do without you either, Eli.

He’d become a part of their lives, as natural as breathing, over the past three years. Listening, caring for her, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

She’d wanted to invite him in.

Banging on the door outside jerked her upright, and a residue of pain speared down her arm. She groaned, then climbed out of bed, slid her feet into slippers. She’d already changed into her yoga pants and a T-shirt, but that had seemed suitable sleepwear, too.

“Lee!” More banging and then the door opened as she descended the stairs.

Eli barged inside and stood on the mat, snow sloughing off his boots. He seemed lit up, his eyes dark. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Noelle’s painting studio at the art colony. She’s been renting one for two years. Did you know that? Because I sure didn’t.”

The way he looked at her—half-pleading, half-angry, mostly hurt—stripped away the indignation she should feel at his accusation. She schooled her voice. “No, Eli, I didn’t.”

He turned away and ran a hand through his hair. Breathed out. “Can you come with me?”

The tremor in his voice could make her say yes to anything. “Of course. Let me get my boots.”

While he radiated fumes of frustration downstairs, she cleaned up, pulling her hair back in a ponytail, throwing on just enough mascara to recognize herself. Then she pulled on her parka, her UGGs, and tromped outside behind him.

He opened the door for her and helped her into the truck. Probably because she’d groaned as she put on her coat. Even in his distress, he had a way of watching out for others. She liked that about Eli Hueston.

He climbed behind the wheel, started up his truck. “She was sleeping on Kelsey’s bed this morning.”

Lee shot him a look. “Do you think she remembers anything?”

“I don’t know. I left her there, wrote her a note.” He backed out of the driveway and turned onto the highway toward town.

“What happened, Eli?”

His knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. “Kirby seems to know about some art studio his mother rented. Apparently—” he glanced at her, his eyebrows up—“she
has
been painting.”

Oh. “No wonder she kept asking.”

“Do you think she knew that, deep inside?”

Lee shook her head. “I don’t know.” She touched his arm. “Really, I had no idea.”

He glanced at her before he took one hand off the wheel and wove his fingers into hers. Sighed. “I believe you.”

The art colony had purchased the old Baptist church in town decades ago and since then added on two wings. Lee herself had taken a pottery class there from Liza Beaumont, their local potter, a few years ago.

Eli parked outside and held on to her elbow as they walked in.

“I’m fine, Eli—”

“I don’t want you to fall.” He said it with a touch of heat in his voice.

They found the director, a slim, tall brunette in a smock and clogs. She looked at Eli with some surprise when he asked to see Noelle’s studio.

“We keep the studios private, Eli. She might not be ready to—”

“Let me in the room, Jane. Right now.”

She swallowed and bit her lip. “Fine. But I’m going to let Noelle know—”

“I promise you, she won’t care.”

Lee followed him up the stairs, her heart aching for him. When she’d gone through Clay’s life after his death, she had discovered a few online gambling accounts—nothing with real money, but he’d logged sufficient time on them for her to wonder if he would have ever put them in jeopardy. It had rocked her world enough to erase it from her mind, to focus on the man she knew.

Thankfully, Clay had never hidden a private room from her. She had the sense of prying into Noelle’s journal as they stood before a tiny door.

“I don’t have a key,” Jane said.

Eli held the ring out to Jane. “These are Noelle’s.”

Jane picked through the keys, surfaced with a silver one, and inserted it in the door. “What’s going on, Eli?”

“I’m not sure,” he said as he pushed past her.

“It’s okay,” Lee assured Jane.

Eli was standing in the middle of the room, completely still. Lee followed him in and closed the door behind her.

The studio measured about ten feet square, with a two-paned window overlooking the town of Deep Haven, the harbor with the lighthouse, a frozen skating pond. A blue armchair with tiny peach flowers sat near another window, a sketchpad on the ottoman before it. In the middle of the studio, a large easel held an unfinished watercolor. She recognized the background features as Artist’s Point, the craggy breakwater that protected the lee side of the harbor. An unfinished section of white contained a pencil sketch, the forms of two girls sitting on the beach, one with a guitar.

Her heart expanded in her throat, lodging there.

Eli had moved over to a stack of paintings, some large, others on smaller frames. Most of them featured landscapes or close-ups of rocks, fence posts. One was a detailed watercolor of a pair of red Converse tennis shoes. It seemed she’d seen that picture before.

“These are watercolors of Kelsey’s photography.” He held up a photo of a pine tree, the perspective from the base to the top, as if Kelsey had stood hugging it, looking up. The next picture showed a coffee cup set on a bloodred maple leaf, perched on the grainy wood of a green picnic table.

Photographs hung by clothespins from a piece of yarn that extended across the far wall.

“Kirby said she was getting better. That she was trying to heal.” Eli turned to her, his eyes wide. “She was trying to recapture Kelsey.”

“I thought you emptied the house of Kelsey’s things.”

“I did. But maybe she already had these.” He went over to examine the photos. “She was really talented.”

“Kelsey?”

Eli drew in a breath. “Noelle.” He shook his head. “What is this? Why didn’t she tell me that she was painting? Did she think I wouldn’t care, wouldn’t listen?”

Oh, Eli.
Lee set down a painting of Kirby’s rusty Neon. “Maybe she just couldn’t let you in.” She bit her lip, hating the way he flinched.

He sat on the chair. Sank his head into his hands.

She couldn’t help walking over, sitting on the ottoman across from him. Taking his hands from his face. “Everyone grieves in their own way. This didn’t mean she was betraying you.”

“No,” he said, his eyes red-rimmed. “It means I betrayed her. Kyle was right—I didn’t even know her.”

“That’s not true. You just went through so much, Eli. We all did.”

He met her eyes, searching. Swallowed.

And then, just like that, he kissed her.

She didn’t expect it, hadn’t ever contemplated it—not really. His kiss was urgent and desperate, and she knew it was wrong. But she hadn’t been kissed in so long, and the feelings of a man desiring her, needing her, flooded through Lee.

She touched his face, felt the bristles of his overnight whiskers, and kissed him back. She kissed him because, oh, he had a strength about him that she longed for.

And then, as abruptly as he’d leaned forward, Eli jerked away, his breath harsh in his lungs. “Oh . . . Lee, I’m so sorry.” He held his hands up as if pushing her from him, even though she hadn’t moved, then got up and stalked across the room.

“It’s okay, Eli—”

“It’s not okay! What was I thinking?” He let out a word she’d never heard him use. “I’m not that guy—I don’t cheat on my wife.”

“Eli, she doesn’t know you. It can hardly be called cheating when the woman can’t even remember your vows.”

Lee wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth, take the words back, but as they lay out there in the silence, she realized the truth.

She didn’t want Noelle to retrieve her memory. Never. Because then Eli wouldn’t have to stay with her, would he?

The thought must have flashed across her face because his jaw tightened, and he shook his head a long time before the words came out. “I’m not leaving Noelle for you.”

His words slapped her, but she managed to find her feet. “Uh, you kissed
me
, Eli. I didn’t start this. And I never asked you to leave Noelle.” But inside, she could hear her own indictments. “You need to take a good look at your life. Your wife, even before she lost her memory, was sneaking around, keeping things from you. What else was she hiding, do you think?”

His eyes widened, and she could only imagine what might be scrolling through his mind.

“And frankly, you cheated on her long before you kissed me.”

“I never—”

“Stop lying to yourself, Eli. You spend nearly every day at my house, helping me. Listening to me, being my friend. And when you weren’t at my house, you were fishing or hunting or snowmobiling. You didn’t want to be in that marriage because if you did, you would have
shown up
.”

He flinched, but Lee didn’t care. She whirled around, nearly knocking over a painting. She righted it and turned back to him. “You’d better figure out what you want because guess what—I
do
remember. I remember everything. And I’m not so sure I’d want you anyway.”

She didn’t slow down to see if her words landed. She just ran down the steps—ignoring Jane, who lifted her gaze from her desk—and outside, where the crisp air froze her tears to her face. Oh, she was an idiot. Such, such an idiot.

And she hadn’t driven. Or brought her keys so she could hike to the school and take Derek’s car home.

How she hated being at life’s mercy. Hated the fact that other people’s choices could destroy her own.

Emma had been right to leave this town, to kick off the snow and find a new life.

“Lee?”

She didn’t turn. “Take me home.”

Eli said nothing but held out his arm for her.

She ignored it. She could manage just fine on her own, thank you very much.