“Because of me, my brother is dead, Mr. Clayton! Don’t you see that?” As though her locket had transformed into a poisonous scorpion, she yanked it off, the chain ripping away from her neck and sending tiny pieces of silver through the air. She threw it across the shop, where it hit the brick wall with a clink and fell to the tile.
Nothing but her heightened breathing filled the silence. “The brave Ms. Ashton,” he said, almost to himself. “The brave Ms. Ashton who hasn’t cried a tear in eleven years.”
She ground her teeth and turned away, and her trembling said she tried to keep the meltdown inside. “Get out of here, Mr. Clayton,” she said with a breath between every word. “I’ll be out of town as soon as you want, just please leave me alone.” She disappeared through the doorway of the kitchen and he made a mad dash for the front door, about to give her all the space in the world.
But he stopped with the door ajar, spotting her broken locket on the floor. The pendant was open, a silver butterfly flexing its wings on the tile. He let the door close and walked to the necklace, crouching. Holding it in his palm, he studied it. And the pictures twisted his heart: the pictures of a young Elizabeth with windblown hair, too young to know what life would hold, and an even younger boy—Willem. Her brother squinted in the sun, carefree and happy, and Henry knew it was this image she held onto—the one she used to remember when holding to her father’s promise.
His chest swelled, his throat closed, and with breaths that became difficult, he closed it in his palm and stood, putting it in the warmth of his pocket. He turned toward the kitchen, whose doorway was empty. He heard her movement inside, and regardless of how she wanted him gone, he couldn’t leave.
He peeked inside. Her back was pressed against the wall, her hands over her mouth as she appeared on the verge of hyperventilation. The idea seemed to panic her. Then it came out, sobs that violently shook her shoulders and left her body sliding down the wall. There, crouched next to the large refrigerator that hummed as loudly as it had when he was a boy, she wept into her hands, finally releasing years of pent-up emotions.
When he stepped toward her, she looked up at him with a start, rising to her feet and turning away. With her back to him, she wiped her eyes. “Mr. Clayton, what are you doing here? I told you to leave.” She tried to make her voice strong, as she usually did.
He didn’t answer, since he didn’t know what to say, and instead touched her shoulder. It still trembled, since she hadn’t been able to turn off the downpour. She inched away from his hand and between sobs that sounded only somewhat controlled, she managed, “Go.”
Touching her again, he turned her to him, and she pushed away. But her resistance was brief because before he knew it she was crying into his chest, grasping his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her, pushing her to his heart, and one hand stroked her hair. The sensation filled him with both wholeness and an ache for her sorrow. She cried for a long moment, but he would have held her endlessly.
“Everything’s all right,” he breathed a few times, closing his eyes as he rested his chin atop her head. All he’d ever wanted was to hold her, not in the way he did at night, but to hold her as a man holds a woman, her body against his and her hair between his fingers. She felt so good here, and the rightness turned to warmth in his core, which nearly took his breath.
“It’s my fault,” she said, so faintly he almost didn’t hear. She cried, her fists tightening on his shirt, and her voice was so broken he wondered if she’d given up—on bravery, on life, on everything. “I’m so sorry,” she said, over and over again, and he knew she wasn’t speaking to him. She spoke to Willem, perhaps even her father, wherever they were.
His embrace constricted, and after a moment her chest moved more calmly against him. While he allowed his fingers to get lost in her silky hair, he said, “You did everything you could.”
This seemed to wake her to the reality that she was in his arms—Mr. Clayton, the man who treated her coldly and the man she probably hated. With a wipe to her eyes, she lifted her face from his chest and stared up at him, still gripping his dress shirt in her fists. Black stains ringed eyes. His own were probably as wide as hers, if only from the way she made his chest seize-up, especially at this proximity. Then she looked at the wetness on his shirt, smudged with black from her mascara, and released him as though he was the scorpion. “I—I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton. About your shirt, and…”
“It’s just a shirt.”
She pressed herself against the wall, as though he might do something unpredictable. Really, he already had. “Why are you…back? I told you I would leave when—”
“You’re not leaving.” He sighed, studying her. “We all make mistakes. I know that better than anyone. And…in all honesty, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing, had I been in your position. I think the best of us would.”
This seemed to floor her more than anything else, and all she did was stare. And if he wasn’t trying so hard to be Mr. Clayton again, he would have stared back. He would have looked at her the rest of his life, since she was the only thing truly beautiful in this world.
He backed away, heading for the door. “We will…get this back on track, Ms. Ashton. With your business, I mean.” And even though he was sure she wouldn’t have a response, he left before she had the chance to think of one.
Chapter 19
Elizabeth moved through the forest, taking the slender, muddy trail as rain showered her. It was the beast’s trail, the one she’d walked with him in the dark many times, but not last night. Last night, the night after Henry had surprised her with the warmest of consolations, the beast hadn’t shown. She’d expected nothing more, and should have been relieved to sleep a full night; but his absence only reminded her she was alone. It reminded her she didn’t even have a beast.
For a short moment yesterday, she thought she would have Henry, since he had held her with more heart than even the nighttime version of him did. There she was, world crashing down, and he caught her.
He hadn’t just caught her, though. He’d pulled her back up, with whispers in her hair and the warmth of his being surrounding her. She longed to spend every moment in those arms—sturdy and safe and tender. But it hadn’t made sense. How could he be so distant during her affectionate moments, yet embrace her during her darkest? Whatever it meant, he’d been her harbor in the harshest of ocean storms.
But that night he hadn’t come.
And this morning, he hadn’t walked with her. Nor had he come in for coffee.
Actually, not a soul had. Batches of coffee went to waste, and she closed Jean’s by two o’clock. It was late afternoon now and above her, milky, gray rainclouds blanketed the sky with a wrath that almost kept her indoors.
But the forest held answers, and the rain brought her clarity. She wore no jacket, since she’d left her porch spontaneously, and with her shirt plastered against her skin, her spine shivered. She leaned against a trunk, closing her eyes as she listened to the forest. The rain moved all around her, calming and satisfying: overhead, beside, below, washing over everything.
Even washing over him. Sensing him, she turned. Henry stood on the path a few feet away—drenched. He wore dark-wash jeans and a navy v-neck t-shirt. His eyes smoldered the way she had missed, the way that took her breath from her chest.
“Mr. Clayton, what are you doing here?” She attempted to steady her voice.
“Looking for you.” His eyes moved down her and she realized her shirt was nearly transparent. She folded her arms over her chest, trying not to give into the warmth in her face, and he quickly went on, “I went to Jean’s and you weren’t there.”
She turned, walking the thinner trail that veered from the path. “No point in staying when there are no customers.”
“No one?” he asked from behind, walking with her. He sounded surprised.
“No one.”