“That was a hell of a pair of shoes to leave you,” Morgan said abruptly, as if he hadn’t even heard her suggestion. “But is that all that’s wrong, Erica?”
His sharp brown eyes looked intensely into hers. “Of course that’s all,” she said.
“Is it?”
She nodded nervously. “I like working with Kyle.”
“I still don’t understand. Erica. Kyle’s one story, but you’re another. You can’t possibly like it here, a tiny country town with nothing to do. It’s not just the lack of entertainment, but security, everything you grew up accustomed to…”
He was like a dog worrying a bone. All she wanted was for Morgan to give Kyle moral support-as Kyle had done for him a thousand times. “Morgan, we both like it here. We like working with wood. And Kyle has roots here…”
“You don’t,” Morgan said bluntly.
“I have Kyle.” But it sounded wrong, suddenly. She wasn’t at all sure she did have Kyle anymore.
“Yes.” Morgan stood up, lazily stretching, the silver metal on his chest glittering in the morning sun. “Well, kiddo, I’ve got to hit the road. This time, though, it’s not going to be such a long lapse between visits.”
“Super,” she said brightly, relieved he’d changed the subject. “You know we’re always glad to see you.”
He snatched at her hand as she moved past him. “So give us a goodbye kiss to tide us over,” he said swiftly.
She raised her cheek obediently for his peck and instead found his mouth on hers, the still-warm aroma of coffee mixed with a fractionally too intense pressure of lips. Somewhat startled, she stared up at him, as if searching his face for some assurance that it hadn’t been the kind of kiss it seemed to be. His hands lingered on her shoulders, and then he dropped his arms to his sides, pure Morgan in his cool expression, the usual hint of deviltry in his eyes. “You know, I’ve been waiting nine years for you to find some fault with that Irishman,” he teased.
Somehow it did not have the playful ring that it should have had. Still, she found the smile for him that she supposed should be on her face. Morgan was just…Morgan. He’d be stealing from the cookie jar when he was ninety.
Chapter 4
A walk in the sunshine inevitably lifted Erica’s spirits. A squirrel was scampering across the dew-drenched grass, chattering to her the entire time it took her to get to the shop. The brisk morning air cleared the mental cobwebs, and she mounted the steps still smiling at the little animal’s antics.
Inside, she paused, inhaling the smells of the trade with a sensual pleasure. Sawdust and turpentine and wood and varnish…not exactly the smells to appeal to a romantic nature. But they appealed to hers, she thought fleetingly.
Kyle had rarely talked of his family or his past. It hadn’t mattered until she knew they were moving here, and then she’d put together some of his rare family anecdotes and historical information she’d gathered at the library. Particularly in the mid-1800s, Europeans had flooded to the Midwest, seeking relief from famines and military rule. They weren’t urban dwellers but simple country people, wanting only to pursue the lives they knew-farming or trades-with a decent chance for their families’ survival. People who knew hardship but still had the courage and strength to follow a dream…
The McCrerys were dairy farmers and carpenters-and probably horse thieves, Kyle had told her dryly. Woodworking was their craft, and a sizable business was built up by the third generation; in the fourth-Joel’s-came mass production. Homemade wood products were too expensive then; there was always a place for a carpenter, but if a man had need to create…
Erica had learned that Joel was an intensely creative man, that he had never been happy simply putting hammer to board. Nothing else made sense as to why the business was such a mess when they first came here. She’d had such a wonderful romantic picture of the place in her mind. History, roots, Wisconsin greenery, the gentle melancholy she’d sensed in Joel, the cottage nestled among the trees, a place where people had found peace for generations in a quiet, private way…
Absently, Erica smoothed her palm down the finely sanded grain of a red cedar plank, and then bent down to smell the fresh tang of the new wood. Six months ago, she’d walked into this room one morning when Kyle was gone, and found rusted tools, lumber haphazardly stacked, filthy windows and the smell of neglect and waste. Her expectation of romance had evaporated in an uncharacteristic sensation of fear. This was not what she had pictured. Kyle could not conceivably have grown up here; Kyle, who had such a love of space and privacy, who hated clutter and had no tolerance at all for waste and neglect.
Finding the little pigeonhole of an office was the next shock. Much of the paperwork was incomprehensible to her, but she understood enough. The night before she’d served crab for which she’d paid fifteen dollars a pound; Kyle had affectionately encouraged her to stay out of the shop, to spend whatever she liked to make the cottage livable. Carpet, linens, furniture…
She was so used to a certain kind of life that she’d never thought about it, never realized how Kyle had always sheltered and even pampered her, indulging her every whim, ferreting out wishes she hadn’t even known she had. She hadn’t confronted him that day-she couldn’t. Uppermost in her mind had been her own sudden and overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. For how long had she behaved like a mistress instead of a wife? It hadn’t occurred to Kyle, apparently, to level with her about their changed circumstances. Did he think she wouldn’t see, wouldn’t understand?
She hadn’t then and didn’t now understand his anger when he first found her washing windows, taking on projects. Obviously, he didn’t have time for the antiques, and those were less a matter of skill than time, patience and work. And in spite of all the problems they’d had lately, she had slowly and almost unconsciously built up a love affair with wood that was almost equal to her husband’s.
With her hands stuck in her back pockets, she wandered toward Kyle’s shop, a long, narrow side room that ran the length of the building. Every chisel had its place, the power tools were protected and hung on hooks; excellent lighting had been installed, and the wood lathe gleamed like dull pewter from its proper oiling and care. Kyle had changed so much, so quickly… She would have been beaten just looking at the shop when she first saw it. He had savored the challenge. The market for handmade wooden products had supposedly disappeared after mass production became common, but people seemed to be tired of houses that looked alike, perhaps were again beginning to value things that endured. In a plastic world where so little was natural, wood had qualities to offer-it was lasting, beautiful, real. A chair unearthed from the attic and refinished would last another thirty years, and no one else had another like it; a wooden cradle could be a link between one generation and the next, lovingly passed on as people used to do, because they had the sense and sensitivity to do it…