Hemlock Veils (29 page)

“We’re all different, Mr. Clayton. Every one of us has different opinions and outlooks, and different ways we feel life. It’s all a matter of what we know and what we’ve experienced, and our outlooks are what make certain things beautiful or ugly to us. Take the dandelion for example.” She bent, picking one from a yellow patch near her feet. She stood and studied it, twirling it between her fingers—the blossom straggly and rigid but bright and hopeful. “To most it’s just a weed. Obnoxious, destroying, ugly. But to the honeybee…” She gave it a light sniff.

“I…see. And though I disagree, you’re right about one thing: every one of us has opinions, and yours and mine couldn’t be more dissimilar.”

She smiled. “You
are
right about that.”

They reached another unruly rose bush, every bud red like the others. She stopped before it, running her finger delicately down its petals in the way she had before. “They were my mother’s,” he said. “Of all things once planted by human hands, they’re all that still grow out here.” He rubbed his neck. “It was the only thing my father allowed her to take control of in this place.” With eyes distant, he swallowed as he touched a flower himself, cradling a small bud ever so gently in his large hand. “Funny, how the only thing with her touch was all that survived.”

He
had survived, and she wanted to say that. But instead, she let the sadness she felt for him swell inside her chest, adding it to her many complicating feelings. “And they’re all red,” she said. “Her favorite color.”

He looked at her as though she’d yanked him from a deep thought. “And yours?”

After a moment of speechlessness, she managed, “I…don’t really have one, I guess. I find it depends on the time in my life.”

“Lately?”

She looked above her. “Lately, green.”

He nodded in agreement, and his smile seemed involuntary as they left the roses. The pathway turned, rounding behind overgrown ferns, and her focus drifted again to his ink.

“Didn’t your mother teach you it was impolite to stare?”

Her eyes shot to his, and a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton. I don’t mean to, it’s just…there are too many details to pick up in one glance.” He appeared uncomfortable, and her heart sank. “The tattoo, I meant.”

He scratched his head, and she would have bet he was wishing for a shirt. “If you must know, it was a mistake. It has no significance, other than I saw the monster for the first time as a boy, and…I guess I couldn’t forget it. Just one of those things you do when you’re young and trying to live in the moment.”

The way he tried so hard to convince her was amusing. “Ah, one of those.”

“But I bet you don’t have any of those, do you?”

“I’ve made mistakes, Mr. Clayton. Many. Just not…in the form of ink.”

“Tell me one.”

She looked at him.

“I did tell you one of mine, after all.”

“Are we actually sharing juicy secrets here?”

He looked ahead, put in his place.

“Remember,” she went on. “It wasn’t me who was opposed to them.”

“Fine. Then tell me.”

She swallowed. “Tell you what?”

Stopping, they stood closely, her neck craned to him. “What it is you were running from when you came here.”

She looked down, scrunching her brow. “Mr. Clayton, I…can’t.”

“I thought you didn’t concern yourself with the judgment of others?”

It was clear he’d overheard her and Arne’s conversation on her porch the day she moved in, and the realization left her cheeks warm. “In others, I don’t.” She met his eyes. “In you…I do.”

He appeared lighter then, his shoulders low and brow relaxed. His mouth fell open ever so slightly as he stared into her eyes, and he even seemed to gravitate closer. And something new stirred between them. In the beginning, she’d felt heat by the
bucketfull
, heat of anger and frustration; but this was different. It was a fulfilling heat, one that began at her heart and eased in every direction. It was heavy and light at the same time, a magnetism that radiated from both their chests, desiring to join them.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Arne said from behind, making her inhale as though she’d been holding her breath. Perhaps she had been.

Henry lightly cleared his throat and took a step back. No longer in the trees, they were now in the lowering sunlight, only about twenty paces to the back door. The realization that she just now noticed this was staggering. And the reality that Henry could be such a distraction made her chest burn again, just from the thought of it. Arne handed her a full glass of iced tea, the rim topped with a lemon slice. He handed the other to Henry, as well as a shirt Henry didn’t put on.

Neither of them drank and Henry looked at the falling sun.

“So, Elizabeth, what do you think?” Arne asked with a smile of anticipation.

“The tea?”

He chuckled. “No, dear. The gardens.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes momentarily, attempting to align her thoughts. Trying not to dwell on how it felt to get lost in Henry’s eyes, in that heat. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

“I knew you would like it.”

Henry glanced at the sun again, fidgeting. “Arne, I hate to waste the tea you slaved over, but we really should get inside. It’s…getting late.”

“I should get going, too.” She handed her full glass to Arne. “I’m so sorry. Can we take a rain check on the tea?”

“Do you have another engagement, Elizabeth?”

“Don’t mind him,” Henry said.

“Yes, something like that,” she answered, anxious for the night. “Thank you for being kind enough to show me around, Mr. Clayton.”

He nodded and she turned away, storing his image in her mind. “The tools, Ms. Ashton,” he said. She turned back. “Take them.”

“No, you keep them.”

“You may need them again, given the condition of your home.”

“If I do, then…I’ll just have to come back for them, won’t I?”

He seemed to be taken by that same speechlessness again, and with his eyes locked on hers, he nodded. When she turned, walking the trail that would lead her from the gardens, she smiled to herself, especially when he said from behind, “Goodbye, Ms. Ashton.”

***

Henry slowed his pace out of his gate, his feet unhurried. He didn’t want to be too obvious, but at this point he was sure Elizabeth knew his intentions: that he planned his morning walks to coincide with hers. Perhaps he should back off, especially after the heat between them yesterday afternoon in his gardens. Things were getting too personal, his logic kept reminding him. In the back of his mind, he scolded himself for it, reminded himself that if he kept foolishly giving into his feelings, she would find out too much about him.

But the infatuation…it elated him above rational thoughts.

The morning air was dense with fog, the atmosphere gray and moist, and when Elizabeth appeared through it, at the end of her walkway, his heart jolted inside his chest. He still wasn’t used to the sensation, and it froze him in place. Her hair was up again, in a twist at the back of her neck, and she smiled. He returned it, unable to help himself. She was tired, he could see, but she appeared happy. Happier than he’d ever seen her, in fact. She glowed from the inside out, joy oozing from her eyes and exquisite smile. Could it be due to their late night again last night? Was it possible she received as much enjoyment out of their midnight walks as he did? She’d been waiting for him at her porch again when the sun had fallen and her smile had been just as exuberant then as it was now. He didn’t understand it.

“I’m beginning to think you’re waiting for me, Mr. Clayton.”

He cleared his throat, looking away from her eyes and back at the polished toes of his shoes as he began to walk again. She fell into step beside him.

“Oh, that’s right,” she added, “you don’t wait for anyone.”

He threw her a sidelong glance and her smile teased. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, your pipe…” he began. “How’s it holding up?”

“Unfortunately, it’s holding up great so far.”

“Unfortunately?”

“I can’t exactly ask for your tools again if everything is in top shape, can I?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes but the corner of her mouth teased a potential smile.

“I…see,” he said, and he heard the smile in his own voice. “Perhaps I undercharged you for the house if everything is in top shape.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s in your nature to overcharge.”

He studied her as they turned onto Clayton Road, his brow taut with challenge. “And what do you think you know of my nature?”

She looked down, adjusting her purse. “I know it’s not what you portray it to be.”

Huffing, he picked up his pace.

“The Life on Wheels Foundation…”

He paused, merely from the sickness in his stomach, and stared at her. She hesitated, fearful.

“Well, it
is
you, isn’t it—the one who founded it?”

A feverish heat beat at his skin. Suddenly, his collar was too tight and he loosened his tie. “How do you know about that?” His voice came out harsher than it should have.

“Mr. Clayton, please. Frankly, I’m surprised others don’t. I read that same article in the paper last week, the one you were reading so intently on the morning we met. The one about Shane O’Donnell and his afterschool program for wheelchair-bound teens, funded by him and an
unknown
source.”

“And just because I read intently means I’m the unknown source?” His hand found his hip, resting on the leather of his belt.

“I know who Shane is, Mr. Clayton,” she said with reverence.

Air: he couldn’t find it.

“The teens who died in the accident ten years ago, on Mt. Hood Highway? One of them survived…didn’t he?”

Henry exhaled through his nose and trudged forward. “I suggest you stop snooping—”

“I wasn’t snooping,” she said, trying to keep up. “Not into you anyway. I was curious about the accident. It didn’t take long before I found Shane’s name and the link to the Life on Wheels Foundation.”

He turned on her abruptly, lifting his hands. The exposure, and the way she was so close to the truth, made his skin crawl. “You caught me.”

“Mr. Clayton.” With another step toward him, she lowered his hands. Hers were warm and soft. Just like her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He didn’t breathe during the following short seconds. Not until she released his hands and the sudden emptiness reminded him not to be foolish. With a sigh, he looked to the asphalt.

“Why?” she asked. “Why get involved?”

He couldn’t tell her it was because of guilt. Just like he’d never been able to tell Shane what he was and how it was all because of him he would never walk again. “I…It was my responsibility, Ms. Ashton. It’s my town,
our
beast that did it.”

Instead of defending the monster like he expected, she said, “Did starting the foundation take away the guilt?”

He recoiled. “Nothing can.”

“Is that what you do in Portland? Are you…involved?”

With a wipe down his face, he looked to the side. She brimmed with questions, and it was clear to him now that the only way to move past them was to answer. So that’s what he would do. This morning, he would answer what questions he safely could, until she stopped asking all together. And from that point on, he would never give into his infatuation again. He had to distance himself. She seemed to pick up on everything, and again he reminded himself it was foolish to think he could go on at this rate without her finding out what he was. After this moment, she would be nothing more than a new resident of Hemlock Veils, and he would be the same Mr. Clayton he’d trained himself to be. Only this time, he would have emptiness and heartache go with it.

“I went to see him in the hospital a few weeks after it happened,” he finally explained. He released another breath, his body strangely relaxed at the secret’s revelation. He met her eyes and they invited him to elaborate. “I guess I went in there hoping I would know what to say, that I could apologize…on the town’s behalf. But when I saw him like that, all beat up, no words felt appropriate. So…I just sat beside him, for at least an hour, neither of us saying a word.

“But eventually he asked who I was and why I was wasting my time there. I…told him I was a friend, someone who wanted to help. And I don’t know how it happened, but we spent nearly every day for weeks that way. I started bringing him things, like the books and music we’d talked about. I helped him with physical therapy, spent most hours of the week with him, actually. But I never told him who I was.”

“Why not?”

“Ms. Ashton,” he sighed. “It’s…complicated.”

“Who you are, Mr. Clayton, or why you didn’t tell him?”

“Both,” he said abrasively, stepping closer. “I started the foundation a year after we met and kept everything on my end purely anonymous. But he knew anyway. It was just last week he told me, actually.”

“It upsets you, people knowing your secrets.”

“Not him. After ten years, he deserved to know. We are very close.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “As opposed to me, you mean, who’s been here ten days”

He didn’t answer, knowing he didn’t need to.

“So,” she said, “how do you have time for it, running a business and a foundation?”

“I resigned as CEO of my father’s company years ago. I still own shares in Admiralty Bay, and stay involved in business decisions, but most days Arne and I are with Shane and the kids.”

“In a suit, no less,” she teased, folding her arms.

He folded his, too. “If you must know, most days I change in the car on the way there. When I’m not driving, that is. Arne actually hates driving, after doing it so many years.”

With a laugh, she shook her head. She didn’t seem to believe it, and he couldn’t blame her. It seemed she was trying to picture it.

“Is that hard to believe?” he asked through the cover of his own amusement.

“Very. Whose idea was it?”

“For me to drive?”

She chuckled. “The foundation.”

“Both Shane’s and mine, I suppose. After he was released from the hospital, he wallowed for days. I took him to some different homeless shelters around the city, even a soup kitchen or two…Anyway, we were playing basketball one day—he was kicking my ass even in a chair—and he said he wanted to do this for other kids like him. So…we did.”