“I need to get some air,” he said to the living room at large. “Boys, do you want to go for a walk with me?”
“Jared and I want to stay with Grampa and play trucks,” Justin answered. “It’s nice and warm in here.”
Walter didn’t take his eyes from the TV screen.
Outside, Gabriel walked in no particular direction, the low gray clouds matching his mood. He soon found himself standing outside the boys’ school. Lights were on in one of the classrooms, and he could see Olivia Marshall gathering up her belongings. Why was she still at school well after dismissal on the afternoon before Thanksgiving? Didn’t she have a better place to be? In fact, why was she still in Hennings at all?
When he’d hung out with her as a kid that one summer, she’d seemed so adventurous. As if the town wasn’t big enough for her imagination. His friends had felt sorry for him, when they’d heard how he’d spent his vacation. With a girl. Two years younger than him, no less. He’d never admitted it, but it was one of the best summers he could remember. Olivia was smart as a whip. Fearless, too. He’d kind of expected the daring Olivia he knew then to grow up to be more than a demure hometown kindergarten teacher.
“Did you forget something?” Her grown-up voice at his side startled him. Not as much, however, as the very real, very close, very pretty woman’s face that replaced the freckle-nosed girl he recalled.
He looked at the school and saw her classroom was dark now. How long had he been standing here? “Actually, I was remembering something.”
“Good, I hope.”
He didn’t answer. The past didn’t matter. The present didn’t mean much to him, either. He was working on the future.
“Out for a walk?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you have cabin fever already. Winter hasn’t even begun.”
“Being closed inside against the cold is going to take some getting used to.”
“Well, when you’re outside, you’re going to have to remember to keep moving. Walk me home—I’m only a couple blocks out of your way.”
How could he say no? He fell into step beside her, the soles of his shoes making crunching noises on the frozen sidewalk. He found it hard not to glance at her. Not to notice that the tip of her nose was already turning red and that the wisps of condensation as she breathed made her lips look soft and muted, as if she were an actress in a film and the director had called for the gauze over the camera lens. As if the mood aimed for was romantic.
Get a grip, Gabriel, he told himself. You’ve been too long without.
“I only know New Orleans from books and travel shows,” she continued, her voice dreamy. “But with the warm climate and all the verandas and balconies and sidewalk cafés, I imagine the inside and the outside just melt one into each other.”
“They did. Before the storm. Now…there are pockets. But the ease is gone from the Big Easy.”
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“No.”
“Okay. Change of subject.” Was she always this amenable? This upbeat? Didn’t it exhaust her? “Are you bringing the boys to the Turkey Trot on Friday?”
“Turkey Trot?”
“It’s a 5K road race up Main Street to the park. Race is a bit of misnomer, although I think they still give out a prize for the first person to cross the finish line. The real fun comes with the informal parade that tags along after the racers. It’s kind of evolved over the years. People dress up. There’s a prize for best seasonal costume. Parents push strollers. Kids ride decorated bicycles. Carl Obermeyer always walks on stilts, and his wife juggles.”
Olivia picked up a stick and ran it, as a kid might do, along a wrought-iron fence that fronted a neatly kept yard. “One year,” she continued cheerily, “a group of men from the Shamrock Grill attempted a synchronized lawn-mower routine. Turkey Trot’s always a little nutty, but it’s a good way to meet your neighbors and walk off the previous day’s food. At the park, the outdoor skating rink officially opens. The whole thing’s a lot of fun. Your boys would love it.”
He stared at her. Slightly out of breath, she actually seemed as excited as a child at the prospect of this civic goofiness. “I don’t know.”
“Got better things to do?” There was mischief in her eyes. And a challenge.
“Hey, we just got into town yesterday. We’ve barely settled in.”
“And today here you are out and about, enjoying our frosty air.” She put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I can see you’re already looking for an excuse to get out of the house.”
She had him there.
“Do you want to talk?”
“What’s this we’re doing?”
“I mean, about your homecoming.”
“No.” With Lydia Marshall’s old home in sight, he picked up the pace.
“So what about the Turkey Trot?” Olivia asked. Gabriel remembered that as a girl she’d been tenacious.
“Five K, you say?” He tamped down his frustration. Aimed for a reasonable tone of voice. “The twins are little, and we don’t have a wagon or bikes.” He didn’t want to sound surly, given her enthusiasm for the event, but he didn’t feel ready to plunge into the fishbowl that was small-town life, either.
“I believe there’s still a Radio Flyer wagon in my garage,” she replied, as if she wasn’t in the least deterred by his excuse. “I’ll bring it with me the day after tomorrow, and you can pull the boys in it.”
He’d learned to mistrust seemingly generous offers. “Thanks, but—”
“It’s the same wagon we used when we tried for the speed record down Packard Hill.”
“Good God.” The memory jolted him. “I still have the scars on my knees and elbows.” He remembered how frightened he’d been, not because of his own injuries, but at the possibility that she’d be as badly hurt.
“Luckily, I don’t have any reminders of my concussion.”
“And you want me to put my boys in that demon wagon?”
“The parade route’s flat. I promise,” she said, her eyes sparkling, as if she knew he was running out of excuses. “And I’ll introduce the boys to any of their classmates we meet on the way. So Monday won’t seem like a sea of strange faces.” She smiled. A radiant smile. “In front of City Hall, Friday, at one?”
He didn’t know what persuaded him. That smile, or the persistent memory of her earlier fearlessness. Of her tenacity. Her aunt’s generosity. His lost innocence and childish optimism.
“Sure,” he said, before he could figure out what he actually might be getting himself into.
CHAPTER THREE
THE OLD RED RADIO FLYER at her side, Olivia stood in front of City Hall amid a crush of Turkey Trot racers performing their warm-up stretches, and neighbors jovially complaining to one another about how they’d overeaten the day before. She wondered if Gabriel would show. Had her excitement at seeing him again—especially later, alone—come across as unprofessional? Having had forty-eight hours to question her motives in asking him to join her, she almost hoped he’d decide against it. But then the twins would miss out, and she didn’t want that.
So what did she want? She’d been so unaccountably antsy the past few days that she’d be hard-pressed to give a reply.
“Olivia!” Lynn Waters, director of the community rec center, squeezed through the crowd, confidently wearing a