Crystal frowned. “I thought that the men who married fast like that were the ones who’d had good marriages, so they weren’t afraid to jump back in.”
“If that’s true,” Talia said, leaping ahead, “then the opposite could explain why Erik hasn’t remarried. I’ve never heard what happened with him and...what was her name?”
“Shauna,” the other two women simultaneously supplied.
“Right. She wasn’t from here,” she explained to Rory. “They met one summer and she moved here after they married, but they left for Seattle after a year or so. My point, though,” she claimed, getting to it, “is that maybe his experience has put him off women.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s off women,” Rory admitted. “We’ve had a couple of meetings where he had to leave because he had a date.”
Talia shrugged. “Well, there goes that theory.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not gun-shy,” Crystal supplied supportively.
“True. But Rory’s not looking right now,” Edie reminded them. “Anyway, I was just thinking it would be nice if Erik would come back. I can’t imagine that he ever would,” she insisted, certainty in her conclusion. “Not with his business so well established over in Seattle. But he still seems to fit in so perfectly here.”
The woman who’d brought up the subject of her potential availability had just as abruptly concluded it. Relieved to have escaped matchmaking efforts, for a while at least, and not sure how she felt having reminded herself of her mentor’s social life, Rory found herself silently agreeing with her well-intentioned neighbor.
Erik did seem to fit in. But then, he’d been raised there. Without letting herself wonder why, she’d also wondered if there was ever anything about this place that he missed. Or if his emotional barriers kept him from even noticing.
It hadn’t sounded to Rory as if the women knew the other, more personal reasons why he wouldn’t be coming back. The dreams he’d buried there. Still, Edie was right. Everything Erik cared about was in Seattle.
And everything she now cared about was here, she thought, and went back to looking a little concerned about him again.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“Because we were almost finished.”
“You were out there another two hours, Erik.”
“That’s close enough to almost. I’ll be fine after a hot shower. How did it go with the neighbors?”
The man was hopeless.
“It was nice.” You escaped the part where Edie wanted to make us a couple, she thought, but other than that... “Crystal is going to bring me samples of her candles to see if I’d be interested in selling them. And Talia’s twins go to the school I enrolled Tyler in. We’re going to carpool.”
She frowned at the way he cupped his neck as he sat down at the island. He’d said he’d be fine, though. The man had a scar as wide as Tyler’s tired smile on the inside of his forearm. It was visible now where he’d pushed up his sleeves. He knew how much discomfort he could handle.
“What are you grinning about, bud?” he asked, tired but smiling himself.
Tyler took a deep breath, gave a decisive nod. “This was the best day ever.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” Forearms resting on either side of his heaped and steaming bowl of stew, he looked over at the little guy who’d mimicked his position. “What made it so good?”
Tyler looked over his shoulder at the white lights softly illuminating the room behind them. The fire in the stone fireplace crackled and glowed.
“My tree. And the ice on everything. And my new friends.” He wrinkled his little brow, thinking. “And Mom, ’cause I got cocoa two times. And you.”
“Me?” Erik exhaled a little laugh. “What did I do?”
“Well,” he began, pondering. “You fixed things. And you made Mom laugh.”
Erik’s glance cut to where she sat at the end of the island, back to the child between them. “I did?”
“Uh-huh,” Tyler insisted, his nod vigorous. “When you dropped your coat on her.”
Though Erik looked a little puzzled, Rory knew exactly what Tyler was talking about. The two of them had just gathered boughs for the wreath. She’d been sorting them on the porch, her head bent over their project, when Erik had walked up behind her and asked if she’d take his jacket. With her back to him and him in work mode, she’d no sooner said she’d be glad to when he’d unceremoniously dropped it over her head.
He’d meant it to land on her shoulders. But she’d looked up just then. Heavy and huge on her, she’d practically disappeared under the soft black leather.
She’d already been smiling at what he’d done and gone still at the unexpectedness of it when he’d lifted the back of the collar and peeked around at her.
“You okay in there?” he’d asked, and the smile in his eyes had turned her smile into something that had sounded very much like a giggle.
She hadn’t giggled since she was sixteen.
Erik apparently remembered now, too.
Looking over at Tyler, he gave his little buddy a knowing nod. He remembered the bright sound of that laugh, of hearing a hint of lightness in it he suspected she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“She needs to do that more often,” he decided, and after arching his eyebrow at her, suggested Tyler finish his stew before he went after it himself.
Rory glanced away, stabbed a piece of carrot. She wished he wouldn’t do that—arch his eyebrow at her that way. Something about the expression seemed teasing, playful and challenging all at once. Except for the challenging part, it also tended to disarm her and she’d been having a hard enough time remembering why she needed to keep her emotional guard in place with him pretty much since he’d strong-armed her into trying Ed’s saw. Or maybe the problem had started last night, when she’d unloaded on him. Again. Or yesterday, when he’d sided with Tyler about the size of the tree.
There were reasons. Compelling ones, she was sure. She just couldn’t remember them as she gave him her most charming smile and told him there was more stew if he wanted it.
He had seconds, told her it was great, then finished the bit in the pot before she carried his and Tyler’s bowls to the sink.
“What Tyler said about it being a good day,” he murmured, handing her his milk glass when she came back for it. “It was.” He kept his focus on the glass and her hand, his tone thoughtful, as if he was a little surprised by that perception. Or perhaps by the admission.
“Now,” he continued, moving past whatever had prompted it, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to get that shower. You wouldn’t have a spare razor, would you?”
She told him she did. A small package of them was in the drawer below where she’d left the toothbrush on the counter for him last night. She didn’t bother telling him they were hot pink.
It did Rory’s heart good to know her little boy had had such a good time that day. It did something less definable to it to know Erik had somehow appreciated it, too. Something that fed an unfamiliar bubble of hope that common sense told her was best to ignore. But with Tyler pretty much worn out and in need of a bath, she gave it no further thought. By the time she’d helped him with his bath and his prayers, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.
Erik seemed to have had the same problem. When she finally came back down the dimly