“Hello?” A female voice, thick and husky called out from the shadows at the back of the room.
He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the overly bright windows. As his gaze adjusted to the light, he realized a woman was walking toward him. Tall, stacked, brunette.
Bianca.
But when she stepped into the first spot of sunlight, his heart sank. It wasn’t his wife. Of course it wasn’t.
From the shirt, he could tell it was a staff person. She smiled at him. “You’re the only person who showed up for the craft session. Sorry, I was just in the back getting organized for the next one. Dreamcatchers—hopefully they’re more popular than bracelets.”
He gave her a tight smile. “Hopefully.”
“Come in, sit down. I’m Rachel.” She waved her hand, and a diamond glinted on her left hand. “Is this your first craft session? Do you know the drill?”
“First time, yep.”
“Okay, well I’m here to help.”
He almost begged off, but she was already setting out trays. So he followed her to a table and sat across from her. Up close, she didn’t bear much of a resemblance to Bia after all. A similar tone of voice, similar height, and they both had dark hair.
He gave his head a shake and focused on the task at hand.
At first the work was clumsy. His fingers felt too big to string the circular device, and the delicate embroidery thread kept getting tangled. But once he got the hang of it, with Rachel’s guidance, he finished a bracelet.
“Not bad,” she said, looking at his handiwork from across the table.
But not great. The start of it was looser than the end, where his pulls on the thread had gotten tighter. “Can I make another?”
“Of course. The same colors?”
He looked at the bracelet in his hand. He’d picked it because they were Bianca’s favorite colors. Blue, purple, emerald green. Then he looked at the other trays. A pale periwinkle blue caught his eye. The other colors were yellow and orange. Summery and sweet, like Grace. “I’ll make that one next.”
“Lovely.” She handed it over. “Do you remember how to start?”
“I think so.”
She watched him carefully until he was under way. This one was smoother than the first, consistent from start to finish. He liked it a lot. When he finished, he looked at the clock. There was just enough time. “I want to fix the first one to look like this one,” he said. “Can you help me?”
“Of course.” Rachel came around to his side of the table and helped him unweave the first bracelet and get it re-loomed. “There you go.”
“It’s almost time for me to get my hiking lunch,” he said. “Can I come back and finish this later?”
“You can take it with you, if you’d like. Bring the loom back any time this week.”
He gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
After carefully folding up his project and putting it in his pocket, he went through the main lodge, grabbed his food order, and then headed back to the cabin to get changed for an afternoon on the trails.
But as he stepped onto the porch, Grace’s door swung open.
They stopped at the same time.
It felt awkward for reasons he couldn’t really put his finger on. “Hey.”
She smiled politely. “Hello.”
“Did you find Heather?”
“Yep.”
