His sweater and golf pants lay crumpled against the far wall, like he’d flung them.
What on earth?
Her heart kicking a fast tattoo in her chest, thudding a sick rhythm beneath her jaw, she spun and hurried to the kitchen. Empty, dishes in the drainer, exactly how they’d left it that morning. At the back door, she peered down to the vacant dock.
Oh, she didn’t like this, the comforting quiet of the cabin transformed into something brooding and strange, making her think of Mrs. Lenora’s house in the days after Will had died. That house was never quiet, and silence had hung in the shadowed rooms.
“You’re just being fanciful, Holly Noelle,” she whispered, eyeing Ralph as he nosed along the fence. “Everything is fine.”
She touched her phone through the denim of her back pocket. No point in texting Tick, although they’d swapped short messages off and on all day like always.
Colt hadn’t replied to a single text, but with his phone lying on the bed, that made sense now.
Golf had not gone well, obviously, but Tick wouldn’t tell her anything if she called him.
With a happy yip, Ralph raced to the shed in the far corner of the yard, the small cedar building Colt had constructed first and used to store his tools while he worked on the cabin. Relief trickled through her, leaving her next exhale shaky, so she felt silly for overreacting. He had to be in the shed, and his being a little messy didn’t mean anything was horribly wrong.
If she told herself that often enough, maybe she’d believe it.
She let herself outside, and Ralph bolted across the grass and up the steps. She bent to love on him a moment, ruffling his fur, then straightened, set her shoulders, and set off for the shed.
Fear knotted her stomach, and she rubbed circles over her abdomen, trying to will the sensation away.
The cedar door, crafted from planks taken from a tree that had fallen during a storm at D and Sue’s, stood ajar. The river rock around the door shifted, crunching a little under her light steps. A long scratching sound itched over her senses. She pulled the door open, one hinge creaking.
Bent over a worktable in the middle of the room, Colt didn’t look up. He marked off a square line on a short cedar plank, tossed it aside and picked up another to repeat the mark. “Said I didn’t want to talk about it, Wally.”
With heady relief holding her throat hostage, Holly brushed her bangs away from her eyes. Clad in athletic shorts and a t-shirt, calf muscles flexing above his running shoes, he was filthy, sawdust clinging to dried sweat on his skin.
She took a step forward, gaze darting about the room she’d never set foot in. A frown pulled her brows together. What in the world? She ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip and fixed her gaze on his profile. “I’m not Wally.”
His shoulders jerked, once, like he’d been shot, but he didn’t lift his head, didn’t pause in the rhythm of marking cuts. “Hey.”
“What aren’t you talking about?” She took another step inside, eying the array of projects, finished and half-finished – a small box, a gleaming cake stand, a charcuterie board with a river of blue running through it – all lovingly and carefully crafted from cedar.
Something about the box rang familiar.
Frowning, she paused next to the table along the wall and ran a finger over the board and its stunning flow of blue. “How long have you been doing this?”
Another board hit the small stack. “Does it matter?”
The hint of attitude in the words hit hard, and she narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. Did he seriously think that would fly?
A bowl – had he carved that? – held tiny drawer knobs, each one the same and yet slightly different than the others. She sifted her fingers through them. She’d seen these before, hadn’t she? Rolling one between her fingers, she sought the source of the familiarity.
Grandma’s memory chest.
Lifting a small knob to study the woodwork — had he carved these by hand? — she shot a glance at the stern lines of his face. “You made Gran’s chest with all the little drawers.”
“I did.” He scratched off another line, carpenter’s pencil clenched in his hand.
Now she understood why the chest looked like Chuck’s work, but not. His pieces held notes of joy, while Grandma’s chest whispered with a melancholy voice, like someone who knew what it was to be sad and isolated.
Lonely.
“Seriously, Colton.” She trailed a fingertip around the edge of the gorgeous stand. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Well . . .” He reached for another board and lined up his square. “I took woodshop freshman year.”
