I balked. “Don’t tell Grace, but her nephew is kind of a busybody,” I said.
Davis smirked. “Touché.” He stood and carried his cup to the sink. “I need to meet Clayton for dinner. Do you want me to show you how to build a fire before I leave?”
The urge to kick him out warred with my need for heat, so I nodded.
Chapter Eleven
We moved into the sitting room, and Davis walked me through the process of using the old fireplace. I split my attention between listening to his instructions and thinking about ways to get him to stay a little longer.
“Have you lived in Amherst all your life?” I asked, taking a seat on the couch.
He turned when he had the fire going strong. “I lived right here, actually, for my first ten years.”
“Herehere?” I asked. “You mean in this house?”
He nodded. “With my parents.” His tone and expression softened slightly. “Dad never liked it here, but Mom insisted. She loved this place and ran the bookstore with Grace.”
“Grace is her sister?”
“Yeah. Older by eleven years. Dad moved us into one of the more sought-after communities on the edge of town as soon as he could. He’s still there. Technically,” Davis corrected. “Though it’s probably more accurate to say he lives at the office.”
I put that detail, and the way his voice hardened when he said it, into a little mental box to look at later.
“Did you like the new place?” I asked.
“It’s okay.”
The idea of Davis as a kid was intriguing, and questions piled on my tongue at the thought. What had his life been like before? Beforehe’d become an architect, landlord, and object of my unfortunate fascination.
“There’s a pool,” he said. “I thought that was nice.”
I smiled. “I’ve never lived anywhere with a pool. How’d your dad talk your mom into leaving this place?” Was that when they turned the manor into a rental property?
“She died.” Davis folded his hands and averted his eyes for a long beat. “Ovarian cancer,” he said, answering the question I’d yet to formulate. “She caught it early, but the disease was aggressive. She tried everything to defy her odds, and it was a long, exhausting fight to the very bitter end. Which was barely more than a year from diagnosis to loss.”
Tears gathered in my eyes as memories of my mother’s fight with cancer flooded through me. I’d been the same age as Davis when we’d gotten the news. Knowing his mom had lost her battle a year later, when my mom was in remission, crushed my chest like an empty soda can. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine. The vulnerability I saw there gutted me, and I fought the urge to cover his hands with mine.
“What was her name?”
“Iris.” His cheeks darkened and his voice deepened when he spoke her name.
I nodded, understanding some of the pain there. “My mom had breast cancer when I was ten.” I coughed lightly to clear the lump in my throat. “She recovered.”
He looked briefly away. “Good. It’s nice to be reminded cancer doesn’t always win. I hope to see a day when it loses far more often.”
In that instant, I felt both connected to and a million miles away from the hurting man before me. Because we’d both suffered too much, too young. But my mom had lived.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked, hoping he’d at least had someone to help carry his grief. No one could understand the loss of a parent like a sibling.
Emily had written a number of poems about death. I’d skipped over them when I was a kid, then grew obsessed with them as a young adult. These days, the topic of death was something too sad for me to enjoy. Nonetheless, her words seemed especially poignant as I sat with Davis. She believed that those we love never truly die. They live on in us and in our hearts. In that way, our love gave them immortality.
I was sure his love kept Iris alive.
He shook his head. “None. You have a sister?”
I smiled through the pain clenching my heart. “Annie. She’s seven years younger.”
