“We can talk at my house.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Snow swirled steadilyin the beam of the headlights, the kind that muffled the world, turning everything still and calm, like a perfect scene from a snow globe someone had just shaken. Lily had always enjoyed winter, especially in Northfield, where the town transformed into something straight out of a Charles Dickens novel.
Honestly, it was kind of magical. People came from all over to experience Christmastime in Northfield, and the town never disappointed. An army of volunteers decked every lamppost on Main Street with pine garlands and big red bows, stringing twinkle lights on everything that didn’t move. The shops went all in, hanging festive colored lights and menorahs in their windows. The annual Christmas tree lighting on the village green kicked off the season, and it was happening this week.
It was impossible to be tense around all that cheer.
And yet, the man next to her was just that. Rush had grown rigid and quiet the moment they turned off Main Street onto the long, winding road that ran alongside the Erie Canal. She glanced over at him. His shoulders were stiff, jaw tight,and—she noticed—his knuckles, still bruised and scabbed over, were wrapped so tightly around the wheel they were white.
The dark water of the canal was hidden beneath a fresh blanket of snow and ice.
For most people, the canal was a landmark of beauty that the town centered around. Serene and slow-moving, with a trail that drew joggers and bikers in warmer months. In winter, it turned magical. The water was drained just enough to freeze solid, and on the weekends, the banks came alive with skaters and sledders and vendors offering hot chocolate and steaming mugs of cider. Some of Lily’s happiest memories had been made there—wrapped in scarves and mittens, pink-nosed, laughing with her family and friends.
Even after the accident, Northfield had gathered there. A town full of aching hearts brought flowers and candles to honor Caroline Whitmore’s life.
She couldn’t see the memorial now in the dark, but she knew the spot by heart—the bend in the road where her car had veered off, now marked by a wrought iron bench bearing her name and a bed of seasonal flowers the family lovingly tended. Two of Lily’s aunts owned the florist shop in town, and she knew there was a standing order for a lavish bouquet every week.
She snuck a glance at the man beside her.
Rush stared straight ahead, his shoulders rigid, as they passed the memorial. Tension rolled off him in waves. The truck’s heater hummed steadily, and the radio played a faint, cheerful Christmas tune, at odds with the somber heaviness that had settled inside the cab.
Her memories of this stretch of road were laced with twinkle lights and the scent of cinnamon, while his were carved in loss. It made her heart ache, seeing the way he kept himself from looking across at the canal.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
Rush didn’t look at her. “Fine.”
The word sounded like it had been dragged out of him with barbed wire. The man who had stared her up and down with heavy-lidded eyes outside the pub was gone, but she didn’t push. Every line of his body readKeep out, and Lily got the message loud and clear.
After a while, he pulled onto a long country road not far from the Northfield town limits, and Lily’s breath caught, this time, thankfully, not from asthma.
“Thisis your house?” Lily leaned closer to the windshield.
She’d driven by the old white farmhouse a hundred times on her way in and out of Northfield, always wondering who was lucky enough to live there. It wasthehouse—her dream house. Big and charming, with a lovely wraparound porch and a big oak tree in the front yard just begging for a tire swing with a gaggle of kids taking turns on it. She freaking loved this house.
There were apple trees behind it, and a big frozen pond shimmered from the road. There wasn’t a more perfect home to raise a family. She’d daydreamed about it often: kids running barefoot through the grass in the summer, and at Christmastime, a cheerful glowing tree in the front window.
And a hunky husband who loved her beyond measure.
Tucker had never seen the appeal. “It’s not even in Northfield, babe,” he’d complained. “Why would you want to live in an old house when we could build new?”
She’d just tuned him out and pressed her face against the window as they drove by, busy imagining all her cute babies being raised in a house that held generations of stories.
When they pulled into his driveway, the headlights glanced across the driveway, shining for a moment on the white-and-blue For Sale sign in a planter, half buried by the snow.
A strange ache bloomed—fast and sharp. Silly, really. Itwasn’t her home, and it probably never would be, but it had looked like everything she wanted in tangible form.
“For another month,” Rush said flatly, cutting the engine and with it, her strange nostalgia.
She turned to him slowly. “You took the job in Boston, then?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t look at her. “Figured it was time to move on.”
She’d known he wasn’t planning on staying, so the sharp ache in her chest shouldn’t have been there. But seeing the sign, staked into the frozen planter, made it real in a way words hadn’t before.
“I wonder who’ll be lucky enough to end up here?” she wondered out loud.
