Trespass (19 page)

Sarah laughed. “Are you kidding? I don’t think you’re dull. Heck, you’re the most exotic guy I’ve ever been with, or whatever we were. Plus the deadbeats lose their appeal when you start sneaking up on thirty. And now, with my life all crumbled down around me, I could use all the stability I can get. So no, not dull. Quite a refreshing change of pace, in fact.”

“I’ll take it.”

“What should…what do you want to do with it? The dress? If you keep it you should really get a garment bag for it.”

“I think maybe I’ll give that to Caroline as well. Beth’s sister. Is that weird, a husband giving back his wife’s dress?”

Sarah shrugged. “I have no idea what the etiquette is. But if she made it, I think that’s okay. I mean, she’d understand if it was hard for you to hang on to it, right?”

It was Russ’s turn to shrug.

“Ask her.”

He nodded.

“Anyhow, I’ll just leave it here for now.” She slid it gently to the rear of the closet, exchanging an odd look with Russ before he turned back to his own thoughts and projects.

Sarah glanced at the shiny satin every few moments as she finished sorting the clothes, thinking it looked a hell of a lot like a ghost, hanging there. After she cinched the third and final trash bag she pulled it from rack and walked to the other side of the room, hooking the hanger onto a nail that held a wall calendar, trapped on July from seven years earlier.

Russ looked up from his toolbox, staring at the dress, then her face.

“It felt wrong, leaving it in there by itself,” Sarah said, fluffing out the skirt.

He smiled tightly.

“If you’re going to give it back, you should let it enjoy a few more days or weeks of the limelight first.”

Russ pursed his lips, expression going cold.

Sarah felt her own mood plummet. She thought the gesture had been a kind one, an open show of deference.

With quick, controlled movements, Russ quietly put his tools away and left the room.

“Russ?”

No reply.

She followed him into the den. “Russ?”

He’d braced his hands on the arm of the loveseat and was leaning over, head hung.

“Are you okay? I didn’t—”

“Don’t, please.” He stood up straight and rubbed his face. “Jesus.”

“I don’t understand what I did.”

He turned to look at her. “You changed, okay?”

Her heart sank. “Of course I did. I was lying before, about who I really am.” Clearly he didn’t like who she actually was.

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, looking every one of his thirty-six years and then some. He swallowed and looked up at her.

“What?”

“When you first showed up,” he began, then trailed off. “Hell, I don’t even know how to explain it.”

“Well try, please.”

“It was like… For the first time in forever, a woman waltzed into my life. An eligible woman, who seemed to want me as much as I wanted her. It made me feel like a man again—a whole one. Not a widower to handle like he’s still mourning, or a warden, or someone wronged who had to be apologized to, over and over again. Those first couple days you looked at me in this way no one’s done in years.”

“Like someone who didn’t already know you.”

He nodded, breaking their eye contact.

Sarah swallowed. “I know how that feels.” She listened to Russ’s deep inhalations and gathered her thoughts. “You’re the first person I’ve met in ages who didn’t know me as my mother’s daughter, or my exes’ ex, or as a nameless female body behind a bar.” She stared at his socks for a moment then met his gaze. “My history sucks, Russ. I was a decent kid, really, but when your mom was into the bad stuff mine was, it’s like everyone’s just waiting for you to turn rotten too, even yourself. You’re the first person I’ve gotten to know in ages who didn’t see me as a screw-up in school or the daughter of an addict. Then I wrecked that…and now you’ve offered it to me again. I’ve never had a clean start like that. I used to fantasize that my dad would turn up and move me away to another city, where I could reinvent myself as whatever I wanted. Being here was like a little taste of that. And if I could, I would have changed my name to Nicole in a heartbeat if it meant I could start over and be with somebody as nice as you.”

Russ made a noise, a laugh with no joy filling it. He stepped to the front of the loveseat and sank into the worn cushions. For nearly a full minute he didn’t speak, then he finally looked up. “I’m not as nice as you think I am.”

“You are.” She slid a chair over from the table to sit a few feet from him.

“I wasn’t, just now. You’re helping me out and I just snapped at you for no good reason.”

She shrugged.

Russ stared down at his hands clasped between his knees. Sarah realized for the first time he didn’t wear his wedding ring anymore. Had she noticed it that first morning, she’d have guessed it was because the memory pained him too much. Now she knew better. He didn’t wear it because he was done being a formerly married man and saw himself as what he was—single. Widower and drug addict’s daughter, they’d both been saddled with pitiable labels through no fault of their own. He got handled with undue care, her with suspicion.

“I don’t see you that way,” she said quietly. “I promise.”

Russ kept his eyes on his hands.

“I hate feeling like I’m being looked at and put into some category. I don’t look at you that way either. I just see you. And all this.” She waved her hand around to indicate his home, this little parcel of endangered America.

Russ smiled. “Hope you don’t mean the interior decorating.”

Her heart melted, body relaxing. “I know you’re secretly stuck in the forties with your cowboy record collection, not the seventies with your orange and avocado decor.”

“Good. Anyhow…sorry about before. I know I asked you to stop apologizing for everything. Maybe I should make a decision to stop looking for invisible messages in how you treat me.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

They stood, and for the second time that day, they shook hands.

“I better tend to the horses,” Russ said, looking out the back window. “If you feel like it, the crib comes apart with an Allen wrench. Should be one that fits in my toolbox.”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh and I got a call from a friend about the party tomorrow. If you still feel like going, I figure we should head out around six thirty. We can eat there.”

“I’m sure I’ll want to go.”

He offered a smile, tired but warm. “I look forward to it. We’ll have to think up a good story on the drive into town.”

“Mail-order bride?”

Russ laughed. “Better get to work on your Russian accent, Natasha.”

“Will do.”

“That is, if the sheriff’s deputy hadn’t already met you when we were parked at the station the other day. He’ll be there, I’m sure.”

“Foiled again.”

She watched him shrug on his coat by the back door and exit with a wave. She didn’t have the faintest idea what he was to her anymore—host under duress, ruined lover, friend of a decidedly Stockholm variety. She didn’t really care. Russ had decided to take her at her word after she’d done nothing to deserve his trust, offering her a kind facsimile of the blank slate she’d been craving her entire life.

Beyond the window and the yard, he led Mitch out into the pen, dogs at his heels. Some handsome stranger. Some broken kind of perfect.

Chapter Eleven

When Russ got home the next day from his morning appointments, he felt calm. For the first time since the betrayal, he harbored no fear as he turned into his driveway, and entertained no worries that Sarah could have disappeared in his absence. They’d reached something not unlike a truce, but not exactly identical to one. An understanding, or the mutual desire to understand one another.

He left his keys in the ignition and slammed the door. Buoyed at the thought of there being someone inside to greet him as he entered, he gave the dogs a good tussle then jogged up the steps with a new energy. But instead of Sarah’s voice or smile, his entrance was met by a strange chugging sound, familiar but long forgotten. As he set his case by the door, he placed the noise—the sewing machine. He walked to the door of the back room, as filled now with sunshine as it had been filled with the gristle of tough memories yesterday. Sarah was seated at Beth’s old Singer, the needle gobbling blue fabric from under her fingers. Russ knocked on the threshold.

She glanced up, surprised. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. Guess that old thing still works.”

She nodded and adjusted the needle. “You said the fabric was okay to donate, so I hope it’s okay that I used it.”

“Absolutely. What are you up to?”

“I’ll show you.” She stood, curling her finger as she passed by to lure him back into the den. She walked to the couch then gestured like a spokesmodel at the picture window, one of Russ’s faded, orange drapes replaced with a length of blue.

He nodded his approval. “Very nice. But it’ll make the rest of the decor look that much worse.”

“It’s a start.” She ran her hand over the fabric, fussing with the way it fell. “If I end up staying all winter and I manage to fix up one or two things a week, you’ll have a new home by spring.”

“Well, I’m very impressed.” He joined her in admiring her handiwork, and considered the fabric. Beth had picked that out, intending it for someone’s Christmas quilt, maybe. She was gone but here was a little taste of her, decorating the room. Russ liked that. It felt exactly how he wanted his memories of his wife to—not hidden away, but not locked in a time capsule, either. Modified and included, enriching this home instead of haunting it. His body warmed from the floor up and a smile overtook his face. Then an idea struck. Inspiration.

“You eat lunch already?”

She nodded.

“Good. Get your shoes on.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

“On a road trip.”

Sarah studied Russ’s face as he turned them onto the road. He’d refused to tell her where they were going, but she didn’t mind. There was something playful about him just now, a boy with a secret. She relaxed back into the passenger seat and let him transport her.

Friends. They were friends again. The previous evening had been ample proof. After their talk, Russ had shed an invisible weight. She’d finished in the back room, and they’d cooked dinner and worked on the puzzle for a couple of lazy hours, listening to his old records. He’d told her some of his great-grandfather’s war stories, a taste of his family’s modest yet rich history. The way he’d perked up while sharing those details had taken the edge off her guilt for having attempted to steal a piece of said history. The only part of the evening that saddened her was the lack of sexual tension. She still felt that gnawing attraction, but last night Russ had seemed free of it. Now, too. She stole at a look at his eyes, those pale greenish irises lit up even as he squinted against the sun.

When he turned them onto a new route and the sign for a highway announced they were heading toward Billings, Sarah caught on.

“You’re taking me shopping.”

Russ merely smiled.

“Wow. Thank you. A lot.”

“We’ll be a little late for the party, but that’s fashionable, right?”

She nodded. “I um… I’ll have to borrow money from you.”

“I owe you for all the work you did on that room yesterday. I’ll pay you off in sneakers and some new clothes.”

Sarah remembered a favorite movie from her teenage years—
Pretty Woman.
It sort of rang true. She was pretty down-and-out, though she was no prostitute. And Russ was no millionaire. But Sarah would happily take the mall and a party at a bar in place of Rodeo Drive and a fancy business dinner. She rolled with the comparison and let herself feel treated, not indebted. Who knew—maybe he’d overlook her circumstances and fall madly in love with her.

It was a long drive, nearly two hours. After miles of nondescript farmland, they reached the city limits and Russ asked, “What sort of stores do you need to go to?”

“Well, I guess a shoe store, for the sneakers. For clothes…anywhere, really. I’m not feeling very fussy.”

Russ cruised along a main drag punctuated by a few big box stores.

“Oh, there. That’s perfect.” Sarah pointed to a discount designer shoe warehouse, and Russ turned them into the gigantic parking lot.

A thrill ran through her like electricity. Sarah wasn’t a shopaholic, but this seemed so wondrous after nearly a month on the run. As the doors slid open to welcome them, she felt miraculously normal. Just any other woman, on the hunt for a perfect pair of sneakers.

Beside her, Russ made a
hmmm
noise.

“Yeah?”

His gaze jumped around the store. “This could take a while, right?”

“I’ll try to be quick.”

“No, don’t be. Is it okay if I head to hardware store while you shop? I could meet you back here in a half hour.”

The thought of Russ leaving her triggered a fearful pang, but she shrugged it off. “Yeah, perfect.”

“Great. Much as I love shoes…” Again, his eyes took in the endless aisles, probably as dull to him as the hardware store would be to her.

She waved toward the exit. “Away with you.”

“Listen… Find some running shoes, but look for some boots too. For when it gets nasty out. And something for tonight, for the party.”

She bit her lip. “That sounds like too much.”

Russ shrugged, downplaying his generosity. “If you stay all winter you’ll have plenty of time to pay me back.”

She nodded, thinking it over. “Okay. Thanks.”

“See you in thirty minutes.”

“Bye.” She watched until he disappeared into the sunshine then turned her attention to the orgy of choice. She tackled the sneaker issue first, finding a quality pair that suited her arches and her aesthetics. Boots were tough. The current, sexy knee-high styles tried to seduce her, but Sarah selected a practical waterproof pair. She wondered what Russ had in mind when he’d told her look for shoes for the party. Surely not heels. She wandered up and down the dress-shoe aisles, feeling high from all the colors and materials—a magazine spread come to life here before her. How had she ever treated shoe shopping as something to do to blow time before? Now it felt like a luxury, a trip to an amusement park. She savored every moment, drinking in the patterns and textures and the smell of new leather and rubber.