Always on My Mind (25 page)

The door jangled, and his gaze flitted over to catch the customer, his stupid heart leaping as Raina came in, hands in her
pockets, wearing her cute pink hat over her long dark hair. She looked up and, for a second, met his gaze.

And if it were possible, went just a little more pale.

Huh?

He frowned at her, not sure why seeing him should elicit that response.

Then she nodded at him, dismissive, before getting in line.

The gesture lit him up. That and his too-early morning and the fact that last time they’d talked, he actually
 
—foolishly
 
—thought they were friends. And worse was the realization that she’d so easily forgotten him, moving on with Monte . . .

Monte. In a flash, he saw her expression as she got out of the car that Saturday night. If he didn’t know better, he’d call her afraid.

He moved over to her, standing next to her in line. “Are you okay?”

She glanced at him, frowning, then stared ahead. “What are you talking about?”

And that stirred him even more. Because he saw her swallow as if nervous. “You’re not allowed to talk to me, are you? That’s why you didn’t call.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. I’ve been busy, is all.”

But he wasn’t quite buying it, especially not after seeing the tightening of her jaw.

“It’s Monte. He told you not to call me.” He lowered his voice. “Is he
threatening
you?”

Raina jerked to look at him, her mouth in a perfect, tight knot. “Leave me alone, Casper.” But the way she peered past him toward the dining room as if checking for prying eyes made him hold his ground.

“Raina, you don’t have to be with him
 
—”

“You know, I don’t think I’m hungry.” She turned and headed toward the door.

Shoot, but something about this woman just made him . . . well, care. Because he’d seen Raina with fire and passion and courage and somehow she’d vanished almost before his eyes.

“Raina. Stop.” He had her by the arm and turned her. They stood on the sidewalk, the mist twining around them. She glanced at his hand on her arm and he let go.

She kept moving down the street.

“Raina, come on.” He scrambled after her, hating the way his pride lay in pieces on the street. “What happened? I thought you were going to call
 
—you said we’d go to Aggie’s
 
—”

“What is your problem, Casper? So I didn’t call. Get over it.”

Ouch. He recoiled, stung, but rebounded fast. “I thought we were better friends than that.”

She stopped, her eyes hard, bright. “We’re not. We’re
nothing
.”

He didn’t mean to flinch.

Then
 
—and this was even more painful
 
—she softened her tone as if regretting her words. “Besides, Aggie’s place is snowed in. I can’t get there.” She’d shoved her hands into her pockets and now continued quick-walking away.

And he was just curious enough to start after her. “Done. It just so happens I drove the resort truck into work today, and it still has the plow on it
 
—”

“No.” She stopped, her voice shaky. And her eyes
 
—yeah, he’d called it right. Fear. Or something like it, rooted deep inside. “Listen, I should have never gone to Naniboujou with you. I shouldn’t have said there is nothing between us.
Of course
there will always be something between us. But that’s the problem. How am I
supposed to move on? We need to let our friendship go and try to forget.”

He stood there, struck, but he refused to let her words find a soft place. “No, I won’t let it go. We
are
friends, Raina. Maybe you don’t want to search for Aggie’s story anymore, and if that’s the case, yeah, I’ll walk away. But if this is because of what I saw the other day
 
—Monte standing at the door like he owns you
 
—”

“He doesn’t own me.” She gave him a terrible, dark look. “But we are dating, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

He understood that
 
—or should. Maybe he had let Monte’s behavior stir his jealousy. Because, yeah, with her words, he could nearly taste it, the acrid poison of envy lining his throat.

He refused to be that guy.

“Okay, fine. You’re right. I don’t want to come between you and Monte.” A lie, but what choice did he have?

Casper shoved his hands into his pockets, hunkering against the cold. “I just thought you’d be interested to know that I figured out how Thor and Aggie met. He was a delivery boy for the trading post, back when it was owned by the Zimmermans.”

She seemed to relax, glancing past him, then nodding. “I read it in Aggie’s journal. They met that summer.”

“Do you think she ran away with him?”

“I don’t know but
 
—”

He lowered his voice. “I understand that you’re dating Monte. And if you’re happy, then that’s great.”

See, he could say that in one even flow without a hint of rancor. “But . . . if you’re still serious about hunting up old pictures of Aggie, I’d be happy to plow so you can get in there.”

Her gaze softened, and she seemed to be considering his words.

“What if Aggie is the heiress of those missing US Steel bonds,
Raina? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we found her living an ordinary life in the woods?”

“Aggie wasn’t exactly ordinary. She ran one of the first women’s shelters. And did you know that her funeral was the largest attended in Deep Haven history?”

He listened as she told him about her conversation with Gust.

And watched as the tight knot of panic inside her seemed to loosen.

In fact, for a moment, she seemed to glow.

“Raina,” he said, “I get off work in a couple hours. Let me pick you up and take you to Aggie’s. We can look for clues to what happened between Duncan and Thor. Maybe find some hint about the bonds.”

The shadow reappeared across her face.

No, Casper didn’t hate people. He hated Monte Riggs.

He shook the thought away. Especially when she nodded. “I’ll walk over to the Wild Harbor.”

“I’ll be the one breaking up a fight over mukluks.”

A smile edged her face, and he let it sink in, feasted on it the rest of the afternoon.

Raina arrived just as he started to wonder if he should drive over, track her down. She climbed into the cab. “I stopped at home to pick up Aggie’s diary.”

She read him passages about Aggie meeting Thor, ending with an entry about Aggie fearing that Duncan would return. She closed the book. Stared out the window at the fog over the lake.

“What?”

“I don’t know
 
—it’s what she said at the end. I know she loves Duncan, but when she talks about Thor, it’s like she’s alive.”

“Duncan doesn’t truly love her,” Casper said, trying to keep his
thoughts from veering too close to the present. Really, it wasn’t his business. “He’s not a good guy.”

“But maybe he’s good enough. He can give her a home and a life. Safety.”

“Maybe that’s not what she truly wants.”

She looked at him, frowned. “Of course it is.”

He pulled into the driveway, lowered the plow. “It’s a bit icy out, so hang on. It could get bumpy.”

He drove slowly, pushing curls of snow onto the side of the road, through the jagged, icy trees that scraped his windshield. He finally parked in front of the house.

Raina made to get out, but he stopped her. “Let me shovel a path to the door.” He got out, grabbed his shovel, glad he’d stored a pair of Sorels in the car, and cleared a path to the stairs.

Then he turned off the truck and helped her out.

“Such a gentleman,” she teased, and the sudden change in her demeanor could knock him over.

He followed her up the path and into the house. A chill hung in the air as he closed the door behind him.

“It’s been unoccupied since Aggie went into the nursing home over a decade ago, and since then, it was only used as a summer vacation home for the family,” Raina explained. “I don’t think anyone really did any packing up. Her granddaughter finally hired Monte to clear it out and put the estate up for sale.”

She moved from the foyer into a large living room. “I’ve already been through all the drawers in the built-ins and packaged the pictures and books.” She gestured to the empty shelves. “And I worked my way through the upstairs, with the exception of Aggie’s closet. I found a bunch of vintage clothing and a number of boxes on a shelf. Maybe they have some old pictures.”

She led the way upstairs, leaving him to marvel at the oak detailing of the banister, the molding, his inner carpenter appreciating the handiwork. Darek would love this place.

Casper followed her up and found her in a dark closet. He turned on the penlight on his key chain and shone it in.

“Aren’t you a Boy Scout?” she said, reaching up to grab a stack of boxes.

“Always prepared
 
—” He caught two of the top boxes before they fell on her. “Careful.”

She brought the boxes to the bed, set them on the bare mattress. The light of the day had begun to dim, casting shadows in the room. She opened the top box. Postcards, a shiny medal on a blue ribbon, a pair of dainty white gloves.

“This looks like a World War II medal,” Casper said, picking it up.

“Could be Thor’s?”

He put it back, reached for another box. This one held letters, all addressed to Aggie and sent from Paris.

Raina took the letters, bound together with ribbon, and ran her thumb over the script. “She was ninety-five when she died. Which meant she lived through two world wars, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, and even our war in the Persian Gulf.”

“She saw the advent of telephones to cell phones.”

“Television to computers.” She put the letters back in the box. Opened another one. “Pictures. Black-and-white.” She held one up. “This is Aggie and a little girl.”

He picked out another one. “And in this one, she’s sitting on the beach, laughing.” He put it away. “I’m freezing. Let’s take these back to town, grab a bite, and we’ll look at them there.”

She put the handful of pictures she’d grabbed back in the box.
“I have the fixings for pad thai at home that I’ve been dying to make.”

“Let you cook for me? Any day.”

She smiled, something shiny in her eyes. He boxed up the pictures and the rest of the collectibles and carried them outside.

A bluish hue from the setting sun hung over the forest. The snow crackled when he walked and he could sense her behind him, quiet.

He put the boxes in the cab, and she climbed in, shutting the door.

Still quiet.

Casper fired up the truck. “You okay?”

She sighed, nodding. Then suddenly shook her head. “It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?”

Her voice dropped so low he could barely hear it over the car engine. “Why do some people get to live happily ever after and others don’t?”

“Raina
 
—”

“She fell in love or something in Paris
 
—she wrote about it at the beginning of the diary. Her father called her tainted and sent her to Chicago. Then she fell in love with a man history calls a gangster. Except how could she be so wrong about that? It seems more like a legend than a fact. But she still married the man of her dreams and it all worked out for her. Why did she get everything
 
—her home, her family? Her dreams?” She pressed a hand to her mouth.

Casper had the terrible urge to pull over, take her in his arms. “I don’t know. But I do know that just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you have to live in it for the rest of your life.”

She turned to him, narrowed her eyes. “Spoken like a man who is working in a job he hates because he’s too afraid he’ll fail at what he loves.”

His mouth opened. He closed it. “I’m not afraid of failing.”

“Then why are you still here, Casper? Why aren’t you on some remote island digging up treasure? Why are you still stuck in this cold, miserable, dark forest?” Her voice had risen now, and it cut through the motor noise, sliced clear through to his heart.

You.

The word filled his chest, rose into his throat.

You, Raina.

He’d never seen it so clearly before now. But looking at her, her beautiful brown eyes glistening, her lips pursed and tight, he knew the truth.

Oh, how he loved her. And instead of going away, that truth had only deepened over the past few weeks as he thought about her, prayed for her, knew her grief. Her courage, her sincerity, her sacrifice
 
—it all made him love her past his hurt. Wow, he wanted her to be happy. Whole.

Even if that meant without him.

His hands tight on the steering wheel, he stared ahead, trying to scrounge up an answer that didn’t require him to pluck his heart from his chest. “I’m helping my family get back on their feet. The resort is . . . floundering.”

Lame, but he had no other words.

“Oh,” she said softly as if his answer had unseated her. Then she wiped her cheek, stared out the window.

“But I’m leaving as soon as the summer season starts.”

“Good,” she said. “You should.”

They drove in silence, the excitement of the pictures
 
—and the
dinner awaiting
 
—vanishing. Casper hadn’t a clue how to resurrect it. Or if he wanted to. Because a guy could only handle so much pain.

Still, as he stopped at her house, Raina sat in silence, not getting out, her hand on the boxes. He finally put the truck in park.

“For what it’s worth, you’re going to live happily ever after, Raina. I know it. You will find someone who deserves you and loves you and you’ll have the family and everything you want,” he said, his heart breaking with each word. “I know you will because that’s what you do best. You keep hoping, keep believing, keep loving, even when life lets you down.”

He touched her hand on the seat. “You just have to get past this fog to the sunshine.”

She turned her hand over in his, and he felt her squeeze it. Then she met his eyes with a smile. “Still want some of that pad thai?”