Chapter 13
The flour handprint on Reno’s shirt was the only physical evidence that an angel had recently rearranged his life. But the sense of his entire world having been knocked off its axis was every bit as real.
He’d caught sight of the handprint in the rearview mirror as he drove away from the bakery and not only did he not brush it off, but he was careful not to disturb it.
Grace sat in the passenger seat with her thermos balanced on her knee and her eyes on the lake. She’d untied her apron at the bakery, but a thin dust of flour still lingered in the fine hair at her temple. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
A comfort had settled between them that wasn’t there an hour ago, and he didn’t want to be the one who knocked it off kilter.
He headed across town to the preschool, catching glimpses of Stillwater Lake at the end of streets heading toward the shore.
The afternoon sun turned the water silver-white that forced him to squint to look at it.
A few sailboats were out on the lake, but they were on the other side, closer to Apple Pie Creek.
They looked like bright toys skimming across the water.
“Reno.”
“Mm?”
“You might want to pull yourself together before Lily sees us. She’s very perceptive, particularly when it comes to reading people’s emotions and feelings.”
He glanced over at her. She was looking at the lake, but the corner of her mouth was turned up.
“I’m not pulled-together?” he asked.
“There’s a handprint of flour on your shirt the size of my hand.”
“Yep.”
“You should probably brush it off.”
“Nope.”
She gave him a look that was equal parts startled, amused, and touched. He kept his eyes on the road and pretended not to see it.
“Reno Steele. Are you sassing me?”
“No, Ma’am. I’m driving.”
She laughed under her breath, and it was almost the silvery sound he’d been trying to get her to make again. She was right. He was floating in a state of euphoria that was very hard to keep off his face.
The deputy in the unmarked sedan across the street from the preschool lifted a finger off his steering wheel in greeting when they parked. Reno returned the small acknowledgement and went inside to fetch Princess Lily.
She came barreling out of the coat room, dragging her backpack along behind her by one strap. She had a yellow paint smear on the bridge of her nose and a sticker on her shirt shaped like a frog.
“Mr. Reno! I painted a giraffe!”
“I’ll bet it’s the best giraffe in Cobbler Cove!” he exclaimed.
“It’s a watercolor.” She pronounced it carefully, like a word she’d just earned. “Miss Pam said watercolors are real painting.”
“Miss Pam is right.”
She put her hand in his without looking up, and they walked out together. He was reminded of the Christmas cartoon character whose heart grew two sizes as his own heart felt as if it was expanding inside his chest.
Her small fingers settled themselves between his, and he noticed how she stopped paying attention to where she was being led because she knew, with perfect four-year-old certainty, that he would take care of her.
Grace stood beside the truck with the back door open, and Lily ran the last few steps to throw herself at her mother. Sheesh. Even that made his heart ache in a good way. He climbed into the truck while Grace buckled in Lily.
“Mommy, Mr. Reno says my giraffe is the best in Cobbler Cove.”
“Mr. Reno has not, in fact, seen the giraffe.”
“He doesn’t need to. He knows.”
Grace shot him a wry look as she climbed in the truck, and Reno did his best impersonation of knowing nothing about anything.
The cottage was a low yellow shape at the end of Pine Street with maples leafing out around it and the lake stretching gray-blue beyond. He hadn’t lived anywhere this quiet since he was a kid. Every time he turned into the drive, he got a strong sensation of arriving somewhere on purpose.
Lily blew through the front door and immediately commenced setting up a tea party for her stuffies on the living room rug.
Grace went to the kitchen to start supper.
Reno carried the two gallons of trim paint and the new roller and angled brush around the side of the house to where the eaves needed it most and propped a ladder against the wall.
He’d done the back porch trim yesterday between the bakery and supper. The work was simple, his hands were good at it, and his brain liked having something to do that wasn’t arguing with itself.
He set the first stroke at the corner under the kitchen window and started moving along the run.
The kiss was still front and center in his mind where he’d carried it the entire drive home. The flour on her lips and a hint of lemon were the parts he kept circling back to.
Which, he suspected, was his brain’s way of avoiding naming the bigger part of it. Something in him had moved over to make room for something else, and he had no name for this new sensation filling both his heart and his mind.
He’d had thirty-three years getting to know the shape of himself very well, but as of about an hour ago, that shape was completely different. Unrecognizable.
She’d been so calm about it. I’ve been wanting to do that since the day you fixed my dock. As if it had been a simple uncomplicated desire she’d been waiting to fulfill.
He laid down a long, even stroke of white paint.
She’d also communicated very clearly that the next move was his.
If her kissing him had taught him nothing else about her, it was that she was an honest woman.
She would accept whatever he offered her as it was, no embroidery and no apology.
If he came back to her with a real kiss tonight, she’d be okay with it.
If he came back to her with a serious and difficult conversation, she’d take that, too.
As much as he wanted to kiss her again, he knew he owed her a real conversation before he had any business offering her a real kiss.
He refilled the brush and painted the next section of trim.
For three years he’d carried his guilt like a stone he couldn’t set down.
Two days ago, on the porch with the cat in his lap, he’d started to feel the stone get lighter.
Last night, lying in the guest room listening to her sniffle quietly across the hall, he’d felt it lighten even more.
And in the bakery this afternoon, when she rose up on her toes and laid her hand on his chest, the stone hadn’t been part of the equation at all.
She’d kissed a man who hadn’t told her who he was. That was the kind of dishonesty he couldn’t live with, even if it was the dishonesty of omission. She’d taken a risk and laid herself bare before him. The least he could do was return the favor.
He would tell her tonight. After Lily went to bed.
And he just prayed she wouldn’t kick him out of her house and out of her life when she heard what he’d done.
He painted the rest of the trim under the eaves on this side of the house and his knee, for once, didn’t complain too loudly about balancing on a ladder. He prayed that meant it was continuing to heal.
He came down the ladder when the smell coming through the kitchen window changed from sautéed onions to something with chicken in it and a hint of paprika. It made his mouth water and his stomach rumble.
Grace looked up from the stove when he stepped in. “Wash up. We’re almost ready.”
He washed up. He took the dish she set on the counter, chicken and rice with red peppers, and carried it to the table.
Lily was already at her booster seat, where she had arranged Cinnabun, two seals, and Lord Baxter the basil in a small audience beside her.
“They’re allowed to watch but not eat,” Lily informed him.
“That seems fair.”
“’Cuz they’re toys and a plant and don’t have mouths.”
“Also fair.”
He took his usual place across from Grace. Lily recited her standard four-year-old blessing, which ended with her thanking God for several specific seals by name and for the donkey at Aunt Tessa’s.
He didn’t reach for the rolls to butter Lily’s for her and in a moment, she held one out to him without looking away from her toys.
“Please,” she added, throwing him a pleased-with-herself look that she’d remembered his lesson in manners.
He buttered the roll.
He caught Grace’s eye, and there was softness in her expression that made him think of flour and lemons and her mouth against his. He abruptly discovered that the chicken on his plate had become very interesting.
“So, Reno,” Grace said casually, “how was your day?”
He nearly choked on his chicken. “Pleasant,” he managed. “Yours?”
“Educational.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It had its moments.”
Lily looked back and forth between them. “Why is Mommy’s face red?”
“Because the kitchen is warm,” Grace said quickly.
“Mr. Reno’s face is red, too.”
“Must be some sunburn, I was on a ladder in the sun for a while.”
“Oh.” Lily went back to her chicken.
Grace didn’t make eye contact with him for the rest of supper, and he was fine with that, because he wasn’t entirely certain what he would do if she did. And it might have involved giving Lily a crash course on what adults did when they liked each other. A lot.
He was at the sink rinsing the last pan when his phone buzzed on the counter. The display said Cooper.
He dried his hands and stepped out to the back porch to answer. “What’s up, Coop?”
“You at the cottage?”
“Yep.”
“Mind if I swing by? I’ve got a few things to share, and I’d rather do it in person.”
“Sure. I’ll tell Grace.”
“Ten minutes.”
He hung up and went back inside. Grace was at the kitchen table with Lily and a coloring book.
“Cooper’s coming by,” he said.
She looked up. “Bakery?”
“He said he had things he wanted to share. Plural.”
She nodded, and the pink that had come back into her face during supper went out of it again. She set the crayon down and started cleaning up the coloring book.
“Mommy, why is Sheriff Cooper coming?”
“Deputy Cooper, Baby. He’s coming to talk to Mr. Reno and me for a few minutes.”
“About bad guys?”