Looking in that direction, she saw what seemed to be an old carriage house. The double doors were cracked opened. A thin wedge of golden light shot out like a ray of sunshine. She caught the scent of shaved wood and breathed it in as if it was pure oxygen. Her father had owned his own carpentry business. The smell reminded her of all the times she’d held the end of a board as he ran it through the planer or filled nail holes with putty for him as a child.
At the sound of a sander starting up, she felt herself drawn down the alley. She followed the familiar scent, the sound of the sander growing louder as she approached, the wood scent growing even stronger.
The sander stopped suddenly, and she heard a man whistling. It brought back a flood of memories of her father’s hands as he worked and whistled. He loved making things with his hands and took pride in each piece. She had the rocker he’d made her when she was a little girl and the cradle he’d made for Mia before she was born.
Two large wooden doors opened into the old carriage house. She stepped to the one that was partially open. It left a wide crack for Kate to peer in. At first she saw nothing. Dust motes hung in the air, captured by the overhead light. Deeper in the large shop, she could make out a male figure bent over a workbench, a sander in his hands as he flipped a switch, the sound filling the space, and he went back to work.
The picture was a familiar one that formed a knot in her chest. She missed her father. Her mother had passed when Mia and Danielle were in their teens, but she and her mother had never been close after Kate’s marriage to Daniel and pregnancy. So her father’s death had been all that more painful only a few years later.
The sander stopped again, making her start as the small woodshop fell silent. Behind her was the quiet cold of the snow and the low howl of the wind. Inside the shop was the promise of warmth. A woodstove crackled in the corner, emitting a warm heat that she felt on her cheeks. Probably why he’d left one of the doors slightly ajar, to release some of the heat.
She hadn’t realized she’d been leaning into the room until the door swung open and she stumbled in. The man suddenly turned and froze at the sight of her standing just inside the doorway, a dark silhouette backlit by the storm.
As the wind caught the door and threw it all the way open, cold and snow blew in, illuminating the man standing there in the white of the storm light. He looked startled to see her. But nothing like she was to see him. She felt a jolt as if struck by a bolt of lightning as she took in the familiar planes of his face, a face she’d given up hope of ever seeing again.
A cry escaped her lips before she said his name. “Danny.” Before everything went black.
CHAPTER FIVE
KATE SURFACED SLOWLY, blinking in the dim light. She became aware of the heat and someone pressing the rim of a cup to her lips. She jerked up, knocking the cup of water away. It pooled on the wood floor, the coffee mug lying in a pile of sawdust at her feet. It took her a moment to realize where she was.
She was sitting on a blanket near the woodstove in the man’s workshop. He’d been so quiet she hadn’t noticed his dark shape squatting next to her until he reached for the mug she’d knocked away. She flinched and crab-crawled back a few inches before memory came charging back.
He picked up the mug and quickly rose as if realizing that he was frightening her. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?” The voice was low and gravelly and...wrong.
As she struggled to her feet, he reached for her as if afraid she would fall again. But at the last minute, he seemed to realize that she didn’t want him touching her. He stepped back, holding up his hands as if in surrender.
In the shaft of bright light coming from the opened carriage-house door, she looked at him hard and felt her initial shock rattle through her once again.
This man was a dead ringer for her dead husband.
Yet something was all wrong about him.
“You took a nasty fall,” he said quietly as if he thought even his voice was scaring her. He sounded hoarse, that gravelly voice not Danny’s. “Maybe you should give it a minute before you—”
But she was already stumbling back toward the open door, wanting to run. Emotions roiled up so close to the surface that she feared she would cry. She rushed out into the storm, her mind whirling like the snow around her.
Seeing the man had come as such a shock. The resemblance so uncanny. For that moment, she’d been so sure that she’d found Danny. Until he moved. Until he spoke. Ice crystals melted instantly on her overheated cheeks as she fled from the workshop. She pushed through the snow drifting in the alley to the main road and turned toward the motel. She had to tuck her face against the snow and wind. It wasn’t until she felt her tears begin to freeze on her cheeks that she realized she was crying.
At the motel, she fumbled her key from her coat pocket, struggling to get it into the lock. Her fingers felt numb like the rest of her body. The key finally turned, the door falling open, her falling in with it.
Collin looked up from where he sat on the bed, his back to the wall, the television on some old movie involving a car chase. “Hey, I was starting to worry about you.” He squinted at her as she stumbled into the room, catching herself on the edge of the spare double bed. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer as she frantically began to shed her coat, ripping the scarf from her neck and dropping the coat at her feet—until she finally felt she could breathe again. She looked at him and began to cry in earnest.
Jumping up off the bed, he rushed to her. “Baby, what’s wrong?” She could only shake her head. “You have a scrape on your forehead. There’s a bump. Did you fall?” A nod. Her sobs broke from her, making her chest ache as they rose from deep inside her, one after another. She was trembling as he took her in his arms. “You’re okay. You’re here now with me.”
* * *
KATE WOKE TO DARKNESS. She could hear Collin in the bathroom. She listened. It sounded as if he was on the phone. He had the door closed as if he didn’t want to disturb her. Or didn’t want her to hear his conversation.
Earlier he’d gotten her out of her wet clothing and into a hot shower before tucking her into the bed and lying with her until she fell asleep. Before her eyes closed, she remembered telling him, “I thought I saw Danny.” She had felt him tense next to her and wished she could stop the words. “It looked so much like him...” She’d shuddered at the memory. “But it wasn’t. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t Danny.”
She’d rolled over and squeezed her eyes tightly, her emotions a roller-coaster ride of hope and loss, embarrassment and humiliation, defeat and bitterly aching disappointment. Finally she’d fallen asleep.
His phone call ended. He came out and looked surprised to see her awake. He also looked a little sheepish, so she knew what he’d done before she even asked.