Signed by Theo himself.
Theo was the Fullers’ employer, and despite all the fond memories of Skye’s childhood, despite his undeniable charm and the care for her family he appeared to show, her parents needed to grasp the truth: he was the reason they lived this way. He, with his luxury cars and tailored suits, who for several years now had been capable of providing a living wage but didn’t.
Forget the grievances of two decades ago.
That experience may have pained her enough to run away to Seattle, but this? This was a whole new brand of infuriating.
He could try to fill the gaps with platitudes, but since he didn’t back them up with action, they were only empty words.
In the meantime, she had a farm to run.
She stepped into her yard, and the honeysuckle bushes overtook the scent of Theo’s cologne. Following the cobblestone path, she slipped the key out of her pocket, then moved onto her slate porch step.
“Skye, wait.”
Skye pressed her lips together.
Forced herself to turn.
Theo stood at the head of the path, surrounded by heady earth and dimpled leaves collecting teaspoons of mist, alien to her world in his pressed tie and the beige overcoat swaying lightly at his calves. If he thought he could possibly handle her world . . .
“Do you think the old path is still there?”
“What?” She followed his nod toward the swath of trees between the back of her cottage and Evergreen Farm. Beyond it, at least half a mile away, stood the dark silhouette of the Watkinses’ cabin backing up to the foot of the ridge. She didn’t want to say it. Right now, she didn’t want to remember the memories they’d had. But the silence grew.
“It’s been a long time,” she said at last. “I doubt it.”
He started loosening his tie. “I’ll give it a shot anyways.”
She blinked. “You’re . . . going to give it a shot. Walking into those woods. At night.”
A smile played on his lips as the tie uncurled and slipped off his neck. “At night,” he repeated.
A few seconds passed as Skye tried to hold her firm expression in place. She would not bite. She would not take the bait.
In fact, she would walk into her cottage right then. Say Suit yourself and shut the door.
But even as she edged toward the door, she couldn’t help watching him stride over and stop at the perimeter of the woods. Her frown turned to a squint as he began stretching one arm over the other.
She suppressed the bucking smile trying to escape as he began doing squats.
After he started taking what appeared to be practice steps into the black woods, only to step back in search of another entry point, she couldn’t help calling out, “Theo, what are you doing? The last time you attempted to walk through those woods in the daylight it took you two hours.”
A stick tapped his ankle and he jumped back a solid three feet into the safety of her yard.
She rolled her eyes.
“I recall,” he said.
“You came out the other side all but naked—”
“The memory haunts me.”
“—covered in mud and leaves like a thirteen-year-old girl covers herself in glitter—”
“I had no choice but to camouflage myself.”
“Theo.” She leveled her gaze at him. “You came out carrying a whittled stick like you were fighting for your life in Lord of the Flies.” Her sweater fell off one shoulder and she tugged it up before pointing at the woods. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove right now. And I don’t know all the ways you’ve changed, but I do know there is no way you are going to walk through those woods in the pitch-black dark. So why don’t you just go on home?”
“In my defense,” Theo said, turning to face her properly, “the bear was hunting. In the woods. For me.”
She threw a hand out. “For the millionth time, it was a bear. A tiny, adolescent black bear—”
“A rabid beast cloaked in deceivably adorable fur,” he replied.
“Well, maybe if you’d listened to me and hadn’t doused yourself in that ridiculous fruity concoction you liked to call cologne—seriously?” Skye put her hands on her hips as he began rubbing dirt over his glinting cufflinks. “Why are you doing this?”
“Simple,” Theo said. “It’s been months since I’ve been back, and I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to enjoy the spoils of a fine evening like tonight—”
As if on cue, a thick raindrop landed squarely on Skye’s head. She looked up to see one of those little ominous clouds anchoring above their heads. “It’s raining.”
“It’s misting,” Theo replied, holding his palm upturned toward the sky with a smile. “‘As dew leaves the cobweb lightly threaded with stars’—”
“Aaand there he is,” Skye said, turning on her heel. She raised a hand over her head as she walked toward her door. “Well, you enjoy that good old-fashioned poetry walk. Let me guess. Your favorite little guy, Sterling?”
“Teasdale,” he replied, clearly suppressing a smile at the fact she so easily remembered his most annoying high school habit of reciting poetry at every leaf and stump like some afflicted peasant of the 1500s. “‘Dew.’”
“I’ll see you around.”
“Bright and early,” Theo called back, turning the flashlight on his phone toward the forest.
Skye felt the grinding of wheels in her stomach but forced herself to ignore them.
“Wait a moment. What is this? This is new.”
Skye turned. The beam of Theo’s phone flashlight fell upon a building twenty yards off and moved slowly up and down its glass walls.
Strips of moonlight passed through the overhanging trees and glinted off the new windows. A dozen hanging flower baskets cluttered the awning. A couple of old easels stood propped against one wall.
He took a step toward it. His eyes lingered on empty paint bottles on their sides by the door.
Protectively, Skye took a step toward it. “It’s my greenhouse. And . . . studio.”
His eyes lit up at the word. “May I see?”
For only a moment, Skye wavered.
She looked at him standing there with both hands in his trouser pockets as he gazed at the greenhouse. His skin nearly melted into the dark forest behind him. He was only a sliver of a silhouette as he took in her new and greatest treasure, his expression clear. He wanted to see it. Part of her, the old part of her, wanted to show it off to him.
She turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before Skye closed the door, she watched his shadowy figure move into the forest with the small beam of light guiding the way.
She wouldn’t let him get to her. He could try to cozy up all he wanted, reminisce about old times, but she wasn’t going to forget—not what happened then. Not what was happening now.
But as the flashlight blinked and flashed as it moved deeper into the forest, she couldn’t help calling out, “Oh, and watch out for the brown recluses! There was just an infestation of them at the greenhouse.”
The flashlight’s beam shook and sputtered toward the sky just as Skye grinned and shut the door.
Chapter 5
Theo