They’d kept Emma in the hospital for three days. Mike had stayed by her side, though she couldn’t say she knew him much better than she had before.
He took strong, silent type to a whole new level. Still, he’d been there. He hadn’t even fled the room when Rosemary had called in hysterics, worried that Emma had half-drowned herself in a Canadian ocean and demanding that she come back home immediately.
Emma had placated her mother as best she could before breaking the news—she was staying here. She asked her mother to courier her a copy of her birth certificate so that she could begin the process of applying for a work visa. Until then, Charlie was just going to give her gifts. The gifts happened to be envelopes of cash that she’d earned at the store. Emma knew that she should be horrified by the notion of getting paid under the table, but found that instead she delighted in it.
She’d wanted something, and she’d made it happen.
Her wrist ached a little in the cold as she lugged a light but large box down Main Street. Christmas was close now, and activity in the shops had picked up, making it harder to find space to walk. She liked it, though—liked having so many friendly faces jammed into a small space, spreading their holiday cheer.
Nerves settled in the closer she got to the studio. She hadn’t been here since the day she’d fallen from the hiking trail. It was entirely possible that Nick was going to be here.
She’d thought she had him figured out. She knew he cared for her more than he wanted to, but still, she’d never anticipated that he’d push her away so wholly. She supposed that she shouldn’t have been surprised—they’d only known each other for a matter of days. Wonderful, intense days in which she had felt she’d known him forever.
As she walked over the snowy gravel drive, she reminded herself that she didn’t—she didn’t really know him at all.
She would be just fine. But that didn’t ease the ache around her heart.
The familiar crackle of a welding torch greeted her as she opened the door awkwardly, balancing the unwieldy box with one hand. Her pulse stuttered.
A quick glance showed her that Nick wasn’t there. Relief and disappointment warred, but she focused on Mike, who turned off the torch and pushed back his shield when she entered.
“Thought you might be the one delivering that.” Meeting her halfway across the studio, he hefted the box from her arms. “Didn’t think you’d be walking.”
“It’s not heavy,” she protested as he took it away, huffing a large sigh when she realized she had no choice. “What do you want with beeswax, anyway?”
Dropping the box onto his table hard enough to make her flinch, Mike sliced open the packing tape with a scrap of metal. He tugged out a brick-sized block of beeswax, lifting it to his nose for a smell. “Thought I could use a change of medium.”
With the sure movements of a man in his element, he retrieved a battered toolbox, two chairs, and a second brick of wax, which he passed to Emma. He gestured for her to sit in the second chair before seating himself.
She hesitated, eventually shrugging. She didn’t understand him, likely never would, but he was making an effort. The least she could do was be open to it.
Running her fingers over the smooth block warmed it, and the scent of honey hit her nose. She inhaled it deeply as she watched Mike open his toolbox and select something the size of a pen, which he used to start scraping strips off the block.
The silence was hypnotic as she watched those golden strips of wax fall away, smelled the sweetness. They’d been silent so long that when he finally spoke, his voice sounded extra loud.
“I met your mother at a party.”
A tendril of excitement whipped through her. Was he finally going to give her some answers?
Holding her breath, she stared down at the beeswax, afraid to speak and distract him.
“I’d been traveling around the States some. Had been invited to a house party by some people I’d met at the beach. Your mother was out by the pool the first time I saw her, about to dive off the edge. I couldn’t look away. Every movement she made was so precise, so in control. Everything I never was.”
He could have been talking about Emma’s own relationship with Rosemary, and she felt a sting at the back of her nose, her eyes.
“We were inseparable for three months.” Pulling a second tool from the box, he handed it to her. “Give it a try. Can’t be worse than your other piece.”
He gestured toward the shelf, where her spindly metal Christmas tree was centered in display. In the late morning light it reminded her of the pathetic little tree from that cartoon—what was it? Charlie Brown.
She couldn’t help but laugh. Taking up the tool, wanting to please him so that he’d start talking again, she scraped at her block of wax.
“Oops.” She’d used too much pressure, and a large chunk crumbled off. Mike just chuckled, working on his wax with fine, precise strokes.
“You prone to depression at all?” Emma jolted at the question, thinking immediately of Nick’s mother.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You’d know.” Mike pushed a pile of wax shavings aside. “You’ll have to watch your kids for it, someday. Can be hereditary.”
“You have depression?” Emma studied him curiously. He was taciturn, a little grumpy, but she wouldn’t have called him depressed.
“Clinical. Take pills for it now.” He selected another tool. “Back then, I didn’t know you could. Anything could set me off. I’d never been an overly happy kind of person, but I managed all right. But the smallest thing could set me off. I’d be so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed. No energy, not even to shower or eat. Nothing but pain. The kind that makes you want to tear open your skin just to get it out.”
“I…” Sympathy flooded her, but she didn’t know what to say. She’d never experienced that herself, so how could she truly offer condolences?
“Anyway. I’d been doing all right when I met your mother. We were so different—she was a fancy debutante. I was a liberal Canadian kid who didn’t even know what that was. Still, we thought we could make a go of it. But then I met her parents.”
Emma tensed along with Mike.
“They disapproved of every single thing about me. It wasn’t that I cared so much about what they thought. But their negative opinions set off this chain reaction inside of me, making me wonder if I truly was everything they thought.”
He paused. Emma held her breath.
“Rosemary…she didn’t handle it well. We fought, and I left. I knew she’d find someone better for her than me.”
Irritation prickled. Why did men insist on making these decisions for the women in their lives, when those women were completely capable of deciding what they wanted themselves?
“Wasn’t until three years later that I understood why she’d been so upset with my…well, let’s call it what it is. My illness.”
“Because she was pregnant.” Emma’s voice was a whisper. Her pulse started to thunder in her veins. Her mother had been pregnant with her—this was her story. Where she’d come from.
“Because she was pregnant,” Mike agreed, setting down his tools. Propping his chin in one hand, he shifted in his chair to look at Emma. “She wrote me to tell me she thought I should know that I had a daughter. You have to understand—I wasn’t any better by that point. Fact is, it was one of the worst periods of my life. Mental illness wasn’t talked about as much then. I didn’t understand that there were things I could do to get help. We agreed, mutually, that it would be better for you if I wasn’t in your life.”
He gave Emma a sidelong glance, and she realized—he was feeling as uncertain here as she was.
Emotions churned through her, too many to count or to name, but she’d tuck them away and sort them out later. This was a chance to connect.
She found she couldn’t speak.
Instead, she reached out, tentatively took Mike’s hand—her father’s hand.
“You planning to stay?” His voice was gruff.
Emma heard footsteps overhead, knew that Nick was there, and her heart leapt. It was going to be awkward, living in a small town with him, and he was probably not going to like it.
She wasn’t going to let what someone else thought determine the course of her actions ever again. Instead she squeezed Mike’s fingers, nodding. “Looks like I am.”