he said, a frown marring his handsome, broad forehead.
“Open it!” she exclaimed eagerly. “We won’t know if the money is inside unless you open it.”
Suddenly her mind worked to process the fact that Joshua was back in town, that he looked as if he’d not only survived the years away, but had thrived. And he had her treasure…the money that had been going to change her life.
It wasn’t fair. But if there was one thing Claire had learned in her twenty-six years on earth, it was that life wasn’t fair and seemed to take particular pleasure in kicking her.
She watched as he attempted to untie the piece of lace. It disintegrated beneath his fingers and fell to the ground. Once again she took a step toward him and smelled the pleasant, spicy scent of his cologne. It was different from that he’d once worn.
When he’d left her five years before, for months she’d smelled the scent of him lingering on her skin, whispering in the air, taunting her with all that had been lost.
She shoved all thoughts of the past aside as his long, strong fingers worked to open the box. The box opened toward him, so she couldn’t immediately see what was inside.
She watched his face as he peered inside, saw a look of bewilderment, then shock. “What…what is it?”
He looked at her, his green eyes filled with confusion. “I hate to burst your bubble, Cookie, but there’s no money in here. There’s just an old photograph.”
“An old photograph?” Disappointment swept through her. “An old photograph of what?”
“I think you have to see it to believe it.” He plucked the picture out of the box and held it out to her.
She took the photo and looked at it, for a moment not comprehending what she saw. It was obvious the picture was old; it was on faded paper in sepia tones.
It was a young couple, a formal sitting with the woman in a straight-backed chair and a man standing at her side. They wore clothing that dated the picture to the 1800s, but it was their faces that sent an electric shock through Claire.
The man was the spitting image of Joshua and the woman was a mirror image of herself. She looked back up at Joshua, the photo shaking in her trembling hands. “They look just like us. I mean, they look exactly like us. How…how is that possible?”
Joshua looked at the woman he had once loved to distraction, unsure what caused him more confusion, the fact that there was a picture of the two of them that had been buried in a tin box or that after all these years something about her still managed to touch him. She looked much the same as she had on the day he’d left, except perhaps more fragile. Like a thin wisp of smoke, she was slender enough that it appeared as if the slightest of breezes might blow her away.
Her hair was still the color of corn silk, long and surprisingly thick. He wondered if she still used the same strawberry-scented shampoo?
Her eyes were as he remembered them…dark-lashed and gray as turbulent skies. They hadn’t always been that way…there had been a time when they’d been the color of passion, of dreams…of love.
“Joshua?”
Her irritated voice pulled him back from the past and he took the photo from her and looked at it once again. There was no mistake. The people in the photo were virtual clones of him and her.
“I don’t know…I don’t know how it’s possible,” he replied.
“But they look exactly like us,” she repeated, a sense of wonder in her voice.
He turned the picture over. There was writing on the back, so faint it was almost illegible. He read aloud, “Daniel and Sarah Walker, 1856.” He looked back at Claire. “It appears we have something of a mystery here.”
For a moment, their gazes remained locked, and in the depths of her smoky eyes he saw bewilderment, wonder and something soft and yielding. It was there only a moment, then gone, as dark shutters snapped into place.
“We don’t have anything,” she replied. “You have an old photo and I have nothing.” She turned to leave, stiffening as he fell into step beside her.
“Aren’t you curious?” he asked, as they made their way back through the woods.
“Curious about what?”
He held the tin box out in front of her. “About them? About Daniel and Sarah, about why they look like us? Maybe they’re long-lost relatives or, you know, what do you call them, doppelgängers.”
He wanted to ask her if she’d felt it, the strange tingle and warmth that had raced up his arm when he’d first picked up the photo.
“The only thing I’m curious about is why you’re walking with me instead of going back to wherever you came from,” she replied coolly.
As the path narrowed, he fell behind her. He dodged a sapling branch that nearly slapped him in the face as she passed by it. She still had the sexiest rear end he’d ever seen.
“I thought I’d stop in and say hello to Sarge,” he replied and forced his gaze upward from her shapely derriere.
He could tell she didn’t like the idea of him coming home with her by the way her shoulders stiffened and her strides grew faster.
He didn’t try to speak to her again. There would come a time later when they would have to talk, when the past and the future would have to be laid to rest. But now was not the time. He knew he’d shocked her by his unexpected presence and she needed time to adjust. He needed time to adjust, as well.
He’d thought he would breeze into Mayfield, take care of his unfinished business, then walk away without a backward glance. He hadn’t expected to feel a tug of crazy, mixed-up emotions when he saw her again.
When they hit the sidewalk outside City Hall, she continued to walk several paces in front of him, as if she didn’t want anyone who might see them to know they were together.
He looked around as they headed down Main Street, again noting the changes that had taken place in the small town since he’d left. Stores he remembered were gone, replaced either by empty storefronts or new shops.
“It’s funny, somehow everything looks smaller than I thought it was,” he observed. He pointed down the road to where in the distance were the remains of an old, two-story home. “I see Hazel Benton’s house burned.”
“Yeah, a couple of years ago. Faulty wiring.” She frowned, as if irritated that he’d forced her into talking.
“Remember when we were kids we all thought old Hazel was a witch and the rumor was that at night she wandered the streets of Mayfield looking for little children she could snatch and have for breakfast the next morning?”
“I remember,” she said. A ghost of a smile curved her lips. It wasn’t a real smile, but it was the closest thing he’d seen.
He suddenly wished for one of her smiles, the sound of her laughter. God, he’d always loved the sound of her laughter.
There had been a lot of laughter in the first two years of their marriage
