crazy about that puppy as my Lizzie.”
“I know.” Joy sighed a little and leaned on her friend’s kitchen counter. “Holly’s telling everyone she’s getting a puppy of her own for Christmas.”
“A white one,” Deb supplied.
Rolling her eyes, Joy shook her head. “I’ve even been into Boise looking for a white puppy, and no one has any. I guess I’m going to have to start preparing her for the fact that Santa can’t always bring you what you want.”
“Oh, I hate that.” Deb turned back to the wide kitchen island and the tray of tiny brownies she was finishing off with swirls of white chocolate icing. “You’ve still got a few weeks till Christmas. You might find one.”
“I’ll keep looking, sure. But,” Joy said, resigned, “she might have to wait.”
“Because kids wait so well,” Deb said with a snort of laughter.
“You’re not helping.”
“Have a brownie. That’s the kind of help you need.”
“Sold.” Joy leaned in and grabbed one of the tiny brownies that was no more than two bites of chocolate heaven.
The brownies, along with miniature lemon meringue pies, tiny chocolate chip cookies and miniscule Napoleons, would be filling the glass cases at Nibbles by this afternoon. The restaurant had been open for only a couple of years, but it had been a hit from the first day. Who wouldn’t love going for lunch where you could try four or five different types of sandwiches—none of them bigger than a bite or two? Gourmet flavors, a fun atmosphere and desserts that could bring a grown woman to tears of joy, Nibbles had it all.
“Oh, God, this should be illegal,” Joy said around a mouthful of amazing brownie.
“Ah, then I couldn’t sell them.” Deb swirled white chocolate on a few more of the brownies. “So, how’s it going up there with the Old Man of the Mountain?”
“He’s not old.”
“No kidding.” Deb grinned. “I saw him sneaking into the gallery last summer, and I couldn’t believe it. It was like catching a glimpse of a unicorn. A gorgeous unicorn, I’ve got to say.”
Joy took another brownie and bit into it. Gorgeous covered it. Of course, there was also intriguing, desirable, fascinating, and as yummy as this brownie. “Yeah, he is.”
“Still.” Deb looked up at Joy. “Could he be more antisocial? I mean, I get why and all, but aren’t you going nuts up there with no one to talk to?”
“I talk to him,” Joy argued.
“Yes, but does he talk back?”
“Not really, though in his defense, I do talk a lot.” Joy shrugged. “Maybe it’s hard for him to get a word in.”
“Not that hard for me.”
“We’re women. Nothing’s that hard for us.”
“Okay, granted.” Deb smiled, put the frosting back down and planted both hands on the counter. “But what’s really going on with you? I notice you’re awful quick to defend him. Your protective streak is coming out.”
That was the only problem with a best friend, Joy thought. Sometimes they saw too much. Deb knew that Joy hadn’t dated anyone in years. That she hadn’t had any interest in sparking a relationship—since her last one had ended so memorably. So of course she would pick up on the fact that Joy was suddenly very interested in one particular man.
“It’s nothing.”
“Sure,” Deb said with a snort of derision. “I believe that.”
“Fine, it’s something,” Joy admitted. “I’m not sure what, though.”
“But he’s so not the kind of guy I would expect you to be interested in. He’s so—cold.”
Oh, there was plenty of heat inside Sam Henry. He just kept it all tamped down. Maybe that’s what drew her to him, Joy thought. The mystery of him. Most men were fairly transparent, but Sam had hidden depths that practically demanded she unearth them. She couldn’t get the image of the shadows in his eyes out of her mind. She wanted to know why he was so shut down. Wanted to know how to open him up.
Smiling now, she said, “Holly keeps telling me he’s not mean, he’s just crabby.”
Deb laughed. “Is he?”
“Oh, definitely. But I don’t know why.”
“I might.”
“What?”
Deb sighed heavily. “Okay, I admit that when you went to stay up there, I was a little worried that maybe he was some crazed weirdo with a closet full of women’s bones or something.”
“I keep telling you, stop watching those horror movies.”
Deb grinned. “Can’t. Love ’em.” She picked up the frosting bag as if she needed to be doing something while she told the story. “Anyway, I spent a lot of time online, researching the local hermit and—”
“What?” And why hadn’t Joy done the same thing? Well, she knew why. It had felt like a major intrusion on his privacy. She’d wanted to get him to actually tell her about himself. Yet here she was now, ready to pump Deb for the information she herself hadn’t wanted to look for.
“You know he used to be a painter.”
“Yes, that much I knew.” Joy took a seat at one of the counter stools and kept her gaze fixed on Deb’s blue eyes.
“He was famous. I mean famous.” She paused for emphasis. “Then about five years ago, he just stopped painting entirely. Walked away from his career and the fame and fortune and moved to the mountains to hide out.”
“You’re not telling me anything I didn’t know so far.”
“I’m getting there.” Sighing, Deb said softly, “His wife and three-year-old son died in a car wreck five years ago.”
Joy felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. The air left her lungs as sympathetic pain tore at her. Tears welled in her eyes as she tried to imagine that kind of hell. That kind of devastation. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, I know,” Deb said with a wince. Laying down the pastry bag, she added, “When I found out, I felt so bad for him.”
Joy did, too. She couldn’t even conceive the level of pain Sam had experienced. Even the thought of such a loss was shattering. Remembering the darkness in his eyes, Joy’s heart hurt for him and ached to somehow ease the grief that even five years later still held him in a tight fist. Now at least she could understand a little better why he’d closed himself off from the world.
He’d hidden himself away on a mountaintop to escape the pain that was stalking him. She saw it in his eyes every time she looked at him. Those shadows that were a part of him were really just reflections of the pain that was in his heart.
