window and looked out at two little girls playing with a puppy. Her gaze locked on her daughter, Joy had to blink a sheen of tears from her eyes. So small. So innocent. To have that...magic winked out like a blown-out match? She couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t want to try.
“God, this explains so much,” she whispered.
Deb walked to her side. “It does. But Joy, before you start riding to the rescue, think about it. It’s been five years since he lost his family, and as far as I know, he’s never talked about it. I don’t think anyone in town even knows about his past.”
“Probably not,” she said, “unless they took the time to do an internet search on him.”
Deb winced again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. Sort of feels like intruding on his privacy, now that I know.”
“No, I’m glad you did. Glad you told me,” Joy said, with a firm shake of her head. “I just wish I’d thought of doing it myself. Heck, I’m on the internet all the time, just working.”
“That’s why it didn’t occur to you,” Deb told her. “The internet is work for you. For the rest of us, it’s a vast pool of unsubstantiated information.”
She had a point. “Well, then I’m glad I came by today to get your updates for your website.”
As a virtual assistant, Joy designed and managed websites for most of the shops in town, plus the medical clinic, plus she worked for a few mystery authors who lived all over the country. It was the perfect job for her, since she was very good at computer programming and it allowed her to work at home and be with Holly instead of sending the little girl out to day care.
But, because she spent so much time online for her job, she rarely took the time to browse sites for fun. Which was why it hadn’t even occurred to her to look up Sam Henry.
Heart heavy, Joy looked through the window and watched as Holly fell back onto the dry grass, laughing as the puppy lunged up to lavish kisses on her face. Holly. God, Joy thought, now she knew why Sam had demanded she keep her daughter away from him. Seeing another child so close to the age of his lost son must be like a knife to the heart.
And yet...she remembered how kind he’d been with Holly in the workshop that first day. How he’d helped her, how Holly had helped him.
Sam hadn’t thrown Holly out. He’d spent time with her. Made her feel important and gave her the satisfaction of building something. He had closed himself off, true, but there was clearly a part of him looking for a way out.
She just had to help him find it.
Except for her nightly monologues in the great room, Joy had been giving him the space he claimed to want. But now she thought maybe it wasn’t space he needed...but less of it. He’d been alone too long, she thought. He’d wrapped himself up in his pain and had been that way so long now, it probably felt normal to him. So, Joy told herself, if he wouldn’t go into the world, then the world would just have to go to him.
“You’re a born nurturer,” Deb whispered, shaking her head.
Joy looked at her.
“I can see it on your face. You’re going to try to ‘save’ him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, honey,” Deb said, “you didn’t have to.”
“It’s annoying to be read so easily.”
“Only because I love you.” Deb smiled. “But Joy, before you jump feetfirst into this, maybe you should consider that Sam might not want to be saved.”
She was sure Deb was right. He didn’t want to come out of the darkness. It had become his world. His, in a weird way, comfort zone. That didn’t make it right.
“Even if he doesn’t want it,” Joy murmured, “he needs it.”
“What exactly are you thinking?” Deb asked.
Too many things, Joy realized. Protecting Holly, reaching Sam, preparing for Christmas, keeping up with all of the holiday work she had to do for her clients... Oh, whom was she kidding? At the moment, Sam was uppermost in her mind. She was going to drag him back into the land of the living, and she had the distinct feeling he was going to put up a fight.
“I’m thinking that maybe I’m in way over my head.”
Deb sighed a little. “How deep is the pool?”
“Pretty deep,” Joy mused, thinking about her reaction to him, the late-night talks in the great room where it was just the two of them and the haunted look in his eyes that pulled at her.
Deb bumped her hip against Joy’s. “I see that look in your eyes. You’re already attached.”
She was. Pointless to deny it, especially to Deb of all people, since she could read Joy so easily.
“Yes,” she said and heard the worry in her own voice, “but like I said, it’s pretty deep waters.”
“I’m not worried,” Deb told her with a grin. “You’re a good swimmer.”
* * *
That night, things were different.
When Sam came to dinner in the dining room, Joy and Holly were already seated, waiting for him. Since every other night, the two of them were in the kitchen, he looked thrown for a second. She gave him a smile even as Holly called out, “Hi, Sam!”
If anything, he looked warier than just a moment before. “What’s this?”
“It’s called a communal meal,” Joy told him, serving up a bowl of stew with dumplings. She set the bowl down at his usual seat, poured them both a glass of wine, then checked to make sure Holly was settled beside her.
“Mommy made dumplings. They’re really good,” the little girl said.
“I’m sure.” Reluctantly, he took a seat then looked at Joy. “This is not part of our agreement.”
He looked, she thought, as if he were cornered. Well, good, because he was. Dragging him out of the darkness was going to be a step-by-step journey—and it started now.
“Actually...” she told him, spooning up a bite of her own stew, then sighing dramatically at the taste. Okay, yes she was a good cook, but she was putting it on for his benefit. And it was working. She saw him glance at the steaming bowl in front of his chair, even though he hadn’t taken a bite yet. “...our agreement was that I clean and cook. We never agreed to not eat together.”
“It was implied,” he said tightly.
“Huh.” She tipped her head to one side and studied the ceiling briefly as if looking for an answer there. “I didn’t get that implication at all. But why don’t you eat your dinner and we can talk about it.”
“It’s good, Sam,” Holly said again, reaching for her glass of milk.
He took a breath and exhaled on a sigh. “Fine. But this doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of
