Yeah, sure I have.
She finds me staring over the lake, the surface calm after the blizzard. The rocks are covered in snow, and the rising sun shimmers off the white. It’s beautiful, and I wouldn’t trade it to go back to Cedar Hill. I may have unfinished business there, but there’s nothing left that could make me stay.
“Thank you for starting my car. Did she give you trouble?”
“No. It didn’t get that cold.”
She shuffles beside me, her winter jacket brushing against mine. I look at her out of the corner of my eyes, and she’s dressed how she arrived, hat over her hair, her winter coat, mittens, and her winter boots. She’s an adorable snow bunny, and she’s going to scamper off any second.
I want to tell her I love her, but she wouldn’t believe that after three days and the conversations we’ve had about Renata. I’m not sure I believe it myself. I’ve never fallen in love so quickly. With Renata, it was slow, months of seeing her around Cedar Hill, the same parties, the same fundraisers I was expected to attend. We had a long courtship, until one day I knew I wanted to marry her. This thing with Devyn, it hit me out of nowhere, and I’m trying to turn it in my hands and study it, but I can’t. It’s a feeling, an apprehension, and trying to hold it is like grabbing at air.
“You’ll text me when you make it to Portland?” I ask, tucking my hands into my jacket pockets.
She looks a little surprised I asked, but she says, “Sure. I should drive in sometime early this afternoon.”
“Don’t push it if the roads are slippery.”
“I won’t. I better go. Talia’s waiting for me.”
I pull off my mitten, graze her cheek with my fingers. “It was good, yeah?”
She tugs my hand, walking backward to her car. Her suitcase is already in the back seat. Lifting up on her toes she whispers into my ear, “You’re worrying about the wrong things. I’ll text you when I make it back, and I’ll call you tonight.” She kisses my cheek, her eyes bright, a smile on her mouth. It isn’t hurting her to leave.
With a wave, she climbs into the car, slams the door shut. She doesn’t give me a chance to say anything else, as if she didn’t want to hear the desperate “I love you” that threatened to rip from my throat in my last resort attempt to get her to stay.
I watch as she backs around and heads toward the road, and I still stand there in the cold and the snow at a loss when her car is gone.
Shake it off.
I have plenty to get me through the next few days until I can forget about her.
I finish shoveling around the garage and my cottage. The snow didn’t drift, and I clear the pathway from the lighthouse to the cottage without much trouble.
Inside the lighthouse, the silence hits me. No, not the silence. Devyn wasn’t loud, quiet as a church mouse scampering along, even when she came, she would with a barely audible moan. No, it’s the emptiness that used to be a comfort after the long months in the hospital with a nurse in my face every five seconds, and then after that, when I met with my attorneys to give Renata what she’d be happy with in the divorce. We had a prenup, but I gained the bulk of my wealth while we were married, and she sued me for more. I didn’t argue. It’s only money, and I gave her most of what she wanted. When we both signed on the dotted line, I was heartsick and tired of people. My body was still battered and bruised, worse than I am right now, and being left alone was a blessing I’d needed at the time.
Devyn helped herself to the coffee, and the mug with a smear of her light pink lipstick sits near the coffeemaker next to the empty glass of Glenlivet we sipped while we made spaghetti. I’d never cooked with a woman before.
I straighten the kitchen, putting her mug and our glass in the dishwasher. I pour my own mug of coffee, use the rest of the milk. I’ll be able to run into town today, check on Pete and ask if his family needs anything.
In her bedroom, all Devyn’s things are gone. I didn’t expect her to leave anything behind, but it still hits me that the room looks the same as it did before she came to my door hoping for an interview. I strip her bed, and mine, too, and shove the sheets and pillowcases into the washing machine I had installed inside the cottage. There hadn’t been a practical place to add a washer and dryer set in the lighthouse, but I didn’t want to drive into Old Harbor every time I needed to do a load of jeans. It’s still inconvenient in the winter, but it’s better than using the public laundromat in town.
I linger in my office for the twenty minutes the wash cycle needs to finish, and I think back to what Devyn said about her bills. I can’t buy her. She never asked me for help, and I didn’t want to offend her by offering. With the divorce settlement, Renata doesn’t have to work a day in her life if she doesn’t want to, but even if Devyn had the money my ex-wife does, I think she’d still need something to do, a purpose, a reason that would drive her to get up in the morning besides the need for a cup of coffee. I’m not comparing the two women, except that theyaredifferent and what makes Renata happy wouldn’t necessarily make Devyn happy. I never minded that Renata didn’t want to work, and I don’t mind Devyn does.
It doesn’t change the fact that Devyn’s in a tight spot, and it would be an easy thing to pay off Talia’s rehab bill. I call my attorney and ask him to do the digging. I assume her sister shares her last name, but I could be off base. I didn’t ask Devyn if she’d been married and divorced. She could have been, Scott being her ex-husband’s name. Renata didn’t keep my name, but some women do. It could be she and Talia have different fathers. I didn’t ask her that either, and it could explain why there’s an age gap between them. I’ll let my attorney figure it out. That done, I email Beau and tell him I need another day or so to get back up and running. That killed the time I needed to waste, and I transfer sheets into the dryer where I use extra fabric softener to get rid of Devyn’s scent.
On a whim, I sit down at my desk and open an empty document. I answer all the questions I think Devyn would have asked me in an interview, given the chance. She never pressed, even after we became lovers, after I would have said yes to help her keep her job at the Pioneer. I answer nine of them and search out her work email on the Pioneer’s website.
During the weeks ahead, I wait for it to pop up, to cause a stir on social media: Devyn Scott the one and only reporter to secure an interview with Rickard Mercer after the horrific accident that crushed the right side of his body and turned him into a beast.
It doesn’t.
But something else does.