Jackson inclined his head as he strode toward the door. “I always let her win, my friend. Seeing her smile is all I need.” Then he saluted Griffin and jogged out the door.
“My boy, we’ve got a problem.” A gnarled hand closed down on Griffin’s arm as Eppie moved in front of him to block his path. She was wearing a hat decorated with fresh sunflowers that were far too big for the white brim, taking up the entire damn hat so it looked like she had the whole garden stuck on her head.
Griffin straightened the hat that had begun to slide off-center. “What’s up, Eppie?”
Eppie shook her head, her mouth pursed in dismay. “It’s Astrid.”
Griffin glanced over at the table again. Astrid was in deep conversation with Clare, wearing a pair of earrings that dangled almost down to her shoulders. A polka-dotted scarf barely taming her curls, and her turquoise tank top was bright and audacious, just as he would expect of her. “What’s wrong with Astrid?”
Eppie sighed. “She hasn’t created a new design in almost three months, Griffin. That woman is a veritable font of creativity, and the well has dried up.”
Griffin frowned. “How do you know?”
Eppie rolled her eyes. “I keep track of these things, young man. Someone has to.” She hooked her arm through his elbow, declaring him her escort. “Now, let’s go over there and find out what’s wrong with her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
Eppie looked at him, and in those old eyes, he saw genuine concern. “No, she’s not.”
Griffin’s amusement faded, and he realized the old lady had sensed something he hadn’t noticed. Over the last month, he’d come to really appreciate Astrid’s spunk and her loyal friendship to Clare. She might come across as flamboyant and artsy, but her heart was full of warmth and love, making it clear why she and Clare were best friends. But he was well aware that Astrid never spoke of her past, and he’d sensed a layer of pain beneath her cheerful exterior. If Eppie said they needed to worry about Astrid, then he would believe her. “Okay, then, let’s do it.”
She beamed at him and patted his arm. “It’s great to have a man around again, Griffin. Welcome to Birch Crossing. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Griffin grinned at her as he picked up Jackson’s plans to bring them to Clare. “Thanks.” Then they headed toward the table and the three most important women in his life.
As he approached, Clare lifted her head to watch him, a slow smile growing on her face as he neared. Intense satisfaction pulsed though him, and he smiled back, unable to take his gaze off the face of the woman who had brought him to life, the woman he loved to the very depths of her soul.
Eppie released him to grab a chair and park herself next to Astrid to start the interrogation, and Griffin walked over to Clare, needing to connect with her before he could do anything else.
Clare’s smile widened, her eyes dancing with anticipation as he grabbed the back of her chair and leaned over her. “Hi, Griffin,” she said cheerfully.
“Hello, my love.” He bent his head and kissed her lightly, and a sense of absolute rightness settled over him when she leaned into him and kissed him back.
Right there.
In the middle of the store.
In front of everyone.
Claiming him every bit as much as he was claiming her.
A moment that would never, ever lose its beauty, no matter how many times it happened.
“I love you, Clare,” he whispered against her lips. “Always and forever.”
She smiled, her eyes full of such love. “Always and forever,” she whispered back. “I love you, too.”
He grinned at her, the moment sheer perfection. “Clare—”
“Dad!” He felt a tug at his shirt.
Laughter danced in Clare’s eyes, and they shared an amused smile before he turned toward his daughter. “What’s up, Brookie?”
“Look at our cupcake designs.” She held up a sketch of a cupcake with a theatre mask on it. “It’s for the Shakespeare festival. What do you think?”
Griffin pulled up a chair and sat down between Clare and Brooke as he handed the plans to Clare. He rested his arm over the back of her seat, brushing his fingers over her neck as he leaned toward his daughter. “I like it. How’d you come up with the idea for the design?”
“It was Katie’s idea, actually. See, it started like this—” Brooke took out a black and white sketch, and then she and Katie began explaining what they’d done.
As the two teens tried to talk over each other, he glanced over at Astrid and Eppie. Eppie had her hand on Astrid’s arm and she was talking urgently in a low voice. Astrid looked up at Clare, and Griffin was shocked by the raw pain in her eyes. It wasn’t simply despair at being tormented by Eppie. It was something deeper, a pain and loneliness so stark it would strip her bare and destroy her.
He recognized it, because he’d been there. He’d lived with it for so long, until Clare had saved him. How could Astrid have been able to hide such pain so well? And how much deeper did it go?
“I have to go work,” Astrid said cheerfully as she stood up. “Lots of big orders to fill by tonight.” She leaned forward to hug Clare, and he saw her hold on a little tighter than usual, as if she was using Clare for strength before she waved good-bye to the rest of them and sauntered off with a swagger he no longer believed.
Shit. Eppie was right. Astrid was in trouble. He looked over at Clare and raised his brows. “She’s not okay, is she?”
Clare looked at him with troubled eyes. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She’s so private.”
Son of a bitch. Protectiveness surged through him as he watched Astrid leave, a need to help her, to make it right for her, to—
Clare set her hand on his arm. “Griffin?”
He turned his gaze toward her, his heart softening when he saw the love in her expression. “What is it?”
She squeezed his arm softly. “Thank you.”
He raised his brows. “For what?”
“For caring about the people who matter to me. For caring about this town.” She smiled at him, that special smile of love that still made his chest tighten.
“Of course I care.” He looked at the two teen girls at his table, at Eppie critiquing their designs, at Ophelia on her way over with his omelet, and at the woman he loved.
Yeah, he was home.
**Look for Astrid’s story coming in Fall 2012**
(Ever After Series, Book Two)
(Contemporary Small-Town Romance, Available December 2012)
A car door slammed, and Jason tensed. Shit. He wasn't in the mood to be sociable right now. If the little old lady from his fantasies had finally shown up with a plate of cookies, she was too damn late. She was just going to have to leave them on the porch.
Jason sheathed the blade of the utility knife back into the casing, waiting for that inevitable ring of the doorbell. How many times had he answered his door to find another note of condolence or another casserole after Lucas's death, and then Kate's? Well-meaning acquaintances who thought that a smile and a slab of meatloaf would ease the gaping void in his soul. He'd stopped answering the door, because there was no way to pretend to be appreciative when all the darkness was consuming him.
And now, after fighting like hell to get past that, after scraping his way back into a place from which he could function, all those emotions had returned, brought on by the overwhelming silence of his house. That same silence that had flooded him when he'd come back home after watching his son die at the hospital and felt the gaping absence of Lucas.
Silence fucking sucked, but a doorbell was no better.
But the doorbell didn't ring, and the car didn't drive away.
Scowling, Jason walked across the landing to peer out the back window at the driveway.
Astrid Munroe's rusted junker was in his driveway.
Astrid.
He'd forgotten she was coming.
Adrenaline rushed through him, breaking him free from the tentacles of the past. His heart suddenly began to beat again, thudding back to life with a jolting ache. He tossed the knife aside, spun away from the window and vaulted down the stairs, taking them three at a time, almost desperate for the air he knew Astrid would feed back into his lungs.
He jerked the back door open and stepped out onto the front porch, unable to keep the hum of anticipation from vibrating through him. "Astrid?"
Her car was empty, and she was nowhere in sight.
Trepidation rippled through him. Another woman dead? He immediately shook his head, shutting out the fear that had cropped up out of habit. Instead, he quickly scanned his property, knowing she had to be there somewhere.
But there was no Astrid. Frowning, Jason jogged down the pathway that led around the house toward the lake front, urgency coursing through him to find the one woman who had brought that brief respite into his life, that flash of sunshine, that gaping moment of relief from all that he carried. Where was she? He had to find her.
Now.
Jason was almost sprinting by the time he rounded the rear corner of his house and saw her. The moment he saw her, he stopped dead, utterly awed by the sight before him.
"Son of a bitch," he whispered under his breath as he stared at the woman who'd rocked his world only a few hours before.
Astrid was standing on one of the rocks on the edge of the lake, silhouetted by an unbelievable sunset. The sky was vibrating with reds, oranges and a vibrant violet, casting the passionate array of colors across the lake's surface. Astrid's hands were on her hips, her face tilted up toward the sky, as if she were drinking the beauty of the sunset right through her skin. Her auburn hair was framed in vibrant orange and violet, a wild array of passion that seemed to mesh with the wild woods around her.
Her sandals were on the ground beside the rock, her bare toes gripping the boulder. She was wearing the same jeans and tank top as she had earlier, despite the slight evening coolness cropping up in the air. It was as if she hadn't bothered to notice, as if she couldn't deign herself to succumb to something so mundane as a cool breeze.
She was above it all, and Jason felt the tightness in his lungs easing simply from being in her presence.
Astrid.
He knew then that he hadn't come to Birch Crossing for the town, or for the plate of cookies, or even for the damn pizza store he was planning to open. He had come for her. For Astrid. For the sheer, raw passion that she exuded with every breath.
She was the epitome of freedom, of passion, of life. Rightness roared through him at the sight of her on his land, basking in the sunset, breathing in the air that he suddenly noticed. The fresh, clean scent of woods and crystalline water filled him, as if Astrid's reverence of their surroundings had brought his own senses back to life.
She was beautiful. Not simply beautiful. She was beauty itself, the definition of all that it could be in a person's wildest, most desperate imagination.
Yearning crashed through Jason to lose himself in her, to use her vibrant energy to wipe away the smut covering his soul and give him the chance to breathe again, to find his path in this second chance that he'd tried to give his son. He was captivated by her, even the way she ignored protocol and had helped herself to his rock and the sunset, not even bothering to ring the doorbell. She was a free spirit, a woman who didn't fit into the town and didn't care.
He wanted that freedom. He needed to get caught up in her spell. He would never survive if he didn't find a way to forget, even for a minute, all the burdens crashing down on him. There was no choice, no other path, no other option, than to lose himself in the aura that was Astrid. To remember that there was something else in life beside the darkness that consumed him.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She didn't turn around, but her voice drifted to him, a melody that seemed to crawl under his skin and ignite flames within him.
"Yes, it is." He began to walk toward her, tentative, almost afraid of spooking her and losing the moment. But he couldn't keep from approaching her. He was drawn to her as if she were a magnet, calling to his soul, to the part of him that had once been alive. His need for her was pulsing through every cell of his body, so intense that it almost hurt, as if something inside of him was fighting its way to life after an eternity of being dead.
"This is the best place in town to watch the sunset. Is that why you bought it?" She spoke softly, almost as if she were afraid to disturb the beauty of the sunset.
"I haven't noticed a sunset in years," he admitted as he reached her. He stopped beside the rock, suddenly uncertain of how to approach. Of what to do next. Of how to get closer. "I bought the house because it has lake front, and I thought Noah would like it."
Astrid turned her head slightly to look at him, and he caught his breath at the sight of her face. The sun was casting a soft glow, illuminating her face so that her eyes seemed to vibrate with depth and passion... He realized suddenly that there was none of the levity in her expression that he'd seen before. Just pain and emotion, fighting to be free. His chest tightened for the agony he saw in her face, for the depth of trauma that seemed to echo what beat so mercilessly in his own soul. Outrage suddenly exploded through him, fury that someone had inflicted such damage on this angel that she could harbor such pain. Astrid was so free, so untamed, that she should be gallivanting across the surface of the lake, not looking at him as if her heart had been carved right out her chest.
"You don't notice sunsets?" she asked.
He barely heard her words or registered his response to her. All he could think about was the woman before him, the depth of her spirit, his need to somehow chase away the shadows and bring back the spirit that he knew was coursing through her veins. "No. I wouldn't have noticed this one if you weren't out here."
She shook her head, and that teasing glint sparkled in her eyes again, making his stomach leap.
Yes, Astrid. Come back to me.
He moved closer to the rock, ruthlessly drawn toward her.