Spells for Forgetting(24)

I closed the file and set it on the stack to leave behind and pulled my glasses off, rubbing my eyes. I hadn’t seen a copy of the deed for the cottage, and I hadn’t been able to find one at my mom’s house in Prosper, either. If I was going to sell the property and cut the last of our ties to this place, I’d need it.

My ties, I corrected myself. For so long it had been the two of us. Now it was just me.

The sound of a heavy knock at the front door echoed through the house as I reached for the next file and I froze, staring at the open window. I hadn’t heard a car pull in, and the moment I thought it, a sinking feeling pulled behind my ribs.

When the knock sounded again, louder, I got to my feet and came down the hallway with hesitant steps. Behind the curtain, the stark outline of a tall shadow moved on the glass.

Not her. Too tall to be her, I thought. The tight knot in my lungs loosened just enough to let me breathe.

The old wooden floorboards creaked as I crossed the living room and peered over the curtain’s railing. Behind it, Noah Blackwood stood with his hands stuffed into his pockets, looking out at the road. I took a quick step back, raking my hair to one side as my eyes jumped over the room.

“Shit,” I muttered, reaching for the knob.

The door opened, letting the light flood in, and Noah turned to look at me. I winced when I saw it—the scars—and that sinking feeling in my gut grew heavier. They covered almost the entire side of his face, disappearing into the collar of his buttoned shirt. But that wasn’t the only way he’d changed. The man I remembered as Emery’s father had been ruggedly handsome, young with dark hair and a muscled frame. This Noah was almost all gray now, with deep wrinkles lining the sides of his face that still looked like him.

“Mr. Blackwood.” I swallowed, trying not to stare at the rippled pink skin that striped his cheek.

He took his hat from his head, holding it before him. “August.” His voice rasped as he said my name, but his eyes still held that steady kindness they’d always had. It was one of the reasons I’d always wanted his approval and also the reason he and his brother Jake couldn’t be more different.

I stood up straighter without meaning to, adjusting my shirt nervously. “Do you want to come in?”

He nodded, smiling, but one side of his mouth didn’t lift. “Sure. Thanks.”

I moved back and he looked around the house with a curious expression as he stepped inside. Like he was remembering all the times he’d been here before. Dinners around our table. Nights in front of the fire. I remembered them, too, though I tried not to. Things were easier when I thought about the past as the time of my life that began in Prosper.

“Heard you were back,” he said, looking me over. “Thought I should stop by.”

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Blackwood.” I hated that I sounded like I was sixteen.

“Been a long time.” When his eyes settled on mine, they held something else in them. A question, maybe. “I know it’s not pretty but it stopped hurting a long time ago.” He lifted a hand toward his face.

I swallowed, realizing he’d caught me staring. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He took two steps to the fireplace, reaching up to wipe the dust from the top of a book that sat there. “What are you up to these days, son?”

I sat back on the stool in front of the counter, grateful for the change in subject. He’d always done that—let me off the hook. And I could do small talk. That was about all I could do. But the sound of him calling me son made me wince.

“Teaching, actually.”

“Teaching,” he repeated, as if he was trying to imagine it.

“At a small private college in Portland. The history department.”

“Guess I can see that.” His gaze trailed over the mantel again until it landed on the framed photograph there. He picked it up, studying the picture enclosed behind the glass. It was of my mother and Hannah, his wife. They stood side by side on the beach, a baby set on each of their hips. Me and Emery.

He stiffened a little, setting it back down. “We lost her a few years ago. Don’t know if you heard.”

My brow pulled. “What?”

“More than a few years ago now, I guess,” he said. “Cancer.”

“I’m sorry…” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t know.”

A flash of heat traced over my skin, making me feel sick. I’d lost my mother, but it had happened in the outside world. Something about this place had seemed to be untouched by time. Hannah dying was like a crack in that glass. And my mind immediately went to Emery.

“Seems right that they should be buried out there together, don’t you think?” he said.

I half smiled, but the tenor of my voice shifted. “Yeah. It does.”

When I looked up again, Noah was fidgeting with the brim of his hat in a way that set me on edge. “We always thought of Eloise as family. Both of you,” he said, as if he was thinking the same thing.

“I know, Mr.—”

“We thought of you like a son, August.” He stopped me, saying that word again. “I think you know that.”

“I do.”

I found my mother’s face in the photograph. She, Hannah, and Nixie had been much more like sisters than friends. They were the only ones who didn’t turn their backs on me after Lily. And that knowledge had turned my guts more times than I could count.