I'll Be Your Blue Sky (Love Walked In #3)(39)

Oh, for heaven’s sake, she scolded herself, he’s not coming to see you. You spoke with the man for an hour, mostly about mussels. Don’t be ridiculous.

But the beauty of their conversation in the sandwich shop, the reason it could be light and playful, the reason it had worked, was the fact that she had been certain it would never happen again. Immediately afterward, Edith had slipped back into her accustomed loneliness, skirting around the edges of human interaction. Even John Blanchard had stayed away, as if he’d known she needed time to recall whom she was and how she was meant to live out her days in the wake—and she would be forever in the wake, this she knew—of Joseph’s death. Somehow, John was the exception, her only friend; maybe because he’d been Joseph’s friend, he’d slipped easily into her days, undemanding, reassuring, always keeping the right amount of space between them. Being with him was as easy as being alone, and sometimes, on piercingly lonely days, easier. With John, her devotion to Joseph was a given. And George Graham, who would be in her house, her and Joseph’s house, in a matter of days did not even know Joseph had existed.

Except that George had known. She found that out, as she found out so many things, not fifteen minutes after he arrived at Blue Sky House. This time, there wasn’t even a pretext of casualness. George stepped purposefully over her threshold in a suit and shirt that had obviously been custom-made for him (even she, with her careless fashion sense, could see that), holding a leather bag so exquisite, it probably cost as much as her car, as if he were attending a business meeting instead of spending a night in a modest little house. As it turned out, this made sense, since a business meeting is what more or less took place at her kitchen table. The second he sat down—his back so straight it didn’t rest against the chair, his hands touching at the fingertips, teepee-like—Edith, in her old wool pants and sweater, felt at a distinct disadvantage.

If Edith had worried that George would expect playful banter again, she needn’t have. He began, as she later imagined he began all business negotiations, by throwing her off-balance.

“Mrs. Herron, I should tell you right off that our meeting in the coffee shop was no accident. I sought you out deliberately.”

His words were strange, but his tone was genial, and Edith was too surprised to feel alarmed or even to notice that he’d called her “Mrs. Herron” when she had never told him she’d been married.

“What do you mean ‘sought me out’? You mean you saw me in the coffee shop and decided to approach me? But I’m the one who spoke first.”

“No, I mean I came to Antioch expressly to speak with you. I intended to simply knock on your door. My excuse was going to be that I wanted to put relatives up at a local hotel or guesthouse and needed to see if yours would be appropriate. But when you came out of your house and started walking, I got out of my car and followed. I was about to start up a conversation when you saved me the effort.”

Edith felt her pulse quicken. She moved her chair a few inches away from the table, and with her eyes, measured the distance from where she sat to the front door. It was only five o’clock, not even verging on dusk, yet. Surely, if she screamed, someone would come.

“You followed me?” she said, keeping her voice steady.

He smiled. “Please. I meant no harm then and don’t now. A while back, a young assistant at my workplace mentioned this town and your guesthouse specifically. He and his family stayed here for a week last summer. He told me how pleasant it was, how tight a ship you ran. It surprised him that a woman could run a business so efficiently. He said you were smart, and he described your house to me in some detail. He told me that you were a young widow, a former nurse, who had opened a guesthouse after the death of her husband. By the way, please accept my condolences.”

Edith ignored this. “You’re saying you knew all of this about me when we spoke in the sandwich shop?”

“I did.”

“Why? Why did you seek me out? Why didn’t you tell me you’d come to town in order to meet me?”

“First, I needed to see if you would do.”

First. What could be second, then? Her imagination raced toward multiple possibilities, each scarier than the last. She pushed her chair back and stood up, her breath stammering inside her chest. “I think you should go.”

“Let me explain. Please.”

Edith shook her head and started for the door. “You should go now.”

She gripped the doorknob, but her hand froze, refused to work. A frightened sob started in her throat.

“Edith, I don’t hurt women,” George Graham said, speaking quickly. “I save them from men who do. Or I try to, at least. Not by myself, of course. I rely on other people, good people, people who believe women should feel safe in their own homes. People who can keep a secret. I was hoping you could be one of them.”

Even though she had no idea what he meant, his voice was so urgent and earnest that it stopped Edith in her tracks. She didn’t yank the door open and run out. Instead, keeping her hand on the doorknob, she turned around to face him.

“What does that mean?”

“Come, sit back down at this table with me, and I’ll tell you. When I’m finished, if you want me to leave and never come back, I swear to you I will honor that.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You just know. The way I knew after we talked in the sandwich shop that I could trust you.”