Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor #2)(82)

Hearing the sounds of an approaching car, he turned to see Alex’s BMW proceeding along the drive. Alex never came to the house this early. Slowing, Alex rolled down the car window and asked, “Want a lift?”

In a trance, Sam shook his head and motioned for him to go on. He couldn’t explain what had happened, couldn’t begin to find words … and Alex would discover it soon enough.

By the time Sam made it back to the house, Alex had already reached the second-floor landing.

Sam went upstairs and found his brother staring fixedly at the window. There was no wonder in his face, only the baffled tension of a man who related to the world on his own visceral and literal terms. Alex wanted an explanation when there clearly was none. Or at least none that he would accept.

“What did you do to it?” Alex asked.

“Nothing.”

“How did—”

“I don’t know.”

They both gazed at the stained glass, which had continued to alter as Sam had walked outside … the burnt-ash moon had disappeared, and the glass sky had turned gold and blue, intoxicated with sun. The leaves were even more profuse, emeralds embedded in spindrifts that nearly obscured the branches.

“What does it mean?” Alex wondered aloud.

Emotion made visible, Lucy had once said about her stained glass.

This, Sam thought, was love made visible. All of it. The vineyard, the house, the window, the vine.

The realization was so simple that many people would dismiss it as being beneath more sophisticated minds. Only those with some remnant potential for wonder would understand. Love was the secret behind everything … love was what made vineyards grow and filled the spaces between the stars, and fixed the ground beneath his feet. It didn’t matter if you acknowledged it or not. You couldn’t stop the motion of the earth or hold back the ocean tides, or break the pull of the moon. You couldn’t stop the rain or pull a shade over the sun. And one human heart was no less a force than any of the rest.

The past had always surrounded him like the bars of a prison cell, and he’d never understood that he’d had the power to walk out at any time. He’d not only suffered the consequences of his parents’ sins, he had voluntarily carried them with him. But why should he spend the rest of his life being weighted down by fears, hurts, secrets, when if he just let go, he would be free to reach for what he wanted most? He could have Lucy. He could love her madly, joyfully, without limit.

All he had to do was hold his breath and take the leap.

Without a word to his brother, Sam bounded downstairs and grabbed the keys to his truck.

* * *

Both the condo and Lucy’s studio were ominously still and dark, the way a place looked when it would be vacant for a long time.

A cold feeling settled into Sam’s chest and at the back of his neck. The urgency that had driven him to town had gathered in a desperate knot that constricted his heart.

Lucy couldn’t have left already. It was too soon.

On impulse Sam went to Artist’s Point, looking for Justine. As he entered the inn, comforting breakfast smells wafted around him, hot flour-dusted biscuits, pastries, applewood-smoked bacon, fried eggs.

Justine was in the dining room, carrying a stack of used plates and flatware. She smiled when she saw him. “Hi, Sam.”

“Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure.” After carrying the plates to the kitchen, Justine returned and went with him to a corner of the reception area. “How’s it going?”

Sam shook his head impatiently. “I’m looking for Lucy. She wasn’t at the condo or the studio. I was wondering if you had any idea where she was.”

“She’s gone to New York,” Justine said.

“It’s too soon,” Sam said tersely. “It wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow.”

“I know, but her professor called, and they wanted her there for a meeting and some big party—”

“When did she leave?”

“I just dropped her off at the airport a little while ago. She’s taking the eight o’clock flight.”

Sam yanked out his phone and looked at the time. Seven-fifty. “Thanks.”

“Sam, it’s too late for you to—”

But he was out of the inn before Justine could finish.

Leaping into the truck, he drove toward the airport and called Lucy on his cell phone. The call went to an automatic voice mail box. Swearing, Sam pulled over to the side of the road and texted her.

don’t leave

He pulled the truck back onto the road and floored it, while the words ran through his mind in a constant loop.

Don’t leave. Don’t leave.

* * *

The Roy Franklin Airport, named after the World War II fighter pilot who had founded it, was located on the west side of Friday Harbor. Both scheduled and chartered flights took off from the airport’s single runway. Passengers and visitors who were obliged to wait for one reason or another could usually be found in Ernie’s café, a blue-painted coffee shop right next to the airfield.

Sam parked beside the terminal and went to the door in ground-eating strides. But before he had even made it inside, the snarl of a Cessna turbine engine filled the air. Shading his eyes, Sam looked up at the yellow and white nine-passenger plane, climbing high and fast on its way to Seattle.