Page 30 of Kissing Her Rescuer

He released her, stepping away and picking his hat up off the ground, knocking it against his thigh to get any dirt off. “I don’t…I’m…”

He was speechless.

That amused her. She grabbed his hat, tugging it down over her hair, threading her askew ponytail through the back. “You just lost your hat.”

He tapped the bill. “If all this was a way to convince me to help you with your decorations, you have some mighty persuasive powers.”

She hadn't even thought of the decorations, but she kissed him again, slowly, nipping at his bottom lip. “Was I good enough to get you to agree?”

He sank into a long, deep kiss that rocked her down to her too small, borrowed boots. “Absolutely.”

10

“Mom, are you alright?” Dewey closed the door behind him, keeping his mom's sparse air conditioning from escaping. How his dad had survived living with the air set to seventy-six had always impressed him. It was the only modification Dewey had made to the trailer. A brand-new air conditioning unit.

Clara Mitchell sat at the end of the dining room table, her hand over her mouth as she held up a picture.

“Mom?”

Her eyes rose to his. Something was wrong.

He didn't need this. Right now, everything seemed right. He and Eliza. That incredible kiss in the woods. The fact that he'd finished installing the last of the fence posts for Nash's mom without a heatstroke.

She handed him a picture. His baby picture. “What’s this for?”

She handed him a second picture.

“Is this Eva? I don't remember seeing this before. Most of hers are beige looking from the seventies. Where was this taken?”

“I’m glad you see the resemblance between the two of them.”

“It’s impossible not to see it.” The two pictures, him at two and Eva at two, looked identical. But everyone had always commented on that. Twins born seven years apart. Used to make Eva mad, being compared to a boy. But he couldn't help it if Eva didn't get hair until she was almost three.

“Wait,” he squinted at the picture and dipped it toward the window and the sunlight. “Her eyes...” The picture had so much color in it, Eva's hazel looked darker. More distinct than he remembered from other pictures.

His mom pushed back from the table, her gray curls bobbing with each step as she began to pace. The porcelain dolls that decorated her living room watched her. “I wasn't sure at first. I saw that picture, but not until I had them side by side…”

“Not sure about what?”

“Of course, you even said it’s impossible not to see the resemblance.”

“Resemblance to what?” He raised his voice, and she managed to give him a look that had him apologizing for his sharp tone before she went back to wringing her hands together.

“Dewey, honey, I need for you to tell me the truth.”

Dewey shrugged and set the pictures down. “I usually do.”

She took a breath, blowing it out through pursed lips. “This could be a coincidence.” She tapped the picture on the table. “But I tried to think back, to count back. I looked at my calendar. You know, the one hanging in the kitchen.”

“Your diary? That's what Eva and I call it.”

“I keep those, you know. It helps me keep track of things. I pulled out the calendar for that spring.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “What spring?” Where was his mother going with this? “You kept your calendar back forty years to when Eva was born?”

“No. But I did eight years ago. You went to your cousin's condo in Florida one weekend to fish.”

His breath clogged in his lungs. He knew exactly which weekend she meant. And he hadn't gone to Florida.

---