Page 50 of Drawing Home
“It’s the new John Denver,” he told her. “‘Windsong.’” Henry loved John Denver, even though all their friends were into the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He’d made her listen to the albumPoems, Prayers, and Promisesabout a hundred times. “I don’t know all the words yet. Just the music.”
She listened and watched his hands manipulate the guitar strings, amazed at his obvious ease with the instrument she’d had no idea he could play.
“Henry, you’re quite good! I admit it—I’m impressed.”
“It’s saving my sanity to have an outlet outside of art.”
“What happened toartsaving your sanity?”
“It became business. It became work. Seriously, Bea, I worry about you. You need to broaden your horizons.”
“I’m very happy with my narrow horizons, thank you.”
He switched to a different melody. Another John Denver song, this time one she recognized.
“‘Let me give my life to you,’” Henry sang. “‘Let me die in your arms…’”
He trailed off, strumming without singing for a few seconds before putting down the guitar.
“Why’d you stop?”
And there, sitting in that barn loft, he did something he hadn’t done since the night of that first party a decade earlier—he leaned forward and kissed her.
Bea pulled away with a swift, emphatic movement. “Henry, I’m sorry. We can’t.”
The rejection should not have been a surprise to him. And yet he looked stricken.
“Henry,” she said in the darkness. “I’m glad this happened. Let’s get this out in the open so it loses its power. We need to move forward and be best friends and business partners. Our creative relationship is something few people ever experience. We can’t risk messing that up.”
He shook his head. “You see things all wrong, Bea. You think this is going to get in the way of the important thing, work. I think you’re letting work get in the way of the important thing.”
She allowed him to embrace her, and she held him tight, telling herself he was wrong.
All these years later, she still believed she’d done the only rational thing given the situation. But Henry was just as stubborn as she was, and now, considering all that had happened, she had to wonder if he’d denied her the house and his art as some kind of punishment, a final rebuke. No; she refused to believe it. It was too cruel. If that had been his reasoning, it meant he’d never truly cared for her in the first place. She could not accept that.
She would keep digging.
Emma didn’t recognize the Jeep parked in front of her house. In fact, she almost didn’t recognize her house. It looked so…run-down after her lunch at Cheryl Meister’s. And her time at Windsong probably didn’t help either.
She couldn’t let this stuff mess with her head.
She pulled her car into the driveway, second-guessing the promise she’d just made to the auction committee. Somehow, in addition to allowing them to use Windsong for the auction venue, she’d been talked into hosting the next meeting there. The way she saw it, this project was going to be either a lot of fun or a complete disaster. There was no middle ground.
Once she was inside the house, she heard voices in the living room. She followed them.
“Hello?” she called out, then she stopped short, blinking to make sure she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing. It couldn’t be.
“Mark? What are you doing here?”
Her ex-husband jumped up from the couch while her daughter beamed at her from across the room.
“Mom! Look who’s here!”
Yeah, I see.
How long had it been? At least two years since he’d visited. And, aside from his sporadic and paltry child-support payments, she hadn’t had any contact with him in nearly as long. As far as she knew, neither had their daughter. Why on earth was he in her house?
She felt a hand on her shoulder.
