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Chapter One
Cameron Walker stood outside the Seams Pieceful quilt shop, peering in the big window, which Mary and Dot Higgins had dressed up for Christmas with a small rocking chair, a side table, a sewing basket with holiday fabric spilling out of it, a slim evergreen hung with old-fashioned ornaments, and of course, quilts. A stack of them was piled in deliberate disarray on a chest at the edge of the display. Every single one was some combination of red and green. He grinned as he looked up and saw a little chandelier strung up over the tableau and, hanging from it, a sprig of mistletoe.
All the shopkeepers along Main Street had twinkle lights and greenery, holly berries and pinecones decorating their windows and doorways. Christmas had hit his hometown of River’s Edge, Indiana, with its usual energy, and he’d almost missed it.
An army reservist, he’d only just returned from a tour of duty in south Florida, helping put up housing for hurricane victims. A relief group of guardsmen had arrived a couple of days ago, so Cam and his unit had been sent home. He landed at the base this morning and rushed to town, hoping to find a certain artist. His reflection in the window gave him a moment of pause, and he wondered if maybe he should’ve stopped by home and changed into his civvies. Too late now, and time was of the essence if he was going to get Mom’s gift done by Christmas Day.
He pushed open the door of the quilt shop, happy to see Dot Higgins winding fabric back on to a bolt at the big square cutting table. “Hey, Dot.”
Dot smiled at him and scooched around the table to give him a hug. “You’re back! How was Florida?”
“Hot.” He returned Dot’s embrace. “I’m never going to whine about humid Indiana summers again.” He grinned and shrugged. “But we got some housing put up, so at least those folks who were displaced by the hurricane have shelter for the holidays.”
Dot patted his arm. “You’re a good man, Cameron Walker.”
Heat filled his cheeks. “Just doing my duty.” He cast his eyes around the shop, looking for the sketches that Jazz had texted to him, but they were nowhere to be seen. “Listen, this may sound weird, but Jazz took some pictures of some art in here last week, and I need to talk to the artist who did those drawings.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled to his texts to show Dot photos of several colored pencil drawings that his cousin’s wife had sent him. “I built Mom a dower chest for Christmas and it needs decorating. These are exactly what I want for it. Jazz told me that your niece is the artist I’m looking for. Is she still visiting?”
Dot took the phone. “Yeah, those are Harp’s. She’s been designing quilt patterns for us. Mary must’ve been showing them off.” She frowned as she slowly went through the photos. “Huh. These are from her sketchbook, though.”
Cam tried not to let the urgency he was feeling show, but he really needed to speak to … Harp. Did she say the niece’s name was Harp? Like the instrument? Interesting… “I need to talk to her. Is she here?”
“Um, hang on.” Dot went to the bottom of a staircase. “Harper, there’s someone here to see you.”
Oh, Harper … Harp. Nice.
She tossed a look over her shoulder at Cam, crossed her arms, and gazed up the steps. “You up there?”
Cam wandered closer to the staircase eyeing Dot, whose teeth were worrying the red lipstick off her lower lip. Her manner was odd—almost shifty. Something was up. She tilted her head toward the stairs so slightly that if he hadn’t been staring right at her, he might’ve missed the gesture.
He offered a raised brow. Was she telling him … what? He stepped a few feet closer, leaned in, and saw a pair of red high-top sneakers.
Ah, okay, the kid is sitting up there … hiding?
He took a deep breath and hit the stairs, his lace-up boots clumping on the wooden risers. Two steps below her, he stopped. “Hey, hi. I’m Cam Walker.”
She was huddled, there was no other word for it, at the very top wrapped in an oversized sweater, jeans, a black turtleneck, and those crazy red high-tops. But she was no kid. She was a woman of at least twenty-five. Her hair was dark blonde like his and pulled back into a low ponytail with wispy bangs over her forehead. In the dim stairwell, her eyes were huge and appeared to be dark green … like Christmas-tree green. In the few seconds it had taken him to get closer, a crease had developed between her blonde brows and she’d pulled the sweater even tighter. Head held perfectly straight, she gazed, not at him, but over his shoulder at her aunt, and if looks could kill, Dot Higgins would be crumpled on the floor. When Cam glanced back, Dot stood with her palms raised in a what could I do kind of gesture.
Fine, he’d take the hit for storming the stairs. He truly needed to speak to this woman. He stuck out his hand and started talking fast because he had the impression she was about to bolt. “Harper, is it? Nice to meet you. I’m a cabinetmaker and I need someone to paint a dower chest for me. It’s a Christmas gift, so it’s sort of a rush job since Christmas is barely a month off, but I saw your sketches and I think you’ve got what I want.” It all came out in one breath as he dropped his hand because, clearly, she had no intention of shaking.
She still said nothing, but her eyes grew even rounder, and he realized he was towering over her. Dammit. He backed off, down a couple steps so they were face to face. “Here’s the thing—”
She held up one hand. “I’ve never painted on furniture before.”
He chuckled. “Neither have I, but at least you’re an artist. I am so not.” When she didn’t respond with even a hint of a smile, he rushed on. “Your sketches are amazing, exactly the kind of folk-art feel I want for this piece. Won’t you come take a look? Please?”
“Where did you see my sketches?”
“Um…” Heat rose from his camo collar. “A-a friend saw them and told me about them.” He hated dissembling but the last thing he wanted was to cause trouble for Mary Higgins. Hell, he’d already gotten Dot into hot water.
She rose and now she was towering over him, despite the fact that she was small, almost slight. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” She turned and disappeared into a room across the hall.
Cam’s heart dropped to his socks. He was so sure, so very sure that this artist could bring his dreams for the dower chest to life. The inner debate about whether to follow her ended, though, when she quietly but firmly shut the door. He released a huge sigh, and went back down the stairs to face Dot, who’d watched the whole encounter. “She doesn’t seem too interested, does she?” he said sadly. Understatement of the year, Walker.
“Don’t give up.” Dot put a hand on his shoulder.
He smiled. “Oh, I’m not about to give up. Need to find a new tack, that’s all.”
“Let Mary and me talk to her.” Dot walked with him to the door. “Go home, unpack. I’ll text you.”
Harper didn’t recognize the deep voice asking for her downstairs in her aunts’ quilt shop. Who would be looking for her here of all places? She’d come to River’s Edge to get away from everyone. Not exactly hiding, but she hadn’t advertised where she was going to land because she hadn’t known herself for sure. For eighteen months after Drew’s funeral, everything was too hard—putting on a smile each day when she got to the elementary school where she taught art, seeing his civvies in the closet next to her clothes, waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares about the crash in the Kuwaiti desert. Some days, just placing one foot in front of the other seemed impossible. Everyone from her mom to her best friend Theo to the aunts, telling her she was strong and brave, although she was quite certain she wasn’t either of those things.
She’d stayed as long as she could bear it, but finally, she had to get away. In the four months since she’d turned in her resignation and loaded her car, she’d covered over five thousand miles. Heading west and north first from their home near Detroit, she’d traveled along the Lake Michigan coast, staying in little hotels and B&Bs, aching for Drew’s arms each night as she tried to sleep. She went up into the UP, Minnesota, even into Canada, driving each day until she was too fatigued to go another mile, then sleeping restlessly before getting up and driving more. Sometimes, she’d hang out in a town or city for a few days—find a laundromat, explore a little, but never discussing anything more personal than the weather with anyone who struck up a conversation. A few weeks ago, she’d finally headed to southern Indiana and the safe and comforting arms of her aunts Mary and Dot.
She tiptoed down a couple steps to peer over the banister out into the shop, trying to get a look at the man who’d asked for her. He was tall and lanky and dressed in… Dear God, no. A soldier, clad in utility gear—camo—his pants tucked into lace-up boots. She moved down a step. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his wheat-colored hair was styled, not high and tight like Drew’s had always been. Just a regular tidy haircut that left his hair thicker and longer than seemed acceptable in the military. His face was chiseled with a square jaw and a slightly hooked nose. She was too far away to see what shade his eyes were behind a pair of trendy crystal-framed glasses.
“Um, hang on.” Dot came to the bottom of a staircase as Harper scooted back up to tuck herself out of view at the top. “Harper, there’s someone here to see you.” She crossed her arms and gave Harper a long look. “You up there?”
The top of the soldier’s head appeared for a second and, suddenly, he was bounding up the steps, his white teeth gleaming in the low light—not wolfish, simply cheerful, like a damn puppy. “Hey, hi. I’m Cam Walker.”
And what was she supposed to do with that information? She shot Aunt Dot a venomous glare. It didn’t take long for him to reveal what he wanted—her. Well, her artistic skills. He talked fast, like a salesman or maybe more like a kid eager to convince someone to come out and play with him in the snow. Somehow, he’d seen her sketches—that was a discussion for the aunts later—and he was impressed enough to come looking for her.
Merely the thought of the project he proposed exhausted her … actually he exhausted her, and it was kinda nervy of him to seek her out without knowing a single thing about her. How could he know? her conscience nudged, but his overwhelming zeal and the fact that he was towering over her only made her want to curl up into a ball and hide.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize she was shrinking away, and he backed down the steps until their eyes were on level. His were blue … no gray … sort of blue-gray and sparkling with enthusiasm and maybe a little hopefulness. She wasn’t sure why, but she hated to disappoint him. Felt a little like telling a kid there was no Santa Claus. However, she simply wasn’t up for a new project. Not yet. She rose from her spot on the steps and declined firmly.
Harper shut the door to the workroom and eased back into the chair where she’d been drawing quilt designs for the new piecing class that Aunt Dot was teaching next week. She turned the paper this way and that, deciding what colors she thought would look best with her backward flying geese pattern. In front of her on the table were seven other designs she’d created—new approaches to old themes. Last night, the aunts had loved them all, and Harper was pretty proud of her efforts. Drawing and watercolors were the only things that kept her from drowning in grief. It had taken her over a month of aimless driving to figure that out.
In Duluth, she’d picked up a notebook and pens in a bookstore and tried journaling her trip. But it wasn’t until she got to Quebec and passed a little art supply store on the Boulevard Mathieu that the urge to draw hit her again. She’d bought a sketchbook, pencils, and watercolors and begun drawing what she saw, filling the book with nature, trees, flowers, plants, birds, as well as cottages, city streets, and facades of diners and shops. On PEI, she bought another sketchpad for the fishing shacks, lobster traps, fishnets, and lighthouses.
Deliberately, she never drew people. She didn’t want to connect with strangers like that as she traveled. But each sketch had a tiny figure hidden in it somewhere—on the steps of a cottage, under a bird’s wing, blended in with the bark of a tree, inside a lobster trap, or in the window of a lighthouse. It was always Drew, a way to keep him close. She didn’t share her sketchbooks, which had grown to a pile of ten by the time she got to River’s Edge, with anyone until one night Aunt Mary had happened upon one on the classroom table. Since then, she’d been encouraging—pushing—Harper to do something with her art.
“You can’t hide up here forever, you know.” Aunt Mary opened the door and leaned against the jamb, arms crossed over her chest. She was tall and thin like Harper’s dad, straight as an arrow, and wore her graying hair in a severe, short cut. Her sharp features served her well when she was teaching home economics at River’s Edge Junior High, but anyone who spent more than five minutes in her company realized that she was as big-hearted a woman as any who ever lived. Aunt Dot, on the other hand, although equally kind and generous, was as short as her sister was tall. Curvaceous and bosomy, Dot wore her long gray-blonde hair in messy bun, generally held in place with a pencil or a knitting needle and always had a cheery smile.
Harper dropped her pencil and leaned back in her chair. “I know.”
Aunt Mary strolled over. “Cam Walker’s a good guy. You should at least talk to him.”
“Did you show him my sketches?”
“No, I showed them to Jazz Walker. She runs the arts commission and is married to Cam’s cousin, Eli.” Aunt Mary settled into a chair across the table. “They’ve got the cutest baby—little Leo. He’s about four months old now. Sweetest smile. She was jogging with him down on the River Walk last week and that baby was happy as a little lamb in that stroller, grinning at everyone they passed, perfectly content to—”
Harper had to smile—Aunt Mary sometimes went off on tangents right in the middle of a conversation. It wasn’t a sign of aging or early dementia—she was only seventy, after all. Aunt Dot said she’d been scattered since she was a child, and although sometimes it could be distracting, it was all part of Mary’s charm. Folks just had to remember that if they crossed her path, they’d better be ready to settle in for a long chat.
She held up one hand. “Aunt Mary … Jazz?”
Mary looked at her over the top of her wire-framed readers. “I was telling you. She runs the local arts commission. You know, the old house over on Main that I keep encouraging you to go check out?”
“And why were you showing her my sketches?” Harper eyed her aunt with suspicion.
“Well…” Aunt Mary’s sheepish expression immediately turned bold. “Okay, I told her about you and what a great artist you are. When she was in the other day, she happened to see the sketchbook you left on the counter downstairs.” She placed both palms on the table and shoved up out of her chair to grab a box by the door. “I told her you might come by one day soon.”
“Seriously?” Harper tried not to sound as frustrated as she felt. “I’m really not up for meeting anyone new right now.”
“It’s time.” Aunt Mary busied herself opening newly arrived boxes of precut fat quarters. “Look, aren’t these Christmas fabrics great?” She held up a bundle of gaily patterned folded cotton squares.
Harper closed her eyes. “Aunt Mary, I love you to pieces, but you’ve got to stop trying to fix me.”
“I’m not trying to fix you, darling girl. I simply think you need to get back into the world.” She set several squares on the table. “Talking to Cameron Walker is one small step.”
Harper’s phone dinged with a text and she picked it up, not yet ready to have this conversation again with her aunt. It was her mom.
“Hi, sweetie. Dot says there’s a guy there who needs your help. It’s a sign—time to take a step outside yourself.”
What the actual hell? “Are you two plotting with my mom?” She held up her phone.
Smiling, Mary craned her neck to read the text. “Not really, but apparently, we’re all on the same page. It’s time, Harp. Go talk to Jazz at the arts center. She’ll vouch for Cameron Walker.”
Harper thumbed a reply to her mom, then with a sigh repeated it to her aunt. “Fine. I’ll go talk to her.”
End of Excerpt
