Chapter One
I like to look at the framed picture of the young girl that hangs in my room. She is smiling, and her dark blonde hair is ruffled. She looks happy. I would do anything to get to know her, to see that smile and hear her laugh, but I can’t. She’s dead. She died giving birth to me.
The door opens, and Aunt Josephine walks in. I don’t have a lock, and she never knocks. It’s her house after all, and I am only twelve. She doesn’t look cross, but I know she is, she always is. It’s never anything I’ve done or haven’t done, although she always makes it seem as if it’s my fault. I know now that I can never make her not cross with me. She hates me. She hates that she has to take care of me until I’ grow up.
I am glad that I’m going to boarding school this year, even though Aunt Josephine says that the nuns will ‘discipline my mother’s faults away’. The nuns may be bad, but they can’t be as bad as Aunt Josephine. Nobody can.
She comes towards me. She is tall and thin, and her skin always looks shiny. I look away from the picture, but not quickly enough. Her face is a tight mask of disapproval as she studies it.
“Why do I even bother?” She snaps at last. “Anybody can see that you’re going to end up exactly like her, pregnant with God knows who’s child.” Her black eyes flash, and I can’t stop myself from flinching. “Just don’t think I’ll be wasting another eighteen years of my life looking after your bastard.”
“Sophie? Are you alright?”
I look up from the spot on the wall where I’ve been staring while my thoughts wander, and give Stacey Carver a smile. I have perfected the smile that says I’m fine, even though most of the time, I feel far from it.
“I’m fine.” I tell her, turning my attention back to cleaning a shelf, which is what I should have been doing in the first place. “I was just thinking.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot.” Her voice is so full of concern that immediately I start to feel guilty. She is my boss at the gift shop where I work as an assistant, and she worries about me, more than she should. I wish she wouldn’t, she has enough things to worry about without adding me to the list.
She has already done too much for me. When my Aunt Josephine died very suddenly, a little more than four months ago, and I found out that I had little money, no home, and absolutely no plans, she literally became my guardian angel. While her husband, my aunt’s lawyer, took care of discharging the will and settling the estate, which Aunt Josephine bequeathed almost entirely to the local library, Stacey helped me find a small apartment in town, and gave me a job working as an assistant in her gift shop.
“Really, I’m fine.” I smile again for good measure. She nods and turns towards the front of the shop. She is a pretty woman, small, brown-haired, and always nicely dressed.
I can’t see her face anymore, but I can tell that she is frowning. She is worried because the gift shop cannot afford to keep me much longer. Business is worse than usual, but she doesn’t know how to tell me. For some reason, she feels responsible for me, maybe because she was friends with my mother all those years ago, but it’s time for me to be responsible for myself.
I still have the fifteen hundred dollars my aunt left me. Her estate was worth a lot more. Even though she hardly ever left the house, she had been earning an income from indexing textbooks for years. In a way, I’m glad she didn’t leave me more. If she had shown me any sympathy at the end, I would probably spend the rest of my life wondering if I had misjudged her.
“I’ve been thinking of moving to Bellevue and finding a job,” I tell Stacey.
“A job? Are you sure?” She looks skeptical. “That may be harder than it sounds, in this economy.” She thinks for a minute, and I’m sure she is trying to come up with a better idea. “What about Art school? It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it.”
My mind goes to my portfolio of sketches, back in my apartment. I’ve been sketching for ages, but I didn’t decide on jewelry design until a few years ago. Of course, Aunt Josephine flat out refused to pay for Art School, so I applied to City U, UDub, and Bellevue like wanted. The acceptance letters are gathering dust at the top of the rusty old fridge in my apartment. Now that I have no money, I’m not going to pursue aids and grants to spend four years doing something that’s not my dream.
“Art School is a dream.” I smile ruefully. “Maybe at some time in the future, I’ll go, but for now I think I’ll just try to find a job.” That’s is if anybody will hire an eighteen-year-old Catholic school graduate with zero experience whatsoever.
“Okay.” She is still frowning, but she doesn’t say anything else.
I go back to dusting the shelf. It doesn’t need the cleaning, but I need something to do. I run my dust brush over a polished woodcarving of a forest scene, a colorful crystal vase, and a green ceramic piggy bank.
As I work, Stacey gets up and moves from the front desk to the glass front of the store, peering down the road that leads to Ashcroft Hills Resort, the only thing that keeps our small town on the map. It has a couple of bungalows, a sizeable swimming pool, a spa, a few conference rooms, and it’s just an hour’s drive from downtown Seattle. Brett Carver, Stacey’s husband, calls it the ‘businessman’s’ paradise.
“Lots of cars going to the Hills today,” Stacey observes. She is trying not to be too hopeful, but I’m sure she wishes that it would make a difference in sales. She stares down the road for a few more minutes, and then sighs. “I’m going to run a few errands,” she tells me. “You’ll be fine, won’t you?”
I nod in response. I love the shop. The wood carvings, glass sculptures, etched glass, and vanity items we sell are the closest I’ve ever been to real art. It seems fitting somehow that the last place I’ll really know in town before I have to leave is my favorite place in it.
I sit at my desk reading a book for a long time after Stacey leaves. Only a few people come into the shop, Doug Randall, who runs the sporting equipment store, stops by every morning to ask how I am, while his eyes explore my chest, as well as a few other people. There are no sales though, but it’s too early to lose all hope.
I place the book down on the desk and move towards the door. There is an old gilt framed mirror hanging on the wall, and as I walk through the shop, I catch a glimpse of my reflection. I’m wearing my black blouse, a gift from Stacey, and the blue jeans that have become my uniform. I am not pretty, at least I don’t think I am, though Stacey would argue otherwise. I don’t look like any actress or model I’ve ever seen, and I’m not thin enough to be conventionally pretty anyway.
I adjust the barrettes that hol
d my hair back from my face. Stacey constantly goes on about how my hair is my best feature. It is pale gold and extremely thick, hence the barrettes, but I prefer my eyes, they are green, the same color as my mothers’ were.
I continue to the door, and step outside. The air is fresh and crisp, and the wind is blowing dead leaves across the paved street. On the other side of the street, the second-hand bookstore looks sadly empty. There are only a few people about. Many of Ashford’s residents work in Seattle, which is commuting distance away.
I am about to go back into the shop when a car cruises past, coming from the tree lined street that leads to Ashcroft hills. It is a black sedan, with tinted windows, so I cannot see whoever is in it.
I turn around and enter the shop. Through the glass front, I see the car stop suddenly, just past the store, and after a short pause, when it stays unmoving on the street, it slides back to park right in front of me.
I watch, curious. It is probably only someone from Ashcroft Hills, but there is a feeling of apprehension building in my stomach. It’s as if my sixth sense can feel a danger in that car, but I ignore it. There is more likely a sale in it, I decide.
The back door opens, and as I watch, a man steps out.
Involuntarily, I step back, suddenly hoping that the glass will hide me from him. My heart starts to pound, and I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. I am filled with awareness, excited and afraid at the same time, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen anyone who looks like him before.
His face is breathtakingly handsome, almost as if it was lifted directly from one of the classical sculptures or paintings I’ve seen in art textbooks, and then perfected. His hair is thick and very black, slightly too long and elegantly tousled, framing his exquisite sculpted face. His lips are firm and perfectly shaped. His nose is straight. His eyes, framed by a pair of winged black eyebrows, are the most intense blue I’ve ever seen.
I’m only looking at him, but I feel as if all the air has been sucked from my lungs. I pray he doesn’t come into the shop, and I hope fervently that he does.
I am staring, mouth open, but I can’t stop myself. He is just so... compelling.
His eyes narrow slightly, and I flush. I don’t know why I’m embarrassed. He’s been staring at me too. I look away from his eyes and take in his tall, broad shouldered body in a superbly tailored gray suit. My mouth suddenly feels dry. I swallow.