The Hero's Redemption

She wasn’t sure who looked away first. Maybe they both did at the same moment. They resumed eating but in silence, until she couldn’t stand it for another minute.

“How is the ramp coming along?”

“Good. I think my plan will work.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “It might be easier if the old guy wasn’t hanging over my shoulder all the time. He’s obviously overdue for some excitement in his life.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Wasn’t collapsing and getting taken off to the hospital in an ambulance enough excitement?”

“Not the fun kind. He wants to hold boards for me when I saw. If I stop to calculate, he ponders right along with me.”

Erin laughed. “He’ll probably tell the neighbors he did half the work.”

Cole actually smiled again. “He’s okay.”

They talked about how far she’d gotten with the paint job, and he mentioned a book he’d just finished that she had loved. He had more doubts about the central argument, so they had the kind of debate she loved. The kind she’d once encouraged in her classroom and enjoyed with friends. Since he’d relaxed and was, for him, chatty, she asked what else he’d been reading, and was surprised anew by the range of subjects that interested him. They’d already talked about The Good Soldiers, a powerful look at one unit in the Iraq war. Now he mentioned Five Days at Memorial, about the horror in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and he had just begun All the Single Ladies, about unmarried women and the trend toward independence.

Erin blinked at that one, coming from him.

“The world’s changed,” he said seriously.

“You feel like Rip Van Winkle.” She’d known that, on one level, without realizing how profoundly those ten lost years had impacted him.

A nerve ticked in his cheek, and she wondered if he’d answer. But he started talking, slowly at first, then more naturally.

“Incarcerated, you watch some television, and you can get books and magazines from the library. Sports are the most popular on TV. The selection of books isn’t all that current. Even if it was…reading about something isn’t the same as experiencing it.” He went quiet.

He’d never said this much before. The fact that he had…felt like an odd kind of gift. Trust.

But then he surprised her even more by going on. “I took a bus from Walla Walla to downtown Seattle. I was just about paralyzed when I stood on the sidewalk and watched all those cars jockeying to get in the right lane, lights and movement everywhere, people shouting—” He shuddered, although Erin wasn’t sure he knew he had. “Things I wouldn’t have given a thought to ten years ago made me feel as if I’d been skinned and all my nerves were exposed. I needed someplace slower.”

“To dip your foot in the water.”

“Instead of cannonballing in? Yeah, you could say that.”

“Were you at all tempted to go home while you were in Seattle?”

His lashes veiled his eyes. “No.”

That was all. No. Erin wished she hadn’t asked. He’d already told her his father hadn’t once visited him. Why would Cole want to go home?

Because we all do, she thought sadly. Selling the house where she’d grown up, after her father’s death, had been so hard. Driving away the last time, seeing it in the rearview mirror just before she turned the corner, knowing she’d never be back… Even the memory cramped her heart. And how much more painful would that have been if her father still lived in the house—but she knew he’d never welcome her again? She wondered if his father was still in Cole’s childhood home.

If Cole’s dad ever showed up on her doorstep, she thought she might punch him.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, when Erin got home from Lowe’s with a bathroom vanity, molded counter and sink and miscellaneous plumbing parts in the rear of her Cherokee, Cole trotted across the street to meet her. He must have been watching for her.

Just like I always do for him. Yeah, but probably for a different reason, she thought resignedly. As usual, he looked really good in cargo pants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was merely short now, his arms, neck and face tanned. His body wouldn’t be, since he had yet to strip off his shirt when working outside. Or inside, for that matter, at least that she’d seen. How many tattoos did he have? Was he afraid they’d label him as an ex-con?