Tara Quinn - Born in the Valley

She held it carefully.

“I can help with that.”

Her back to the door, Bonnie turned when she heard the voice of the landscaper and handyman. Shane Bellows was employed by the owner of the building in which she leased space.

“Hi, Shane,” she greeted the man who’d once made her teenaged heart throb—before he’d shattered that heart.

Shane might still look like the high-school quarterback who’d broken up with her their senior year because she was too nurturing and “not enough fun.” But the dark-haired man taking the mop from her wasn’t even a shadow of the boy he’d been.

The skiing accident that had changed Shane’s life forever had left him brain-damaged. His memory was somewhat impaired, and he’d become unable to process more than one thing at a time—which made it difficult for him to make decisions. Or to figure out little everyday details, such as the nuances in people’s words or facial expressions.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night to clean up for you.” Her emotions were touched by the little-boy tone of voice. He wanted so badly to please. “I’m sorry it had to stay like this all day.”

She handed him some crusty metal hangers to put in the industrial-size trash can she’d wheeled up to the door of the supply closet. “At least it’s out here, away from the kids’ rooms,” she told him. Her tennis shoes sloshed through puddles on the slippery floor as she stepped forward to clear the bigger pieces of melted plastic that had, the day before, been storage bins, from the now-warped metal shelving unit. “We were able to have school as usual today.”

Shane carefully took the plastic, turning completely, holding it over the container before dropping it in—as though making sure he’d aimed right.

“Besides,” she added, “it’s not your responsibility to clean up my messes.”

“I know.” He nodded, frowning slightly as he surveyed the charred remains and started on a shelf that was too high for her to reach without the discolored and misshapen stepstool next to the shelving unit. “I just want to help.”

“You are helping,” she told him, going to work on a lower shelf. “A lot.” She wasn’t even sure what exactly she was clearing away. There’d been a foot-high metal cabinet with twenty or thirty plastic drawers for screws and picture hangers and other little essentials. The drawers were melted shut. Bonnie tossed the whole thing.

“And, anyway,” she told Shane, “no one was allowed in here until the investigators finished up their work this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

They worked silently until the shelving unit was nearly empty. Having Shane around calmed her. She didn’t have to keep up appearances with him.

And being with her seemed to calm him, too.

“This is going much more quickly than I expected, thanks to you.”

He grunted, looking embarrassed, and then slowly smiled. “I’m glad I can help you.”

Bonnie turned back to the job at hand with a twinge of guilt.

Keith had offered to come and help with clean-up duty after work. Beth had said she’d take Katie home with her and Ryan. Wednesday night was macaroni-and-cheese night, and Katie loved it almost as much as Ryan did. Bonnie had sent Katie home with Keith, instead. The little girl had missed her bath the night before and had had a long day.

And Bonnie had needed a break from them.

She would rather die than have Keith know she was dissatisfied with the life they’d built together—a feeling that had been oddly exacerbated by the events of the past twenty-four hours.

She just needed a little time to get herself back in line.

“Do you know who started the fire?” Shane asked, each word spoken deliberately.

Shaking her head, Bonnie shrugged. “People from the sheriff’s office said somebody threw a book of lit matches in through that vent up there.” She pointed to the outside wall of the closet.

Shane stared blankly toward the ceiling. “How do they know that?”

“Because it landed on the wet mop and didn’t completely burn.”

He took a full minute to process that. Then, “Do they know who did it?”

She felt a surge of pity at the obvious struggle he was having. Conversation was difficult for him.

“No,” she said. “I guess there was too much fire and water damage for fingerprinting. It was probably just kids, playing a prank.”

“Why would someone play a prank on you, Bonnie?”

“After looking at things today, my brother, Greg—who’s the sheriff now—doesn’t think they were going after me. There’s not much chance they knew that the vent led into the Little Spirits supply closet.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, and an even bigger “oh” was the fact that Bonnie had been a tiny bit disappointed that Greg hadn’t seen the fire as a premeditated act aimed at her. She’d almost had an excuse to move on.

Bonnie stopped, shaking, hands on the edge of the garbage can she was peering sightlessly into.

An excuse to move on? Where on earth had that thought come from?

She had nothing to move on to. Nowhere she wanted to go.

She loved her husband to distraction. Would give up her life for her daughter. Little Spirits had been a far greater success than she’d ever dared hope.

And still, she was consumed with a nebulous need for more. It made no sense to her.

How could she suddenly resent the very things she’d spent her life dreaming of, praying for, building?

“Are you okay?” Shane’s words pulled her back.

“No,” she told him, walking back to the closet.

She couldn’t prevaricate with Shane. It would be too cruel to this man who was trying so hard to make sense of an already bewildering world. And she didn’t need to pretend with him. In Shane’s mind, what was, was. He wanted predictability, craved patterns and rules, but there was no analysis of motivation, no judgmental thought, no opinion of what should be. Only an acceptance of the environment around him.

Most importantly, her confusion wouldn’t hurt Shane.

“People were talking to you today like you were sad. I saw them when I was waxing floors.”

“I know they were.” They were standing, one on either side of the mangled shelving unit, tilting it to get it out the closet door. “You may not remember, but Little Spirits is something I’ve talked about my whole life and I’ve worked really hard to make it successful. Most of the people in this town know that. So they think it would be really disturbing for me to have it intentionally vandalized. Or even damaged by accident.”

He stopped, stared at her, his gaze intent. The brown depths of his eyes had always been compelling.

“I remember.”

Bonnie didn’t know how to respond. When Shane had suddenly reappeared in her life a couple of months before—her new handyman, instead of the high-powered financier she’d heard he was in Chicago—she’d immediately accepted the man he’d become. Never probing for traces of the man he’d been.

Beyond acknowledging to her landlord that they knew each other, they’d never once referred to their personal past.

The two of them deposited the ruined unit by the emergency exit door.

“What do you remember?”

“That you always wanted to take care of people.”

Yeah. He was right about that. Was that all he remembered?

“And now you don’t?”

Breaking eye contact, she shrugged, dipped back into the closet to start clearing rubbish from the corner. “Of course I do.”

He was hauling out what was left of the vacuum cleaner Beth and Greg had bought her for Christmas.

Bonnie scratched her cheek, felt the slimy wetness of soot from her fingers and wiped her face with her shoulder. She’d brought sweats and a T-shirt with her to work that morning to wear for closet gutting. She was glad she had. She’d probably be throwing them away when she got home that night, because of their smell alone.