The Best Man

Looked like the subject of his father was off-limits. “Thanks.” She paused. “The idea was to take a space that no one really saw and make it beautiful. Get people to appreciate what nature has to offer, get them away from their phones and computers and take a breath and listen to the birds and the water and just...be.”

“Is that what all your projects are supposed to do?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. Yes.” Now that she’d said it out loud, it sounded a little dorky. Dorktastic, maybe. Hopefully.

Levi was looking at her steadily. “You hungry?”

“Sure,” she said. “Want to go to O’Rourke’s?”

“Nope,” he said, coming back to reclaim her hand. “A picnic. I checked with Honor, and she said the Barn at Blue Heron was free.”

Twenty minutes later, they were hiking up the hill. Levi held a good-sized brown bag with “Lorelei’s” stamped on one side, as well as a blanket. The late October rain had petered off to a drizzle, and it was incredibly romantic, a Saturday afternoon picnic on a chilly autumn day.

Despite the fact that she’d worked on the barn for six solid weeks, the sight of it was still a small shock. The plants had withered from the cold—it’d been thirty degrees last night—but it was still beautiful. Leaves had gathered on the roof in one corner; she’d have to come up with a ladder and take care of that.

Levi spread out the blanket on the floor of the barn, then got to work, grabbing kindling from the little alcove next to the fireplace. Once the fire was blazing, he sat down. “Hungry?”

“Starving. Feed me, Chief.”

He smiled then, just a little, and Faith’s heart gave a sweetly painful tug. Levi Cooper didn’t smile enough. She’d like to change that.

The wind gusted around them, sending puffs of smoke from the fireplace once in a while. They sat on the blanket and ate Lorelei’s beautiful sandwiches, roast beef and horseradish mayonnaise with sharp cheddar cheese on a hard roll, egg salad with dill on a thick rye. A bag of potato chips, two bottles of iced tea. And, for dessert, chocolate cookies, thick and dark and chewy. Faith closed her eyes as she chewed. “These are proof of a loving God,” she murmured. “Lorelei should be canonized.”

“She didn’t make them,” Levi said.

Faith opened her eyes. “Really? Oh! Are these the source of that heavenly smell at three o’clock in the morning?”

He nodded, looking, for the life of her, a little shy.

“Good job, big man,” she said. “I should tell Barb at the newspaper. ‘Chief Cooper’s Baking Secrets’ or ‘War Hero Secretly a Midnight Baker.’”

“Don’t you dare.” There was that almost-smile again.

“Why? The townspeople would love it. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, Chief Cooper.”

“Hush, woman. Close your eyes and eat another. You’re fun to watch.”

She obeyed, trying not to think of her thighs and the effect these cookies would have. It was worth it. When she opened her eyes, Levi was looking at her, his face solemn, two lines running between his brows. His eyes looked gray today, same color as the sky.

“I’m sorry I called you a tease that day,” he said. “You weren’t.”

The memory knifed into her heart. That day, when he’d given her the kiss that had so stunned her, not far from this very place. She swallowed the cookie in a lump. “That was a long time ago, Levi.”

“I know. But I’ve been thinking about it, a little. Thought about it a few times over the years.” He looked at the fire. “It wasn’t my finest moment. I’d just kissed my best friend’s girlfriend, and I wanted someone to blame. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. The fire popped and hissed. Shoot. Now or never. “Levi, is this a relationship, or are we just fooling around?”

Because if it wasn’t a relationship, she’d better lasso her heart and bring it back to the stable, since it was obvious that thing was galloping away.

He looked at her with some difficulty, it seemed. “I don’t know. Are you staying in town?”

“I...I have to take care of some things first. I want to stay, though.” More than ever now.

He hesitated, then nodded.

“So we’re...friends?”

“Is that what you want us to be? Friends?” He wadded up the paper bag and tossed it into the fire.

“I’ve wanted to be your friend my whole life,” she said, her throat abruptly tight.

He looked at her sharply. “Why?” he asked. His face was in its familiar solemn lines, forehead slightly crinkled with a question.

“I don’t know. You were... I don’t know.” And she didn’t. He’d been one of the cool kids, of course, but there was something more to him. Something different. “There was one time, when I had a seizure. Maybe third grade? Yeah, because Mrs. G. was our teacher.” Levi nodded. “And what I remember when I came out of it was you, telling people to back off and stop staring.” She looked at him, and his face was gentle now. “Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“Well. I do, obviously. But other than that, and especially when I was with Jeremy, you never seemed to like me.”

She looked down at the string edges of the blanket. Quite fascinating. Faith braided three of them together, then found her hand covered by Levi’s.

“I like you now, Faith.”

She looked up to see him smiling, just a little. “That’s good.”

“Feels like we’re more than friends, though.”

There was the rush of golden heat, fast and heavy. She nodded.

He pulled her against him, and the nice clean smell of him, soap and smoke, made her chest ache. There was a little bit of dried leaf on his flannel shirt, and she brushed it off, her heart feeling fragile and new in her chest.

Then she kissed him. His mouth was firm and smooth and so, so good at what it was doing, and that golden heat filled her, making her warm and slow and lazy with its sweetness.

And heck, there was a fire and a blanket and a beautiful man, and now rain pattered on the clear roof of the barn, and if there was a better place to make love, Faith didn’t know what it was.

A good while later, the patter had turned into a steady rush, blowing the last of the leaves onto the roof. Blue lay on his back in front of the fire, dreaming of being a ball boy at the U.S. Open, his paws twitching. Faith was against Levi’s side, her head on his shoulder, warm and sleepy from the heat of the fire and her man’s warmth.

Yep. Her man. That worked.

“Can I ask you a question?” Levi’s voice was just a rumble in his chest.

“Sure.”

“What’s it like to have a seizure? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he added.

“No, it’s okay.” She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. The question was familiar. “At first, I have what they call the aura. I get worried, like something really bad’s about to happen. Doomsday bad. I can feel my body doing things—I know I pull at my shirt, and I feel almost panicky, and then I just...check out.”

“What’s that like?”

“I don’t know. It’s just...empty.” She ran her hand over his smooth skin, feeling the muscles underneath. “What’s funny is how people act afterward. Or during, I guess, but I only see them afterward.”

“How do they act?” he asked.

“It depends on the person. You were pretty good. Kind of perfect, actually.”

“I get that a lot.” There was that lovely smile in his voice.

“I’m sure. Especially from the over-eighty crowd.”

“Correct. How do other people act?”

She thought a minute. “Well, when we were little, Jack would stay away from me, like I was about to burst into flames. Except, of course, for the time he filmed me for a Boy Scout badge or something. My mother almost killed him. Pru was pretty good. Honor...it’s funny, Honor would cry.”

“Honor cries?”

“I know.” She smiled.

“How about your parents?” he asked.

“Well, Dad would look like I’d died and come back. He’d be totally spent and relieved. I think it was harder on him than on me. And my mom would be...well.” Faith stopped. The rain was harder now.

“Mom would be what?”

“She’d be mad.” It felt sacrilegious, saying something negative about her dead mother.

Levi rolled over to look at her. The frown lines and crinkled forehead were back. “Your mother couldn’t have been mad at you because you had a seizure, Faith,” he said.

“No, I guess not. Mad that I had epilepsy, mad at the universe maybe. But it used to seem like she was mad at me.” She gave a small shrug. “But no, she probably wasn’t.”

“Can you imagine being mad at your kid because she had a seizure?”

The image of a little girl with sleepy green eyes came to her, so clear that she sucked in a breath, then cleared her throat. “No. Anyway. Let’s change the subject.” She paused. “My turn for a question. How’d you do in Afghanistan?”

His eyes changed, as if a door had closed. A second ago, they’d been gentle and kind...now, there was nothing in them. “I did fine.”

“So you don’t talk about the war, then.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. “I just don’t know how to answer when people ask that question.”

“How many tours did you do?”

“Four.”

“All in Afghanistan?”

“Yep.”

She paused. “Were you ever scared?”

“Sure.”

“Is that where you met your wife?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t say anything else. Faith waited. Waited a little more. “You can tell me about it, you know,” she said.

“About what?”

“Whatever you wanted. What you had to do over there, how you feel about it, or your wife, your mom, your father...whatever you want.”

He sat up and started dressing. “There’s really not much to tell.”

Looked like the intimacy portion of the afternoon had ended. “Well, if the mood ever strikes to go into a bit more detail, I’m just saying you can, if you want to.”

“I don’t.” His movements were sharp and hard.

“Yes, that’s coming through loud and clear.”

“Well, not everyone sits around feeling the feelings, Faith.”

“Is that a jab at me?”

He stopped buttoning his shirt. “No.”

“Do you have bad dreams?” she asked, unable to stop. “Is that why you bake in the middle of the night?”

He didn’t answer for a long minute, his smile gone. “Yes,” he said eventually.

She waited for more. Nothing came. She waited some more. “You could wake me up, too,” she said. “If you’re sleeping over, that is.”

He looked at her solemnly. “I don’t have those dreams when I’m with you.”

The words went straight to her heart—a gift, even if he didn’t seem to realize it.

His phone rang. Dang it all—just when they were getting somewhere. He groped for the evil little device, and honestly, wasn’t Everett ever on? “Chief Cooper. Hey. Sure, what’s up? Yeah, okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Faith suppressed a sigh. She shouldn’t complain; the guy was the police chief. “I have to go,” he said. “Alice McPhales thinks there’s a man in her woods.”

“Right.” Mrs. McPhales, her Girl Scout leader. Seemed like her Alzheimer’s was worsening; Faith had gone over the week before to cut back her plants for winter. The sweet old lady had made her tea but had forgotten the tea bag, so Faith, not wanting to upset her, had just drunk the hot water. “Want me to come with you?”