Chapter Five: I Know Where I’ve Been

Chapter Five

Lincoln

I KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN

Performed by Elle King

The air in the vehicle smelled like Willow, like browned butter and sugar, but it had turned from enticing and warm to withdrawn and cold in a nanosecond after she'd asked about my sleepless nights. It wasn't just my reaction to her question but something else that had her mentally pushing away from me just as she'd physically pushed away from that man Poco.

It was for the better.

I didn't want this beautiful and brave woman poking at me, pushing past barriers.

Hell, in mere minutes I'd given her more information than I'd given most of the people in my life. I'd trusted someone outside the family with my truths, and it had completely backfired with Felicity's smear campaign.

This journey to Cherry Bay had to stay focused on recovering myself and burying the last of my ghosts. Maybe someday I'd be ready to let another woman into my life, but not now. Especially not someone my family would immediately see as a Sienna look-alike, even if Willow now seemed as different from Sienna as sunshine to moonlight.

If Willow left my car thinking I was an ass, it was better than her knowing just how attracted I was to her vibrant glow. The way she'd bounced back from Poco, the way she'd been able to smile even after what had happened, had hit me like rays peeking through a dense canopy of leaves. I had a feeling it would be all too easy for her to slip past my barely rebuilt defenses.

So instead of breaking the uncomfortable air, I left it there to stew and become stale. The only sound in the car became Willow's light voice directing me to the alley behind the building The Tea Spot was in.

As I pulled up to the entrance, the tension in my shoulders rolled up another notch. Two large dumpsters cast shadows over the meek light put out from a single bulb hanging above the door. The headlights of the Rover could barely dispel them. The hail and rain that had forced me out of my home to drive Willow here had slowed but was still coming down fast enough to have my automated windshield wipers beat out a steady tune. Who knew what was hiding in the damp and darkness? Hardy, the former head of my Secret Service detail, would have completely objected to this setup.

"Poco know you're here at this hour by yourself?" I asked before I could stop myself.

She tugged at a necklace. It had been tucked beneath her jacket earlier when she'd done the same. It was some sort of round charm I barely caught a glimpse of before she'd palmed it. "Most people in town know I do the baking, and that it means early hours."

The wildly protective feelings I'd had all morning spiked once more. How many times had I wished I could go back in time and stop what had happened to the women in my life? But damn it, I didn't know her. Didn't owe her anything. She wasn't someone I had an obligation to. I ground my teeth together, fighting with myself for too long before asking, "You got an alarm system in there?"

She huffed out a breath, half exasperation and half humor. "Yes."

She opened the car door, and I instinctively reached out as if to draw her back. Instead, I settled my hand on her puffy jacket. It collapsed until I felt the thin arm beneath it like I had in the graveyard. It seemed so tiny. Fragile. A wing that could easily be broken. And now I couldn't get that image out of my head. Her broken.

Damn it.

"You need to be careful, Willow," I grunted out.

"I'll be fine. I honestly think Poco will want to forget this as much as I do." It sounded hopeful, wildly optimistic in a way that made me want to push at it.

"I wouldn't count on it." The man had looked too gleeful when he'd had her captured and all too pissed off when I'd intervened.

She slid out of the car, shifted a brightly colored patchwork bag onto her shoulder, and said, "Thank you again for helping me. Not many people would step up for others like you did."

Her words slammed all my past failures into me like a punch to the gut. I could barely breathe, which made my words sharp and harsh as I insisted, "You can repay me by staying safe."

Her lips curved upward as if she found my growliness humorous. My eyes lingered on those sweet lips shaped like a pretty bow, fuller on top and made for tasting. Licking. Enjoying.

Just not by me.

And certainly not now when she was mere minutes past having been attacked.

Without another word, she shut the car door and quickly made her way to the café. After unlocking the back door, she annoyed the hell out of me by leaving it wide open so anyone could follow her inside. The alarm I could hear beeping even through the Range Rover's tinted glass finally shut off, and she reappeared two seconds later in the darkened entrance. She gave me a small, almost bashful wave before finally closing the door.

I sat there, fighting a silent war. My body and mind were in deep debate. Go. Stay. Wash my hands of her. Demand she do anything but remain in that building alone.

A light appeared in a narrow window above the dumpster on the left.

Should I shut off the engine and wait until another employee showed up? Should I mind my own business and head home to the quiet of my house?

Neither felt like a choice I could live with.

My gallery was on the opposite side of the street from The Tea Spot, angled in such a way that if I was in my studio on the third floor, I might be able to see the front windows of the café.

Decision made, I backed out of the alley and drove along the wet cobblestones glistening in the beam of the lantern-like streetlights. The fog that had been in the cemetery was nonexistent here—just the dark damp of a nighttime storm and the quiet of a small-town Main Street in the wee hours.

I parked in front of the gallery, ducked my head, and made a run for the front door with its red-and-white striped awning over the glazed-glass windows. The colors and pattern were more appropriate for the bath shop that had been in the unit before I'd bought it than an upscale art studio. It was on my list of things to replace once I had an actual direction for the gallery in mind.

As I stepped inside, instead of the lavender I'd been smelling for days as a bath store leftover, browned butter and sugar flooded my senses. The sweet smell of Willow had followed me from the car and it irritated me all over again. I didn't want to be enticed by another woman, damn it, and certainly not one standing in harm's way, shielded by nothing but a pretty smile. All I wanted to do was find myself and my art again. Figure out who the hell Lincoln Matherton was without the baggage of ghosts and grief and remorse.

Even doing that seemed almost impossible at times.

I relocked the door and made my way through a handful of crates I'd brought with me from D.C., taking the wide stairs leading to the loft two at a time. They creaked and groaned with age but held with the sturdiness of hardwood and skilled craftsmanship.

The bath shop owner had, unimaginatively, used the loft as an office, even leaving an ugly metal desk behind. I envisioned it as the second floor of an elegant showroom. I'd keep the eighteenth-century architecture with its wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling and add a chandelier dripping with crystals. The rich planks of the floor would be refinished, and the brass birdcage elevator would be buffed and polished until it glowed. When I was done, both floors of the gallery would scream of an old-world grace that matched the cobblestone streets and gingerbread facades of downtown.

At the back of the loft, another set of stairs, much narrower and darker, led to an attic room in the rafters. Instead of being gloomy and dim as it might have been, a pair of floor-to-ceiling, circular windows on either side of the room filled the space with natural light during the day. The skylights I planned to add would guarantee even more. In the middle of the wee hours, like now, I had to rely on oversized photography lights to chase the dark away.

With Willow on my mind, I made my way directly to the front window made of paneled, antique glass. As I'd expected, I had an angled view to the front doors of The Tea Spot. The windows were dark, and my chest tightened.

The battle continued to wage inside me, concern fighting with annoyance. I didn't know Willow. I didn't know Poco. She'd never even said what either of them was doing in the cemetery at this hour. It wasn't my place to look after her, to worry about her, and yet I couldn't seem to stop. At this distance, I would be no help if Poco showed up at the café while she was alone. And yet, sitting in my car in the alley wasn't an option either. It felt entirely too stalkerish. Too close to how I'd been hounded by Felicity.

My teeth ground together as chaotic emotions seesawed through me.

I turned my back on the window, eyeing the blank canvases and easels sitting along one wall and the dozen or so boxes with my supplies inside them.

When was the last time I'd actually used them?

When was the last time I'd been proud of something I'd created?

The answer spun quickly into my mind. A painting of a dark-haired rock star in a burnt-orange, organza dress with rows of bracelets jangling down her arm and bells dancing on hoops in her ears. I'd spent a multitude of nights with that image of my friend Leya Singh playing on repeat in my head before I'd finally put it down on canvas.

I shrugged out of my jacket, letting it drop to the floor. I opened box after box until I found the charcoal pencils I was searching for and then eyed the different-sized, pre-hung canvases. I'd need a trio of tall, skinny ones to reveal the scene filling my head now.

A cemetery shrouded in fog.

The cliché I'd scoffed at the other night.

But it would be different. It would tell a different story.

It would be Willow. Complicated sunshine caught in the shadows.

I lined the canvases along the wall, charcoal already moving, casting a dark sooty stain upon the white surface. Colors would appear amongst the blacks and grays. Pastels that turned vibrant like the sky awakening. But first, the dark had to exist. Otherwise, the light would never truly be appreciated.

The pencil flew over the linen.

Line after line.

Stroke after stroke.

It wasn't until a streak of sunshine streamed across the canvas that I realized I'd been at it for hours. I could go days without raising my head from my work when something had me in its thrall like this. Felicity had hated it, Sienna had loved it, Lyrica understood it, and my family just rolled their eyes and shoved plates of food within my reach.

A glance at the decorative clock Katerina had given me, sitting on the floor, waiting to be hung, showed three hours had gone by. Shapes had turned into details. Details into shading. It needed finessing. It needed much more, but it felt both scary and exhilarating to be creating again.

Even after all these years, even after Sienna's ghost had stopped haunting me, I could still hear the words she'd often repeated to me about my painting, or lack of painting, or the crap I'd drawn after she'd died. Your art will never be everything it's supposed to be if you keep holding on to guilt and regrets. Let go, Lincoln. Stop waiting for punishment that will never come. That you don't deserve.

Right after Sienna had died, it had felt sinful to paint, to return to the one thing that had bound us together. And later, it seemed as if whenever I started to paint again, another tragedy struck my life, sending my creativity cartwheeling back into the abyss of my brain. A Pavlovian bell ringing, warning me that one went hand in hand with the other, as if I was reaching for something and being slapped back for even daring to capture it.

Lyrica hated the association I'd made, insisting one had nothing to do with the other. Just like she'd insisted it wasn't my fault I hadn't been there the day she'd been shot in the convenience store. I was the only one unable to forgive myself for abandoning her. If I hadn't been chasing after my ghost, she wouldn't have been alone. I could have stepped between her and the bullet—and would have without a single hesitation. Maybe, with the martial arts training I'd had, I could have prevented anyone from being hurt that day.

After the press had investigated and talked to our friends, they'd blamed me too. Just like they'd blamed me for Sienna's death and for Leya's kidnapping. Maybe they were right. Maybe there was some darkness in me that would always lead evil to the women in my life.

Only Felicity had escaped before harm had come to her.

Although, I doubted she'd consider herself scar free. But then again, Felicity had her own darkness surrounding her. In hindsight, I thought it was what had drawn me to her to begin with. Had I really imagined two darks could bring the light? Or had I just thought it might protect her from being shadowed by mine?

I stared at the black-and-white strokes on the canvas, assessing the lines critically. My fingers itched to continue working, my mind already visualizing the changes. The feeling was as strong as the one that woke me in the middle of the night and begged me to get out of bed when the insomnia struck.

But even as the itch remained, crawling over me like ants, the woman who'd inspired the work called to me with an overpowering urge to check on her. Guilt for having stopped watching the window blended in with my need to continue drawing. I wasn't sure what to make of it, of Willow or these disquieting feelings of responsibility, or even the fact that I was creating again because of her.

I set down the charcoal and moved to the front window. The rain had stopped, but the clouds hadn't completely blown away. They floated dark and gray through skies just starting to come alive with soft colors, shifting over the slick cobblestones that mirrored the pastel shades of orange and pink above them. The wakening heavens were reflected in the dark windows of the shops along Main Street. All except The Tea Spot's, which glimmered with the warm lights from within. The neon Open sign glowed a vibrant shade of magenta—the same color as the patches on Willow's bright bag.

It was useless to think I'd get more done. The need to see if she was okay was too overpowering.

I grabbed my coat off the ground, jogged down the stairs, and let myself out of the gallery. Even as I locked up, I cursed the irrational need to see her, repeating to myself that what had happened this morning had nothing to do with me. And yet, my feet continued to move across the street.

The Tea Spot's front door pushed open just as I got there, almost smacking me in the face. A different blonde than the one I'd come to see shoved her way out with her head down. I knew her—not her name, but her face. She was the owner's daughter, and I'd seen her behind the register many times when I'd been in the café.

She was shouldering a loaded backpack while precariously carrying a to-go cup without a lid. It's steaming liquid sloshed haphazardly toward me before she jerked it back.

"I'm so sorry. My fault," she said. "I didn't expect anyone out here this early."

"No problem," I replied, catching the door above her head.

She stared at me with curious green eyes, and my chest tightened, waiting for her to recognize me. A man's booming voice from inside pulled her gaze away and back into the shop.

"Love you, Shay! Have a good day."

"Love you too, Dad!" she yelled back before shooting me another apologetic look and heading down the street toward the Bonnin campus.

When I stepped inside, the warmth hit me as strong and addictive as the caffeine they sold. For the first time since the streak of light had interrupted my drawing, I realized my hands were nearly frozen. I hadn't turned on the heat in the gallery, hadn't even realized it was cold.

I rubbed my fingers together and stepped through the tables to the partially filled display case. The entire shop smelled of a tantalizing chocolate and cinnamon that had nothing to do with the coffee brewing.

"First customer of the day! Means your order is free." The owner greeted me with a friendly grin. He looked nothing like his daughter, and it was obvious enough that it made me wonder what their story was before I shoved it away as more curiosities that weren't my business.

The café door swung open behind me, a brush of cool air accompanying it, and I heard a groan. I turned slightly to see a college kid striding in, weighed down by a backpack. "Damn. I missed the freebie again," the kid whined. "I got up even earlier today."

His dejection made my lips curl upward, and I stepped away from the counter, ushering him forward with my hands. "Please, be my guest."

His eyes brightened. "Really?" And when I nodded, he mumbled, "Thanks, man."

While the owner went about getting the kid's order, I watched the swinging door to the kitchen with its little round hole. It was asinine to try and catch a glimpse of Willow. It was the very last thing I should have been wanting or doing or thinking about, but there I was, craving a glance nonetheless.

It was only once the kid had his free purchase and had thanked me again as he scurried out that I realized he'd been staring at me the way I'd been staring at the door. My hand went instinctively to my head. No hat. No sunglasses. No disguise. Damn it. But it was too late to fix it. At least he hadn't taken a picture. Or maybe he had, and I'd been too caught up in the swinging door to notice.

It was just one more reason for me to leave.

I wasn't ready for the press to find me here any more than I was ready for the pull I felt toward Willow. It had been less than a year since I'd ended things with Felicity. Not even three months since she'd stopped harassing me. The woman I'd dropped off this morning certainly didn't need my shadows darkening her world.

The owner's booming voice drew me out of my thoughts and back to him. "That was good of you."

I shrugged.

"What can I get you?"

"I don't see the chocolate I'm smelling," I told him.

His eyes sparkled. "Mexican brownie scones. Recipe my abuela swore me to secrecy on and that Willow has somehow improved, which is surely causing Abuelita to turn over in her grave." He huffed out a laugh at himself. "They'll be out in just a few minutes. What can I get you to drink while you wait?"

"Large s'more tea, thanks," I told him.

He nodded and set about making it. When he placed it on the counter, I stuffed my hand into my pocket only to realize I'd left my wallet at home and my phone along with it. I winced, thinking of the messages I'd likely have from my family.

"I forgot my wallet. Just put it aside, if you don't mind. I'll run home and get it. I live right down the street. I'll be back in five."

Just as I said the last words and started to turn away, the door from the kitchen opened, and Willow walked through carrying a large tray. It was my first time seeing her without her puffy coat, and the T-shirt she wore beneath a white apron showed off surprisingly strong arms. The muscles flexed as she shifted the tray from one shoulder to the other, easily contradicting my skin-and-bone theory from earlier this morning.

Her eyes met mine, darting around the room and then back as if looking to see if I'd been followed…by who I didn't know. Maybe my detail. Or Poco.

"Lincoln!" My name escaped her lips and went straight to my chest before settling in my groin. Her voice was airy and light. Breathless almost. And I suddenly wanted her breathless for an entirely different reason. I needed that sound to escape her lips while my hands and mouth drank in her sugary-scented skin. And damn if that didn't irritate me all over again. Wanting her. Wanting anyone.

My voice was thick and dark with need and irritation as I said, "I see you didn't have any more trouble."

"Trouble? What trouble?" Worry coasted over the owner's face. "Did someone bother you this morning, Willow?"

Her gracefully shaped pale brows pushed together, and she shot me a glare as she slid the tray into the case. She hadn't wanted this man to know she'd been accosted in the cemetery. I understood not wanting to worry the people you cared about, but I was almost certain Poco wasn't just going to slink away without exacting some kind of retribution. His sickly cheerful whistle as he'd left had said as much.

The people around her needed to be aware and involved so I could back the hell out of her life, which was why I coughed up the truth she obviously didn't want to give. "She had some trouble with a man named Poco early this morning."

Willow turned toward the owner and put her hands out as if to hold him back as he took a step toward the back door. "It was nothing, Hector. Seriously." She blocked his path, pushing against his chest. "Don't start something with Tall Paul."

The panic in her voice caused the first shot of doubt to hit me. I didn't know the players. I didn't know what had really gone on. So why was I pushing this? Why was I inserting my foot in when all it could do was bring trouble to my door that neither my family nor I could afford?

My therapist would have laughed at the inane question because the truth was glaringly simple. I'd never turn away from a woman in need, because I couldn't shoulder any more guilt if I did. It would bury me.

The irritated look Willow sent my way was nothing.

It was too damn bad if she was upset.

I'd do anything to make sure she didn't end up lying amongst the tombstones where I'd found her.