Sanctuary by Nora Roberts Page B

your noses glued to the TV screen.
    Aw, Mom.
    It seemed to him the color scheme was different now. He had a vague recollection of soft pastels on the wide, deep chairs and straightbacked sofa. Now they were covered in bold geometric prints, deep greens and blues, sunny yellows.
    The fan that dropped from the center pitch of the ceiling had squeaked. He knew, because he’d been compelled to tug on the cord, that it ran now with only a quiet hiss of blades.
    But it was the same long yellow-pine dining table separating the rooms—the table he and his family had gathered around to eat, to play board games, to put together eye-crossingly complex jigsaw puzzles during that summer.
    The same table he and Kyle had been assigned to clear after dinner. The table where his father had lingered some mornings over coffee.
    He remembered when their father had shown him and Kyle how to punch holes in the lid of a jar and catch lightning bugs. The evening had been warm and soft, the hunt and chase giddy. Nathan remembered watching the jar he’d put beside his bed wink and glow, wink and glow, lulling him to sleep.
    But in the morning all the lightning bugs in his jar had been dead, smothered, as the book atop the lid had plugged all the holes. He still couldn’t remember putting it there, that battered copy of Johnny Tremain . The dark corpses in the bottom of the jar had left him feeling sick and guilty. He’d snuck out of the house and dumped them in the river.
    He chased no more lightning bugs that summer.
    Irritated at the memory, Nathan turned away from the TV, went back to the stove to pour the steaming water over a spoonful of coffee. He carried the mug out onto the screened porch to look at the river.
    Memories were bound to surface now that he was here, he reminded himself. That was why he’d come. To remember that summer, step by step, day by day. And to figure out what to do about the Hathaways.
    He sipped coffee, winced a little at its false and bitter taste. He’d discovered that a great deal of life was false and bitter, so he drank again.
    Jo Ellen Hathaway. He remembered her as a skinny, sharp-elbowed girl with a sloppy ponytail and a lightning temper. He hadn’t had much use for girls at ten, so he’d paid her little attention. She’d simply been one of Brian’s little sisters.
    Still was, Nathan thought. And she was still skinny. Apparently her temper was still in place as well. The streaming ponytail was gone. The shorter, choppy cut suited her personality if not her face, he decided. The carelessness of it, the nod to fashion. The color of it was like the pelt of a wild deer.
    He wondered why she looked so pale and tired. She didn’t seem the type to pine away over a shattered affair or relationship, but something was hurting. Her eyes were full of sorrow and secrets.
    And that was the problem, Nathan thought with a half laugh. He had a weakness for sad-eyed women.
    Better to resist it, he told himself. Wondering what was going on behind those big, sad, bluebell eyes was bound to interfere with his purpose. What he needed was time and objectivity before he took the next step.
    He sipped more coffee, told himself he’d get dressed shortly and walk to Sanctuary for a decent cup and some breakfast. It was time to go back, to observe and to plan. Time to stir more ghosts.
    But for now he just wanted to stand here, look through the thin mesh of screen, feel the damp air, watch the sun slowly burn away the pearly mists that clung to the ground and skimmed like fairy wings over the river.
    He could hear the ocean if he listened for it, a low, constant rumble off to the east. Closer he could identify the chirp of birds, the monotonous drumming of a woodpecker hunting insects somewhere in the shadows of the forest. Dew glistened like shards of glass on the leaves of cabbage palms and palmettos, and there was no wind to stir them and make them rattle.
    Whoever chose this spot for the cottage chose well, he thought. It