The Man From Her Past by Anna Adams Page A

wedding rings to her jewelry box, their imprint had stayed on her finger. Gone now—as though they’d never been. As though Van had never been.
    She threw back her sheets.
    This house. Every time she opened her eyes here, memories, rich, and too dangerous, threw her back five years. Everyone knew you couldn’t go home again. Home had moved on without her, and she belonged in Washington.
    She twisted her hair into a chignon, slipped in a bobby pin, shivered in her tank and pajama pants and found one of her old high school sweatshirts.
    Only it was Van’s sweatshirt. Though he’d graduated eight years before her, she’d fished it out of his closet the first time he’d taken her to his house. She’d worn it with the pride of a barely-out-of-her-teens girl, distractedly in love.
    She hesitated before pulling it over her head. But she wasn’t a naive young thing anymore. She’d grown into a practical woman who chose to dress rather than freeze to death.
    Her bedroom door burst open, and Hope whirled into the room.
    “Time to get up, Mommy. I’m starwing, and I want to paint some pictures. Miss Beth said she’d bring paints today. Is my grampa coming home? Am I going to see Mr. Van again? He brings good food.”
    Cassie blinked. “Can I siphon off some of your energy?”
    “Siphon?” Hope tilted her head, interested. “Whazzat?”
    “Transferring some out of you, into me.”
    Hope grabbed her own pajama top, a fleecy rendition of Dora today. Still pink, naturally. “Nope. Might make a boo-boo. I’m really hungry, Mommy.”
    “What time is it? Did you make coffee, Hope?”
    She giggled. “Funny, Mommy. I’m not old enough to drink coffee. I could make some, though,” she said in all seriousness. “I know how ’cause I watch you.”
    Cassie grabbed her girl and they wrestled down the hall. “You’d better leave it to me for now.”
    They raced to the bottom of the stairs, and Hope landed with a thud on the hardwood floor just as someone knocked on the front door.
    “Mmm,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Van brought me more spaghetts.”
    “Don’t get your hopes up, punkin’.” Mr. Van wouldn’t be back. In a display of perverseness that annoyed her, she was sorry she’d made herself so damnably clear to him. Suddenly, she’d learned to want what—whom—she couldn’t have.
    Hope yanked at the door until Cassie managed to undo the lock and the dead bolt. Beth stood outside, brandishing a white bag full of delectable aromas.
    “Doughnuts from Hagenthaler’s. I got the last bear claw, ladies, and I’m willing to fight you both for it.”
    “I can thumb wrestle,” Hope said, pronouncing the B. She popped onto the porch. “Where’s Mr. Van?”
    “He’s working in D.C. today,” Beth said, and Cassie pretended not to notice her close glance.
    “Izzat where our airoplane went, Mommy?”
    “Where we rode the big bus.”
    “I didn’t like that bus, Miss Beth. A man sat on my coat and he wouldn’t get off.”
    “Till she thumped him with her purse,” Cassie said, “purely by accident.”
    “I’m not ’posed to have accinents no more.”
    Beth laughed and spirited her booty into the house. “The better to avoid lawsuits, my dear.”
    “What kind of suit?”
    “A grown-up kind that’s hard to explain,” Beth said. “Let’s get some milk and coffee and feed Mommy before we send her to the hospital.”
    “Who’s taking care of the lodge, Beth?”
    “Aidan. He and Eli can handle it for a few days. He likes the change from his business. You never saw a man so proud to wield a toilet plunger.”
    Cassie made a face.
    “I hope I hid my feelings about that a little more skillfully,” Beth said.
    “Maybe the grass is always greener.” Cassie lifted the coffeemaker’s lid.
    “Have you been inspecting the grass around here?” Beth asked.
    “Nope.” Cassie borrowed her daughter’s vehemence.
    “Too bad. I’ll do the coffee. You go dress to see your dad.”
     
    H ER FATHER SEEMED to