Hemlock Veils

“I’m begi

He cleared his throat, looking away from her eyes and back at the polished toes of his shoes as he began to walk again. She fell into step beside him.

“Oh, that’s right,” she added, “you don’t wait for anyone.”

He threw her a sidelong glance and her smile teased. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, your pipe…” he began. “How’s it holding up?”

“Unfortunately, it’s holding up great so far.”

“Unfortunately?”

“I can’t exactly ask for your tools again if everything is in top shape, can I?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes but the corner of her mouth teased a potential smile.

“I…see,” he said, and he heard the smile in his own voice. “Perhaps I undercharged you for the house if everything is in top shape.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s in your nature to overcharge.”

He studied her as they turned onto Clayton Road, his brow taut with challenge. “And what do you think you know of my nature?”

She looked down, adjusting her purse. “I know it’s not what you portray it to be.”

Huffing, he picked up his pace.

“The Life on Wheels Foundation…”

He paused, merely from the sickness in his stomach, and stared at her. She hesitated, fearful.

“Well, it is you, isn’t it—the one who founded it?”

A feverish heat beat at his skin. Suddenly, his collar was too tight and he loosened his tie. “How do you know about that?” His voice came out harsher than it should have.

“Mr. Clayton, please. Frankly, I’m surprised others don’t. I read that same article in the paper last week, the one you were reading so intently on the morning we met. The one about Shane O’Do

“And just because I read intently means I’m the unknown source?” His hand found his hip, resting on the leather of his belt.

“I know who Shane is, Mr. Clayton,” she said with reverence.

Air: he couldn’t find it.

“The teens who died in the accident ten years ago, on Mt. Hood Highway? One of them survived…didn’t he?”

Henry exhaled through his nose and trudged forward. “I suggest you stop snooping—”

“I wasn’t snooping,” she said, trying to keep up. “Not into you anyway. I was curious about the accident. It didn’t take long before I found Shane’s name and the link to the Life on Wheels Foundation.”

He turned on her abruptly, lifting his hands. The exposure, and the way she was so close to the truth, made his skin crawl. “You caught me.”

“Mr. Clayton.” With another step toward him, she lowered his hands. Hers were warm and soft. Just like her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He didn’t breathe during the following short seconds. Not until she released his hands and the sudden emptiness reminded him not to be foolish. With a sigh, he looked to the asphalt.

“Why?” she asked. “Why get involved?”

He couldn’t tell her it was because of guilt. Just like he’d never been able to tell Shane what he was and how it was all because of him he would never walk again. “I…It was my responsibility, Ms. Ashton. It’s my town, our beast that did it.”

Instead of defending the monster like he expected, she said, “Did starting the foundation take away the guilt?”

He recoiled. “Nothing can.”

“Is that what you do in Portland? Are you…involved?”

With a wipe down his face, he looked to the side. She brimmed with questions, and it was clear to him now that the only way to move past them was to answer. So that’s what he would do. This morning, he would answer what questions he safely could, until she stopped asking all together. And from that point on, he would never give into his infatuation again. He had to distance himself. She seemed to pick up on everything, and again he reminded himself it was foolish to think he could go on at this rate without her finding out what he was. After this moment, she would be nothing more than a new resident of Hemlock Veils, and he would be the same Mr. Clayton he’d trained himself to be. Only this time, he would have emptiness and heartache go with it.

“I went to see him in the hospital a few weeks after it happened,” he finally explained. He released another breath, his body strangely relaxed at the secret’s revelation. He met her eyes and they invited him to elaborate. “I guess I went in there hoping I would know what to say, that I could apologize…on the town’s behalf. But when I saw him like that, all beat up, no words felt appropriate. So…I just sat beside him, for at least an hour, neither of us saying a word.

“But eventually he asked who I was and why I was wasting my time there. I…told him I was a friend, someone who wanted to help. And I don’t know how it happened, but we spent nearly every day for weeks that way. I started bringing him things, like the books and music we’d talked about. I helped him with physical therapy, spent most hours of the week with him, actually. But I never told him who I was.”

“Why not?”

“Ms. Ashton,” he sighed. “It’s…complicated.”

“Who you are, Mr. Clayton, or why you didn’t tell him?”

“Both,” he said abrasively, stepping closer. “I started the foundation a year after we met and kept everything on my end purely anonymous. But he knew anyway. It was just last week he told me, actually.”

“It upsets you, people knowing your secrets.”

“Not him. After ten years, he deserved to know. We are very close.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “As opposed to me, you mean, who’s been here ten days”

He didn’t answer, knowing he didn’t need to.

“So,” she said, “how do you have time for it, ru

“I resigned as CEO of my father’s company years ago. I still own shares in Admiralty Bay, and stay involved in business decisions, but most days Arne and I are with Shane and the kids.”

“In a suit, no less,” she teased, folding her arms.

He folded his, too. “If you must know, most days I change in the car on the way there. When I’m not driving, that is. Arne actually hates driving, after doing it so many years.”

With a laugh, she shook her head. She didn’t seem to believe it, and he couldn’t blame her. It seemed she was trying to picture it.

“Is that hard to believe?” he asked through the cover of his own amusement.

“Very. Whose idea was it?”

“For me to drive?”

She chuckled. “The foundation.”

“Both Shane’s and mine, I suppose. After he was released from the hospital, he wallowed for days. I took him to some different homeless shelters around the city, even a soup kitchen or two…Anyway, we were playing basketball one day—he was kicking my ass even in a chair—and he said he wanted to do this for other kids like him. So…we did.”

A new awe filled her eyes and the way he didn’t deserve it left him uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and began walking again. “Are you done with the questions, Ms. Ashton?”

“Yes.”

This surprised him. He turned back, building the wall he needed to keep from here on out. “Good, because that will be the last time I answer any. I mean that. My reputation in this town is very important to me.”

“I understand, Mr. Clayton.”

Then he could move on, at least in human form. He was used to hiding from the people he cared about and living multiple lives. Elizabeth knew two of them now, and he would do anything to keep her from discovering the truth behind his third—even live everyday with an emptiness he had known nothing about only days before. At least in his third form he could counteract the emptiness his human self would endure; because now, it was that atrocious third form in which he could truly be himself with her.

Chapter 18

It seemed the time in his gardens, surrounded by roses and infatuated heat, had been a turning point for Henry. Or perhaps it had been the morning after, the morning Elizabeth had questioned him about his foundation. Whatever it was, Henry—the man—had changed that day, three weeks ago. No longer did he show the slightest hint of an interest, nor the smiles Elizabeth loved. They saw each other plenty, since he came with her to Jean’s every morning. It had even become a morning ritual to walk together, rain or shine. He would sit and talk with her while she prepared the pastries and coffee, before the doors were open for business, or sometimes nothing would be said at all; but always they would come together. One time, when business had slowed and she was no longer bustling behind the counter, he’d even invited her to his corner table to have coffee with him.