Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Big Eyes in the Corner

Big Eyes in the Corner

CASSIDY WASN’T exactly sure how he happened to have this nice woman and her handsome son in his room, but he was terrified he’d say something to make them leave.

When he’d been in college, on scholarship, he’d stepped in a pothole, fallen, and broken his wrist. He’d not only had nobody to take him to the hospital, he’d had to summon a rideshare to take him back to his dorm and then show all his professors proof that he’d really broken it. His dormmates hadn’t noticed, none of his classmates had cared, and God, he had wanted someone to talk to about the stupid misstep in the worst way.

Now he had a tree fall on his head—or well, his leg—and he got the nice lady from next door and her son, who was obviously not college-age now that Cassidy had seen him in a lab coat and scrubs, and they were eating with him like they were old friends.

It was surreal, and while he didn’t want to question his good fortune, he was really interested in knowing when it would end so he could prepare himself for the letdown.

“You were in my house?” he asked through a mouthful of Chinese food. It wasn’t lasagna, but then, takeout lasagna was harder than Chinese.

“It’s lovely,” his neighbor—Yvonne—said. “Where did you get the idea to decorate with all those different wood tones on top of cream upholstery?”

He smiled shyly. “My magazine did layouts for a couple of homes that used natural fibers and colors. I liked the idea, so I sort of ran with it when I bought my own house.”

“Your magazine?” she asked, her eyes flicking to her son. “Which one do you work for?”

“ Gold Country Homes ,” he said. “It’s local, and we come out every month, online and paper.” He couldn’t help beaming. “I was part of the group that made it interactive online, with links to all of the contractors used in the layouts and the lists of materials. That was my idea.”

Oh, how boring. He was talking about his job, of all things!

“What exactly do you do there?” Mark Taylor asked, and Cassidy worked hard not to let his heart swell in his throat. God, he was good-looking. Yes, his dark blond hair was curling over his collar and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, but his eyes were the same warm brown of his mother’s, and his jaw was square under all that scruff. He had high cheekbones, a slightly Roman nose, and his lean mouth was almost always quirked up at the corners, even when he was chasing his dog down the street in his pajamas.

“You’re not wearing your sweater,” Cassidy blurted. “The one your mom made you. Why?”

Mark blinked, and his ears—bare because his hair was tucked behind them—turned scarlet. “She made it for me in college,” he said. “It’s falling apart. I still love it, but you know, I only wear it over my pj’s.”

“Well if you ask nicely, maybe the yarn genie can make you one for Christmas,” she said dryly.

“I did ask nice, and I happen to know it’s already wrapped,” Mark returned. “And if you tell me it’s for Keith, I’m holding my breath until I pass out.”

“That’s a terrible trick,” she admonished. “And don’t tell Keith—he’ll get jealous.”

“I’m wearing it all the time,” he replied. “I don’t care if you made it lime green and pink. Let him get jealous—he needs to not give you crap about spending money on yarn.”

They were standing on either side of the bed. Cassidy swung his head back and forth like he was watching a tennis match as they bantered. The moment was delightful, like unexpected chocolate, and he wanted to see it all.

“Keith can give me all the crap he wants,” she said smugly. “He’s got a chest like a barn and three kids—if he wants Mommy to make him a sweater, he’s gotta beg , because otherwise Grandma’s got other priorities.”

Mark chuckled. “As you should.” He looked at Cassidy, still smiling. “My brother and his kids live in town and shamelessly swarm my mother’s house, particularly around Christmas—you’ll get to meet them.”

Cassidy’s brain blanked out over “meet them.” This would continue? He would still talk to these people after he was competent in his house, alone? The idea was boggling—and too wonderful to contemplate—so he stuck with questions. “What about his wife?”

Mark and Yvonne both sucked air in through their teeth. Before Cassidy could ask if he’d said anything wrong, Yvonne said, “Sure. She’ll be around. It’s fine.”

Mark grimaced. “That’s ‘fine’ in the ironic sense,” he reassured Cassidy. “Mom, Dani—that’s my sister—and I sort of loathe her. But we love Keith, so, you know, you put up with the things you can’t change.”

Cassidy swallowed, not sure he wanted to hear more. “Why do you…. What’s wrong with her?” For a moment he’d been safe, but if they could dislike someone in their own family, that safety might not mean much.

“She’s mean,” Mark said on an exhale. “She’s constantly yelling at the kids to keep it down or to stop talking when they’re just being kids. She yells at Keith—in our presence, which makes it worse—to be a man and make more money. She doesn’t have a job—never wanted one—and Keith probably makes plenty to support his family, but not the way she spends it. She’s….”

“Awful,” Cassidy said, surprised.

“And we’re telling tales,” Yvonne said firmly, flushing.

Mark shrugged. “I just wanted to warn him. If we plan to be up in his business, he’s gonna run into Tanya, and I don’t want her to scare him off.”

“Good point.” Yvonne turned toward Cassidy and patted his hand as it lay by his side. “Judge us not by how bitchy we are about Tanya. Judge us by how much we love Keith.”

Cassidy felt a slow smile blooming. “Sure,” he said, resolving to do just that. Then, hungrily, “What are the kids like?”

“Perfect,” Yvonne said sunnily.

Mark snorted. “That’s what she said about us when we were kids, but we were awful.”

“You were spirited,” Yvonne defended, and then she gave a wicked laugh. “And awful. Remember when you stranded Dad on the roof?”

Mark grimaced. “I was trying to clean up the yard! I thought he was done mucking around up there!”

She laughed outright. “Yes. To this day I don’t know what he thought he knew about fixing roofs. I think he was trying to ‘assess the damage,’ but I’d already called the roof guy.”

Mark’s shrug was eloquent—and sad. “I think Dad wished he was more of a DIY guy, but he was a history teacher guy and couldn’t so much as unblock a sink.” He sighed. “But he was a pretty good dad, so it didn’t matter that he couldn’t build a treehouse or fix a tire.”

Cassidy swallowed and looked at the plate on the tray above his bed. He’d eaten a little of the takeout—it had been so good—but he was suddenly too tired to eat.

“You about done there?” Yvonne asked gently.

Cassidy swallowed and went to take another bite and yawned instead. “I don’t want to leave it on my plate,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

“Well, we can save it for tomorrow.” Yvonne started to clean up. “The nurse’s station has a refrigerator—they get the most wonderful tapioca that they keep there.”

“Am I really in for one more day?” Cassidy asked fretfully.

“Getting restless already?” Mark asked, and he sounded so kind!

“Feeling worthless,” Cassidy mumbled. “Can’t work, can’t take care of the house—dead weight.”

“Nonsense,” Yvonne said softly, and something about the way she’d lowered her voice told Cassidy she knew something he didn’t. “You’re pleasant, you’re kind, you’re good company. And the nurses say you have needed the sleep. Don’t forget, pain is exhausting, and so is being medicated. One more night after this one and we can take you to your home and keep an eye on you. Don’t worry.”

Cassidy felt his face turn a dull red. “I’m sorry to be such a bother. You’re both being more than kind. I… I don’t know how to thank you or pay you back or—”

“Oh, honey,” Yvonne told him. “That’s not how friends work. Don’t worry about it. You mowed my lawn without even asking for a thank-you when I could barely find my own shoes.” She took the last of the paper containers and thrust them in a plastic bag. “Now I’m going to go put this in the fridge so you have it for tomorrow.”

She disappeared into the bright corridor, leaving Cassidy alone with the handsome, warm, smiling, out of his league Mark Taylor.

Cassidy felt like he had to come clean. “I’m…. I haven’t really done that much,” he said, looking at that appealing narrow face. Mark was scruffy today, but Cassidy had seen him clean-shaven as well, and he couldn’t decide which profile he liked more. They both made his chest ache—but in a good way.

Mark cocked his head, regarding him carefully. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he said softly. “We were all pretty wrecked when my dad died last year. It was so unexpected—one doctor’s appointment and suddenly he had cancer and a month to live. There was hardly time to say goodbye. I got the resident’s position here and transferred as soon as I could, but it still took nine months. Keith and Dani both made time to stay with Mom, but none of us could be there like we wanted. In the middle of all that, mowing her lawn or cleaning her gutters or trimming her trees—these were all things that needed to be done but none of us could do for her, and she was in no shape to do them herself. So it may not have felt like a lot to you, but it was everything to my family. This is more than a chance to pay you back, you know.”

Cassidy’s face was so hot, and he was so tired. He tried not to close his eyes as a way to chicken out of this situation “What is it, then?” he asked.

Mark’s smile was so sweet— so damned sweet. “It’s a way to get to know someone who helped us when we needed it,” he said. “I know my mom tried and you got super shy and ran away, but you’re trapped now.” He emitted a mock-evil laugh that made Cassidy chuckle in spite of himself. “There is no way to escape the Taylor family trap—we’ve got our hooks in you now!”

Cassidy nodded and then tried one more time to be honest. “I…. It was so nice of her to bring muffins. I just…. Sometimes muffins mean that’s the end.”

Mark frowned. “What?”

“Muffins or cupcakes. ‘Here, we know this is the end and you can’t live here anymore, but have a muffin and you can know how much you’ll miss a place that makes you muffins.’”

Mark’s brown eyes honed in on his face. “Who did that for you?”

Cassidy couldn’t meet his eyes. “Lots of places,” he said softly. “First try at adoption, my first job—places will give you cookies and say, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t love you.’ It happens all the time.”

Mark breathed in hard through his nose, like he was having trouble coming up with words to deal with that. “We… we wouldn’t do that to you,” he said after a moment. “We only give you muffins if we want you to stay.” He gave the doorway a quick look and bent down to murmur in Cassidy’s ear. “But don’t eat my mom’s muffins. Pretend to—say they’re great—but really, I’m telling you. You’ll probably live longer if you don’t.”

Cassidy stared at him in horror. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

Mark checked the doorway again. “Which is why I’m whispering! She’s the world’s greatest woman, and you’ll love her lasagna and kill for her Christmas cookies, but I’m telling you, no muffins. It will make you like us more.”

He was standing so close, and he smelled so good. It had been so long for Cassidy—so long, and he couldn’t recall if he’d ever had a moment like this.

“I already like you,” he said, knowing he sounded besotted but unable to stop himself. They’d had dinner with him. It was the first time he’d eaten with anyone in months.

“Good!” Mark grinned at him but didn’t move farther away, and Cassidy was flushing now from his nearness and not embarrassment. “This way you’ll live to like us for a long, long time.”

Cassidy couldn’t help it—he stifled a laugh against his hand, feeling like a child with a secret. He’d never been that kid—the feeling was enchanting .

“That’s better,” Mark said, brown eyes twinkling. “Maybe next time I can get you to laugh outright.”

Cassidy sobered and shook his head. Hard experience had taught him that things people knew you had could easily be stolen—and that included anything that made him laugh, or made him happy in any way.

A brief moment of frustration passed over Mark’s handsome features, and then he gave a sigh of patience. “You’re a tough nut to crack, Cassidy Hancock,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But we’ll do it.”

“Why?” Cassidy asked again. “Why is it so important that you hear me laugh, or make me smile, or bring me dinner?”

“Because all evidence suggests you could be an amazing person to know,” Mark said. “And very much worth the extra effort.”

Cassidy couldn’t help it. “I’ve never been in the past,” he said gently.

“Oh, you have,” Mark contradicted. “I just suspect people haven’t taken the time to see. Now tell me, do you have Christmas ornaments in the garage, or do I get to clean out my mother’s collection?”

“I have lights but no tree ornaments,” Cassidy said. He felt a little sheepish. “I, uh, bought the house in June of last year, and it’s the first time I’ve had a space for more than a tiny little potted plant. I was going to get a tree and maybe some ornaments this weekend.”

“Ooh. That is unfortunate timing,” Mark said, nodding sagely. “Well then, Mom and I can get you set. You’re being released the day after tomorrow—leave it to us.”

“That’s an awful imposition—”

“Wait!” Mark actually hopped where he stood. “No! Even better! We’ll get you set up to get home, and then this weekend, Keith is leaving the kids with my mom to do Christmas things. We can all come decorate your house—it’ll be great! Your kitchen is huge—Mom can make cookies, which she does way better than muffins. Dani won’t be there, but you’ll get to meet Brandon, Kennedy, and LizBet—it’ll be great .”

“Uhm—” Cassidy gaped. “Those are a lot of names,” he said weakly, and it almost hurt to watch Mark visibly restrain all that enthusiasm.

“Unless, I mean, you don’t want us there in your house,” Mark said penitently.

Cassidy had a sudden vivid memory of the family and the house he’d always dreamed of having when he was a kid. He might have had foster mothers who enjoyed baking cookies, but by then he’d been too scarred by the ones who hadn’t even liked children to invest himself in their care.

This man was offering to drop that entire vision of childish hope into Cassidy’s lap, and Cassidy, tired, overwhelmed, and in pain, suddenly wanted it, and wanted it so badly that any protests he might have offered were drowned out by the roaring in his ears.

“I do,” he said, biting his lip. “No, it sounds wonderful. I’ve, uhm, never made Christmas cookies before. But I’m not, uhm, good with kids,” he said. “Or I don’t think I am. I don’t have a lot of experience.”

Mark cocked his head, and suddenly that exuberance that had seemed to make him deaf to anyone else in the room faded and was replaced by an astute evaluation. “You just have to remember your own childhood,” Mark said. “Unless, of course, you never got to be a kid.”

Cassidy looked away. “Not always an option,” he rasped.

“I am aware.”

Cassidy’s eyes flicked quickly to Mark’s, because it sounded as though Mark knew about Cassidy’s childhood in a way Cassidy hadn’t revealed, but at that moment, Mark jumped as though poked in the ribs.

“Shit,” he muttered, checking his phone. “Scheduling snafu—they need me to pick up more shifts and I wasn’t gonna! I gotta go talk with my boss!”

And with that Mark hurried out of the room. He must have passed his mother in the hallway, because she came in next.

“There—all squared away,” she said. “Mark ran off to talk to his boss, so it’s just you and me.” She paused. “And you are looking sleepy. How about I turn on the TV and you can fall asleep? No need to entertain the freeloader who barged into your room.”

“You brought me dinner,” Cassidy protested, but she just laughed and turned on the set in the corner.

“Anything you like to watch?”

He named a family-friendly sitcom, and she made an approving sound.

“I love this one,” she said, settling in daintily. Her voice dropped to a place between sadness and nostalgia. “Right after Harv died,” she said, mouth twisting. “We hadn’t seen the show and I wanted to, but he really loved something on at the same time. I found back episodes on a streaming service and….” She laughed a little. “Mark lived in the Bay Area at the time, and I begged him to come up on his day off to help me get the streaming service so I could catch up the entire series. He was so good. He didn’t even ask questions, you know?”

“A good son?” Cassidy asked, because he’d always wondered what it took to be a good son. He’d tried—always neat, always clean, always on time—but nobody had seemed to want the job of being his mother.

“The best.” She laughed, the sound soft. “A terrible child, really—a hot mess. Used to be able to run in from soccer, change his clothes for band, grab a snack, and run out of the house again and it would be like we got hit by a tsunami. In the morning Keith and Dani would be up on time, eating breakfast, and he’d be like the Flash. We’d be calling his name because he was going to be late and he’d zoom around the breakfast table and beat us out to the car—but everybody would be wearing their breakfast, right?”

Cassidy had to laugh with her. “How did you stand it?” he asked. He’d assumed those were deal-breakers for having parents that loved you.

“He was so sweet,” she told him. “Like, the reason he overslept was because he’d been helping a friend with a paper, or the reason he was doing soccer and drama and debate at the same time was because people asked him and he couldn’t say no. He always apologized after making a mess—he was just moving too fast to see his damage path, you know?”

Cassidy thought about the guys in college who had always seemed to know everybody, to do everything. He’d assumed they were superheroes, because he knew he wasn’t like that. He could only do so much and be on time and neat and perfect.

“He’s lucky you loved him anyway,” he said, and she made a sound like a gasp, but he was starting to fade out.

“No, honey,” she said gently. “We were lucky he whirled into our lives.”

Cassidy swallowed. What’s wrong with me that I can’t be loved? But the show was on, and the mother was sarcastic but kind, and the father was clueless but warm, and the kids were misbehaving but not in terrible ways, and it was the life he’d always wanted but couldn’t have, and he fell asleep to the familiar ache in his chest.

He couldn’t say how long he’d dozed when the television switched off and he heard soft voices.

“How’s he doing?” Mark—definitely Mark—asked.

“Sad,” she murmured. “But kind.”

“Well, the kind we knew. Let’s work on the sad.”

And then he felt a soft, sweet-smelling touch on his forehead, and the press of lips. “Night, sweetheart,” Yvonne said. “We’ll see you for dinner tomorrow. Don’t forget to ask for your leftovers for lunch.”

“G’night,” he mumbled. “I can’t believe you came.”

“Well, you deserve someone who will show up in your life,” she said, and then there was another kiss.

And then, when he thought she’d moved aside, a brief touch of a hand on his—but not Yvonne’s.

“We’ll work on the sad,” Mark said softly. “No need to be sad.”

Not when you’re here , he thought, but he really couldn’t stay awake another moment.

THE NEXT morning his boss visited—without flowers, but that wasn’t her thing.

“Oh look,” Rose said, spotting the vase of bright daisies Mark and Yvonne had brought the night before. “You’re so solitary—I was afraid you’d be here all by yourself.”

“My neighbors brought those—I was surprised,” he said, comforted by her tactlessness. That was just the way she was, really, but she was also smart, a brilliant businesswoman, and surprisingly kind. She and her husband had thrown Christmas parties every year, insisting he attend. Since he’d aged out of foster care and graduated from college, they were pretty much the only celebrations he’d ever known.

“Well, they certainly seem to have taken you under their wing,” Rose said approvingly. “This is the young man who spoke with me the other day?”

“Mark,” Cassidy said, nodding. “I’m afraid he watched the tree branch fall on me—I think he feels bad.”

“Oh?”

Cassidy let the skepticism roll through the room before he answered. “Oh what?”

“Well, he seemed to be more interested than that,” she said, and then batted her eyes at him in her time-proven way of getting more information when she was interviewing someone for her magazine. Gold Country Homes had started out as a blog, but it had grown in popularity and prestige. Rose McCormick’s opinion became highly sought-after, and ad space on her blog went at such a premium she could turn the blog into a full-fledged zine.

And then she’d gone for a print version, taking the best articles every two months and putting them into a full-color layout. Cassidy had been working for her for five years, arriving just when the print expansion had occurred, and while in the beginning it had been a struggle—particularly because they were working on the interactive links at the time—he felt some serious pride about helping to move Rose’s talent, her vision, her joie de vivre into the world.

And, as always, the kindness.

“You met them today?” he said, surprised, because of all the things Mark and Yvonne had talked about in his room the night before, the meeting with Rose hadn’t been one of them.

“Oh I did,” she reassured him. “They said your house was spacious enough that we didn’t need too many modifications, but Yvonne went over what they’d done. I think you can work from home just fine when you’re feeling up to it.” She swirled around his hospital bed as she spoke, her impeccable maroon pantsuit with its winter-white jacket making her look improbably like a fashionable Christmas elf. “I do love what you’ve done with the place, Cassidy. You should have shown me pictures or something, because it’s really so improved.”

Rose had helped him find the house, looking for square footage, location, and property values. He’d told her he wanted to decorate it himself, so she hadn’t quibbled over the awful yellow-printed wallpaper and chipped kitchen and bathroom tile or even the terrible stained rugs that had dominated the place. Rose paid well, and Cassidy had lived so frugally to decorate the house of his dreams—he’d worked hard for the two months prior to moving in to have the place up to his specs.

He would never forget that feeling, walking over the threshold of his own home, the smell of new carpeting and paint sharp in his nose, his furniture already in place.

He had so few possessions to move in that day. His books, his clothes for work, his computer, a few things for the kitchen. But it had been his .

And then he’d realized the house’s most unspoken attribute, its best benny.

That front window over the breakfast nook. He could see everything . The whole neighborhood had been his to observe. He’d seen families—happy families, busy families, quiet families. Some days when he worked from home, he would take a coffee break just staring out his window, watching children get on and off the bus for school, watching parents go jogging in the morning or walk their dogs at night.

And one day, watching a funeral procession arrive at the house next door. He’d seen them—from afar, of course. Mark, although Cassidy hadn’t known his name. Yvonne. Even Keith and Dani and the infamous Tanya—and their children.

And they’d all been so sad.

Cassidy remembered the mild middle-aged man he’d seen cleaning gutters and raking leaves that fall after he’d moved in, and realized with a pang that he was seeing a family lose a key member, and the sight had affected him more than he’d known it could.

He’d come to feel protective over this family. Sure, they didn’t even know his name, but he watched them all the time . And now they were missing a someone they loved—and it didn’t seem fair.

He’d watched the lawn grow too long, and had mown it. He’d seen the branches and leaves fall from the tree and had raked them. He’d even trimmed the shrubs on the side of the house, because he remembered the lot of them walking, heads down in the cold March wind, looking devastated by the loss of a balding, average, apparently perfectly wonderful parent.

Cassidy had mourned a parent like that all his life. He felt like they were connected, this family and himself, and he wanted to make their grief easier.

It was unexpected and mortifying that they felt like they had to return his kindness, but they seemed so happy to do it.

And none of this gave him the words to explain to Rose why Mark Taylor made his heart beat just a little bit faster in his chest.

“Thank you,” he said in response to the nice things she’d said about his house. “I’m sorry to be such an—”

Rose turned to him, an unusually stern expression on her lovely face. “Cassidy?”

“Yes?”

“I know something of how you grew up. You told me when I asked for your references, remember?”

“Yes.” Cassidy’s cheeks burned.

“And over the past five years, I’ve seen what that can do to someone like you—someone with more heart than self-defense. And it’s a shame. You’ve got so much to give the world, and you try so hard. But sometimes you need to take some risks to get the bennies, you know what I’m talking about, Cass?”

“No,” Cassidy said, completely lost.

She sighed and sat down next to his bed, much like Yvonne Taylor had the night before. “Honey, those people currently fixing up your house seem really nice—and they’re working so hard to get to know you. You might try letting them in.”

Cassidy’s eyes burned and he let out a growl. “You have no idea what you’re asking,” he said, hoping maybe his tone would let her put herself back into her boss box and they would stop having this conversation.

She patted his hand. “Did I ever tell you about my son?” she asked, her voice dropping softly. “Justin?”

Cassidy was suddenly pulled out of his own misery. “Only that he’s passed away,” he said, voice low and respectful.

She nodded. “He was a little like you—quiet, self-deprecating. Worked so hard to be a nice boy that he missed out on some of the joy of just being a kid. His father and I didn’t know any better. We had no idea that most children could be—and should be—raucous and loud and excited. And his sister came along, and she was raucous and loud and excited, and we were so busy chasing her we didn’t see… didn’t realize….”

Her voice broke, and Cassidy found it suddenly hard to breathe. “What happened?”

“He was sick,” she said. “So sick. We didn’t know until he started passing out in class, and by high school, he’d probably been sick for a year. By then, the cancer had spread and… and we had a month to say goodbye, and I didn’t know how to tell him how sorry I was that he never got a chance to be loud and exciting. I could just hold his hand, like I’m holding yours, and cry.”

She was crying now.

Cassidy tried hard to find a breath and couldn’t. “What… what can I do?” he rasped.

She used a dainty finger to wipe under a mascaraed eye. “I’ve tried to mother you, Cassidy—and you… you took it. But so much like Justin. You just stood in one place and took whatever water and sunshine fell your way. You’re not a plant, Cassidy. You’re a person. If someone is looking at you like they want to love you, walk toward it. Even plants turn their faces to the sun and stretch out their roots, but be more than that. If these people are inviting you into their family, laugh like a child. Have friends. Yvonne Taylor is a lovely woman—I want to invite her to my poker night. Be like that . If someone makes you laugh, make plans to laugh again. If someone offers to do a kindness for you, accept it. Can you do that for me?”

Cassidy had so many doubts. So many doubts. But besides being kind and giving Cassidy the benefit of the doubt when he’d been new and had made mistakes, she was walking the talk. Yes, she was asking him to open himself in the way that had most terrified him since he was old enough to know that his hand of cards was shitty and he had very few options to win the game—but she was also showing cards she’d held close to her vest for a very long time.

“I can try,” he promised rashly. “I…. It’s so hard.” And even that admission cost him.

“I know, honey.” She held his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it tenderly. It came away briny. “We’ve tried at the office. We’ve gotten you to come to lunch with us, and get-togethers, but you’re always so quiet. You must be having fun—you keep coming—but I would love to see you not just show up but laugh.”

“What if I laugh at the wrong thing?” he asked, feeling at once pitiful and surprised he said it out loud.

She blinked in shock. “There’s a wrong thing to laugh at?” she asked.

“Laughing at funerals is a thing !” he told her, agonized. It had always been one of his greatest fears. Laughing at the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing—one slip could cost him everything. One slip, and any friendships he’d had could be washed away.

“I know, baby,” she said softly. “Hannah, my daughter, laughed all the way through Justin’s. She was three, and she’d never seen so many people in black before. She kept us sane throughout the whole horrible affair, and then when it was done and all the people were gone, she asked if Justin could come out and play now. And my husband and I got to cry and cry and cry, and so did she. We still loved her, you understand? She gave us what nobody else could.”

Cassidy let out a sound of frustration. “You’re not going to let me out of this, are you?” he asked, wounded.

The look on her face was like sunrise. “No,” she said. “Yvonne Taylor and I are going to gossip about you and tell tales, and we’re going to find the Cassidy who could come up with that house, do you understand? The Cassidy who could comb through wood scraps and would cut down and buff out the ones that would make a sunrise.”

Cassidy felt his face flush. “How did you know that was me? I only kept the lithograph.”

“Because I’ve seen you do it before, remember? You made my husband and me those picture frames, and puzzles for Hannah’s daughter. What we don’t understand is why you didn’t keep the original.”

Oh, now he was squirming. “When the furniture makers saw what I’d done with all the scraps, they offered to have prints made and sell them for me as long as they could keep the original for their showroom. And they said in return I could root through their scrap pieces all I wanted, and they’d sell any other puzzle portraits I gave them.” Oh, this was embarrassing. “The prints go for a lot ,” he whispered, like this was shameful. “When they’re all framed and mounted, they go for almost $200—and I get half!”

Rose’s expression was part delight and part hurt. “That’s amazing , Cassidy. Why didn’t you tell us? I love that you do that. We could put one of the prints in one of our photo layouts and get you so much business !”

He bit his lip. “That feels like cheating.”

She hid her face in her hands for a moment and let out a sound between a moan and a cackle. When he could hear her talking, she was saying, “There is no bad laughter, there is no bad laughter,” over and over again, and he was at a loss.

She finally left after patting his cheek one last time and making him promise to call her tomorrow after the Taylors got him settled, and he was left alone with his thoughts.

Usually this was a bad thing. He tended to think lonely thoughts about being left in corners so often he was finally comfortable there, but not this time.

This time the events of the past couple days, along with the pain medication, led him to think about his puzzle art, as he called it, and the people he’d just met.

He started planning portraits. A portrait of his boss using redwood for her hair and pale pine for the sharp cheekbones, ebony for her penetrating eyes. A profile of Yvonne using white ash for the hair and the sweetest cedar for the eyes, and of her son using….

And by then his attention wandered from materials and shapes to give a specific impression to create a caricature to Mark’s face in general, and he fell asleep thinking about the high cheekbones and the warm brown eyes, the sensual mouth and the way he was always just about to laugh.