Free 1503951243 by Laurel Saville Page A

eyebrows in question.
    “Looks like someone may be interested in buying. Warren wouldn’t tell me much. Someone he knows personally. Someone who wants to remain anonymous. He said he thinks whoever it is just wants the land and doesn’t care about living here or the problems with the house. Wants to protect the land. Keep it wild.”
    Dix nodded again, a little more slowly this time.
    “Must be nice,” Miranda said.
    “What must be nice?” Dix asked.
    “To be able to do something like that. To be able to be generous. To have that abundance and instead of holding on to it, to share it. Quietly. Without drawing attention.”
    “Well, maybe the new owner won’t post the land and you can still visit,” Dix said hopefully.
    “No, too many bad memories,” she said. “I have to move on and get my own life started. Time to smash the rearview mirror.” Her mouth twisted a bit. “Besides, they’ll have to post, Warren says. Liability issues. Can’t have someone coming up here, breaking into the house, getting hurt and suing.”
    “You’ve had quite the legal education lately,” Dix said.
    “Yes.” Miranda thought briefly of the legal education her brother was supposed to have had. She sighed. “This place has had enough lawsuits for several lifetimes.”
    They were quiet together for a few minutes. Then Dix rolled his shoulders back and crossed his arms. He cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead. Miranda glanced at him. He was not a man given to unnecessary movement.
    “I thought the Lewis place wasn’t available for a bit,” he finally said. “All rented out with summer people who were keeping it through the holidays.”
    Miranda sighed. Was there anything of import to her life that this man did not know?
    “That’s true. I’m going to stay at a little hotel near Mum until it’s ready. I’ll be able to check in on her. Look for a job. Probably need to take some classes. Not much in the way of employment for someone with my skill set, such as it is.” She shook her head. “Weeding and harvesting vegetables is not much to start a career with. Neither, apparently, is a liberal arts degree.”
    Dix repeated his forehead rubbing.
    “I . . .”
    Miranda had never heard him hesitate, stammer like that. He seemed to be someone who did not speak unless he knew what was going to come out of his mouth. She looked up at him. He was a full head and shoulder taller than she. He stared resolutely ahead and she stared at the stubble, a cut cornfield, on the hard line of his jaw.
    “I have a guest cabin,” he finally said, his voice so quiet she had to lean toward him to hear.
    She waited for more. She had no idea why he was telling her this. He was not someone who spoke about himself or his own life very much. At all, really. He didn’t continue.
    “Yes?” Miranda finally said. “A guest cabin?”
    “It’s a small outbuilding,” he repeated, starting over, trying again. “At my house. Off in a corner of the property. Private. Tucked beneath some big pines.”
    Miranda felt her pulse tick up with hope. She was ready to be rescued. She imagined a cabin from a child’s picture book with lightly frayed, white-lace curtains and a musty handmade quilt on a big bed built from logs. A rocker made from birch twigs on the porch and an old traveling chest that had been turned into a coffee table in the center of the room. But she pushed the image away and tamped her hopes down. A cabin like that, where she could find refuge under Dix’s watchful eye? It was too good to be true, too much to wish for.
    “It’s not been used in years,” he continued. “Not since my mother died and some of her people came up to pay respects.”
    Her people. Miranda had never heard relatives referred to in that way. She’d also never heard Dix refer to his family at all. She wasn’t even clear where he lived. She’d asked him once. He’d responded with a single word: “North.” Then, when she had looked at him