Free Instructions for Love by June Shaw Page B

on the table, making her look at it.
    Tears stained her cheeks. Erin glanced from the roses to him. “I didn’t know they were yours.” Her voice sounded small, quiet. “Or so important. It’s just that… I’ve been searching for signs that Aunt Tilly was around here. I thought I’d found those signs in that garden.”
    Beyond her, Dane could see no fire burning beneath the teakettle. No dripping sound suggested she’d poured water in the pot. And he’d made her cry. He hadn’t meant to do that.
    “It’s all right,” he said. “We can put these flowers in a vase. One’s right up there.”
    He pointed to the cabinet behind her, but Erin didn’t turn. She swiped a hand across her eyes and sniffled.
    Uncomfortable seeing anyone with tears, he said, “Here, I’ll do it.”
    She moved aside for him to grab the vase. He poured water in, took the roses from the basket and set them in the vase, centering it on the table. “Now.”
    Erin stared at the arrangement. She peered at him with misty doe eyes. Signs that Tilly had been in this house was what she wanted.
    What could he show her? Tilly had done a great job of making the floor shine and keeping dust off the furniture, but not lately. Not since she’d taken ill. Before that, she had cooked some great meals.
    “Look here.” He yanked open the refrigerator’s freezer door. Shoving aside the pail of Rocky Road ice cream, he moved thin packs of okra and grabbed the package that revealed rice. “Jambalaya. Tilly made too much a few weeks back, so she froze some.”
    Taking the swollen freezer bag from him, Erin held it in both hands. The way she gazed at the package made Dane feel as if he was in a sacred space.
    “Thank you,” Erin said. She replaced the pack in the freezer. “Maybe we can eat it tonight.”
    He hadn’t planned to have her around by this evening. But she’d gotten so sad and needed something that might wipe away her unhappiness. A dish prepared by her aunt might give her great satisfaction. It would probably be too much trouble for her to fly the package of jambalaya home.
    And back home, she might share it with that guy Trevor.
    No, a dish Tilly cooked on his stove should remain here.
    “We’ll have that jambalaya for supper,” he said, making a smile brighten Erin’s face.
    He really should just give her keys to Tilly’s cottage and send her on her way there. But she didn’t seem so unpleasant to be around today. With her not talking as much as she’d done yesterday, even her movements had slowed. He liked seeing her body’s moves in slower motion.
    He wrenched his eyes away from her. His interest, he determined with a jolt ramming through his belly, stemmed from not entertaining company in some time.
    “I looked through some of the rooms,” she said.
    “You didn’t check out the whole house?” This place had become only that, a big wooden shell filled with rooms. Two years ago, when the heart defect they hadn’t known existed took Anna, the building they stood in abruptly lost its feel of being a home. Still, a small piece of him felt proud of it. Of course not as proud as he was of his fields. And Erin had already gone into Anna’s garments in their bedroom. No problem now with her seeing everything else. “C’mon, let’s see what you missed.”
    He only went with her through the house because he had hurt her with his fierce reaction to her cutting the roses. And the woman walking beside him had all kinds of sadness to carry already while she discovered for certain, after a time, that she would no longer see Tilly.
    What a heart-wrenching lesson, having the truth sink in. You’d never again be near your loved one.
    Feeling as if a hand tightened around his throat, Dane forced away former thoughts and stepped through the doorway ahead of her. “This was a dining room.”
     
    Erin had crossed through this room before, and she’d sat at that small table to use the telephone, which she’d been hoping would ring.