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And then it hit her. The connection between how Micah heard of Haven House might be Emmaline Bassiter.
Do you remember a woman named Emmaline Bassiter?
No, should I?
I think she might have gone to Haven House.
You want me to have Elise look into it?
Yeah.
Why wouldn’t he just tell her? she wondered. Was he ashamed of this Emmaline woman? Was that why he wanted his donation to be anonymous?
“Helen!” She turned to see Micah standing at the back door. “It’s safe to come back up.”
She walked back through the golden sunshine to the modest cabin full of music and instruments. “You okay?” she asked, Micah as she walked by him.
“I’m sad,” he said. “But I’ll get over it.”
“How is Danny?” she asked.
“Relieved. You know, it’s been so long since someone didn’t want what I have that I’d forgotten there were so many ways to be successful in music. He likes his life. Far be it from me to fuck it up for him.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, his chest, really. Right over his heart, the same place he’d put her hand in the car. He lifted her fingers and pressed his lips to them and she sucked in a breath. It happened so fast the way he turned her on. Like she was herself standing there and in the next minute she was starved for him. So on fire she didn’t even recognize herself.
His eyes caught hers and for a second she tried to hide it. Tried to look away and make a joke, but he looked at her not just like he knew what she was feeling. But that he felt it too.
“What is this?” she whispered.
“Chemistry,” he said.
Is that all? she thought, and pulled her hand away.
“Are we staying for dinner?” she asked.
“It’s up to you. Danny would love it and the guy can seriously cook.”
“I’m starving.”
“Me too.”
“So, I guess we’re staying for dinner.”
“Go on inside,” he said. “I’m going to make a fire.”
She went inside, only because she needed a second to get her bearings. To put herself together. Chemistry, he says, like it’s nothing.
And that was the thing. He might feel the same way she did, but it didn’t have the same effect on his life as it did on hers. Perspective, she thought.
She pulled open the screen door, stepped inside and immediately kicked over a tuba. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry.” She scrambled to pick it up and knocked over some sheet music stacked on a speaker.
“Don’t worry,” Danny said, standing in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove. Whatever he was making had transformed the smell of the place until it was nothing but garlic and butter. She could lick the walls. “I need to clean out this stuff, but I don’t.”
She laughed at his self-acceptance.
“Where did you get all of this?” Helen asked, standing up and picking her way across the room toward the kitchen.
“Well, I inherited most of it from my dad. He was a piano tuner at Eastman College.” Danny looked around at all his stuff like they were treasures. “He thought he could fix everything. And usually he could. The tuba might be a lost cause, though.”
He was grating cheese over the risotto and then chucking in handfuls of chopped parsley.
“Try it?” he asked, holding out the wooden spoon. She took a nibble of the risotto and it was—as advertised—delicious.
“Perfect,” she said. He beamed at her and started to go through a drawer, pulling out chipped china and spoons. “How did you and Micah meet?” she asked, taking a tarnished silver spoon he handed her.
“Online,” he said, and started spooning risotto into the bowls. “I’d duet with his TikToks, but like, with an accordion,” he said, pointing over her shoulder. “Or a slide whistle. Once a pan flute I’ve got around here. And he just contacted me.”
“That must have been something.” Micah Sullivan contacting a guy out of the blue.
“Nah,” he said. “People contact me all the time.”
Yeah, she could see why Micah liked this guy. He was completely unfazed by Micah’s fame. “We started working together in the evenings. Writing songs. Working out arrangements. When it came time to work out the album he came here. It was fun.”
“And then he asked you to be in the band?”
“Not fun,” he said seriously. “But I figured I should try, you know. Just to see if being in one of the world’s biggest rock and roll bands was better than it seemed like it would be.”
“And it wasn’t?”
He leaned against the counter like they were old friends talking about another old friend and not the biggest rock band in the world.
“They weren’t together very long before that first song of theirs blew up, and now they’re kind of forced together whether they like it or not. Like an arranged marriage.”
She laughed. She laughed so hard she hooted just as Micah came in from the back door. He’d pulled a red stocking cap over his hair and it made him look like a very sexy rock and roll lumberjack.
