You Don't Know Me (10 page)

No, not desperate. He wasn’t desperate. Just determined.

He found a smile as he knocked on the door of the Buchanans’ tiny bungalow. They too had a grapevine wreath, and it listed as Shelly answered, still in her bathrobe, surprise on her face. She pushed open the storm door. Although Shelly had graduated two years after him, Nathan knew her well, along with her husband, Brian, an auto mechanic down at Buchanan Auto and Tire. Everyone in Deep Haven knew each other well.

“Well, if it isn’t the Deckers. Out early today, huh?”

“Good morning, Shelly.” Nathan extended his hand. She shook it, her other hand wrapped around the neck of her robe. “I know it’s nippy out here, so I won’t keep you. I just wanted to ask if you and Brian would consider voting for me for mayor, leave you this information, and see if you had any questions or concerns for me.”

He’d rehearsed his speech in the bathroom mirror so long that it flowed out without a hitch. He smiled.

Shelly took Annalise’s proffered brochure, flipped it open. “I think I know what you stand for, Nathan,” she said.

For a second, her words shook him. Like what?

“Your family is a delight. We love them all. Mikey plays football, so he and the boys always cheer on the girls’ volleyball games. Colleen is a real star. Probably just like her mom.” Shelly grinned at Annalise.

Annalise smiled back, but she seemed a little wan at the compliment. Could be the cold. “Thanks, Shelly. We’d really appreciate your vote.”

Shelly’s smile dimmed. “Seb is Mike’s coach,” she said softly. “Thanks, Nathan. Good luck.”

He managed a smile and a good-bye, but his chest tightened as he walked down the driveway. Annalise walked beside him, quiet. Finally she said, “So what if Seb is running. You’ve been here longer than him. And people love you.”

“People don’t love me.”

“They do too, Nathan. You have a successful business and a good family.”

“Seb married into the donut legacy of Deep Haven. And he’s the star quarterback from our only championship season. And now the assistant football coach, as well as the head basketball coach.” He shook his head as he strode up the walk of the next house. “This town is crazy about their sports.”

She put a hand on his arm, turned him. Met his eyes with a pretty smile, the kind that could yank him out of his crazy spirals of despair. “If they see in you what I do, I promise you’ll win.”

Yes, he wanted to believe her. More than that, he wanted to pull her into his arms, right here on the Michaels’ doorstep. For a second, everything seemed healed. Whole. Perfect.

Joe answered the door and spent five minutes talking with Nathan about the issue of the new pool at the community center and the funding for the school gym. Nathan must have caught the guy writing one of his bestsellers because Joe nursed a cup of coffee, wearing a Deep Haven Huskies sweatshirt and a pair of lounge pants, his glasses up on his head.

“See, Joe will vote for you, and he works with Seb in the volunteer fire department,” Annalise said as they walked away.

When Nathan took her hand, it reminded him of those early days when they’d walk hand in hand around town after dinner, trailing behind Jason on his bike and Colleen on her tricycle. He had so many dreams back then, hopes of what he’d give them.

Twenty years later, they lived in the same run-down house, trying to get ahead.

Still, he wanted to believe what Annalise said, what she saw in him.

Maybe everything was about to change for him—for them. Then this distance he felt from Annalise would vanish. Frank would leave and everything could go back to normal. No—better. Happier.

Nathan walked up to the old Svenson place. He’d heard they moved, but he hadn’t yet met the new owner. Obviously he had the same taste as the Svensons because he hadn’t removed the deer skull tacked to the tree in the front yard.

Nathan knocked, smiled at Annalise. “Let’s stop by Java Cup after this,” he said.

“You have to try their Wild Moose Mocha—it’s fabulous.”

And that’s when the door opened.

Nathan stood there a full thirty seconds before his heart started beating again. Thankfully, by that time, Annalise had glanced at him, seen him go white, and rescued him. As usual.

“Hello, I’m Annalise Decker, and this is Nathan, my husband. He’s running for mayor, and we just wanted to stop by to see if we could get your vote and do anything for you today.”

She didn’t know. She didn’t recognize the man.

Shawn Jorgenson, son of the man his father killed, stared at Nathan with folded arms over his extended belly, his eyes cold. “Get off my property.”

Nathan hooked Annalise’s arm. “Let’s go.”

But she frowned at Shawn. “I’m sorry; did we offend you?”

“Get off!”

Nathan was already stalking down the driveway. The back of his neck burned.

In an instant, he’d turned twelve and a coward.

“Nathan, what’s the matter?”

He didn’t say anything, just kept walking, all the way to the street. Toward the corner. “Let’s get that coffee.”

She was scrambling to keep up. “Why was he so angry with us?”

When had Shawn Jorgenson moved to Deep Haven? Nathan knew he’d left town after high school and had heard he returned to work for a lumber mill nearby, but he thought Shawn lived at his father’s place, back in the woods.

“What is going on?”

He slowed, turned. Winced as he saw Annalise nearly jogging to catch him. She was a little out of breath. “Sorry.”

She curled the brochures in her gloved hands. “Who was that?”

How he didn’t want to relive this again. “That was Shawn Jorgenson. His dad was Moe.”

Nothing registered. But maybe he shouldn’t expect it to. He hadn’t really told her anything about that part of his life—just the
facts, and he let his mother fill in the rest. “His dad was the one my dad killed.”

Oh.
Her lips formed the word, but no sound came with it. Then, softly, she said, “But why is he angry at you? You didn’t kill his father.”

He tried not to, but he couldn’t hold it back—he emitted a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “Because it’s a small town, Annalise, and people hold grudges. You don’t know what it’s like. You had the luxury of coming here and starting over. But I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wish I could start over too. But I’m trapped here in Deep Haven. I’ll never escape.”

He hadn’t exactly meant it that way. More like he had too many responsibilities, too many threads holding him here. But she winced like he’d slapped her.

That, added to his brilliant remarks yesterday, and . . . well, no wonder she didn’t look at him.

“C’mon, let’s get some coffee.” He tried a smile, longing to fix it.

Annalise walked with him to the coffee shop, too quiet, and he tried to assure himself that she’d forgiven him. But when he saw her holding back tears while standing in line at the Java Cup . . . “Annalise, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
trapped
.”

She bit her lip.

He should have left it there. Especially since this Saturday morning, coffee groups were huddled in chatter, probably about him, and despite the noise, everyone listened to every nuance of their conversation.

But the wounds of the past day wouldn’t stay down. “I just meant you don’t know what it’s like to have your past always lurking. Not being able to escape it.”

She wiped her cheek. Yeah, like everyone didn’t see
that
. Super.

“Let’s talk about it at home.” She turned to leave the line, but he caught her.

“We have more campaigning to do.”

Something sparked in her eyes and for a second, he didn’t recognize her. “What if I don’t want to be a mayor’s wife? What if I just want to be
your
wife? The mom of our kids? That’s not enough for you, is it? You have to be mayor and destroy everything.”

What?

“Well, guess what, Nathan. I like our lives. I’m
not
trapped. And there’s nothing I want to do more than stay
right here
. I just wish you liked our lives as much as I do. But maybe we want different things—maybe we’ve
always
wanted different things. Maybe we were never right for each other.”

Huh? And of course, the entire coffee shop had silenced until he could hear only his heartbeat and the jangle of the door as Annalise yanked it open and left him there in his puddle of shame.

Nathan ducked his head and charged after her.

But he never caught up to her the entire way home.

John Christiansen probably knew Nathan better than anyone in Deep Haven. He’d been the only one who still talked to him after his father killed Shawn Jorgenson’s. Twelve-year-old John had deliberately set his lunch tray at Nathan’s table after that terrible day on the football field. He’d kept Nathan from quitting school—quitting life, really. He’d invited him out to his house on Evergreen Lake and made him believe he wasn’t alone.

John Christiansen just might be Nathan’s only real friend even after all these years.

Which was why Nathan showed up on his doorstep at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, wearing his running gear.

John was a big man, the kind who preferred time in the weight room to long hours of solitude pounding his feet on the dirt road
that led back to his family’s lodge and rental cabins. He’d long ago lost his hair—or at least most of it, opting to shave what remained. Today he wore his signature black ball cap, the one with the family logo across the top, but it did nothing to shield his eyes, dark blue and too knowing as he opened the door to Nathan.

John took one look at Nathan and hollered to his wife, Ingrid, that he was going running.

No, he didn’t know how long he’d be.

Yes, he’d be back for the play-off volleyball game tonight.

Which, Nathan had to admit, was more than he’d promised when he left the house this afternoon. Annalise’s voice, with just a little hiccup on the end, had followed him down the hall—“Please don’t miss Colleen’s game. We’re a family; we have to stick together.”

Then maybe she shouldn’t embarrass him in the middle of town.

She didn’t have to listen to the accusations—and they were there, all right. Not just in Shawn’s eyes. Nathan saw them in Jenny Jorgenson, Moe’s widow and the city clerk, every time he had to search a lien on a house. And any time he drove past Cutaway Creek, he heard the voices that told him he’d never escape this town, this legacy of shame.

His wife had to pour gasoline on it by dismantling their marriage in front of the entire town.

So maybe he hadn’t helped, barging into their room after she locked him out—locked him
ou
t
! He’d had to find the wire master key that opened all the locks in the house. And then he found her standing by the window, staring out, not looking at him, like he might be invading her privacy or something.

She’d never locked him out of their room, not once in twenty years.

But everything seemed different in the past couple days . . . and the more he thought about it, he pointed to Frank’s appearance as the ignition.

For the first time he considered that Frank hadn’t appeared in Deep Haven on happenstance, a nice family visit.

His brain tracked back to that huddle he’d walked into at the Java Cup. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to the expression of fear on his wife’s face. That feeling in his gut.

She and Frank had something between them, something unresolved. But as long as Annalise locked Nathan out of their room, he hadn’t a clue how to solve it.

“How far are we going?” John said as he came onto his porch after changing into a pair of black track pants and a black short-sleeved shirt with the Huskies emblem on the front. He sat on the steps made of rough-hewn logs, probably felled by one of his Christiansen ancestors and dragged by hand through the piney woods to the homestead. John lived in a house bequeathed to him by his father, four generations of family running the Evergreen Lodge Outfitter and Cabin Rentals.

John, of course, had updated the place, just like his father before him, and he now had a home that rivaled anything out of
Log Cabin
magazine.

Sometimes Nathan stood in John’s massive gourmet kitchen, peering out the picture window that overlooked the expansive lawn, the indigo lake, and just wanted to sink into one of those handmade oak chairs and quit.

He would never build a family legacy like the Christiansens’.

“I don’t know. Five miles? Seven?” Nathan said.

“You bet. However long it takes.” John finished tying his shoes, descended to the lawn, and stretched out a bit.

Nothing Nathan did would ease the tension inside him, but he stretched his calves, his hamstrings, noting the burn in his legs.

He hadn’t run in . . . well, maybe weeks. Not since he’d thrown his hat into the mayoral ring. But Annalise had suggested it yesterday, and after their fight, he needed something to help air out his thoughts.

Maybe he’d convince himself that he shouldn’t quit the mayoral race. Although, at this point, he still held on to that as an option.

How was he supposed to beat local hero Seb Brewster?

“Along the lake, then?” John said as he jogged up to him.

Nathan nodded and fell in beside him.

John had played football for the University of Minnesota and had never shed his bulk. He ran with effort, like a bull clearing a highway. Nathan, however, had turned to running that spring of his seventh-grade year, joining the track team. It kept him far away from Shawn Jorgenson, who played every other sport, and it had slimmed him down, made him lean, empowered him.

Yes, Nathan could do anything when he ran.

“Colleen was in the newspaper this week. They’re saying she’ll make all-conference. She’s got over two hundred kills this season and almost as many digs,” John said between labored breaths.

Nathan could probably be labeled a poor father when his best friend knew his daughter’s volleyball stats better than he did.

It must have been clear in his silence because John added, “It was right next to the football stats.”

Nathan nodded. They hit the dirt road that wound through the woods back to the Evergreen cabins. The breeze swept the
scent of pine into the air, crisp and clean. He inhaled, then—“I’m thinking of quitting the race.”

John didn’t look at him.

That helped a little.

“Did you know that Seb Brewster threw his hat in yesterday?”

“You’re going to let Seb intimidate you?”

John never pulled his punches, not even thirty years ago.

“I decided to canvass the town today, do some door-to-door campaigning.”

John was still running well, but he slowed slightly. Maybe he knew Nathan would rather run than talk. “And?”

“Did you know that Shawn Jorgenson moved into town?”

“No.”

“He lives on Third Avenue in that A-frame with the triangular porch, the one with the deer skull in the yard, tacked to the tree.”

“The old Svenson place.”

“Right. I didn’t know that. He answered the door and just stood there this morning, staring at me. It was awful. I saw that day again, every second of it. Walking out onto the field all suited up, ready for practice. Shawn standing next to the coach, the man’s hand on his pads. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they let him come to practice.”

“Coach Presley was more than a coach to most of us. Shawn probably needed someone to tell him it was going to be okay.”

“Yeah. Me too. I don’t know why no one told me what my father had done—or what had happened to him—before I got there. I saw Shawn, then the rest of the team, turn and stare at me. I saw it in their eyes—they hated me.”

“They were kids, afraid and angry. And Shawn was a year older,
had even played a little junior varsity. They saw you as a red dog, someone expendable.”

But John hadn’t. He had the crooked nose to prove it. That hadn’t been a practice anyone wanted to recall.

“Shawn still feels that way.”

“And do you expect anything different from him? He grew up without a father because of your old man.”

“Thanks for that.” Nathan slowed to a walk. “I thought I’d finally put that behind me.”

John caught up to him. “But see, that’s the thing. It’s not yours to put anywhere. You didn’t have anything to do with Moe Jorgenson’s death.”

“It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do in this town, I’ll always be Dylan Decker’s son. The son of a drunk. A cheater. A murderer. And my kids will bear it too. That’s why I was running for mayor, John. Not for me, but for my kids. For my wife. They deserve a better name.”

“Decker is a fine name.”

Nathan started running again.

“Don’t quit the race, Nate.”

They rounded a bend and cut through the woods, down a trail toward the lake, their feet soft on the bed of pine needles.

The trail opened at the end to a view of the lake. The wind chapped Nathan’s skin as it skidded off the water. He stopped, bent at the waist. “Annalise and I got into a fight.”

John had come up behind him. He heard the man breathing hard.

Nathan closed his eyes.
I’m trapped here in Deep Haven.
“I know I started it, but . . . she lied to me, John. Or at least she kept the
fact that Jason had tried out for the play a secret.” He watched geese fly overhead, a V headed south. “He got the part of Romeo.”

“That’s great, man.”

“No, it’s not. I deliberately told him to get a job. He needs it to pay for school.” Nathan watched John haul in breaths, hands on his knees. Now or never . . . “I’ve charged nearly ten thousand dollars on our credit card for this race. I’ll have to use Jason’s school savings to pay it.”

John raised his head, met Nathan’s eyes.

Yep.

“But you didn’t have an opponent. Why—?”

“I don’t know—I just wanted to do it right. To convince everyone they were making the right decision, believing in me. But . . .” He blew out a breath. “Annalise doesn’t know.”

“So she’s not the only one lying.”

Nathan looked away. And that made it all the worse. Because his being trapped probably had more to do with his own web of secrets than what Deep Haven dished out. “C’mon. Please don’t tell me that you and Ingrid don’t have secrets.”

John leaned against a tree to stretch. “Secrets sabotage a marriage. Doesn’t matter how big they are.”

“Secrets are normal. They save a marriage. I mean, there are all sorts of things that I don’t know about Annalise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love her, that we don’t have a great marriage.”

Until today. But it was just a fight. It wouldn’t dismantle their lives.

“Isn’t that the point of intimacy? To share yourselves with each other? To close the gap between you?”

“I know my wife, John. And she knows me. We’re intimate, I promise.”

Although John’s words stung. Sometimes Nathan did feel as if a canyon existed between him and Annalise. As if they stood on opposite sides, not hearing each other.

Her words in the coffee shop suddenly made sense.
Maybe we’ve
always
wanted different things. Maybe we were never right for each other.

No. He refused to believe that.

“I’m not talking about physical intimacy, Nate. I’m talking about truly knowing each other. No secrets. Full acceptance. That’s what God gives us, and that’s what marriage is supposed to be.”

Nathan stared out at the lake, the way the wind ran across it in tiny ripples all the way to the shoreline.

Wasn’t that what they had? He thought so, but . . .

No. He wasn’t his father. He loved his wife, and they would work this out. Besides, he had a plan.

“I landed the McIntyre house. I’m hoping that commission will pay the debt off.”

“You need to tell Annalise, Nathan. You can’t fix this by hoping you’ll sell the house. You have to fix it by telling the truth.”

He stared at John. The man had it so easy. He owned his own home, had a rock-solid legacy of character in his lineage. And his children—“I heard that Owen finally decided to sign with the Minnesota Wild. That’s awesome.”

“He’ll probably sit the bench for a while, but we hope he gets to play. He loves the game, and playing for Minnesota is perfect. We’ll get to see some of his games.” John folded his arms over his barrel chest. “But we never intended for him to play pro hockey. He just loved the sport so much, we kept encouraging him to play. One game at a time until one day he’s on the Wild roster.” He shook his head. “That’s how you build a life. One day at a time. Until you realize you’ve built something solid.”

Something solid. “I used to think that. The day I met Annalise. She didn’t see me as Dylan Decker’s loser kid, but . . . like she needed me. She believed in me. And she made me believe in myself.” He ran a hand behind his neck, squeezed the tight muscles there. “Only, she’s been so distant recently. Ever since her uncle arrived. And there’s something about him—I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t trust him. He watches me. Watches our town. And he took my mother to the dance last night.”

“Your mom had a date?”

“Let’s not call it that, okay? It’s . . . Fine. Maybe it
was
a date. They danced all night together.”

John smiled, something like humor in his eyes. “You should be happy for her. She gave you everything, put her heart into raising you. She deserves a date. Maybe even to fall in love—”

“She’s not falling in love with him.”

John laughed. “Right. Because she’s your mom?”

“Let’s just run.”

Nathan took off, back up the spongy path to the road, hearing his heartbeat in his ears.

Wouldn’t that be fun—his mother falling for Frank.