You Don't Know Me (2 page)

How Annalise loved volleyball nights. They helped her remember who she’d been—the good parts—and added a little flavor to their weeknights, something different from the usual dinner and homework. On every other night, for high fun, she might read a book while Nathan went over his campaign finances.

Then, if she were extra lucky, he’d come to bed the same time she did. Maybe give her a good-night kiss.

Okay, a lot of people longed for their kind of ho-hum. A life without drama. She should be thankful for a man who came home every night, lived a life of faithfulness. And just because
they’d never had the type of romance with sparks, candlelight, and swooning, that didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. Not every marriage had to come from a romance novel.

Besides, she probably didn’t have the right to long for anything more.

Yes, volleyball nights made her realize how grateful she was for all of it—her safe, ordered, happy life.

The Java Cup hosted a giant painted moose on its window—a nod toward the Moose Madness celebration this weekend. A tourist town, Deep Haven depended on visitors from the south craving fall color and perhaps a glimpse of wildlife—eagles, bears, foxes, deer, and especially moose. So the tourism board created an entire community event around the hunt for moose, including this weekend’s Mad Moose community dance. This season, Indian summer eluded them, so they’d had to move their booths and outside activities to the local community center.

“What’s in a Wild Moose Mocha?” Annalise said, reading the menu.

Kathy, the blonde owner, wore a fuzzy brown headband with giant moose ears. “It’s a dark chocolate mocha with whip and a caramel drizzle.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“C’mon, Annalise, you only live once.”

Actually . . . “Okay, yes. That. Please.”

Nathan didn’t need to know she was annihilating her diet. Again. Another secret kept for the sake of their happy life.

For a late afternoon, the Java Cup buzzed with conversation. She nodded to Jerry, the incumbent mayor—talking with Norm, who ran the fish place, in the corner easy chairs. At a long table sat the football coaches, Seb Brewster and Caleb Knight.

On the bulletin board, someone—possibly Nathan—had hung a Decker for Mayor pin. She’d handed them out at Nathan’s booth at the Fisherman’s Picnic this summer. Seeing all those faces, shaking all those hands—it made her realize just how embedded she’d become in Deep Haven.

“One Wild Moose Mocha,” Kathy said and handed her the cup. “Careful, it’s hot.”

Annalise paid Kathy with the card on her key ring.

“See you at the game? I just love watching Colleen play. She’s got a good future in Husky volleyball.” Kathy handed the card back.

“She’s thrilled to be a starter,” Annalise said. She took her cup to the coffee counter to grab a stir stick and work in the whipped cream. Indeed, at any other school, sophomore Colleen would sit the bench until her junior year. Being in a small town gave all of them opportunities unheard of in a big city.

Like hiding out where her sins couldn’t find her. And starting over. And becoming someone who desperately wanted to deserve the life God had given her.

Outside the giant picture windows that overlooked Deep Haven’s harbor, Lake Superior had kicked up, the waves platinum as they rippled against the brilliant late-afternoon sun. Sunlight poured through the windows, marinating the smells of leather and coffee. Outside, ruby and amber leaves tumbled down the sidewalk, gems bullied by the wind. She’d have to cover her mums tonight.

Soon snow would turn the world white, hiding the rocky shoreline and capturing them in ice.

But today—today her world was unbreakable.

She replaced the lid, took a sip, then turned.

And everything stopped. Sure, conversation in the coffee shop
continued to hum, and outside, the wind tickled the hanging wind chimes, but as Annalise stared at the man seated by the door, the one who looked up at her with sad eyes, apology in them, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think beyond . . .
No.

Perhaps she shook her head, because he rose to his feet. “Annalise.”

He didn’t look so different from the last time she’d seen him—a moment so vividly etched in her brain that she had no trouble pulling it out, comparing him to the man he’d been. Faded, even unremarkable leather jacket. Short, now-graying hair. Jeans and boots—attire designed to blend in. Hands in his pockets. He could be her uncle visiting from Hoboken for all the presence he had.

He hadn’t changed a bit.

He’d always be the man who had saved her life. The man who had given her a new identity. Who had helped her build this amazing, normal, perfect lie.

The man who could steal it all away.

“Hello, Frank,” she said softly to her Witness Security agent.

Nathan Decker stood on top of the world.

He stood at the apex of the foundation of the unfinished house, where the Palladian windows would be, and held his camera to his eye, panning for exactly the right shot. So many choices—with the twilight drizzling crimson across the crisp waves of Lake Superior, foaming along the rocky shore; the sky stirred with the palette of magenta, chartreuse, and turquoise; the sun a simmering ball of hot pumpkin. Any one of these shots might catch the eye of a curious Internet surfer.

The right buyer could turn this house into a castle.

Hopefully one with a healthy credit rating and a desire to live on the most beautiful tip of Minnesota, tucked away in a half-finished shell of a house twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. He’d list it as needing TLC, call the location charming and nestled in the woods, and use words like
privacy
and
retreat
and
hideaway
.

He still couldn’t believe he’d finally talked Nelda McIntyre into parting with the place. That’s what years of Sundays singing ancient hymns at the senior center could do for a man’s career. And reputation.

Most of those old folks grew up with his grandfather, his uncles, his cousins, and remembered when the Decker name meant success, even honor.

He intended to bring that back.

For a moment more, Nathan watched the waves crash on the rocks below the cliff that dropped straight down some twenty feet. The violence of waves against the rocky shoreline had the power to trap him with their rhythm—the sound of the surf hitting the cliff like a punch, deep inside the gut of the rocky wall. The giant gulp as the water rushed away only to hurl itself again against the rocks. Over and over, never ending, until he could feel it pulsing within him, a heartbeat of doom, reminding him of who he was, imprisoning him inside the Decker legacy.

It had taken him thirty years, but with this mayoral race, he’d break free from the current of shame and failure.

Nathan took a few more pictures of the tall cement beams that comprised the shell of the massive great room, then moved to capture the building’s layout, how it curved along the shore like it belonged there. A cement shell, really, a dream unfinished by Nelda’s husband, a man taken before his time.

The right owner simply needed the vision to see beyond its legacy to the potential.

Nathan crunched across the gravel driveway and climbed into his used Ford Focus. He’d purchased it for the gas mileage, no frills, something Jason and Colleen could drive. Someday, he intended to get something fast and shiny. Maybe after he got Jason, Colleen, and Henry through college. And after he replaced Annalise’s beater SUV. And his mother could use a new deck after forty years of living in the same tiny bungalow.

But someday.

He glanced at the dashboard clock as he turned around for the trek up the long dirt drive to the highway. Annalise had mentioned something about Henry’s soccer practice—he’d wanted to stop by. But he needed to log in these pictures, get them up on the Net before Colleen’s volleyball game. Still, a sudden longing to see his wife, maybe spend five minutes holding her hand while watching their son, churned inside him, rearranging his plans.

He’d stop by, say hi, then pop into the office to post the listing.

His campaign depended on his selling this property and digging his bank account out of the red. Thankfully, Annalise had no idea how far he’d plunged them into debt or she’d start talking about working at the nursing home again. Not that he’d mind the extra paycheck or her having her own career, but she loved her volunteer work at the school, around town at the Goodwill, the blood drive, and on the theater board, and she liked being able to attend the kids’ events, go to lunch with the soccer moms, hit the gym.

And he loved giving her the freedom to do it. Sometimes, when he saw her wave to him from the stands at the volleyball games, in front of the entire town, looking pretty with her long blonde hair and incredible blue eyes, that old feeling swept through him.
Disbelief that he’d married so well. That God had given him the most beautiful woman in Deep Haven. It was all he could do to keep up with the grace, to be the husband he’d pledged to be. Honestly, she probably deserved better, but he wouldn’t tell her that.

All he wanted was to do right by her. To grow old with her.

Most of all, to never end up like his old man.

Nathan pulled out onto the highway and turned on the radio, catching the local broadcast. Vern and Neil, the sports jockeys, were on, giving a pregame analysis of tonight’s volleyball game. They mentioned Colleen and her spike, the stats of the team.

He punched the gas, glancing again at the time.

The soccer players were just winding up the post-practice pep talk when he pulled in to Rec Park. He spotted Kelli Hanson, coach Chip Iverson, and his wife, Beth, handing out cupcakes to the line of boys.

No Annalise. He let his car idle for a moment, debated asking, then figured she’d bundled Henry up to run him home before Colleen’s game.

Which meant he had time to upload these pictures and at least get them posted in the listing he’d created today. He’d add the tags, features, amenities, and put out a few nibbles to past clients tomorrow.

With luck—a lot of luck—this property would move within a week. Sure, they were in a recession, but the right property, with the right salesman and a motivated seller . . . He just had to work his contacts. He knew a few investors who might be interested.

He pulled out of Rec Park, waving to a couple of the parents, and onto Main Street. His office overlooked the lake at the far end of town—which, in a town the size of Deep Haven, wasn’t saying much. Still, sitting in his chair watching the sun over the
harbor, turning the masts of the moored sailboats to gold, he could convince himself that he’d made the right decision staying in Deep Haven.

Nathan was motoring past the Java Cup when he spotted Annalise’s truck. Hard to miss—the Husky Volleyball sticker on the side, the dent in the fender where he’d backed into his snowmobile trailer. Maybe he’d stop in and surprise his wife.

She’d pay him with a smile, one that reminded him why he got out of bed every morning and headed in to work.

He parked and climbed out, noticing he’d gotten dust on his dress shoes tromping around the old McIntyre place. He bent for a moment, wiped them off with his leather glove, then smacked his hands and headed for the coffee shop.

The bell above the door jangled as he walked inside. A few heads popped up. Mayor Jerry Mulligan, in one of the chairs in the corner, talking with Norm, the bait shop owner. Nathan lifted a hand and smiled.

Then he looked around for Annalise.

He found her sitting at a table in the corner of the adjacent room, deep in a conversation huddle with someone he didn’t recognize. Graying hair, leather jacket. Dark, almost-pensive eyes. The man was talking with Nathan’s wife as if he knew her, his hand on the table about to reach out and touch her arm.

They didn’t hear Nathan approach. In fact, Annalise was leaning forward, wearing a strange expression. He might even call it fear, although he’d seen fear on her before—that time Henry drove off the cliff on his bicycle and broke his shoulder. Or the time Colleen wandered off for over an hour at the Minnesota State Fair. Or that day Jason crashed the snowmobile and had to hike back in the darkness, two hours late.

No, this didn’t look like that motherly fear.

This fear he didn’t recognize, and eerie fingers curled around him.

“Lise?”

She looked up and for a moment just blinked at him. As if she didn’t know him.

The expression flushed words out of him. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought he’d walked into something clandestine.

But this was his wife. The woman he’d known for twenty years. She couldn’t keep a secret from him if she wanted to.

Then her smile appeared, and the tightness in his chest broke free.

“Nathan. Hi.” She reached out, took his hand. “I’m sorry; were you looking for me?”

His gaze darted to the man and back. “No . . . I was driving by. I stopped by soccer practice. Where’s Henry?” He turned, expecting to see their son at the book corner, working his iPod, pretending not to know any of them.

“He’s up . . . he’s . . . I dropped him off at the park. He’ll meet us at the game.”