The Carpenter & the Queen

By Michelle Lashier

When single-mom Claire Matthews inherits an old home in rural Michigan, she sees it as a chance to strike out on her own after her husband's death and build a new life for herself and her son. But the house is in worse shape than she thought, and moving on with her life and her artistic endeavors is anything but easy, especially in the middle of winter.

Carpenter Paul Sawyer believes life is a game he's forever losing. Since his divorce, he's become reclusive, creating chess sets in his garage workshop and selling them over the Internet. But a customer's special request and a bad winter storm give him a second chance at love . . . if he's willing to take it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Lashier
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311628411

Michelle Lashier

Michelle Lashier writes adventure, mystery, and time travel novels with a dash of humor and romance. Formerly a high school and college writing teacher, she has a B.A. in English from Southern Adventist University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from National University. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Find Michelle on the web and get a free ebook: www.michellelashier.com.

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The Carpenter and the Queen

By Michelle Lashier

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 by Michelle Lashier

Cover Art by pro_ebookcovers

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you should like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For Mom and Dad

1

Early January 2005, Lindberg, Michigan

Snowflakes with black edges swirled around wind lines that encircled the castle tower. On a tiny balcony, just below the conical roof, stood a woman with thin limbs and large eyes that encompassed half her face. Her long hair, whipped by the air currents, twisted to the left. About her shoulders she clutched a thin wrap. Beneath it she wore only a negligee. The tower stretched to the top of the page. Near the bottom lay a white void. The woman’s mouth was a thin line curving down in an expression of despair. She was alone, cold, and unblinking in her black and white world high in the sky.

Mom?

Claire Matthews jumped, causing her marker to skip and draw a line across the woman’s face. Biting back the urge to voice her irritation, Claire looked up from her drawing table at the pajama-clad figure in the doorway.

What is it, Sammy?

I can’t sleep.

Sam’s voice sounded in throaty notes that indicated he had been very much asleep until only a few seconds before. He rubbed his eyes and swayed on his feet.

Claire went to him and crouched down to his eye level.

What’s wrong?

The wind is making too much noise. It scared me.

Claire put her arms around him. Nothing’s going to hurt us, she comforted. The wind can’t get in.

Can I stay up here with you?

There’s no place for you to sleep. Let’s put you back to bed.

He pulled away and shook his head. Uh-uh. I wanna be with you.

Sammy...

The boy made a little whining sound, and Claire sighed. When Claire was a little girl, her own mother would have marched her straight back to bed. But Claire understood Sam’s concern. The old house creaked and groaned in ways their apartment building never had. And the house was so big. Claire felt disoriented in the space. Although she had hoped this house would bring her closer to her past, instead it was hurtling her toward the future at the speed of light. She found no place in her mind or her new property where she felt any relationship to anything except the open air and this eight-year-old with the shaggy blond hair who was already going limp in her arms.

I’ll get the cot, Claire said.

She gently pushed Sam against the wall where he slid down and sat on the floor, his eyes heavy.

She entered the dark hallway and opened the door to the musty bedroom she was using as a storage room. The army cot her brother had given her was just inside. Claire pulled it out and returned to her studio, setting the cot near the wall. She helped Sam climb onto it then went down the stairs to his room where she gathered his pillow and favorite blue blanket.

Back in the studio, Sam was barely awake. Claire put her arm under his head and shoulders to lift him up in order to slide the pillow underneath. After tucking the blanket around him, she kissed his cheek.

Better? she asked.

Mm-hmm.

He snuggled in, curling his knees up toward his chest, and fell asleep. Claire studied his face intently with the same concentration and appreciation she used when she studied art. Certainly the face of her child was more beautiful than anything else she had ever created. With the peachy complexion and blond hair Sam inherited from her as a canvas, Sam painted life in the same broad strokes as his father—attitude, possession, and vulnerability. One moment Sam dared the world to come after him, fighting off self-doubt with sparkling eyes and his father’s mischievous grin. The next, he was a frightened child who needed his mom. Now, relaxed in sleep, with his mouth slightly open, Claire could see both herself and Will in their son. Sam was a lovely boy.

Running her hand through her bobbed hair, Claire sat down at the table and studied the drawing she had been working on. It was ruined. The skip lines intersected the mouth line and cheek in a way that could not be disguised while still preserving the original facial expression. Claire’s impulse was to crumple the paper and toss it into the wastebasket. Her fingertips landed on the sheet, ready to wrinkle it into a ball, but she hesitated.

Surely there was some way she could fix it. She stared at the lines, envisioning what new ones she could draw to fix the damage. One solution would make the mouth too big. Another would give the woman a facial scar. Still another would obscure a quarter of her face with snowflakes. Claire didn’t like any of the options. She knew she would think of something eventually, but it wasn’t going to be tonight.

She had chosen this tiny room as her studio because a series of three windows took up most of the wall. She liked the light and the view of the backyard and wooded area beyond. Her slanted drawing table pressed against the windows where a draft continually chilled her feet. Her desk with the computer was on the side wall to her right, and Sam’s cot was on the left wall. She barely had room to move her chair. Claire rolled the chair back a few inches and reached behind her into the desk drawer to pull out some invisible tape. She tore off a piece, rolled it onto the back of her picture, and secured it to the wall. She would let the drawing hang there until she could decide what to do with it.

Of course, when she pulled it down, the paint would probably come with it since the new drywall was only recently painted and hadn’t had time to cure yet. She shrugged. It was her house now. She could do as she pleased, including ripping off her own paint.

Most of the downstairs rooms were wallpapered in atrocious cabbage-flower designs that had been popular back in—well, she wasn’t sure they had ever been popular. Claire did not consider herself an interior designer, but anything she could do to the old place was better than leaving it as it was. She would get new siding come summer with the money Luther left her. New windows, too. Until then, she could focus on the inside, making it the house it always had the potential to be. All it needed was someone to care about it and happy people to live inside of it. No one had cared for the house in thirty years. From what she knew of the house’s more recent history, no one had been happy here for at least that long, if not longer. By accepting the house when it was offered her, Claire had promised to care for it. But as for happiness—that would have to take care of itself.

Maybe it was time to paint again.

The thought surprised her. She hadn’t picked up an art brush in four years. All her drawings since then had been black and white in the ligne claire style. She only colored her graphic design work now, but since that was on the computer, it didn’t count. Maybe it was time for color—on the walls first. Then, who knew? Perhaps she could bring out the brushes again. She would wait for a picture to present itself in her mind. Right now, she had nothing, and she knew forcing an image would never work.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her.

The wind moaned as it circled around the front of the house.

Sam’s slow, steady breathing filled the room. In. Out. In. Out.

She saw it. Smiling, she uncapped her marker and drew two circles, one a few inches higher on the page than the other. Then the marker created two bulky bodies, two air-tank backpacks, two faces—Sam’s and hers—astronauts holding hands, floating in the universal expanse with a monochromatic planet in the distance, looking warm, friendly, and unattainable.

2

Chicago, Illinois

Paul Sawyer, engulfed in the overstuffed sofa, closed his eyes and dozed. His sisters, Nora and Beth, chattered indistinctly in the kitchen, their soprano voices punctuated by the clanging of pots and thumping of cabinet doors. This nap was the first time Paul had had to himself in the last three days. He lay on his back, his feet stretched over the arm of the couch. His right leg ached a little, and intermittent with his dreamy sensations of floating, he knew another snow storm was coming. The change in barometric pressure always caused him some degree of discomfort.

He never lay down like this at home. Sleep was something he needed very little of since he started living alone. With so little stimulation, his energy stores lasted late into the evening. But now, surrounded by children and four other adults, Paul felt more exhausted than he had in months. Drifting into a dream, he saw a misty game board populated with chess pieces aligned in the endgame strategy he had been searching for all his life. Pure genius. The final, strategic stroke to achieve a long-sought victory.

Uncle Paul?

He opened his eyes to see his seven-year-old niece Emma holding a chessboard over his head.

Are you awake?

Emma’s brown pigtails hung down as she bent over Paul, her dark eyes squinting in concentration.

Yeah.

Will you play chess with us?

The two younger girls stood a few feet back. Aubrey, Emma’s younger sister, was making her