Two Doors

Two Doors tells the story of an intense and complicated love that blooms between a free spirited potter and a guarded school bus driver who see one another only moments each morning at the end of a gravel driveway. All John Larson ever wanted was a simple life for himself and his young son Max, but the dense border of Tamarack pines encompassing his forty acres near Oregon's southwest coast conceals more than his small manageable home, pottery studio, and vegetable garden. Ann, his unaffectionate and alcoholic wife of six years, waits anxiously for their land to be seized under eminent domain, which she hopes will free her from the solitary world that became her life after they were married. When Max steps onto the school bus for the first time, he poses for a picture. His new bus driver, Gina Archer, smiles indelibly in the background, a smile John Larson begins to crave as much as his morning coffee. Over the next year, John and Gina discover in each other the common ground of art and nature, and find themselves traveling together to weekend art fairs, where they sell their artwork by day and share private conversations around midnight campfires. John's connections in the art world boost Gina's career as an oil painter which eliminates her need for a bus driver's paycheck, but she must hide her enormous success from her friends, and even from John, as it would make no sense to keep her job driving the bus. Seeing him each morning becomes as necessary as food, and Gina would do anything to salvage those precious seconds with John - anything but wedge herself between he and Ann, who struggles to overcome her disease. Each page is a layer of romantic tension as their relationship evolves from the innocence of friendship to the pivotal moment John realizes that Gina doesn't need his confession of love as much as she needs to believe that an honorable man exists in the world. To admit his feelings would reduce him to adulterer, betrayer, and would differentiate him from no other man she'd ever known. Two Doors is as much about respect as love - the ironic struggle not to fall into it. Each encounter is a tender ache as the book reveals John and Gina's individual and tragic cause for restraint, as well as the reasons self control must trump desire. Rooted in honor and daring self confrontation, Two Doors startles with a love so pure, so beautiful, it has lasted ten years without a kiss, a touch, or a single moment of doubt.