A Path Toward Love (14 page)

They picked their way back down the path and ignored the few raindrops slapping their noses. Andrew glanced over his shoulder. Even with her arms wrapped across her chest, she was shivering. He pulled off his lightweight jacket and tossed it over her shoulders.

“Thank you. It's getting a bit chilly.” Katherine slipped her arms into the long sleeves. The jacket swallowed her, but she seemed grateful for the warmth.

Glancing toward the lake, he noticed darker clouds pouring over the mountaintop like an attacking army. Thunderstorms sometimes invaded from the west without warning. “Come on. We need to hurry.” He led her forward as the trail darkened.

She tripped over an embedded root hidden by a scattering of crumbled leaves, lost her balance, and pushed into him. Twisting around, he grabbed her before her knees slammed into the ground. “How clumsy of me,” she muttered, quickly straightening.

The urge to pull her close almost erased his good sense, just as it had nearly overcome him in the orange grove.
What is the matter with me?
He had to maintain control; he couldn't rush her, push their relationship, not if he hoped to keep her near. He struggled to drop his hands while fat raindrops fell in earnest.

“Let's hurry,” she said, looking at him strangely. Did she feel the pull too? Or merely wonder over his odd pause?

Back at the beach, they found Randy huddled under the limbs of a swaying tree.

“Shall we try to make it back to camp?” Andrew gauged the distance between the island and Birchwood. The camp looked a long way off, but it might be possible to make it back before the storm unleashed its full fury. He glanced up at the tall trees above them, already swaying in the wind, and felt a renewed urgency to get Katherine to safety.

She nodded without hesitation. “Let's try. These trees don't make a good shelter.” A crash of thunder, followed several seconds later by lightning, hurried her along. “The heart of the storm's still a few miles off yet. I think we can make it.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Randy said with a scowl and stared at the sky. “We'll capsize.”

“We're going to get wet either way,” Andrew pressed. “Either on our way home, where we can dry out and nestle by the fire, or here on the island where we might catch our death from the cold.”

“Go on, then,” Randy said. “You can come back and retrieve me as soon as the storm ends.”

Andrew stared at him. He couldn't very well leave his cousin behind. And the waves were growing rapidly. “All right, then. We'll wait it out, together. Come on!” Hand in hand, he and Katherine ran toward a clump of swaying, short, scrubby trees. Leaves pulled loose and scattered across the beach. Once beneath the sheltering limbs, they leaned against the rough bark and lifted his jacket over them both to try and maintain some cover.
We might be stuck here for hours,
he thought, glancing back at his cousin. Not that he'd really mind. Because Katherine was with him.

A jolt of thunder sounded and a brilliant flash of lightning seared the dark sky. But it was a second loud crack that caught their attention. Andrew looked toward the noise. Forty feet away, a tree tore from its roots and began to fall directly in their path.

Chapter Eight

K
atherine's heart tightened, and for a split second she froze, staring as the tree hurtled down upon them. Andrew grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the side just as the trunk smashed to the ground behind them. Branches snapped and broke and brushed against her skirt as they fell, and the heady scent of wintergreen arose from the severed twigs. Rising to her feet, Katherine turned away from Andrew and examined her knee, scraped and bloody.

“I'm so sorry, Katherine. It's all my fault.” Rain pelted down upon them, running in streams down his face now, as well as hers.

She blinked and smiled up at him. “It's your fault that you saved me from being crushed? My knee will be fine.” She ripped the bottom of her cotton petticoat, balled it up, and dabbed at her scrapes and cuts, careful to keep her back to Andrew and an old, disfiguring scar on her leg out of view. She tied the improvised bandage around her knee, trying to ignore the steady throb.

Randy hurried over to them. “Are you two all right?” His eyes ran up and down her, clearly horrified at her disheveled state.

Katherine glanced downward. She was a sodden mess, now as dirty from her fall as she was wet. She accepted Randy's arm and they followed Andrew to another stand of trees, sheltering them from the worst of the wind and driving rain. Her throat gurgled with nervous laughter and she couldn't stop staring at her two old friends. “So much for not arriving back at camp looking like a drowned rat. Aren't we a sorry sight? Just look at us.”

They nodded, glancing down ruefully at their clothes and wiping their faces of rain.

“Mama won't find my appearance at all funny, but it really is—unless I'm just a bit hysterical.” Her straw boater caught the wind and tilted over her forehead at an angle and covered one eye.

She reached up to rearrange it, but it blew off and skittered across the beach and out over the roiling lake. Andrew raced after it before she could stop him. “No, don't bother! I can buy another!” she cupped her hands and called over the wailing wind.

“There's a good man,” Randy cheered as Andrew plunged knee-deep into the water and caught the hat riding a wave. “Well done!” he called.

She noticed he edged closer to her in his cousin's absence.

Andrew waded back in with the soggy piece of millinery. “Here you go.” Looking sheepish, he handed her the remains of the hat with a filthy, ripped band and streamer. “I'm afraid it's ruined.”

She giggled as she accepted it. “Don't worry. I can dry it out and make it look as good as new. Thank you for retrieving it.”

They settled under swaying branches of a red maple, its leaves silver-white on the underside, as the men talked about storms of this magnitude from their youth. Strands of damp hair whipped around her face and into her mouth as she stared across the angry waters, as impassible as a stormy sea at the moment. “I think we'll be late for dinner,” she said benignly.

“I don't think we should stay under these trees,” Andrew said, looking upward. They all heard the thunder, rumbling ever closer. Lightning flashed.

“There's that old lean-to on the other side of the beach,” Randy said doubtfully. He pointed to a broken-down shelter, open on one side. “Want to make a run for it?”

Both men offered their hands, and together they dashed across the wet sand and into the hut. Katherine collapsed onto the floor littered with leaves and branches and hugged her hurting knees to her chin. Her sodden skirt clung to her legs. “This reminds me of my childhood,” she panted. “Our childhood.”

“You're remembering the last time we got caught out here,” Randy said, shaking rain from his hat brim and then taking a seat beside her. Andrew sat down on her other side.

“We couldn't get home for hours and Mama had a fit,” Katherine said.

“Not a memory I like to revisit,” Randy winced.

But Katherine gave a nostalgic sigh. “We had such fun together. Such adventures!”

Andrew's mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Until you turned sixteen or seventeen.” He was closer than before, and Katherine decided to not ease away as she should. It felt good to be close to the two of them. Truly like old times.

“I'm afraid I dropped the two of you because you were my chums, not my beaux. That was a dreadful mistake, and I'm sorry.” She looked at each of them, remembering those fateful years. She'd wanted to explore the world of adults and indulge in new experiences and turn strangers into friends. Randy and Andrew lost their allure. To her great shame, she hadn't appreciated their loyalty until a few years later, when she'd looked back at the friends she'd left behind and compared them to Charles. Only then did she begin to appreciate them.

Randy smiled sadly. “We never lost interest in you.”

“Well, I regret that I took you both for granted. I was so absorbed in myself I never noticed you still wanted to be chums.” Katherine reached for their damp hands and pressed them tightly. “Can you two ever forgive me?”

Andrew squeezed back. “Of course. I suppose we were like a pair of comfortable old shoes and you wanted a brand-new pair.”

She chuckled. “Not a very flattering description of you. Or of me, I'm afraid. But you're right. I wanted excitement and charm, so I turned to Charles.”

She stopped, afraid she'd reveal more about her marriage than she wished. Andrew was a most sympathetic man, but she wasn't sure about Randy.

Another clap of thunder disrupted her reverie. She slapped her hands over her ears. “My, that was deafening.”

“We're in the thick of it now,” Andrew said.

“It'll be all right, Kat,” Randy said. He reached for her hand without hesitating. It was a proprietary gesture, and she wasn't quite sure she liked it. Andrew tightened his mouth and looked away. Were they each silently struggling to lay claim to her? She shivered, this time not from the cold and damp. She needed old friends to laugh with and confide in, not suitors vying for her attention.

“Shall we go home?” she asked, as soon as the wind died down and the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Together the trio rose and watched as the water calmed and the sky lightened to pewter. By the time they pulled the guide boat to shore in front of Camp Birchwood, the storm had entirely blown past, leaving cooler air. Mama, Aunt Georgia, and a handful of her mother's other guests were gathered on the beach, awaiting them.

Mama came forward and gripped Katherine's hands. “I'm so relieved to see you're all right. But what were you thinking? Why did you not return as soon as you saw the storm brewing? Really, Katherine, I should think you'd be more prudent at your age.”

Katherine winced, but she wasn't willing to disagree with Mama in front of her friends. She wouldn't defend herself and cause a beehive of gossip that might be repeated and enjoyed for weeks to come. “You're right, Mama. I should've paid more attention to the weather.”

Randy brushed a thin layer of mud from the bottom of his trousers and muttered, “If they hadn't gone hiking, we could've returned before the rain started.”

Mama blanched and focused her disapproval on Katherine, opening her mouth to speak, but then apparently thinking better of it. Several seconds passed in silence.

Apparently Randy realized his mistake, because he tried to backtrack. “Actually it wasn't their fault. No one knew it would rain.” But Katherine knew he couldn't undo the damage.

In a voice as hard and cold as an iceberg, Mama directed the threesome as if they were children once again. “All of you should change out of your wet clothes before you catch your death of cold.”

Katherine strode toward her cabin, her head down. Once inside, she washed off the dirt with a quick sponge bath and donned a dry, moss green skirt and tailored shirtwaist, adding a cameo at the neck. Right when she thought she was free from threat of her mother's wrath, Mama entered the cabin. She stood by the bed until Bridget—Aunt Letty's maid—finished fashioning her damp hair into a simple chignon. The maid left quietly.