Always on My Mind (15 page)

And only then could he be the light that Raina needed. Not his light
 
—God’s.

He rested his forehead on the glass, closed his eyes. “Help me, Lord. Make me Yours. Fill this terrible longing with Yourself
 
—with truth and hope and . . . love. Real love. Not the desperate, hopeless, deceitful love that tempts me to believe I can have her back, but the love that means it when I pray for her. The love that sets me free.”

He looked up at the moon, glistening in the sky. “Be light in my life, Lord. Show me the truth. Illuminate my path. Ignite the man You want me to be.”

Casper closed his eyes and stood just breathing in the quiet pool of moonlight.

“D
AD!
”

Darek sat at the kitchen table, the computer open, his QuickBooks file up, a stack of bills littering the table. Outside, icicles hung like daggers from the roof, the sun turning the snow brittle and sharp beneath the frozen, white sky.

Not technically a snow day, but the school feared sending kids outside in negative-windchill conditions. In his day, his mother would have bundled them up and tossed them outside to wreak havoc in the yard instead of her living room.

He picked up the electric bill, studying it. How did it double last month? Maybe from the endless hours burning the wick to get cabin three back to working order. He looked at the number, then plugged it into the QuickBooks account, along with the kilowatts used.

“Dad!”

Housekeeping too? How could he have higher housekeeping expenditures than two years ago? Except, yeah, they hadn’t been open in January back then. Still, he’d have to call the service, see if they’d work out a deal.

“Dad!” Two grimy hands clamped Darek’s face, turning him. Tiger peered at him with wide brown eyes, his hair a curly mop. Darek realized his son was still wearing his Spider-Man pajamas despite it being long after lunchtime. “The macaroni is boiling over!”

Maca
 
—? “Oh no!” Darek launched himself out of his chair, sending it spinning, but not before Ivy hustled into the kitchen.

“I got it!” She reached the stove, turned off the heat, moved the pan off the burner.

“No, you don’t. Get back in bed.” Darek crossed the kitchen and intercepted her at the sink, taking the rag from her hand. The gesture seemed a little too rough, so he softened his voice. “Please.”

She could take him apart with a look, despite being dwarfed by his height. She swam in one of his flannel shirts, with the exception of her basketball tummy. With her red hair in a simple ponytail, no makeup on her beautiful face, her green eyes were luminous. If he stopped long enough, they could tear him away from the raucous mess of his worry into a place where he could believe everything would be fine. Better than fine.

Yeah, moments like this, he thanked God she hadn’t walked away from him the thousands of times he deserved it. “Babe, you should be in bed . . .”

“I’m fine, Darek. The doctor said two days of bed rest. It’s been four, and you should be back at work.”

“He said at least two days, maybe a week.”

“I’m fine. And I know you’re worried about the resort.”

He wiped the water from the stove and dropped the sodden,
steamy rag in the sink. Then he guided his wife to a kitchen chair. “I’m not worried
 
—”

“You’ve called Casper eight
 
—no,
fifteen
 
—times a day over the past four days. He’s had to take off work so I could lie in bed and watch reruns of
Doctor Who
.”

“At least you got caught up. What do you think of the new doctor?”

She gave him another dismantling look, and he sighed, crouched in front of her. “Listen, you might feel just fine, but I’m not taking any chances. It could have been worse, Ivy. Much worse.” His throat tightened with the sudden rush of what-ifs. “You’re staying in bed at least another day. And I’m not going anywhere. Who else is going to take care of you?”

“I can, Dad!” Tiger had climbed atop the table and now leaped off it, landing like a monkey on Darek’s back. Darek grunted, the force knocking him to his knees, into Ivy. He caught himself
 
—barely
 
—on the edge of the chair.

“Tiger!” He grabbed his son, pulled him off. “You could have landed on Mom. And hurt the baby.”

Tiger scrambled to his feet, then stared at his father, wide-eyed. All at once, he took off, running down the hall. Slammed his door.

“Tiger!”

Ivy touched Darek’s arm. “Stop, honey. He’s just trying to get your attention. It’s the first stretch of time you’ve been home in a long while and he misses you.”

“He could hurt you, jumping around like that, and he needs to know it.” He started to get up, but Ivy grabbed his shirt, pulled him back down. Framed his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes.

Her voice softened. “He would never hurt me, Darek. He is
exactly like you
 
—protective and sweet
 
—and he loves his baby brother or sister. At night, right before I tuck him in, he says a prayer for the baby and kisses my tummy. It’s so sweet it makes me want to weep.”

He could see it, Tiger’s small hands hugging her belly, his son kissing it. And Darek was missing every moment.

“He could still hurt you without meaning to.”

She nodded. “I’m fine, Darek. Please, be patient with him. Remember, he was here first, so he’s bound to be feeling a little neglected with all this attention you’re giving me.”

“I’m not giving you enough attention.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You could have died out there, Ivy! And I wouldn’t have known. What if I decided to stay at the resort all night, waiting for guests? You would have sat there, maybe going into labor . . .” The thought wrapped tentacles around his chest, threatened to strangle him. He stood and stalked away from her, staring at the blue shadows of the late afternoon crawling across the yard. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Silence.

Then a sigh shuddered out of her. “I’m sorry. I know the baby was unexpected. We never talked about it, and I thought that it would be a good thing, but I . . . Yeah, I should have realized . . .” Another sigh.

Her words washed over him, then dug in and left him cold. He turned. “Wait
 
—do you think I don’t
want
this baby?”

Ivy met his eyes for a terrible moment, then looked away, that same stripped expression on her face from two weeks ago when he’d broken the light fixture in the cabin. When he’d . . . when he told her that Casper had to choose between his dreams and responsibility. Oh no.

Darek crouched before her, looking into her beautiful green eyes, his hands on her knees. “Oh, Ivy, do you think that somehow I’ve given up my dreams for you?” He ran his hand over her belly. “For our baby? For Tiger?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed, wiped her cheek. “I just know that every day the birth of this baby gets closer, you seem more tense, more . . . unhappy.”

He pressed his forehead onto her knees, looked back at her, his voice wrecked. “Ivy, the only reason I’m tense is because I know I can’t do this
 
—”

Her jaw tightened, pain in her eyes.

“
This
, meaning I can’t be a great dad and a decent husband and take care of Evergreen Resort. We’re sinking, babe, and I can’t figure it out. How did my dad do it? He raised six kids and still managed to leave a legacy. I’m drowning in bills and . . .” He got up. Shook his head. “Casper had to take off work this week so I could be the husband I should be.”

“Darek
 
—”

“No, see . . . I’m not good at this. I can barely figure out how to do our accounting, and as for guests, well, my mom had this way of making everyone feel like they belonged, with her homey fires and fresh-baked cookies, but it all feels fake to me. I march guests out to their cabins like a Sherpa, and the whole time I’m actually mad that they’re taking me away from you and Tiger.”

He turned away, stared at the mess of bills on the table. “When did it all get so complicated?”

He didn’t hear her move, just felt her tummy bump up against him, her arms go around his waist. She leaned her head against his back. “You’re not in this alone, Darek. You have me and your parents. Casper.”

He ran his hands over her arms, clasped around him, even as he stared out the window to their stamp-size backyard, buried in snow. Their nine-hundred-square-foot rental house shivered in the cold, the floors creaky, the window frosty.

She deserved better.

“The resort is my responsibility. And so are you and Tiger.”

Ivy rose up and kissed his cheek, then directed his chin so that he met her eyes. “Is it?”

He frowned at her words. Uh, yes . . .

The phone rang, and she stepped away as he picked it up. “Casper, what’s up?”

“Open your front door. Your bell isn’t working.”

Darek turned and saw Casper waving at him through the sidelight. He hung up and opened the door.

Casper pushed his way in, stood in the entryway, hands in his pockets. He wore dress pants, his hiking boots, a leather jacket, his dark hair streaming out of a knit tuque. He looked more like a resort manager than Darek ever had a hope to, with his usual attire of work jeans, tool belt, and a flannel shirt. “Okay, all the guests have checked out, and housekeeping came today and turned two cabins. They’ll be back tomorrow for three more, and by Friday you should be all set. I checked the heat and the pipes on all the cabins, shoveled, sanded, and lit a candle and recited the Irish prayer for travelers over each unit.”

“Funny.”

“More than that, I’ve put my phone on vibrate while I go down to Wild Harbor and make sure Ned hasn’t fired me.”

“Casper, I’m so sorry
 
—”

“I’m kidding, Bro. Of course Ivy’s more important, and Ned gets that. But we’re clear for me to go back to work, right?”

Darek nodded. “Thanks again. You . . .”

“Yeah, I know. I saved your backside. That’s what I do. Fix things. Just call me the helper bunny.” He lifted his hand. “Hey, Ivy.”

She waved back, and as Casper left, a smile tipped her lips.

“What?”

“Nothing. How about some macaroni and cheese?”

Casper could admit that he loved working on the Evergreen property, knowing his father, grandfather, and even the generations before that had seeded the land, fished the lake, and tromped the same wintry paths, once shaggy with evergreen and whitened birch. He loved the resort, the smell of woodsmoke from the stone fireplace in the lodge, the sound of the wood thrush in the trees, the crisp silence of a snowy night. Most days he’d willingly give up traversing the world to stay home and paint walls, rebuild rafters, and yes, bellboy suitcases to cabins.

But always he had the priceless, exhilarating option of walking away.

Until this weekend. Darek’s frantic call Friday night had noosed him into four days of twenty-four hours’ babysitting high-maintenance guests afraid to poke their noses into the subzero freezer that the north shore became.

He’d even run into town twice for pizza, apparently donning the role of local delivery boy.

Of course, it only dredged up the memory of finding Raina stuck in the mud last summer, eating a piece of naked, destroyed pepperoni that had slid onto the floorboards. She played delivery girl for Pierre’s about as well as Casper made buttermilk biscuits for their guests.

After a smidge of coaxing, she’d hopped onto the back of his motorcycle, eventually wrapping an arm around his waist, and he might have fallen in love with her a little right then.

Oh, see, she so easily ran into his thoughts. Seeing her smile in memory seemed as natural as breathing.

Easier than trying to remember all the checkout details Darek texted him. The temptation to turn off his phone nearly took him, but then Darek just might pile poor Ivy and Tiger in the car and drive up to the resort
 
—or, worse, call his buddy Jensen to come over and start handing out pointers. Type A, overachieving rich boy Jensen would have Casper chipping ice off the dock or offering snowshoe tours. He didn’t know how Darek coped with the fact that Jensen’s high-end luxury homes had suffered nothing of the devastation Evergreen Resort had faced from the forest fire two summers ago.

But he didn’t have to think about that. Yeah, walking away held its very attractive merits, and Casper didn’t wish for any of Darek’s legacy.

In fact, the entire experience made him wonder if he was cut out for staying. Darek’s words sat like a burr under his skin:
How long are you sticking around?

For the first time since he’d returned, he considered the answer might be no. Maybe he should have returned to Roatán, to treasure hunting.

“You sure you’re okay to close?” Ned said, slapping the keys into his hand. “Don’t forget to turn the heat down and close the shades in front. And drop the night deposit at the bank on your way home.”