Beside a Dreamswept Sea (4 page)

“That’s right.”

“Did you come here for vacation, too?”

“Not exactly.”

“We did. Daddy says me and him and Jeremy and Lyssie, my baby brother and sister, need quality time together. I think Daddy mostly needs a nap.”

“I think you’re probably right.” Tony chuckled. “I live here all the time.”

“Seascape Inn looks like the house in Uncle T.J.’s painting.”

A test, pure and simple, to see if Tony would tell her the truth. “That’s because it is the same house. Your uncle T.J. has visited here a couple of times.”

“He likes it here. He tells Daddy so all the time.” Looking pleased by the truth, she grabbed up the covers bunched at her knees, then lay back against the pillow. Soft light from the bedside lamp slanted over her feet. “I do, too.”

“I’m glad.” Would she keep on liking it here? Once she realized the pond was the one in her dream, she’d probably hate it. And the thought of anyone hating his beloved home turned Tony’s stomach.

“I like you, too. You help me here. At home, I’m by myself.” She dipped her chin, again focusing on the flower at his lapel. “I don’t like being by myself in the water, Tony.”

“I know.” His insides twisted. “But I’m here now. That’s a promise.”

She had that look in her eye; the
Doubting Thomasette
in her had reared its ugly head. With a we’ll-see lift of her brow, she half covered her mouth with her hand, then yawned. “Nobody except me could see you then—at Uncle T.J.’s. How come?”

Surprise streaked up Tony’s back. Evidently, even after her harrowing experience, she was more ready than he for questions and answers. “I’m . . . different. That scares some people.”

“I don’t like being scared.”

“I doubt anyone does.”

“Do you get lonely?”

Tony thought of Hattie. Of seeing her day in and out and yet never getting to really live with her, of the lifetime of love and memories they would have shared, of the Christmas wedding they’d planned that never had come to pass. And he thought of the children, the blessings they’d dreamed of raising together which destiny had denied them. Oh, they’d reconciled themselves and compensated as best they could—and he was grateful for all they did share. Yet, at times, and especially now when feeling the physical, he ached for all he’d lost. And a part of him hurt even more deeply for Hattie because he now knew she had suffered these physical pains he’d been spared until today each and every day of her life. “Yes, Suzie.” His voice cracked. “Sometimes I get so lonely I don’t think I can stand it.”

“Me, too,” she confessed in a whisper. “But taking care of Jeremy and Lyssie and Daddy makes me feel better.” Solemn and serious, she looked up at his eyes. “Do you take care of anybody—besides me?”

Caring. His salvation. Hattie’s, too. A touch of serenity returned and a smile skimmed over his lips. “Yes, I do. I call them special guests.” When he saw the question in her eyes, he went on to explain. “Sometimes people who are hurt inside come to visit Seascape Inn and Miss Hattie and I try to help them. That makes us feel better—like you with your family.”

“Does Miss Hattie see you too, then?”

His heart plunged to his stomach like a hollow rock. “No. I’m afraid that would just make us both sad.”

“You loved her.”

Gazing at Suzie’s fuzzy pink slippers beside the bed, Tony looked up.

“My daddy is sad.” Suzie shrugged. “He loved Meriam and she died.”

Meriam. Not Mom, or Mother. Meriam. Was Suzie still that angry at her mother for dying? It would explain the nightmare—if it were a nightmare and not a premonition.

Tony picked up Suzie’s brush then moved it to the dresser. Its hard bristles grating against his thumb felt good. He’d loved Hattie Stillman heart and soul for sixty years. “You’re very observant.”

“I’m nine.”

Despite feeling depressed to his toenails, he grinned, then turned to face Suzie. “Only you can see me—at least for a while.”

She mulled that over, then cocked her head. “Why?”

He leaned back against the dresser, crossed his legs at his ankles, then rubbed at his temple with his forefinger. “That’s kind of hard to answer.”

“My friend Selena says difficult stuff is always hard to answer—she’s a grown-up—but I don’t think it is. I think you just have to say the truth. If you lie, stuff’s hard, but the truth is easy.”

Out of the mouths of babes. “I agree. But sometimes people have the devil’s own time accepting the truth, especially if they don’t understand it.”

Weak winter moonlight slanted in through the window and over Suzie’s face. Her lips weren’t blue and her teeth weren’t chattering anymore. He was glad to see it. He straightened up, walked over, then tucked the quilts up under her chin. “And on that fine note, I think it’s time for you to go to sleep.”

Fear slammed through her, made her pale cheeks pasty white. “I—I don’t want to sleep.”

When she slept, she dreamed. A tender knot hitched in his chest. Being alone in the dreams frightened her. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Suzie. I’m here to help you now, and you won’t be alone in any more nightmares—not at Seascape.”

She frowned up at him. “I was.”

“But you won’t be anymore.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m going to be with you. I didn’t know enough about your dream before, but now I do.” He debated, then went on. “Seascape is a healing house. That’s why you’re here. Your dad and Jeremy and Lyssie, too.”

“Seascape is magic,” Suzie said with the authority only a nine-year-old can muster. “Aunt Maggie said so, and Jimmy told me, too. But I didn’t think they meant it
really
was magic, but now I think it must be.”

She wanted to believe, yet, as with the promises, she feared being disappointed. “Who’s Jimmy?”

She reached down for a little yellow flowered quilt. One not quite big enough for a bed, but perfect for dragging on the floor behind tiny feet and cuddling, one clearly made by Hattie. Tony recognized her stitching, and the yellow carnation she’d appliquéd on its corner.

Suzie tugged it close. “Jimmy Goodson. Don’t you know him? Miss Hattie says Jimmy’s the bestest mechanic in the whole world, and Daddy says Jimmy’s kind of like Miss Hattie’s son. I helped him plant a yellow tea rose bush in the garden today. He showed me how to not cut my foot with the shovel.”

“Ah, I see. I wasn’t sure if you meant a Jimmy from home or from here.” Tony smiled. So the bulletin board bets on Seascape Inn’s special guests continued down at the Blue Moon Cafe, Jimmy continued to win them, and he had indeed bought Hattie the yellow tea rose bush with his winnings on the John and Bess Mystic bet, just as he’d planned. “Well, a girl nine, I would say, surely does need to know how to use a shovel.”

“Uh-huh.” More relaxed now, Suzie’s eyelids grew heavy. “Do you think Seascape is magic?”

“In a way, I suppose it is.”

“Daddy took me and Jeremy and Lyssie to the Blue Moon Cafe for ice cream and I asked Miss Lucy, the lady who works there, and she said Seascape is magic, too. She said it’s a place where people come to heal broken hearts or spirits or dreams because the lady who built it loved everybody so much, and love fixes broken stuff.”

Tony’s mother, Cecelia Freeport. A healer, she had loved well. And, yes, far stronger than death, love lingers. His very presence here proved that. “Lucy told you all this?” Tony rubbed at his neck. A born romantic, Lucy usually just went on and on about the legend, or tried to draw others into her family debate on whether angels were spiritual beings or humans passed on. Likely she’d spared Suzie both because of her tender age.

Suzie nodded.

“If Lucy Baker said so, then I guess it must be true.”

“That’s what Mr. Baker said. He said Miss Lucy can’t abide lying.” Suzie blinked slowly as if puzzling something out. “I’m not sure what ‘abide’ means but I guess it’s that she doesn’t like lying. No grown-ups do. Do you know Mr. Baker? He’s got a gold ring that looks like a lump. I asked what it was and he said a nugget. I’m not sure what that means, either, but it’s pretty.”

A scrape on the floor out in the hallway claimed Tony’s attention. Bryce had awakened. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. You need to rest.” Tony drifted his hand down over her face. “Sleep, little one.”

She clenched her jaw to resist, but by the time his fingertips touched her chin, her expression had gone lax and she slept peacefully.

Tony slipped into the hallway with a lengthy list of questions and too few answers, then tapped into Bryce’s mind. Generally men weren’t as sensitive as women to the intrusion. More often than not, they thought Tony’s comments or suggestions were their own consciences. But this time Tony’s invasion wasn’t to guide, it was to explore. Why was Suzie having this dream? Why was it always the same—her falling out of the boat, then drowning? And Bryce had been coping, so why now was he seemingly at wit’s end?

Wading through Bryce’s thoughts, Tony sensed intense frustration. Futility. Feelings of failure ran rampant through the man. He loved his children—that emotion burned deeper and stronger than all the others combined—and he wanted the best for them.

Tony opened himself further to the man’s pain, to his longings and desires. And, staggering from the intensity of Bryce’s inner conflicts and feelings, Tony concluded one simple truth: Bryce Richards believed heart and soul what he most needed was a mother for his children.

Tony agreed.

And disagreed.

Suzie, Jeremy, and Alyssa did need a mother—a special one who’d love them unconditionally. But, immersed in focusing on his children, Bryce didn’t realize he was also in dire need. Nor did he seem likely to realize it anytime soon. Meriam had been dead for two years, yet he still loved her as if she were alive—or thought he did.

Tony sighed. The man had yet to face some hard truths about their relationship. And those realizations, Tony well knew, wouldn’t come easily. Learning life’s lessons rarely did. But he and Hattie would do all they could to make the challenge easier.

A woman began crying.

Deep inside his own mind, Tony heard her clearly. Yet all the leaf-peepers had gone home. Bryce, his children, and Mrs. Wiggins were the only guests at the inn. Perplexed, Tony let his thoughts drift from Bryce toward the distant sound.

The vision hazy at first, he focused on a woman driving a rental car, a white Chevrolet Caprice. She was pretty, petite and blond, and crying. Not deep, racking sobs. Silent tears. Ones that sprang from a wound so deep inside her, just looking at her was painful. She was on a highway—Tony scanned the area—near Bangor. The map on the seat beside her had a snaky pink-highlighted path drawn to Nova Scotia—from New Orleans.

Bryce and the children were from New Orleans.

Tony tapped into her thoughts. Though scattered enough to make him dizzy, he soon pieced together that she was recently divorced and mourning someone. Not her ex-husband. Someone important to her, though. A yellow carnation was pinned to a floppy hat that lay on the passenger’s seat beside her and, for some inexplicable reason, a phrase ran through her mind time and again:
She was the sunshine of our home.

It seemed associated to someone named Mary Beth. So close to the name of Tony’s own deceased sister, Mary Elizabeth. Was this Mary Beth the woman’s mother? The woman mourned?

Mary Beth.

The carnation.

She was the sunshine of our home.

The divorce . . .

Criminy, this was Bryce’s mysterious Mrs. Tate! And she was here in Maine.

To meet Bryce? Was that why Tony had heard her crying?

As she drove, Tony checked the street signs. Sea Haven Highway. The road to Sea Haven Village from Bangor. Well, that clinched it. Where it’d lead, he hadn’t a clue—never before had he been lured like this to a potential special guest—but already he’d been warned these special guests were different, so he’d follow through and see to it that the mysterious Mrs. Tate would have the opportunity at least to come to the inn and meet Bryce Richards.

Concentrating hard, Tony urged her to turn, mentally luring her to the inn as he had so many others—and he met with surprisingly strong resistance.

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Not only mourning. Not only wounded from the divorce. Caline Tate faced even more challenges. Thanks to that ex-husband of hers—Bryce’s client, no less—the woman was sure to be reluctant if not in downright refusal mode. With Bryce’s realizations about his marriage to Meriam yet to come, and Cally’s own emotional demons to be confronted, this was going to be a doozy of a case. But, by gum, Tony and Hattie had faced challenges before, and Suzie was worth the extra effort. Bryce and Caline, and Jeremy and Lyssie, too. Tony just prayed his and Hattie’s guidance would be enough. Though they always tried their best to aid special guests, unfortunately, they weren’t always successful. And he couldn’t shake that image of himself from Suzie’s dream. The one of him as
powerless.

“Tony?” Suzie called out. “Tony, are you here?”

The
Doubting Thomasette
had awakened. He paused a second longer, and glimpsed Caline Tate taking the turn to exit onto Sea Haven Highway. Ah, she had chosen to come to the inn. Good. Good. He could lure, encourage, but the special guests had to make their own decisions, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Tony?”

Smiling, he returned to Suzie. “I’m here.”

“I
know
Seascape has magic.” Sober-eyed, she nodded against her crisp white pillowslip.

Just this moment, he was happy to agree. “Why is that, little one?”

“Because I called and you came—and because I smell your carnation even though I see right through you.”