Beside a Dreamswept Sea (7 page)

With those innocent remarks, the cheerful kitchen—where Bryce had enjoyed in peace but half a cup of coffee and half a fantasy that habitually got him through long, lonely days—erupted into chaos.

Vic instructed Suzie on the dance steps, then began singing along with the radio. Waving her metal spoon, Miss Hattie joined in, charmingly off-key. Mrs. Wiggins ate her oatmeal, crisp bacon, and homemade blueberry muffins in silence. With each sip of orange juice, she gave a little sniff, letting Bryce know she didn’t approve the variance from the children’s normal routine. He honestly couldn’t fault her for that. The racket was a little on the loud side for so early in the morning, but Bryce didn’t have the heart to complain. Last night, Suzie had slept peacefully, and this morning, she looked so . . . so happy.

“Bite!” Lyssie smacked her hand down on the tray of the high chair. The bowl rattled and her spoon clanked.

Bryce grinned at his demanding two-year-old. “Okay, munchkin.” He filled the spoon, blew on it to cool the oatmeal, then lifted it to Lyssie’s mouth.

Suzie giggled.

Unable to resist, Bryce let his gaze drift her way. She and Vic moved fairly rhythmically—more accurately, bounced semirhythmically—but her eyes shone brightly, her hair flounced at her shoulders, and she smiled. Bryce’s heart swelled, feeling too big for his chest. Oh, God, how rare was Suzie’s smile . . .

“Mrs. Wiggins!” Jeremy plowed through the mud room door into the kitchen, wearing more mud than a wheelbarrow would hold. “Mrs. Wiggins, I broughted you a present!”

Grimacing at his blond son being more recognizable by voice and the whites of his eyes than by sight, Bryce gave Lyssie another spoonful of oatmeal. She promptly spit it out, and a glob plopped onto her red corduroy jumper. “Geez, Lyssie.” Bryce grabbed a napkin.

“I’m sorry I maded you mad.” Jeremy crossed the kitchen, his shoes making sucking sounds on the tile.

“Good heavens!” Mrs. Wiggins shrieked, scrambling from the table and knocking her chair over. It thudded dully against the floor.

Bryce jerked around. A muddy frog hopped onto the kitchen table. “Jeremy!” Bryce dropped the spoon into the bowl of oatmeal, grabbed for the frog—and missed it. “Damn!”

“Damn,” Lyssie repeated, her mouthful of oatmeal spraying on the floor.

Cursing. The battleaxe would love that. She’d resign again; he just knew it. Bryce paused from chasing the frog, bent low toward his youngest daughter, then wagged a warning finger at her. “No, Lyssie. Animal crackers.”

The things a man did for his kids. Swearing off swearing for goofy terms like “animal crackers” was but one of them. Bryce didn’t mind looking like a fool for his kids’ benefit any more than any other parent, though, like all other parents, he’d prefer to choose his moments.

“Frog.”

Bryce followed Lyssie’s pointing finger to the table’s porcelain centerpiece. Spotting the frog on a yellow daffodil petal, Bryce lunged for it.

His knee banged against the chair seat.

The toe of his shoe snagged the table leg.

To the ominous sounds of rattling dishes, he skidded in oatmeal. A sharp tear wrenched his knee. Pain shot through the bone, straight up into his thigh and down into his ankle. His football knee folded, and he collapsed to the floor in a cold sweat, landing flat on his rump.

And he’d missed the damn frog.

At least everyone was in such an uproar, they wouldn’t hear him groaning. Maybe by the time they settled down, he’d be able to get up.

A loud whistle split through the racket.

Silence fell.

Bryce looked toward the sound, to the doorway leading to the gallery and the front entry beyond it. A woman about his own age, thirty-six, stood there in a crumpled cream cashmere sweater and matching long skirt with a floppy felt hat and boots the same shade as her forest-green eyes. A long silk scarf circled her neck. Coffee or cola stained it. Unusual. A willowy image on someone so petite. She couldn’t be more than five feet six, if she was that tall. From what he could see beneath her hat, she had honey-blond hair and great bone structure and, thoroughly disheveled, it was obvious she didn’t give two hoots about her appearance. He kind of liked that. She was beautiful—and impressive. For a wisp of a woman, she’d belted out a respectable whistle.

Surveying the fallout she’d happened into, she glanced from disaster to disaster. Bryce followed her gaze, more than a little embarrassed. What oatmeal Lyssie hadn’t slung onto the floor she had clumped in her blond curls. Jeremy, muddy from head to heels, looked a scant step from tears, and Miss Hattie’s once spotless tile floor now bore tracks from him and his frog. Mrs. Wiggins, stone-faced and rigid-backed, huffed like a steam engine on a sharp incline. She’d sure as hell resign again. Suzie and Vic seemingly had frozen, left hands raised, left legs crooked. And Miss Hattie’s spoon had stilled midair, as if she were a conductor waiting for someone to turn the page and present the next score of musical notes.

“A yellow carnation!” Suzie gasped. “Just like Tony said.”

Tony?
Puzzled, Bryce looked from her to the woman in the doorway. Pinned center-front, holding the hat’s brim back from her face, was a yellow carnation. But why did Suzie find that significant? And who in heaven was Tony?

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the woman said, obviously trying to stifle a smile. “I called out but no one, um, seemed to hear me.”

Bryce gave her credit for diplomacy. They were a rowdy, rambunctious bunch this morning and they’d probably not have heard cannons, much less her soft, smoky voice. He didn’t much like rowdy, and he liked even less the indignity of meeting a beautiful woman while smeared with oatmeal and landed on his ass on the floor.

The frog jumped right into his lap. Bryce caught it.

The woman laughed.

Bryce’s heart caught in his throat, and he looked up at her. She wasn’t just beautiful. She was magnificent. Lovely skin, delicate bones, full mouth, and the sound of her laughter grabbed him right around the heart. He couldn’t not smile at her any more than he could not breathe.

“Excellent work, Bryce.” Miss Hattie stepped to the counter and set the spoon onto its spoon rest. “Jeremy, would you take the frog back to the garden, dear? I don’t think he much likes the kitchen.” She turned toward the newcomer, not seeming a bit upset by the uproar or by the mess. “Hello, I’m Hattie Stillman, the innkeeper.”

Jeremy took the frog. Bryce slid his son a frown, and heard the woman say, “I thought so. You look exactly as Lucy Baker described you.”

“You know Lucy?”

“I had breakfast at her cafe earlier.”

Recognition lit in Miss Hattie’s eyes. “Oh my, in all the excitement, I’d forgotten Lucy had phoned about you. Do forgive me, dear, and welcome to Seascape Inn.”

“Thank you.” She looked around the kitchen again, visually paused at Suzie and Vic, who were talking in low, hushed voices, then looked on to Bryce. A mischievous glint flickered in her eyes—until she saw him holding his knee. Then the glint faded and her expression turned compassionate. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Interrupt?” Miss Hattie tsked, dabbing at her brow with her hankie. “Bosh, of course not, Caline. We were just—er, um—having breakfast.”

Caline grinned, her eyes twinkling. “So I see.”

Unusual name, Caline. Bryce only had heard it once before. Gregory Tate’s ex-wife’s name. If they were at home in New Orleans, he’d wonder if this woman could possibly be her. But Gregory’s Caline couldn’t be in Maine. What would she be doing up here?

Thankfully, that case was behind Bryce now, and though the man remained a client, their contact had become brief and infrequent.

Suzie bent low to Bryce’s ear. “It’s her, Daddy.”

“Who, honey?” His knee still throbbing, he rubbed at it and looked from the woman to Suzie.

She blinked hard, then slid him a wondrous smile. “Our new mom—maybe.”

Surprise shafted straight up his back. “Our
what?”

“Mr. Richards.” Mrs. Wiggins’s voice held that stern I’m going-to-resign-again tone.

When even Caline and Miss Hattie paused conversing to look at Wiggins, Bryce barely withheld a groan. Two resignations inside an hour, on half a cup of coffee, was more than he could stomach.

“I insist the boy be harshly reprimanded for this.” She slapped at the mud spatter on the lap of her dress.

Bryce never doubted she would insist. He looked at Jeremy, now back inside, thankfully, without the frog. From his glassy eyes, he was still a step from tears. Nearly caving in from the pitiful sight, and knowing caving in wasn’t the best thing for Jeremy, Bryce glanced down at the oatmeal clinging to his once-crisp white shirt, then at Lyssie’s hair, smudged roots to end with food, and now—God help him—with orange juice. The kid definitely had a thing for shampoo.

“Jeremy,” Caline interrupted. “Miss Hattie is busy right now and I can’t carry all my things up to my room. Would you wipe your feet on the rug out in the mud room and then help me?”

Bryce frowned. Caline clearly meant to intercede. And how was he supposed to feel about that? Jeremy looked majorly relieved, and her caring for a stranger’s child enough to play rescuer pleased Bryce. Yet what was he? Chopped liver. He was the boy’s father, and that she felt the need to protect Jeremy when his father stood—well, sat—right in the room irked Bryce. And it pricked at his pride.

Worse, it reminded him—as if he needed yet another reminder—just how desperately his children needed the gentle hand of a blow-softening mother.

Caline stretched out her hand.

Jeremy clasped it and, half hiding in the soft folds of her long skirt, he mumbled an “I’m sorry” in Mrs. Wiggins’s general direction.

“I’ll help, too.” Suzie brushed past Vic, then slowed down to tiptoe through the oatmeal and to dodge the mud tracks.

Suzie? Approaching a stranger? Bryce gaped. After three months in school, the child barely spoke to her teacher. He hauled himself to his feet. His knee gave out and, grimacing, he grabbed hold of a chair.

“Are you okay, Daddy?” Suzie frowned, an unreasonable fear in her eyes.

Knowing she was afraid he’d die and leave her like her mother had, Bryce forced the corners of his mouth to curve in what he hoped would pass for some semblance of a smile. His damn knee was on fire. “I’m fine, honey. Just fine.”

“Oh my, your poor knee’s gone out.” Miss Hattie glanced at Suzie. “Don’t you worry. We’ll fix him right up.” She turned to Vic. “Be a dear and get Collin’s cane from the Carriage House, hmm?”

Vic nodded, then headed toward the mud room door. Miss Hattie wiped her hands on a fresh dishcloth. “Collin carved the ivory handle on his cane, so you’ll have to be particularly careful with it, Bryce. He and his wife, Cecelia, built Seascape, you know. That’s their portraits on the stairwell wall. Collin was a fine carver. My, but he did lovely work. Just lovely.”

Bryce could’ve kissed the woman. By talking about normal things and not his injury, she’d reassured Suzie he was okay in ways him saying he was okay never could have reassured her. He gave the angel a grateful smile.

Sliding him a conspirator’s wink, she set the cloth back onto the counter, near a bowl of apples, bananas, and oranges. “Jonathan Nelson, the current owner of Seascape Inn, is Collin and Cecelia’s grandson. Did you know that, Suzie?” She nodded she didn’t, and Miss Hattie went on. “Oh my, yes. He’s a judge in Atlanta now, but his heart is always at Seascape. Why, he’d never part with anything from here—which is why your dad must be especially careful with Collin’s cane.”

“Daddy will, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will,” Bryce said. Miss Hattie sounded pleased about Jonathan’s feelings about Seascape and everything in it, and Bryce supposed it natural she would be. According to Maggie and T.J., Miss Hattie had worked at and lived in the old inn most of her life. “The cane will help me maneuver until this knee gets better.” True, even if the idea of Caline’s seeing him limping did grate a little at his male ego. But vanity didn’t hold a candle to comfort in keeping up with three active kids.