Seeking Carolina (29 page)

“Of course not. We are all grateful to you for the friendship you gave our mother. And for the memories you’ve shared with us.”

Penny reached up tentatively then, touched Johanna’s cheek when she smiled instead of pulling away. “You know, Johanna, I had a son once. He would be your age now. I came here because I lost him, and no one in my life understood that the world was just too big a place without him. Carolina understood, because it was how she felt after Johan died. I would have done anything for her. I’m glad I was able to do something, at last.”

Penny let her hand fall and walked away. What a terrible waste it was, when sorrow consumed a whole life. How close she had come to being Penny, to being Carolina. How terrifyingly close.

“Dad, be careful.”

“I didn’t even touch it.”

Charlie stood back, hands up in surrender while Charlotte fussed over the cake she and Johanna spent the last several days baking, icing, decorating. Charlotte’s off-hand artistry was not something to be learned, but an unexplainable instinct shared by artists of all kinds. Johanna was already planning the display window in CC’s, ripe and ready for June weddings, with cakes never before seen in Cape May. Whether the town knew it or not, their favorite local bakery was about to go up a notch on the swanky scale.

She closed the gap to slide her hand into Charlie’s. “Shall I rescue you?”

“Rescue him?” Charlotte pursed her lips. “He nearly dumped the cake. Twice.”

“You need to relax, Char,” Charlie said. “It’s a cake.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.” She turned to Johanna. “Is it as beautiful as I think it is?”

“Probably more so,” Johanna answered. “You did take a picture, right? To add to your portfolio for school?”

“I didn’t think of that.” Charlotte fished her phone out of her pocket. “Will you take it dad? I want Jo in the pic too. I can’t take all the credit.”

They posed. Charlie took the picture and handed the phone back to his daughter. The conspiratorial look passing between the two was as good as words. Almost.

“Okay, you two, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Charlotte said quickly, but her father leveled another glance, and her shoulders slumped a little. “Well, I was wondering about something.”

“I’m getting a little nervous here.”

“So am I.” Charlotte scooped her into a hug and let her go just as quickly. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. What if you and I went down to Cape May and opened CC’s for Easter. You can teach me the ropes and then…”

“And then?” Johanna prodded when she fell silent. Charlotte’s cheeks blotched crimson.

“It’s okay if you say no,” she said. “I mean it, Johanna. Seriously.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay, it’s…see, there isn’t…I know this is presumptuous but…” She let go a deep breath. “I have been thinking that Bitterly needs a bakery. A real bakery and not the gross grocery store one that never used real cream or butter ever in its life. Ever. With all the revitalization going on in town, a bakery would do really well and you just got all that money and dad can do the work, for free, considering…you know. And I thought I could help manage CC’s down in Cape May, and you could start work on opening another CC’s in Bitterly. Then you get to keep the first CC’s and Dad, and it’ll be a success, I just know it.” Charlotte fell suddenly silent, then, “What do you think?”

Words buzzed like bees in Johanna’s mouth. Old fears battled and lost fairly quickly. Opening another CC’s. In Bitterly. The notion of a baker having her cake and eating it too was entirely too ridiculous to make it out of her mouth. Instead she said, “I think you’re as good a businesswoman as you are a baker.”

Charlotte clapped her hands, squealing. “It’s kind of perfect, don’t you think?”

“What about school?”

“I still want to go to school,” Charlotte answered. “I know how to do things, but I don’t know why they work. I want to learn the chemistry of it all. It’s a lot of going back and forth between New Jersey and Connecticut, but it’s only two years and then, if things work out between you and my dad. Notice I said if? See, I’m not taking anything for granted. So if you and Dad work out, it will be a family business. You, me, dad. Who knows? Maybe even the boys and Millie one day. And if it doesn’t work out, then you can sell the Bitterly place, to me, and call it a day. See? I thought of everything.”

Johanna’s belly fluttered. She did not ask herself why she never thought about opening a CC’s in Bitterly. The reasons were far too easy to pick out, one by one, and groan over. She thought of Penny again, and Carolina, and the lives they gave over to sorrow and fear and loss.

Pretending to brush crumbs from the tablecloth, Johanna let the idea settle into her brain. Life changed so quickly, became unrecognizable in an instant. CC’s and Cape May seemed like a lifetime ago. If she went back now, there would be no pretending Gram’s death and all that came after hadn’t happened. All the secrets were spilled. All their lives had changed. She had changed, or perhaps, shed the masquerade. Nina was off to travel the world. Emmaline was reinventing herself. Julietta was stepping out into a new life.

And I am going home.

Home. Johanna felt it in her core. It was not just Bitterly and the house on County Line Road. Not her sisters and Charlie and his kids. Home was the past, and it was the future. Home was the present she made rather than the one fear and sorrow choose for her. It was not a place or people, but the amazingly chaotic, sometimes frustrating, always beloved mishmash of all.

Charlotte stood waiting. Charlie did too. Johanna held out her hand for his and the ghosts of her past settled into their proper places. In her heart. In her memory. Always there, but no longer haunting.

* * * *

The dead do not haunt the living; it is the living who do the haunting. They hold with memory and bind with grief, unmindful that there are no boundaries, shadowy and vague. No beginnings, no ends. Just a continuous road through a yellow wood, one tread together for a time, and then as way leads on to way—parts beloved company.

We do not haunt, we watch. We do not grieve, we wait. For that new road lovely, dark and deep, and the promises we keep, and the miles we go before we sleep…

Terri-Lynne DeFino
lives in a log cabin in Connecticut, but she's a Jersey girl at heart. Writer, mother, cat wrangler, and self-proclaimed sparkle queen, Terri began writing when she was seven. Though that first story remains locked away in her parents’ attic, some of her works include
Finder
,
A Time Never Lived
, and 
Beyond the Gate
.
Seeking Carolina
is her first step into contemporary romantic fiction. Visit her blog at: Modestyisforsuckers.com, or contact her at: [email protected].

Keep reading for a sneak peek at book two of Terri-Lynne DeFino’s Bitterly Suite Romance

Some spirits cannot be broken…

Benny Grady never expected to fall in love with Dan Greene, her late-husband’s best friend—or become pregnant. Caught between the joy of living again and the guilt such happiness brings, she closes herself off and keeps her feelings and the baby to herself; but it’s getting harder. Bitterly is a small town. She sees Dan everywhere, and each time she does, her feelings for him become impossible to ignore.

A Lyrical Press romance coming March, 2016

Learn more about Terri-Lynne DeFino at
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/31624

when evening falls

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Very sure, Harriet. I must.”

“That’s not exactly true. You could just stay here.”

“That is your choice, not mine.”

“I never stepped foot outside of this town. Don’t ’spect I ever will.”

“Then you can?”

“’Course I can. And so can you. You don’t have to bedevil that young woman. Just go.”

“Bedevil? Harriet, I would never.”

“August, you miscreant, you bedevil me constantly.”

“Then you should be glad I seek her assistance. You’ll be rid of me for all eternity.”

“Lot’a’nonsense, far as I’m concerned.”

“Only because you are more stuck than you want to believe.”

“Stuck? Bah! I’m just waiting…”

* * * *

Dirt helped.

Cold earth. Fragrant, moist earth. Under-her-nails, in-the-cracks-of-her-chapped-hands earth. It smelled of snowmelt and leaf mold and worms. Black and rich and crumbly, it was the perfect medium for the colorful pansies planted among the forget-me-nots just starting to pop. Sitting back on her heels, Benny inspected her work.

“What do you think, Henny?” she asked. “Better than impatiens, right? This spot is way too sunny. Maybe we’ll do some morning glories this year. I still have that little wooden trellis in the shed. I love morning glories. The blue ones with yellow centers. Yeah, let’s do it. I’ll stop for seeds on the way ho—”

The nausea she thought banished by dirt swished through her again. She shoved her hands back into the churned-up earth, let the cool fragrance soothe her belly. Swallowing, swallowing, swallowing until it passed, Benny turned to the neighbor. “What do you think, Mrs. Farcus? You like the pansies?”

Again the swell of nausea. Four months. This was supposed to be over. But it hadn’t just come in the morning, so why should it stick to the first three months? She’d ask Mrs. Farcus, but she didn’t know Benny was pregnant. No one did. And no one would. Yet.

Benny dusted her hands off on the front of her jeans and pushed to her feet. She picked up her trowel and the empty bag from the soil, bent again to grab the plastic potting containers and nearly vomited right there in the garden she’d just spent the last hour planting. Leaning heavily upon the tombstone, she screwed her eyes tight until it passed.

“Hey, Benny? You okay?”

Her eyes flew open and she was grateful for the dark fringe of hair obscuring her face. It gave her a moment to hide all she did not want anyone else to see. Straightening, she waved to the man standing with one foot in and one foot out of his truck.

“I’m fine, Charlie. No worries. Just hungry. I think I forgot to have lunch.”

Instead of waving back and moving on, Charlie McCallan closed the door and started up the rise towards her. Benny choked down the panic. Could he see? Did he know? But Charlie was squinting into the sunlight, smiling the same smile she’d known since they were young and she was his best pal’s pesky kid sister. Benny quelled the panic and tried to relax.

“It gets more extravagant by the year,” Charlie said when he reached her. He bent down to brush dirt from the grey stone. “I see you did up Mrs. Farcus’s plot too.”

“She’s an old friend.”

“She died nearly a century before you were born, Benny.” Charlie laughed softly. “Did you know she’s my great-whatever grandmother?”

Benny looked up. “Really?”

“Didn’t know my family went back so far, huh? Harriet was one of three daughters, so the name Gardner died out here in Bitterly, but I have Farcus cousins somewhere.”

“I wonder why she’s buried alone.”

“Her husband, I think his name was Josiah, died out west somewhere. She didn’t even know he was dead for about six months. That’s the story, anyway.”

“So sad.”

“It’s nice of you to pretty-up her grave too.”

Benny shrugged. “I always bring too many flowers.”

“You okay?”

Her gaze moved to the tombstone easier to look at than Charlie’s familiar concern.

Henderson Parker Fredericks

June 3, 1976 ~ August 20, 2010

Beloved Husband

Benny-and-Henny—a joint moniker earned in high school that carried through to the day he crashed his motorcycle barely a mile from their home. Now she was Benny-without-Henny, and the hole he left in her gaped just as wide and as deep as it had six years ago.

“I’m okay, Charlie. Really.”

“Why not come to the bakery with me? Johanna’s still got some shepherds-pie-pies left from lunch. You’d be doing us a favor if you take some. They’re not as good the next day. The crust gets soggy.”

“I’m sure you and your ridiculously large family will find use for them.”

“Do you know how often we eat shepherds-pie-pies?”

They laughed together. Benny’s belly churned. “I’ll have to pass,” she told him. “You know my mother. She’s already made dinner enough to feed the whole town. But thank you. And say hi to Johanna for me.”

“Will do.” He started back to his truck. “And say hey to your brother for me. Tell him to come home once in a while. I haven’t seen him since the reunion.”

“He is home,” Benny called. “In North Carolina.”

“Bitterly is home. Always. Whether he likes it or not.”

Benny shook her head, waved him off and finished tucking her tools into the daisy-dotted canvas carrier she bought two years ago and subsequently had inked into the tattoo covering most of her right arm. Her trowel. The forget-me-nots. The always-reliable marigolds and snapdragons. Last year’s impatiens. This year she would add the pansies, thus marking her gardening calendar as only Benedetta Marie Grady would, no matter what her mother thought of tattoos.

She pushed back her sleeve, peeking at the first tat inked, on the first anniversary of Henny’s death—a little blue forget-me-not, there on the underside of her wrist. In the six years since her husband’s death, Benny added steadily to her “mural.” A tribute to Henny, and the garden she kept for him, there on her arm. Forever.

“Forever, baby,” she told the tombstone. “I promised you forever, and I meant it.”

Her hand nearly moved to her still-flat belly, but she stopped herself, closed her eyes to the impulse until it passed. A promise was a promise, and Benny knew straight down to her superstitious Italian soul that breaking this one was even less of an option than stepping on a crack in the sidewalk, or refusing to wish on birthday candles.