Touching Stars (21 page)

This seemed to quiet him. He lay still and stared up at her.

“How did I come to be here?” he asked at last.

“You rode nearly up to our house before you fell from your horse,” I said.

His eyes followed my voice, and his gaze rested on my face. “You brought me in?”

“We did,” my mother said. “Now tell us if you’re wounded. We’ll do what we can.” She paused. “Although we’ll expect you to help in return if you’re able.”

“Give the…devil his due.”

“Hey now,” Ralph said, bending over him. “That’s no way to talk—”

Ma put her hand on his arm. “It’s only an expression. Mr. William Shakespeare. And true enough in these times.”

“I can pay. Although I daresay you’ll discover that without my help.” Sweat was trickling off the man’s forehead, although the parlor was cool. His eyes were glazed with pain.

“You’re among honest folk,” Ma said. “And we’ll take care of you if you tell us where to begin.”

“I…I fought at Petersburg. I was wounded, then released. I thought…I thought I could make it to Winchester. My parents…”

“You’re a long way from there.” Ralph frowned. “And not dressed like any soldier I’ve seen in these parts.”

“Discharged. Left all that behind.”

“That horse belongs to an officer.”

The stranger’s expression was more grimace than smile. “No longer.”

Ralph gave a short laugh. “You have a name?”

“Jack. Jack Brewer. I’m called Blackjack.”

“I’m Mrs. Lewis Duncan,” Ma said. “This is my son Robby, and that’s our man Ralph, who makes certain all travelers stopping here move on as soon as they can.”

“A move I support.”

Ma wrung out her cloth and wiped his brow. “Where is your wound?”

“My leg. Broke it, and a sawbones set it right on the battlefield. But there must…be trouble.”

“We’ll get you upstairs. It won’t be pleasant. But once you’re there, we’ll have a look at it and do what we can. I suspect you need rest as much as anything.” She turned to me. “Robby, get Uncle Eb to help us.”

I was glad to leave. The stranger was in pain, and I didn’t relish what was to come. Our stairs are narrow and steep. The trip would not be easy.

Outside, I found Uncle Eb trying to tether Blackjack’s horse, but with no success. As I watched, the horse reared and tried to kick him.

“She won’t be tied,” he shouted to me. “A wild thing, this one.”

“I can put her in a stall in the barn.”

“Might be best. Her rider will be here a while?”

“So it seems.”

Uncle Eb has a way with horses. He whistled and clucked, and the mare finally calmed. “What did he tell you?” he asked, once the horse was under control again.

I repeated Blackjack’s story.

“No,” Uncle Eb said, shaking his head. “He would never have been discharged with such a horse under him. Not even a wounded man. I’ll tell you what I think. I hear tell Mosby disbanded his Rangers rather than surrender. Those who still can are on their way to join General Johnston and finish the fight.”

Johnston was one of those who had not yet surrendered. Some people called him a hero. My mother called him another fool.

Uncle Eb stroked the mare’s muzzle. “This Blackjack could have been wounded at Arundell, back at the beginning of the month. That’s when the Rangers last fought together. If that were me, I’d make up a story, too, about heading home. No matter
where
I intended to go.”

The story made some sense. The wound, the horse, and clothes a man might wear who wanted to disguise his real purpose in traveling back roads.

“He doesn’t sound like he’s from around here.” I had already noted Blackjack’s unaccented speech, which was somehow different from ours and our neighbors’.

“Well, we won’t hold that against him.”

“He could be almost anybody.”

Uncle Eb handed me the horse’s reins, and I took them gingerly. I’m not afraid of any animal, but a nervous horse bears watching.

Uncle Eb dusted his hands on his trousers. “In these times, Robby, it don’t pay to look too closely at the people who come through. We’ll take his gun if he has one and watch him close. But everybody’s running now. Some running to, some running from. All we can do is help them on their way.”

“And give the devil his due,” I said.

“What’s that?”

I shook my head. “Ma needs you to help her get him upstairs. I’ll help, too, soon as I get the horse in the barn.”

“We can manage. You go on.” Uncle Eb started up the steps and disappeared into the house.

I watched him go and wondered about the man in our parlor and all the things that had brought him this far.

E
ric was determined to teach Noah’s parakeet to talk. So far Buddy had only favored the family with chicken-on-the-chopping-block squawks. To remedy this, Eric had taken to sneaking into the boys’ room when his sons were occupied elsewhere and patiently repeating a phrase.

Luckily for him, his sons were often forced to be early risers. This morning Noah was already at the inn helping his mother prepare lunch for the campers. Dillon was picking up the remains of the Fourth of July fireworks show the boys and some of their friends had produced last night for the inn’s guests. Eric had their room to himself.

He had considered at length what to teach Buddy. He’d discarded the usual bird claptrap and anything remotely sentimental. He wanted something to make Noah think about his life and future, but nothing too obvious. The amount of time he’d spent on his selection was appalling, but he had finally arrived at the perfect phrase.

“Up, up and away.” Eric leaned over the cage, his nose nearly in pecking distance. “Up, up and away…”

Buddy ran back and forth on his perch, squawking and chattering with excitement.

“Up, up and away…”

Buddy hopped on the bars beside Eric’s nose and began to peck at the cage, as if he wanted to get out. Eric knew better than to accommodate him. Noah had released Buddy a couple of times without any serious incidents, but Eric could just imagine what his son would think if his father—who hadn’t been invited into his bedroom in the first place—let Buddy out of his cage and couldn’t get him back in. Or, worse, if somebody opened the bedroom door and the little bird flew away.

“Up, up and away…Up, up and away.”

Buddy’s tiny eyes widened. He batted his head against the cage and screeched with joy.

Eric continued the lesson until he tired of it. Buddy was still raring to go but not saying a decipherable word when Eric finally closed the bedroom door behind him.

Parakeet 101 had used up fifteen minutes of his morning, but it wasn’t even seven-thirty. A dream had awakened him at six, and he’d been afraid to go back to sleep. He had been suspended by a silk thread from a spiderweb. Looking down for help he’d found only a yawning chasm waiting to welcome him. The spider, a hideous thing with an all too human face, had been creeping toward him. After waking, minutes had passed in a cold sweat before he could force himself to move. He was halfway through his morning shower before he’d convinced himself the nightmare wasn’t real, and he didn’t have to choose between a spider’s jaws and a terrifying fall through space.

Now the day stretched in front of him, an endless progression of minutes to fill. All the boys would be at camp. Gayle, well, Gayle would be doing what she always did to keep the inn running. The day promised to be a scorcher, which let out fishing, hiking or canoeing for fun.

He rejected driving into D.C. to see old friends. The first week of July was prime vacation time, and truthfully, there were few people he really cared about seeing, anyway. Exactly what would he say to them when he did visit? How would he explain the mistake he had made, a mistake that had cost a good man everything and left Eric himself so rattled he had retreated to the life he had left behind a dozen years ago?

A life that did not include risking his own repeatedly. A life in which he might have more value to his sons than he had ever had to his viewers.

A life with Gayle.

The moment that thought entered his head, he shoved it away. There were rules here, for the most part unspoken but clear nevertheless. He had come to the inn to recover, to assure his boys he was really okay and perhaps to grow closer. In all their years apart, neither he nor Gayle had ever kidded themselves that they should have stayed together.

He saw Dillon outside the carriage house in shorts and a yellow T-shirt that had probably belonged to at least one of his brothers. His youngest son was trudging toward the old garden shed where Gayle’s assistants had made their home. Eric followed to see what he was up to. He knew there had been a delay in the renovations, and that Gayle was growing frustrated. Now she only hoped to have the old garden shed finished by early fall so she could christen the new Star Garden suite before the leaves changed. Fall was the inn’s busiest and most lucrative season.

He stopped in the doorway and watched Dillon make his way around a poorly designed kitchen. “What’s up, champ?”

Dillon turned, startled. “Mom told me to check for trash since I was picking up trash outside, anyway.”

“That was some fireworks show last night.”

“We do it every year. It’s the only time Mom lets us have them.”

Gayle had taken Eric aside to ask how he would feel about the display, afraid, he supposed, that the booms and fire bursts might stir memories of his stint in Afghanistan. Instead, the fireworks had driven home another message. He could not remember ever spending a Fourth of July with his sons. He had missed the starstruck looks of awe of his preschoolers, the first sparklers, the graduation to bottle rockets and Roman candles. By now the boys had moved on to minor pyrotechnics, limited only by their mother’s good sense and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Eric glanced around the suite, which looked almost exactly the way it had last time he’d been here. “It doesn’t look like the contractors got very far.”

“Mom’s going to hire somebody else.”

“Oh?”

Dillon found a black plastic bag tied off at the top and crossed the floor to heave it outside the door. “Yeah, they haven’t even gotten the old cabinets out. They’re supposed to pull out the paneling. Stuff like that. They keep making excuses or something and don’t show up.”

“I ripped out the inn’s old kitchen in just a day. With a little help.”

“You did that?”

“Your mom and I did a lot of the renovations together. You should have seen the place when we bought it.”

“I guess I did, but I was a baby.”

Eric grinned. “You cried all the time.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I didn’t like what I saw.”

This time Eric laughed. “I know I told you already, but I really liked your play the other night. I’ve been thinking about it. Why don’t you tell me what happens next?”

“Nope. Then you wouldn’t come and watch.”

“You like having an audience?”

“Don’t you?”

Eric hated to admit just how much.

He watched as Dillon, a trash bag under each arm, headed up toward the house. Breakfast wasn’t served until eight-thirty, and if Eric didn’t get there on time, his would be waiting in the refrigerator whenever he wanted it. He had an hour to kill, and he finally knew exactly how he was going to do it. He just needed a few tools.

An hour later he paused to survey his work and nearly stepped back into his ex-wife’s arms.

“So this is where all the banging’s been coming from.”

He turned to find Gayle looking cool and fresh in a coral blouse and khaki capris paired with rope-and-leather sandals. Her gray eyes were serious as she gazed around the room.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I could swear it’s obvious.”

“When did you hire on?”

He took a moment to read her voice and get his bearings. From years of experience, he knew Gayle never made that easy. When she thought the time was right, she explained what she was feeling, but she rarely put on much of a show. He wasn’t sure her reticence had mattered to him during their marriage, except that pretending she wasn’t feeling anything had been easiest. That way he could do almost anything he wanted.

Eric felt his way, lowering his voice to a level between intimacy and persuasion. “Dillon told me you were having problems with the contractors. I thought I could lend a hand here. I seem to be really good at tearing things apart.”

She finally looked at him and somehow managed not to point out the parallels to their marriage.

“You’ve done quite a job of it,” she said at last. “In a very short time.”

“Was I too noisy?”

“I’ll know when the guests start hauling suitcases to the car.”

He flashed his most winning smile. “You couldn’t really hear me from the guest rooms, could you? Maybe from the terrace, but no farther.”

She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she finally shook her head. “You’ve done more since you got up this morning than that worthless crew did the one afternoon they showed up to work.”

“I can finish tearing out the kitchen, and the paneling, too. I thought maybe this old ceiling could go, as well. I—” He stopped himself. “Of course, if that’s not what you had in mind…?”

“No, the ceiling has to go, too.”

“I’d like to do this.”

“Are you feeling well enough?”

“If I don’t overdo.” He knew how to be self-deprecating and used that skill now. “But I need something to work on, Gayle. Besides figuring out who I am and where I fit in the world, that is. And figuring out my kids.”

She hesitated, and this time he thought he understood. “I owe you a lot for taking me in,” he said. “This won’t begin to put you in my debt. Don’t give that a thought.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“I was thinking about you figuring out your kids. One of them needs some figuring out, or straightening out or…ferreting out. I don’t know which. I was going to ask Travis for help.”

Eric set his sledgehammer on what was left of a counter and rubbed the palms of his hands on his jeans. “Who and what?”

“Jared.”

“I thought the two of you got along like peas in a pod. He’s Mr. Responsible. You can’t talk to him?”

“He’s also likely to keep things to himself, just like his mother. And these are things he might prefer to talk to you about.”

“Things? Or the girlfriend?”

“The latter.”

“Sure, no problem.”

She tilted her face to his. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m a guy, he’s a guy, women are complete mysteries. We start on common ground.”

For a moment she didn’t reply. This close to her, he was aware of an enticing scent, something vaguely herbal or citrusy. Her skin was lightly tanned and smooth, and the faint tracing of lines around her eyes only added character. He had rarely given much thought to what Gayle did for a personal life, but standing here now, he knew that whatever she did was her choice. He was sure that even in the countryside of Shenandoah County, she did not go unnoticed.

“I have to finish feeding the guests breakfast,” she said. “Jared’s going to be leaving in a little while to pick up Brandy and go to the dig. There’s time now, if you’re willing.”

Eric was glad for the break. He was already exhausted, even if he was reluctant to admit it. “I’ll go find him. And thanks for giving
me
the job.”

For the first time since her arrival, she smiled a little. The smile warmed her eyes to taupe. “I’ll save you an extra sausage patty, Hercules.”

He watched as she headed back to the house. He had always liked the way Gayle moved. She didn’t bustle, didn’t saunter. She had a long, confident stride with just the hint of a wiggle. The walk said a lot about the woman.

Eric found his oldest son in the room above the garage that he shared with Leon Jenkins, when Leon wasn’t living at home with his father. Eric hadn’t been surprised at the boys’ interior-decorating scheme. The walls were painted black; the furniture was mismatched and worn; Christina Aguilera and Shakira stared down from posters on the ceiling. Clearly Gayle had abandoned hope beyond this threshold.

“So, getting ready to head off for the day?” Eric asked from the doorway.

Jared was sitting on his bed, emptying out a pair of scuffed tennis shoes. He’d had the good sense to move a wastebasket into target range.

“Were you ever a camp counselor?” he asked Eric.

“At your age I had no talent for taking care of anybody else and not a lot for taking care of myself.”

“Well, I suck at it. The girls giggle, and the boys do stupid things to make them. I never acted like that.”

“You’re sure?”

Jared looked up. “I was fourteen a hundred years ago.”

“You’ve always been a responsible guy and kind of serious.”

Jared didn’t smile. “Maybe not as responsible as I should be.”

Eric could think of a thousand things that might lie behind that statement, and all of them frightened him. In the moment before he replied, he wondered which was more terrifying, going back to the Mideast or delving into the emotional life of his eighteen-year-old son.

“What’s up? Your mom—” he hesitated a second too long “—and I have noticed something seems to be bothering you.”

“Nothing’s up.” Jared dumped sand from one shoe into the wastebasket and loosened the laces. He took long enough that he could have pulled them out and restrung them.

“I’ll make an educated guess here. Man to man. You’re fighting with Brandy?”

Jared hunched a shoulder in the approximation of a shrug. “Not really.”

Eric crossed the room and perched on the opposite bed, which was neatly made up with an army blanket. “I had a girlfriend when I was eighteen, but she wasn’t nearly as pretty as yours. I imagine a lot of guys have noticed her.”