Touching Stars (33 page)

“You really got into this, didn’t you?” Eric adjusted the lamp so he could look closely at what Noah was quilting. Noah was stitching stars in the large blank spaces where the blocks met. They were free form, and spiraling in showers. “I feel like I’m looking into the heavens. It’s the Milky Way, isn’t it?”

“Maybe. I think I’m connecting all the stars in the sky.”

“Maybe if you connect them all, everything will make sense.” Eric put his hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Everything will be revealed.”

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Noah didn’t shrug off Eric’s hand, and they sat that way for a long time as Noah quilted. Finally Eric moved his hand to his son’s, threading his fingers through Noah’s and stopping his progress. “Teach me to do that.”

“What? Quilt?” Noah snorted. “You?”

“I’d like to learn. And it’s one place where I’ll definitely be better at something domestic than your mother.”

Noah smiled. It came easily, and his eyes lit up in a way Eric hadn’t seen since his arrival. “You mean it, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah. I mean it.”

“You said quilting was for sissies.”

“Noah, haven’t you figured out by now that I’m wrong a lot of the time?”

“Oh yeah.”

Eric made a fist and punched his son’s shoulder lightly. “So you’ll teach me to quilt?”

Noah smiled again, then punched his father’s shoulder in confirmation.

T
he raspberry coffeecake was such a hit that Gayle passed out the recipe to each couple as they left the table. The egg casserole had one detractor, a twenty-something woman who had complained on arrival that the Shenandoah River wasn’t as majestic as she’d expected. This morning she was upset that the breakfast casserole contained onion, to which she claimed to be allergic. Gayle presented her with that recipe, too, to convince her that no onion had passed her lips.

All in all, as mornings went, this was a normal one. In her first year as an innkeeper, Gayle had learned that taking negative comments personally led to burnout quicker than twelve-hour days and interrupted sleep. She practiced tolerance—and kept a short list of former guests who were invariably told the inn was full if they tried to reserve another room.

In the middle of breakfast one of the cleaning team called in with a sore throat but promised that her neat-freak sister was going to fill in for her. After breakfast the gardener arrived with several flats of annuals from an end-of-the-season sale and plumped out drought-inspired gaps in the front beds. The exterminator did his annual termite inspection; a mason showed up to give a quote on repairing a rock retaining wall.

Through it all, she wondered what it would feel like to share these burdens with someone else. For years she had told herself there were advantages to being a single mom and innkeeper. She could do things her own way, at her own speed. She could reserve disappointment for her own failures and never worry that someone she loved would fail her again.

Now, with Eric right here sharing the raising of their sons, the seductive pleasure of having help and support was eating away at her resolve. She was no fool. Eric’s life was in flux, and she knew he was looking at the life he’d stepped away from with longing. They were becoming friends again, and the physical spark that had always flickered between them could easily be ignited if they allowed it.

She was surprised to realize she was tempted. She was more surprised that she had facilitated this by inviting him for the summer. Had she hoped in some deep, secret place that Eric had finally grown into a man with whom she could share a life, children and vocation? Or was she just so pathetically lonely that she had jumped at a chance for even this small degree of intimacy?

She didn’t like either scenario. She hoped the one she’d announced at the beginning, that she wanted her sons to get to know their father, was the truth.

When the exterminator and mason left, Paula took one look at her face and pointed to the door.

“Go for a walk. I’ll handle things here. You need a break.”

“We’ve got three people checking out in a little while, and I haven’t had time to go through the mail.” Gayle held up a pile, with a letter addressed to Jared on the top.

Paula was already shuffling papers on the desk. “Go.”

Gayle gratefully fled the scene.

She was standing in the middle of the former garden shed contemplating her life when she heard tuneless whistling punctuated by hiking boots on the gravel path. In a moment someone stepped across the threshold and halted. The whistling halted, too.

Eric spoke from behind her. “You know, it’s not entirely a bad thing I removed that wall, Gayle. There was a lot of dry rot. When I build a new one, it’ll be stronger and better. I’ll even throw in new wiring.”

She gestured him inside to let him know she wasn’t fuming. Since she hadn’t seen him since the scene with Noah last night, she wasn’t quite sure what to say. So she ignored the neck rub, the kiss and the aftermath, and headed right for business.

“I’ve been thinking about your idea for adding a second bedroom.”

He joined her, and together they stared at what was left of the old apartment. “What about draining the wells with too many guests?” he asked.

She didn’t look at him. “Still a problem. But if I don’t put a pull-out sofa in the living room and we put one set of bunk beds in the second bedroom with a play table and toy chest on the other side of the room, we’ll still be limiting guests to a set of parents with two kids, only the accommodations will be nicer for everybody. The parents can put the kids to bed and still use the living room.” She paused a second for effect. “And I can charge more.”

“Good thinking.”

Now she did look at him, because faceless apologies meant nothing. “The idea had merit, and I’m sorry I went off on you about it.”

“I hate to play ‘trade the apologies,’ but you had every right to go off on me. I guess I was playing ‘what if’ that day.”

She was afraid to ask. Then she knew she couldn’t let that go. “What if?”

“Yeah, what if I’d never walked away. What if I’d stayed here and been lord of the manor?”

For a moment that picture wouldn’t even come. She supposed she had so thoroughly erased their past that she didn’t know how to reload it into her personal computer. But a future? That seemed to be coming into focus, and it frightened her.

She glanced at her watch to hide her confusion. “Well, you can’t be lord, but you can be chief carpenter. Want to put our heads together on how to make this work?”

Eric was chalking strange markings on the floor when she left. Gayle was almost satisfied that if he came up with any new ideas, he would run them past her first.

He had also filled her in on his conversation with Noah last night, and the progress they’d made. That and Paula’s announcement that two guests had asked to stay another night, thereby filling the only vacancies the inn had left, led her to think it was going to be a good day after all.

Her opinion changed when she found the newly risen Noah sitting on the carriage-house sofa, head in hands.

Gayle opened curtains and turned on lights, hoping to make her point. “I thought you were going to get up about an hour ago. It’s time to start cutting veggies to go along with the sandwich stuff.”

“I’m not feeling too great.”

She crossed the room and put her hand on his forehead. Since Noah—unlike Dillon—never pretended to be sick, she expected to find he was feverish. He was. Just slightly, she guessed, but enough to notice.

“What hurts?”

“My head. My throat.” He looked up. “Maybe I shouldn’t be working around food.”

“Let me take a look at your throat.”

He groaned but opened up after she got the flashlight. His throat was red enough to be sore, but not enough to send him right to the doctor.

She flicked off the light. “Take some Tylenol and go back to bed.”

“How are you going to get everything done by yourself?”

Gayle thought that Eric would probably help if she asked, but she hated to, since he was busy making a list of materials for the apartment. He’d agreed to help supervise at the dig this afternoon after lunch, so his day was already over-programmed, and she was afraid that special favors might incur special consequences.

“I’ll call Cissy. Maybe she can.”

Noah looked grateful.

Back at the inn, she made the call, and Cissy answered on the first ring.

“I can do it, but I have to bring Reese,” she warned. “Marian’s up in Maryland visiting her sister.”

When she arrived thirty minutes later, Cissy was surprisingly efficient in the kitchen, even with Reese, in a green gingham sundress, who “helped” by rearranging saucepans and plastic containers in a bottom cabinet, and sifted and resifted half a cup of flour on the wooden table in the corner.

They assembled the ingredients for lunch and packed the car with all the other necessities, finishing in the nick of time. Cissy agreed to come along to the site, so she and Reese followed Gayle in her pickup.

Gayle was unloading supplies when Travis approached, along with a petite woman in jeans and a new camp T-shirt. Gayle looked up just in time to see the woman slip her arm through Travis’s and squeeze his hand. The intimacy lasted only a moment, but it said volumes. On the intimacy scale, they were fairly well along. Even without an introduction, Gayle knew who this had to be.

Travis gestured to his attractive companion. “Gayle, I wanted you to meet Carin Webster. She’s going to help me supervise for the rest of the week.”

Gayle took Carin’s hand and shook it with a firm, competent grip. “I know Travis must be delighted you agreed to come on board,” Gayle said.

“I expected to be teaching summer school, or I would have volunteered from the get-go.” Carin had a soft, feminine voice that went with a pixie face framed by short auburn curls.

“Carin’s training to be an archaeology technician,” Travis said. “We’re going to be on a dig together at Monticello after camp ends.”

“I never outgrew mud pies.” Carin smiled at Gayle as if they had always been friends. “I understand your son is one of the narrators for my play.”

They chatted about Dillon, the play, the high school, the camp. Gayle saw absolutely nothing to dislike about Carin, although she found herself searching. The vision of Carin and Travis squeezing hands wouldn’t go away. She saw her best friend disappearing into the life of another woman. Even though she had expected this some day, she was sadder than she’d anticipated.

Travis drifted off, and Carin went to talk to some of the campers. Gayle and Cissy barely got lunch on the table before the horde descended. “Where’s Reese?” she asked, stepping back to get out of the way of the first wave.

“One of the counselors took her.” Cissy nodded to one side. Gayle saw Brandy with Reese on one hip. The girls she supervised were crowded around them.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” Cissy said. “Reese is as slippery as boiled okra.”

“She’s in good hands.” No matter what Gayle thought of Brandy, she did know the girl was great with children and an experienced babysitter.

“Nobody worries like a mother,” Cissy said.

“I think Brandy would like to be one.”

“I’ll take her aside and tell her what it’s like to have a baby before she figures out who she is. Not that I wouldn’t do it again if I knew I was going to get Reese out of the deal.”

“Do you want to go and get her?”

“No, she’s doing okay. I’m going to see if we got all the fruit. I thought we brought more, and this is going fast.”

Gayle looked for Dillon but didn’t spot him in the crowd. She wondered if he was over at the Allen farm. She knew some of the kids had been there sorting artifacts with Travis and would be the last group to eat. She went to talk to Jared instead.

“You have some mail from MIT,” she told him, careful not to hug him in front of his campers. “I think the envelope’s from the admissions office. Maybe it’s something about orientation.”

“I’ll open it when I come home.”

“If you think it’s important, I could bring it out here for you tonight.”

“Don’t worry. Whatever it is, it’s safer there.”

She told him what his father was doing, and that Noah was fighting off some bug. He nodded and tried to look interested, but clearly his mind was elsewhere. The concerns she’d expressed to Eric came barreling back.

She couldn’t bear being shut out any longer. “Jared, do you want to tell me what’s wrong? Because something is.”

“My mind’s in a million places, Mom. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“I worry anyway.”

“It’s just stuff I have to deal with. Nobody else. Just a lot of changes coming up.”

She waited and hoped, but he pointed out that his campers were now in line to eat and he had to go, too.

Gayle was on her way back to the tables when she heard a scream behind her. She spun around and saw Cissy racing toward the riverbank. And beyond Cissy, in the water, a blur of green.

Gayle understood immediately what was wrong. Somehow Reese had gotten away from whatever caretaker had been watching her and wandered down to the river. Now she was
in
the river, and the current was sweeping her downstream. Gayle, who was closer to the water than Cissy, began to run, but she was still so far that she knew by the time she got there, Reese could well be out of reach.

Seconds passed, precious seconds that could count for everything, but she ran anyway, angling in the direction of the current. From the corner of her eye she saw a splash downriver, near the low water bridge, and another blur of darker green hit the water and started swimming toward the little girl.

“Dillon!” Even from this distance, she recognized her son. The nightmare was suddenly worse. This was now too familiar, a deeply rooted terror that Dillon would somehow end up in the river and get swept away forever.

She realized she wasn’t alone. In front of her, she saw Eric streaking toward the water. She hadn’t seen him arrive, but clearly he’d gotten here in time. She wondered if he had been on his way to greet Dillon, who had probably been crossing the low water bridge. She had no time to figure out the logistics. She only knew that Eric, who was a stronger swimmer, was going to get to their son first.

She could hear shouts and the snap of sneakers against rock-strewn ground as others rushed to the bank. She continued in the direction of the current, trying to gauge where the water might take Reese and Dillon. She reached the riverbank and crashed through the brush beside it. Just beyond her in the water, she saw that Dillon had reached the little girl and grabbed her dress. As Gayle kicked off her shoes to go in after them, she saw Dillon lift Reese out of the water. Holding her against his chest, he was fighting with one arm and impressive kicks to get them both to the bank.