Wild Ice (9 page)

Before I could
ask him the real reason, he leaned over and kissed me. It was so tender and wonderful. When his lips pressed against mine I thought I felt the ground shake a little. My stomach is still aflutter with butterflies and my cheeks flush every time I think of it.

I can still feel how he held onto my hand. Soft and gentle, yet firm enough so it wouldn’t slip from his grasp. I’d never held a man’s hand before. I guess tonight was a night for firsts
…

The house next door was finished today. The last nail driven in, the last coat of paint slapped on. It has been officially named Teal Manor and my heart swells with pride that I had something to do with coming up with the name.

The outside of Teal Manor looks exotic and extraordinary, like it belongs in Spain or France (not that I would know as I’ve never been to either place!) and part of me is saddened by its presence competing with the beauty of the refuge.

It will be nice to have peace and quiet back. I won’t miss the construction vehicles lumbering up and down the road but I will miss Howard’s supervisory visits…

Today, Howard told me he loved me. We were standing on the back patio of Teal Manor and I could hear a Mourning Dove coo in the distance.

He took my hands in his and looked so deeply into my eyes that my heart skipped a beat.

“I love you, Cora,” he said, his voice strong and sure.

When I close my eyes I can still hear how
his voice sounded out my name.

Besides our first kiss, it was probably the most perfect moment of my life
…

Everything Howard told me was a lie. I felt like such a fool, standing there listening to Mr. Langdon talk fondly about his son Howard’s upcoming nuptials. Nuptials! Wedding. Marriage. However you choose to describe it, Howard is getting married to someone else and has been engaged to her all along.

And to make matter worse, the house next door
, Teal Manor—the house I so lovingly named—was built for them to live in after they are married.

I stood there
at the newspaper office with a smile on my face that was so phony I felt it might crack at any moment. At least Howard had the decency to look uncomfortable. I’m so angry I can barely hold my pen!

I feigned illness and
came home to the cottage as fast as I could. It wasn’t a complete lie because I honestly felt sick to my stomach after hearing the news.

Briefly, I thought about quitting my job at the newspaper
, but then thought twice about it after giving myself time to ponder the decision. Why should I give up a job I enjoy because the boss’s son is a lying pig?

I feel foolish for a number of reasons.
For trusting him and loving him, and letting myself believe it was all real and genuine. I feel the most foolish for listening to him and believing every word he told me. He assured me everything would be fine and I was so blindly in love that I believed him.

I won’t be his standby girl.

I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been. The entire time I’ve known him, he was betrothed to another woman. Every time he held my hand and kissed me, he knew he was already promised to someone else. I’ve never been so angry in my entire life…

Howard has made himself scarce around the newspaper office. Which should be a relief but somehow his absence only makes me think of him more…

Howard spent a week in Lake Tahoe for his honeymoon and Mr. Langdon talks about the happy couple at every chance he gets.

Howard’s new wife.
Those words make me sick to my stomach. Her name is not important. She’s from a wealthy family, as would be expected of someone who married into the Langdon clan and that is all that matters.

I am just a simple
, country girl whose only aspirations include documenting and photographing birds. I am just someone who would rather tromp through the wetlands looking for birds rather than jetset off to Paris or London.

Why would
Howard choose me when he could marry someone sophisticated and glamorous?

Just when I accepted the fact that Howard and his bride would be moving into the manor and had braced myself for it, I found out there have been a change of plans.

The office at the newspaper is small and gossip travels quickly. According to numerous reliable sources, Howard’s new wife despises the country and refuses to move into the manor despite its modern conveniences and sophisticated design.

I know the speculation is true because Teal Manor continues to sit empty.

How sad for so many man hours and such exquisite detail to result in such emptiness. Teal Manor may eventually be filled with laughter and the sounds of a family, but for now it will sit empty and alone. I guess I can relate to it…

Apparently Howard’s new wife took one look at the location of Teal Manor and turned her high society nose up at it.

“She’s not cut out for the country,” Mr. Langdon said.

What kind of woman could hate a gorgeous mansion bordering a wildlife refuge built just for her? She is nothing like me, I concluded, and I don’t know if that was why Howard was drawn to me or not. I’m still so angry he deceived me…

What I suspected has turned out to be true. I am indeed pregnant with Howard’s child. I wasn’t pleased by the news, but I wasn’t completely displeased either. Some part of me is content with throwing a wrench in his perfectly planned life…

Today, when I went in to the newspaper to tell Howard about my condition, he was nowhere to be found. When I asked Mr. Langdon about him, he informed me that Howard is now working out of the Boston branch. He and his wife have moved and they won’t be returning to Red Valley.

Again, I went home sick
and this time I was telling the truth. There is a fire in my stomach and a piercing pain that I have never experienced before. I didn’t know a broken heart would hurt so badly…

After much contemplation, I decided to contact Howard. Although he betrayed me, I still thought he deserved to know about the new life growing inside of me as a result of our short-lived love. He made it clear he wants nothing to do with me or the child and his only consolation was to offer me compensation. Money cannot buy happiness, nor can it be used as a substitute for it…

I lost the baby today. My heart aches just as much as my body. Even though there’s no way of knowing, I’d like to think the baby was a girl. I would have named her Robin, after the American robins that nest locally, their song almost like joyous caroling.

I can still
find joy here in my little cottage—no amount of loss could take that from me—and I am comforted each and every day by the bustling activity of the wetlands.

As soon as Lauren wiped the tears away, they were replaced by more streaming down her cheeks. She turned the page and tucked between the pages was a folded newspaper clipping yellowed with age.

Lauren unfolded the article.
It was dated one week after the last journal entry.

Newspaper tycoon’s son, Howard Langdon, was killed today in a head-on automobile collision. Details have not yet been released and an investigation is ongoing.

There were no more entries after that, just sketches of birds and ideas for newspaper columns.

Lauren closed the diary and took a deep breath.
Aunt Cora had always seemed so happy and peaceful. That was how she would describe her aunt: downright happy. There was never any hint of what had gone on with Howard. Never any hint of betrayal or heartbreaking loss. She had never married and, as far as Lauren knew, there hadn’t been any other men in her life.

Aunt Cora had made peace with what Howard had done
to her, the same way Lauren needed to do with Daniel.

* * *

Lauren
kept off her foot and the twisted ankle healed quickly. All in all, she only spent a couple of days hobbling around the cottage. It was time well spent reading and building trust with Marsh.

When
the pain and swelling subsided and she could walk comfortably, she went outside to fill the birdfeeders with seed. The next day she felt so good that she decided to take a short walk. She didn’t want to overdo it, but she hadn’t seen the weavers in days and was anxious to see how much the chicks had grown.

Taking it slow and steady,
Lauren made her way down the path. Where the trail forked to run alongside the creek, Mel bounded up to meet her, his tail swishing so hard it nearly knocked her over.

She laughed at his enthusiasm.
“Hey Buddy. I mean, Mel. How have you been? Did you miss me?”

His slobbery kiss said
yes
.

They walked down the trail together, both mindful of any hazard
ous rocks or tree roots along the path.

“Let’s go see our
egret.”

Chapter Eleven

Morning Dove

Lauren stood on the massive porch at Teal Manor and knocked on the door. The ornate door knocker—which was roughly the size of her head—sounded eerily hollow against the heavy wood. She waited patiently and then waited some more. In her neighbor’s defense, it probably took a few minutes to walk from one end of the huge house to the other. Still, no answer.

The dish full of cobbler was heavy and she
adjusted her arms and shifted her weight onto her other foot. Picking the blackberries that grew along the creek bed had been much more fun than actually making the cobbler. Aunt Cora’s recipe was old and worn and the handwriting was smudged in places, making it difficult to read.

Suddenly Lauren
felt silly standing on her neighbor’s front porch with a giant dish of cobbler. What if he wasn’t even living here anymore? What if he just stayed here on the weekends like a vacation home? Or what if he was inside but didn’t want to answer the door and be bothered by her? Yup. He’d probably taken one look at her through the peephole and hid in an antique armoire somewhere.

She
was so preoccupied with wondering why he was avoiding her that she didn’t hear his vehicle pull into the driveway or his footsteps behind her as he came up the walkway with a bag of groceries hanging from one arm.

When s
he heard the crinkle of plastic, Lauren whirled around and nearly lost her grip on the dish. He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. What was it about this man that made her so jumpy?

“Hi
,” she said after pausing to gather her wits, push down her nerves and pluck back up her courage. “I just came by to thank you for helping me the other day.”

Dark sunglasses covered his
eyes and she couldn’t read his expression, but he didn’t look particularly happy to see her. A voice inside her told her to set the cobbler on the welcome mat and hightail it out of there.

Stubbornness won out and Lauren held the dish out so he could smell the blackberry goodness. No one could be grumpy in the face of homemade baked goods.

She pasted a smile on her face that he didn’t return. “I made you a cobbler. I hope you like blackberries.”

He looked down at the dish.
With a nod, he moved past her to shove his key into the lock. The movement caused his arm to brush hers, but Lauren stood her ground even though it sent a shiver down her arm. He wouldn’t go into the house and leave her standing out here, would he? Certainly not when she’d brought such a tasty peace offering. Would he?

The key clicked in the lock and h
e swung the door open. Lauren interpreted the way he held it open for her as an invitation to go inside. So, she pushed her shoulders back and marched inside.

Mel yawned and stretched from his doggie bed in the corner of the living room
. When he saw Lauren, he bolted over to assault her with long licks of his tongue.

The man
set his groceries on the kitchen island and Lauren did the same with the cobbler before Mel could knock the heavy dish out of her hands.

After giving
Mel a vigorous head rub, Lauren eyed the bag of groceries. “You wouldn’t happen to have any vanilla ice cream in there, would you?”

The man
frowned and shook his head.

“This would be a lot better with ice cream,” she explained
, tapping a finger on the cobbler dish. “I wasn’t thinking ahead. Sometimes you’ve got to be spontaneous, ya know?”

He didn’t answer and she didn’t really expect him to. At least he took off his sunglasses.
But what she saw in his eyes was even more haunted than before.

He
took two bowls down from the cupboard and set them in front of her.

“I used my Aunt
Cora’s recipe so it’s almost guaranteed to be delicious,” Lauren bragged. “I picked the berries this morning and it’s fresh out of the oven. I’m not saying I’m a gourmet chef or anything,” she backpedalled. “Far from it. But my aunt used to make this every summer and my brother and I ate it until we thought we’d explode.” Now that wasn’t a pretty picture. “Anyway,” she continued. “I just wanted to repay you for going out of your way,
literally
, for me and rescuing me on the trail.”

Now she knew why she
found herself jabbering whenever she was around him.
Someone
needed to fill in the awkward silence. Oh, well. At least Mel was excited to see her. He sat at her feet like the loyal dog he was, probably eager to go out on the trail again.

Mel’s somber owner
pushed a spoon in Lauren’s direction and she took that as a sign to start serving.

Well, i
f they were going to share cobbler together, they at least needed to be introduced to each other first. Lauren stuck her hand out. “I’m Lauren Bennett, by the way. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself the other day.”

He looked at her hand like she had seven fingers or something
, but finally shook it. His big hands were calloused and warm. She forced herself to let it go before she hung on for too long and the handshake became awkward. Wouldn’t want any more awkwardness when it came to this man.

“JD
Mason.”

“It’s nice to meet you, JD.”

Hmmm. What did JD stand for? Great. One question answered and another left in its wake.

“How’s the ankle?”
he asked, coming around the kitchen island to where she stood.

“Great. It was sore for a couple of days but
it’s fine now. I even picked blackberries this morning with no problem.”

He looked down at her foot and she half expected him to shove her sock aside and inspect it for himself. He didn’t, of course, he just nodded.

Knowing she shouldn’t be disappointed by this, she dished out the cobbler and passed JD a steaming bowlful.

Ah
yes. There was no other smell like warm blackberries in summertime.

Lauren
raised a spoonful to her mouth, anticipating the yummy goodness that was seconds away from hitting her tongue. The explosion of blackberries—tart, tart,
very
tart blackberries—filled her mouth. Lauren chewed and couldn’t help making a face. Uh oh. This was
not
the blackberry cobbler Aunt Cora used to serve. This was downright…
horrible
.

JD
choked a mouthful down and slid his tongue over his teeth. “It’s…uh…a little tart.”

Lauren looked at JD, unable to hide the confusion on her face.
“I tried to recreate the recipe, but I must have done something wrong.” She frowned at her spoon. “I guess I inherited Aunt Cora’s love for birds and not her cooking ability.”

To be polite,
JD took another bite. Yup, it still tasted awful. “Maybe it needs a little more sugar?” he suggested. He wasn’t a gourmet chef either, but he could easily recognize when something needed more sugar.

Lauren
slapped her palm against her forehead so hard it startled him. “Sugar! I forgot to add the sugar! I got so distracted by a Northern flicker outside the window that I forgot to add the sugar.” How ironic. She threw back her head and laughed. Lord knew she kept enough sugar on hand to make nectar for all the hummingbirds in the area. “Well, JD, I guess I still owe you because this might just be the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Ah well, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“Yeah
, it was a nice thought.”

Lauren thought she hea
rd disappointment in his voice but shook it off. “Well, I’ll just take my dish back home and get outta your hair.” She took the bowl from him, added it to hers and rinsed them out in the sink.

“Wait
…” JD said from behind her.

S
he turned to face him, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

He paused
and then closed his mouth as if he thought better of it. “You know a lot about birds?” he finally asked.

“I like to think so.
A lifetime of studying them has gotta mean something.”

He looked at her blankly and she went on to explain. “I’m an ornithologist
, someone who studies birds. I have a Master’s degree in ornithology. I’ve made it my life’s work to know a lot about birds.” Well, maybe until recently. She didn’t know what her life’s work was anymore. Currently it just sort of hung in limbo like the rest of her life.

He nodded and actually looked somewhat impressed.
“Come out to the patio,” he instructed her. “There’s something you might be able to help me with.”

The cobbler was abandoned
on the kitchen counter and Lauren followed him outside. She had to admit she was more than a little intrigued. What species of bird did he want to ask her about? The yellow-billed magpie that strutted through the pasture looking for grasshoppers? The white-faced ibis that waded through the marsh, its ghoulish red eyes searching for fish and frogs? Or would it be the ruddy duck with its blue bill and red-brown body diving for algae? The questions swirled around in her mind as Mel squeezed through the door and took off toward the field.

The view
from the mansion was just as incredible as Lauren imagined. The entire refuge stretched beyond the manor and the sight simply took her breath away. From the trail, the view was amazing, but it was even more spectacular right here on JD’s back porch. He was a lucky man.

This was an entirely new perspective of the wetlands and
Lauren was glad he’d invited her outside to see it. Having a view of the refuge right outside your door without being blocked by trees was nothing short of spectacular.

Lauren shook herself out of the trance.

When she opened her mouth to ask what he needed her help with, he signaled for her to listen. “Hear that?” he asked.

Patiently, she waited. Finally
, a cooing sound from off in the distance broke through the silence. She looked over to where the sound came from and saw a cluster of birch trees. “Isn’t it beautiful? Well, sad, yet beautiful at the same time, but still beautiful.”

He looked over at her, obviously hanging on her every word.

“It’s a mourning dove,” she told him.

At first
, JD thought she said morning dove, but no, of course, it would be a
mourn
ing dove. Very fitting.

“Oh,” was all he said and sat down on a nearby bench.

“It’s a male trying to attract a mate…” Lauren rattled on about their diet of exclusively seeds and how both the male and female incubated their eggs and how they were capable of flying up to fifty-five miles an hour.

Mel trotted back from the field and took his place by her feet.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled a dog bone out of her back pocket and gave it to Mel. His tail wagged with glee and he promptly settled down to dig his teeth into the rawhide.

She went to sit down
, but then remembered the ice pack she’d brought to return. “Where is my brain today?” she asked no one in particular. “First the sugar and then the ice pack…At least I remembered this.” She pulled the ice pack from her other pocket and handed it to JD. “Thanks for this. It came in handy.”

JD took the ice pack and turned it over in his hands.
“Sorry I didn’t come back to check on you. I, uh…something came up.”

Lauren didn’t know much about him
, but she could recognize there was a storm brewing in those blue eyes of his. “That’s okay. I didn’t expect you to.”

Maybe she’d
wanted
him to come over and check on her, but she had no right to pin expectations on him. In fact, it was probably for the best that she keep her distance altogether.

Lauren
glanced left and right and the only place to sit was on the bench next to him. The rest of the patio furniture was strategically arranged on the other side of the patio. She thought about standing, but he scooted over to make room for her. So much for keeping her distance.

His hand rested on his knees and she
sat down and mimicked his posture in an effort to keep relaxed. His eyes spoke volumes, but in a language she couldn’t read. How could he look at the beauty of the refuge in front of him and still manage to look so troubled?

The sun
reflected off the gold wedding band on his left ring finger.

“You and your wife
sure chose a beautiful property,” she commented.

He ran his thumb over the gold band
and remembered when Darla slid it on his finger at their wedding. It felt like yesterday…

“I’m not married.”
His voice was scratchy and rough.

The correct term was
widower
, but he didn’t use it. He didn’t like the word. It sounded old-fashioned and in no way described the bleakness of his situation.

“Oh
,” Lauren said. Once again, JD seemed to create more questions than he answered.