Blue Willow (57 page)

“I never said I did.” She gave him a puzzled look. “How’d we get off the subject of building the shop?”

“I said it’s too late in the year to fool with it. You … you don’t need to be putting your profit from the Malloy job back into this place. You need to save some money.”

“Nope. I’ve got a place to live, food to eat, and a new electric space heater to keep my toes from freezing in the house this winter. I’d rather put the money into a shop.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay. We’ll talk about it in January, after I sign a new lease. I want two years on the next one.”

His voice rose. “You just can’t stop jabbering about the future, can you? I don’t want to talk about it!”

“All right, let’s talk about Little Sis.”

His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do about her. I don’t know what to say, or how to say it.”

Lily dropped to her heels beside a basket and pretended to concentrate on bundling her flowers. “Do you sincerely want to try? Is that what’s making you so unhappy—that you want to change things, but you’re too shy?”

He waved his hands loosely. “It won’t last. I’m caught in the middle. You just don’t understand. She’ll end up hatin’ me.”

Lily would never understand his dark, vague mutterings. She was tired of trying to decipher them. Rising like a threat, she pointed at him firmly. “Go home and take a bath and put on a nice shirt and a pair of slacks and your dress shoes. Then go to the florist’s shop and get a half-dozen red roses wrapped in paper and tied with a nice ribbon. Then you go over to the sisters’ house and give the roses to Little Sis and ask if she’d like to have dinner with you at a nice restaurant over in Victoria. She’ll say yes.”

He snorted. “You just want to see me make a fool of myself.”

“Somebody has to look out for you.”

“I ain’t your granddaddy.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I ain’t holding my breath for you to adopt me either.”

“Meddler.”

“Not long ago, when you thought you were dying, you looked like a man who wanted a second chance.”

He wavered, exhaled, then said wearily, “I do.”

“Then don’t wait around. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen next. Make hay while the sun shines. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

She waited. He stalled. Finally he wrenched his hands together and swallowed hard. “What’ll I talk about at dinner?”

When her astonishment passed, Lily nodded with approval.
“You don’t have to talk. She’ll talk enough for both of you. You just listen like your life depended on it and answer when she asks you a question.”

“She’s got more words than a dictionary.”

“After you get used to her, you’ll feel like talking too.”

“If it goes all right, I won’t know what to do next.”

“Send her flowers in the morning, and then call her and ask her if she wants to go bowling.”

“Will she?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God. This kind of sticky-sweet stuff is for kids. I’ve seen it on
Love Connection.
”

“Well, if you’re going to think of yourself as an old man, then let me go get a rocking chair for you and cover you with a blanket before your arthritis starts acting up.”

He stomped to the greenhouse door, looking rusty and rakish, like an aged Willie Nelson with short hair. He scowled at her as he flung the door open. “I can’t be any worse off than I already am.”

She held her breath. “A half-dozen roses. Don’t forget.”

“I’m not senile.” Distress radiated from him like smoke from an old engine. “I won’t forget.” He went out and slammed the door behind him. Lily sat down on the hard concrete floor and laughed wearily. Mr. Estes and Little Sis. Cass and John Lee. Elizabeth and her ex-husband. Her laughter faded into lonely regret. She seemed destined to be a catalyst for other people’s romances.

One of the estate’s black limousines pulled into her darkening yard. Peering out the window at it worriedly, she tossed a handful of kindling into the fire she’d just built and rose quickly from the hearth. Lupa trotted ahead of her to the porch, giving a latent
woof
of territorial alert.

Lily stood on the porch, wary and watchful, as the driver opened a back door and helped an elegant white-haired man from the car. His beautiful old suit and overcoat were as stately as his face. He walked with careful grace to the base of her steps and looked up at her with somber regard. “Mrs. Porter? Forgive my unannounced intrusion.
I am William DeWitt. I’d like to speak with you. May I come in?”

Artemas’s father-in-law was the last person she’d ever expected to invite into this house. Her first thought was that Senator DeWitt had come to see the Colebrook dilemma for himself. The senator returned her silent, cautious scrutiny. “I’m not here to pass judgment, Mrs. Porter. You’ll hear no speech of righteous indignation from me. And I assure you, Artemas has no idea I’ve come.” Arching a white brow, he said over his shoulder to the stocky little driver standing at attention by the car, “Isn’t that right, George? We’re simply on our way to the airport, aren’t we?”

“Yes,
sir
. We never took a detour.”

Gazing at Lily again, the senator gave a slight bow. “Whether you choose to reveal this meeting to Artemas is up to you.”

Confused but polite, she nodded and opened the porch door for him.

When he was seated on the couch, waving aside her offer to take his coat, she sat down on the hearth. He swept a curious look around the spartan, dimly lit room then returned his attention to her. Lily remembered going to the library at Agnes Scott during the months after Artemas had married his daughter and searching out a photograph of her in the society pages of a New York newspaper. Glenda De Witt had been a small, waifishly pretty woman, as elegant as a piece of the finest Colebrook china. Glenda DeWitt Colebrook. The woman to whom Artemas had devoted himself. The woman Artemas had loved enough to marry.

She hated the prickle of self-conscious discomfort she felt. She was suddenly too tall, rangy, and indelicate in jeans and a work shirt, with her hair tangled down her back. Not fine porcelain, like Glenda DeWitt, but thick, sturdy stoneware, unbreakable but ordinary. “Why did you come to see me?” she asked the senator, her head up.

He took an ornate pipe from the pocket of his coat, stroked it, frowned, then put it away again, and leaned forward.
His narrowed eyes simmered with the pensive reserve of a man who had thought long and hard about what he wanted to say. “I took so much away from Artemas. And from you,” he answered slowly, his gaze burning into hers. “I came here to give the future back to you both.”

Wearing only white pajama bottoms, Artemas stood in the open doors that led from his bedroom onto the low stone balcony, his head tilted. He studied the panorama of autumn mountains over the balustrade, blue-tinted, rust-and-gold in the early light. He was puzzled without knowing why.

His restless sleep had been filled with Lily’s presence even more than usual, both melancholy and promising, half-seen yearnings rising like a morning arousal. The dawn air was cool on the feverish skin of his arm.

The two kittens scampered past him. Their sporadic shenanigans through the night had woken him at least once, and he recalled them sitting on a table near the doors, silhouetted in the moonlight, fixated on some mystery beyond the beveled-glass panes.

He walked out onto the balcony, flexing his burned arm, deciding gratefully that he was comfortable enough to dress and go to the office. He needed the routine, the work. Having Lily with him for even their brief time made his solitude more painful. After the senator had departed yesterday, Artemas had debated calling her, but he’d known she wouldn’t return.

Stroking a hand through his disheveled hair, he pulled a heavy iron chair to the edge of the balcony. He craved the cigarettes he’d crumbled over a trash can yesterday He’d open a new pack later, smoke one, throw the rest away.

He started to sit down, then halted, astonished, disbelieving, as he studied the ground below the balcony. A section of the mansion’s looming stone walls jutted out, giving him a private area. In his childhood it had sheltered a small, secluded flower garden. He’d had the space scraped
clear of brambles and pines, like the rest of the lost gardens around the house.

During the night it had been reclaimed.

A thick bank of azalea shrubs, their summer greenery not yet subdued by an autumn frost, nestled against the wall. Other shrubs, which he couldn’t identify, bordered the private space. The earth in front of them had been mulched with pine straw, creating curving, empty spaces dotted with wooden stakes. The stakes bore small paper notes. Artemas hurried down the stone steps and dropped to one knee, to read them. They promised a spring show of irises, daffodils, tulips, and lilies.

Her signature. He wanted to go to her, ask her if there was some special meaning, something new. But he wouldn’t. She had her reasons, and she’d explain when the time felt right to her. He imagined her slipping back and forth through the dark woods between the estate and her place, carrying her gifts, working beneath his balcony, his bedroom, in the moonlight. Telling him in this simple, profound way that she was with him.

Lily woke to the sound of Mr. Estes bellowing her name. She jerked upright, disoriented, and looked around her bedroom wildly. She lay on top of the quilts, with the corner of one pulled halfway across her body. Bits of pine straw clung to her jeans and shirt. Her socks were stained with dirt. Her hair lay in matted disarray over her shoulder, an elastic band jumbled in the strands. She’d fallen asleep in the middle of unbraiding it.

Then she remembered—Senator DeWitt’s visit, and the reason Artemas had married his daughter. Knowing made her feel both better and worse. Nothing else had changed, but that one, very deep sorrow was gone.

“Lily! Where are you? Get out here, girl!”

She stumbled into the main room. Mr. Estes stood there looking at her with gleaming, mischievous eyes. “It’s ten
A.M.
, girl! What’s wrong with you, takin’ a nap on a beautiful morning like this?”

Scrubbing a hand over her face, Lily absorbed his astonishing
cheerfulness. “You’re not Mr. Estes. Aliens must’ve switched him for someone who smiles.”

“Ask me,” he ordered, giving a proud little jerk to the open sides of his work jacket. “Ask me how it went.”

“Your date with Little Sis? Tell me.”

“Went good,” he said, suddenly shy and gruff. He pulled his hat off, and twisting it in his hands, stared at the floor.

“Did you order flowers to send to her today, like I said?”

He shifted from side to side. A sheepish tilt curled his mouth. “Didn’t have to. Gave her some before she left this morning.”

“Left where?”

His face colored, and he began running a hand over the back of his neck. He shot her an exasperated glance. “It went
read
good.”

As the implication sank in, Lily bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. “Well, I swear. I
swear.
” She bounded over and hugged him. After a startled second he returned the hug. She stepped back and scrutinized him. “I’m glad for you and her.”

“I know you are. I know it never woulda happened except for you.”

“Oh, I doubt that. Little Sis would never have given up.”

“But I … I needed a kick in the pants. You got me out into the world again.” He halted, his mouth working silently, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “You been more like family to me than my own son.” Suddenly distressed, he moved away, clutching his old felt hat in front of him. He walked slowly through the room, his distracted, scowling gaze going from her to the family photos on the fireplace mantel. He turned toward the fireplace. “I’d rather burn in hell,” he muttered.

“What?” Lily moved closer and leaned on the back of the couch.

He turned, went to the door, then blurted, “I gotta go.
I got, uhm, things to do. I’ll see you over at Malloy’s place this afternoon, but, well—”

“Tell Little Sis I said hello.”

He sighed. “Okay, okay, I’m going back to my house. When I left, she was cleanin’ out the freezer. If I don’t hurry back, she’ll have throwed out all my TV dinners. I better go, uhm, get her mind off changin’ my diet.”

Lily went to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Watch out now, because if you end up marrying Little Sis, you and me will practically be related. If I treat you like a grandpa, you won’t be able to fuss about it.”

Mr. Estes looked at her somberly. “Maybe a new family is the best thing I can have waiting for Joe when he comes home.”

She hid her dismay. She didn’t want to be Joe’s family. “If there’s any way to help you get Joe straightened out, we’ll do it.”

“I’ll deal with Joe,” he said darkly, and left.

Twenty-eight

The table brimmed with a Thanksgiving feast, crystal, silver, and the finest Colebrook china. Oak logs crackled in two ornate fireplaces at either end of the room. Artemas sat at the head of the massive table in the estate’s magnificently restored dining hall, surveying the surroundings and his brood with strained pride. It was wonderful to see Elizabeth with Leo, and Cass with John Lee. James and Alise sat stiffly, always subdued, but together. Glancing at Michael, he thought his youngest brother looked heartier than usual. Even Tamberlaine, who often joined them for holidays, looked peaceful enough.

But there would always be one person missing, the one he needed most, the one they would never accept. “Here’s to our first Thanksgiving at Blue Willow,” he said, lifting a glass of champagne and trying to inject more serenity into the words than he felt. He noticed that Cassandra merely sipped hers and put it down. Her face pale, her black hair pushed back from flushed cheeks, she looked nervous. Next to her, John Lee downed his champagne in one swallow, then reached for hers and drank it as well.

“I have—we have an announcement,” she said suddenly, glancing at John Lee. Everyone was silent, a little taken aback. Cass rose to her feet. John Lee stood beside
her. She rapped her knuckles on the table, then blurted, “We’re married. And pregnant.” And sat back down. John Lee was left to buffer the wave of frozen surprise. Troubled, he stared down at Cass and said dryly, “That wasn’t real diplomatic, darlin’.”