Love Shadows (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

O
CTOBER
GILDED
ALL
of Indian Lake in an extravagance of bronze, amber, crimson and gold, casting an iridescent shawl of sunset hues from misty dawn’s light to evening’s shadowed, streetlamp glow.

Rather than walk Beau past Mrs. Beabots’s house every night after work and risk being seen by Luke, or worse, catching a glimpse of the children, whom she missed terribly, Sarah stole the last of the day’s light by walking the beach along Indian Lake. She watched the sun set through the amber maples and towering oaks and felt the warmth of the Indian summer sun on her face. Soon the days would be so short she’d go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. But for now, she and Beau enjoyed these stolen moments alone.

It had been over a month since her argument with Luke, and for all that time, she’d watched him come and go from the house. On the weekends, she’d often caught Timmy waving to her from Mrs. Beabots’s kitchen window. Annie had been a bit more brave and had surreptitiously put notes in Sarah’s mailbox.

Sarah didn’t know how much longer this strange and stupid attitude of Luke’s would last. Sarah was still involved with the children’s choir, and she saw the kids every Sunday for practice, which was wonderful for all three of them. Sarah felt like a divorced parent only allowed to visit her children once a week. She marveled at those who were able to withstand that kind of emotional torment.

She supposed that in Luke’s mind, this little bit of contact was not to be avoided or feared.

As Sarah walked among the cattails and falling leaves, she realized that because of Luke’s presence in her life, she’d faced her greatest fear of all.

Rejection.

Of all her demons, Sarah had been most vulnerable to rejection. She’d learned to deal with clients who didn’t like her ideas, and even Charmaine when she quashed one of her projects. Both were accomplishments toward her well-being.

Luke, however, was another matter. She’d come very close to losing her heart to him.

Who are you kidding, Sarah?
she thought, picking up a gold leaf.
You can’t stop thinking about him.

She looked sadly across the lake. But he didn’t want her. Not as a friend. Not even as an acquaintance.

The setting sun touched her face with warm, amber fingers. Thinking about the days to come, Sarah felt her expectations spring to life once again.

You are such a hopeless romantic, Sarah.

In November, the construction work for the church would begin. She would be forced to see Luke from time to time on the job. Thus far, she’d only communicated and worked with Jerry on the church project. Luke had been able to remain distant, so far. It wouldn’t be long until he was forced to talk to her, though. As heartbreaking as it was, that project could be Sarah’s last hope.

But hope for what? Another shot at rejection?
Oh, Sarah. You’ve got it bad.

Sarah pulled Beau’s leash to bring him away from the water’s edge. “Let’s start heading home, Beau,” she said, and looked out at the sunset one last time.

Sarah supposed that in a way, she should be proud of herself. She’d actually lived through Luke’s rejection. That was something, wasn’t it? She hadn’t fallen apart. Hadn’t gone into a depression. She hadn’t lost her mind.

What she had done was come face-to-face with a new and more vicious fear.

She was in love with a man who was never going to love her back.

* * *

S
ATURDAYS
AND
S
UNDAYS
had become two mind- and body-numbing days for Luke as he, Barry and Matt worked on the ballroom. They’d divided all the rooms according to Sarah’s blueprints. The frameworks were finished, Sheetrock hung, the walls floated and puttied. Matt had installed a six-foot-long bathtub and tiled a walk-in shower area that finished off the new bathroom. The kitchen was taking shape. Mrs. Beabots had decided to purchase modular cabinet units, which made Luke’s job a great deal easier. The new wiring allowed for ceiling fans in each bedroom and an electric fireplace unit to be installed in the living room.

Once the cooler nights of October hit, both Annie and Timmy liked sitting next to the electric fireplace reading their books.

Luke had just finished hanging the doors on all the bedrooms when he walked down the hall in time to see Timmy looking out the window onto Maple Avenue.

“You guys about ready for bed? I got the doors up,” he said with a smile.

Annie closed her book. “Can I finish this after my bath?”

“Sure,” Luke said, noticing Timmy was watching something outside with great interest.

“Timmy? Bedtime.”

“Okay,” Timmy replied and turned around. He was wearing his favorite dog pajamas, but as he walked toward his father, Luke noticed the pajamas were suddenly several inches shorter. “Did those shrink?”

“Naw. I grew,” Timmy said and walked away.

Curious, Luke went to the window and looked down the street. Then he saw what had caught Timmy’s attention. Sarah was getting out of her SUV with Beau. She went around to the back of the vehicle, opened the door and took out a beach towel. She wiped the dog down and rubbed him dry. She shook out the towel, put it back in the car and closed the door. Then she walked into her house.

Luke also noticed that Sarah didn’t look up at Mrs. Beabots’s house. He was surprised that he felt very disappointed.

* * *

M
RS
. B
EABOTS
CARRIED
a china plate piled high with oatmeal-raisin cookies as she climbed the steps to her house. It was nearly Halloween, and this year she had cajoled Luke into driving her and the kids out to the pumpkin farm to buy the pumpkins and mums she wanted to decorate her front porch.

The children had loved the hayride and the romp through the corn maze. Because Mrs. Beabots took her pumpkin-buying quite seriously, she asked Luke if he would pull the little red wagon through the rows of gray, white, Cinderella, orange, yellow and green pumpkins so she could make her selections.

When she’d finished, Mrs. Beabots had bought no fewer than a dozen pumpkins, a half dozen mums, a bale of hay and three sets of corn shocks, which she would tie around the lamppost in the front yard.

As Luke loaded all of the pumpkins in the truck, he had asked,
Do you buy this many pumpkins every year?

Goodness, no,
she’d said.
I cut back this year.

Annie and Timmy had flung their hands in front of their faces and giggled.

How did you get them home before I was around? There’s a whole truck bed full of stuff back there,
he said as he settled in behind the steering wheel.

I have friends,
she’d replied.
This year, you’re my new friend.

New flunky you mean.

That, too,
she’d replied.

* * *

M
RS
. B
EABOTS
LOOKED
at her pumpkins and decided the one she’d placed closest to the door was the one she’d give the children to carve for Halloween.

She unlocked the door and went in.

Slipping off her sweater, she was surprised to find Luke sitting in her parlor.

“Is it all right that I came down here?” Luke asked. “I was just going over these wallpaper samples for inside the molding inserts you gave me.”

Placing the cookies on the table between them, she sat down.

“Sarah picked out the samples,” she said flatly.

He looked at the cookies. “She baked those, too, didn’t she?”

“Yes. For the children. They have reduced sugar, applesauce and oatmeal. You can’t object to those.” She sniffed.

“No, I guess not.” He looked down at the wallpaper samples, but didn’t see them.

Mrs. Beabots said, “Luke, ever since your breakup, or whatever the dickens you want to call it, Sarah hasn’t felt comfortable coming to my house. That’s not right, Luke. She’s my friend. She’s been my friend all her life. I miss her.”

He looked at his hands, feeling like an errant child. He didn’t understand why he should feel this despondent. He’d only been protecting his children. Hadn’t he? He wanted to do the right thing at all times. He remembered that when he was in the navy, doing right and being right had seemed so simple. Easy. Life back then had been like looking at cut crystal. Now, every blasted thing was muddled in confusion.

“You’re right. This is your home and she should be welcome here. I’ll make myself scarce.”

Mrs. Beabots clucked her tongue and threw Luke a sharp look. “You’re a fool, Luke Bosworth.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you think I don’t see you sneaking peeks at Sarah’s window every night when you help me with the dishes? Do you think I don’t see you watching for her in the morning before you go to work? I see you take the cell phone out of your pocket and stare at it like it’s going to talk back to you. I’ve seen when you dial a number on that thing and then don’t call anyone. I can tell you one thing, young man, dead people don’t use telephones.”

“Dead...” he repeated and suddenly realized her inference. She was talking about Jenny. “No, they don’t.”

She leaned forward. “I think it’s Sarah who occupies your mind more than you’d like to admit.”

“She must think I’m a jerk.”

“Believe me, she does. So do I.”

“What?”

She smiled. “Well, you were. But that’s not who you really are. Luke, you are a fine person and your children need you to be their guidepost in life. They will learn everything from you. I don’t believe for a minute that this stubborn mule you’ve decided to be lately is you at all. I can tell you one thing. Life is nothing but change and challenge. A body no more gets through one set of problems when it’s time to cope with another. But—” she wagged her finger at Luke “—I can tell you this. You’re going to miss your entire life if you don’t jump in and get wet.”

“As I remember it, I did that once.”

“So where’s all that courage?”

“I guess I’ve been afraid.”

“I’d venture you’re correct. Nothing wrong with being afraid, so long as it doesn’t freeze you in your tracks. That’s where you are now. Frozen.”

“Funny. That’s what Sarah said to me.”

“Astute girl. Always was.” Mrs. Beabots cocked her head to the right and smiled.

Luke glanced at the plate of cookies. “So Sarah made these for the kids?”

“Uh-huh.”

“May I?” he asked.

“Help yourself,” she said, holding the plate out to him. Luke munched on the cookie. “It’s not like the ones I remember my mom used to make,” he said after three bites.

“Of course not. There’s not enough sugar or butter, if you ask me. Sarah altered the recipe to make you happy.”

Luke nodded solemnly. “I think I get it.”

“I should hope so,” Mrs. Beabots replied.

* * *

O
N
F
RIDAY
EVENING
,
Luke walked with his kids down Maple Avenue and then turned west on Apple Lane and walked down two blocks to Rose Street, where they found Louise Railton closing up The Louise House.

“Hello, Louise,” Luke shouted as he and the kids raced up to the tall, slender woman in her mid-forties.

Louise’s infectious smile filled her face as she turned away from the pretty aqua-blue door to the white, steep-gabled house. “Hello there,” she said.

“Is it too late?” Luke asked, looking up at the front porch with its wicker furniture and fifty-year-old metal, ceiling-mounted swing. “You were just closing up.”

Louise patted Luke’s hand reassuringly. “I haven’t washed the dipper yet. Still time for a scoop.”

“Yes!” Timmy said as they all scooted inside.

Louise led the way into the candy shop and vintage-looking ice cream parlor. The Louise House was a child’s delight. An entire wall was filled with enormous glass canisters of every conceivable candy—jelly beans, licorice, anise drops, homemade horehound drops, lemon drops and sour candies. Louise was a superb chocolatier, and in the glass case facing the jelly beans and hard candies were her super creamy caramels, truffles, chocolate-covered nut clusters, coconut-and-chocolate “nests” and dark-chocolate-covered dried blueberries, cherries and raspberries.

Behind the chocolates case were upright freezers filled with pink-and-chocolate-brown-striped containers of Louise’s ice creams. No one in town knew precisely the secret to Louise’s extra creamy ice creams. She told the tourists the recipes had been in her family for generations.

Mrs. Beabots had told Luke about The Louise House. After her husband, Raymond’s, heart attack over twenty-five years ago, the Beabotses had been forced to sell the Rose Street Grocery, which they had owned nearly all their adult lives, to a very young Louise Railton.

“Have a seat,” Louise said, pulling out a dainty wrought-iron chair with her signature pink-and-brown-striped seat cushion. “You all can be my guinea pigs. I have a new flavor I want to try out. No charge.”

“Cool!” Timmy said.

Louise went to the freezer and pulled out a plain white container, picked up her scoop and dug into the ice cream. Taking out three crystal, fluted ice cream dishes, she deposited a small lump of white ice cream into each one. “I call this Magic Mountain,” Louise said, turning around and taking a tall green-and-purple-felt hat off the hat rack. It had ribbons trailing down the back in every imaginable color and there were opalescent sequins forming a hat band around the brim. “This is my Fairy Queen hat. I made it myself. What do you think?” Louise asked, coming around the counter and setting the ice cream on their little round table.

“Does it help increase sales?” Luke asked as he looked at the preposterous hat.

“Evidently.” Louise sat in a chair across from them and plopped her elbows on the table, resting her chin in her hands. “Be honest.”

In unison, Luke and the kids dug into the ice cream. It was a creamy, vanilla-and-cinnamon-flavored frozen custard with bits of macadamia nuts and chunks of white chocolate. Luke had to close his eyes, the taste was so good.