Love Shadows (6 page)

Sarah had been dealt a double blow of rejection. Her mother was dead and she’d been left to fend for herself. And she’d just been suspended from her job.

Rejection number two.

Sarah sank a bit lower in her chair, wondering if she should extend herself to these strangers. Would this emotional gamble be worth it? She wished she could hide.

Isn’t that what I’ve been doing? Hiding my fears and probably a good amount of my own anger?

No,
Sarah thought.
I can’t bail. I came here to get better. I came here to make my life the best it can be and not live in the past. I want my future to be a good one. I want so much for myself. I’ll stay.

Sarah watched Margot as she struggled to pry information out of Luke, but he wasn’t having it. He was in bad shape, Sarah thought. She was grieving for her parent. Her loss was a normal part of life that most people knew they’d have to confront one day. But Luke’s situation was very different. He couldn’t have been much older than her, and yet he had already lost the love of his life. They’d barely had a chance to start their life together, and his wife was gone. Sarah hadn’t even thought about a family of her own until just recently, and she wasn’t even close to finding her soul mate. Her world had been all about her mother. Yet here was Luke, nearly paralyzed by his emotions. Sarah almost wished she was the counselor with all that training behind her so that she could say the right thing to him. All she could do was remain silent and listen.

Margot was urging Luke to tell her about his children, but he looked flustered and tongue-tied. Sarah couldn’t tell if he was still angry or just upset with this dreadful process of spilling his guts.

“Tell me about them,” Margot asked politely.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Luke said flatly as if he’d finally controlled his rage. He nodded his head and pursed his lips as if he’d been in conversation with himself. “I was right about what I said before. My coming here was a mistake.”

Luke stood suddenly, spun on the heel of his work boots and stalked out of the room in four long strides. The door slammed hard behind him, the sound echoing against the walls, rattling the windows.

No one said a word for a very long moment.

Sarah sat up straight. “Do you think he’ll come back, Margot?”

Margot turned around and faced her. “I don’t know.”

Sarah looked past Margot at the closed door. Of all the things she remembered about Luke that evening, the soft, grateful smile he’d given her stood out the most. She’d seen past his anger at that instant, and she felt as if she had helped him, even if it had been in a very slight, tenuous way. “I hope he does. He needs us.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
ARAH
TOOK
B
EAU
out for his morning constitutional down Maple Avenue, where they both enjoyed the last of the spring tulips. Sarah noticed the spikes of peonies shooting up through the ground. The walk took an extra-long time, as Sarah allowed Beau to sniff all he wanted.

Sarah hadn’t been able to get Luke Bosworth out of her mind. She’d never met anyone so tortured. Her heart went out to him because he seemed to be clueless as to how to react to those around him. He was deeply within himself, yet when he spoke about Jenny, he allowed everyone in session access to his innermost fears. Sarah was drawn to his tenderness and depth of compassion. He was an enigma of anger and gentleness. She was already looking forward to the next meeting, when she would hopefully see Luke again and learn more about him.

She was almost embarrassed to be asking for any help at all from Margot, when Luke clearly needed all her guidance and then some. Sarah guessed, from his worn work boots and his jeans and faded shirt, that he hadn’t bought any new clothes for himself since his wife died. She remembered him making an offhand comment about medical bills and she could well understand his situation.

Her mother and father had purchased expensive but excellent health insurance a decade ago when Sarah had left for college. Sarah thought it was ridiculous, but Ann Marie had insisted, saying they weren’t interested in trips to foreign countries or expensive jewelry or
things
anymore. They wanted to provide Sarah with the education she needed to pursue her dreams, and they wanted to cover themselves in case of disaster. They did precisely that. Ann Marie left only a few thousand dollars in medical bills, and in addition, her mother had prepaid her own funeral and cremation. Sarah had none of the financial problems that she was now realizing a great many people were forced to deal with along with loss and grief.

Sarah hadn’t realized that she and Beau had been walking for nearly an hour. When they walked past Mrs. Beabots’s house, Sarah could hear her television was turned up, and she could smell the apples, cinnamon and butter that told her Mrs. Beabots had been baking...again.

As Sarah came up the sidewalk to her house, she noticed someone was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs on her front porch.

As she approached, the person stood up.

“Miss Milse!” Sarah said with a smile.

The woman, in her mid-sixties, stood nearly six feet tall and was over two hundred pounds of pure-bred German muscle. She wore a very dated, cotton floral house dress with a blindingly white, ruffled apron. The short sleeves revealed upper arms the size of Virginia hams that looked as if she could rip up each floorboard for cleaning and easily pound them back into place.

Her steel-gray hair was pulled so tightly on her scalp and twisted into such a severe topknot that Sarah worried the woman would get a headache.

“I come to clean,” Miss Milse announced in her accented, guttural voice as Sarah mounted the porch steps.

When Sarah was a little girl, Miss Milse had been both babysitter and housekeeper for the Jensen family. Sarah knew the woman’s ways as well as she knew those of her mother and aunt Emily. Miss Milse could have been a gem for any branch of the United States Armed Forces, which she’d often told Ann Marie that she had longed to do. Miss Milse had wanted to travel the world and earn the nursing degree she dreamed of. But when she had been young, she’d been forced by circumstances to remain in Indian Lake to care for her widowed mother until she died of complications from Multiple Sclerosis.

Odd,
Sarah thought.
I know so much about her, but I still don’t know her first name. I guess she will always be Miss Milse.

Because Miss Milse was a force of nature, and truly one on the stormy side, Sarah didn’t have the foggiest idea how she was going to turn the woman away. She could not afford a housekeeper right now, especially on a reduced salary. She would have to be very diplomatic if she didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings.

“We need to talk about this,” Sarah said, opening the door. Miss Milse bent over and grabbed an armful of her favorite cleaning utensils.

This was going to be tough. Sarah took a step backward to give Miss Milse plenty of room to enter the house. The mop handles clanged against the metal bucket. It was an everyday, ordinary sound that should have gone unnoticed and been absorbed into the walls like any of the other sounds that meander through a house on a given day. But in that moment, the bucket’s tinny sound and its reverberation spoke to Sarah like a call from the angels.

The house is empty. Even with me in it.

“I start in kitchen,” Miss Milse said, her lips forming a straight, nonemotional line.

Sarah shook her head. “The kitchen is clean. There isn’t much to do with only me living here....”

Miss Milse’s eyes left Sarah’s face and looked past her into the dining room. She frowned. Sarah’s eyes followed hers until she saw what Miss Milse saw.

There were no flowers from the garden on the mahogany Queen Anne table. Tall silver vases on either side of the marble-topped hunt board were not filled with English ivy the way Ann Marie had always kept them. A cobweb, glistening in the morning sunlight, stretched between the arms of the Venetian crystal chandelier that had belonged to her father’s grandmother. Every generation of Jensens had painstakingly cared for the chandelier and passed it on to the subsequent generation.

The windows had not been washed this spring or summer, and across the wide-planked cherry floor, dust motes spun like fairy sprites.

Sarah looked up at Miss Milse. “I can do this myself,” she said in a low voice that lacked conviction.

Miss Milse sucked in a long breath and widened her stance as if she was readying herself for a physical battle. “I clean. I make it like Mizz Jensen always like.”

“It’s just not necessary,” Sarah began but before she could say another word, Miss Milse interrupted her.

“No. I take care of house when your fadder vas sick. Den. Your mudder. Den she die. I not hear from you. I come to you. I clean.” She poked Sarah in the shoulder with a stubby finger.

Sarah tried to smile, but lost energy before it landed on her face. “You don’t understand, Miss Milse. You see, I, er, lost my job. Well, not really. I hope to go back to my work someday. Soon, perhaps. Maybe when that happens I can call and have you come clean.” Sarah looked at the woman’s stubborn expression, hoping she’d made herself clear.

Miss Milse looked down the hall at the mirror that had not been dusted, at the chairs that had not been lemon-oiled and at the floor that needed waxing and buffing. She scrutinized the gilt-framed paintings and heirloom family portraits that hung on the wall. She took in the sweeping wood and carpeted staircase that had not been waxed, vacuumed or dusted since the last time she’d been in the house over three months ago. She looked back to Sarah.

“House needs me to clean.”

“But I can’t pay you what my mother used to pay.”

Miss Milse shook her head. “You pay less.”

Sarah’s shoulders drooped. This wasn’t going well. “I want to pay you, but it’s just not the right time for me.” She looked away, feeling absolutely wretched. “I can’t pay you at all.”

Miss Milse stood stock-still.

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said and met her eyes again.

Slipping out of the corner of Miss Milse’s nearly lashless blue eye was the first tear Sarah had ever seen the woman shed. This huge block of a woman who never understood the first joke Sarah had told her and who almost never laughed or smiled or showed any emotion other than pride in her work, was crying.

“I’m so very sorry.”

Miss Milse’s chin fell to her neck and she lifted her thick fingers to wipe away her tears. “Don’t pay me. I clean. I come be with you.” She lifted her head and looked around the house where she had worked for over twenty years. Her tears were careening down her cheeks in rivulets. “I come every morning. I help in house. In garden. I be wit you. I remember your mudder wit you.”

Miss Milse wavered like a mirage in the desert through Sarah’s tear-filled eyes. She nodded. She understood...finally.

“Yes. Please come every day, Miss Milse. We will work together.”

Miss Milse sniffed. “Ya.” She trudged off toward the kitchen where Sarah heard her deposit her mops and bucket with a loud clatter.

“Ya,” Sarah repeated. The house was less empty now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

E
ARLY
-J
UNE
DAWN
rays glittered amber and gold across the waters of Indian Lake, lighting the path for Sarah and her sculling crew— Maddie Strong, Isabelle Hawks and Liz Crenshaw. As they had done since their sculling days in high school, the women rented a Janousek JS 4x/-long hull, quad sculling boat from Captain Red, who kept the boat in superb shape just for them. All the girls had been on sculling teams in high school and some, like Sarah, had raced in college, as well. Together, they had conquered Lake Lemon, near Bloomington, and raced down the North Shore of the Chicago River. Sarah loved being on the water, skimming along the glassy surface, barely creating a wake and knowing that her body and those of her crew were still able to challenge record-setting times. The white-hulled, fiberglass English Janousek dominated both national and international regattas, and when Sarah was in the stroke seat, she pretended she was once again out there making sports history.

Sarah sat close to the stern, the rest of the crew matching her cadence and movements. The quad and girls shot across the glass-smooth waters of Indian Lake like a summer dragonfly, shimmering, daring and purposeful.

Here on the water, Sarah lost her feelings of sadness and came alive again. She could hear Maddie behind her joking and teasing the other girls mercilessly. Even with their banter, the rowers never lost a second of precious rhythm. They moved as a unit. They thought as a unit. Sarah and all the women knew there were people on shore—picnickers, sun-tan addicts and weekend volleyball teams all stopped to watch them skim the lake as if they were airborne.

* * *

L
UKE
PARKED
HIS
truck next to the creosote railroad ties outside Captain Redbeard’s Marina and looked at the summer dawn as it glinted and shimmered off the lake’s smooth surface.

Annie and Timmy climbed out of the backseat and stood next to their father, following his line of vision.

“Wow. Would you look at that?” Timmy exclaimed, pointing an excited finger at the white sculling boat whipping across the center of Indian Lake.

Luke lifted his hand to his forehead and shielded his eyes. “Sculling. I haven’t seen a sculling quad in years.”

Annie slipped her hand into her father’s. “Did you ever row one of those, Dad? In the navy, I mean.”

The corner of Luke’s mouth lifted in a prideful grin. “Sure did. Before the Navy and after. Your mom never got the hang of it, though.”

“No?” Annie asked.

“She wasn’t the athletic type.”

“What type was she?” Timmy asked.

“She was every other good type known to man,” Luke replied in a melancholy whisper. “Well, come on. Let’s get you kids over there.”

As Luke walked up to the marina office he saw two dozen children under the age of ten dressed in shorts, sandals and bathing suits, wearing very eager expressions as they listened to Captain Redbeard. “I want all those who can’t swim at all to form a group to my right. Those who can swim to my left.”

Timmy froze as the kids scurried around to regroup. Luke looked down at his son. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell Captain Red I can swim.”

“But that’s what you’re here for...to learn how to do it right.”

Timmy’s face was filled with fear. “He’ll make me wear water wings like the little kids.”

“Timmy,” Annie said, “you are a little kid.”

Timmy pointed to the non-swimmers’ group, which consisted of several four-year-olds and one three-year-old still wearing pull-up diapers. “Nah-uh,” he said. “
Those
are little kids.”

Luke took Timmy’s hand. “I’ll talk to Red and see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Timmy replied with visible relief.

Annie waved to one of her friends from school. “Dad, I see Madison! This is going to be a great summer!”

“I’ll be back at four-thirty to get you guys,” Luke said as Annie took off running toward her friend without a second glance back at him.

The marina office was surrounded by a wide, covered porch and from the roofline Red had installed navy blue canvas awnings to shield both the building and large groups of people from the summer sun. Beneath the awning, a few parents sat in rows of folding canvas chairs for this morning’s orientation. Luke noticed that two more families arrived late, just as he had, which helped to assuage his guilt somewhat.

Luke realized that the number of children was quickly climbing to three dozen. He spotted two young men, whom he guessed to be sixteen or seventeen, wearing matching white bathing trunks and fluorescent-orange lifeguard sweatshirts. They had the requisite warning whistle on nylon twine around their necks, and they were both deeply tanned, though it was only early June.

Each lifeguard took one of the groups and ushered them toward a newly raked section of beach where they would give the kids instructions.

Red’s wife, Julie, sat at a picnic table registering the families, taking money and handing out information packets.

Two fathers came up to Red and began bombarding him with questions. Luke looked at his watch. He needed to help Timmy, but he also needed to get to work.

The sound of a woman’s voice calling sculling commands grew louder. Luke looked up and saw that the sculling quad was quickly rowing toward shore. Red looked up at the same moment.

“Hey, Luke!” Red shouted over the heads of the fathers, who were talking to each other and to Red at the same time. “Do me a favor?”

“Sure,” Luke replied.

Red reached in his jeans pocket, pulled out a set of keys and tossed them at Luke. “Heads up.”

Luke snatched the keys.

“The ladies are coming in from their row. Would you unlock the boathouse for me and help them put the boat up? I’ve got my hands full here.”

“No problem,” Luke said. “Then I need a favor. Timmy wants to be with the big kids.”

Red smiled. “I gotcha. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. Tell him to join his sister. I’ll talk to Jason, their instructor.”

“Great.” Luke looked down at Timmy. “You’re all set. Go over there with Annie.”

Timmy’s smile filled his face. “Thanks, Dad.” Timmy sauntered off as if he’d just won a sweepstakes.

Luke arrived at the boathouse as the female sculling team rowed up on shore. He instantly recognized Sarah as she expertly lifted her oars and got out of the boat. She was wearing a navy blue swimsuit with white banding, navy lake shoes and a white sweatshirt that she’d tied around her shoulders. Her blond hair was tied up on top of her head, but the wind had blown errant locks around her face and neck. As she walked toward him, the morning sun caught in her windblown hair, creating a halo around her face. It was the first time Luke had actually looked at her. He realized she was pretty.

* * *

“H
I
, L
UKE
,” S
ARAH
said with a tentative smile. If she understood anything about him, it was that he was a tinderbox of anger. She didn’t want to do or say anything to set him off. Treading softly was the way to go with temperamental people, her mother had told her. What she didn’t understand was the happiness that overwhelmed her, just seeing him. Sarah’s heart skipped a beat and she felt a flush fill her cheeks. Why was he here? Had he been watching her? His eyes were steady, measuring her movements as she walked up to him. She couldn’t help wondering what was running through his mind. And why, oh why, did his resolute gaze elicit such a thrill?

“Sarah,” he said, unlocking the boathouse doors and opening them wide. He walked over to the boat where the other three women were watching him with skeptical expressions.

Maddie was the first to speak. “Luke. What are you doing here?”

“My kids are enrolled in Red’s summer camp. He was too busy to help you with the boat. He enlisted me.”

Maddie nodded. “He’s good at that.”

Sarah stood next to tall, willowy Liz with the mane of honey-blond hair. “This is Liz Crenshaw,” Sarah said. “Liz, meet Luke Bosworth.”

“My pleasure,” she said, holding her oars in her left arm and extending her right hand to shake his.

“And this is Isabelle Hawks. We all went to high school together,” Sarah explained.

“Nice to meet you, too, Isabelle,” Luke said. “And did you all row back then?”

“We did.” Maddie grinned. “Sarah was our fearless leader, then and now. She rides us all the time to improve our skills.”

“Yeah,” Liz added. “We could probably win the Olympics. She’s that good.”

Sarah shook her head and laughed. “Kidders. They’re always like that,” she told Luke as they picked up the boat and carried it into the boathouse.

Luke helped hoist the boat onto the rack where it would stay dry and protected.

“Thanks for the help, Luke,” Maddie said. “I have to run. I have to make a hundred cupcakes for a wedding anniversary party I’m catering tonight.” She elbowed Isabelle, who was gawking at Luke.

Isabelle jumped at the jab to her ribs. “Right. I gotta get to the Lodge. Edgar will have a fit if I’m not there for breakfast seating.”

“You work at the Lodges?” Luke asked.

“I’m the bookkeeper, actually.”

Sarah chuckled and looked up at Luke. “She’s being modest. She does everything there. She’s Edgar’s right arm, but he doesn’t give her enough credit.”

“I’m off, as well,” Liz said. “Nice weather like this brings out the tourists for wine tastings.”

Sarah waved to her friends as they quickly scooted off to their respective cars.

Luke locked up the boathouse doors. Sarah walked back with him toward the marina.

“Luke, I want you to know that I meant it about paying for your kids’ clothes. Beau...”

“Forget it,” he said sharply.

Sarah was taken aback by his terse reply. She wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed because they’d been at a counseling session together and she knew some personal details about his life with Jenny, or if maybe he just didn’t like her.

“It’s just that I feel awful and I wanted to apologize.”

“Sarah,” Luke said, stopping. “I was a jerk to you, okay? I’d like to forget it. Can we just put that behind us?”

“Sure.” She smiled up at him.

“Good,” he answered and began walking again.

“Well, I hope your kids like Red’s summer camp. I did when I was a kid. Of course, I was older than they are. You know, Red was my trainer for sculling. He coached me all through high school. He’s really great with kids. Plus, he has a built-in audience for all his stories.”

“I’m not worried about Annie fitting in. She loves everybody. If I know my daughter, she’ll have the entire camp reorganized by next week.” He laughed.

“She likes things orderly?”

“She’s compulsive. She’s the first one up. Annie insists on making all our lunches. I can’t talk her out of it. She even counts out milk money for her brother. She has lists everywhere. It could make you nuts.”

“Sounds like my kind of girl,” Sarah said. “I can’t live without my lists—both on paper and computer.”

Luke took out his car keys and pointed to his Ford F-150. “This is me. Have a good day, Sarah.”

“You, too,” she said and went to her red Envoy and got in. She waited while he backed out and drove away. She noticed that he gave her a wave. She lifted her hand in return.

Glancing back at the beach as the instructors began handing out water wings, Sarah spotted Annie holding her little brother’s hand and talking to him. He seemed upset about something but he listened intently to his sister’s counsel.

Sarah remembered Luke telling Margot that he wanted to join the counseling group because he was trying to be a good dad to his kids. She had to admire that. Even if it had been at the urging of a friend, Luke had taken the big step to seek help. There was still a chance he’d never come back to the group, but Luke impressed her as the kind of guy who was driven to do the right thing, even if it meant swallowing his pride.

She had encountered Luke Bosworth three times now, and each time she’d seen a different side of him. The first time he’d been, in his words, a jerk. The second, he’d been emotionally shredded, angry at God and the fates. The third, he’d been a regular guy, just taking care of his kids. A guy who had planted hopeful seedlings in Sarah’s fertile, romantic mind. Although Luke was a puzzle to her—one with severely jagged edges—she liked that he’d set down roots in her thoughts.