One Summer (7 page)

Having been brought up in the steamy Southern bayou, Adèle had admittedly taken a while to get used to life in the Pacific Northwest, but now, after all these decades, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

The Knitting Nook was less than half a mile away. She’d been there so many times, she could probably make the walk in her sleep. She strolled along Harbor Boulevard, turned right on Sea Stack Road, left on Parkside Drive, and up the hill, where the bronze statue of a young woman looking out to sea, waiting for her fisherman husband’s return, was the centerpiece of an emerald green expanse of grass. The gardens were in full bloom, the glossy-leafed azaleas boasting a dazzling display of red, pink, yellow, and orange bushes that reminded her of a summer sunset over the ocean.

A group of children were scrambling over a crayon-colored jungle gym while their mothers, clad in hooded rain parkas, sat chatting on a fir green bench. One of the mothers, a stroller by her side, saw Adèle and waved. Although Adèle didn’t recognize her, she smiled and waved back.

Then, continued on her quest.

For … what?

She froze in her tracks.

It’s not that difficult.
She took a deep breath that was meant to soothe and clear her mind. It didn’t.
Just think back to what you were doing when you decided to leave the house.

Her mind, which was beginning to panic, was blank.

Surely she couldn’t have been gone for very long. Shelter Bay wasn’t that large. And she’d walked over every inch of it during her time living here. So if she knew where she was headed, she’d know why she’d gone out.

But even if she knew what she’d left the house to get, it wouldn’t help her. Because as she looked around in a slow circle, taking in the tidy row of shops and houses with their colorful wind socks blowing in the sea breeze, the gleaming white pillar of a lighthouse flashing its light, as it did every day and night, the iron bridge over the bay, connecting the town to the coast, she had absolutely no idea where she was.

The trick, she’d learned, was not to get flustered. Which was difficult to do with her heart racing and her blood pounding in her ears.

She took another deep breath. Then another
. In.
The sound of the foghorn from the Shelter Bay lighthouse tolled its warning.
Out.

Again.
In. Out.

Her legs had turned wobbly. Afraid they’d crumble beneath her, she began half walking, half stumbling along, convinced that if she just kept moving forward, something, someone, would look familiar and her world would be back in its usual calm place.

The clouds covered the sun and although it was June, the temperature began to drop. One thing about this part of the country—if you didn’t like the weather, all you had to do was wait ten minutes and it would change.

See.
Adèle experienced a glimmer of optimism.
You remember that old saying.
So, surely she’d figured out where she was. And how to get home again. Because whatever she’d gone out for no longer seemed all that important.

She sank down on a blue bench and clasped her hands tightly together. Despite the chill, beads of sweat formed on her forehead and at the nape of her neck. If she hadn’t already passed through the change, she’d think she was having a hot flash.

Gulls trailed a blue fishing boat, their strident squalls sounding unnaturally loud. The iron bay bridge began to tilt as her head spun.

Afraid she was going to create a scene by passing out, she closed her eyes. Felt the pain as her fingernails dug into the backs of her hands, even as she welcomed it because it was a tattered link with reality.

“Mrs. Douchett?”

The soft voice made her jump. Her eyes flew open. Startled, she looked up and saw a lovely young woman standing in front of the bench. Her hair was pulled back in a tail beneath a red baseball cap and her eyes were filled with concern.

“I’m sorry.” Adèle wiped her damp brow and tried to place a name to the somewhat familiar face. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

“I’m Charity Tiernan,” the woman said.

Prayers of faith, hope, and charity were a standard childhood morning routine when Adèle was growing up. And didn’t 1 Corinthians 13:13 read, “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity”?

If she could remember all that, why did she have no idea who this person was?

Dr.
Tiernan,” the woman clarified gently. “I’m a veterinarian.”

Relief flooded over her as recognition dawned. “You’re the one Maureen and Lucien got their new dog from.” Her son and her daughter-in-law had adopted their coonhound, Laffitte, from the veterinarian’s no-kill shelter after their previous hound had died.

“That would be me.”

“You also put their other Laffitte to sleep.”

“Again, me.” Her gentle eyes turned a little sad at that, reminding Adèle that her son and daughter-in-law had told her the veterinarian had made the emotionally painful process soothing and even dignified. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked. “Do you need help?”

It was hard to admit failings to anyone. Let alone a person she barely knew. But Adèle felt safe with Charity Tiernan. Also, she had no idea how long she’d been gone. She certainly didn’t want Bernard to return home and discover her missing. Wouldn’t that upset everyone?

“I’m afraid I’m lost,” she said. She drew in a deep breath and decided to go for it. “And a little confused.”

Usually people got a serious, worried look on their faces whenever she’d reluctantly admit to that. But the vet surprised her by laughing.

“Aren’t we all from time to time?”

The young woman shifted the bag she was carrying in her right hand to her left. The bag was white, with the name
Tidal Wave Books
printed over a big blue wave.

“Were you here to buy a book?” Charity Tiernan asked.

Adèle thought about that. She’d bought a great many books at the store over the years. But …

“I don’t think so.” She felt the sting of tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t remember.”

She liked that the veterinarian didn’t fuss over her, but merely said matter-of-factly, “I’d never remember a thing if I didn’t make lists. Then I usually forget and leave the list at home, which isn’t all that much help. So, since my shopping is done, and whatever you were out to get probably isn’t all that important anyway, what would you say to stopping by Take the Cake on the way home for some coffee and—”

“I was going to have a cupcake.” The memory hit like a bolt of lightning from the lowering sky. “Lemon coconut.”

“One of my favorite kinds, although lately I’ve gotten hooked on the tropical island. It’s like a Hawaii vacation in a cake.”

After flashing her a dazzling smile that warmed even as it reassured, Charity Tiernan took out her cell phone, scrolled through her list, and said, “I’ll call the Douchetts and tell them we’re having a girls’ day out and you’ll be home in a while.”

Adèle nearly wept with relief. “Thank you.”

The phone call was brief, to the point, and mentioned no facts about how the veterinarian had found her in an embarrassing state of confusion. As the young woman gently braced her arm, Adèle remembered that Take the Cake was on Harborview, just three blocks from Lucien and Maureen’s bait shop.

While the veterinarian chattered merrily about the weather and the book she’d bought—a photo book by that Marine who’d been taking pictures at Adèle’s grandson’s wedding—Adèle thought that once again Corinthians had gotten it right—the greatest of these was Charity.

Her eldest grandson was now happily married. Sax, her middle one, after giving his mother more than a few gray hairs over the years, was engaged. Which left the youngest, J.T., who was currently serving in Afghanistan. But even Marines couldn’t fight all the time. Maybe she should suggest her daughter-in-law invite Dr. Charity Tiernan to J.T.’s welcome-home party.

The matchmaking fantasy had Adèle smiling as they walked together down the hill toward the bay.

The military, which couldn’t exist without acronyms, had one that Gabe thought fit this damn dog situation perfectly:
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
. What the Fuck.

After separating from the Marines, he’d taken off without any plans in mind other than to wander the country he’d been away from for seemingly forever and take his photos as they occurred to him. The plan was to
have
no plans.

Which was why the dangerously appealing Dr. Charity Tiernan didn’t fit into the scheme. She was, he determined, the empress of planning. How else could she have gotten through veterinary school and managed to run both a clinic and a shelter? And wasn’t she already planning to hook him up for life with that mutt?

“Like that’s going to happen.”

Gabe didn’t have room in his life for any damn dog. And especially not for any vet, even if she did smell like temptation and have him thinking things he had no business thinking.

Gabe had trudged through the hellhole of Iraq, across the mountains of Afghanistan in both blizzards and sandstorms that had pitted his night-vision goggles. He’d sweated in jungles and fought night hand-to-hand combat in countries most Americans would never have heard of, let alone been able to find on a map.

He’d had bad guys trying to kill him more times than he could count. And, in turn, though his job was technically to take photos, there’d been firefights when he’d killed more than he wanted to think about counting. Admittedly, he’d always felt himself invincible when viewing the most deadly firefight through the lens of his Nikon. But never, in all his years, had he run across anyone who represented more danger than Shelter Bay’s vet.

She had him remembering a time when he’d believed anything was possible. When he’d thought that sometimes, for a very chosen few, life really could have a happily forever-after ending, like those TV movie matinees his mother used to watch every afternoon.

There’d been something between Dr. Charity Tiernan and him. More than a spark. Something deeper. Something that, if he had any sense, would have him running for the hills.

With the exception of his ill-fated, short-lived marriage, Gabe had always considered himself a sensible man.

So the thing to do, he decided the morning after dropping the mutt at the clinic, was to write the veterinarian a generous check, then get the hell out of Dodge.

Take the Cake was, as the last time Adèle had visited with Bernard, doing a brisk business. And no wonder, the way the aroma of baking pastries was wafting out onto the street. The bakery was more than just a place to buy cupcakes. It had become a gathering place for locals, with its pretty white wrought iron tables inside and out, and what the owner was promoting as the best coffee in town. A fact with which Adèle, who still made hers the old-fashioned Louisiana way, with chicory, couldn’t argue.

As luck would have it, a couple vacated one of the tables on the front patio just as Adèle and Charity Tiernan arrived.

Also fortuitously, the sun had made its way through the clouds, burning away the mist. After suggesting Adèle sit down, the vet went inside and placed their orders.

“I love this bakery,” she said when she returned outside to the table. “I can see why Kelli chose cupcakes for her wedding.”

“They were certainly popular,” Adèle agreed as the day flashed back with blessed clarity. “You caught the bouquet.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice, since it smashed against my chest,” the vet said with a wry smile as she peeled back the yellow paper on a cupcake topped with a seashell executed in buttercream. Adèle’s lemon coconut was adorned with a yellow rose. Along with the fabulous taste, Adèle admired the pretty blond baker’s attention to detail. It was the same sort of perfection she aimed for in her own work, whether it was serving as a housekeeper when she’d been a younger woman, painting as she used to love to do while living in the coast house, or, these past years, knitting.

“You didn’t exactly look thrilled,” Adèle said, remembering.

“I’m not the least bit superstitious, so I’ve never believed that old saying about the woman who catches the bouquet’s destined to be the next married.” Charity licked a bit of coconut/pineapple cream cheese frosting off her thumb. “Still, I’m not sure marriage is in the cards for me.”

“Why not?”

Adèle had discovered that one of the advantages of getting older was that you didn’t have to beat around the bush. You could flat out say things and ask questions that might be considered out of line for a younger person. She’d always spoken her mind, but there’d been a time when she would have been subtler.

Now, as she entered the twilight of her years, she’d come to the conclusion that there really wasn’t any point in wasting time with tact.

“I’m all for the idea in theory, but I’m starting to wonder if I lack a marriage gene. My parents have each been married so many times, I’ve given up trying to keep track of anniversaries.”

“Just because they behave like butterflies, flitting from flower to flower, doesn’t mean you’re destined to. After all, you were engaged once. And called it off at the altar, from the way I heard it told.”

Adèle cringed inwardly when she heard those words escape uncensored. Direct was one thing, but that comment had bordered on rude. Something she’d always prided herself on never being. But more and more often, especially since her fall, she’d found herself saying her thoughts out loud. There were times she worried about that, but Sofia De Luca, who’d been her closest friend for decades, had assured her that she did the same thing, even more often since her husband died. And wasn’t Sofia the most down-to-earth, commonsense person Adèle had ever met?

If she was bothered by the idea of having her private life fodder for Shelter Bay’s gossip line, the young woman didn’t show it. Instead, she merely shrugged.