Rose Harbor in Bloom (4 page)

“I do.” Hailey straightened and stepped back. “It can get a bit chilly out here, especially if the sun goes behind a cloud. Would you like me to get you an afghan?”

“Please; how thoughtful.”

The teenager left and returned a couple of minutes later with a hand-knit afghan in warm pastel colors. She laid it across Mary’s lap and then added a pillow.

“Do you attend school here?” Mary asked.

“I do,” Hailey said. “I’m graduating on Sunday.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Any plans for the future?”

Hailey nodded with enthusiasm. “I want to go into hospitality and work in the hotel industry.”

“Wonderful.”

“It’s going to be hard to leave Cedar Cove, my family, and all my friends, but this is what growing up is all about, right? It’s time I tested my wings. That’s what my grandmother said.”

“She’s right.”

“Mom would like it better if I attended community college for a couple of years, but I got a scholarship for Washington State University.”

“Congratulations. How big is your graduating class?”

“Big. Six hundred.”

“That’s huge.”

Hailey agreed.

“My own graduating class was around that size. I was fortunate enough to be the valedictorian.”

“Really? One of my best friends, Mandy Palmer, is our class valedictorian. She’s so smart. Were you like that?”

Mary smiled. “I’d like to think so, but the ability to get good grades doesn’t necessarily translate into living a successful life.”

“Mandy will. She’s got it all together.”

“I’m sure you do, too,” Mary said.

“I wish,” she said, and folded her hands in front of her. “Is there anything more I can do for you?”

“It’s all good. It’s been a long day, and I’m feeling tired.”

“Then I’ll leave you. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be heading out soon, but Jo Marie is here. It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Smith.”

“You, too, Hailey.”

The teenager left, and, feeling better than she had since she’d stepped off the plane, Mary closed her eyes. It’d been a foolish decision to travel all the way across the country. Her oncologist had advised her against the trip. She needed time to rest, to give her body a chance to heal.

To her surprise, Mary felt her body relax and surrender to the warm bath of sunshine. Almost before she realized it she felt herself drifting into a light sleep. It was only natural, she supposed, that thoughts of George would fill her head.

No man had ever loved her the way George had. There’d been men before and since her affair with him, but no one had ever cared as deeply as the young attorney in Seattle almost twenty years ago.

She remembered the first time they’d met. It’d been a Saturday afternoon, summertime. June, wasn’t it? Yes, June. Her friend Louise had suggested lunch at the Seattle Center and made reservations at the Space Needle. They were to meet at the base of the Needle. Mary waited outside, but her friend hadn’t shown up.

Growing restless, Mary had paced the area, checking her watch every few minutes. She’d been so intent on looking at her wrist that she’d inadvertently bumped into a man on the sidewalk. That man had been George.

After apologizing profusely, she’d been pleasantly surprised
when he said he’d been stood up for lunch himself and wondered if she’d be willing to join him. Seeing that she already had a reservation and it was a shame to let it go to waste, they’d taken the elevator to the restaurant. Rarely had she clicked with anyone the way she did with George. Their attraction was strong and immediate. They enjoyed a three-hour lunch. Later, he confessed that he’d told her a fib. He hadn’t been meeting anyone, but had instantly felt drawn to her.

Later, Mary learned that her friend had gotten an emergency phone call. Her father had suffered a heart attack. These were the days before personal cell phones, and Louise didn’t have any way of letting her know what had happened.

Seeing how well her afternoon had turned out, Mary wasn’t complaining. George asked to see her again, and they met the next day and then the day after that. Inside of a month they were lovers. They were wild for each other, crazy in love, feverish. It had never been like that for Mary. Not before George, and not after him, either.

Mary worked for a brokerage firm, struggling in a man’s world, and was making a name for herself. She hadn’t wanted to move to Seattle, although it’d proved to be beneficial on a number of different levels. Her work often led her to travel to New York, and she had her eye on a key position with the firm there.

When they first met, George had just made partner in an up-and-coming law firm. They both worked long hours, and the week-long separations were hard. Yet they found ways to be together as much as possible. Three months after their first date, George proposed.

Even now, all these years later, Mary still remembered the disappointed look that came over him when she turned him down. Every instinct told her she was going to be offered the position in New York. George was a law partner, and she wouldn’t ask him to
give that up. Her gentle refusal hadn’t discouraged him, though. If George was anything, it was persistent. Mary lost count of the number of times he’d argued his point. He loved her. She loved him. Even if it meant traveling back and forth between coasts, they could make it work. Their love would carry them, and everything else was small stuff. They’d find a way.

Mary wanted to believe that was true, but after six months flying from one coast to the other, she could see what it was doing to them both. This was no way to live and certainly no way to raise a family. George wanted children; he loved kids, and he deserved to be a father. Frankly, she wasn’t good mother material. She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. Motherhood simply didn’t interest her. And so Mary had done the only thing she could, and that was to end their relationship. Once she was offered the position in the New York office, she accepted, sold her Seattle condo, and kissed George good-bye one last time. It’d broken her heart and his, but it was necessary.

He’d been stunned, shocked into silence, and unbelievably hurt. She’d hated to do that to him, but really there was no other way.

The cut was clean. Painful, terribly painful for them both, but quick. Two years later, George mailed Mary an invitation to his wedding. It was the one way he had of getting back at her, she supposed, of letting her know he had found someone else to love. Someone who was willing to give him all the things in life he wanted that she wouldn’t. Mary had wept twice in her adult life. She cried the day she got his wedding invitation, addressed personally to her in his own hand, and the other … well, that was the reason she was in Cedar Cove.

George had moved on, and for that she would always be grateful. Mary had loved George; she supposed she always would. She’d never considered marriage, but if she had, there could be only one man, and that was George. Wonderful, sweet, caring George.

Raising her hand to her forehead, she felt the stubble from her hair, which was just now starting to grow back, following radiation and chemotherapy. Mary sighed and reached for her tea.

Cancer.

The diagnosis had turned her life upside down. One minute she was at the pinnacle of her career. The next moment, following a suspicious mammogram report, she was looking stage-four breast cancer in the face and it had metastasized. Overnight her world changed. Instead of heading board meetings, making decisions, commanding attention, she was sitting in a chair at an oncology center and having medical professionals tell her how best to beat this disease. Instead of giving advice, she was on the listening end.

All her life, Mary had been a woman in charge. Nothing had stood in her way. She was smart, savvy, and sophisticated. She’d stood up to financial institutions, the federal government, and attorneys without batting an eyelash.

She’d risen higher than any woman in the firm to take over as vice president of one of the country’s largest New York brokerage firms. She was wealthy beyond her expectations. But money meant little when it came to cancer. She couldn’t intimidate cancer, couldn’t overwhelm it with the strength of her personality, couldn’t pay it off or hand it over to one of her personal assistants.

Nor could she ignore it.

Cancer was there, front and center, staring her in the face, leaving her with no options.

She was sick, and she could get much sicker. Everything that was possible had already been done. What was left was a period of waiting, of resting. In twenty years, Mary hadn’t sat still; her life had revolved around her career. Forced now to analyze her past, she was troubled by a series of decisions she’d made … decisions that involved George.

It was time to be honest. She’d been a straight shooter with others and was amazed she hadn’t dealt with herself the same way.
The excuses for traveling across the country slid off her tongue with ease.

Lies. All lies.

The time had come to own up to the truth. She was in Cedar Cove because of George.

“Mary?”

Mary’s eyes flew open and she saw Jo Marie standing in front of her. Gone were the apron and the comfortable jeans and sweater. Now she wore black slacks and a white silk blouse with a pink rose pin secured at the top button. “I need to run a couple of errands.”

Mary blinked, unsure why Jo Marie found it necessary to tell her this.

“Don’t worry about answering the phone.”

For the love of heaven, why would she do that?

“I’m having an open house on Sunday, and …?”

“Okay,” she mumbled, but she still couldn’t figure out why any of this was her business.

“I won’t be gone long, but Hailey is here if you need anything.”

“You don’t need to report to me, Ms. Rose. This is your home, and you can do what you like.”

“I realize that, but I felt you should know in case anyone arrives.”

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“Not really. But I was hoping …” She let the rest fade. “If you need anything—”

“I won’t,” she said, cutting her off. She regretted having chosen a bed-and-breakfast now. She’d heard they could be warm and welcoming. An online search had led Mary to the website for the Inn at Rose Harbor. She’d been wooed by the simple elegance and beauty of the inn. Looking at the online photo of the view had convinced Mary this was where she wanted to be, and she’d booked it.

“Don’t fuss over me,” she said, perhaps a bit too bluntly. Mary
didn’t want allowances made for her. Not because she had cancer. Not for any reason.

Jo Marie nodded and left. Her shoes made clicking sounds against the wooden steps.

Mary closed her eyes once again, intent on returning to her thoughts. For years she’d felt bad for the way she’d treated George, especially toward the end of their relationship. She’d been cruel, thinking she’d been doing them both a kindness. And now, sitting in the warm sunshine, with him possibly just across Puget Sound in Seattle, she felt an incredibly strong desire to see him again for what possibly would be the very last time.

She couldn’t. Wouldn’t, though. George was married. To disrupt his life now would be doubly wrong. She’d made her choice, and now she had no option but to live with it.

I was on my way out the door when the phone rang. For a moment I was tempted to simply let it go and be about my business. I couldn’t, though; I was in business, and this inn was my livelihood.

“Rose Harbor Inn,” I said automatically.

“Jo Marie.”

I recognized the voice immediately, and my back went rigid.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Milford.”

My hand tightened around the telephone receiver. The last time I’d seen Lieutenant Colonel Milford was at the memorial service held for Paul at Fort Lewis. From the moment I’d learned Paul had gone down on a mountainside in Afghanistan the lieutenant colonel had been wonderful. He’d patiently answered my questions; he’d offered me words of comfort. He’d promised he would do
everything within his power to retrieve my husband’s remains. He’d been Paul’s commanding officer. Paul had thought highly of him, and the respect had been mutual.

“I’m calling because of a promise I made to you and the other families who lost loved ones last April.”

“Yes.” I was barely able to get the word out from the constriction that tightened my throat.

“I told you at the memorial service that we would make every effort to retrieve Paul’s remains so you could give him a proper burial.”

“I remember,” I whispered. I was sure he was about to tell me Paul’s remains had been retrieved. Part of me wanted to hear it, needed to hear it, and at the same time I wanted to place my hands over my ears and shout for him to stop. If they’d located the crash site, that would be the final confirmation that my husband was dead. Despite everything I’d been told, all the assurances that Paul couldn’t have survived the crash, I couldn’t help holding on to the belief that he had somehow found his way out and he was alive.

“Jo Marie?”

Apparently, the lieutenant colonel had said something and I hadn’t picked up on it.

“Sorry.”

“The terrain where the helicopter went down was deep in the mountains and inaccessible, but with recent changes we are now able to operate within the area.”

He didn’t mention what those changes were, but it didn’t take much for me to speculate what had happened. Paul and his team had been sent deep into al-Qaeda-held territory. The mountain landscape had made it even more difficult to retrieve the bodies.

“Recent changes?” I repeated. I swallowed hard and bit into my lower lip. “Are you telling me I can bury my husband?” I asked, and my voice trembled as I spoke.

“Yes and no. As I explained, we now have access to the crash
site. A team has been assigned to go in and investigate. Once they do and the bodies have been retrieved, we will, of course, need to test for DNA.”

“Of course.”

“I promised to keep all the families updated.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Can I do anything more for you, Jo Marie?”

I wanted to shout at him to bring my husband back to me alive. I wanted him to return to me all that I’d lost on that mountain half a world away. But I knew that request was both impossible and unreasonable. Sooner or later I would need to give up this crazy notion that Paul was still alive. As long as Paul’s remains stayed up on that mountainside, I could pretend. I’d clung to that slender thread of hope because that was all I had left to hold on to.