The Barefoot Believers (21 page)

“It's not for sale.” Jo stood back and folded her arms over the closed file at last. She had a sly smile, not mean-sly but more self-assured-sly. “But if you think you can handle it, I'll play you a game.”

It was that smile as much as the actual challenge that brought Moxie across the threshold. The “if you think you can run with us, then prove yourself” nature of Jo's expression. It was, at its heart, an invitation to be one of them, if just for a while. How could Moxie refuse that?

“Be warned. I am the undisputed Wa Hoo champion of the greater back booth area of Billy J's Bait Shack Seafood Buffet.”

“Well, bring it on, sister.” Jo pointed to one of the two empty seats at the kitchen table. “Because you have just entered the domain of the Dream Away Bay Court Big Cottage Wa Hoo master herself.”

“I'm greenies!” Moxie said, plunking down at exactly the same time Jo shouted her own version, “I call greensies!”

Vince pointed a finger at his old friend. “Moxie called it first.”

Jo slapped the file down in front of the man. “Just for that, you get to go over these estimates and tell me how you can beat them when you take this place on for us.”

“Take this place on? Am I still doing that?” He leaned forward, baby and all, and turned his head so that everyone could see him looking at Kate on the couch.

Seemingly oblivious, Kate held up a jigsaw-puzzle box and shook it by her ear.

“You can't tell if there are any missing pieces that way, Kate,” Travis called out, his eyes on Jo and not the woman he spoke to.

“I'm not looking for missing pieces,” Kate snapped back, also not making eye contact. “I'm listening for my key.”

“You sing in the key of jigsaw?” Moxie had no idea where that came from, it just came out.

Jo snorted out a quick laugh, then nudged Moxie in the arm. “Unless you've actually heard her sing, you have no idea how funny—and accurate—that is.”

Moxie blushed. “I, um, was just kidding.”

Kate did not respond. “The key to my treasure chest.”

“Oh, like that makes a lot more sense to these nice people,” Jo called out, then she leaned in and lowered her voice. “She found a metal file box under the stairs—”

“Marked Important Documents or something like that?” Moxie had found that box years ago when she had made a quick inventory of the contents of the whole house for insurance purposes. “I almost sent that to your mother the first year I began looking after this place.”

“Thank you for not doing that!” Kate set the puzzle box down, picked up another and shook it.

“Yeah, well, after careful study of the printing—”

“And the misspelling,” Jo rushed to point out.

“And the misspelling,” Moxie agreed. “After looking that over I decided to leave it. I was a kid once myself.”

“You weren't much more than a kid
back then
yourself,” Vince chimed in.

“Well, back when I was a kid, I kept all my valuables in there. I think it's mostly postcards and seashells. I was twelve, tops. It couldn't be much. Anyway, I hid the key and now I don't remember where.”

Travis leaned in now, too, his hand just inches away from Jo's. “And you don't know, either?”

“I hid it
from
her,” Kate interjected.

“And even without having known her long, that's precisely why I can imagine she knew, at least once upon a time, precisely where to find it.”

Lowering her eyelids and giving a delicate quirk of her lips, Jo sent Travis the message, “You have me pegged, and then again, there is so much more you have to learn about me,” in a look.

Moxie didn't think she'd ever sent out such a flirtatious and yet confident message in one fleeting glance in her entire life. Maybe if she stuck around here, she could pick up a thing or two from this Jo. Not that Moxie's boyfriend's work would ever slow down long enough for him to look at her, even fleetingly.

The puzzle-shaking began anew from the front room.

“I don't have any idea where she last hid the key,” Jo confessed. Then she turned to Vince. “Why don't you go help Kate look for it?”

Vince did not move right away.

Jo kicked the leg of his chair under the table.

He scooted back.

A puzzle box hit the floor. “I don't need any help.”

“I thought you wanted me to go over these estimates.” Vince snagged the file and flipped it open.

Moxie tried to hide her gratitude that she hadn't stuck that offer in there.

“Bring them out here. I can look at estimates while I search for my key.” Kate never lifted her head. “The sooner we get through with this place, the sooner we can go ourselves.”

Vince sighed and stood. He started to give the baby to Moxie but Travis intervened with open hands.

“I'll take her, if you don't mind.”

Fabiola cooed and reached for Travis's face.

The sight tugged at Moxie's heart. That baby needed her daddy so much. Where was he? Why was Vince here instead of Gentry? Moxie looked away.

“You look good with a baby, Travis,” Jo said softly.

“Yeah? I like kids,” he said. “Always wanted to have a couple of my own.”

“Why haven't you ever started a family?” Jo asked.

“Just have to find the right girl, I guess.”

Jo scootched to the edge of her seat, clenching the bag of marbles in both hands, probably to prevent her arm from shooting into the air with her fingers wriggling as she begged breathlessly, “Pick me, pick me.”

“Keep your eyes open, Trav. She may be closer than you think.” Moxie pushed her chair up.

“I'll take that into account, Mox.” He put his lips alongside the baby's neck and blew a raspberry.

Fabiola squealed with delight.

Jo emptied the marbles into her cupped palm then picked up a green one and handed it across the table to Moxie. “I think you and I could be friends, don't you?”

“Does that mean you'll let me borrow a pair of shoes sometime?”

Jo hesitated.

She'd asked too much.

To join the game. To tease the older sister. To take a place at the table
and
to borrow cute shoes? Too much.

Moxie wet her lips to buy time and think of a way to kid herself out of overstepping her bounds.

Jo dumped the rest of the marbles then raised her head and offered her hand to Moxie. “If a friend can't walk a mile in your shoes, who can?”

“Nobody could walk a mile in your shoes, little sister.” To make it all official, Kate threw her two cents in. “But you are welcome here anytime you want, Moxie.”

One firm, resolute shake. Moxie had done it a thousand times over countless deals, but this time felt different. Better. Bigger. As if she had just committed herself to an adventure she could not yet imagine.

T
he next morning, Kate awoke in the small bedroom instead of nursing an aching back on the couch. For a moment, no, just a sliver of a hint of a moment, all the years since she had last slept in this bed fell away. She was young. She was on the verge of something new and exciting. She was…

She stretched her arms out. Her joints cracked. Her back ached. Every muscle in her body clenched, leaving her as stiff as the thin, unyielding mattress she had just spent the night upon.

She was fooling herself.

In more ways than one.

She pushed herself upright, careful not to bump her head on the slanted ceiling of the dormer where her small twin bed sat tucked away beneath what had once seemed to her a window that framed her every hope and dream. She did not need to lean forward and put her face near the glass to know what she would see out that window.

Dream Away Bay Court. The mystery house. And beyond that, a good deal of Santa Sofia.

Kate did not want to gaze out upon any of it this morning.

Why bother?

It was not as if she planned to stay here much longer.

With that thought, the image of Vince standing in his drive the other day, holding darling little Fabiola, overtook her. Overwhelmed her, really. The way a swift, deceptively powerful wave rolls in after its gentle predecessors and overwhelms an unsuspecting ocean gazer. Kate dragged air deep into her lungs but that did not chase away the sadness or the stab of pain that thinking of Vince brought on. Not just Vince. Vince and his new family.

No, the baby wasn't his daughter, but unless something changed very soon, he was going to be the child's primary father figure.

“Oh, Gentry. What happened?” she murmured, trying to picture how the boy she had known as a caring if clingy six-year-old had grown into a man who could abandon his own wife and child.

It occurred to her that maybe she had played some part in it. Had her leaving all those years ago caused a sort of disconnect in the boy, or between father and son, that had these kinds of long-term effects? She of all people knew that the smallest of things could have a profound impact on a child.

Why wouldn't they? Children are small. Their worlds are small. Their perception is small. They are so vulnerable and often at the mercy of people, concepts and realities that are much too large for them to comprehend.

Wasn't there a Bible verse about thinking as a child then putting away childish things? She reached out to the nightstand and pulled open the single drawer. There it was, her old paperback Bible with the teal, magenta and orange designs on it, meant to make it look
radical,
the word of the moment back then for
cool.

She smiled, drew it out and quickly found the verse she had been thinking of, 1 Corinthians, 13:11.

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things,” she read aloud then set the book back on the nightstand, her curiosity satisfied but her heart far from it.

Kate had done away with childish things when she'd still been a child. That was when she had learned that the people we love do not always love us back. The people we trust are not always worthy of that trust. And things we think we should have for a lifetime can be taken away in the blink of an eye.

She thought of young Gentry.

Then of Fabiola.

Then last and most achingly of her baby sister Christina.

I wasn't born old. I grew old too fast.
Kate's own words rang through her mind.

“If only,” she whispered.

If only she had called out that night when she'd heard her father creeping out the door and driving off in the brand-new shiny truck that he and Mom had fought so much over. Kate couldn't have known he'd had the youngest of the girls with him, or she would have called out, she had told herself time and again.

But deep down, Kate could still feel that sense of relief that had enveloped her when she knew her father had left their home. The same sweet reprieve she had felt every year at this very cottage when they had escaped from the harsh reality of first a bad marriage and then a broken family. She had been glad he was gone and so she had stayed silent. That was a childish mistake she had determined she would never repeat.

But had she repeated it? Had her silence, her absence, brought about more pain for someone she had loved?

Guilt constricted her chest even all these years later. Heaped on top of that was the new realization that her choice to let fear of that same kind of loss had driven her away from Vince and Gentry when she was an adult and should have known better. What if she had stayed back then?

No one could guarantee that they would have lived happily ever after. They had only been unofficially engaged, after all. She'd loved Vince then, of course. Who was she kidding; she loved Vince still.

But when she had left, had he followed? Had he even once asked her what she was so afraid of? Maybe he hadn't really loved her? Or maybe he'd been scared, too, and young.

Still, if he had learned anything from that time, why would he stand by and allow—no, enable—Gentry to do the same thing to Esperanza? Why didn't he tell his son to go after his wife, to fight for his family? After all, Fabbie and Esperanza were Gentry's family. Unlike Kate.

Then again, Kate had never told Vince how she had felt, so maybe…

If she had it to do over again? Kate shut her eyes. She had made that decision already, hadn't she? She could not stay and risk involvement with Vince and his family. Esperanza was young and pretty. If she and Gentry did not work out their differences, she would surely move on and take Fabiola with her. How could Kate knowingly set herself up for something like that?

A damp draft overtook Kate. She shivered then threw her blanket around her shoulders. Hunched over, she scooted her way to the window to push it shut, only to find it closed and locked. And letting in air from somewhere.

She ran her fingers along the sides and bottom of the sill to try to find the source of the chill. Nothing.

She shuddered again. She'd have to come back and look for the gap later in the day, when it was warm in the upper rooms and she'd welcome the coolness. Of course, by then the breeze would have stopped blowing, she mused, throwing the cover off and sliding out of bed.

The flash of blankets in the confined space caught the Bible by the corner and sent it tumbling downward.

Kate reached out and caught it before it thumped to the ground, but not before something small, metallic and as shiny as a new dime fell out. It somersaulted through the air then pinged against the hardwood floor.

“The key!” She grabbed it up and pressed the icy metal into the warmth of her palm. “Now I remember. I hid it in my Bible because I thought Jo wouldn't have the nerve to snoop for it in there.”

Travis had pegged Jo perfectly yesterday when he'd accused her of having a knack for finding Kate's most prized, and secret, possessions.

“Wow.” She put the Bible back in the drawer, promising she wouldn't go so long without opening it up again. Then she sent the key sailing in the air like a penny flipped in a coin toss.

Slap.
She caught it between her hands and laughed.

Maybe this morning did still have some promise left in it, she thought, edging her way off the bed and onto her feet, using the wall for support.
I'll just make my way downstairs and while the coffee is brewing have a little look-see at what's in that old treasure chest, before Jo starts snooping around trying to find out what secrets are in there.

She couldn't recall when she had last put anything in the box. So she had no idea what to expect to find. Pictures cut from fan magazines of teen heartthrobs? A piece of driftwood she had thought particularly pretty? Some old photographs taken the year she had gotten an Instamatic camera? Whatever it was, Kate realized she had once thought of it as treasure and she wanted to see it by herself first.

She touched the Bible and said a quick prayer of gratitude. Yes, she had put away childish things too soon, but she couldn't help but feel thankful that in spite of that, she had found this small bit of her childhood again. Maybe seeing those things would help her forgive her younger self, or at least accept the past for what it was—past.

At the very least it would get her mind off Gentry, Esperanza and Fabiola, and her own role in their distressing situation.

From where she stood, she could see the mystery house, if she wanted to see it. She cast her gaze downward as she put the Bible back in the drawer, reminding herself not to allow this treasure to languish there too long. Then she reached out to put the covers back on the bed.

In that instant something caught her eye. A figure. A movement. A flurry of white flouncing and flitting in the street below—and heading directly for her cottage.

“Hello?”

Kate froze at the sound of Esperanza's voice coming from the front porch.
Let Jo deal with it.

Kate held her breath and listened for Jo's response. Anything, from her already being awake and downstairs to swinging open the door, to her groggily calling out the window of the bedroom across the hall, “Go around back. That porch isn't safe.”

Nothing. Not a peep.

“Jo?” Kate called.

No answer.

“Can you get that?”

Still no answer.

“Please. Please. Wake up.” The cry came above the pounding on the door.

Kate grabbed the top blanket and wrapped it around herself but she did not make a move for the bedroom door. “Jo? You're faster on your feet than me, take care of that.”

Not so much as a fake snore from the direction of Jo's room.

More pounding downstairs, then finally, “It's the baby. I need to see the doctor.”

Before she had a chance to think about how stiff she felt or how much her foot would encumber her, Kate was out the door and in the stairwell calling, “I'm coming.”

“Please. I don't know what to do. She was—”

Kate flung open the door.

Esperanza's face rivaled her white cotton nightgown for paleness. Her dark eyes appeared enormous and bright with tears and terror. “She was fine last night.”

The girl barged in with the baby's pink cheek smooshed against her shoulder.

Fabiola fussed, though quietly, and pushed at her mother's grasp. A good sign, Kate concluded. If the child had gone limp or lethargic or, even worse, stiffened suddenly, that would worry her more.

She put her hand to the baby's forehead. Hardly scientific but a method that had served mothers and healers for ages. “She is very hot. We need to get that temp down.”

Esperanza nodded.

“Have you given her anything?” Kate moved into E.R. mode and began a cursory exam.

Emergency medicine initially had seemed tailor-made for her—fast-paced, little personal involvement and instead of having to move on every so often, an environment that changed constantly. Her rotation in the E.R. had dissuaded her of those notions quickly. Unlike the constant excitement portrayed on TV, the only constant in her experience was boredom, broken up for a few minutes every now and then by sheer chaos.

And in those moments, the chance, however small, that she would have to make one of those big decisions she could not fix or take back. Not for her.

She had learned, however, about dealing with cases just like Fabiola's. Many a panicked parent had passed through the doors with a sick child in the middle of the night. More now that so many people had no health insurance.

She would tell them what she was about to tell Esperanza. “We can do some things to help get the fever down immediately but we need to get her to her doctor as soon as possible so we can rule out any serious underlying causes for the fever.”

“But you're a doctor,” Esperanza whispered, her face grim.

“But this is not a hospital or doctor's office. I don't have the equipment or facilities to do anything but basic home care, sweetie.” Kate pried the baby from her mother's arms. “Now, I have some liquid acetaminophen in my first-aid kit. I'll give her the right dose and get her into a cool bath. You go back to your house—”

“I don't want to leave my baby.” Esperanza reached out to the child.

Kate held firm. “Just long enough to throw on some clothes and shoes and to get her pediatrician's phone number.”

The young mother stepped back, hesitated, then said quietly, “She doesn't have a pediatrician. So far her father hasn't stayed at a job long enough to get insurance and I just started working at Billy J's.”

“Okay.” Again the guilt over how Gentry had turned out and how she might have affected his growth stabbed at her. She did not have time for that now, so she pushed it aside. “Okay. Go home and get dressed. Use the back door, though. We can't risk you falling through the porch and getting hurt right now. When you get back, we'll go.”