Touching Stars (9 page)

Gayle walked through the house, where about a dozen kids had taken over the cavernous reception area. Most of them were sprawled on the comfortable chairs and sofas, chatting, while a group of six sat around the game table playing Texas Hold’em with poker chips. She could hear the television from the guest parlor around the corner. There she found another pile of teenagers raptly watching a DVD of Christopher Reeve flying through the air.

She stepped past them and opened the glass doors leading out to the patio, scanning the land going down to the river for her youngest son. She was about to hike down when she heard a commotion from the front.

She started down the patio steps and around the inn. She arrived just in time to see a blur of fur and hear the snarling of several dogs in a tangle in front of the porch. Dillon was kicking at them, risking a serious injury, and yelling at them to stop.

She heard Cray cursing at the dogs as he ran in from the other side, and saw Jared bearing down on them. Brandy, whom she had hardly seen that night, was close on Jared’s heels.

“Get back, everybody!”

She heard a shout and recognized Leon’s voice. She had only glimpsed her foster son when he’d arrived about an hour ago. Even from a distance, he had looked tired and glad to be back at the inn, even temporarily. They hadn’t had time to catch up.

A hard stream of water cut through the air and landed in the center of the dog fight. The snarling turned to yips. In seconds the mass of canine bodies separated into three entities. Cray’s half-grown pup, and two strange dogs, one that looked like a collie mix and the other a close relative of a German shepherd.

The shepherd took off and leaped into the back of a van that was parked not far away. Gayle realized the old Chevy was the one the band had used to haul their equipment. From the sidelines a boy dove for the collie, locking his arms around the dog’s neck before it could disappear down the road. That dog, too, went into the van, although not under its own power. Then the van door slammed shut.

Cray was busy examining his puppy.

“I tried to stop them,” Dillon said, kneeling down in what was now a mud puddle to help Cray look over the dog. “I tried! Is he okay?”

Leon was winding the hose around two hooks that rested against the house behind the flower beds.

She went over to Dillon and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? You didn’t get bitten?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How about standing up to let me see?”

He grumbled but got to his feet. He watched Cray examine the puppy as Gayle examined
him
to be sure none of the dogs had sunk their teeth into a leg or foot. “Is he going to be okay, Cray?” Dillon said. “I tried to stop them.”

Cray, a tall boy with a brown buzz cut and cherubic round face, got to his feet. “I think he’s okay. It wasn’t your fault, Dill. Nightmare shouldn’t have brought their dogs along. They were bound to get out of the van.”

Gayle didn’t point out that Cray should have left his puppy home, as well. She was too shaken to risk it.

Leon arrived, and she put her arm around him for a hug. “Quick thinking. We’ve missed you around here.”

“I saw somebody do that once. It gets the job done.” He went over to the puppy and stooped to do his own exam. “I don’t see a problem, do you, Cray?”

Cray clapped Dillon on the back. “Thanks to our man here. You slowed them down, Dill, even if you couldn’t stop them.”

Dillon looked as if the light of heaven was shining on his blond head. His grin stretched all the way across his face.

Gayle looked up to see Eric at the edge of the crowd. He looked paler than he had before, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to pass out. She left the boys and went to him. “Dillon’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“I wanted to get to him.”

“Well, it happened pretty fast. And you’re in no shape to wade into a dog fight.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “Maybe not. Who’s the kid who stopped it?”

“Oh, that’s Leon, more or less my foster son.”

“He’s got a cool head.”

“You’ll like Leon.”

“Another kid for you to mother, huh?”

Her warm feelings cooled perceptibly. “Leon
needs
a mother. Kids do.”

“You’ll never have enough people to take care of, will you?”

She wasn’t sure if her reaction was due to the moments of fear or was just the real Gayle stepping forward, but she took Eric’s arm, not a loving hold but a hard grip.

“You’d better be glad of that, Eric, or maybe you wouldn’t be here this summer.” Then she released his arm and went back to make sure that Cray’s puppy was okay after all.

“He’s a great kid.” Jared watched Dillon romping with Grapevine. It was a dumb name for a dog, but Cray had found Grapevine when he was off on one of his solitary forced marches into the mountains. Someone had abandoned the puppy, who wasn’t even two months old, and he had been hopelessly tangled in a web of grapevines. Cray had cut him free, then carted him down the mountainside and straight to the vet. Luckily Grapevine was a survivor.

“Dillon’s nothing like you, though, is he?” Brandy asked. “He’s, like, hyper or something.”

“Yeah, maybe a little, but he’s probably smarter than anybody else in the family. He just doesn’t know how to handle it yet.”

“Maybe he’ll, like, grow into it.”

“He will. Mom works with him all the time. He’ll be okay.”

Brandy examined her toenails, which this evening were painted vampire-black. She wore flip-flops studded with rhinestones, and more rhinestones snaked up the inside leg of her jeans, a trail to hidden treasure.

Very tight jeans. Jared hadn’t failed to notice.

“Your dad is gorgeous.”

“Yeah, that’s what people say.”

“He was really nice to me. Nicer than your mother is.”

“My mother’s never said a mean word to you or about you, Brandy.”

“Maybe not, but I can tell she’s afraid I’m going to take you away from her.”

Jared bit off the protest that rose to his lips.
Cray’s
mother was possessive. Like Gayle, she was a single mother, but unlike Gayle, she had nothing in her life except her son. Consequently, Cray could hardly wait to get out of the house.

Jared’s mother, on the other hand, had never suggested Jared cut off any options. His happiness was at stake, not hers. He knew being a mother was important to Gayle, but he suspected she was going to like being the mother of independent adults just as well.

Brandy was right about one thing, though. Gayle
was
polite to his girlfriend. Brandy was always invited to family events. But Jared thought Gayle probably didn’t like her very well. Not because Brandy was trying to pry him from his mother’s arms, but because Brandy wanted to lock hers around him and keep him from flying solo.

Brandy took his arm when he didn’t respond. “You look a little like your dad. And I can sure see where you get all that charm.”

“I’m afraid I’m too much like him.” The moment he said it, Jared wished he’d continued his silence.

“How could that be a problem? He’s, like, famous. He goes all over the world, and everybody knows who he is, at least people who watch the news. And he’s funny and gorgeous—”

“You said that already.”

Brandy dropped his arm. “You’re being a jerk.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to see if there’s any dessert left. And maybe I’ll go talk to your father. He’s nicer than you are.”

Jared didn’t try to stop her, though he knew that was what she wanted. He watched her wiggle her hips as she walked away. Earlier she’d told him that she had a graduation present for him and all he had to do was claim it. He supposed the wiggle was rubbing the offer in his face.

He decided to lose himself in the crowd in case she came back. He made a plate of nachos, then wandered around talking to friends. He ended up at the grill, where Travis was just putting the last of the hot dogs on a platter. He wore a splattered chef ’s apron and somehow managed not to look silly.

“Did you know you were going to be cooking when you came tonight?” Jared asked. “You should have run for the hills.”

“Of which there are plenty to run to around here.” Travis turned off the grill and wiped his hands on a dish towel. “I figure cooking tonight is good practice for camp. We’ll be doing plenty of it. How are you holding up? Feeling any letdown now that graduation’s come and gone?”

“Nah, not really. I guess I will, huh?”

“It would be natural if you did. You’ve set the high school on fire. You’re a leader.”

“You know the problem with that?”

Travis lifted a brow in question.

“You don’t know if people like you because of who you are or because of what you represent. You know, because other people think you’re important.”

“You can’t always tell, can you?”

Jared thought about Brandy. He’d never been completely sure whether she was in love with him or the idea of who he was. The class president. Star of the basketball team. Top student. And lately, and worst of all, the son of a man who for a few days had become the nightly news instead of just the man reporting it.

He wished he had a beer. He was sorry he couldn’t sneak off to another party, one where parents turned a blind eye on underage drinking.

Travis reassured him. “I think it’s safe to say most people like you just because of who you are. I’m glad I got to watch you do a lot of your growing up.”

“Thanks. Me too. You saw a lot more of me than my dad did.” Jared turned toward the porch. He could glimpse Eric, but there were people standing around him blocking most of Jared’s view.

“I’m glad he was here to watch you graduate. For any number of reasons.”

“He could have died.” Jared turned back to the grill. “And it might have been my fault.”

“What do you mean, your fault?”

Jared had made his announcement in an offhand way, but Travis always listened carefully. Jared supposed he had known Travis would hear his words and pick up on them. Otherwise, why would he have spoken them?

Travis came around to stand beside him. “How could your father’s troubles have anything to do with you?”

“Nothing. I guess I’m being stupid.”

“I doubt that.”

Jared held out his plate of nachos as an offering. Travis took one. Jared was reminded of communion services at the church, where Reverend Sam asked the congregation to offer the bread to each other, like a gift from the heart.

“I wrote him, when he was in Afghanistan,” Jared said. “I said something that might have made him angry.”

“You must have had a reason.”

Jared didn’t—couldn’t—answer.

“Jared, even if your father was upset by your letter, what does that have to do with what happened to him?”

Again Jared couldn’t answer. There was a lump in his throat that words would not circumvent. He looked away.

Travis seemed to understand. “Tell me what you know about your dad. The big things.”

Jared shrugged.

“Then shall I tell you what I see?”

Jared cleared his throat. “If you want.”

“A man with a lot of confidence. One whose job is important, and one who’s pretty much developed tunnel vision about it. It’s a tough job, and you have to grow a tough hide to do it. That means you take a lot of criticism, you scramble over a lot of barriers. And you learn to let go of everything that keeps you from doing whatever you’ve set out to do.”

Jared thought about that. “So?”

“So, even from the little I’ve seen, the man sitting up on that porch might be hurt by a letter from somebody he loves. But I think your dad probably put your letter to one side, walled it off, if you understand what I mean, to deal with later, once he got home.”

“Well, he hasn’t. Maybe he just forgot about me and everything I said. Because he hasn’t brought it up, that’s for sure.”

“I doubt he’s forgotten it. Maybe he’s just feeling his way.”

Jared wondered if Travis was right.

“You have to talk to him about whatever’s bothering you,” Travis said. “You have to set this straight.”

“You can’t talk to my dad about anything important,” Jared said.

“You have to accept the possibility he’s changed.”

Jared wondered. And he wondered why it was so easy to talk to Travis Allen, who was just their neighbor and friend, and so impossible to talk to the man whose genes he carried.

B
y midnight all the adults were gone except Travis. By one o’clock even he had called it a night, and most of the new graduates were gone, as well. Some had migrated to other parties; some had likely decamped to a favorite swimming hole downriver, where no adult chaperones would oversee their activities. The smartest—and possibly the dullest—exhausted from graduation and everything that had come with it, had headed home to bed. The dozen or so who remained sat around the fire pit reminiscing about their school years.

By two, Gayle turned off the outside lights, woke and evicted two girls who had fallen asleep in front of the television, and finished putting the very last of the leftovers in the refrigerator. Jared was taking Brandy home and hadn’t yet returned, but except for her own boys, the property was finally free of teenagers.

She leaned against the refrigerator and closed her eyes. The kitchen smelled like pizza and chocolate, the ultimate comfort foods, and through her thin blouse the refrigerator felt cool and solidly reassuring. She was so tired she wasn’t sure if she could make it across the patio to the carriage house. She wondered if anyone would find it odd if she slept on a sofa or even a rug. Not to mention that the house was filled with empty beds….

The moment that thought hit her, she realized that the house
was
filled with beds, but were they empty? Even with only a few functioning brain cells, she knew she had to drag herself upstairs and check every one of them. There was no telling who had wandered in and up during the party. She had made a serious attempt to keep an eye on that kind of traffic, but she hadn’t been able to monitor every moment.

“Just…great.” She pushed herself away from the refrigerator and shook her head, hoping blood would flow to her brain long enough for her to manage a quick inspection.

Out of the kitchen, she started up the inside stairwell, which by summer’s end would be graced by the Touching Stars quilt. She listened as she crept quietly upstairs, but she didn’t hear signs of life. Next week, when the inn opened for business again, the house would fill with overnight guests. But for now—if she was lucky—Eric had the entire main building to himself.

Trudging quietly up and down the hallway, she opened doors and peeked into rooms that were blessedly empty. The two rooms on the third floor were also vacant, the duvets unrumpled. Now she could finally go to bed herself.

Back on the second floor, she was careful to walk on the hallway runner to muffle her footsteps. As far as she knew, Eric had gone to bed around midnight. But just as she was about to start down the steps, light crept under the door of the Lone Star room, and she heard a crash.

For a moment she considered ignoring both. Eric had probably gotten up to use the bathroom, turned on a lamp and knocked something over. She was still upset over his condescending remark about Leon, and even more upset that she had indulged in a response. What had been the point? Both of them knew that her joy in nurturing and his lack of it had contributed to their divorce. If Eric couldn’t see that inviting him for the summer was similar to extending a hand to Leon, then why had she needed to point it out?

More light brightened the hallway, and she realized he had turned on a second lamp. She heard footsteps in his room. Poised somewhere between flight and duty, she succumbed and rapped softly on the door.

She listened, thought she heard a muttered invitation, and opened the door. Eric was bare chested and barefoot, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a grimace.

“I was doing a final check of the rooms,” she said, trying to ignore the sudden image of a younger Eric disrobing for a night together. “Are you okay?”

“I knocked over that fruit bowl Dillon brought up here.”

Dillon, on a quest to fatten up his father, could not be persuaded that the basket he and his brothers had assembled before Eric’s arrival contained enough food. So he had filled Gayle’s favorite wooden salad bowl with a medley of fruit and installed it on Eric’s night table. This level of concern was an emotion she could hardly discourage.

She circled the bed and stooped to pick up apples and oranges, while Eric worked on grapes and cherries, a task she wasn’t sure her fine motor skills were up to at this hour.

“Were you having a problem sleeping?” she asked. “Maybe it’s the silence. You probably thought the party was going to go on all night.”

“I heard dogs barking.”

“Really? After that awful fight the only dog left at the party was Grapevine, and Cray took
him
home an hour ago.” She looked up, and saw Eric had stopped retrieving fruit. Instead, he was staring into space.

“I
heard
them,” he said. “Even if they weren’t there.”

She went back to work, eager to get to bed. “Sound carries in strange ways in the mountains. Maybe I’m just used to dogs in the distance. Or too tired tonight to notice them.”

“It’s not a sound you forget.”

His voice sounded strange. She glanced at him again. His hand was frozen in midair, as if he’d forgotten that a task had been planned for it.

The sight of that hand, always wide and long fingered, made whatever she’d planned to say catch in her throat and dissolve. Eric’s formerly beautiful hands were like talons. The fingers seemed thin as needles, the skin rippled in distorted waves. And the hands were trembling.

She sat back on her heels. Her voice was low. “You were having a nightmare.” It wasn’t a question.

He looked down at his hand, then up at her. “It’s nothing.”

“
Nothing
wouldn’t have woken you. You look like hell, Eric. What can I do?”

He went back to work, but slowly, as if he were forcing his brain to remember and guide every step. “Why are you still up?”

“I told you, I was checking rooms. It hit me that some of the kids could have slipped up here to one of the guest rooms.”

“Wouldn’t that have been fun to discover.”

“I’m having enough trouble dealing with my own sons thinking about sex. Imagine the fun if I discovered their friends in demonstration mode.”

She realized she was talking about sex with her ex-husband. And sex had never been one of the problems in their marriage. She looked up, her cheeks warming, and saw that Eric had managed a smile.

“So they’re just
thinking
about sex?”

“If they’re doing anything else, they aren’t sharing it with me. Last week I asked Dillon about a girl in his class, and he told me that from that moment forward I was not to discuss his love life.”

“Love life?” Eric gave a low laugh. “We’re really going to have our hands full with that one.”

Nothing astonished her about the sentence except the plural
we.
For just a moment she considered how lovely it would be to turn over all things related to male sexuality to Eric and let him paddle through those muddy waters without her help.

“Yes, well…” She picked up the last orange. “He does look just like his dad.”

“He’ll need to look to somebody other than me to teach him how to deal with women. I’ve never understood them. You of all people should know that.”

“We’re getting dangerously close to joking about the dissolution of our marriage.”

“What’s a little humor between the perfect exes? Didn’t we win some award for Best Divorce of the Twentieth Century?”

Her head snapped up. “Did we?”

He was back at work on the grapes, pinching them between his fingers and dropping them in the bowl. “Yeah, and it was a problem for a long time.”

“What was?”

“All that goodwill. No knock-down drag-outs about who got what. No fights over child support or visitation rights. The boys are mine whenever I want them. I give you every penny I can spare. When we talk we have cordial conversations. If you get married again, you’ll probably ask me to give you away.”

“Oh, not much chance of that.”

He found the last grape. They went for the last handful of cherries together, and their hands collided, his on top of hers. Both of them were perfectly still, as if viewing a moment from their past.

Gayle was the first to pull back. “I’ll wash the fruit for you.”

“I’ll do it in the morning. Don’t bother.”

They were facing each other now. She cocked her head and tried to ignore the familiar chest, the ribs as prominent as corset stays. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ignore where their conversation had been leading. “Why is goodwill a problem?”

“I bet it’s a problem for you, too. Think about it.”

“It’s late, and it would be nice to have a shortcut.”

“Because you didn’t give me much to be angry about. So I’m stuck with everything else, right out in the open. Guilt, regret, sadness. No anger to hide behind.”

She was surprised they were talking about this now, after more than a decade had passed. And in the middle of the night, to boot.

He went on. “So, for a while, I was angry about not having anything to be angry about.” He smiled wanly. “You too?”

“I had a little more to work with, Eric.”

He turned up his hands in defeat. “Maybe I had to dredge up a few things. Maybe I concentrated a little too much on your tendency to nurture everything that moves.”

She realized he was apologizing for his comment about Leon. She gave a brief nod of recognition.

“And maybe I tried to ignore the fact that even the silk plant that somebody left in my condo died from neglect.” He approximated something that looked like the old Eric grin. “Maybe I tried to make that a virtue.”

“Nobody can kill a silk plant.”

“One day I came home and all the leaves were on my floor in a pile. I’m not kidding.”

She smiled, but it died quickly. “If somehow I left you with the impression that you’re just another example of my need to serve, don’t believe it. I want you here for the sake of our sons. You’re not some random charity case I’ve taken in off the street.”

“I know.” He tried to smile again, but he suddenly looked too tired.

Gayle rested her hand on his arm. Despite herself, she couldn’t back away and pretend he was just another boarder. Their relationship was too old and too complicated—even more complicated, she was beginning to understand, than she’d let herself recognize.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I need to take a sleeping pill, that’s all.”

“Let me get it. Tell me where.”

She watched him consider. Did he allow her to perform this kindness, further deepening his debt, or did he muddle through? He let out a breath, not quite a sigh, but audible. “Thanks. The bottle’s in the bathroom.” He hesitated. “I just need one.”

She found the pills, doled out one and ran a glass of cold water from the tap. Back in the bedroom, he was sitting on the side of the bed, his long legs just touching the floor. She handed him the pill and watched him swallow it eagerly.

“Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.

He looked torn. That surprised her, since Eric rarely hesitated about anything. It was one of the reasons he had risen in his field, not carelessness, not a fool rushing in, but a man who could swiftly weigh facts, then act on them decisively and fearlessly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a big favor. And I know you’re dead tired.”

“What is it?”

This time he did sigh. “Would you stay a little while until the pill takes effect?”

“Here? With you?”

“This is a good prescription. Once it kicks in, even if I have nightmares I won’t wake up, and I won’t remember them in the morning. But the pill takes a while. And if I just doze right off now, I might…”

Her voice was soft. “Nightmares are no surprise, Eric. You went through a lot.”

“Knowing that doesn’t seem to help.”

“Go ahead, lie down. I’ll stay until you look like you just can’t keep your eyes open another minute.”

“You’re sure?”

“Go ahead, get comfortable.”

He swung his legs up and settled them under a sheet, but tonight it was too warm for a blanket. The ceiling fan stirred the air, but even his sweatpants looked too hot for early summer—although she wasn’t about to suggest he strip down further.

She wasn’t sure where to look or what to say. She decided to tell him so. “When somebody’s been through everything you have, it’s hard to know what’s acceptable to ask.”

“Harder to know what’s acceptable to talk about.”

“You can talk about anything you want.”

He stared up at the ceiling. “How about what a fool I was?”

“For taking the job in Afghanistan?”

“No, for staying too long when I was clearly past my usefulness. And for trusting the wrong people.”

She knew only the bare bones of the story. As an ex-wife, no one had felt it necessary to communicate many details to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“As a journalist, one of the first things you learn is to suspect everybody. And you multiply that times ten when you’re in hostile surroundings. I knew that. But I got cocky. After all that time in the country, I thought I could tell a friend from an enemy, that I had some kind of sixth sense about who was telling the truth and who wasn’t. Even though I was living in a different culture, with different signals.”