It was too soon. She still dreamed of Matt sometimes. Of being on top of him, of looking down at him through a tunnel of her long hair. The smell of him sometimes met her around corners, stopping her in her tracks. But those were just needs, weren’t they? Not specific to Matt, if she could feel this way again with Wes.
Oh, God. She couldn’t do this again.
And yet she didn’t step away. For several long, glorious moments, she just let Wes hold her, hold her up and feel her weight grow lighter. Beads of sweat trickled down her chest, between her breasts. The electric fans the band brought only managed to move the hot air around, not cool things off.
She finally looked up at him, searching his face for some answer. His eyes went to her mouth, like that day on the dock. He slowly leaned forward.
And that’s when she saw the car.
As people came and left, cars had circled the lawn all day, so the blue BMW approaching didn’t appear out of place to anyone except Kate.
There was nowhere to park, so the BMW simply stopped in the middle of the driveway near the main house.
And Cricket emerged.
She was wearing dark jeans and a loose white blouse, and her dark hair formed a perfect helmet around her head that the humidity could not touch. She was just so cool and measured. Nothing about being here, about stepping into this foreign situation, seemed to bother her.
Kate stepped back from Wes and immediately looked for Devin, hoping her daughter wouldn’t see Cricket. She knew how she would react. If Kate had known her mother and father were planning to leave that day fifteen years ago, Kate would have cried, would have screamed, would have hidden. Anything to keep from leaving.
She found Devin sitting under a picnic table with the other girls. They were chewing on ice, secreted away in their own little fort.
“Are you all right?” Wes asked.
“Yes,” she said, turning back to him. His color was high. “I’m sorry. I see someone I need to talk to. Excuse me.”
She could feel his eyes on her as, every muscle in her body tense, she walked over to Cricket, who was now standing by her car. She was surveying the crowd, getting a feel for it.
Cricket took off her sunglasses and carefully put them on her head as Kate approached. “So this is what has been taking up all your time,” she said calmly, so calm that she could only be angry.
“What are you doing here?” Kate demanded. She didn’t belong here. Everything about Cricket being here was wrong. She brought Kate’s old life with her; Kate could even feel it trying to settle over her skin, like dressing her in clothing she didn’t want to wear. This must have been what Devin felt like every day of the past year.
“You forced my hand when you stopped answering your phone.”
“So you drove four hours here?” Kate asked. “If you found out where it was, then you knew there was a phone number.”
“But then I would have missed that charming little dance,” Cricket said with a click of her tongue. “Who was that?”
Kate didn’t want to tell her. This had nothing to do with her. But Kate had created this mess. She had let Cricket think that her life was hers to control. It was time to fix this. “His name is Wes.”
“Is that who you really came here to see?”
Kate sighed. “No. Of course not. I told you. Devin and I found a postcard. We came here to see my great-aunt, Eby.”
“So you were dancing like that with a man you just met.”
Kate paused, wrestling with Cricket’s control. She almost squirmed with it, but she didn’t want to give Cricket the satisfaction of seeing it. “No. I met him here when I was twelve, the last time my family visited. He lives here. In Suley.”
“Matt has only been gone a year,” Cricket hissed.
“I know that.”
“How quickly you move on,” Cricket said.
“Quickly?” Kate asked, her voice rising. “I could barely function when he died. I lost all direction when I lost Matt.”
“Which is why you need me. Enough of this. I came here to see what the lure of this place was, and I found it, obviously. I want you and Devin to come back with me today. We will make this new commercial and introduce you to the city. And you and Devin will be at my side when I announce I’m running for Congress. You owe me this, Kate. I’ve spent the past year trying to get you ready for this. It’s going to happen. Where is Devin?” Cricket looked around. The little girls had left their secret hiding place and were now zigzagging through the crowd in a game of chase, invisible comet tails trailing behind them. Devin was wearing her tutu, this time with a neon green T-shirt and dozens of plastic pearl necklaces, so she was hard to miss. “My God, all that time I spent getting her out of those clothes, and you just let her wear what she wants.”
“I’m letting her be a kid. This doesn’t last long. It will be gone before she knows it.”
“Devin! Devin!” Cricket called. She held out her arms. “Come to Grandma Cricket!”
“Cricket, don’t,” Kate warned.
Devin stopped in her tracks, and Kate could almost see the color drain from her face when she set eyes on her grandmother. She looked at Kate, and her expression broke Kate’s heart. Kate thought Devin had been coming around, but the moment Devin saw Cricket, Kate realized that her daughter still didn’t trust her. Devin still didn’t trust her to make this right. Devin turned and ran away, disappearing into the crowd.
Cricket dropped her arms and turned to Kate accusingly. “Where is she going? What have you said to her about me?”
“I haven’t said anything to her about you. Go home, Cricket. If you leave now, you can be back before dark,” Kate said, taking a step back toward the party to go after Devin.
“Wait, is that Lazlo Patterson?” Cricket asked. Lazlo was standing in front of one of the fans near the dance floor, and his laughter had caught Cricket’s attention.
Kate turned back to her, surprised. “You know him?”
“I’m in real estate in Atlanta,” Cricket said. “Of course I know him. I’ve never done business with him, though. Rumor has it that he’s connected. What is he doing here?”
“He wants to buy Lost Lake from my great-aunt.” Kate paused. Even though she was a good six inches taller than Cricket, Kate could feel herself standing up straighter, as if steeling herself. “I want to buy it from her instead.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“Oh, Kate,” Cricket said with a shake of her head, as if she pitied Kate for even thinking such a thing. “You don’t want to mess with Lazlo Patterson. You don’t know anything about real estate or about running a place like this.”
She honestly believed that. She had no idea that Kate ran Matt’s bike shop. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care. “You don’t know who I am or what I can do. I know what’s best for myself and my child. Go back to Atlanta, Cricket. I’m going to find Devin. If you had just given us some warning, I wouldn’t have to go after her to tell her you’re not here to snatch her away, like some witch in a fairy tale.”
“Did you just call me a witch?” Cricket asked.
Kate walked to the lawn, searching. Cricket followed her, until Kate managed to lose her by walking directly across the dance floor in the middle of a song. Kate then walked quickly to the main house, where the scent of chocolate cake was thick and cool in the air. She checked the sitting room, the dining room, then went to the kitchen. As soon as she entered, the chair by the refrigerator shifted slightly, as if the wind from her entrance had moved it. She exited by the back of the house. No Devin. She jogged down the path to their cabin. She went inside and checked all the rooms, calling her name. Nothing. As she hurried back to the lawn, she stopped to look in the windows of the other cabins.
Now she was getting worried.
She finally found the little girls Devin had been playing with earlier, back under the picnic table, eating pilfered potato chips. She bent down and asked them, “Have you seen Devin?”
“She ran that way,” one of the girls said, pointing toward the right side of the lake. “Into the woods.”
“Kate?” Eby called from the next table. “What’s wrong?”
Kate straightened. Lisette and Jack were now sitting with Eby. “I can’t find Devin. She ran into the woods.”
“What?” Eby said, standing. “Why?”
“Because my mother-in-law just showed up. And Devin probably thinks she’s here to take her back to Atlanta.”
Wes approached them. He’d been on the periphery for a few minutes now, watching what was going on, taking in the worry on all their faces. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Devin just ran away, into the woods,” Eby told him.
“The cypress knees?” he asked Kate. He looked ready to run.
Kate shook her head. There was no taste of lake water in her mouth, no silt on her skin. Devin was dry and hot, in sunlight. Kate didn’t know how she knew these things, just that this place seemed to want to let her know. “No, the other direction.”
“Let’s go,” he said, heading for the lake. Kate followed. Eby, Lisette, and Jack brought up the rear.
“Kate? What’s going on?” Cricket said, trotting up to her. “Where are you going?”
“Stay here, Cricket. Devin ran into the woods when she saw you.”
“This is no place for a child. If you can’t even keep an eye on her—”
“Don’t.” Kate stopped and spun around to face her. “Don’t you dare.”
Kate caught up with Wes. Cricket hesitated, then followed them anyway, because heaven forbid someone else could be right for a change.
Wes was walking fast, studying the trees along the lake path.
“Shouldn’t we divide up?” Kate asked Eby. “Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Of course it would be better,” Cricket said. “Why are we trusting this person? Does he know where he’s going?”
Eby gave Cricket a passing glance, but one that could see right through her. She almost seemed to pity Cricket. “Wes’s ancestors are people from the swamp. They know these things. They’re all like that, the people in Suley. They never get lost.”
“This way,” Wes said, ducking under some brush where there were a few broken limbs.
It took about ten minutes. They were all calling out Devin’s name and making enough noise in the leaves and twigs that she could probably hear them coming a mile away. They were sweaty and scratched from the whip-thin limbs of new shoots, when finally Wes stopped.
“There she is,” he said, pointing to an incline, where part of Devin’s tattered tutu could be seen from the tree she was unsucesfully hiding behind. She was sitting on some moss, her back to the trunk. The trees were thick here, and the canopy of limbs above dappled the light around them. Kate took a moment to steady herself, to swallow the panic and anger. Devin didn’t need anger. She needed someone who understood, and Kate was that person. She used to be Devin.
The rest stayed behind as Kate walked up to her.
Devin had her legs pulled to her chest, a sad, angry ball of tulle. “I’m not going back,” she said.
Kate crouched in front of her. “You can’t stay in the woods all night.”
“No, I mean I’m not going back with her,” Devin pushed herself up and faced the others. She pointed at Cricket.
“Devin,” Kate said.
“It’s wrong,” Devin said to her mother. “Her house is not the right place to be. You can’t just let people take things from you. You’ve got to fight it. Why aren’t you fighting it? This is a good place. This is the right place. Why doesn’t anyone see that? Do something!” Devin said, her voice growing louder. She looked at all of them accusingly.
They just stood there. Devin faced her mother. “You let her talk you into things you didn’t want to do,” she said. “Why did you do that?”
“Do something!” she shouted again.
Lisette looked away from the intensity of Devin’s stare. Jack put his arm around her.
Kate shook her head, emotion thick in her throat at this wild, delicate creature, this painted child in her bright colors and glasses, in the middle of nowhere, trying to fight for something that wasn’t her fight. “I was sad, sweetheart.”
Devin, starting to cry, turned desperately to Cricket. “I love you, Grandma Cricket, but I don’t want to live with you. Mom and I can make it on our own. Mom just thought she needed you, but she doesn’t. She was just confused.”
Cricket’s lips pinched and she pivoted and walked away. She hated for me to cry, Matt once said about his mother. Cricket Pheris is worse at grief than she is at love. She doesn’t know how to “move on.” She knows how to turn away.
“It’s okay, Devin,” Kate said quietly, and she lifted her crying daughter into her arms.
“We’re not going back, are we?” Devin asked, her arms tightly around Kate’s neck.
“No, sweetheart.” Kate rocked her back and forth. “And if you had just asked me, instead of running away, I would have told you.”
Cricket had started walking in one direction. But Wes headed in another. “This way,” he called to her, and she reluctantly changed course. Slowly, they retraced their steps back to the lake, Kate carrying Devin the entire way.
They emerged from the trail, and the party was still in full swing, a hot mass of music and laughter and smoke from the grills. No one seemed to notice their battered group except Lazlo, who walked down to meet them, just as they reached the dock. His lawyer hurried after him, briefcase in hand.
At first, Kate had an odd impression that he was worried about them. But that notion was quickly dispelled when he said, “Eby, there you are. It’s getting late. Let’s go in the house where it’s cool and sign these papers, shall we?” Lazlo’s eyes slid to Wes. “Wes, son, have you changed your mind?”
Eby turned to him curiously.
“I told Lazlo yesterday that I wasn’t going to be investing in the development, after all. I want to keep my land.” Wes looked at his uncle flatly. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.”
Over her mother’s shoulder, Devin was watching the girls on the lawn, her eyes following them like they were flashing lights. “Mom, can I go play?” Devin asked, which was code for I’m tired of trying to make you foolish adults see what’s right in front of you, and I want to go be a kid now.
Kate set her down. “Stay where I can see you.”
“Bye, Grandma Cricket,” Devin said, patting her arm. “We’ll visit soon, okay?”
Cricket smiled slightly, and they all watched Devin run up to meet the other girls. For a moment Kate felt indescribably sad, because she couldn’t go with Devin back to her childhood. She could only stand here as an adult as the distance became greater and greater until, finally, there was an ocean between them.
Eby put her hand to her chest, her fingers worrying along the neckline of her T-shirt. “Lazlo,” she said, turning back to him. “I’ve changed my mind, too. Lost Lake isn’t for sale.”
“Now, Eby,” Lazlo said, condescending, impatient. “I’m afraid we had a deal.”
“I haven’t signed anything.”
“We shook hands. We had a verbal agreement, witnessed by that mute woman.” He pointed to Lisette, who sucked in her breath. “Wes might have been smart enough not to shake on it, but I’m sorry to say, you weren’t. Timing is everything.”
Eby stood up straighter. “I am perfectly free to change my mind.”
“Do you really want to do this the hard way?” Lazlo asked. “I’ll sue. We’ll go to court. Legal fees will take what little money you have left, and you’ll end up losing the place anyway.”
Lazlo’s lawyer looked uncomfortable, his eyes focused in the distance as if imagining himself somewhere cool, somewhere there was no Lazlo. Eby simply stared at him in disbelief. Lisette was puffing angry air through her lungs. Jack looked at her in concern. Wes was shaking his head, as if this was no surprise to him.
It was Cricket who finally br
oke the silence by holding out her hand to Lazlo. “Cricket Pheirs, Pheris Reality in Atlanta.”
Lazlo looked surprised as he shook her hand. “I know you.”
Cricket laughed her business laugh. What was she doing? Was she trying to drum up business at a time like this? “We’ve never formally met, but, yes, I believe we’ve seen each other at functions.”
“What are you doing here?” Lazlo asked.
“Eby is apparently my granddaughter’s great-great-aunt.” Cricket waved the subject away. “It’s complicated.”
“I don’t need a real estate agent.”
“I’m sure you don’t. I was just going to offer some advice. And if you know me, you know my advice doesn’t come cheap. There’s a reason why we do these things in private,” she said. “There’s a crowd of people here who could complicate this process if they knew what was going on. From what I can gather, they’re here in support of her, not you.” She leaned forward and said in a confidential tone, as if speaking to the only other competent person here, “I suggest you wait for a more appropriate time. They’ve had a little scare. The child ran away. Emotions are high right now.”
Lazlo looked Cricket up and down. Everyone who had come out of the woods had scratches or tears to their clothes or bits of debris in their hair. Everyone except Cricket. Her shirt was sticking to her chest with moisture, but her hair hadn’t moved an inch and her makeup was still perfect. Her eyebrows and eyeliner were very subtle permanent tattoos, and she had extensions on her eyelashes. Lazlo hesitated before saying, “Fine. I’ll be back tomorrow. It will be your last chance. One more chance, Eby. That’s all I’m giving you. Come on,” he said to his lawyer, nearly knocking him over as he shoved past him. “Christ, I hate this heat. I need to go back to the hotel and change this suit.”
As soon as he was out of earshot, Cricket turned to Eby and said, “Get a lawyer. Fast.”
“What are you doing?” Kate asked, incredulous.
“Think of it as a parting gift,” Cricket said as she took her sunglasses from the top of her head and put them on. “I’ll put your things in storage when I get back.”
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