Always on My Mind

by Susan May Warren

  “Augusta!”

  She tucked the bonds back in the suitcase.

  The door swung open.

  It seemed she recognized the man in the frame—solidly built, slicked-back dark-blond hair, handlebar mustache over thin lips, angry black eyes. He wore a gray pin-striped suit, an ascot at his neck, and carried a bowler.

  She stood frozen, her mind blank, as he stormed over, hooked his hand around her arm. “Don’t give me any trouble, now.”

  She struggled for words as he dragged her into the hallway, then righted her and held out his arm. “You’ll feel better once this is over.” He’d lowered his voice, but she found no comfort in his tone.

  She took the stairs down to the foyer and recognized it at once by the bright tapestry of colors adorning the walls—the green-lined draperies, the zigzag orange-and-crimson pattern on the ceiling, the eyes of the totem birds watching as her escort directed her toward a photographer. He stood with his camera and pointed to a chair. “Mr. Rothe, take a seat; Miss Franklin, behind him.”

  Duncan Rothe. The name came to her lips and might have tripped out because he glanced at her, trouble creasing his brow.

  She stood behind him, solemn, and he took her hand, placed it on his shoulder.

  The bulb flashed, the smoke acrid in the air.

  “Now by my roadster.” Duncan put his hand on her arm, one foot propped on the running board as he positioned her in front of him.

  She shivered in the piney breeze.

  “I need—” Her brain seemed snarled as if she couldn’t break free of the cotton webbing her thoughts. “I need—”

  “Inside, my love,” Duncan said, his hand gripping her elbow. “A moment of rest before the ceremony.” He directed her back upstairs, yet his smile faded as he pushed her inside her room.

  She heard the turn of the lock.

  I need . . . Thor.

  The thought pulsed, clear, rich, beyond the moaning, into the free.

  Yes, she needed Thor, and the more she said his name, the more he materialized in her mind. Thor, with his ruddy outdoorsy aura, blue eyes, the way he made her feel free and whole.

  Unafraid.

  “Thor!” She heard her voice, a rumble, deep inside. “Thor!”

  She beat on the door. Her body shook, her voice hoarse, her eyes burning. Thor!

  Then voices outside. She ran to the window, looked out. Spied Duncan glad-handing a man in a suit.

  No. She held on to the window frame, crumpling to the ground in her silk. Buried her head in her arms, breathing hard.

  A buzzing trickled into the room, wound around her beating heart like a bee or a wasp. She looked up, searching—

  The door banged open, slamming against the bureau, and she jerked, her gaze caught on the man in the frame.

  Dark hair, long around his ears. Blue eyes—the kind that could take her apart and rebuild her in a glance. Dressed in boots, leather breeches, a white cotton shirt open at the neck. Tanned where his shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his thick, sinewed arms, and an expression on his face that swept all thought but one from her mind.

  Casper.

  No, that wasn’t right. She frowned. “Thor?”

  “Run, Aggie.” He gripped her arms, pulled her to her feet, and laced her hand in his. Then he pressed a hard kiss to her forehead. “My car is out back. It’s time to go.”

  She gathered her skirt, but it seemed endless, the swaths and layers tangling around her knees. His hand loosened on hers, and his voice echoed, growing distant in her ears. “C’mon, Aggie! Run!”

  The buzzing again.

  She fell, fought to free herself from the dress, clawing at it, tangling herself, her breathing tight, short, gasping—

  “Oh!” Raina opened her eyes, still struggling as the afternoon pressed shadowy ghouls into her room. The sheets noosed her legs, her waist. Her heart pounded with the fading dream.

  So terribly real, she could still smell the lilac on the breeze.

  Her cell phone vibrated on the stand by her bed. She slapped at it, knocked it on the floor, then rolled over, groping for it under the bed.

  It had stopped buzzing by the time she curled her grip around it. Voice mail had already caught the message.

  She flopped back on the pillow, breathing hard, waiting.

  Casper had no place in her dream. No right to her unconscious musings.

  Aggie’s diary lay on the pillow next to her. She picked it up, read the last lines of the entry.

  Duncan says we are to marry in the morning. He has locked me in my room. I have no hope of getting a message to Thor.

  And yet I wonder if perhaps Duncan is right. He has told me that the north woods are no place for a debutante. More, that Thor has simply been dallying with my affections.

  And he has reminded me that, after Paris, perhaps Thor wouldn’t want me anyway.

  My stubborn heart refuses to believe it, and yet as the night grows long, I wonder if I am trading safety for a summer love that holds no true promise.

  I will marry Duncan in the morning.

  Raina closed the diary. Untangled herself from her bedsheets and got up. She dialed her voice mail as she went to the bathroom and drew a bath, sitting on the side of it, stirring her hand in the clear, warm water.

  When the message started, the voice slogged through her.

  “Raina, it’s Dori. Just a reminder that the court date to finalize the adoption is Monday. It’s imperative that you sign the final relinquishment papers. Your local court administrator has them and you can sign them there. We’ll take care of everything else. Call me if you have any questions.”

  Questions.

  She had too many questions—the kind of questions Dori couldn’t begin to answer.

  Like, would it really get easier as time went on? Because two months later, the peace she’d hoped to find had only turned into a haunting wail.

  And would Layla really be better off? Especially now that Raina could give her a family?

  Monday, she could finish it. Sign her baby over and walk away. Try to forget. To heal.

  Or . . . she could say yes to the only man who offered her a future.

  “I have an announcement.”

  Casper looked up as Darek propped his fork on his plate and sighed.

  Everyone at the Sunday dinner table, with the exception of Tiger, stopped talking. Ingrid set the mashed potatoes down beside her plate as John handed Casper his plate of roast beef.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Casper saw Ivy’s mouth tighten into a grim line.

  Amelia glanced at Casper, an eyebrow raised. True to her promise, she hadn’t mentioned a word of his secret to their parents—or at least, neither Ingrid nor John had tracked him down for details.

  To get Amelia’s mind off her broken heart, Casper had dragged her to the Wild Harbor, putting her to work helping fussy women try on Keens. Ned roped her onto the staff in a blur that still had Amelia trying to unravel how she’d ended up wearing a Wild Harbor uniform.

  Yet being gainfully employed seemed to buoy her spirits. And it helped keep Casper’s grim thoughts from traveling to his own tragedy—namely Raina and her gut-wrenching choices.

  “What is it, Son?” John said now to Darek.

  Darek took another breath as if bracing himself. “I’m going to Arizona for a couple weeks to work for the Jude County Hotshots.”

  Silence, this time so thick Casper could slice it with the blunt edge of his butter knife. He glanced at Ivy, who set her fork down, her mashed potatoes, gravy, roast beef, and green beans growing cold. She sighed, offering no comment.

  Next to her, Tiger gnawed on his dinner roll as if ignoring his father’s news.

  Darek glanced at his father, then at Casper. “I’m hoping Casper can fill in for me while I’m gone.”

  “Casper has a job,” John said, his tone soft.

  Casper frowned, not sure why the words prickled him.

  “Tiger, how about I fix you that plate in the den
—I think we have one of your Scooby-Doo shows taped,” Ingrid said. Mom must have figured out how to work the DVR. She scooped up Tiger’s plate, grabbed his milk.

  He slid off the chair and followed her. “Does it have Scrappy-Doo too?”

  “Darek, what on earth are you thinking? Ivy’s about to pop—”

  Darek held up his hand to Amelia’s words, glanced at Tiger, still exiting, then cut his voice low. He reached across the table to take Ivy’s hand as he spoke. She closed her grip around his. Gave him a sad smile.

  “It’s just for a couple weeks—and it’s good pay for once,” Darek was saying. “Jed needs me, and we need the money. Someone has to pay that propane bill, and with no more business on the books until May . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Casper couldn’t identify the knot forming in his chest. Or the way it tightened when his father said, “Darek, your place is here, running the resort, like we talked about. You can’t just dump it into Casper’s lap.”

  “I don’t mind,” Casper started.

  “You’ve spent almost two years rebuilding this place. It’s just as much yours as it is mine now. You can’t abandon it.”

  Outside, the sun finally escaped the swaddle of clouds, and water dripped from the jagged icicles hanging from the roof.

  “I’m not abandoning it, Dad. Casper will check the cabins, and you and Mom can take any calls to the office—it’s only for two weeks.”

  “Two weeks, and the thaw is just beginning. Who knows but we’ll have flooding or icefall on the roofs or even sewer problems. That’s what running a resort is all about, Darek—sticking around in case—”

  “I’m useless here!”

  Casper stared at Darek, who had pushed his plate away, shaking the table. Even Ivy frowned at him.

  He exhaled hard, hauled in his voice to a low, schooled volume. “Sorry. Listen. Ivy will be fine. I’m leaving as soon as I can, Monday morning. Casper, I’ll make sure you have an exhaustive list, in case the world falls in.”

  He got up, heading to the office.

  Casper studied Ivy’s face as she watched him go, trying to interpret her expression.

  “He’s a good man,” Ivy said, directing her words to John. “He’s just overwhelmed with the baby and Tiger’s issues at school and now the resort. He’ll work it out.” She folded her napkin, tucked it under her plate. Worked herself to her feet. “I’ll get Tiger—”

  Amelia touched her arm. “Sit, Ivy. Eat your lunch. I’ll come over after work and help with Tiger. Darek is a great brother—the best. I know he’ll figure it out.”

  But Casper had found his feet almost without realizing it. “Not like this.”

  He tracked down Darek at the desk, booting up the computer.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?”

  Confusion creased Darek’s brow. “No. In fact, it’s the first sane idea I’ve had in years. I probably should have done this after the resort burned, realized the place had seen its last heyday. Should have figured out that I needed to get a real job—”

  “Oh yeah, I’m here to testify that a real job is just what you need.” Casper shook his head. “Dude, do you have any idea what it feels like to spend your day trying to find angry women a size 8.5 wide Keens?”

  Again, confusion.

  “Trust me on this, you’ve got a good gig going here. Ivy and Tiger, a job building on what Mom and Dad built—”

  Darek stood and rounded on him. “And what you don’t get is that I’m failing at it. How would you like that on your shoulders—the brother who brought down seventy-five years of family legacy?”

  “I get it—I know what it feels like to leave a scar on the family tree. But running isn’t the answer.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “Exactly. That’s why you need to listen to me. I wish more than you can know that I’d stuck around, that I’d forgiven Raina last summer. That when Owen showed up, I didn’t let my pride destroy any hope I had with the woman I love.”

  Oh. Casper hadn’t meant to let his voice thunder, to hear it echo into the rest of the house.

  Darek stilled. “I thought we talked about this. I thought you were trying to get over her.”

  “I am. I was . . .” Casper tunneled his hand through his hair, blowing out a breath. “I can’t. And frankly, I don’t even think I want to.”

  He walked over to the window. Pressed his hand against the cold pane. “We’re good together. When I’m with her, I feel like I’m not the second choice, even though I’m probably just fooling myself.”

  “What are you talking about? Second choice?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Darek. I’m not Dad’s first choice for this resort and clearly wasn’t Raina’s first choice of brothers. Even now, she chose someone else. But for some reason, I forget that when I’m with her. She makes me believe that I can . . .” He shook his head because find the lost treasure sounded so lame. “She makes me feel like I’m not a failure.”

  Nothing from Darek’s side of the room, but he didn’t expect it. Not with Darek looking at the same visage in the mirror.

  “And to grind salt into my wounds, she’s dating Monte Riggs, of all people.”

  “You make it sound like she’s dating Satan,” Darek said.

  “She is. I swear it. He looks at her like he owns her.”

  “So why don’t you do something about it? It’s not like she has a ring on her finger, right?”

  Casper considered him. “Seriously?”

  Darek lifted a shoulder.

  “For one second, track back with me to Owen. And our fight. Now picture Raina and me together. Can you imagine that family Christmas dinner?”

  “Seems to me that you don’t owe Owen anything.”

  But he did. Or Raina did. Maybe more than anything else, the ever-present agony of the secret, burning deep inside them, would be enough to drive them apart.

  He’d always believe Owen deserved to know the truth. And she’d always consign him to secrecy, to betrayal.

  Casper turned to stare out the window overlooking the resort, the cabins, and the glistening, melting snow. “I think as soon as you get back, I’m leaving. This time for good.”

  The words simply slipped out from where they’d been hibernating in his thoughts. Now he saw them, knew the decision had been fermenting for weeks. He couldn’t stick around and watch Raina make one disastrous decision after another. “I don’t know what else to do. What do you do when the person you love doesn’t love you back?”

  “That depends. Is your love dependent on her love for you? Or not?”

  Casper startled at his father’s voice behind him. Darek shrugged, like, Sorry, dude; I didn’t realize he’d walked in.

  John stood at the door, one hand on the knob. He closed it behind him. Looked at his sons, first Casper, then Darek. “Sit down, boys.”

  Oh. It was one of those moments. Casper lowered himself onto the chair. Darek folded his arms, leaning against the desk.

  “I’ve just been remembering . . . You might not know that I never wanted this resort.” John pulled out the desk chair, sat on it. “When I was a teenager, the last thing I wanted to do was return to the postage stamp–size town of Deep Haven and run my dad’s place.”

  Casper glanced at Darek, who frowned.

  “I even told him so—right out there on the lake. I told him I didn’t want his resort, that I had a bigger life planned. And then I left to play football at the University of Minnesota. Even after I graduated and didn’t get drafted, I refused to come home. I played arena ball of all things, refusing my father’s phone calls until it was too late. He died during one of my games. I never said good-bye.”

  Darek’s jaw tightened.

  Casper looked down at his hands, his throat thick.

  “I came home, and after the funeral, I found that old canoe I keep tied up at the dock. Dad and I made it together, and I took the canoe out onto the water and wept. I felt sick
with my own regret, my own selfishness. And then I remembered the last time we’d taken out the canoe—the very day I’d told him that I’d never run this place. He sat in the bow of the canoe, not arguing with me, but humming.”

  John began to hum, and Casper’s memory picked up the tune, the words. “O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hands have made . . .”

  “It was my dad’s favorite song. He’d sing it when we went fishing and while he was nailing down roof tiles and shoveling and cutting firewood.” John’s low, dependable tenor voice broke out. “‘When through the woods and forest glades I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees, when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze . . .’”

  He paused, letting them fill in the rest. “How great Thou art! How great Thou art!” His gaze fell on Darek. “My dad told me, after I’d spurned everything he wanted to give me, ‘I have no doubt you’ll be a success at whatever you do.’ I had no idea that he was giving me a glimpse of success in the humming of his song.”

  He looked at Casper then. “See, I was my own worst enemy back then. My pride told me I deserved better. A bigger life. But my dad figured it out—there is no life bigger than the one lived, every day, in awe of God. God showing up in our lives to love us despite ourselves. That is a treasure we can find every single day.”

  Casper frowned, glanced at Darek.

  John got up and put his hand on his oldest son’s shoulder. “Darek, there are many different definitions of success. I’m not sure that any of them are stamped with the Evergreen Resort logo. I’m sorry if I made you believe otherwise.”

  Darek unfolded his arms, his expression slackening.

  Casper looked up to find his father’s gaze on him. Solid, kind. “How do you keep loving someone who doesn’t love you back? Like Jesus did, Son. Faithfully praying, faithfully abiding, faithfully loving anyway.”

  “Hey, I gave him that advice,” Darek said, nodding, a slight grin creeping up his face.