by May Williams
“It’s all right. The old man wouldn’t let her.” Ian used the long lens of the camera to shoot back toward the house, distracting himself from the folly of hurting her feelings. From the ridge where they were, the house was just visible above the trees of the forest. But all he could see through the lens was his own history. “Mom was over twenty years younger than he was. I think their marriage was an arrangement from the beginning. Dad needed a hostess and an heir. She fulfilled her duties and then moved on. Probably paid to do so.”
“Do you see her much now?”
“She died of cancer last year.”
“I’m sorry, Ian.”
She moved to touch his arm, and he realized her sympathy wasn’t automatic, in those blue eyes were a heartfelt kindness. Mother in heaven! How the hell did he get lucky enough to be standing in one of the most beautiful locations he’d ever seen with a woman like Colette? God help him if he screwed this up. He’d never get a chance like this again. Unfortunately, those blue eyes were persistent.” Were you with her?”
Ian took a breath, remembering the miserable phone call from Tom in the hours before his mother’s death. “I was in Iraq.”
“The army didn’t let you go home to see your dying mother?”
“We Skyped.”
She stared at him, aghast.
He quickly moved to explain.” Mom didn’t tell anyone until it was too late. She’d been in remission for a couple years, but the cancer came back with a vengeance. Took her in a matter of weeks. Tom was with her and I spoke to her through Skype. By the time I got stateside, she was gone. The army wasn’t completely heartless about it. It was just too late.” But not too late for his mother to extract a promise from him that made the stakes with Colette that much higher.
He broke eye contact with Colette when a blur of red caught his attention. Out of habit, he tensed at the unexpected movement. Behind her, a small child clambered over a rock in the distance. “Someone’s coming.” He pointed to the edge of the forest.
Colette swung around only to wave to the child. “Look out. It’s Jamie.”
“Jamie?” He asked, not relaxing as the little invader came nearer.
“My nephew. I told you about him at dinner.” She swatted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s not the enemy, but no matter how much he begs, do not let him touch your cameras.”
“Why?”
“He’s six. He’ll break them.” Jaime was running full speed across the large rocks along the shoreline toward them now. “Slow down, sweetie, before you…”
Colette’s last words were lost in screams as he crashed down flat on one of the larger boulders. She gasped and made to run toward him, but Ian bolted past her, handing her the camera he still held.
Ian reached the boy as he was rolling onto his back. The damage didn’t look too bad, a little blood on his arm, but nothing worse than that. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”
“Where’s Aunt Collie?” The boy demanded, his face starting to pucker.
“Just over there. Can’t cry, buddy,” Ian declared. “We’re going to play soldier. Aunt Collie is your field doctor and it’s my job to haul you to safety. Ready?”
“Okay,” Jamie answered, sniffling his nose, but putting on a brave face. “How you gonna carry me?”
“Like this,” Ian scooped the kid onto his shoulder and jogged across the rocks to Colette.
“Dr. Peterson, I have a patient for you.” He sat the boy down on a rock so Colette could check him out.
“Oh, Jamie,” she said “You scared me.” She knelt in front of him, inspecting his bloody elbow and ripped jeans. After a minute, Colette rocked back on her heels and eyed the child.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” Colette demanded.
“I was chasing Peaches.”
Colette frowned at her nephew, but Ian could see she was only mock-serious.
“Dog?” Ian questioned.
“Ferocious cat.” Colette addressed the boy. “Honey, you don’t need to chase Peaches. She’ll always come home when she’s had enough of the outdoors.”
“She got spooked by Cream this time,” the child wailed.
“Cream?” Ian waited to see what this one was.
“White German Shepherd,” she explained.
Peaches and Cream…He blinked a few times. “Because your sister owns a bakery?”
She sighed, smiling a bit. “No, my brother-in-law loves disco.” Colette pointed to streaks of white and brown flying across the rocks. “There he goes with Romeo.” She handed Ian his camera back, keeping the smaller one around her neck, and took Jamie by the hand, starting across the rocks. “I bet if we walk to your house we’ll find Peaches along the way.”
Ian was left staring at the camera in his hands, feeling the weight of it as if for the first time. He didn’t even remember giving it to her, and yet here it was, in his hands safe and sound. They made a pretty good team….
“I’ll catch up,” Ian called. As he trailed after Colette and her nephew, lost in thought, he took several photos of them swinging their joined hands. Through the long lens, Jamie’s face looked adoringly up at his aunt. A woman equally good with animals and children, he mused. Too good for you, Kroft.
Chapter Eight
“Jamie!”
Colette could tell by the pitch of her sister’s voice she’d been searching for the boy for some time.
“Run to your Mama and give her a big hug. She can’t be mad at you then.” Colette swatted Jamie on the butt to move him forward, and he quickly disappeared down the trail. Seconds later, she heard Lexy’s voice greet the wayward six-year-old. When Colette rounded the next corner, Jamie was already running the short distance to his house while Lexy waited for Colette to join her.
“I’m glad you were out wandering today so you could return my property again.” Lexy tightened the ponytail in her dark hair. “Do you want to have dinner with us?”
Colette hesitated and turned to look back up the path. “I’m not alone so…”
“He’s with you.” Her sister’s dark eyes grew round, and she gripped Colette’s arm.
“Shush. He’ll be here any second.”
“You decided he wasn’t a bum, then?” Lexy whispered fiercely.
“Yes, but…” Colette wasn’t sure she wanted to subject Ian to Lexy’s inquisition right now. The painful expression on his face when he talked about his mother’s death stayed with her. She wasn’t sure he was up to dealing with her high energy sister.
“Then he can come to dinner with you…unless you had something else planned.” Lexy winked at her.
“Stop that,” Colette hissed, hearing Ian’s steps, crunching needles on the path. When he reached her, she nodded to the new woman. “Ian, this is my sister, Alexis. Jamie’s mother.”
“You can extend your sympathies at anytime,” Lexy joked, but Ian glanced at Colette, wide-eyed, to figure out how to interpret this.
“It’s okay. She threatens to sell Jamie to the circus, but she loves him.”
Ian put out his hand to shake Lexy’s, but she grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the house. He cast a nervous look back at Colette as he was led away.
“So glad to meet you, Ian. We were just getting ready to put some meat on the grill and I have a pitcher of margaritas chilling in the fridge. Or do you want a beer? My husband, he’s over there by the grill,” she waved a hand at him. “He can never decide if he likes a margarita with barbeque or beer. What do you think? Oops, watch out for the tricycle there. Don’t trip. If you give me five minutes, I’ll have a batch of appetizers out of the oven. I love….”
Colette stopped to greet her brother-in-law, Nate, while Lexy guided Ian through the patio door into the spacious kitchen.
“Poor bastard,” Nate commented and spurted the charcoal with lighter fluid. “She’s going to grill him like a steak. Probably even leave him a little raw and bleeding in the center.”
“She’s extra wound up today.”
“Yeah. She’s been
like that all day. Glad to see you two. Takes the burden off me.” He grinned conspiratorially at her and they shared a laugh. He took a drink from his beer.
“What’s got her zooming along at Mach speed?”
“You. She’s worried you got yourself involved with some…” he trailed off and hoisted his beer for another sip.
Her brother-in-law suddenly found his tact, but she wanted it all out in the open. “Go ahead and say it. Some loser.”
“Yeah. Beer?” Nate reached into the cooler next to him.
“Nah. I’ll go inside for a margarita. That way I can rescue Ian if I need to.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll stick to beer and the great outdoors.” Nate raised his bottle in a mock salute. “If he’s a good guy, he will too.”
“Aunt Collie, come see my painting.” Melissa, Lexy’s eight-year-old daughter, greeted her when she stepped into the house. “Grandpa took me to see your new horses yesterday so I painted you a picture of them.” She held up a watercolor of the three miniature horses, grazing in the pasture.
“They look very happy to be outside,” Colette commented. “We took Orsino out earlier today. I wish you could have seen him.”
“Here. I’ve got pictures.” Ian moved away from the counter where he leaned talking to Lexy and took his smaller camera from around Colette’s neck, giving her a wink as he did. Quickly, he scrolled back through the photos. When he found the ones he was looking for, he held the camera so the girl could see and slowly flicked through the images of Colette and Orsino.
“I didn’t realize you took so many.” Colette felt the warmth rise in her cheeks at the quantity of photographs he had taken.
“This one is already my favorite,” Ian said to Melissa when he showed her the one with Orsino gazing up at Colette. “I’ll bring you a print of it.”
“Let me see.” Lexy moved around the counter to look at the small LCD screen. “Nice, very nice.” She raised her eyebrow at Colette, then hustled over to the oven when the kitchen timer sounded.
“It’s easy to take good pictures when the subjects are so beautiful.” Now, it was Ian’s turn to catch Colette’s eye, but he didn’t send a question in her direction. Instead, it was a steady, calm gaze of…Of what? Admiration? Respect? Something more? Colette groped around in her mind for some way to respond to him. Before she had the chance, her niece saved her.
“Will you show me how to use your camera?” Melissa gave Ian an appealing look.
“Melissa, that’s a very expensive camera. I’m sure Mr. Kroft doesn’t want kids touching it,” Lexy objected.
“I’ve taught my niece and nephew how to use this one. It’s pretty kid-friendly.”
“How old are your niece and nephew?”
“Seven. They’re twins.”
“More twins? Must run in your family,” Colette commented. “Ian has a twin brother.” She explained to Lexy and Melissa.
“I can’t imagine two at a time. Oh, the long nights, the bottles, the diapers.” She waved a spatula in the air as she spoke. “Two to potty train, to teach to ride a bike, to start kindergarten. Heavens.” Sliding little puffs of cheese and ham off a baking sheet, Lexy continued mumbling to herself.
“Where are those margaritas?” Colette moved past her sister and reached into a cabinet for the glasses.
“In the fridge.” Lexy looked up from her task. “Where’d Melissa and your man go?” Colette pointed out the door at Ian, showing Melissa the settings on the camera out on the deck. “Pour me one, would you?”
Colette put a full margarita glass in front of her sister. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Lexy raised the glass to her lips.
“What do you think of him?”
“Good looking, maybe even handsome. Seems nice.”
“Uh-huh. What else?” Colette took the first sip of her drink.
“He was in the café yesterday morning.”
“Ian? I don’t think so. He was in Boyne yesterday.”
“Sweetie, I’ve got a husband and three kids, but I’m not blind. A man who looks like that walks into my place and I notice.”
“Did he see you?” Colette downed half her drink this time.
“No, I was in the back. Gracie waited on him.”
“Maybe he just wanted a bite to eat.”
“Gracie said he asked a lot of questions.”
“What about?”
“About the town, the surrounding area, the tourist season.”
“So? Strangers always ask those questions.”
“He asked if Gracie knew you.”
“So, again?” Colette tipped up her glass to drain the last bits of salt and tequila. “I’m probably the only person he knows in Petoskey.”
“He asked where the clinic was, where your house was, and what it looked like.” Lexy emphasized every word as she spoke.
Colette reached for the pitcher of margaritas this time, feeling suddenly cold, and poured herself another. “Why would he ask about my house? That seems…” The liquid sloshed over the rim of the glass and coated Colette’s hand. “Please don’t say he’s another freeloader looking for a meal.” She sopped up the sweet drink with a napkin. “You’ve got better radar than I do. What do you think?”
“I only talked to him for five minutes just now, Collie. I don’t get a bad vibe and neither did Gracie. I just wanted you to know.”
“Okay.” She steeled herself with another swallow of margarita. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“He’s definitely fine. He’s more than fine in that way.” Lexy turned to look out the kitchen window where Ian and Melissa’s heads were bent over the camera. “And if I really thought he was a bum, he wouldn’t be standing that close to my eight-year-old.”
“Right.” The queasy sensation in her middle was probably because of the margaritas on an empty stomach. “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, I’m just waiting for the last of the appetizers to finish.” Lexy scrubbed down the counter and then reached in a cabinet for a stack of plates. “I searched his name today.”
“You didn’t!”
“Hell, yes, I did. I’m not having you get screwed over again.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. It’s an invasion of privacy or something.” Colette shoved a piece of bread slathered with brie in her mouth. “Did you find anything?”
“Just the usual. Facebook page, some army stuff, a nice professional-looking site promoting his web design business. Nothing incriminating.” Lexy shifted appetizers to a decorative platter while she spoke. “I’ll let you know what I think by the end of the evening.” She handed Colette the tray. “I’m going to get Connor up from his nap. You take these outside, stop worrying, and smile.”
Despite the half-empty margarita glass in one hand, Colette’s smile when she greeted him was a little tight around the edges. The tenseness was definitely back. What was she worried about now? Did her sister say something to make her nervous? He thought he’d made an okay impression on the woman.
“You don’t have anything to drink yet.” Colette held out the tray of appetizers to him. “Beer?”
“Sure, just let me finish here.” Ian returned his attention to Melissa, who was taking several pictures of her dad at the grill, and then Jamie dragging Peaches down from her perch on the railing. “Time to review what you’ve got.”
Ian slowly clicked through the images with Melissa, but kept a careful eye on Colette as she talked with Nate by the grill. Occasionally, she looked in his direction, but she seemed to be avoiding any eye contact with him.
Another child, this one smaller, came out of the house rubbing his face. When he saw Colette, he made a beeline for her, holding up his chubby arms for a hug. Colette knelt on the deck with her arms wrapped around him.
“Take a picture of your aunt with…” Ian gestured to the little boy.
“That’s Connor. He’s four and a pest.”
“But he looks good with your aunt so take the picture.” Ian made
a quick adjustment on the camera and handed it back to Melissa. “Start shooting.” He didn’t know what the images would be like, shot by a child. If he were taking these, he’d adjust the camera to pick up the green of the boy’s t-shirt, Colette’s headband, and the fir tree behind them. He could already see the picture matted with a deep chestnut color in a rustic wood frame.
“Melissa, give Ian his camera back and come help me with the table,” Lexy called to her daughter from the patio door.
With a sigh and roll of her eyes, Melissa handed the camera to Ian and shuffled over to her mother. Ian had time to make a few quick changes on the camera and snap photos of Colette giving Connor a piggyback ride before she disappeared into the tree line with the child.
“I wouldn’t leave that in the open if I were you. Jamie’s on the loose,” Nate called from the grill when Ian put his camera on the railing.
“Thanks for the warning.” Ian found a high ledge for his camera and wandered over to the grill, where Nate handed him a beer. “I hear you’re the high school principal in town. That must be fun.”
“It’s the best job in the universe,” Nate flipped a piece of beef over, “in July.”
“I’ll bet.” Ian grinned, getting the feeling he was going to like this man.
“It has other advantages as well. Through experience, I’m an excellent judge of character in both adults and kids.” Nate gave Ian a look he must have used when a recalcitrant teenager entered his office. “I’m particularly good at first impressions.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ian took a deep draw from his bottle, the joy from a moment before evaporating. Though, what the hell? If they were going to be brutally honest, he was going to ask. “So what did you think of Tyler?”
Nate shot Ian a guarded look. “She told you about him. Interesting. I thought he was a conniving, shifty jackass from the first minute I met him, but nobody listened to me. Nobody but Adrien, Collie’s brother,” he explained. “If Tyler hadn’t hurt Colette so bad, I’d have enjoyed gloating over my correct judgment of him.”
“Least he’s doing time now. How long’s he in for?”
“Seven years. Not long enough if you ask me.”