by Fiona Lowe
“Because she still likes ice cream, silly,” Molly said, giggling.
It was such a relief, seeing her act like a little girl her age should act. Rafe knew it had a lot to do with Edie, also with doing something normal from her life before all this tragedy. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with him, for which he felt a little guilty because he felt … well, he wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Left out, maybe? But that was what he really wanted, wasn’t it? Not to be part of Molly’s permanent situation, not to let her get too attached to him. So, in a way, he was getting exactly what he wanted, yet it didn’t feel as right as it should have. In fact, it felt pretty darned bad, and he hadn’t expected that. “Well, I think Molly has picked you the perfect horse, Edie. Care to saddle up and give her a try?”
“Me, saddle up? Sure, I’ll give it a try, but first you’ve got to tell me which end of the saddle would face the front end of the horse?”
He chuckled. “OK, I get the hint.”
“Not a hint. A blatant statement that if you want to get this picnic under way, you’re going to be the one doing the saddling, while Molly and I go up to the house and make lemonade for the picnic. And I brought the lemons, just in case you didn’t have any.”
“I’d rather help with the saddles,” Molly offered, almost shyly. “Aunt Grace let me do that sometimes, and I know how. And in case Rafey doesn’t know where all the tack is kept.” She stepped away from Edie. “Do you need some help, Rafey?”
“Rafey?” Edie said, fighting back a laugh.
Molly nodded seriously. “That’s his name. Rafey.”
A look of undiluted sheepishness, along with a fierce, red blush, crept over Rafe’s face. The name Rafey wasn’t exactly the manly image he wanted to portray to Edie, or even to Molly, for that matter. But that machismo delusion was certainly shot all to pieces now, leaving him wondering why it even mattered. Because it shouldn’t. Yet it did. “That’s what Aunt Grace called me when I was a boy. She tried to stop when I was high-school age, figured it embarrassed me. Which it did. But it slipped out of her every now and again, and that’s probably where Molly heard the reference.”
“Uh-huh,” Molly piped up. “Aunt Grace always called you Rafey.”
“Rafey,” Edie repeated, smiling. “Well, it’s kind of cute, I’ll have to admit. Rafey … Rafey …” she repeated a couple of times, as if trying it on for size. “Has a nice ring to it. Dr. Rafey Corbett … lacks sophistication and pretense.” She grinned. “But it’s good.”
“Maybe it’s good, but only when you’re five years old,” Rafe said, as the embarrassment dissolved into good nature. “Not when you’re thirty-five.”
“So, then, what you’re telling me is that I can’t call you …” She liked the way his discomfort gave way to ease. Rafe was trying really hard to fit in, to relate to Molly, which gave her hope. It wasn’t a natural fit on him, but he was working on it and, at this point that’s all Edie could ask. For now, probably all Grace would have expected.
“What I’m telling you is that you can’t.” Rafe gave his head a crisp shake in emphasis, and Edie couldn’t help laughing. Rafe Corbett was a big man sitting in the saddle who was saddled with a little boy’s name. It was so endearing and, for a moment, she saw some vulnerability there. A little bit of softness clouding his eyes over a nickname, perhaps? Or maybe he was only reminiscing about something nice from the time when Grace had called him Rafey. Whatever it was, it made him less stiff. Not enough to be considered loose or relaxed, but he was definitely not so starchy now. Definitely working on it, too.
“You can call him Rafey,” Molly piped right up.
“Aunt Grace did.”
“Molly can call me Rafey,” Rafe interjected. “Only Molly.”
He said it with a little twinkle in his eyes. Or was that a challenge? Either way, it melted Edie’s heart just a little bit, as Rafe clearly wasn’t comfortable with the name, yet he was going to put up with it from Molly. That was just plain sweet of him. So, maybe, just maybe, her job to help him realize that he did have all kinds of father potential wouldn’t be so difficult after all. She hoped so, because Rafe was a little awkward about it right now. Yet given some time, along with some good coaching … who knew? And in the future, well, who knew about that one either? Possibly, with some luck, Molly would be able to call him Daddy sooner than Edie had hoped for. That would be nice, Edie decided. What Grace would have wanted. But for a moment her heart clenched when she thought about Rafe and Molly together, just the two of them. No one else in that picture. It’s what she had to do, and that was what she’d have to keep telling herself. Getting the two of them together was what she had to do. What she’d promised to do.
CHAPTER THREE
“COULD you two slow up a little?” Edie called from behind them. She was lagging back quite a way, not because she wanted to but because it was the best she could do. Rafe and Molly were doubling up on the lead horse, with Molly riding in a pink tandem saddle right behind Rafe, hanging on to him with her face pressed to his back. From Edie’s position, it was cute. But she wondered if Rafe was bothered by it, because he looked … uncomfortable. He seemed too rigid in the saddle, even to an untrained observer such as herself. Yet Molly looked happier than Edie had seen her looking in days. Possibly because Rafe had made her happy. Or it could have been about her honest need to hold on to someone strong for a while … something Edie understood better than she cared to, given the way the first time she’d really held on to someone had turned out. Of course, everybody needed that extra jolt in their lives at some time, didn’t they? Strength from someone else. Someone to support them on the journey, to guide them when they were lost.
She’d certainly had those moments in her own life … moments with her mother, moments with Alex. Good and bad. Going down the right path, going down the wrong one. Rafe wasn’t the wrong path for Molly, though. He didn’t know that, of course, even though Molly obviously did. Most likely, he’d never thought of himself in terms of any kind of course for Molly, which was something Edie certainly intended to change.
But the path Edie was on today had nothing to do with any of that. It was all about the path she was taking on the back of a very gentle horse named Ice Cream—a horse, as it turned out, who was absolutely perfect for a beginner to ride. Vanilla in color, she was mellow, plodding along in no hurry to get anywhere, and if it could be said that a horse was stopping along the way to smell the roses, that was what it seemed like Ice Cream was doing. Smart horse, taking in her surroundings—the path, the sky, the flowers. It wasn’t a bad way to go through life, Edie supposed. Too bad more people couldn’t take a lesson from Ice Cream. “So, when do we get to stop?” she called out, when they rounded the bend and she saw the lake ahead. “Right now, I hope, because this is a perfect place.” At least, that was what her aching backside was telling her.
Like he’d been reading her mind about stopping, Rafe brought Donder, a well-muscled, brown and white Appaloosa, to a halt, then turned in his saddle to face her. “It’s only another five miles,” he said, without cracking a smile.
“Five?” Pulling Ice Cream up alongside him, she looked square at him and saw, up close, his very stern expression, but also saw the corner of his mouth twitch up imperceptibly in a fight to keep from smiling. “Then why don’t you go on ahead, take part of the picnic food with you, while Molly and I stay here and have our picnic at the lake. Is that OK with you, Molly?” His eyes were dancing now. Beautiful. Mischievous. Unnerving. But she didn’t look away. It took everything she had in her to stay eye to eye with him, and keep a straight face at that. She managed it, though, with some struggle. “We’ll have our picnic right here, just the two of us, while Rafe goes on ahead and finds his own place to picnic.”
Very straight-faced, Molly said, “You can’t take the lemonade with you, Rafey. It’s two against one. We get to keep it here. But you can come back and have some when you want it.”
“I think you’ve been thoroughly told,”
Edie remarked.
“I think I’ve been charmed by the two most beautiful women in Lilly Lake,” he replied, slipping down out of his saddle then lifting Molly to the ground. Heading straight to Ice Cream, he steadied the horse and held up his hand to help Edie. And in that instant, when the silky skin of her palm slid across his, if there wasn’t a visible spark, there sure was an unseeable one, felt by both of them, because Edie and Rafe both pulled back in that moment of extraordinary awareness, and simply stared at each other. Speechless, almost to the point of dumbfounded. Edie wasn’t sure how long it was, but the intensity couldn’t be questioned. At least for her. As for Rafe … he was still holding tight to her gaze when she finally had to break it or become completely lost in it. “I, um … thanks,” she finally said, letting go of his hand. “For the compliment, and the help.”
His answer was to arch his eyebrows. Then he turned away. Unaffected? Edie didn’t know about Rafe, but she surely knew about herself, and at that moment there was nothing in her, from her head to her toes, that wasn’t affected. Not one little bit of her anywhere. And try as she may, she couldn’t shrug out of the mood, or even shake herself hard out of it. Not after a minute, not after five minutes. Which meant she might be in deep trouble.
“So tell me about yourself,” Rafe said, as he spread the blanket on the ground. Molly was a hundred yards away, wading in water up to her ankles, looking for goldfish and bullfrogs, expressing a wish to find a whale and an octopus, too, while Edie and Rafe were laying out the picnic food. “Other than the fact that you’re a child life specialist and that my aunt thought highly of you … so does Molly, by the way, that’s about all I know.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’ve been in Lilly Lake for a few months now. I work, I like to read, I have a cat …” She shrugged. Getting personal wasn’t easy for her because she’d spent most of her life trying to stay guarded. On purpose. One little slip of the tongue and the social workers had been on the doorstep, one misspoken word to her teacher that could be perceived as something wrong in her life and everything had gone crazy. The possibility had always been there that she could be snatched away from her mother, thrown into a foster-home where nobody loved her, and her mother forced into a nursing home until some kindly lawyer made it all better, or her mother died. Grim reality then, bad memories of it even now. “I’m from New York City originally. Born and raised there. Went to school there, didn’t ever have any call to wander very far away until I took this job in Lilly Lake. And I’m not married now, but you already know that.” “Not married now?”
“Well, there were a couple of years in my life when I was. You know, naive schoolgirl meets big charmer. He wasn’t what I needed, I wasn’t what he wanted and in the end we didn’t even make any memories, good, bad or otherwise. So, you’ve never been married, have you? Your aunt told me you …”
“She told you I avoid it like the plague. Right?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, she was right about that. I do avoid it, maybe not so much like the plague as I do like an entanglement I just don’t want to deal with. The thing is, Aunt Grace harped at me for my lifestyle, for being single. Yet she never married, and she never considered that a lack in herself.”
“But she considered it a lack in you?” Edie asked.
“I don’t honestly know.”
“Maybe she just wanted to see you have a shot at something she missed.”
He thought about that for a moment. Frowned. “She never seemed lonely, never really struck me as someone who wanted a permanent relationship in her life.”
“Yet she was surrounded by so many friends, and she took in children all the time. She kept herself busy, Rafe, and she was devoted to the people in her life, but maybe, at night, when she went to bed, there were times when she would have preferred not going alone. It could be she didn’t consider your lifestyle a lack so much as she didn’t want you to go to bed alone every night either. I’d say that’s someone who truly loved you.”
“I was lucky,” he said.
“More than lucky. Blessed.”
Rafe was quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on something far off that wasn’t really there. Then he cleared his throat and drew in a deep breath. “So, what else is there to know about you?”
“Not much, really. I’m taking some online classes in preparation for getting my master’s degree. I like gardening. Oh, and I’m thinking about getting a kitten to keep my other cat, Lucy, company, when I’m away.”
Even to Edie, all the explanations sounded like uptight chatter. Nothing too significant, nothing too revealing … pretty much the way she’d trained herself to chat when people had insisted on it. It was all laid out, evenly rehearsed, rarely off the script. Reverting back to old habits was what she did when she was nervous. Rafe made her nervous.
“No family?” he asked. “Parents? Brothers or sisters?”
She shook her head. “Not any more. Maybe some distant relatives I’ve never met but, basically, it’s just me now. And you?”
“Just Jess. And we’re not really too close. We talk occasionally, see each other whenever I get to New York City … he’s a firefighter there.”
“I thought Grace said he was a doctor.”
“He is … was. Trauma surgeon. But he experienced a loss in Afghanistan … his fiancée died in his arms, and he left medicine. Took up a more risky life. Don’t know why, and I’m not going to argue with him about it.”
“Even though you think he should go back to medicine?”
Rafe laughed. “Am I that transparent?”
“In ways.”
“OK, I’ll admit it. I think he should go back to medicine, but I don’t really have a say in his life. And he’s pretty blunt about telling me it’s none of my business.”
“But he’s part owner of the hospital, isn’t he? Along with you?”
“According to the papers. But we’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet.”
“Keep Rick Navarro on, I hope.”
Rafe flinched at the mention of Rick’s name. “Probably. I hear he’s pretty good.”
“Better than pretty good. He’s exactly what that hospital needs, and it would be a shame to get rid of him. But I’ve heard rumors …”
Rafe held up his hand to stop her. “No hospital talk today. OK? Jess and I have some serious issues to address, and we’re not ready yet so, in the meantime, I’d rather not get into it.”
“But you’ll consider my recommendation about Rick?”
“Why? Are you and Rick …?”
“No!” she snapped. “We’re colleagues. That’s all. Anything else wouldn’t be … professional.” She chanced a long look at Rafe when he glanced over at Molly playing in the lake, and what was that she saw there? Relief? Was it because she wasn’t involved with Rick?
No, couldn’t have been. Because that would have suggested something she didn’t want suggested. So, like Rafe, she fixed her attention on Molly, who was thoroughly enjoying herself in the water. Too bad adults couldn’t enjoy themselves that way, too. But life got in the way too often.
“I think too many people take their families for granted. You know, ignore them. Or treat them bad because they’re just family and they know that, in the end, family will or should forgive you. Then one day they’re gone—died, moved away, just drifted off—or you’re so estranged from them that you might not be able to find your way back. And being alone … it’s not good. Your aunt knew that, I think. But if you have family, you don’t have to be alone, because being with your family is the one place you should always feel welcomed, embraced … safe.”
She could hear the words just pouring out. Couldn’t stop them. Didn’t know where they were coming from. It was almost like she’d stepped totally outside herself to watch the delivery. “And if you have family and ignore them, or have the opportunity to have a real relationship and you don’t do that … it turns into a really lonely life, Rafe. And it’s not just about havi
ng someone to go to bed with, it’s about having someone to sit on the porch and talk to, and call in the middle of the night when you need to hear another voice. It’s about having someone who knows you so well that you don’t have to say how you feel because they know. Friends, acquaintances … that’s one thing. They’ll stick with you, but only so far. Yet family …” She took a deep breath, forced herself to stop. “Look, I’m sorry about that. I have some strong feelings, and sometimes I just …”
Rafe chuckled. “No need to apologize. What you were saying was … was right. There’s nothing wrong with having strong feelings. I’ve been known to have some pretty strong feelings about family myself. Just not feelings that go in the same direction as yours. unfortunately. But it doesn’t matter, because I enjoyed watching you finally relax. You’ve been pretty tense since you got here, and it’s nice seeing some of the real you getting through.”
“Horses make me nervous,” she confessed. “Never been on one before today, never been anywhere near one, and I’ve kicked myself a thousand times since I accepted your invitation because I’m usually more cautious than that.”
“So, is your first experience turning out to be a good one? If it’s not, I can call someone to come get you so you don’t have to ride back on Ice Cream.”
He looked genuinely concerned, which touched her. “I’ll be fine riding Ice Cream when we go back. She’s a gentle soul, and I think she understands me.” And, to be honest, she was enjoying spending time with Rafe.
“The horse? The horse understands you?”
Edie nodded. “Sure she does. As well as I understand her. She’s had a lot of pain in her life, and she doesn’t want to cause pain to someone else. It’s pretty simple, really. Ice Cream has found her place in the world. She knows she’s loved, she knows she’s respected for who she is, and she’s happy. Ultimately, Ice Cream has found that one place where we all want to be.”