Dalton cringed from his ears to his feet. Over a year. One year, four months, two days. It didn’t matter. The pain was the same. It never left. It never gave him rest. “Warren, I need to be here.”
Warren threw his hands up and let them clop onto the tabletop. The cans shivered in response. “Why now? You were home for months after the funeral. We all thought . . . well, we thought you were doing fine.”
Doing fine? Dalton hadn’t even known what fine was.
Warren continued. “And why here?” He pointed to the window—the window Dalton loved, where he watched the dolphins in the mornings while guzzling mugs of hot coffee. Sailboats in the afternoon and the occasional luxury yacht in the evenings. The window where he’d watch fish jumping in the glistening sea while a blazing ball singed the horizon. And then there was his favorite—the seabirds that landed on the swaying branches of the weeping willow tree off to the left edge of his property. Mornings he’d drink coffee, eat a cinnamon roll, and decide which room to paint or what trim work to strip and stain. There was life here, if only the tiniest shreds of it. And even if it wasn’t his life.
A hand waved in front of his face. “Hey, earth to Dalton.”
Dalton tuned into the conversation. “What?”
A long, surrendering exhale from Warren said it all. Dalton’s baby brother was getting weary of hitting the brick wall of Dalton’s determination. Warren rubbed his palm over the scar above his right eye. A nervous tick since the day Dalton had given him the mark, compliments of a runaway baseball. “Why here?” His words were softer, though he was losing his patience. “On this tiny little island that’s harder to get to than the inner circle of hell? Why, Dalt? It’s like you’re pushing everyone away.”
Dalton pointed to the table. “I made you coffee. Gave you a bed to sleep in last night.”
Warren shoved up out of the chair, and this time there was no intimidation in his motions, just disappointment and relinquishing surrender. “Mom said this was futile.” He planted his hands on the countertop, his back to the table.
Dalton chewed his cheek. “I’ve been thinking about selling the business.”
Warren spun from the window where seagulls scoured the shoreline. “Are you serious?”
What was that tone? Disgust? Disbelief? Dalton couldn’t place it.
“You can’t sell. You love the business. When you’re not wallowing, that is. You and Melinda built it from the ground up.” Ah yes. It was definitely disgust. “How can you even think of selling out?”
You and Melinda built it from the ground up. That was an understatement. They’d planned through college—her getting her business degree, him becoming a landscape architect. They’d drawn up plans a thousand times while laughing and eating cold pizza and dreaming about “one day.” He’d use graph paper, and they’d carefully lay out the building, the grounds, the courtyard for welcoming customers, and the gazebo where a bounty of flowers and foliage would let each client know their dreams could easily become reality by allowing Reynolds Life-Scaping to partner with them. Melinda was the visionary; even the name had been her idea. “We don’t just landscape,” she’d said. “We make people’s lives better. We Life-Scape.” Dalton had been the elbow grease, and together they’d made it happen. Right down to the smallest detail, the tiniest bluebell bulb and bud of baby’s breath. “I’ll come back when I’m ready. Not before.” It was obvious that discussing the idea of selling with his baby brother would go nowhere.
“We need you back at work, Dalt.” This was a tactic. One Dalton recognized. Everyone needed him after losing Melinda and Kissy. Their baby girl’s name was Krissy, but she’d insisted—at a very grown-up three and a half—that everyone call her Kissy. She’d had Melinda’s blonde hair and zeal for life. She had Dalton’s slightly crooked nose and love of digging in the dirt. Kissy used to find earthworms with Dalton, then search out her mother. She’d chase her around the house, with Melinda screaming and Kissy relentless in her pursuit. High-pitched little-girl laughter filling the air.
Everyone needed Dalton after losing Melinda and Kissy. His parents. The staff. Even his brother. For several months he’d thrown himself into work, into the business, into his hurting extended family. And then one day he up and left. No wonder they were worried about his sanity.
“You’re doing great without me,” Dalton said.
Warren shook his head. Dalton knew he’d like to argue, but the business had actually grown in the past months. The office ran smoothly with Warren at the helm, and the plants and flowers and inventory were chugging right along as if life hadn’t come to an abrupt, violent, and screeching stop a year ago.
Warren took a long drink of his coffee. “Nothing I can say is going to change your mind, is it?”
Dalton didn’t have to answer.
Warren strode across the kitchen and retrieved his duffel bag. “Thanks for letting me come.”
“Next time, stay a few more days. We can plan an offshore fishing trip.”
Warren stopped on his way to the front door. He angled to look at his brother. “Yeah. Maybe the work will get to be too much for me, and I’ll move in with you.”
That was a cheap shot, and Dalton knew Warren regretted the words as soon as he said them. “I’m not asking you to understand, little brother. Run the business, don’t. Up to you. No pressure. If you decide you want to step down, I’ll contact a business broker to list it.”
Warren gritted his teeth, probably so he wouldn’t say all the vile things he must be thinking. “How can you be so complacent? It’s your life’s work.”
Easy, Dalton thought. My life is over. No need to court what’s already dead. Instead, he said, “Come on. I’ll drive you to the water taxi.”
One hour later and after a quick lunch at the Dive, a combination dive shop and burger and seafood joint, Dalton returned home. He’d heard a storm was coming and wanted to check in on the Barlows, the couple who’d hired him to redo the small cabin two doors down from their beach house. Coastal storms were something. Usually, the lights would go out first, the wind would howl like a scorned lover, and the tide would rush in with such force, it let a person know just how small he was in the grand scheme of things.
After helping drag the Barlows’ patio furniture into their screened and covered lanai, he folded his patio chairs, stacked them against the cottage and overturned his small patio table. He was just heading inside when he saw her.
The new neighbor. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that seemed incapable of holding the long strands. She was standing on the small awning-covered porch and staring up at its ceiling. What was she looking at? Cobwebs? A wasps’ nest? Her hands on her hips almost gave shape to the oversize gray T-shirt that landed just above her knees. Her legs were covered to midcalf in black stretchy pants—the kind Melinda wore for yoga—and her feet were bare.
He started to yell that a storm was coming. That’d be a great way to meet a new neighbor. Dalton took a few steps toward the edge of her property. But before he could get within earshot, she dropped her hands and disappeared inside the glass door.
He stood there for a few moments as the sea grew angry. Above, the sky answered with a rumbling boom. The lightning would arrive next, ushered by a chilling bite of Gulf wind. Rain, he predicted. Lots of it.
The house he stared at was an interesting one. Old. But built in a style that suggested money, opulence, even whimsy. He’d heard it had been built by William Baxter, the circus tycoon who’d single-handedly helped build this part of the state—if the monument to him at the island’s center was accurate. Dalton pondered how many bedrooms the place had. He’d seen it only from the outside, but counting the upstairs windows—something he’d done a time or two—suggested at least ten bedrooms. One shabbily clothed, scrawny woman and ten bedrooms. Curiosity about her niggled at his mind, but his thoughts returned to his brother, Warren, and all the talk about home and family. Home. Dalton was beginning to wonder if there was a home for him anymore. He’d
stayed in their house after Melinda died as if one day, magically, it would feel OK to be there. That day never came, and with the passing months, his loneliness had spiraled down and down until he’d known he had to do something to shake off the grave clothes he wore. Even now the idea of going back to their home in Jacksonville chewed through his stomach like a hungry piranha.
He liked the glassed-in sleeping porch on the back of the neighbor’s massive house best, he decided. The circus house was sandwiched between the tiny cottage he was remodeling and the small home the Barlows lived in. They’d purchased both properties at the same time, hoping her sister would move into the cottage, but she’d fallen sick and hadn’t gotten the chance. His first project had been to paint the exterior walls cream with crisp-white shutters. The cottage and the Barlows’ home gleamed like sparkling jewels on either side of the mansion. Even so, it was the mansion that drew attention from passersby. It was a soft shade of something between salmon and terracotta. He’d learned an infinite variety of colors from Melinda after planting the wrong shade of pink roses in a client’s garden and costing his business a few grand.
Anywhere else, the color of the house might look strange, but here, on the beach, where colorful coral met greenery and sand and sea, this shade of salmon was perfect. White trim highlighted each nook. The terracotta roof was varied from dark tiles to pale ones, giving the overall home a natural feel, similar to the bricks in a fireplace. The shades complemented the hulking design that was tempered by the almost whimsical turrets, one off-center at the front of the home and three off the back. Those three were covered patios overlooking the beach. Arched doorways led into the house, and Dalton hoped one day to get a glimpse inside.
The first jolt of blue-white lightning sent him inside his cottage after his eyes roamed the landscape as if it had been his job to button up the neighborhood. He took in the entire circus house and the snippet of the Barlows’ home he could see from his vantage point.
Dalton had a fresh stack of library books, and since moving to the island three months ago, he’d rediscovered his love of literature. He’d started with Hemingway but quickly moved on to newer works by Cussler and White. Dalton had just settled into the fourth chapter when he heard the wind pick up. Carried on the rushing gusts was the unmistakable sound of a woman’s scream.
CHAPTER 3
Special Ingredient
Dalton tossed the book and rushed to the back door, uncertain of where the scream had come from. He scanned the beach quickly. If someone was fool enough to try to swim in this mess, he was fool enough to rescue them. But his gut told him the sound hadn’t come from the water.
He jumped off the porch, and his feet hit rain puddles. The wind stung his eyes, powerful enough to kick up sand and pelt his face. He squinted and tried to shield his eyes, which instantly felt full of gravel. All along the beach, he could see nothing. That’s when the sound came again, off to his left, and he turned and ran toward it, the rain soaking through his shirt and chilling his body. As he neared the circus house, he saw her. Her arms were upstretched, her fingers in a death grip holding on to the side of the low awning that covered a small patio beside the sleeping porch.
“What in the world are you doing?” he screamed over the deafening wind.
She jolted, head turning and eyes filled with fear. All he could see was eyes—giant, and such a dark brown, they nearly looked black in the squall. She gazed over her shoulder at him, at nothing. He couldn’t tell.
The wind gusted and almost brought her off her feet.
“Are you crazy? Get inside!”
But she only dangled there, toes trying to get traction, mouth a straight line, eyes blinking back the constant stream of water flowing off the edge of the low roofline and drenching her.
“It’s . . . it’s going to . . . fly off.” Her feet shuffled beneath her, and suddenly Dalton realized what the woman was doing. His heart dropped into his stomach. He quickly examined the broken beam that held the awning in place. Without its support, the whole thing could be lifted in one strong gust. Instantly, he took the spot beside her and clamped his hands on the metal awning just as the wind tried to snatch it away from them.
The angry squall screeched and groaned over them. He didn’t look at his neighbor’s face, but her white-knuckled grip was hard to ignore. They couldn’t stay like that. Too much lightning. Too dangerous. “Listen to me,” he shouted, over the roar.
Her head jerked, and he saw that the elastic holding her ponytail was barely holding on. It clutched the ends of her hair.
“I’ve got a two-by-four I can use to shore this up.”
She jerked a nod, but her look was blank—big, brown eyes blinking away the water and sand that flecked her eyelashes.
“I’m going to run over to my cottage. Can you hold it for a minute?” A clap of thunder. A fresh gust.
“I . . . I think so.”
When the wind died long enough to take a breath, Dalton ran full force to the cottage and hurried inside the small shed where he found wood, nails, and his hammer.
He practically dropped the hammer going back to her, since everything was soaking wet and slick enough that it made gripping the tool difficult. She looked small as he neared, thin arms holding the weight of the entire house. He dropped the hammer into the belt loop on his jeans and put the nails in his mouth, then arranged the two-by-four for best support in a diagonal over the cracked beam. He started the nails, then hit each with one solid hit that leveled the nail head with the wood.
After the second, he heard her mumble, “Holy moly.”
Dalton almost had to chuckle. It was a carpenter’s trick. If the nail was hit in the right spot, it would sink like a broken submarine. Right into the wood. Great bar trick to impress girls. In college he had a buddy who carried around a hunk of wood in his car for just such opportunities. It was also handy when one needed to sink several nails in rapid succession so a Gulf storm couldn’t blow away an awning and an odd young woman too stupid to stay inside.
“That should keep it.” He hooked the hammer in his belt loop as she ducked under the awning.
“Thank you.” She tried to push the mop of wet hair off her face, but much of it was plastered to her pale cheeks.
“No problem.” He started to jog back toward the cottage, but a bolt of lightning struck overhead, and he jumped back, landing under the awning beside her.
The woman smiled. “I’m Charity.”
“Dalton.”
She shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other. “Um. I saw you yesterday.”
He nodded.
She raised a finger and pointed at the back door into the windowed room Dalton liked from the outside. “I can make some tea or coffee. Until the storm passes.”
She was offering him refuge inside. Charity chewed her cheek as Dalton scrutinized her, the thin veil of friendliness hiding a deep-seated lack of confidence. She looked needy but like she didn’t know it. There was gray dirt under her nails, even after the rain bath. Of course, he often had dirt under his nails, but it was good, rich earth, not pale gray . . . whatever it was. She was soaking wet, and in the rain and wind and fierceness of the storm she seemed almost helpless. Why would anyone in her right mind choose a gargantuan house like this . . . alone? Then again, maybe she wasn’t alone. Maybe her family was coming from wherever, and she’d just arrived a couple of days early. Great. Happy family and kids yelling outside his window. That, he wasn’t sure he could handle. He had a hard time even going into town. The constant laughter of kids got to him.
“Are you alone?”
The question must have frightened her. The woman took a full step back. But the look in her eyes faded, and she squared her shoulders as if readying for a fight. “Yes.” Her head tipped, and she reached down and scooped up a broom resting beside the back door. She clutched it between her hands like a shield across her body. “I’ve been living in New York City for the last several years.”
Her eyes narrowed
just barely, and Dalton realized the New York City statement was to let him know she’d not be a victim; if she could survive there, one lone neighbor with a hammer posed little threat. “No, thanks.”
Her face flickered with confusion. “What?”
“No, thanks, on the tea or coffee.” And with that, he ducked into the storm and jogged to the back door of the cottage.
Once there, he glanced over to the circus house to see if she’d gone inside.
She held the broom beside her, as if deciding the merits of sweeping, but her gaze remained on Dalton and the little cottage. Her head of dripping hair was tipped ever so slightly, and in the flashes of quick-fire lightning, he could feel more than see the curious frown on her face. Again, he thought how she looked small against the massive house. But Dalton was through with working out other people’s problems—and problems no doubt surrounded this woman. He had his own issues to tackle and knew that if he didn’t start making some progress, the despair was going to swallow him, drown him, take him so deep, he’d never return. And the worst thing was, he didn’t hate that idea.
He’d known he was in trouble when he realized there was a part of him that wanted to die in the sorrow. He knew he’d gone too far. Now he had to fight, dig, claw his way out. Because the darkness had become comfort. And if Melinda were alive to see him, she’d be ashamed.
Summer of 1995
“Charity, do you remember what I taught you last year on the potter’s wheel?” Her gramps smiled down at her.
Charity rose from the little couch Gram called a settee, her heart jumping into her throat. “Yes, Gramps.” She’d been watching him make a set of dishes for a lady who lived up the road.
The scent of freshly made gingersnaps floated through the doorway and into the room. Gram was on the other side of the wall separating the pottery studio from the kitchen. Charity could hear Gram humming as she worked.
Charity’s mouth watered for warm cookies, but nothing would distract her right now. Not even Gram’s crispy sweet treats. Charity had been itching to get her hands on some clay and sit at her gramps’s wheel, but she was old now—eleven—and when you were old, you were patient. So she’d sat on the settee, her hands neatly folded in her lap. Charity didn’t know what settee meant; to her it was a couch made for kids her size. It was covered in crushed red velvet that crinkled and tickled her skin while she rested there. She always watched Gramps intently, silently praying that one day she’d be as good at pottery as him. She chewed the inside of her cheek as Gramps worked the piece, his hand wet and the wheel spinning at the perfect speed. Today, she’d be diligent because yesterday she’d fallen asleep, lulled by the constant spinning of the wheel and the soft hum that accompanied the movement. Fell asleep. Like a baby taking a nap. She’d been embarrassed because she was grown-up now, and grown-ups didn’t take naps. It was important for her gramps to know she took the business of pottery seriously.
In the Light of the Garden: A Novel Page 4