“I’m not blind, Henry. I saw the way you looked at him.”
Their hands were still linked. She searched for words and came up empty, an awkward silence falling into the space between them. It wasn’t that Gideon was a historian or incredibly handsome or anything else that could be ticked off a list. He was simply Gideon. And Blue was simply not.
“I do care about you, and if you ever need anything, I’m here.” He squeezed her hands and let go. “And supper at the Thai place is still on offer, if you’d like that, as friends. I think we’ll make really good friends.”
Relief flooded through her at the sound of the sincerity in his voice. “I don’t have many friends and I don’t want to lose you, Blue.”
“So, seven?”
“Seven,” she said. They stood up and instead of kissing her cheek, he simply smiled and walked toward his office.
Henry picked up her bag, turned and made her way toward By the Book. It was a relief, really. She should be happy they avoided what could have been a really ugly situation. It was a good thing.
I saw the way you looked at him. Her stomach knotted. Maybe everyone knew. Maybe Gideon knew.
As if in answer to her fears, she looked up to see Gideon exiting By the Book, with Father Tom following. She hesitated, wishing she could slip away unnoticed.
“Henry,” Father Tom called out, catching sight of her. Gideon turned and his expression was difficult to read.
She walked toward them, conscious of her rumpled work clothes and the heavy bag on her shoulder. She nudged up her glasses and smiled brightly.
“You two must read a lot of books,” she said and wanted to cringe at the silly comment.
“I was looking for Bix but he’s not here. I’m cooking up some of my world-famous low country boil on Friday. Crawfish, corn, potatoes, shrimp and a secret ingredient. You should come,” Father Tom said.
“Oh, no. You don’t have to do that,” Henry said. “If you invite everyone you run into, you’ll run out of chairs.”
“And crawfish,” Gideon said, one corner of his mouth turned up.
Father Tom threw him a look. “You could tell us what you’re up to over there. I know Bix and Ruby want to hear more about your projects.”
“I could give them a special tour,” Henry said. “Send them over and I’ll tell them more than they ever wanted to know. Maybe even put them to work on the excavation site.” She felt her face go warm. If only she had a rewind button.
“True, I could bring them over some day,” Gideon said. “Or Tom could.” He spoke more softly. “See, Bix doesn’t drive anymore. The DMV finally revoked his license. To the relief of the entire city of Natchitoches, I might add. He’s as blind as a bat and although most people knew that green Caddy was bad news and got out of the way, he still took out quite a few sidewalk flower pots whenever he drove down here.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, hating the slight breathlessness in her voice. She waited for him to step back. Gideon didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. A little chattier, maybe, but otherwise as if their last meeting had never happened.
“It’s my mama’s secret recipe. You can’t just walk into a restaurant and find this dish. And if that doesn’t convince you, I promise to only invite the nicest people,” Father Tom said.
“Are you going?” she asked Gideon.
“If I say I am, are you more or less likely to go?” he asked.
“I see Bix. He must have come in the other door,” Father Tom said, looking back through the glass door into the bookstore. “I’ll be right back.”
They were left in silence. Henry didn’t know where to look. She’d always thought Gideon was a handsome man but today she simply wanted to stand and stare. Maybe it was the little bit of scruff he had, or the way the afternoon light made his eyes almost gray, or perhaps it was the way he was watching her. She remembered how it had felt to be held tight by him, how he’d reached out for her. And also how she’d jumped back as if he’d waved a gun.
“Are you regrowing your beard?” she asked, grasping at a topic.
“No, ma’am. Just lazy. I took the day off. I’ll shave tomorrow.”
There was a beat of silence.
“I saw you’d been working at the Finnemore place. Did the door give you any trouble?” he asked.
“Oh!” She reached forward and grabbed his forearm. “Gideon!” She couldn’t believe that she’d forgotten so quickly, as if seeing him had driven every other thought from her head.
He looked down at her hand, surprise on his face.
“I just saw Blue. He said Barney Sandoz tried to hire him to get possession of the papers.” She explained as thoroughly as she could, repeating the conversation word for word.
He looked over her head, his gaze on something in the distance. All the playful laughter was gone from his eyes, the lines of his face had hardened. For the first time, Henry saw a flash of the man Gideon had once been.
“Interesting,” he said.
“That’s all I know. I’ll ask for more details tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“I’m meeting Blue for supper in a few hours.” There was the tiniest change in Gideon’s posture and Henry realized she was still holding his arm. She let go.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course.” She looked back through the glass door. “Should we go inside and rescue Father Tom?”
“I’m sure he’s fine. We won’t keep you,” he said. Although he was smiling, his voice was distant.
“Lorelei,” a voice called and Henry froze. She considered darting into the bookstore and pretending she hadn’t heard, but in the end, she turned. Kimberly was coming toward her, a strappy sundress displaying her incredible figure. Her sky-high heels and long, shining hair reminded Henry of the Barbies she played with when she was little, if Barbie had been scowling and huffing in anger.
“There you are,” Kimberly said.
“Yes, ma’am. Here I am,” Henry answered, trying for lighthearted but coming off as flippant.
“Hello, Gideon.” She turned her attention to the man between them. It seemed as if all the anger melted away and she sidled closer. She rested one hand on her hip and touched the other to the first button of her dress, shifting her weight to one foot. Everything was fluid, like watching a fish in water. Or maybe an octopus.
“Hello, Kimberly,” he said. Henry had thought he’d sounded distant before, but everything about him said ‘back off’ now.
Henry clamped her lips together to keep from grinning. It was satisfying to know Kimberly didn’t wield power over every male in the entire city.
And she got the message loud and clear. She turned to Henry.
“Oh, honey.” She reached out and touched Henry’s ponytail. “You’ve got to do a deep conditioning on your hair if you’re going to keep dying it. I’m flying in my hair stylist tomorrow. I’ll have him work on you.” She made a sharp sound in her throat. “And you’d be so much prettier with contacts. Think about Blue. You’ve got some stiff competition in this town and you need to think about how you’re going to keep him now that you’ve got him interested.”
“Is there something you needed?” Henry asked, sighing a little. “You seemed like you had another reason for coming down here.”
“Well, yes. If you ever answered your phone, I wouldn’t have to come find you. You didn’t come to Joella’s baby shower and you didn’t come to Lovey Ann’s engagement party and you didn’t even show up for Rayleen’s daughter’s house-leaving brunch on Sunday. She was giving everybody a chance to say goodbye to their old place before they move.”
“House-leaving? I don’t think I’ve even met Rayleen’s daughter, let alone been in her house.”
“Why must you be so―” She stopped, closed her eyes and inhaled for a long moment. When she opened them, her enormous green eyes were filled with tears. Henry watched, fascinated, as fat drops trembled on her lashes, and fell, one by one, onto her cheeks. “Difficult,” Kimberly whispered.
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“I’m not trying to be difficult. I just don’t know any of these people.” Her throat went tight. She’d seen these types of tears before. Every single one of them was a lie.
“I never had any children, Henry. You’re the closet thing I’ve ever had to a daughter.” Kimberly said.
For a moment, it was all too much. She was trapped in a never-ending cycle of manipulation, guilt and lies, a cycle so powerful that she couldn’t find a way to escape. It had been a relief to tell someone, but it didn’t change a thing. It only brought another angle of pain to the situation.
Gideon cleared his throat, as if to remind them both that he was watching their ugly family drama.
Henry pushed up her glasses, put on a smile, and did what she’d been trained to do her whole life. “I’m sorry, Aunt Kimberly. I’ll try to make more time for these things.”
As if flipping a switch, the tears stopped and although her eyes still shone like wet sea glass, she flashed a bright smile. “Wonderful. Ada Pickler invited us over for supper on Friday. She was in my high school class and always said I’d end up living in a shack on a dirt road, so dress in something nice. And Tina Clarice’s niece is getting married on Saturday at the basilica and I said we’d go with Leigh Belle to see the new Rex Parkman movie on Sunday―”
Henry held up a hand. “I’ve got plans for Friday but text me the time for the wedding and whatever else you have scheduled.”
“I’m sure Blue will understand.”
Henry shook her head, a dull throb starting near her right eye. “Sorry, Friday is taken. Just text me the others and I’ll be there. And no movies.”
Kimberly looked like she was going to argue and then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. “Okay. Now, I’d best be off or LaRhonda won’t have time to give me the full spa pedicure. They have tiny heated stones they put between your toes and it releases toxins from your blood into the water. Then all your energies align and your skin clears up. You should really try it. It’ll make you positively glow.”
“Sounds nice,” Henry said but Kimberly was already kissing her cheek and trotting back down the sidewalk.
When she was gone, Henry stood there, waiting to feel the crushing weight of the secret she’d held since she was little, but all she felt was the usual bitter taste of the lies she’d told and the added layer of shame that now there was a witness to it.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“No, it’s my turn,” he said. “I said being related to her wasn’t the worst thing in the world.”
“You’ve seen the error of your ways?”
He smiled, his dimples appearing. “Not quite.” He glanced back down the river walk. “I made a snap judgement. You’re so different. It’s hard to believe you’re kin.”
She was thankful he’d used such a vague term. “Because I’m a messy crier?”
“No,” he said. “But now that you mention it…”
A vision of the front of his shirt, complete with wet spots, popped into her head and she was glad they could joke about it.
“I have a question, and you can tell me if I’m being nosy,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Why no movies?”
“Oh. Actors,” she said.
He cocked his head.
“Actors acting.” She searched for a way to explain. “They’re never quite good enough. It’s uncomfortable, watching them lie their way through everything.” She shuddered. “Especially the love scenes. Some of them downright hate each other.”
“You’re fascinating, Henry.”
She didn’t know what to say to that so she said nothing.
“Is she gone?” Bix peered out the door.
“Don’t be silly, Bix. She won’t eat you alive,” Father Tom said, stepping past him. “So, Henry, are you coming for crawfish on Friday?”
“Yes, sir. And thank you for the invitation.”
“Huh. You were right.” Bix nodded at Fr. Tom. “He said if he left you two alone out here, Gideon would convince you to come.”
Henry felt her face go hot. “Well, I’d better get going. I’ve got a date and I’m still in my work clothes.” She waved as she slipped back inside By the Book, not waiting to hear their goodbyes.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly a date anymore, but her pride stung. Her feelings were so obvious that soon people would stop assuming she was engaged to Blue, and switch their conjecture to Gideon. The only thing worse than having the small town rumor mill fixated marrying you off to the man you were dating, was for it to try and marry you off to the man you weren’t.
Chapter Fifteen
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves
up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
― Winston S. Churchill
Gideon settled into the hard wooden chair and stacked his papers neatly in front of him. The flame from the kerosene lamp shed a warm glow over the space. With the heavy door closed, he could hardly hear the occasional traffic outside. It was everything he’d always loved about the place and yet he felt uneasy, anxious.
Henry was out on a date with Blue while he sat in a dark basement and that was okay. She was clearly afraid of him and that was okay, too. He couldn’t expect miracles just because he had feelings for her. Vince used to say ‘pigs get fed and hogs get eaten’. Gideon couldn’t be greedy or he’d ruin everything. One step at a time and maybe, just maybe Henry might think of him as more than a friend. Someday.
Picking up a tattered picture, he peered at it with the magnifying glass. Two little girls stood next to a plow, their flour sack dresses hanging off thin figures. Adele Burel, Modeste Burel 1924. The names were familiar. Gideon pulled out his tablet and scrolled through the database. After the Burel name were nine letters, all in Creole French. He tapped the first, read the transcript and remembered the story. Sisters separated in childhood and Adele searched for her younger sister all her life. The second to last letter was from Modeste’s daughter to Adele. The two families had finally reconnected, fifty years after being separated, but it was too late. Modeste had died the year before.
Gideon looked at the two little girls, thinking of how Tom had never given up on him, how he had written him for years. Even now, Tom would search for him if he ever wandered away. He was like an anchor in a world that could be as cold and merciless as the ocean.
Henry believed she was invisible to her family, that they wouldn’t even notice if she disappeared. Maybe it was true. Kimberly wanted her around, but it seemed to be only for her own purposes. That day at the excavation site, Henry had spoken angry words, but her tears betrayed her. She grieved for the family she never had, as surely as the last letter written from Adele to Modeste’s family.
Gideon tapped the link to the last letter and read it again.
My heart is broken. I hoped to reunite with my dear sister and in my dreams it would be as if we were never separated. Now all that is left is seeing her in heaven someday.
Tom had once told him that Sally still celebrated his birthday by baking a cake. Gideon had shaken off the comment. He couldn’t imagine his foster mother feeling anything other than anger and disappointment. Once she’d sent a letter back with Tom when he’d gone home for a visit but Gideon had never opened it. Every time he’d looked at it, he’d felt a wave of despair and fear, until he’d finally hid it in a box and stuffed it into the back of his closet.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he jumped. Henry’s skittishness about the basement was rubbing off on him. He pulled out his phone and saw it was Tom.
“Are you picking up Bix and Ruby or should I?” Tom asked.
“I will,” Gideon said. “What time did you tell Henry to be there?”
“I never got a chance to say. You want to call her? Or you could just wander over to Oakland.” He could hear Tom smiling through the phone.
“I’ll send her an e-mail.”
“I think a face to face meeting is better,” Tom said. H
e clearly thought Gideon should take any excuse to run over and see Henry.
“That didn’t go very well last time.”
“How do you mean? She seemed fine this afternoon.”
Gideon let out a long breath. Sure, Henry hadn’t run screaming down the sidewalk. “I think she’s afraid of me.”
He held the phone away from his ear as Tom burst into laughter.
“Remember when you told me to lay off the weight lifting? You were right.”
Tom took a few more seconds to speak normally. “My friend, you’ve always told me you’re great at reading people. Now I know that’s a lie.”
He shifted in the chair. “I know what I saw.”
“Which was what, exactly? Please elaborate on how Henry is terrified of you, because what I saw today wasn’t terror.”
“It’s hard to explain.” Gideon felt his face go hot just remembering. “Let’s just say, when I got close to her, she almost hurt herself jumping away.”
“Close to her? How close?”
Gideon rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “You want a blow by blow of the entire conversation?”
“Yes, sir.” Tom’s tone wasn’t teasing anymore. “I think Henry just might be the one person you can’t read.”
He thought of the first time they’d met and how he couldn’t quite puzzle her out. “She was crying. I was hugging her. And then I…” He slumped in his chair. It was humiliating to admit. “I tried to kiss her and she jumped backward. It couldn’t be more clear if she had waved a chair at me.”
There was a long pause. “Why was she crying?”
“It wasn’t anything I did. It was something she was saying and it made her cry.”
“Something about the site? History?”
“No, no. Something personal.”
“Got it.” Tom was smiling again. “So, definitely not talking about the weather.”
“No. I guess we’re just not the type.”
“And then you…. hugged her?”
He didn’t answer. He knew what Tom was thinking. Gideon wasn’t a hugger. He wasn’t even a toucher. He could be perfectly happy not touching another human being ever. Or so he had thought.
Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series Page 47