by J. R. Ward
As far as she was concerned, the whole world stopped moving.
But then Frankie looked over with a frown, as if she’d caught Gray’s change in mood and was curious what the cause was.
Joy hurried away.
Holy Moses, what was that, she thought.
She took the stairs two at a time even though her legs were about as stable as her heartbeat.
Maybe he’d caught her staring and all her stupid fantasies had shown on her face.
Oh, God. The idea that he knew about her silly infatuation was enough to make her nauseous. Sure, in her daydreams he greeted the news flash with happiness. But in real life, she couldn’t believe a man like him would feel anything other than pity for her.
When she got up to the landing, she saw the Thorndykes in the doorway of their room, looking worried.
“I’m so sorry about this,” she said, stepping past them.
Her grandmother was on the floor, poking at the wall with a screwdriver.
Joy rushed over. “Grand-Em, is there something I can help with here?”
“You can get me into this wall. I must retrieve my ring.”
“Okay. But why don’t we do it some other time? We’re disturbing these nice people.”
Grand-Em hesitated, good breeding momentarily taming the dementia. “But the ring must be found.”
“Of course it does. But wouldn’t you agree we shouldn’t inconvenience our guests?”
Grand-Em eyed the couple and accepted a hand up off the floor. “Yes, you are quite right.”
Joy pocketed the screwdriver and shot apologetic glances at the Thorndykes as she led her grandmother down the hall to the door that opened to the staff quarters.
“I must find my ring.”
Joy figured she’d give it one more shot. “But isn’t it on your finger?”
Grand-Em looked down at her hand. “No, the one Arthur gave me.”
“But Grand-Em, you were never—”
Joy’s grandmother shot her an imperious stare. “I shall prove that he asked me to marry him. Come. I shall show you.”
THE NEXT MORNING, FRANKIE sat at her desk and reread the letters her sister had given her the night before.
It looked as if Grand-Em wasn’t delusional about Arthur Garrison.
There were four letters from him to their grandmother, dated between the fall of 1940 and summer of 1941. And sure enough, the last one demanded an answer to the proposal he’d made and the ring he’d offered to her that April. The words the man had used were flowery, over-the-top.
Artie was a real ladies man, Frankie thought.
The phone on her desk rang and she picked it up. “White Caps.”
“Frankie? It’s Mike Roy.”
“Mike, how are you?”
“Fine.” Funny, he didn’t sound fine. “Listen, I’ve got some bad news.”
Frankie let the letters fall to the desk as she gripped the receiver. “Hit me.”
Literally, she thought.
“The bank is being acquired.”
“Will you have to leave?” she asked, hoping she wouldn’t lose him.
“I don’t know. I hope not. But, ah, we need to settle up your account before the sale goes through. All business is being brought up-to-date.”
“How much time?”
“End of August.”
She put her head in her hands. “Okay.”
It wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. But what else could she say?
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not your fault. I’ll get the money.”
“Look, if you can’t, I have an interested party.”
“An interested—for the house?”
“Yes. It’ll be better than putting it up for auction if you default. You’ll get more money that way.”
“The Englishman,” she whispered. “The hotelier you brought here. Is he really a friend of yours?”
Mike cleared his throat. “I’m just trying to do you a favor.”
“You knew about this all along, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure the acquisition was going to go through. I’m giving you as much notice as I possibly can.”
After they hung up, Frankie stared across her office, at the picture of her family.
The phone rang almost immediately.
Maybe he was calling back and telling her he’d made a mistake. Yeah, right.
“White Caps.”
“May I please speak with Frances Moorehouse.” The male voice was curt, authoritative.
“This is she.”
The man cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I’m Commander Montgomery of the United States Coast Guard.”
Frankie went stone-cold. “Alex?”
“It is with regret that I inform you that your brother, Alexander Moorehouse, is missing off the coast of Massachusetts. His vessel was found capsized in high seas in the eye of Hurricane Bethany. We have instigated a full search for both him and his sailing partner, Mr. Cutler. I’d like to give you my contact information, but be assured, I will call you with news.”
Frankie could barely hold a pen and write she was shaking so badly. And as soon as she hung up, she bolted out of her office. Careening through the kitchen, she ran outdoors blindly. When she finally slowed down, she realized she was on the dock.
She looked out at the vast expanse of the lake.
And screamed at the water.
NATE SAW FRANKIE COME crashing through the kitchen and he immediately dropped what he was working on and went after her. She was running as if chased, and when she got to the end of the dock, she pitched her body forward and let out a roar of pain.
He reached out for her. “Frankie!”
She spun around, eyes wide with horror, tears streaking down her red, contorted face. “Alex is dead. My brother is gone.”
Nate squeezed his eyes shut and crushed her against his chest.
As he wrapped his arms around her body, she fell apart, sobs wracking her shoulders until he thought her spine would snap. The sounds coming out of her were like that of an animal.
When he glanced up and saw Joy slowly coming down the lawn, looking worried, he pulled away slightly.
“Your sister,” he said softly in Frankie’s ear.
Frankie pulled back, wiped her eyes with hands that trembled, and sniffled. He gave her the dish towel he carried in his back pocket while he worked.
“Frankie?” Joy’s voice barely carried.
“I’ll leave you two,” Nate whispered.
Frankie gripped his hand. “No, stay.”
“What’s happened?” Joy asked.
“Alex—” Frankie’s voice cracked. “Alex.”
Joy’s face collapsed, her mouth, her eyes, the bones in her cheeks sagging. And yet her voice was strong when she spoke. “Is he missing or dead?”
“Missing. But—”
“So there’s a chance.”
“His boat capsized. In a hurricane.”
“And if anyone could survive that, it would be Alex.” Joy lifted her chin. “I’m not mourning him until they find his body.”
Joy turned around and headed back for the house. Her hands were wrapped around her slender body, her strawberry blond hair lifted by the wind.
Nate looked at Frankie. “She’s strong.”
“Stronger than I am right now.” She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes grim as they leveled on the lake. “I can’t bear to lose him, too. God, why the hell is water so hungry for my family?”
Nate put an arm around her. He wanted to tell her that it would be okay and they would find her brother. But no one except the good Lord could know what the outcome was going to be. “You want to close the dining room tonight?”
Her chest expanded as she drew a deep breath. “No. We need the money.”
Eventually, they went back to the house and Frankie stayed in her office. When the kitchen was closed down, Nate went to her. She was staring out the window, one hand on the top of the desk, right next to
the phone.
“Did we do well tonight?” she asked dully.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She finally looked at him. “I tried to talk to Joy, but she won’t listen.”
Nate went around the desk and knelt down in front of her, putting his hands on her knees. “You want to go upstairs?”
When she shook her head, he sat on the floor at her feet and leaned back against the bookcases.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m going to be here all night.”
“Then so am I.”
She was silent a long time.
“This feels just like the night my parents died. The waiting. The sensation of time passing slowly, the hours stretching out as far as I can see. But at least I didn’t cause this.”
Nate frowned. “You didn’t cause your parents’ deaths either.”
“That’s not true. I killed my mother.”
FRANKIE HEARD NATE’S SHOCKED breath and glanced at him. His big body was folded up on the floor, his capable hands resting on his knees. His face was filled with disbelief and sympathy.
She was so grateful for his presence because she wanted to talk. And for the first time in a decade, she let herself.
“When business at White Caps gradually decreased, my father took up refurbishing old sailboats. He’d always loved working with his hands. Alex used to help him. They did it in the barn out back. On the afternoon, my parents—” she couldn’t say the word died so she kept going “—my father just finished one and had put it in the water to take it out for a test run. A storm blew up from the north. The bad weather came on fast and hard. It does that around here in the spring.” She took a deep breath. “We found out later that the mast had snapped because it hadn’t been reinforced properly. Evidently, he’d been struck on the head and swept into the lake.”
Nate made a compassionate noise in the back of his throat.
“Did I tell you that I got into Middlebury on a swimming scholarship?” she said, afraid that if she stopped, she’d lose her courage. “I was a fantastic swimmer. All State. I could swim for miles and miles and Dad said that I took after him. That afternoon, I remember looking at the waves and thinking they were high, but not high enough to drown him. Not him. Not the man who could swim for fifty yards underwater. I remember thinking that if the boat had gone over, he was swimming through those waves. To an island, to the shore. Towards home. Back to us.”
She glanced out to the lake. “My mother and I waited for him to come back for at least an hour. There was more bad weather on the way so she called the sheriff’s patrol, but they couldn’t go after my Dad. They were busy rescuing a Boy Scout canoeing trip from the storm. So she headed for my father’s fishing boat. It was just a tin can with an outboard motor on it. She told me to stay behind to watch Joy.”
Frankie felt dizzy as she remembered the last time she’d seen her mother’s face. Those lovely, kind eyes had been full of fear as she’d headed out into the lake, but she’d been bound and determined to get her husband.
“My mother couldn’t swim. I knew she couldn’t swim and I let her go out in a storm, in an unsafe little boat, with only a couple of flotation cushions. There was no life preserver. How much time would it have taken for me to run and get her a PFD from the house? We had them for the guests. God, I should have made her wait, I should have—” She could feel the hysteria rising in her chest.
“Frankie—”
She knew by the tone of his voice he was going to tell her it wasn’t her fault and she cut him off. “Don’t. Just don’t. I grew up on this lake. I knew how it behaved. It was utterly irresponsible of me to let her go.”
“But did it ever occur to you that you were not the parent?” Nate said gently. “That your mother was protecting her child by making you stay?”
Frankie closed her eyes. “All I know is that if I had gone, she’d be alive today. And Joy would have at least had a mother.”
“You’re putting a lot of responsibility on yourself.”
“Who else can I put it on? When my mother took off, there was no one on that dock but me. Joy was in her room, scared to death. Alex wasn’t home. I let my mother go.” She shook her head. “I’ve replayed that moment when she went into that storm over and over again.”
She dragged air into her lungs.
“I dream about that moment even now. Sometimes I’m the hero and I save them both. Sometimes she comes back with him. Most of the time, I’m just in the storm, waiting. Searching the rain.” She looked down at him. “Kind of like right now.”
Nate made a move to come forward, but she put her hands out. “If you hug me right now, I’m going to cry.”
“So cry. I don’t care.” His arms were so good as they went around her. “Just don’t ask me not to hold you.”
AN ALARM WAS GOING off.
Frankie shifted uncomfortably. Her neck was stiff, her back was sore—
She flipped open her eyes.
She and Nate had slept on the floor of her office. And that wasn’t an alarm, it was the phone.
She scrambled up to the desk and grabbed the receiver in the dark, thinking it must be two in the morning. “Hello?”
“Frances Moorehouse?”
Her throat tightened to the point of cutting off her air supply. She couldn’t even respond.
“This is Commander Montgomery. Your brother’s been found. He’s injured and being treated at the local hospital for several broken bones. But he’s alive and we’re going to fly him home to you in forty-eight hours.”
She clasped her hand over her mouth, tears starting to roll. Somehow, the commander ended the call and she replaced the receiver without dropping it. She launched herself into Nate’s arms.
“He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive….”
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Frankie finally got to talk with Alex. He was groggy from pain medication, but his hoarse voice was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard was still looking for his partner, Reese Cutler. Alex was distraught about that, but he did seem to accept the fact that he had to come home to recuperate. As she hung up, she could just picture her brother trying to get out of a hospital bed so he could go and find his friend, even though he had casts on his leg and arm.
She got teary-eyed every time she thought of him and the near miss. Especially when she pictured Reese’s wife still sitting by the phone.
As she and Alex had said goodbye, she’d told him that she’d get his old room ready for him. Just the thought of having him at White Caps for a little while was enough to put a smile on her face.
“So you’ve heard!”
Frankie looked up at the door. One of the guests was waving a newspaper and grinning.
“About what?” she asked.
“The review. In the New York Times.” The man came forward and dropped the paper on her desk. The headline read, White Caps B & B: An Out of the Way Pleasure.
She laughed aloud. She’d never even known a critic, much less one working for the Times, had been through the dining room. “May I keep this?”
“Sure, as long as I’m guaranteed a table tonight.”
She went into the kitchen to find Nate. He was making bread. “Did you see this?”
He looked up from the kneading. “Well, what do you know. Walter snuck in here.”
“God, Nate. This could save us.” She glanced away, reminding herself that they were not partners. “White Caps, I mean. Anyway, congratulations.”
“Thanks. When are you going to pick up Alex at the airport?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Want company?”
“I’ll be fine. I’d like a little time alone with him, actually.”
The truth was, though, she felt like pulling away from Nate. His support during those awful hours of waiting had been all that had gotten her through the night in one piece. She was grateful beyond measure, but she was so vu
lnerable to him now. He’d seen the very core of her.
And he was still leaving. In a month’s time.
Needing some busy work to keep her mind off the future, she went to her office and re-ran her financial projections. If everything stayed the same, and with the Times article that was a pretty sure bet, they were going to make it, even with the accelerated deadline of August.
She refused to let herself think about the following summer. Maybe she’d be able to attract a better quality chef now that the restaurant had been written up. Maybe Nate would know someone who was of his caliber.
Yeah, like there were a whole bunch of French chefs who’d want to get pigeonholed in upstate New York.
It was a little before four when Nate’s friend, Spike, called again. She left her desk to give them some privacy, and when she came back in from weeding the garden, they were still on the phone. A quick glance into the office showed Nate crouched over a legal pad, making notes and working her calculator.
THE NEXT DAY, NATE WATCHED from the kitchen table as Frankie’s Honda pulled up to the house and came to a gentle stop. She got out first but before she could make it around the car, the passenger-side door opened wide. A pair of crutches emerged and then her brother carefully stood up.
Alex Moorehouse was a big man and built like an athlete, all wide shoulders and taut legs. His dark hair was short and streaked with blond, his skin was deeply tanned, and in the shorts and polo shirt he was wearing, he looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch model. His face, however, was all business, and as he shrugged off Frankie’s attempt to help him, Nate could see that the two shared the same stubborn streak.
Nate got up and opened the door. As curious as he was about Frankie’s brother, he was more interested in her. She seemed worried but pleased and he thought she was especially beautiful today, with her hair down and a light summer dress on.
When he looked back at her brother, Moorehouse’s eyes had narrowed.
“This is our new chef, Nate. Nate, my brother Alex.”
Moorehouse pegged the crutches into the ground and swiftly covered the distance to the door. Which meant he was either familiar with the damn things or just plain lithe.