by Jenny Hale
“Well, I’ll help then.”
“No, Luke,” she said, trying to keep herself from sounding desperate. “I need to focus, and you distract me.”
She heard a huff and could feel his smile on the other end. “I distract you?” His voice was smooth like silk, and she rolled over in frustration, burying her face in her pillow.
She finally flipped over to answer him. “Yes. You distract me. Now let me work!” Before she could be persuaded, she got off the phone, claiming her work was going to take half the night and all day tomorrow. Her hands trembling, Callie shook her head, wondering how she’d ever get through this.
Nineteen
“I’m smitten with Aiden,” Olivia said the next morning, sitting beside Callie at the kitchen table, her eyebrows bouncing up and down as she held her cup of coffee in front of her face as if she were hiding behind it, the mere thought of Aiden making her cheeks rosy. But then her face dropped. “But I’m worried,” she said before Callie could get excited for her.
“About what?” Callie scooted her chair closer and then stirred her coffee. She set the spoon down beside her mug, her eyes on Olivia.
“He’s a wonderful man. I’ve known him for ages…”
“I know he really likes you, Olivia. It isn’t hard to tell.”
Olivia nodded. “But what if I let myself fall for him and then it doesn’t work out? What would that do to Wyatt? He doesn’t have a great experience with men already because of his dad, and I know he’ll love Aiden. I wouldn’t want to take that away if something happened between us. It could cause a rift between me and Wyatt, and I don’t know if I could live with that.” She took in a deep breath and let it out, her elbows on the table. “It’s almost not worth the risk, you know?”
Callie put her hand on Olivia’s arm. “You’re a great mother,” she said. “You look out for Wyatt, and you do everything for him that you can. But you can’t foresee every obstacle. What if you denied him someone who could raise him like a father, someone who would be around for the rest of his life? What if you denied him that because of fear? Just take it slowly—day by day. You’ll know what you feel and you’ll know what to do. But don’t let fear keep you and Wyatt from the happiness you both deserve.”
Olivia got up and wrapped her arms around Callie. “Thank you. You always know the right things to say to me. I’m still not sure, but you’ve given me something to think about.”
“If there’s one thing I’m realizing, it’s to just let things happen. You don’t have to have it all figured out right now.” Callie downed the rest of her coffee and stood up. “I need to work!” she said with dramatic flair. “I have spackling to do!”
There was a knock at the door, and Callie stopped spackling the old picture holes in the drywall upstairs, sharpening her hearing. The furniture had already been delivered and it was still a little early in the day for visitors. The only people here were the crew. They’d started early and cut the power again for the final time.
“Callie!” Olivia called up to her. “Frederick McFarlin’s here!”
Frozen, Callie wondered if she could find some reason to stay exactly where she was. She’d lain awake all night, not knowing what to do and scolding herself for prying. It was times like these that she wished she had her mother to talk to. Her grandmother had always known how to listen—why hadn’t her mother? Why couldn’t she have just picked up the phone and told her how all this was eating her alive? And now Frederick was here. Did it mean he had changed his mind about the mural?
“Callie?”
“Coming!” she said, getting the spackle off her thumb and wiping her hands on her shirt.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she found Frederick, holding a large box that she guessed contained paint and other art supplies and a large, flat leather bag. “I thought I’d paint that mural for you,” he said, his eyes flickering, his nerves showing.
She nodded and smiled, a pinch forming in her shoulder all of a sudden.
“Wow. You’ve changed this place. I feel like I’m somewhere completely different.” His chest filled with air and he looked relieved.
“Olivia,” Callie said, just realizing she’d left her friend standing there in the dark. “Frederick McFarlin is an artist and he’s going to paint our mural.”
“Oh!” Olivia shook his hand. She flicked a confused look Callie’s way while keeping the smile on her face. “Excellent! So nice to meet you.”
“I’ll show him around.”
Callie led Frederick into the formal living room as Olivia mouthed What is going on? behind his back and Callie just shook her head. She’d explain later. If she could think of how to explain without giving everything away.
“So, what were you thinking?” asked Frederick.
“I’d like the light blue I’ve painted to bleed into the sky, but a very subtle beach scene—maybe some sand and seashells or something—along the bottom here.”
Frederick set down his paints and scrutinized the wall, while Callie stood beside him, lightheaded with anxiety.
Callie had let Frederick work while she finished what she had to do upstairs. When she was done, she stopped in the hallway, peering into the formal living room, a thrill running through her like an electric current. “Wow,” she said as Frederick sponged on a few shadows in the sand. “That’s absolutely amazing.”
“Thank you,” he said with a grin, his eyes still on the mural. “It’s only sand.”
“I know, but it looks so real.” She walked in and kneeled down beside him.
“I worried I might be rusty,” he admitted, mixing more taupe to the yellow on his palate. “But it’s like riding a bike: just get back on and go.” He examined the color and then added some white. “You know, once, I did a mural for a lady who owned a beach shop. She came in and started sobbing. I nearly had a heart attack. Luckily, her tears were out of happiness. I’ve never been so relieved in all my life,” he said with a chuckle.
“Haha. Have you painted a lot?”
“Ah, not too much. I prefer drawings to murals really. I don’t let anyone see them until I’m finished. There’s something about the seclusion—just my eyes and my pencil on the page—until I’m ready to show someone. Sometimes I don’t show anyone at all. It feels more personal to me. Sometimes I showed Alice.”
“Were you close with Alice?” she asked daringly.
Frederick drew his brush lightly along the wall, making one long streak that, after a few other touches were added, she realized was a piece of sea grass. It was so lifelike she couldn’t believe it.
“Very. She and I were always together when we were young.”
“Did you drift apart?”
Frederick pursed his lips. “Not really. I just moved away, and distance will take a toll on any relationship.”
“Do you still own the house across the street?”
“Yep.” He dabbed on some white, his strokes seemingly chaotic until a seashell shape began to emerge.
“Do you ever rent it or anything?” She liked Frederick. He was easy to talk to, like Luke.
“No. I just left it. Like I said, it’s too hard. Too many memories.” He painted another little seashell and Callie was amazed at how easy he made it look. “Don’t feel like you have to entertain me,” he said. “I know you have a ton of work to do but you’re very kind to sit and make conversation with me.”
Callie smiled. “I’m going to run some errands. I’ll be right back. Olivia’s upstairs if you need anything. Would you like a glass of tea before I go?” Callie asked, standing up.
“That would be nice,” he said with that grin that looked like his son’s.
Callie had worked right through her sandpaper. It was nearly as smooth as the wall. She’d spent all morning before Frederick’s arrival filling holes in the upstairs bedrooms and hallways, and patching a few odd spots where the movers must have dinged the drywall. She’d had to drive to Rodanthe to the hardware store, and the drive there had been quiet a
part from the radio. They were still watching that storm, the clouds lingering, taunting them all.
She couldn’t wait to get back and see Frederick’s progress on the mural. Now that he’d gotten started, she was so thrilled he was feeling creative again and that he’d decided to do his first piece at The Beachcomber. It made her feel like she’d helped in some way. Perhaps that was why she had been meant to find the lockbox. Maybe things were fine as they were, but Frederick needed to feel like he could come back to this place, that it wasn’t so scary after all. Maybe he’d even venture over to his cottage and have a little rummage inside.
When Callie pulled up in the drive, her skin stung with the sensation of a million needles as she came to a stop behind Luke’s SUV. She sat at the wheel, clutching the little bag of sandpaper and her purse, not sure what to do. Luke could read her better than anyone ever had, and she knew that if she had to come face to face with him, he’d know something wasn’t right.
Then panic set in. What if Frederick had told him? What if Frederick had also said she’d known all about it? Her hands started to tremble. With the car off, the heat was mounting despite the cloud cover, and she’d eventually have to get out or she’d develop heatstroke. Callie opened the door, the sea breeze feeling cool against her skin, and walked up to the house, the bag rustling in the wind at her side.
With a gulp of air, she turned the knob and pushed open the front door. She heard Luke’s voice first: unruffled, casual. “So when you put the sunlight on that stem there, did you have to mix colors to blend it, or is that just plain white?”
Frederick answered him. Callie, barely listening through the gale of worry in her head, moved quietly like a cat, coming up on the entrance to the living room. Luke and Frederick were standing side-by-side facing the painting, their backs to her, and the resemblance in their build was uncanny. She took a step toward them, a board creaking under her feet. Both of them turned around at the same time—even their movements were alike. She forced a nervous smile.
“Hey,” Luke said with a wave.
Callie took in the curve of his lips, the playfulness in his expression—there was no hint of worry there. She threw a look over to Frederick. He was smiling too, his face innocent of anything, but a sparkle in his eyes. She knew this moment was huge for him; she just didn’t expect to have it go quite like this.
“I thought I’d come over to help,” Luke said. “Since you wouldn’t go out with me because of all the work you had to do.” His voice was droll to be dramatic.
Always playing.
Well, this wasn’t funny, was it? He was standing in front of his biological father. And now Callie was witness to it. She had to watch it unfold, feeling the mortification that she knew he would feel once he found out, and it was only a matter of time because how could they all just exist like this together?
“I was only kidding,” he said, and she snapped out of her internal monologue.
Callie looked at Frederick, wondering what to do, but his look of warning made her feel like she should carry on covering everything up. She took in a breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve just been really busy and I don’t have time to do anything else.”
“You look really tense,” Luke said. “Is everything okay?”
Fear blasted through her veins and she just knew her face had turned a ghostly white. She was terrible at keeping secrets. She could hide all her emotions and know people for years without revealing anything about her worries, but when it came to a secret like this, her body language would give her away—and this was the biggest one she’d ever had to keep. It made her so uncomfortable she could hardly stand still. She wanted to tell Luke because, until this moment, she’d been able to tell him anything. He was the first person she’d ever met who made her feel like she could open up and, instead, she had to be closed off.
“Callie, what’s wrong?”
She blinked, steadying herself. “Nothing. I’m fine. I’ve just had a lot on my plate lately with the house.” She caught Frederick look down at the floor and she wondered if he felt guilty for putting her in this position. It wasn’t his fault.
“You need a break,” Luke said, striding over to her. “Let me get you some lunch. Nothing fancy; just somewhere we can kick back and relax.”
She shook her head, but knew she didn’t have a good reason to say no.
“Callie…” Luke looked utterly concerned which only made her panic worse. She felt just awful.
“Okay, fine,” she said, raising her eyebrows in an attempt to look light-hearted. She’d caved, faltered, but she couldn’t help it. Telling him now would only make things worse. She’d have to be strong. She’d just go out to lunch, have a sandwich, ask him about work, and then go home. That was it.
“When Olivia let me in, she introduced me to your painter,” Luke said right off the bat when Callie got into the SUV. Her heart went a hundred miles an hour and she worried he’d actually see the thudding through her shirt. There was no way this lunch was going to be easy.
“Frederick,” she said. “He’s really nice.”
“Yeah, I like him.”
He was probably just making conversation, but she hung on the words: he liked him. They filled her with a rush of excitement. Luke was experiencing the one thing she’d always wanted to have with her own father—that chance to talk, with nothing between them—and he didn’t even know it.
“I was a little worried about him when I first met him,” Luke said.
She snapped her head over in his direction. “Why?”
He glanced over at her and then back to the road. “Olivia mentioned he had a box full of articles about me and my family. She wondered if I knew him. Not sure what that was all about.”
Breathe, she told herself. Smile. “He just loves the area, I think. He grew up here and actually has a house right across from The Beachcomber. I think he had a bunch of different articles—not just yours.” She could barely get the words out, the tiny white lie slithering off her tongue like some sort of foreign serpent. She swallowed hard.
Luke looked at her again; her response clearly had not helped things. Uncertainty swam across his face. She wanted to slide down onto the floor of the car and it just swallow her up. In fact, she was praying for it.
He pulled into the parking lot of a local seafood shop and put the SUV in park. Then, without getting out, he shifted in his seat to face her. “You’re acting weird,” he stated. Before she could say anything, he demanded, “Why wouldn’t you see me when I called?”
Her mouth opened but nothing would come out, the tiny lie she’d just told stripping her of any possible speech that she might have had.
“Have I done something?”
She shook her head.
“I would’ve painted that mural for you,” he said. “You didn’t even ask me.”
She felt the crease form between her eyes—the same crease that she got when she was studying for a big test in college or worried about something. She didn’t understand his line of conversation, her mind still on Frederick. But then she wondered if he was just hurt that she hadn’t asked him to paint. “What?” was all she could manage.
“You hired someone instead.”
“I didn’t hire him. He’s doing it as a favor.”
“Why?”
She tried to focus on the fact that he just didn’t believe that she’d found a second artist in the Outer Banks who would do her a favor. His questions, instead, felt like he was screaming, Why didn’t you tell me this was my father! She bit her lip. The heat was rising and she needed air or she might pass out. She opened the car door, trying not to gasp when the breeze blew in.
“Callie, you need to tell me what’s going on because I’m thinking that you just don’t want to see me anymore.” He got out and walked around to her side of the car. When he got to her open door, he said, “And that’s fine, but just have the decency to tell me face to face. If it’s true, though, know that it’ll knock me sideways.”
&nb
sp; Her head was swimming as she tried to sift through all her thoughts. “What are you talking about?” Callie stood up, worried her legs wouldn’t hold her. She shut the door and leaned against it for support.
“I sit at work and think about when I can call you again,” he said. “All I think about is when I’ll get to see you. I’ve never met someone who gets me like you do, and I’ve never shared as much of who I am with anyone.” He took a step forward, the gravel beneath his feet crunching and ringing in her ears. “And getting to know you, I think you feel the same. You won’t admit it to yourself, but you’ve opened up to me too—I can tell. Tell me, Callie. Why don’t you want to see me?”
“I do…” Her words withered and fell short of the impact she’d wanted to have. Two people walked past them, glancing over with interest. Callie avoided eye contact. The truth was, she did want to see him. And he was right; she felt just as he thought she did, but things were too difficult with this big hurdle between them. It wasn’t her place to say anything and she was caught in a terrible situation.
She looked up at Luke; his jaw was set and he looked away, shaking his head just slightly.
“You’re so frustrating,” he said quietly.
“None of this was meant to happen,” she said, the words suddenly tumbling out. “I wasn’t trying to meet someone.” That was the truth but the way it was coming out, it sounded like some sort of breakup. “That’s not what I meant,” she scrambled, “I mean, it is, but…”
“What are you afraid of?” he asked, irritation penetrating his words. “Are you afraid of getting close to me?”
“No!” she said loudly, looking around to see if people were staring. The lot was empty.
“Are you afraid because of the press? I could sort of tell, Callie, but I thought we’d gotten over all that.”
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. She just stood there, her mind empty.
Luke’s face came into view. “That’s what it is, isn’t it?” he said. “You actually believe what you’ve read about me. And now… Now that I know you better, and I see how private you like to be, I’ll bet you’re worried the press will hound you too.” He scratched his face in thought. Then, in a whisper, he said, “I can’t believe that you trust the media over me.” He let the words hang in the air between them, his pain written all over his face.