by Hinze, Vicki
Bryce nodded.
Hatch. The man flashed then stayed in Cally’s mind. Hatch at the pond. If you need special help, you come to me. I’ll have your promise on that, little lady.
Sensing that same mystical luring she’d felt at making the turn in Bangor onto Sea Haven Highway, Cally didn’t question herself, just headed toward the door. If ever she needed special help, now was the time. “I’m going to get Hatch.”
“Good idea,” Miss Hattie assured her. “Nobody knows every nook and cranny—land or sea—around here like Hatch.”
God, but did Cally pray Miss Hattie was right.
Bryce headed toward the stone steps, the cliffs.
Fighting back frustrating and fearful tears, Cally ran full-out up the sandy path to the lighthouse, half sliding, half falling her way to its base. The rain beat down hard, pelting her, stinging her skin, and obscuring her vision.
At the base of the lighthouse, near the little fence, Hatch stood waiting for her in a yellow slicker and hat and black wading boots.
He’d expected her. “Hatch?”
“I know, Cally.” He looked both sad and relieved.
She held a stitch in her side that ached from running, dragged in deep breaths. “Help me. Please.”
He reached into his pocket, then pulled out a shiny gold doubloon. “You take this, and I’ll take you to Suzie. But I need your word that you’ll not take this into Seascape Inn. When you don’t need it anymore, you give it right back to me, and you never mention it to Miss Hattie. She’s had enough heartache. We do our best to save her anymore.”
Cally took the coin. How it would help her, she didn’t know. Little of what Hatch said made sense to her. But not for a second, looking into Hatch’s eyes, could she doubt that the doubloon would help her, or that he made perfect sense. Both were just beyond her comprehension.
But she didn’t have to comprehend. She only had to find Suzie.
As of two o’clock Thanksgiving afternoon, Cally was thirty-two with nearly everything she wanted. She’d waited so long. So long. She couldn’t lose Suzie. Not now. Cally’s dreams couldn’t shatter so soon. She couldn’t bear it.
“Don’t even think it, little lady.” Wizen-eyed, Hatch clasped her arm, then moved swiftly toward Seascape. When he hooked right at a Y in the path leading away from the house, toward Batty Beaulah’s, Cally remembered the dream. “Oh, God, she’s in the pond. Suzie’s in the pond!”
Near the roots of the gnarled oak, Cally scanned the turbulent water through the rain—and saw Suzie adrift in the little rowboat.
“Suzie! Sit down! You’re going to fall in!”
“No, Cally. I can’t.” She held up a long wooden paddle.
“Oh, God, she’s trying to get the oars in the water.” Cally spun to tell Hatch but he wasn’t there.
Tony was.
And so was a dark-haired woman.
“Tony, thank God.” Cally swiped at the rain dripping down her face. “Help her.”
He didn’t move. And the anguish in his eyes stopped Cally cold. “I can’t.”
“You have to.” What did he mean, he couldn’t? “For God’s sake, Tony. Please!”
“He can’t do it, Cally.” The woman’s voice was soft.
Cally darted a frantic glance at Suzie. The boat rocked on a swell, lurched, and Suzie fell over the side, into the water. “Oh, God. Oh, God. He has to!” She grabbed his sleeve. “Tony, for God’s sake, please! Please, “ Cally cried. “You can save her.”
“Cally,” the woman interrupted again, sounding infuriatingly calm. “He can’t. Tony broke the rules. He’s restrained to observation only. If you want Suzie saved, then you must save her.”
“Me?” Cally stared at the woman. “Damn it, woman, I can’t swim!”
Her serene expression didn’t alter. “If only you have the courage to believe, miracles can happen beside a dreamswept sea.”
Suzie sputtered.
Cally panicked. Squeezed the doubloon in her pocket. Was this why she’d needed it? To swim? That had to be the reason Hatch had given it to her. He’d led her here, hadn’t he?
“Save your daughter, Cally,” the woman said. “You can do it.”
“God, help me.” Cally ran into the water, spotted Suzie, and inched her way to her, splashing, half drowning herself, praying, begging, pleading—and believing.
When she snagged Suzie’s nightgown, she experienced her first taste of sweet success. Tears of relief, of gratitude, streaming down her face, she grabbed her daughter by the neck, hoisted her to her, and latched onto the slick wooden hull of the boat.
“You did it. You came and got me.” Her voice a blend of excited squeal and awe, Suzie squeezed Cally so tightly she nearly couldn’t breathe. “I told Tony not to worry. I told him you would come.”
“Hold on to me and the boat, sweetheart.” Shivering from cold, from fear of the frothy water swirling around them, from reaction at what was happening here, Cally held Suzie in a death grip, terrified.
But the boat turned. Now it was floating toward the shore. Why? The wind was blowing the boat away from it. She didn’t understand this, either. But whatever the reason, she was grateful for it. “You’ve got some explaining to do when we get back to the inn. Did you forget that I can’t swim, Suzie? You could’ve drowned.” And I would have died. In my heart, I would have died at losing you because I love you so much.
Suzie grinned up at her. “You did swim. For me. Just for me.”
Cally touched bottom and nearly fainted from relief. Suzie’s words stopped her cold. She’d never, not once, told the kids she loved them. Not once.
Frigidly cold, Cally stilled, the water splashing at her chest, her feet sinking into the muddy bottom of the pond. “I love you, Suzie.”
Eyes shining, lips blue, teeth chattering, Suzie smiled back. “I know. I love you, too, Mom.”
Something special passed between them. Something warm and wonderful and good. The test Cally had passed had been divinely inspired and played out. She didn’t understand its intricacies any more than she understood a lot of the unusual things that happened at Seascape Inn. But her daughter hadn’t drowned. They loved each other. And they’d be there for each other all the rest of their days. That bond was sacred and sweet and cherished. And real. Those things were all that really mattered, and those things Cally understood perfectly. In her mind, her soul, her heart.
Suzie cradled in her arms, Cally stepped onto the shore.
Tony looked elated. “You did it, Cally.”
“I told you she would.” This from the pretty dark-haired woman, who still looked as serene as she’d been during the crisis, though her eyes glistened.
“Mary Beth did tell you that, Tony,” Suzie said, then went to him.
He picked her up in his arms, and tweaked her nose. “She did, little one. Didn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mary Beth?” Surprise streaked through Cally. “My Mary Beth?”
The woman nodded. “You’ve asked me many times since coming here in what you must believe. I think you have your answers now. Believe in yourself, Cally. And always, always, believe in love.”
“But—”
“Love gave you the strength to swim and save Suzie. It will always give you the strength to do whatever it is that you must do. But only if you believe in it.”
Cally blinked, then blinked again, still dripping onto the cold ground. “That’s why I needed Hatch’s doubloon. Because I believed it would give me the ability to swim, it did.”
Mary Beth Ladner smiled enigmatically. “Did it? Really?”
“No. But I thought it did. Love for Suzie gave me the ability.”
“And your belief that you could.”
“That, too.” Cally gave the woman a watery smile. “I can’t believe that after all these years, I’m standing here and talking with you.”
“I had to come. For years, you’ve let me know that I made a difference. I’ve never been forgotten. Tonight, I
wanted you to know, neither have you.”
She mattered. Her skin pimpled from cold, Cally never in her life had felt warmer. “Thank you, Mary Beth. And you, too, Tony.” Cally spoke around a lump in her throat. “For everything.”
“Cally!” Bryce shouted. “Suzie!”
Cally turned toward the sound and saw him running toward them. “Here, by the pond!”
She looked back, and Suzie stood smiling at her. Mary Beth and Tony had gone.
Bryce swept them both into his arms. “Thank God.” He kissed Cally on the temple, then brushed one to Suzie’s forehead. “What happened? Are you two okay?”
“Suzie fell into the pond.” Cally wrapped her arm around his waist.
“Cally swam out and saved me.”
Bryce stared at them. “Cally swam?”
“I did.”
Hatch came up. On seeing Suzie standing there with Cally, his leathery cheeks split into a smile and he handed them each a blanket to wrap around their shoulders. “I see you ladies went for a midnight swim. In my estimation, the daytime’s the best—a lot warmer—but I hear that some nighttime swimming ain’t bad, though it ain’t exactly a forgiving sport when it’s done in a storm.”
Cally eased the doubloon into the old man’s hand. “Sometimes swimming is a treasure far more precious than gold.”
He winked at her. “I might just have to try it myself sometime. Provided I don’t catch pneumonia and die from being out in this rain running after you two free spirits.”
Bryce hugged his girls. “We’d better get you two home and dried off. Hatch, come with us. Miss Hattie’s making hot chocolate.”
“Can’t do it, though I surely do like Miss Hattie’s hot chocolate. Uses those miniature marshmallows, you know. I never did care for hot chocolate with them big fat marshmallows in it.”
He couldn’t come. He had the doubloon, Cally realized. “Come as far as the house and I’ll bring you a cup to take with you on the walk home.”
“Well, now, in my estimation, Cally, that’s a fine idea.”
Cally grinned at the wise old man. Touched by magic. As much as Miss Hattie and Tony and Seascape Inn itself.
But what about Tony? What had happened to him? “Suzie?” Cally whispered, leaning low so only Suzie could hear her. “Is Tony still here?”
Suzie shrugged. “He’s on restriction for breaking the rules. When he’s not busted anymore, he might get to come back. If he does, he’ll be in his room.” She pointed up to the attic of the house.
“How long will he be on restriction?” Miss Hattie would be so lonesome without him.
“I don’t know. Mary Beth didn’t, either. She said they didn’t tell her.”
That “they” sent chills racing up Cally’s spine. But surely they would let Tony come home. Without him, Miss Hattie would be lost. So would Tony.
“Hey.” Bryce cupped Cally’s shoulder. “What are you two whispering about?”
“Girl talk.” Cally smiled at him.
“Yeah, girl talk.” Suzie smiled, too.
“Oh, boy.” Bryce looked at Hatch. “There’s three of them and only two of us guys. I think we’re in trouble, Hatch.”
“Yep.” He stuck his pipe in his mouth, his eyes twinkling. “Women. Ya gotta love ’em.”
“Yes, I guess you do.” Bryce’s laughing gaze met Cally’s. “I guess you do.”
Chapter 18
“You look happy.” Bryce looked at Cally over the kitchen table.
“I am happy.” She shrugged, and her cheeks turned the prettiest shade of rose he’d ever seen.
Suzie was back in bed, snug and warm and safe, and the house was quiet again. “We Richards do add excitement around here.” The grandfather clock in the gallery ticked softly. “It’ll be good to get home tomorrow, but I’m going to miss Seascape.”
Cally smiled wistfully. “Me, too. It’s true what they say. All of it.” Her gaze drifted to Bryce’s. “There’s a lot of love in this house.”
“There’s a lot of love in the woman I’m looking at, too.” He shook his head and set his mug back down on the table. “I have to confess something.”
“What?”
“I was at the pond. I saw Tony and the woman, wearing the crown of carnations.”
“Why didn’t you come help Suzie?”
“I couldn’t move.” Bryce let out a grunt. “It was the weirdest thing, Cally. I swear. It was as if my feet were planted in the ground. I couldn’t move so much as an inch—totally powerless. I hated the feeling.”
“Tony couldn’t move, either.” She paused to sip from her cup, then to lick marshmallows from her lips. “I had to do it.
“Do what?”
She cocked her head. “Believe in miracles.”
His lips curved in a wondrous smile. “Mary Beth gave back.”
Cally nodded.
Mary Beth had chosen her battle to fight for Cally. And when most needed, she’d found a way to help Cally. She hadn’t forgotten that she’d been remembered. “It’s amazing.” Bizarre too, but mostly amazing. Awesome and amazing. And humbling.
“We were wrong, Bryce.” Cally didn’t quite meet his gaze. “We thought caring was more powerful than love.” Cally looked straight into his eyes. “It’s not.”
It wasn’t. Bryce knew it as well as he knew he sat in Seascape Inn’s kitchen. Cally had believed, and she’d succeeded. She’d won. And Bryce wanted to win, too. He wanted to win her. He wanted to believe. To dream with her while awake and not pretending. “I know I promised I wouldn’t do this, Cally. And I know you’re probably going to be upset with me because I have, but—”
“You love me, Counselor.”
He stilled and just stared at her.
Her gaze softened, and she reached over the table to touch his hand. “I love you, too, Bryce. With all my heart.”
Stunned, he let her words—the truth—soak in, then wash through him. Warmth and joy seeped into his soul. “I should have realized at the church—your mysterious trust-test—when we didn’t go back and revise our vows. But I didn’t.”
He went to her, urged her to her feet, then closed his arms around her and hugged her tight. Suzie’s words ran through his mind: If only you have the courage to believe, miracles can happen beside a dreamswept sea.
Everyone was in the car, waiting to leave. Suzie yelled out. “Wait, Daddy. I forgot my quilt.”
“Okay.” With a little groan, he opened the door to let her out so she could run inside and get it.
Miss Hattie stood on the front porch. “What’s wrong, Suzie?”
“I forgot my quilt. I can’t leave my quilt.”
She sailed past Miss Hattie, past the L-shaped registration desk in the gallery, then, at the foot of the stairs, came to a dead halt.
“Forget something, little one?” Tony leaned against the wall and smiled down at her.
She gasped, and her eyes sparkled pure delight. “Tony, you’re home!”
“Yep.”
“Are you off restriction for good?”
“I hope so.” Never again did he want to come this close to losing Hattie. He tossed the quilt down to Suzie. “Catch.”
She hugged the little quilt to her chest. “I love you, Tony. And I love my new mom. You picked me the best mom ever.”
Tony smiled, crossed his chest with his arms. “I didn’t pick her, though I couldn’t have chosen better. We can thank Mary Beth for that.”
“Will you?”
“Yes, I will.” Sunshine had returned home, but he’d get Suzie’s message to her.
“I have to go.” She waved behind her. “They’re waiting in the car.”
“I know.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too, Suzie.” He walked down the steps, scooped her up and hugged her tightly, then set her back onto the floor.
She wadded the quilt at her chest. “Did you like my grown-up friend, Selena?”
“She seems like a nice woman.” What was the
munchkin up to now? She had that look in her eye . . .
“She doesn’t have a mom or dad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Matchmaking? The child had spent too much time with Hattie.
“She doesn’t have someone special, either. Like Daddy has Cally, and Uncle T.J. has Maggie, and Uncle John has Aunt Bess.”
“I get your point, Suzie.” Tony held off a smile by the skin of his teeth, then gave in to a wink. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” Suzie turned.
“Wait.” He plucked two petals from his yellow carnation. “You keep one for you, so you don’t forget me—”
“I’ll never ever forget you.”
“Then keep it just because,” he said. “And give this one to Miss Hattie.” His throat went tight. “She’ll know what it means.”
Her eyes glossy with sweet tears, Suzie looked up at him. “I believed, Tony.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Did you?”
The force of her words hit him like a thunderbolt.
“Suzie,” Miss Hattie yelled from the front door. “Your dad says to hurry, dear, or they’re going to catch the commuter traffic in Bangor.”
“Bye, Tony.”
“Bye.” He waved and watched her go, then cast a suspicious glance at the portraits of Cecelia and Collin hanging in the stairwell. Had he believed?
Hattie had rocked in her rocker until she thought the quiet house would drive her insane. When Suzie had given her the carnation petal, she’d thought Tony was back. But she’d climbed the stairs to the attic and his room was still warm. The white dustcovers were still draped over all the furnishings.
And inside she’d died just a little more. Her beloved hadn’t come back to her.
Now, she turned over in her bed and dabbed at her cheeks one more time. If he were here, he’d blister her ears for being spiny about this. Yet how could she not feel lost and frightened? For the first time ever she was alone.
She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer for him to come back to her. Just once more. Just . . . once more.
Tony waited patiently for his beloved to drift off to sleep, to drift into a dream. It hadn’t been until Suzie had asked him on the stairs if he’d believed, that he’d truly understood what had happened here with these special guests.