Hearts at Home

by Lori Copeland

  Weary of the internal debate, she blew out a frosty breath, then turned toward home. The idea of keeping Frenchman’s Fairest was highly impractical. The house needed work, Aunt Olympia needed a proper burial, Caleb needed a retirement fund, and Dr. Marc—she felt her heart twist—he needed a property owner who would let him remain in the guest cottage and could afford to maintain it.

  Thoughts of the doctor brought a rueful smile to her face. Why was A.J. so reluctant to visit the island? She knew of no rift between him and his father; each always spoke highly of the other. Annie had watched them carefully at Christmas, and both men had truly enjoyed each other’s company. But Dr. Marc was always making excuses for A.J., saying Alex was a busy and successful neurosurgeon …

  How successful could you be if you were too busy for friends and family? Annie frowned as another thought struck—she was A.J.’s girlfriend, yet he had barely made the funeral of her closest living relative. If she occupied such a low place on his priority list now, what would life be like when they’d been married twenty years?

  Her freewheeling friends would laugh off such worries. She ought to marry A.J., they’d say, and quit working altogether. As a surgeon’s wife she could entertain and socialize and host benefits for charitable causes. She could travel and mingle with celebrities; she could have a fine apartment in Manhattan and a weekend house in the Hamptons. Closing her eyes, she could visualize the house A.J. would want—a spacious, wide-windowed mansion painted in creams and beiges, with towering ivory statues in the living room and white furs on the bedroom floor.

  Her eyes flew open. Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine Birdie and Bea inside that house. Vernie, with her boots and leather aviator’s cap, would be as out of place as a bucket under a bull. Caleb would be a nervous wreck in such a fine home, and Aunt Olympia’s precious rose teacups would look like cast off bric-a-brac in a modern stainless steel kitchen.

  Why, even she wouldn’t feel at home in such a place. In the last few days she hadn’t felt at home anywhere but in Olympia’s parlor. The tattered lace curtains at the window, crackling logs in the fireplace, and the worn sofa before the bookcases refreshed her senses in a way her Portland apartment never could. A.J. would find Olympia’s parlor provincial and plain, but the room would suit a man like . . Dr. Marc.

  Turning up the beach she began to retrace her steps, moving along the southern slope of the island and the path to the ferry dock. For beyond the trail lay Frenchman’s Fairest and the carriage house, where she knew she’d find the man she sought.

  “Why, Annie!” Marc started to smile at his unexpected visitor, then thought the better of it. The young woman wore a troubled expression, and the cold had stolen all the color from her cheeks. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “No—I mean yes. I’m not sick, but I’d like to talk to you.”

  He opened the door wider. “Come on in. Since this isn’t a medical call, we’ll go back to the keeping room.”

  He led the way past his examination room and book-lined office to his private quarters, a comfortable space at the back of the cottage. His sofa bed, now neatly tidied up, lined the wall, while in the center of the room a black woodstove squatted on a brick hearth and radiated with pleasant heat.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said, stepping forward to tug at her coat. “I’ll hang up your coat and get you something warm to drink.”

  Annie closed her eyes as he lifted the coat from her shoulders, and he had a feeling she was looking for someone to lift her troubles as well. The poor girl had endured a lot in the last few days.

  “Have you been out walking?” he asked, moving to a small cabinet to the right of the doorway. The counter, equipped with microwave, coffeemaker, sink, and hotplate, served admirably as a kitchen since he rarely had guests.

  Annie sank onto the sofa, then held her hands toward the stove. “Ayuh. I needed to get out of the house to think.”

  “You must be frozen to the bone. I’ll make you a cup of hot tea—”

  “Don’t go to any bother. The heat feels nice.”

  “It’s no bother, Annie. I’ll have a cup, too.”

  Leaving her to enjoy the quiet, he pulled two mugs from the cabinet, then filled them with water and set them in the microwave. He punched on the power for three minutes.

  Drumming his nails on the counter, he squinted at the oven and decided that these were the longest three minutes he’d passed in his lifetime. Annie had to be bored silly, and with every passing moment he wondered why she’d shown up at his door. Caleb was her confidant and Dana Klackenbush more her age …

  What was she doing here? And why did he suddenly feel as flustered as a schoolboy? His cheeks were burning, which meant he was blushing, and Annie was too observant not to notice.

  Finally the oven beeped. He removed the mugs, burning his fingers in the process, then left the cups to steam on the counter while he bent to look in a cabinet and pretended to rummage for tea bags.

  He had to calm down. He drew in a deep breath, trying to lower his blood pressure and restore his usual color. The young woman who sat across the room might well be his daughter-in-law one day, so there was no reason for him to feel awkward and self-conscious. Besides, she looked like she could use a friend, and he’d been her friend long before Alex noticed her exceptional qualities.

  When he was certain his pulse had returned to its normal rhythm, he stood, caught her worried gaze, and smiled. “What’s on your mind, hon?”

  Maybe the word hon broke the dam, or perhaps it was the directness of the question, but tears overtook Annie with a sudden ferocity that surprised him. She threw herself into a mound of sofa pillows, sobbing as if her world had shattered, and the sound of her despair tore at Marc’s heart.

  He took two steps forward, then hesitated. What should he do? Stand and watch her weep, or offer the comfort of a shoulder to cry on?

  He grimaced, annoyed that he was even debating the question. If Cleta were weeping, or Birdie, he wouldn’t think twice about hurrying forward to comfort them.

  Drawing a deep breath, he crossed the room and sat beside her. “There, now.” He gently touched her shoulder, and that was all the encouragement she needed to seek the shelter of his arms.

  “Dr. Marc, I’m so confused!”

  He slipped one arm around her, pulling her head to his chest. “It’s okay, dear, things are going to be just fine.”

  “It’s … the house.” She sniffed against his sweater. “And Aunt Olympia. I have so many choices, so many obligations. And I don’t know who to ask for advice now that Aunt Olympia and Uncle Edmund are gone.”

  His hand, moving as if it had a mind of its own, smoothed her wind-whipped hair. “You have Caleb. He’s always given trustworthy advice.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t ask him about this because he told me he’s leaving. By the end of the month, he said. He’s going off to work someplace else, and I’m afraid it’s because Aunt Olympia wasn’t able to provide for him. I wish I could afford to pay him, but I can’t, and I think he doesn’t want me to feel obligated—”

  “Maybe he wants to work.”

  She sobbed again. “Who in their right mind wants to work at his age? I don’t know what to do.”

  Marc lifted a brow, then asked a delicate question: “Have you talked to A.J?”

  The head against his sweater wobbled up and down. “A.J. says I should sell the house and move to New York. He doesn’t really like Heavenly Daze.”

  Marc chuckled dryly. “That comes as no surprise.”

  She lifted her bleary eyes. “Well, I don’t really like New York. It’s a nice place to visit, but I don’t think I could ever live there.”

  Marc let his hand fall on the back of the sofa as the world went silent around them. If this were a casual conversation he would murmur some inane comment and move on, but this didn’t feel like a casual conversation. And the longer he looked into Annie’s sorrowful eyes, the more his heart yearned for something he had
no business considering, much less imagining …

  Abruptly, he pulled away and stood. “I promised you tea, didn’t I?”

  “You did … but I don’t really need it.”

  “I do.”

  He strode toward the kitchen, where the two mugs waited on the counter, cooler now, but still useful for keeping his hands busy.

  Was that a note of disappointment he heard in her voice just now? Could she be feeling … no, she couldn’t. Annie was young enough to be his daughter. Her entire lifetime stretched before her. He was a retired doctor living on Heavenly Daze because he’d tired of the rat race. He had moved here after his wife’s death, content to spend the rest of his life serving other people … alone.

  He didn’t want to love again. He certainly didn’t expect to love again.

  And he would not love again. He would rejoice for his son, knowing that Alex had found a woman of whom he was almost worthy.

  He unwrapped two teabags and dropped one into each mug. “Sugar?”

  “Ayuh. Two teaspoons, please.”

  He smiled. “I like a girl who’s not afraid of a few empty calories. You take risks.”

  “No, I don’t.” She stood and came toward him, her eyes wide pools of appeal. “I’m scared to death, Dr. Marc. Afraid I’ll make the wrong decision. If I sell the house and leave Heavenly Daze, I’m afraid I’ll lose a part of myself. I used to think that part wasn’t important, but lately I’ve come to realize it matters … a lot.”

  “Then don’t sell the house.” He said this with more conviction than was appropriate for an impartial advisor, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “But if I don’t sell the house, how am I supposed to take care of it? I live and work in Portland, and my annual salary can’t handle my living expenses and the cost of maintaining this house, too.”

  He pulled a teabag from the first cup. “I could help, Annie. Your Aunt always let me stay here as a service, but I could pay rent. In fact, I insist upon it—”

  “No.” A blush burned through her pallor. “I couldn’t take money from you, especially not after all you’ve done for the town. But I could do a lot with the proceeds from the house. For one thing, I could hire a boat to search for Olympia, then bury her properly.”

  He handed her the mug. “Assuming you could find the casket—which is a long shot—why on earth would you think Olympia cares about being properly buried?”

  Annie blinked. “Aunt Olympia always cared about doing the proper thing.”

  “But what makes you think she’s concerned about such things now?”

  The question seemed to strike home. “I … well, maybe she doesn’t. But surely everybody else does. I can only imagine what Vernie and Cleta are saying about me for leaving Olympia to swim with the fishes—”

  He laughed softly. “They’re not mobsters, dear, and you heard them at the funeral. They think there’s a certain poetic justice in the way Olympia went out.”

  “But Olympia would hate to know they were laughing at her.”

  “They’re not laughing at her—I’d bet my last dollar they’re laughing with her.”

  Leaning on the counter, she quietly sipped her tea.

  Her silence gave him courage. “Your confusion isn’t stemming from the house, Annie, and I think you know that. You’re confused about letting go. Are you ready to let go of Heavenly Daze and move to New York with Alex?”

  Surprise blossomed on her face. “Do you want me to move to New York with Alex?”

  “I want you to be happy, Annie.”

  “Really?” She lowered her mug and looked away, apparently considering the question, and Marc purposely turned his attention to a painting on the wall, afraid to read her thoughts in her eyes. By all that was right and honorable he ought to push her out of the nest and send her off to New York. One day his son would thank him. Maybe he and Annie would come to visit, bringing his grandchildren with them. The trade-off would be worth it, because life on Heavenly Daze without frequent visits from Annie would be dark and dull.

  Did he want a delightful daughter-in-law to cherish forever, or—his heart shrank from shaping the question— did he want Annie for himself?

  “You’ll have to choose,” he said, his voice sounding strangled as he stirred sugar into his tea. And as he took the first sip, he glanced into the dark brew and saw a coward reflected there—a man so afraid of his feelings he was willing to let a young woman make choices for him.

  By 11:00 AM, the island women were seated in the church sanctuary, cleaning supplies scattered among them. Because the church was too small to hire a cleaning service— and because there were none to be had—the women had always agreed to spend the first Thursday of every month polishing the old pews and dusting the antique woodwork.

  Edith had arrived first, to unlock the door and set out the cleaning supplies. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet as the other women arrived—they probably thought she was mourning Olympia. Truth was, she did miss Olympia something fierce, but her silence resulted from the fact that she was trying to plan a strategy for coping with the ladies’ lunch that would follow their cleaning session. Each woman always brought a dish, usually a casserole or salad, and after an hour of scrubbing they’d go down to the basement to eat. Trouble was, Edith didn’t have a clue how she would survive the hour.

  The only day she’d managed successfully was her first day of “Last Meals.” The second day, when she’d tried to starve herself, had ended in disaster after her meltdown at the funeral dinner. Yesterday she had tried to diet by eating only half of what she usually ate, but the previous day’s starvation had triggered some sort of gorging mechanism and she’d stuffed herself like a hog.

  This morning she had risen with new determination— she would arm herself with the low-fat diet plan. She would eat no more than twenty grams of fat per day, thank you very much, so for breakfast she had eaten a low-fat fruit bar that tasted like strawberry-flavored cardboard and three packages of gummy worms. Delicious— and not a smidgen of fat in a single worm.

  But how was she supposed to be successful when faced with a table loaded with casseroles and salads, none of which would have labels?

  Walking among the pews, searching for errant scraps of paper and old bulletins, she pondered the question and half-listened to the other women’s conversation.

  Cleta sat on the first pew, mending an altar cloth, her head bobbing toward the women around her. “Nobody asked my opinion, but I think Crazy Odell ought to have his neck wrung like a chicken.”

  “No one can predict a rogue wave, Cleta.” Vernie Bidderman, bent over the communion table, paused from dusting long enough to add her two cents.

  “Has the Coast Guard seen her?” Bea asked.

  Barbara Higgs lifted her head from where she was mending an altar cloth. “Russell said some fishermen spotted a big floating box around Boothbay Harbor, but they weren’t able to catch her. The Coast Guard’s still keeping an eye out, though.”

  “I wonder what Annie will do with the house?” Birdie stopped pushing the dust mop down the aisle and stared into space. “Heavenly Daze won’t be the same without a de Cuvier in Frenchman’s Folly.”

  “Just goes to show life is fragile,” Babette called from the back of the church, where she was spritzing the windows with cleaner. “And we should live each day as if it were our last.”

  “Anyone talk to Annie lately?” Bea called from the piano. “She puts on her best face when I deliver the mail, but you have to wonder. Poor thing—losing both aunt and uncle in such a short time.”

  “Annie’s doing well—that girl has spunk.” Vernie rubbed a spot on the altar table until it squeaked. “I stopped by Frenchmen’s Folly last night, and Annie said she and Caleb have a real peace about Olympia’s passing. I think she’s still a little unnerved about Olympia’s voyage, though.”

  A nervous titter erupted, then faded.

  By noon the women had made their way down to the basement and the kitchen. Edith
felt her eyes water when she beheld the day’s feast: Babette’s cheesy chive potatoes, Vernie’s shrimp scampi, Birdie’s hot yeast rolls, Cleta’s strawberry-rhubarb pie.

  Thursday morning cleaning was a diet ambush, pure and simple.

  Edith took a spoonful of everything, resigning herself to the fact that she’d chosen a bad day to count fat grams. She’d start again, and she’d be downright religious about her diet … tomorrow.

  She ate slowly, watching Dana and Babette pack the food away and envying their metabolism. Both women were as slender as flower stems. Barbara Higgs had a little more meat on her bones, but nothing serious. Edith had once been slim, but the older she got, the harder it was to shed extra pounds. She closed her eyes and bit into a hot roll. My, Birdie could make bread.

  “I don’t know about you, but I can’t seem to get enough to eat these days,” Vernie complained. She dished up a second helping of cheesy chive potatoes.

  “Oh, you’re just in love,” Cleta teased.

  Color infused Vernie’s cheeks, but everyone in town knew her husband, Stanley, had taken to courting her like a man with nothing to lose. Stanley Bidderman, who’d gone missing for twenty years, had returned to the island in December and declared his intention to win Vernie’s heart again.

  Throughout the months of December and January the townsfolk had waited to see if Vernie would take Stanley back. She had, after considerable soul-searching. Judging by the bloom in Vernie’s cheeks these days, Stanley’s efforts to woo his wife had been a success.

  Vernie wasn’t the only woman with roses in her cheeks. After years of being alone, Birdie Wester had fallen hard for the town curmudgeon, Salt Gribbon, and their wedding was only weeks away.

  Dana must have followed Edith’s thoughts, for she was grinning at the bride-to-be. “Found a wedding dress yet, Birdie?”

  Birdie swallowed a bite of scampi before answering. “Ayuh. Ordered one from the Sears catalog.”