by Geeta Kakade
Happy suited her. The color was back in her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.
“I’ll tell her.” O’Keefe said.
“Thanks for finishing the polishing for me last night,” she said. She hadn’t missed how nice everything looked. He was definitely a better polisher than her. The appreciative glint in the couple’s eyes as they’d looked around confirmed that.
“You’re welcome.” O’Keefe looked at the sandwich he’d assembled on his plate. On auto pilot he’d forgotten what Christy had said about not coming into her kitchen.
“Toby says you have a list for him. I’m going to town with him for a couple of hours. Want me to take care of anything?”
“Would you mind stopping at the bank and depositing these two checks through the ATM?” she asked. The sooner they were cleared the better for her.
‘”Sure.”
She endorsed them, filled out one of the deposit slips she had picked up when she opened her account and then looked up at him clearing her throat.
“I’m sorry I blamed you for my fall,” she said. “Frank told me today it was his fault. Why didn’t you say something?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She watched him rinse his plate and stack it in the dishwasher.
If it hadn’t been for O’Keefe she’d have lost Miss Bellinger as a guest. Moira said he’d been in the front yard and heard the doorbell. There was something she had to say.
“I’m sorry about what I said about your using the kitchen.” He looked at her and her voice changed into a squeak. “You’re welcome here any time.”
He nodded, picked up the checks and the deposit slip, said ‘see you later,’ and he was gone.
Christy sat for a few minutes after he’d left staring at the kitchen door. Did he mean it didn’t matter that she blamed him for the accident or it didn’t matter what she thought of him. Conscious of a rising irritation, she got to her feet.
Arranging the flowers and leaves Moira and Frank had just come into the kitchen with in vases for the guests rooms would take her mind off the enigma that was O’Keefe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They were so busy over the next three days that Christy had no time to think. It seemed all she and Moira did was cook, serve and clean and then it was time to think of the next meal.
Christy was so grateful for Moira’s planning skills in the kitchen and for O’Keefe. He actually sat with the guests in the living room in the evenings till about seven when dinner was served and talked about the area, interesting things to do and where they could find shopping bargains.
He covered up for her quietness and she was uneasy. Why was he helping her?
The guests went upstairs early Tuesday night and O’Keefe was glad. Mr and Mrs. Hutton wanted to make an early start and Miss Bellinger said she wanted to review her notes. He’d studied them as they talked, watching for any sign of suspicious behavior, any questions about the neighboring house, but there was nothing to raise his guard. Besides both bedrooms the guests had chosen faced the side of the house opposite to the one he watched so he was reassured on one score.
"Thank you O’Keefe." She was tidying up in the living room Tuesday night, making sure everything looked good for the next morning.
Her gratitude and the softness in her eyes ignited a spark of heat inside him as he carried the tray with the coffee cups to the counter beside the sink. He’d heard her tell Moira she would finish cleaning up, thanking her for the dinner and urging her to go and spend some time with Frank. Her kindness to the pair, he told himself was the only reason her was helping her.
"I’m doing it for Jake," he said brusquely.
“Why?” she asked the light going out of her eyes
“Because he asked me to.” Silently he cursed. Why had he brought Jake into this suddenly? To hide the effect Christy was having on him?
"He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”
O’Keefe turned away and started washing the cups. "Yes."
Jake had taken the place of the father he’d lost when he was ten, helped heal some of the pain of his past.
"Tell me about him."
She’d followed him into the kitchen.
O’Keefe’s mouth tightened. "That’s a tall order. I can’t condense a year of a man’s life into a few sentences. Besides you wouldn’t be interested in Jake’s life."
"Try me," Christy challenged.
O’Keefe stared out of the window. Jake’s mental turmoil had outweighed his physical pain. The latter had been unavoidable. The former had been unnecessary. O’Keefe could not forget Christy Hathaway’s starring role in it.
"Your father loved you very much. If you wanted to know about him, you should have forgiven him and visited him."
Christy stared at the kitchen door as it closed behind O’Keefe. The man wasn’t only insolent. He was unreasonable. How on earth could she have come here when she hadn’t even known Jake was alive?
In spite of the heating being on, she felt cold. O’Keefe didn’t believe a word she’d said the last time they’d spoken of Jake. He thought she had deliberately stayed away to punish her father for his desertion.
Christy’s throat closed up. Shadow boxing with the past wasn’t easy. Especially when someone in the audience booed constantly.
Wednesday morning the house seemed very quiet after breakfast. Moira was doing the laundry. Frank and O’Keefe were nowhere to be seen. Miss Bellinger had announced she would be out till dinnertime and left armed with notebook, parasol, hat and an expression that boded ill for would be pollutants of Silver Lake. The Huttons had left really happy about their stay and thrilled with their parting gift of Moira made cookies that Christy had packed in a clear jar with a ribbon around the neck. She would get some labels made for the jars when she went to the printers in town.
Suddenly she was exhausted. Getting her iPad, Christy settled into her favorite armchair in the living room. Opening Excel she entered every expense she could remember incurring in connection with the guests. There were so many little things she hadn’t thought of at first that she knew now would cost her. The long showers the guests took, the endless cups of coffee Mr. Hutton had drunk, Mrs. Hutton’s gluten free diet. Luckily for them the bag of rice that belonged to O’Keefe on the kitchen shelves had helped with that. To run Cupid Lodge successfully her account keeping had to be meticulous and her profit margin at least forty percent in the beginning. This weekend she’d barely cleared ten percent.
She needed more paying guests. Sending an e-mail to the Lake Herald, she asked that her ad be repeated next weekend.
That done she decided to go upstairs to her room. She’d move back in tonight and there were things to sort out in the closet so she could start using it for her clothes. Her friend Lee had texted her saying she had mailed her things.
A glance out of her bedroom window showed her O’Keefe on the beach. Christy felt a spurt of irritation at the sight of him in the canvas chair. How could the man do nothing all day, every day? And the way he kept passing judgment on her was so unfair.
Recalling his remarks last night, Christy decided O’Keefe was as annoying as a paper cut. She hated the feeling he was watching her, waiting for her to fall flat on her face. A time he was sure would come.
True he had been very helpful with the guests but she didn’t want him underfoot all the time. Under her skin.
She was back to thinking the sooner she could pay him off the better. Her last calculations had shown it would take her three months and that was if Cupid Lodge stayed full.
Jake hadn’t owned much in the way of clothes. Six shirts, jeans, a few sweaters, a couple of lighter jackets, an overcoat. Christy held the overcoat up, trying to imagine how tall he’d been. To a six year, old he’d seemed very tall. Her glance went to the picture of Jake on the nightstand. She wished there were more photographs of Jake around but the closet didn’t yield any. The one of him with O’Keefe was probably the last one of Jake. She had it in the nightstand drawer. If she taped a whit
e sheet of paper over O’Keefe’s picture it would be fine to set out on her nightstand.
Filling the two cardboard boxes Toby had found for her, Christy carried them to the attic one by one. She couldn’t explain the reluctance to give Jake’s things away yet. Stacking the boxes in the corner, Christy turned away, when her eye fell on a third large box tucked under a shelf. A piece of paper stuck out of it. It looked like a sketch.
Curious, Christy pulled the box out and sat down in the rocking chair. The box was jammed full of sketch pads, papers and small canvases. The books were on art.
He liked to pretend he was an artist. It prevented him having to work like everybody else.
Christy glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mother wasn’t really in the room with her. For a moment it had seemed as if she was looking over her shoulder at the things in the box, saying the words in a ‘he wasn’t worth the paper he wrote his name on’ tone.
Lifting the books out Christy looked at the papers one by one and piled them in her lap. She smoothed some of the crushed ones out. Jake had sketched the house and the lake so beautifully. He must have spent a great deal of time on these. At the bottom of the box were sketch pads and stacks of small canvases. The canvases were oils of the house, in different seasons and the lake at different times of day and night. One look at the pictures revealed how good he’d been at what he’d done, how much time he’d spent on his art. A couple of pictures were views from the attic and they were the best she’d seen so far.
Christy picked up the sketchbooks at the bottom of the pile. She froze as she looked through the first one. Her hands shook as she flipped through the pages. They were all pencil sketches of her. From babyhood up to the age of six when he had left them. Some of the pictures had a snapshot attached to the page, but most of the sketches were from memory. He had little titles for each sketch. Our baby. My little Christy. Sweet little angel.
The tears weren’t far away. The sketches had been done painstakingly. There was love here in his work.
She picked up the next sketch pad and leafed through pencil sketches of the house and lake.
The third sketch pad was spiral bound, larger and heavier. Opening it Christy stared at the watercolors of the house and lake.
Jake had been very talented as his work in different mediums attested. He could have made a name for himself selling his art. Why hadn’t he?
Placing the sketch pads back in the box, Christy returned it to its original place. The sketch pad she took with her was the one with sketches of her.
It was too much to take in all at once. Those sketches of her had been done by a father who adored his daughter. Was O’Keefe right?
Returning to the rocking chair she set it in motion, the pace matching her thoughts.
Why had her father left if he had loved her so much?
Why had her mother lied to her all these years?
“The poor love, she’ll cry herself sick,” said Agnes anxiously. “So many questions, so many answers to find in her heart.”
“Jake and she have really suffered,” said Phillip somberly. “The poor man not to know his daughter’s love and vice versa. What can we do to set things right?”
Agnes stared at her husband. Was he really beginning to care? Wanting to set things right?
The Recoding Angel had been right after all. There was hope for him.
“We have to help her accept the past and get on with her future, Pa.”
“A woman’s future is only assured once she has a husband and children,” said Phillip pompously.
Agnes sighed. Rome hadn’t been built in one day and neither would Phillip Cupid. “That’s why we have to help her towards a good future that obliterates the past,” she said.
O’Keefe was uneasy. Something didn’t feel right. One look at Christy’s face when he came into the kitchen that evening showed she had been crying. Her nose was red and her eyelids puffy. She bent her head quickly over the book she was looking at.
Was she missing her old lifestyle, homesick for her Beverly Hills life? She had worked very hard to make her guests comfortable and Mrs. Hutton had said to him. “Christy’s a dear and we’re looking forward to coming back here next year.”
Whatever else he might think of her, Christy wasn’t a stranger to work. Alice, Dr. Ali’s nurse had told him that Christy had worked as a nurse and that had surprised him to. LVN’s did the toughest jobs in nursing; the hands on care. Why would she pick that career unless she really cared about people. Toby and Moira had both mentioned how often she’d told them she would pay them and how much time she spent on her accounts and again he knew her worry over money did not fit his old picture of a spoiled socialite.
“The Huttons loved it here. She said she was going to spread the word back home and judging from the way she talks, you won’t have to advertise in the State of Texas.”
Christy stared at him. Was he actually joking?
She gave him a watery smile. “That will help,” she said and returned to her book.
It looked old and she turned a page carefully.
“What’s that book you found?”
“It’s an old recipe book tucked away in one of the drawers. It’s got old recipes for cakes and jams and so many other dishes.”
But she still wasn’t as excited as she normally would be. He opened the refrigerator and took out a can of soda.
They were having leftovers for dinner and Moira had taken a tray to her apartment for Frank and herself. She had an old tv set that worked and Toby and she had discovered a cable connection in the staff quarters. This way, she’d said, Frank could watch the shows he wanted to and she wouldn’t have to worry if the volume was disturbing anyone else.
Miss Bellinger had come in early and asked for a bowl of soup in her room.
“Too much sun”, she’d said before she went upstairs.
Moira had taken a tray up with soup and toast. Christy made a mental note to keep soup on hand for Miss Bellinger.
O’Keefe filled a plate and put it in the microwave, while Christy forced some soup down. If she kept her eyes on the recipe book she had been leafing through when he came in, he might eat without talking to her. She should have fixed her own tray and taken it into the family room and switched the tv on. It was too late now.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Fine.” She was using her “Keep Out” voice again and he decided to take the hint. Maybe this weekend had convinced her she couldn’t cope with the work here. For a few seconds that worried him and then he told himself it was the best thing that could happen. He didn’t like the way his thoughts kept returning to her throughout the day.
Christy felt the silence weighing on her but she couldn’t say anything. Her mind kept serving up pictures of the sketches Jake had done of her and pain over the lost years had her heart in a vice.
O’Keefe was half way through his meal when his cell phone rang once. Instead of answering it he looked at it for a while as if reading a text.
The next minute he was on his feet. Covering his plate up with a microwave safe dome he said, “I have to go out. I’ll take this to my room and eat it later.”
“My ankle is totally fine,” said Christy. “I don’t need you to stay here anymore.”
Too late she remembered he hadn’t slept in the house since Miss Bellinger had moved in. As stupid remarks, that qualified for one of the best.
“Right,” he said hurrying out the door. “G’night.”
Christy wondered what kind of call had that effect on O’Keefe.
One ring and he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. It must be a woman…strange she hadn’t thought of that aspect of his life before. For some reason the thought bothered her.
The sound woke her. Christy glanced at the bedside clock . Midnight.
She lifted her head off the pillow and listened, her heart pounding her mouth dry.
Was it a burglar? Where was her cell phone?
The sound came again and this t
ime she recognized the direction. It was her window.
She tiptoed there, picking up the poker from the fireplace as she did so. Peering out of the window she saw a man standing there his arm getting ready to throw something at her window again.
Not just any man. O’Keefe.
She opened the window a slit. “What do you want?” she hissed.
Had he left his key behind when he’d hurried out for his date? Anyway he should be at the garage door, not here.
He was bent over and his voice was hoarse as he said, “Let me in.”
Drunk again! Who was she? His nursemaid?
“Please hurry.”
Please. He didn’t have the word in his vocabulary. Something had to be really wrong.
She went down and opened the front door. He was hunched over. Honestly! She was terrified if Miss Bellinger would wake and find cause for complaint. She was even more terrified her only guest would insist on leaving.
“Come on in. It’s freezing out here.”
Half bent over he staggered to the door.
When he reached the door she looked at him under the porch light. He was bare chested, white as a ghost and his right hand held his tee shirt against his left arm. There was a dark stain seeping through it. Blood!
The next few minutes were a blur. She helped him in with a shoulder under his other arm, holding on to him. He sank into a chair in the kitchen and she pried his hand away. The tee shirt dropped on his lap. The gash on his left arm was four inches long and was bleeding. The pressure he’d applied with his shirt and other hand had been the right thing to do.
Her nursing experience took over.
Grabbing two clean kitchen towels she pressed them against the wound. His head lolled back. He wasn’t going to pass out on her was he?
“Brandy,” the hoarse command showed he hadn’t passed out.
“No.” Alcohol would make him bleed more.
“What have you done to yourself? Hold the towels in place for a minute.”