The River House

by Carla Neggers

  When she surfaced, Gabe had materialized, treading water next to her. “I eased in from the bank,” he said. “I didn’t use the rope. I was thinking I’d catch you skinny-dipping.”

  “Ha. Don’t you wish.”

  “I remember when I found you out here reading a book. James Joyce, right? Did you ever finish it or did you skim it and wing the paper?”

  “I read the whole thing and wrote the paper.”

  “And got an A.”

  “Of course.”

  She swam past him toward the middle of the river. He joined her, and they found a cluster of underwater boulders and stood on them, waist deep in the water instead of over their heads. She saw now he had on shorts, not a swimsuit. No one else was out on the river—no canoes, kayaks, fishermen. Just her and Gabe.

  He was already going for the rope, and she followed him.

  She could have spent the entire day out there, jumping into the river from the rope and rocks, diving, swimming, just floating on her back next to Gabe, looking up at the summer sky. But after thirty minutes, they climbed onto the boulder where she’d read James Joyce and sat in the sun. She noticed rivulets of water in the bumps and crevices in the granite from her dripping T-shirt and shorts.

  “You have a good life here, Felicity,” Gabe said.

  She smiled. “I do.”

  As the river water dried on his bare skin, she noticed the well-formed muscles in his chest and legs. She also noticed her T-shirt wasn’t as modest as she’d thought.

  “You’ll stay in touch after I leave Knights Bridge?” he asked her.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Sure. Let me know how things go with the badger party.”

  “I will,” she said. “You’re getting an invitation, you know.”

  “Russ mentioned it. I didn’t think he was serious.”

  “Boston’s not far.”

  He caught the ends of her dripping hair by her chin between his fingers. “Ant,” he said. “It’s gone now. Your hair will take a while to dry in this humidity.” He kept his hand close to her face. “Never have been fussy about your hair, have you?”

  “I’m your classic wash-and-go type.”

  “It works,” he said. “I’ve missed you, Felicity. Right now I realize how much I’ve missed, too, by letting you stalk out of my life. We were damn good friends.”

  “Best buds, huh?”

  His eyes darkened. He’d shifted slightly and was catching some of the shade, maybe. But that wasn’t it, or at least not all of it. It was his natural intensity, his laser-like focus—directed at her at the moment. Entirely at her.

  She cleared her throat. “Gabe...”

  “Is that what you want? To be buddies again, the way we were when you slept on my couch?”

  “I missed you, too. I used my anger at you to motivate me, never thinking...” She took in a breath. “Never thinking it’d be three years before I saw or spoke to you again.”

  “More than three. It was in the teens that day. It’s, what, eight-five now?”

  “Getting there,” she said.

  He eased his hand to the back of her neck and lowered his mouth to hers. “Let’s see where we go from here, okay? But I don’t think we’re ever going to be just ‘best buds’ again.” He smiled. “What do you think?”

  Her skin seemed sensitized, as if every inch of her were alive, crying out for his touch. Her lips parted slightly, and their mouths touched, tentative at first, then less so—definitely less so. She put a hand on his upper arm, balancing herself as their kiss deepened. This wasn’t the chaste kiss of friends or the reckless kiss of their teenaged past but something more. She shut her eyes, giving herself up to the sensations coursing through her. The taste of him, the touch of his hand on her wet, bare skin, the feel of the warm breeze, the sounds of the river. They all mixed together, stirring her senses and her emotions.

  Then Gabe swore and sat up straight.

  Felicity gaped at him. “What? Did a mosquito bite you?”

  “Kayakers.” He pointed up the river. “It wouldn’t do for them to catch us.”

  She followed his gesture and spotted two brightly colored kayaks headed their way. “I guess it wouldn’t.”

  He sighed. “A kiss is one thing, but we were headed to more than that.”

  “Think so?”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Did you see the kayakers before you started that kiss? So you’d have an out and wouldn’t get carried away?”

  “I never get carried away. I’m always in supreme control of myself.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure.”

  He winked. “I’m going to need another dip in the river. How about you?”

  “Take your time. I’ll meet you up at the house. I’ll make coffee.” She stood up on the wet boulder, mindful of not slipping. “I can’t believe we did all this before breakfast.”

  He gave her a look that suggested “all this” wasn’t, in fact all he’d wanted to do, but he eased into the water without comment, or before she could comment.

  “Gabe,” she muttered to herself. “Oh, Gabe.”

  He’d always been her best friend, but as she watched him swim hard, smooth strokes into the deep water, Felicity realized he’d always been more, too. Only she’d never let herself take that idea too far. Even their night together before college, she hadn’t examined her feelings too deeply. She hadn’t wanted to risk their friendship by getting soppy.

  And here she was, doing it again.

  She slipped into her sandals and walked back up the path to her house. She put on coffee and ducked into her room for a shower and dry clothes. When she emerged, Gabe was in the kitchen. He’d poured himself coffee. “I can pour you some—”

  “It’s no trouble, thanks.”

  “I wasn’t sure when you’d be out of the shower.” He took a sip of coffee. “I’ll get out of your way, let you work. I might grab a bite at Smith’s. Felicity...” He sucked in a breath before he continued. “I have to leave today, and I want to and I don’t want to. I can’t pinpoint why, but I’m going to guess it has to do with you.”

  “It has to do with being back here, on your grandfather’s old campsite. If I’d rented an apartment at Moss Hill, you wouldn’t think your ambivalence about leaving had anything to do with me.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Wrong? You can’t just tell me I’m wrong. I’m giving you an opinion.”

  “I disagree. Better?”

  She poured coffee. “Marginally.”

  “I disagree because I’d have still gotten a rope and tied it to a tree and found a way to get you down to our old swimming hole, because it was meant to be.” He set his mug on the counter and stood straight. “There. Chew on that while I’m at Smith’s making my way through a stack of buttermilk pancakes.”

  He strutted off down the hall to the guest room.

  Only word for it, Felicity thought, arms across her chest. Strut. As if he knew what she was thinking—knew the inner workings of her mind and heart, her deepest desires, what was good for her...

  Which she realized she didn’t find annoying, not the way she would have three years ago.

  He wasn’t telling her what to think or feel or what she was thinking and feeling. For once, he was telling her what he thought and felt, at least in his Gabe way. He believed their kiss by the river was meant to be. That swimming, leaping from the rope, laughing and enjoying each other’s company—all of it was meant to be. In saying so, she’d felt as if he’d reached deep into her mind and heart.

  In two minutes, he returned to the kitchen with his duffel bag. “Thanks for putting me up.”

  “No problem. Safe trip.”

  “It’s just to Boston. Come visit.” He smiled as he kissed her on the cheek. “You won’t have to
sleep on the couch.”

  By the time she caught her breath, he was gone, the kitchen screen door slowly shutting behind him.

  Fifteen

  Gabe rapped on the open door to his grandfather’s cozy apartment at Rivendell, Knights Bridge’s only assisted-living facility. It was located down a quiet road on a ridge with glimpses of the reservoir in the distance. “Hey, Gramps, sorry I missed your hundred-and-twentieth birthday.”

  The old man grinned, rising from his lounger. “Good thing you didn’t go into comedy. You never were funny.”

  They embraced, and Gabe could feel how thin and bony his grandfather had become since his last visit. One of Rivendell’s few male residents, John Gabriel Flanagan had been born and raised in Knights Bridge. He’d lived away from home once, when he joined the army at the tail end of World War II and served in Europe for two years. When he returned, he’d married his high school sweetheart, who’d waited for him while working at the cafeteria at the elementary school. He’d gotten a job at a nearby factory, she’d quit her job and they’d raised four children together. Three girls and a boy. Two of Gabe’s aunts still lived in the area but not in Knights Bridge itself. One had moved to Tennessee after high school and had never looked back, but she visited at least once a year. All were married with grown children and grandchildren.

  Mickey Flanagan, Gabe’s father, the youngest, liked to call himself the no-account Flanagan. He was the one who could never quite get his act together—the dream-chaser who was still, in his late fifties, ever hopeful of finding his proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He’d graduated from high school at the top of his class and was accepted at every college he’d applied to, settling on UMass-Amherst because it was the most affordable. He hadn’t lasted. He’d dropped out his sophomore year and hit the road, the start of a long history of unfulfilled dreams, restless optimism and disappointments, at least by his standards. To everyone else, Mickey Flanagan was a great guy, the life of the party.

  He’d finally returned to Knights Bridge after a few years “seeing the country” and married a nursing student, another local, a woman who shared his optimism and believed in his dreams and had many of her own. They’d settled into life in their small town, raising their sons, making a living, having fun. His father in particular had been ever hopeful a better life—a different life—lay just ahead, if only he kept believing it would happen, never mind taking consistent action, seeing things through and having any kind of realistic plan.

  Gabe was in college when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. At her funeral, he’d seen how much she’d meant to his father, despite his chronic dissatisfaction with his life—at least what had looked to Gabe like dissatisfaction. Maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe it had just been his father’s optimistic, restless nature. He never gave up.

  His grandfather snapped his fingers in front of Gabe’s face. “Lost in thought? Tune in. I’ve got cookies.” He pointed at a tin of Danish butter cookies. “I keep a stash handy.”

  “Sorry, Gramps. Mind wandered. I’ll skip cookies. I can’t stay long, but are you up for a walk? It’s hot—”

  “Good. I’m always cold these days. Let me grab my cane. I don’t need you to hold my hand. I can still get around on my own.”

  “Okay, good to know.”

  They walked down the hall to the sunroom and went out that way through sliding glass doors to a trim lawn and garden bursting with summer flowers. It was hot, but they edged onto a shaded, paved walkway, suitable for canes, walkers and wheelchairs. Gabe noticed his grandfather moved well, if more slowly than just a year ago. “How was California?” he asked.

  “Sunny,” Gabe said with a grin.

  “You moving out there?”

  “I toyed with the idea of relocating there.”

  They passed through pine-scented shade. “You could move me out with you. Sun shines all the time. I don’t mind assisted living, but I knew every old lady in this place when we were kids. One more reminds me I wet my pants in first grade and I’m packing up and living in my car.”

  Gabe grinned at the old man. “Mark says you have a crush on Daisy Farrell.”

  “Wouldn’t do me any good if I did. Daisy was and always will be Tom Farrell’s gal.”

  Gabe remembered Tom Farrell, a longtime Knights Bridge fire chief who’d died a couple of years ago. “At least you have friends here.”

  “A few old cranks, too, but not many. I’m not as hard on people as I was as a younger man. Getting old isn’t for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure. Thought I’d be in an urn by now.”

  Gabe wasn’t surprised by his grandfather’s blunt manner, but he hadn’t had a dose of it in a while. “Instead you’re here talking to me. Imagine that.”

  “Yeah. My hotshot grandson.” He slowed his pace, then paused by a patch of daisies. “You’re going to be an uncle. That change things for you?”

  “It’s a factor.”

  His grandfather peered at him. “A factor? It’s not like you’re buying a used car and its mileage is a ‘factor.’”

  “Well, it would be,” Gabe said lightly. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Cut me some slack.”

  “Ha. You stayed with Felicity MacGregor.” He waved a hand. “Not asking.”

  “I sat out by the fire in your old fireplace. Alone.”

  His grandfather raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

  Gabe grinned. “Mostly alone, but it’s not what you think.” Time to change the subject. “I should stop and see Dad on the way out of town.”

  “He’s on his way here. He got wind of a Jane Austen tea party this afternoon and wants to talk me into dressing up as a Regency guy. He doesn’t fit into any of the tights or I swear he’d do it. Say what you will about your father, he’s game for anything.”

  “Do you fit into the tights?” Gabe asked, amused.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’d never get them off and I’m not asking one of the aides to help me.”

  “The sight of you in tights would get all the old ladies excited.”

  “The sight of you in tights would.”

  Gabe let that comment slide past him. They resumed their walk, the path looping past empty birdfeeders, ready to be filled for winter, back toward the sunroom.

  “Your father had a rough time after your mother died,” his grandfather said, his gait steady as he walked next to Gabe. “He’s got his act together these days. Well.” He gave a slight, knowing grin. “As much as he ever will, Mickey being Mickey. He’s got a new woman in his life, but he still misses your mother. They didn’t always bring out the wisest in each other, but they were a pair.”

  “That they were,” Gabe said with a rush of affection.

  When they returned to his grandfather’s apartment, Mickey Flanagan was just arriving.

  “Hey, Pops, I thought I’d find you napping in the sunroom, and you’re out plotting to take over the world with Gabe.” He nodded to his younger son. “Hey, there.”

  “I was going to stop by after visiting Gramps.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” His father grinned, deep lines at the corners of his eyes. His hair had turned gray but he was as rail thin as ever—no change there. “You never could lie worth a damn. That’s a good thing, by the way.”

  Truth had rarely been a casualty in the Flanagan family, but frankness often had been, if only to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Gabe had overcompensated, perhaps, by being blunt—often more so than he needed to be. Hence, his fight with Felicity that wintry February morning. He’d learned to be more diplomatic since then. Oddly enough, one of his tactics to avoid saying too much was to say nothing at all, with romantic partners in particular. He wouldn’t lie so much as avoid the truth when it was uncomfortable. He’d never had the urge to avoid and dissemble with Felicity, but look what’d happened when he’d blurted what had been on his mind? No brownies and three years of
the cold shoulder.

  Not that he’d done anything about it.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Gabe said. “You’re looking good. Getting close to retiring, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll never retire. I love working on cars and will as long as I can. I like working at home. I’ve fixed up the shed out back since you were there last. I’m restoring a couple of classic motorcycles.”

  “That’s great,” Gabe said.

  His grandfather hung his cane on a hook by his favorite chair and sat down with a sigh. “Wear a helmet, Mickey. Your luck, you’ll ram one of those motorcycles into a stone wall.”

  “I didn’t say I’d be riding them.”

  “You will be. It’s how you’re wired.”

  Gabe didn’t come between them. His father and grandfather had a relationship built on unconditional love but tested by their different takes on life. Both were devoted to family and friends, but for Johnny Flanagan, stability, duty and predictability mattered more than ambition, risk and crazy dreams. “Best to want what you have,” he’d tell Gabe. For Mickey Flanagan, the grass was always greener doing what he wasn’t doing at the moment. He’d settled down some in recent years, but it hadn’t happened overnight.

  They visited for a few minutes, but Gabe could see his grandfather was tired. His father leaned over and kissed the old man on the cheek. “I’ll walk Gabe out. You take care, Pop, okay? I’ll see you next week.”

  Gabe gave his grandfather a hug, realizing, as he had for the past few years, this visit could be their last. He hoped it wouldn’t be. California suddenly seemed so damn far away when he’d tried telling himself it was just a plane ride, but Boston might as well have been the moon for his father and grandfather.

  “You take care,” Gabe said, hearing the catch in his voice.

  “Call me anytime, Gabe. Grace Webster knows how to do video calls. Says it’s easy. Skype or FaceTime or some damn thing.”