Meredith saw two options. Spar with the old woman and risk starting a war.
Or…
Keep her peace, beg off and go home.
War won.
“Cam’s a grown man.” Meredith kept her voice firm but soft. “I’m a grown woman. And no one has the right to tell us what to do or how to do it, so let’s make sure that’s clear right up front, okay?”
Evelyn’s scowl deepened, but surprise lightened her eyes. She obviously hadn’t anticipated any kind of rebuttal.
Welcome to the new millennium, Mrs. C.
“Secondly, my work isn’t nonsense. Taking care of one’s body, one’s appearance and one’s skin makes perfect sense in a world filled with prevalent toxins. Wellness involves the whole body, one unit of many parts. If you ignore any of those parts, others pay the price. And skin makes up a larger percentage of the human body than any other component.” She drew a breath, figuring she might never get the chance to go one-on-one with Evelyn Calhoun again because she was pretty sure Cam’s mother would never be darkening the door of Stillwaters or inviting her for tea. “And lastly, respect is a two-way street. Those who desire respect need to show it in return.”
She spun on her heel and strode away, not waiting for Evelyn’s response. As a teen she’d have cowered before the verbal onslaught, but now?
Mutual respect was expected.
“Whoa.”
Alyssa grabbed her arm inside the Gathering Hall door. “Did you just face down the dragon lady?”
A thread of regret wound alongside the spur of adrenaline. “I did. But I probably shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, you should.” Alyssa tugged her forward, away from others. “No one’s got the right to treat you like that, Meredith. Being old doesn’t give Evelyn the right to be rude and antagonistic. And you weren’t disrespectful, you were simply…” she searched for a word, then shrugged and grinned “…downright amazing.”
Meredith laughed, then sighed, chagrined. Treating Cam’s mother like a naughty teen might not score points, but she’d promised herself to take charge of her life when she made the decision to leave Maryland.
And that included Evelyn Calhoun. And Jacqui Crosby. And Claire Dennehy, and anyone else who sharpened their tongue at her expense. It would be sinful to hold a grudge over wrongs long past, but standing up for herself? Taking charge?
God had no problem with that.
“Girls, thank you!” Susan waved a hand their way from the kitchen. “I couldn’t have gotten this put together and served without your help. So be prepared to be tagged in any Facebook event I might send out, okay?”
Alyssa and Meredith laughed. “Will do, Mom.” Alyssa turned back toward Meredith. “And don’t be worrying about Mrs. Calhoun. She acted. You reacted. Pure science, beginning to end.”
“Thanks, Alyssa.” She gave the other woman a quick hug of gratitude, knowing Alyssa had faced her own dragons back in the day. “Gotta run. I’m working with Heather this afternoon and then stripping wallpaper tonight.”
“Have fun.”
“I will.”
And she would, Meredith realized. Yes, she felt bad about sparring with Evelyn on one level, but glad she stood up for herself. Stillwaters Spa would be beneficial to this village, this town, this county, and she had every intention of making sure people knew that. And if quieting sharp tongues was part of her job, well…so be it. What had Heather advised her? That infighting wouldn’t be allowed. And that edict included the terse, curt tongues of some older locals.
Chapter Nine
Meredith eyed the clock on Sunday morning, squinched her eyes shut, then forced them open again.
Seven-twenty-five. Church was at nine. And she’d promised her mother they’d go together, which meant the eleven o’clock service wasn’t an option.
She stretched, then scowled, the pain in her shoulders a reminder of scrubbing off acres of ugly, ornate wallpaper the night before. She and Heather had worked until midnight, but they’d gotten the stuff off, shoveled it into waiting garbage bins and cleaned the floor. This afternoon she could sand and paint the walls.
Her walls.
That realization lessened the aches and pains of manual labor. Her phone signaled a text as she dressed. She eyed the number, and tried to ignore the skipped beat of her heart.
Cam.
Are you working this afternoon?
Meredith loved that he didn’t use text-speak, the acronym-heavy way of replacing words with letters. Spelling things out seemed more Cam-like.
Yes.
His answer came back swiftly, as if he was waiting for her.
Would you prefer I didn’t work today?
Not work? What?
Then she realized the foolishness of her actions. Her prickly attitude would end up costing them valuable work time if she wasn’t careful. She quickly typed back:
It’s a big house. Plenty of room.
Did he smile? Grin? Scowl?
Impossible to know via text messaging. Ridiculous, even. No way could she get a read on him, his tone, the subtle silences that weighed his conversations.
Worse, she couldn’t hear his voice. Irritated, she dialed his number and waited four rings before he picked up.
Four.
And she was relatively certain he was standing there, phone in hand, making her wait on purpose. Which only tweaked her more. When he finally answered the phone, she was in rare form, but his first words took the wind out of her sails. “I was wondering how long it would take.”
“For?”
His voice bore traces of the smile she knew so well. “You to call. To want to hear my voice. Like I want to hear yours.”
“Cameron Calhoun—”
“The girls are going to church with a friend from up the road. I’m free from eleven on, so I figured I’d continue on the hairdressing side. But then I have to wait for the electric upgrades before I can go much further and that could take up to two weeks. Following that, the fire chief has to assess the installations to make sure everything is done according to code.”
“Two weeks? Really? So we’re at a standstill until that’s done?”
“Until that’s done and inspected,” he told her. “But in the meantime I’m going to make the built-in cabinetry on the side porch and a lot of that can be done while we’re waiting for the electrical and plumbing upgrades. Who’s doing the bathrooms?”
“Allegany Plumbing and Heating.”
“Excellent. I’ve worked with Bob on a lot of projects. So I’m going to map out a time frame for you. If you’re more comfortable being there when I’m not there, this will help.”
Right now she felt like an adolescent jerk for making a big deal out of a kiss she’d not only enjoyed, but followed up on. “It’s fine, Cam. I overreacted.”
Silence. Dead silence.
“It won’t happen again,” she promised.
“The overreacting or the kiss?”
“Either.”
His subsequent laugh said he doubted both, but instead of setting her off, it made her smile. Cam knew her, had known her, for a long time. He understood the occasional manic moments and had calmly waited in the wings for them to pass. She’d been a teenage drama queen in many regards. Sure, some of the blame lay with her father, her family situation. But the bulk of it?
On her shoulders. What had Alyssa said? Action/reaction.
Grown-ups needed to separate emotional reactions from business transactions, and if she intended to build a successful enterprise here, she needed to man up. If that meant working around Cam repeatedly, then that’s what she’d do. “So I’ll see you later, then.”
“Will do.” He disconnected and she stood there, caught in place, in time, studying the phone as if it held all the answers.
“Um, yes. Almost. Kind of.”
Dana laughed. “I’m starting the car. It’s raining again.”
“April showers…”
“Ruin good hair,” her mother filled in. “Luckily I have a live-in hairdresser.”
Meredith hurried down the stairs of the classic old colonial, grabbed a light cape, and drew it around her shoulders.
“You look like a Celtic princess when you wear that.” Dana’s easy smile said she approved.
“Not too Druid-like for Jamison?”
“No, ma’am. It’s gorgeous. Just made for long legs and long hair. If I tried to wear a getup like that?” Dana waved a hand to Meredith’s ankle-length, emerald-green cape. “I’d look like an elf.”
“An adorable elf, though.”
“Well, thank you. So—” Dana curved toward Route 19 and headed north. “I think we’ll aim for the White Church at the Bend today.”
“I love Simon’s preaching. And Katie’s hand at the fiddle.”
“Amazing,” her mother agreed. “And I promised Simon financial support for their remodeling project.”
“His ‘Replace The Buckets’ campaign?” The small church with a growing congregation was in desperate need of repair. Matt and his crew had patched the roof last fall, but the whole thing needed a removal-to-bare-bones overhaul to fix the roof and the damage done by leaking water.
Dana laughed. “New roof, new ceiling and new lighting and paint to brighten up the old place. I figure if this new young preacher is lighting hearts on fire for God, the least I can do is help pay to light up the church they attend.”
“You’re amazing, Mom.”
Dana shrugged that off.
“No, I mean it.” Meredith swiveled more fully in her seat. “You care. And then you act. You’re not all talk and no action, and your example is wonderful to me and everyone else.”
“Well.”
Her mother hated talking about herself. Always had. And while a lot of folks had gossiped at Dana’s expense in the past, she never held a grudge. And that was a lesson Meredith needed to embrace.
“I admire you, Mom.”
Dana’s profile shaded. She pulled into the parking lot behind the humble white church, stopped the car and faced Meredith. “It’s payback, pure and simple. Your father hurt a lot of people with his actions. And for a long time, business suffered, the family suffered and the towns suffered. Now?” She shrugged, her voice matter-of-fact, her face showing strength through acquired peace. “Business is good. Most of your father’s greed has been paid back to various factions, and I want to wipe the slate clean. Walk through town with my head up, eyes forward and not worry about gossip.”
So her mother wasn’t the brick wall Meredith had thought her to be. “But you never let on that it bothered you. Ever.”
Dana settled a gentle look on her daughter. “Because that would empower them. Give them more ammunition. Feed the flames.”
Meredith reached across the car and gave her mother a quick hug. “I love you. I wish I was more like you, but I’m trying. Really hard.”
Dana hugged her back, and might have sniffled back a tear. Maybe two. “Look at us, all emotional and silly. But hear this, my beautiful girl—I love having you home. I missed you every day that you were gone, but a parent’s job isn’t to cocoon their child. It’s to help them establish roots and develop those wings we keep hearing about. And you’ve done both, Mere. I’m proud of you.”
Her mother’s words felt good. Sounded good. But that tiny spear knifed Meredith’s heart a little more. Her mother wouldn’t be so proud if she knew what had pushed Meredith home. That knowledge would only paint the portrait of Neal Brennan’s daughter darker and deeper. Like father, like daughter.
You were duped, her conscience chided. Fooled in love.
Yes and no, Meredith decided. Fooled, yes. But adults were expected to take responsibility for their own actions.
She grasped her mother’s arm, planted a kiss on the smaller woman’s cheek and headed into the worn but wonderful church, ready to hear Simon MacDaniel’s take on Christ’s passion and suffering the week before Easter.
* * *
“Mere, you here?” Cam hesitated inside the door of the old mansion as prickling awareness snaked his spine later that day. No car. No music. No footsteps overhead. And yet something, a soft, repetitive whooshing sound, seemed to be coming from…somewhere. Void of furniture, noises echoed in the old place, bouncing off high-ceilinged walls like a mountain cove. “Mere?”
“Cam, is that you?”
It was him, but the moment she appeared at the top of the stairs, paint roller in hand, old paint sweats disguising her curves, his heart tipped in a way he’d thought long forgotten.
Obviously not.
“You’re painting.” Duh, Cameron. State the obvious, why don’t you?
A smile brightened her face. She slid her gaze slowly and dramatically toward the paint roller without moving her head. “Yes. I am.”
He laughed at himself and her. “No car.”
She hiked one shoulder. “Mom dropped me off. Her car’s acting weird. I told her I was going to be here for the day and so she’s meeting with Simon and Matt about the church fix-up.”
“Simon?”
Mere jerked her head toward the back of the hall. “Come up here a minute to talk. My paint’s getting tacky.”
Cam knew he shouldn’t. He’d been going back and forth about this as he sketched out custom cupboard measurements, while the girls were gone, the house quiet.
But he took the stairs two at a time because he couldn’t resist the invitation. He stopped at the entrance to a grandiose bedroom and turned in a slow circle. “You’ve been busy.”
She nodded, satisfied as she refreshed the roller. “Heather and I stripped the walls yesterday. Made for a late night, but it’s done. And then I sanded it this morning after church, cut in along the amazing number of edges you see here, and now I’m ready to roll.”
“And the paint color is perfect,” he noted.
“You think?”
He nodded, serious. “Light enough to brighten this big space and it sets off the mahogany panels beautifully. That’s important in old places with dark wood.”
“Thank you, Cam.”
She turned and continued applying the pale rose paint to the wall and he couldn’t help but appreciate the care she took to feather each stroke into the adjacent space. A good painter never rushed their work or used mucked-up tools, and Meredith obviously embraced that philosophy.
“Who’s Simon?”
She finished a long, slow stroke along the edge of the adjacent door frame and he tried to ignore the beauty of the move. Or maybe it was the woman doing it. Either way, he was having a hard time concentrating, which was exactly why he should have stayed home. Or on the first floor. Or preferably on the porch with the door locked.
He sighed inside, then schooled his looks into a semblance of nonchalance when she turned.
“You don’t know Simon MacDaniel?”
He shook his head.
“He’s the pastor at the White Church at the Bend.”
“Oh.”
“I know you guys probably still go to Good Shepherd across the Park Round, but his name’s outside on the welcome sign. I just figured you’d have noticed.”
“No.”
He might have noticed if he darkened the doors of a church more often, but he’d been more than a little lax in that area for a long time now. He wasn’t much in the line of praying, in any case, so—
“He’s just a sweetheart.” Mere continued to fill him in on details as she reloaded the roller for the next square of plaster. “So funny. Mom
and I have been making the rounds of churches since I’ve been back. It’s kind of fun and ecumenical to jump from place to place each week. Hear different ideas on similar topics.”
“The girls were at Good Shepherd with the Monroes this morning.”
“Ah.” She paused her work this time, then turned, her expression deeper. More thoughtful. “And you?”
He waved the clutch of papers in his hand. “Working out the final cabinet design for the hairdressing side. Then we’ll get to work on the spa rooms. The pedicure unit. And the nail stations.”
“You used to go to church all the time.” Meredith’s tone held no hint of reproval, so why did he feel guilty?
Because he’d been feeling guilty for five years, minimum. Why should now be any different? And he took the girls himself on occasion, but each time he stepped foot into a house of God, and it didn’t matter which one he went to, he remembered Kristy’s simple faith in God and him.
They’d both failed her miserably. And he hated being reminded of that. “Life’s crazy busy. The girls. Two jobs. Keeping things up at home.”
She flashed him a look of understanding that drove the guilt deeper. “It’s got to be hard, Cam. But you’re doing a great job, if the girls are any indication.” She turned back to the wall while she continued her work.
“I think Mom and Grandma are financing the refurbishing of Simon’s church,” she continued. “With others, of course. Their congregation is small, and if people donate time to help with the work, Mom’s ready to write a sizable check to offset the supplies.”
“Your mother’s great.”
“She is.” Meredith nodded and smiled. “I didn’t realize how great when I was a kid, but now, well…” She shrugged one shoulder. “Amazing how perspectives change as a grown-up.”
“Yes. Well.” Cam swiped damp palms against his pants. Watching her, he realized not everything changed once you grew up. Seeing her work, hearing her voice, watching her move, he longed to be with her just as much as he had at eighteen. More, maybe. Memories of school dances, weekend feises, football games, cheerleading moves…
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