Leaving in a few minutes. Won’t you at least say good-bye?
Then she tucked the phone in her pocket and walked over to the window for one last look at the view. It was still early, and a faint mist clung to the beachfront, as if it had been painted there by some unseen hand.
She had nearly lost her life in that deep blue ocean. But she had found something there, too. The terrifying experience had changed her inside. So had meeting Colin. She just needed to find the strength now to change on the outside, too.
Down the road, she saw a long black limo turn into the drive, heading for the inn. How she wished it were Colin’s truck. She pulled out her phone and checked it again.
Come on, Colin … just answer me. Please?
She wasn’t sure how long she stood staring at the phone, willing a message to appear. She heard another knock on the door and knew it was Meredith.
“Charlotte, the car is here. We don’t want to miss the flight, right?”
“I’m coming. I’ll be right there.”
Charlotte sighed, shut off the phone, then stashed it in her purse. She was tired of looking at it. Tired of hoping.
If this was the way he wanted to end things between them, there was nothing she could do.
THE inn seemed strangely quiet and empty as Charlotte headed for the front door. But she was pleased to find Liza and Claire waiting on the porch to say good-bye. She and Meredith were the last of the film crew to go. While Meredith helped the driver load up their bags, Charlotte had a moment with the two women.
“Thank you for everything. This is such a wonderful place. I’m going to tell everyone I know to come here. You’ll be overrun with movie stars,” she promised Liza.
“What a hardship,” Liza replied with a laugh. “I’ll try to meet the challenge.”
“I’d bet none will be as lovely or charming as you, dear,” Claire said, “or so easy to please.”
Charlotte hardly thought of herself as easy to please, but it was sweet of Claire to say so. She hugged Liza and then Claire, feeling as if she might cry. “I’ll come back to visit, I promise. If I can help you publicize the inn some way, Liza, please let me know. Can you use a photo or something in an advertisement?”
“That would be terrific. I’d really appreciate it,” Liza said sincerely. “I’ll e-mail you about it. You just finish this movie first. Don’t worry about anything else.”
“Yes, finish your film, Charlotte. We can’t wait to see it,” Claire added.
“I’ll try to send you some tickets for a preview.” Charlotte wished there was something more she could do for Liza and Claire. She hadn’t known them long, but she felt as if they were both truly friends. They had been so understanding of her ups and downs. She hugged them both quickly. “I’ll be in touch. I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer.”
“Take care of yourself, dear,” Claire said. “Let us know how you’re doing.”
“I will,” she promised, looking into Claire’s pale blue eyes a moment. “If you’re ever in California, please let me know. You can come visit me.”
“Oh, that’s a lovely invitation, but I rarely leave the island … and I never travel that far,” Claire replied. “I do have a little going-away gift for you and Meredith.” Claire produced two brown bags. “The airline food is awful. Even in first class, I hear. I made you some sandwiches and brownies for the flight.”
“Thank you, Claire, how thoughtful,” Charlotte said.
Meredith was already out by the car, gesturing to her to hurry. She said good-bye again, then ran down the porch steps and into the car. Then it really was time to leave Angel Island. Charlotte sat back in her seat and fastened the seat belt as the car pulled away.
Liza and Claire stood on the porch, waving and smiling. She waved back then remembered they couldn’t see her through the tinted glass.
Just as well, she thought. They couldn’t see the tears that gathered in the corners of her eyes. I knew it would be hard to leave here. I just didn’t realize how hard.
LIZA and Claire spent the rest of the day cleaning up the many rooms the movie crew had used and putting the inn in order for guests who would arrive on Friday for the weekend. Two days were usually enough time to prepare, but there was a lot to do and many more rooms to clean than usual.
When Liza met Claire in the kitchen for lunch, she found a package on the table, wrapped in tissue paper, tied up with a piece of yarn. “What’s this?” she asked curiously.
“I found it in Charlotte’s room. She left a note on it.” Claire reached into her apron pocket and took out a slip of paper. “‘Please see that Colin gets this package. Thank you—Charlotte,’” she read aloud.
“Oh, a gift for Colin. Interesting.” Liza looked at the small, lumpy package, wondering what it could be. “I thought he might have come this morning, to say good-bye.”
Claire stood at the counter fixing two salads made with fresh lettuce and vegetables from the Gilroy Farm alongside some cold chicken from last night’s dinner. She didn’t share her opinion on the subject, and Liza did not expect her to. It was not like Claire to speculate on anyone’s love life.
Of course, that didn’t stop Liza. “I know I might be jumping to conclusions,” she said carefully, “but Charlotte seemed so unhappy when she got back Sunday night from that running-away episode—unhappy and subdued. I just had a feeling she wasn’t roaming around the island that whole time, the way she said she was. I think Colin helped her hide.”
“Perhaps. There’s no way of knowing, of course.” Claire set their salads on the table and then sat down across from Liza.
“No, no way of knowing,” Liza agreed. “I guess I’ll call Colin and let him know he has a package from Charlotte. What does a movie star give the man who saves her from drowning?”
“Good question,” Claire admitted. “It doesn’t have the look of a store-bought gift to me, more like something given from the heart. So maybe that tells us all we need to know. Or have the right to know,” she added.
Liza had to agree. Leave it to Claire to sum up the situation so simply.
COLIN came to the inn that evening. He parked his pickup truck at the side of the building and strode up onto the porch, where Liza and Claire sat watching the stars come out over the ocean.
It was a fair night, the breeze off the water cool enough to require a light sweater. The first hint that summer was fading, making way for fall.
“Good evening, ladies.” Colin walked toward them, his hands dug into the pockets of his denim jacket. “Quiet around here with all the movie people gone.”
“Yes, they’re all gone. The movie crew left last night, and Charlotte and Nick left this morning,” Liza said. She thought she saw a flicker of reaction in his expression at Charlotte’s name, but he quickly tried to hide it. He sat down on the top step of the porch, and she couldn’t see his face.
“You two must feel relieved,” he said. “That was a lot of work, and those Hollywood types must have been hard to please.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” Liza said. “I think we managed to keep them happy.”
“I’m going to miss Charlotte,” Claire said. “She’s a sweet girl. Nothing like you’d expect.”
“No, she isn’t,” he agreed quietly. He turned and looked at Liza. “Did she really leave a package for me?”
“She did. I have it right here.” The package sat nearby on a wicker table. She picked it up and gave it to him. “There wasn’t any note for you, just the one for us. Maybe there’s one inside.”
He stared at the package so long, Liza wondered if he was going to just take it and open it in private. Then, much to Liza’s relief, he tore off the paper.
She recognized the gift immediately: Charlotte’s knitting project. She hadn’t been making a hat and scarf for her brother, as she claimed. It was for Colin, and nicely done, too, in dark khaki-colored wool with thin yellow and navy blue bands of color
“Oh, the hat and scarf. She made that herself,” Cl
aire told him, “sitting right here with us. There’s no finer gift than something made by hand. A person puts their special energy into a gift like that, a part of their heart.”
Colin glanced at her, then looked back at his gift, touching it with his fingertips. He kept it neatly folded on his lap, just as Charlotte had wrapped it. After a moment, he noticed a note in the tissue paper and read it to himself. Liza could see that it wasn’t very long, just a line or two. But she couldn’t see what it said.
He took a deep breath and put the note in his shirt pocket. Then he stood up, the gift wrapped in the torn paper.
“Are you going already, Colin? I made a plum tart,” Claire told him. “First of the season.”
“That sounds delicious. But I have a lot to do tonight, packing for a trip up north.”
“A fishing trip?” Liza asked. She knew that some fishermen headed up to cooler waters this time of year for a bigger catch. Sometimes they were gone for months. “When are you leaving?”
“Friday. I only have one more day to prepare.”
“How long will you be gone?” Claire asked curiously.
“I don’t know. That depends,” he said vaguely. “I’ll see how it goes. I don’t have anything tying me down. I can just do as I please.”
“That’s true.” Claire nodded. “Are you going up there alone, or with some other boats?”
“On my own. I’m used to it.” He shrugged. “Guess I’ll see some guys up there I know. But I rarely fish with anyone else.”
“We’ll miss you,” Claire said. “Take care of yourself, Colin. Come back safely.”
“Yes, have a safe trip,” Liza added.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. But thanks.” He said good night and then headed for his truck, Charlotte’s gift tucked under his arm.
“Well, what do you think now?” Liza asked her friend as Colin’s taillights faded down the drive. “Still think I’m speculating wildly about them?”
“I never said you were speculating wildly,” Claire corrected her. “I still think that private matters are best left private. I will say he seemed sad, not his normal self. I think he liked the gift. But it didn’t bring him much pleasure, did it?”
“No,” Liza agreed. “It seemed to make him even sadder.”
Claire didn’t answer, just picked up her knitting again and sighed. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
WATCHING Rob at the dining room table with all their business papers, bills, and files spread out around him made Audrey nervous. He usually only got this way once a year, at tax time, and that was over pretty quickly.
He had been at it for a few days now. She knew this was just his way of coping with the bad news from the doctor, his way of avoiding the pain and trying to take some constructive steps forward. But Audrey wished he would just finish his calculations. She already knew what he was going to say.
“Any progress?” she asked. It was Sunday morning, and he had woken up before her and gone straight to his desk with a cup of coffee. She brought him a refill and set it in a safe place.
“I found an e-mail this morning from that man who said he might be interested in leasing the farm. He made me a ballpark offer. I just wanted to run the numbers and see how they came out,” he said, staring at his computer screen.
“How did they come out?” She sat at the table, not really wanting to hear the answer.
He sighed and sat back. “It’s tough, Audrey. If we can actually get this amount, it would cover most of the mortgage. But there are still taxes and general upkeep of the property to consider. And we won’t have the income from the farm store and stand, or from the cheese distribution.”
“But we’ll both have jobs, in the city, presumably.” Audrey knew she could make a good salary as a nurse. Nurses were always in demand.
“Audrey, be practical. What if you have a difficult pregnancy? During some of those treatments, I think it’s hard to work at all. And you probably won’t want a full-time job once we have a baby.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I just … Well, I wish the math would work out for us, that’s all.”
“I know, hon. I’m the number cruncher here, and I’m trying to make the pieces fit. But I’m not sure we can swing it.”
Audrey swallowed hard and said the impossible words. “If we have to leave the farm then … well, that’s what we have to do. Having a family is more important than living here, as much as we love it,” she added quietly.
“I agree,” Rob said. “We can always come back here someday. We can visit with our beautiful children and show them this place and tell them about a time in our lives that was fun and different—but empty in a certain way without them.”
That was it entirely. As much as they loved their life here, their dream to have a family was more important and starting to make the farm seem like some sort of consolation prize. “Why is this so hard for us?” she asked. “Other people aren’t forced to make these choices, Rob. This farm was always your dream. If we give it up to have a baby, how are you going to feel? Five or ten years from now, maybe you’ll resent it. Maybe you’ll resent me,” she said, voicing a real fear. “What if we go through the treatments, and it ends up that we’re never able to have a child? That could happen, too, you know,” she added. That was her worst fear. “Will it have been worth it to you? To both of us?”
Rob took her hand. “I dreamt of having a farm like this for years before we actually bought it. I won’t deny that. And I love waking up every morning and going out there and working in the garden or with the goats or making cheese. It never feels like work to me. But I’ve seen that dream come true and lived it. Most people can never say that. Our dreams change, Audrey, that’s what I’ve learned. Now my dream is to hold our own little one in my arms, and raise a baby with you. If we have to leave here to do that, then that’s what we’ll do. There are no guarantees in life, honey, you know that. Everybody has got to hoe their own row. Saying it’s not fair doesn’t matter. This is our row. This is what we have to deal with. All we can do is try our best. In the end, it’s all in God’s hands, right?”
Audrey nodded, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She was so emotional lately. It was just an up-and-down time for them. “When you put it that way, it makes it a little clearer, a little easier to face.”
She rested her hands on Rob’s shoulders. “I propose that we table this discussion. It’s almost the end of August, two more weeks to Labor Day. I think we should just work out the season and not try to figure it out right now.”
“Dr. Barnes said we shouldn’t wait. He wants us to get started on this right away.”
“Oh, Rob, I’m not that old. A few weeks won’t make a difference. This is a major decision in our marriage and in our lives. We’re going to feel the effects of this for a long time. I want to feel as if, whatever we do, it’s settled into my bones and I just know it’s the right thing.”
“Okay, that seems sensible to me,” Rob agreed. “We shouldn’t decide this in a rush. As long as we aren’t procrastinating.”
“It’s not procrastination, I promise. I’m just a little confused,” she told him.
He laughed at her explanation, then stood up and hugged her. “I am, too, but at least we’re confused together.”
The day had begun with light rain, too wet to work in the garden. The skies cleared and the sun came out around noontime, but they still decided that a ride into town would be a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. They both loved the farm but needed a break from time to time.
They finished their morning chores quickly. Audrey had showered and dressed and was waiting in the kitchen for Rob to come down when the phone rang. She picked it up and answered. “Gilroy Farm.”
A man on the other end of the line introduced himself. “Is this Audrey?” he asked. He sounded elderly, and like a customer who wanted to order some cheese.
“Yes, it is. How can I help you?”
“I think you found my dog. My dog
Sunny. I saw a flyer yesterday in the post office. I could hardly believe it.”
Audrey felt the earth drop away from her feet. She felt as if there were no air in the room. Her immediate reaction was to slam down the phone—or tell the old man he had the wrong number. But she couldn’t do that. For one thing, it just wasn’t right.
Calm down. Millie might not even be this man’s dog. He might be mistaken.
“Yes, we found a dog. Quite a few weeks ago now. When did you lose your dog, Mr.—? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Broussard, Leonard Broussard. I lost her a few weeks ago, too … I didn’t actually lose her. I’ve been away. Broke my hip and had to go into one of those rehab places for six weeks.”
“That’s too bad, I’m sorry,” Audrey said sympathetically.
She scolded herself for feeling mean-hearted. Poor old fellow. It sounded as though he was having a very rough time.
“I left Sunny with a neighbor. But they weren’t careful enough with her. She got out of their yard and ran off. They were afraid to tell me she was gone. But of course, I found out when I came back to Cape Light.”
Another sad turn in his story. Imagine going through all that and then finding out someone lost your dog. But there was another reason his Sunny and Millie couldn’t be the same dog. Mr. Broussard lived in the village. Millie must have been lost by someone on the island, or someone visiting.
“Mr. Broussard, I found the dog out here, on the island. I don’t think she could be yours. How would she have gotten across the bridge?” Audrey asked gently.
He was quiet a moment. “I don’t know. Dogs are smart. Maybe she was looking for me.”
Audrey had to smile at that theory.
“I can tell from the picture, that’s her. That’s my Sunny. I need to bring her home,” he insisted. “I can come right now. It won’t take long,” he promised.
Audrey didn’t know what to say. She doubted it was the man’s dog, but she could tell he had to see her for himself and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Having Millie around the last few weeks, she understood that. “Of course. Come on out. Do you know where we are?”
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