The Wonder of You

by Susan May Warren

  A beat of silence passed.

  Then Ingrid said, her tone brightening, “Max and Grace—to what do we owe this surprise visit?”

  He glanced at Grace for cues, ready to announce the big news. But she wore a strange expression. “Uh, we thought, since Max’s season was over, we’d help with your Mother’s Day breakfast-in-bed event. Darek told me how you’re making cinnamon rolls for the guests, and . . . we thought we’d help. Right, Max?”

  She gave him a smile and for a second, the way the lie slid like honey off her lips made him doubt everything she’d ever told him.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Ingrid said. “I’d love some help in the kitchen. In fact, I’ll even move aside and let you two Iron Chefs take over.”

  “You don’t have to—” Max started.

  “Grace, help yourself to the fridge, and if you don’t want mac and cheese, then whip up something for you and Max to eat. I’ll make up Eden’s bed for Yulia with you and Amelia in the attic. Max, you have your choice—the den or the boys’ room.”

  He glanced at Grace, who suddenly seemed to forget that, yes, they were married, because she said . . . nothing?

  He might regret marrying her, but hello, he had no intention of spending even one night away from his new bride.

  Except she met his eyes, a stream of panic in hers.

  Shoot. “The den sounds great, Ingrid. Let me help.” He thought it came out in a growl, but Ingrid seemed not to notice.

  “I’ll get the sheets,” Grace said. She wrinkled her nose in an I’m-sorry expression.

  But maybe she, like him, needed time to get her footing. Figure out how to tell her parents that yes, they’d finally jumped in, both feet, regardless of the sentence looming in front of them.

  And while John and Ingrid—the entire family, probably—knew about his diagnosis, he expected a hard conversation with John about how Max intended to provide for Grace when his body no longer could.

  Yeah, that conversation, in light of today’s tragedy, could possibly wait until tomorrow.

  But it didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to talk Grace into sneaking down to the den in the wee hours. For a moment, that very thought slid a smile up his face.

  Grace caught it as she returned with a stack of sheets. He retrieved them, their hands brushing.

  Then he winked, and deliciously, she blushed. As if she might be thinking the same thing.

  Oh, how he loved her.

  She turned, laughing at something Amelia was saying as she jogged up the stairs.

  “How about a slice of that chocolate cake,” Grace said to Max. Then she patted Yulia on the back, looked down at her, such tenderness in her expression it could stop time.

  And in that second, darkness rushed back with a force that felt like a check into the boards as Max figured it out. He didn’t fear the news of the elopement or even the future looming before him.

  Because he could give his wife everything—his heart, his money, his strength, his faith. But he could never give her what she truly wanted.

  A family like the one she’d grown up in.

  As usual, her family had swooped in and taken over. Amelia tried not to let the way Grace tucked Yulia into bed, reading her a story as if she’d been the one to find her on the shore, niggle at her.

  After all, the little girl needed as much love as she could get. And Amelia didn’t really resent her sister’s—or her mother’s—ministrations. Just that, without a word, they’d assumed she didn’t quite have it in her to mother this grieving child.

  Yeah, well, she knew exactly how it felt to be in a foreign country alone. Still, she shook away the voices and listened instead to the night sky whispering to her, pulling her away from the speculation about Yulia and out onto the deck, her feet bare against the cool wood. The wind rushed through the trees across the lake, and the lights at Jensen’s family’s stately lake home peered out like eyes into the night.

  She slid onto the picnic table, unzipped her camera from its case, and scrolled through the day’s pictures. She couldn’t wait to show Lou her shots on Monday morning. The Girl Scouts laughing in the glorious spray of the car wash. It all felt decades away, but there, too, was Seth, strong, tanned, grinning at Amelia, one thumb caught in his waistband.

  She heard his voice, his words at the accident site when she’d canceled their date tonight. C’mon, Amelia, don’t let me down.

  Lately that was all she seemed to be doing.

  She kept scrolling to the shots of the accident, found the ones she’d taken of the spectators—the elderly couple, the woman in khakis with her children, little Yulia.

  And then . . . what? Oh no. The last picture on her memory card was Yulia, silhouetted by a rainbow spray of golden light from the falls.

  Nothing of the accident, of the fire engines, of Seth and the others recovering the bodies.

  Nothing, even, of Roark. Hours later, she’d decided that whoever she’d seen looking waterlogged and exhausted, it couldn’t have been him.

  How crazy would that be? Roark St. John, European playboy, pulling bodies out of a frigid river in northern Minnesota? Right.

  She stared at the screen and wanted to throw the camera—and herself—into the lake. How could she not have snapped at least one shot?

  “Honey, are you okay?”

  Her mother’s voice tiptoed out into the night, the sliding door clicking shut behind her. Ingrid climbed onto the table next to Amelia. The cicadas sang over the rim of the still water, frogs joining the chorus. A loon moaned, low and long.

  Amelia set the camera on the table and hung her face in her hands. “I didn’t take any shots of the accident today. Nothing. No fire trucks, no rescue. Lou is going to kill me.”

  Her mother’s hand pressed her shoulder. “There was a lot going on. You rescued Yulia. That seems more important than taking shots of the tragedy.”

  “I don’t think Lou is going to see it that way.” She could imagine his reaction—especially after her rousing, confident call to him on her way to the river. “I think I’m going to lose this job before I even land it.”

  “There are other jobs out there. The lodge could always—”

  “No, Mom.” Her voice emerged more strident than she meant, so she softened it. “I mean, yes, of course, I’ll always help out at the lodge, but . . . I wanted something . . .”

  “Epic.”

  She glanced at her mother, saw the softness of her smile.

  “Honey, no one blames you for wanting to see the world. I was just like you at your age—wanting to do something more with my life. You know that I went to Ecuador to serve in the Peace Corps for a year after high school, right?”

  “I know, but then you came back to Deep Haven. And stayed.”

  Oh. She winced, hearing how the words laid out. Feeling the heaviness of her mother’s silence.

  Then, “You clearly see that as a failure.”

  “Not for you, Mom. But . . .”

  “But you hadn’t exactly planned on returning.”

  Amelia tucked her hands between her knees, a breeze rustling through Seth’s shirt. She’d forgotten she was wearing it, and now it felt like a sort of betrayal.

  Especially since she couldn’t seem to scrape the memory of Roark—or the image of Roark—from her brain.

  “I just thought I was on my way to something amazing. Maybe it was all those stories I read as a kid, the ones about missionaries smuggling Bibles and chopping their way through the rain forest to find lost civilizations, but I saw myself changing the world. I felt like I was answering this strange voice, deep inside me, the one telling me that there is more out there and I’m supposed to go do it.”

  “You can still do it, honey. You’re just regrouping.”

  She said nothing for a moment. Then, “I thought I saw him today.”

  Her mother waited.

  “Roark.”

  “I know who you’re talking about.” Her mother’s hand r
ested lightly on her arm. “Where did you see him?”

  “At the accident. Retrieving the body of one of the victims. I thought I saw him giving her CPR.” She swatted a mosquito that landed on her leg. “I know it wasn’t him. But you know, sometimes I expect him to show up. To appear at—I don’t know, the coffee shop or the donut place. Or maybe in our parking lot. What if he did come back to town?”

  “What if?”

  “No, it’s crazy thinking. There’s no way he’d come back here again. Not after the way we treated him.”

  “We were a little rough on him.”

  She slanted a glance at her mother. “Really? I thought you didn’t like him.”

  “I don’t know him enough to make a judgment. But I saw the way you wanted to defend him when he showed up here. How you nearly leaped into his arms—would have, maybe, if your brothers hadn’t stepped between you.”

  “He came all the way over here and got run off with the metaphorical pitchfork.”

  “They love you, and he hurt you.”

  She let that pass. “I regret not talking to him.” There, she said it.

  In fact, most nights she dreamed about the conversation she longed to have with him, over and over. A conversation that started with her apology for putting them in this mess. For believing they were more than friends and getting confused, jealous, angry, even childish.

  She should have realized she thought more of their relationship than he had. She’d simply been a game, a fling.

  Except when a guy flew over the ocean and arrived with flowers . . . what did that say? That baffled her most of all.

  “What would you say to him?”

  That was the problem, wasn’t it? “I don’t know. It probably wouldn’t have worked out between us anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “I did mention he was twenty-five, right?”

  “Your father is older than me.”

  “Not five years older. And he’s British.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Funny, Mom. But more than that, he’s . . . I don’t know. Smart. Polished. He spoke French and, I think, German. But I’m not sure I really knew him all that well. I was wooed by the luster of a European man with a sexy accent. I feel foolish for giving my heart away so fast to a man I hardly knew. Maybe it wasn’t even love—maybe it was all just an illusion of love. Maybe I wanted love more than felt it.”

  “That’s the biggest part of this. You feel foolish.”

  “And like a coward for running back to Deep Haven.” She leaned back on her hands, stared at the sprinkle of stars against the vast velvet night. “I thought I was brave. I thought I was smart.” Her eyes burned and she blinked, feeling moisture on her cheeks. “I thought I was invincible.”

  “Honey.”

  Amelia swallowed, the mortality of her dreams pressing a hand against her chest. “I failed myself. How can I ever really trust myself, or my heart, again?”

  “Maybe it’s not about trusting yourself, but trusting God. He knows your heart better than you do.”

  “I know. I do. But . . . I guess the big question is, do I know His heart? Maybe if I knew the bigger picture, all of this would make sense. But I feel small, sitting here looking up at the sky. I always wanted to be someone God could use. But I’m wondering if I thought too much of myself. Maybe I’m not who I hoped to be. Now everything is blurry—my future, my feelings for Seth. Even . . . I don’t know. Apparently I’m going crazy and imagining Roark too.”

  “Do you love Jesus, Amelia?”

  She drew in the question with a breath. “I do, Mom.”

  “Then start there. Always start there. Once you have centered your heart on that, everything else comes into focus.”

  Amelia closed her eyes. Listened to the wind in the trees, the lap of the lake against the canoe onshore. “I do know that I want a man who loves God. A man after God’s heart.”

  “That’s a good place to start.”

  “I can’t shake the sense that we were . . . supposed to be together. I know he was a stranger, but it felt right. Have you ever had that?”

  Her mother smiled, nodded. “I believed in your father and me long before he did. I knew we were supposed to be together.” She put her arm around Amelia. “There is more out there for you. Give it time. God will bring everything into focus.”

  Amelia leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I know what I’d say to him.” She lifted her head. “Roark.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d tell him we would have to start over. From the beginning. That I wanted honesty every step of the way, no games. And if he lied to me, even once, we’d be over.” She rested her head again on her mother’s shoulder. “That’s what I’d say if he showed up here.”

  “Which he won’t.”

  “Unless he steps out of my imagination and back into Deep Haven.”

  THE SKY COULD HAVE the decency to rain. But no, it arched high and blue without blemish, the gulls crying out, the air redolent with the scents of greening poplars and mountain ash buds.

  It all mocked Amelia as she stepped out of the Deep Haven Herald office. Fired before she even landed the job. How fair was that?

  Apparently, very fair, because yes, Lou had received her message, and no, he hadn’t sent out reinforcements to the accident, which meant he had no photos for the upcoming weekly issue of the paper.

  Except, of course, front page–worthy pictures of Troop 168 spraying down Edith Draper’s Ford Escape. And of Seth.

  She should call him back after the five messages he’d left on her phone. Yes, definitely, she’d call him back, let him cajole her out of her surly mood.

  Truth was, in Lou’s shoes, she probably would have fired herself. But she would have done it nicely. With words like I know you have talent, and by the way, how’s that little girl you helped? Not, What am I supposed to do with this? What kind of airhead goes to the catastrophe of the summer and gets pictures of two old people holding hands?

  She hung her backpack over her shoulder and headed toward her car, parked near the harbor lot. Her mother had a slew of preparations this week for the upcoming Mother’s Day event at the resort, their kickoff for the summer, with a full house reserved. Amelia had glimpsed the list this morning—plant flower boxes; change sheets, towels, and kitchenware; dust. And that was just her mother’s list. Darek would probably stick Amelia at the front desk to take calls. Not that she didn’t like talking to prospective guests, but her world seemed to be shrinking in on itself.

  Seth. The lodge. The sum total of her shiny future.

  Oh, she wasn’t being fair to either of them. But . . .

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket just as she reached her Kia. She pulled it out, found a text from Ree. Meet me at the Java Cup!

  Amelia stood a moment, considering her mood—and the hope of commiseration with Ree, who understood better than anyone the fate of being trapped in Deep Haven.

  If Ree didn’t escape soon, she probably never would.

  So, yeah, Amelia texted Ree back and headed to the Java Cup, the smells of the nearby donut/cupcake shop reaching out to entice her. Thankfully, she’d already eaten. At least with Grace home, she got a decent breakfast—her sister had whipped up Belgian waffles and cracked open a jar of their mother’s homemade raspberry jam this morning.

  Mostly for Yulia, a sort of last breakfast before the adoption coordinator arrived to take her away.

  She’d uttered not even a whimper the last two nights, although Amelia slept fitfully, tossing the nights away. Grace seemed restless too and woke her once, shuffling through the room—probably on her way to the bathroom.

  In her dreams, Amelia kept seeing Roark, trying to save the life of a stranger. Was he the kind of person to dive into the icy waters of the river, search for bodies? Clearly she didn’t know him as well as she should have because she couldn’t answer that question.

  Except her thumping heart said yes.

  The busy coffee shop drew he
r in like an embrace as she opened the door, the bell jangling overhead. The Java Cup overlooked the lake, with a deck hosting Adirondack chairs perfect for soaking in the view while enjoying a moment of quiet with a mocha and a friend. Inside, announcements of local events fluttered on a bulletin board near the door, and conversation groups anchored by leather chairs and tables made from local birch and pine logs added to the north shore aura. The spill of beans, the churn of a grinder, and a line at the counter evidenced the busy morning.

  Amelia studied the specials listed in pink-and-green chalk on the board behind the counter. Today the Becky was featured—a vanilla and caramel mocha named after a town regular.

  “Amelia! Over here!”

  The voice emerged from the anteroom that jutted off the main area and faced the town’s library and yoga studio. She spotted Vivie, today wearing a short tie-dyed dress, brown leggings, and low boots, a scarf at her neck, her hair tied up in a messy, high knot. Vivie slid off a stool pushed up to one of the high-top tables and scampered over. “Just the person we hoped to see!”

  “Who is we?” Amelia asked, returning her hug.

  “The Sawdust Sweeties.” Vivie grabbed her hand even as Amelia cast a look around the room for Ree.

  She didn’t spot her before Vivie pulled her to a table of familiar faces—former classmates, the cute ones who knew how to smile and giggle and probably never failed at love.

  Then it clicked. The Sawdust Sweeties. Right. Deep Haven’s annual beauty pageant, held during the upcoming Flapjack Festival honoring the lumberjacks in the area. She’d always tried to erase from her brain the spectacle of local girls in Daisy Dukes, posing with chain saws and axes. But the winner went on to bigger and better competitions, ending at the Miss Minnesota Butter Girl competition and a $50,000 scholarship.

  “You did such a great job on my senior photos, I told Vivie you could probably take our Sweetie shots,” Colleen Decker said. She’d graduated with Amelia and immediately headed off to play volleyball for the University of Minnesota, Duluth.