“No. At least, not yet”—Ellie tried to make a joke—“but it’s still early.”
“I really admire what you’re doing. I don’t think most people would do what you’re doing.”
Ellie shook her head. “I think anyone who thought about the situation would. Believe me, at first, I wasn’t happy that I was being asked to do this. I didn’t want to do it. But so far, it’s better than I expected, and after getting to know Gabi a little, I’m glad I said yes.”
He held her close, his chin resting on the top of her head.
“Her mother must have been a pretty good mom,” Ellie said. “You can tell she’s been raised well. And she reads a lot, hasn’t asked for a TV, and doesn’t have her face in a cell phone all day. Which makes me wonder if perhaps she isn’t some sort of mutant child. Perhaps a form of alien life.” She stopped and thought it over. “Of course, I haven’t seen her with a cell phone, so maybe she doesn’t have one. I mean, if she did, she’d be calling her friends back in New Jersey, wouldn’t she?”
“Maybe she wasn’t that close to anyone.”
“Hard to believe. She’s friendly and outgoing and she’s smart.” Ellie thought some more. “Maybe I should ask her if there’s anyone she wants to call. If she doesn’t have a phone, she can use mine.”
“That would be nice.” His arms were strong around her and she felt that if she dropped right there where she stood, he’d catch her. It had been a long time since she’d felt so sure of anything.
Cam sat on the sofa, pulled Ellie onto his lap, and kissed her.
“So what’s the plan for Gabi?” he asked.
“Tomorrow I’ll get her enrolled in the local middle school.” She realized she had no idea where that might be. “Which would be where?”
“Out on the highway. About a mile past the Crab Claw on the same side of the road. It’s a regional school now, Eastern Shore Regional.”
“I’m not certain exactly what I need to do to get her registered. I thought I’d call first thing in the morning and see what I need to bring with me.”
“What do you need to prove you’re her guardian?”
“I don’t know. That’s one of the things I need to ask.”
He began to massage her shoulders and she groaned.
“God, you’re tense,” he murmured.
“Can’t figure out why.”
His thumbs dug into her muscles and she yelped, but after several more minutes she was all but purring.
“Better?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.” She rotated her neck in a full circle. “Much.”
He tapped her forehead. “Too much going on in there right now. Give yourself a break and put as much of it aside as you can.”
“It’s really tough right now.”
“Name one thing in your life that was resolved by worrying about it.”
She shook her head.
“Point proven.” He kissed her again, helped her off his lap, then stood. “I’m going to get going or I’m not going to want to leave at all.”
“I wish you could stay.”
“So do I. But …” He pointed toward the second floor.
“I know.”
“However, we can have lunch together this week. I could meet you in town somewhere.”
“Or we could have lunch here.” She circled a button on his shirt with her finger.
“Or we could have lunch here.” He grinned. “We could definitely have lunch here.”
“Tuesday might be good.” She walked him to the door. “Tomorrow might not be good because I don’t know how long it will take me to get Gabi straightened out at school.”
“Call me when you get back home and let me know how it went.”
She walked out on the porch with him and shivered as the wind from the Bay picked up, but she stood with her arms wrapped around her middle while he drove away. She went back into the house, thinking that she was pretty lucky to have found him, and wondering what she was going to do about it.
“Does this look okay?” Gabi stood in the kitchen, her arms out to her side, an anxious expression on her face.
“Jeans and a cute top always looks okay,” Ellie assured her.
“I have another top I wanted to wear but I can’t find it. I think maybe I didn’t pack it.”
“I’ll talk to Jesse today about contacting your mother’s attorney and see what’s what. In the meantime, eat some breakfast.”
“I’m too nervous to eat.”
“Then just have a piece of toast and an apple or a banana and a glass of milk.” Ellie realized that she sounded just like Mrs. Timothy, their old housekeeper, who made her eat breakfast every morning. “Just toast, Ellis,” and she’d hold out a plate with a slice of oat bread toasted with butter and strawberry jam. Or, “Just a few bites of this delicious oatmeal …”
One of Ellie’s first memories of boarding school was rejoicing that there was no one there to badger her to eat in the morning.
Ellie waited until nine before calling Jesse’s office. After exchanging pleasantries with Violet Finneran, she was transferred to Jesse.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Not bad at all,” she replied, “but Gabi’s going to enroll in school this morning and I don’t know what to take with me besides the records from her old school. What do I have to take to show that I haven’t kidnapped this kid?”
“Well, you’re her sister and her mother is deceased—no death certificate yet but I’ll see how quickly I can get my hands on one. Gabi’s birth certificate is in the envelope I gave you—”
“Yes, found that.”
“And we can probably get your father to sign something giving you custody of Gabi, so we’ll start there.”
“I have the name and number of Marilyn Hansen’s attorney, the one who drew up her will.” She read off the information to Jesse.
“We’ll get a copy of the will, since Marilyn asked that Gabi be raised by her father should anything happen to her. Since he is unable to care for her, there should be no problem with you as an adult sibling.”
“I hope not.”
As it was, it took several hours, phone calls, and faxes, but before the day ended, Gabrielle Chapman was registered at Eastern Shore Regional Middle School. The following day she would undergo a series of placement tests, which, along with her grades from the school she’d attended the previous year, would determine her section.
To celebrate her successful enrollment, Ellie took her for pizza at the acclaimed Dominic’s, where they polished off an entire medium vegetable pie between the two of them.
“So tell me how it went today,” Ellie asked over the salads she insisted they order along with their pizza.
“I guess okay. It’ll be better tomorrow ’cause they said they’d score the tests right away so that I could go to my regular classes.” Gabi sighed deeply. “I hope I get into the smartest group. I’m always in the smartest group.”
Ellie bit back a smile.
“Then I would guess you’ll be in the smartest group here, too.”
And she was, much to her delight. She got into Ellie’s car the next afternoon laden with her books. “I have a lot of homework to catch up on,” she told Ellie. “My old school was further along in math and science, but the English class here is reading some stuff we didn’t read, so I have to catch up on all that. Spanish is about the same, though, and history is, too.”
Tuesday lunchtime brought Cameron with a ladder to help Ellie reach the high points on the kitchen cabinets, none of which were painted while he was there. They spent two hours together, mostly in her bed, and there was no talk of painting cabinets or homework or any of the other things that had filled Ellie’s thoughts that morning.
By the end of the week, a routine had been set. Ellie drove Gabi to and from school, homework was done after a quick snack, dinner, then more homework, then bedtime. Cam stopped over again on Thursday, and met them for dinner at Captain Walt’s on Friday night. Over the wee
kend, Ellie and Gabi went through the wardrobe that Gabi had brought with her, and they both decided that she needed to shop, which put Ellie in a bit of a bind, since she had little disposable income.
She thought of her options, and realized she only had one.
“Remember you said I could work for you stripping wallpaper?” She asked Cameron that night after Gabi had gone to bed. “Is that offer still good?”
“Anytime.” He nodded. “Actually, I could use you this coming week. We’re working over at Grant Wyler’s place. He bought an old house a few years ago and is just now getting around to remodeling. Well, his wife—you met Dallas—has the remodeling bug. We’ve gotten a fair amount of the work completed, but there are several rooms and a long hallway that need to be scraped before we can paint. You interested?”
“I am.”
“I’ll see you at eight on Monday morning, then.”
“Actually, that’s about when I’m driving Gabi to school.”
“Come by after you drop her off.” He gave her directions to Grant’s house. “Why the change of heart?”
“I need the cash. It’s the only way I can think of to make some in a hurry. At some point, there will be money from those paintings that Carly took, but that’s not going to be for quite a while, though. So it just makes sense that I find a job.”
“Consider yourself employed.”
“You’re not just offering because you like me?”
“Nah. I’d find another way to let you know how much I like you without putting my reputation on the line. You’ve proven to have a skill—”
“One I never would have suspected.”
“And it happens to be one I need right now. So as of Monday morning, your time will be mine, from eight-something until four.”
“That should leave me enough time to pick up Gabi.”
“Can’t she take the bus?” Cam asked. “There is a bus that picks up kids on Charles Street. I see them every morning.”
“I don’t know that she’s ready for the bus. I can ask her, but that’s a whole different social thing. Who sits where and with whom.”
“I don’t remember worrying about that as a kid.”
“You’re a guy. Maybe guys don’t think about stuff as much.”
“Or maybe I just knew everyone on the bus.” He sat back in his seat and studied her face. “Did you ever ride a school bus?”
She shook her head, no. “I went to private school in New York when I was little. There was another girl in our building who went there, too, so we took a car together every morning and a car picked us up in the afternoon. After that, I went to boarding school, so no. No school bus. But I’ve read about bullying and stuff like that. As a new kid—especially one as serious as Gabi—she could become a target, and she doesn’t need that crap right now.”
“You’ve become very protective of her in a very short period of time.”
“Someone needs to be.”
“Well, you could ask her if she wants to take the bus.”
“She’ll say sure just because she’ll think I’m asking because I don’t want to drive her anymore. She’s only been in school a week. She needs to get her feet on the ground.”
“You’re the boss.”
A few moments later, Ellie said, “She hasn’t mentioned making any friends or meeting anyone.”
“Is she supposed to tell you if she’s made a friend?”
“I don’t know.” She felt a prickle of annoyance. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Did you tell your mother every time you made a friend in school?”
“I don’t remember. Besides, my mother wasn’t home a lot of the time.” Ellie sat back and rested against his body on the sofa.
“Did you have a lot of friends when you were in school?”
She nodded. “A fair amount. And once I got to Rushton-Graves, I had Carly.”
Ellie thought about what it had meant to her to have found the perfect friend on the day she’d arrived at boarding school. She’d been terrified and confused and she hadn’t wanted to go, but her father had insisted that this was the place to be. She’d gone into her room on the second floor of the dorm, and there was Carly. She hadn’t wanted to be at the school, either. She and Carly had been there for each other from that day on. She was hoping that Gabi would find a friend like that, too.
“There was a dance at school tonight that she didn’t want to go to. A notice came home the other day but she didn’t mention it.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to go. She’ll find her way, El. Somehow, we all did.…”
Ellie had made an appointment to take Dune to the vet’s on Saturday morning for the rest of her shots.
“Want to come along?” she asked Gabi.
“Sure. Just give me a minute.” Gabi ran upstairs for her shoes and ran back down a few minutes later. She got Dune’s leash and snapped it on the dog’s collar, then put on her own jacket. The girl and the dog were waiting for Ellie by the front door.
“You’re going to have to hold her on your lap,” Ellie told Gabi. “There’s practically no room inside that little car.”
“It’s a very cool car, though,” Gabi declared.
“No question there.”
Grant Wyler’s veterinary clinic was several blocks away on the other side of Charles Street. Ellie pulled into the lot between the clinic and the house and turned off the engine. They got out of the car and walked through the double doors that served as an entrance to the converted barn that housed the clinic. Another smaller barn in the back housed the shelter where Grant kept the dogs he and his staff helped rescue until he could find homes for them.
The receptionist’s desk was right inside the door, and Ellie stopped to check in. The receptionist looked terribly young.
“I’m Ellie Ryder and I’m here with Dune.”
“I’ll let my dad know you’re here.” The girl went through a door and returned a few moments later.
“Dad … ah, Dr. Wyler … will be with you in a minute,” she said as she started back to the desk. She stopped when she saw Gabi. “Hey, you’re in my English class.” A broad smile crossed the girl’s face.
Gabi looked up and nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
“You’re new. You just started this week.”
“Right again.” To Ellie’s eye, Gabi looked a bit uncomfortable.
“I’m Paige, Paige Wyler. My dad’s the vet. Is this your dog?” Paige took the seat next to Gabi. “She is really cute. What’s her name?”
“Dune.”
“That’s so cool.”
The door opened and Grant stepped out.
“Ellie, hi. Bring her in.” He looked across the room at his daughter. “Remember the dog that got away from the transport a few weeks ago?” He pointed down at Dune. “Fugitive.”
“Dad, can I take Gabi over to the shelter to look at the puppies?” Paige asked. “Emmy just pulled into the parking lot, so she can take the desk.”
“Sure, if Gabi wants to.”
“Gabi, you have to see these puppies. Cutest ever.”
“Okay.” Gabi looked at Ellie.
“Sure,” Ellie told her.
“How do you know my name?” Ellie heard Gabi ask Paige as they went through the double doors.
“Duh. I’m in your class.…”
Their voices faded away and Ellie followed Grant into the examining room.
Dune’s vaccinations took less than ten minutes, but it took Ellie another twenty to find Gabi. She and Paige had decided to take some of the shelter dogs—two each—on a walk, and they were just coming back up the drive when Ellie came out of the barn for the third time.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” Gabi apologized. “We started walking the dogs, and one dog sort of led to another.”
“I can see how that can happen.” Ellie loaded Dune into the car yet again.
“I’ll take these two back,” she told Ellie. “I won’t be long.”
“It’s okay, Gabi, I’ll take
them.” Paige reached for the leashes. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see you later.”
“Did you make plans for later with Paige?” Ellie asked as she drove back to Charles Street.
“She’s having a sleepover and she invited me. Could I go?”
“Sure, but you don’t look too happy about the prospect. Do you not want to go?”
“I want to go. I like Paige. I just don’t know about the other girls. I don’t know any of them.” Gabi looked worried.
“This could be an opportunity to get to know them.”
“I have to think about it.”
Later in the afternoon, Cameron stopped in, and Ellie assumed it was to pick up the ladder he’d left in the kitchen. She started to walk to the back of the house, but he sat on the steps in the foyer.
“Why didn’t you tell me that my sister was here on Sunday?” he asked.
Ellie shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”
“What did she say?”
Choosing her words carefully, Ellie replied, “She just wanted to make sure that I understood how much it would mean to you to buy this house.”
“She shouldn’t have said anything at all. That’s between you and me.”
“I’m sure she thought she was being helpful. And besides, I think she was looking for a reason to come inside, see the place again.”
“She was meddling. She’s one of those people who cannot leave well enough alone.”
“It’s okay, Cam. I didn’t mind, and I assured her that come summer, you’ll be the new owner.”
“Have you thought any more about where you’re going or what you’re going to do?”
“Not really. I haven’t really had much time. I’ve mostly been focused on the work I have to do to get the place in shape.”
“You could just take it easy from here on in,” he told her, “leave everything for me to do. I still don’t really understand why you won’t just sell it to me now.”
“Trying to get rid of me?” she teased.
“No. I don’t want to see you go. I just don’t understand you.”
“Here’s the deal, Cam. Here’s the part I left out the other day.” Ellie sat on the step next to him. “My mother’s will stipulated that I would inherit the house only if I lived here for six months. Which brings us to May. So I have to stay until then, or the house is sold and the proceeds go to charity. I can’t sell the house now, even if I wanted to, which frankly, I don’t. I’m not ready. I can’t even sell the paintings now, because the contents of the house are included in that stipulation. And besides, right now I can’t afford to go anywhere else. Once Carly has sold a few paintings … well, those paintings change everything. She says they’re worth a lot of money.”
The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge Page 179