by Robin Bayne
The drapes were the last of her belongings to be packed. Her cookware and dishes had been carefully boxed and shipped ahead to the inn, where they waited for her to lovingly make its kitchen her own.
Giving a final, cleansing swipe to the bare avocado colored counter top, Tia wondered who besides her landlord would want a forwarding address. She’d sent an e-mail to her college roommate, Liz. Her now-former co-workers at the catering company had been pleasant, nothing more, wishing her well in her new venture before returning to their conversation about the new waiter in the Westminster branch who had tight buns.
That only left Cami, and Tia decided there was no reason to give her sister any information concerning her personal life.
She’d had enough.
~*~
Sweat dripped from Colt’s brow. He lowered the beam into place, waiting until the other man had a firm grip on the metal, and then backed off. It was bone-sapping hot, even for June, and Colt didn’t envy the crew today.
When one man didn’t show, it was Colt’s cue to step in. The Canton family needed him, and he had to decide when to spring the news that he was leaving. Colt had been priming the youngest Canton cousin to take over his job, encouraging the boy to make management calls and resolve problems with contractors. Of course, at twenty-eight, Jake was far from being a boy. Yeah, Jake Canton should be ready to step into Colt’s work boots.
Metal clanked and one of the guys belched out a string of curses.
Colt grimaced and made his way toward the commotion, thinking it would be great if Tia were waiting for him each night at the inn. What a nice homecoming that would make. Too bad he’d nixed that relationship royally. He picked his way across the site, catching sight of the man on the ground. Engines roared around him as machinery continued to move and he tasted dust in the air.
Colt knelt by the group standing around the man, observed someone calling for help, then took his T-shirt over his head and tied it around the man’s upper arm to slow the bleeding from a long gash.
They didn’t need him. They needed Jake. Where was he? He needed this experience with crisis management. “Don’t move him.”
Sometimes he wished he’d never lived that previous life, with Tia. It might be better if the memories hadn’t come back, better not to remember what he once possessed. It was better to think only in the present.
“Jake,” Colt yelled, spotting the young man across the lot. “Get over here. You have a man down.”
Colt stepped aside when Jake arrived, relieved to let his friend take over, because his mind was creating a picture he hadn’t wanted to conjure. He saw Tia, on the ground after their rescue, her hair matted to her head and her entire profile a purple bruise. They’d been on the lake, just relaxing, and he’d had her back pressed to his chest as he held her, with his arms wrapped around her and his lips glued to her neck. Her skin had tasted just a bit salty, and oh-so-sweet to him. They didn’t need idle conversation when they were together; they could just hold each other and be perfectly content for hours. It was how he’d wanted to grow old, with Tia secure in his embrace.
He’d let her down that day, but he’d let her down far worse in the days that followed.
~*~
The water chilled Tia’s toes as she dipped them, splashing while her skin adjusted to the lake’s bracing June temperature. It probably wouldn’t warm up until late August, much to the chagrin of any school children who came here for vacation. Years ago the inn had offered swimming and boating lessons, and the water had always been brisk.
She hadn’t seen much of Colt all week, both of them working like crazy in preparation for the inn’s grand reopening next week.
Not that it would really be so grand; they only had one set of guests booked, an older couple who’d shown up every summer for years. They were coming up from Virginia on their way to Maine for the lobster festivals and didn’t know that the inn had closed over the winter.
Tia had a special Italian dinner planned for their Saturday evening meal. She even had the dining room set up like an Italian trattoria, with gingham cloths, candles in wine bottles and long bread baskets. Olive oil decanters and green water bottles graced the center of the main table.
Dismissing her worries, Tia scooted closer to the edge. She allowed the water to climb past her ankles, numbing them, her sundress pulled up around her thighs. It felt good to be so ready for the reopening, knowing that Colt would be watching, pleased. Not that she needed to please him.
Birds chirped in the evergreens around the lake, along with the occasional plop of a tiny animal splashing into the water. She closed her eyes, leaned her elbows back on the grass and breathed in the wild honeysuckle scent wafting from where it grew on vines entwining the old carriage house. If only she could bottle that smell and make it a centerpiece for her kitchen. She let her head hang backward, free, her hair sweeping the damp grass.
Through her closed eyelids, Tia noticed the sudden shadow looming over her, blocking the light.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Before she could acknowledge Colt’s presence, he bent down, grabbed her upper arms and pulled her away from the water, dragging her several feet from the lake’s edge.
She jumped up, sputtering with indignation, brushing off her dress and looking behind her, aware of the major grass stain he’d just impressed on the yellow cotton. Realizing her arms tingled where he’d touched her, Tia straightened and met his gaze, tilting her head back and shading her eyes with one hand. “I’m sorry, is my coffee break over?”
“What?” Colt looked confused as he glowered at her, his hands fisted.
“Well,” she said, going for sarcasm, “isn’t that why you just about ripped off my arms and ruined my dress?”
His eyes lightened as the anger left his face, and he looked at her outfit, her bare feet, and then back at her face. “No.”
“No what?”
Colt drew a deep breath, shoved a hand through his hair, and muttered something about getting it cut. “I’m sorry about the dress. I’ll get it cleaned.” He turned and stalked toward the house, leaving Tia watching, open-mouthed. What was that all about?
“Hey,” she yelled, starting after him. She stopped to grab her sandals and jogged through the soft grass to catch up as he neared the back porch. “You can’t just do that and walk away. What gives?”
Colt yanked open the screen door, and Tia followed him into the mud room which doubled as a laundry. A box of detergent wobbled as he strode past, grazing the shelf with his arm, and Tia caught it midfall, settling it on the shelf. Blue and white soap crystals sprinkled to the floor.
She hurried after Colt, ignoring the little mess for now. It was more important to catch up with him and find out what was going on. Spying his blue shirt disappearing into another room, she followed him into the garage. His sport utility vehicle sat there, along with her own demure sedan. A row of square windows lined both of the automatic doors, giving a bit of natural light to the dark room.
Colt pulled a cord and a bulb lit in the ceiling.
“Are you OK?” Tia asked, catching her breath now that she had him cornered.
He nodded, rubbing his jaw. “Yeah. Sorry if I hurt you, guess I overreacted.”
“To put it mildly. Care to explain?”
Colt turned and gestured toward a half dozen wood shelves lining the far wall. Tia moved closer, trying to make out what was on them in the dim light. She could see rows of objects, wood objects. She stepped closer.
They were sailboats−wooden toy sailboats, dinghies sanded smooth and oiled or polished, or whatever one did to wood sculpture to make it shiny and dark. They were each fairly plain and remarkably similar to each other.
“Colt, they’re beautiful! Did you find them here?” Tia moved even closer and picked up a boat. “Wow, so smooth.”
He lifted one to examine it, and Tia became painfully aware of the quiet between them. The sounds of nature had been left outside in the warmth, and i
n here there was only a cool, almost damp silence hovering over the collection. She shivered.
“Cold?”
She wanted to shout that yes, she was, that his behavior was giving her the chills. But she held her tongue and replaced the sailboat in its spot on the shelf.
“I made these.” His voice came out in a gruff whisper.
“You did?” She hadn’t known his large hands could do such intricate work.
He nodded, watching her now and absently caressing the little sloop in his hands. “I made all of them the first two years I had amnesia. I didn’t know why I was making them, no one else knew, they just thought I needed a hobby.” He snorted out a bitter laugh. “But after a while it became clear my subconscious was trying to tell me something.”
Tia opened her mouth to ask what that was, but a sudden bolt of understanding grazed her mind. She looked at the bottom row of models, each an unadorned boat, each almost the same. Each was small enough in scale to be perfect for Crane Lake. With a gasp she turned back to Colt, who stood watching her, eyes unreadable.
“These are all models of the boat that nearly drowned us!”
A honking horn was the proverbial bell that saved him, Tia thought, as Colt went to greet whoever had pulled into the drive. She’d squeezed in a promise to talk about this later before he’d fled through a side door and into the yard.
With a last glance at the sea of sculptures, she closed the garage door behind her and headed back to the laundry. If potential guests or delivery men had arrived, he would have let her know.
With the powdery mess to clean up, Tia decided she might as well mop the entire tiled floor. Her dress was ruined anyway. She grabbed a plastic bucket and ran warm water in it from the stationary tub and scouted around for a mop. Finding none, she settled for a brush and some rubber gloves and knelt on a towel in the far corner to start.
She had just reached the center of the floor when she heard footsteps and a deep voice spoke to her. “My son asked me to tell you he was going for gas for the grill.”
“George! I didn’t know you were coming out. How are you?” Tia rose, smiling at the older man. Waving a yellow-gloved hand, she resisted the urge to kiss his cheek.
“Cami. No, Tia, isn’t it?” Still tall and youthful looking, Colt’s father seemed confused as he eyed Tia. “You two always did look alike.”
“Yes, I’m Tia.” She pulled off one glove, tamping down the hurt that this man she’d considered a second father hadn’t been sure of her identity. “Colt said you hadn’t been back here for years.”
He cleared his throat, taking a step closer. “The same could be said of you.” Dressed in khaki slacks and a polo shirt, George would have looked far younger than his fifty some years if the lines around his eyes hadn’t given him away.
“True.” She removed the second glove and tossed the pair into the tub. With nothing else to claim her attention, Tia could only stare. What could she say, when he barely remembered her and had had his heart broken by her mother years ago?
“You look so much like Evelyn at that age,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes, gray like Colt’s, glistened icily.
Tia decided that wasn’t a point in her favor.
Remembering her manners, she offered him a drink. When he declined, she began to wonder what to do with him. Colt was gone, he’d said, and might be a while. Her hands smelled of the cheap rubber she’d peeled off.
George shifted his weight as he leaned against the washing machine. “Colt will be back soon, I hope.”
Long moments passed before Tia turned back to her job, lifting the bucket of dirty water. “I’ll just finish this up.”
“Good idea.”
“Let me know if you change your mind about the drink. I have freshly brewed iced tea. You might want to wait for Colt on the sun porch.” She emptied the water and waited for it to drain, ready to refill the bucket and finish the other half of the floor.
“You should go.”
Tia jumped, whirling on him, bucket forgotten. That was the last thing she expected to hear. “What does that mean?”
George met her gaze evenly. “Exactly what you think. You don’t belong here. Shouldn’t be here with Colt, alone with him. In this house. We don’t want you here.”
3
George turned and walked off, leaving Tia elbow-deep in soapy water and heart-deep in shock. Since Colt’s father hadn’t stuck around to explain his harsh words, Colt would have the pleasure as soon as Tia cornered him.
The emotions coursing through her were a little like the ones she’d felt when Colt had awakened and not remembered her. It was as if an entire relationship had been forgotten, or worse, had never existed.
Clicking her nails against the tub, Tia fought down the panic gurgling up from her stomach. It was bad enough that George wanted no part of her now. What if he convinced Colt to feel that way, too? Like her, Colt had reservations about this tentative partnership.
Tia smelled floor cleaner and remembered to shut off the faucet, then stretched her neck, allowing her head to loll back to relieve some of the tension growing there. Get a grip! It doesn’t matter what George wants. I’ve already invested in this place. She reached for a hand towel. Her money was spent. Her name was on the agreement drawn up by Mr. Berger’s office. The ink had just barely dried, but she’d signed and so had Colt.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
Feeling only slightly better, Tia moved to the breakfast room and glanced outside. The courtyard surrounding the pool was deserted. Briefly, she wondered where George had gone after verbally attacking her, but decided it wasn’t her problem and that she should go for a swim.
Colt had interrupted her solitude by the lake for reasons that still weren’t clear to her, and in this sweltering heat she needed to cool off.
She changed into her favorite blue swimsuit and returned to the pool, tossing her fluffy beach towel on a chaise lounge. She’d had the pool cleaned a few days ago and Tia was eager to try the water. Instead of a toe dip this time, Tia sucked it up and jumped right into the deep end, arms flaying, feeling the burn of chlorine up her nose and a welcome numbness cover her skin. When she surfaced and shook water from her ears, she heard clapping.
Colt stood nearby, applauding her decidedly inartistic dive. “If I had a sign,” he said, rubbing his chin in thought, “I’d hold up a ten.”
For me...or the dive? Tia cleared her eyes with her hands, treading water. Colt didn’t seem to mind her being immersed in the pool, but he’d freaked out when she’d just dipped her legs in the lake. Had to be the accident, she realized, almost forgetting to tread.
Maybe Colt hadn’t recovered as much as he’d like her to believe.
“Did you get the propane?” Tia dog paddled to the cement edge and clung to it.
He nodded, stooping beside her. “Yeah. We can do hamburgers tonight if you want. Where’s Dad?”
Tia rubbed her palm in a puddle of chlorinated water, her body bobbing in the pool. She might as well get this over with. “Uh, Colt? There’s something I need to talk to you about. Now.”
~*~
Colt stood, watching Tia hoist up and out of the water. She was only starting to get a tan, but even pale she looked good in that suit.
He watched her bend for a towel, which she draped in a roll around her neck as she approached him. The towel might be lifting the hair off her back but it sure wasn’t covering anything else.
Tia looked up at him, smoothing her hair from her face. She wasn’t smiling. She was thinner than he recalled, but since he wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not these days, he kept it to himself.
She led him to a deck chair. “Colt, please sit down. I need to tell you what happened a little while ago with George.”
What? Had his Dad been hitting on her? Colt sat.
“OK. It was like this. I was in the laundry room, alone−”
“Dressed how?”
“Excuse me?”
C
olt sighed. “Were you in this suit?”
“No! I was still wearing the dress you ruined. Would you let me tell you this, please?”
Putting his hands up in mock surrender, he agreed. “Sorry. But you’d better use that towel for wrapping up. I might not be able to pay attention.”
Blushing slightly but still unwrapped, Tia relayed her meeting with George, watching Colt as she talked.
And he watched her. Leaning forward, Colt rubbed his face, resting his elbows on his knees so he could think.
He had not expected this from his father, who had been missing from his life for years. Of course, George knew about Tia and Colt’s relationship from years ago. But why butt in now? Tia wasn’t a prospective wife or girlfriend at this point in his life; she was his business partner and former girlfriend.
Tia still sat on the edge of her chair, waiting for his response, her hair dripping. Was she still anxious about relaying the story?
“I’ll take care of it,” he told her, standing to end the conversation.
“That’s it?”
Colt narrowed his eyes as he looked down at Tia’s ponytail. “Isn’t that enough?”
She started to speak, and then just shrugged.
He hoped it would be.
~*~
In preparation for her first dinner party, Tia baked several loaves of crusty, Italian-style bread on Saturday afternoon.
Their very first guests, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, had checked in earlier, commenting on how nice the place looked.
Tia had shown them to the Nantucket suite, listened to stories of the couple’s previous visits and how they remembered the two dark-haired little girls who’d belonged to Evelyn, the chef.
“Whatever happened to your lovely sister? Did she get married, dear?” Mrs. Marshall’s smile had been sincere as she patted Tia’s arm. “Do either of you have little ones?”
Sidestepping questions about Cami, Tia outlined her education and work in catering. She omitted the part about having to be a mini-skirted server, too, in the days before her inheritance.