by Helen Brenna
“You hungry?” His stomach felt like a gurgling pot of acid.
She nodded.
Chairs scraped and cupboards closed in the kitchen below them, signaling breakfast time. “Then let’s go get something to eat. Natalie does feed you, doesn’t she?”
Toni made a face. “She tries.”
Jamis laughed and smoothed her hair.
Toni swung her feet out from under a pink, green and white quilt. By the time they got to the kitchen, the rest of the kids were dressed and sitting around the table and Natalie was dishing up French toast. “Well, good morning!”
He glanced at her. With the sun streaming through the window behind her, she looked almost angelic. “Morning.”
They’d set a place for him at the table and everyone appeared to be waiting for him to sit. A family. What would it feel like to have one again?
“Will you stay for breakfast?” Toni asked.
He was getting in deeper by the minute, but how could he refuse that sweet face? Taking a seat, he forked a piece of French toast as the plate was passed around, squirted on a blob of syrup, took a bite and nearly gagged. “Did you make this?” he asked Natalie. As if there was any doubt.
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded. “It’s my grandmother’s secret recipe.”
Almost as bad as her baking soda cookie, this concoction was so orangey and rich he barely choked it down. “What’s in it?”
“Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be a secret.”
Too bad the recipe hadn’t died with the old woman.
And you’re such an ass, Jamis.
He glanced at the faces of the children around the table. “Do you kids like this stuff?”
No one said anything.
“I know.” Natalie sighed. “Mine never seems to taste quite like Grammy’s.”
“May I try?” he found himself asking, suddenly remorseful over the nasty thought about her grandmother.
“Go for it.”
He went to the counter and threw the rest of her French toast into the sink.
“By the way, thanks for installing that new garbage disposal,” Natalie said, coming to stand by him. “We really needed it.”
Well, there was a big surprise.
“Can I help?” she asked.
His instinct was to keep her as far away from the stove as possible, but her expression was so earnest it was impossible to not concede. “Crack the eggs.” She couldn’t screw that up, could she? Apparently, he was wrong. After scooping out a few tiny shells Natalie had missed, Jamis scrambled the eggs, added milk, vanilla and cinnamon. “This your secret ingredient?” He held up the bottle of Grand Marnier liqueur.
She nodded.
“A little of this stuff goes a long way. Like vanilla.” He poured a small amount into the egg mixture. Five minutes later, he was piling hot French toast onto a platter. “Dig in, guys.”
Natalie took a bite and closed her eyes. “Mmm. Now that’s just like Grammy’s.”
Syrup clung to her lips and Jamis resisted the urge to lick it off. She opened her eyes and caught him staring at her mouth. Instead of looking away, their gazes locked and held. This was complete craziness. And he couldn’t believe it was all going to be over in a little more than a week. Then he could go back to being completely and miserably alone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ANOTHER FEW LONG, slow days passed during which Natalie had neither seen nor heard from Jamis. Although Snickers made several visits a day to her house, he would merely appear and then disappear without a sound from his master. The summer was almost over and Natalie felt as if her world was unraveling.
Arianna, Ella, Blake and Chase were going home today. Natalie and the other kids would be following a week later. Although Ryan and Toni hadn’t yet grasped the ramifications of the four middle kids going home, Galen had barely said a word all morning, and Sam was sniffing back unshed tears. As they left the house and went into town to catch the Mirabelle ferry to the mainland to meet Arianna and Ella’s grandmother and Chase and Blake’s father, the mood of the group was a jumbled-up mess of excitement, sadness, joy and resignation.
The closer they got to the mainland, the more the homebound children got excited. Suddenly Arianna screamed, “Grandma! Ella, there she is.” She pointed toward the pier and jumped up and down, waving.
“Do you see Dad?” Blake asked Chase.
“Not yet,” Chase said.
“He’ll be there,” Natalie reassured them. “I talked to him on the phone last night, and he’s all ready for you guys.”
“You sure?” Chase asked.
“Positive.”
“There he is!” Blake called as the ferry pulled up to the pier and docked. “Dad!”
“Dad!”
The ferry gate no sooner opened than the four children raced onto the pier. Sam and Galen helped Natalie carry off the luggage and Ryan and Toni followed, suddenly dragging their feet. After the girls were finished hugging their grandmother, Natalie shook hands with the older woman and then hugged each girl tightly. “We’re going to miss your girls,” she said, standing.
“Not as much as I missed ’em.” The woman wiped tears of joy from her cheeks. She looked a bit on the haggard side, but clean and sober.
Blake and Chase’s dad turned to Natalie as soon as he extricated himself from the boys’ arms around his neck. “Thank you, Natalie.” The man looked tired and drawn, but overjoyed to see his boys. “You turned what would’ve been a horrible summer for these boys into something they’ll never forget.”
“It was my pleasure.” She hugged both boys.
Natalie could barely watch all the kids saying goodbye. By the time the rest of the kids and Natalie returned to the ferry for the return trip to Mirabelle, there wasn’t a dry eye on the pier. No one said a word on the windy trip home across the water. She had no clue how she could possibly say goodbye to these last four children. Not these kids. For the first time Natalie could ever remember, three months was feeling to her as if she was just getting started.
Maybe a foster home wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe it was time for her to make a commitment to something even more important than this camp. Maybe she needed to make promises to these kids that went beyond summer care. It was so much more than she’d bargained for when envisioning this camp, but somehow it was starting to feel more right than anything Natalie had ever set out to do. The big question was would they want her?
By the time they got back home, it was late in the afternoon. Knowing their big old house was going to seem mighty quiet without the four middle kids, Natalie had invited Missy, Sarah and Hannah over for dinner and a campfire. Late that night, after the kids had gone upstairs and were settled in bed, she and the other women walked the path to the fire pit.
“So that’s where the beast lives,” Missy murmured, pointing to Jamis’s log cabin.
“Shh,” Natalie said. “He’ll hear you. Voices travel at night out here in the woods.” They all helped build a small fire and then poured out a few glasses of wine and sat back to stare into the flames and talk. Rather than risk possible questions, Natalie simply didn’t drink the wine.
“Well, I for one can’t believe that jerk tried to close you down.”
“But he didn’t. That’s all that matters.”
“You’re awfully forgiving,” Sarah said.
“He’s not as bad as you think.”
Natalie threw a stick onto the fire.
“Why are you making excuses for him?”
“I don’t know. I like him.”
“Why?”
“He’s interesting. And funny. And compassionate.”
“He’s hot,” Hannah said. “I’ll give him that.”
“But have you read anything he’s written?” Sarah asked.
“His books aren’t anything like him.”
“There has to be some screw loose for him to come up with that stuff.”
“Can we not talk about Jamis anymore?”
The other thre
e women glanced at Natalie, Missy for a particularly long time.
“So who’s met the new doctor helping out Doc Welinski?” Sarah asked.
“I have,” Hannah said, smiling. “Dibs!”
JAMIS LAY IN BED WITH his windows wide-open. He was about to drift off when soft voices came to him on the cool night breeze. Feminine sounds, giggles, laughter, conspiratorial whispers. It might have been a comforting way to fall asleep had he not been able to make out so much of their conversation. As it was, though, at least half of what they said was easily decipherable. And they were talking about him.
Surprisingly, most of what they said cut more deeply than he’d expected. He’d always known the world looked upon him as an oddity, but it was different to hear people he knew being so blunt and honest. At least he could easily tell Natalie’s voice from the others, could hear her defend him in a way. Maybe that was the most surprising part of it all. Would she go so far as to tell them she was carrying his child? He didn’t care what the islanders thought, but he hoped Natalie understood his decision.
“Can we not talk about Jamis anymore?” Natalie said.
Thank God. Now he could fall asleep. They murmured about this and that, most of it mundane chick-speak.
“You okay with this camp coming to an end?” asked one of the women.
Jamis stilled.
“Actually, I’m thinking about being a foster parent for Galen, Sam, Ryan and Toni.”
What? His breath hitched in his throat. Emotions, left and right, assaulted him. Concern. Was she ready for that, especially with a baby coming? Regret. Had he spurred her on somehow by claiming she lived in fear of abandonment? But mostly there was envy. She was moving on with her life, a life that would no doubt be rich and full even without him.
ONLY TWO MORE NIGHTS left on the island. After Toni and Ryan had gone to sleep, Natalie stood in the kitchen thinking she’d do more packing. Instead she found herself gazing out at Jamis’s house. Every day, since the four middle-schoolers had left, Natalie had felt a sense of almost panic rising higher and higher inside her. By now, she’d hoped to have come to some resolution regarding Jamis, but there seemed to be no clear direction.
Although questions had plagued her for days about Jamis’s true character, she was finally content with the belief that no matter what Jamis wanted the world to think, he was an inherently good man. He was a good man who’d not only been betrayed by the woman he loved, he’d lost his children. Natalie refused to believe that was the price he’d paid for a terrible wish. The world couldn’t possibly work that way.
Somehow, someway, she had to convince Jamis to be a part of her life and their child’s life. Leaving Mirabelle without him was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Sam came into the room, went to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of milk, then grabbed a couple cookies. She leaned against the counter. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
Natalie glanced at Sam’s earnest, innocent face, thought about how much this young woman had grown through the summer. Not long and she’d be an adult. “Do you believe wishes can come true?” Natalie asked.
“With all your talk about wish it, see it, make it happen,” Sam said, smiling, “you expect me to answer that?”
Natalie chuckled. “Not fair of me, I know, but I’d appreciate your honesty.”
Sam took a bite of cookie and washed it down with a gulp of milk. “Well, honestly, I don’t know if I believe in wishes coming true. But I can tell you that no matter what happens when I go back to Minneapolis in a couple days, I don’t think my life will ever be the same.”
Natalie desperately wanted to tell the kids about her idea for a foster home, but she couldn’t. Although she’d made the necessary calls to check into fostering all four kids and faxed in all the appropriate forms, final approval hadn’t been given. “So you don’t think your life will be the same. How so?”
“Well, I may not be able to change what my foster family believes or what they do or how they act, but I can feel a change inside myself. I believe I can make a difference in my own life.”
“Yes!” Natalie closed the distance between them, hugged the young woman and then stepped back. “That’s it! That’s what I’d hoped you come to understand before the end of summer. It’s that make-it-happen part that brings it all together. I’m so happy for you!”
Sam shrugged, but the brightness of her eyes belied her seemingly nonchalant attitude and Natalie hugged her again. As she stepped back and looked into Sam’s eyes, something hit Natalie. There it was. The key. “The make-it-happen part,” she whispered. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?” Sam asked.
Natalie looked up, her thoughts racing. “Oh, just something I’ve been thinking about.”
“Well, I’m going to bed,” Sam said.
“G’night, Sam.” She couldn’t let things sit the way they were between her and Jamis. She had to try one more time to convince him to come with her. To ease his fears and change his mind. Before she could second-guess herself, Natalie picked up the phone and dialed. “Missy? I know it’s late, but could you do me a really big favor?”
THE NIGHT HAD TURNED CHILLY and Jamis had made a fire inside. The flames, though, had made him think of Natalie, so he’d come outside. With a blanket wrapped around his shoulders he now stood on his deck and stared at the moon in all its full and bright and magical glory. Occasionally, leaves rustled quietly in the woods, signaling a raccoon, perhaps, or a deer on its nighttime search for food. In the distance, an owl hooted his intermittent and mournful song.
Come to me. One last time, come to me.
Weak man that he was, Jamis closed his eyes and put the wish out there. Sick of hating himself. Sick of the self-loathing. Sick of his pathetic, solitary existence, he wanted Natalie. He wanted to taste her. Touch her. Love her.
“No,” he whispered to himself. “I take it back.” For her sake.
Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the footfalls until they landed on the steps behind him. He turned. There she stood, her face and hair pale in the moonlight, shadows making her eyes unreadable. Was she nothing more than a figment of his imagination, a dream?
Without a word, she moved toward him, but it wasn’t until her hand rested on his chest that he knew she was real. “You came. Why?”
“Because I want you. More than anything in the world, I want you.”
“You, of all people, should hate me for what I’ve done.”
“I could never hate you, Jamis. I needed time to think to—”
“Find a way in that great big heart of yours to forgive me?” he said, unable to keep the scorn from his voice.
“No.” She held his gaze. “Jamis, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“I killed my family.”
“You didn’t. You haven’t done anything, thought anything, wished for anything worse that most people in this world. We’ve all had moments where we’ve wished ill on someone.”
“Not you.”
“Trust me. I have. There’s a big surprise, huh? I’m human, like you. But unless you took steps to actually make that car accident happen, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Wish it, see it.” He glared at her. “I made it happen.”
“I hate to break it to you, Jamis, but you’re not that powerful.”
He looked away. She didn’t get it.
“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I do get it.” She touched his arm. “Our dreams and wishes breathe inside us. Help us to make changes inside us. Wishing something and visualizing alone isn’t enough. Nothing happens until we take steps to make it happen. Our wishes don’t change the world or other people or their lives. They change us. You didn’t kill Katherine and your children because you didn’t take any purposeful steps to make it happen. You didn’t intend for anyone to die.”
What she said made sense, but he didn’t know how to let go. “Why then
? Tell me why they’re all dead?”
“I don’t know, Jamis.” She reached out and caressed his cheek. “But I do know that with or without you and your wish the accident would’ve still happened. I do know that you need to forgive yourself and step out into the world. Because I know the world will be a better place with you out there muddling through it like the rest of us.” She wrapped her hand around his neck and kissed him.
He held her away from him. “I can’t do this,” he said softly. “Touching you is killing me.”
“That’s because you want more and so do I. If I have to leave without you, give me one night. Tonight, let’s—”
“No—”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him, deeply, honestly. It was the sweetest sensation Jamis could remember, but he pulled back. “You’re leaving.” It was a lame excuse, he knew it, but he’d throw out anything he could to make her keep her distance. “What’s the point?”
“I want to do it right this time. I want to know what could be.”
“You shouldn’t do this,” he whispered, grasping again. “Your kids?”
“Missy’s staying the night. In my room. I have no place else to go.”
With a frustrated groan, he turned away. He felt her warmth as she wrapped her arms around him. She splayed her hands against his chest and he threw his head back, looking to the stars and refusing to move. “Natalie, don’t.”
“A woman throws herself at you and you remain unmoved.”
Oh, he’d been moved all right.
“What are you afraid of?”
Jamis said nothing, just stared.
“Jamis, please.”
“Please what?” he groaned. “Nat, what do you want from me?”
“I want tonight. I want to make love with you. That’s all.” She made it sound so harmless. So safe.
Safe. He almost laughed out loud. What a word. He wasn’t safe from her. From this night. From his own devastating wants and needs. From the feelings he had for her. But in two days she was going to be gone. Gone. Out of his life. Forever. He wanted this, too.
“Tonight,” he whispered. “That’s all I’ve got to give.”