Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  Since she’d been in the habit of doing this sort of thing whenever she went for a drive back in Boston, she had a pad and pencil handy in the car so she could jot down notes every time she stopped by the side of the road. By the time she got back to Rose Cottage at dusk, the pad was filled with scribbled notes and sketches. At least one thing in her life was under control, she thought happily right before she spotted Ashley’s car in the driveway. If only the rest were, she added with a sigh.

  She emerged from her own car reluctantly and went inside. She found her sister sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea and a troubled expression.

  “Where have you been?” Ashley asked. “With Pete, I assume, since he’s nowhere to be found, either.”

  “Actually I’ve been working,” Jo said, tossing the pad of paper on the table. “Doing some research. And I was alone, not that it’s any of your business.”

  The sketches and notes distracted Ashley for a time. She turned the pages slowly, grinning from time to time.

  “These are good. Really good,” she told Jo.

  “Thanks, but I’m sure you didn’t come by to tell me I’m good at my job.”

  “No, to be honest, I came by to tell you to watch yourself with Pete.”

  “You’re the one who sent him over here,” Jo re minded her again. “If you meant him to be nothing more than eye candy, you should have said as much at the beginning. Maybe plastered a look-but-don’t-touch sign on his very attractive behind.”

  Ashley didn’t seem to appreciate the humor. “I know. I did think he’d provide a good distraction, get your mind off the broken engagement.” She regarded Jo worriedly. “I might have made a mistake.”

  “Hold the presses!” Jo exclaimed. “You’re admit ting to a mistake?”

  “It’s not a joke,” Ashley said. “I’m trying to tell you something here. Pete’s life is a mess. I didn’t realize that. He has an ex-wife and a son.”

  “I know.”

  Ashley looked surprised. “He told you, then? That’s something, I suppose.”

  “Did you really think he’d try to hide it? It’s a small town. I was bound to find out.” She wasn’t about to admit that she’d known about the marriage and the son for years.

  “I wasn’t sure. I don’t know him that well. I gather the divorce wasn’t pretty. There’s probably a lot of baggage there. You’ve already been through a lot, Jo. Why go looking for more trouble?”

  “I appreciate your concern. I really do. But you don’t need to worry. I’m on full alert where Pete’s concerned.” If only Ashley knew just how alert, she might take some comfort in it. Then, again, it might only make her worry more.

  Ashley studied her somberly, then finally gave her a satisfied nod. “Okay, then. I’ll butt out.”

  Jo grinned. “As if you could.”

  “I’ll try to butt out,” Ashley amended.

  Jo crossed the room and hugged her fiercely. “Thanks. Now go home to your husband.”

  “What are you going to do tonight? Want to come to dinner?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay here. I have a lot going on right now.”

  “Pete coming by?” Ashley inquired with feigned nonchalance.

  “Less than a minute and she’s butting back in again,” Jo teased. “No, Pete is not coming by. He’s in Richmond picking up his son. Davey’s coming for the weekend.”

  “Oh, I see.” Ashley studied her intently. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Ask me after tomorrow.”

  “Why then?”

  “I’m going to spend the day with them. I’ll be able to give you a better answer.”

  Ashley gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I almost wish you hadn’t told me that. Now I’ll be worried sick all day. Do you think it’s a good idea for you to spend time with his son? Not just for your sake, but for the boy’s?”

  “See what happens when you go poking around for information?” Jo teased. “Sometimes you find out things you’d rather not know. And believe me, Pete and I have discussed all the pitfalls. We’re going to make sure it doesn’t turn into a big deal.”

  Once more, her sister frowned at her joking. “Promise me one thing.”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t get your heart broken.”

  Jo nodded. “That one’s easy. I’m certainly going to try like hell not to.”

  She was just terrified it might be easier said than done.

  Pete was jostled awake at dawn on Saturday when Davey started bouncing on his bed, his face alight with excitement.

  “Guess what, Dad?” He nudged Pete. “Are you awake?”

  “How could I not be awake? Somebody’s using my bed for a trampoline,” Pete mumbled sleepily. “What’s up, buddy? Couldn’t you sleep?”

  Davey gave him a disgusted look. “I slept, but then morning came, and I got up,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “Come on, Dad. You still haven’t guessed.”

  Pete was pretty sure he knew based on the way his son’s eyes were shining, but he pretended to give the question serious thought. “I know,” he said at last. “The tooth fairy came and left a million dollars under your pillow.”

  Davey giggled. “No.” He opened his mouth wide. “See. All my teeth are still there.” He wiggled one in front. “This one’s getting ready to go, though. Will I get a million dollars?”

  “Not likely, kid. So, if it’s not that, what could it be?”

  “It snowed!” Davey said, obviously thrilled. “And not just a little bit, either. Lots and lots! Can we go outside?”

  Pete glanced at the clock. It was barely six-thirty. “How about breakfast first? Maybe by the time we’re done, it will at least be daylight.”

  “But I want to build a snow fort.”

  “And you don’t think you’ll have time to do that if we start at, say, seven-thirty?”

  “But that’s a whole hour from now,” Davey protested.

  “Trust me, the time will fly by. It takes a long time to make pancakes and eat them.”

  The mention of pancakes immediately wiped the beginnings of a pout off of his son’s face. “Big ones or little ones?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I like the little ones,” Davey announced.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Sure. ’Cause then I can eat about a hundred of them.”

  Pete rolled his eyes. “In that case, you’d better go in the kitchen and check to see if we’ve got enough pancake mix. You can get it out of the cabinet and find a big bowl, but do not, I repeat, do not, get started till I get in there.”

  “But I can pour the flour into the bowl,” Davey said.

  And onto the table and the floor, Pete imagined. “Wait for me,” he repeated firmly. “Ten minutes, okay?”

  “Okay,” Davey agreed and ran out of the room at full throttle.

  Pete grinned. Oh, to have that much energy again. He rolled over, picked up the phone and called Jo. She answered groggily.

  “Did you know it snowed last night?” he asked.

  “Is this one of those nuisance calls?” she grumbled. “I’m hanging up.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” he said. “And no, it’s not a nuisance call. It’s a news alert. Snow means the plans have changed.”

  “Changed how?”

  “We need to get started a whole lot earlier, because little boys can hardly wait to get outside.”

  She laughed. “How about big boys?”

  “Personally, I could have used another hour of sleep, but I’m not the one who counts over here. Get moving, darlin’. We’ll meet you at your favorite house at eight-thirty, unless you want to switch gears and come over here for pancakes.”

  She was silent so long, Pete knew she was wrestling with the choice, but eventually she sighed.

  “Let’s stick to the plan,” she said with an unmistakable hint of regret in her voice. “I’ll see you at eight-thirty. Are we building a snowman or sledding?”

  “We’re building a
snow fort. And just so you know, forts take time when they’re crafted by Catlett Construction. Wear something warm.”

  “You’re talking to a woman from Boston. We know how to dress for snow. See you soon.”

  Pete was smiling as he hung up, but a glance at the clock showed him he needed to hurry. Davey wouldn’t wait forever for those pancakes. He’d either turn the kitchen into a disaster area trying to fix them himself or he’d slip outside to play in the snow until Pete finally ventured into the kitchen to make them for him. The kid was good and usually listened to a direct order, unless it happened to bump up against his own exuberance.

  Sure enough, when Pete got to the kitchen, Davey was on a chair, the box of mix upside down over a bowl. He’d poured in enough to feed an army battalion.

  “Whoa, kid! Let’s not get carried away,” Pete said, extracting the box from his hands and putting it back in the cabinet. “How about setting the table? You remember how to do it?”

  “Yeah, but how come it has to be all fancy when it’s just us?”

  “It’s not fancy to put silverware and a napkin where they belong. Knowing where things like that go will impress a girl someday.”

  Davey stared at him blankly. “How come?”

  “It’s just one of those rules of life, pal. Girls like things done a certain way. When guys understand that, life goes a whole lot more smoothly.”

  Davey shook his head, his expression still perplexed. “Dad, you’re weird.”

  “Maybe, but you love me, right?” Pete asked, scooping him up and holding him upside down till he squealed.

  “I love you. I love you,” Davey said, squirming till Pete set him back on his feet.

  “Then set the table.”

  Davey did as he was told, but even after Pete put the first batch of pancakes in front of him, he was bouncing in his chair, clearly eager to be finished and outside.

  “How deep do you think it is?” he asked Pete.

  “Maybe if it were light enough to see outside, I could tell you.”

  “It’s almost light,” Davey argued.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Way over there, where you told me to look, you can see a tiny little bit of light right at the bottom. And pretty soon, it will turn all red and streaky and stuff and then, bam, the sun will come up.”

  Pete grinned at him. “I guess you’ve got this sunrise stuff nailed, after all.”

  “That’s ’cause you taught me.” Davey’s expression suddenly turned solemn. “You always teach me really cool stuff. Mom teaches me spelling and words and things, but the things you tell me about are way better.”

  Pete knew it was Davey’s way of broaching a subject that had come up in the past. He wanted to spend more time with Pete and didn’t get why he couldn’t. Pete refused to get drawn into a debate of the merits of Kelsey’s lessons versus his own. Nor did he want to explain yet again that their time together had been spelled out by the court.

  Instead, he met his son’s gaze. “Spelling and words are important, pal. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “So is how to hammer a nail and where the sun comes up,” Davey retorted.

  “And how to set a table,” Pete added. “Let’s not forget that.”

  Davey rolled his eyes and climbed out of his chair. “Can we go outside yet?”

  “I’ve barely taken the first bite of my pancakes, much less had my first cup of coffee,” Pete protested, then relented. “Bundle up and go on out, but stay right by the house. I’ll be out in a little while and we can go build that fort.”

  “How come we can’t build it here?”

  “Because I know a better place.”

  “But we don’t have to wait long to go there, right?”

  “No,” Pete assured him. “We don’t have to wait long.”

  Just until he got sufficient caffeine in his system to guarantee he could keep up with his son.

  12

  Not that she was eager or anything, but Jo was over at Pete’s house by the bay twenty minutes ahead of the agreed-upon time. As she sat in her car with the heater blasting, she studied the snow-covered landscape and knew, once again, that she simply had to live here. It was like a fairyland now that the sun had come up and the ground and trees were sparkling as if they’d been dusted with diamonds overnight.

  Seeing it like this gave her some new ideas about what ought to be planted—holly trees with their dark green leaves and bright red berries certainly, and perhaps a grove of pine trees and blue spruce that would look like something on a Christmas card on mornings like this. Most properties around here couldn’t afford the space for an entire grove of trees, but Pete had bought up at least two acres. He’d only cleared a small portion of that facing the water.

  Jo was lost in a sketch of the proposed grove, when she was startled by a tap on the window of her car. She turned to find Pete grinning at her and beside him a pint-size replica bundled into a bright red jacket with blue mittens on his hands and a knitted blue cap pulled low over his ears. He was frowning at her.

  “You’re trespassing,” he announced when she rolled down her window. “This is my dad’s house.”

  Pete started to say something, but Jo stopped him.

  “You must be Davey,” she said, fighting the sting of tears as she looked into that precious face with its startling blue eyes and freckled nose.

  His frown only deepened. “How come you know that? I don’t know you.”

  “Because your dad told me how handsome and smart his son was, so that has to be you.” She slid out of the car and held out her hand. “I’m Jo. I’m doing some work for your dad.”

  Davey stared at her hand, clearly torn between suspicion and every lesson he’d ever been taught about being polite to grown-ups. He finally gave her hand a reluctant shake, though the scowl still hadn’t left his face.

  “What kind of work?” he asked, his voice laced with skepticism. “Girls don’t build things.”

  “Uh-oh,” Pete muttered, clearly amused at the sexist controversy his son had just unwittingly opened up.

  Jo grinned at Davey. Six definitely wasn’t too early to start teaching a kid about equality. “Is that so? Who told you that? Not your father, I’ll bet.”

  “Definitely not me,” Pete acknowledged hurriedly.

  “Your mom, then?” Jo asked Davey.

  He suddenly looked a little less sure of himself. “Nah. She always says girls can do anything boys can do.”

  “She’s absolutely right,” Jo said, surprised to find herself siding with Kelsey Catlett about anything. “Then who gave you the ridiculous notion that girls can’t build anything?”

  The smart kid promptly turned the tables on her. “Have you ever built anything?”

  “In a way.”

  “Like what?”

  “I design gardens and then I put them together for people. That’s why I’m here. I’m designing some things for this house. Want to see?”

  Clearly intrigued, he nodded and inched closer when she pulled her pad out of the car. She flipped it open to the page she’d just completed. Davey’s eyes widened.

  “Wow!” he said. “It’s like Christmas!”

  Jo beamed at him. “That was exactly my idea.”

  “Where’s it gonna go?”

  “If your dad agrees, I thought right about there,” she said gesturing toward an open spot on this side of the house that wouldn’t block any of the water views. Instead, it would offer a completely contrasting view to anyone sitting in the dining room having breakfast on a morning like this one. Turning one way, they’d see the bay. Facing the other, they’d look into a small forest of evergreens. Either view would provide a tranquil backdrop for their morning coffee.

  “Are you gonna do it, Dad?” Davey asked excitedly. “It would be so cool to have Christmas trees growing right outside. We could even put lights on ’em at Christmas. We’d look outside and it would be like a fairyland.”

  Pete grinned at him indulgently, then fa
ced Jo. “I guess that’s a yes on the trees. Anything else in that note book of yours?”

  She handed it to him. “It’s more like notes right now. I drove around yesterday to get some ideas. I haven’t worked them into any sort of plan yet.”

  With Davey tugging on his arm begging to see, Pete knelt down so his son could look over his shoulder at the drawings. They lingered intently over each one. Jo watched Davey almost as intently as she did Pete and was pleased by the reactions she detected on their faces.

  “Cool,” Davey pronounced when they’d looked at every page. “Can you teach me to draw like that?”

  “I’d love to,” Jo said, thrilled by his eagerness and his apparent acceptance. She knew it could have been a whole lot harder to win him over. And maybe this was just détente.

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Hey, buddy, I thought you wanted to build a snow fort?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Davey said, readily distracted. He grinned up at Jo. “You want to help? Dad and me can show you how.”

  “I would love to help,” she said. “Where are you going to build it?”

  “By the water,” Davey said at once. “That way when the bad guys come up by boat, we can nail ’em.”

  Jo laughed. “Good plan.”

  “The kid is definitely full of ideas,” Pete said, tagging along behind them as Davey led the way to his chosen location.

  Jo turned and met his gaze, hoping he could see the gratitude in her eyes for this chance. “Thank you,” she mouthed silently.

  When they finally reached the site for the fort, she turned to Davey. “Okay, Captain Catlett, what do we do first?”

  Davey giggled. “First we make really big snowballs, right, Dad? Big as me.”

  Jo nodded thoughtfully. “Then who gets to lift them? Your dad?”

  “He’s really, really strong,” Davey said with evident pride. “He could probably even lift you.”

  Jo chuckled. “I am definitely bigger than a giant snowball,” she agreed, loving the way the boy’s mind worked, to say nothing of his enthusiasm for whatever he set out to do. What an absolute joy he must be!