by Lowe, Fiona
Her breath moved in and out, long and slow, and the first sensations of calm trickled through her, seeping in like a restorative balm. Her body sank fully into the lounge chair and she could feel the soft cushion molding to her back. Something hit her. She looked down in surprise to find a small, bouncy ball on her lap and then she heard the sound of running feet.
“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to hit you.”
Kathleen had met Logan for the first time at Bridey’s engagement party and had been struck by how much he looked like Finn at the same age. “What were you trying to hit?”
His eyes widened. “Nothing. Not you. I mean just the wood.” He stared at his sneaker for a moment and then looked up. “The ball bounces really high off this deck,” he added by way of explanation.
She smiled at a memory. “Finn used to play with balls like this and he said this deck had the best bounce.”
Logan looked unconvinced. “Finn never wants to play with balls.”
“He did when he was eight.” She rolled the ball around in her hand remembering the time Finn’s baseball had gone through the library window. “Would you like a glass of lemonade? Esther put a pitcher in my fridge and if you carry it out here, I can pour us both a glass.”
“Awesome.”
As Logan rushed into the cottage, Kathleen used her stick and walked into her bedroom. By the time she came out again Logan had the jug, some glasses and a bag of cookies he must have found, all set up on the outdoor table.
Logan eyed the stick. “Can I try?”
She laughed. “Go ahead.” She watched him playing with it as she poured the drinks.
He sat back down and politely passed the stick back to her. “It’s too big for me.”
“One day it will be too small for you. You’re probably going to grow as tall as Finn.”
“Yeah?” Hope scooted across his face.
Kathleen nodded as she opened up the small photo album she’d retrieved from her purse—the one she always carried with her. “This is a photo of Finn when he was eight.”
The boy leaned forward and peered at the picture. “Hey, that’s here.”
“That’s right. I told you he liked to play on this deck.”
Logan’s face filled with interest. “He showed me how to light a fire. Are there more photos?”
“Sure.” She turned the page and started telling Logan the story about each one.
They were halfway into the album when she heard Sean’s deep voice calling out, “Logan?”
Kathleen’s calm fled and every muscle tensed.
Logan jumped up and waved. “Over here, Daddy.”
Sean’s long legs took the steps two at a time and if he was surprised that his son was visiting with her, he didn’t show it.
He gave her a stiff nod. “Kathleen.”
“Sean.” The distance the divorce had wedged between them hadn’t altered in the intervening years, only now instead of it being a living, hissing thing that drove her, it was just a deadweight that made her ache. She didn’t love Sean anymore but she didn’t hate him either as she once had. In fact, these days whenever she thought about their marriage, their divorce, their children and everything they’d lost, she only felt sadness and regret that they hadn’t handled it all better.
He turned to Logan. “Hey, buddy, Mom’s looking for you so head on home, okay?”
“Okay.” Logan stood up. “Thank you for the lemonade, Mrs. um, Finn’s mom.”
“Call me Kathleen, and you’re welcome, Logan. Come visit again.”
He ran off with a wave and Sean turned to leave but stopped on the top step and doubled back. “Do you have everything you need, Kathleen?”
A hint of the Irish charm she’d fallen in love with when he’d swept her off her feet at twenty-two, hovered in the question, surprising her. It had vanished with the divorce and for a long time their only communication had been through lawyers. Finally, they’d settled into brief and strained discussions about the children. Of course now Finn and Bridey were adults, they didn’t communicate at all. Bridey’s engagement party was the first time she’d seen Sean in years. “I have everything I need, thank you.”
“You’ve been comfortable here?”
“The cottage is perfect.” She instantly regretted her choice of words as they immediately hinted at the bitter divorce settlement and that hadn’t been her intention at all. She braced herself for his reply.
He ran his hand through his hair and silver glinted brightly in the sun. “You did a great job on its design.”
His complimentary words shocked her. She loved this cottage and had loved every minute of working on its design and supervising the build. Losing it in the divorce had been like losing a limb. Today was the first time Sean had ever acknowledged her connection to it. She accepted his unexpected olive branch. “Thank you.”
He saw the photo album and flicked a page. “Is that Bridey and Finn at breakfast on the farm?”
She leaned in to check. “Yes. Just before she threw up all over my shoes after eating too many pancakes and maple syrup.” She laughed. “Good times.”
He sat down and kept turning the pages. “We did have some good times.”
She thought about their first ten years. “We did, before it all fell apart.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “Do you think we’d have made it even if I hadn’t been unfaithful?”
She’d asked herself that question many times and as much as she’d found it hard to admit, there’d been signs before his infidelity that they weren’t suited to live together for fifty years. “I think it accelerated something that was inevitable.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’ve taken a long time to grow up, and I’m sorry for the pain I caused you. Caused us.” He gave her a sad smile. “Are you happy, Kathleen?”
His apology and question hit from left field, sending her reeling and she didn’t quite know what to say. “I’m comfortable and I live a useful life involved in my community and surrounded by good friends.”
His mouth jerked up on one side. “That sounds like something out of a self-help book. I want to know if you’re happy.”
She thought about her project with the Art Institute and the fledging friendship with a new man in her life who’d sent flowers and fruit to the cottage and had telephoned her each morning since she’d hurt her ankle. She thought about Bridey and Finn. “For the most part, I think I am. Are you?”
“I’m getting there.” His hand stilled on the photo of Finn standing next to his own father, proudly holding up a musky. “I really screwed up with the kids, didn’t I?”
She saw the same pain on his face that she knew lived in her heart, and it made her reach out to him in a way she’d never done since he’d betrayed her with his business intern. “We both did.”
“You at least made it to the ball games and ballet recitals. I let them down all the time because I was too busy being the hotshot entrepreneur putting the business ahead of them.” He rubbed his cheek and sighed. “Over the last few years, Bridey and I seem to have found a middle ground, but Finn, well, he’s a damn fine businessman but for all that I know about what’s important to him outside of AKP, he might as well be an employee. You’re closer to him than I’ll ever be.”
She heard his regrets and they resonated deeply against her own. “Perhaps, but I feel a distance too. We put it there, Sean. We inserted it when we got caught up in the drama of us, and I think we’ve lost the opportunity
to fix it. I take what I can get and try not to lament the rest.”
His shoulders slumped and he finished his son’s glass of lemonade. “And now I have Logan. I know I’ll make mistakes there too, but this time it won’t be because I’m absent.”
She stifled the bite of jealousy that Sean had a second chance with a child, and instead thought about how much she was looking forward to becoming a grandmother. She hoped Bridey and Hank didn’t wait too long before starting a family. “Logan’s a lovely kid and he’s at such a great age. They love doing things with their parents at eight.”
“Yeah.” He pushed up from the chair deep in thought. “Would you come to dinner one night, Kathleen?”
Years of protective armor was hard to drop. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Your wife—”
“Dana was the one who insisted you stay here after your accident and she wants you at our table.”
She fingered the edge of her sleeve, wanting to attend but still slightly stunned by this mellow version of her ex-husband. “And what about you, Sean? Do you want me at your table? We don’t have the best track record of being civil at family gatherings.”
He spoke softly. “We’ve just had a conversation I want to build on, Kathleen.”
She recognized his expression—the one that meant he was deadly serious and not about to go back on his word. She knew she wanted the same thing—a chance for their children to be able to enjoy their parents in the same space without the anguish, pain and hurt. “So do I.”
He grinned at her. “Let’s shock Bridey and Finn speechless.”
She smiled. “Looking forward to it.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I’ve got some great news.” Annika addressed the town meeting with a wide smile.
“You’ve convinced Bridget Callahan to change her mind?” Melissa’s hopeful expression was replicated around the room.
She shook her head, swallowed a sigh and tried to think about the best way to get the message through to everybody that Bridey getting married in Whitetail was never going to happen. “I think we all have to accept that train has left the station. Bridget Callahan wants to get married in Chicago and it’s time to let that idea go.”
Nicole stood up and addressed the room. “We’ve got four weddings booked now.”
“Four?” A clutch of unease gripped her that she was not only out of the information loop but that she hadn’t been at the fourth bride meeting.
“You weren’t available, Anni, but don’t worry, we showed her your portfolio and she’s going to contact you.” Nicole turned back to the room. “This bride’s getting married next May and she wants to have the ceremony in the gazebo, her photos on the town hall steps and then travel in Al’s carriage to the Supper Club for the reception. She wants Mrs. Norell to make her cake and she asked if we had a wedding photographer we could recommend. Now that’s something we need to think about because right now, Whitetail doesn’t have one.”
“Anni,” Mrs. Norell beamed, “this will please you. See, there’s one new job for the town.”
One job. One! Annika gripped her gavel in exasperation and brought it down hard on the lectern. The sound reverberated around the room.
Some people blinked at her, others jumped in their seats and as Nicole sat down, she shot her a questioning look loaded with disapproval.
Annika tried not to mind Nicole’s expression and justified her action under the heading of “whatever it takes.” “And it’s new jobs that I want to tell you about. We have an electronics company from Mississippi looking to open a branch on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line, and the owner’s expressed interest in Whitetail. He’s coming next week for a tour of the town.”
A murmur of interest buzzed around the room. “How many jobs, Anni?” Clint Eklund asked. “As many as Reggies?”
She shook her head. “Initially ten jobs but that’s ten more than we have right now and ten jobs that are reliable and not seasonal.”
“Actually, Anni,” Melissa said, “we’ve had an inquiry about a winter wedding from a bride whose fiancé is a snowmobiler. They want the wedding to be part of a snowmobiling weekend. I suggested a perfect-white, velvet A-line wedding dress with fur trim.”
All the women in the room started nodding their approval and Al’s eyes lit up. “I could restore the old sleigh. That would be perfect for winter weddings. There’s nothing like the sound of sleigh bells tinkling.”
“That’s if you can hear them over the roar of a blizzard.” The strength of Annika’s annoyance surprised her. She usually had more patience. “People, a winter wedding this far north is fraught with logistical problems. Who in this town has ever got married in winter?”
Four hands shot up including Nicole’s, and Annika’s face instantly burned. She wished she could snatch back her words. She remembered that pretty wedding on a miraculously perfect blue-sky winter’s day that had dawned after a week of blizzards. Everyone had taken it as a sign—a blessing on a union that would stretch long into the future. Seven years later it had been tragically cut short.
“I’m sorry, I take it back but can we please just focus on Long River Electronics?” She shuffled her papers. “This is really an important meeting for us all. I can’t stress this enough so I think we need to work really hard at giving the owner of this company a true Whitetail welcome.”
Farmer Luke, a good friend of her brother, gave her a smile. “You can rely on us, Anni.”
Murmurs of agreement buzzed around the room and no one mentioned weddings. Annika blew out a breath of sheer relief.
Things were finally back on track.
* * *
Two hours later, Annika called into the cottage to deliver a gorgeous arrangement of sunflowers that had arrived for Kathleen. “These have to be the happiest flowers I know.”
“They are cheery,” Kathleen agreed. “Would you mind filling them up with water for me, please?”
Annika picked up the small plastic watering can and looked at the numerous vases of flowers dotted around the cottage. “Would you like me to go through them all and weed out the dead ones?”
Kathleen’s grateful expression said it all. “That would be wonderful, thank you. I really should tell Geoffrey that I have enough flowers but...”
Annika knew how she felt. “It’s lovely to be treasured.”
“It is, even if I have no clue how long it will last.”
She glanced at the older woman wondering if she was trying to tell her something, which was crazy because Annika knew exactly how long she and Finn had—Labor Day was their end point. “But you’re enjoying it while you can.”
“Exactly.” Kathleen smiled. “Finn tells me you’re an artist, which is something you failed to mention when I was rambling on about the Art Institute.”
Her heart kicked up but she kept her focus on pulling out the dead flowers which ironically reflected her artistic career perfectly. “I was interested in hearing about the program.”
“You’re very kind. I do love it and it’s one of the things that gets me up out of bed in the mornings.”
She wondered what else Finn had told his mother and then she remembered her promise to him a week ago when she’d been painting the mural. “Kathleen, what do you know about the failure of the Raybould Gallery?”
“Ryan Raybould should be shot for what he did to his family’s and the city’s art heritage.” Kathleen’s eyes sparked with indignation and her shoulders ro
lled back. “His great-grandfather would have disowned him and wept, had he been alive when the collection was sold to pay Ryan’s gambling debts. That young man’s addiction took a lot of people down with him and sadly, many of the artists who held exhibitions there in the last year never got paid.”
She’d believed Finn when he’d told her that her exhibition wasn’t the reason things had failed but the fact he’d wanted her to hear it from another source made her warm and tingly. Kathleen was looking at her but without any expectation of a comment and she realized Finn had kept her secret and he hadn’t told his mother about her connection to Ryan or the gallery. Perhaps it was Kathleen’s indignation or perhaps it was just the passing of time, but something made her say, “I exhibited there.”
Concern whipped across her cheeks. “Oh, I do hope you didn’t lose money or artwork.”
“No, nothing like that.” Just my ability to paint.
“Well that’s good to know. Is any of your work part of a permanent collection?”
Annika shook her head as the words immature, derivative and lacking substantive style—words that were carved on her heart—got converted to audio and boomed in her head. “My work is a long way from being in demand.”
Kathleen gave a quiet smile. “It only takes one painting, Annika.”
But she didn’t have another painting in her. Annika wrapped the dead flowers in paper and walked toward the door. “I’ll take these and put them in Dana’s compost bin.”
“That’s a good idea. Can you tell me, is Finn coming back tonight?”
Kathleen’s hopeful gaze sent a thread of sadness through her. Both of Finn’s parents wanted to see their son but they seemed to feel they couldn’t ask him about his plans. Both were depending on her. The sadness suddenly twisted back on her when she realized she was in a similar position. Finn came and went and she was the one always waiting.