He heard the women’s voices above his head and heard the bed squeak. He imagined them lying across the bed, as they often did when engrossed in a critical discussion, looking like bookends except for a few slight differences. Emilia had her Scotch-Irish father’s turned-up nose and fuller mouth, whereas Gina favored her mother, with thinner lips were thin and a narrow nose. Over the years Gabriel had marveled how these slight variations in their appearance seemed to match their birth order and personalities, Emilia tending to be more lighthearted and childlike, while Gina had the seriousness of an adult since birth.
He sighed and muttered to himself. “At least I taught them to love one another.” He had a simple mantra about raising the girls: Good food, good roof, good education, lots of love, and lots of play. It had always seemed to work well. They were educated, healthy, and beautiful, but something was missing. He hated to utter the word because it signaled a gross error on his part.
They feel entitled.
He slumped against the counter, wondering when gratitude became optional. Then he knew—it was the day they buried their mother. When he carried his girls out of that graveyard, Gabriel unconsciously turned the final corner on all his support structures—God, organized religion, and family. Evidently, in his efforts to raise the girls on his own, he had failed at enforcing that value. He saw himself at their ages—proud, unwilling to yield to God or man. Time had mellowed his heart, but evidently not in time to prevent his attitudes from affecting the girls.
How he loved his girls. He’d given and given, not just material things, though there had been plenty of those, but he’d also bestowed every ounce of himself on them as well, trying to compensate for the lack of a mother in their lives, and, as a result, they believed it should always be that way. He knew this attitude was the crux of Gina’s failing marriage. His heart had broken a little when he walked her down the aisle to take her place by the side of the man who would become preeminent in her life, and to Gabriel’s shame his regret was minimal when she returned after eight months. But even he could see the wrongness of it.
Before his marriage to Lucia, his bride to be had reluctantly accepted Gabriel’s agnostic stand, but their views on the matter collided once Gina was born, and Gabriel relented. But Lucia’s tragic passing cemented his disdain for God and religion. Except for her brother Tino, Gabriel withdrew from his wife’s staunchly Catholic family, and having no family of his own for support, he shouldered the full responsibility for every aspect of the girls’ upbringing. It became evident that he had fallen short in certain areas, allowing, almost encouraging, them to believe that everything in life, as well as every minute apportioned, was intended for their delight. He was unsure how to reverse such thinking, or even if he could.
The call of the gulf surf lured him through the French doors and onto the huge wooden deck that wrapped the entire gray clapboard-sided house. He fondly touched the black ship’s bell he bought at an antique store years ago. He had rung the thing at least a million times, he thought, calling the girls out of the water for meals or when he worried the surf was unsafe. When they were older, he made it peal to signal a critical, life-altering phone call from a friend, but it had long become just another thing identifying his home as a beachcomber’s curiosity.
The gulls and sandpipers were scurrying along the beach, feeding on whatever delights the gulf tides or people had discarded. Gabriel absentmindedly kept his nightly tally of walkers who passed by, comparing the number of those strolling unaccompanied to those who walked partnered through the sea foam. A familiar melancholy washed over him as the numbers once again confirmed his aloneness.
He turned, rested his back against the wooden railing, and looked up to the second-story window where Gina’s bedroom light barely glowed through the yellow curtains. He peered up to the widow’s walk, accessed through the French doors of his drafting room in the third-floor attic. He rarely went up there anymore. No one but he knew that very feature lured him to buy the house in the first place. Two years after Lucia died, he finally accepted his lot, believing he would likely spend the rest of his days alone, mourning the loss of a young wife he’d had far too little time to love. And so he bought the big house on the beach, with its secluded third-floor perch, where he would escape to wallow in his loneliness after his daughters were tucked into bed.
He spent nearly every evening on his lonely perch, grieving for Lucia that first year in the house. He didn’t know until much later that he’d become somewhat of a legend on the island, as much a tourist stop as the City Pier or the Café on the Beach. As annoying as he found their interest in him, it probably contributed to the success of his business. Women seemed to love buying their flowers from the brooding widower. They saw something romantic and intriguing in his pain. He found their mollycoddling intrusive, particularly that of the single women or, worse yet, of the relatives of single women. They always had a divorced or widowed niece or daughter who would be “just perfect” for him. That intrusiveness was perhaps the reason he slowly began extricating himself from the retail side of the business, becoming more and more embedded in the behind-the-scenes details: making up the work orders, checking in the deliveries, and designing elaborate, prize-winning flower beds and landscaping.
He agreed to a few dates over the years—a lunch at the café or a quick drink at the club. He never brought a woman to his home, and he never saw a woman more than twice socially. His ineptitude for small talk was a lifelong weakness that made falling in love with Lucia so wonderful, since she appeared enthralled with every tidbit of minutia offered by anyone with whom she conversed. Gabriel knew he would never find another woman like her, so he never bothered to try.
Looking up at Gina’s window again, he wondered what portion of the girls’ grappling hold on their home and father was because of their need and what portion was because of their perception of his? He considered the question as he turned around to stare at the orange swath of sunset stretching from the water, nearly to his feet. An ache bit his heart as two more couples passed by, holding hands and chatting as the birds scattered before them.
He knew it was probably time to find out.
Chapter Three
Baltimore, Maryland, Early March
Avery Thompson promised her children she’d give the Anna Maria Island thing some thought. As it happened, Anna Maria became all she thought about, that and the reason she’d be going there in the first place—to deal with Paul’s death.
She pulled out photo albums that chronicled Paul’s decline from the strong, capable man she depended on to the ailing man who depended heavily upon her. She stopped at a spread of photos that chronicled the Christmas holiday of Wes’s freshman year at college. The entire family posed at Snowbird Ski Resort for a photo. The next day, they all helped Wes move his belongings back to his dorm. Three days later, Avery and Paul were in an ambulance careening toward the hospital.
It was there Avery first heard the report from the doctor, that Paul had been warned years earlier about his health issues and the need to make significant lifestyle changes. He’d withheld much of the medical information from her, choosing to manage his healthcare himself. He’d done a poor job, setting himself into a steep downward spiral.
She turned the page, noting the changes that were occurring in her own image. Additional pounds became more apparent and smiles less frequent.
As the kids left home, Avery began to accept that Paul’s health would strip their empty-nester dreams from them—dreams of impromptu getaways sailing their little boat around the Chesapeake Bay, of wrestling with future grandchildren, of hiking and camping in the desert, and of humanitarian or mission service of their own to some foreign land. She chose smaller dreams—of reading together by the fire or swinging in the hammock in Paul’s arms while they argued over politics and watched the sun set from view. But the reality that even those dreams could be taken from her remained.
Paul coped with her concerns the same way he coped with his health
care—by denying the gravity of each situation. He set a date for early retirement and emailed Avery about vacations she knew they’d never take. Harder yet was how his personality changed. Frustrated over his body’s betrayal, her once-chivalrous husband became impatient and easily agitated. His unfamiliar sharpness was followed by embarrassed apologies and pleas for forgiveness. Those last three years had been so hard. Avery would have tolerated it all and more to have him back, but she knew she could not, at least not in this life. It was finally time for her to move on.
She decided to begin by selling the condo in Baltimore. Facing that hurdle made it easier to consider summering in Florida. Knowing if she didn’t move immediately, she’d lose her nerve, she got online and found the number for the Chamber of Commerce on Anna Maria Island and arranged for them to send her a catalog of places available for long-term rental. Next, she booked two plane tickets: a round-trip red-eye flight from Salt Lake to Baltimore and back, departing the following week, and a one-way ticket to Florida, departing out of Salt Lake in mid-April. Once those tasks were accomplished, Avery sat back in her chair, astonished by her own boldness. That astonishment evolved into confidence, which dipped severely when she arrived at the airport for her Baltimore flight.
She nearly changed her mind twice, amazed by the fearfulness she felt as she stood alone outside BWI Airport at eight in the morning, waiting for a shuttle to the rental-car facility. An hour later, she was parking her rented SUV in front of the Bayside Condominiums, building 6, and punching the elevator button for the sixth floor.
The scent of lemons welcomed Avery as she opened the apartment door. She silently thanked the super who had done a fine job of checking in on the place during their long absence of nearly two years. He had also arranged for a cleaning company to freshen up the condo for Avery.
The view from the balcony beckoned to her, and she succumbed to its pull. Paul had originally wanted to buy on the main floor so their then very young children would have easy access to the docks where they could fish. Avery held out for an upper unit with a spectacular view of the harbor and the mouth of the busy Patapsco River. After tucking their children into bed, she and Paul shared their first moonlit supper on that sixth-floor balcony. Paul quickly agreed the ambiance was well worth the inconvenience.
Avery knew it made sense to sell the place. With its deeded boat slip in one of the building’s exclusive docks, the condo package would bring more than enough to maintain the Logan, Utah, house until she died. It was a wise plan, a sensible plan, but the wrestle within in her continued. First, nutty or not, family was family, and hers lived in Baltimore. She also felt a personal connection to the city that launched her career. She looked over the cityscape, recalling the small apartment she rented after graduating from college. It was located near the University of Maryland Medical Center, where she worked in patient records by day, pounding out stories and novellas by night on a Radio Shack computer she’d purchased on layaway.
Her novice efforts earned her a book deal and a down payment on a townhome. She and her small independent publisher gave birth to eight brilliant novels marketed solely in a local book store and read by few people outside the city’s artsy community. One of her readers was a shy law student named Paul. Everything that mattered in her life began in Baltimore, and letting it all go wouldn’t be easy.
Needing the solace of work, she gathered boxes and began packing, beginning in the children’s rooms, where very few things remained. She Bubble Wrapped a few mementoes, and a few photos that had hung on the wall for a decade. They were all placed in a box marked for shipment home. Next, she cleaned out drawers and closets, filling two more boxes, which she labeled for the Salvation Army.
Avery knew she needed a break before facing the memories locked away in the bedroom she and Paul had shared. With little thought about the appearance of her gray sweatpants and Utah State T-shirt, she grabbed a sweater, ran a brush through her hair, and dabbed on a bit of lip gloss. Then she took the water taxi around the harbor to The Rusty Scupper for a crab cake sandwich and a cup of coleslaw, which she ate as she walked home along the harbor.
Each familiar sight and sound renewed her wrestle over whether or not to sell the condo. She strolled down the docks and past their slip, to the storage house where their sailboat was in dry dock. Perhaps her boys would have an interest in sailing again sometime, but she knew she never would.
She headed back to her apartment and found a perfectly coiffed woman standing outside her door, writing on a Chesapeake Realtors business card with a posh Mont Blanc pen.
“Can I help you?” Avery asked.
“Are you the owner of 652?”
“I am,” Avery answered coolly.
The woman beamed a bright and charming smile as she extended a calfskin-leather-gloved hand. “Teddie Davis. So nice to meet you.”
A Southern accent passed through Teddie Davis’s perfectly lined crimson-painted lips. Avery’s left hand still held the remains of her crab cake sandwich, which she quickly shoved into her left sweater pocket. The now-empty seafood-smelling hand unconsciously rushed to her mousy hair to give it a quick fluff. She blinked, overwhelmed by perkiness overload, transferred the coleslaw cup from right hand to left and responded to the woman’s offer of welcome with a limp shake. “I’m sorry,” she replied, flustered, “but I haven’t called a realtor yet.”
Warm laughter floated from Teddie Davis like a welcome song while her shiny black hair danced along her shoulder to its rhythm. “I’m not here on business, darlin’!” she said with her pronounced Southern drawl. “No, no, no. Why, I’m your neighbor!”
Avery noticed a complete shift in the woman’s demeanor, from warm professional to we’ve-been-friends-for-twenty-years mode. Teddie barely drew a breath between sentences, but it was Avery who felt she was suffocating.
The drawl began again. “Rider—he’s my husband—and I have had this little place for about fifteen months, and all along I’ve been asking the super when our neighbors were likely to show up. And lo and behold! When I came in today from my aerobics class he said you were here! Imagine my delight!”
Avery could not.
She realized the partially filled container of coleslaw was angled and oozing onto her cuff. “I—I’m sorry,” she stuttered as she fumbled to place her key in the lock. “Would you excuse me?”
Teddie didn’t miss a beat. “Look at me and my manners. I dare say, what would my mama say?”
Before Avery could venture a guess, the woman grabbed the key from Avery’s hand and opened the door, swinging it wide for her to enter. She slid her leather trench coat from her shoulders, placing it in a perfect fold on Avery’s sofa. Avery couldn’t help but notice the lithe, lean, black-spandex-clad body standing before her. She immediately stepped behind the kitchen counter, trying to hide her own sweat-pants-covered saddlebags.
Teddie hurried over to the sliding glass doors and stared out at the waterfront. “Isn’t the view here just to die for? After twenty years of running the rodeo circuit with Rider—that’s why we call him Rider, ’cause he rides bulls—well, after twenty years of draggin’ four kids around through all that dust and dirt, all I ever dreamed of was retiring by the water. I wanted a place where my grandkids could come and summer with us on a boat. That’s why we stayed here in Baltimore after Rider’s granddaddy asked us to come and help run his little real-estate business when he took sick. He was mostly dabbling in low-end residential before, but Rider’s just got a golden tongue. Why, he could talk a mermaid into buying a cup of water, he could. He turned that struggling company into a little ole Fort Knox for his granddaddy. Now that dear old man can retire in comfort with nary a worry, and we decided to stay on and sell what we loved—waterfront!”
Avery wanted to sit down, or she wanted that woman to draw a breath. She got both.
Teddie headed over to the sofa and began again. “Mind if I sit?” she asked as she gently lowered herself to the center cushion. She patted the cushion bes
ide her and eyed Avery. “Come and sit, darlin’. I just know we’re gonna be splendid friends.”
Avery was fairly sure that the last thing she wanted was to sit her fleece-encrusted body next to the spandex-wrapped Southern beauty. She eyed her cautiously, wondering if she would next pull out some jute and begin braiding a lasso, but the more she looked into those beautiful, gentle eyes and saw that warm, accepting smile, the more she believed what Teddie had said—that they could, indeed, become splendid friends.
They chatted about their lives, husbands, and children. Teddie’s face melted like warm butter over the news of Paul’s death, and Avery felt as if she were talking to an old friend.
“I wouldn’t rush into selling so soon, Avery. Rule of thumb is wait at least a year before making major changes.”
“I don’t know what’s right anymore.” Avery felt the return of suffocating doubt. “I haven’t done as good a job of holding it together as I thought while Paul was sick. I’m just discovering how deeply my kids have been impacted. Paul helped me see my possibilities. He made me strong. I don’t want to lose that.”
Teddie’s gentle hand landed on Avery’s shoulder. “Sounds like you’ve held the family together for years. I’d say that’s proof you’re plenty strong. You’re just drained is all. We give and give until the well is dry. You’ll fill back up. I’ll help you.”
Her smile gave Avery hope. “Thank you, Teddie. I take it you’ve had some experience draining your own well?”
A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET Page 53