Dream Lake

by Lisa Kleypas

  Twenty-one

  Since a relationship with a Nolan had a limited shelf life, Alex was not surprised when Sam and Lucy broke up in mid-August. He was sympathetic, however. For the past couple of months, Sam had been happier than Alex had ever seen him. Clearly Lucy had meant a lot to him. But Lucy had been offered some kind of art grant that would require her to move to New York for a year. She was going to take it. And Sam, being Sam, wasn’t about to interfere with that or ask her to stay for the sake of a relationship that was headed nowhere.

  Since Alex had been doing some work on an upstairs staircase at Rainshadow Road, he happened to be there on the day that Lucy came to break up with Sam. While Alex pounded shims into the treads and risers of the stairs, the ghost went to check out what was happening.

  “Lucy just broke up with Sam,” the ghost reported about ten minutes later.

  Alex paused in his hammering. “Just now?”

  “Yeah. Clean and simple. She told him she had to move to New York, and he didn’t try and stop her. I think it’s hit him hard. Why don’t you go downstairs and talk to him?”

  Alex gave a snort. “About what?”

  “Ask him if he’s okay. Tell him there are other fish in the sea.”

  “He doesn’t need me to tell him that.”

  “He’s your brother. Show a little concern, why don’t you? And while you’re at it, you might want to mention that you have to move in with him.”

  Alex scowled. Darcy had recently e-mailed him that she was filing for a temporary order from family court to kick him out of their house. Her house.

  Moving in with Sam would be cheaper than renting an apartment, and in lieu of paying rent, Alex could continue the restoration work at Rainshadow Road. God knew why Alex felt so compelled to work on the place. It wasn’t even his. But he couldn’t deny his attachment to it.

  It had been three weeks since he had started having sex with Zoë—the best three weeks of his life, and also the worst. He rationed out his time with her, when he wanted to see her every minute of the day. He invented excuses to call her, just to listen to her talk about a new recipe or explain the differences between Tahitian, Mexican, or Madagascar vanilla. He found himself smiling at odd times during the day, thinking of something she had said or done, and that was so unlike him that he knew he was in serious trouble.

  He wished he could blame Zoë for being demanding, but she knew when to push and when to back off. She managed Alex more adeptly than anyone else ever had, and even though he knew he was being managed, he couldn’t bring himself to object. Like the night he’d told her he couldn’t stay, she’d made a pot roast that had filled the entire cottage with a dark succulent fragrance, and so of course he had relented long enough to have dinner, and after that he’d found himself in bed with her. Because pot roast, as she must have known, was an aphrodisiac to any man from the Pacific Northwest.

  He tried to limit the number of nights he spent with her, but it wasn’t easy. He wanted her all the time, in every way. The sex was amazing, but even more astonishing was how much he wanted Zoë for other reasons. The things that had once annoyed him—the perkiness, the stubborn optimism—had somehow become his favorite things about her. She constantly sent out cheerful thoughts like party balloons that he couldn’t bring himself to pop.

  The one thing Zoë couldn’t delude herself about was Emma’s condition, which was going downhill. Recently the home-care nurse, Jeannie, had given her some cognitive tests: word repetition, and drawing clock faces on pieces of paper, and simple coin-counting games. Emma scored significantly lower on the same tests she had taken a month earlier. More distressing was that Emma had lost the awareness of hunger, as well as what constituted a balanced meal. Had Jeannie and Zoë not been there to remind her, she might have gone days without eating, or gotten herself something like corn chips and yellow mustard for breakfast.

  It worried Zoë to realize that her grandmother, always so impeccably groomed, no longer seemed to notice or care if her hair had been brushed or her nails had been filed. Justine came at least twice a week to take Emma to the salon or to the movie theater. Alex sometimes kept Emma occupied after dinner while Zoë cleaned the kitchen or took a bath. He played cards with Emma, grinning at her flagrant cheating, and he had even put on music and danced with her while she criticized his foxtrot technique.

  “Your foot-turn is too late,” Emma complained. “You’re going to trip me. Where did you learn to dance?”

  “I took lessons at a place in Seattle,” Alex said as they crossed the room to the melody of “As Time Goes By.”

  “You should get your money back.”

  “They worked miracles,” he told her. “Before the lessons, the way I danced looked like a pantomime of washing my car.”

  “How long did you go?” Emma asked dubiously.

  “It was an emergency weekend crash course. My fiancée wanted me to be able to dance at our wedding.”

  “When did you get married?” Emma demanded testily. “No one told me about that.”

  Although he’d talked to her about his marriage to Darcy, Alex realized she had forgotten. He said in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s over now. We’re divorced.”

  “Well, that was fast.”

  “Not fast enough,” he said ruefully.

  “You should marry my Zoë. She can cook.”

  “I’m not marrying again,” he said. “I was terrible at it.”

  “Practice makes perfect,” she told him.

  That night, as Alex stayed at the cottage and held Zoë while she slept, he finally figured out what the sweetly painful chest-clutching sensation was, the one that had plagued him since he’d first met her. It was happiness. And it made him exquisitely uncomfortable. He’d heard about certain addictive substances that if you did it once, you’d already done it more than once. That was the nature of his attraction to Zoë—instant, full-blown, no hope of recovery.

  Three days after Sam and Lucy’s breakup, Alex stopped by Rainshadow Road to pick up some tools he’d left there. A delivery truck followed him along the drive, and parked in front. Two guys proceeded to unload a huge flat crate. “Someone’s gotta sign for this,” one of them told Alex as they carried the crate up the front steps. “It’s insured up the ass.”

  “What is it?”

  “Stained-glass window.”

  From Lucy, Alex surmised. Sam had told him that Lucy had been making a window for the front of the house. The one that Tom Findlay had installed so long ago had been broken and removed, and replaced with a single pane. Sam had said something about Lucy coming up with the design during her stay at Rainshadow Road, some image she’d seen in a dream.

  “I’ll sign for it,” Alex said. “My brother’s out in the vineyard.”

  The delivery guys laid the massive window on the floor and partially uncrated it to make certain no damage had occurred in transit. “Looks okay,” one of them said. “But you find anything after we’re gone, hairline cracks or somethin’, call the number on the bottom of the receipt.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good luck,” the guy said affably. “Gonna be a bitch to install.”

  “Looks like it,” Alex replied with a rueful smile, signing for the package.

  The ghost stood beside the window and stared down at it, transfixed. “Alex,” he said in a peculiar voice. “Take a look.”

  After the delivery guys left, Alex went to glance at the window, which featured a winter tree with bare branches, a gray and lavender sky, and a white moon. The colors were subtle, the glass layered and fused to give it an incandescent 3D effect. Alex didn’t know much about art, but the skill that had gone into this window was obvious. It was masterful.

  His attention returned to the ghost, who was utterly still and silent. The entrance hall had turned chilly in spite of the summer heat. It was sorrow, so raw that Alex felt his throat and eyes sting. “Do you remember this?” he asked the ghost. “Is it like the one you put in for Emma’s father?”
>
  The ghost was too upset to speak. He responded with a single nod. More sorrow, filling the air until every breath was an icy scourge. He was remembering something, and it wasn’t good.

  Alex took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. “Cut it out,” he said gruffly.

  The ghost pointed to the second floor, and gave Alex a beseeching stare.

  Alex understood instantly. “All right. I’ll install it today. Just … no drama.”

  Sam came into the house. To Alex’s disgust, his lovelorn brother wasn’t nearly as interested in the window as he was in the question of whether Lucy had included a note with it. Which she hadn’t.

  Taking out his phone, Alex began to dial Gavin and Isaac. He would pull them off work on Zoë’s garage just for the afternoon, and have them come over here. “I’m going to call some of my guys to help me put the window in,” he said. “Today, if possible.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said glumly.

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know if I want to install it.”

  Feeling a new wave of despair coming from the ghost, Alex said in exasperation, “Don’t give me that crap. This window has to go into this house. The place needs it. There was one just like it a long time ago.”

  Sam looked puzzled. “How do you know that?”

  “I just meant that it seems right for the place.” Alex walked away, dialing his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Right after lunch, Gavin and Isaac met Alex at the vineyard house, and they installed the stained-glass window. The project went fast, owing to the precision of Lucy’s measurements. She had constructed the window so that it fit perfectly into the existing framework. They sealed the edges with clear silicone caulk, and taped it into place, using cardboard spacers folded into accordion shapes to protect the glass from the tape. After a twenty-four-hour drying period, they would add wood trim around the edges.

  The ghost watched them intently. There were no wisecracks, questions, or comments, only silent, sullen gloom. He refused to explain anything about the window or the memories it had jarred loose.

  “Don’t you think I’m entitled to some answers?” Alex demanded later that evening. “You could at least give me a clue about what’s going on with that damn window. Why did you want me to install it? What’s put you in such a foul mood?”

  “I’m not ready to talk about it,” came the infuriating reply.

  The next morning Alex stopped by Rainshadow Road to check on the silicone caulking before he headed to Zoë’s cottage. He took his BMW, figuring he might as well enjoy it another couple of days before he sold it back to the dealership. Back when he’d bought the sedan, he and Darcy had wanted a high-end vehicle to take on their weekend trips to Seattle. It had suited their lifestyle, or at least the lifestyle they’d aspired to. Now he couldn’t figure out why it had seemed so important.

  Along the drive he passed Sam, who had been out walking in the vineyard. Slowing the car, Alex rolled down the window and asked, “Want a lift?”

  Sam shook his head and motioned him to go on. His expression was dazed and distracted, as if he were listening to music no one else could hear. Except there were no headphones in sight.

  “He looks weird,” Alex said to the ghost, continuing to drive to the house.

  “Everything looks weird,” the ghost replied, staring out the window.

  He was right. A strange radiance had permeated the scene. All the colors of the vineyard and garden were softer, more vivid, every blossom and leaf feeding brightness into the air. Even the sky was different, silver where it touched the water of False Bay, gradually deepening to a blue that almost hurt his eyes.

  Getting out of the car, Alex took a deep breath of the floral earthy freshness that laced the breeze. The ghost was staring at the second-floor window. It didn’t look the same. The color of the glass had changed—but that had to be a trick of the light, or the angle they were viewing it from.

  Alex bounded into the house and up the stairs to the landing. Something had definitely happened to the window—the winter tree was now covered with luxuriant greenery, leaves made of glass gems crossing the window in sparkling profusion. The moon was gone, and the glass sky was flushed with pink, orange, lavender, all blending into daylight blue.

  “The window’s been replaced,” Alex said in bewilderment. “What happened to the other one?”

  “It’s the same window,” came the ghost’s reply.

  “It can’t be. All the colors are different. The moon is gone. There are leaves on the branches.”

  “This is how it looked when I installed it all those years ago. Down to the last detail. But one day—” The ghost broke off as they heard Sam entering the house.

  Climbing the stairs, Sam came to stand beside Alex. He stared at the window, rapt and preoccupied.

  “What did you do to it?” Alex asked his brother.

  “Nothing.”

  “How did—”

  “I don’t know.”

  Flummoxed, Alex looked from Sam to the ghost, who were both occupied with their own thoughts. They seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than he did. “What does it mean?” he asked.

  Without a word Sam left, taking the stairs two at a time, heading out to his truck with long ground-eating strides. The truck engine roared as the vehicle sped along the drive.

  Annoyance edged Alex’s confusion. “Why is he hauling ass like that?”

  “He’s going after Lucy,” the ghost said with calm certainty.

  “To find out what happened to the window?”

  The ghost gave him a sardonic glance and began to pace around the landing. “Sam doesn’t care about what happened to the window, the important thing is why it happened.” At Alex’s uncomprehending silence, he said, “The window changed because of Sam and Lucy. Because of how they feel about each other.”

  That made no sense. “You’re saying this is some kind of magic mood window?” Alex asked with a snort of disbelief.

  “Of course not,” the ghost said acidly. “How could that be possible if it doesn’t fit in with your existential beliefs? It’s probably another psychotic delusion. Except that Sam seems to be in on this one.” He went to the wall and lowered himself to the floor, one arm curled loosely around a bent knee. He looked weary and ashen. But he couldn’t be tired—he was a spirit, beyond the thrall of physical weakness. “As soon as I saw the window in the crate yesterday,” the ghost said, “I remembered what happened to me and Emma. What I did.”

  Alex braced his arms on the balcony railing and stared at the window. The jeweled green leaves sparkled in a way that gave the illusion of movement, a soft breeze blowing through the tree limbs.

  “I was a couple of years older than Emma,” the ghost said, emotions rising through the air like incense. “I avoided her whenever possible. She was off-limits. Growing up on the island, you knew which people you could be friendly with, which girls you could spark and which ones you couldn’t.”

  “Spark?”

  The ghost smiled slightly. “That’s the word they used for kissing.”

  Alex sort of liked that. Sparks … kisses … creating fire.

  “Emma was out of my league,” the ghost continued. “Smart, classy, rich family. She could be headstrong at times—but she had the same sense of kindness as Zoë. She would never hurt anyone if she could help it. When Mr. Stewart hired me to install the stained-glass window, his wife told all three daughters to keep out of my way. Don’t socialize with the handyman. Emma ignored her, of course. She sat and watched me work, asking questions. She was interested in everything. I fell for her so hard, so fast … It was like I’d loved her before I’d even met her.

  “We met in secret all through the summer and part of autumn—we spent most of our time at Dream Lake. Sometimes we’d take a boat out to one of the outer islands and spend the day. We didn’t talk much about the future. The war was going on in Europe but everyone knew it was just a matter of time until we
got into it. And Emma knew I was planning to enlist. After basic training, the Army Air Corps could turn a civilian with no flight experience into a qualified pilot in a couple of months.” He paused. “Early November in ’41—this was before Pearl Harbor—Emma told me she was pregnant. The news hit me like an anvil, but I told her we’d get married. I talked to her father and asked for his consent. Although he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the situation, he wanted the wedding to happen as soon as possible, to avoid scandal. He was pretty decent about it. It was the mother who I thought might kill me. She believed Emma was lowering herself by marrying me, and she was right. But there was a baby on the way, so no one had a choice. We set the wedding date for Christmas Eve.”

  “You weren’t happy about it,” Alex said.

  “Hell, no, I was terrified. A wife, a baby … none of that had any connection to who I was. But I knew what it was like to grow up without a father. There was no way I’d let that happen to the baby.

  “After Pearl Harbor, every guy I knew headed to the local recruiting office to sign up. Emma and I agreed that I’d hold off enlisting until after the wedding. A few days before Christmas, Emma’s mother called and told me to come to the house. Something had happened. I knew it was bad from the sound of her voice. I got there just as the doctor was leaving. He and I talked on the front porch for a few minutes, and then I went upstairs to Emma, who was in bed.”

  “She’d lost the baby,” Alex said quietly.

  The ghost nodded. “She started bleeding in the morning. Just a little at first, but it got worse hour by hour, until she had a miscarriage. She looked so small in that bed. She started crying when she saw me. I held her for a long time. When she quieted down, she took off the engagement ring and gave it to me. She said she knew I hadn’t wanted to marry her, and now that the baby was gone, there was no reason. And I told her she didn’t have to make any decisions right then. But for a split second I was relieved, and she saw that. So she asked me if I thought I would be ready for marriage someday. If she should wait for me. I told her no, don’t wait. I said even if I made it through the war and came back, she would never be able to count on me. I told her love didn’t last—she’d feel the same way about some other guy, someday. I even believed it. She didn’t argue with me. I knew I was hurting her, but I thought it would spare her a lot more pain in the future. I told myself it was for her own good.”