Nice to Come Home To

by Liz Flaherty

  “More than okay.” Damaris bit her lip, and Cass thought she looked tired. “Your dad probably won’t come there. I think that’s a good thing for both of you.”

  “I think so, too.” Cass hesitated, frowning at her favorite stepmother’s flickering image. “Damaris? You doing all right?”

  “Yeah.” The other woman’s face cleared. “Not a good place or a good time. I’m so grateful to you for keeping Royce. It’s still okay…you know, if anything happens—you’ll still keep her?”

  Alarm shivered up Cass’s spine. “I’ll always keep her,” she said, her tone as level as she could make it, “but nothing’s going to happen to you. You survived life with Major Gentry, sir, remember?”

  They all joked about it, even the two stepmothers Cass hadn’t bonded with, that they’d escaped unscathed from life with her father. They used to say that when he’d read Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini, he’d thought it was an instruction manual.

  “You’re right. Nothing’s going to happen. Except we both know something might. I’ve always heard about the lake. From you. From your mother. Even from your aunt Zoey when Marynell was ill. I like the idea of Royce being there and of her being with you.” She smiled. “Are you giving up your apartment?”

  “I’m trying to decide.”

  “Let me help with that.” Damaris leaned closer, and it was as if she was reaching through the screen of Cass’s laptop computer. “Let it go. Hire someone to pack it up and ship it to you. You’re home now. Plan on staying there.”

  Where shivers had been, Cass thought maybe some steel was working its way up her spine. Home. “I think you’re right.”

  “I need to go. Give my girl a hug for me. I love you, stepgirl.”

  Cass went still. Damaris called her that sometimes and, occasionally, she added a casual “love ya” at the end of their conversations, but not like this. Never like this.

  “Damaris?”

  “Got to go.”

  “Okay.” She shook off the wave of foreboding. “Love you, too, Colonel.”

  After Royce went to bed, Cass poured herself a glass of wine and sat at the table in front of her computer. She hadn’t been very productive since they’d gotten to the lake, something nearly unheard of—one of the things Cassandra G. Porter’s readers counted on was that she would have a new mystery on the shelves every June and every December. That meant writing a certain amount every day. She still wrote every day, but the word count had taken a serious road trip to the wayside.

  She’d finished a book while she was taking chemo. “It’s not my best,” she qualified when she sent its file to her editor, “but it was my best at the time.” Lucy Garten, the sleuth who was the protagonist in the series, had developed breast cancer and gone through treatment as Cass did, solving The Case of Daisy’s Ashes while she was bald, grouchy and nauseated.

  Damaris had been her beta reader, proofreading as she went. It had cemented a bond born from the tenuous threads of their step-relationship.

  To date, it was her bestselling book. Clutching that success close was what had given her the courage to come back to the lake, but now she needed to stay successful.

  The thought made her grin at herself. It also led to getting several pages done by the time the wine bottle was empty and her eyelids were drooping. Before she went to bed, she walked down to the lake, looking out over its surface. The moon was waning, but still lent its light to the ruffly little waves that slapped the shore. She thought of the look on Damaris’s face, of Royce’s almost palpable excitement when it was decided they would stay in Miniagua, of the warmth of Zoey’s jubilant hug.

  She thought of Luke Rossiter and of what tables and chairs she’d find for the coffee shop and wondered if she was insane for wanting to be a barista. You’re a writer, for heaven’s sake, and you can finally almost make a living at it. But the round barn at the orchard had called out to a part of her she’d been holding back since she left the lake, the part that didn’t want to be alone. As much as she loved writing and the solitude that went along with it, she needed something that would force her away from that aloneness.

  And she loved coffee shops. What more reason did she need?

  Back in the cottage, she went to bed, thinking again of Damaris’s tired face. And then, before sleep overtook her, of Luke Rossiter’s smiling one.

  *

  “TELL ME AGAIN why we can’t just have the coffee shop in the center corridor of the barn. It’s plenty big enough and access is right there from both entrances. That leaves the side areas for offices or even other little shops if this thing takes off.” Luke looked both tired and impatient. And on the edge of angry.

  Cass wasn’t good at standing her ground—it wasn’t something that had ever worked particularly well for her. But… “Because the coziness factor would be gone. It would never be quiet or intimate or conducive to working.” She had said all this. She knew she had. Who knew that under that straight, silky hair of his, Luke Rossiter had such a thick head?

  “Working? I thought it was for coffee. If people want to work, they should rent their own office space—maybe in the side rooms of the round barn.”

  “How did you get through college without studying in coffee shops?” she demanded.

  “Easy. I studied in the student union or even occasionally—call me crazy—in the library. I thought a coffee shop was for drinking coffee.” He grinned, but it wasn’t his usual funny, endearing expression. It was more like a smirk.

  “It is. And for visiting, studying and working. It’s a great place for parents to recharge after a day with kids. For artists to sketch and writers to write. Even for music. Open mic nights or karaoke.”

  “Cass.”

  “Do not speak to me in that tone of voice.”

  His eyebrows shot up. He took off his cap, pushed his hair back and put it on again. “Exactly what tone of voice is that?”

  “The one that says I’m too stupid to waste your time talking to. I’m not.”

  “Of course you’re not, and I never for one minute thought you were. I do think you lose sight of the fact that we’re in North Central Indiana, not California or the East Coast. Things are different here. People go to coffee shops to drink coffee or get a cup for the road.”

  “Oh, good grief. Were you even there when we went to those coffee shops in Peru and North Manchester and Kokomo? Have you seen the liars table at Silver Moon? Those people aren’t there just to drink coffee and eat eggs over easy with bacon—they’re there to talk.” She lifted her hands in supplication, conscious that she was raising her voice as well. It felt kind of good. “Did all those people we saw sit there in silence and drink their coffee or wait for carryout, or did some of them have laptops or notebooks or books? Were some of them actually sitting and talking to other people? Wasn’t there a guy sitting in the corner with a guitar?”

  “There was, and I admit I got a little itchy to sit and pick with him a little because I’m pretty sure he was better than me. But we have the Silver Moon for that. Or—what’s the name of the tearoom now that Seven Pillars was destroyed in the tornado? Oh, right, Just One of Those Things. I’m not saying it’s not a nice thing, but Miniagua’s a small farming and resort community and I think the kind of venue you’re suggesting won’t fly here. The orchard’s doing fairly well, as you know, so is it really the time to take chances with that? We’re a down-home kind of place and we’re proud of it. We don’t need the same kind of trappings they require in larger places.”

  “How many people drink coffee in the orchard store every day?”

  He looked bewildered. “What?”

  “How many people drink coffee in there? Besides staff, I mean.”

  “I don’t know. A couple of dozen, I guess. More on nice days, fewer when it’s cold and rainy. But they’re not going to come over here to a fancy coffee shop where people are sitting with laptops and sketchpads, especially if it’s in a confined space instead of an open one.”

  She walked
over to look at the room she wanted to use—it had great light, great windows, the perfect amount of space—then came back to where he stood in the center of the empty barn. She counted to ten. Twice. “So what you’re actually saying is, fine, we can have a coffee shop, but only if we do everything on your terms.”

  He hesitated. “I have business experience,” he said finally. “I’ve been part owner of the orchard for three years and I clocked some part-time hours here a couple of years before that. So, yeah, I think you should listen to me.”

  She hadn’t expected him to admit it, and wasn’t sure how to feel about it when he did. She hated what he’d said, hated it, but she thought she probably would have hated it even more if he’d been less than honest.

  “Well.” The problem with standing her ground was that it always gave way beneath her, and this time was no different. While it was true they were equal partners, she agreed that his seniority and his knowledge gave him a leg up on her when it came to business decisions. “Okay, then.” She looked at her watch. “I said I’d work in the store this afternoon so Lovena Beiler could be with her daughter. I need to get over there. Sarah’s near delivery and anxious—apparently she’s miscarried a few times.”

  “She has.” He nodded short agreement. “All right. We’ll talk more later?”

  “Sure.” Maybe. And maybe the whole idea of a coffee shop was just a pipe dream that she should put away behind her heart and forget about.

  He watched her walk away. She could feel it, but didn’t turn around, just stiffened her back and went on. She had enough failures on her résumé—she wasn’t going to let this partnership be another one because she hadn’t gotten her own way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “HE’S A GUY. His thought processes are skewed. Don’t tell me you were surprised by that. Remember when Sam and Nate suggested skipping the prom in favor of a senior class golf tournament?” Holly nodded affirmation of her own point. “In retrospect, of course, we all wish we’d skipped prom—there’s no getting around that, no matter how we try—but a golf tournament was a nonstarter as a replacement.”

  Her sister, Arlie, laughed from Cass’s other side as the three rode their bicycles along the gravelly Lake Road. They were on their way to the lake’s small library, where Holly was going to give a talk and sign copies of her latest book. “They wanted our wedding reception to be a golf outing, too, but had to make do with playing golf as a bachelor party instead.”

  “It was suggested that the bridesmaids and the bride might want to caddy for them,” said Holly.

  Arlie snickered. “Yeah. Like that was gonna happen.”

  Cass laughed. It was so much fun being with them again. How was it that friends she’d known for less than a year more than half her lifetime ago could still hold such a big and warm place in her heart?

  “I wish you’d been here for the wedding.” Arlie reached with one hand to pat her shoulder, her bicycle’s front wheel swerving dangerously close to Cass’s. “You’d have been one of the bridesmaids.”

  “You can be one of mine,” said Holly cheerfully. “I’m writing regency era romance these days, so we might have a costume wedding. Jess is really scared about wearing breeches and a velvet coat with tails, not to mention the powdered wig. I showed him a picture that might have been a little exaggerated, but so far all the bridesmaids are in.”

  Arlie’s throaty laughter surprised Cass every time she heard it. She hadn’t gotten used to the change in the other woman’s voice brought about by the accident. Arlie had been a singer, planning to major in musical theatre in college. Instead, she’d become a nurse-midwife whose clinic, A Woman’s Place on the Lake, had been the recipient of Cass’s plethora of medical records when she’d made the decision to stay in Miniagua. “Thank goodness they’re all electronic,” she’d said with a nervous laugh the morning she visited the clinic. “If it was all on paper, I’d have to rent a room to keep them in.”

  “Come on back,” Arlie had said easily. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  So it was that a friend she hadn’t seen since she was seventeen now knew more about her than any living soul. If Cass chose to keep her life a secret, she still could—she had no fears about Arlie’s professional integrity. Secrecy had worked well for her. In a manner of speaking.

  “Well, I think you should stick to your guns. It will be good for Luke to learn to bend,” said Holly.

  “So says the woman whose fiancé doesn’t even know the definition of ‘bend.’ I’m anxious to see how sticking to your guns goes with Jess.” Arlie laughed again, the sound softened by affection.

  “You and Jess both seem so happy,” said Cass.

  “We are.” Holly grinned at her. “At least I am, and unless Mr. Strong-and-Silent-Type says otherwise, we’re going to assume he is, too.”

  “Has he read your books?” One of Cass’s regrets with deciding to use a pseudonym and keep her identity secret from anyone outside of family was that she was unable to discuss her books or the writing thereof with anyone she knew other than an online writers’ group.

  “He says he hasn’t, but every now and then he’ll let slip a reference that makes me think he has. Something he wouldn’t have known unless he’d been between the pages.” Holly steered her bicycle into the rack at the library and dismounted more quickly than either of her companions.

  “Like that you made the hero in one of your contemporary romances a veterinarian?” It was Cass’s favorite of Holly’s early books, the story in which she’d found herself as a character and wondered if her old friend was trying to tell her something.

  Holly stopped for a moment, meeting Cass’s eyes. “Did you see it? The message for you?”

  Cass nodded. “But I never intended to come back here. I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone from the lake again. I did write you a letter,” she admitted, “but I never mailed it.”

  She thought that sometime soon they would ask why she’d left the lake and never come back. They’d want to know why she’d never responded to the messages sent through her grandparents for the first year or so after she’d gone. Early the past spring, Sandy had emailed her.

  They want to see you. I feel terrible saying I don’t know where you are when I do.

  Cass had demurred. But the orchard, Aunt Zoey and custody of her little sister had made her realize coming back had progressed from an unconfessed longing to a need.

  Especially for Royce, who in a growing-up time much like Cass’s own, had never had a year at the lake.

  She could see the questions in her friends’ eyes, in the looks they exchanged, but neither of them spoke until they were at the door of the library.

  “Jack left me at the end of that summer, once he knew for sure I was going to live and would be all right even if I was different,” said Arlie calmly, her hand on the library door’s old-fashioned handle. “Guilt drove his life and his absence left a big, gaping hole in mine for sixteen years. We’re good now and we’re happy. We know we can never get back people or time we lost, but what we learned and what we gained during that time we were apart—like his son, Charlie, who I tell everyone was my real motive for marrying Jack—they’re the reasons for the good and the happy.”

  “Mama, who still bosses us around even though we’re in our thirties, was pretty insistent on us letting things go when Jack came back to the lake.” Holly smiled. “As usual, she was right.”

  Cass smiled back at her and Arlie, and they went inside.

  She’d never had a book signing, although some of the authors she knew online had taken part in some. Except for a few who were far more extroverted than most of the group, they hadn’t enjoyed them.

  Holly did. Her talk lasted a half hour, with ten minutes of prepared remarks and the other twenty spent on questions and answers and her request from the audience to help her brainstorm a story. Cass found herself laughing and tossing out ideas with the dozen or so women who were there.

  When the talk was over, Holly sat behi
nd the table full of books and signed and dedicated copies for everyone who asked.

  “Let’s ride while she’s doing that,” Arlie suggested. “It’s her hour with readers and I never like to get in her way. She always ends up introducing me and talking more about me than about her book.”

  “Great idea.” Cass mouthed, “Break a leg,” to Holly and followed Arlie out of the old building. “That was fun.”

  “It always is,” Arlie agreed, pushing off. “You want to ride around the lake?”

  “Sure.”

  If they’d been walking instead of riding, they would have been sauntering. It was a beautiful day to take their time. Birds serenaded them from overhead and a few brilliantly colored leaves floated down around them as they rode. “I wonder how they know it’s time to change and go,” said Cass, “when most of the leaves are still summer green.”

  Arlie laughed. “You sound like Holly. Are you sure you’re not a writer?” She braked suddenly, stopping to stare at Cass. “You were, weren’t you? You and Holly started the writers’ club in school.”

  “Write Now. Yes, we did.” Cass kept riding. Remembering those perfect days was almost painful in the pleasure of it, but for the warm, wonderful moment under the sycamore trees on Lake Road, she allowed herself to do just that, with no thought of all that happened later. “There were, what, ten of us?”

  Arlie pedaled hard to catch up. “I think so, although I wasn’t one. Jed Whitcomb was one, and he owns and edits the newspaper now—the twice-a-week one here on the lake. Dorothy Shepherd is a reporter for the Indianapolis Star. I don’t remember who else was in it, do you?”

  “Sam was, but only because we were dating and we thought it was romantic. Linda Saylors was.” The name caught in Cass’s throat and she had to take a couple of deep breaths. Oh, Lin, I’m so sorry.

  “Oh, she was. She was the editor of the yearbook, too—the first junior at the time to ever hold that position.”

  “She was good.” And beautiful. And so very nice. All the things Cass hadn’t been. Yet she was the one who’d died.