Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe

by Heather Webber

  Cam took hold of my hand, held it tight. “I wish I had answers for you, Natalie. But all I can ask you is this: Did you love him?”

  Did I love him? I thought about the first time I looked into Matt’s blue eyes and my world lit up, and remembered how my world went dark when I found out he was gone. I said, “So much.”

  Cam turned into a parking lot and pulled up in front of the medical offices. He let go of my hand to shift into park. “Whatever he did or didn’t do that day on the lake doesn’t change that fact.”

  “But it does—”

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t. You’re not angry because you don’t know whether he loved you. You’re angry because you loved him and he left you. Healing will only come when you forgive him for leaving you. And for leaving Ollie.”

  What he said hit me straight in the heart, and it hurt like hell. And by the way he said the words, I sensed he knew of what he spoke.

  Letting out a breath, I glanced at the dashboard clock and gasped. “I’ve got to go. I’m late.”

  “I’ll wait here a few minutes, just in case.”

  River’s head came up as I pushed open the door and hopped out. I ran inside the building, found the right office, and wasn’t the least bit shocked when the receptionist told me I’d need to reschedule.

  I made an appointment for the following week and went back outside. Cam and River were walking on a strip of grass dividing the parking lot.

  “Looks like I get to come back next week,” I said, holding up the appointment card.

  Cam threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a side hug. “I’m real sorry you missed your counseling session.”

  So was I. But as I glanced up at him, feeling safe and relaxed at his side, I thought the ride down here with him might have been just the kind of therapy I needed.

  14

  Anna Kate

  By the time Friday rolled around, my days had settled into a comfortable routine. Early mornings were spent in the garden, collecting herbs, vegetables, and flowers, and then Gideon would come by for coffee before Bow and Jena arrived. The café took up most of my day, as I worked from seven until three. Having Natalie in the café part-time had helped immensely—what she lacked in skills, she made up for with her work ethic. I found that I enjoyed having her around. She had a gentle nature that set me at ease, and she was sweet and funny and nothing at all like I thought a Linden would be. I liked her. Summer, I noticed, had taken a liking to her as well—once Jena had enlisted them to help find the gray cat she’d seen sneak inside one afternoon when the back door had been propped open.

  Had it been a coincidence that Jena had been the only one to see the cat, who supposedly ran in just as Summer was dropping off eggs?

  Or that Natalie and Summer had been accidentally locked together in the laundry room for a short while during the search?

  I didn’t think so.

  That Jena was a wily one.

  She’d been grinning ear to ear when Natalie and Summer were finally freed and emerged talking about vintage apron patterns.

  In the late afternoons, I spent time making pies, tinkering with food and herbal tea recipes using some of the morning’s bounty, clearing weeds from the garden, and making the rounds among the birders.

  To my amazement, Sir Bird Nerd was still in town. He’d disappeared for a day, but then came back with a small motor home, which he was parking on Pebbles’s land. If the blackbirds were a museum, Zachariah Boyd would be their docent. He was the go-to guy for information on the birds’ nighttime ritual, a veritable one-man information kiosk. Every birder who arrived, whether it was a quick stop or a multiday excursion, ended up talking to Mr. Boyd. Honestly, I should probably put the man on the payroll, as there had been a nonstop stream of visitors.

  The blackbirds were singing regularly, and there would come a time, I knew, that I wouldn’t wait up to hear them anymore, but I wasn’t there yet. It meant less sleep, but I’d never been one who needed much. The songs were worth any fatigue I felt throughout the day.

  I currently had four pies in the double ovens and was outside checking on the mulberry trees before I started weeding. Another day or two, and Summer and I’d lay a tarp down beneath the trees and shake the branches to release the ripened fruit, which was almost black.

  I set to work on the weeds, sorting what could be thrown in the compost pile versus what I could use in the kitchen. Dandelions were keepers. Crabgrass could go. I was talking to the zucchini plants, telling them about Doc Linden’s latest supper invitation—he, with his sad eyes and unhealthy coloring, had begun stopping at the café most mornings for a cup of coffee to go—when I heard a rustling sound behind me. I turned, hoping I wouldn’t find a snake slithering out to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine. I liked most creatures and knew many snakes were harmless, but I preferred to keep my distance.

  By a mile or two.

  Instead of something slithery, not a foot away, I found the gray cat watching me.

  “Hello there.” I held out my fingers for him to sniff, but he didn’t budge. Up close he appeared well fed, but he had a few scars other than the one on his ear. One ran across his scalp, and there was a long, thick jagged one on his back left leg. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  I stood up to find him some water, and he wiggled an ear and strode off toward the back of the yard. He stopped, looked back at me, then took two more steps.

  Surely he didn’t want me to follow him again. I wasn’t lost here in Zee’s garden—where could he possibly lead me?

  He took another step, stopped.

  “Okay,” I said, leaving my basket where it was on the gravel pathway, “I’m up for the adventure.”

  The cat always stayed two or three steps ahead of me as he led me along the fence at the back of the yard, past the mulberry trees, toward the property line I shared with Gideon.

  With a graceful leap, the cat landed on the top iron rail that ran horizontally along the fencing. He paused long enough to make sure I was behind him, then continued on his merry way, tail in the air.

  I glanced back at the café, at the birders, at my sanity—all of which I’d clearly left behind.

  In the rear corner of the yard, he paused. When I caught up to him, I saw he’d stopped at a gate I hadn’t noticed before now. It opened into the woods behind the yard. All this time, I thought Gideon had been hopping the fence back here. I unhooked the latch. The gate creaked as I pushed it open and clicked soundly in place when I closed it behind me.

  When I turned around, the cat was already strutting through the woods. The scent of wild garlic filled the air as the cat scurried toward the lush green lawn behind Hill House, a two-story wood-framed I-house that was as pretty from the rear as it was from the front. Gideon had given me a full run-down on the architecture when I admired the house earlier this week.

  I walked around a screened-in gazebo and along a path flanked with colorful annuals that led to a stone patio shaded by a pergola covered in climbing trumpet vines. Hummingbirds flitted around the vibrant red blooms, and I heard the phoebe singing nearby.

  I quick-stepped to keep up with the cat. “I’m pretty sure this is trespassing,” I called after him.

  “Anna Kate?”

  Embarrassed to be caught sneaking around, I froze. “Gideon?”

  “Up here.”

  Shading my eyes with my hand, I looked up. Gideon stood on the edge of the roof. Feeling suddenly woozy at seeing him up there, I said, “Could you back up a step? You’re making me nervous being that close to the edge.”

  “Do you have a fear of heights?” he asked.

  “It’s not so much of heights as falling.”

  “It is a long way down, isn’t it?” He took a step back. “I’m guessing thirty feet at least. I’ve had some time to consider exactly how far it is, since I’ve been up here going on an hour now.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Having a heart to heart with a squirrel. She was trying to m
ake a nest in the chimney, but I talked her out of it and suggested the loblolly behind you would be a better, safer option.”

  I glanced that way and sure enough, there was a squirrel running along a high branch, leaves in her mouth. “Are you staying up there in case she changes her mind and comes back?”

  He laughed. “No. I’m up here because my ladder fell. Don’t suppose you could grab it for me? It’s on the other side of the house.”

  I walked around the corner and saw an aluminum extension ladder laying in the grass.

  “It’s not the easiest to handle on your own,” he warned.

  I lifted an end, judging whether I needed help. “I think I can manage.” It took some doing, but I propped the ladder against the house without breaking anything. The house or me. A small miracle, that.

  I held the ladder as he came down, the metal vibrating under my palms. With two rungs left, he jumped to the ground, and wiped his hands on his jeans. His dark T-shirt was soaked to his skin, and his hair was damp with sweat.

  “Thank you. You couldn’t have come along at a better time. I was just contemplating how much damage would be done if I tried jumping onto the pergola.”

  “To you or the pergola?”

  “Both,” he said, flashing a smile.

  His face had a bright pink tinge to it. “Looks like you’ve got yourself quite a sunburn. Do you have any aloe?”

  “I’m sure I do.”

  “Fresh aloe?”

  “I’m sure I don’t.”

  “Zee has an aloe plant in her living room. I can harvest some gel.”

  He rested his hands on his hips. “Her living room. Not yours?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “I think it will always be Zee’s, and that’s okay. I don’t mind being its caretaker for a while.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, then apparently changed his mind. He’d often done the same during our coffee chats, as though he were holding something back. I didn’t want to needle him about whatever it was on his mind—he’d get there in his own time.

  He rested a hand on the ladder. “Out of curiosity, what brought you by here?”

  I hesitated only slightly before saying, “I was following a cat.” Who was nowhere to be seen now.

  “A cat?”

  “He’s big and gray with milky gray-blue eyes. I’ve seen him a couple of times in Zee’s garden. Do you know who he belongs to?”

  He smiled. “I think he mostly belonged to Zee. She told me he showed up at the café one night, a long time ago, and never left. He prefers to be outside and tends to do his own thing.”

  “Shouldn’t he have a collar with tags? Has he had a checkup? Shouldn’t he be neutered? You know, protect the whole pet population thing.”

  “Let me guess, you watched a lot of Price Is Right when you were younger.”

  “I watched a lot of everything when I was younger. Books and TV were some of my closest friends.” I winced, realizing how much I’d revealed. “I was a latchkey kid. My mom worked a lot.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “And mine, too.” As he lowered the ladder, he added, “Zee tried to put a collar with a bell on the cat once, and it didn’t go so well. Be careful of his claws if you give it a try.”

  “Does he have a name?” I asked.

  “Zee always called him Mr. Cat.”

  It kind of fit, though I was starting to think Lassie would work too, considering Mr. Cat seemed to have a knack for rescues. With me in the woods last week, and today with Gideon.

  “Mr. Cat it is. I’ll start putting some food out for him, and see if I can lure him to the vet.” I took a step backward, toward the woods. “I should get going, I have pies in the oven.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Anna Kate, what are you doing tonight?”

  Smiling, I said, “More pies, and I have some aloe to scrape…”

  “Have you eaten dinner?”

  For some reason my palms started to sweat. “Not yet.”

  “How about we pack a dinner, picnic-style, and take it to the Movie in the Moonlight tonight?”

  For a moment there, I was caught up in the way he was looking at me. That deep intensity mixed with a hint of playfulness and a touch of heat.

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s probably going to be a lot of people there,” I said, thinking arm’s length might not be far enough away from that alluring gaze of his. “They’ll stare.”

  “Sure, people might stare a while, since you’re a novelty right now. But the only way to get them to stop is to give them their fill. Besides, most everyone has already stopped by the café this week.”

  Not Seelie Linden, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the chance of running into her. After all, Natalie had mentioned she was a bigwig with the Refresh Committee.

  “Once the movie starts, people won’t stop to talk to you. It’d be rude. People around here would rather eat soap than be openly ill-mannered. And I’ll be there as a buffer.”

  He made good points. Still …

  “Beauty and the Beast is the movie tonight. You know you love that library scene.”

  It was true—I did. My head tipped side to side as if weighing my decision.

  “Come on,” he said with a big, hopeful smile. “What’s better than watching a movie under the stars on a beautiful summer night?”

  I could feel myself being reeled in. A night out, under the stars, did sound nice. Minus the people, of course. I searched his honey-colored eyes, looking for any reason to keep saying no. All I saw was kindness and that touch of heat shimmering in the brown depths. “Okay,” I said, relenting to the power of his charm. “But only if you let me pack the basket.”

  “Nope. I asked, I’m doing the packing. Hope you don’t mind cold corn dogs,” he teased.

  I smiled. “You have to let me bring something.”

  “Okay, drinks are on you,” he said finally.

  “I can do that.”

  “Then it’s a da—” He abruptly cut himself off. “Then I’ll pick you up at six forty-five.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  As I walked off, toward the woods and the way I’d come, his words echoed in my ears.

  It’s a da—

  Date. He’d been about to say date.

  He hadn’t—and it wasn’t a date, I told myself as I slipped through the back gate. It was simply two people going to see a movie together.

  I should have been happy about that, considering the arm’s length of it all.

  But as I headed into the café to check on the pies, I couldn’t deny that I was the tiniest bit disappointed.

  * * *

  “Over here! Yoo-hoo, Anna Kate, honey!” In the distance Faylene Wiggins stood on tiptoes and waved her outstretched arms like she was flagging down a B-52.

  “I think someone is trying to get your attention,” Gideon said, keeping close.

  So close I could feel the heat of his body. I’d have stepped away to give myself some breathing room, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. The lawn leading to the amphitheater was packed with people in line at the snack stand, for the portable restrooms, and searching for a patch of lawn to stake a claim.

  There was still an hour until official sunset, but the sun was already sinking behind the mountain, casting Wicklow into an early twilight. Fireflies—or lightning bugs, as people around here called them—flickered, small bursts of light that made me smile, thinking of how Zee always told me the bugs lit up because they were magical.

  I still believed that to be true.

  “Plenty of room for y’all!” Faylene yelled, still waving.

  I pretended to scan the crowd. “I don’t see anyone…”

  Laughing, he placed his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward Faylene. “I hope you didn’t want to sit elsewhere, because I don’t think she would stand for it.”

  “I don’t mind.” There was a natural effervescence to Faylene, with her chatty personality and her big laugh.
She should have been overwhelming, but her boisterous disposition often turned people’s attention on her … taking it off me. I had the feeling she knew exactly what she was doing, too, and that made me like her all the more.

  Trying my best to ignore Gideon’s hand at my spine, I held tightly onto a small lunch cooler I’d found in one of Zee’s closets. Inside the cooler were two thermoses full of blackberry sweet tea, my first batch made using Mr. Pavegeau’s recipe, and a stack of paper cups. The tea was delicious, if I did say so myself. And Aubin had been right—it had brought a taste of happiness.

  When Gideon and I reached Faylene’s landing zone, she pressed her hands together and smiled brightly. “I’m tickled to see you two here together. Just tickled.” She eyed us as though sizing us up for wedding clothes.

  “It’s a beautiful night for a movie, isn’t it?” Gideon said.

  I admired the way he completely ignored her innuendo that we were here on a date, though I didn’t think Faylene would give up without knowing for certain if we were or weren’t.

  “Nicest one yet this spring,” she said, winking at me.

  Spring. It felt like we should be well into summer by now, with the way it had been so hot. The official change of seasons, however, wasn’t for another few weeks.

  Faylene then gestured to the group of people behind her, gathered on three overlapping blankets. “Anna Kate, you know Marcy and Lindy-Lou, right?”

  “I do.” They’d stopped into the café a few times this week.

  “And that there hiding behind the camera is Cam Kolbaugh, Josh’s brother. He’s our resident mountain man and wildlife photographer. Josh went for pizza across the street and will be along soon enough.”

  I was glad to hear that Josh would be around tonight. I hoped he was just the big bear of a policeman I needed to help me get hold of an old police report. Namely, my parents’ accident report.

  I said my hellos to everyone and smiled at Lindy-Lou, who was sound asleep next to Marcy, a light blanket draped over her tiny body. She had her thumb stuck in her mouth, and peach-fuzz hair that reminded me of a baby bird stuck up in downy tufts.