She took them, clenching her fingers around the cool metal. Say something, she urged herself. Say something about how well he’s done. How perfectly he’s brought the dream to life, how glad I am to see this come to fruition. Say something. Anything.
“Shout if you need anything,” Gabe said, then turned and walked away.
She watched him go, the words dead in her throat. Another in a long line of missed opportunities.
Unpacking her personal stuff from the car took an embarrassingly small amount of time. Four chef jackets, two pairs of checkered pants, some regular clothes and clogs.
She shook her head at the meager clothes hanging in the closet, like deflated, lonely people.
Toothbrush, expensive face and hand lotion sat on the glass shelf over the old-fashioned pedestal sink in the bathroom.
She took a look around the cozy cabin that was no doubt made for lovers, for two toothbrushes and closets filled with his-and-her clothes, and shuddered.
I gotta get the hell out of here.
Far more comfortable in the kitchen, she unloaded those indispensable kitchen items from her house. Food processor, standing mixer, her knives, her grandmother’s cast iron skillet, roasting pans and recipe box—all handed down in her family like diamond engagement rings were handed down in others.
With nothing else to do but tour the grounds and constantly come face-to-face with the physical reality of their once-shared dream, she pulled out the Athens Organics card and rescheduled her appointment.
“Well,” she said when Daphne asked her for a good time to reschedule. It was five in the afternoon. “I’m free right now. I can be there in a half hour.”
“Ahh,” Daphne stalled for a moment and Alice wondered if she actually was going to have to piggyback Gabe’s coffee date.
Really, she wondered, was there anything more depressing.
“That work’s great,” Daphne finally said. “I also have some information on local butchers and a great recommendation for an organic dairy farm near Coxsackie.”
Smart woman, Alice thought, hanging up. But I’m still not going to like her.
Alice grabbed her keys and beat a hasty retreat from Riverview Inn.
She flew down the New York interstate then took Highway 12 along the river, past Black Rock and the old Van Loan mansion. Twilight came to the Catskills like a slow bleed of India ink from the east, while the western sky remained light behind the rounded back of the old mountain chain.
It was beautiful country. She’d grown up here—her parents were only a hundred miles away from where Gabe had built the inn.
Alice rolled down the window and let the cool air hit her cheek, slide into the open neck of her blouse. She was tired, hungry but, she was honest enough to admit it… excited. Excited about filling the back of her car with herbs and organic potatoes and radishes. Excited about waking up early tomorrow, putting on a pot of coffee and getting to work.
Excited about organic dairy suppliers, mint pesto, incoming guests…all of it. She was excited about life again. She’d lived in such a small dark place for so long, constantly trying to fill up the emptiness in herself with empty things—work she didn’t care about, wine that didn’t help her forget. But this opportunity…she felt flushed with ideas.
She cranked the wheel left, nearly missing the turnoff to the farm. Another quarter mile and she was in front of a lovely white and yellow farmhouse. Dogs ran out from bushes to greet her and she felt, inexplicably, that Athens Organics was going to be a perfect match for her kitchen.
“Hi.”
Alice turned to find a young blond girl standing at her window. She was about five.
For one second, one naked and vulnerable moment, Alice couldn’t breathe.
Alice didn’t even have to do the math or work hard to recall the expected due date of her first pregnancy. The information was imprinted on her bones. She knew that her own daughter, stillborn at twenty weeks would be this girl’s age.
“Hi,” she said and swallowed. “I’m Alice—”
“You’re here to see my mom,” the girl said. “She’s out in the herb field and I’m supposed to take you there.” She smiled. Her front tooth was missing, and something purple and sticky was stuck to the side of her face.
“Your mom is Daphne?” Alice asked needlessly, knowing the answer already because fate was just that vindictive.
“Yep.” The girl nodded, blond pigtails flapping with her zeal. “I’m Helen.”
Alice climbed out of her car on legs that felt weak around the knees. She was used to seeing children, little girls or boys who were the age of her two babies who never made it would be. She was used to talking with them, trying not stare at them too long or touch them at all. And she was quick to leave their company.
She just wasn’t used to meeting the children of women Gabe planned to date.
No wonder, she thought cruelly, as those parts of her that had begun to feel full—her joy, excitement and thrill—emptied again in her unrelenting grief. No wonder he’s ready to date the farmer.
Two hours later, won over by Daphne’s farm and exhausted by trying to ignore Helen, Alice parked in the area behind the kitchen that was still covered in grass. She leaped out of the car, leaving the herbs and sample produce in the back. She’d return for it after she got dinner made.
It was late already, seven-thirty, so she quickly took stock of what the men had been living on.
Bacon, eggs, pasta. Cream for Patrick’s coffee. Two wizened apples, an inexplicable lime and two industrial-size cans of coffee.
All signs pointed to pasta cabonara. With nothing green in sight. The produce in the back of her car was earmarked for the work in the morning. Besides, vegetable-free was the way the Mitchell men liked their dinners.
She pulled down the new pans, turned the dials on the gas stove, and soon, the smell of bacon and garlic sautéing in olive oil had attracted the men like bees to a picnic.
Gabe came in first, standing in the doorway watching her until her hands felt clumsy, her whole body flushed with awareness.
“Thank God,” Max said as he came in, grabbed a beer and headed into the dining room.
“You are a blessing, a real blessing,” Patrick said, kissing her cheek and actually succeeding in making Alice blush. “I’ll set out the plates.” He grabbed the classic white dishes Gabe had picked out.
Soon, it was just the smell of bacon, her, Gabe at the door and the heat of blood in her face that would not go away.
She wondered if he knew that Daphne had a daughter. If he’d done the math and realized that the little girl was the same age theirs would have been.
She doubted it. Not that he knew about the girl, that she was sure of—of course he’d date women who’d proved their love of family, their ability to create one—he just wouldn’t have done the math.
“Go sit down,” she finally said when she couldn’t tolerate his observation anymore. “I’ll bring it out.”
“About tomorrow morning—”
“I’ve already gone,” she interrupted. “We met this afternoon. She’ll be a fantastic supplier and she gave me great sources for organic meats and dairy.”
She’s a wonderful mother with a funny great kid, I imagine you’ll share a long and happy life with a million children running around.
I need a drink.
“You’ve jumped in with both feet.” Gabe smiled. “It’s still your first day.”
She shrugged. “You hired me to work.”
He stepped past her and she could feel him at her back though there was at least five feet between them. “It’s good to have you here,” he said, his voice that warm dark purr that turned her insides soft. “Max actually laughed like he meant it. Dad nearly fell out of his chair.”
She dumped the dried pasta into the boiling water and didn’t say anything for fear of saying too much. She put butter in the frying pan, studiously not looking at Gabe, pretending to be casual when it felt as if her head would explode.
Still he didn’t leave, he stood at the door like a sentinel.
“Are you going to eat with us?” he asked.
She shook her head, there was only so far a woman could go in a day and she’d hit her limit. “Lots of work to do,” she lied.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, knowing her so well she nearly dropped the cream container right into the sauce.
And finally, just as she thought she might scream from the tension, he left.
6
It was late and the demons riding her wouldn’t back down. In fact, as Alice tried to deep breathe through her cravings, think of all the things she had in her life that she could screw up by drinking, the demons bit harder into her spine, eating at it until she had no defense against her need.
Her grandmother’s recipes had been sorted and resorted; the ones that fit her idea of inn fare had been culled. The dinner dish she’d brought to the cabin from the kitchen was clean and upside down in her small shower.
She’d paced. She’d made lists and notes. She’d called Charlie on her cell phone to check on Felix.
Ten o’clock and it was just her and the demons.
Gabe won’t like it. You might lose this job. You might have to go back to the city and find some other job you can’t stand. You have an early morning. Lots of work to do.
She watched the moon rise from the small window in her bathroom, cupped her shaking hands under the silver light, let it bathe her face like clean cold water.
There is nothing I want, there is nothing—
“Just something to get me to sleep,” she finally whispered to no one, her spine gone, her will devoured by demons.
She stepped out into the cool air of spring in the Catskills, zipped up her maroon fleece and went looking for Max and Patrick, who, she was betting her sanity, would have a bottle somewhere.
The lodge glowed, the windows of the dining room revealing mellow light and a fire in the fireplace. It looked warm, welcoming, a beautiful beacon in the night.
But it was all wasted on her.
Drink. Drink. Drink.
She pulled open the heavy oak doors, leaning with all her weight just so she could slide in and catch the tail end of Patrick’s laughter as it reverberated across pine and within cathedral ceilings.
“Swans?” Max snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The three of them sat around the fire on brass-studded burgundy leather couches. Patrick and Gabe held tumblers filled with a promising amber liquid. Max had a beer.
“Hi,” she said, her eyes on the bottle of Jim Beam on the coffee table next to their feet. The three of them turned to find her in the shadows, each registering varying degrees of pleasure at seeing her.
She concentrated on Patrick and the bottle, though she could feel Gabe there, at the edge of the light, touched by shadows.
“Well, if it isn’t our chef.” Patrick’s big voice boomed. “Come sit. Have a drink.”
He pulled himself out of his deep seat and walked over to the wooden bar in the corner to grab her a glass.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
Her hungry eyes followed him until she felt the burning touch of Gabe’s gaze on her face.
She turned, met those eyes and saw what she knew would be there. A question. Worry. For him. For her. A profound wish that she wouldn’t drink what Patrick poured for her.
She almost laughed.
Patrick poured her a splash of whiskey and gestured to the empty seat beside Max, who toasted her with his beer.
“Good dinner tonight,” he said. “Best thing I’ve eaten in months.”
“You’re in sad shape if that’s the case,” she said, forcing herself not to gulp down her drink.
She took a sip, sighed and stretched out her legs, imitating someone having a casual drink, enjoying the moment rather than counting the seconds between sips.
“So?” she said, looking around at the silent, masculine faces. “Are we having a staff meeting? Should Max go get Cameron?”
“Nope, just trying to work out the details for the wedding,” Gabe said.
Max, beside her, chuckled before taking another swig of beer.
“Must be good,” she said.
“I don’t know if you could say good,” Gabe cringed. The firelight hit his face, highlighting those things about his features that she’d always loved. His slightly too big nose which was balanced by his hard jawline and his ridiculously long eyelashes, a beautiful surprise on such a masculine face. The small scar on his right cheek from an evening of oysters and too much wine, when he’d gotten overzealous with the oyster knife.
He turned to her, no doubt sensing her blatant staring, and she buried her face in her tumbler.
“I believe we have a…what’s the word?” Patrick asked Gabe.
“Bridezilla,” he supplied.
“Right. I believe we have one of those on our hands.”
“She wants pink swans,” Max interjected. “We have an idiot on our hands.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,’ she sputtered, looking to Gabe and Patrick who could only nod and drown their sorrows. “Swans don’t come in pink.”
“She read that a Saudi Arabian prince had pink swans at his wedding,” Gabe said.
“Where do you find them?” she asked. “I mean, if she’s ready to pay for—”
“You don’t find them,” Max said, crossing his boots on the table. “You make them.”
Patrick leaned over and added more whiskey to his glass. She fought the urge to gulp down the rest of hers and shove her tumbler out for a refill. “You have to dip swans in red dye,” he said.
“By hand.” Max shook his head. “And guess who’s job that would be.” He jabbed his thumb at his own chest. “Mine.”
She reveled in the warmth of the fire, the drink, the masculine camaraderie. She liked men. And, she really liked these men, Gabe occasionally included.
“Poor Max,” she said and patted her former brother-in-law’s shoulders.
“We’re not doing it,” Gabe said, rolling his head as if his neck was stiff. “It can’t be good for the swans and I’m not endangering wildlife for the Fish-Stick Princess.”
“Maybe you could talk to her,” Patrick said, gesturing to her with his tumbler.
“Me?” Alice asked. “Why?”
“Talk reason to her, woman-to-woman.” Patrick nodded as if he was on to something. “Your wedding was the loveliest thing I ever saw and so—”
“She’s handling the kitchen, Dad,” Gabe cut in, but it was too late. It was as if the memory of that flawless September day had plunked itself down on the table amongst them. Her mother’s wedding dress. Her father’s tears as he handed her to Gabe. Gabe’s vows that he’d written himself. Max’s speech that had them all laughing so hard they cried.
The kiss in front of all their friends and family that had felt like a promise. The small bulge of her belly where a new life kicked. A new start. The beginning of all things good and right and wonderful in her life.
She drained her glass and held it out for more.
Patrick dutifully refilled it. “Now,” he said, “my wedding to your mother, that was a day for the books.”
The room went still. Silent. Like a cathedral or, more appropriately, a tomb.
Gabe turned to stare at his father, his face hard and uncompromising. Carved from ice.
Alice held her breath to see how this particular bomb would detonate. No one ever mentioned Iris. Ever. The few times Alice had tried she’d been shut down so hard and so fast that she slept on the couch to prevent getting frostbite by sleeping next to Gabe.
She’d thought curiosity or concern for these men, alone for too long, had been frozen out of her by her marriage to Gabe. But sitting here now, the familiar refrain billowed in her like white smoke from a wet fire.
Poor guys.
“I’m going to get some work done,” Gabe said. He stood, rubbing his free hand over his face and through his hair.
> He looked tired. Worn. And she knew he took great pains to never look that way. Keeping the facade in place was paramount to Gabe.
“Maybe you should take a break,” she said before she thought better of her concern. “Just relax. You won’t do your inn any good if you get sick.”
“The girl’s got an idea,” Patrick said and took a sip.
“You worry about you,” Gabe said, throwing her words back in her face. “I’ll worry about my inn.”
She held up her hands, somehow knowing it would come to this, any effort to reach out on her part would be snubbed.
Gabe stared hard at his father for a minute, which Patrick pretended to ignore, and then he walked away, disappearing into the shadows outside the cheerful light of the fire.
Max snorted into the silence.
“What’s wrong?” Alice asked, the temperature in the room still arctic despite the blaze in the oversize fireplace.
“Dad can’t leave well enough alone,” Max said, and then he stood up and left. Disappearing in the opposite direction from where Gabe had vanished.
Alice finally turned to Patrick, who sat with his head resting on the curved back of the sofa, his hand over the breast pocket of his shirt.
“What’s going on here?” Alice asked.
She poured herself more whiskey, since the first two fingerfuls only made the demons silent, it didn’t put them away. They were there, breathing and waiting.
“Nothing new.”
Alice waited for some elaboration, but of course, true to Mitchell form, none came.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
He rolled his head sideways, his merry eyes were subdued, dark. “It’s about their mother,” he finally said.
Alice blinked and leaned back, stunned to her core. “The root?” she asked, using her pet name for Gabe’s absentee mother.
“The root?”
“The root of all evil,” she said. “The root of all Gabe’s intimacy issues, his blind need for a family, his fear of—”
Patrick didn’t even say good-night, he just stood, poured another inch of whiskey in his glass and walked into the shadows.
Wedding At the Riverview Inn Page 6
