Home to the Riverview Inn

by Molly O'Keefe

And it made him very nervous. Mom was walking toward a freight train of pain and he needed to pull her out of the way.

  “If I don’t stay, if I say no, will you go back home?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Will you come to New York for a visit?” he asked.

  And his mom, who knew him so well, shook her head again. “I want to get to know these men,” she said. “I’ll stay for a while.”

  There was a buzzing in the back of his head, a sense of impending doom.

  “Mom,” he whispered, wishing so badly she didn’t feel anything for Patrick.

  “I know,” she said, holding up her hand. “But I wouldn’t change it if I could.”

  He would, he thought. He’d change everything about the damn situation if he could.

  Well, crap. He was going to have to stay. Maybe he could derail the freight train.

  Daphne’s green eyes were there in his head and he slid his sunglasses back on. Perhaps he would be seeing her again.

  “I’m at the Athens Motel tonight,” he said. “I’ll check into the Riverview tomorrow morning.” He saw her relax. Melt a little, as though whatever pins had been keeping her shoulders up around her ears, whatever stress was making her lips tense, her fingers clench slowly faded away.

  He kissed her lightly on the forehead.

  Love, he thought, was just a disaster waiting to happen.

  Daphne toed off her mucky galoshes and stepped into her kitchen in her bare feet. The rainy spring had done wonders for her asparagus and between that and her trouble finding reliable delivery guys, her mornings were insane. She woke up at dawn and ran a marathon by 8:00 a.m. Luckily her mother, Gloria, had been coming over in the mornings to help Helen get ready for school.

  “Hi, Helen,” Daphne said, tugging her daughter’s long ponytail and taking in her ensemble. Helen’s fashion sense this morning involved the top of a genie costume that she’d worn in a school musical two years ago. It was pink, sparkly and showed about an inch of her little girl’s belly.

  Damn hormones in meat and milk or whatever was making little girls grow up way too fast these days.

  “You’re not wearing that to school,” she said, point-blank.

  “Mom.” Helen groaned.

  “Sorry, kiddo. Go on up and change.”

  Helen cast one more pleading gaze at her grandmother, who only laughed. “I told you, you wouldn’t get away with it,” Gloria said. Helen flounced up the stairs, the spangles on her shirt twitching and twirling.

  “I swear she’s seven going on seventeen.” Daphne sighed, taking the mug of coffee her mother slid across the counter at her.

  “It’s not much different than when you were a kid,” Gloria said, arching one dark eyebrow. Daphne did not take after her petite, dark-haired Italian mother, despite how much she wished she had. Instead, she was the spitting image of her lying, cheating, Swedish father. Blond hair, broad shoulders and a fierce temper. She was a genetic delight. “The clothes are just smaller.”

  Daphne smiled and tried to drink as much caffeine as she was capable in the few minutes she had before driving Helen to school. Mornings were still chilly these days and she warmed her palms around the Del Monte seed mug.

  “She asked for two sandwiches in her lunch again today,” Gloria said and Daphne frowned.

  “Didn’t she have breakfast?” she asked. Helen’s appetite usually hovered around birdlike, except for the occasional growth spurts in which case her appetite approached don’t-get-in-my-way territory.

  Gloria nodded. “She ate all her yogurt. But that’s every day this week she’s asked for an extra something.”

  Strange. Daphne checked her watch. She’d have to ask Helen about it on the road.

  “Helen is also turning into a gossip columnist,” Gloria said, wiping off the last of the breakfast dishes and setting them back in the oak cabinet.

  Daphne nearly choked on her coffee. “I wonder where she gets it?” She cast a look at her mother who, as the resident gossip queen, had given up amateur status and gone pro a few years ago. Gloria took “news” very seriously.

  “Very funny. But she’s all wound up over what’s happening down at the Riverview. Thanks to her friend Josie, she’s an expert on Patrick’s youngest.”

  “Jonah,” Daphne said, trying to hide behind her coffee cup, so her mother wouldn’t pick up the blushes she couldn’t control. Mom was like a drug-sniffing dog when it came to those sorts of things. She could take a wayward glance or a blush and turn it into a torrid love affair in less time than it took Helen to change her clothes.

  “Sounds like quite a guy.” Gloria pretended to be nonchalant but “why don’t you marry him and give me more grandbabies” was written all over her. She did this whenever a young man got within dating distance.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Daphne hedged. Utterly inappropriate or a low-down scumbag were a couple of others. She checked her watch. “Helen! Let’s go, slowpoke!” she shouted, wanting to flee the kitchen before her mother started into her biannual monologue about men, ticking clocks and loneliness.

  A real laugh riot, that monologue.

  “Sweetheart?” Gloria said. Daphne groaned and just laid her head on the counter, like a woman at the guillotine. “Would it kill you to date?”

  “Yes,” she said into the yellow Formica. “It would kill me.”

  “I’m being serious,” Gloria insisted, pulling Daphne up by the back of her shirt. “This Jonah fellow is a young man, single, apparently attractive—”

  “And leaving, Mom. He’s not sticking around. He’s probably already gone. Which wouldn’t matter because he’s the last person in the world I would date.”

  “Apparently every man within a thirty-mile radius shares that status.”

  “Mom—”

  “You didn’t even fight for Gabe Mitchell!”

  Daphne rolled her eyes. Her mother could not let go of the brief relationship she had with Gabe. “There was nothing to fight for, Mom. The man was in love with his ex-wife. What was I supposed to do?”

  Gloria’s face became a mix of pity and pleading and Daphne hated it. “You’re too young to spend your life covered in mud. You used to be so carefree and spontaneous. You used to be fun.”

  “I’m still fun, ask Helen.”

  “Grown-up fun. Sex fun.”

  Daphne groaned and held up her hand. “I am too busy to date. I am too busy for—” she dropped her voice, uncomfortable even saying the word “—sex fun. I am raising Helen and trying to expand my business—”

  “Excuses,” Gloria interrupted, her eyes flashing, her short brown hair practically bristling. Gloria had finally found love again with a high school English teacher who lived twenty miles away. They dated, went to movies, traveled. They weren’t married, didn’t live together and the relationship was, for Gloria, perfect.

  And that perfection gave her a license to harangue Daphne on the subject of second chances on a regular basis. “You’re too scared to even try.”

  A charged stillness filled Daphne, like the air before a lightning strike. Her mother was right. She was scared. Scared of being hurt. Of being rejected. Of being left behind all over again.

  “You are so beautiful and strong. Any man would be lucky to have you.” Her mother’s soft voice was tempting, but reality was reality and that’s where Daphne parked her butt these days.

  “You’re my mother, you are supposed to say that.” Daphne brushed crumbs from the counter into her hands, looking anywhere but at her mother. “But my track record speaks for itself.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means—” she swallowed, the words wedged behind her pride and reluctant to come out “—men don’t want me. Not permanently.” She dumped the crumbs in the garbage by the sink, wishing she could do the same with this conversation.

  “Oh my God!” Gloria cried, spinning Daphne around. “How can you say that?”

  “Well, for one, Dad—”
r />   “Your father wasn’t cut out to be a father. His leaving had nothing to do with you.”

  “I was seven, Mom. I went to bed and had a father but when I woke up he was gone. Trust me, that feels pretty personal. And Jake pretty much confirms it.”

  Gloria sighed. “Well, you barely gave Jake a chance to be a father. Or a husband.”

  “Jake wanted to leave,” Daphne insisted. “You think I pushed him out the door, but trust me, he doesn’t see it that way. I gave Jake his freedom.”

  They heard Helen’s footsteps upstairs, a signal to stop before she heard them.

  “Not every man leaves,” Gloria said.

  “You’re right,” Daphne agreed. “Just the ones I love.”

  Helen tromped in wearing a far more appropriate red T-shirt with a big yellow flower on the front, looking like the quirky funny seven-year-old she was. “Mom, everybody in school wears shirts like that,” she said, grabbing her bulging book bag and brown bag lunch.

  “Everyone but you, Helen,” Daphne said sweetly, ushering her out the door toward the truck. “Everyone but you.”

  They drove down the driveway toward the road into town and Daphne unrolled her window, the morning finally warming up. The breeze, warm and smelling like pine and manure from Sven’s farm, curled through the cab.

  The For Sale sign was still posted and she hadn’t heard a word about her offer. She stuck her tongue out at the ramshackle old house as they drove by just to make herself feel better.

  “Hey, Mom, guess what I heard?” Helen asked, turning bright eyes to Daphne. Her still chubby cheeks were pink and the wind teased hair loose from her braid to whip it around her face. Daphne smiled, loving her daughter so much sometimes it was like a physical pain. Budding gossip columnist or no.

  “What did you hear?” she asked like a woman on the edge of her seat. She shouldn’t encourage this or Helen would turn out worse than Mom, but she was too darn cute not to.

  “Josie said Jonah moved into the inn and Josie was trying to spy on him but her mom caught her and made her do dishes with Chef Tim.”

  “Jonah moved into the inn?” Now Daphne really was on the edge of her seat.

  “That’s what Josie said yesterday on the playground.”

  “When did he move in?”

  “Yesterday morning. Josie said she watched him unpack his bags and talk on the phone. She said he talks on the phone a lot.”

  “How long is he staying?” Daphne asked and wished she didn’t care. “I don’t know,” Helen said. “I’ll ask Josie.”

  Daphne told herself that she was just curious about a man so utterly different from her. Still, she had to bite back a long list of questions she had about the man.

  When is he leaving?

  Why is he such a jerk?

  Why does he look so good in blue jeans?

  “You want me to ask if he’s married?” Helen asked and Daphne nearly drove off the side of the road.

  “What? Why?”

  “So, you can date. Josie said he’s really cute.” Helen waggled her eyebrows, something Daphne did as a joke and it was about a million times funnier on her seven-year-old daughter.

  “Have you been talking to Grandma?” Daphne demanded.

  “No,” Helen said. “I told you I was talking to Josie and she can totally find out if he’s married.”

  “Even if he was single, I’m not going to be dating him,” Daphne told her daughter in all seriousness, hoping to end this conversation.

  Helen harrumphed and looked out the window, pulling blond hair out of her eyes. Daphne had known that the little cocoon of Athens Organics, the country she’d created of Daphne and Helen, wouldn’t last forever. Helen was bound to get interested in things outside of the farm and her mother, but Daphne had never really suspected it would be her love life.

  “Is it because Daddy’s back?” Helen asked. “Is that why you don’t date anyone?”

  Oh God, Daphne had feared this would happen when Jake came back around. She’d suspected Helen would get her hopes up and start thinking that they’d be a family again. The divorce wasn’t so hard the first time around—Helen had been so young. But this time, when Jake left—and he would, he was a leaver—his absence would ruin a seven-year-old’s high hopes and fantasies.

  “Honey, Dad and I aren’t getting back together,” Daphne said clearly. She decided to slow down, deliveries be damned, and pull over to the side of the road so she and Helen could really talk. “We’re just friends and we’re going to all these parties to help him with his new job.” She put the truck in Park and let it idle.

  “I know,” Helen said, and Daphne wondered if she was just saying what Daphne wanted to hear. “But it would be nice if we were all friends. And I think Daddy loves you.”

  “No, honey, he doesn’t.” She stroked her daughter’s cornsilk hair. He never really had. Not the real her. And certainly not enough to make it work. “But he loves you like crazy,” she said, smiling and tugging on Helen’s ponytail. Soon Helen would want to cut off that long hair, wear something cooler than a long braid like her mommy. Daphne dreaded the day.

  Helen smiled, some of the seriousness leeching from her face, only to be replaced by the quicksilver joy of a seven-year-old. “He’s taking me to the drive-in tonight. A double feature.”

  Daphne steered the truck back onto the road. It was Friday and Jake’s night with Helen. She’d convinced herself at some point in the past eight months that this one night a week Jake had with his daughter was a blessing for all of them. He got to know his daughter. Helen got to know her father in a very small way. A small, very regulated way that would hopefully keep her protected when he reverted to his leaving ways. And during those few hours Daphne got some work done.

  On Friday nights.

  When the rest of the world was dating or watching movies as families or fighting or making love or putting their children to bed. She was walking asparagus fields.

  It didn’t feel like a blessing.

  It felt lonely.

  She dropped Helen off at school, glad her little girl wasn’t too old or too concerned about being cool to forgo the kiss goodbye.

  And only when she was halfway to her first delivery did she realize she never asked why Helen needed extra food in her lunch.

  4

  The Riverview Inn had wireless Internet, Jonah could get a cell phone signal, his mother had been bringing him coffee and food. So despite having been forced to stay, he was doing a very good job of not leaving his cabin.

  Jonah had been at the inn for exactly twenty-nine hours and he’d managed to avoid seeing anyone but his mother. It helped that he was busy. At least it gave him an excuse for his mother when she tried to persuade him to join her for a walk.

  “We passed the second soil testing with flying colors,” Gary told him. “We’ve got the green light to keep building.”

  “Excellent news,” Jonah said, though he had not expected anything less. “We’re ahead of schedule. I’ll contact Herb and we’ll get crews in there next week.”

  “Okay, but do you want to do anything with the newspapers?”

  “Send the press release like you always do,” he said, jotting “call Herb” on the pad at his elbow.

  “But those press releases don’t go anywhere. We never follow up and maybe with this bad press we’ve been getting—”

  “No explanations, Gary.”

  “I’m not saying we explain. I’m saying we clear the air. We tell the world what we’re doing and maybe get some wheels greased for Haven House.”

  “The world isn’t going to help us with Haven House.”

  “Donations would help and a little good press would make me sleep easier.”

  “We don’t need good press, so why pander?”

  “You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met, Jonah. I’m your partner. And I’m telling you—I’m actually saying it loud and clear so you understand—you’re making a mistake. We need to talk to the papers. I know at l
east four journalists who would love to interview us.”

  Ouch. He and Gary didn’t often disagree but when they did, it had been proven time and time again that Gary was right.

  Jonah liked to pretend that wasn’t the case, but facts didn’t lie.

  “Fine. They can interview you.”

  “I’m not the Dirty Developer,” Gary said. “I’m the Dirty Developer’s associate.”

  Jonah knew it was practically a done deal before he even agreed. Gary was tricky that way. Tricky and smart. “Fine. Get in touch with them and e-mail me the details.”

  Jonah glanced at the window and saw the little girl duck again, just out of sight. The bushes rustled and he heard her whispering to someone or into a tape recorder. The redhead—Jonah would guess she was about ten—had been out there for most of the day, spying on him. The spy had astounding stamina and determination. He’d only been working and even he was beginning to find that dull.

  He smiled, remembering doing a similar thing to Sheila after finding out she was a full-blooded Hopi Indian. He’d followed her hoping to see something interesting. But she only grocery shopped and walked her dog. The disappointment had been sharp so he decided to give young Mata Hari a thrill.

  “Gary,” he said, watching the window from the corner of his eye. “Listen carefully. We’re going to put the bodies—”

  “Bodies?”

  “Right. The dead bodies. The dead bodies we killed.” He winced at his redundancy but the bushes were unnaturally silent. “We’re going to put them in the river.”

  Something fell outside his window. A bush rustled and the little girl yelped.

  “No mistakes,” Jonah said, smiling, straining to try to see the girl. “Or I’ll kill you, too.”

  “Jonah, you should come back to the city,” Gary said. “All that clear air is making you crazy.”

  Jonah heard the little girl talking to someone then heard the deep rumble of Patrick’s voice and his smile vanished. “Send me that e-mail,” Jonah said, distracted by the sound of Patrick and the girl walking up the sidewalk outside his cottage.

  Great. Visitors.

  “Got it,” Gary answered and hung up as a knock sounded at the door.