“Gracie girl,” the man said, his gaze still trained on Abby. “Yeah, you’re a goofball.You get it from your dad.” He was speaking to his daughter—gentle, teasing, self-deprecating sense of humor. One of the ideal-guy qualities Abby had once written on a wine-fueled, Celeste-encouraged list.
Top of the page.
Abby dropped her gaze. Her heart pounded in her belly, hollow and echoing. She window-shopped the contents of the pastry case she could recite in her sleep, ran a fingertip along the heat of the lighted glass. Apricot-glazed fruit tarts, caramel-topped cheesecake cups, and powdered sugar-dusted cannoli watered her mouth. But when she swallowed, maple syrup flavored her tongue.
The man chuckled. “Okay, all right already. See you tomorrow.” He lowered his voice. “Love you, too.”
An image of Luke rose up and crashed over her like a rogue wave and squeezed the air from her lungs. Over the past four months she’d discovered the course of grief was unpredictable, random, and completely unfair. One minute she could be chatting with a guest over a plate of Belgian waffles and discussing the difference between organic and free-range eggs; the next she’d have to casually excuse herself, feigning the need to check on something, anything, in the kitchen.
If only she had a Skype connection to her son.
“That was embarrassing,” the man said.
A buzz of warning trickled up the back of her head, as though the stranger had seen inside her and called out her pain.
Abby slipped on her innkeeper face, stepped forward. She squared her shoulders and offered her hand. “Abby Stone,” she said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
The man stood, all six foot something of him, and took her hand in his. Grip firm, but not crushing. Grin genuine and glad to meet her. His bright blue eyes shot her full of light and made her throat ache.
The first time in months she’d felt alive.
“Rob Campbell,” he said. “I didn’t realize anyone was hanging in the eaves.”
She laughed, and his light pulsed through her chest.
“Care to sit down? My imaginary friend went home.”
“Oh, uh, I was just waiting for Celeste,” she said, gesturing toward the kitchen. Which must’ve sounded insane.
“Celeste’s in back making coffee for me. My usual evening cup of decaf.”
Usual evening decaf? As opposed to his regular morning cup of caffeinated brew? The name Campbell sounded familiar, but she didn’t think Celeste had mentioned him before.
Abby’s gaze wandered to Rob’s laptop, open to a series of three-dimensional technical drawings.
“I’m working on a labyrinth for the elementary school,” he said, and the technical drawings clarified into the mazelike pathways she’d navigated with her desk toy. Until a few days ago, she hadn’t paid much attention to labyrinths. Now, they were popping up everywhere. “Celeste got me the gig.”
In Celeste’s spare time, she was president of the elementary school PTO; it proved the saying, if you want to get something done, give it to the busy person. Had Celeste mentioned a labyrinth project for the school? Abby hated to think Celeste had shared this with her and she hadn’t paid attention.
Worse, she hated to think Celeste had deemed her so overwrought she hadn’t bothered to share in the first place.
Abby’s desk labyrinth had attracted her with images on the box of full-scale versions of a formal park in Barcelona, and the casual grounds of Kripalu, a yoga and health center in Lenox, Massachusetts. But she hadn’t considered an in-between version, small enough to fit into the limited acreage of the Hidden Harbor Elementary schoolyard.
Or the backyard of Briar Rose.
“You a fan of labyrinths?”
“You know what? I think I am. I own a bed-and-breakfast, Briar Rose, and I’d like to put a labyrinth in the backyard,” she said, deciding right there and then. The idea of a grand project that required envisioning and planning simultaneously filled her empty spaces and lightened her. Free time was her enemy. Not that she had much of that.
“What kind of scale are we talking about?” Rob pulled a chair out for her, and Abby lowered herself to the seat. He angled his laptop in her direction, and sat down beside her, close enough for her to inhale the just-showered clean menthol smell of his skin. Close enough for her to notice a tiny star-shaped scar beside his right eye and imagine pressing her lips against its raised surface. “This here is a simple three-circuit design I’m working on for the school. They’ve about an eighth of an acre to work with, give or take. How much open land do you have to play with?”
Abby pictured her perennials, Luke’s stepping-stones, and the flat green expanse that dropped into the ocean. Maples and pines covered the rest of her property. “About a quarter acre,” she said. “Give or take.”
Rob rubbed a finger against the center of his chin. “You could easily fit seven circuits. What kind of materials are you interested in? A grassy path with plantings? A stone walkway? Any sort of theme?” His passion for his work drew her closer.
Abby shook her head, grinned. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“The elementary school’s labyrinth is also a butterfly garden,” Rob added.
Butterfly garden, thank goodness. That project Celeste had mentioned.
Celeste came out from the back, carrying a stainless-steel coffee dispenser. She wore a blue cupcake-covered apron and matching handkerchief. Her son and daughter trailed behind her. Four-year-old Phoebe, wearing a miniature version of her mother’s apron, shot across the café. Abby grinned, eager to catch her wild-haired goddaughter in her arms. But then the tiny firecracker leaped onto Rob’s lap and landed with a thud that sent a flutter to Abby’s throat.
Ever since Luke had died, Celeste had worried spending time with her seven-year-old son, Elijah, would be too hard on Abby. But sometimes what you’d never have hurt more than what you’d lost.
Celeste nodded at Abby and Rob, and her gaze narrowed. A flicker of a smirk, and Celeste turned to place the carafe on the counter. Elijah stocked the coffee lid dispenser, reminding Abby of how Luke used to love helping her set up for breakfast buffet.
The always-cautious Elijah waited for Abby to wave to him before he came over to Abby and gave her a slender-armed hug. Celeste often wondered aloud whether she’d given birth to a little old man, but in some ways her dark-haired son was more like her than her daughter. He noticed everything. Abby hugged Elijah back, breathed in his damp-necked little-boy scent. Remembering hurt, but forgetting was even worse.
Rob bounced Phoebe on his knee. She clutched his shirt and squealed with laughter.
Good with kids. Another fine quality on Abby’s ideal-guy list.
Celeste wiped her hands on her apron, poured and capped a large decaf, and delivered the coffee to Rob. “I see you’ve met my new old neighbor,” she said to Abby.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m not that old.” He aimed a teasing smile at Celeste, and Celeste returned the favor.
A pang ran through Abby, as if she were some teenage girl who’d laid claim. As if she and Celeste were in a competition for Rob’s attention. Irrational, since Celeste was happily married and her business-friendly banter shouldn’t bother Abby.
These days, Celeste and Charlie were competing for Abby’s attention.
“Rob liked his office upstairs so much he decided to move in full time,” Celeste said.
“Can’t beat blueberry muffins every morning for breakfast. Thanks to Celeste, I think I’ve gained ten pounds.” Rob patted his belly, conspicuously flat beneath his fitted T-shirt. Phoebe slid from his lap, and Celeste lifted her onto her hip.
“You live upstairs?” Abby said. “Is that even legal? It’s zoned commercial.” Really, she’d no idea, but Rob inspired teasing. “I could turn you in. I could have you arrested.” She could enact a citizen’s arrest and frisk him herself.
Celeste was right. Going without sex made you think crazy thoughts. But after the last time Abby had allowed a man in her
bedroom, she’d vowed to padlock the door.
“Why do you think Celeste’s getting a deal with the PTO project?” Rob asked.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Celeste said, a phrase she’d used many times in reference to Charlie, and Abby tensed. “He donated the time and gave us a deal on materials before he moved in.”
“I work for muffins.”
“Oh! Muffins! Almost forgot.” Abby shook her empty straw tote and turned to Rob. “Excuse us for a moment?”
“Sure thing.”
When Celeste started across the room, Phoebe wriggled from her arms and ran behind the counter. Elijah gave Abby’s arm a pat, sighed, and followed after his little sister. Celeste was right. Seven going on seventy.
Abby set her tote on the counter’s worn butcher block, and Celeste dashed behind the glass bakery case. “Hannah told me last night you’d be coming by for her,” Celeste said.
“She hadn’t even asked me yet!” A mere two hours ago, Hannah had leaned against the doorjamb to Abby’s office, sighing with anticipation for her date and their plans to listen to the blues at the Chocolate Church in Bath. Abby doubted the girl knew the difference between blues and jazz, or cared to learn, for that matter. At nineteen, a date was all about the boy.
At any age.
“Hannah knows you’re a softie. Besides, how can you deny her one true love?” Celeste wove her fingers together and pumped them back and forth, heart beating out of her chest.
“You mean her boyfriend of the week?” Abby said.
“Same difference.” Hands inside the bakery case, Celeste scooped muffins into two brown boxes and then secured them with pink-and-white twine. Elijah fit his hands over Phoebe’s and helped her cut the twine with the heavy-duty scissors.
“Why, thank you,” Abby said, and dropped the boxes into her tote.
Celeste leaned across the counter, lowered her voice to girlfriend-personal. “Talk to Charlie last night?”
Abby’s shoulders ached, as though Celeste and Charlie were engaged in a tug-of-war and she were the rope.
What was so wrong with Charlie calling to check in? Their son had died. Abby both looked forward to and dreaded the day when the hard truth of their loss ceased to color their every breath. Sometimes she and Celeste had to agree to disagree, but arguing with Celeste drained her. “You’re not the boss of me, sistah.”
“You’re right. I’m not the boss of you. Charlie is.”
Abby blew out through her lips. “Now, I know you don’t mean that.” Abby held Celeste’s gaze. In the periphery, Elijah handed Phoebe a picture book, and then sat down beside her with the hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Abby had given him on his birthday.
Celeste blinked first. “I’ll call you later,” she said, and kneeled to straighten a line of perfectly straight rum balls. As much as Abby hated being at an impasse with Celeste, Celeste hated it even more.
Abby nodded and went over to Rob. “Very nice to meet you.”
“Same here,” he said.
Abby headed for the door.
“Abby,” Rob said, and she liked the way her name sounded sweet and sure coming from his lips, as though he’d known her forever. “If you need an architect for that labyrinth project . . .”
Her landscaping skills were amateurish at best. But as far as hiring a professional, did she really have the funds? What with Luke’s—
She was no longer helping her son pay for tuition, room, and board. No college, no future, no Luke.
Her baby was gone.
Her eyes misted, and she drew her mouth into a grin to ward off the railing in her head. Unpredictable, random, and completely unfair.
“Do you have a card?”
Rob dug a business card from his laptop case and held it out to her. She read the inscription’s crisp lettering: CAMPBELL LANDSCAPE DESIGN. Nothing flowery. Direct and to the point.
“I can come by to take a look at the site you have in mind, get started on a plan, work up an estimate.”
Abby nodded, hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremble to her bottom lip. “When?” she said, thinking of her office computer and the calendar she lived by, her endless scheduled hours.
“Now works for me.”
“Now?” She admired Rob’s fast talking, his not wanting to lose potential business. She got that. But she couldn’t help but wonder whether the trait carried through to his personal life. Not that she minded, exactly. She flicked her gaze to his bare-of-a-band ring finger.That meant nothing. Some men worried about getting their rings caught while working with their hands. Some worried about getting caught, period.
Rob probably didn’t have a wife squirreled away above the bakery. What he more likely had was baggage, like the rest of mankind.
“I don’t want to steal you away from Celeste.”
“I believe we’re done for today,” he said loud enough for Celeste to hear.
Celeste popped up from behind a pastry case. “Oh, yeah. I’m done with you,” she said, infusing her words with a playful lilt.
Once again, that irrational pang of girlhood competition hit home.
Rob Campbell traveled light.
The walk back to Briar Rose passed more quickly than Abby’s lone walk into town, as if the half mile had shortened in her absence. A gentleman, Rob walked on the poison ivy side of the walkway. He carried a legal pad in one hand, a pencil in his back pocket. All he’d claimed he needed for an initial sketch of the labyrinth site. The laptop, he’d run up to his apartment. The coffee, he’d forgotten at Celeste’s.
“This is it,” Abby said, gazing from the backyard of Briar Rose out to the ocean.The sun set low in the sky, a pretty pink ball lowering itself into the water and forecasting another hot-for-June day.
“Wow. I wouldn’t even need to regrade.” Rob’s face glowed, as if he’d swallowed the sun. “Mind if I do a little exploring?”
Abby sat on the grass, one hand resting against Luke’s third stepping-stone, the warmth evaporating with the day. Rob set down the legal pad, paced with his long-legged stride. He whistled to himself, totally comfortable in his work, and completely off-key. Seven times he circled before her, seven circuits to a classic labyrinth, seven passes in front of Luke’s stepping-stones.
“Huh,” Rob said, and plunked himself down on the brink of her personal space, arms slung over his knees. His nearness tingled her cheeks with warmth, tightened her throat, tweaked her pulse. He picked up the legal pad and slid a pencil from his back pocket. “First up, I always ask my clients their goals for the project. So . . . Abby, what do you want from the labyrinth? What sort of experience?”
“For real?” she said, because what kind of a man asked you what you wanted and then took notes?
Rob shot her a high-cheeked grin with a twinge of mischief. “Why not?”
She shook her head, thought of her hopes for the desk toy, the sand flung on the floor, the frisson of energy trapped in her body. “Peace.” She took a breath to shore up the unexpected ache in her voice. Flip of the switch, she revised her focus, and the constriction in her throat eased. “A mind-quieting peaceful place for my guests to relax,” she said, as though she had no needs of her own. As though her grief weren’t lurking a fingernail’s scratch beneath her skin. “A feature that would enhance their stay.”
Rob touched her shoulder, waited until she looked him in the eye. “No, Abby. What do you want?”
Her vision blurred, like gazing through privacy glass. Without thinking, she reached down to the stepping-stone, slid a finger across Luke’s name.
Rob followed her gaze, read the inscription. “Luke Connors is your son?” he said, and she nodded.
“We could easily work the stepping-stones into the design. Is Luke eighteen now? My daughter, Grace, is eighteen. You know, my imaginary friend? Did Luke graduate this year? Luke Connors from Hidden Harbor. The name sounds familiar.” He tapped pencil against paper, chuckled. “I thought the name—”
“Last yea
r,” she blurted out. “Luke graduated last year.”
Abby watched the realization settle down on Rob. A crease formed between his brows. His head tilted. She read a flicker of understanding in the slight widening of his eyes, a micro-twitch of his lips, and then,just as fast, the deliberate forced return to a neutral expression. He searched her face, and heat flamed her cheeks. She wished she could disappear.
“Your son,” he said, the tone somber, the volume set at one notch above a whisper. “The boy who . . . ?”
She traced the L in Luke, down-across-back up, pressed her fingertip into the rough edge until pain shot up her hand. “Passed away.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he told her, the words you said when there was really nothing more to say. “I can’t begin to imagine.” His lips twisted, his eyes turned down at the corners. The look on his face shifted from pity to empathy, as if, in fact, he could understand the vastness of her loss.
A couple of years ago, she’d given a talk at her local B&B association about chatting with guests. No Debbie Downers, positive spin, and for heaven’s sake, lighten up. They’re on vacation. She straightened, cleared her throat, and willed her tone to strengthen. “Tell me about your daughter, Grace, your recent graduate. Is she going away to college? I believe I heard you say something about taking stuff with her . . .”
Rob gave her a sideways look, and his mouth clenched. Unsure whether he should allow her to change the subject or relieved? “Going to Plymouth State to study outdoor ed. My little girl wants to be a forest ranger.” Rob took on the same loving tone as when he’d spoken to his daughter at the bakery, and his gaze relaxed. Abby’s hand splayed against the stepping-stone. “Totally my fault,” he added.
“You sound like a proud papa gearing up for day trips to New Hampshire. White Mountain National Forest, right? Planning on bagging a few peaks?”
“You know it.”
“Moosilauke, Liberty, Franconia Ridge,” she rattled off, another innkeeper fringe benefit. If you paid attention to your guests, you learned about people and places vastly different from your world. And added to your really long bucket list.
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