My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series)

by Cynthia Lee Cartier

  I went back inside and explored the guestrooms. The doors to each one were on the walls bordering the walkway and there were two bathrooms in the south-west corner of the square.

  Hmm, ten guestrooms and two bathrooms; that could be a problem.

  One by one I entered each of the guestrooms, except room number ten. It was locked, which I was half expecting. Still, after I tried the door, I looked at George and informed him, “It’s locked.”

  “Yup.”

  Double-sized beds with antique iron or wooden head and footboards furnished each room and all were still made-up with linens and quilts.

  I sat on one of the beds and was enveloped in a cloud of dust. The mattress felt as if it was stuffed with crispy cellophane, and a crunching sound mixed with snaps and squeaks responded to the slightest shift of my weight.

  The crazy quilt that draped the bed was beautifully embellished with embroidery that decorated the seams piecing together fabric scraps of rich black, blue, red, and green. Dust was probably holding the fibers together. Unless it was treated carefully, it would likely fall to pieces when it was cleaned. Even then, it might not survive like the quilt I had found at an estate sale when Race and I were first married.

  I excitedly took my treasure home and dropped it in the washing machine. After the wash cycle finished, I lifted the lid. Inside was a ball of fabric that looked as if it had been in a cat fight. Lesson learned.

  The windows were hung with heavy roman shades that were old but looked much newer than everything else I had seen. The two bathrooms both had clawfoot tubs, high-tank toilets, pedestal sinks, and old oak washstands. The guestrooms each had brass numbered doorplates and the bathrooms had larger plates that read, BATH.

  Back in the hall, I asked, “What’s that go to?” I pointed at the door next to the kitchen stairs that didn’t have a doorplate.

  “Attic.”

  I opened the door and light streamed down the stairs from above. As I walked up, each step creaked but they were solid. It was the biggest attic I’d ever seen. The attic in my house in Texas was a shoebox compared to it.

  The five large dormer windows on both sides of the roof, and the large windows on each end let in abundant sunlight, which bathed the room with radiant warmth. The windows facing the back of the property looked out over the woods. The dormers facing the front of the property looked out over the most breathtaking view of the water I had seen since I’d been on the island.

  The large space was filled with furniture, overflowing crates, paintings, you name it. Have you ever had a dream where you find treasure? It was exactly like one of those dreams.

  “Would this all stay?” I asked, just to hear him say it, but he didn’t.

  “Yup.”

  “George, when I was walking up to the front porch today, I thought I saw someone looking out of that dormer window.” I pointed to the big one in the middle. “Was it you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  He just looked at me. I knew he’d heard me but wasn’t going to answer. I learned two more things about George Miller that day. One, if he doesn’t want to answer a question, he’ll never lie to you—he just won’t say anything, not anything at all.

  Two, he may be the most patient human being God ever created. It was like having a shadow that only spoke when spoken to and never once sighed, leaned against the wall, or complained, “Come on, lady, enough already.” No, for over two hours, George followed me around, let me take pictures, open cupboards, and walk in and out of rooms to my heart’s content.

  We left the lodge and moved on to the barn. George pulled open one of the big doors, and I was surprised to see a living thing, a horse, in one of the fenced stalls.

  “What’s its name?”

  “Collard Greens.”

  I thought there must be a good story behind that name but decided not to expend the effort, right then, to find out what that might be.

  “Girl or boy?”

  “Gelding.”

  No help to this girl. Collard Greens, I decided was a boy. Turns out I was right. I walked up to Collard Greens and set my hand on the top of his nose.

  “Hi, Collard Greens.”

  With tremendous force, the horse swung his head to the side. I stumbled back and George caught me. Collard Greens then proceeded to side step, turning in a circle until I was looking at his butt.

  “He’s not too friendly,” I said.

  “Can be.”

  Sitting skillfully on the rung of the ladder that went up to the hayloft, was a big gray cat with a big fluffy gray tail that looked suspiciously familiar.

  “What’s the cat’s name?” I asked, still shaken from my introduction to Collard Greens.

  “Cat.”

  “Yes, the cat, what’s its name?”

  “Her name’s Cat.”

  “Oh.”

  Cat then leaped from the ladder, walked underneath Collard Greens, arched her back, and hissed at me. Apparently, Collard Greens was her man. I was duly warned.

  “Would the animals stay?”

  “Yup.”

  A small buggy with one bench seat, a much larger covered carriage with four rows of benches, and a buckboard were parked behind the stalls.

  “Can Collard Greens pull those?”

  “Pulls the buggy.”

  “That one?” I pointed to the small one.

  “Yup.”

  “Not the bigger carriage or the buckboard?” I was pleased I knew what a buckboard was. I’ve watched my Westerns.

  “Called a surrey and a dray.”

  “Oh.” I stood corrected. “He can’t pull them?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re two pulls.”

  “Two pulls?”

  “Takes two horses.”

  “There was another horse?”

  “Eight, back in the day.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Died.”

  “How old is Collard Greens?”

  “Old.”

  “How old is Cat?”

  “Old.”

  “What’s under the tarp?”

  “Sleigh.”

  “Really, can I see it?”

  George shuffled over and pulled the tarp to the floor.

  I had always wanted to go on a sleigh ride. Who hasn’t? The sleigh was black with two red leather bench seats that were tufted with red leather buttons. A lantern hung from each corner, front and back. The leather looked like new. It shined as did every other part of the sleigh.

  “It looks like new.”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s been well taken care of.”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you use it?” That was one of those questions he wouldn’t be answering. Another little mystery that I was sure there was a simple explanation for. There always is.

  After the barn tour we walked through two of the cottages. They were small but had good bones. And like the lodge, both were still furnished. George lived in the third. He didn’t offer and I didn’t ask.

  To the side of the smallest of the unoccupied cottages, the one on the other side of the hill, was a sprawling patch of the largest rhubarb plants I had ever seen. Monstrous leaves and when I peeked under them, I saw healthy stalks that had been regularly harvested.

  “Do you like rhubarb?” I asked George.

  “Yup.”

  When I had seen everything I wanted to see—actually, I would have gone back through again, but I didn’t want to push it—I asked the big question, “If the owners were willing to sell, how much would they want?”

  “What would you do with the place?”

  “I’d open the lodge and live in one of the cottages.”

  “What are you offering?”

  “Well, I’m not. Not yet. I have a house I’d have to sell.”

  I couldn’t make an offer. I didn’t even know what I could sell my house for. I didn’t even know if I could bea
r to sell my house. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted a price, and George had no intention of adding to the current thread of dialogue.

  “I live in Texas, at the moment, but… well, I’m getting…” My throat felt full, it hurt. “I love the island. I love the lodge, this property.” Then I cried. I don’t think George was accustomed to dealing with blubbering females. He stood there and looked off into the trees while I pulled myself together.

  Sniffling, I asked, “So, if I do sell my house, I should just get in touch with you and make an offer?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is the place going to be put up for sale in the near future?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, how would I get in touch with you?”

  “Same way.”

  “Through Betty?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay.” I shook his hand and had an overwhelming urge to hug him, which I did. He stood board stiff. Then I shook his hand again. “Thank you for today, George. It meant a lot to me to see everything. Thanks. If I wanted to come back and walk around outside, would that be okay? I wouldn’t bother you.”

  He nodded.

  I walked the bike down the hill, but I didn’t want to leave. I thought about calling back to George, “Can I go get my suitcase and stay here with you?”

  Why do I feel this way?

  It was too big, too old and too much work. The living things on the place didn’t seem too fond of me, not even the human one, and it might be haunted. I loved it. There was no reason I should have, but I did. Love is blind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Acceptance Stage

  My mind was still back at The Lake Lodge when I walked into the suite at the inn. The excitement I felt about all that I had seen mixed with tremendous apprehensions over what such a venture would cost, and I wasn’t just thinking about money.

  “So, did you buy a haunted house?” Dawn asked me as I walked through the sitting room.

  “Not yet.” I went into the bedroom and Loretta followed.

  “Cammy, you’re not really thinking about buying that place, are you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “What would you do with it?”

  “Run the lodge. Open a restaurant. Live there.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, if I bought it, I’d run it and I’d live there.”

  “Okay, you’re making your haircut look like child’s play. I think you really need to consider if you’re thinking rationally here.”

  Rational thinking, what is rational thinking?

  I rummaged through a drawer for a change of clothes. Then I said to Loretta, “Tell me, in my current situation what exactly is rational thinking?”

  “Cam, you don’t know anything about running a lodge. You have never run a restaurant.”

  “No, but I’ve always wanted to.” I tossed my clothes on the bed and sat down and took off my shoes.

  “Wanting something doesn’t make it possible.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The winters here are cold, seriously cold, serious weather.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard.” I feigned a shiver and rubbed my shoulders.

  “I’m serious, Cammy. Promise me you won’t do anything without talking to me first.”

  “Now, what, you’re my mother?”

  “Cammy.”

  “Look, Lo, I can’t do anything until I sell the house. I just went and looked at the place. I’m just dreaming, okay.”

  “You’re really going to sell your house?”

  “I don’t know. If I don’t, what do I do? Stay in Texas, work at some job for an hourly wage and let Race pay my mortgage because I can’t afford to? I don’t want to be dependent on him. Go back to school? And how would I pay for that? Have Race pay for it? Things are going to change for me, have changed, whether I like it or not. There’s a lot of equity in the house. Selling it is the only way I’m going to be able to…” My eyes got hot and my throat was hurting again. “I’m going to take a shower.” I grabbed my clothes and walked toward the bathroom. Then I stopped and turned and faced Loretta. “I love it here, Lo.”

  “I know you do, Cam.”

  As I stood under the spray of the shower, I tried to imagine someone else living in my house in Texas. What would they change? Would Tuscan Love and Spring Woods Green be painted over with basic white? Would the new owners take care of the gardens or let them die and cover them with a layer of low maintenance landscape rock?

  I think Loretta told the girls any talk about the lodge was off limits that night. We stayed in and played cards and not a word was mentioned about it.

  The next morning they were still moving slowly, so I rode out to the lodge and walked around. At the back of the property, I found an old fruit orchard that was in bad need of some pruning and there were a few dead trees needing to be replaced, but peach, apricot, plum, pear, and at least four varieties of apple trees stood in four neat rows.

  There was also a patch of wild strawberries and a bramble of raspberries that had been picked over by the birds. The raspberries grew along a post and rail fence that bordered a road I later learned was Grayson’s Pass.

  Hoping to talk to George, I kept an eye out for him but he wasn’t around, or he was hiding from me. My mother’s father was a quiet, serious German man who, on rare occasions, gifted me with a pat on the head or a smile so slight that I knew I had barely caught it.

  As a little girl, I had such a sense of accomplishment when a joke I told him or a song I sang to him elicited the tiniest of responses. And when my grandfather was around, my mother was different. She told stories and her face was lighter, softer, and she smiled. We were like a couple of monkeys dancing to the crank of an organ.

  On the way back to the inn, I pushed the bike to the back of the property and through the back gate. I rode up to the middle of the island and to Grayson’s Meadow. It was like looking at Sara’s painting and I took pictures from the angle that I remembered to be the same viewpoint, high up on the ridge.

  From there I followed Gabriel Creek and passed a swimming hole that was filled with teenagers swinging over the water on a tree rope. Just before the creek flowed under a bridge and became one with Lake Brigade, I saw the cottage that was one of Sara’s other subjects. The bridge led to Shoreline Drive, which I took back to town.

  By that evening Dawn was ready to go out again. She picked a restaurant with a bar and dancing that was crowded and noisy, the kind of place where people go to meet each other but where you can’t hear what anyone is saying. Inside the restaurant we stood at the podium by the front door and waited to be seated.

  “Let’s look for something else. This place is packed,” suggested Sandi.

  I added, “And loud.”

  “Don’t be ancient.” That’s what Dawn says to try and manipulate others into doing what she wants to do.

  “Oh, no, let’s be ancient,” goaded Sandi.

  “Oh, yes, prehistoric,” I agreed.

  “I want to eat here,” Dawn whined. “They’re supposed to have great food and I want to dance.” If she had turned on her baby talk, I was out of there.

  From the back of the room, a man left a corner booth and walked up and stood in the middle of our little group. While looking Dawn up and down, he asked, “Would you ladies like to join us? We have a big booth. You could be standing here all night waiting for a table.”

  Or, I thought, go back to the inn, take a shower, and crawl into bed.

  “Yes,” said Dawn, without taking a vote. The man set his hand low on her back, guiding her across the room. The rest of us followed like a tail.

  Marni self-consciously tapped her head scarf, a habit I had noticed her becoming attached to. I slipped my arm through hers. “Do you want to go someplace else?” I asked her.

  “No, this is fine,” she said.

  The two men who were waiting at the table had left their seats to let us slide into the booth, which we did, and they
slid in after us. We were trapped.

  Dawn made a show of the introductions. “I’m Dawn Dawson, an actress. You might have seen me in something.” She went on to list her resume of the previous ten years. Then she said, “This is Loretta Scott, the Director of the New York Botanical Gardens; Marni Scott-Robles, sought after T.V. producer; Sandi Wong, mother of many and grandmother of many more; and Cammy Coleman, a soon-to-be hot divorcee.”

  “She’s an artist,” added Loretta. Loretta likes to introduce me as an artist even though I’m not and have asked her not to.

  The man who came over to fetch Dawn did the honors for himself and the other two men. “I’m Gary Rogers. This is Brad Mallory. And this is James Alexander, of the St. Gabriel Alexanders, one of the three families that have owned most of the places you can eat, sleep, and piss on the island since the creation of the world.” James looked uncomfortable but that didn’t stop Gary. “He’s also in the middle of a divorce, a battle that will very likely last into the next decade. Don’t know that you’ll ever be a hot divorcee, hey buddy?”

  Gary reached around Dawn and smacked James on the shoulder, and then he continued, “By the time the gavel drops, you’ll probably be rocking on a porch somewhere, old and penniless.” Gary Rogers had the grace and tact of a chimp, a perfect match for Dawn. “We’re here from Chicago for a few days to play some golf and keep James here company. How long are you ladies here for?”

  “We’re supposed to leave on Tuesday, but Cammy is thinking about buying a place on the island. She may not be leaving at all,” mocked Dawn.

  “Are you? Where?” James had to shout from across the table to ask the question.

  “I just looked at something, curiosity really.”

  “It’s that big scary wreck on the other side of the island,” offered Dawn.

  “The Lake Lodge?” asked Gary, chuckling.

  “That’s the place, isn’t it Cammy?” Dawn pushed.