Room at Heron's Inn

by Ginger Chambers

  “Is that what you want?” Eric asked.

  “Yes!” David’s answer was forceful, then he recanted almost immediately, saying miserably, “No.”

  Eric hesitated before placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. David didn’t jerk away.

  “It may not seem like it sometimes,” Eric said, “but we do love you.” Then, before the boy could reassert his independence, Eric let his hand drop away.

  Many words had been left unsaid as Eric walked to the door. He wanted to advise David to give himself some time, to think about what he wanted and not do anything rash, not to leave before they’d had an opportunity to discuss the situation calmly. But if he said any of those things, David might take it that he was issuing another order. Trying to tell him what to do…again.

  He was almost into the hall when David called after him. “Sam…she’s all right, isn’t she? She’s not hurt?”

  “She’s fine,” Eric answered.

  David nodded and closed the door.

  As Eric moved back down the hall to his room, he had no real reason to expect that the situation was going to improve between him and David, but for the first time in many months—years, even—he felt hopeful.

  No light shone from beneath the door of Robin’s room. Either she was already asleep or she was in bed staring at the ceiling through the darkness, just as he planned to do in a very short time.

  EVERYONE IN THE HOUSEHOLD was more subdued than usual the next morning, but as David had angrily suggested, clearing the air might have done some good. Even though nothing had been resolved, a careful observer would notice that small changes had occurred.

  Allison seemed somewhat less brittle as she pitched in to help the others prepare the inn for the next day’s scheduled guests, her attitude toward Robin included. She seemed less inclined to look upon her as an outsider, slightly less suspicious.

  David was quiet and thoughtful, while Eric seemed to go out of his way to be more tolerant of his youngest brother.

  Samantha, reacting to the changes in the others, resumed her happy outlook on life, but with less strain, less fear that at any moment a volcano of emotions might erupt.

  It was Eric’s behavior that puzzled Robin the most. He was friendly and polite to her, but not insistent. Last night might not have happened. He made no reference to it, either overtly or covertly. Robin knew he still cared for her, but it was clear that he was backing off. It was as if he had decided to bide his time and, in so doing, give her time. If she stayed, she wondered how long this new approach would last.

  If she stayed…

  Of course, there was no question of her staying, but Robin found it unbearably difficult to decide on the moment she would actually leave.

  Tuesday, all the new guests arrived to fill the vacant rooms of the inn, and the fresh country air left them all starving. No leftovers remained of the dinner Robin prepared that night.

  Wednesday, Donal Caldwell surprised everyone by telling them he was checking out the next day. An art gallery in Los Angeles had arranged for a showing of his paintings, and he wanted to be there to help set it up to best advantage. Robin couldn’t convince herself to leave without saying goodbye to Donal.

  Thursday, Donal left. And on Thursday night, Robin knew she was making excuses. To force her hand, she packed her bags, readying them for the following evening. After a long debate with herself, she decided to leave a note but nothing else.

  On her last night at Heron’s Inn, Robin let her thoughts drift back over the weeks she had spent there, from her first hesitant moments as a stranger to this very evening, when she felt right at home. Even considering everything that had happened, she was glad she had come. She’d been of help to some of them.

  There was a marked difference in David that she could claim some credit for, a difference in the way he and Eric related to each other. The relationship wasn’t perfect, but there were signs that it could grow better. She had helped Barbara with her wedding. In a quick email sent from Hawaii, Barbara had thanked her again for the beautiful cakes. And with Eric…

  Robin shied away from thinking too much about Eric.

  DAYLIGHT CAME AT A SNAIL’S pace. The sky was overcast, which caused the sun to put in a late appearance. All morning, time seemed to drag. Close to noon, the sun finally appeared to burn away the fog and take the grayness from the day. But the grayness of Robin’s spirit could not be lifted. She pretended otherwise, but she knew she wasn’t wholly convincing. Each time she spoke with someone, she wondered if that might be the last time she would see them.

  The twins helped her make a batch of cookies. Almost as much cookie dough ended up in their stomachs as on the baking sheets, but Robin enjoyed their company. She smiled when each snitched a freshly baked treat and ran outside to play.

  For what must have been the hundredth time, Robin checked her watch. This time, Samantha caught her.

  “Are you waiting for a train or something?” she teased.

  Robin tried to smile. “No…just thinking about dinner.”

  “You’ve been thinking about dinner a lot today. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you do that.”

  “Today just feels…odd, that’s all.”

  “Don’t tell me you have premonitions, too!”

  “Who else does?”

  “Bridget.”

  “I should have known.”

  “Bridget told me she likes you.” Samantha paused. “You know, Robin, I really do appreciate having you here while Bridget’s away. And not just because of Eric and David and everything. But because…I was really lonely when Bridget left. I didn’t realize how often she and I sat around and talked. You could have been some kind of ogre and not been any fun to talk to at all. But you aren’t. And I just want to say thanks.”

  Further evidence that in a small way she had been of help to another of the Marshalls. Robin’s heart beat sorely. “Well, you’re quite welcome,” she said. She wanted to add, “Come talk to me anytime,” but she couldn’t. It would be another lie.

  “Has Eric told you what I plan to do this fall?” Samantha asked brightly, not sensing Robin’s inner turmoil.

  The young woman continued to chatter, and Robin did her best to follow, but there wasn’t much that sank in.

  A short time later, David came into the kitchen. “Would you like some help with dinner?” he asked.

  Robin smiled. “All offers are gratefully accepted.”

  “What are we making tonight?” he asked, stepping up to the sink to wash his hands.

  Robin had thought to do something special, something that would really impress their palates, but in the end she decided it was best to finish as she’d begun. “I thought a nice roast, vegetables, homemade bread…that kind of thing.”

  “Better make a lot of it. This group certainly enjoys their food.”

  While he dried his hands, he grinned at her. He still wore his favorite clothes, but he had exchanged the swinging earring for a less flashy stud. His hair was contained by a rubber band. And, most important, the hostility had almost completely disappeared from his young face.

  “What would you like me to do first?” he asked.

  Robin couldn’t help herself. She leaned across and gave him a quick, hard hug.

  “What was that for?” he asked, laughing as she pulled back.

  “It’s a reward, because you’re trying so hard.”

  He dismissed her compliment with a shrug. “I don’t want any rewards.”

  She couldn’t tell him, but at that moment he sounded so much like Eric.

  She started to say something else, only to be interrupted when Allison rushed into the room with a worried frown.

  “Have either of you seen the twins?” she asked.

  “I did about an hour ago,” Robin said. “They helped me make cookies.”

  “And not since? David, have you?”

  David and Robin both answered in the negative.

  Allison’s frown deepened. “They were supposed
to check in with me a half hour ago and they didn’t.”

  “The last time I saw them, they went outside to play,” Robin murmured.

  “They probably lost track of time,” David suggested.

  “That little boy visiting down the street is completely uncontrolled,” Allison complained. “His parents don’t seem to care where he is or what he’s doing.”

  “Have you looked outside yet?” David asked.

  “Around the inn, yes.”

  “I saw them making sand forts on the beach yesterday,” Robin said.

  Allison’s jaw tightened. “I told them not to do that again. Their clothes were coated with sand. It will probably take two or three washings to get it all out.”

  “They were having fun,” David said.

  “They can have fun in a cleaner way! I’m the one who has to clean up after them, David, not you.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” David murmured.

  Allison sent him an impatient look that was tinged with mounting worry. “This isn’t exactly the safest place in the world. The cliffs, the water…but they love to come here.”

  “That’s probably why they love to come here,” David said wisely.

  The contrariness of children’s thought processes wasn’t something Allison wanted to discuss at that moment. She released a sound between a hiss and a sigh and opened one of the French doors. “I’ll check the beach,” she said tensely before going outside.

  David shook his head as she left but said nothing.

  “It’s better to worry too much than too little,” Robin murmured.

  “Something in between would be best.”

  Robin tilted her head and gave him a slow smile. “How did you get to be such an expert?”

  “I spent years being a problem child.”

  Robin’s smile widened. “Makes sense,” she agreed, and they both started to laugh.

  A full half-hour passed before Allison returned, red-faced and winded, her anxiety reaching yet another level. “They’re not there!” she cried. “I looked all over and I didn’t see them. I even checked the neighbor’s house, thinking they might be there. But they’re not!”

  “Would you like some help to look for them?” Robin asked, abandoning her work.

  “Yes! I don’t know why, but I—I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “I’ll get Eric and Samantha,” David volunteered. He ran up the rear stairs.

  The fear in Allison’s eyes was hard to witness. Robin knew that it most likely sprang from Allison’s experiences with her parents, from the fact that the two people she had loved most in the world had been taken from her without warning. She was afraid that it was going to happen again.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Robin said, trying to console her. “They’re most likely off exploring somewhere.”

  “They’re not supposed to leave this part of Dunnigan Bay,” Allison returned tightly.

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the narrow stairs before Eric, David and Samantha filed into the room.

  “David told us what’s happened,” Eric said. Then, unknowingly echoing Robin’s words, he encouraged, “I’m sure they’re fine. But it won’t hurt to round them up. Let’s start with the neighbors—all the neighbors.”

  “I’ll check with Mrs. Wilson,” David said, “and the houses on both sides of her.”

  “I’ll take the others,” Samantha said.

  “Good. Then check the trails,” Eric told them. “I’ll take the cliff path. Robin…maybe you should stay here with Allison. I know—” He held up a hand when his sister started to protest. “But what if they come back and no one is here? If anyone finds them or they show up on their own, ring the bell, loud and long, okay? To let the rest of us know.”

  Robin had thought the old bell attached to the side of the house at the edge of the front porch to be purely decorative. Now it turned out to have a function.

  Everyone nodded and those with outside assignments hurried away.

  Allison couldn’t sit still. With arms crossed tightly, she paced the floor.

  “Would you like some tea or coffee?” Robin asked, thinking that a hot drink would help fortify the worried mother.

  Allison shook her head. “If anything has happened to them…” she moaned. “It’s been over an hour since they were supposed to report in.”

  The guests at the inn had scattered after breakfast that morning. Only the family and Robin remained. The old house was quiet. Too quiet.

  Allison stood at the open front door, arms still crossed as if for reassurance, her gaze fastened upon the street. Suddenly she turned around. “I’ve just thought of something. Maybe they were digging a new fort and it collapsed! Digging tunnels in the sand is dangerous, isn’t it? All that sand and dirt—”

  “Wouldn’t you have noticed?”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything like that! I thought—I was angry.” She started to cry.

  “We can settle that question very easily,” Robin said, striving to keep Allison calm. “I’ll go down and take a look. Then you can put your mind at rest in that area, at least.”

  Allison grasped her arm. “You’d do that?”

  “Of course.”

  Allison looked away. “I haven’t been very nice to you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Robin stated with finality.

  “Thanks.” Allison drew a shaky breath. “Yes, please. I’d like you to check.”

  Robin patted her hand and hurried out the door. Outside, she heard the wind-muffled calls of the twins’ names. She broke into a run once she reached the street. Was it possible that her odd feeling about the day wasn’t due entirely to her planned departure? That instead it portended something else? A danger to the children? That thought made her run even faster.

  At the beach, she searched the sand and the grass line. She saw the remains of the fort the children had dug yesterday—long shallow ditches in the shape of a square. Nothing like the kind of construction Allison was worried about. But that didn’t mean the children couldn’t have moved to a new location and begun a more complicated structure.

  Robin moved beyond the grass line, eyes searching left and right. Then she heard a sound: a child’s voice, carried on the wind. Her body stiffened, while her head turned in an age-old gesture of acute listening. She heard the sound again.

  It came from over the water.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ROBIN DARTED TO THE water’s edge, narrowing her eyes against the glare of the early afternoon sun. At first she didn’t see anything, then slowly her gaze focused on a dark object bobbing awkwardly on the windswept waves more than halfway to the twin rock pillars. It was a boat, more precisely a small skiff. She could see an oar hover over the water, then jerk high into the air. Either the children didn’t know how to row very well or they were in some kind of difficulty.

  “Gwen!” she cried, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “Colin!” A gust of wind whipped her words back over the sand. “Gwen!” she tried again.

  A far-off voice answered. “Ro…bin!”

  Robin glanced back toward the inn. She needed to alert everyone. Possibly Eric had access to another boat. She was afraid the children weren’t going to make it back on their own.

  “Gwen…Colin…don’t do anything! Wait!” she yelled as loudly as she could. “I’ll find someone to help you! Don’t—” But before the last admonition had left her mouth, she saw the bow of the boat rise up and flip over. “Oh, no,” she breathed, even as she heard the children’s screams. “No!” she repeated.

  Her heart pounded and her breathing was ragged. There was only one thing to do. She kicked off her shoes, slipped out of her jacket and ran into the water. She was barely aware of its coldness.

  Once, long ago—in another life, it sometimes seemed—she hadn’t been a very strong swimmer. Years of practice had changed that, years of determination that never again would she put another person’s life at risk in order to save her from drowni
ng.

  When the water reached her hips, she dived forward. Now the cold hit her like a knife, jerking the air from her lungs. She pressed forward, jeans sticking to her legs, wishing that her blouse was thicker.

  She treaded water for a moment to get a better bearing on the children, to be sure that, if they could, they had stayed with the overturned boat. Three heads bobbed in the water, only two of them close by the vessel. The other person was a distance away, too far to grab hold. Robin wasn’t sure how long they could stay afloat, especially the one who was farther from the boat. From past experience, Robin knew that coldness and fright quickly robbed a person of strength, particularly a child.

  Just as she redoubled her effort, she heard the inn’s bell start to clang. Someone else must have seen what had happened and been in a position to alert the others.

  ERIC HAD TROTTED ALONG the trail as far as the branch leading to the beach. He’d yelled the children’s names repeatedly. If they were there, they would have heard him, on the beach or somewhere off the cliff trail away from the water. He was sure of that. It was possible they’d gone to the Overlook, but he doubted they would disobey their mother that purposefully. He retraced his steps, continuing periodically to yell. Then he heard the bell.

  Someone had found them! They were safe. But the sound of the bell grew more frantic. Something was wrong. He covered the ground like the athlete he once had been in school, only to stop where the cliff’s edge started to curve down along the trail to Dunnigan Bay. One sweeping glance told him the story. Three children in the water, more than half the distance to the mouth of the bay, and one person—Robin, from the color of her hair—swimming out to help them.

  People were hurrying down the street—family, neighbors, friends. But he was closest if he went straight down. Robin couldn’t possibly do it all on her own. The children who were clinging to the boat might not be able to hold on long enough for her to make two more trips.

  As the cliff curved into Dunnigan Bay, it lost some of its height and steepness. Eric leapt over the edge, digging his heels into the loose dirt and rock, jumping from spot to spot, somehow keeping his balance as he descended the thirty or so feet to the water. At the bay’s edge, he peeled off his thick sweater and his heavy shoes, then made a shallow dive into the cold water.