by Susan Wiggs
“Okay, but you get to tell me if I’m unbearable.”
Isabel was excited for Tess and Dominic and his kids, but sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she felt an unbidden curl of envy. Tess made love look easy, while Isabel hadn’t had a date in years. She knew she needed to take down her walls, but how did someone do that?
She batted away the thought. “Don’t try to change the subject. Cormac O’Neill.”
“You’re going to be glad he’s the one to document Magnus’s life. Our grandfather has a unique story. An important one. It’s not just family pride, Iz. He was a key player in the Danish Resistance. There were eight thousand Jews in Denmark during the German occupation, and Magnus’s group helped rescue seventy-five hundred of them. It’s a rare bright spot in the middle of the darkest of times. Most of all, it’s something Magnus wants.”
Isabel tucked a damp stray curl behind her ear and looked out the window. From one side of the kitchen, she could see the rows of trees, some of the stock decades old. The blossoms of springtime were flurrying down as the new fruit emerged, a tangible sign of renewal. She loved Bella Vista, loved the rhythm of the seasons. She was lucky to be a part of it.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Grandfather did say that.” Neither sister stated the obvious—that their grandfather wasn’t getting any younger. “So tell me about this guy.”
“He’s written award-winning nonfiction,” Tess said. “He’s won all kinds of literary prizes. He already has a publisher on board—assuming the project gets done. Anyway, the important thing is, he’s here with us now, and I think he’ll be perfect for Magnus.”
“Where is he going to stay?” Isabel asked.
“I thought we’d put him in Erik’s room.”
Erik—their father. He had died before either of them was born, leaving their separate mothers both pregnant and alone, unaware of each other. Over the past year, Isabel and Tess had spent hours speculating about the situation, but frustratingly, had never been able to figure out what had driven Erik to do the things he’d done.
“Why Erik’s room?” asked Isabel.
“Because it’s available, and he doesn’t need anything fancy. I thought Erik’s room would be a good choice. The history, you know? If he’s going to do a thorough job, Mac needs to be wrapped into the family.”
The idea made Isabel distinctly uncomfortable. “Suppose we don’t want to wrap him into the family?”
“Our grandfather wants it. I swear, it’ll be fine. Just fine.” Tess put her dishes in the sink, then poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip. She never seemed to be completely still, physically or mentally. She was always thinking, planning, doing. She had the kind of energy that made caffeine jumpy. “I’m really sorry, Iz. Don’t be mad, okay?”
“I never get mad,” said Isabel.
“I know. It’s freaky. I’m about to become a stepmom to two school-age kids, so I need to take lessons from you on how to be mellow about things.”
Isabel flashed on Calvin Sharpe, and she felt anything but mellow. “Hey, off the subject, but did you attend the last Chamber of Commerce meeting?”
“Yep. I’m a card-carrying member. They’re going to feature Things Remembered on the Chamber website in December. Cool, huh?”
“Very cool. And, um, was there any talk of that new restaurant coming in? It was in the newsletter...”
“Yeah, I think it’s kind of a big deal. Some famous chef...Cleavon or Calvin...?”
“Calvin Sharpe. A TV chef.” Isabel kept her face neutral. You never get mad. Great, just great.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Super good-looking, and he had an entourage with him. I remember now—he’s calling the new place CalSharpe’s. So, you know this guy?”
“He was an instructor at the culinary institute when I went there, years ago.”
“And? What’s he like?”
“Like a guy who thinks the sun rises every morning just to hear him crow,” Isabel said. “But he can cook. And it appears he’s got a restaurant empire going.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She’d already given him too much space in her head. “Anyway. Back to the other guy—Cormac O’Neill. You call him Mac.”
Tess grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the lounge room. “Come here,” she said. “Let me show you something.”
She led the way to the big room, which had already been refurbished for the cooking school. It was light and airy with freshly whitewashed plaster walls and tall ceilings, filled with cookbooks and old furniture and Bubbie’s baby grand piano. When Isabel was growing up, the rolling ladder against the tall built-in bookcases had been her stairway to a different world. That was what books had offered her—all the voyages she wanted, to different realms. Even as a tiny girl, she’d been the consummate armchair traveler, seeing the world from the safety of her own home.
Now she was a steward of this place. For her, Bella Vista lived and breathed with the essence of life, representing security and permanence in a world that had not always been kind to her. Her mission was to revive the place, resuscitate it after the hard times. Her grandfather’s accident last year had shaken Isabel’s foundations. Magnus was a father figure and besides Tess, her only family.
Isabel still loved to pore over photographs of castles on the Rhein, Ayers Rock in Australia, Italy’s Amalfi coast. Sometimes, gazing at the pictures, she would feel a yearning deep in her stomach. Yet when it came to actually traveling to those places, something always made her balk. To her, adventure was always more appealing within the pages of a travelogue.
Tess pulled a stack of new-looking books from a shelf and set them on the lid of the piano. “I met Mac for the first time when I was working in Krakow. I was tracing the origin of some paintings that had been hidden by the Nazis, and he was doing an article on restoring Nazi plunder. I’m actually a footnote in one of his books.” She flipped open a thick volume called Behind the Iron Curtain. “He talks about the Krakow treasure here.”
Isabel felt a surge of admiration for her sister. They had grown up separately, in completely different circumstances, Isabel at Bella Vista, and Tess traveling the world with her mother, a museum acquisitions expert. Isabel could easily picture Tess examining old artifacts, ferreting out the truth about them. She’d had a high-level position finding lost treasures and researching their origins at an auction house in the Bay Area. In fact, her expertise had been instrumental in saving Bella Vista from bankruptcy.
But along with the estate’s reversal of fortune came a good deal of unwanted attention. She very much doubted Cormac O’Neill would have anything to do with her grandfather if not for the stories Tess had uncovered in her research. And then there was the lawsuit...brought by Archangel’s most wily lawyer, a woman named Lourdes Maldonado. She was a neighbor and friend—former friend—who was suddenly looking for some kind of settlement.
“You’ve had such an amazing career,” she said, pushing aside the troubling thought. “Do you miss it?”
“Every once in a while, yeah. I did have a good job in the city. It was great for a long time. But I found something better here.” Tess’s face softened, as it always did when she thought of her fiancé. “I know, I’m ridiculous. Honestly, Iz, I never knew love could feel this way. You’ll see, one of these days. When the right guy comes along.”
“Not holding my breath,” Isabel said.
“Not even for this guy?” Tess handed her the Iron Curtain book.
Isabel took it from her and turned it over in her hands. She studied the author photo on the back. It was an extremely cleaned up version of the grubby, swearing traveler covered in beestings. “Oh, my.”
“You’re welcome,” said Tess, her eyes gleaming. “I mean, obviously we didn’t pick him for his looks but it can’t hurt, right? If we’re going to have someone running around researching the family history, i
t’s nice that he’s eye candy. He’s single.”
“That means there’s something wrong with him. Or he’s a commitment-phobe.”
“Neither,” said Tess, her smile disappearing. “He’s a widower.”
Chapter Four
“I’ll show you to your room,” Isabel said, approaching Cormac, who was taking his luggage from his Jeep.
He turned and shot her a grin. “I bet you’ve always wanted to say that, right? ‘I’ll show you to your room.’” He spoke with crisp formality.
“Right,” she said. “I mean, right this way.” She mimicked his formal tone.
“Thanks. And thanks for helping me this morning. I’m guessing a trip to the urgent care place wasn’t on your agenda today.”
“It never is. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Nothing like a shot of artificial Adrenalin to get the day started. I took a hike around the place and made a few calls. Your grandfather around?”
“Always. He likes tinkering in the machine shop, or being out in the orchard with the workers. I’m sure he’s eager to meet you.” She led the way to the entry. It was looking grand these days, a lovely archway framing a view of the big sunny central patio. The wings of the hacienda curved generously around the brow of the hill upon which the house sat, the whitewashed walls expansive and cleanly cut against the blue sky. In the center of the broad, open space, a fountain burbled, the water flashing in the sunlight. Flowers bloomed in pots and espaliers along the walls. Two cats—Lilac and Chips—prowled around, Lilac shadowing the dark gray tabby as if to keep him away from the fountain. The workers were finishing up the pergola, creating a shaded area for café tables.
“This is fantastic,” said Cormac. He glanced down as Chips, the older cat, rubbed up against his ankle. “Hey, buddy.”
“That’s Chips. The white Siamese is Lilac, our latest rescue. We call him Lilac because it was springtime, and the lilacs were in bloom, and he has that unusual color. He takes a bit longer to warm up to people.”
Cormac leaned down to stroke Chips, who turned his head this way and that, his eyes shut in pure indulgence. Then, with slow dignity, he padded away. “Is that guy okay? He seems a bit unsteady.”
“Chips has a kind of feline Parkinson’s, so he has trouble getting around,” said Isabel.
“The white one seems to look after him,” said Cormac, watching Lilac swirl carefully around the older cat.
“He does,” said Isabel. “Chips rescued Lilac, and now Lilac takes care of Chips.”
“He rescued him?” Leaning on his cane, Cormac bent and stretched his hand out toward the white cat. Lilac perked up and sidled closer.
“Well, he brought him home one day and we started feeding him. At first I thought Lilac might be feral. He was so skittish, wouldn’t let anyone but Chips near him. The two were inseparable. Then I noticed that Lilac knew what to do with toys, and seemed to understand what a bowl of kibbles is, so I figured he wasn’t wild after all. He must have been dumped.”
To Isabel’s surprise, Lilac rubbed his head against the guy’s hand. Cormac scratched his finger between Lilac’s tipped ears. “We’ve all been there, buddy. Who dumped you?”
“It happens, unfortunately,” Isabel said. “An owner moves or passes away, and a cat gets turned out into the wild. Lilac just got lucky that Chips brought him home one day. And now Chips is the lucky one. Lilac once saved him from drowning.”
“Seriously?” He straightened up, steadying himself with the cane.
She nodded, shuddering a little at the memory. “We heard Lilac yowling on the patio one day, and came out to find that Chips had fallen into the fountain. He would have drowned, but Lilac got our attention.”
“They both got lucky,” Mac said. “Whaddya think, guys? Am I going to get lucky, too?”
Isabel assumed it was a rhetorical question, so she said nothing.
“Tess told me I was going to like it here,” he told her as the cats wandered away, making the rounds of the patio. “She says it’s like living in a dream.”
“Tess said that?” Isabel couldn’t conceal a smile.
“Yep.”
“Well, she wants you in Erik’s room. It hasn’t been updated yet, but Tess thinks you’ll like it.”
“Who’s Erik?”
“Our father. He passed away before either of us was born. I’m sure you’ll get the whole story out of Grandfather.” She led the way into the vestibule and up the winding staircase, which split into two at the landing like great wrought-iron wings, echoing the outer curves of the house. Bella Vista had originally been built for a large extended family and a staff, as well. Its three stories were filled with room after room, which Isabel was transforming one by one into guest quarters.
They went down a wide hallway to a room on the end. She could tell Ernestina had freshened it up. The linens looked crisp and smelled faintly of lavender, and the dormer windows were open to let in a breeze. A bowl of fresh fruit sat on an antique washstand, and the fixtures in the adjoining bathroom gleamed.
“After my father died, my grandparents never changed anything in here, just closed it off,” she said, turning to Cormac. He was so close behind her that she nearly ran into him—into that broad chest. He smelled even more manly than he had this morning.
As Isabel grew older, she had begun to understand why her grandparents had simply closed the door to Erik’s room. Even though Ernestina, the housekeeper, kept it aired out and dusted, the tragedy of his death seemed to hang in the atmosphere. There was a poignant sense of unfinished business, an unfinished life. Everything was frozen in time, as if he had just stepped out, never to return. She wondered if Cormac O’Neill noticed that, or if it was just her, imagining a connection with a man she’d never known.
Cormac set his large bag on a cedar chest at the end of the pine post bed. Erik’s boyhood room was still festooned with AC/DC posters, sports equipment, college pennants, old yearbooks, French and Spanish textbooks. Cormac went over to the built-in bookcase and ran his finger along the spines of the books there, some of them bleached by the light.
“Your dad liked books,” he commented.
“That’s what my grandparents said. When I was young, I made it my mission to read every single volume in this bookcase.”
“Why? To get inside his head?”
“As much as you can get into the head of a person you’ve never met. I made a valiant attempt. My favorites were Kon Tiki and Treasure Island.”
“Good choices. I loved those books.” He pulled out a copy of White Fang and opened to the inside cover. There was a bookplate on which Erik had written his name, the letters slanted in a careless or perhaps hurried scrawl. Cormac replaced the book and moved on to a row of travel books about Zanzibar, Mongolia, Tangier, Patagonia. “He was a fan of traveling. Or travel books.”
Isabel nodded. “He went to the University of Salerno in Italy, as part of the exchange program with UC Davis. That’s where he met my mom.”
“Are the French and Spanish books his, too?”
Isabel nodded. “According to Grandfather, Erik was a gifted student of languages. He grew up speaking Danish with his parents, Spanish with the workers and French because he loved it. And Italian, because he loved my mother.”
“Your mom’s Italian?”
“She, um, she died in childbirth. Giving birth to me.” Isabel’s own mother was yet another ghost in the house.
She caught Cormac’s flash of stark sympathy, which made her feel slightly apologetic, given what Tess had just told her—that Cormac O’Neill was a widower. “I know, this makes me Little Orphan Annie, but honestly, my grandparents were wonderful parents to me. If you lose someone before you know them, does it count as a loss?”
He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets and looked out the window. “Every death is a
loss,” he said quietly.
“Of course. I’m just saying, it didn’t hit me the way it did Erik’s parents. Or Francesca’s. That was my mother’s name—Francesca.”
Cormac went over to a faded round dartboard and examined some papers stuck in place with a dart. “Looks as if Erik knew how to get in trouble, too. Aren’t these unpaid speeding tickets?”
“Yes. He drove a Mustang convertible.”
Cormac moved on to a display of ribbons. “What are all these for?” he asked.
“Okay, so he was a typical boy in every way—but he had this quirk,” she said. “He was a master baker. He won the Sonoma County Fair Blue Ribbon for the youth division from 1978 to 1982 in several categories.” She touched one of the fading ribbons. “Going through this stuff is like putting together a puzzle—but an imperfect one. I have all these artifacts—the things he left behind, photographs, stories from my grandparents and people who knew him. But I never got to know him, so that picture will never be accurate.” She opened a drawer of an old wooden desk. “My favorite artifact—his recipe collection.” Though she didn’t say so, this was when she felt closest to Erik—when she was following a recipe he’d put a little star by or annotated in his messy handwriting.
Cormac plucked a photograph from the drawer. “He’s a grown man in this picture.”
It was her favorite shot of Erik, one she used to take out and study when she was growing up. The photo showed him standing on Shell Beach, out on the Sonoma coast, with the cliffs sweeping up behind him and the ocean crashing around his bare feet. He was smiling broadly, maybe laughing, in the picture. He wore a red baseball cap turned backward, board shorts and no shirt. The camera had frozen him in a moment of freedom and joy.
“He’s younger in this picture than I am now.” She shook off a wave of regret, then shut the drawer with a decisive shove. “So, do you want a quick tour, or...?”
“Sure.” He turned and grabbed his cane.
“What happened to your leg?” she asked.
