"I think Gary died in an accident," Dylan replied firmly. "I'm going to do whatever I can to prove it."
"Good. It's hard enough to lose someone you love. Losing the good memories makes it even harder. And Rachel, she couldn't take another ..." John's voice drifted off.
"Another what?" Dylan asked.
"Doesn't matter. I got a poker game Saturday night, seven-thirty, in the barn. We could use another player. You in?"
Dylan hesitated. He was here to finish the house, to look into Gary's death, not to play poker.
"Don't say no. The other boys will want to meet you. And they knew Gary. You might learn something."
"All right."
"Now, let me tell you about the other players," John began.
Dylan only half listened as John discussed the strengths and weaknesses of his poker buddies. His thoughts were with Rachel. He wondered what John had been alluding to -- another what? Had there been another man in her life? One before Gary? But she'd been nineteen. And he couldn't remember her talking about any other relationships. So another what? Another betrayal? Another affair? Was there something Rachel and John knew about Gary that Dylan didn't? But he'd been Gary's best friend. Gary had told him everything, usually more than he'd wanted to know.
There weren't any secrets, he told himself. So why couldn't he believe that?
* * *
"Eavesdropping?" Marge asked lightly as she handed Rachel a pan to dry.
Rachel moved away from the kitchen door and took the pan from her grandmother. "No, of course not."
"I don't think Dylan scares easily."
"What does that mean?"
"That your grandfather couldn't scare him away."
"Why would he try?"
"I didn't say he would."
"Well, what are you saying, then?" Rachel asked in exasperation.
Marge gave a little laugh. "That I don't think Dylan needs your protection. You don't have to rush back into the dining room and save him from some third degree." Marge turned to Wesley. "Oh, dear. I forgot to feed Mr. Bones before I came over. Wesley, honey, would you run over to my house and give Mr. Bones some doggie dinner?"
"Okay, Grandma," Wesley said, bolting out the back door.
"You never forget to feed Mr. Bones," Dee observed. "So why exactly did you want to get rid of Wesley? Never mind, I know why."
Rachel frowned as her grandmother and aunt turned to her. "What now?"
"You, Rachel. You're like a cat on a hot tin roof. What's going on?" Marge asked.
"Nothing."
"Dylan makes her uncomfortable," Dee said as she put the remains of dinner in the refrigerator.
"Maybe a little," Rachel admitted. "He might have been Gary's best friend, but he's not mine. And it's not right that he's here."
"Because Gary is not," Marge said with sympathy in her eyes. "Oh, honey, I bet Dylan wishes Gary was here, too."
"Well, if Gary was here, Dylan wouldn't be," Rachel snapped, feeling a surge of anger and frustration well up within her. "The man avoided us for nine years. Now he's taking up residence in the dining room. I don't like it." Her stomach churned. Her head ached, and she couldn't think straight. Dylan had been around for only a few hours, and she was feeling crazy. What would it be like to have him around for days, weeks, maybe months? She couldn't deal with it. She just couldn't. The pan slipped from her hands with a clatter, echoed by a startled silence. She shook her head in apology. "I'm sorry." She picked up the pan and set it on the counter. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Nothing is wrong with you," Marge said. "You're dealing with a lot of stress right now, that's all. But you're strong. You'll come through this."
Rachel supposed it was a compliment that everyone thought her to be so strong. But she didn't feel strong on the inside. Right now she felt as quivery as a bowl of Jell-O.
"If you don't want Dylan here, tell him so," Dee advised in her no-nonsense voice. But then, Dee would see it like that. She was a woman who lived by numbers that always added up. And when they didn't, she started over until she found numbers that made sense together, just the way she'd started over after her husband had left her. Or maybe she'd sent him away. Rachel didn't know the whole story. One day Uncle Jeff was there; the next, he was gone.
It suddenly occurred to Rachel that the comings and goings in marriages had become a trend in her father's generation and now in hers. What had happened to the Wood family tradition of long marriages, long lives, long everything?
"There are other contractors in town," Dee added.
"None that I can afford," Rachel replied.
Dee appeared troubled as she nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. "I know the house is important to you and Wesley."
"And Dylan, apparently," she murmured, glancing once again toward the dining room. "He seems to want to finish it. I don't really understand why."
"Then let him finish it," Marge said.
"He makes her uncomfortable. Mom," Dee said, still worried. "I'm not sure I trust him or his motives."
"But she does need the house to be completed, whatever his motives are. She can't just leave it the way it is."
"Why not? How is she going to live there without Gary?"
"I'm going to let Dylan do it," Rachel interjected, feeling that this argument would continue until she made her intentions clear, because the optimistic Marge and the cynical Dee rarely saw eye to eye on anything.
"Good. Then it's time for dessert," Marge declared with a bright smile. She was a true believer in the glass being half full, and most of the time Rachel tried to live her life in the same fashion, but the past few months had made optimism a rare commodity.
"Why don't you take these two plates out to the table? And give Dylan the bigger piece. Your grandfather doesn't need the sugar."
Rachel took the plates from her grandmother and returned to the dining room, grateful to have something constructive to do. She placed one in front of Dylan, the other in front of her grandfather, and resumed her seat across the table. Marge, Wesley and Dee joined them a moment later.
As Marge handed her a dessert plate, Rachel suddenly realized what was on it. Pie -- apple pie.
An uneasy feeling came over her. But it couldn't be the same pie. She glanced at Dylan and saw him raise a fork to his lips. She had to fight an impulse to grab it out of his hand.
The back door slammed, and Carly called out a hello. Then she came bursting into the room and stopped dead in her tracks. A look of horror crossed her face. "Oh, my God! Are you eating my pie?"
"Your pie?" Dee asked.
"I saw it on the counter," Marge said uneasily. "I'm sorry. Were you saving it for someone?"
"I thought you gave your pie to Antonio," she said, as Dylan lifted a forkful of pie to his lips.
"But I didn't. He wasn't home. You're eating my pie. My special -- "
Rachel jumped to her feet, reached across the table and grabbed Dylan's fork out of his hand. She swiped the plate and ran into the kitchen, dumping the rest of the pie in the trash. Then she leaned over the counter and burst into tears. Dylan wasn't supposed to eat the special apples. He wasn't the one. Gary was the one, the only one.
* * *
"Anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Dylan asked, breaking the supercharged silence with his words.
Wesley was the only one who answered. "You ate a piece of Aunt Carly's magic pie."
Great, now he had an explanation, and it still made no sense.
"You used the special apples?" Marge asked Carly in irritation. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking Antonio needed a kick in the butt," she replied.
"But the apples ... " Marge dropped her voice down a notch, as if she didn't want Dylan to hear. "They're very powerful."
"I know. That's why I used them. Now I'll have to wait a week until the others ripen. Or maybe I can just take Antonio a piece of this pie. There's a piece left, isn't there?"
"Yes, of course, but, Carly -- "
/>
"Don't say it. I know what I'm doing."
"You never know what you're doing," John said gruffly. "He's not the man for you."
"I think he is," Carly returned defiantly, exchanging a long, challenging look with her grandfather.
"Can I still eat the pie?" Wesley asked.
"Yes, you can," Marge said. "We all can. Except Dylan, I guess." Her eyes filled with worry once again. "Oh, dear," she murmured.
"It's fine. I was full anyway," he replied, although he had to admit the one bite of pie he'd managed to get into his mouth had been pretty damn tasty. But then he'd always loved a good, sweet apple. He glanced toward the kitchen door, wondering why Rachel had swiped his pie and rushed out of the room. And what the heck was magical about it anyway? Even reading between the lines, he couldn't figure this one out, especially not with everyone staring at him with mixed emotions in their eyes. He pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Where are you going?" Carly asked.
"I'll say good-bye to Rachel and drive into town, find a place to stay the night."
"There's a small hotel on Fifth Street, right off the main drag," John said. "BayBerry Inn is the name."
"Thanks."
He left the dining room, feeling their gazes follow him into the kitchen, where Rachel was wiping her eyes with a paper towel.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "You must think I'm crazy."
"I'm not too sure about the rest of your family either," he replied lightly. "Just tell me one thing. Am I going to need to find a poison control center before the night is out?"
She shook her head. "No."
"That's good news. So -- do you want to give me an explanation?"
"I don't think so."
He waited a moment, then nodded. "Maybe later."
"Maybe," she agreed. "Are you driving back to the city?"
"I thought I'd find a place to stay in town. Then tomorrow I can pull together a plan of attack for the house." He paused, his gaze concerned. "Are you sure you're all right?"
She offered him a brief nod, as if she were afraid to open her mouth.
"I'll go, then," he said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"You're going to be here tomorrow? Really?"
Dylan could see there was more behind the simple question, perhaps a need for reassurance, to believe in someone's promise to return. When Rachel had lost Gary, she'd lost her faith in the little things, too. Maybe he could give her some of that back. It wouldn't be enough, but it might be something.
"Yes," he said. "I'll be here tomorrow."
"Gary said that to me, too. He said, 'I'll talk to you tomorrow.' That was it. Those were his last words." She shook her head in confusion. "What kind of last words are those?"
What could he say? Nothing would take the pain out of her eyes, the grief out of her heart. And he was reminded of another time, when he'd faced another woman whose eyes had bored down on him with unbearable agony. She'd looked at him and said, "Why him?" And as he'd gazed at her, no good answer on his lips, he'd wondered if she was really saying, "Why not you?" Just like now.
He was standing in Rachel's kitchen. But it should have been Gary. She wanted it to be Gary. Hell, he wanted it to be Gary, too.
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot."
"I'm sorry, too. Sorry I'm the one here to ask."
She met his eyes. "That's not what I was thinking."
"Sure it was."
"Dylan," she asked as he reached for the door, "What did he say to you? What did Gary say to you the last time?"
He glanced back at her, wondering if he would hurt her even more.
"You can tell me. Please," she said. "I need to know."
"He said, 'I'll talk to you tomorrow.' "
Chapter Six
Dylan's words were still ringing in Rachel's ears when she got out of bed Friday morning. In fact, they'd gone around in her head all night long, "talk to you tomorrow, talk to you tomorrow," sometimes in Dylan's voice, sometimes in Gary's voice, until they'd gotten so mixed up she didn't know who was talking.
She'd woken up in a cold sweat, confronted by her greatest fear -- that she'd forget the sound of Gary's voice, the lines on his face, the way his hair curled around his ears, the certain way he smiled when he wanted to make love to her.
She didn't want to forget, not ever. But lately she couldn't quite bring his voice into her head. It had been just six months. How could she be forgetting already? What kind of a wife did that make her? How could she smile and laugh and find joy in life when Gary was gone?
It didn't seem right. And she'd always been the kind of person who prided herself on doing the right thing, or at least trying to do the right thing.
But was bringing Dylan back into her life and letting him finish her house right? Or was she making a horrible mistake?
Facing herself in the mirror, she ran her fingers through the tangled waves of her hair, the hair that Gary had made her promise she would never cut. He'd loved her hair, called it honey blond. He'd always put his hands through her hair when he kissed her.
Now it wasn't honey blond, it was just hair, messy, in-need-of-a-wash, bed-head hair. It matched the rest of her, the tired lines in her forehead, the dark shadows under her eyes, the paleness in her cheeks. She looked like hell.
Was this the widow's look she would wear forever? If she lived to be eighty, she'd have another fifty years without Gary. How could that be? How could she get so much more life?
It wasn't fair. They should have grown old together, should have watched Wesley grow up, get married, have children. But she would have to do it alone. And somewhere along the way, she would have to learn how to smile again. She had a child to raise, a little boy with his whole life ahead of him. She couldn't drag him down. She had to be strong enough to go on, to live life and to let Wesley know that it was okay for him to live, too.
A knock came at her bedroom door, followed by a sleepy Wesley. "Can I have breakfast, Mommy?"
"Sure. I was just coming to get you up, but you beat me to it." She smiled at him, then impulsively swept him into her arms and gave him a long, tight squeeze. "I love you, you know."
"I love you, too. Can I have a Pop-Tart?"
She laughed and ruffled his hair. "Brown sugar cinnamon?"
He nodded, then padded back into the hall, his navy blue airplane pajamas riding low on his hips. The airplanes reminded her of Dylan and the paper plane he'd made for Wesley. Maybe bringing Dylan back into their lives wasn't a mistake. Maybe he was the bridge they needed to get from the past to the future.
Rachel ran a brush through her hair, gave her cheeks a quick blush and made her way downstairs and into the kitchen. Carly sat at the kitchen table in a pair of skimpy pajama shorts and a tank top. She was eating her usual bowl of Cheerios and reading one of the many fashion magazines she subscribed to.
Carly didn't even look up when Rachel murmured, "Good morning." Rachel decided to ignore her. She had enough on her plate without having to deal with one of Carly's moods.
She put a Pop-Tart in the toaster for Wesley, poured a glass of milk and cut up some oranges. Checking the clock, she saw it was only seven-thirty. She still had a half hour before she had to take Wesley down to the end of the drive to catch the school bus.
"Wesley," she called, just as her son walked into the kitchen. He'd put on a pair of jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt. She had a feeling the teachers and other parents who saw him at school probably thought she was a terrible mother, but forcing him into non-wrinkled clothes just didn't seem like a battle she could fight right now. "Don't forget to eat your fruit," she said when he sat down at the table.
"Hey, buddy," Carly said. "What's up?"
"Nothing. Can I turn on the TV?" Before Rachel or Carly could answer, cartoons were playing on the small television screen in the nook opposite the table.
Carly picked up her bowl and went over to the sink.
Rachel leaned against the counter, watchin
g her younger sister rinse her dish and put it in the dishwasher. She thought about all the times they'd had breakfast together, fought over doing the dishes and cleaning the counter. They'd grown up together in this house, but Rachel had always been the responsible one, the one who had to make sure Carly grew up with some manners.
"What are you looking at?" Carly turned an annoyed glance in Rachel's direction.
"Just thinking about how many times we've had breakfast together in this kitchen."
"Too many times," Carly grumbled.
"What are you mad about this morning?"
"You don't know? How could you not know?"
"I didn't know it was your pie, Carly. I never would have served it if I'd known, but I was distracted. Grandma kept handing me plates to take to the table. I am sorry." And she was sorry, because she certainly hadn't wanted to put Dylan anywhere near the special family apples.
"Fine," Carly said with a sigh. "I'll have to wait a few days for more of the apples to ripen."
"Maybe a few days will clear your head."
"I know what I want, and I'm going after it. You should be proud, not critical."
"Why don't you go after something besides a man? Like an education or a career or a hobby?"
"Because a man like Antonio could be an education, a career and a hobby," Carly said with a smile.
Rachel shook her head. "It's a mistake to wrap your whole life up in some man's arms."
"Why?"
"Because he could leave or he could die. You could end up alone, and then what will you have?"
Carly's smile faded. "You still have a lot, Rachel. You have Wesley. You have the family. You have the land that you love, the business to run."
"I wasn't talking about me," Rachel said, but they both knew it was a lie.
"I can't expect the worst. I can't live my life that way," Carly said. "And you shouldn't either."
"Kind of hard when the worst keeps kicking me in the face. Look, I don't want to see you get hurt. You're young. You're naive. You don't know what kind of a man Antonio is."
"I know him well enough. And I'm not that young or that naive. On that you'll have to trust me."
Love Will Find a Way Page 7
