by Liz Flaherty
Ben thought of his father and of the sweet old dog that had walked with them all summer and felt like crying himself. “I’m so sorry. Does Jayson know?”
“He took it hard. He was mad at Nick and his dog. It took a while to make him understand it wasn’t their fault.”
Ben heard what she didn’t say: that Jayson still felt betrayed by Ben’s absence. It made him angry—affection for the boy didn’t make him responsible for him—but it also made him feel guilty. “Do you have a cold?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Well, of course I have a cold. It’s just past the peak of leaf season. When have I not had a cold then?” She stopped, and the silence grew between them until she said, “I’m sorry. The years kind of fell away there, didn’t they? You have no reason to remember that I always get a cold in late October.”
Regret wound its way into the sadness that already weighed heavily in his mind. He wished he’d remembered that. It was as though the closeness they’d recovered this summer was disappearing too quickly to catch it and hold on to it.
Ben carried his coffee into the living room and set it on the table beside the recliner that was the only chair in his living room he liked. He leaned back into its corduroy comfort, searching for a way to lighten things between them. “So, tell me, short woman, did you really bowl a ninety-seven like I read on McGuffey’s Tavern’s Facebook page?”
There was another silence on the other end, but it was more like a nonverbal giggle. Kate snorted laughter, then she sneezed, which, heaven help him, made it even funnier. Dignity oozed hoarsely from her voice when she asked, “What wicked person would have put that on McGuffey’s page?”
“I can’t imagine.” Though Dan had texted him the Facebook link with the message, R u SURE u want 2 sponsor them? followed by an emoticon leer. Not only were the scores on the website, so were numerous pictures of the McGuffey’s Tavern bowling team in their pink-and-aqua shirts. Joann’s and Marce’s shoes and bowling balls matched their shirts. Penny’s and Kate’s balls appeared to be the same ones they’d had in high school when they circulated a petition to make bowling a credit-earning class.
Even with several hundred signatures and a conspicuous number of students wearing their parents’ bowling shirts to school, the school board (and quite possibly the state of Vermont) hadn’t agreed. However, the girls had both gotten good grades in government class.
“Bowling’s fun, though, even if it never did become a required subject in school. I’m always so tired of it when the league season is over that I forget how much I liked it to start with.” Kate spoke quickly, as though she didn’t want silence to make a space between them again.
Ben didn’t think he was the only one who regretted how quickly their closeness appeared to be dissipating.
“Do you bowl at all anymore,” she asked, “other than the occasional Sunday with me when you want me to look bad?”
“Only with you.” He rode his mountain bike until snow started getting in the way and then he skied. That took care of his time off. The thought gave him more than a twinge of regret, though he didn’t know why. Skiing was right up there with breathing on his favorite-things list.
“Jayson’s decided to give up pool for bowling.”
Ben didn’t know if she’d meant the statement as an accusation, but he felt reproached nonetheless. And vaguely irritated. “I probably never should have started teaching him.” But he hadn’t known the time in Fionnegan was going to end as soon as it did. She knew that, didn’t she? “I wish—”
But then he stopped, because he was no more sure what he wished for than he’d been those early, bright months of summer. That spangled time when he’d thought his father might possibly get better and he’d seen Kate Rafael almost every single day.
“It’s all right.” She spoke coolly into yet another patch of stillness. “He’s stopped mentioning it. Probably better for the felt on the pool table, too. And he loves bowling.” She hesitated. “I’ll keep an eye on your mom, okay? I’d better go.” Pride stiffened her voice. “Fridays are busy at work.”
For Ben, too. Friday was a short day in the practice, with no appointments after noon and only one physician on call. He’d been handling the on-calls since he came back. They’d been quiet afternoons for the most part. Boring ones.
He missed Fionnegan. He missed his father and seeing the rest of his family often. And he missed Kate. He looked forward to the long weekend coming up.
The high school was putting on a “farewell to fall” ride to raise funds for the ski team. They’d attached his father’s name to the ride, so the whole family would be in attendance. He wondered why Kate hadn’t mentioned it, but the fact that she hadn’t made him reluctant to bring it up.
“Thanks.” The roughness of his voice surprised him, and he had to concentrate on mellowing it out. “For looking after Mom, I mean. And hey, Kate?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Watch those ninety-sevens. They’ll ruin your athletic reputation.”
She huffed laughter, and he laughed with her, grateful they were able to end the uncomfortable conversation on a note of the amity they’d spent the summer attaining.
* * *
“GOOD JOB, JAYSON!” Kate clapped as he rounded the corner, the wheels of New Navy scarcely wobbling as they crunched through early November’s fallen leaves.
“I get to go on the next ride, Debby says,” he boasted, coming to an awkward stop beside Kate. He took off his helmet and scrubbed a short-fingered hand through his thin brown hair.
The motion reminded her of Ben. As handsome as he was, he didn’t look good in a bike helmet and took it off as soon as he came to a stop. She had to concentrate on keeping her smile intact. Then what Jayson had said clicked in. “What ride is that? I thought they were over for the year.”
Snow had been known to make its appearance at early and inconvenient times, so the unpaved single-track trails around Fionnegan didn’t get much traffic after October. Organized rides ended even sooner. However, there was no denying the rides were a popular form of fundraiser—it wouldn’t be the first time a late one occurred.
“It’s for the ski team.” Penny, her purse over her shoulder, joined them in front of A Day at a Time, where she’d spent the afternoon helping Kate. “The principal said he didn’t think the community could face one more fish fry or pancake supper. They’re calling it the Tim McGuffey Memorial Ride because the tavern’s always supported the skiers. You mean Mary Kate didn’t hit you up to sponsor her or at least buy a T-shirt?”
Kate nodded. “She did ask me for a donation for something or other just recently, but I was busy and didn’t pay much attention. I told her she was a terrible child who was bleeding me dry.”
“How much did you give her?”
“Twenty bucks.” Kate helped Jayson refasten his helmet for his ride home. Debby should be awake by now. “How long a ride and when is it?”
“Ten miles a week from tomorrow. Lots of schoolkids and families. Dan’s riding first aid.” Penny hesitated. “Colby’s coming over to ride with Joann.”
Kate frowned. “That’s a long one, Jay. Don’t you think maybe you should start with a shorter one? Maybe in the spring, when the trees are just getting new leaves?”
Jayson’s chin jutted out so that she had to refasten the strap. “Colby said I could ride good enough,” he said stubbornly.
Kate narrowed her eyes. “Since when are you and Colby friends?” She was perfectly fine with Colby and Joann seeing each other; Colby having an influence over Jayson was something else again.
The boy shook his head in confusion and she was sorry she’d asked. “If Debby goes, I’m sure it’ll be okay.” She gave him a pat. “You’ll do great. I’ll sponsor you a dollar a mile. How about that?” She didn’t think he could ride that distance, but as long as he thought he could, she wasn’t going to pour any more rain on that particular parade.
“All the McGuffeys will be here, I’m sure.” Penny fro
wned. “Things okay with you and Ben?”
He hadn’t mentioned the ride when Kate talked to him; nor had he said anything about coming back to Fionnegan soon. It had been, as talks between friends go, a nonstarter. Once they’d finished laughing at her bowling scores, they’d spent the rest of the conversation irritating each other.
“Just to the corner and back, Jayson. I have to close up the office, then I’ll ride home with you.” Kate watched him push himself off, prepared to grab the back of the bike seat if he couldn’t get enough momentum to keep going. She waited until New Navy had stopped wobbling, then answered Penny. “No.” It hurt as much to say it now as it had all those years ago. “No, things aren’t okay.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“IT’S GOING TO snow tonight.” Dylan tossed his backpack into the backseat of Ben’s SUV and got in the passenger side up front. “Thanks for picking me up.”
It hadn’t been a problem—the small town near Montpelier where Dylan was parish priest was almost on Ben’s way to Fionnegan from Boston. But snow?
“Nah.” The National Weather Service had said it probably wasn’t going to snow. It hadn’t felt like it when Ben had left Boston two-and-a-half hours ago, either. Though he was driving into the Northeast Kingdom, where anything weather-related could happen and frequently did.
Dylan hiked an eyebrow at him. The resemblance to their father’s expression, complete with dark blue eyes, was like a punch to the solar plexus. Ben had to catch his breath.
“You doubt me, my brother? Even knowing who my boss is?” Dylan used his best pontifical voice.
Breathing normally again, Ben was able to laugh. “No, I doubt you knowing who my brother is. Fasten your seat belt.” Ben put the gearshift back into Park and got out of the car, lifting his face toward the breeze. He’d been sniffing out snow ever since he’d learned to ski—which he told everyone was before he knew how to walk. He circled the car, tugging his fleece jacket closer even though the buffeting wind was still warm. Except for where the cold was sneaking in behind and pushing it.
It was going to snow.
“I think you’re right,” Ben said, getting back into the car, “but don’t be telling anyone I said so. I’ll deny it.”
“No one will be able to ride except the ones who use fat bikes or studded tires.” There was a sneer in his voice—Dylan didn’t like the bicycles with the wide, underinflated tires that devoted winter riders used.
“They can only ride the fat bikes on packed-down trails, and there may not be time for that. You want coffee?” Ben pulled into a drive-through, knowing his brother would be ready for some junk food. The housekeeper at the rectory was bent on keeping her charges healthy.
“And a double-bacon cheeseburger with a large order of fries. And don’t tell Mom.”
“I won’t.” Ben rolled down the car window and gave the disembodied voice their order before driving forward to the pick-up window. “But you’ll have to eat again when you get there. You know that. Today’s Thursday, so it’s broccoli-cheese soup.”
Dylan looked surprised. “You’re not staying at Mom’s?”
“I didn’t all summer. Why would I start now?” It had been fun getting ready for Morgan’s wedding at the folks’ house. He’d liked the interaction with Patrick and Dylan, gathering as an all-for-one-and-one-for-all threesome with the bride and telling her in a warm and safe place how much they loved her. In the days after Tim’s death, it had been the right place to be, but it wasn’t home to Ben anymore. He was more comfortable in the inn, not sharing a bedroom or bathroom.
Kate had thought that was strange until her parents came to Vermont for Tim’s funeral and she’d become a daughter in her own house. Her mother had made the coffee in the morning and insisted Kate needed breakfast before her eyes were completely open. She’d had Kate’s bed made before her daughter got out of the shower and suggested that Sally would be happier living outside.
Ben had great affection for Kate’s mother, but not for her coffee. He’d taken thermoses of Dylan’s brew to Kate in her office each day Mrs. Rafael had been there. It had been a break from the heavy grief in his parents’ house. Sharing the space and time with Kate had given him the strength to get through the rest of the day.
He hadn’t thanked her for that.
Ben and Dylan were several miles down the road and the flavorful junk food was mostly a memory when Dylan’s words fell into the quiet between them. “I’m being transferred.”
Anger surged, and Ben gave his brother a furious look. “Don’t you think you might have mentioned that possibility sooner? Mom really doesn’t need her baby boy being shipped off to a parish in Timbu—”
“Oh, lighten up.” Dylan’s glower showed Ben he didn’t have a corner on fraternal irritation. “I’m coming back to Fionnegan. Father Jackson’s retiring.”
“Oh.” Ben sipped his coffee and burned his tongue. He guessed it served him right for popping off before he knew the details. “That’s good then, right? Or would you rather have not come back home?”
“I don’t know. It never mattered that much to me to get away from Fionnegan the way it did the rest of you. The other side of that coin is that I never felt compelled to stay there, either. Kate and I used to talk about that. She never understood how I could be so ambivalent about where I lived.”
“Yeah, that would definitely be a concept she wouldn’t get.” Ben spoke drily, his voice working its way past a hurting place he didn’t want to think too much about.
Dylan frowned at him. “Is it because you’re a doctor that you think anyone whose feelings differ from yours is completely wrong?”
Ben snorted. He took another sip of coffee. It was almost drinkable. By the time he got to the bed-and-breakfast, he’d be able to enjoy it.
“I think you’re a cool guy,” Dylan said carefully. “A great skier. You’re a good doctor, you’re generous and you’re nice to people most of the time. But you think your way’s the only way.”
“Everyone is like that, Dyl. Everyone wants their own way.”
“They do,” Dylan admitted, “but how many of them turn their backs on the loves of their lives rather than compromise?”
* * *
KATE SAT ON a stool in Penny’s kitchen, icing cookies.
“The ride will still be on if it doesn’t snow that much,” Penny said. She pushed a cookie sheet into her oven, closed the door and turned back to the counter. “If I never frost a pumpkin face on another cookie, it will be too soon. Don’t these people understand that Halloween is over? It was last Friday and I had already made at least a billion pumpkin-face cookies then.”
Kate eyed the cookies she was frosting critically—her pumpkin faces tended to look a little drunken. “It’s your own fault yours taste so good. Your customer promised her kids a Halloween party—she had no way of knowing the entire fifth-grade class was going to get the flu. Including Michael.” She put down her knife to hug Penny and Dan’s youngest as he came through the kitchen. He still looked pale from his illness.
“Michael got sick just to irritate me, didn’t you?” Penny gathered him close and did a fever check with her cheek against his forehead when he reached past her for a handful of cookies. “When did you get as tall as me?” she demanded in mock outrage.
“When you weren’t looking,” he responded obediently. “You need to get a new line, Ma. The other kids told me what to say to all your old ones.” But he kissed her cheek before continuing on his way to the television in the living room.
“No video games,” his mother called, reaching for the green icing to add stems and the occasional leaf to the cookies Kate had already put faces on. Penny held one out in front of her, squinting. “This looks like Skip Lund. Did you do that on purpose?”
Kate snickered. “You’re a wicked and evil person.”
“That’s redundant.” Penny put the completed cookies in boxes, taping them closed.
“Huh?” Kate concentrated on what she was doing. Just a
little more gel from the tube in her hand and...perfect. “What’s redundant?”
“Saying wicked and evil both. If I’m one, I’m automatically the other.” Penny stacked the boxes neatly in a large paper bag with a Penny’s Good Stuff logo on the side. “Of course, we both know I’m neither.”
“Look.” Kate held up the cookie she’d been working on. “Doesn’t that look like Ben when he’s being a doctor and has his glasses on?”
“It does.” If Penny thought it was odd that her best friend was making cookies that looked like an old boyfriend, she didn’t say so. “Do you want to drop these off for me on your way home?”
“What about the ones in the oven?”
Penny took them out and turned off the dial, leaving the door open to allow the heat to warm the room. “These were in case I messed up any of those. I didn’t, so it’s open season on one sheet of pumpkin cookies and all extras that look like Skip Lund or Ben McGuffey.”
“So I can have them?” Kate smiled hopefully. “The kids shouldn’t eat them, you know, what with the orthodontist and all.”
Penny sighed. “I gave him some, hoping to soften him up on his bill, but it didn’t work—it’s still like paying a mortgage. Thank goodness the girls had such nice straight teeth. I always knew girls were better, but Dan wanted to go ahead and keep the boys.” Her voice rose as she talked.
Predictably, Michael’s voice came from the living room. “Love you, too, Ma.”
“You’re my heart and soul, honey.” Wearing the I’m-so-lucky smile Kate envied with all her covetous heart, Penny put the last of the cookies into a plastic bag. “Here you go. You don’t need the icing. You’re sweet enough.”
“Yeah, right.” Kate picked up the cookies for delivery. “I’ll see you Saturday morning for the ride.”
The temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees in the hours she’d been at Penny’s. Kate got into the car, glad she’d driven over after work instead of riding her bike. She delivered the party cookies, stopped at the convenience store for a gallon of milk—it looked like a good night for hot chocolate, plus there were all those cookies—and pulled into her driveway at nine o’clock on the proverbial nose.
