He swore again when he reached the back. One of the old loblolly pines lay across what was left of the pulverized gazebo. Some of the new trees he’d planted, too, had been uprooted—
“Patrick?”
He swiveled, not sure whether to laugh or get mad when he saw April, filthy as hell and practically swallowed up in somebody’s old sweatshirt and too-big rubber boots—but still with that headband, boy—dragging a tree branch three times longer than she was tall.
“What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing?”
“Cleaning up my yard.” He watched about a hundred expressions cross that cute, filthy face. “What on earth are you doing here?”
To his chagrin, he felt his face heat to where it was almost painful. He couldn’t decide what was worse, the jolt to his system when he didn’t know if she was okay, or the one when he found out she was. Man, was he in deep crap or what? “You didn’t get my voice mail?”
“What? Oh. No. I left my cell on the kitchen counter when I went outside—before the storm, I mean—and I guess I forgot it afterward.” She dropped the branch, then scowled at it. “I was a little preoccupied.”
“You were here? Alone?”
“Yeah.” Facing him again, she stuffed her thumbs in her jeans’ pockets. “Hid out in the cellar until it was over.”
“Good call.”
“I thought so.”
“Were you scared?”
“It happened so fast, ‘scared’ didn’t have time to kick in. And you haven’t answered my—”
“It was on the news, they think it was a small tornado—”
Her eyes went wide as saucers. “You’re kidding?”
“And I thought maybe I should check on...the place.” He paused. “On you. Are you okay?”
“Just peachy,” she muttered, then dragged the muddy glove across her cheek. “A tornado, huh?”
“They think. Once in a lifetime thing, most likely.”
“True. Although...” Her gaze drifted out over the ransacked yard. “Oh, Lord, Patrick,” she sighed out. “All that work y’all did...”
“That, we can fix—”
His cell rang. He dug it out of his pocket, grimacing at his brother’s number.
“Dude,” Luke said in his ear, “where are you? Ma said you took off, the turkey’s about to come out of the oven—”
“I’m at April’s,” he said, turning away. “The storm...it was pretty bad. She’s got a fifty-foot loblolly down, it took the gazebo with it—”
“Damn.”
“And a lot of the plantings.” He sighed. “Tell Ma I’m sorry, but I can’t leave with everything all torn up like this. You pigs better save me some pie, though. I’ll get it when I stop by later to pick up Lili. Okay?”
“Uh...sure, I’ll tell her, but—”
He didn’t mean to cut off his brother. Or maybe he did. But he turned back to find April watching him with a funny expression on her face.
“Tell me you’re not missing Thanksgiving on account of some stupid old storm.”
“Why not? You are.”
“Actually, I had Thanksgiving already,” she said, grabbing her tree branch again. Gritting her teeth.
“With your cousin? And for God’s sake, put that down.”
A beat or two passed before she dumped the branch, then tugged off one glove to cram her windblown hair behind one ear. He’d never seen her that messy. Or less inclined to care that she was. “No, by myself.”
“As in, alone?”
“That’s usually what ‘by myself’ means. Got a problem with that?”
Patrick looked at her for a moment, then tramped back to his truck to get a pair of gloves. Yanking them on, he tramped back, considering the branch. “Where was this headed?”
“I don’t know. The road, I suppose. I thought if I could at least clear out the smaller stuff...” She turned away, clearing her throat. “One of the pines fell over. The gazebo...”
“I know. I saw. It’s okay, we’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll pay you—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He hefted the branch, carted it down one of the paths toward the road. Once everything was gathered, they could decide if they needed a dump truck or not. Although the pine could be cut up, turned into firewood maybe—
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
April had come up behind him, startling him. He turned. “What?”
“For somebody who told me the other day he’s...what was that again? That you’re ‘bad news’?” Her eyes went all slitty. “Sorry, big guy, but the pieces don’t add up.”
He let their gazes tangle for a moment before spotting another branch a few feet away. “Don’t read more into this than there is.”
“Oh, no? You tried to make me think you’re a jerk, Patrick. But a jerk...” The breeze made her shiver; she wrapped her arms around herself, keeping their gazes locked. “A jerk doesn’t leave a holiday family dinner to come check up on a woman he’d done everything in his power to blow off.”
Wordlessly, he hauled the second branch over, dumped it on top of the first. Stomped back into the yard to start assessing the damage, what could be saved, what would have to be replaced. “Don’t take it personally,” he said at last. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t’ve done for any other client.” At her silence, he looked back. Her mouth was crooked up in another one of those weird little smiles. As she shook her head. “What now?”
“You are so full of it,” she muttered, tugging her gloves back on.
She was so adorable he got a little dizzy for a moment. Which, considering, between the mud and the tangled hair and the disreputable state of her appearance in general that she looked like some street urchin, did not speak well of Patrick’s mental state.
“So,” she said, “game plan?”
Running like hell? “Pardon?”
“For the grounds?”
Right. He unhooked his gaze from hers, then pointed to the nearest bed. “We can probably save a lot of those plants by getting the debris off ’em before any real damage is done. So why don’t you start with that?”
He stopped, staring down the street.
“What are you looking at?” April asked, swiveling to follow his gaze and shielding her eyes from the sun spearing through the leftover clouds. “Is that—?”
“It would appear so.”
As, one by one, an assortment of Shaughnessy vehicles pulled up to meet them on the driveway, April turned to him, a mixture of disbelief and gratitude in her eyes. “You’re all nuts.”
That they were, Patrick thought as his family piled out of those vehicles, apparently bearing their entire Thanksgiving feast. Then a tight grin pulled at his mouth as his mother made a beeline for April.
And, short of tackling the woman and throwing her in the back of somebody’s minivan, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
* * *
It was like being swarmed by angels, April thought, too amazed to do more than watch the procession of gabbing women—and a slew of kids—tote platters and covered dishes and Crock-Pots past her and into the house. The menfolk had immediately manned their clippers and shovels and chainsaws, not only to tackle her yard, but two of them headed across the street to one of the neighbors who’d probably not been amused to find his forty-foot oak across his driveway.
“I hope you don’t mind us barging in like this,” Patrick’s mother said after introducing herself, her clasp firm and warm. As was her smile, the smile of a woman who’d seen it all. And survived. “But when we found out how bad it was...”
Still holding April’s hand, Kate scanned the front yard before looking at April again, her gaze sympathetic underneath steel-colored bangs. “We couldn’t very well go on and enjoy our dinner now, could we? Knowing that you and our Patrick weren’t.” Finally she let go, her eyes crinkling when she laughed. “So we brought dinner here! We can eat whenever the guys are finished.”
Tears swam in April’s
eyes, that these people would drop everything... “They even left their football?” she asked, remembering her mother always having to carefully time Thanksgiving dinner around whatever game was on.
Another laugh burst from Kate’s lungs. “God bless DVR, right? But in any case, soon as Luke told them what had happened, they were on their feet, grabbing their coats. Because that’s how my guys roll.”
“Even so, I can’t believe...” Her head wagging, April dropped onto the porch’s top step, then lowered her face into her hands. Kate sat beside her, rubbing her back.
“It’s okay, hon. We’re here now, so don’t you worry,” she said, a trace of Ireland in her speech. “The boys will soon set it all to rights. Although I’ve lived here all my life, never saw the like. A freak occurrence, for sure.”
On a little laugh, April let her hands fall, her gaze latching like a heat-seeking missile on to Patrick, sawing branches with Luke and his dad at the edge of the yard. “Sometimes, I feel like my entire life is a series of freak occurrences.”
“And don’t I hear you on that,” Kate said on a light chuckle, giving April’s shoulder a squeeze before letting go to fold her hands together. Patrick’s mother was dressed like the rest of the family, in jeans and heavy-duty sneakers, although in her case a bit of a turquoise sweater peeked out from behind her open car coat. No standing on ceremony with this crowd.
Although still feeling more than a trifle overwhelmed, April finally remembered her manners. “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome. We’re only glad we can help.” Then she laughed. “As long as those doofuses get fed,” she said, nodding toward the men, “they’re happy.”
April blew out a breath, then started to rise. “Speaking of which, I should probably go help in the kitchen.”
“With that lot? I’d say you’re much safer staying out of their way. Although Patrick tells me the kitchen is the stuff dreams are made of?”
“It is,” April said, sitting again. “At least, my cousin Mel—the one who’s going to be the inn’s main chef—tells me it is.” She pulled a face. “I can barely make toast. But are you sure you want to stay out here? It’s kind of chilly—”
“Oh, don’t mind about me, love, I’m fine.” Glancing back at the house over her shoulder, she sighed. “Joe and I were married here, you know.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. So I have a special place in my heart for the house, as you can imagine.” She smiled at April. “I’m so glad you decided to reopen it.”
“Me, too.”
A pause preceded, “Patrick tells me you’re a widow?”
A question that by rights shouldn’t make her uncomfortable. It was, after all, a fact. But as kindly as the question was asked, the skin between April’s shoulder blades still prickled. “I am. For almost a year now. So who is everybody?” she said, diverting the conversation while she still could and not appear rude. “I know Patrick’s dad, and Luke, but the others?”
One by one, Kate pointed them out, from her oldest, Joe Junior, to “baby” Sean, a beanpole in a beanie and the only one of the four boys, she said, completely uninterested in going into the family business.
“A lawyer, he wants to be,” Kate with a shrug. And a proud smile. There were others, as well—her youngest daughter’s boyfriend, a striking young black man, who like Sarah was studying for his masters at U of M; her oldest daughter Frannie’s husband, blond and bulky, whose laugh could be heard to Chincoteague; and the Rocky-era Sly Stallone lookalike married to her middle daughter Bree. They all had names, of course, but by the fourth or fifth they’d all become swirled together—
She caught Patrick looking over at her and his mother. Not glowering, exactly, but close.
“Oh, dear,” Kate said. “Someone’s not happy with me.”
“You?” April frowned at Patrick’s mother. “Why you?”
“Because I’ve got you all to myself,” she said with a little shrug. “He’s seen me do this before, of course. With the others.”
“Seen you do what bef—?” The light dawned. “Oh.” She sighed. “Mrs. Shaughnessy—”
“Kate. Please.”
“Kate—”
“I’m not trying to matchmake, believe it or not. Or stir up trouble, contrary to what Patrick is probably thinking right now. But siblings tattle. And Luke told me about the exchange between the two of you at Emerson’s the other day.”
April’s heart bumped. “Exchange? We hardly said a dozen words to each other.”
“So Luke said,” Kate said, smiling, and April turned aside, blushing. Kate chuckled. “I like to think I’m a wise old hen who’s learned a thing or two from watching her chicks fall in and out of love more times than I can count. And I’m seeing very clear signs that Patrick’s...interested. And mad as hell, too, because he doesn’t know what to do about it. About you.”
“But...there’s nothing going on between us.”
“Yet.”
Suddenly all those yakking women and kids in her kitchen sounded appealing. Then again, if anybody understood the man, it would be his mama. She’d only have his best interest at heart, too. Especially after—
“I’m sorry,” his mother gently said. “I’m making you uncomfortable.”
“You’re not,” April said after a moment. “The conversation is. However...” She deliberately stared at Patrick until he turned her way again. Glowered again. Looked away again. “Luke wasn’t imagining things,” she said. “At least on my end. Because I’m interested, too. Especially since I can tell Patrick’s trying to keep his distance. Except what he says and how he acts are two different things.”
“He’s been hurt, love,” his mother said gently. “And I’m not talking about what he’s gone through physically, although naturally that’s been no small challenge.”
“What happened?” April asked, her gaze steady on Patrick.
“You don’t know?” When April shook her head, Kate sighed. “Not that this is a surprise. He hates when people fuss over him. Make a big deal out of it.”
April’s eyes cut to Kate’s profile. “A big deal out of what?”
“He was in Iraq,” she said softly. “In the army, nearing the end of his tour of duty four years ago. A bomb went off in a house shortly after he and his team entered, setting it on fire.” Her voice softened. “Two of those men owe their lives to him.”
“And...the others?” April whispered.
Kate shook her head. Her eyes stinging, April reached for his mother’s hand, the older woman’s fingers closing around hers in silent understanding. “We’re incredibly proud of him for everything he’s overcome thus far. And I know there’s been plenty of times when he’s wanted to give up. Especially when he finally came home—back to his wife and child, I mean—and she told him she couldn’t...”
Kate stopped, clearly choked up. “Men hear all their lives that they have to be strong. That they’re not allowed to hurt, or to hide it if they are. So they—the men—get frustrated and confused and pull away when all they want is to be comforted.”
April realized Kate was squeezing her hand. “Patrick won’t let you comfort him?”
She was quiet for a moment, “I think I was afraid to try. That he’d think I was treating him like my baby.” With a soft laugh she scrubbed away a tear with the edge of her sweater sleeve.
“Which of course he still is. They all are.” Then she sighed. “Obviously he doesn’t look the same. And I gather he still has nightmares, although not as often as before. He may be in therapy all his life, for both the physical and mental issues. But inside, past all the junk, he’s no different than he ever was. Patrick was the happiest kid, always smiling, always goofing around.”
“And you want to see that kid again.”
The older woman dug a tissue out of her pocket, wiped her nose. “Yes.” She stopped again, clearing her throat. “Patrick needs someone in his life—besides us, I mean—with the strength and courage to know what’s true about
him even when things are tough. To comfort him even when he says he doesn’t want it. To, I don’t know, coax who he used to be out of hiding. Natalie—his ex—wasn’t that person.”
April almost laughed. “And you think I am?”
“Oh, I have no idea. I’ve just met you. But you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. If things were to...progress. For both your sakes—”
“Ma!” A big-boned redhead who looked very much like Kate stuck her head out the front door. “You want to make the gravy, or you want me to?”
“I’ll be right there, Frannie.” Kate got to her feet, dusting off her bottom and stretching a little. “Old butts and hard steps don’t mix,” she said on a laugh as April stood as well, flinching slightly when Kate drew her into a hard hug, whispering, “Knowledge is power,” before heading into the house.
April followed Patrick’s mother inside, stopping for a moment in the lobby to process, if not steel herself against, the raucous laughter drifting out from the kitchen. A vociferous bunch, those Shaughnessys.
Another woman appeared, this one a little younger than the first. Thinner. Wiry haired. “April, right? I’m Bree, another sister,” she said, striding across the foyer to pump April’s hand, a huge grin splitting her pretty face. “The house is seriously amazing. And the kitchen...” She laughed. “Oh. My. God.” When April laughed back, Bree thumbed over her shoulder. “You mind if we rearrange the dining room furniture—?”
“Oh! No, go right ahead, do whatever you like with it.”
“Got it.” Bree disappeared, and April shut her eyes.
She’d originally envisioned the inn as a refuge from the storm of life, perhaps because that’s how she’d seen it as a child—an antidote to that constant upheaval. Not that she expected being an innkeeper would be all sunshine and roses, or that there would never be surprises—she grimaced, thinking of the ravaged grounds—but as much as lay within her power she wanted her guests to feel that same peace.
A Gift for All Seasons Page 8
