by JoAnn Ross
“What kind of mix-up?”
“The mixed-up kind,” Ida retorted. “And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Savannah may have toughened up over the last weeks, but she suspected that even Genghis Khan would have had difficulty facing down Ida at her most resolute. Dragging her hands through her hair, she decided to get answers from another source.
Dan was waiting for her on the front porch. He was leaning back in the porch swing, his booted feet propped on the railing. The driving rain had lightened to mist.
“What happened?” she repeated. “Why was my grandmother crying?”
The expression of sympathy she viewed on his face when he looked up at her made her dread his answer. “I suppose crying is a standard reaction when you get arrested for shoplifting.”
“Arrested?” His words buzzed like a swarm of wasps. Savannah latched onto the loudest one. “Jack arrested my grandmother?”
“He didn’t exactly arrest her.” Dan sighed, dropped his boots to the porch floor and leaned forward, his fingers linked between his knees. “He just took her down to the station for her own protection…. It’s a little complicated.”
Name one thing about her life that wasn’t these days. She was living proof that trouble, like nature, seemed to abhor a vacuum.
“My grandmother wouldn’t steal anything.” About this Savannah was very sure.
“I know that. So does Jack. Hell, Olivia Brown knows it, too. The trouble is, the new owners of the mercantile are from the city, and they established a no-tolerance policy for shoplifters.
“Olivia was afraid she would lose her job if she didn’t call the sheriff, especially since Fred Potter was there to witness Ida breezing past the checkout with a cartload of groceries.”
The wicker creaked as Savannah sank onto the porch swing beside him. “Oh, God…. She forgot to pay for them.”
“That’d be my guess. Needless to say, she was pretty shook up when Jack arrived a couple minutes after Olivia stopped her from leaving. He didn’t want to let her drive home by herself.”
“I can understand that. But how did you end up getting recruited?”
“I happened to walk in the door of the sheriff’s office right after Jack struck out trying to get hold of you or Raine. I knew Raine was on her way to Tacoma to take a deposition and figured you were already at the lighthouse. So I volunteered to chauffeur Ida home.
“Jack’s going to come by with a deputy later on today to drop off the Jeep, but you might want to hide the keys for a while, at least until your grandmother gets a clean bill of health.”
She wasn’t surprised he knew about Ida’s problems. Undoubtedly Raine had told her husband, who’d told his cousin, about tonight’s dinner plans.
“The trick, of course, is getting her to agree to a comprehensive physical in the first place—short of tying her up and dragging her into the city.” Savannah’s voice was as flat as her spirits.
“We’ll think of something.”
“It’s not your problem.”
“You’re family, Savannah. When Jack married Raine, that made you part of the clan. And we O’Hallorans stick together.”
Clan. It was a strange, old-fashioned word for a concept as foreign to Savannah as Amazonia. For years her immediate family had consisted of Ida and Raine. Lately Lilith, too, had returned home to be part of that nuclear unit, which had expanded to include Raine’s husband Jack and his daughter Amy, as well as Cooper Ryan and Gwen.
Her father had sent her an invitation to his wedding in London last year, but it had taken place on Christmas, the busiest time of the year at Las Casitas, not that Savannah was all that sure she would have gone even if it had occurred during the off-season. Still, even if she counted Reggie’s new wife, whom she’d never met, the number didn’t begin to come close to that of the O’Hallorans, who’d first settled on the peninsula over a hundred years ago and had seemed to take to heart the biblical admonition to be fruitful and multiply.
They were sitting very close together, close enough for her to see the change in his eyes. Distracted and unwillingly fascinated by the blue flame, she wasn’t prepared for him to touch his mouth to hers. For a brief moment, her already unstable world tilted.
Because it would have been so easy—too easy—to sink into the tender kiss, because she could still feel the hum of it vibrating on her lips, Savannah pulled back, seeking solid ground.
“What was that for?” Her voice sounded too defensive even to her own ears.
“Luck.” The familiar grin flashed. His hand lifted, as if to touch her face, then merely tugged on a curl that had fallen across her cheek instead. “See you tonight.”
Because she didn’t want to let him know that he had, in that fleeting instant, made her feel things she’d forgotten she could feel, things she had no business feeling, Savannah resisted the schoolgirlish urge to stay on the porch until he’d driven out of sight.
Instead, she went back into the house, searching for Ida, who’d sequestered herself in the den and tartly informed Savannah through the closed door that she was busy with household accounts and did not want to be disturbed.
There were no lingering tears in her grandmother’s voice. No tremor, no confusion. She sounded as resolute as she’d been in the days when she’d served as a stabilizing rock for two little girls, who, without her, could have drifted so far astray.
Myriad memories, both good and bad, assaulted Savannah, ricocheting in her mind like gunfire as she drove to the library to research Alzheimer’s before tonight’s dinner. She felt the moisture on her face, realized she was crying, and swiped at the tears with the back of her hand.
Surrendering a day’s work on the lighthouse wouldn’t begin to make up for the personal sacrifices Ida Lindstrom had made for her granddaughters, but it was a start.
9
“S ome of the symptoms are right on the mark,” Savannah said to Raine when the sisters had slipped away to the back porch of the farmhouse before dinner. Afraid she might be overheard by either Henry or Ida if she called from the house, Savannah had waited until she’d arrived at the farm to tell her sister about today’s research trip. “But others don’t fit at all.”
“I imagine each case is different,” Raine mused as she skimmed through the pages Savannah had copied.
“That’s what all the books say.” Savannah took a sip of the red wine that had been Dan’s contribution to the family dinner. “They also say the warning signs may apply to dementias other than Alzheimer’s.”
“Terrific.” Raine sighed and looked out over the acres of conical blue-green spruce and firs. “All the more reason to get Gram to the doctor as soon as possible.”
As they silently sipped their wine and considered the difficulties involved in that challenge, it was Savannah’s turn to sigh.
Displaying an ability to compartmentalize that Savannah had always admired, Raine switched conversational gears. “With all that’s been happening, we haven’t had a chance to talk about you. How are you doing?”
“Better than last week. The shingles are finally all replaced, so I can finally start finishing up the inside. I ran by to check on things before I drove here, and wonders of wonders, the roofs weren’t leaking.”
“That is good news. But I wasn’t asking about the lighthouse. How are you doing now that you’ve put some time and distance between yourself and the weasel?”
“I’ve turned the corner on that, too. At least I haven’t had the nightmare for two weeks.” Savannah didn’t mention that concerns about Ida had precluded a great deal of sleep.
“What nightmare?” Raine was looking at her in that same deep way that Dan had on more than one occasion. Savannah decided it must be a lawyer thing.
“Didn’t I tell you about it?”
“No.”
Savannah wished she hadn’t brought the subject up. She also knew that since Raine had definitely inherited their grandmother’s stubbornness, it wouldn’t do any good trying
to dodge the issue now. “I dream I’m getting married at the lighthouse.”
“That’s not such a bad start.”
“For you, perhaps.” Savannah was pleased her sister seemed to be basking in marital bliss, but she had no intention of ever walking down the aisle again. Better, she’d decided, to stick to things she did well. “It’s a garden wedding. In the summer, I think, because the sky is wide and blue and I’m surrounded by John Martin’s flowers.”
“It sounds gorgeous. So what’s the problem? Is this one of those naked dreams?”
“No, I’m wearing a gorgeous, traditional white satin gown, with lace and seed pearls and about a mile-long train.”
“If you tell me the groom is Kevin, I’ll understand why you consider it a nightmare.”
“It’s him. And I’m feeling as stupidly blissful as I did in Monaco—until after we exchange vows, when, instead of lifting my veil, he pulls a hedge clipper out of his tuxedo and clips off my wings.”
Raine lifted a brow. “Your wings?”
“Wings,” Savannah repeated. “They’re even prettier than my gown, all gossamer silver and gold, as delicate as a spider’s web. I begin to cry, and ask him what he’s doing, and he answers that now that I’m married, I won’t need them anymore.”
“And what do you say?”
“I try telling him that I need to fly. That I’ve flown since I was a child, and that’s when it happens.”
“What?”
“All the guests stand up, and they’re wearing white-and-black masks, like the comedy ones that are the flip side of drama?”
“Right.”
“And they all say ‘Silly girl, you’ve been fooling yourself. You never learned how to fly.’ When they start to laugh, I try to run away, but they’re all standing on my train, so I grab the hedge clippers from Kevin and hack it off. Then I run away, off the edge of the cliff.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I remember thinking that if I look down, I’ll fall, like that Roadrunner cartoon. But then I wake up.”
“Well.” Raine looked out over the fields of Christmas trees again. “It doesn’t exactly take a shrink to figure out that you’re facing big freedom issues, which is certainly expected, given your situation.”
“It’s true, though,” Savannah insisted earnestly. “I have never really flown. You and Mother were always the ones with the wings in this family.”
“Me?” Raine looked honestly surprised by that idea.
“You left here, went to Harvard, then on to New York, forged a life for yourself—”
“A life, you’ll note, that I was more than happy to give up.”
“Still, you were brave enough to try. And succeed. All on your own.”
“Going off to cooking school in Paris took a lot of nerve,” Raine pointed out.
“I was homesick for months.”
“So was I when I was at Harvard. And it was even worse when I first arrived in Manhattan.”
“Really? But you always used to talk about how you couldn’t wait to get away from here. And how much more exciting life was in the big city.”
Savannah thought that Raine was definitely proof that the world kept turning and changing. Oh, Raine still practiced law, and had kept ties to her former firm with her Asian Rim business, but she had put far behind her the eighty-hour weeks that had defined her life as a high-powered New York litigator.
Savannah was still amazed that Raine had settled down on a Christmas tree farm in this small, remote town, become a stepmother to one child, and claimed to want more of her own. Still, she thought now, she’d never seen her sister looking more radiant.
“You know what they say about not appreciating something until you don’t have it anymore.” Raine shrugged. “Besides, mostly I was missing you and Ida.”
“But you got over that.”
“Let’s just say I learned to adapt.”
“I don’t think I ever really did, which was one of the reasons I eloped with Kevin. At the time, getting married seemed a better choice than returning home a failure.”
Just as Lilith had done so many times. Raine didn’t say it, but Savannah knew they were both thinking about their mother.
“No one could ever consider you a failure,” Raine argued with the unwavering loyalty Savannah had always been able to count on. “Especially these days. What you’re doing with the lighthouse is nothing short of a miracle. To tell you the truth, sis, I wasn’t honestly sure you’d be able to pull it off.”
“Neither was I,” Savannah admitted. “But if luck holds, I’ll be open for Christmas.”
Despite having gotten behind schedule in the beginning, she still had four months to pull off her miracle. The mental picture of the restored buildings lit up with bright white lights for the holidays warmed the heart she’d feared had been shattered. She could practically hear the crackle of the logs and smell the cedar in the fireplace, welcoming guests to her lighthouse.
“Do you realize,” Raine said, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “that this will be the first holiday season in years that we’re all back home together?”
“With Amy beginning a new generation.”
“To us.” The late afternoon sun made the wine gleam like rubies as Raine raised her glass. “And all four generations of strong, soaring Lindstrom women.”
Savannah lifted her own wineglass to her sister’s toast, her attention momentarily drawn to her fingernails. They were chipped and torn from scraping moldy, water-stained layers of paper off walls.
Not so long ago, her French manicure had been kept flawless by weekly visits to a Beverly Hills salon. Her nails may have been perfect, but her life had been a mess. As difficult as things were now, she couldn’t imagine returning to that former existence she’d managed to convince herself was everything she’d ever wanted.
She might not be soaring up there with the eagles yet, but having tested her wings, she was finally learning to fly. And despite having hit a few air pockets, it was wonderful.
“I’m glad you’re fixing up the lighthouse,” Amy O’Halloran said after the family had gathered around the dining room table. “I like it a lot, especially the flowers John planted, though it’s sad that bad boys broke the windows.”
With her long, golden curls and bright blue eyes, the six-year-old girl was the most beautiful child Savannah had ever seen. She was also precocious, unrelentingly curious about everything around her, and despite having lost her mother to cancer, amazingly well-adjusted. Savannah thought that said a lot about Raine’s husband.
“Well, they’ve all been replaced now.”
“I saw that when we were driving home from town yesterday. Mommy said you’re going to make it as pretty as it used to be, before I was born.”
Savannah watched the pleasure move across Raine’s face when Jack’s daughter called her Mommy. “That’s my plan.”
“Speaking of plans,” Lilith trilled, “thanks to Mother’s army of volunteers, this year’s Sawdust Festival is going to be the best one yet. We’re even having a palm reader.”
“Damn foolish notion, if you ask me,” Ida muttered.
“I thought you liked Raven.”
“She’s okay—for one of those New Age types,” Ida allowed. Tonight’s sweatshirt was bright purple and proclaimed Age and Treachery Will Always Overcome Youth and Skill.
“Mebbe this year you can liven things up by bein’ arrested again,” Henry suggested with a sly grin. When she’d discovered that Ida had invited her boarder to the family dinner, Savannah had worried he’d make an already delicate situation worse.
“That was nearly half a century ago. And every one of those years, you have to bring it up, Henry Hyatt. A gentleman would just let sleeping dogs out of the bag.”
“Never been much of a gentleman,” Henry said, proving himself a master of understatement. “And it’s damn hard to forget the sight of a woman setting up a mobile castration clinic in the parking lot.”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, it wasn’t a castration clinic!” Ida huffed. She’d yet to reveal any lack of memory this evening, which once again had Savannah hoping that she and Raine were overreacting to what were merely the normal signs of aging.
“Daddy, what’s a castration clinic?” Amy asked.
Jack exchanged a resigned look with Raine. “It’s sort of a medical office, honey.”
“That’s precisely what it was, Amy, dear,” Ida concurred. She turned toward Dan. “Times were tough in the logging business that year, and people were having trouble feeding the children they already had. Seemed like a good idea to offer two-for-one pricing to help the situation.”
“Vasectomies,” Savannah murmured in explanation, for Dan’s ears alone.
He arched a brow and looked across the table at Ida, who’d folded her arms and was daring him with a look to criticize her behavior. “Makes sense to me,” he said easily.
“We Lindstrom women have a knack for stirring things up,” Lilith said with a radiant smile, “which is why we’re so fortunate that Coldwater Cove’s sheriff is part of the family.”
When Jack had the good sense not to suggest that he couldn’t let his marriage keep him from doing his duty, Lilith deftly turned the conversation back to this year’s festivities.
“No one’s supposed to know it yet, but Becky Brennan’s going to be this year’s Sawdust Queen,” she announced.
“Oh, goodie!” Amy jumped up and down in her chair and clapped her hands. “Becky’s my baby-sitter. I like her a lot. She plays Barbie with me and reads Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse over and over again, just the way Gramma Lilith does.”
“That’s one of my favorite stories,” Lilith said with her trademark dazzling smile that had once lit up the silver screen. “I’m not surprised Becky likes it, too.”
Raine and Savannah exchanged a look. Savannah had no doubt they were thinking the same thing: that for a woman who’d found motherhood so difficult, Lilith seemed to be reveling in her new role as Gramma Lilith.
