Annie slipped her hand into her father’s. “Did you ever row one of those, Dad? In the navy, I mean.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth lifted in a prideful grin. “Sure did. Before the Navy and after. Your mom never got the hang of it, though.”
“No?” Annie asked.
“She wasn’t the athletic type.”
“What type was she?” Timmy asked.
“She was every other good type known to man,” Luke replied in a melancholy whisper. “Well, come on. Let’s get you kids over there.”
As Luke walked up to the marina office he saw two dozen children under the age of ten dressed in shorts, sandals and bathing suits, wearing very eager expressions as they listened to Captain Redbeard. “I want all those who can’t swim at all to form a group to my right. Those who can swim to my left.”
Timmy froze as the kids scurried around to regroup. Luke looked down at his son. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell Captain Red I can swim.”
“But that’s what you’re here for...to learn how to do it right.”
Timmy’s face was filled with fear. “He’ll make me wear water wings like the little kids.”
“Timmy,” Annie said, “you are a little kid.”
Timmy pointed to the non-swimmers’ group, which consisted of several four-year-olds and one three-year-old still wearing pull-up diapers. “Nah-uh,” he said. “Those are little kids.”
Luke took Timmy’s hand. “I’ll talk to Red and see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Timmy replied with visible relief.
Annie waved to one of her friends from school. “Dad, I see Madison! This is going to be a great summer!”
“I’ll be back at four-thirty to get you guys,” Luke said as Annie took off running toward her friend without a second glance back at him.
The marina office was surrounded by a wide, covered porch and from the roofline Red had installed navy blue canvas awnings to shield both the building and large groups of people from the summer sun. Beneath the awning, a few parents sat in rows of folding canvas chairs for this morning’s orientation. Luke noticed that two more families arrived late, just as he had, which helped to assuage his guilt somewhat.
Luke realized that the number of children was quickly climbing to three dozen. He spotted two young men, whom he guessed to be sixteen or seventeen, wearing matching white bathing trunks and fluorescent-orange lifeguard sweatshirts. They had the requisite warning whistle on nylon twine around their necks, and they were both deeply tanned, though it was only early June.
Each lifeguard took one of the groups and ushered them toward a newly raked section of beach where they would give the kids instructions.
Red’s wife, Julie, sat at a picnic table registering the families, taking money and handing out information packets.
Two fathers came up to Red and began bombarding him with questions. Luke looked at his watch. He needed to help Timmy, but he also needed to get to work.
The sound of a woman’s voice calling sculling commands grew louder. Luke looked up and saw that the sculling quad was quickly rowing toward shore. Red looked up at the same moment.
“Hey, Luke!” Red shouted over the heads of the fathers, who were talking to each other and to Red at the same time. “Do me a favor?”
“Sure,” Luke replied.
Red reached in his jeans pocket, pulled out a set of keys and tossed them at Luke. “Heads up.”
Luke snatched the keys.
“The ladies are coming in from their row. Would you unlock the boathouse for me and help them put the boat up? I’ve got my hands full here.”
“No problem,” Luke said. “Then I need a favor. Timmy wants to be with the big kids.”
Red smiled. “I gotcha. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. Tell him to join his sister. I’ll talk to Jason, their instructor.”
“Great.” Luke looked down at Timmy. “You’re all set. Go over there with Annie.”
Timmy’s smile filled his face. “Thanks, Dad.” Timmy sauntered off as if he’d just won a sweepstakes.
Luke arrived at the boathouse as the female sculling team rowed up on shore. He instantly recognized Sarah as she expertly lifted her oars and got out of the boat. She was wearing a navy blue swimsuit with white banding, navy lake shoes and a white sweatshirt that she’d tied around her shoulders. Her blond hair was tied up on top of her head, but the wind had blown errant locks around her face and neck. As she walked toward him, the morning sun caught in her windblown hair, creating a halo around her face. It was the first time Luke had actually looked at her. He realized she was pretty.
* * *
“HI, LUKE,” SARAH said with a tentative smile. If she understood anything about him, it was that he was a tinderbox of anger. She didn’t want to do or say anything to set him off. Treading softly was the way to go with temperamental people, her mother had told her. What she didn’t understand was the happiness that overwhelmed her, just seeing him. Sarah’s heart skipped a beat and she felt a flush fill her cheeks. Why was he here? Had he been watching her? His eyes were steady, measuring her movements as she walked up to him. She couldn’t help wondering what was running through his mind. And why, oh why, did his resolute gaze elicit such a thrill?
“Sarah,” he said, unlocking the boathouse doors and opening them wide. He walked over to the boat where the other three women were watching him with skeptical expressions.
Maddie was the first to speak. “Luke. What are you doing here?”
“My kids are enrolled in Red’s summer camp. He was too busy to help you with the boat. He enlisted me.”
Maddie nodded. “He’s good at that.”
Sarah stood next to tall, willowy Liz with the mane of honey-blond hair. “This is Liz Crenshaw,” Sarah said. “Liz, meet Luke Bosworth.”
“My pleasure,” she said, holding her oars in her left arm and extending her right hand to shake his.
“And this is Isabelle Hawks. We all went to high school together,” Sarah explained.
“Nice to meet you, too, Isabelle,” Luke said. “And did you all row back then?”
“We did.” Maddie grinned. “Sarah was our fearless leader, then and now. She rides us all the time to improve our skills.”
“Yeah,” Liz added. “We could probably win the Olympics. She’s that good.”
Sarah shook her head and laughed. “Kidders. They’re always like that,” she told Luke as they picked up the boat and carried it into the boathouse.
Luke helped hoist the boat onto the rack where it would stay dry and protected.
“Thanks for the help, Luke,” Maddie said. “I have to run. I have to make a hundred cupcakes for a wedding anniversary party I’m catering tonight.” She elbowed Isabelle, who was gawking at Luke.
Isabelle jumped at the jab to her ribs. “Right. I gotta get to the Lodge. Edgar will have a fit if I’m not there for breakfast seating.”
“You work at the Lodges?” Luke asked.
“I’m the bookkeeper, actually.”
Sarah chuckled and looked up at Luke. “She’s being modest. She does everything there. She’s Edgar’s right arm, but he doesn’t give her enough credit.”
“I’m off, as well,” Liz said. “Nice weather like this brings out the tourists for wine tastings.”
Sarah waved to her friends as they quickly scooted off to their respective cars.
Luke locked up the boathouse doors. Sarah walked back with him toward the marina.
“Luke, I want you to know that I meant it about paying for your kids’ clothes. Beau...”
“Forget it,” he said sharply.
Sarah was taken aback by his terse reply. She wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed because they’d been at a counseling session together and she knew some person
al details about his life with Jenny, or if maybe he just didn’t like her.
“It’s just that I feel awful and I wanted to apologize.”
“Sarah,” Luke said, stopping. “I was a jerk to you, okay? I’d like to forget it. Can we just put that behind us?”
“Sure.” She smiled up at him.
“Good,” he answered and began walking again.
“Well, I hope your kids like Red’s summer camp. I did when I was a kid. Of course, I was older than they are. You know, Red was my trainer for sculling. He coached me all through high school. He’s really great with kids. Plus, he has a built-in audience for all his stories.”
“I’m not worried about Annie fitting in. She loves everybody. If I know my daughter, she’ll have the entire camp reorganized by next week.” He laughed.
“She likes things orderly?”
“She’s compulsive. She’s the first one up. Annie insists on making all our lunches. I can’t talk her out of it. She even counts out milk money for her brother. She has lists everywhere. It could make you nuts.”
“Sounds like my kind of girl,” Sarah said. “I can’t live without my lists—both on paper and computer.”
Luke took out his car keys and pointed to his Ford F-150. “This is me. Have a good day, Sarah.”
“You, too,” she said and went to her red Envoy and got in. She waited while he backed out and drove away. She noticed that he gave her a wave. She lifted her hand in return.
Glancing back at the beach as the instructors began handing out water wings, Sarah spotted Annie holding her little brother’s hand and talking to him. He seemed upset about something but he listened intently to his sister’s counsel.
Sarah remembered Luke telling Margot that he wanted to join the counseling group because he was trying to be a good dad to his kids. She had to admire that. Even if it had been at the urging of a friend, Luke had taken the big step to seek help. There was still a chance he’d never come back to the group, but Luke impressed her as the kind of guy who was driven to do the right thing, even if it meant swallowing his pride.
She had encountered Luke Bosworth three times now, and each time she’d seen a different side of him. The first time he’d been, in his words, a jerk. The second, he’d been emotionally shredded, angry at God and the fates. The third, he’d been a regular guy, just taking care of his kids. A guy who had planted hopeful seedlings in Sarah’s fertile, romantic mind. Although Luke was a puzzle to her—one with severely jagged edges—she liked that he’d set down roots in her thoughts.
CHAPTER NINE
LUKE SCANNED THE want ads on one of the computers at the public library. He’d sold his laptop right after Jenny died to help pay for her funeral. Slowly, he’d begun selling more and more things to the local pawn shop and to one of the antiques dealers on Main Street. He and Jenny didn’t have much, but there had been some china that her grandmother had given her and a few odd pieces of sterling silver they’d received as wedding gifts. The kids still didn’t know about the sales he’d made since most of the items had still been packed in boxes in the attic. However, Luke’s stash of cranberry cruets, crystal sugar bowls and silver candlesticks was running dry.
Lately, he’d been looking for carpentry and handyman jobs he could do on weekends or evenings to shore up his sinking paycheck from Jerry. But as he scrolled through the ads, his eyes kept wandering over to the meeting room where he’d attended his first counseling session last week. He still had mixed emotions about the value of therapy. He’d never had any therapy after Iraq. He’d had Jenny and all her love. Whatever holes he’d had in his heart, she’d filled them up.
No matter how strenuously Luke tried to block out the session, he couldn’t forget Margot telling him she believed he was mad at the universe for leaving him here on earth to take care of his kids without Jenny. Was that what this burning ache was? Self-pity? Had his sadness brought him this low?
Sure, he was ticked off about the bills and not having enough money to buy the kids what they deserved, and he supposed, if he was really honest with himself, he’d become absorbed in his financial struggles. It was his anxiety over money that had caused him to be short and even distant with his kids.
And that was not Jenny’s fault. It was his.
Raking his hand through his hair, he remembered far too vividly how he must have looked and sounded to Sarah that day at the groomers’. Even now, he could remember the angry fire that had exploded inside him when he saw his kids being muddied by her dog. Now she was part of his counseling group. What were the odds?
Jenny used to say that there were no such things as “accidents.” She said everything happened for a reason. The only reason Luke could see for his encounters with Sarah was that he’d made a complete fool of himself and she kept popping up as a reminder to get his act together. When he’d stormed out of the counseling session last week, he’d planned never to return. He didn’t need a shrink telling him how screwed up he was. He was just hurting. But to actually hear Margot tell him she understood his pain had reached deep inside his mind and heart and twisted some key on a door he didn’t even know existed. The session had unleashed a longing, a real yearning, to want to be a better dad, a healthier person...just for himself. Luke was still shocked at the enormity of emotions he’d felt that night. He’d been so overwhelmed that he simply couldn’t stay there any longer. He would really have made a fool out of himself then.
He’d gone to his truck and could barely turn the key his hand had been shaking so hard. He’d cried his eyes out. Even that had been a revelation. He hadn’t expected to cry anymore. He’d cried for weeks after Jenny died. He thought that phase of his grieving was over. Apparently not.
He agreed with Margot that he was mired in a deep pit of angry tar that stuck to every fabric of his being. He’d never been an angry guy before, but he sure was one now. And he didn’t like it.
He glanced at the door to the meeting room. He’d intended never to go back to counseling, but as he thought about it now, he realized that if he truly wanted a normal life for himself and the kids again, he was going to have to find the courage he’d relied on in Iraq. He’d faced danger, even death. He could face a shrink and a group of fellow grievers.
As a picture of the group filled his mind, Luke remembered the vision of Sarah and her sculling crew on the lake the day before.
Unexpected. That was the word that came to mind when he thought of her. She mesmerized him. Perhaps it was the strength he saw in her. She was in counseling just as he was, but there she was with friends, laughing and pushing herself to get on with her life. He admired her for that. He might have even been a bit envious.
When she’d walked up to him, he’d been embarrassed about how he’d behaved when they first met, but that had fizzled like steam vapor. She was an expert on the water, and that surprised him. She was a “water person,” too. They had that in common. And she was grieving over her mother. He doubted she was as messed up as he was. Was anybody?
He looked back at the want ads on his screen. There hadn’t been anything remotely close to his skillset for weeks. He was more than discouraged.
He peered closer. For real?
Luke read the ad requesting a painter for a garage and jotted down the phone number. He couldn’t believe how low he’d had to sink just to make money. This wasn’t even close to his skills as a fine carpenter. He could make custom-made cabinets, vanities and exquisite bookshelves with edge molding. No one could crown mold a room like he could. His work was precision. When he and Jenny first started out, they’d lived near Chicago where the company he worked for always snagged expensive remodeling jobs in the northern suburbs or in the mansions along Sheridan Drive. He’d gotten spoiled too early on, he figured. He remembered working long hours, but the work had been energizing and exciting.
His favorite job was to restore a neglected o
ld home to its earlier glory. Even though he’d never gone to college, his own bookshelves were lined with architecture texts. It was Luke’s bet that he’d read and studied as much as any architect in America. Luke didn’t go to movies. He didn’t spend weekends working on sports cars or playing golf. Luke lived and breathed architecture.
When he wasn’t reading a book on the art itself, he read biographies of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Jean Louis Charles Garnier, Mies Van der Rohe and his favorite, William Holabird, who along with his partner Martin Roche and others, founded the Chicago School.
Luke had dreams for himself and his career, and he’d told Jenny every one of them. He missed having her there to listen to his ideas and plans. He missed a lot of things.
Luke read the ad again. Garage painting. It wasn’t even a house or its interior that needed a painter. It was just a garage. There was no doubt in his mind that the job would be a pain in the butt, and he probably wouldn’t get paid enough to balance out the untold aggravation he’d experience.
But he would take it. He just hoped the position wasn’t already filled.
Taking out his cell phone, Luke bounded down the granite library steps and walked toward his truck. His call was answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello,” an elderly voice said.
“Hi. My name is Luke Bosworth and I’m calling in answer to your ad about the painting. You said in the ad it’s a garage.”
“Well, not exactly, young man,” the woman said. “It’s actually a carriage house.”
Luke rolled his eyes. He didn’t know if he should be excited or deflated. “How old is it?”
“Hundred and ten.”
Luke whistled. “That’s old. And what state of repair is the carriage house in?”
“It could use some carpentry work.”
“How much?” Luke envisioned walls falling in on each other, a rotted foundation and beams that were dried and about to split in half. He’d called on this type of job before, only to tell the owner that the project needed demolition, not a skilled carpenter.
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