Retreat to Woodhaven (The Hills of Burlington Book 2)

by Jacie Middlemann

  "So..." Pete watched as her emotions settled. "It's been a pretty good month. Actually most months are pretty good, not as good as this one thanks to your family and friends and former bosses, but pretty good as good goes."

  "Um...huh." Sipping her wine, Casey got comfortable next to him again, let the conversation flow as she sunk in and enjoyed the feel of happiness.

  "While I was showing your cousin the house today I told him we were getting married." Hearing how the words came out even to himself he quickly moved to try to repair it. "Actually he asked what my intentions were with you, something along that nature, and I told him my intent was to marry you." Okay, like that sounded a whole lot better. He could feel her stiffen beside him and wondered if there was anything he could say that wouldn't come out making him sound like an arrogant and obnoxious male that his own sister claimed all men were with him being at the top of the list.

  "Dave asked you?" Casey felt like she needed to dump water of any extreme temperature over her cousin's fat swollen head. A couple of times. "He asked you what your intentions were?" She clarified, more for herself than Pete. "About me?"

  Sighing deeply and wishing he'd paid more attention to his sister when they were in their teens. There may have been something in all her ranting that could help him dig out of the hole he was deathly afraid he'd dug all by himself, for himself. "Casey," he sat up, pulled her gently with him. "Marry me." He got a twinkle of hope from the look in her eyes, not rejection but abject fear. He could work around fear. Rejection was another story altogether. "Marry me and be with me always." He cringed at the yelling that started up outside again. Not for the first time did he wish his kids had better timing. "Share my hooligans with me and let's make a couple more. What's two or three more mixed into that fray?" He nodded his head in the general direction of the continuing fracas that could still be heard going on outside.

  "Two or three?" Casey swallowed. "Like in kids? Babies?"

  "Please."

  "Please marry you and have a couple more kids," she repeated almost in a monotone whisper. She looked at him. Really looked at him. And saw the love that she'd seen there for as long as she'd allowed herself to see it. "I..."

  He interrupted her, pleaded his case. "I won't ever make a fortune but I've got money set aside for emergencies, bad months, or just whatever comes up." He tilted her chin up, saw the tears slowly tracking down her cheeks and the smile that kept him from begging. Made him see he wouldn't have to.

  "That's why you were telling me how well this week went. You wanted me to know you could take care of me. Of us." However many of us it ends up being she thought to herself, suddenly realizing he was offering her everything she wanted. Everything she'd really ever wanted.

  "Sort of," he admitted almost bashfully hoping it would help her from remembering the bad start he'd made of this.

  "Silly." She hugged him. Leaned back almost as quickly to smile at him. "But that's okay. I can do silly. I love silly." She hugged him again, this time her heart pounding so hard she wasn't certain she could breath. "And I love you."

  "I know." He just held her. And knew in his arms he held everything. "So, will you?"

  "I most certainly will." She held her finger up much like a teacher would to command a single student or an entire class. "But," she smiled as she said it so he would know it was important but not the most important of things. They'd already gotten though that. "I'm not a feminist, not completely at least. It means a lot that you want to take care of me. There's a part of me that needs that, needs someone who will stand with me and if needed stand in front of me."

  "You got it." His voice was deep and serious.

  "I know." She took his hand but still held him back. "And I can't tell you how it makes me feel to know that you want to take care of me financially, that you would accept my need to be a mother, an all day mother like mine was, just as easily as you would accept if I wanted to work full time." She loved the way his patience battled with his desire to complete the deal. "I've got money set aside too." She squeezed his hand, quietly silencing his objections. "I sold my condo or I should say Jake sold it for me. There's probably a lot of my stuff in storage that I'll sell too when I get around to it. It suited me at one time. I don't know that it would suit me now." She put her finger to his lips quieting the words she could see forming. "You shared with me, let me share with you. Isn't that what you want in our life, our relationship? A sharing of all things."

  He sighed. "Go on." Knew there was more.

  "I've saved up over the years too. And because I've got a cousin who's a whiz of an investment genius I've got some admirable funds because of that." Now she snuggled back into him. Felt the safety of all the years to come when his arms came back around her. "I've put some money into the video company and the online store but all in all," she tilted her head up to him, smiled. "I think between the two of us we'll do just fine...financially...and in all the other really important ways that have nothing to do with money."

  

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mary studied her younger brother over the rim of her cup. He had closed on the house over on Third Street that morning and was quietly studying the papers he'd printed out that detailed what all he needed to do in order to practice law in the state of Iowa.

  "Have you told Dad or any of the others about your plans to move here?" She had a feeling she knew the answer. Couldn't help but think if anything at all had been said she would have heard something from someone. She sighed, thinking back over the turmoil of the last couple of years. Then again, she thought, maybe not.

  Without looking up from what he was gazing through as he scanned for the most pertinent information, "They won't be surprised."

  Which translated to No, she surmised. She gave him a few more minutes to study what she knew he'd already gone over at least once then broached the one subject she was uncertain she really wanted to bring up but at the same time knew without a doubt she needed to. Of all her brothers this was the one she would tell because she needed to. None of the others would be impacted one way or the other. Not that they wouldn't care. More that they wouldn't understand. They would see it, hear it, much the same way as they practiced the law. With absolute pragmatism. No emotion allowed. And in the end they simply wouldn't understand.

  "Dave, have you been to the Marshall Street house at all?"

  He looked up, wondering where his sister was heading. She'd been working up to it since the night before. He’d wondered for the past thirty minutes how many times he was going to have to read over the State Bar Bylaws before she got around to finally spitting it out. He knew his sister better than she probably thought he did. "Not yet." And wondered what that had to do with anything.

  "There's a small side porch."

  "I've seen it." He leaned back, closed his eyes and let the picture of the house form in his mind.

  "There's a small area above it, not really like an attic, almost more like a small alcove. " She rose, topped off her coffee, more than anything to give her something to do with her hands. "When Aunt Charlie first got here she remembered that it had been finished off into a little room." She sat back down, nervous for no good reason. "Our grandfather, Aunt Charlie's father, worked on it."

  "Our mother's father," he added quietly, noting her nervousness but uncertain that there was anything he could do or not do to ease it until he knew what was going on.

  "Yes. He made it into a refuge of sorts for Mama." She sighed, walked over to the counter nearest the little hallway if you could even call it that, that led back to the bedrooms then picked up the wooden box she'd left there and brought it back over with her to the table. Then set it gently in the center of the table between the two of them. Saw him glance down at it then back at her. Waiting. "That's one of the things we found there. We…Carrie and I," she clarified, "we had Court build a small stairway to it from the side porch. It's easier for Aunt Charlie to get up there that way." She paused, her memories from that night still
raw. Even now when she went into the little room she could feel the left over remnants of her mother's pain, a pain so strong it remained half a century later.

  "How did you get in before that?" He'd seen the hurt in her eyes, braced himself for whatever was to come.

  "Aunt Charlie remembered a small doorway off the back stairs in the kitchen. A little cubbyhole really, you had to practically crawl through it until it opened up into the space over the porch."

  He thought about the roofline, the size of the porch on the side of the house. "It couldn't be any bigger than a large walk-in closet."

  "If that big." She tried to laugh and failed miserably. "There's really just enough room for one person but that night we crammed all of us in there. There's a small desk and chair, a little bench, really more of a one person chair built into the wall." Restless, she stood and walked over to the kitchen window where she could look out and see her mother's childhood home. "There were two of those boxes on the desk. That's one of them. The other held the pages of a book Mom was writing. And some things that belonged to her father." She glanced over her shoulder, saw he was studying the box with new interest. Cautious interest. "I gave those to Aunt Charlie. They were her father's and belonged to her more than me."

  "That was good thing."

  "That box has among other things a letter Mom wrote after her father died." She swallowed as she heard the sounds of her brother carefully removing the lid from the box. "It's hard to read knowing how much she must have been hurting. It was really hard on Aunt Charlie. She felt horrible that she wasn't more understanding at the time. But she was little more than a child. They both were really." She sighed again at the memory. "She spends hours up there sometimes just sitting there according to Mallie." She listened quietly to the rustle of papers being moved. Waited.

  "Jesus."

  "Yes. Well..." She swallowed her automatic reflex to correct him. Her brother rarely swore, or as her mother put it, took the Lord's name in vain or anything else, at least not in front of her. Never in front of their mother. And it spoke volumes to the impact the letter had on him. Her mother had told her once that men never shed tears on the outside...they gathered on the inside.

  "Have you shown this to anyone else?"

  Mary knew who he spoke of without needing to ask. "At first I didn't even think about it. I needed to..."

  "Deal with it yourself."

  "Yes." They more than any of their other brothers understood how the other thought without explanation. She had sorely missed that connection. "Then, for a while I thought about telling Dad and letting him decide whether to tell any of the others but," she struggled with the right words for what stopped her from doing so.

  "They wouldn't get it," Dave said softly into the silence. He ran his thumb gently over his mother's writing. Words that streamed through him like a sledge hammer.

  "No," Mary agreed just as quietly. "They really wouldn't."

  "They loved her." Dave knew he didn't have to defend. But it came automatically. They were his brothers. "I don't think Dad's ever really gotten over it. I think he swings out of bed first thing in the morning already working and doesn't stop until he literally falls into bed at night."

  "I know." In many ways they had lost their father on that same day their mother had died.

  "Do you have her other writings, the other box here?" He asked almost tentatively.

  "Yes. I can get it for you," she rose to retrieve it until he motioned her back down.

  "No." He took a breath, steadied himself, his thoughts. "I'd like to see them but later." He looked up at her. Understanding now why it had taken her so long to work up to this. Wondered how difficult the next would be. And hated what he might be asking of her. "Right now I'd like to see the room. The one above the side porch." He clarified even knowing there was no need.

  Mary walked to the back door, she'd expected this. Would have been disappointed if he hadn't wanted to see it. They loved their father but of all the children the two of them had been closest to their mother. She took the small key off the hook by the back door. "I keep this here. Aunt Charlie has the other one though anyone can go up there. But I think it's mostly Aunt Charlie who does."

  Dave nodded as he followed her out of the door and down and around the alley. It wasn't a long walk and he noted that the scenery along the way hadn't changed much in the many years between now and the last time he'd made the walk.

  "What made you decide to move here?" Mary asked the question she'd been wanting to since she’d heard of his plans.

  "You were here." He answered before thinking, and even as he tried to make light of the truth of it he heard her sniffle. "Don't tear up on me Mary, I've been planning on going somewhere other than where I was for a while. This worked out just dandy because you were here." He paused and delved into what he wanted to know but just did so in a more backdoor manner. "What I'd like to know is when Daniel plans on getting his backside up here."

  "Soon." Mary smiled brightly at him. Enough so that all his questions and concerns were laid to rest without another word. She wouldn't be smiling at the mention of her husband if things weren’t going well between them.

  "Soon like in when?" He pressed.

  "Like as in when he can get things arranged at work and when you’re up and running so that he can finagle one of those rooms upstairs from you."

  That stopped him in his tracks. "No kidding?"

  She smiled, this time a serene smile that spoke volumes.

  "I don't expect to be making a lot of money. Ever." He clarified as pointedly as he could.

  "Neither does he. He's already done that. He wants something different now. Just like you." She looped her arm through his, feeling far better than she had expected as they walked together up to and then separately as they made their way up the small stairway. She slid the small key in and with a quick turn allowed the door to gently swing open. As soon as they stepped into the child sized room she sat on the short bench built into the wall so her brother could pass by to the desk positioned at the other end of the long but narrow room. She pointed to the dark opening that led toward the back stairway that connected the first and second floors of the house from the kitchen. "That's how we came in the first time. You should have Aunt Charlie tell you about it sometime."

  "I will," he answered almost without thinking so intent were his thoughts on this small and obviously hand-made desk. It had to have been made to fit in the small and awkwardly shaped space. As he sat down, he couldn't help but wonder how many times his mother had done the same. What her thoughts might have been. What dreams she may have spun in this space that belonged to her alone.

  Almost as if she could read his mind Mary spoke into the silence. "She wanted to write. She did write. I've begun typing up the stories she left behind here. I'll show them to you when we get back to the house."

  "I've never told you the last thing she said to me." He'd never told anyone.

  Mary stayed silent. Knew the last thing her mother had said to her. Knew it word for word. Had held it close to her heart from the moment the words had been spoken. Understood the importance of what her brother was sharing.

  "She told me to dream my own dreams not the dreams of others." He stood carefully because his height was barely accommodated by this place that had been his mother's. "I thought at first she'd been disappointed in me, my choices."

  "Oh no, Dave! She was so proud of you."

  "I know that, came around to it after a while. And this," he motioned to the small desk, the room, with his hand, not at all shocked to see it tremble. "This makes me see it was more from her own disappointments, more that she wanted me," he looked at his sister before he continued. "That she wanted both of us to have what she didn't."

  "In part, yes." Mary agreed. "But dreams change. And I think Mama's did along the way." She shook her head, understood without his words, before he spoke. "But you're right, she had dreams she could never fulfill as she’d wanted to. Didn't have the chance.
..maybe the opportunity to." She raised her hand to lay it gently on his arm. "But I think too that her children were such a huge part of her life, her happiness, that those other dreams faded to the wayside. Not completely away, but to a place where she kept them for later. She just didn't have the chance to go back to them." She choked back the hurt but not quickly enough.

  "What?" Her brother was nothing if not quick.

  She took a deep breath. A strengthening breath to say what was still so difficult to acknowledge. "I was in the midst of bringing Mom back here before she got sick. She'd talked about it for so long, I knew Dad wasn't ever going to get around to it, it was like he dusted the place off and didn't ever want to come back, regardless of what he told her."

  "Yeah," he remembered the plans that never quite came through. Over and over again.

  "I just wish I'd done it sooner." She stared at the little desk her brother now stood in front of. "I could have. I just didn't make the time for it as I should have."

  Dave stared at his sister. It amazed him what people carried around in silence. Wondered how much this had torn at her. Wondered if his brother-in-law had a clue.

  "Mom knew you were bringing her. Knew you wouldn't change the date, change the agenda. She knew you said what you meant and meant what you said." He took the hand on his arm. Remembered a childhood filled with her hand holding his, leading him, helping him. Maybe now, this once, he could help her. "She talked about it, how the two of you were going to spend summers up here. Make it a party, a girl party though the Lord knows who would want in on that." He smiled at her choked laughter. "The plans were made, dates were set. You didn't change them. Mom didn't change them. Fate did. And there's just not a lot we can do about that."