Summer by the River

by Debbie Burns

  Back at the crowded tavern where he’d been hanging out, talking to a few locals, he’d been buzzing nicely and intended to come back and crash. The stairs had been a buzzkill. Now he was fully awake, sober, and hungry.

  He turned onto the crumbled stone path leading to the backyard. He stepped around the corner, blanketed by darkness, and took in the yard. The patio was aglow with candles, and the surrounding yard was lit by lanterns and string lights. Ribbons and bouquets of flowers filled tables and trellises. Coupled with the trees and flower beds covering the grounds, it looked like a fairy tale. No wonder that precocious little kid believed in fairies, growing up in a place like this.

  At first glance, the patio seemed empty, but then he spotted Josie. She was tucked into the shadows at one of the tables. His insides twisted the same as they did this morning when he stood at the top of the bluffs where there was no rail looking down on the town.

  It surprised him, the way his body reacted to her. He was no stranger to beautiful women. Heck, he lived in Manhattan where they seemed to rise from concrete and stone. He was also fresh out of an eight-year relationship with a former clothing model-turned-activist. But Josie made him feel as if he’d been tucked away in a cabin the last few years.

  He reminded himself that, based on his best guess, she was most likely in her mid- to late twenties. At thirty-four, he wasn’t looking for the emotional immaturity of anyone that much younger. And on top of that was the whole kid thing. The kid was great, but in terms of relationships, kids equaled heavy. And he wasn’t in the space for heavy. Not on the heels of his breakup with Katherine.

  If Josie were up for a no-strings-attached romp in one of those lumpy feather beds, there’d be no holding him back. Only, it was clear that wasn’t her thing. Pretty clear he wasn’t her thing either, for that matter. And she had walls around her like a fortress.

  But maybe not an impenetrable one. He’d glimpsed that guard dropping when she was showing him his room. A smile had flashed across her face and lit up those remarkable eyes of hers. Whoever that was—that person she kept so guarded from the world—that was the woman he wanted to get to know.

  Added to that was her story. And he wouldn’t have to unearth secrets from an ancient river in order to learn it. All he had to do was get her to open up. Get her to trust him. Yeah, right. Getting the river to talk would probably be easier.

  As Carter looked at her, alone in the lantern-lit, fairy-tale backyard, a yearning tore through his gut—something primal enough to evade words and definition. He told himself to ignore it, to go upstairs and sink down onto that surprisingly comfortable mattress and catch up on the sleep he’d been missing. When he started moving, he intended to do just that.

  Yet, when his feet led him deeper into the backyard, he couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d always been one to listen to his gut.

  * * *

  It had been a fabulous day, and an exhausting one. Every bone and muscle in Josie’s body needed to be in bed, but her mind was racing a mile a minute. No doubt, it had to do with several glasses of iced mint tea and a late evening cup of oolong as the cake was served.

  After Zoe finally crashed into a lump of nonsensical tears and exhaustion after her first foray as a flower girl, Josie had tucked her into bed hours past her bedtime. She could have finished cleaning up in the morning, but there were still dishes left on the patio. If they weren’t brought in, the neighborhood raccoons were sure to mess with them overnight.

  With the patio empty of guests, the glowing lights and flickering candles had beckoned her to sit awhile after she’d finished cleaning up. She sank into a chair at one of the tables and noticed two card decks discarded there, no doubt left by two of the older men who’d been playing rummy. Without giving it much thought, she pulled out a deck and began shuffling. Back when she and her brother had nearly nothing to their names, sometimes not even a roof over their heads, they’d always had a deck or two of cards, and an intricately built card house had been both a challenge and a distraction.

  Half of one deck was assembled into a card house before she realized she was building it. Exhausted as she was, she didn’t need the challenge tonight, but the promise of a distraction had its appeal. She didn’t want to think about long-lost loves finding one another again. About happily ever afters. Or what happened when happily ever after fell apart.

  She was starting a third story of her house when she spotted Carter walking around the side yard. Her fingers froze inches above it, two cards at the ready as he walked up.

  “Sitting in the dark building card houses?” His tone was playful and light. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a card house enthusiast.”

  She sat back, straightening as he helped himself to the seat opposite her.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Mind if I join you?” He winked as he reached for the second deck of cards.

  A small huff escaped. “Aren’t you supposed to ask that before you sit down?”

  There was a flickering candle between them, a vase of wedding flowers, and a card house. Nothing else. Josie swallowed her discomfort at the idea of being alone with him. It wasn’t just his looks; it was his lopsided grin and easygoing demeanor. Some unspoken promise that, with very little effort, he was the type of guy who could be your best friend. Or, at least, someone you could trust with your spare key. All things that warred with her idea of keeping him at bay.

  “Something tells me if I waited for an invitation, I’d have been standing here awhile,” he said, his tone light. “And looming over you wouldn’t have done either of us any good. Not in that dress you’re wearing. Is it vintage?”

  “It belonged to Myra’s mother, so yes, I guess.” She picked up a card to keep from hiking up the low-cut dress. It was a blue, fitted silk with spaghetti straps and flowing toile over a skirt that ended just above the knee. “And I wouldn’t have pegged you as an aficionado of vintage clothing.”

  He gave a little tilt of his head. “I’m not, but until recently, I was engaged to one. Even so, that dress looks like the real thing.”

  Until recently. As she’d have guessed, he wasn’t married. But he’d been close. She wondered what sort of skeletons he hid in his closet. Most of the guys she’d grown up around had a collection of them: drug addictions, cheating, fetishes, the list went on and on. Aloud, she said, “It was a forties-themed wedding. Myra wanted me to wear it.”

  “Sounds fun. Vintage or not, it could’ve been made for you.” He looked from her to his deck of cards as he shuffled them.

  Josie’s ears burned hot. When she didn’t reply, he didn’t pursue the comment. Finished shuffling, he picked two cards from the top and started his own A-frame structure. He’s not seriously going to sit here and build card houses, is he?

  “You don’t like my staying here, do you?” He reached for two more cards without waiting for an answer.

  In the flickering light, her attention was equally caught by his face and his well-sculpted hands. “You’re just…”

  “A man?” he asked when she didn’t finish.

  The comment caught her off guard enough that a small laugh escaped. “I was going for potential threat. To Myra. But if she’s okay with you rehashing this story of yours, then so be it.”

  “I hear you, but sometimes good things come from unearthing long-buried secrets.”

  Josie was pretty sure there was something pointed in his gaze, but in the dim light, maybe she was reading into it.

  “So, how was the wedding?” he asked, and some of the tension left her shoulders at the change of subject. “No one ran for the hills?”

  “No, no one ran for the hills.”

  Holding a card, he waved a hand toward the yard. “This place could be in a magazine.”

  “Thanks. The credit is mostly owed to Mr. Lange.” She pointed down the hill toward the white clapboard house that belonged to
their next-door neighbor. “He lives there. He’s a retired gardener. We’re not sure how it happened, but a month or two after we opened, he was at the bottom of the yard one morning working in the flower beds. Myra walked down and offered him lunch, and since then, it’s become a thing. He works in the flower beds, and he gets lunch. The same thing every day. Quiche lorraine and a half grapefruit when it’s in season and orange slices when it isn’t. He’s not very adventurous when it comes to food, but he’s a remarkable gardener.”

  “I love quirky people like that. They’re great to write about.”

  “I bet. We grow our own lavender and many of our own herbs. If it weren’t for his help, I’m not sure we’d be able to. And our customers love that we harvest some things here. That, and that most of our produce is grown within fifty miles of here.”

  “Oh yeah? Cool. And what about the tea everyone’s talking about?”

  Josie shrugged. “A lot of our tea is shipped in from India and parts of China, though we get some from South Carolina and Oregon too. All our tea is fair trade, though, so it costs more than a typical cup.”

  Carter worked as he listened, his movements steady and methodical. “I’ve never been a tea drinker. Except for the sun tea my mom made when I was kid.”

  “I wasn’t either before I came here. Myra sold me on it.”

  “Tell me, then, why the tea craze?”

  She pursed her lips, thinking of the afternoons she’d sat with Myra when Zoe was a baby, enjoying a cup of tea that Myra had blended and listening to her talk of how the herbs and flowers she’d mixed in added to the taste of the tea leaf. It was Myra’s passion for tea blending that had given Josie the idea to try the tea garden.

  “It’s more than a drink, I guess,” she said. “It’s an experience. Here, at least. Not the heavily processed stuff you grab in a plastic bottle at a gas station. Though it all comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. It becomes green, white, or black tea, depending on how it’s processed. And then there are the blends. Myra’s a master blender. She’s certified too. She creates almost all our blends.”

  “I was looking at the menu earlier. It’s almost daunting.”

  “We have thirty-four regular teas, plus seasonal varieties.”

  He grinned. “And I noticed you don’t serve coffee.”

  “It’s not on the menu, but we have a coffee pot. The few times we’ve served it to tea-averse customers… I have to say our coffee’s nothing to write home about.”

  “I’ve been drinking coffee as long as I can remember, and it rarely is. Though it serves a purpose.”

  “If you’re up to try it while you’re here, we have a blend just for die-hard coffee drinkers. We call it The Breakfast Club.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ll give it a try.”

  Carter finished the second story of his card house before she completed her third, and she’d been working several minutes longer. After a wrong twitch of her index finger, her house toppled into a mound. She gathered up the cards to start again.

  “You’re quick at card houses.”

  “I used to go to work with my dad in summer.” He hardly paused building as he spoke. “He ran a feed store. When I wasn’t loading God knows what into cowboys’ trucks, I was sitting in the shade of the porch building card houses. I was an “oops baby,” and the youngest of my siblings by thirteen years. My parents are older, and I didn’t grow up with limitless entertainment at my fingertips.”

  Josie straightened her deck before starting again. “Those rural Manhattan cowboys, you mean?”

  He smiled but shook his head. “I grew up in backcountry Texas, sweetheart. There was nothing in a hundred square miles but flat, red earth and hardened ranchers. And black coffee and sun tea.”

  Backcountry Texas. Suddenly Carter made more sense. She’d picked up on the slightest of drawls a couple times, and that flirtatious chivalry of his, none of that screamed East Coast.

  “And what about you?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I’d bet everything I own you’re not from here. Not that I’m implying this little quiet town couldn’t put out something like you.”

  Josie’s newly started house collapsed. This flirting thing—not only was she not going to reciprocate it—it wasn’t cool. “The thing is, I love this quiet little town. It’s the best place on earth.” Before losing her nerve, she plunged ahead. “And since you’re going to be staying here another few nights, I should make it clear that I don’t take well to compliments, and I take even worse to come-ons.”

  Carter sank back in his seat, raising one eyebrow slightly. The house he’d built in a short time was three levels and looked sturdy enough to hold up to a light wind. “Points taken. All of them.” His tone was playful but his gaze direct. “I guess that’s why it’s been so challenging to get you to smile.”

  She swept up her cards and started another house. Her insides were a crazy, rioting mess. She was nervous and angry and exasperated and flattered all at the same time. And doing her best not to show any of it. “I smile all the time.” She drew a controlled breath as she started the base of a house. Carter wasn’t a bad guy. She could see it in his eyes. She was damn good at reading people. He was flirty and maybe a bit lost or avoidant, but he was kind. Genuinely kind. “The thing is, it’s probably best to remember you’re here for Myra. I don’t make friends easily. And I honestly don’t want to. I like my life that way.”

  Carter nodded slowly and made no move to return to his card house building. It was then that she realized he’d used up his entire deck. He reached out and toppled it with a brush of his fingers, then gathered up the cards to return them to the carton.

  It was obvious she’d successfully put him off. And even though she knew she should be relieved, her heart seemed to fall a solid three inches in her chest. It’s what you wanted. Feeling like crap won’t make it any better.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, standing up and tucking in his chair. “Thanks for the chat, anyway. It was good practice.”

  He walked around the table and stopped next to her, setting his deck down.

  “Practice for what?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

  “I’ve been off the market a while now. Getting shot down is never easy.”

  She focused on her card house rather than him. She must not have done something right, because her new house was as unstable as could be.

  “Mind if I offer a tip?” He picked up two of her cards and leaned over to overlap them at an angle at the base with the confidence of someone who’d been asked to do so. He was close enough for her to smell a hint of a tavern and that same brush of sandalwood from when she’d fainted. His muscle definition activated her salivary glands, and she fought off the need to swallow.

  As she reassessed her newly started house, she realized he’d given the rickety new thing just the stability it needed.

  “The thing is,” she spat out, “you just showed up here. You could’ve sent a letter or something. For Myra’s sake, I mean.”

  “True, I could’ve. Though, there are some things you’re never prepared for. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give them a chance.”

  Then he was gone, and Josie found herself alone in the big, quiet yard and more unsettled than she’d been in a very long time.

  Chapter 8

  After a long shower early Sunday morning, Josie slipped into the comfy sundress that Linda passed on to her last year after officially giving up attempts at fad-dieting her way back to the size she was before her three kids.

  Before heading downstairs, Josie tiptoed into Zoe’s adjoining room and pulled the summer-weight quilt back over her. She stood there a handful of seconds in the early morning light, savoring the soft, smooth curve of Zoe’s cheeks and mouth and her impossibly thick lashes, and watching the even rise and fall of her chest under the covers. Her small hand was tucked under one cheek. If t
here was one single thing in the world that had given Josie reason to believe in prayer, it was Zoe.

  Hopefully, she would sleep in this morning. With the start of school a day away—Holy crap, is there really just one day left?—Zoe had a colossal week ahead of her.

  Zoe’s new teacher’s words from last week’s meet and greet raced through her brain. “Oh, what a sweetie. She’s the one who didn’t go to kindergarten, right? I expect she’ll have some catching up to do. They always do when they miss kindergarten.”

  “She was homeschooled,” Josie had replied. “She didn’t miss it.”

  Ms. Richard’s had offered a light shake of her head as if to show she’d meant no insult. “It’s not so much the reading and writing they miss without a formal classroom setting; it’s learning to share and play well with others. Stand quietly in line. That sort of thing. But don’t you worry, Ms. Waterhill. I’ll be sure to take care of her.”

  Would she though? What if homeschooling Zoe last year was a mistake? Before her thoughts went spiraling, Josie shoved them away. It was too early to think about any of that. She hadn’t even had a cup of tea.

  She made her way downstairs in the still-quiet house and into the kitchen. Linda was at the kitchen counter, chopping veggies for the wedding guests’ farewell breakfast.

  She attempted to suppress a yawn as she stepped through the swinging door. “Morning, lady.”

  “Morning. How late did you get to bed?”

  “Not too late.” She squeezed Linda’s shoulder as she headed for the five-gallon hot water dispenser. Linda lived on a small sheep farm twenty minutes outside of town with her husband and three kids, and Josie admired her more than anyone she knew, right down to the hair she’d chosen not to dye after going prematurely gray in her late thirties.

  For a second, Josie was tempted to forgo the tea and have a cup of the coffee Linda had brewed for a couple of the guests but decided against it. The coffee smelled delicious, but as far as Josie was concerned, coffee smelled better than it tasted. Instead, she filled a teaspoon with a serving of The Soulmate Soiree, a caffeinated blend they’d created for the weekend.