Carolina Mist Read online

  She looked up at him wordlessly, the sudden image of a young Alex, silhouetted in the front bedroom window of Belle’s house, flashing before her eyes.

  “I wondered what you were looking at,” she mused. “Sometimes, I’d wake up early and look across the street and wonder what you… that is, wonder if anyone else in Primrose was awake yet. Sometimes I thought I’d see someone at the window.”

  “That was me.” He looked down and smiled. “Thinking about you. Seems I never thought about anything else, back then.”

  “They were good summers.” She nodded as she turned from the rising sun and sought to busy herself by getting out cups and the sugar bowl and cream for their coffee.

  “They were the best,” he agreed, “the very best days of my life. There came a time when only the memory of Primrose kept me focused on what mattered and what didn’t. That first summer, when I stayed home, sometimes when things hurt badly, sometimes I’d picture myself in Primrose, out on Leila’s dock, or down by the inlet, just watching the water. I’d try to picture what you’d be doing each day, and I’d try to imagine myself there with you.”

  “Why didn’t you write to me?” she asked.

  “Sure. ‘Dear Abby, I’m sorry I can’t join you in Primrose this summer, but my dad has run off with his secretary, who is, oh, a year or so older than my sister, and Mom is, needless to say, a bit unnerved. Particularly since Dad closed out their bank accounts before he and little Courtney left last week for Mexico. Good-bye, Stanford, hello, state school (assuming I make enough money on my construction job to pay the tuition). Have a good summer. Have a good life. Your friend, Alex.’ How would that have sounded?” he asked somewhat bitterly.

  “It would have sounded like the truth,” she said. “It would have sounded like something I could understand.”

  “I’m sorry, Abby,” he whispered. “Everything just hurt too damned much that summer. Not the least of which was thinking about you being here and me not. I wanted to be riding bikes with you down Cove Road. I wanted to row out to the Sound to fish in the early morning. I wanted to climb the ladder to the loft in Leila’s carriage house on rainy days and smell the hay and sit on the front porch at night and talk about who we’d be when we grew up. I wanted not to be in Seattle, watching my mother’s life fall apart and knowing that nothing I did or said could give her back the slightest bit of what had been taken from her.”

  The sound of small dog feet tap dancing across hardwood drew their attention to the front hallway.

  “Ha!” Belle exclaimed as she passed into the kitchen, her eyes lighting up as she spied their unexpected visitor. “I could tell by the way Meri P. was dancing around my bed that something was going on, but I didn’t dare hope to find you here, Alexander. What a wonderful surprise!”

  Belle reached both arms out to her grandson and all but disappeared within his embrace.

  “Good morning, Gran.” He kissed the top of her head, his large hands unconsciously smoothing back the errant strands of white hair that had slid from their pins at the nape of her neck.

  “It is, in fact, a good morning.” She beamed. “Now, what brings you here at the crack of dawn?”

  “Well, I was on my way back from a trip and decided to come here first before going on to Hampton.” He watched as the tiny woman filled the tea kettle with water and placed it on the stove. “I thought I’d stop in and see how you two were doing.”

  “We’re doing just fine.” Belle patted him on the arm. “What do you think of my new little friend?” Belle nodded toward the floor where Meri Puppins sat.

  “Cute, Gran,” he told her. “Who brushes out all that hair?”

  “Why, I do, of course.” Belle grinned. “You know all these articles about the elderly doing better when they have a pet? It’s all true, Alexander, indeed it is. Why, I just feel happy all over when that little dog sashays into the room and I know she’s looking for me. She knows who her best friend is, don’t you, Meri?”

  Alex and Abby exchanged grins as Belle leaned over to scratch Meri between the ears.

  “Now, what’s for breakfast, Abigail?” Belle asked as she poured her tea and headed toward the morning room. “Bring your coffee, and come keep me company, Alexander. If we don’t bother her too much, perhaps Abby will make blueberry pancakes.”

  “Now, this seems to be a familiar sight,” Alex said from the doorway, where he paused to watch Abby as she aimed the nozzle of the water canister at the wall and attacked the old green paper.

  He’d spent much of the morning chatting with Belle, then, exhausted from not having slept on his late-night flight from Dallas, he had fallen asleep on the sofa in the front parlor after lunch. Having awakened a few hours later in a silent house, he had gone searching for signs of life. Belle had fallen asleep in the morning room while watching a movie. Not finding Abby on the first floor, he’d gone up to the second, then followed the sound of her radio until he found her scraping yet another wall in yet another bedroom.

  “Only way to get it done is to do it.” She grinned.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “If you’re expecting me to be polite and say, ‘Oh, nothing,’ you’re going to be disappointed,” she told him.

  “No, no,” he assured her. “I’d like to help.”

  “Great. You can take one of those large trash bags and fill it with the scrapings, then take it downstairs and out to the back where the trash cans are.”

  “Are you planning on doing this in every room in the house?” he asked as he filled the third plastic bag with sticky pieces of spent wallpaper.

  “Yes, sir, I am.” She smiled resolutely.

  “Why?”

  “Because”—she took a deep breath—“the better the house looks, the better the price I’ll get for it.”

  “You’d sell this house?” Alex dropped the bag onto the floor, and it landed with a whoosh, sending paper dust like cold, gooey lava through the opening of the bag. “Abby, I can’t believe you’d even consider such a thing.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, clearly stunned by her announcement.

  “I really don’t have a choice.” She turned to face him. “I can’t afford to keep it, Alex. I have no income, and what little cash I had when I got here is just about gone.”

  “Abby, I can’t imagine this house belonging to anyone else.”

  “I can’t think about that.” She turned back to the wall.

  “Look, there has to be some way,” he began.

  “There isn’t,” she snapped. “And besides, I have to get on with my life. I have to get back to the business of finding a job. Of getting back on track. I cannot spend the rest of my life in this house with no one but…”

  His head jerked up, and she stopped mid-sentence. “With no one but an old woman?” he finished the sentence for her.

  “Alex, I am very fond of Belle,” she said more gently, “and I didn’t mean to imply that I…”

  “Abby, she’s not your responsibility,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You shouldn’t be expected to make your plans around her.”

  There. It was said. And Abby had not been the one to say it aloud.

  “Alex, this has been very difficult for me.” She put down the scraper and perched at the top of the ladder. “I came here with the sole intention of selling this house and the furnishings and everything else. I had no idea that anyone—least of all Belle—was living here.”

  “Must have been quite a surprise,” he noted wryly.

  “Must have been.” She smiled. “I arrived late at night, and I still do not know who scared who more, me or Belle.”

  “But you stayed.”

  “Right now, I have nowhere else to go.” She added hastily, “That is, I haven’t had time to look for a job, because I’ve been busy getting the house fixed up. I know I won’t get much for it, not now, anyway, the sad shape it’s in. So I figured I’d spend a few months and do the best I could with it, maybe increase its value. Besides, t
he Realtors all say that spring is the best time to sell.” For some reason, she could not meet his eyes.

  “Well,” he said, “spring is just a month or so away.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this arrangement you had with Gran?”

  “Alex, there was no arrangement. I don’t know what she told you. Leila and Belle had an arrangement, that Belle could live here for as long as she wanted. I’ll honor that arrangement for as long as I can, but I can’t promise that it will be for as long as Belle might wish.”

  “I guess I showed up at just the right time,” he said softly. “Just in time to take Gran off your hands.”

  “Well, I’m not ready to sell the house yet, Alex,” she told him. “She can stay for as long as I’m here. I just don’t know how long that will be. At least several months. It’s taking me longer than I’d expected, going room to room up here, and I haven’t even started on the first floor.”

  “Does Gran know about this?” he asked.

  “No,” Abby admitted. “I didn’t know how to tell her. I know she’ll be upset.”

  “Upset? The woman has lived all her life in this town, Abby. Everything that has ever mattered to her has happened right here in Primrose. We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t kill her.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks, Alex,” she snapped. “Heap a little guilt on me, why don’t you?”

  “Aw, Abby, I’m not trying to… look, Gran’s not your responsibility. She’s mine. I’m grateful to you for not pitching her out in the street when you got here. And I’m grateful that you’re willing to let her stay for a little while longer, especially since it appears she’s tried to hoodwink both of us. But the fact remains that once the house is sold, she will have to leave and go someplace else.”

  “She could go with you,” Abby ventured, wishing she had the nerve to add, Wonder how sweet Melissa would like that?

  “Yes, she could.” He nodded. “But it wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be Primrose. How on earth will we tell her—I mean, how will I tell her—that she has to leave Primrose?” He stood and walked to the window and looked out at the river flowing cold and misty behind the peaked roof of the carriage house.

  “Tell me what your timetable is,” he said without turning around.

  “Ideally, I’d like to have the house ready to be listed with the real estate company by April or May, but…”

  “But?”

  “Well, with everything that needs to be done, I’ll be lucky if I have the house ready to sell by the end of the summer. The scope of the work overwhelms me at times.”

  “Show me.”

  Abby came down off the ladder and gave him the handyman’s tour of the house, inside and outside.

  “Wow.” Alex shook his head in disbelief as he looked over the contractor’s estimate. They had completed the rounds of necessary repairs and sat now in the kitchen, where Abby prepared scones for Belle’s afternoon tea. “How much would you get for the house if you didn’t do all this work?”

  “Probably next to nothing,” she admitted as she poured water into the coffee maker with one hand and turned on the oven with the other.

  “I guess you really need to get all you can from it.”

  “Every blessed penny.” She sighed. “If I don’t get some positive response to my resume soon, I may have to think about maybe starting a business of my own.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You just know you want out of Primrose,” he noted quietly.

  “There’s nothing for me here, Alex,” she told him more stiffly than she’d meant to.

  “I see.”

  “Alex, there are no major companies within miles. There are no jobs, there is no future in Primrose for someone like…”

  She turned to find Belle in the doorway.

  “I must have slept longer than usual, dear,” Belle said calmly. “Is it almost time for tea?”

  “Yes, Belle.” Abby could not meet her eyes. How much had she heard?

  “Good.” Belle watched with satisfaction as Abby dropped the scone dough onto the baking tray. “Is there any of Elvira’s marmalade left, Abby? Oh, come on, Meri, would you like to go out back? Let me just get my sweater on. Come along, Meri.”

  Belle pulled on the heavy dark blue sweater that hung on a hook near the porch window. She opened the door and followed the little dog onto the back porch.

  “Do you think she heard you?” Alex asked tensely.

  “I think it’s a question of how much she heard.” Abby grimaced.

  “Alexander,” Belle called through the open door. “Come out here and look at these geese down toward the river.”

  He looked as if he was about to speak, but, apparently changing his mind, he rose to join Belle on the back porch.

  Abby could hear his light banter with Belle, and she peered out the window. They stood facing the river, Alex’s arm around the tiny shoulders of the old woman, as if protecting her from what was to come.

  Oh my, Abby thought with a sigh. Well, at least it’s done. At least he knows the truth. Let’s see what, if anything, he’s willing to do about it.

  20

  “This is a great dinner, Ab.” Alex winked at her across the table as he helped himself to more chicken. “The sauce is wonderful. Have you ever tried making it with portobello mushrooms?”

  “Not since I’ve come to Primrose.” She laughed. “I fear that neither portobello nor shiitake have yet to grace the shelves of Foster’s market.”

  “I’ll bring you some next weekend,” he promised. “Anything else you can’t get here that you’d like?”

  “Are you kidding?” She rolled her eyes. “Let me count the ways—fresh basil, pine nuts…”

  “Ummm.” He nodded. “Sounds like pesto.”

  “I am dying for it. Young Foster carries no fresh herbs.” Belle’s eyes flickered from Abby to Alex and back again in disbelief.

  “Alexander.” She cleared her throat as she took pains to speak slowly, lest they think she was too excited. “Did you say you’d be back next weekend?”

  “Why, yes, Gran, I did,” he told her solemnly. “Since Abby has fed me so well these last two visits, I thought the least I could do was come back and treat her to some of my world-famous vegetarian chili.”

  “Why, that would be lovely, Alexander.” Belle nodded cheerily, wondering what in the world vegetarian chili could possibly be.

  Not that it mattered. What mattered was that he would be back again. Soon. And that he and Abby would spend time together and get to know each other as adults. It had been foolish for her to have expected them to fall in love immediately, she admitted to herself. But it would, with the right luck, all work out in time. There would be the rest of this weekend and all of the next.

  Belle felt a feather of hope tickle at her insides.

  She cautioned herself not to get too hopeful. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, what with Abby so antsy to get the house fixed up so that she could sell it, and that stupid Melissa—brazen little hussy—chasing Alexander.

  Belle looked across the table to the face of her beloved grandson, then to that of the young woman who had given life back to the old dreams she and Leila had shared.

  I should tell Alexander that Melissa called while he and Abby were outside talking to Naomi and Colin, she thought. Her toes wiggled as a surge of something akin to mischief swept over her.

  There was such lively banter between them as they cleared the dinner table together. Alexander’s laughter, clear and strong and deep, floated down the hall from the kitchen. It was as she had hoped it would be—she and Alexander and Abby, all happy together, here in Leila’s house. Here in Primrose. He’d be staying the night. Staying the weekend.

  Later, she mused. I’ll tell him about the call later. Anyway, Naomi had invited them over for birthday cake for Colin, and here was Abby with Belle’s coat. A phone call wo
uld hold them all up.

  Maybe later, she told herself as she slipped her thin arms into the sleeves of the coat Alex held for her. She watched with pleasure as he helped Abby into her jacket, then turned off the light on the sideboard, just like he belonged there.

  Then again, she considered as she pulled on her gloves, maybe not.

  “You know, this entry just doesn’t look the same without that hall piece you used to have on this wall, Gran.” Alex shook his head and looked around at the house that had, for so many years, belonged to his family. “You remember, the piece with the tall mirror and the marble top on the table?”

  “I certainly do.” Belle nodded, glad he was with her to hold on to, this first time she ventured into her home, which now belonged to someone else. She hadn’t been quite sure how she would feel, and so she had avoided it.

  “Oh, my, Miz Matthews, I remember that, too. It had brass swans up around the top of the mirror.” Naomi took Belle’s arm as Colin took their coats. “What a lovely piece that was. We keep looking for something like it but so far haven’t found anything that even comes close.”

  Naomi led Belle slowly into the living room.

  “Well.” She seemed to hold her breath. “What do you think, Miz Matthews?”

  Belle slowly studied the room, knowing that Naomi was seeking her approval of the newly papered walls and the furniture that was so very different from Belle’s own.

  “Why, this is a lovely shade of green, Naomi.” Belle nodded. “Just lovely. And I just love the way you’ve filled the room with plants and light, dear.”

  “Oh, Miz Matthews, are you just saying that?” Naomi asked earnestly.

  “No, dear. You’ve truly made this your own home.” Belle swallowed a lump in her throat as she patted Naomi’s hand. “Which is just as it should be. Now, show me what you’ve done in the dining room. Oh, Alexander, do come see.”

  “Do you think she is all right?” Colin whispered in Abby’s ear, nodding toward Belle as the threesome disappeared into the next room.