Coming Home Page 9

  “He obviously thinks the world of you, too,” Grady noted. “He said he thinks of you as a daughter.”

  “I wish to God he was my dad.” Mia stopped working and turned around. “I’m sure my life would have been very different if he had been. Beck and I had the same mother, but not the same father.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So am I. Not about Beck, but about… oh, whatever.” She smiled wryly and turned back to the work at hand. “So what did you think of the Shady Lady?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Hal’s boat. It was great. I’d never fished from a boat before. The only fishing I’ve ever done has been in mountain streams-freshwater fishing.”

  “That’s with the skinny rod and reel and the funny little things that are supposed to look like bait?”

  “You mean flies. Also called lures. They’re supposed to mimic, well, flies or other critters that the fish in the stream would eat.”

  “I knew that part. I just couldn’t remember what they were called. It’s been a long time since I thought about fishing.”

  “So you’ve been?”

  “No, but one of my mom’s exes used to go all the time. He had this metal box that he kept all his stuff in.”

  “Tackle box.” He finished washing and looked around for a towel.

  “Right. He had one of those and he had all these little things in there with hooks on them. Some had feathers and some looked like little tiny fish.” She gazed out the window, as if remembering. “And he had these little silvery things, like little weights, he sometimes tied onto the lures.”

  “Sinkers.” He nodded. “Depending on what kind of fish you’re after, you might want a lure that sits on the water, or one that goes beneath the surface. In the latter, you want something to take that lightweight lure under.”

  “Funny. I barely remember what that stepfather looked like, but I remember his fishing stuff. Oh, and he had these long boots. They came up to here.” She tapped the top of her thighs.

  “Waders. So you could walk into the stream.” He couldn’t help but smile at her. She looked so earnest, remembering.

  “Do you have those?”

  He nodded.

  “And those rubber overalls?”

  He nodded again.

  “He used to bring home these fish and stand at the kitchen sink and cut them apart and pull the guts out.” Vanessa made a face. “I couldn’t watch.”

  “Well, if you’re planning on cooking and eating your catch, you need to clean it.”

  “Do you do that?”

  “When I catch for food, sure.”

  She wrinkled her nose, and he laughed.

  “Well, you wouldn’t cook it with the organs still inside. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that could make you sick,” he told her. “I guess I eat about a third of what I catch.”

  “What do you do with the rest of it?”

  “I release the fish and let it go.”

  “What’s the point of catching it if you’re going to let it go?”

  “You go for the sport.”

  “So you hurt the fish just so you can have a little ‘sport’?”

  “I usually flatten out the hook so it doesn’t pull the fish’s mouth when I take the hook out.”

  “Seriously?”

  When he nodded, she asked, “What’s the big deal with the whole sport thing, anyway?”

  He hesitated before answering. He’d never really thought about why he did it, other than the fact that he liked it.

  “Well, I guess because it makes for a peaceful day. You have to stand real still so you don’t scare off the fish, and you don’t talk or make any sound for the same reason. There’s just the sun and the water flowing downstream and the fish, and you. It’s just a good excuse to be outside, in nature, all by yourself.”

  “But aren’t you always by yourself anyway?” she asked.

  “When I’m home I am,” he admitted. “Most of the time, anyway.”

  “Where else would you be?”

  “Hiking, backpacking, camping in the mountains.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous, to do that by yourself? Aren’t you supposed to always go with a buddy? At least, this article I read-”

  “When I go for more than a day, it’s almost always with a group that I’m taking on a prearranged trip,” he explained.

  “You mean, like a guide?”

  “Exactly.” He spotted a towel on the counter and he pointed to it. “Can I use that to dry this stuff?”

  “Sure.” She nodded. “So you take people on camping trips?”

  “And hiking and backpacking through the mountains, sometimes the state parks.” He picked up the towel and began to dry the measuring spoons. “Sometimes it’s a day hike, sometimes it’s for several days. Depends on what type of experience they want. Sometimes it’s part of their package at one of the nearby resorts or lodges. When things get slow, I advertise in outdoor magazines, and on the Internet, but I’ve only had to do that twice.”

  “How did you get into that?”

  “When I moved out to Montana, I spent a lot of time hiking on my own at first, to become better acquainted with the area around the house. I graduated to backpacking because I wanted to do longer hikes, then I wanted to try an overnight. As you mentioned, camping alone can be dicey, especially in areas where there are a lot of bears. But after a while, I got bored being off by myself all the time. I’d be walking along and I’d see something… maybe an eagle swooping down, or a stand of trees that had turned a brilliant color, maybe a bighorn sheep. You know, the sort of thing that makes you turn to someone else and say, ‘Hey, look at that!’ Not so much fun when there’s no one else around. So I joined a hiking club and went out with them and a guide a couple of times. Since I was thinking about staying in Montana awhile, I looked into becoming a guide myself. I took some courses at a wilderness training center, then I took a few more. I stopped in at the lodges and a couple of resorts in my part of the state, talked to the managers, gave out my cards.”

  “How often do you take people out?”

  “A couple of times a month in good weather.” He grinned wryly. “Not so often in the winter, unless it’s a really experienced group, I know the terrain really well, and there are no storms forecasted for that week but that’s really rare.”

  She sat on one of the chairs and rubbed the small of her back with her hand. “Wait. Do people pay you to take them into the mountains?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “Does Mia know about this?” Vanessa looked puzzled. “Because to hear her tell it, you never leave your house and you go for weeks without talking to anyone, and you don’t work.”

  He laughed out loud. “Mia has never asked me if I have a job. She assumes that I don’t, so I haven’t brought it up. If she ever asked, I’d be happy to tell her. But she doesn’t ask. She has this image of me as a tragic loner, so I just let her hold on to that pitiful picture.”

  “That is just flat-out evil.” Vanessa’s eyes narrowed but there was a glint of humor there. “Your sister’s worried about you and the solitary life she thinks you’re living. She believes that you hole up in that house and only occasionally venture out into the hills with no companion other than a horse.”

  “My sister is going to have to learn not to assume.” He paused. “You’re not going to tell her, right?”

  “She’s my friend. Come Saturday, she’ll be family.”

  “Well, then, let’s just consider this a family secret for the time being.”

  The oven timer went off, and Vanessa appeared to be thinking while she took one tray out and put the latest one in.

  “Doesn’t it bother you to know that your entire family thinks you’re a pathetic recluse?” she asked.

  “My entire family doesn’t. Only Mia.”

  “You mean everyone else knows?”

  He nodded.

  “Even more evil than I thought.” She laughed. “But all right. Your secret is safe with me. Of course,
it will cost you.”

  “What’s the price of your silence?”

  “Why, I don’t know.” She tilted her head, as if thinking. “Certainly I couldn’t be expected to squander an opportunity like this on something trivial. I’ll have to give it some serious thought.” She nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes. This needs to be good. I’m going to have to get back to you.”

  “Take your time,” he told her. “I’ll be around for a few more days.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I’m always hungry.” He started to glance around at the stacks of cookies.

  “Uh-uh,” she warned him. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  She went to the refrigerator and opened it. “I have soup. And corn bread.”

  “What kind of soup?”

  “Chicken rice and cream of broccoli.”

  “Either is fine.”

  “Really?” She looked over the top of the door at him. “I’d have expected you to shy away from the broccoli.”

  “I don’t shy away from much.”

  “Great.” She took a container out of the fridge. “We’ll have the chicken.”

  She moved the cookie trays from the stove top and found a pan into which she spooned the soup. While it heated she cleaned off a spot at the table and set two places. Grady sniffed the air and looked into the pan, where chunks of chicken were warming in a fragrant yellow broth thick with rice.

  “This smells homemade,” he observed.

  “You get points for that,” she told him.

  He shrugged. “Do I lose points if I admitted I sometimes make soup for myself at home?”

  “Actually, that would earn extra extra points. I think it’s great when a guy can make stuff. It says a lot about him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, he can take care of himself. Guys who can’t do for themselves…” She made the thumbs-down sign. “And it says that he’s not hung up on some macho image of himself.” She smiled. “Too mucho macho…” Another thumbs-down. “Besides, a guy who can make his own soup will never have to depend on a woman-or worse, wait for a woman to do it for him, and that is very liberating, as far as I’m concerned. I really like a guy who does things for himself.”

  “I feel the need to confess I only know how to make two kinds of soup.”

  “Which two?”

  “Potato, and beef with vegetables.”

  “Good ones. Nothing to be ashamed about there.” The soup began to boil and she turned down the heat. “Seriously. I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks, but you should know that liberating someone else never entered my mind. Winters are harsh where I live. You can be snowed in for a long time. There was a clear choice between learning how to cook and starving to death.”

  “Whatever the reason, I like it.” She brought the pan over to the table and spooned soup into the bowls. “I’ve known too many men who expected women to do everything for them. From my stepfathers right down to my…”

  She paused. “Well, let’s just leave it at that.” She placed the pan back on the stove, then returned to the table with a plate of corn-bread squares and sat across from Grady. “Did you teach yourself to cook after you went to Montana?”

  “No, actually, our mom died when we were all fairly young. Our dad never seemed to get the hang of getting home in time to make dinner for us kids.” He hastened to add, “I’m not criticizing him. He was in the Bureau and passed up several promotion opportunities so that he could be home most nights, but he rarely made it by dinnertime and he wasn’t much for putting meals together once he got there.”

  “So who cooked for you kids?”

  “Sometimes one of our aunts came over, but most of the time, our older brother cooked dinner. Mia was too young when Mom first passed away. Mia never did like to cook.”

  “I think she still avoids it as much as possible. Beck is pretty good, though, and Hal is even better.” She stirred the soup to cool it. “I learned to cook early because I grew up in a home where I learned that if I wanted to eat, most nights I’d have to take care of myself.”

  “Did your mother work?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly when she was between marriages.” Her smile was touched with a bit of irony. “Mom was never one to do for herself what she could get someone else to do for her, so she was fine with me taking over.”

  “I see.” He saw that, to her credit, Vanessa wasn’t interested in following Mom’s example.

  “She also liked to go out after work, and sometimes she forgot that she had a child at home.”

  She grew quiet and seemed to be concentrating on the rice in her soup. They ate lunch mostly in silence after that, and returned to baking as soon as they’d finished eating. By late afternoon, they’d completed their share of the wedding cookies. Vanessa mixed up a batch of glaze and frosted a few cookies, which she left out on the counter to dry.

  “I’ll try to stack them when I get back tonight to see if they stick together,” she told Grady as she checked the time. “Meanwhile, we’re due for the rehearsal in a little more than an hour.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I better get back to the Inn. Andy was going to stop by for me at six forty-five.”

  She grabbed several cookies from the counter, wrapped them in a napkin, and handed them to him with a smile. “For your service.”

  “Thanks. I was wondering how I was going to manage snitching a few.”

  “You’ll have to let me know how they measure up to your mom’s.” She walked along with him to the front door. “Thank you so much for giving me a hand today. If you hadn’t come over, I’d be up all night trying to finish my quota.”

  “I was glad to help,” he said, and realized he meant it.

  She unlocked the door and walked outside with him, pausing to deadhead a tulip here and there.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” He paused at the end of the walk. “Thanks for lunch.”

  “You’re welcome.” She straightened up, a handful of dead petals in one hand, and dazzled him with a smile. “Thanks again for your help.”

  He nodded and began his walk back toward town, thinking that everything he’d assumed about her had been pretty much wrong. He chastised himself for being as bad as Mia, making assumptions based on incomplete information. He had to admit that, at second glance, he’d found nothing fluffy about Vanessa. She’d come across as independent and strong, if somewhat guarded, but a woman who stood on her own two feet. He couldn’t help but wonder what else he might find if he got the chance to take an even closer look. He almost wished he was going to be around a little longer.

  Funny the way some things come back to you, he thought. Some memories come when you hear a certain song, some with the sight of something that reminds you of another place, and sometimes, like today, with the hint of something that takes you to another time. Until today, he hadn’t even realized how closely he associated lemons in general-and those lemon cookies in particular-with his mother and his childhood. Maybe it was because he’d lost her when he was young, but one of his most vivid memories was of them all in the kitchen when it was time to bake, with the three boys and Mia around the table, each with a job to do. Brendan was the oldest, so he always got to break the eggs. Andy got to measure the flour and sugar, Grady got to cut out the cookies, and Mia got to pick them up off the table and place them on the cookie sheet. There had been an innocence to those times, a closeness to each other and to their mother that had held them together for years after they lost her.

  Mia remembers, too, he realized. That’s why it was so important for her to bask in those memories as her wedding day drew near, why she wanted to share that special treat with her guests, why she wanted to dwell on those days and surround herself with the best of her childhood. Before she left on her honeymoon, he was going to have to thank her for pulling him back with her, so that he could bask in them, too.

  Chapter 7

  THE outdo
or wedding rehearsal-held on Thursday night rather than Friday because of a scheduling conflict with the officiant-had proceeded with out a hitch, from the procession up the aisle to the string quartet’s playing of Clarke’s “Trumpet Voluntary,” to the recessional Vivaldi’s “Spring.” Was there anything more perfect than violins playing at dusk on the shores of the Chesapeake, a lone sailboat silhouetted against the setting sun? Vanessa couldn’t think of anything that even came close.

  She stood at the makeshift altar and watched a smiling Mia walk up the aisle between Grady and Andy. There will certainly be no dearth of eye candy at this wedding, she thought. She caught Grady’s eye as he drew closer with his sister on his arm. There was something in the way he hovered over Mia that Vanessa found endearing.

  Reverend Quinn explained how the ceremony would proceed on Saturday, then put them all through their paces one more time.

  “I think that after the ceremony, on the way back down the aisle, Dorsey should walk with Andy, and Vanessa should walk with Grady.” Mia stood on the grass at the front of the imaginary aisle they’d all just walked a second time. “See, when they walk me up the aisle, they move to stand on the side.”

  “The father of the bride usually returns to his seat in the front aisle,” the minister told her.

  “I know, but they’re not my father. I want them to stay up here with me.”

  The minister shrugged. He obviously knew better than to argue with a bride about where her brothers would stand during the ceremony, whether they were standing in for their father or not.

  “So after Beck and I walk back down, the matron of honor-that would be Annie-meets up with the best man-that would be Hal-here”-Mia pointed to a spot in line with the center of the aisle-“and they start to walk together. Then, Andy, you meet up with Dorsey, and after they start walking, Ness, you meet up with Grady. Okay?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Anyone have questions?”

  No one did.

  “Great. Let’s head on out to dinner,” Beck told the group. “Everyone has a ride? Good. See you all in the bar in about ten minutes.”

  Vanessa chatted and laughed with the other members of the bridal party as they made their way to the parking lot, then led the line of cars back into town for the rehearsal dinner at Captain Walt’s, a local landmark that had started life as a waterman’s shack and had been added onto over the years.