Retreat to Woodhaven (The Hills of Burlington Book 2) Page 11

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "This was great." Jake stuffed the last bite of spaghetti from his plate even as he considered making a pig of himself and helping himself to another plateful of it. "Do you cook much?" He asked the other man at the table. The kids had gone off to play. He'd forgotten the enjoyment that could be had from observing siblings take aim at each other in skillful ways so as not to catch the attention of the adults in the room.

  "Actually I do." Pete looked at Casey, recognized the meaning behind her fidgeting. "But you have your sister to thank for this. She made a huge batch up a couple of weeks ago and we ended up freezing most of it."

  "No wonder it tastes like Mom's." Jake let that information sink in. Then decided any conversations about relationships with his sister should have taken place a long time ago and having one now wouldn't have the same impact one way or another. Besides that he liked the man. He was easygoing, calm with his kids which said a lot about anyone as far as he was concerned. And he was as sharp as a well cared for blade yet in a quiet way which made him all the more interesting to be around. He could easily see where all of it would appeal to his baby sister.

  The man in question decided to lead them both away from the topic neither wanted to get too deep into. He had a sister too. He wouldn't want to go there either. "I got a call from your friend Terry," Pete watched both brother and sister turn to him, not at all surprised the mention of her name held interest for both of them. "She and her husband decided to move their visit up quite a bit and will be here this weekend. They want to look at a couple of houses," he turned to Jake. "And she specifically asked me to tell you that her husband wanted to make sure you got his earlier message. Something about a drunken night in Iraq some time ago." He enjoyed watching the other man's eyes roll. He could understand that too. He paused for effect, winked at Casey, "Of course she also went into something about how if the two of you were that drunk who could remember anything or be expected to."

  Jake shook his head, gave his sister a look that spoke volumes. "Conversations between the two of you must be in code or something."

  Pete continued over Casey's laughter. He loved hearing it. "Anyway, something along the lines of if you're in..."

  "I'm in," Jake finished for him as he thought about a number of things including that his sister obviously hadn't gotten the message wrong the first time. "Well," he looked at Pete more seriously, he knew Mark well enough to know that he wouldn't be sending out that particular message unless he knew something which apparently he didn't. Yet. "Being a life-long resident of this little town along the Mississippi and being in the know regarding the local real estate market, I'd bet you know a lot about what's going on around town."

  Pete sat back, pondered the man in front of him. With the little he knew a few ideas of what was going on had already popped up and he wondered now just how close he'd been. He could see Casey out of the corner of his eye. She had the look that told him she was trying to figure out how to ask her own brother what his plans were. He could understand his own hesitation since he'd just met the man. He couldn't understand hers. And that in the end was what pushed him forward.

  "I wonder if you or my new potential clients would be interested in knowing that the local newspaper is on shaky ground."

  "Every print newspaper in the country is on shaky ground or lying to themselves." Jake drawled sarcastically.

  "True. In this case there's also been word, very quiet word that the owner is considering retirement in a serious way."

  "How serious?" Jake had a pretty good idea what the answer would be. Mark wouldn't be coming in this direction to sell hot dogs on the corner.

  "Are you joking?" Casey spoke for the first time since the conversation shifted away from little league and the upcoming baseball season.

  Jake looked at his sister thoughtfully. There was a touch of panic in her voice he hadn't heard in almost ten years. "Are you concerned I'm incapable of running a newspaper or that I might end up permanently in your end of the woods?" He asked seriously.

  Casey looked back and forth between the two men. And at the same time wishing she could better control her mouth. "You could probably write, edit, and publish a newspaper with your eyes closed," she said without taking a breath, it was true and she had no problem admitting it. She didn't ever want to do it but she knew he could. "As to the other," she raised her hands expressively, "I don't know." She looked at both men again, who in turn were each giving her a slightly amused, patronizing look she hated almost as much as the thought she might actually deserve it. "It's not you so much as...I don't know...I mean, good grief, who's next?"

  Jake laughed, a spontaneous easy laugh he couldn't stop despite the effort. He knew it didn't help that the other man in the room was doing the same. He half expected Casey to stomp out in a huff. That had been her usual tactic as a child. More often than not it worked well for her with their parents. He was surprised when she simply sat there and waited for them to get past themselves. "I love you too, sweetie," he said simply, meaning it and knowing from the look on her face she'd needed to hear it as much as he’d needed to say it. And wondered if they would ever be able to get beyond the events of a decade past. He turned back to Pete and changed the course of the conversation back to where they'd started knowing this wasn't the time or place to get into any deep family show and tell. "So, would you say that this is serious enough that word might have reached anyone outside of Burlington who might be interested?"

  "Like anyone out towards the east coast?" Pete leaned back, unconsciously reaching over for Casey's hand. Caught in his thoughts, he didn't notice her momentary discomfort or Jake's quiet speculation. He couldn't miss it though when she scooted her chair closer to his, caught her smile as he looked back across the table at her brother to finish answering his question. "There's been rumblings for a couple of months, so yeah, it could easily have gotten around. Especially within the news industry. He's been around a long time. Knows a lot of people. Word gets around."

  "So...this drunken event in Iraq," Casey interrupted then paused to gather her thoughts. "It was about running a newspaper together?"

  "Actually Mark was already running a newspaper at that time. Our drunken plans included buying a newspaper together when we decided we'd had enough of what we were already doing. Kind of like a semi-retirement plan." And he wondered to himself exactly what it was that had brought Mark to this point at this time. Not that it mattered one way or another.

  "Do you want me to look into what he might ask for the business?"

  Jake studied the man his sister obviously had strong feelings for. "You can," he started...thinking things out silently to himself, "but I would bet big bucks that Mark already has potential numbers worked out in his head."

  "He would." Casey mumbled.

  "Do you do commercial real estate?" Jake asked, smiling knowingly at the answer he could already see in Pete's face.

  "To my chagrin, no." He studied his hand, holding Casey's. "It would have been a nice little paycheck."

  "I wouldn't be too concerned. Terry wants a really historic, really big house." Casey squeezed his hand, knowing exactly where his thoughts were.

  "I know. And her husband wants a really big, really new house."

  "Maybe they'll buy one of each. They can afford it." She looked at her brother. "Terry sold her condo already and the last time I talked to her she told me they've put their house on the market. They've already gotten a tentative offer." She watched her brother absorb the information. She could literally see him working it all out in his head. "You're really serious about this aren't you?" This time she asked quietly, watched his face for the response instead of listening for the words. And saw the answer before she heard it.

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  Mary piddled around in the kitchen. There was just no other word for it and she knew it. She was doing the absolutely unnecessary because she wasn't certain what to do otherwise. And she dearly hated that.

  Sh
e'd seen Casey's bedroom light come on at the Marshall Street house when she'd been washing dishes earlier. Being able to see the house, have a sense of what was going on within it's walls just by looking out her kitchen window and down toward the other end of the street gave her a sense of wholeness that couldn't be measured in any way she knew of. Especially at night when her little house was quiet, she might be stretched out with a good book on the day bed and still easily see the big house from there as well. Could see the movements in the house and knew it was family. Her family. She wondered now if her grandmother had done the same. And how hard that would have been because for her it wasn't family she saw moving around in the house that had been hers. Where her children had run through the rooms as children did. Where her life and that of her family before her had found solace and hope. And security.

  She set down the towel with little cherries embroidered along each edge. She'd found it carefully folded with other daintily hand embroidered linens in the large linen hutch buried in her basement along with so many of the other treasured family pieces she and Casey had found months ago. The dark oak hutch now sat in the Marshall Street house in the same place it had decades before exactly where her Aunt Charlie decided it should sit once again. Then she walked to the front window where she'd seen lights come on as well in the house down the way. She sighed. She had a nagging feeling that she simply couldn't shake. Her Daniel, if he were here instead of fiddling around in corporate politics as he so loved, would say it was her women's intuition or something. Maybe it was. Whatever it was, she decided, it wasn't going away and was definitely keeping her from being able to settle down. She'd had nights, days even, like this before. Though rarely was it so stringent on her nerves. She watched the movements of the shadows and lights in the house down the street. Almost like pacing. She watched for another couple of minutes knowing even as she did her mind was made up. Glancing at the clock she decided no matter the hour it was never too late for chocolate and retrieved a pan from the refrigerator with the last of the brownies she baked earlier in the day. Between her aunt, Mallie, and Brian, few remained but would be good with the conversation she hoped they might help to elicit from her otherwise quietly private cousin.

  She left her lights on in the house and locked up before walking the short distance down the street with her arms loaded. Even before she turned up the walk to the house Jake had the door open.

  "I saw you come out of your house," he said by way of explanation. "You're out late. What's up?"

  Mary didn't need to look long or twice to see the worry in his eyes. Hear the rarely rattled nerves in his voice. She didn't have a clue what had put it there only that something had. "How'd your dinner go with Casey and Pete?" She knew without a doubt that hadn't been the source of his edginess. She would have heard from Casey if there had been any problems there. And regardless, there was no one she knew that was more easy going than Pete. Little got his ire up. And he was one of the best she knew at calming it in others.

  "Fine. Good." He took the pan she carried out of her hands and ended up following her back to the kitchen. He watched while she got out plates and glasses. As she heated up the dish in the microwave he caught the scent of what could only be brownies. How long, he wondered, had it been since he'd had real home cooked brownies that didn't come out of cellophane wrapping.

  "Pete's a wonderful guy." Mary glanced back at him when he didn't answer only to see him gazing into space. No, she realized after looking more carefully. He was studiously gazing at the laptop he had set up on the table in front of where he was standing. Carrying the warmed up brownies to the table where she had everything else already in place she sat down. Glanced at the screen he was so intent on from where she sat but could only see it was opened to his email account. She sighed, letting out a deep breath knowing she was about to break one of her own rules. She didn't mind butting in, pushing in her sometimes subtle...sometimes not so subtle way until someone finally broke down and either babbled or ranted about whatever was bothering them. But she was hard pressed to lower herself to being outright nosy. Not when she could simply ask.

  "Jake." She waited patiently until she had his attention. Or as much of it she was likely going to get. "Sit." She pushed the dish with the brownies in front of him. Took a good sized one for herself. "What's wrong?"

  He just stared at her. Then he laughed. And laughed until his sides began to hurt. And somewhere along the way he realized he needed to rein in the kaleidoscope of emotions that were about to collide like balls on a pool table. When he had things under control and could trust himself with a brownie without choking on it, he did just that. There was silence as both quietly chomped on brownies filled with chocolate chips and dripping with even darker chocolate icing and sipped wine as if there wasn't a care in the world either worried of.

  "I got an email from Bethany." Jake looked back down at the laptop screen. He'd almost gone straight upstairs when he'd gotten back from dinner with Pete and Casey without checking it. "Beth. She goes by Beth," he added absently.

  "It's a lovely name. It's almost as if her mother took a bit of both of your names and blended them together." At his stare, the obvious question in his eyes, she explained. "Beth from her own name and the rest from your middle name, Anthony." She saw the skepticism, wondered if men were born with it or simply enjoyed it. "It's not exact but I thought of it the moment you told us her name," she shrugged. "It could be coincidence but no matter, it's still a lovely name."

  Jake thought about it and set it aside. And came back to the thoughts that had followed him no matter where he was, what he did, how much he tried to let it go. No matter his efforts it had hung over him for months like a dark cloud on the verge of Olympic thunder and all the worst the heavens could expel. But the rains never came and the dark never ceased. All since the moment he knew without having to be told...Lizzie's death. "Do you believe," he struggled for what he wanted to say, needed to ask. He wasn't certain he believed it himself. How then could he ask her if she did. He took a huge sip of wine feeling the liquid sear its way down his throat, from that reached for the courage he rarely lacked in any other instance. He looked across the table at his cousin, into the patient eyes that reminded him in that single moment of his mother and how she would so often watch him. Waiting. "Do you believe souls can touch? Beyond life. Despite death." He leaned forward, his arms on the table in front of him. All the thoughts that had tumbled around in his mind now tumbling out of his mouth. "That somehow we can hear…feel," he searched for the words...grasped for all the thoughts that had plagued him, "someone who isn't there with us?" He paused...looked straight into her eyes. "Someone who's died."

  Mary held his anguished gaze for what seemed to be endless moments as she thought about how she would respond. How much of herself she was willing to divulge. Then reached out, laid her hand gently on his arm. "I do. Very much I do." She poured more of the wine into his now empty glass. Took a deep sip of her own. Took a deep breath. "I sometimes feel my mother. Almost as if she's touching my face like she did when I was a little girl. Sometimes just a gentle caress. Like a whisper of the wind but I know it's her." She lifted her face, her eyes closed as if listening to a voice only she heard. "When I was little," she started almost hesitatingly, her voice soft, almost a whisper. "I would talk with God. My mother told me if I ever had something I couldn't talk with anyone else about, it was He I should go to." She looked back at him, not certain what she would see. Strengthened by what she didn't see in his expression. Rejection. "I won't say I ever heard him respond but I always felt a presence during those talks. Just as I know it’s my mother's presence I sometimes feel now." She thought about those moments when she'd ran her hands over the inside of the piano where her mother and grandfather had written short notes to each other. The overwhelming sense of love between the two had filled her soul and eased her grief. She gently squeezed her cousin's arm. "I believe that love never dies. Those whose hearts we hold dear may leave us in the physical sen
se but the love shared doesn't. Who's to say that just as the greatness of God's love for us, ours for the family he blessed us with doesn't continue on with them into the next life. Love holds us, Jake. It heals us and keeps us sane when all around us isn't. And when loss brings us to our knees love holds us up...love of those lost and the love of the God who is always with us and standing by our side." She nodded to his laptop. "You can research it, doctors and psychologists I'm certain have their own terminology for it. Their own medically supported explanations for it. Some might classify it as the inability to accept loss. Others will claim it is simply a part of the grieving process. And for some that may be enough. But I believe we have far more in us than what we see. And more...much, much more than what mere mortal doctors and scientists are capable of hypothesizing." She stood, needing the movement. If even for just a moment. She found what she'd hoped to in the refrigerator and brought it back to the table.