Enright Family Collection (145 page)

“We’ll see you at dinner,” Georgia tugged on Laura’s arm and winked at Matt.

“But ...” Laura protested, not sure she liked the idea of her brother sitting in easy interrogation distance to Tucker.

“Go on, Laura,” Matt shooed her along with the
wave of his hand. “You have things to do. Tucker and I have birds to watch. We’ll be along in a while.”

“OK,” Laura gathered up her shoes and a ceramic mug from which she drained the last few drops of dark liquid. Glancing warily at her brother, she followed Georgia across the beach to the wooden steps leading up to the sidewalk and back to the inn.

“Do you like the pale pink, or the pale green?” Laura held up two different tablecloths for Georgia’s inspection. “Or maybe ivory. Which do you think Zoey would prefer? Maybe we should ask Delia ...”

“Laura, you don’t need to confer with us on every detail.” Georgia sat down at the dining room table and smoothed a ripple from the creamy white cloth that Laura had placed before her. “And it seems to me you have much more experience with this sort of thing than we do. After all, you do this type of thing all the time here at the inn, don’t you?”

“Yes, but this is different. This is for family, and it has to be perfect.”

“It will be perfect. Relax. Do you know how many people Delia is having?”

“She said it would be less than thirty.”

“Well, then, we could even do three round tables of eight or ten each in the sun room. That would be lovely, with the ivy and wisteria draping over the outside of the windows,” Georgia suggested.

“That would be pretty. Let’s just go poke in there and see how we might arrange things.”

Laura pushed open the French doors leading into the sun room and walked to the middle of the room.

“We could move a few more wicker pieces in and move the upholstered pieces out for the party, and do the entire room in white. White wicker, white linens, white flowers. Lilies. Roses. Orchids ...” Laura murmured.

“That’s exactly what Mother did for India and Nick’s engagement party,” Georgia grinned. “Right down to the same flowers. That’s uncanny.”

“Oh,” Laura looked pensive. “Then perhaps we should do something else.”

“I think all white would be wonderful in here,”

Georgia told her. “And we can just consider all white engagement parties a new family tradition. India, Zoey, maybe someday me ... maybe you ...”

“I’ve had my shot at ‘someday,’” Laura appeared to have focused her attention on refolding the linens.

“Where is it written that you only get one ‘shot’ at happiness?” Georgia asked. “Who told you that if it doesn’t work out the first time, that you never get another chance?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Laura turned her back, so as to avoid her sister’s questioning eyes. She appeared about to add something else, when her attention was drawn to the window, where Matt and Tucker were walking up the drive leisurely, Artie sauntering along between them, Tucker laughing at something Matt was saying.

Georgia watched the faintest flush of color spread across Laura’s cheeks, watched her expression soften just a little.

“Laura,” Georgia said, “would I be prying if I asked ...”

“Yes.” Laura gathered up the linens and seemed to flee the room. “Yes, you would be.”

“This Tucker fellow is all right,” Matt said as they drove along a dark and winding country road on their way back to Pumpkin Hill later that night. “He’s quite an interesting guy. I really liked him a lot.”

Artie having decided to ride shotgun and stick his big head out the window to catch some breeze, Georgia had been forced to take the middle seat. She leaned against Matt, her head on his shoulder, and said, “Well, I wouldn’t start calling him ‘brother’ any time soon.”

“Yes, I know. Laura’s trying so hard to pretend that she hardly notices him, but yet she can’t seem to put together a full, coherent sentence when he’s in the room.” Matt said thoughtfully.

“I know how she feels,” Georgia ran a hand up Matt’s arm to his shoulder and added softly, “Only difference is, I admit it.”

There was a long moment’s silence.

“OK,” Matt said, “I want to hear it.”

“Hear what?” Georgia yawned.

“I want to hear you admit it.”

She leaned closer to his ear. “I am in serious danger of falling head over heels in love with you, Matthew Bishop. And if you play your cards right, I just might be persuaded to watch the rest of that movie with you when we get home tonight.”

Matt smiled in the darkness and stepped on the gas.

chapter twenty-three

Georgia unlocked the back door of the farmhouse and went into the kitchen, tossing her purse onto the table as she passed by. She was hot and sticky and not happy after having spent the morning looking at three possible properties recommended by one of the clerks at Tanner’s whose mother was a real estate agent. Feeling somewhat like Goldilocks, Georgia had found the first property too big—the space having once been used as a warehouse for farm equipment—and the second, a long narrow space with a low ceiling and two thin windows that would only get morning sun, too small. The last lacked indoor plumbing. She had not as yet gone through the storefront on Main Street, the agent who had the key being out of town for two more days. Georgia held onto the hope that this last space would prove to be just right.

Sooner or later, she sighed as she pushed the message button on her answering machine, she would have to find that just right place or settle for
something less than ideal. Or move her new dance studio out of O’Hearn, which she did not want to do, for a number of very good reasons.

Starting with you,
she said to the voice on the answering machine.

“Georgia, hi. It’s about noon. I was just wondering how you made out with the realtor this morning, and I wanted to let you know that I got a call back from the architect I contacted last week. He can meet with me at the barn on Saturday. I told him to come in the afternoon, so that we won’t disturb your dance class. We’ll talk about all that later, I’ll give you call when I get home tonight.” Matt paused, and she could almost see that sweet half smile of his. “I miss you. A lot. I think maybe I’ll have to drive down there on Wednesday and show you just how much ...”

Grinning, Georgia saved the message to replay again later, then went upstairs to change into her old clothes. Whistling, she pulled on a pair of faded olive green shorts and a tank top, then wound her hair atop her head before heading out to the field to check her garden. She called Spam several times before the pig appeared, waddling from around the far side of the house, to trail behind Georgia like a faithful pup.

The sun was full overhead of the garden, which was doing quite nicely. The pepper and green bean plants had filled out, the vines—cantaloupe and zucchini—seemed daily to be spreading several feet in all directions, and the tomatoes were covered with small green buds that promised bushels of fruit before the summer had ended. Georgia walked the neat rows, bending down here and there to pull an
unwanted weed or to investigate a blossom or a bug. Everything was thriving, and it gave her great satisfaction.

“I’ll have to remember to speak to Matt about fencing against the deer,” she said aloud, and Spam, who was busy rooting in a pile of leaves behind the barn, looked up momentarily at the sound of her voice before returning to her foraging.

Georgia plunged her hands into the pockets of her shorts and grinned with satisfaction. She’d done a good job here, and she mentally patted herself on the back with pride as she admired her handiwork. Her crones, whom she had come to think of as Agatha, Bertha, Clara, Dora, Edna, and Freda, stood proudly at strategic points around the garden, their house dresses swaying in the occasional breeze. The sight of them brought a smile to her face, and she always made a point of addressing them before she left their company.

“You ladies need gloves,” she told them. “White gloves. I’m sure I can find them someplace. No, no, no need to thank me. Consider it a reward for keeping those bothersome birds from the garden. Thanks to you ladies, the carrot seeds grew. Just look at how many have sprouted and sent up those lacy shoots! And I think your presence here has even discouraged the groundhogs and the bunnies. No, ladies, the white gloves are definitely on me.”

There was no need to water since it had rained during the night. The storm had been brief but intense, the thunder rattling the old house and wakening her with a start. But Matt had awoken, too, and by the time the storm had passed, they had found
ways to reduce the thunder to little more than background music.

“I miss you, too, Matt,” she said softly, her eyes fixed on the wishing tree. “Wednesday can’t come soon enough.”

She headed back to the house, having decided that the garden needed none of her attention this afternoon. She would spent the rest of the day dancing, setting into movement the joyful recollection of the hours she had spent in Matt’s arms, the longing to be with him, the wonder of discovering her love for him.

With the warmer weather, dancing on the second floor of the barn was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. It hadn’t been so bad early in the morning, before the sun had risen too far in the sky and heated things up, but Georgia was finding that later in the day, the air was stuffy and humid and still. There was no cross-ventilation, and years of storing grain and hay had left traces of dust behind that even her careful scrubbing had failed to eliminate. Georgia frowned, trying to imagine what it would be like in July or August when temperatures as well as humidity soared into the nineties. Maybe being forced to look for other quarters was actually a blessing in disguise.

“You’re going to need air conditioning in the barn,” she told Matt when he called early in the evening. “It’s going to be hot as hell in another month. I’m wondering how many more weeks I can run classes before I have to call it off till I find another location. But if you’re planning on using that second floor space, it will definitely need air.”

“It’s going to need heat, too,” Matt replied, “so I guess that can all be done at the same time. The architect said he can refer me to a good contractor who will go over the specifications with me and draw up an estimate for me to take to the bank when I go in to apply for the construction loan. I shudder to think what all this will cost.”

“Oh, but it will be worth it. It will be yours.”

“It’ll take me forever to pay back the loan.”

“But it will be paid off eventually. And you’ll be living here, at Pumpkin Hill, exactly the way you always dreamed of doing.”

“Well, not exactly the way I dreamed.”

“Oh? What’s changed?”

“I never realized how incomplete that dream was, until I met you. I never knew how full life could be. Now the clinic is only part of something bigger. It’s still a major part of my future, to be sure, but it isn’t everything. Being with you, there at Pumpkin Hill,
that’s
everything.”

“My dreams are different now, too,” she whispered, “but so much lovelier ...”

Funny,
she thought later after she’d had a late dinner and drained the last sip of tea from her cup,
how things turn out. I came to Pumpkin Hill looking for nothing more than a few months of peace and country air, and just look at all I’ve found.

A rustle from the back porch drew her attention to the screen door. Spam was peeking into the kitchen, longing written all over her snout. Georgia laughed out loud, then set the cup on the counter before opening the door.

“Are you confused because it’s not yet dark, Spammy?
The longer hours of daylight must puzzle you,” Georgia muttered as she picked up the pig and walked down the steps with Spam in her arms.

Setting the pig down on the grass, Georgia happily inhaled the scent of early summer. The flower bed that ran along the side of the house spilled over with delicate blue columbine and fat buds of daisies not quite ready to bloom. Deep red roses climbed a trellis next to the back door, and tall hollyhocks grew like weeds along the foundation of the house. She realized she was humming, and it occurred to her at that minute that she had never been happier in her life. Somehow it had all come together for her, and she had found pieces of her life she hadn’t even realized were missing. Smiling, she turned back to the house, wondering what happy surprise tomorrow might hold.

Georgia’s all’s-right-with-the-world feeling had started to fade by ten o’clock that evening, when she left yet another message on Laura’s answering machine, the third of the day. Having discussed Laura’s situation with Matt the night before and decided that she would attempt to talk to Laura about Gary, Georgia was anxious to get in touch with her. One ignored message generally meant that Laura hadn’t gotten around to calling her back, but three unreturned calls meant avoidance to Georgia. It being a school night, Laura would be home to put Ally to bed. As far as Georgia was concerned, Laura was choosing not to return the call, not to respond to Georgia’s suggestion that they meet for lunch the next day.

“Well, if you think that not calling me back will keep me away, you are mistaken.” Georgia muttered as she went up the steps to bed. “I’ll call you at seven tomorrow morning, and if I have to call back every hour, on the hour, until I catch up with you, I will. But if you think that your family is going to sit by and watch you throw your life away for the sake of some crazy man you don’t even
like,
then you are crazier than he is ...”

It was seven-ten when Georgia called Laura’s private line at the inn the next morning. When she heard the answering machine pick up, she frowned and hung up the phone. Tapping the toes of one foot impatiently, she dialed the main number for the inn. Jody answered on the third ring.

“Jody, hi. It’s Georgia. I’m looking for Laura. Is she around?”

Hesitantly, as if choosing her words carefully, Jody replied, “Laura doesn’t seem to be here.”

“What does that mean?” When Jody did not respond, Georgia asked, “Jody, is something wrong?”

“I’m not really sure ...”