Enright Family Collection (68 page)

“Let me do that for you,” he offered gently, taking the scoop from her. She had noticed then that his eyes were
dark green, darker than any shade of green eyes she had ever seen.

She had never forgotten his dark green eyes.

Nicky had come in while they were eating, and Zoey had introduced her brother to the stranger. After a few exploratory remarks, Nick asked Ben if he’d like to see the fish tank. Nodding enthusiastically that he would, Ben followed him from the room. Left behind, Zoey slowly picked up the ice cream bowls and rinsed them in the sink.

“Thank you for the ice cream, Zoey.” Ben stuck his head through the kitchen doorway and smiled at her. “And I like your name. It’s different. And pretty. It suits you.”

And her seven-year-old heart had become his.

“I saw his picture today, Gracie. He’s grown up to be the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. Like a fairytale prince. . .”

Zoey sighed.

“Gorgeous,” she assured Georgia when she called later that evening. “He’s gorgeous.”

“Well, well, well.” Georgia laughed. “Ben Pierce. That he would pop back into the picture after all these years! Isn’t this the most amazing coincidence?”

No, no, not coincidence,
Zoey wanted to tell her.
It’s fate. He’s come back for me. Just like I always dreamed he would do.

Instead, she said, “Yes. It’s incredible. I can’t wait to tell Nicky. I left a message for him to call me.”

“He probably won’t get it till tomorrow night. He and India went to Paloma for the weekend. They were meeting with a realtor today to put India’s town house on the market. She decided to sell it, since she has moved back to Devlin’s Light permanently,” Georgia told her. “But I know he’ll be very happy. As Mother will be.”

And of course, Delia was.

“Oh, Zoey, that’s too wonderful! When will he be there? I wonder how he looks, all grown up.”

“Delaney said in about a week or so. And he looks wonderful, Mom.” Zoey sighed.

Delia hesitated just slightly before asking, “Really? And how would you know that?”

“Delaney showed me his picture. Pictures, actually. He had lots of them, all over the office walls.”

“How did you know it was Ben?”

“Delaney knew who I was, Mom. He knew I was your daughter. He asked for you.”

“Kind of him,” Delia murmured.

“—and handed me a photograph you had taken of Ben once. In the orchard. Hanging—”

“Upside down from a tree limb,” Delia said softly. “Showing off, the little rascal. I remember the photograph. I gave it to Maureen for her birthday that year. When she and Ben left us, I had another copy made. It’s in my office somewhere.”

“Well, it was that picture. Of course, I knew who he was the second I saw it. Mom, isn’t it amazing? That Delaney bought the HMP and I just happened to be working there? And that Ben would be coming to work for him? Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes. Yes, it is, Zoey. I know how much you always liked Ben.” Delia spoke slowly, as if deep in thought. “Zoey, does he have a family now?”

“What?”

“Ben. Is he married? Does he have children?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Her words tumbled over each other.

The thought had never occurred to her. Could that be possible? Surely fate would not play such a cruel joke on her.

“I think maybe Delaney would have mentioned it, though. I mean, there were dozens of photographs of Ben. Just Ben. No woman. No children. Just Ben.”

“Hmmm. That wouldn’t seem likely if he had a family.” Delia was thinking aloud. “And what do you suppose he will be doing?”

“What do you mean, ‘doing’?”

“I mean, is he coming for a short visit? Is he moving here?”

“I think he might be visiting with Delaney for a while, but I’m not really sure. Delaney did say something about Ben being in the process of moving, but I was so surprised I forgot to ask where. Or when . . .”

“Well, of course, you must let me know when he comes back, Zoey. I do want to see him. But in the meantime . . .”

Delia paused, as if choosing her words carefully.

“In the meantime, sweetheart, just keep in mind that people can change over the years. We don’t know who Ben grew up to be.”

“What are you trying to say, Mom?”

“Just hold on to your heart, Zoey. The man may be very different from the boy we used to know.”

*  *  *

Ben Pierce hobbled through the airport leaning his weight on a cane, not for a moment missing the irony that his lopsided stride perfectly mimicked that of his elderly grandfather, who was, Ben couldn’t help but notice, a lot more adept with the cane than
he
was.

“You having a problem keeping up, son?” Delaney had stopped once to call over his shoulder.

“I’m still getting the hang of it,” Ben told him. “I’ve never had to use a cane before.”

“And with any luck and some physical therapy, you won’t need this one for long.” Delaney leaned on his own dark wood cane, as much to catch his breath as to allow Ben to catch up. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like one of those little golf cart type things to ride in?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m more concerned about you. Are you sure you should be doing all this walking?”

Delaney straightened his back. “The doctor told me I need some moderate exercise. I am more worried about your ankle than I am about myself.”

Ben scowled and with his cane pointed ahead, indicating that they should proceed toward the exit.

“I’m having someone pick up your luggage and drop it
off at my condo,” Delaney told him as they approached the escalator that would take them to the first floor. “But I wanted to pick you up myself. I left the car right at the curb, so we’re almost there.”

They went through electronic doors into the remnants of a deep, early morning mist that had wrapped about the Philadelphia airport. Too early yet for the commuters and the real hustle-bustle of a weekday morning, there were few cars and fewer buses. Delaney’s Town Car was fifteen feet from the doorway, and Ben wasn’t sure if he’d ever been happier to see a car parked and waiting for him. Maybe his first Ferrari.

Delaney unlocked the doors and Ben slid somewhat awkwardly onto the front seat. It had been a long time since he had been seated in the passenger seat of his grandfather’s car.

“Still like the Lincolns, eh, Delaney?”

“Haven’t found anything to beat it, son.”

“Tried the Lexus?” Ben asked as Delaney started the engine and headed toward the airport exit and Interstate 95.

“Nope. Haven’t bothered to try anything else. Seems to me that as long as I like what I have, there’s no reason to waste time looking around. When the day comes that I’m unhappy with my Town Car, then I’ll try something else. But for the time being, I’m happy as a clam.”

Ben smiled and looked out the window as the scenery seemed to crawl by at a slow speed.

“Tell me what you’d like to do, son. Do you want to go back to my place and rest for a while? You know, you don’t have to go into the office today.”

“Rest?” Ben raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been resting for five months, three of which I spent in a full leg cast, the other two with a cast to the knee. Thanks, Delaney, but I think I’ve had all the rest I can tolerate for a while.”

“I’m sorry that the ankle didn’t heal better than it did.”

“The doctors said that the screw through the side should help give me some stability. Fortunately, the
break was high enough on the bone that I haven’t had to have a fusion. I will regain mobility. It’s just taking longer than they thought.”

And longer than I can stand.

It had been a rough few months for a man accustomed to total freedom. Confined first to the hospital, then to his flat, Ben had learned just exactly what
cabin fever
really meant. With so many of his racing buddies out of the country for the holidays, he had few visitors. Unless, of course, he counted the girlfriends of several of his friends who stopped in to see if he “needed” anything. It annoyed Ben just to think about it. True, it had been a while since he’d had female companionship, and being restricted to his home had totally removed him from the lively London social scene, but still, he wasn’t so desperate that he’d have accepted the offers—some more subtle than others—for comfort from another man’s woman.

He leaned back in the seat and stared straight ahead through the windshield, trying not to think about the last time he’d been on this same road, in another big Lincoln, with his grandfather at the wheel. That time, however, instead of heading toward Lancaster and Delaney’s newest corporate venture they’d been heading north, to the house his mother had grown up in, a house that for Ben held only the painful memories of watching his mother die.

And here we are, once again, my grandfather and I. Who’d have guessed that the years would bring me back to this place?

He read the names of towns, once familiar, from a sign at a stoplight, fighting back the panic that had started swirling inside his head, wondering just how far they might be from the house that
he
had called home. He had been tempted to find a map of Pennsylvania and see just how far Lanning’s Corner, Lancaster County, was from Westboro, in Chester County, but wasn’t sure he wanted to know. It couldn’t possibly be that far. Even after all the years, he remembered that Lancaster was the
next county. He watched the fields, frozen still in these last days of winter, as they rolled past the windows of the car, and wondered if Delia Enright still lived there, in that wonderful house that had offered him so much more than shelter so very long ago.

Ben having been in the hospital recovering from his accident, Delia’s last birthday had come and gone without his sending his usual birthday card, which, along with reading her books, was the only contact with that part of his life he could permit himself to maintain. He wondered if she noticed. Every year the message had been essentially the same: I think of you often, and hope that you are all well and happy. He had rarely asked about her children, those near siblings of his. He had simply missed them too much. Merely writing their names could bring their faces too close, close enough to see their smiles, hear their laughter. For a fourteen-year-old who had lost everything that had mattered to him, it hurt too much to even think of them. After his mother had died, it had been so much easier to pretend that those days in Westboro—those days with Delia and her family, when he and Maureen had been happy and life had been so full, so wonderful—had never really happened after all.

And yet here he was, in his grandfather’s Lincoln, headed north on Route 202 just outside West Chester. Which was, he recalled, just a few miles from Westboro.

Certain landmarks loomed familiar. The ragged stone wall that encircled the Friends cemetery on the corner they had just passed by, a small pond set back from the road where geese gathered, hunched and chilled, in the early morning air.

A small sign pointing to the right at the next intersection announced Westboro—three miles. He glanced at the street sign. Old Forge Road.

He studied the corner, searching his memory for something familiar, but there was nothing there that had existed back then. The intersection had, those many years ago, seen a field on each of three corners, a dense
wood on the fourth. The gas station that stood on the far right was new. On the opposite side of the road, a housing development stretched as far as the eye could see. He wanted to say something, to comment on it, on how much the area had changed since he had left, but his throat had tightened so, he couldn’t seem to get the words out. When the light changed and Delaney continued straight on the road ahead, Ben fought an urge to look far down that road that led to Westboro as they passed it.

Fought and lost.

Delia Enright lived two and six-tenths of a mile down that road.

He wondered if Delaney remembered.

Chapter
11
 

That Zoey, who had no interest in cooking, had somehow been chosen to launch the first of the new on-air cooking shows was clearly someone’s idea of a perverse joke as far as she was concerned.

“Zoey, you have a call coming in from a viewer.” Ellen, the producer, spoke into Zoey’s ear via a tiny transistor.

“Hi. This is Zoey. What’s your name and where are you from?” She tried to sound perky as she broke an egg for an omelet into a pretty pottery bowl. The omelet was to be cooked in a pan that was part of the set of two that she was selling.

“Irene. I’m from Illinois.” The caller sounded slightly nervous.

“Irene from Illinois,” Zoey said cheerfully, since it was her job to make the customers feel welcome, part of the HMP family. “I’m glad to hear from you. How are you today?”

A large piece of eggshell was floating, noticeably, in the bowl. Zoey tried to grab it but it slipped through her fingers.

“I’m fine. Zoey, I have to tell you that you are my favorite person on the HMP.”

“Thank you, Irene. You’re my favorite person in Illinois.”

She tried to lift the piece of shell with a fingernail, but it slid away and sank momentarily.