Enright Family Collection (80 page)

Turn around, Nicky,
she whispered, but he remained with his back to the house and his face hidden from her scrutiny.

“Did you say something, Zoey?” Georgia asked as she poured hot water into a porcelain cup.

“What?”

“What are you looking at?”

“Mom and Nicky are in the garden.” Zoey bit her lip.

“I told you that.” Georgia dipped a tea bag—Peach Orchard—into the cup.

“Have they been out there long?”

“They were there when I came down about five minutes ago.”

“What’s wrong with Mom? She looks so upset.” Zoey frowned.

Georgia shrugged. “It’s probably the wedding. You know how Mom is about these things. Losing a son, and all that.”

That could be it.
Zoey stole one more look out the window, then set her cup on the sideboard while she opened a packet of artificial sweetener.
Maybe Mom is just feeling nostalgic about her only son getting married.

Sure, that’s it.
Zoey nodded uneasily to herself, wanting to believe it, and took her place across the table from Georgia and began to chat about who had worn what the night before, what relatives had shown up and who had not.

“Georgia, are you all right?” Zoey asked after ten minutes of mostly one-sided conversation.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re not yourself.” Was Georgia somehow clued in to whatever was bothering her mother? “You’re not feeling nostalgic about Nicky getting married too, are you?”

“Me? No. I’m delighted for him.” Georgia reached behind her head with both hands to secure the pins that held up a waterfall of thick blond hair. “Nicky and India are like two halves of a whole. It’s very romantic.”

“It is very romantic,” Zoey agreed. “And it’s true, they’re so perfect for each other it’s like something out of a romance novel. But that doesn’t answer the question.”

“What question was that?” Georgia sipped slowly at her tea.

“I asked if you were all right. You seem distant.”

Georgia sighed heavily and put down her cup. “I’m
just distracted, that’s all. I have an audition on Tuesday for a role I have always wanted. I’m just nervous because I know I won’t get it. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to try out.”

“Why would you say that? You’re a wonderful dancer.”

“‘Wonderful’ is probably not enough, sweetie, but I appreciate your saying so.” Georgia smiled wryly. “This particular director likes his principal dancers to be very tiny.”

“Georgia, if you were any tinier, you’d disappear.”

“I am three inches taller and twelve pounds heavier than the competition. I look like a cow compared to some of the other dancers.” Georgia nibbled on a slice of cantaloupe.

“Georgey, you are not a cow.” Zoey put her fork down on the side of her plate, her voice rising. “And I would be totally suspect of anyone or anything that made you feel, for even one second, that you were. If anything, you’re so thin you’re about to fade into next week.”

“Zoey, please don’t start,” Georgia pleaded, recalling the arguments she and her sister had had over the past year or so over what Georgia ate or did not eat. “I burn a tremendous number of calories. I dance for hours, every day. I jog. Some days I swim.”

“Why do you do all that?”

“I like to.”

“Then maybe you should take in a few more calories.” Zoey could not help herself. She had to add, “A few hundred more every day might help.”

“Please, Zoe. Not today.”

“Okay. Just promise me you’ll take lots of vitamins.”

“I take vitamins. In fact, I probably eat a healthier diet than you. What did you have for lunch yesterday?”

“I don’t remember.” Zoey averted her eyes and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, thinking about the hamburger and French fries she had shared with CeCe.

“Ah, that bad, was it?” Georgia’s eyes began to
twinkle. “I’ll bet it was loaded with animal fat and sodium.”

“Don’t try turning the tables on me. I’m the big sister here. And as the big sister, it’s my job to look out for you.” Zoey’s voice softened. “Besides, I love you, Georgey, and I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me. And I guess as the big sister, you’re entitled to throw your two cents in every once in a while. And for the record”—she leaned over and kissed the top of Zoey’s head—“I love you, too.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Zoey gave Georgia’s hand a squeeze. “Now, do you think I should go down to the barn to get the Devlins?”

“Ben did that.”

“Ben is here?” Zoey asked. “You didn’t tell me that Ben is here.”

“I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you were up early and down for breakfast on time for a change instead of making everyone wait for you.” Georgia shrugged.

“Very funny.” Zoey plunked her cup down on the table and set off for the barn. “I’ll be right back. Tell Mrs. Colson to hold the hollandaise.”

Zoey fled through the back door, then stopped as she saw him coming around the side of the carriage house, one arm draped comfortably over August’s shoulder as he pointed up to the carriage house that had once been his home. He would be telling them about his mother, about how they had come to live there. He turned and pointed down toward the trees, beyond which flowed the Brandywine. Now he would be telling them about the adventures that he and Nick had on the river as boys. Corn jumped up and down, excited by the tale, and Zoey smiled at the sheer exuberance of the child’s animated response.

The four of them walked toward the house, and she watched each step he took. That he was there,
really there,
was a miracle that she still could not comprehend.
As a boy, Ben had won her heart the first time they met. It seemed that now, as a man, he had come back to claim it. It had always been here, waiting for him. All he had had to do was come home.

And now he was there, and it was all just exactly as it was meant to be.

She watched his face as she walked toward him, watched the smile that started with his eyes, then moved to his lips.
He knows, too,
she thought to herself.
He knows he belongs here. He knows he was meant to be with me. He knows . . .

It was all she could do to keep herself from dancing.

“Zoey!” Corri took off across the yard, a six-year-old bundle of love and joy, and caught Zoey around the hips.

“Corri, don’t wipe your hands on Zoey’s nice pants,” August called to her. “You’ve been feeding the ponies with those hands.”

Corri froze and stared in horror at her open palms.

“Did you smear pony slobber on my butt, Corri Devlin?” Zoey asked, trying her best to appear stern.

“I did.” Corri turned her pixie’s face up to Zoey. “I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

“It’s okay.” Zoey laughed to assure her. “These pants aren’t all
that
nice. And besides, I have another pair with me, just in case.”

“Good. Me and Ben are going canoeing after we eat. And maybe Nicky, too.”

“If we can find the canoes,” Ben told her.

“I think they’re still in the garage,” Zoey looked over the head of the child into the eyes of the man who could turn her knees to jelly with nothing more than a smile.

“Would you like to join us?” he asked, close enough now to tuck a wayward strand of her hair behind her ear. She all but melted at the touch of his fingers on the tip of her earlobe, her fears for her mother being pushed aside by the tingling that started in her head and traveled through her body down to her toes.

“Sure,” she squeaked.

He took her elbow, then trailed his fingers the length of
her arm until their fingers touched, then locked. Buoyed by the intimacy of the simple gesture, she all but sang.

“. . . but I only had enough for the ponies,” Corri tugged at her other arm. “So, do you think we could?”

“Could what, sweetie?” Zoey tuned back in.

“Could go back after lunch and give the horses some apples.”

“Oh. Sure.” Zoey nodded.

“Yippee!” Corri skipped ahead, and spying Nick and Delia in the garden, started off for them. India’s hand shot out and caught her shoulder and pulled her back.

“Not now,” she told Corri softly.

Zoey turned and looked at her future sister-in-law, and knew in that instant that, whatever it was that was disturbing her mother, India
knew.

And whatever it was, Zoey sensed, it went well beyond Nick’s impending wedding.

*  *  *

“You know, we’ll never get anywhere as long as you refuse to paddle.” Ben sat on one seat of the canoe, Zoey on the other.

She leaned over the edge of the aluminum vessel, her fingers skimming the surface of the water like a dragonfly. It was peaceful on the river. It had been years since she had let it just take her. She liked the feeling of drifting. Especially since the other occupant of the canoe had her total attention.

“Zoey”—he leaned forward—“don’t you want to catch up to the others?”

“Nope.” She grinned lazily. “No place I want to go to, no place I’d rather be.”

He looked around slowly, deliberately, as if studying his surroundings.

“I think that’s the tree where Nick and I used to have a tire hanging from a rope. We’d swing out over the river, then jump in.” He pointed to a tall maple tree that stood up on the rise that formed a stony bank off to their left.

“Two down.” She told him, her eyes closed and her face tilted up to catch the sun.

“What?”

“Two trees down.”

He glanced up at the maple as they drifted under its canopy.

“I could have sworn . . .”

“That tree was smaller back then,” she told him, then pointed up ahead and said, “There’s the tree you’re looking for.”

“I don’t remember it being that big.” He frowned.

“And seventeen years ago, it wasn’t. You’ve been away a long time, Ben,” she reminded him.

“I guess I have.” He studied the tree as they approached, then pointed upward. “It’s still there. The tire swing. Just where we left it, I imagine.”

“I’m certain you’re right. I doubt anyone has jumped from that rope since you left.”

“I’m sure that Nick—”

“Never touched it.” She shook her head. “There were a lot of things that you guys used to do together, that Nick stopped doing after you left.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. He waited for you to come back. He always thought you would.”

“I guess he didn’t expect it would take so long.”

“None of us did,” she said softly.

“Least of all me,” Ben replied.

“Was it that difficult, then, to come back here?”

“I was a very confused boy when I left here, Zoey. I guess in my mind I had built things up to . . . well, to be more difficult, more complicated than they really were. But once I was here, it was as if I had not left. Seeing your mother, seeing Nick, you . . . I really feel as if I’ve come home.”

“You have, Ben. This is your home.”

She stretched her bare feet toward him in the body of the canoe and he reached out to tweak her toes.

“You’re right. It is.” With his oar, he pushed off away from the tip of a rock that stuck out through the water like a raised fist. “And it’s good to be home, Zoey.”

“It’s good to have you home.” She sat forward as if to say something, when she was interrupted by the whoops and hollers from the passing canoe, manned by Nick and India. Corri hung all but completely over the side as she dove for something in the water and Nick grabbed the waistband of her jeans to pull her back in.

“We’re ’sploring. Want to come?” Corri called to them.

“ ’Sploring what?” Zoey called back.

“The river,” a wide-eyed Corri told them as Nick and India paddled to close the gap between the two canoes. “Nick says that there was a battle up there”—she pointed toward the far shore—“and that soldiers are buried there.”

“Remember, buddy?” Nick asked Ben. “We used to camp there and sit up half the night watching for ghosts.”

“Ghosts!” Corri exclaimed. “Did you ever see one?”

“Only in our imaginations.” Ben laughed.

“And there was plenty of fodder for our active little minds, growing up in these parts,” Nick grinned. “Remember all the days we set out,
positive
that today would be the day we’d find the highwayman’s buried loot.”

“We dug holes from here almost to Kennett Square.” Ben laughed again, and this time, Zoey and Nick laughed with him.

“I remember one time you told me if I dug up the loot, that you’d give me a quarter,” Zoey chimed in, grumbling with reproach. “A whole
quarter
for digging up Fitzpatrick’s ill-earned treasure.”

“Who was Fitzpatrick?” India asked.

“James Fitzpatrick was a blacksmith who used to haunt the taverns down around what is now Kennett,” Nick told her.

Zoey tried to recall the local legend. “Wasn’t he a member of the Continental army?”

“British army, I thought,” Ben said.

“Actually, he fought on both sides at different times. He fought with the patriots for a while, but thought he
was being mistreated, so he deserted and joined the Brits.” Nick placed his paddle across his knees and leaned on it. “But he’s best remembered for his exploits as a highwayman. He was, so the story goes, a master of disguise. One of his favorite ploys was to don one of his many disguises, seat himself in one of the local taverns, and join in the gossip about the exploits of ’that rogue Fitzpatrick.’ Then he’d jump up, pull off his disguise, and proceed to rob the very fellows he’d been drinking and chatting with.”

“And, of course, local legend would have had it that he buried his loot somewhere around here.” India nodded.

“Of course. But I can assure you that it’s not on Enright property,” Nick told her, “because at one time or another, Ben and I sifted through every inch of it.”

“What happened to the highwayman?” India asked.

“He was hanged down in Chester City,” Zoey said.

“Now if we float down river just a little farther, we can drag the canoes out and leave them on the shore, walk a ways, and we’ll come to an old Quaker meeting house where the American and the British troops skirmished outside while the meeting was in worship on the inside. Must have made for a heck of service.”