“I know you, Isaac. You’ll find a way.”
He yearned to tell her so much, but the words were still hard to find. They always would be, but from now on he would search harder.
“I think wanting to make a difference…” He struggled. “It was more than just being concerned for the earth. That’s a lot of it. But some of it was wanting to be a different person.”
She hugged him. “You never needed to be. The original is plenty wonderful.”
“I have a lot to tell—”
She jumped back, pulling him with her. For a moment he thought she was reacting to what he had said; then the largest snake he had ever seen came streaking through the woods, passing just inches from where they had been standing.
“I—”
An explosion rocked the quiet forest. He clutched Kendra, then immediately realized where the noise had come from.
He began to run. He knew Kendra was somewhere behind him, but he left her to fend for herself. He dodged trees, jumped logs and made it to the clearing just in time to see the western portion of the front porch go up in flames.
Isaac punched 911 on his cell phone, but even as he made the report, a
whoosh
sounded and flames shot through the porch roof.
“Isaac…what!” Kendra made it into the clearing, but by then he was already running up the steps to get the animals. Above him, a figure emerged through the smoke.
“Caleb!” Isaac realized the boy was carrying the spitting, clawing cat under one arm and, somehow, Kendra’s puppy under the other. He grabbed Ten from the boy, and together they made it down the steps. Caleb deposited Dusty on the ground, but before Isaac could stop him, he ran back up.
“Caleb! Come back here!” Isaac set Ten on the ground, too, and started after him.
This time Caleb ran to the bedroom portion of the house, which was farther from the flames, threw open the door and began to grab what he could and toss it over the railing. Before Isaac made it to the porch, Caleb was trying frantically to save the last of Kendra’s mementoes. Isaac saw quilts flying, then framed photos, Kendra’s new sewing basket, a jewelry box. He grabbed Caleb’s arm and, as the boy protested, he jerked him back down the steps to safety.
Kendra ran closer to grab the things Caleb had managed to save, dragging them to her car and out of harm’s way. Then Kendra hugged the teen. “Nothing’s worth what you are, Caleb. Don’t you dare go back up there!”
“We can beat it out,” Caleb shouted. “We can try.”
Isaac watched as the flames engulfed the old dry logs. “We can’t. The cabin’s going to be gone before the fire department gets here. All they can do at this point is keep the fire from moving to the forest and the barn wood.”
He put one arm around Kendra and another around the boy, and pulled them farther away from the heat and smoke. Dusty followed to whimper at their feet. Ten had climbed a tree behind them and was yowling angrily.
Kendra gulped; then she began to cry. “A cigarette. That’s why Cash won’t let his men smoke around the cabin. I should have checked. There were some men here earlier, and one of them was smoking. I didn’t pay enough attention where he threw his butt. It’s been so dry. It must have smoldered all this time in the old beadboard until something else caught. The crew brought supplies today. Something fed the flames.”
A butt, something dry, something volatile. Isaac could see how it had happened.
They were in rural Virginia, but the Toms Brook volunteer fire department was organized and efficient. Over the crackling of the flames, he heard the faintest sound of a siren.
“They’re on their way.” He didn’t want to give false hope. “But not in time.”
“At least I got your quilts, Kendra.” Caleb sounded as if he was near tears himself. “They were in a stack by your bedroom door. At least you have those.”
“I know. I know. Thank you. I…” Suddenly she turned to Isaac. “Oh, Isaac, not all of them. Your grandmother’s quilt. Leah’s Lover’s Knot was in the other part of the house. On a chair under a tarp.” She started to sob again. “The quilt, the house, everything Leah left you…”
Isaac shook his head and pulled her close, keeping one arm around Caleb, too, to be sure the teenager didn’t try anything foolish.
“K. C., listen. You, too, Caleb. Let it go. We’ll build another house here. The cabin doesn’t matter. The quilt doesn’t matter. They’ve both served their purpose. Trust me. All the things Leah really meant for me to have are still right here.”
The siren grew louder. Soon the clearing would be filled with firefighters struggling to save what no longer mattered. They stood together, and as the cabin burned, Isaac silently thanked his grandmother for everything she had given him.
K
endra slammed the front door and tossed her keys on the aluminum television tray, fairly sure she had beaten her husband home. The clank of her keys on the metal always drove Isaac crazy. The sight of the tray, something Barry had rejected and left in the basement when he moved, drove Isaac crazy, too.
She couldn’t blame him. Three months had passed since their move to Arlington, and she still hadn’t found the right piece of furniture to put beside the door. She wanted an authentic Limbert side table, and the search was going slowly. The little Craftsman bungalow was still more than half empty. Between resuming her job part-time, researching her book, moving here and starting from scratch on plans for the house on the river, time to meander through antiques stores was at a premium. But she made the time whenever she could, and she refused to be rushed. Making a home was an experience to savor.
Something crashed in the kitchen, and she froze. Then she heard Isaac’s voice.
“That’s it! I’ve had it! Out you go.”
She heard the door slam and laughed, knowing exactly what had happened. Isaac was home after all, and the animals were not behaving.
She walked through the house, still with the slightest of limps. She was at peace with her body, and she viewed the limp as a reminder to slow down and view the world around her. She did that now, savoring the things she and Isaac had already managed to do.
The walls were painted warm earth tones; the polished floors were dotted with Oriental carpets she and Isaac had fought over, compromised on and now loved dearly. Two Gustav Stickley rockers flanked the fireplace. Harold Doolittle etchings of mountains and evergreens adorned one adjacent wall, and photographs, including copies of some that Aubrey had given Isaac of his grandparents and some Caleb had taken of the Blackburn and Spurlock land, lined the other.
A plush garnet-colored chenille sofa proved the Taylors were eclectic enough in their tastes to be comfortable. The log cabin album quilt she’d been given by Helen and the other quilters embellished the back of it. Upstairs, the other quilts in her collection hung from a rack beside their bed, including the top she was still piecing from the old blocks Helen had given her. She had managed to attend two meetings of the SCC Bee since moving back to northern Virginia. She was enthusiastic, but no one had yet proclaimed she had talent.
She reached the kitchen and leaned against the door frame, enjoying the twin aromas of lemongrass and garlic as she watched her husband cook. His mother’s collection of china plates decorated the tops of the cabinets, providing a homey, feminine accent above his head.
“I almost picked up Peruvian chicken. I’m glad I didn’t. Is that your famous pad thai?”
Isaac looked up, and Kendra watched his eyes light.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“The Rug and the Rascal took care of that.”
“Dusty’s found her inner puppy. I cleaned up an entire roll of toilet paper, starting in the bathroom and ending upstairs. It was a map of the day’s pursuits.”
“Ten probably helped.”
“No doubt he was the instigator.” He switched off the burner and came over for a kiss.
She put her arms around his waist and leaned against him. “How did your day go?”
“Terrific. We had a meeting and decided that everyone had to take pay cuts. I’m now making fifteen percent less than I was last week, which was nothing. Think of it as a bigger donation to charity. And yes, it’s pad thai. To win you over to our cause.”
She laughed because she could. She knew how lucky she and Isaac were to be so financially stable that he could take this kind of risk. He had added his talents to a roster of a dozen disenchanted ACRE employees and was now the chief operating officer of an organization so new the staff was still arguing missions, job titles and, most of all, a name. Someday soon they had to work their way to funding sources. But Isaac was in his element, creating the right kind of organization from the ground up. She had never seen him happier. And, with his usual artistic flair, he had already designed their logo, the unmistakable peaks of Pallatine Mountain, with an eagle soaring high above them.
“You don’t need to win me over,” she said. “They need you. Eventually you’ll whip them into shape.”
“If I live that long.” He squeezed, then let her go. “Jamie called.”
“Are they coming for Christmas?”
“You’re supposed to call back. But let’s just say we can’t avoid furnishing the guest rooms much longer.” He went back to his pan, flipped on the burner and began to stir. “Tell me about
your
day.”
She would, she knew. She would open a bottle of wine and pour each of them a glass. She would lean against the counter while he finished cooking, and they would laugh together over things that had happened in the newsroom. Eventually they would welcome the pets back inside. Maybe they would plan for their upcoming weekend at Gayle Fortman’s B and B on the Shenandoah, and talk about where they would go out to eat on Friday night with Elisa and Sam, and how long they could steal Caleb from the Claibornes on Saturday for a hike in the mountains. They might even look at the newest set of house plans, or discuss the merits of timber frame versus log construction.
It would be an ordinary evening.
She found herself smiling.
“You look happy,” Isaac said, looking up from the stove. “You know, you’re a perceptive man.”
He smiled, too, and went back to cooking their dinner.
Turn the page for a preview of
TOUCHING STARS
the next novel in
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Emilie Richards’
SHENANDOAH ALBUM
series
,
available in July 2007
only from
MIRA
Books
.
Gayle Fortman knew a number of things for certain, but three were at the top of her list. One, that life could spin out of control unless she spent all her waking hours nudging it into place. Two, that even sternly administered nudges couldn’t deter fate. And three, that if fate could not be nudged, cajoled or outrun, the only other possibility was to turn and face it squarely.
But she didn’t have to smile.
Gayle wasn’t smiling now. No one was nearby this morning, so she had no reason to pretend she was anything but worried about what fate had in store for her.
Eric Fortman, the man to whom she’d been married for seven years and divorced from for twelve, was coming home. Eric, the father of three sons who, through the years, had seen him more frequently on their television screen than in person. Eric, her first and only love, who still managed to make the men who volunteered to take his place pale in comparison.
Eric, who had faced fate head-on, nearly died from the experience and was now in need of the family he had abandoned.
A lump formed in her throat at that thought, and she reached for the coffee mug she had set on a table at the terrace’s edge, grateful as the steaming liquid dissolved this one lump of many that had resided there for the past weeks.
From an ash tree at the edge of the clearing, a bird trilled a sunrise serenade, untroubled at the lack of a larger audience. Maybe the bird, an old companion, understood one of the other things of which Gayle was certain: If she jumped out of bed in the mornings and hit the ground running, she would fall flat on her face. So every day, alone on the terrace that overlooked the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, she stood with a cup of coffee in her hands and watched as dawn’s artistic fingers drizzled copper and platinum on the rippling water.
When midsummer’s humidity, fueled by dewdrops and river mist, sucked the breath from her lungs, or when treacherous sheets of ice glazed the fieldstones she and Eric had so carefully laid, she stood here. Dawn was the time when she gathered her thoughts, murmured her prayers, dreamed her dreams. She wasn’t rich or self-indulgent, but she gave herself these precious minutes of solitude before she headed into the kitchen of Daughter of the Stars, the bed-and-breakfast inn she owned and operated, to begin her day in earnest.
Except that this morning, with so much to sort out and prepare for, it seemed she wasn’t alone after all.
Surprised, Gayle stepped forward and squinted into the pearly light. The inn sat high on a slope, protected from waters that rose and fell according to the whims of the river gods. But when the Shenandoah raged, the low-water bridges that skated back and forth over the snaking length of it were quickly submerged. Gardens planted in the alluvial soil washed downstream, and
river
became a verb. Everyone within miles of the North Fork understood what it meant to be
rivered in
.
The river was behaving this morning, but the same could not be said about a certain family member. Gayle slammed her coffee mug on the table, then started down the terrace steps at a brisk trot. The only thing that kept her from yelling her youngest son’s name was the knowledge that a shout this close to the house would wake her older ones.
“Dillon,” she muttered under her breath. “Dillon…Arthur…Fortman.”
The boy in the boat didn’t hear her, nor had she intended for him to. He was oblivious to everything. What could he hear inside the shabby rowboat tethered to the willow that grew at the river’s edge, except the singing of the current and the slapping of gentle waves against the sides of the boat?
As Gayle watched, Dillon flipped a fishing rod over his shoulder, then brought it forward, flicking his wrist to cast his line farther into the river. Despite her annoyance, she winced as the rod jerked and stuttered, and the line flopped just in front of him. She had seen her son practice this maneuver over and over, yet his movements were as awkward as if he had never held a rod. Dillon had neither the coordination nor confidence to make his cast a thing of beauty. And his thirteen-year-old body, which every day seemed to explode in new and frightening directions, was as daunting an obstacle as any she’d ever seen.
Now that she was almost to the water, the rowboat no longer looked like one of the toys her son had sailed across mud puddles as a toddler. Afraid she would startle him, she raised her voice just enough that he could hear her words.
“Dillon Fortman, what are you doing out here alone?”
He turned, and the boat wobbled alarmingly. In the early morning light his face looked pudgy and unformed, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“What are
you
doing here?”
She had too many sons to go on the defensive. Sometimes she thought it was a shame Dillon never had the chance to trap her the way his brothers had.
She reached the bank and slapped her hands on her hips for emphasis. “We have rules. One of them is that you don’t go near the river alone.”
“But I didn’t make that rule. You made it. I didn’t get to say a thing about it.”
“That’s right.” She picked her way across uneven ground to the tree where the boat was tied. Wedging her index finger between loops of what was—to give Dillon credit—an expertly tied knot, she began to loosen it so she could pull him to shore.
“I’m fishing!”
“No, you
were
fishing. Now you’re coming in.”
“You ruin everything!”
She ignored him, resorting again to years of experience. She managed to untie the knot, although by the time she was able to pull the boat to shore, yesterday’s manicure—one of her few indulgences—was a casualty.
“We’ll go over the rules while you’re my captive audience,” she said as pleasantly as she could muster. “You don’t come down here alone. You don’t go out in the boat alone. And you don’t disobey me and try to make this my fault.”
“Well, it
is
your fault, because it’s a stupid rule!”
The boat was close enough to the riverbank now that he could jump out and did. She moved to the edge and handed him the rope, then stepped back so he could finish pulling the boat ashore.
“We can always discuss a rule,” she said as he went through the motions, then retied the boat once it was out of the water. “But we don’t discuss a rule when you’re in the middle of breaking it.”
“Like you have time to talk to me or anybody else!”
She waited. She was a busy woman—busier than most, it was true—but all her sons knew she would drop anything if they needed her. Dillon was no exception. When he didn’t, couldn’t, come up with anything else to add, she took pity on him.
“Is this about your dad coming for the summer?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He cut his hand through the air, narrowly missing her shoulder.
“Well, it does. I’d like to know what you’re doing out here.” She sighed and her voice dropped appreciably.
“Your dad likes fresh river bass,” she said.
“Yeah.”
There was nothing else to say. As she had suspected, her son had sneaked out in the darkness, before the fish were even fully awake, hoping he could go back to the house with a string of freshly caught bass or sunfish. He had braved a river he feared, a sport that bored him, the state’s warnings about PCB and mercury contamination in fish caught in these waters, and, finally, his mother’s wrath. All in search of Eric Fortman’s elusive love.
“Your dad likes fresh bass, but he’d be sorry to lose you over pursuit of them,” she said as they started back toward the house.
“I just wanted to show him I can fish!”
“Maybe the two of you can fish together when your dad’s feeling a little stronger.”
“Do you think he’ll want to?”
The question was a good one. None of them knew exactly what Eric would feel like doing this summer. Her exhusband’s life had been turned upside down. His health had suffered. In their brief phone calls he had tried to be the take-charge Eric she’d known and loved so long ago. But he had sounded like an actor playing that part, a bit player who had only managed to memorize the lines.
“I know he’ll want to spend time with you.” She smiled the lie into truth—or at least the nearest neutral zone. She did not know if Eric wanted to spend time with Dillon. Dillon was a stranger to him, the son he knew the least. The son he hadn’t wanted.