Tempest's Course: Quilts of Love Series (6 page)

Tom fished a wrench out of his tool bag and soon had the battery taken out of Kelly’s car and strapped onto his motorcycle. The nearest auto supply store that he knew of was a good fifteen-minute ride away.

Kelly pounded down the steps. “Here.” She pressed the money into his hand. “Thanks for helping. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here.”

“You’d have figured something out.” He stood there, staring down at her hand that had clamped a folded bill into his palm. “I have a feeling you’re that kind of woman.”

6

T
he quilt was spread open to its full width and length as it air-dried on a layer of cotton towels. It had taken Kelly three hours of careful, gentle pulls and tugs to get the poor thing washed that morning, braced between layers of netting that could bear the brunt of Kelly’s pulls and tugs. Simply lukewarm water in the claw-foot bathtub of the lady’s bathroom upstairs, and she’d had to change the water three times.

The idea of washing the quilt terrified her. The whole thing could dissolve into a heap of quilt blocks and threads. There wasn’t much she could do right now except wait for the quilt to dry and see what she could start to work on rescuing.

Underneath the soft lights she’d set up on tripods surrounding the quilt, Kelly could see that although much of the surface grime was gone with the gentle washing, there were numerous torn stitches across the entire Mariner’s Compass. Every little triangle and block that made up the arms of the five stars had frayed or missing stitches. The binding had nearly fallen apart or disintegrated. Dozens of the triangular quilt blocks, originally hand pieced, were missing from the quilt altogether.

“Mary Gray, your quilt is a wreck, but I promise you, I’ll do my best to put it back together again,” Kelly said aloud. Truly, the hand stitching made this quilt priceless in the eyes of the right collector. A good number of Kelly’s hand stitches would help give new life to the piece.

Tom’s words before he’d gone to fetch a new car battery rang in her ears.
You’d have figured something out. I have a feeling you’re that kind of woman
.

Yep, he had her pegged right. She wasn’t used to having someone there in a pinch. She’d learned to figure things out for herself. After determining the problem was a dead car battery, she’d paid Tom back and he’d disappeared into the greenhouse, leaving her to the quilt, at last.

Kelly yawned. After hearing the floor creak throughout the night, then being awakened by the dawn peeking through an open shutter, she would welcome a nap this afternoon. She sat cross-legged on the tile floor in the bathroom, listening to the gulls call from the harbor.

Her phone remained silent after her voice mail to Mr. Chandler, asking yet again for more information about the quilt. The ink was dry on the contract, but she should have demanded more history about the quilt and its owners before proceeding. Its sorry state should have provided information enough. Plus, she hadn’t counted on the whole living-on-site stipulation. The setup was the oddest she’d ever encountered. And yet Mary Gray’s journal enticed her from its perch on the bedroom bureau.

The words haunted her even now in the morning light.

. . . I have accepted my lot with Hiram Gray and know my place. The only troubling of the waters is that he leaves again, and soon. Misdirected and delayed letters that arrive from him shall be the only things I can clasp to my bosom over the next long many months, years. ’Tis the whales that call to him. He must answer, for all the opportunities it gives to us and those who depend on Hiram. He is a good Christian man, of Quaker descent. Not unusual for the sea, but not typical, either. The fact that he should marry me, an orphan with nothing, speaks to his Christian background.

Hiram has given me this Gray House to shelter and keep me while he is away. I shall have enough to stay busy while Hiram chases the leviathan across the globe. Perhaps he shall also leave me with child. He has come to me these many nights since our wedding. Should I bear Hiram’s child, my joy should be complete.

Mary, Mary. Kelly shook her head and stood, heading for the bathroom window. Thinking that a child would preserve a marriage, would halt any abuse. Her own mother had thought the same, once. It hadn’t helped any of them. Funny, she hadn’t thought of her mother in a year or more. What woman would surrender her own child to the state and not fight for her? She’d died in a drunken stupor when Kelly was twelve, one week after Kelly had moved in with Lottie and Chuck.

Part of her wondered if Mary Gray ever found the peace she sought with having a child. Sleep had overcome Kelly, and she told herself the answers for the quilt weren’t inside Mary’s journal.

Kelly leaned on the windowsill. This window had a view of the gardens, still coming into bloom. The lush green lawn was thicker than when she’d first paid a visit to Gray House. There was Tom, pouring something at the base of the rosebushes from a box. Then he reached with his strong hands to pour from a watering can.

A tough guy, a gardener. Tom straightened, then glanced around the yard. He looked at a blooming rosebush, then leaned in to sniff. The gentle gesture made her chuckle. How a man acted when he thought no one was looking said a lot about him.

There were men like Peyton Greaves, who kept up quite an appearance and fooled a lot of people. Probably still fooled some people, even though Kelly had resisted the temptation to drag his name publicly through the hog pen and see how he liked mud sticking to his name.

Then there were men like Jenks, who didn’t care what anyone thought. But he couldn’t hurt her anymore, nor any child under his roof.

But Tom Pereira . . . he made her feel safe, after only a few encounters. Quite a contrast from that first day when she saw his face in the window. She moved from her spot at the window before he saw her face in the glass. As she did so, she saw Tom grab his head and sink to the grass.

Kelly shoved all thoughts of the quilt aside and ran, her feet skidding on the parquet floor. She pounded down the stairs, whirling around the balustrade and down the hall toward the kitchen. Blasting the back door open with a bang, Kelly stumbled on the back steps but caught her balance as she ran for Tom.

Tom lay prostrate on the ground, his arms at his sides, his body clenching as if in an enormous spasm. Kelly fell to her knees at his side. What was the thing to do when someone had a seizure? Lottie once had a foster child with epilepsy. They’d been told to let Jana alone, but make sure she couldn’t hurt herself on anything.

“Hang on, Tom.” She pulled out her phone and called 911. After speaking with the dispatcher, Kelly set the phone to the side while the phone line was live. A few more seconds, and Tom fell limp.

Kelly allowed herself to touch his forehead. “Tom, I called an ambulance. It’ll be here soon. I hope you’re not mad at me for calling someone.” The faint wail of a siren emerged from the sounds of the city.

“Shouldn’t have called,” he mumbled. “I’m fine . . .”

“No, collapsing into a seizure in the backyard is not fine.” She studied his face. His eyes were closed, his forehead wet with perspiration. She reached for his cheek, clammy to her touch.

The siren’s wail bit into the air as it intensified, the ambulance rolling to a halt in the driveway. Kelly stood as the first EMT left the vehicle.

“He started having a seizure.” She gestured to Tom’s form on the grass. “He stopped about a minute or so ago. He said something to me, but he’s out again.”

The EMTs moved past her, one of them pushing a gurney. The tallest male looked at her and asked, “Do you know anything about his medical history?”

She shook her head. “I really don’t know. I’ve only just met him, really.”

The shorter EMT reached for Tom’s wrist. “He’s got a medic alert bracelet. Tom Pereira, age thirty-one. Seizures and TBI.”

“TBI?” Kelly asked, but not really expecting an answer from them as they checked vital signs and radioed information to the hospital.

The tall one looked up at her somberly. “Traumatic brain injury.”

“We’re bringing him in.” The young one stood.

“Which hospital?” She knew she couldn’t go with him, but at least she could follow and he could wake up to a familiar face. Also, if he had family, maybe she could reach them.

“New Bedford General.”

Tom opened his eyes to see an ambulance ceiling. The engine roared, siren blared, and the gurney shook. “Take me back.”

“Mr. Pereira, we’re almost to the hospital,” said a trim young man who looked barely out of high school. A high wind could snap him like a twig.

“I don’t want to go. I’ll be fine. Just need to sleep it off. This has happened before.” Honestly, Kelly should have listened to him. He knew he’d babbled something to her before he zoned out. He did remember how soft her hand was as she touched his cheek. Of course, she’d worried. He hadn’t told her anything about his history. Didn’t think he needed to. Maybe that had been a mistake.

But if his neurologist heard about this . . . Tom tried to sit up.

“Oh no you don’t.” Twig-boy pushed him down with a capable wiry hand. The kid had strength. “You’re going to get checked out before they send you home.”

“Great.” He knew he was making a tough patient, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Do you have a headache, Mr. Pereira?”

“A little.”

“Intensity level on a scale of one to ten, one being almost none and ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”

“Uh, maybe a six.” His head pounded a little, but he could handle it. He hadn’t had a headache in several months.

“Okay.” As the EMT made a note, the radio squawked.

Tom forced himself to close his eyes and let the sway of the ambulance lull him back into the quiet. As long as Kelly didn’t figure out a way to contact his family, he’d deal with the hospital visit just fine.

Kelly paced the emergency room lobby. They wouldn’t let her back with Tom. She got that. She kept glancing up every time the glass double doors whooshed open to see if Mrs. Pereira had arrived.

The older woman sounded concerned when Kelly called her, thanks to Mrs. Acres giving her an emergency contact number. Surely, this constituted an emergency. Mrs. Pereira had said she would come right away.

The doors opened again, and in came an older woman with hair as fiercely curly as Tom’s, with a nose like his, and warm, brown eyes. Mrs. Pereira, of course.

“Mrs. Pereira.” Kelly approached the woman who wore a simple pantsuit and slip-on loafers. She suddenly remembered her own appearance, wearing her favorite ancient jeans and button-down work shirt, covered with equally ancient stains.

“You must be Kelly.” The woman embraced her, which came as a surprise. “Thank you for calling me. That boy of mine won’t. Stubborn.”

“Well, I’m not surprised.” Kelly shook her head. “I mean, we barely know each other, Tom and I. But he seems like he could be stubborn.”

“You have that part of him figured out, though.”

“Do you want a coffee or anything? Or a soda?” Kelly gestured to a bank of vending machines on one wall. “We might be here a while. Of course, they won’t tell me anything, since I’m not family.”

“I’m fine right now.” Mrs. Pereira squared her shoulders. “As far as not knowing anything, I’ll see what I can do.”

Kelly nodded and watched the older woman go to the reception desk before she headed to the vending machine for a cold drink. She purchased a soda then found a pair of cushioned chairs in a quiet corner.

Mrs. Pereira joined her shortly. “Well, they wouldn’t tell me anything, either. But they did say they would let Tom know I’m here.” She sank onto the chair beside Kelly.

“That’s good. I’m not sure if they told him I was there . . .” Kelly took a sip of her drink. “So what happened to Tom, that he has these seizures, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It happened during his military service. A freak accident, nothing combat related.” Mrs. Pereira frowned. “Anyway, he’s done great for a long time. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, either. I finally felt like we had a break, that Tom was going to have a break, too. So how do you two know each other again?”

“I . . . I just started working at Gray House. I’m a textile conservator and they hired me to restore an old quilt. So I’m living and working on-site.”

“Are you from around here?”

“I’m . . . I’m from the Haverhill area. I was able to break my lease and move here.”

“What does your family think about you moving just like that?”

“I . . . um . . . I really don’t have any family to speak of.” Kelly hadn’t admitted that to anyone since, well, she couldn’t remember.

“Everyone has family, dear. I can’t imagine you not having anyone to care about where you are.”