The Peach Keeper (8 page)

“She grew up, Colin. We all did.”

He scratched his hand against the side of his face. “Why doesn’t she want to go to the gala? Her grandmother helped found the Women’s Society Club.”

“I don’t know. When I sent her the invitation, I wrote her a personal note about wanting to include her grandmother. But she blew me off.”

“She didn’t want to have anything to do with the restoration?”

Paxton looked confused by the question. “I didn’t ask her.”

“You didn’t ask if she had old photos or old papers? If she wanted to see what was going on inside as it was being restored? Anything?”

“There were enough photos on record to go by. Colin, honestly, this restoration was about contractors and designers and scouring art auctions and estate sales for period pieces. It didn’t have anything to do with Willa. What could she have contributed?”

He shrugged as he looked out over the patio, to the pool, the pool house, and the mountain landscape beyond. The rolling mountains looked like kids playing under a big green blanket. He had to admit, there was nowhere in the world like this place. Part of his heart was still here, somewhere. He just wished he knew where so he could take it back. “I guess it just would have been a nice thing to do.”

“I did the best I could,” she snapped. “And where were you when all this was happening? You coordinated everything with the landscaping by phone and email. You wouldn’t even do
that
in person.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me here for the duration.” He paused, frowning at her reaction. “No one asked you to take on this project alone, Pax.” He’d been surprised by Paxton’s call last year, asking him to do the
landscaping, but he couldn’t say no. She’d wanted a large tree on the property, and after a lot of networking, Colin had found one being threatened by development nearby. But transplanting a tree that heavy and old had to be carefully choreographed. Everything had to be planned, down to the smallest detail. All year he’d been in touch weekly with the arborists they’d hired. And he’d taken off a month to oversee everything up until the grand opening of the Madam, which he’d considered a great sacrifice, because he hadn’t been home for that long in over a decade.

Paxton threw her hands in the air. “The Blue Ridge Madam is the first thing anyone sees as they drive into town. It was an eyesore. It was either tear it down or restore it. That house is part of our town history. I did a good thing, even if I didn’t ask Willa Jackson to help.”

“Calm down, Pax. What’s wrong?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just can’t ever seem to do enough.”

“Enough for who? Mom and Dad? You have to get over that. You’re never going to be happy until you live your own life.”

“Family is important, Colin. But that’s not something I’d expect you to understand.” She turned to leave. “Cover for me at dinner tonight, will you? Tell Mama and Daddy that I had to go finish up some work at the outreach center.”

“Why?”

She spun back around and said, “Can’t you do that for me? It’s not as if you’ve been around for the past ten years to do it.”

She was right. “Is that where you’re really going?” he asked as she stepped back into the kitchen.

“No.”

Paxton drove to Sebastian’s house and pulled in front. His car wasn’t there. That’s when she remembered that he kept late hours on Thursdays at his office, which was the reason he’d had the time to go with her to visit her grandmother that morning. Now she had to see him
twice
in order to get through the day? She wondered how she survived before he came to town. Basically, she’d kept her stress to herself, sublimating it with red licorice or trying to work it out through her endless series of private lists.

She buzzed down the windows in her car and cut the engine. She felt better just sitting here, looking at Shade Tree Cottage. Reaching over to her tote bag, she brought out a small notebook, one of dozens she carried around. Sometimes she used whatever she had on hand, a paper napkin or the back of an envelope. It all ended up in her bag. Most of her lists were about control, about breaking down her life into manageable pieces. But some of the lists were simply wishes. There was nothing more satisfying than putting what you wanted most onto paper. It gave substance to something that was before as thin as air. It made it one step closer to being real.

She flipped to a clean sheet of paper and started a list about Sebastian. She had a lot of lists about him.
Sebastian’s Favorite Things. If Sebastian and I Went on Vacation Together, Where Would We Go?

Today she started:

R
EASONS
W
HY
S
EBASTIAN
M
AKES
M
E
F
EEL
B
ETTER

He doesn’t care that I’m as tall as he is.

He doesn’t care that I weigh more.

He holds my hand through things and doesn’t think less of me for it.

He smells fantastic.

He’s all clean lines and perfect manners.

“Do you do this often when I’m not here? Sit outside my house and work on your lists?”

Paxton gave a start and turned to see Sebastian, his hands on top of her car as he leaned down to look in her window. The sun on his skin highlighted how clear and poreless it was, and turned his blue eyes crystalline. She hadn’t heard him approach, but she could see now that his car was parked behind hers in the driveway.

She smiled and quickly tucked her notebook away. “No, I was just waiting for you.”

He opened the car door for her and helped her out. “It’s too hot to be sitting in your car. Your hair is wet.” He put his cool hand to the base of her bare neck, which made her want to shiver. It was a base reaction from a place deep within her, a well full of sharp longings and pipe dreams. She couldn’t fill that well, couldn’t stopper it, as hard as she tried. But for the sake of their friendship, she did everything she could not to show it.

She smiled. “You never sweat. Are you actually human?”

“I enjoy air-conditioning too much to ever be long without it. Come in.” They walked to his door, where he unlocked it and gestured for her to enter first. He put his keys on the entryway table. She caught a glimpse of herself in the gold starburst mirror and immediately set her tote bag down and used both hands to slick back her hair, tucking all the loose strands into the knot she’d tied that morning.

“Have you had dinner yet?” he asked.

She dropped her hands. “No.”

“Join me, then. I’ll grill salmon. I’m glad I came home first.”

“First?”

“Sometimes I go to that diner on the highway.”

“The Happy Daze Diner?” she asked, disbelieving. The place seemed so unlike him. It had been a family diner at one time, now it was a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon, still doing business because elderly people who remembered it in its heyday continued to frequent the place.

He smiled at her reaction. “Believe it or not, I have fond memories of the place. My great-aunt used to take me there when I was a kid.” He loosened his tie. “So, how was your day?”

“The same. Until I got home this evening.” Paxton hesitated. “I think my brother is interested in Willa Jackson.”

He raised a single brow. “And you don’t approve?” His tie hissed as he pulled it off. Maybe it was because
she was already on edge, but she thought it was a seductive sound. It made her skin prickle.

“No, it’s not that. I’d love her forever if she made him stay.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

She hesitated, still bothered by it. “He seems to think I should have invited her to participate in the restoration of the Blue Ridge Madam.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It didn’t occur to me,” she said. “Do you think I should have?”

He shrugged. “It would have been a nice thing to do.”

“That’s what Colin said. I didn’t mean to slight her.”

“I know you didn’t. You like being in control. It never occurs to you to ask for help.” He smiled and put a hand to her cheek. “But some things are worth asking for, darling.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said miserably.

“No, actually, it’s not,” he responded. “I’m going to change. You haven’t seen the upstairs since I redecorated my bedroom, have you?”

“No.”

“Come on, then.”

She knew where all the rooms were—the guest room, the room with expensive exercise equipment in it, the empty room he said he had vague plans to turn into an office, and his master suite. He’d mentioned having his bedroom painted last month, but she wasn’t prepared for the major overhaul he’d done. The gray walls had a metallic sheen, and the furniture was all
black lacquer now. He’d spent most of his time when he first moved back decorating the downstairs and ridding the house of medieval décor left behind by the previous owner. She’d loved watching the transformation, watching it become more like Sebastian. This, though, wasn’t anything like what she thought it would be. Dark, moody, stark, masculine.

She started to leave so he could change, but he told her to stay, and disappeared into his dressing room.

“Why did you choose a house this big, when there’s only you?” she called as she walked around his bedroom. His bed was king-sized. There was room for someone else there; he just seemed to have no interest in issuing any invitations, though there was plenty of interest, from men and women alike.

“Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.”

“Wow, Sebastian. Profound.”

She heard him laugh.

She walked by his bed, trailing her fingers along the silken black cover. She stopped to look at a painting over his bureau. She’d never seen it before. It was cracked and dark, obviously old. It looked like something that should be in a folk art museum. It was of a red bowl filled with ripe red berries. A black-and-yellow bird was perched on the edge of the bowl, looking out angrily, as if daring someone to take a berry from him. The tip of his beak was red from berry juice, or maybe blood. It was a little disturbing.

“That belonged to my great-aunt,” Sebastian said. She could feel his chest brush the back of her arm as he
came to a stop behind her. “She loved it. It hung in her living room, next to her woodstove. It’s all I have by way of family heirlooms. I had it packed away for years.”

“Why didn’t you bring it out before now?” she asked, still staring at the painting.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to stay.”

“In this house?”

“No, in Walls of Water. I didn’t know if things would work out.” He paused. “But they did.”

Her scalp tightened, as though she was in a barely avoided collision. She hadn’t known she’d almost lost him. What was so wrong with this place that people wanted to leave it? What was so wrong with home and history and family, even if they got on your nerves? Her back still to him, she said, “You’ve mentioned your great-aunt twice tonight. I don’t think you’ve ever talked about her before.”

“She was the only person in my family I knew loved me without reservation. But she passed away when I was ten.”

Sebastian didn’t talk much about his family, but from what little he had told her, she knew his father was verbally abusive, and that he had a much older brother who now lived in West Virginia. They had lived in a trailer park on the west side of town, near the county line. She guessed she’d answered her own question. Maybe there were some things you simply had to get away from. She could understand it from Sebastian. She still didn’t understand it from her brother. To change the subject, she smiled and turned around and said, “Dinner?”

She didn’t realize how close he was. “Unless there’s something else you want to do up here,” he said.

She wouldn’t touch that. She couldn’t. “Are you implying I need to use your workout room?” she joked.

He lowered his eyes and turned away. “Never, darling. I love you just the way you are.”

FIVE
Unearthed

I
t was hard to believe on a day like today, when Willa and Rachel were so busy their lunch consisted of only filched cappuccino doughnuts and iced coffee from the café, but business on National Street actually fell off sharply after Thanksgiving. They could go days in the gray winter, sometimes an entire week, without a single customer. There was always a slight upswing in February, the town’s coldest month, when out-of-towners liked to hike into the national park to see the famous waterfalls when they froze, like bridal veils, against the mountains. But mostly, from December to April, those who made their living off tourists just suffered through, dreaming of warmer months, of kingfisher-blue skies and leaves so green they looked like they’d just been painted, as if the color would smear if you touched it.