Wedding At the Riverview Inn Page 15

  “I know.” But he didn’t leave.

  “So, go ahead and get your work done.” She bumped his hip with hers.

  She was torn, as she had been for the week since Gabe had appeared up on her porch in the dark. Her heart sang some kind of crazy tune these days.

  Nonstop.

  While she taught Cameron how to ice a wedding cake, while she revised the menu every week, while she and Patrick worked on the wedding decorations. While she and Gabe made love. While they ate, while they worked side by side, while they debated East Coast cuisine versus West Coast. While they lay in bed, silent, curled around each other.

  While she knew it was all going to end after the Crimpson wedding.

  But her heart, stupidly, kept right on singing.

  “You don’t want to look like a coward?” she asked.

  “I’m not a coward and—” he crossed his arms over his chest “—I’m not scared of your dad.”

  She laughed because her father was a scary man. A giant in their industry and a physical bear of a guy. Ten years ago, when she and Gabe had told him they were getting married and having a baby, her dad had taken Gabe outside for a little chat. Gabe had returned white-faced and calling him sir.

  This would be the first time Gabe had seen them since the divorce.

  “They won’t blame you, Gabe,” she said. “My parents understand better than most how hard I can be on a relationship.”

  Gabe slid an arm around her waist and pressed a kiss on her forehead.

  But didn’t say a word.

  Alice wasn’t stupid. So she kept her mouth shut but wished fervently that the Crimpsons would push the wedding back a few months. A year perhaps. Just until she and Gabe finished this long goodbye.

  At the sight of her parents’ old Volvo chugging up the gravel driveway Gabe dropped his arm and stepped away as if she were on fire.

  But not fast enough for her dad. Michael saw the embrace through the driver’s-side window and scowled.

  “Hi, honey!” Her mom, Janice, a tiny elfish woman with hands of steel from years of kneading homemade dough, leaped from the passenger’s-side and jogged around the car to fold Alice in a hard hug. “Oh, look at you, sweetie. You look so good.” Janice pulled back and cupped Alice’s face in her hands. “A little lipstick wouldn’t kill you,” she whispered.

  “Good to see you too, Mom.” Alice laughed, accustomed to her mother.

  “Quite a place you’ve got here,” Michael said, stepping out of the car and standing to tower over Gabe. Dad had a beard and a belly and at least five inches on Gabe’s six-foot frame.

  “Thank you, sir.” Gabe said, like a school-kid.

  Michael’s lip curled. “I told you ten years ago to call me Mike,” he said and held out a giant paw for Gabe to shake. “Offer still stands.”

  Gabe sighed and shook his hand.

  “Would you like a tour?” Gabe asked.

  “We’d love one,” Janice said and stepped over to kiss Gabe’s cheek. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Alice could tell he was surprised by their affection, surprised and moved. But it probably wouldn’t last if her folks knew about this new relationship between them. So, Alice stepped in before her mom started asking questions and grabbed her dad’s arm.

  “Let’s start with the kitchen,” she said, pulling them into movement. “Cameron is my assistant, Dad. And I’m warning you, he’s a kid, so go out of your way to be nice.”

  “Am I that scary?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Gabe answered from behind them and everyone laughed.

  An hour later Alice and Janice walked arm in arm toward the gazebo, while her dad and Gabe unloaded the half-barrel barbecue from the back of the Volvo.

  “So?” Janice asked. “It looks like things are going well.”

  Alice nodded but did not meet her mother’s eyes.

  “When is your contract up?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Have you found a replacement?”

  She’d been ignoring that little issue. “Not yet. I’ve put out some feelers.”

  They stepped into the gazebo and Alice let go of her mom to go watch the Hudson flow by, wishing the questions her mother was bound to ask, had been asking with her eyes since setting foot on the property, would flow on by, too.

  “Why are you lying, Alice?”

  And no such luck.

  “I’ve just been busy.” Alice held her breath to see if her mom would accept that lame answer.

  “What are you doing, sweetie?” Janice asked, sliding an arm over Alice’s shoulders. She didn’t have to clarify Alice knew what her mother meant. What are you doing with Gabe? What are you doing with your life?

  “I don’t know, Mom.” She sighed. “I know it’s a bad idea, but if you could see how different Gabe is right now. How different both of us are—”

  “I’d see how it’s okay for you to be involved with your ex-husband again?”

  “You’d see how it’s impossible not to be involved with him again.”

  “Just be careful. Find a replacement so that when things go bad—”

  “Maybe they won’t go bad,” she whispered her stupid wish, words she only sighed against Gabe’s chest in the dead of night with his sleeping breath in her ear.

  “Oh, Alice.” Janice pressed her lips to Alice’s head and Alice closed her eyes. Her mom didn’t need to say anything else; the words unsaid, blew through her, right into her foolish heart.

  Things always went bad with Gabe.

  Michael helped Alice with dinner, working the grill and putting a twist on her filet that earned raves out in the dining room.

  “You want to replace me when my contract here is over?” she asked over the mouth of her water bottle when the last dessert had been plated and served and the dishwasher chugged away in the background.

  Dad tipped back his head and laughed, swirling the red wine in his glass, before draining it. “Your mother would kill me.”

  She watched him swallow and waited for the demons to stir, but they remained silent, unmoved by the fruity noir her dad drank.

  “I’m retired so she can have me paint the house and work in her garden,” he said. He poured more wine into his glass and gestured with the bottle toward her.

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “That kid you got working here—”

  “Cameron?” She smiled, remembering how Cameron had taken one look at her dad and all but ran from the room.

  “He’s got talent,” Dad said. “Real talent.”

  “I think so, too. He’s a good kid.”

  “Things working out for him at that group home?”

  “Seem to be. He’s only been there a week.”

  “Reminds me of Max.”

  “He reminds all of us of Max.”

  Gabe and Janice came in from the dining room laughing about something, but when Gabe saw the wine bottle, his laughter faded. His eyes darted to her, and when she lifted her bottle of water, he physically relaxed.

  She wasn’t offended, oddly. She understood the situation from his perspective now that she was sober and was grateful that he’d taken a risk on the wreck she’d been.

  “You ready, sweetheart?” Janice asked, taking the wineglass from her husband’s hand. “We need to get on the road now, if I’m driving.”

  “Oh, you’re driving,” Dad said.

  “You can stay here,” Gabe offered for the tenth time. “We’ve got lots of room.”

  “No, we need to head home,” Janice said and the four of them walked out the kitchen door into the cool moonlight.

  Alice longed to wrap her arm around Gabe’s waist as they watched her folks get into the Volvo, her father fumbling with the seat controls so he could actually sit in the passenger’s seat without eating his knees. Mom rolled her eyes and turned on the engine, the headlights taking slices out of the night. When the car turned and headed up the road, Gabe, as if he could read her mind, slid his arms around her shoulders, pu
lling her back against his chest.

  “Your dad wants to kill me,” he muttered into her hair.

  “No, he doesn’t,” she said, resting her bottom in the cradle of his hips.

  “He’s always wanted to kill me. But your mom sure did go out of her way with Max.”

  “I thought she was going to give him a haircut there for a minute.”

  “Well, the guy could use it. He looks like he’s been living in the bush.”

  They stood, loosely embracing, watching the taillights fade into the ebony dark.

  “Is Max okay?” she asked.

  “He’s better than he was.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “After he was shot in the line of duty and got out of the hospital, he quit the force and came out here. Dad and I have tried to talk about it but he insists he’s fine.”

  “He’s not,” Alice said. She tilted her head back and kissed his cheek. “It never occurred to you to push him a little harder? Try a little more?”

  “Good God, no. He’d probably shoot me if I tried.” Gabe pressed kisses along her neck, slowly making his way to that spot on her collarbone that turned her to jelly.

  “You know what I’d like to talk about?” he asked.

  She laughed, pressing her back against him not as playfully this time. “I can imagine.”

  “You weren’t drinking tonight,” he said. He rested his lips against her neck and the kisses stopped.

  She shook her head, plucking at his fingers where they clasped her belly.

  “Is it hard?” he murmured.

  “Not drinking?”

  He nodded against her neck.

  “No,” she said truthfully, surprised that she hadn’t even been thinking about it. “I’m too busy, too preoccupied, too—” She stopped, caution suddenly making an appearance. She had been about to say happy, but that felt like some kind of declaration and that would spoil what was between them, scare him off like a deer on the side of the road.

  This was supposed to be goodbye. They’d agreed on that.

  “Good,” he said and went back to kissing her neck. He stepped forward, pushing her with his body away from the lodge toward her cabin, which had, over the past week, become their cabin.

  “I deserve a reward or something,” she said. “Oh,” he chuckled against her skin, sending goose bumps along her body. “I’ll reward you.”

  14

  “So?” Patrick asked, watching his son ignore him, pretending to focus on the men unloading the tables, chairs, dishes and linens they were renting for the wedding in two weeks. The sun had set and the men hustled to get the van unloaded before it became full dark.

  “So what?” Gabe asked. “We’re putting it in the gazebo, guys,” he said to the men taking the tables out of the truck. They grunted and crossed the lawn toward the shelter.

  “I hope Max got enough tarps,” Gabe said, as if that was what they were discussing.

  “Gabe,” Patrick slapped a hand on his son’s shoulder, wanting to shake him until he saw sense. “You’re avoiding the issue.”

  “What issue?” Max asked, approaching them from the kitchen door.

  “I don’t know. Dad’s got issues,” Gabe told his brother, and Patrick looked heavenward for patience.

  “Alice!” Patrick cried. “Alice is the issue. And what you’ve been doing in her cabin every night.”

  Gabe and Max shared a wry look.

  “If I have to explain it to you…” Gabe said.

  “Don’t be smart with me, kid.” Patrick growled in frustration. “I’m still your dad.” Gabe’s smart-ass grin faded. “You’re headed for trouble and pretending like nothing is going on.”

  “Nothing is going on,” Gabe said. “Thanks, guys.” He shook the hands of the movers, and Patrick and his two boys watched the truck drive off. Gabe bent to pick up one of the boxes of linens, but Patrick, tired of this silence they maintained, this fear they were all cursed with, grabbed Gabe’s arm and turned him to face him.

  “Talk to me, son. Don’t pretend like this is no big deal.”

  Gabe sighed. “Dad, it’s…temporary. It’s what’s happening right now.”

  “What about after the wedding? When she’s supposed to go?”

  Gabe betrayed himself by looking at his hand for a split second and Patrick wanted to rejoice. He is human after all. “Then she goes home,” he murmured. “This isn’t a second chance.”

  “Why?” Max asked. “I mean, why isn’t it?”

  “You, too?” Gabe asked, shooting his brother a killing look. “I didn’t know you two were so interested in my love life.”

  “You love her,” Max said and Patrick nodded. “She loves you, it’s so obvious Cameron asked me about it.”

  “That doesn’t change anything,” Gabe said.

  Why am I protecting them? Patrick wondered. What’s the damn point?

  “Because you’re a coward,” Max said.

  “Oh!” Gabe hooted. “And you’re so brave? Why the hell are you here, Max?”

  “Not what we’re talking about, Gabe.”

  “No, God forbid we talk about what’s wrong with you. We should just let you go wild in the woods and never ask what happened last year.”

  Yes! This was good. This was healthy, this is what real families did, they talked about things. They hammered out the hard stuff. He and his boys didn’t need to be afraid of this, they could do it. Talk like men.

  “Is it because you can’t have kids with her?” Max asked. “There are other ways to create a family.”

  Gabe’s fists clenched and Patrick watched his sons start to square off as though they were sixteen again. He didn’t get in the way.

  “You’re ruining this second chance you’ve been given.”

  “What do you know about second chances?” Gabe asked. “Or family for that matter. You fight and fight and fight until there’s no one left in the room.”

  Okay, maybe they were going a bit too far.

  “Boys—” He held up his hands between them, but they shouldered him out of the way.

  “I know I’d kill for a second chance with a woman like Alice. And you’re throwing her away like you don’t care.”

  Patrick’s heart spasmed and ached for Max, his young son with the hidden wounds.

  “Maybe I don’t care! Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe this is none of your damn business.”

  Gabe was in Max’s face, a breath away from shoving him and Max, who loved a good knockdown, drag-out fight, stepped back, put his hands up.

  “You’re right,” Max conceded and headed out toward the forest and whatever waited for him in the dark.

  Patrick let out the breath he’d been holding. In the end the Mitchell way always won out. Avoid. Don’t talk. Run.

  Patrick saw what he’d done here, how the way he’d lied to his sons, waited too long to tell them that their mother had left and then, in an effort to make the wounds heal faster, he’d pretended she’d never been there at all. Now both of his sons were doing it. Pretending they didn’t even hear the drumbeat coming ever closer.

  Gabe rubbed his hands over his face. “We’re saying goodbye,” he murmured. “That’s all, it’s what we agreed. We’re ending our marriage the right way.”

  “By pretending it didn’t end?” Patrick was seeing him with new eyes.

  “No,” Gabe said, cold steel in his blue eyes, “I will never forget that it ended.”

  “Is it because she can’t have children?” Patrick asked. “You could adopt.”

  “When I brought it up before—” Gabe shook his head. “You should have seen her. It was like she couldn’t stop crying. And then she couldn’t stop screaming at me.”

  “But you’re older. Wiser.”

  “We’re just not meant to be together long-term. Let it go, Dad. There’s too much between us to make it work.”

  “Like it would work better with someone you don’t feel as much for?”

  “Maybe.”

  Pat
rick stared at him slack jawed. “Your mom really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t even think about her, Dad. I stopped years ago. She had nothing to do with this.”

  It broke Patrick’s heart that his son couldn’t see the truth of what he was doing—pushing away a good woman before he got hurt again. It was the same thing he’d done when Iris had asked to come home. He’d eliminated every chance that they might work, on the off chance they wouldn’t. It was even worse that his wife wasn’t here to see what she’d done to her boys with her middle-of-the-night abandonment of them.

  She should see this, he thought, fuming.

  Gabe bent to grab a box, ending the conversation, and Patrick, muttering under his breath, bent to help him.

  “Gabe?” Alice said and both men looked up as if there’d been a gunshot. Patrick tried to discern whether she’d heard his son’s callous words, but it was too dark, the light coming out from the kitchen door behind her too bright.

  She doesn’t deserve this, Patrick decided. Not Alice and not Iris. They didn’t deserve to be so ignored, no matter what happened.

  “Come in,” she said, her voice merry and full of secrets. If she’d heard, she didn’t reveal it. “I have something to show you.”

  Gabe’s skin crawled. It crawled and itched, his muscles twitched, his brain hurt. The question he asked himself every day, every moment, dogged his footsteps as he walked into the dining room.

  What am I doing?

  The promise he made every night walking to her cottage, his blood on fire for her. The promise he made every night, when she curled up next to him echoed his question.

  This will be the last time.

  The dining room was dark, the last of the fading light making shadows across the ceiling and floor. There were things hanging from the rafters and he realized Alice had finished the decorations.

  “Close your eyes.” Her voice came out of the darkness like the loving hand of the wife she’d been.