Beside a Dreamswept Sea (49 page)

It wasn’t. Bryce knew it as well as he knew he sat in Seascape Inn’s kitchen. Cally had believed, and she’d succeeded. She’d won. And Bryce wanted to win, too. He wanted to win her. He wanted to believe. To dream with her while awake and not pretending. “I know I promised I wouldn’t do this, Cally. And I know you’re probably going to be upset with me because I have, but—”

“You love me, Counselor.”

He stilled and just stared at her.

Her gaze softened, and she reached over the table to touch his hand. “I love you, too, Bryce. With all my heart.”

Stunned, he let her words—the truth—soak in, then wash through him. Warmth and joy seeped into his soul. “I should have realized at the church—your mysterious trust-test—when we didn’t go back and revise our vows. But I didn’t.”

He went to her, urged her to her feet, then closed his arms around her and hugged her tight. Suzie’s words ran through his mind:
If only you have the courage to believe, miracles can happen beside a dreamswept sea.

Everyone was in the car,
waiting to leave. Suzie yelled out. “Wait, Daddy. I forgot my quilt.”

“Okay.” With a little groan, he opened the door to let her out so she could run inside and get it.

Miss Hattie stood on the front porch. “What’s wrong, Suzie?”

“I forgot my quilt. I can’t leave my quilt.”

She sailed past Miss Hattie, past the L-shaped registration desk in the gallery, then, at the foot of the stairs, came to a dead halt.

“Forget something, little one?” Tony leaned against the wall and smiled down at her.

She gasped, and her eyes sparkled pure delight. “Tony, you’re home!”

“Yep.”

“Are you off restriction for good?”

“I hope so.” Never again did he want to come this close to losing Hattie. He tossed the quilt down to Suzie. “Catch.”

She hugged the little quilt to her chest. “I love you, Tony. And I love my new mom. You picked me the best mom ever.”

Tony smiled, crossed his chest with his arms. “I didn’t pick her, though I couldn’t have chosen better. We can thank Mary Beth for that.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, I will.” Sunshine had returned home, but he’d get Suzie’s message to her.

“I have to go.” She waved behind her. “They’re waiting in the car.”

“I know.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, Suzie.” He walked down the steps, scooped her up and hugged her tightly, then set her back onto the floor.

She wadded the quilt at her chest. “Did you like my grown-up friend, Selena?”

“She seems like a nice woman.” What was the munchkin up to now? She had that look in her eye . . .

“She doesn’t have a mom or dad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Matchmaking? The child had spent too much time with Hattie.

“She doesn’t have someone special, either. Like Daddy has Cally, and Uncle T.J. has Maggie, and Uncle John has Aunt Bess.”

“I get your point, Suzie.” Tony held off a smile by the skin of his teeth, then gave in to a wink. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” Suzie turned.

“Wait.” He plucked two petals from his yellow carnation. “You keep one for you, so you don’t forget me—”

“I’ll never ever forget you.”

“Then keep it just because,” he said. “And give this one to Miss Hattie.” His throat went tight. “She’ll know what it means.”

Her eyes glossy with sweet tears, Suzie looked up at him. “I believed, Tony.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Did you?”

The force of her words hit him like a thunderbolt.

“Suzie,” Miss Hattie yelled from the front door. “Your dad says to hurry, dear, or they’re going to catch the commuter traffic in Bangor.”

“Bye, Tony.”

“Bye.” He waved and watched her go, then cast a suspicious glance at the portraits of Cecelia and Collin hanging in the stairwell.
Had he believed?

Hattie had rocked in her rocker
until she thought the quiet house would drive her insane. When Suzie had given her the carnation petal, she’d thought Tony was back. But she’d climbed the stairs to the attic and his room was still warm. The white dustcovers were still draped over all the furnishings.

And inside she’d died just a little more. Her beloved hadn’t come back to her.

Now, she turned over in her bed and dabbed at her cheeks one more time. If he were here, he’d blister her ears for being spiny about this. Yet how could she not feel lost and frightened? For the first time ever she was alone.

She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer for him to come back to her. Just once more. Just . . . once more.

Tony waited patiently for his beloved to drift off to sleep, to drift into a dream. It hadn’t been until Suzie had asked him on the stairs if he’d believed, that he’d truly understood what had happened here with these special guests.

He wasn’t needed.

Mary Beth had come to help Cally.

He’d breached the rules and not been punished, though if Cally had lost faith, he’d have had to watch Suzie die, and that would have been so painful he couldn’t imagine it.

He’d felt the physical. In a dream, he’d felt the physical. He’d assumed because he’d broken the rules by interceding in Suzie’s dream, he’d be punished. He wasn’t. But only when Suzie had asked him if he’d believed had he realized he was being rewarded.

The first time he’d interceded into Suzie’s dream, he hadn’t realized the potential personal sacrifice. That he and Hattie could be separated forever. Which is why he’d had to be tested again.

And he was. Two nights before Thanksgiving. When Mary Beth had come and officially warned him not to intercede, warned him that the repercussions would cost him everything. Would cost him Hattie.

Yet he had known himself, and his beloved. Had known that if he’d refused to help Suzie, he would forfeit his self-respect, and Hattie’s respect. And so he’d willingly sacrificed all for the child. In doing so, he’d earned a reward—or so he’d thought.

As he watched his beloved sleep, the truth of the matter settled onto him. These special guests were here to heal, but they were also here to help Tony and Hattie heal. Being separated from each other grew harder each Thanksgiving, more painful for both of them. But because they did what they could for others, reaching out as best they were able, they were being rewarded. Sunshine, Mary Beth Ladner, had come to show Tony a way that he and his beloved Hattie could touch, could hold, could—at least, for a time—be together.

Words he’d once said to Suzie came tumbling back through his mind.
Sometimes when we want something a lot, we tell ourselves we don’t want it, so then if we don’t get it, it doesn’t hurt so much.

He’d believed in miracles for Suzie, but not for himself. And certainly not for him and Hattie. Because he hadn’t believed miracles possible for them, he’d misread the signs.

Now, he understood.

Hattie lay dreaming. In the dream, she stood out on the inn’s front lawn, her hand cupped over her eyes, blocking out the brilliant sunlight, looking up toward the attic room. Toward his room.

He fingered the petals on the yellow carnation, loosened it from his lapel, then held it in his hand. His heart rocking against his ribs, he stepped into his beloved’s dream.

He came up from behind her. Heard and felt the gravel on the drive crunch under his heels. All sights and sounds and smells seemed magnified a hundredfold. “Hattie.”

“Tony?” She turned, gasped, clasped her hands to her face. “Oh, Tony!”

His age. His beloved appeared the same age as he, and she ran to him as he ran to her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, down his own. He caught her in his arms, clamped them tightly around her, smothered her with kisses; her face, her chin, her shoulder—wherever his lips deigned to touch. “Oh, God, Hattie.”

She laughed through her tears and lifted her face for his kiss. “I prayed you’d come back to me. I prayed so hard.”

He kissed her as if starved, unleashing the longing that had built inside him during their fifty-one-year separation. And when they paused to draw breath, he drew back enough to hand her the carnation. “I had to come walk with you on the cliffs.”

“Just like we used to.” She smelled the yellow petals that had been their link to each other for such a long time, her eyes sparkling with so much love. So much love, and so much joy.

Hand in hand, they walked together, across the craggy cliffs to the special oak where they’d first confessed their love; where Tony first had proposed, and Hattie had accepted; their arms entwined, their hearts beating contentedly as one; and, inside his mind, Tony heard Suzie’s laughter, her voice.
If only one has the courage to believe, miracles can happen beside a dreamswept sea.

“I believed, Suzie,” he silently whispered to the child who’d taught him the power of faith and magic and love.

The power of Seascape Inn.

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Vicki is the award-winning author of 24 novels, 4 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles, published in as many as sixty-three countries. She is recognized by Who’s Who in the World as an author and as an educator. For more information, please visit her website.

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