Her reaction was so genuine that Cate felt foolish for having jumped to the wrong conclusion. “He was
talking
to you.”
“Well, hell,
“Not that I’ve seen, he doesn’t.”
“He’s just a little shy,” Sherry said, in what was probably the understatement of the month. “Besides, I’m old enough to be his mother.”
“You are not—unless you were really, really precocious.”
“Okay, so that’s an exaggeration. I do like
Cate agreed with that. Whatever needed repair at the B and B, from carpentry to electrical work to plumbing, Mr. Harris handled it. He also filled in as a mechanic, if need be. If ever anyone had been born to be a handyman, Mr. Harris had been.
Ten years before, fresh out of college with her degree in marketing, she would have disdained people who did physical work—people with their names sewn on their pockets, as they had been described in her circle—but she was older and wiser now, she hoped. The world needed all types to make things work, from the planners to the doers, and in this little community someone who could fix things was worth his weight in gold.
She began cleaning the dining room while Sherry finished in the kitchen; then she vacuumed and dusted downstairs—at least in all the public areas. Thank goodness the huge old Victorian had two parlors. The front one, the big one, was for use by her guests. The small one in back was the den where she and the boys relaxed in the evenings, where they watched television and played games. She didn’t bother even picking up their toys in there; for one thing, her mother wasn’t due for hours yet and the boys would have their things dragged out again before she got here, so Cate didn’t waste the effort.
Sherry poked her head out of the kitchen door. “All through in here. I’ll see you in the morning. Hope your mom gets here okay.”
“Thanks. I do, too; she’ll never let me hear the end of it if she has car trouble or something.”
Trail Stop was so remote that there was no easy way to get there, no nearby airports for commercial flights, and only one road in. Because her mother hated the small propeller planes she could have flown on to get closer, and because renting any sort of vehicle at their tiny landing strip was almost “mission impossible,” she chose to fly into Boise, where she knew there would be rentals available. That made for a long drive and yet another sore point with her concerning Cate’s chosen home. She didn’t like having her daughter and grandsons living in another state, she didn’t like
All of those were valid points. Cate admitted it, and had even told her mother so. She herself would have preferred to stay in Seattle, if she’d had a choice.
But she hadn’t, so she’d done what she’d thought was best for the twins. When Derek died, leaving her with nine-month-old twins, not only had she been devastated by losing him, she had been forced to face reality about their finances. Their combined incomes had provided a good living, but Cate had gone to part-time when the boys were born and most of her work she’d done from home. With Derek gone, she had to work full-time, but the cost of quality day care for the boys had been prohibitive. It almost didn’t pay for her to work. Her mother couldn’t help with their care, because she worked, too.
They had savings, and Derek had purchased a hundred-thousand-dollar insurance policy, intending to add to it as his income increased. They’d thought they had all the time in the world. Who could have anticipated a healthy, thirty-year-old man dying from a staph infection that attacked his heart? He’d gone rock climbing for the first time since the twins were born, scraped his leg, and the doctors said the bacteria had likely entered his body through the small wound. Roughly thirty percent of people carry the bacteria on their skin, they’d explained, and normally have no problems. But sometimes a break in the skin allowed infection to start, and maybe for some reason the immune system was temporarily depressed, say from stress, and the infection would roar through the body despite all efforts to stop it.
The how and why mattered, on an intellectual level, but emotionally all she knew was that she was suddenly a twenty-nine-year-old widow with two baby boys to care for. From there on out, all of her decisions had to be made with them in mind.
With their savings and the insurance money, and careful budgeting, she could have remained in Seattle, close to both her family and her in-laws. But there would have been nothing left over to pay for the twins’ college education, plus she would have had to work such long hours she wouldn’t have seen much of her own children. She’d gone over and over her options with her accountant, and the most logical plan he could devise was to move to an area with a lower cost of living.
She had been familiar with this area of
The cost of living in Trail Stop was certainly lower, and from the sale of their condo Cate had made a tidy profit, which she promptly set aside in the boys’ college funds. She was determined not to touch that money unless it was a matter of life or death—theirs. She lived completely on the proceeds from the B and B, which didn’t allow much room for extras. But the morning food business gave her a little leeway, if nothing went wrong and she had no unexpected expenses, such as this morning’s plumbing emergency. Thank God it had been so minor—and thank God Mr. Harris had refused payment.
There were pros and cons to the life she’d chosen for herself and the boys. One of the pros, the biggest one, was that the boys were with her all day, every day. Their young lives were as stable as she could possibly make them, with the result that they were happy and healthy, and that was enough to keep her there. Another pro was that she liked being her own boss. She liked what she was doing, liked cooking, liked the people in the community. They were just people, maybe more independent-minded than their metropolitan counterparts, but with quirks, strengths, and weaknesses like everyone else. The air was clear and clean, and the boys were perfectly safe playing outside.
One of the items in the con column was the area’s remoteness. There was no cell phone service, no DSL for the computer. Television was a satellite system, which meant a heavily snow-blocked reception. There was no such thing as a quick trip to the grocery to pick up a few items; grocery shopping involved a one-hour trip each way, so she made the journey every other week and bought mountains of supplies. The boys’ doctor was also an hour away. When they started school, she would have to make that drive twice a day, five days a week, which meant she’d have to hire help. Even collecting the mail took effort. There was a long line of rural mail boxes down at the main road, more than ten miles distant. Anyone heading that way was obliged to take the community’s outgoing mail and bring back whatever had been delivered—which meant keeping a supply of rubber bands handy to keep each person’s mail separated from the others—and then deliver it to the recipients.
The boys were short on playmates, too. There was one child near their age: Angelina Contreras, who was six and in first grade, which meant she was in school during the day. The few teenagers often stayed with friends or relatives in town during the school year, coming home only on the weekends, because of the distance involved.
Cate wasn’t blind to the problems caused by her choices, but overall she thought she’d made the best decision for the boys. They were her prime consideration, the underlying reason for every action she took. The responsibility of raising them, caring for them, fell on her shoulders, and she was determined they wouldn’t suffer.
Sometimes she felt so alone she thought she would break under the stress. On the surface everything was completely normal, even mundane. She lived in this small community where everyone knew everyone else; she raised her kids; she bought groceries and cooked and paid bills, dealt with all the normal homeowner worries. Each day was almost completely like the one that had gone before.
But since Derek’s death, she had constantly felt as if she were walking on the brink of a cliff, and one misstep would send her over. She alone had the responsibility for the boys, for providing for them, not just now, but in the future, too. What if the money she’d set aside for their college education wasn’t enough? What if the stock market tanked when they were eighteen, what if interest rates plummeted? The success or failure of the B and B was totally on her shoulders—
everything
was totally on her shoulders, every decision, every plan, every moment. If she’d had only herself to worry about, she wouldn’t have been terrified; but she had the boys, and because of them she lived on the edge of panic.
They were only four, little more than babies, and utterly dependent on her. They had already lost their father, and even though they didn’t remember him, they had certainly felt his absence in their lives, and would feel it more keenly as they grew older. How could she make up for that? Was she strong enough to guide them safely through the headstrong, hormonal teenage years? She loved them so much she wouldn’t be able to bear it if anything happened to them, but what if the decisions she’d made were all wrong?
There were no guarantees. She knew that, knew that even if Derek were still alive, there would be problems; but the big difference would have been that she wouldn’t be alone in facing them.
Because of the boys, when Derek died she’d forced herself to function, forced the grief into an inner prison where she could keep it controlled until she was alone at night. She had cried through the nights for weeks, months. But during the day she had focused on her babies, on their needs, and in a way, three years down the road, that was still how she got by. Time had dulled the sharp edge of grief, but it hadn’t disappeared. She thought of Derek almost every day, when she saw his expressions chasing across the lively faces of his sons. A picture of them together was on top of her dresser. The boys would look at it, and they knew that was their daddy.
She’d had seven great years with him, and his absence had torn a huge hole in her life, her heart. The boys would never know him, and that was something she couldn’t make up to them.
Her mother arrived just after four that afternoon. Cate had been watching for her, and when the black Jeep Liberty pulled into the parking area, she and the boys ran out to meet her.
“There are my boys!” Sheila Wells cried, jumping out of the Jeep and squatting down to hug the twins to her.
“Mimi, look,” Tucker said, showing her the toy fire engine he held.
“Look,” Tanner echoed, displaying a yellow dump truck. Both boys had picked out a prized possession for her to admire.
She didn’t disappoint. “Goodness, look at that. I haven’t seen a better fire engine or dump truck in—well, I don’t think I ever have.”
“Listen,” Tucker said, turning on the siren.
Tanner scowled. His dump truck didn’t have a siren, but the back did lift up and the gate swung open, dumping whatever was in the truck bed. He bent down, scooped some gravel into the bed, then held it over Tucker’s fire engine and dumped the gravel all over it.
“Hey!” Tucker yelped indignantly, shoving at his brother, and Cate stepped in before a fight could break out.
“Tanner, that wasn’t a nice thing to do. Tucker, you shouldn’t shove your brother. Turn that siren off. Both of you give me the toys. They’ll be in my room; you can’t play with them until tomorrow.”
Tucker opened his mouth to protest, saw her eyebrows lift in warning, and wisely said to Tanner, “I’m sowwy I pushed you.”
Tanner eyed her, too, and like his brother decided that after the morning’s punishment he shouldn’t push his luck this afternoon. “I’m sorry I dumped on you,” he said magnanimously.
Cate set her back teeth together to hold back a burst of laughter, and her gaze met her mother’s. Sheila’s eyes were round and she slapped a hand over her mouth; she knew very well there were times when a mother Must Not Laugh. A snort escaped, but she quickly mastered it as she stood and hugged her daughter. “I can’t wait to tell your father this one,” she said.
“I wish he could have come with you.”
“Maybe next time. If you can’t make it home for Thanksgiving, he’ll definitely come with me then.”
“What about Patrick and Andie?” Patrick was her younger brother, and Andie—Andria—was his wife. Sheila opened the back of the Jeep and they began hauling out luggage.
“I’ve already told them we might be here for Thanksgiving. If we’re welcome, of course. If your guest rooms are booked, there goes that plan.”
“I have two reservations for that weekend, but that still leaves three bedrooms, so there’s no problem. I’d love it if Patrick and Andie could come, too.”
“Her mother would throw a fit if Andie came here instead of having Thanksgiving at her house,” Sheila said caustically. She liked her daughter-in-law a lot, but Andie’s mother was another story.
“We want to help,” Tucker said, tugging at a suitcase.
Since the suitcase outweighed him, Cate pulled out a carry-on bag, which was surprisingly heavy. “Here, you two take this bag. It’s heavy, so be careful.”