She lounged against the counter and eliminated Dusty as a topic. “Trying to lure Ten out from under the sofa.”
“He came out to see me.”
“He didn’t!”
“Came out, ate his fill, then went back to hide. But it’s a start.”
“Then he’s alive, and it’s not mice eating his food.”
“More likely Ten’s eating the mice.”
“I saw Black Beauty yesterday. He hasn’t abandoned the cabin. He just leaves earlier every morning. Before the men arrive.”
“You’re blessed with pets.”
More than Isaac knew, of course. She wondered how her three living, breathing charges would get along when they finally confronted one another. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.
“I went to that meeting I told you about,” she said. “Over in Luray.”
“I wondered.”
She was encouraged by his tone. Had there been even a note of censure, she wouldn’t have continued. But Isaac sounded almost…interested?
“I met a man who knew your grandmother as a girl. And your grandfather.”
Isaac looked up. “Really?”
“Aubrey Grayling says he was your grandfather’s best friend. It’s pretty amazing.”
He took carrots and a red pepper to the sink. She wondered if he knew the carrots needed to be scraped. He returned to slice the pepper, and she was impressed with how well he managed it. How many television chefs
had
he seen?
“Do you think he’s for real?” Isaac asked.
“I do. He’s in his nineties, but he remembered so many details. Your grandfather was named Jesse Spurlock. His family owned apple orchards in Lock Hollow, the biggest and best. Leah’s family, the Blackburns, had fewer acres, but Aubrey said the Blackburn farm was a gem. They grew corn, mostly, and vegetables. They had animals, a two-story log and frame house, a chestnut barn. They weren’t rich, but they had a good life. Both families were well thought of.”
Isaac finished chopping the pepper into matchstick-thin slices before he spoke. “I’ve spent my whole life trying not to think about my birth family. Now I’m imagining the Waltons.” He paused. “The Waltons with inconvenient secrets.”
“Aubrey’s story brought them to life for me. Leah had hair the color of yours, Isaac. He said she was particularly pretty, with green eyes and a slender figure, but she was the picture of sturdy good health. Not like her sister.”
“Sister?”
“That’s right. Birdie. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed, very delicate featured. He said in some ways she was even prettier than Leah, who was younger. But Birdie was frail and in constant pain. She had polio as a child and nearly died. She was also so nearsighted that she had to squint to see anything more than a few feet away. Aubrey said both disabilities gave her a narrow focus, that she was content to live her life no farther away than the circle of her arms.”
“Aubrey sounds like something of a poet.”
Kendra went to pour the wine, and waited until Isaac had scraped the carrots—he
had
learned a lot from television—before she handed it to him. “He didn’t say too much after that. He got tired, or so he said.”
“So he said?”
“I don’t think he was being completely straight with me.”
“Maybe he likes the attention and wants you to come back.”
“I didn’t get that impression. In fact, he pointed me toward the daughter of Leah’s best friend. He said she might be able to help me.” She peeked over his shoulder. “Are those shiitake mushrooms?”
“You’re going to love this.”
She watched with awe as he wiped the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. The kettle whistled, and he turned off the burner, measuring water and pouring it slowly over rice noodles he’d placed in a bowl. “Five minutes,” he said. “Time them for me?”
“You bet.”
“So that was the end of your conversation?” Isaac asked.
“He did say the marriage of Jesse Spurlock and Leah Blackburn was as expected and natural as the coming together of two royal families.”
“Except they all
didn’t
live happily ever after…”
“Maybe that’s the next installment.”
“You’re going on with this?”
“I’m hooked.”
He diced tofu. Tofu? She wouldn’t have guessed he even knew where to find it in a store. He minced garlic, chopped peanuts, sliced green onions on the diagonal, squeezed a lime into a cup. Her mouth was beginning to water.
She watched as he combined a variety of things, all aromatic and wonderful, in another bowl and set it aside. She issued a warning. “If you have anything else to combine, you’re out of luck. You’re now officially out of bowls. And it’s been five minutes, by the way.”
“Drain the noodles, K. C., and let me cook.”
She laughed and did, setting them aside in the colander.
Isaac stood back and raised his hands dramatically, as if he were about to conduct a symphony. “Now you get to watch the real fun. Master chef at work.”
“I am just so impressed.”
“Tell me about the fair.”
She did, ending with the story of Caleb and the camera. Isaac had heated two kinds of oil in her largest saucepan, and now, with one last flourish, he added shrimp.
“The camera was a good idea. How are his photos?” Isaac began to stir as the shrimp sizzled.
Over the noise, she explained about his lack of a computer on which to view the photos. “But I invited him here to use mine. Meantime, he might have made a start on finding friends today. But it was hard to watch him with the other boys. He’s so quiet. He hardly said a word.”
“Do you think he enjoyed himself anyway?”
She watched as he dumped all the vegetables he’d assembled into the pan with the shrimp, which had turned a lovely pink. “I hope so. Leon and Noah were friendly. Maybe Caleb will loosen up eventually.”
“I was just about that quiet.”
Isaac always seemed comfortable in social situations. He was reserved, but he always contributed. And the fact that he didn’t chatter worked well for him. When he spoke, people hung on his words.
“Were you?” She moved closer to inhale what was now definitely the aroma of excellent pad thai. “You’re so confident now.”
“Confidence took a long time and a lot of work.” He flipped vegetables and stirred like a pro. Finally he turned off the heat under the pan and, in a surprise move, put his arms around her, pulling her close. “Maybe I haven’t done enough work, K. C. Maybe I still keep too much to myself.”
“Like what?” She could barely find the breath for the words.
“Like not telling you how much I miss you. Not telling you how hard it is to have you so far away.”
“Then why haven’t you come to see me more often?”
He touched her cheek. “Did you want me to? You came here without me. You’re making a home without me. You’re making a life I have no part of.”
“You’re a part of everything I do, Isaac. Whether I want it that way or not. Whether you’re with me or somewhere else.”
“Did you come here to change that?”
“I came here to see if I could live without you.” She saw the pain in his eyes. She leaned closer. “Because I thought it was inevitable.”
“Thought?”
“Now I think we’ll both suffer if we let this relationship die without a fight.”
His arms tightened. “But I don’t want to fight. Not tonight.”
She looked into eyes as dark as the doubts that had tormented her since the shooting. She had always found them nearly impenetrable. For too long she had wondered what was behind those eyes, what feelings were hidden there. Now she knew better than to wonder. She knew she had to be sure.
“If we make love tonight, I want it to be a new start, Isaac. That means both of us have to try to find our way to something better. I’m not sure how we do it, but I know we have to make that commitment.”
He smiled a little, and suddenly she had no trouble reading his thoughts.
“I know how we can find our way to something better,” he said. “But not right here.”
“And what about my special dinner?”
He scooped her into his arms, as if she were a new bride about to cross a threshold. “I told you I’ve watched a lot of cooking shows?”
“Isaac…”
“Reheating is going to be my specialty.”
K
endra liked to sleep with Isaac. Awake, he was energetic but contained. He had learned to be careful about the space around him, only allowing his restlessness to boil over into prolonged bouts of exercise. In sleep, there were no restrictions. If she happened to be in the way, he incorporated her easily, pulling her close, wrapping arms around her, settling her against him. She liked to think that the affection he felt for her was most in evidence then, that in sleep he could express his longing for intimacy.
On the nights they’d slept together since the shooting, he had stayed on his side of the bed. Kendra had told herself he was afraid of hurting her, but the distance had stretched more than inches. In the end, she had been hurt because of him.
Early Sunday morning, she awoke with Isaac’s arms around her. Last night he had been careful when making love, still clearly afraid she was too fragile for more energetic sex, but once they were asleep, he had relaxed into old habits.
Viva
old habits.
She snuggled deeper into his arms and felt him kiss her hair.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Not as good as I could be.” She turned, her nose just a fraction of an inch from his.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m thinking last night was a practice session. To make sure we remembered what we were here for.”
“How’d I do?”
“You still seem to have the hang of it. But I think you need another session, just to make sure.”
“You’re okay?”
“Better than that.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to get up and have a big country breakfast? Seems to me you were half starved last night. You ate every bit of your pad thai.”
She pushed his hair off his forehead and wiggled her arms around his neck. “And some of yours.”
“I wasn’t going to bring that up.”
“Did you learn to cook a big country breakfast from the Food Network?”
“Not yet.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to settle for this.” She nudged his head down, his lips toward hers.
“K. C….”
“Uh-huh?”
His hand slipped between them, sliding over her abdomen and up to her breast. “I love you.”
He said those words so rarely. She knew what they cost him. Her breath caught. Her throat seemed to close. She cleared it. “It’s mutual. You know that.”
“How do things get so messed up?”
“Let’s just spend some time straightening them out.”
“I like the sound of that.” Then he kissed her.
An hour later, Isaac was sleeping so soundly that Kendra was able to slip out of bed and shower without him so much as moving. She grabbed her keys and went out into the clearing to her car.
When she returned half an hour later, coffee was brewing in the kitchen, and judging from the discordant rattle of the old water pipes, Isaac was in the shower. She set the table, and laid out the coffee cake and newspaper she’d purchased. When he came in, hair wet and shirt unbuttoned, she was lounging at the table, reading the headlines.
“Not the
New York Times
,” she said. “I know you need the comics.”
He kissed the top of her head before going to the counter to pour his coffee. “The
Post?
”
“Uh-huh.”
“My favorite journalist hasn’t written anything in a while.”
“Nor has she had much desire to.”
“You don’t miss the job?”
She had asked herself that every day, so the answer was easy. “Eventually I’ll feel the pull again. Just not yet.”
“You were so devoted.”
“It’s easy to get stuck in one track. When something tosses you out of it, you begin to realize there’s scenery you haven’t noticed.”
He joined her at the table and took the front section. “I’m not so sure you’ve moved that far out of it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re going about the search for my past the way you used to go after stories for the paper.”
“You’re not the first to make the connection.” She told him what Aubrey had said. “I think my job’s one of the reasons he’s reluctant to talk to me.”
“You say he’s in his nineties? And he remembered your byline?”
“I doubt he had much education, but his mind’s as focused as a laser beam. He remembers details most of us would never notice in the first place.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
She found that encouraging. “I’d planned to call Prudence Baker today, visit her if she’s free. Her mother, Puss Cade, was your grandmother’s best friend. The Cades lived on the farm between the Spurlocks and the Blackburns.”
“Puss?”
“Short for something, I’m sure.”
“And Puss is dead?”
“Yes, but Aubrey thought she might have told her daughter a few things. Sunday seems like a good day to visit her.” She paused. “Want to come?”
“I have to get back in a little while.” He folded his paper. “There’s a situation at work.”
Talking about the coming day felt like old times. She went for more coffee. “What kind of situation?”
He was silent for a moment. She almost thought he’d ignored the question in favor of something he was reading, but finally he looked up. “Something I need more information about.”
“Want to tell me?”
She listened as he explained to her about the purchase of Pallatine Mountain. “But why do you sound so cautious?” she asked, when he’d finished telling her how he had gotten Gary Forsythe to sell his land to ACRE. “Normally you’d be thrilled. It’s a big deal.” She filled his cup and set the pot on the table. “So what’s up?”
“There’s some debate about how we’re going to finance it. Our budget’s stretched, and people aren’t donating as much as they once did. Gas prices, the war…” He shrugged.
She tried to feel her way through his explanation. “For an organization that specialized in smaller properties, that wasn’t as much of a worry. But now that you’re moving into larger parcels, I guess it’s a bigger one.”
“And Dennis is determined to find ways to cope.”
Kendra didn’t particularly like Dennis Lavin. Her husband ignored personality in favor of results, but from their first meeting, she had been put off by Dennis’s narcissistic charm. ACRE’s new CEO reminded Kendra of her dental hygienist, a young man who talked incessantly about himself, secure that his patients were physically unable to respond. Dennis seemed to feel that same sense of power, only he didn’t need sharp instruments to enforce it. He had his position and his right to fire anyone who seriously disagreed with him.
“Are you worried about the methods he’s considering?” she asked.
“One of the possibilities is selling some parcels to ACRE supporters. We would put covenants on them, of course. But I’ve seen what’s being proposed.”
“And you don’t like the idea?”
“It’s not what I expected when I talked Forsythe into selling to us. He’s picturing no development. So was I.”
“Where is the land, exactly?”
“Not far from the Shenandoah National Park.”
“Wow…”
“It’s nothing to worry about. We’re meeting tomorrow to consider all the options. It’s always a balancing act.”
She thought that this particular act bothered him more than most. “Tell me about Pallatine. You’ve been there?”
“I hiked nearly the whole thing when you were in Guatemala researching Elisa’s story.”
“And?”
“It was logged back at the turn of the twentieth century, but that’s hardly evident now. Hunters are fond of it, so hiking it isn’t as hard as it sounds. They keep the trails passable for ATVs. But other than that, it’s a different world.”
“One you’d like to keep for posterity.”
“I’d like to see the land used for the public, but government budgets are tight for the same reasons donations are down. We have a lot to consider.”
She was surprised he hadn’t mentioned Pallatine before. In too many important ways, their lives had grown separate.
“I’d like to see it,” she said.
“You’re going to have to ease back into long hikes. Pallatine isn’t the best way.”
“Then I’d like to do some hiking in the park. The trails are well marked, and there’s a lot of information about them.”
“Maybe we could arrange that.” He looked up. “If you’d like to go together.”
She put her hand over his. “Who better to go with?”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
They finished breakfast in a companionable silence, breaking it only to read little snippets of articles to each other, the way they’d always done. She was sorry when he stood to pack the few things he’d brought. When he’d finished, she walked him out to his car.
“Maybe you could plan a whole weekend here,” she said, as he threw the pack into the backseat.
“Maybe you could plan a weekend at home.” He straightened to face her. “Are you ready?”
She didn’t know. She did know it wasn’t fair to expect Isaac always to come here. But this was home now, in a way the condo never had been. She wasn’t ready to leave.
“I have this cat,” she reminded him. “Maybe when Ten’s going in and out the cat door successfully…”
“Cat door?”
“Cash promised to install one.”
“We’ll have to figure out what to do with him when you move back to the city.”
She was spared an answer by the shouting of children. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them moving through the woods. From experience, she knew where they were and where they were going.
“There’s a path at the far edge,” she told Isaac. “Just a little footpath down to the river. It’s not a thoroughfare, but now that it’s warmer, they go down to tube. I can see them from the back of our house once they get down to the bank. I’m pretty sure they live nearby, because there’s a more direct pathway down the road a ways. I think our woods are just closer for this gang.”
“As long as they’re not up to mischief.”
“Not so far.” She hesitated. “I like to hear them laughing. It’s a sound I always expected to have in my life. I don’t want to give it up just because I can’t have kids.”
“From what I hear, having teenagers is highly overrated.”
“Like all good things, I’m sure it has its moments.”
“What would we have done with teenagers? Or infants? We’re both so busy. Our lives are too complicated. Once you come back home, you’ll immerse yourself in the paper again. We’ll have to schedule every minute together.”
She was stunned that for Isaac it all came down to time.
You can’t have children, Kendra? No reason to worry. It would be hard to fit them into our lives, anyway
.
It was as simple and as basic as that. Isaac hadn’t said it was better this way, but he’d certainly implied it. As if the most emotional, even traumatic, moments of her life, of the past months, were merely blips in her personal radar.
She tried to sound calm. “You’re assuming a lot.”
He misunderstood, or he chose to pretend he did. “I know we have to keep work in bounds. But even if we work half as hard as we did before, it would be tough to fit children into the mixture.”
“Things turned out the way they were supposed to, then?”
“You know I don’t believe in that kind of logic. But we can be reasonable and say that since we rarely talked about having children, we must not have wanted them very much.”
It was so cold-blooded, so rational—and so very wrong. Without even asking, he had made assumptions about her feelings. He had taken the loss in stride and assumed that, given their history, she was taking it in hers, as well. Her presence here, her reluctance to return to their home and her job, seemed not to have entered into his thinking at all. Those were bumps on the road to success, an odd little detour, and surely a temporary one.
She couldn’t speak. She was afraid to—afraid she would say something that sent him away for good. Conversely, she was afraid that she would not adequately convey, yet again, just how wrong he was and how devastated she was not to be able to share their deepest feelings.
She wondered if he had any inkling that there was anything to share.
Isaac glanced at her face, then down at his watch. “That wasn’t much breakfast. I have time to take you out for lunch before I head back.”
“No, you go ahead. I’m going to call Prudence Baker and see if she’s willing to talk to me this afternoon. She’s some distance away.”
He looked relieved. Perhaps offering lunch had been something of an apology. Maybe he realized he needed to back up and really talk to her. But she didn’t want to talk about children now. Not when anger was the only emotion she could tap.
“I don’t think there’s anything on my schedule next weekend,” he said.
He was waiting for her to ask him to come back. She could not find the words. “You know where I live.”
“It’s been a good weekend.”
She nodded and managed a smile. “Yes.”
He leaned over and kissed her; then, without looking at her again, he got into his car, backed around and drove away.
She took her time walking inside. She could feel tears threatening, but she wouldn’t give in to them. She went into the bedroom to get her purse and the phone number that Aubrey’s granddaughter had given her for Prudence Baker.
On the neatly made bed was a single sheet of paper. Isaac had drawn a cartoon of them embracing. It was both romantic and sexy. Her knee was nestled between his legs, her face turned up to his, her hair a mass of untamed curls. In a few simple strokes he had captured the essence of her features and a perfect come-hither expression. She read the words scrawled below it in Isaac’s forceful script.
Love is the shortest distance between two hearts
.
She rested the paper against her chest and closed her eyes.
“Except sometimes,” she said softly, “even the shortest distance is too far to travel.”
Prudence Baker lived just outside Flint Hill, about forty-five minutes away. Kendra took the interstate most of the way to make sure she didn’t get lost. She arrived at three, exactly when Prudence had told her to come.
On the telephone, Prudence had sounded as if she might be in her sixties, a number that jibed with everything Kendra knew. Had Puss Baker been alive, she probably would have been just a little younger than Aubrey. Prudence had sounded pleased Kendra was coming. She’d been told of the impending visit by Aubrey.