Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Мишель Смарт, Kate Hardy - Страница 50

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The next morning I was lolling in bed replaying my confession to Kai and coming to the horrible realization that he hadn’t exactly reciprocated with the whole sharing-your-feelings thing. Sure, I hadn’t really given him a chance, instead choosing to lock lips with him, but how did he feel in return? Would he leave in the early hours of the morning, avoiding a goodbye again? Surely not this time, after I’d opened up to him. This was why I tended to avoid romance; it was so damn messy and complicated. But oh so rewarding when a man could kiss the way Kai could and make you forget about the world around you. The problem was, I had forgotten everything and, after we’d chatted for a while about this and that, he’d headed up to bed. Alone. Was that a sign? A nice way of telling me no?

Rolling out of bed to start the day, I jumped as the phone rang. “Cedarwood Lodge.” I made my voice bright, even though it was a little early for phone calls and I hadn’t even had any caffeine yet. I went to the bay window, catching sight of Kai as he headed to the chalets, wearing his tool belt. He was still here, then, hadn’t done another midnight flit. My heart fluttered at the sight of him.

“Clio! It’s Tim. Have I caught you at a bad time?” I wrenched my gaze away from the window and traipsed downstairs, wondering why Tim needed me so damn early in the morning. “It’s OK, Tim. I’m just about to make coffee,” I said, pulling on my robe as I went.

“Still have it black with no sugar?”

I smiled, amused he remembered. My head was still so full of last night with Kai I needed a double shot of caffeine to get my brain into full-on party-planner mode. I shook the Kai daydream away, and focused on the call. “Still the very same. What about you? Milky white with two sugars?”

He laughed. “No sugar these days. Life is so boring when you’re an adult!”

When we were younger we’d had plenty of study sessions, cramming for exams, wired on so much coffee. The good old days when life was simple.

“What can I do for you, Tim?” I asked, pulling down a mug and reaching over for the coffee pot. Cruz must’ve been up already and brewed an extra-large jug for us, knowing that between me and Amory we’d guzzle it down like water.

“Just confirming you received my email about the jazz band?” The string quartet had been canned and we’d chosen a jazz band to fit the Gatsby theme instead.

“Yes, I did. All booked and confirmed.” Was he not getting my replies? I’d definitely emailed him straight back.

“That’s good to hear,” he said, his voice suddenly wistful. “What about the fireworks? Did the company return your call?”

Had they? I struggled to remember in my un-caffeinated state. Between us, Amory handled some of the suppliers, and I handled the rest. “I’ll have to double-check with Amory. I think she was pushing for silent fireworks so we don’t upset the animal life around Cedarwood, but still have the wow factor from the colors and patterns.” Proud puppy owner Amory had definitely changed her attitude since becoming a canine mom.

“OK, that makes sense. Let me know?”

“Sure, I’ll send you an email as soon as I find out.”

“Just call me, Clio. It’s easier when I’m out and about with clients.”

I frowned. Maybe he was simply nervous because there was so much hanging in the balance, and kept detail-checking out of angst? “OK. I’ll call you as soon as I talk to Amory.”

We hung up and I took a sip of my coffee, feeling it work its magic through my bloodstream. I checked my sent emails, and found I had sent all of the confirmation emails to Tim, and there was also one from Amory CC-ing me about the fireworks, which had been booked and were silent for the sake of the animals. Was it a technical glitch? Or was he making excuses to call me?

***

I stepped out of the front door and headed in the direction of the chalets, but froze in shock as Mom’s red hatchback turned into the driveway. We’d agreed she’d visit and we’d go to the maze, but I hadn’t thought she’d actually turn up. I thought she’d renege, or make up some flimsy excuse.

Watching her exit the car, she looked every bit her age today, and I knew this visit was costing her. She held the driver’s door for a moment, and looked in the direction of the woods. Hanging her head low, she shut it with a bang, and made her way to me.

“Mom, you came,” I said, going toward her and enveloping her in a hug.

She gave me a wobbly smile and nodded.

“Are you sure about this?” Now it was time to confront the past, I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. She was so thin, so fragile. I didn’t want to lose her again after the progress we’d made.

With a shuddery breath she said, “I’m sure, Clio. Let me show you my maze, my downfall.”

I grabbed my coat and gloves, and gave Mom another wooly scarf.

We headed toward the woods, heads bent against the sheeting winds. It was a long trek, and probably one of the reasons I’d never found the maze as a child. I’d been scared of the woods, and wouldn’t have ventured too far in for fear I’d get lost. Micah had preferred running up the mountains, and that had been that.

“Did you design the maze?” I asked, knowing how much Mom had always loved gardening.

She nodded as we trudged through copses of trees, thrust into shadows.

“It was supposed to be the greatest thing ever,” she said wistfully. “This feat of topiary. My parents had been friends with the owners of the lodge for as long as I could remember, and Morty had always been kind – letting me follow him around the gardens. Come summer we were out together every day, planting, and planning. He treated me like an adult, and not the child I was when I first played here. He completely understood my love of horticulture, and tried to guide me, went out of his way to teach me what he knew. So when we came across this clearing I had the most spectacular idea…” She tailed off as we got deeper into the woods.

“Building a maze?” I asked. Morty, I knew, had been the previous owner of the lodge, but knowing he’d shared Mom’s love of gardening was something new.

Mom nodded. “Not just any maze: a maze that would be a work of art, and almost impossible to navigate. Dead ends, and false laneways. I designed it and we planted it. It took years for it to mature, of course. Morty pretty much left me to my own devices, not really believing I could accomplish it, I think. But I was determined. Years passed and, when I was a teenager, they hired me for real, and I worked the grounds here. It was my dream job, just like it’s Isla’s. I loved plunging my hands into the fertile soil, helping plants thrive.” She lapsed into silence and I reached over to take her hand. I hoped she’d see the gesture as a show of support. I knew how hard this was for her, reliving the past, going back to a time that obviously tormented her still.

After a good twenty-minute hike we suddenly came upon it. I would have missed it if Mom hadn’t paused and stared at it, her eyes filling with tears. The area was so overgrown it almost looked like every other part of the woods, except for one tiny difference – the clearing it was sitting in once you got past the outer bank of forestry.

“Why did I have to be so hellbent on making it impossible to navigate? I ask myself that every day.”

“What happened, Mom?”

Her hands fell to her sides, and she closed her eyes and craned her neck to the sky. “I still feel her, after all these years I still feel her here.” She tapped her heart.

“Who?”

“Tabitha. Little Tabby cat, we called her.”

“Was she your daughter?” I held my breath, thinking of the black and white grainy pictures, the baby who grew into a toddler. The rocking horse on the front porch.

“No, no, of course not! Is that what you thought?” She looked at me incredulously.

I bit my lip, and shrugged.

“No, Tabby was their daughter. But she was my shadow, just like I’d been Morty’s all those years ago. She followed me everywhere like a little pup. I should have known when she went missing where she’d be, but I just didn’t think.”

I grappled with the details but didn’t dare interrupt. Mom needed to tell this story at her own pace, so instead I let her talk, let her words wash over me and hoped that through the telling she’d find a way to move forward.

“The lodge was jumping that summer. They needed it too.” Her voice sounded almost dreamlike as she recounted her memories. “It had been hard going and they nearly lost Cedarwood so many times before that. But finally, families were swimming and sunbathing by the lake, some were playing croquet on the green lawns, the scent of roses heavy in the air, laughter punctuating the day. Guests were arriving by the carload, and Morty and his wife were checking them in and showing them to suites or chalets.”

I could envisage Cedarwood as it would have been back then, a bright summer’s day, people dotting the landscape. The heady feeling of a long hot summer spent with family and friends, and no schedule.

“I remember feeling this sudden sense of dread, even though the sun was shining, the guests were singing, dancing, parading in swimsuits… I couldn’t say why, but something just felt off. When Morty realized Tabby wasn’t in the kitchen where he’d left her he asked me to find her because it was time for her dance lesson.” Mom took a deep breath before pressing on. “So I searched in the usual places, that same feeling of unease creeping over me. When I couldn’t find her, I told Morty, and he got the strangest look on his face – fear. His wife, too, was almost frantic. Tabitha was too young to be wandering off alone; she couldn’t swim, for one thing. We must have checked the lake a dozen times. Before long the guests were searching alongside us. They recognized the distress on our faces.”

I gulped, my heart hammering in my chest at Mom’s recall. In my heart I knew something terrible had happened to Tabitha, but I hoped I was wrong. I waited for Mom to continue.

“Then it hit me,” she said, her eyes a little wild. “The maze. We’d been at the maze that morning. She’d toddled after me as I hid the scavenger-hunt prizes in its hedgerows. She’d been desperate to know what the little gift boxes contained…” Shaking herself, Mom carried on. “…So I broke into a run, trying all the while to calm myself down. She’d only been missing a few hours, so even if she was lost in the maze she would be safe.” Mom took a shuddery breath, tears running in rivulets down her face. “I dashed in, screaming her name, getting lost myself because I was so frantic to find her. I hoisted myself up, and tried to balance on top of the hedges so I could look over the top, and I saw a flash of blue. Her blue dress. I scaled over the side and made my way through the laneways. She was OK, I could see her – she was wearing her little cornflower-blue pinafore, the same one from that morning. I expected to feel relief, but still I had that overwhelming sense of dread.”

Mom paused and I wished I could offer her some comfort.

“I got to her.” Her voice sounded strangled, “At first it was like she’d fallen asleep, but when I got closer… her tiny neck was at an unnatural angle, and her eyes were open, unblinking. She was dead and it was all my fault. She must have tried to climb up to get out when she reached a dead end, only to fall and break her neck. If I had thought of searching the maze hours earlier we would have found her alive. If I hadn’t designed the thing to be so goddamn difficult she might have found her way out. But she was gone. When I picked up her lifeless body and made the arduous journey to her parents, part of me died right there. That walk was the longest of my life and with every step I wished I was dead instead of her, but I was left to deal with what I’d done.”

My pulse skidded with shock. I couldn’t imagine how Mom had found the strength to walk with the lifeless little girl in her arms. I laid my hand across her arm as tears slid down my cheeks. “But Mom, don’t you see, it wasn’t your fault? You built a maze that would have drawn tourists to the lodge. You couldn’t have foreseen an accident like that would happen.”

She wiped at her face, pulling her arm away almost angrily. “It was my fault, Clio. I should have known to search for her here. I just wasn’t thinking at all. I’d been so worried she was in the lake that I completely forgot about the scavenger-hunt prizes, and how curious she’d been. I should have known she’d come here.”

I shook my head, but she was so adamant, though I just couldn’t see how this could ever be her fault. It was a tragedy, yes, but it had been an accident. “Her parents didn’t blame you, though, did they?” I said in a small voice.

Mom hugged herself tight, looking torn. “I don’t know. They were in shock, completely and utterly grief-stricken. Morty kept trying to revive her, pressed his mouth against her blue lips and tried to breathe life back into her. His wife was on her knees keening, a primal sound I still hear every night when I try to sleep. Police came, the guests left, and the lodge closed. I couldn’t face anyone. I locked myself away, and Bessie says I had a breakdown, not that I remember it really. I spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, but that felt like cheating because the drugs numbed all thought and that wasn’t fair to Tabitha.

I had to suffer like she suffered, so eventually I came home. By then, Morty had left. Just walked out the door one night. Clio, their grief shattered their lives and wrenched them apart. Eventually his wife left too. Just abandoned the place. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I wouldn’t have, probably. I never wanted to see them again, knowing the blame I’d see in their eyes when they looked at me.”

I cried with Mom, for all the hurt, all the guilt she felt. The way she’d suffered her whole life for an accident that truly wasn’t her fault. Choking back her sobs she turned to me, and said, “Then I met your dad. I didn’t want to fall in love, but I did. I definitely didn’t want to have children, but then you came along… I was happy, which felt like the worst kind betrayal. How could I have a child when they’d lost theirs? But I loved you, how I loved you the very moment I met you. And then I thought, but what if I lose you too? What if you were snatched away as punishment? It was easier to hold myself back from you, not to tempt fate by showing how I felt. Not giving into those overwhelming feelings of love.”

“Oh, Mom…” I’d never in a million years have guessed it was all as complicated as that. What a waste her life had been, punishing herself, and pushing me away so I wouldn’t get taken from her, because she felt she didn’t deserve to have a child she loved. I moved to hug her. Her shoulders were wracked with sobs and I stroked her back, hoping to comfort her.

“You have to let the past go, Mom. You can’t keep blaming yourself.”

She sniffed and nodded. “I know. But it just feels so wrong, like I’m disgracing her memory.”

“You’ve suffered long enough, Mom. No one would begrudge you happiness. No one.”

She remained silent and I thought about the Evergreen townsfolk and how well they’d kept her secret. “You realize no one spoke out of turn about you? All the people I asked kept their lips clamped closed because they didn’t want you to have to relive it. That says a lot about you, and the way Evergreen locals regard you, Mom. They don’t blame you, so maybe it’s time you forgave yourself.”

She nodded stiffly but didn’t speak, and together we turned to stare at the maze, the place that had haunted her for so long. Would she finally forgive herself? Surely she’d lived with this grief for far too long now.

***

“Let’s take Scotty for a walk?” Amory asked, interrupting my thoughts, her eyes clouded with concern for me. Since Mom had left I’d been staring out the bay window, watching the snow drift lazily down while I tried to reconcile everything I’d heard. I nodded. A walk would do me good.

“You’d better put his little vest on,” I said, glancing at the overexcited puppy, who’d just learned the meaning of ‘walk’.

I’d laughed over the last week as packages had arrived for Amory at an endless rate. She’d found an online doggie designer who made everything from coats to t-shirts. I’d have put money on the fact that Scotty’s mini wardrobe probably had more designer labels than mine.

“Ah, so you’re saying you don’t think my puppy purchases were so silly now?” She arched a brow.

I giggled. “Well, I think a doggy jumper is probably wise in the snow… I’m just not sure about the design.”

She rolled her eyes. “Doggy denim is hot right now, and how much does it suit the caramel tones of his fur?”

“Oh my God, you’re one of the designer doggie moms. How sad for you, Amory.” Scotty tried to escape her clutches as she wrestled yet another doggy jumper on him.

“Yeah, I know! How sad am I.” She giggled, not sad in the slightest.

We wound on scarves, and made our way outside, the cold, crisp air stealing the breath from my lungs.

“Have you spoken to Kai today? I didn’t see him at breakfast, which is unlike him,” she said, wrinkling her brow.

“He was heading to the chalets the last time I saw him, but then Mom came over…” I trailed off, the unspoken words hanging in the air.

“God, that view just never gets old,” Amory said, pointing to the snow-covered mountains in the distance, gray, somber skies above filling the silence we’d lapsed into. “It always sort of shocks me when I walk outside and see the sky, rather than a skyscraper. It stuns me for a second, every single time, and then I wonder how I lived so long without a place like Cedarwood in my life. If I had to leave Evergreen, I’d miss it every single day.”

Gone was the high-heel-wearing Manhattanite, gone was the girl who’d spend an hour doing her hair every single morning. Cedarwood had gotten under her skin, she’d swapped heels for boots, sleep-ins for morning walks, and straight hair for windblown curls. Life was so much easier here, so natural.

Scotty ran past us, barking at a rabbit who hopped past, easily evading his curiosity.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened with your mom?” Amory asked.

I spent the next hour explaining everything to my best friend, how I’d felt growing up, and what I thought would happen to my mom now the secret was out.

“Golly, goes to show you just never know what someone is really going through,” she said, shaking her head.

“I know,” I replied with a nod.

Amory hugged herself tight, calling Scotty back from the dense foliage by the lake. “I think you did the right thing, getting her to come out here. To explain it to you in person and face up to the past. Now you can both finally move forward. It’s time to focus on the future.”

“What about the maze?”

“Ask your mom. Involve her in it. What does she want? Really, you can understand if she wanted it to remain hidden. Maybe you could plant a rose garden there, in memory of the child. Something to honor her, and what happened.”

“That’s a great idea, Amory. It would be nice to remember Tabitha, not hide away from it any more.” I gazed out across the expanse of water, still frozen, waiting for spring to come bringing its thaw. “Maybe it would also give Mom a sense of closure.”

“Oh, darling, it definitely would. I mean, look at what your mom’s been through, and how she punished herself for so long over a tragic accident. It’s so bloody sad. I hope she starts to forgive herself soon.”

“Me too.” I turned back to my best friend and smiled, feeling the pressure of the secret lift off my shoulders. “Thanks, Amory. It’s so nice to be able to talk about it openly now.”

We walked in silence for a while before I said, “So, you know we have nothing booked for the next two weeks, and after that we’re going to be super-busy the way our bookings and enquiries are going.”

“Yeah, and where exactly are you going with this little tidbit?” She stared me down, provoking a laugh. She knew me too well.

“Well, if you wanted to go for a quick vacation, I don’t know, to South America…”

She swatted me on the arm. “You minx. Threaten to push me over a cliff, you would, just so I’d agree to meet the parents. You know,” she said more seriously, “I think I might take you up on that, though, because it does seem really important to Cruz, and I’m a bit of a harridan for saying no before, aren’t I?”

“You’re not a harridan.” I searched her face, so glad to have her here and realizing she was truly a different person to the one who’d arrived a few months ago. It wasn’t that she was maturing – she could still be the most childish person I knew – but she stopped to think about other people more, considered their feelings, their wants and needs ahead of her own. While we were busy at the lodge, we also had more time to reflect; the peace and quiet of the place gave you ample time to think about life and love and everything in between. It was shaping Amory in a way I hadn’t seen before. Already perfect in my eyes, she was just losing that prickly edge she sometimes showed the world to hide her vulnerability.

“Will you puppysit?” she asked suddenly, shaking me out of my reverie. “When we go to South America? I mean, I’m only going for a week. I absolutely refuse to leave you and Scotty for any longer than that, no matter what Cruz says!”

I smiled. “Of course. Scotty will be fine with me.” It would make the lonely nights easier, when they were gone. Kai would be gone by then too… At least I’d have a little ball of fur to curl up with.