Читать книгу Sunrise Cabin - Stacey Donovan - Страница 9

chapter four

In his office, Dylan finished booking his next upcoming trip to a conference in New York. Out on a Monday, back on a Thursday morning. He wasn’t looking forward to it. Hours of meetings. Awkward conversations with strangers. And delivering a presentation about how Hammersmith Capital was basically the most incredible firm on the planet. At least it was only a two-day conference, though after that he’d be meeting with a prospective client.

He closed the laptop and shoved it into his bag. It was five-forty-five, and he had to slink out without looking like he was slinking. That was the only way he could make it to Dee’s party on time after buying her cupcakes at the grocery store.

They’d probably be a lot cheaper than the cupcakes he’d bought for Paige. He’d surprised himself by doing that. He wasn’t in the habit of making random generous gestures. It had been for a good cause, he told himself. And seeing her blush had been a reward.

Where did she live? Where had she gotten that sunny attitude of hers? What was she writing in that journal?

It had been a random encounter at a coffee shop. That was all. He needed to get out more.

And he needed to get out now. The first half of his route held no danger: the kitchen was on his way, and anyone might believe he was on his way for yet another cup of coffee.

Brian Walker, whose cubicle was right by Dylan’s office, looked up. He was the new hire—or newer hire. He’d been hired a few months ago, and on his first day, he’d filled his cubicle with pictures of his family and friends. That had struck Dylan as soft and sentimental, but he’d dismissed it with a mental shrug. To each his own.

Dylan hadn’t as much as said hello to the guy in three days, so he said, “Hey Brian, how’s it going?”

Brian sighed. “Not great. I think this girl I went out with is avoiding me.”

Seriously? In what world was How’s it going? an invitation to tell someone, a coworker no less, how it was really going? Someone needed to explain this to him. But Dylan didn’t have time to go into the finer points of what passed for social interaction at Hammersmith Capital. “Sorry to hear that,” he said lightly. “Hope she comes around.” He started to move on.

“I don’t know,” Brian said, completely missing his cue to stop talking. “I should call her and ask what’s up, right? Are we a thing or not a thing?”

Dylan could think of no reasonable way to get out of the conversation. “I wouldn’t do that.” It sounded needy. In any relationship, business or otherwise, the person who cared more had less of the power. “You don’t want to be too nice. I’d wait for her to call.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Brian looked unconvinced.

“Well, good luck.” Dylan continued toward the exit before the guy could say anything else. He passed his coworker Josh’s office, where Kyle stood talking to Josh. “Did you see the look on his face? I thought he was going to cry.” Both men laughed. Kyle caught Dylan’s eye and Dylan automatically smiled, as if he’d be in on the joke if he had the time.

“Hey Cain,” Kyle said, coming over to the office door. “Got your email about Wakefield Properties. Why do you think that tax break is going away?”

“It’s for green companies, and they’re not green.” It irritated Dylan. The tax break had been intended for undeveloped forestland, not commercially run golf courses.

Kyle’s broad, freckled face lit up with amusement. “It’s crazy, right? It’s a ton of money, too. But we already checked it out. It’s totally legal.”

“Yeah, all right.”

“You worry too much,” Kyle said good-naturedly as he retreated back into Josh’s office. Finally, Dylan was alone to make his escape.

He was almost to the exit when the door to the men’s room opened and his boss emerged.

“Hey, Mark,” Dylan said.

Mark squinted at him. From behind the glint of his glasses, his small blue eyes, almost colorless, were barely visible. “You getting takeout? I might want something. Unless you’re going to Jade Palace. That place is trash.” Dylan loved Jade Palace.

Restaurant runs were common around this time of day. The company paid for them: a thoughtful perk to encourage them to work through the dinner hour and beyond.

“I’ve actually got to head out. It’s a family thing.” Dylan hoped the tone of his voice suggested some kind of emergency rather than a grown sibling’s birthday party.

Mark blinked and licked his lips, his tongue flicking out quickly like a lizard’s. Dylan braced himself. Mark did that every time he had a last-minute job for someone. “I need you to take another look at the modeling for Hartley. We’ve got some new inputs.”

“Another look” meant a couple of hours at least. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning at five.”

Dylan could almost hear his future self cursing as he climbed out of bed.

His boss pursed his chapped lips. “Did you hear Jeffries is no longer with us?”

Kevin Jeffries? He’d been hired less than a year ago. Had he left, or had he been fired? “Is that right?” Dylan asked.

Mark nodded. “We’re not making a big announcement.”

Fired, then. They never announced that. Everyone pretended the person had never existed. Dylan got a heavy feeling in his chest. Kevin and his wife had just had a baby girl.

It wasn’t a job for a new dad. Maybe Kevin would be better off in the long run.

Elaine approached them, her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going to Jade Palace,” she said. “Dylan, you want your usual?”

Elaine, a heavyset brunette who was always perfectly put together, was a few years older than Dylan. That made her the oldest person there who hadn’t made VP yet.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to go,” Dylan said. “Family emergency.” Elaine made a noncommittal mmm noise that might’ve meant she didn’t believe him. Dylan half-raised a hand in an awkward farewell and headed for the exit.

An hour later, two packages of grocery store cupcakes in hand, he knocked on the front door of Dee and Paul’s one-story house in the suburbs.

Dee opened the door and beamed at him. “Hey, come on in!” The laughter and conversation of guests buzzed in the house behind her. Judging from her casual sweater and jeans, she truly hadn’t expected a party.

“Happy birthday, sis.” After shifting the cupcakes to one hand, he leaned down to hug her. “I guess I’m late.”

“Not really. I just got here.”

Dylan spotted his father across the room: a man of about seventy, with thinning, graying hair and glasses. He’d dressed up for the occasion, in a button-down shirt and khakis. As soon as they made eye contact, his dad came over. He looked slightly hunched, and Dylan recalled Dee saying that his back had been giving him trouble.

“Hello, there,” his dad greeted him. “How’s work?”

“Brutal,” Dylan said. “With all that’s going on with the markets, it’s making things hard.” His dad had always been his own height, about six feet even, but now it seemed like Dylan was looking down a little to talk to him. It unsettled Dylan, almost making him feel sorry for his father, when he preferred not to have any strong feelings about him at all.

“You should take a break sometime. Why don’t you come over and watch the game with me next week?”

They never watched the game together. In fact, Dylan never visited him at the townhouse he’d bought after he’d retired a few years ago. “Yeah, maybe. Monday nights are always bad, though.”

One of Dee’s children, Connor, ran up to them. “Grandpa, guess what?”

Dylan’s dad leaned down, giving the boy his full attention. “What?”

“Mom says I can get a pet lizard. If I get all A’s and B’s.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. You did it last time.”

Dylan raised his eyebrows at the reply. When he’d been a kid, his dad hadn’t even looked at his good grades before signing his report card—or if he had, he hadn’t commented on them.

His father now asked Connor, “What got you interested in lizards?”

The boy basked in the older man’s attention. “My friend Quentin has one. Do you want to play my new videogame with me?”

Dylan’s father looked sincerely regretful. “Oh, you know those aren’t my thing.”

So he’d at least tried before. As a grandpa, he was doing a good job. Better late than never.

Dylan went to the kitchen and set the cupcakes down on the counter. Dee leaned closer to him and said, “That’s Allison in the gray sweater.” She inclined her head ever so slightly in the direction of the women he’d just passed.

Dylan glanced over and saw the tall brunette looking right back at him. She smiled and then returned her attention to her friend. “Am I supposed to know who that is?” he asked his sister under his breath.

“I told you about her,” she whispered back. “Connor is friends with her son? She lives down the street? Come on. It’s been forever since you dated.”

Dylan opened his mouth again to explain that the timing wasn’t right for a new relationship of any kind when Dee straightened and said, “Hi, Allison!” Dylan turned around as the brunette walked over to them.

“Hi! Do you need any help?”

“Oh, no, I think Paul took care of everything. I don’t think you’ve met my brother. This is Dylan. Dylan, this is my friend Allison.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dylan said.

“You too. Dee’s told me a lot about you. You’re in investment banking, isn’t that right?” When he nodded, she added with a smile, “So you must be pretty smart.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he answered easily. “What do you do?” He listened as Allison talked about pharmaceuticals, asking at an appropriate moment, “How long have you been working there?”

How long had Paige been a teacher? Her students probably adored her.

She hadn’t worn a wedding ring, but for all he knew, she had a boyfriend. Maybe a fellow teacher, someone with whom she could happily discuss crayons or phonics or whatever teachers talked about for hours on end. Or maybe he was a guy with a beard who brewed his own craft beer and played in a band. Thinking about the possibilities set Dylan’s teeth on edge.

“Dee told me you run marathons,” Allison said, shifting the conversation back to him. She had good social skills. He had to give her that.

“Yeah, I’ve run a few of them.”

He’d almost always been a runner. In middle school, he’d joined the cross country team, and at every meet, he’d gone as hard as he could.

He’d never won, though he’d usually come close. He hadn’t been born with natural athletic gifts. In place of them, he’d developed a high threshold of exhaustion and pain. At a sports banquet, he’d gotten an award for athletic and academic performance combined. Grueling effort resulted in approval. He’d learned that equation before he’d gotten to high school.

“Everyone come sing happy birthday,” Paul called out. The interruption relieved Dylan. Paul stuck birthday candles into four of the cupcakes. “One for each decade,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dee joked. “I’m turning twenty-nine.” Someone flipped off the lights and the candles cast a golden glow on her face.

She looked good for forty. More important, she looked happy. She seemed to like her part-time receptionist job, and she truly loved being married to Paul and being the mom to a couple of energetic sons. Despite her joking, she didn’t seem to mind the milestone birthday. So why did it give Dylan a vague sense of panic, as though time were suddenly moving all too quickly?

They all sang “Happy Birthday” and then Connor called out with gusto, “Make a wish and make it good!” Everyone laughed, but it startled Dylan. Their grandfather had always said that.

Dee scrunched up her face. “Hmm, let’s see,” she said, making a show of deciding what to wish for. Then she blew out all four of the candles, and people cheered.

A few hours later, the last guests left, including Dylan’s dad, who hugged the boys goodbye. Paul was already loading the dishwasher, and Dylan gathered up empty wine glasses.

“I’ve got something to show you,” Dee told Dylan, getting her phone out. “You will never believe this.” Some weird story about someone they went to school with, Dylan guessed.

She showed him a picture.

“Oh, wow,” he said. Grandma and Grandpa Cain’s cabin had a real estate sign in the front yard: Coming Soon.

“I drive by there every once in a while,” she said. “I already showed Dad. I think part of him wanted to buy it, but he says he’s getting too old to move again.”

“I want to see,” Connor said. “What is it?”

Dee showed him. “This was your great-grandma and grandpa’s house.” She beckoned to her younger son. “Come here, Noah, look. Your Grandma Cain’s mom and dad lived here.”

Connor’s eyes got bigger. “It looks like Abraham Lincoln’s house.”

Dylan laughed. “Yeah, exactly, it’s a log cabin.”

“We used to stay with your great-grandma and grandpa on some weekends,” she told the boys. “And some summers.”

“And your mom and I would come over on Christmas morning and open presents,” Dylan added. “They always had a real Christmas tree.”

Their dad hadn’t put up a tree after their mom had died. Dylan’s memories of his mom were hazy—no more than fleeting images—but Dee remembered those early, happy times well. For Dylan, the best times had been at the cabin.

Connor frowned. “Why were you there so much?”

Dee gave Dylan a quick glance. “Just for fun,” she answered her son, her voice light. Dylan wouldn’t have expected her to explain that their dad hadn’t been the best father.

Dylan gestured for the phone again and took another look at the photo. He wished he could see a glimpse of the inside through the windows. His grandparents had often left them open on warm nights to let in the breeze and the chirping of crickets.

“I wonder if there’s any of Grandma and Grandpa’s stuff in there,” Dee mused.

“I don’t think so. Aunt Maureen cleaned out the place when Gandma went into assisted living.”

She frowned. “I wish Dad had gotten the cedar chest for me.” Her voice carried a hint of bitterness.

“What cedar chest?” Then he remembered. “The thing she kept sweaters in?”

“Yes! She had things from her wedding in there. Like her bridal veil. She’d let me put it on and pretend I was getting married. And there was, um—a sixpence, I think. Brides back then would put one in their shoe for good luck.” Dee shook her head at the loss.

“You should buy the cabin,” Dylan blurted out. Connor and Noah could grow up there. It would be amazing.

She laughed. “Seriously?”

The boys probably wouldn’t like not having their own rooms, though. And Paul and Dee might not want to share a bathroom with them. “It’s small, but you could build an addition.”

She shook her head. “We just bought this house last spring. And the cabin isn’t even in the same school district.” She tilted her head and admitted, “Not that I didn’t think about it.”

Dylan’s memories of being there were sunlit, easy, so unlike the drabness of the rest of his existence then…and his existence now. He’d never been one to dwell on the past. Just the opposite, really. But now he thought, I want it. I want it all back.

He couldn’t get it all back, of course. He was a grown man. His grandparents were gone, in a better place. But the experience of being in the house, and all the good feelings he’d had there…he could have them again.

“I’m going to buy it,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“I’ve been thinking about buying instead of renting. It’s a good investment.”

“That’s why you want to buy this house?” she teased. “For financial reasons?”

Dylan nodded. “Sure.” The whole idea of buying it made him feel light inside, the way buying a new car hadn’t—the way no other purchase could have. It felt like life and possibility opening up again. “And the boys would love it there.”

Dee’s eyes sparkled. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“I like it,” Noah declared.

She leaned over and gave him a quick hug from behind. “It’s not a sure thing. Your uncle isn’t going to be the only one who wants it.”

Dylan said, “Nobody’s going to want it as much as I do.”

“You know what, if you tell them we used to stay there as kids, I bet it’d help.”

“That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

“Because then the seller would ask for the moon. ‘Actually, we want twenty million dollars for this place.’” Connor and Noah giggled. This was good. The boys were learning sound bargaining practices.

“You’ve got a point,” she admitted. “Well, I’ll let you tell Dad.”

“Sure.” Dylan didn’t expect to tell him any time soon, though. Why would he, until it was a done deal?

Dee wanted him to talk to their dad more. He knew that. But she’d always been bossy, the way big sisters could be, even if these days she expressed her bossiness in more tactful ways. She had all kinds of ideas about how Dylan’s life ought to go, but Dylan was pretty sure he knew better than anyone else what was right for him. Maybe he and Dad weren’t close, but they got along okay, and that was more than a lot of people could say.

Dee looked down at the photo on her phone again. “I still miss them, you know? Especially on birthdays.”

That had probably been why she’d driven by the place this week. “They knew how to do birthdays right,” Dylan said.

“And Sunday mornings,” Dee reminded him. “Remember how Grandma would always make muffins?”

The memory came back to Dylan so vividly that he could almost smell them. Fresh-baked, flavored with maple syrup, studded with pecans. “They were so good.”

Connor said, “Uncle Dylan, I have a question.”

“Yeah, buddy, what is it?”

“Will you take me to Happy Harvest?”

Dylan frowned at the sudden change of topic. “What’s that?”

Dee said, “Happy Harvest Farms. You can go there and pick apples and choose your own pumpkin from the patch. We were going to go, but we’ve got the church yard sale.”

Connor gave his mother a wide-eyed, resentful look. “Brandon said this is the last weekend for the apples. And you get to climb the trees and it’s awesome.”

Poor kid. That did sound like more fun than hanging out at a yard sale while his parents volunteered. But Dylan couldn’t make plans for Saturday. Who knew what would be going on at work?

“Your uncle’s very busy,” Dee said.

Paige came to his mind yet again. Everyone’s busy, she’d said. Not just you. And again he had the sensation of time moving too quickly, summer to fall to winter, grandparents gone, a beloved cabin gone, he and Dee not exactly young anymore…

He could do it. The idea of visiting an orchard actually did appeal to him, and spending a few extra hours with his nephews was a good idea. “I’ll take them.”

Connor punched a fist in the air. “Yes!”

Dee’s eyebrows raised. “You’re sure? You’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

Really? He was a grown, responsible man. “I’ve taken them places before.”

“Well, it’s been a while. They’ve gotten faster and sneakier.”

“We’ll be good,” Connor said. “I’m going to go tell Noah!”