NESS, you shouldn’t be alone at a time like this,” Steffie told her. “If you don’t want dinner and you don’t want to drink, at least let me bring you some ice cream.”
Vanessa paused. “Ice cream would be good.”
“I’m on my way.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, Steffie arrived at Vanessa’s door with a bag filled with numerous paper containers, some napkins, and a couple of plastic spoons.
“I couldn’t decide what flavor, so I brought a bunch,” Steffie explained when Vanessa opened the door.
“Good.” Vanessa grabbed the bag and took it into the living room, where she plopped into a chair. “Let’s see… we’ll start with this one.”
“Don’t you want to see what flavors?”
Vanessa shrugged. “Flavor, schmavor. It doesn’t really matter.”
She handed Steffie the bag.
“You’ve had one hell of a day, girl.” Stef picked a random container out of the bag and opened it. “Maybe we should put the others in the freezer.”
“They won’t last long enough to melt,” Vanessa told her. “And yes, this was one hell of a day. To reiterate: my second husband’s crazy cousin Edmund breaks into my house, takes my mother hostage, and threatens to kill her unless I come here so that he can kill me…”
“Why’d you do it, Ness?”
“Why’d I do what?”
“Why’d you come back here knowing that crazy bastard had a gun?”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I’d just sat back and let him kill her.” Vanessa finished her first dish and went back into the bag for another. She opened the lid and looked at the contents. “This looks good. What is-”
“No, put that one back. Better yet, give it to me.” Steffie reached for it.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” Vanessa dipped her spoon in. “It’s yummy.”
Steffie sighed. “I made it yesterday and named it after Grady because he’d been such a sport about driving me to Scoop when it was very clear he had private plans for you.”
“You named an ice cream after him?” Vanessa’s spoon wavered halfway between the dish and her mouth. “What did you call it?”
“Mountain Man Fudge.”
“Mountain…” Vanessa started to giggle, then couldn’t stop, and before long, she was in tears, sobbing.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I should have made up some other name when you asked. I shouldn’t have brought him up at all.”
“It’s okay,” Vanessa wept. “It’s just that I didn’t expect him to leave so abruptly. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to have this one cry, then it’ll be done.”
“I should have followed my first instincts and brought a couple of bottles of wine,” Steffie muttered.
“No, no, I’ll be fine. I just need to cry it out.” She picked up the bag and swung it to Steffie. “This may take a while, though…”
“Take as much time as you need.” Steffie helped herself and returned the bag to the coffee table. “But just so I know… is he, Grady, a bastard for leaving that fast, or what?”
“I knew he was going. I knew he had this trail thing he does. Camping trip he was taking some people on. That’s how he makes his living.” Vanessa got up and went into the kitchen and came back with a box of tissues. “So it’s not like he misled me or deceived me or anything like that.” She blew her nose and appeared to think for a minute. “I think what hurts is that it feels so… unfinished. You know? Like there should have been more, but there isn’t going to be.”
“You liked him that much, huh?”
“I never knew anyone like him,” Vanessa said. “I guess if I were looking for someone for the long run… and we both know I’m not…”
“Right.”
“But if I were, I’d be looking for someone like him.”
“Ness?”
“What?” Vanessa sniffed and grabbed another tissue.
“He’ll be back.”
“Oh, sure, someday. Like when Mia and Beck have kids.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, could you see it if we were both godparents for the-”
“Stop it. He’ll be back. It won’t take that long.”
“What makes you think that?” Vanessa stopped sniffing.
“Because of the way, I don’t know, the way he looked at you when you were dancing the other night at the wedding. Like there was no one else in the room, no one else on the dance floor.”
“He was counting on getting lucky, Stef.”
“Maybe so, but I think it was more than that. I’m not always right when it comes to guys, but trust me on this one.” Steffie polished off the last bite of Mountain Man Fudge. “He’ll be back.”
Steffie’s words came back to Vanessa the next day when she was at the shop and taking delivery of an order of walking shorts, and later that same day when the glass cutter came to measure for replacing the window and the glass counter and shelf. And later still when she walked home that night to her quiet house and took a few frozen lemon cookies from the freezer. He’d called around midnight, apologized for the late hour, and said something about the different time zones, but the connection hadn’t been good, and eventually the line went dead.
Didn’t that just sum it all up?
She tried to read, and she tried to watch TV. She put her favorite movie into the DVD player and tried to find the humor, but even Ghostbusters couldn’t keep her focused. Her mind wandered, replaying the moments of the past ten days that she’d spent with Grady. It had all seemed surreal. She’d dated now and then over the past few years, but she hadn’t gotten involved with anyone since she moved to St. Dennis. Alternately, she berated herself for having fallen into a relationship with him so easily, and regretting that it had ended before she was ready to let him go.
The rest of the week brought more of the same. She met with her insurance agent, met with Hal and Sue and went over the very short list of items stolen by Edmund Dent. The only difference was that she was now sleeping in the spare bedroom. She’d tried sleeping in her own bed, but even after washing the bed linens, she swore she could still smell traces of his aftershave on the pillows, and that had made for one too many sleepless nights. She needed to be able to function if she were to get her shop organized to reopen as soon as the window was repaired. They were into June already and the foot traffic on Charles Street was picking up with every passing day. Her agent showed her how to calculate the amount of business loss she’d sustained-how much she was losing every day the shop was unable to open-so while she could expect some compensation for the interruption of her business, it wasn’t the same as having her shop open and dealing with the public. She loved Bling, her customers loved Bling, and she couldn’t wait till she could reopen. She missed the interaction, the fun of helping a customer find that exactly right something that made their face light up. Then, she figured, life would return to normal. All she really wanted was for things to feel normal again.
It was hard not to think that fate had been incredibly and deliberately unkind to her. The simple fact was that she’d met the best guy last. Everything about him had been right, except the timing.
Right guy, wrong time.
Hal sat on the chair in the corner of Maggie’s room at the Inn at Sinclair’s Point and watched her finish packing.
“… want to get things settled back there, close that book, so to speak,” she was saying. “I don’t know why Carl left that ranch to me instead of to his boys. No wonder they resent me.” She shook her head. “I have to make that right for them. I don’t deserve it and I don’t want it.”
“Have you told them that?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I called them on Tuesday morning and told them I’d be back before the weekend. I asked them to set up an appointment for Friday afternoon or Saturday morning with Carl’s lawyer so that I could make the arrangements to put it all in their names as soon as possible. They sounded shocked-I think they were afraid I’d sell it out from under them-but by the time we finished our conversation, I think they understood.” She closed her suitcase and turned to face him. “I’ll be very relieved once that is done. It’s been hanging over me like a dust cloud since Carl died.”
“And then what?”
“Then…” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’ll do then. I have a couple of options.”
“Would one of them be coming back here?”
“I would like that. I’m not going to pretend that I wouldn’t. I think over time, Vanessa and I can smooth things out between us. We may never be as close as some mothers and their daughters, but I think we can do better in the future than we’ve done in the past. But Beck… I don’t know that he’d ever be any happier to see my face than he was at the wedding.” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking, putting myself in a position that would only alienate him even more. I think he hates me, Hal.”
“Hate’s a strong word,” he told her. “It may not be all that bad.”
“Even you don’t sound as if you really believe that, but I thank you for trying to make me feel better.” She grabbed the handle of the suitcase and started to slide it off the bed, but Hal got up and took it from her hands. “And that is the very least I have to thank you for. You are the most amazing man I have ever known, and I’ve been waiting for a long time to tell you-”
“Now, Maggie, you don’t need to feel that you have to apologize.”
“It’s taken me forever to get up the nerve to say this, so let me have my say.” She cleared her throat and fought back tears, but she might never have this chance again, and he had to hear what she had to say. “I don’t understand all of what I’ve done in my life but that’s a topic for a different time. But what I do know, what I do understand, is that I’ve spent my entire life trying to find you again. In every relationship I had, every man I met, I was looking for you. I don’t expect you to forgive me-I can’t ask that of you after almost forty years-but I want you to know that I have never loved anyone but you. I know how that must sound to you after all this time, but it’s the truth. I can’t make up for all those years between then and now, but if you’d be my friend, Hal, I’d be grateful until the day I die.”
Hal put the suitcase down on the floor.
“Well, now,” he said, “I think that’s a good place to start. Relationships based on friendship are the best kind. But it’s going to be very hard for us to renew our… friendship if you’re in North Dakota and I’m here in Maryland.”
“Well, we can talk on the phone, and there’s email…”
“I was thinking maybe of something a little more personal.”
She stared up at him.
“I was thinking,” he continued, “that maybe you should come back to St. Dennis after you get your affairs in order out west. Your family’s here, Maggie. You can’t repair those relationships from far away.”
“Are you sure you’d be all right with that?”
“All right?” He smiled. “I’d be… well, I’d be very happy to see where friendship might lead us.”
Maggie could barely breathe.
“Okay, then.” She nodded. “I’ll do that. I’ll come back.”
He glanced at his watch. “We need to get you to the airport if you’re going to make that plane. Sometimes the traffic builds up on that bridge over the Bay and you can sit for hours.” He picked up her suitcase. “Got everything?”
“I think so.” She looked around the room. “Yes, I have everything.”
He opened the door and stepped aside to allow her to pass first, and walked down the wide stairwell alongside her. He chatted with Hamilton Forbes, the Realtor who’d sold him the house on Cherry Street, who was meeting his ex-wife, the mayor, Christina Pratt, for lunch. Grace Sinclair cornered him and pried the promise of an interview later that day about the arrest of Edmund Dent. Maggie joined him on the steps of the Inn while his car was brought around, and she wondered what all his friends were thinking as she and Hal left the Inn together, her suitcase in his hand.
Don’t I wish it were so. She sighed as she got into the passenger side of his car.
“What was that all about?” Hal asked as he got behind the wheel.
“Oh, I was just thinking how nice St. Dennis is.”
“Good. Then you will come back.”
“I said I would.”
They made small talk all the way to Baltimore. When they arrived at the airport, he parked the car and walked her as far as security. As she started to thank him for the ride, he grabbed her by both shoulders and kissed her soundly.
“I’ve had something to say that I’ve waited a long time to say, too.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her. “I never loved anyone else, either, Maggie. I never loved anyone but you. I ache for all the years we lost, but if we can have a few years to spend together, it might all work out all right.”
“How could you even think… after all I’ve done…” She broke down.
“Maybe I could have tried harder to find you back then,” he told her. “Maybe we both gave up too soon. All I know is that since you’ve been here this week, I’ve felt happier than I have in a long time. Don’t stay away, Maggie. Take care of your business, then come back.”
“Vanessa gave me the name of a doctor she spoke with here in town. She suggested that I call her for a referral to someone in North Dakota,” Maggie told him. “She thought maybe it would help me if I talked to someone.”
“Don’t ask for a referral. Keep the number, call her-Dr. Campbell-when you come back.” He kissed the top of her head. “Maybe we could both go.” Then he chuckled. “Maybe we could take Beck and get a group rate…”
“Oh, you.” She wiped the wet from her face with a tissue. “I need to go…”
“You go”-he kissed her one last time-“but come back to me, Maggie. This time, I’ll be the one waiting for you.”
“I won’t let you down, Hal.” She headed toward the security checkpoint, then turned and blew him a kiss. “I promise. This time, I won’t let you down…”