A Warmth in Winter (25 page)

Twin stains of scarlet appeared on her cheeks. “Maybe,” she'd said, smiling. “Just a little.”

Salt shut off the water and wiped his hands on a dishtowel, then leaned on the counter and smiled at the children's antics. Bobby was trying to build a snowman, but the ball he'd rolled looked more like an egg than a sphere. In an effort to help, Brittany was packing snow onto the top, caking the white stuff into her knitted mittens. Tallulah and Butch, the bulldog that lived in town, were barking and biting the snow.

Salt bit his lip. He'd told the kids they could play outside for half an hour, no more. Though he could well understand how active children could go stir-crazy living in a one-room house, the weather was too cold and the risk of discovery too great to allow them outside much longer.

Still, it did them good to play like this, and it did his heart good to see them having fun. Tomorrow he'd give them some pointers on how to shape a snowball, maybe even dig out an old scarf and corncob pipe. Working together, the three of them could build a perfectly lovely snowman—

He swallowed. No, they couldn't. Though the townspeople didn't often come up to Puffin Cove in the winter, he never knew when one of them might take a notion to walk up and stand by the rocks or look for puffins on the shore. And if they saw a snowman in front of the lighthouse, they'd think the lightkeeper had gone daffy.

Movement from the south caught his eye. Salt drew nearer to the window, pressing his hand against the glass as he struggled to see around the corner. A golf cart was slowly spinning up the snow-covered path, its vinyl cover glaring in the sun.

It might be Birdie. Then again, it might not.

Salt pounded on the glass, but the children didn't hear. For an instant he thought about raising the sash, but the storm window beyond that had a tendency to stick.

He sprinted toward the door, his heart pounding. “Bob! Brittany!” He stepped out into the crisp cold and waved for their attention. “Quick! Come inside!”

Without hesitation the children moved away from the mounded snow and lumbered toward him, two padded figures in bright colors. Bobby turned to see who was coming, but Salt threw an arm around the boy's shoulder, pulled him into the house, and slammed the door.

“What if it's Miss Birdie?” Bobby asked, a note of wistfulness in his voice. “She might be bringing us some more gingerbread.”

“Or some Werther's Originals,” Brittany added, a flicker of longing in her eyes.

“I'm not expecting Birdie today,” Salt said, motioning toward the bathroom. “Now, both of you, go in there and take off your wet things.”

“But if it's Miss Birdie—,” Brittany began.

“If it's Miss Birdie, you can come out. But if it's not, you'll stay put. Go, now.”

Like little soldiers they marched into the bathroom while Salt pressed his ear to the wooden door. The golf cart had crunched to a halt outside, the two dogs were barking, and someone was taking their sweet time about coming up to knock.

Salt reached for his rifle. This past summer, right after the children arrived, two yuppie couples from Manhattan had pulled up in a rented golf cart and demanded to tour the lighthouse. They seemed to think it was a public building and theirs for the taking. Salt hadn't hesitated to blast the ground in front of their toes. The horrified look on their faces had been worth the $7.69 it cost him for rock salt and lima beans.

Good thing he'd repacked the rifle. Through the peephole he could see Floyd Lansdown and Winslow Wickam, the persistent preacher, unzipping themselves from the cart. They seemed to be having trouble getting clear of the dogs.

“You kids stay in that bathroom,” Salt barked, then he opened the door.

The wintry wind hit him like a fist, or perhaps it was fear shriveling the flesh around his belly. He brought the rifle up and held it in both hands, his trigger finger resting lightly at the point where the stock met the firing mechanism. Only a fool could misread his intention, but Lansdown and Wickam kept coming, their heads encased in caps and earflaps, their faces red above their neck scarves.

“Morning, Cap'n,” Floyd called, clapping his gloved hands together as he approached. “Heard you'd been sick. I was poorly, too, and this is my first day outta bed.”

Salt didn't answer but shifted his jaw as he chewed the soft flesh inside his mouth.

“I hope you're feeling better,” the preacher called, coming up from the other side of the cart. The bulldog followed at his heels. “We came out to see if we could offer some assistance.”

Salt bit down hard, catching a flap of skin between his teeth and causing blood to flow. He waited until the men drew closer, then worked up a good spit and let them have it. The bloody glob landed on the snow at Lansdown's feet, stopping him as neatly as any blast of salt-and-limas.

“Good heavens, man!” Lansdown cried, staring at the mess in the snow. “Are you coughing up blood?”

“Let me call the paramedics,” Wickam said, coming closer. “Let's get you inside, and we'll fetch you some help—”

“Stop right there.” Salt brought the gun down, level with the preacher's quilted jacket. “I'm not sick and I don't need your help. Don't have a phone, and I don't want anybody meddlin' up here.”

Blanching, Floyd took a half-step back. “Put that gun away, Salt, what are you tryin' to do? As mayor and caretaker of all municipal property, I thought it was my responsibility to come up here and make certain the lighthouse is functioning properly. After all, if you've been ailin'—”

“The light is fine,” Salt drawled, “not that you'd know anything about it.”

Stiffening, Floyd took another step back. “I happen to be quite mechanical. I'm taking a correspondence course—”

“Salt didn't mean any insult, Floyd,” the pastor interrupted, his voice dry.

Floyd's chin jutted forward. “Don't care. Birdie said you were almost human these days, but apparently she's as psycho as you are. How anybody could expect the town lunatic to change is beyond me.”

Turning, he tromped back toward the cart, but Winslow Wickam was not as easily dissuaded. Pressing his hands together like a child saying prayers, he gave Salt a soft-eyed smile. “Cap'n Gribbon, I know this life must sometimes be unbearably lonely for you. Won't you let us come in? You might discover that you've missed having regular companionship with other human beings. And certainly the Lord longs to fellowship with you—”

“God and I are already on speaking terms, thank you very much.” Salt shifted the barrel of the rifle toward the pastor. “So good day, Reverend. Now you'd better hurry and get in that cart, 'cause the walk back to town is a fairly good piece.”

Wickam turned, and his mouth opened when he saw that Lansdown had already put the golf cart in reverse. The minister ran toward the vehicle, waving one hand and shouting, while Tallulah and Butch nipped at his heels. Salt kept the rifle trained on his visitors until they had rounded the corner and were lost to his sight.

Sighing, he stepped back into the lighthouse and propped the rifle in the corner. Rock salt and lima beans wouldn't pack a lethal punch, especially on a man dressed in layers of winter padding. But it could sure sting exposed flesh, and the sound of the blast could rattle a body's nerves . . .

And quite possibly scare a child.

Salt latched the door behind him, safe with his secret and relieved he hadn't had to fire the weapon. No sense in spoiling a perfect winter day.

Vernie sat in her bedroom window and watched the snow fall. Three days ago she had been mad enough to spit at Stanley Bidderman. Now her anger had cooled and melancholy had set in—a deep ache for things that might have been. Perhaps she was wrong in refusing to see Stanley. Cleta had sent word that Stanley was slowly improving, and could Vernie find it in her heart to hear him out?

Vernie could not. Not yet. Maybe never.

Then again, maybe Elezar was right. Maybe she ought to at least hear what he had to say, even though she wasn't the slightest bit interested. Their years together had been good for the most part. She smiled when she recalled the two-pound box of Fannie Mae's they'd eaten on a dare one evening. Stanley claimed he could eat more chocolate than her, and she'd said, “In a pig's eye.” After polishing off the entire box, they hadn't been able to look a chocolate in the eye for years afterward.

They both liked thin crust pizza with Canadian bacon and green peppers.

Dagwood and Blondie had been their comic strip of choice—they fought over the funnies every Sunday morning.

They each took three teaspoons of sugar in their coffee, followed by a dollop of cream.

They favored vinegar and mustard in potato salad, celery stuffed with peanut butter, and cutesy cards as opposed to gushy ones. Guests and backyard cookouts were frequently enjoyed at the mercantile in their early days. Vernie would bake for a week getting ready for Saturday night open house. Friday nights, weather permitting, they played Monopoly and Rook with a couple in Ogunquit, and then later with Floyd and Cleta and Olympia and Edmund— before Olympia got so uppity.

Vernie closed her bleary eyes, resting her forearm on her forehead. Those had been good years. Why did things have to change? Why couldn't life stay good? Most of all, why hadn't Stanley remembered all the good times when he decided to leave?

Why couldn't she eat a Fannie Mae chocolate without getting the sniffles?

A headache pounded at the base of her skull, threatening to batter her brain. She massaged the tender spot, wondering where she'd put the Advil. The unrelenting cold made every bone in her body ache, and the older she got, the worse it seemed to affect her . . .

A soft knock interrupted her musings. “Yes?”

“Are you all right, Vernie?” Elezar's inquiry penetrated the heavy wood. “You're usually downstairs by now.”

“I'm not feeling up to par this morning. We're not busy, are we?”

“Nary a customer yet. You rest for a while. I'll call you if you're needed.”

“Thank you, Elezar.”

“Can I get you anything? Hot tea? Juice?”

“A new body.” She was too old for her own good.

She heard Elezar's chuckle on the other side of the door. “In due time, Vernie. In due time.”

Vernie stretched out across the bed and pulled a crocheted afghan up to her neck. Elezar was so good to her. What would she do without him? His capacity for human kindness and forgiveness far exceeded hers.

She shivered as a sudden chill set her teeth to chattering. The bedroom was as cold as Pharaoh's tomb this morning. As goose bumps welled, she sat up and turned the electric mattress pad up to 14. Crawling between the sheets she'd left an hour earlier, she reached for a book on the nightstand and read a random devotional thought: “We do not forgive because we are supposed to; we forgive when we are ready to be healed.”

Sighing, she dropped the book. Was she ready to forgive? Not now, surely, but maybe when she felt a little stronger.

Right now she felt as though she needed to sleep for a nice, long time—like maybe a week.

Chapter Eighteen

A
s a black-and-white puffin flew overhead, Bobby squinted, then gasped as the bird dove into the water, as fearless as an Olympic diver. Eager to see if the puffin would surface, Bobby ran to the rocks, ignoring Brittany's breathless cries to wait.

From here, at the northernmost point of the island, he could see cream colored lines of surf rolling in across the rocky beach. The grandfather said they could not swim here even in summer, for the rocks were sharp and the currents treacherous. That's why the lighthouse stood atop the hill, to warn sailors away. “Don't you be thinking about getting into the water anywhere,” the grandfather told him right after he and Britt arrived on Heavenly Daze. “I'm not as young as I once was, and I can't be jumpin' in to save you all the livelong day.”

Shading his eyes with his hand, Bobby scanned the sea, hoping for a sign of the diving puffin. Several of the small birds bobbed on the surface, apparently at ease in the cold water. They didn't worry about rocks or currents.

For a moment Bobby wished he were a puffin. They were funny little birds, but good swimmers as well as fliers. If he were a puffin, he could fly home to his daddy and make sure everything was okay, then he could swim back to the lighthouse so the grandfather wouldn't be lonely. He'd spend Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays with his daddy, and live at the lighthouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays—

He stopped to count on his fingers. What to do with Sunday?

Brittany clambered over the rocks and stood below him, her nose making a funny little squeak with each breath.

“Grandfather will be mad if he sees you up there,”

she warned. Her nose whistled as she inhaled. “He'll make us come in. If you make him mad, you might get smacked.”

“The grandfather doesn't smack.”

“Well, then . . . he might send us back.”

Bobby froze, his outstretched hand before his eyes. This was another of Brittany's fibs; she was just talking. But what would happen if the grandfather got mad? Would he send them back? Bobby didn't want to go—at least, not to stay. He wanted to check on Daddy, that was all.

But if climbing on the rocks could make the grandfather mad enough to send them back—

“I'll come down,” he said, squatting. He sat on his bottom, then slid over the ice-glazed rock, feeling the cold through the slick surface of his snowsuit.

He landed smoothly, his sneakers hitting the sand with a soft thud, and when he lifted his eyes, he saw that they were no longer alone. Britt turned, peering out of her hood, then she saw, too. “Oh,” she said. “It's you.”

Though a powder blue snowsuit encased the boy standing before them from head to toe, it wasn't hard to recognize Georgie Graham's round cheeks and sparkling brown eyes. The grin, too, was familiar, except now a gap appeared in what had been a perfect row of stumpy white teeth.