Angel's Rest (27 page)

“A quilting bee?” Sarah repeated. “Celeste, I swore off needles when I tried to make Lori a poodle skirt for the fifth-grade sock hop.”

“Just hear me out, Sarah. This idea is part of my vision for our healing center. I want to have a special quilt for each room, and I’d like them to be made from the fabrics of our lives in Eternity Springs. Fabrics like these.”

She reached into one of the totes and removed a stack of fabrics, which she spread out on the floor. Satins, silks, and laces, all in shades of white.

“Those look like pieces of wedding gowns,” Sarah said.

“Give the girl a bouquet.” Celeste pointed toward an off-white satin train. “That’s from Marlene Hart’s
gown. The silk is Lisa Cartwright’s. The bodice with all the embellishments is Margaret Stewart’s.”

Nic said, “Each of those ladies has celebrated at least her silver anniversary. Margaret and Jess Stewart had an awesome golden anniversary party last year.”

“So you think it would be, what, a magic marriage quilt?” Emma Hall asked.

“No. The snow-white satin is Monica Brown’s. I understand that her marriage lasted less than a year.”

“Okay, then, I’m confused,” Sarah said.

Sage knelt on the floor and began examining the fabric. “I think I get it. A quilt made of wedding gowns would be symbolic of hope and happiness—that dream that every bride has on her wedding day.”

Not every bride
, Nic thought, stealing a look at her husband and discovering that he was stealing one back at her, too. She quickly turned her attention back to Sage.

“That’s right,” Celeste agreed. “I do see the quilts as a symbol of Eternity Springs and the positive energies of its people. Take this wedding gown quilt, for example. Think of all that will go into it. Not just the love and hopes and dreams represented by these lovely fabrics, but the friendship, companionship, laughter, and love we will share as we work to create our quilts. It’s the compassion we feel for those who will come to our healing place with troubled souls and wounded spirits. Imagine being in a painful emotional place and snuggling up in a beautiful representation of the special life force that this town, this valley, has to offer.”

“Okay, I’m sold,” Emma Hall said. She glanced at LaNelle Harrison. “I trust you are going to teach us what to do and how to do it?”

“Of course. I have ulterior motives, you know. I figure I’ll get you all hooked on quilting and it will triple my business.”

“I want to play, too,” Sarah said. “However, I need to know what sort of time commitment we’re looking at. I’m stretched pretty thin already.”

Celeste nodded. “I’d like us to meet once a week, but don’t let that stop you from joining. I think we should be flexible. Our group should be something that’s fun, not a burden. If you know of anyone else you’d like to have join us, please feel free to invite them. We’ll have plenty of projects to work on.”

Sarah glanced at Nic and asked, “Do you think we could talk Lori into joining? I think it would be nice for us to participate in an activity as equals, not as mother and daughter.”

“That’s a great idea,” Nic replied. “I think she’d love to be part of this group.”

“Will all the quilts be wedding gown quilts?” Wendy Davis asked. “I’ll be happy to contribute mine to the cause. It’s just hanging in my closet gathering dust.”

“We can certainly make more than one wedding gown quilt, but I’d also like to make quilts from other fabrics of Eternity Springs. I’d like to see quilt tops made from kitchen curtains and children’s clothes. Happy things. Happy themes.”

“I love it.” Sage looked up from the length of lace she’d been studying. “How do we start?”

Celeste smiled at LaNelle. “That’s your cue, my friend.”

“We start by making some decisions. We must decide on our project’s size and pattern. I’ve brought pattern books for us to peruse.” LaNelle reached into the tote bag she’d brought along and passed around books and magazines. “Since we are making quilts for a healing center, I’ve marked patterns I think are appropriate for our theme. However, if everyone wants to do something different, that’s fine, too.”

The women pored over the pattern books, picked favorites,
and discussed possibilities, then chose the Star of Hope pattern as the most appropriate design for their first bridal gown quilt. They settled on Tuesday night for their meetings and accepted Nic’s offer to meet at her home until she was back on her feet. After that, they’d move their meetings to Angel’s Rest and the room Celeste indicated would be dedicated to their effort.

As Sarah took a bite of one of Wendy Davis’ pinwheel cookies, she asked, “Shouldn’t we have a name for our group? Is this a guild or a bee?”

“A bee. A guild is a group of bees,” LaNelle said. “I do think we should choose a name. Any suggestions?”

Conversation lagged as they considered the question. “We could be the Eternity Quilters,” Sarah suggested.

Nic wrinkled her nose. “That’s boring.”

“Then you suggest something.”

With the disco song Gabe had teased her with earlier still playing through her mind, Nic came up with, “Okay, how about the Quilting Queens of Eternity Springs?”

Sarah gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “That’s stupid.”

Leaning against a cabinet and sipping a glass of water, Sage surveyed the room. Her gaze lingered on Celeste a moment, then she smiled. “I have it. I think we should call ourselves the Patchwork Angels.”

Celeste gasped and clapped her hands, her sky-blue eyes gleaming with delight. The name was adopted by acclamation and the Patchwork Angels Quilting Bee got down to work.

As spring finally arrived in the Rockies, ice cracked and creeks began to flow. Cottonwoods and aspen budded and bloomed, and the world turned green once more. Patches of snow would remain into May and sometimes even till June, but in Eternity Springs, citizens
declared the official arrival of spring when Zach Turner posted signs forbidding skating on Hummingbird Lake.

Gabe and Nic had settled into a routine of sorts. In the mornings, he awoke ahead of her and showered and dressed first, then knocked on her bedroom door on his way downstairs to make coffee. Once Nic had washed and dressed, he carried her downstairs. Two weeks after the accident, Nic resumed clinic hours on a part-time basis. Gabe grew increasingly busy at Angel’s Rest as the healing center took shape.

In addition to refurbishing the main house, Celeste’s plans called for the construction of three slightly smaller Victorian-style structures to provide rooms for up to thirty guests on the property, along with a separate dining facility. By the first week of May, those buildings, including the spa facility that was part of Gabe’s design for the hot springs pools, were ready for finish work inside. Outdoors, landscape construction proceeded at such a pace that Gabe came home marveling about the progress almost every day. He’d never had a job go as smoothly as this. Of course, he’d never seen working conditions quite like this before, either.

To say that the citizens of Eternity Springs were grateful for the activity was an understatement of epic proportions. Local enterprises reported that business had more than doubled in March and April over the previous year. Townspeople were happy, and they showed their gratitude to laborers by being friendly and welcoming and by offering treats like cookie breaks in the afternoon and complimentary rounds of Miracle Mead microbrew at the Red Fox Pub. As a result, happy laborers worked harder and the project took shape ahead of schedule. Mayor Townsend’s favorite saying of late was that this was shaping up to be the greenest spring the town had ever seen. Crusty old Dale Parker even went
so far as to rename the Fill-U-Up, calling it Eternity’s Angel Gas and Grocery Emporium in Celeste’s honor.

On an afternoon in early May, while finishing up a phone call with the chemist who had done the water testing for the center, Gabe glanced out the library window at Angel’s Rest and saw Nic sitting in the front porch swing reading a book.

After lunch, she had asked him to help her upstairs so that she could offer her opinion about room designs Celeste intended to finalize on an upcoming buying trip. Though her knee and ankle injuries were almost healed, she still needed assistance going up and down stairs. Gabe was happy to carry her. Truth be told, he enjoyed the contact.

He ended the call, but he couldn’t drag his gaze away from his wife. When he’d carried her back downstairs twenty minutes ago, he’d noticed she’d been wearing a new scent, a musky, spicy fragrance that made him want to pull her even closer. He’d supposed it was one of the custom scents that Celeste had commissioned for the healing center. If so, she’d hit a home run with the fragrance Nic wore, a combination of the peach scent that she liked and a heavier, exotic blend of spice. It had lingered in his senses for an hour now.

She’d been lingering in his thoughts for days. Weeks, even. Okay, months.

The friendship strategy had worked out well so far. They managed well together. The awkwardness between them rarely appeared anymore. He enjoyed her company. Her injury had effectively doused the sexual tension that had smoldered between them, allowing them to focus on getting to know each other. The more time he spent with her, the better he liked her. She was funny, witty, cranky in the morning, and soft and sweet in the evenings when she fell asleep on the sofa while watching TV.

Watching her now with her good leg folded up beneath her, the injured leg pushing against the porch to keep the swing in motion, he knew that the sex-not-possible-because-it-hurts-her-to-move excuse was soon to disappear. He clenched his jaw and sucked a breath past his teeth.
Damn
.

He wanted her.

She was … sunshine. She was warm and bright and full of life. She drew him like a moth to flame. He wanted to take her to bed and share in her light.

What was he going to do about it? Had he changed in the weeks since their California trip? Could he have sex without feeling guilty when it was over? He needed to be sure the answer was yes before approaching her. The last thing he wanted to do was to screw up what they had now.

And yet, if his head was finally on straight, what they had now could become even better.

Maybe the thing to do was to discuss it with Nic. One thing he’d learned from living with her was that she preferred to get things out in the open and face them head-on rather than pussyfoot around. Maybe talking about it ahead of time would avoid awkwardness when, and if, the right time rolled around.

“The right time,” he muttered to himself. “That sounds like an erectile dysfunction commercial.”

That was definitely not his problem.

Gabe exhaled a deep breath, then went into the kitchen, where he poured two glasses of lemonade. He stepped out onto the front porch. “Thirsty?”

She set her book aside. “You read my mind. Thanks.”

He handed her a glass, then joined her on the swing. “What are you reading?”

She gave him a considering look. “You probably don’t want to know.”

He arched a brow, then reached for the book.
One
Thousand and One Baby Names
. He winced and gave her back the book, wishing he’d left well enough alone.

“Okay. That answers that question. Still not ready to deal with this particular reality, are you?”

“Let’s just say that’s not what I came out here to talk to you about.”

“Oh? And that would be …?”

Well, hell. He couldn’t exactly talk about sex now, could he? Instead he brought up the other subject that had been on his mind today. “Today is my twin brothers’ birthday.”

“You have twin brothers?”

He nodded. “Apparently twins run in the family. I think I’d like to tell you about them. About what happened to my family.”

“I’d like that very much.”

So he told her. He explained about growing up in Brazos Bend, Texas, and the way the family fell apart in the wake of his mother’s death. He told her about being sent off to military school and being recruited by the State Department. “I was good with languages.”

Her eyes rounded. “You were a spy?”

“Officially I was an embassy worker in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Then he told her about Sarajevo, the shooting, his time as a prisoner, and the rescue.

“Is that where you got the scars on your chest?”

“Yeah. Look, I don’t want to go into all the gory details. All that really matters is that it was best for the good guys if I died, so I did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They faked my death. I went back to the States and started a new life. Think of it as a version of the witness protection program.”

Nic blinked. “Whoa. Wait one minute. You’re in a witness protection program?”

“No. It’s nothing official. Except, of course, all my government documents are legit.”

Now she gaped at him. “Are you telling me you’re not really Gabe Callahan?”

“No, not at all. I didn’t have to change my name. They created a past for me, issued me a new social security number, and did a little work on my face. I started going by my middle name rather than my first.” He explained how he’d enrolled in grad school to study landscape architecture, met and married Jennifer, and made a name for himself—as Gabe Callahan—in his field.

“Weren’t you worried someone would recognize you?”

“No. The government made my death very convincing. Plus I look different.”

“Wow,” she said after a moment’s thought. “This just blows me away. I sensed you had secrets in your past, but I never guessed anything like this. What you are telling me is that, in effect, you gave your life for your country.”

“No, not at all. That makes me sound …”

“Like a hero?”

“I’m no hero, Nic. Don’t think of it as some big sacrifice, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t like we all lived in the same town and got together for Sunday dinners. The truth is that when John Callahan died, I found my life.”

“You act as if John Callahan and Gabe Callahan are two different people.”

He shrugged. “It’s been two different lives.”
At least
.

“I seldom think about John Callahan’s life. It’s easier that way. Although I do like to drink a toast in my brothers’ honor on their birthdays. I imagine they do the same for John.”