Finding The Way Back To Love (Lakeside Porches 3) (8 page)

“I like you breathless.” His voice was husky in her ear.

“I do, too,” she confessed. Waves of pleasure coursed through her as he nuzzled her neck and nibbled her ear.

“You’re killing me, Peter,” she whispered.

He studied her face, his eyes dark with desire. A satisfied smile stole across his face.

“We should stop,” she whispered.

He stepped back. “I’m going to dream about this my whole shift.”

Chapter 5

Gwen dumped the contents of her tiny silver evening bag onto the counter and sorted through it. The cocktail napkin she’d used to blot her lipstick reminded her she’d meant to talk with Peter about his mistaken beliefs about his sister’s drinking.
How did I forget that?
She picked up the tube of Plum Passion lipstick, and a smile curved her mouth.
That’s how.

“Hi, Gwen.” A deep voice interrupted her musing.

Gwen sucked in a startled breath. A tall, young man slouched against the doorway to her living room. Rick, she thought, but radically different from the cheerful, easy-going boyfriend she’d met at Christmas.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He came toward her with a grim smile, his arm outstretched. “I’m Rick Walker. We met at Haley’s over the holidays.”

“Of course, Rick.” Gwen rushed to shake his hand. “I’m still in a daze from my date.” Although she knew from his haggard face that it hadn’t gone well, she gave him a warm smile and kept her voice light when she asked, “How did it go with you and Haley?”

“That’s what I need to talk about. I waited up.”

“You know what—” She gazed longingly at the evening bag.
So much for sweet, sexy dreams
. “If you’ll make us some tea or coffee, Rick, I’ll run upstairs for a quick change. Sequins don’t go with problem solving.”

That rated a hollow laugh.

“Oh, and get some cookies out of the freezer, too. I can’t think on an empty stomach.”

She gathered the long skirt of her dress in one hand and flew up the stairs. A quick check of Haley’s room showed her sleeping, her face set in a frown. Gwen kissed her cheek, which was still damp with tears.

After changing into sweats and tugging on soft socks, she paused.
God, I’m scared. I’m all these kids have right now
. Just saying it calmed her. She squared her shoulders. As she descended the stairs, she put on her professional face for Rick, detached and nonjudgmental. She softened a little, so he’d know she was in his corner.

“Did you find any chocolate chip cookies?”

“Haley and I finished those on you. Peanut butter okay, and coffee? It’s decaf.”

“Great.” She perched on a stool at the island.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Just sugar.”

Rick set two steaming mugs on the marble surface in front of her and brought a plate of cookies with him to sit across from her. “I really lost it after supper tonight.” He hunched over his mug and toyed with it, pushing the handle to the left, then right, back and forth.

Gwen wanted to still his hand, but, at the same time, she marveled that his mug made no noise on the hard marble surface.
Focus, Gwen
. “Lost it how, Rick?”

“We went for a walk to your beach. I tried to get her to talk more about the baby and what she wants. At first, she just cried. She feels like a total screw-up, and she’s panicked about what to do next. Has she talked to you?”

“Not much. And not about the baby.”

He recounted what Haley had told him, that she’d been getting drunk off and on last fall with her girlfriends, and that drugs had become part of their evenings out.

Rick said, “It scared her so much that she stopped drinking and stopped going out with those friends, before the end of the semester. I believe her that she hasn’t used any drugs since then. But she forgot to pack her birth-control pills for the holiday break, and she got drunk on some really potent eggnog at a party we went to, and we had hot sex after. That’s how she got pregnant.

“Gwen, she never once talked to me about any of that or asked for help or . . .” He shook his head. “I never imagined she was in trouble, in any of those ways. Even thinking back, there was nothing I could have picked up on.”

“What you’ve described sounds like Haley’s shadow side coming out after years of having to be perfect for Ursula. Which we know is impossible. I didn’t know about the drinking, let alone the drugs. I’ll have a tough conversation with her about that. You know her dad is an alcoholic? And I am, too.”

Rick gave a brusque nod and continued. “So tonight we took a walk. When we came around the trees to where we could see the beach, the moon was shining on the water. And, unfortunately, a swarm of mosquitoes came out of nowhere and attacked us. I completely lost it.” His voice rose in agitation. “I started waving my arms around and screaming at them to stop hurting her. It scared her, and she ran back toward the house and fell and—”

“Is she hurt?” Gwen gripped his arm.

“She says not.”

“We can take her to the hospital, if you think we should,” Gwen insisted.

“No. Really. She went down on one knee and caught herself with her hands. She said the baby’s fine.” Rick hung his head and cursed himself. “She cried all the way back to the house, just really upset.”

Gwen withdrew her hand. “What scared her, Rick? The mosquitoes?”

He shook his head. “Me, screaming like a madman.”

“Do you usually?”

“I’ve never done anything like that. I’m always this quiet, steady guy.”

Gwen reached for another cookie and broke off a piece.
Make it last. Stress eating is not the solution.
“That was my impression when I met you. What got you screaming?”

Rick jumped off the stool and yelled, “Those fucking mosquitoes were biting her, and she couldn’t get free of them. I couldn’t stand it.”

Heart hammering, Gwen listened for any sound that would indicate he might have disturbed Haley’s sleep. Quiet reigned upstairs.

Gwen’s entire cookie had mysteriously vanished. She touched her mouth. Crumbs on her chin and around her lips told her where that cookie had gone.

Rick’s jaw clenched as he paced around the perimeter of the kitchen. “I had to do something, make them stop.”

“I’m sure that was frightening for her and infuriating for you.” Gwen kept her voice steady.

Rick made another circuit and, as he paced, ran the fingers of one hand through his short blond hair so it stood up in clumps like a mad scientist who’d stuck his finger in a light socket. The comical effect almost made her laugh, and the tension drained out of her.

She replayed what she knew about Rick, through Haley. He came from a poor family and, through dedication and hard work, had gotten a full scholarship to Rensselaer, one of the premier engineering schools in the northeast. All that control failed him tonight. Small wonder. His beautiful girlfriend was in trouble and he didn’t know how to help her.

To give Rick a break from his own intensity, she pointed out, “You’ve been scratching at a few mosquito bites on your neck and the backs of your hands. There’s calamine lotion in the hall closet near the bathroom.”

He stopped at the sink and scowled across the room at her.

She explained, “Sometimes it helps to identify the pieces of the problem and start with the easy fixes. Mosquito bites can be neutralized with calamine lotion.”

“Thank you. I never thought of it.”

“Go get some, and then we’ll talk some more.” She refilled her coffee and did a few stretches until she heard his footsteps in the hallway.

Rick came back to the island wearing polka dots of calamine. “That helps, you’re right.” He slid onto the stool, picked up a cookie—his first—and took a big bite. “These are good,” he mumbled with his mouthful. “All your cookies are good.”

“The secret is in the vanilla. Always double what the recipe calls for.”

They munched for a minute. Rick placed his palms on the marble and sat tall. The deep wrinkles in his forehead smoothed out. “So you’re saying my brain can help with some of this?”

“Yes, actually, with a lot of it.”

“How can we help Haley?”

“We’ll take it a day at a time.” Gwen rubbed the crumbs from her hands. “I’d like the three of us to talk at breakfast, to strategize about the doctor’s appointment. I have clients off and on all day, but I can be on call for you, both of you. We’ll work together and take things as they come. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good, but I have to tell you I’m scared to death. Mostly for Haley.”

“No surprise. Does it help to have my support?”

“Definitely.”

She pressed his forearm. “Rick, there are serious decisions you and Haley need to make, pretty quickly. She only has two more months until the baby comes.”

“I think her math is off. I think it’s sooner.”

Gwen swallowed. “Be sure you ask the doctor tomorrow. And I want you to find out all you can about adoption. I’m not sure Haley’s able to do that herself right now.”

Rick shook crumbs off his hands, brushed them into a pile on the marble, and swept them with his right hand into his left. He emptied them into the sink and came back with a damp paper towel. He looked her in the eye for the first time. “Do you think she’s capable of raising this baby on her own?”

Gwen had a queasy feeling in her stomach. “I think Haley can do almost anything she sets her mind to, but I haven’t heard her say that’s what she wants. Did she tell you that?”

“The only thing I know for sure is, she won’t let me quit school and marry her.” He sank down on his stool. “I never knew her father married Ursula when she got pregnant with Haley, and he quit college to support them.”

Really?
She’d do the math another time, but that revelation was probably the truth. She and her brother, Bill, were overdue for a conversation. “Rick, are you saying you want to quit school and marry Haley?”
God, please, no
.

“I know it’s the right thing to do.” His mouth was a grim line.

“That wasn’t my question, though. Is it what you want to do next with your life?”

Rick exhaled hard and pressed his eyelids with his fingers, but not before a few tears escaped. He shook his head.

“Good. You don’t want that. Haley doesn’t want that. Don’t do it.” Gwen nudged a box of tissues toward him. “Besides calamine lotion in the closet, I have boxes of tissue all over the house, one in every room. Help yourself anytime.”

He croaked a laugh and extracted a few tissues from the box.

“Rick, you’re dead on your feet, and I’m not far behind. Go on up to bed while I clean up here. I’ll make breakfast at nine, and the three of us will have our strategy session then. If you’re up before that, just make yourself at home.”

“Thanks, Gwen. I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

“I’m not.” Gwen smiled. “I’m just glad Haley finally reached out for help. Like you, I had no idea she was in trouble, and that makes me crazy.”

“Tell me about it.”

A few days without a bike ride had taken their toll, mentally and physically. Gwen fastened a helmet on her muddled head and hauled her bike out the side door of the garage. A glimpse of the lake through the break in the trees revealed a layer of fog swirling above the charcoal water in the pre-dawn light. Clouds above the western shore blushed as the sun rose; they shifted briefly to reveal the golden full moon as it slipped below the rim of the hills.

Her heart swelled with happiness, not just from the memory of last night’s moon and Peter’s kisses. Witnessing the transient morning beauty always brought her peace and, with it, a connection to some greater force that was both enriching and enduring.

She pedaled hard up the steep, twisting lower section of her road. The wheels of her bike spit gravel. Her muscles scolded her for the days she’d skipped. When she reached the gentler middle section—a curving tunnel of trees—her mind chattered a chorus of ‘shoulds.’ She should be fixing breakfast for Haley and Rick. She shouldn’t have worn such an elegant dress last night. She should have challenged Peter about his attitude toward his sister’s drinking. She should talk with Haley about her drinking.

This is crazy. Why am I so stressed?

The events of the past few days—Haley’s break-in and her pregnancy, Peter’s arrival in her life that, thankfully, disrupted her go-nowhere dating pattern, their magical moment in the rose garden at the Manse—all were happy and wonderful.
Happy stress is still stress
. She sensed angst underneath it all, and she needed to address that, whatever was causing it.

As she often did on her morning ride, Gwen tuned into her surroundings while putting a gentle focus on her inner landscape: her unexamined feelings, her tangled thought process, her heart, her soul. She dismounted and breathed deeply of the cool morning air.

Thin light filtered through the branches overhead. Her eyes strained to see each tree in her woods. Scattered throughout, shafts of white bark popped out of the gray dawn. Those were the white birches her father had planted, a few at a time, decades ago.
Dad, I wish you could see them now, standing out amid the maples, oaks, ash, and evergreens
.
Tall and strong.

“Like you.”

Gwen gasped. Had someone spoken those words? Had she?

On her left, a head shot up—a doe caught nibbling the tender undergrowth. Gwen stood still as a statue. The doe’s ears twitched. Another head lifted, a faun. With a whicker from the doe, the pair stole into the woods, white flag tails waving goodbye.

A smile spread over Gwen’s face. Above her, on the right and left, the branches of the ash trees bobbed and swayed.
I should have them examined for Emerald Ash Borer
. That was one ‘should’ to act on. Soon. Joel had mentioned last night that the Manse had lost two of its ashes last winter; they were fortunate none of the guests were in the woods at the time.

Eyes closed, she listened to a trickle of water somewhere on the hillside, the rustle of leaves, the rub of branches. She opened her eyes and spotted tiny acorns just forming on the oaks. Her lips parted in wonder.

“Haley’s baby is meant for someone else.” This time she knew she’d spoken the words herself, giving voice to her deepest belief.

She touched her chest, over her heart. Her tension released, and her breathing eased. She rested her hand on her belly.
In good time
.

A chickadee nosedived into the pin oak on her left with a cheerful,
Dee-dee-dee
. Two more arrived and fluttered onto twiggy perches, one to the left, one below. Gwen informed them, “I’m going to have my own little family, starting with a husband.”

A fourth arrived with its own chirpy,
Chick-a-dee-dee
.