My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (26 page)

“Is David asking you to?”

“No.”

Thank goodness.

“When he showed up for the graduation run-through this afternoon, I asked him about her. He admitted it and said he was planning to tell me. She works at some bar he and his friends go to. Oh, Mom, I made a scene.” The tears flowed again—a gully washer.

Janie stayed at the hotel that night in Race’s and my room with me. Race stayed with Paul in his. In the morning Race knocked on the door and asked if he could talk to Janie. Paul and I went downstairs for breakfast, and by the time our food arrived, Race and Janie had joined us.

I’ve never asked Race what he said to Janie. I have always liked that he has his own relationship with our son and daughter, something a lot of men don’t have with their children. I know he would have told me if I had asked, but I didn’t need to know. What I did know was that Janie was glowing.

We ate breakfast and laughed and talked about what we had all been up to and what we would do on St. Gabriel when Paul and Janie flew home with us.

Janie celebrated her graduation day, as only she could, with pure joy. To top it all off, when the ceremony was over, we were leaving to go to a restaurant and we saw David and his parents. We had met and had dinner with the Rollings a couple of times during parent weekends.

Janie led us over to the Rollings family and asked us, “You guys remember David and his parents Lois and Steve?” We all made polite conversation, which ended with Janie saying, “Well, congratulations, David, have a nice life.” Then she took her brother’s arm that he was holding out for her, and she walked away with a spring in her step. She was stellar.

We hadn’t all been on a plane together
since we flew to California to see Disneyland and to visit my parents when Paul and Janie were fourteen and twelve, and we haven’t done it since. It was fun and so was the drive from the airport.

The anticipation I felt about our children seeing St. Gabriel for the first time, along with going home to the lodge, our haunted lodge, made me so excited I was silly beyond all reason. And the rest of the family joined in. We sang along with the oldies station, told stupid jokes, and shared our family memories that we all knew well but still enjoyed each other’s versions.

The minute the water came into view, Paul’s eyes lit up. He has loved the water since he was a baby. The first time we took him to a pool, he would have crawled right in had Race not caught him just as he was reaching over the edge.

And Janie, well, you could put her in the middle of the Sahara and she would find a list of things to love about it. Any new place or experience engages her, which made for some close calls when she was a child and closer calls when she was a teenager.

George met us at the ferry to pick up our luggage, and he brought our bikes and the two bikes that Race had insisted we buy before Paul and Janie came to the island. “It doesn’t make sense to rent bikes for the kids while they’re here. And we can let guests use them when they leave.”

Race introduced Paul and Janie to George who looked at Janie as if she was a ghost. I wondered if he was thinking,
Not another one.

Race took us all to the Island House for dinner. Afterwards, he led us to the lodge with the lake breeze at our back. Was he working my plan? I didn’t ask Paul and Janie what they thought of the island or try to see their faces the first time they saw the lodge. I didn’t have to.

From the moment St. Gabe came into view on the ferry, to walking downtown and riding out to the lodge, they were full of comments and questions, “It’s beautiful.” “Look at that.” “What’s that?” “How cute.” “Wow!” And when they saw the lodge, “Cool!”

Paul and Janie dropped their bikes by the front porch and raced each other through the lodge, up and down the stairs and in and out of the rooms. It reminded me of when they were little and they were trying to get the best of each other.

I had planned on Paul sleeping in Rhubarb Cottage, and I had made a bed for Janie in Race’s study, but when they ran down the lobby stairs, they had each picked out a room and decided who would use which bathroom. Paul would stay in the room with the best view of the water, and Janie chose the room that looked out over our cottage, room number ten.

I looked at Race with apprehension. He put his arm around my waist, gave me a squeeze, and said, “It’s settled, then.”

We lit a big fire in the lobby fireplace and roasted marshmallows. Race prepared to begin the stories and he looked at me and asked, “Are there any stories that you want to tell tonight?”

I shook my head and gave him a good sneer. “Not really.”

“Can I?” he asked with a smirk.

“Yes,” I answered, grudgingly.

“Any story?”

“Yes, any story.”

“Are you sure?”

I inhaled a full breath, held it and closed my eyes before I let it out and said, “Yes, I’m sure.” But I really wasn’t sure.

First, Race swore Paul and Janie to secrecy for the sake of my reputation and my future as a woman free from a straight jacket, which was his hook and his audience swallowed it with the line and sinker.

Our son and daughter were on the edge of their seats and giggling. “Mom, what did you do?”

By the time Race was finished recounting my brush with the hereafter in the cellar, he did not tell them of my subsequent
conversations
, Paul and Janie were both in tears with laughter.

Then Paul, who Race says was born without a serious bone in his body, began his teasing, “Hey, Mom, I have a new name for your lodge—how ‘bout the Haunted Hilton?”

Janie added, “Or the Terror Towers or Trump Terrors.”

To which Paul continued, “The Waldorf Boostoria.”

Then Janie again, “The Haunting Inn Express or Motel Tricks.”

They were amusing themselves to no end. They are their father’s children.

“Okay, now you know. Laugh all you want, but are you sure you both still want to sleep up there?”

“Absolutely,” confirmed Paul, “I’ve never slept with a ghost before.”

“Some ghouls maybe,” Janie cracked.

“Janie.” I gave my daughter a squeeze on her thigh and warned them, “Well, as Sara Strauss would say, ‘I hope you both can run fast.’ ”

Before we said goodnight, Janie gently held my face in her hands and tried to put me at ease. “Mom, we were just kidding around. If it is haunted, it could be like the Ghost and Mrs. Muir.”

I looked at Race.

“We’re going to be fine,” she assured me.

“I know,” I said, not convincingly.

Paul cocooned me up in his arms, the way his father does, and he kissed the top of my head multiple times. “I love you, Mommy. See you in the morning. Maybe.” And then he and Janie ran up the stairs.

As we walked to the cottage, Race held my hand and I was still feeling uneasy about letting my babies sleep with the ghosts.

Race echoed Janie’s assurance, “They’ll be fine.”

“I know.”

Race sat on the bed the next morning and brushed the back of his hand on my cheek. “Cammy, wake up, you’ve got to see this.”

Immediately my mind went from unconsciousness to,
What have the ghosts done to my children?

Race took me out to the porch and pointed to the lake. Walking onto the beach from the water, in only a pair of dripping swim trunks, was Paul.

“Was he swimming?” I asked.

“Yes,” answered Race. Coffee splashed out of his cup as he laughed.

“How cold is that water do you think?”

“If it’s fifty-five degrees, I’d be surprised.”

“He’s nuts. He gets that from you, you know?”

“Do you think so, Mrs. Muir?”

We all rode into town to have breakfast that morning. Afterwards, we went to Hausterman’s Bakery to introduce Paul and Janie to Sara. Paul took an instant liking to my adorable crystal-blue-eyed friend.

Sara was more than ten years older than Paul, but he didn’t miss the opportunity to flirt.
That would be weird.
But why should it be? If the genders were reversed, I might not feel that way. No, I would. He was my son and she my dear friend.
That would be weird.

Thankfully, Sara didn’t deal the attention back or seem to take him seriously, maybe out of respect for his mother.

“I bet he was a handful to raise,” Sara said to me as we were leaving.

“Was?”

We both laughed and Sara handed me a bag of pastry as we went out the door.

“Dinner is at six-thirty. We’ll set a plate for you. See you then, friend.”

“Not on your life, friend.”

After we left the bakery, we went to Meaks Deli to see Larry and when we saw Lucy, Race greeted her, “Hi, Lucy.”

“Hi, Cammy and Race.”

“Lucy, these are our children Paul and Janie.”

“Hi, Paul and Janie.”

Race bought Janie and me bouquets of lilacs, which we kept clutched in our hands while she and I walked through the shops. Race and Paul went to check on the island diving tours. When Paul was sixteen, Race and he learned how to scuba dive in the college pool and became certified divers. That afternoon father and son went out with a shipwreck charter and at dinner that night, Paul couldn’t stop talking about it.

The next two weeks were filled with sightseeing, biking and hiking, more diving for Race and Paul, more shopping for Janie and I. We all went out with a fishing charter and kayaked around the island. Paul and Janie even had their parents out past their bedtimes dancing a couple of nights.

Race and I took a free moment to sit on the cottage porch and at the same time we turned to each other and said, “I’m exhausted.”

Most of our days on the island had consisted of a half a day or so of work, then afternoons and evenings of leisurely bike rides, walks on the beach and sunsets. Near the end of their visit, Paul and Janie were still going strong and made plans to go downtown one evening.

“You look after Janie,” I told Paul.

“Yes, Mommy.”

“I’m serious, Paul. The island’s full of young people from all over the world. They come here on vacation to party or they’re here to work for the summer and party.”

“Excellent! A target rich environment.”

Race looked up from what he was reading. “Paul, your mom’s right. You keep an eye on your sister.” With a look and a few words Race could always get his son to sober up.

“I will.”

Paul and Janie rode into town and Race and I sat on the porch while he filled me in on the latest happenings reported in
The St. Gabriel News
. The headline was about the controversy surrounding the 4th of July parade. The parade committee had accidentally invited two people to be the Grand Marshal, oops.

A new restaurant had opened on Lake View Lane. The new Harbor Master had been hired and he would oversee the renovation of the marina in the fall.

The police report included a broken window on Main Street. A fight between two tourists at the Bayside Bar had ended in assault charges. A rash of United Parcel packages had disappeared from doorsteps, front gates, and porches—the porch of Mrs. C.W. Atwood being the latest. The list of stolen bicycles was longer than usual.

Bike theft is common on the island, although the bikes usually show up at a later time, having only been borrowed in the wee hours of the morning by a disoriented patron of one of the haunts downtown.

There were also the usual human interest pieces—Rita and Lincoln Dillon had returned from a trip to Mt. Rushmore. Bill and Marty Blaine’s daughter Allison would be married to Timothy Mancey. And there was a call for applications from girls sixteen to twenty-one urging them to run for the Cherry Festival Queen. All important stuff, it really was.

Race and I had breakfast alone the next morning, while our son and daughter slept the sleep of the partied-out. When they finally came out of the lodge and collapsed on the sofa in our cottage, Race asked, “How’d it go last night?”

“As usual, Paul was draped with girls,” said Janie.

This was no surprise to his parents. It had been that way since he was in junior high. Not as much as Janie looks like me, but Paul does look like his father and he has his build. Even as a little guy, he never looked skinny like a lot of the other boys; he was always athletic and had little muscles. His looks were accompanied by a confident charm that might be seen as cockiness, the kind of confidence that many young girls gravitate towards.

“And Janie got pretty cozy with a young man,” Paul taunted his sister.

Janie socked him in the arm.

“But you’ll be happy to know, Mom, I kept my eye on her the whole time.”

“We just talked, honest, Mom,” Janie assured me.

“And danced,” Paul added.

“And danced, we talked and danced. That’s all.”

“And exchanged phone numbers.”

Janie socked her brother again.

Race sat down in the chair at the end of the sofa and asked, “Who is this young man?”

“His name is Jeremy. He works at an inn downtown,” answered Janie without looking at her father.