My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (30 page)

The next day I came into the kitchen with a load of apricots as Race and Kurt were coming up the cellar stairs.

Nonchalantly, I asked, “What were you doing down in the cellar?”

“We were looking at the foundation to see if there are any cracks, or openings, where air could be coming through,” answered Race.

When Kurt went back to work, I asked Race, “You didn’t tell him what we heard, did you?”

“No, I told him we wanted to make sure the place is sealed well before winter, which is true.”

“Yes, it is. So, did you see anything, hear anything?”

“No, and Kurt assured me, ‘It’s solid as the day it was built.’”

We decided we would go on as before. If the house was haunted, we would keep plugging along until the ghosts gave us a reason to reconsider our future at The Lake Lodge. We rode into town for dinner that night, and Race sat across from me rubbing his hands over his face.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I just can’t believe I’m sitting here talking about ghosts as though they’re real.”

“So you didn’t believe me before?”

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you. It’s just that believing what you heard was really a ghost, never quite sank in.”

“Well, now we’ve both heard something. I don’t think we’re both going crazy. Do you?”

“Maybe we are. Maybe there’s something in the water.” Race shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face again.

“Let’s go ask Sara what she thinks,” I teased.

“No, let’s wait till we take her out for her birthday dinner next week.”

“Okay, we’ll tell her the ghosts were laughing. She loves to laugh.”

And then we laughed an irrational, uneasy, tired laugh until tears were running down our cheeks. What did it matter that we hadn’t told anyone that we were hearing ghosts? Anyone who was in the restaurant that night was surely spreading the news that the couple who owned The Lake Lodge was bonkers.

Surprise

St. Gabriel Island has the ability to make you forget all that is wrong with the world. As had happened after my first encounter in the cellar, the beauty of the island and our ongoing projects soon helped me push the haunting of the lodge out of my mind, except on Wednesdays.

I had set aside a few hours every Wednesday to ride into town and eat lunch at the bakery with Sara. I brought the lunch. She provided dessert. During our visits I would be plagued with guilt that I was keeping what I had heard from her. As far as she knew, I thought she was a nut who believed in ghosts, and the truth was I was a believer too, maybe.

I justified not telling Sara because, despite everything, I still wanted her to come out to the lodge. I wanted her to see what we were doing and what we had done. And I still loved the place and knew she would too if she gave it a chance—and if she didn’t hear a ghost while she was there. So we talked about everything but the ghosts.

“What have you decided to do for Race’s birthday?” she asked.

“I’m going to take him off the island for a few days. We’ll get in his jeep and he can drive to his heart’s content. We won’t make any hotel reservations. Wherever we end up we’ll get a room for the night.”

“He’ll love that.”

“I think so.”

“Did you get him a gift?”

“No. There’s a roll-top desk at Harper’s Antiques I saw last summer. I’d love to get it for him. It’s still there, but it’s one of the pieces that’s
not for sale.
”

“Sure it is. Those tags are just for tourists.”

“What?”

“Anything’s for sale there if it’s going to stay on the island.”

“That’s nutty.”

“Welcome to St. Gabriel.”

“So, if I go in there and tell them who I am and why I want to buy it, they’ll sell it to me?”

“That’s about the gist of it. And you met the Harpers at the Meaks’ July 4th bash. They know who you are.”

“How is it that you haven’t mentioned this before?”

“Have we talked about this before? If I had known you were in the market for a roll-top desk, I definitely would have mentioned it.”

As I was leaving the bakery that day, I called back to Sara, “Come out and see us, friend.”

“Not on your life, friend.”

I rode away and decided that when I got back to the lodge, I would talk to Race about telling Sara what we had heard. But first, I stopped at Harper’s Antiques, and Sara was right. I bought the desk and the matching chair. Then I went to Meaks Deli. I asked Larry if he would take care of moving the furniture into Race’s study while we were away for his birthday road trip.

Our renovation crew had proved they could be trusted, but to their dismay, I was still checking and double checking to make sure they had what they needed to keep working while we were gone for Race’s birthday. I was also busy preparing for the impending arrival of the chickens.

I had always wanted to have chickens. I had even tried to talk Race into letting me build a little henhouse in our backyard in Texas. But chickens were considered farm animals and not allowed in the city limits, which was where we lived.

“I won’t keep a rooster. No one will even know they’re back there,” I bargained. But that would have been breaking a rule, so I never had chickens in Texas.

When I found out the Cummings were selling some of their laying hens, I waited until Race was eating a piece of freshly baked pear pie and I mentioned it, “The Cummings have some chickens for sale.”

“And you want to buy them?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we going to keep chickens?”

“Lisle said she and Kurt can put together a henhouse and a run in a couple of days.”

Race lowered his chin and gave me his
I doubt it
look
.
I didn’t really believe they could build it in a couple of days either, but it was what I wanted to hear, so I ran with it.

“What would we do with them in the winter?” he asked.

“Lisle said they’ll insulate the coop really well and they can install a heater and lights. We could have fresh eggs all year.”

Race shook his head and held my cheek in his hand. “No rooster.”

“No rooster,” I agreed.

The materials for the henhouse were delivered on a Thursday. Lisle and Kurt began building it on Monday morning and it was done on Tuesday night. Two days, and it looked exactly like the picture I had drawn—a little wooden cottage.

Another week and a half was spent on nesting boxes, perches, and installing the heating and lights, but who was counting. I planted red climbing roses on the fencing for the run. Race called it the Kentucky Fried Palace, although none of our chickens would ever be finger-lickin’ good.

The day arrived to pick up our hens from the Cummings, and Race hitched Collard Greens and Tasha to the dray. After he helped me up and he took the driver’s seat, Cat jumped up between us. She looked up at me, to make a point I think, turned in a little circle and curled up next to my man on the bench. The competition for male attention had become so fierce, apparently, that she was willing to tolerate being that close to me. Either that, or she couldn’t resist being along when we brought home one of her taste sensations.

On the way back to the lodge, the dray was lined with cages filled with clucking balls of feathers. I looked at Race and thought he should be wearing a cowboy hat and some boots. And I would have been more appropriately attired in a bonnet and cotton pinafore dress. It’s moments like that on the island that you have this odd sense that you have actually time traveled.

Cat had again claimed her place beside Race but was facing the back of the dray with her paws on the edge of the seat. Her head was poked under the bench back and her tail waved wildly. I think I heard her licking her lips.

The day before Race’s birthday,
I said, “Get packed.” Then I told him about my plan for the next four days. In an hour his bag was sitting by the front door.

That afternoon, a horse taxi from the Island Livery Stables pulled up at the front gate. Out climbed Anna and Raceter Coleman. Race was working in the shed. I called to him from the garden and we walked down the hill to greet them.

“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?” That was Race’s greeting.

“Race, honey, why make us state the obvious?” Anna kissed his cheek. “We’re here to surprise you for your birthday.”

Race looked at me. “Did you know about this?”

I shook my head and looked at him with my eyes crossed.

Race’s parents had always stopped by unannounced when we lived in Texas. It had never occurred to us they would stop by unannounced from all the way across the country.

We had a couple from San Diego staying in Rhubarb Cottage. The only place to put up the Colemans was in one of the rooms in the lodge or in our room in the cottage, which Anna refused, “We will not put you out of your own bed.”

We took their luggage to a room at the west side of the lodge as far away from the hubbub as possible. Other than a layer of construction dust, it was still pretty much intact. It hadn’t seen any framing or demolition, except the cutting in of a doorway to make the connection to an existing bathroom. The doorway hadn’t been trimmed out yet.

“This isn’t how I wanted your first visit to be,” I told Anna as we were making up the bed with clean linens.

“We’re not here to be entertained, darlin’. We’re here to help. Besides, I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten to see the before and after.”

When Race and I were getting ready for bed that night, I looked out the cottage window toward the lodge and asked him, “You’re not just a wee bit concerned about your parents sleeping up there?”

“You mean because of the ghosts? I wouldn’t want to mess with those two, would you?”

With Race’s birthday road trip on hold
, Anna and I made Race fried biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and I put together a last-minute birthday dinner menu for an evening with his parents.

I called Larry and asked if there was any way he could bring the desk out that day. He did and Race loved it. Larry stayed for dinner and there seemed to be some chemistry going on between Larry Meaks Jr. and Anna Coleman. Had she been forty years younger, I think we would have had a love match.

Race’s parents were in their seventies at the time but that didn’t slow them down. For the next two weeks, they worked harder than the paid help. Anna and I put up over fifty jars of apricots, cherries, and peaches and then we pickled beans, beets, and cucumbers. It felt good to be working alongside Anna Coleman again. She’s a straight shooter and always good for a laugh.

We were up to our elbows in cherry pits when, for the first time, we discussed Race’s name, which is pronounced with a long A sound as in a competition between runners. Raceter is pronounced with a short A sound as in ass. That is no comment on my father-in-law who, by the way, I love dearly.

“I was so happy when you named Paul, Paul and not Raceter. Did I ever tell you that?” asked Anna.

“No, I always thought you were disappointed we hadn’t.”

“Oh, I think Raceter is a horrible name.”

“Why did you give Race that name, then, if you didn’t like it?”

“It’s some stupid Coleman family name that is passed down in that family like bad genes. I’ve noticed that the worst names are held onto like that. The good Lord knows I wanted a boy, but after Marie and Olivia were born, I would have kept popping out girls to keep from having to use that horrid name. Do you know Race’s dad even wanted to name one of our daughters Racine?”

“Well, I’ve always loved the sound of Race’s name.”

“His father didn’t. When he was born, I started calling my baby boy Race and my husband was none too pleased. He still doesn’t call him Race. Haven’t you noticed?”

I realized I hadn’t noticed.

“It’s always son. And he only says son because Race refused to answer to Raceter once he turned nine.”

“I never knew that. I’m glad you called him Race. I’m not too fond of the sound of Raceter.”

“I hear ya’, darlin’, it’s not a name you want to call out during the throes of passion.” Anna dramatically threw her arms out to her side and yelled, “Oh, Raceter, Raceter, come to me Raceter!” That got us to laughing and we had to step away from the counter to keep from flinging cherries all over the kitchen.

Race’s dad was initially preoccupied with driving the horses, a throwback to his childhood on the farm. He jumped on any excuse he could find to make a run for materials or take a half load of trash to the Disposal Center.

But when Raceter Coleman found out we hadn’t hired someone to refinish the floors in the lodge, he said to Race, “Now there’s a job for you and me son.” Then he talked to Lisle and Kurt and found someone on the island he could rent a floor sander from and got to work.

Father and son began in the downstairs rooms but had only sanded the first floor before the Coleman train was headed back to Texas. By that time Race had picked up a new hobby, and he was determined to finish the job, which he did.