My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (36 page)

“Marni, don’t say that. You’re so beautiful. I don’t want you thinking those thoughts.”

“He left me, Cammy. He left.” She collapsed into my lap and sobbed. “Cammy, how did you bear it?”

“I didn’t, honey. It’s not bearable. I just tried to get through each day until it wasn’t so painful anymore.”

I lay in bed that night, trying to think of ways I could help Marni get through the days to come. And all of my insecurities and the pain from what Race had done came rushing back. Memories can be so sweet and so bitter.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Race asked. I thought he was asleep.

“What would you do if I had to have my breasts removed?”

“Do you mean would I leave you?”

“Yes, or if you stayed, would you still want me?”

“Come here.” Race took me into his arms. “I wouldn’t leave. I promise you, I won’t ever leave again, Cam, not for anything.” He set his hand underneath my chin and looked at me intently. “And I’m in love with you, Cammy Coleman, not your breasts or your hair. When we make love, I’m loving you.”

Marni stayed indoors
for the next two days. She didn’t want to eat with Race and me, so I took her meals to Rhubarb Cottage. I wished Sara Strauss was there. She has this distracting spirit that’s guaranteed to get your mind off your troubles. I missed Sara.

And then I had an idea,
of course, the horses.

I took Marni out to the barn to meet Tasha and Collard Greens, and Collard Greens was actually quite amiable. Race showed Marni how to hitch up the buggy and he and George taught her to drive it. When she had mastered that, they moved on to the surrey and then to the dray.

Marni woke up every morning and hopped out of bed so that she could feed the horses and do any hitching that needed to be done, and like Race’s dad, she jumped on any opportunity to run errands. It was a good thing Raceter Coleman wasn’t visiting or we might have had a fight on our hands.

“You can take the buggy out just for fun, you know,” Race told Marni one morning at breakfast.

That’s all she needed to hear. “Do you need the buggy this morning?” she asked.

Race and I smiled at each other. “Nope,” we answered in unison.

Marni jumped up from the table and picked up her dishes.

“Leave those, I’ll get them,” I told her.

And off she went.

“Those horses are getting quite a workout,” Race said and chuckled.

“Maybe we should get a couple more. We’ll need to, eventually, when the lodge is up and running.”

“I’ll talk to George,” Race offered.

“Race, would you mind if Marni goes with us to the View Point Ball?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s invitation only. Do you think we can get her in?”

“Why don’t you call James and ask him?”

“Okay, I will.”

A moment of déjà vu flashed before me when I called James and asked him if Race and I could bring a friend. He said, “No problem.” And he told me that he would take care of adding another guest to our name.

When I asked Marni to go, she initially said she’d rather not, but I tempted her, “You could get dressed up and drive a surrey. What could be better than that?”

Driving a sleigh—that’s what could be better than that. Two days before the ball, it snowed. The daffodils and tulips were already coming up and some of the fruit trees had set blossoms. But Old Man Winter was back and he didn’t care that we would lose some flowers and fruit. It was a beautiful spring snow, though, gently falling to the ground, peaceful.

The crew was slowly getting over their disappointment that we would be socializing with the enemy, but the day of the ball, they all left early. I didn’t let it damper my excitement of getting dressed up and dancing. Marni and I had gone shopping on the mainland for new dresses, which didn’t look quite the way we had imagined they would after we had accessorized them with snow boots.

George had spent the day before teaching Marni everything she needed to know about driving a sleigh, so she insisted Race and I ride in the backseat. We did, huddled under a blanket, and Marni was our chauffer.

When we got to the hotel, Race escorted Marni and me as we clomped up the stairs in our heavy coats and boots. Once inside we changed into the heels we were carrying. The ballroom was filled with people that must have been beamed in. I didn’t recognize a soul until we saw James.

“James, do you remember Marni?” I asked him.

“Yes, how are you? It’s really good to see you.”

Marni fingered her hair. “I’m fine. How are you?”

It was fun to be in that fancy place with fancy food and fancy music. Not something I wanted every day but a nice change of pace. An orchestra played everything from waltzes to swings, and we learned rich people can really cut-a-rug.

James’ sister Diana was there with her husband Joe. I didn’t know how she would react to me when I saw her again. She was gracious and kind, even when she was introduced to Race.

James and Celia introduced us to their guests and we realized our project on the other side of the island had piqued the interest of a few people. “You’re the couple reopening The Lake Lodge. We’ve been watching your progress. It’s coming along.”

And when we met Celia Alexander’s oldest son Stephen, we got an earful about what an “outlandish” price the owners had wanted for the lodge. “Anyone would be foolish to pay a fraction for that dump.”

Race excused us when Stephen was in mid-sentence, and guided me to the dance floor.

“Did you hear what he said he offered for the lodge when he tried to buy it?” I asked Race.

“Yes.”

“That’s more than twice what I paid for it. Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?”

“Maybe someone needed the money or they were restructuring the trust, something like that.”

“But I bought it two years later. Property values hadn’t gone down during that time, they’d gone up.”

“I don’t know. It was meant to be, I guess.”

“I guess,” I repeated, but I wasn’t buying it.

James took Marni out to the dance floor several times and gave her the same attention he had the night when I first met him. Marni relaxed and stopped fiddling with her hair—just the way she stopped tapping the scarf that was tied on her bald head that night at the restaurant. James Alexander is a good man.

Marni drove us home in the sleigh and it wasn’t even back in the barn for eight hours when she had it out again. When Race wanted to take me out for a moonlit ride, he had to get on the schedule. He was attempting to pull me out of my gray mood from having taken Cat and the girls in for their procedures that day.

Hard to believe, but George told us that Cat had never had kittens before. Motherhood had made her a kinder, gentler feline and I was glad she had the experience, albeit later in life. So, when Race said, “We need to think about having Cat and the kittens spayed.” I was sad to say the least. I loved having new life around and I loved watching Cat with her girls. I knew spaying was the right thing to do but that didn’t make doing it any easier.

If anything can get your mind off your woes, it’s a sleigh ride, a moonlit sleigh ride. It was beautiful, and the rate of speed at which we traveled was just right. We were above Grayson’s Meadow, where the pass turns down toward the creek, when we saw another sleigh coming out of Tunnel Rock. As it rounded the corner, the driver cut down a side trail before we passed each other.

I reached over and grabbed Race’s arm. “Who did that look like to you?” I asked him.

“Who did you think it looked like?” asked Race, answering my question with a question, which I really don’t like.

“George and Celia Alexander,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” agreed Race.

“What would they be doing out together?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Do you think they’re dating?”

“It’s possible.”

“Well, that might explain room number ten in the lodge.”

“Cammy.”

“Well, it might. Why don’t you ask him about it?” I suggested.

“No, I’m not going to do that. George is a private person. Whatever he was doing is his business.”

“You’re not curious?”

“I didn’t say that. But I’m not going to pry. And, Cammy, I don’t want you asking George about it either. Promise me you won’t.”

“I promise.”

Our First Guests

Memorial Day weekend was my target date for opening the lodge, and it looked as though I had finally set a deadline that we would actually meet. It had to happen eventually.

Our crew was over our View Point Ball peccadillo, and they were all working hard to get the lodge ready for our first guests. Race posted pictures of the lodge and an ad on the St. Gabriel Community Website.

St. Gabriel Island’s historic Adirondack-style Lake Lodge is now open for business. Fully renovated. Beautiful, quiet setting, less than a five-mile ride or walk to St. Gabriel’s charming downtown area. Complimentary breakfast buffet daily.

Within hours we were receiving calls, and within days we had the first two weeks completely booked. More calls came in and the summer was filling up.

Putting the finishing touches on the lodge was like playtime. We were making regular trips to the mainland and bringing back boxes of food to stock the lodge pantry, crates of toilet paper, and little shampoos, lotions, and soaps for the bathrooms. The orders of bath and bed linens and the willow furniture were delivered. And the white Adirondack chairs and footstools arrived, which came in boxes and would need to be assembled.

And something else arrived, something I had splurged on that I didn’t tell Race about, a commercial ice cream maker. It arrived while Marni and I had gone to the mainland for a day of shopping. When we got back, I found Race in the lodge kitchen. He had the machine unpacked, had read the directions and had just finished his first batch.

I tried to explain why I had spent the money on something so unnecessary, but Race interrupted me, “Don’t ever again let me hear you say the words unnecessary and ice cream in the same sentence, Cammy Coleman.” Then he scooped the cold and creamy vanilla goodness into a huge glass bowl and grabbed two spoons.

Marni came to tell us that she and George were off to the island stables to pick up the two new horses. Race and I were sitting at the table with the bowl of ice cream between us.

“Grab a spoon, Ms. Scott,” I said.

“George is waiting for me.”

“Well, there’s plenty more where this comes from. Would you pick up some cream at the dairy on your way back from the stables?” asked Race.

And they did bring back cream and horses, two more ladies, both dark brown, good looking horses—but Tasha was still Queen. I told Marni she could name them.

I had taken my time in picking out Tasha’s name but compared to the selection process that Marni Scott undertook, I hadn’t given the task a respectable amount of thought. She made lists starting with A and ending with Z, took surveys, and researched meanings. It was a good thing she didn’t have a deadline.

Marni came into the lodge kitchen one morning and asked me, “What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the name, Hadie?”

“My first grade teacher, Miss Haddonly.”

“How about Trixy?”

“A Las Vegas hooker.”

“Thanks.” She made some notes and bopped out of the room to seek out her next interview.

Einstein was open on the counter, as was my recipe box, and I was beginning my own notes, notes for the first two weeks of our breakfast buffet menu.

Baked Goods:
Rhubarb Coffee Cake, Maple Cinnamon Scones, Rhubarb Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins, Apple Morning Cake

Main Dishes:
Overnight Breakfast Strata, Dirty Scrambled Eggs, Fried Biscuits and Gravy (don’t make a habit of this)

Sides:
Chunky Hash, boiled eggs, fresh fruit

Beverages:
juices, coffee, tea

I was also organizing the lodge kitchen. From a bottom shelf I pulled out pots that I hadn’t used or cleaned yet. They were big enough to make soup for the Houston Oilers. When I took off the lids and set them in the sink, I saw that one of the pots was filled with crumpled newspaper, pages of
The St. Gabriel News
from the week of October 17, 1942. In the bottom of the pot was a cigar box full of handwritten recipes and recipes clipped out of magazines. Some of the writing was fading and all had stains from where they’d been handled with messy fingers.

As I flipped through, I read,
Caramel Cup Custard
,
Baked Mushrooms, Pureed Summer Squash Soup, Green Apple and Rhubarb Pie with Cheese Crust, Tomato Bisque, Rhubarb Bread Pudding,
all recipes for dishes that were on the menus I found in the dining room buffet. And there were more
, Cottage Pie, Split Potato Biscuits, Tomato Pickles, Fish Chowder, Creamed Onions, Feather Maple Cake.
Enough dishes to fill ten menus. I set the box next to Einstein. More treasure!