Rose Harbor in Bloom (21 page)

“I agree,” Kent said. “I feel we should go through with the party, renewed vows and all.”

Although relieved, Annie felt she had to do something more. “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”

“Oh, sweetie, we’ll be fine.” Julie stretched out her arm toward Kent. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

“Of course we will,” Kent agreed. He slipped his arm around Julie’s waist.

“We’ve behaved so badly,” Julie said. “Oh, Annie, I do apologize.”

“Hey, you could apologize to me, too, you know.”

Her grandmother pressed her hand against Kent’s jaw. “We’re a pair of old fools, Kent Shivers.”

Annie’s grandfather chuckled and gave his wife a little squeeze. “You hit the nail on the head with that one.”

Julie smiled and told Annie, “Now, you get back to whatever it was you were doing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” her grandfather assured her. “You go, and I’ll finish getting dressed.” Annie turned to leave when her grandfather stopped her. “Hey, Annie, what do you think of your grandmother’s new push-up bra?”

“Kent!”

Her grandfather chuckled. “I like it. The girls are upstairs.”

“Kent,” Julie protested again. “You mean the twins are upstairs,” she said, and giggled as if she were twenty years old all over again.

Feeling much better, Annie left the inn and returned to the reception hall.

When she arrived she found that Oliver had the chairs all set up. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“Good, I think,” she said, as she shucked off her jacket and set aside her purse. “I gave them the option to elope a second time, but they decided to go through with the party.”

“I thought they probably would.”

Annie owed him. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I think this entire day would have been a disaster if you hadn’t said something.”

Oliver shrugged off her appreciation.

“No, really.”

The space between them seemed charged with electricity. Annie tried to break away, but found herself trapped in the moment. This
feeling was gratitude, she tried to tell herself. Appreciation. She couldn’t actually be physically attracted to Oliver. Couldn’t long for him to kiss her again, couldn’t …

Even as the thoughts were zipping through her head, Annie felt herself leaning toward him.

Oliver didn’t need any more encouragement. He reached for her, and his lips descended toward her when the outside door to the hall opened.

“Annie, what can I do to help?”

Annie and Oliver broke apart, and she quickly turned aside. “Aunt Patty! Hi. Thanks for stopping by …”

When I’m upset or worried, I find the best antidote is for me to do something physical. Lieutenant Colonel Milford was right. Paul wasn’t alive. He wasn’t coming home. In my heart of hearts, I had to accept the fact that my husband had died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Six men were on board that aircraft when it went down; six men died. I couldn’t pin any hope on the fact that the remains of five men had been found and one had survived. And that one could be Paul.

I greeted two sets of guests and saw them to their rooms, but I didn’t remember anything I’d said to them. What I needed, I decided, was hard physical labor, and seeing that Mark couldn’t work on the rose garden, then I would.

Putting on rubber boots, I grabbed a coat and headed outside
with Rover dutifully following behind. Once I retrieved a shovel from the shed, I headed toward the half-completed garden space, unsure exactly where to start. If nothing more, I could put the sod back so the yard didn’t look so torn up. While I strained with effort, I might manage to hold back my churning emotions.

Rover seemed to sense that something was wrong, because he whined for several moments until I stopped digging and petted him. Tears clouded my eyes. I did my best to ignore them, sniffling several times until it became necessary to pull a tissue out of my pocket. I dabbed at my eyes and then blew my nose. All too soon I gave up any effort to hold back the tears and was quickly out of tissues. I’d worked myself into a frenzy carting the sod across the yard, sobbing as I worked. My fear was that I’d made an even bigger mess of things.

Mark wouldn’t be pleased, but this had to be done. Being the perfectionist, he wouldn’t take kindly to me meddling in what he considered his area.

By the time I returned the shovel to the shed my back ached and my legs felt shaky. Although I had a dozen other tasks that required my attention, as a result of my outside exercise, I needed to shower and change clothes. My emotions were all over the board, and I hoped standing under a hot spray of water would help settle me down.

As I headed back into the house, the front door opened and out stepped the Shivers. The morning had definitely gotten off to a shaky start with the anniversary couple. I sincerely hoped that everything would turn out the way Annie had planned. I knew the young party planner had put her heart into organizing this event, wanting to honor her grandparents.

Julie Shivers stood with Kent on the porch. She took one look at me and immediately knew something had upset me. “Jo Marie, my dear, whatever is wrong?”

It wasn’t like I could hide my red runny nose or the fact that I’d
been weeping. “I apologize,” I said, but my voice was barely above a whisper. “I got some distressing news this morning.” I hadn’t realized the couple was still at the inn. I assumed they’d already left for the festivities with their younger daughter and her husband.

“Is there anything we can do?” Kent asked.

I shook my head. Wanting to change the subject, I smiled as best I could. “You both look amazing.” And they did. Julie wore a pink double-breasted suit with a pencil skirt that had a pleated hem. Kent’s dark brown suit complemented Julie’s outfit perfectly. They made for a handsome couple.

“In other words, we clean up well,” Kent joked.

“Indeed, you do,” I said, and was pleased to know my voice had found itself again.

“You really think so?” Julie asked, brushing her gloved hand down her front. “Kent and I waited to dress until the very last moment. Oliver is due to pick us up in a few minutes. Kent was too restless to wait inside.”

“Too uncomfortable, you mean.” Kent ran his index finger along the inside of his shirt collar. “Never did enjoy wearing a suit and tie. I can only put up with this for a few hours.”

“All this will be over with before we know it,” Julie assured her husband, gently patting his forearm.

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Kent grumbled.

“Why don’t you sit with us a bit?” Julie invited, gesturing toward the porch swing.

“I’m a mess,” I protested. My boots were covered with mud, and I was more than ready for a shower.

“Sit,” Kent ordered. “Help us take our minds off all the fuss and bother of this anniversary.”

I could see the invitation was more for them than for me, and so I sat down on the top porch step while Kent and Julie chose to sit on the swing. Rover came and lay down beside me, and I ran
my hand down his back, finding a gentle comfort in this special friend.

“So what’s going on?” Kent asked, in that no-nonsense way of his.

More as a distraction for them than a need to talk, I said, “I got a phone call this morning from my husband’s commanding officer. He’s back from Afghanistan. When the helicopter my husband was in went down, the crash site wasn’t accessible,” I explained. Then I went on to tell them what I’d learned that morning.

“Do you think the one body not retrieved might be Paul and that he survived?” Julie asked, her eyes growing round and hopeful.

“I keep telling myself to accept the fact that he’s dead.”

“But you can’t help believing he might have survived the crash,” Kent filled in for me.

I nodded. No one needed to tell me it was a fool’s game. “Every wife, every mother, is thinking the same thing I am. Each one of us clings to the hope that the missing body is their loved one and that by some miracle their son or husband is alive. We all want to believe that he’s living in the mountains, working his way slowly but surely back to civilization.”

“How could you not cling to that hope?” Julie asked.

Kent agreed. “Frankly, I don’t think you’d be human if you didn’t. It’s never easy to let go of a loved one.”

That these two would be so sympathetic helped chase the chill of the morning away. “Paul and I had such a short time together,” I said, staring off toward the calm waters of the cove. “I’d like to think if he had survived the war that we might have had the chance to celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary one day.”

“I worried myself sick when Kent was in Vietnam,” Julie said. “I was so afraid I would lose my husband. Every night the newscaster would report how many more young men had died. My
greatest fear was that one day I would get word that Kent wouldn’t be coming home. I couldn’t bear the thought.”

Kent reached for his wife’s hand, and the two exchanged a long look.

“Julie wrote me every day,” Kent remembered. “Her letters are what got me through the war. I think I would have gone stir-crazy if it hadn’t been for her letters.”

“And when I didn’t hear from him, every imaginable scenario went through my mind,” Julie added. “A week would often go by without a letter from Kent, and I was certain I’d lost my husband.”

It hadn’t been nearly as bad for Paul and me. “Thankfully, we were able to keep in touch,” I recalled. My entire day centered on when the two of us could talk. I’d moved my computer into the bedroom and even in my sleep I was able to recognize the pinging sound that indicated an email. More nights than I cared to remember, I would wake and then the two of us would spend an hour or more with instant messaging. Afterward, I would fall back into bed and sleep, feeling my husband’s love wrapped all around me despite the fact he was half a world away.

“It’s much easier to stay in touch these days with email and Skype and cell phones,” Julie agreed.

I would be forever grateful for those late-night sessions. I had reread his emails often, especially those first few months after I got word of the helicopter crash. Some I had even put to memory. I printed them out and placed them in a binder. These days I took them out only when I felt especially lonely. I would sit with Rover cuddled up next to me and read through them again and again. Perhaps I would do that this evening. I hesitated, unsure if that would be wise. Sometimes the emails comforted me, and other times they had the opposite affect and I would be hit with wave upon wave of grief. I’d wait until this evening and decide.

“It looks like Oliver is here now,” Kent said, and pointed toward the street. He stood, and so did Julie.

“He’s been with Annie, getting everything set up at the reception hall,” Julie told me. “I’m sure he was a big help.”

“You know, you just might be right,” Kent said, looking down on Julie.

“About what?”

“About Oliver being the one for our Annie.”

Julie couldn’t have looked more pleased. “I’ve said that for years. I would love to make Oliver an official part of our family.”

“He might as well be family,” Kent muttered. “He spent as much time with us as he did with his own parents.”

“Kent, that’s not true. Oliver only came to visit when the grandkids did.”

“And if they weren’t around, he found an excuse to stop by,” Kent added, but he didn’t seem to have minded.

“Oliver has been a big help to us over the years, so quit your complaining.”

“I’m not complaining,” Kent insisted. “I’m making a comment is all.”

“Oliver shoveled the snow from our sidewalks, and if there was something Kent could no longer do, then he took on the task. We’re really going to miss him while he’s traveling in the South Pacific.”

“True enough,” Kent agreed.

“I just wish …” Julie let the thought fade.

“What do you wish, sweetie?” her husband asked.

“You know … that Oliver and Annie.”

“I’ll admit it would be nice, but they need to discover this without help from us. Now, Julie, I know how much you enjoy matchmaking, but we can’t be meddling in young people’s lives.”

“I know, I know.” But Julie didn’t look happy about it.

Oliver hurried up the sidewalk. “Your chariot awaits you,” he said, all smiles.

“Are you ready?” Kent asked Julie.

She sighed and then nodded. “I think so. What about you?”

He nodded solemnly. Then, reaching for her hand, the two walked down the porch steps.

I knew that everything would be fine. Kent and Julie would be surrounded by family and friends. This day would long be remembered as they celebrated their marriage and their lives together.

I continued to sit on the porch after the car pulled away. I’d learned a valuable lesson from watching the Shivers. If Paul had lived, I was convinced we would have probably behaved as they had after so many years of living together.

Only we wouldn’t have that opportunity.

But then, I hadn’t ever expected to fall in love or marry, either. Would I trade having known and loved Paul Rose for anything else life had to offer? My heart instantly knew the answer.

No.

Even with the pain of loss that I would carry with me the rest of my days, I had no regrets. Despite my hopes, my husband was gone from me physically and yet at the same time he would always remain a part of me.

As I started to walk into the house, I heard a car pull into the yard. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was Peggy Beldon and Corrie McAfee. Peggy and her husband owned another bed-and-breakfast in town. Corrie was married to a retired Seattle police detective who took on investigations in the private sector. Come to think of it, the young man who’d arrived with the fire department to help Mark had been named McAfee. I wondered if they were any relation.

The two women were good friends, and I knew they made a point of having lunch together at least once a month. I’d been invited to join them, but had only been able to make it one time.

Peggy and her husband, Bob, had helped me with many of the practical applications of running a B&B, too. They’d introduced me to other inn owners operating in the area. I was amazed by
their willingness to reach out to someone they might consider competition. Instead, their attitude was that of friends. Peggy insisted that all the B&B operators needed to stick together. I knew that part of the Shivers family who had traveled from out of state would be staying at The Thyme and Tide on Cranberry Point this evening. I had been happy to recommend their B&B. Peggy and Bob would make all their guests feel welcome.