The Year of Chasing Dreams (7 page)

Eden’s heart dropped. Her gaze flew to Garret, and saw that his face had turned beet red.

“Bit of a cheeky thing to say, Alyssa,” Maggie said frostily. She dried her hands on a dish towel and came to hover beside Eden’s chair.

Alyssa ignored Maggie and with a toss of her honey-colored hair, moved behind Garret. She placed both hands on his shoulders. Garret shrugged her hands away. “Thought you had a catalogue shoot all day.”

“Conflict in the photographer’s schedule. Found myself with nothing to do, so I thought I’d come meet your new friend.” The girl’s voice was silky smooth, her eyes cool and appraising.

Determined not to let this girl know she was rattled, Eden offered one of her best smiles and turned on her best Southern drawl. “So nice of you to drop by and introduce yourself. I’m Eden McLauren, from Tennessee, USA. Garret and I met in Italy. He made my coffee most every morning.” She knew full
well that any coffee Garret made for her had been at his job in the espresso bar in Cortona, but she let the implication of intimacy hang in the air.

Bright spots of color dotted Alyssa’s cheekbones. Garret’s face regained its natural color, and he suppressed a grin. “I’ve made plans for me and Eden for the day.”

“Always best to call ahead,” Maggie chimed in with practiced cheer. “Good manners too.”

From the dialogue, Eden realized that Alyssa wasn’t exactly welcome at the house. And yet the way she’d opened the door and swept into the kitchen with her “girlfriend” announcement was troubling. How did this girl fit into Garret’s life?

Alyssa turned wide and innocent-looking blue eyes toward Garret. “I didn’t mean to presume. I just so rarely get to meet Americans.”

Maggie snorted but left the kitchen to Garret and the two girls.

“No time for a visit,” Garret said, rising and going to Eden.

“Well then, maybe later,” Alyssa said with a smile that never made it to her eyes. “Depending on how long your friend is staying.”

“I have a three-month visa,” Eden said. “Too long a trip for a short visit.”

The look on Alyssa’s face told Eden she didn’t like what she’d heard, but her mood turned artificially cheery and she said, “Then you’ll have to come to our beach party, before our mates head back to university.” She turned to Garret. “You haven’t forgotten your promise in the hospital, have you? When you told us we’d have a big beach fest to celebrate your recovery.”

Garret’s face reddened. “I haven’t forgotten, but—”

“I’d love to come,” Eden interrupted, smiling but gritting her teeth.

“Good!” Alyssa said in a tone that didn’t sound one bit inviting. “I’ll call with details.” She went to the door, waggled her fingers at Eden, and left, leaving behind an awkward silence.

Garret said, “It’s not what it looks like, Eden. I can explain.”

“And I want to hear your explanation.” Eden scrambled to gather herself. The encounter had left her shaken, but he deserved to have a say. “Can we sit by the pool? I need the fresh air.”

Garret gave her a grateful look, grabbed their cups off the table, and ushered her poolside where they took up chairs and positions from the night before. Eden thought how different things looked and felt mere hours later in the clear light of day.

“Alyssa was my mate all through secondary school—”

“Your
girlfriend
,” Eden interjected, wanting to be certain she understood the true definition of his term. In Aussie talk a mate could be anyone from a lifelong friend to someone very special. Alyssa gave the impression she’d been more than a pal.

Garret nodded. “Yes, we were together.”

“Like Tom and Lorna are together.”

His blue eyes held hers. “Yes. That kind of together.”

Her stomach twisted and she swallowed her angst with a big gulp of coffee. “Go on.”

“We became friends at school. Then more. After we graduated and I got the chance to go on walkabout, I asked her to come with me. She wouldn’t do it. Said she had other plans and for me to have a good time.”

By the set of his jaw and look in his eyes, Eden saw that Alyssa’s rejection had hurt him deeply. “But you went anyway.”

“Like I told you back in Italy, my wish is to see the world. Every mile of it if I can. Plus, I had the writing job. Tom and Lorna were game to come along for a spell. So, yes, I went.”

The sun had climbed higher and Eden watched a bird flitter to the edge of the pool, then skitter away. She felt pummeled emotionally, telling herself that naturally he’d had a life before meeting her, just as she’d had one before meeting him. Still, coming face to face with a girl from his past, a girl he’d cared for, and who didn’t appear to be letting go, unsettled Eden. “What other plans kept her from going with you?”

“She’s a model. Successful too. That was all the catalogue talk in the kitchen. A walkabout didn’t fit in with her life’s plan.”

The implication was that neither had he. “But you’re home now,” Eden said.

He shrugged, offered a smile. “Couldn’t be helped. I was a sick bloke. Doctor popped me in hospital the minute I landed. For days I had tubes sticking out every which way. Mum and Dad were right upset. Word got around, and lots of my mates came to visit. Alyssa came every day, and when I came home, she brought me movies, video games, milk shakes. She canceled jobs and photo shoots to stay with me. She was good company, and it helped pass the time. I couldn’t hold a grudge.”

Eden read between the lines. Alyssa had wormed her way back into his life now that he was home. “And so now she’s your girlfriend again?” The words stuck in Eden’s throat, but she wanted the whole truth. If he was with Alyssa, Eden wasn’t going to hang around.

Garret reached over and took both her hands in his. “That
might have happened if I’d never met you.” Again she met his eyes, wanting to believe he was being honest. “But I
did
meet you, Eden, and it changed everything. The way I feel inside. The things I want. All changed. I was a happy bloke in Italy when you said you’d come along with us.”

“We didn’t have much time together, Garret. I thought I’d never see you again when I left Italy.”

“That’s true. But once I met you, it woke me up. It made me see I didn’t love Alyssa. I understand her now in ways I never could before. And I’ve told her as much.”

“News flash: I’m not sure she heard you.”

Garret leaned back in his chair. “She heard me. She just doesn’t believe me.”

Tony hadn’t believed Eden when she’d wanted to leave him either. What Garret didn’t know about her past nibbled at her conscience. She wanted him to know, but the timing wasn’t right. She changed the subject instead. “A beach party. Hard to keep remembering that it’s summer here.”

“School term ends in November and starts in February. We’ll hit the beach before fall term. I’ll teach you how to ride a surfboard.”

She’d only seen videos of professional surfers and massive waves devouring them. “I don’t know.…”

He laughed. “You’ll start small with a boogie board. We’ll practice over at Manly Beach first.”

She liked the idea of a party, and she wanted to meet his friends. She wanted to be a part of his world. She would ignore Alyssa. “Guess I shouldn’t miss this one.”

Garret relaxed, and his face softened into a smile. “We’ll have a blast. Lots of beer and food.”

“And your Aussie charm.”

His grin widened. “Never to be underestimated.”

She picked up her cup, but the coffee had grown cold and stale. Garret took the cup, set it down, stood, and pulled her up to face him. “Thank you for believing me. And for not heading off to the airport because of Alyssa.”

“Not my style. I didn’t come halfway round the world to be shooed away by an old girlfriend.”

He kissed her until her knees went weak, then said, “Come on. It’s almost lunchtime. Throw on some walking shoes and I’ll take you out for some bangers and mash.”

“Some
what
?”

He laughed. “Sausage and mashed potatoes. A real treat.”

She wasn’t sure about that, but she was determined to go wherever he would lead her. Discovering Garret, all of him, was the reason she’d come so far from the world she knew.

Ciana missed Eden. Eden had become the sister she’d never had, and although she heard from her friend via email, it did nothing to lessen her case of wintertime blues. Eden’s chatty stories of Garret and sunny Australia only reminded Ciana of their carefree days in Italy, long gone in the snow flurries and sleet storms of January. On top of that, with Jon going off to Texas to visit his family for a few weeks, Ciana found herself cold, lonely, and at loose ends. She kept caring for the horses and projects in the old house, repainting the parlor, moving furniture, and cleaning out the attic. Because the shorter days meant longer nights, she spent most evenings in her room reading through her grandmother’s diaries.

For the most part, they were full of schoolgirl drama and day-to-day minutiae. Ciana saw that her life at Bellmeade might hold hard work, but without modern conveniences, farm life had been tough and uncompromising. Water for washing dishes and taking baths had to be pumped by hand and heated on a wood stove. There had been no electricity
at the house until the 1930s. Cows had to be milked rain or shine, hot or cold, in sickness and health. Hogs needed slopping—which made Ciana glad she only had horses and chickens to tend—and history from the forties and fifties wasn’t nearly as interesting as she’d thought it would be. She quickly grew weary of reading about penny candy and ribbon buys at the general store—in those days the store and church were the centers of Windemere’s social activity. The church still stood, but the store had been replaced by a supermarket in the seventies.

The one thing that did hold Ciana’s interest was the thread of Roy Soder that Olivia wove throughout the pages from book to book and year to year. As they both grew up, she continued to be fascinated with him. And since Olivia had a habit of pouring her heart along with every detail of her life into the diaries, Ciana’s fascination with him grew too. From the earliest entries, he was in constant trouble, branded a loner and a troublemaker by teachers and neighbors alike. He’d even been kicked out of Sunday school when he’d said he didn’t believe in God. At age eleven Olivia had been mortified, but as time passed, she wrote of him with an interest that Ciana recognized as a crush.

However, it had been Eden who’d discovered the first entry about Roy that had sent Ciana on the hunt for others about him. Before she’d left for Australia, she and Eden skimmed the diaries together. One evening Eden had sat up straight and said, “Whoa. You need to read this one.”

“Read it to me.” They were sitting on the floor, books and papers written in longhand stacked neatly, ordered by dates as much as possible.

Eden grinned, waggled her eyebrows. “It’s naughty. Sure you want to hear it?”

“I don’t think Grandmother’s idea of naughty translates to our idea of naughty. Read it.”

“Dated August 7, 1942,” Eden said. “She was what? Fourteen?”

“Sounds right.”

Eden cleared her throat. “ ‘I sneaked off to the swimming hole in Johnson Creek this afternoon. Hot day, school was out and I wanted a cool dip before I had to go home and face chores. No bathing suit—I hate them anyway, and so I stripped down to my undies and jumped right in. If Grandpa Jacob saw me like that he’d tan my hide with a willow switch. Don’t care. Heard yesterday that Joel Bufford got killed in the war, in the Pacific, far away from home. Miz Bufford’s put the gold star decal from the government in her window that tells everyone Joel’s gone. Really sad. Just goes to show you life can be real short, so swimming in my undies didn’t seem too awful.

“ ‘I was having a fine time in the water when Roy showed up. He announced himself and sat down on the water’s edge and said all kinds of suggestive things to me. (Grandpa calls Roy white trash.) I ignored him best I could, but then he started saying he’d like to come in for a cool dip too.

“ ‘Then, with no mind or manners to move on, he took my dry clothes, which I’d left on the banks, and said, “If you want them, you have to come take them from me.” I was scared, but I was mad too. Roy knew I couldn’t go home wearing only my panties, so I did the only thing I could do. I crawled right out of that swimming hole and walked right up to him. His eyes were all over me and I bet I turned a hundred shades of red. But … I will only admit this to you, dear diary. Even though I hate him, it excited me to see this look that I can only call
hungry
on his face. It was like he wanted to lay me down right there on the ground. I felt this queer fire flare up inside me;
scary, but it made me feel alive and strong, like I held some power over him. But I grabbed my clothes and covered myself as best I could and told him to go away! And then he said, “Next time,” and walked off whistling.

“ ‘Soon as he was gone, I dressed and hightailed it out of there. I got to our barn and dried off with horse blankets. That night at supper, Mama told me I smelled like a horse and to wash up good before bed. I scrubbed every spot Roy’s eyes had traveled on me with lye soap that burned my skin raw. I hate Roy Soder!’ ”