Holidays at Crescent Cove (11 page)

Chapter Three

B
RI STOOD REGARDING
David Henderson's back. What the hell was she going to do with him? Now that he was inside, she couldn't very well thrust him out into the cold again. The kitchen window thermometer said it was twelve degrees.

A cold walk into town.

But he couldn't stay here.

“I told the dispatcher you wanted to talk to Nick. She asked your name. She'd never heard of you. She asked me what it was about. I told her I didn't know. She thought it was odd.” And so did Bri.

“Look, I know you feel uncomfortable with me here. I don't blame you. I don't normally sleep in barns. I just couldn't find a hotel and it was dark and cold, and I was tired.”

“So you said,” Bri said, refusing to give in to his rationale. He could still be a psychopath, and she would have put them all at risk.

David had been frowning at her, but now he looked past her and smiled. Bri turned to see Mimi and Lily peering out from behind the doorway. That was one of the problems with the language barrier. She'd taken them to their room and told them to stay. For all the good it did.

“Zao shang hao,”
David said, in what to Bri sounded like perfect Chinese. Her suspicion barometer shot to the danger zone.

Mimi and Lily ran to Bri and hid behind her, but they peeked out at this new person, full of curiosity. She laid a protective hand on each little head and narrowed her eyes at him. Bri didn't believe in coincidences. She'd never had a vagrant sleep in her barn before. Never met someone looking for Nick. And on top of that spoke something that sounded like fluent Mandarin At least it did to her, whose grasp of the language was basic at best.

He spoke to them again, and the two heads nodded in Bri's palms.

“Did you just ask them if they were hungry?”

“Yes. It's morning, and I for one could use some breakfast.”

“Where did you learn to speak Mandarin?”

“I know bits of lots of languages. I can say hello, order food, and ask the way to the American embassy in at least ten.”

Bri couldn't help it, she smiled. Caught herself. “You're not a spy the agency sent to see how I'm treating the girls, are you?”

“No ma'am. Just a traveler who happened to stop for the night in your barn.”

“How did you know Ben Prescott?”

His eyes hooded over. “I'll tell you over breakfast. I can't remember the last time I ate. Yesterday sometime, I think. Are your girls adapted to the new diet yet or shall we make congee and steamed eggs.” He'd spoken the last words in Mandarin, and Mimi and Lily squealed and repeated “steamed eggs, steamed eggs,” until Bri gave in and pointed him to the fridge.

“I don't suppose you're better at steaming eggs than I am.”

David shrugged, opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Depends on how bad you are.” His words echoed from inside the fridge.

The girls cautiously left her side and tiptoed toward the open fridge door. They squeezed in on either side of him and looked inside, too.

“I'm pretty bad, but they eat it . . . most of the time,” Bri said, then realized no one was listening. And she had to fight off a little pang of jealousy when she saw how readily the girls were taking to this stranger as he handed the egg carton and a container of rice out to them.

Jealous and wary.

“Then allow me. I'm a pretty decent cook. It'll be pay for my night in your barn.”

Bri acquiesced. That way she could keep an eye on him until Nick got here.

The kitchen began to fill with the aroma of cooking. David found a package of bacon in the freezer and was standing at the stove, stirring rice, turning bacon and popping bread in the toaster like a short order cook. Which, Bri realized, was entirely possible. A man hitchhiking cross-country probably had to pick up odd jobs where he could.

The windows had misted over and Bri and the girls drew funny faces on the frosted panes, but she still kept one eye on David while he worked.

At first she told herself she was making sure he didn't pull anything. But after a few minutes she just watched him as he moved from toaster to oven to fridge with a kind of choreographed grace, though he was a big man, tall, lanky, spare as if he'd been tempered in fire.

And when the hell did she start waxing poetic in the morning? She shook herself. Got up and began setting the table.

David announced breakfast, and the girls ran to their places, held their bowls in both hands and looked expectantly at him. It was one of the things Bri hadn't gotten used to. Their fear that there wouldn't be enough food for them.

It broke her heart every time. And she couldn't find the words to explain to them they would always have enough to eat, clothes to wear, a home. And all the love she could give.

She met David's eyes, saw that he understood, and she quickly looked away. She didn't want to share that deep, soul-twisting emotion. It was too dear, too precious, too personal.

And how did he know what she was feeling, anyway?

He took the girls' bowls, poured congee and eggs into them and took them to the table. Mimi and Lily followed close behind him, their mouths already open, like baby birds.

He went back to the stove, filled two plates with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast and put them on the table. He motioned for Bri to sit, then poured two mugs of coffee and sat down across from her.

Bri's heart skipped several beats. It was a normal enough scene, played out in homes across the world. But not here. It would just be her and her girls. Every bad choice she had made in her life was because of a man, and after the accident that ended her career, she'd sworn to never let her fatal attraction be her downfall ever again.

Mimi and Lily finished eating. Bri had been paying too much attention to the stranger sitting across from her and they'd gulped down the food.

The girls had spent most of their lives worrying about getting food, and it was a hard fear to overcome. Usually she sat with them, reminding them to eat more slowly, telling them about lunch even when she hadn't thought about what she was making for lunch. But today she hadn't been paying attention and they looked a little confused.

“Tell David thank-you for your breakfast,” Bri told them.

Lily happily obeyed, but Mimi kept her eyes on her bowl.

Bri sighed.

“What's your name?” David asked Lily.

Lily straightened up and said, “Lee Lee.”

“A very pretty name,” he said.

“Lee Lee.”

He chuckled and repeated his comment in Mandarin. Lily smiled.

He turned to Mimi, who ducked her head until her face was almost buried in her Princess Jasmine sweater.

David ducked down, too, tilted his head until he was on the same level as her and could see her face. She glanced up at him from beneath jet black lashes.

“Do you have a pretty name, too?”

A tiny little nod.

“Let me guess.
Dia
?”

She shook her head, a tiny movement.

“Hmm. Not butterfly. Let's see. I've got it.
Hua
.”

Mimi looked up quickly, shook her head.

Bri wished she could understand what names he was saying. Hoped they weren't anything to make Mimi even shier and more frightened than she already was. Lily, being younger, had adapted to her new life faster than Mimi. The adoption agency people said this was to be expected. Mimi had spent more years in the orphanage than Lily. It was a life she was accustomed to, she knew no other, and it was harder for her to try new things.

“Wait, don't tell me.” David frowned, knitting his eyebrows together. Then he smiled. “
Nangua
?”

Mimi pouted her bottom lip at him. But Bri could tell she was trying not to smile. “What does ‘Nangua' mean?”

“Goose.”

Bri smiled.

“Me Me Boy,” Mimi whispered.

“Mimi boy?” David glanced a question at Bri.

“Boyce,” she said, “Mimi Boyce.”

“Ah, and that would make you Mama Boyce?”

Bri nodded.

“Well, Maomi. What is Mama's name?”

Mimi's pout reluctantly changed to a smile. “Bee.”

“Bee Boy. Mama,” David said.

“Mama,” Mimi said.

“Okay, girls,” Bri said. “Why don't you go turn on the television? Five minutes.” She held up five fingers.

Both girls slipped off their chairs and hurried to the door.

“Hey,” David said. “Lily and Maomi.” He rattled off something that Bri couldn't begin to follow. He just knew how to order food and ask directions, her eye. The guy spoke pretty fluently.

Both girls immediately came back to the table, took their bowls over to the counter and placed them next to the sink.

“Thank you,” he said, this time in English.

They smiled and ran into the great room. Bri listened for the sound of the television coming on. When she heard cartoon voices, she turned to David, not knowing whether she should be angry that he was trying to usurp her position with the girls or thankful for encouraging them to do more.

He took his plate to the sink and came back with the coffeepot.

“Thank you,” she said. “For breakfast and for reaching out to my girls. And my name is Brianna. Brianna Boyce. Bri.” She shrugged. “Or Bee.” She smiled.

“Hmm. How long have you had them?”

“Since the beginning of November. About six weeks.”

“They seem pretty well adapted.”

“You think? It's been a giant learning curve. For all of us.”

“You're doing fine.”

“Is that the voice of authority?”

He huffed out a sigh that might have been a laugh. “Hardly. I just wondered . . . Are you dong this alone, or is there a Mr. Boyce?”

“No there isn't.”

“A significant other?”

She frowned at him. “No. And since I'm not intending to have one, I decided to adopt them myself.”

“Hey. I wasn't making a judgment, just conversation.”

“Who are you?”

He raised both eyebrows. “Just a guy trying to do what he said he would do and finding no room at the inn. Actually, not finding an inn at all. Nothing more or less.”

“There are no hotels in Crescent Cove. A few B and Bs that open in the summer. But the motels are out on the highway.”

“Not at the exit I came from.”

“You hitchhiked here from where?”

“Most recently from the New Haven bus station. Met a guy driving up to Rhode Island and he gave me a ride to the Crescent Cove exit. Thanks to the kindness of some strangers. At least you didn't run me over last night.”

“I—”

“I recognized the SUV. I don't blame you. You shouldn't pick up hitchhikers.”

Bri shifted uncomfortably. She wasn't exactly afraid of him. Not anymore. But he seemed awfully . . . something. She couldn't put her finger on it. Though
at home
came to mind first. Followed quickly by
and not telling the whole truth.

She reached for her coffee mug mainly just to have something to focus on. “You were going to tell me how you knew Ben Prescott.”

He picked up his coffee mug. Held it in both hands. Looked into the dark liquid as if he might find the answer there.

“I met him in Afghanistan.”

“I figured that much. Were you a soldier, too?”

“No, I was working . . . on an aid team there. Ben was leader of the squad assigned to provide escort to the supply convoy that serviced us.” He stopped and frowned as if conjuring the image of their shared past and not liking what he saw.

A shiver shot up Bri's neck.

“We got to talking.” He glanced up. “That's all.”

“But he gave you a letter for his brother. Why?”

“A lot of guys did. You know, write a letter they hoped no one would ever have to send.”

Bri cut back an unexpected sob. Embarrassed, she stared down at her hands clutching her coffee mug. “He was my first crush.”

“Really? Was it . . . serious?”

She shook her head. “Only if giggling near the lifeguard stand is serious.”

He smiled.

She hadn't meant to tell him that. “So he gave you this letter.”

“Yes. I hoped I would never have to send it. But—”

She looked up. “But you did.”

He nodded.

“But you brought it instead. And it's been a over year.”

“You're awfully inquisitive.”

“Listen. Nick Prescott is married to my best friend. They're raising Ben's child. We all knew Ben. I don't want anything to hurt them.”

“Connor's here? Oh, good. Ben was worried about that.”

“You know about Connor?”

“Yes. When I went to Colorado, no one seemed to know what happened to the boy. But I was hoping he was with Nick in Crescent Cove, so I came here. It's the best I could do for a friend.” He fell into silence. Took a breath. “That's the story.”

Bri's breakfast was suddenly sitting heavy in her stomach. “The letter. Ben didn't say anything bad, did he?”

“I didn't read it.”

Chapter Four

B
RI'S CELL PHONE
rang. She looked at caller ID. Margaux. “Excuse me,” she said, and hurried into the other room. “Hey.”

“I just called to make sure you're okay. Nick called and said there was a man there looking for him.”

Bri sheltered the phone with her hand and walked past the noise of the television toward the back of the house.

“He says he has a letter from Ben.”

There was silence on the other end.

“I asked him why he didn't just send it. I think it's one of those if-you-read-this-I'm-dead letters.”

“Why now? After all this time?”

“I asked him; he just said he had other things he had to do. He said he was working with some aid group over there, maybe he couldn't get away.”

“I sure as hell hope Ben didn't do a final rant. Nick is just coming to terms with his death. If that's ever possible. But you know what I mean.”

Bri didn't know the full story, but she knew Nick well enough now to know that he felt responsible for what had happened to Ben. Not just because he'd sent him to the army to keep him out of jail, but for not being able to be a father to him, when their father died.

“Nick is totally tied up with a multicar pileup on the other side of town. Have they plowed out by you yet? Why don't you come early and bring him with you. Nick will be more likely to swing by here than go out to your place, and I know he'll be crazed until he gets a chance to meet this Mr. Henderson.” She sighed. “And so will I.”

“They're not here yet. But I heard rumblings of plows in the distance. It shouldn't be too long.”

“Good, I'll make lunch. The roads here are clear. One of the perks—the very few perks—of being married to the chief of police.”

Bri smiled at the way Margaux always said “married” as if it were a magic word. And to see Nick and Margaux together after so much heartache and betrayal, Bri knew it was . . . for them. She felt a little envious. But not enough to start looking at men again.

She'd learned her lesson. And if she was ever in danger of forgetting it, it snowed or rained and the pain in her leg reminded her of why it was better to go solo from here on out.

“Do you feel safe with him in your house?”

“Yeah, but it's kind of weird. He speaks Mandarin.”

“You're kidding. That's a strange coincidence.”

“Yeah. And I don't believe in coincidences. The girls like him, though I'm not planning on turning my back on him for long, which means I'd better get off the phone.”

“Good thinking. Call me every twenty minutes so I know you're okay.”

“That might be a little obvious.”

“I don't care. Call me.”

“Okay. I hear the plows, but my service won't be here until later. I'll have to figure out a way to get to the snow blower and blow a path to the road without leaving the girls alone with him. I'll see you soon.”

“Have him do it. Fair payment for a night in the Bri Barn Hilton.”

Bri laughed. “I'll see what I can do.”

She hung up and went into the kitchen. David was gone.

She quelled her first rush of panic. Probably in the bathroom. She tiptoed across the kitchen and looked down the hall. No sounds coming from the bath, but there were sounds coming from outside the kitchen door. She looked out.

He was outside, shoveling a path to her SUV. Was he being polite? Or was he as anxious to be gone as she was to have him go?

She went through the mudroom and stuck her head out the door. Her nose hairs bristled, it was so cold. “You don't have to do that,” she called.

He stopped and leaned on the snow shovel. “In exchange for breakfast and a night in your barn.” Each word was punctuated by a cloud of breath. “Besides, you'll need to get your car out to the road, and I need to get into town and clean up before I meet the police chief. I thought maybe I could bum a ride from one of the plow boys. They sound pretty close.”

“I've got a snow blower in the garage. And I'll drive you to Margaux and Nick's if you can clear a path to the road. You can shower and whatever while I get the girls ready.”

He grinned at her from behind his day old growth of beard, and Bri wondered if shaving was part of his clean-up agenda. He stuck the shovel in the pile of snow and looked around.

She pointed to the garage. “In there.”

He touched his finger to his hat and trekked through the snow to the garage.

Bri went inside to help the girls get dressed, which they did quickly when they understood they were going to see Connor.

Margaux called again while David was in the shower.

“We're plowed out to the road,” Bri told her.

“Good. I just put the mac and cheese in the oven. Mom's recipe. There's plenty. There's stuff for salad, so don't stop on the way. And I can rustle something else up for the adults, though I do make a mean mac 'n' cheese.”

“And I open a mean box,” Bri retorted. “Thanks, I'll take you up on it.”

“I'll tell Nick to meet us here when he can.”

Bri gathered up a change of clothes for the girls, some toys and their naptime stuffed animals, a bear and a rabbit that she'd brought to China and back again.

The three of them were sitting on the couch reading
Pokey Little Puppy
when David appeared, wearing jeans and a clean looking if slightly rumpled plaid shirt. The beard was gone. And Bri's heart skipped a beat at the transformation.

“Thanks. I feel almost human.” He smiled, but his expression clouded. “I mean it. Thanks.”

“No problem. Margaux invited us all to lunch. You're probably hungry after all that snow blowing. And the girls are always hungry.” She gave them both a squeeze. “Coats,” she said. “Connor's house.”

They slipped off the couch and ran for the mudroom.

David followed them out.

The girls were halfway into their snowsuits and jackets, and David was stuffing things back into his backpack, when Bri got to the mudroom. He didn't look up. Just zipped the backpack, lifted it onto one shoulder and opened the door for them.

The girls climbed into their car seats and Bri fastened them in. David tossed his pack in the back hatch and got in the passenger side.

The girls chattered away, excited to see their friend Connor. Bri concentrated on driving and David looked out the window for the entire drive to the beach community where Margaux and Nick lived.

He'd been so engaged during breakfast, but now he seemed remote. Maybe he was worried about what the letter he was about to deliver said and how it would affect Ben's brother and the rest of his family. He might even be planning his escape if they decided to blame the messenger.

She wanted to reassure him that whatever the letter contained, they wouldn't blame him, but she knew that it would fall on deaf ears. David Henderson had withdrawn into his own world.

A few minutes later Bri pulled the car into the parking area at the back of the Sullivans' beach house. She and Margaux and their best friend, Grace, had spent so many wonderful summers there that just the sight of it made Bri relax.

She hadn't really been aware of just how tense she'd been until she saw her old friend smiling and running toward the car, pushing her arms into a huge orange parka that had to be Nick's. It clashed terribly with her nutmeg red hair.

Margaux glanced in the passenger side at David, nodded to him, then opened the door to the backseat to let Mimi out of her harness.

“Hi guys. Connor's so excited that you're here.”

Lily was already trying to get out of her car seat when Bri opened the opposite door.

David got out of the car. Reluctantly, Bri thought. And who could blame him?

“Come on inside,” Margaux said over her shoulder. “The heat's pumping and lunch is almost ready. And wait until you see our tree.”

D
AVID FOLLOWED THE
others into a warm, friendly kitchen with old-fashioned wallpaper of watering cans and ivy. It reminded him of his grandmother's house. It was one of the few things he remembered about it or even his grandmother.

While Bri and Margaux were busy getting the girls out of their winter gear, a young boy in sweats and fleece-lined moccasins ran into the kitchen. He slowed down and looked at David, then continued out to the mudroom.

David stared after him. Dark hair and eyes, eyes David had seen before. He had to be Ben Prescott's child, Connor.

Why? Why hadn't Ben wanted to come back to this? His child. His family. Why had David agreed to keep his letter? Maybe if he'd refused to take it, Ben would have had second thoughts about what he was about to do.

He closed his eyes on the image of their last conversation. “What happens when the war is over?” Ben asked him, but it was a rhetorical question. “None of us can ever go back to what we were.” That boyish smile. “In my case that would be a good thing.”

David should have said,“There will be another war.” There was always war in some place. Where the victims were mostly innocent. Where people like David with skills but without the supplies or equipment to use them, tried to clean up the mess. Whether it was mortar and bombs or the aftermath, when the weapons were gone and disease, hunger, and fear replaced them. But he didn't say any of that. Just “Okay.”

“Is everything all right?”

He came back to the present. Tried to smile at Margaux Prescott, Ben's sister-in-law. She looked so concerned. Was it for him, a stranger? Or for her husband? This was going to be even harder than he expected. And at this point he already expected everything to be hard.

There was nothing good about war. Not loyalty, valor, heroics, camaraderie. It sucked. It killed. It maimed—

“David?” Bri said.

David started. He nodded toward Connor, who was dancing around the girls with cries of “Hurry up, slow pokes,” while Mimi and Lily scrambled out of their boots and into their house slippers.

“He looks like his father.”

“Yes, he does,” Margaux said. “Let me take your coat.”

He hesitated. He could drop the envelope on the table and leave. Pick up his backpack and walk to the nearest highway. Going north, south, west, it didn't matter. He wouldn't have to stay and see them react to whatever was in that envelope.

Maybe he should have read it first. Maybe he should have left well enough alone. Pretended that it didn't exist. They would never have known. But he couldn't do that. It might be the one thing that brought them closure. Acceptance.

He unzipped his jacket and handed it to her.

She took it with a tentative smile. “Why don't you guys go out to the parlor. See our first Christmas tree.”

Yeah, c'mon.” Connor motioned to the girls. Lily ran to him, but Mimi clutched Bri's hand.

“Can I come, too?” Bri asked.

“Sure. C'mon.” Connor and Lily disappeared from the doorway, and Bri coaxed a timid Mimi out of the kitchen.

David felt a hand on his arm and he turned to see Margaux smiling at him. “David. You're welcome here. We appreciate that you've taken the time to come yourself. Especially now, during this season.” She bit her lip. She was a lovely, poised woman, chic somehow in the old fashioned kitchen. It seemed weird to David to find two such sophisticated women living in a small town. Two beautiful women, obviously cultured, one alone in a dilapidated old farmhouse with two adopted children; the other in an old fashioned beach house married to a small town cop.

“Would you like some coffee or something?”

“No, thank you. I'll just—”

“Make yourself at home,” she said as the oven buzzer went off.

David didn't offer to help. He knew he should, but he was disconcerted. The outsider in this strange but comfortable mix of people. He wished he could have known them without that letter hanging over them all. He wished the chief would get home, so he could deliver it and leave. He didn't belong here. Had no right to be here.

He had to fight the urge to run. Grab his coat and backpack and head for the highway.

Margaux took a large casserole dish out of the oven and put it on top of the stove. The smell of mac and cheese wafted toward him. So keen, so full of his own memories that he wanted to cry. But he hadn't cried in a long time.

“Let's join the others,” she said, and steered him into a hallway toward the front of the house and a parlor where a ceiling-high Christmas tree filled one corner of the room, every inch decorated with eclectic ornaments and lights.

The girls sat on the floor while Connor pointed out the ones he'd made at school. Bri sat on an old trunk, listening just as raptly as Mimi and Lily.

“He used not to talk except in whispers,” Margaux said quietly. “
He
found his way back.”

David stared at her. Ben wouldn't be coming back ever. Or was she talking about him?

Lily climbed up into Bri's lap. Took her face in both hands. And started jabbering away.

“What, sweetie? What do you want?”

Lily pointed to the big gaudy star at the very top of the tree.

“A star like Connor's?”

Lily pointed some more. Slid down and ran to David. Talked to him so fast that he had a hard time not laughing.

“Tree,” he said.

Her bottom lip stuck out.

“Tree,” he repeated, and pointed to it. “Tell Mama.”

Lily ran back to Bri. “Chee.”

“Tree? You want a Christmas tree?”

“Chee. Me.”

Bri laughed. “Okay. How about Mimi. Tree?” She pointed to Mimi, then Lily, then herself. “For us?”

Mimi nodded.

Lily ran back to the others. She and Connor jabbered away, each in their own language, neither minding that the other didn't understand what they were saying. At some point they would. Children were like that. Too bad adults weren't as smart.

He heard a door open and shut. Margaux left them. David suddenly felt cold in the cozy room. Nick Prescott was home. Footsteps crossed the kitchen, and David knew it as sure as he knew it was too late to chicken out now. A minute later a shadow fell across the doorway, and David came face-to-face with Nick Prescott.