Leaving Carolina (31 page)

His brow remains bothered.

“I believe this will work, Axel.”

“
If
your uncle really is willing and
if
Luc doesn’t fight it. I doubt
your cousin will like this any more than divvying up the estate when your uncle passes away.”

“No, but if Uncle Obe has to defend against charges of mental incompetence, it’s easier to prove he’s in a right state of mind to make these decisions while he’s living than after he passes away.”

Axel’s face is impassive for what seems ages, but then he says, “It would be good for him to finally have peace, even if it means negative publicity.”

Headlines to pay. “Actually, that’s where I come in.” Why do I feel dirty? I’m just protecting the Pickwicks—and, all right, I
am
one of them. “Where possible, restitution will be made through acts of philanthropy.”

“Your idea, I assume.”

“Public opinion can be cruel, Axel.”

“But disguising repentance as benevolence…” He shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s the kind of peace your uncle is looking for.”

But it’s still peace! I square my shoulders. “The end result is that he pays the debt he feels responsible for without exposing himself or his family to the ugliness of public opinion. That has to count for something.”

“All right, but consider his children. If he does attempt a reconciliation, it will have more impact on them than if he merely writes them into his will. After all, the greatest healing is often found in a sincere apology.”

I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “But money isn’t bad either.” Though it sure sounds bad spoken aloud.

He pats his prosthetic leg, and I wince at what he believes I
think of it. “The young soldier who shot me made all kinds of excuses—said there was too much dust and smoke to see clearly… Smith wasn’t where he was supposed to be… the commands were garbled…” His brow creases. “It made me angry. And vengeful. But a few weeks later, he came to the hospital and told me it was his fault, and he’d been too scared to admit it. I didn’t forgive him immediately. But every day I awoke a little lighter with remembrance of his apology and the tears in his eyes. Eventually, I forgave him.”

My nose tingles and eyes sting, and for some reason my thoughts turn to Maggie’s apology. No amount of money could have made me feel as light as I had at that moment.

“I’m not saying that monetary restitution shouldn’t be made where it’s due,” Axel continues. “Only that often it’s best to start with an apology.”

And let the headlines hit the fan. “I appreciate that, and where possible”—rather,
unavoidable—
“apologies will be made.”

“How does your uncle feel about this?”

No need to detail his initial reaction. “He agreed it’s for the best.”

As Axel stares at me, I begin to feel like a moth on a pin. Finally, he says, “Where is the list of beneficiaries?”

I pass it to him, and he frowns. “Trinity’s name has been crossed out.”

What was
I thinking?

He looks up. “You did it?”

This must be how Reggie felt when I came after her. Unfortunately, I’m less adept at playing possum. “Yes.”

“That’s not your decision.”

I beg to differ, but that would require an explanation. So either I reveal
I’m
the one who will be making restitution to Trinity, thereby exposing myself as the perpetrator of the Lady Godiva ride, or I clam up and appear to be cold and calculating. If it’s not one bad impression, it’s another—on top of his believing I think less of him because of his prosthetic. I shouldn’t care, but I do.

I draw a deep breath. “It’s not what it looks like. Trinity will receive restitution, but not from my uncle.”

Axel’s lids flicker.
“You?”

“I’ll be the one writing the check.” And, yes, it will hurt.

He tilts his head questioningly, and it strikes me that if I tilted my head opposite and stepped in—

Why am I standing so near him? Warmth invades my cheeks, and I sidestep.

“Then you’re taking responsibility for something you did that adversely affected her.”

Something? He hasn’t heard of the Lady Godiva ride? That’s hard to believe, but maybe there are too many stories about Trinity for him to put a finger on one. “I am.”

A bit of Blue returns to his eyes—meaning I’ve made good my bad impression?

“Commendable,” he says.

Score!

“But is this one of those instances where, in lieu of an apology, philanthropy is meant to serve?”

Penalty. “You can only rock the boat so much before it starts taking on water, Axel.”

“Which is a problem for those who can’t swim, hmm?”

Of course I can swim, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use a life preserver in choppy water.

He sighs. “I’m sorry. Though I think it’s best to be straight with people, I’ll have to trust that you know what you’re doing.”

I do, don’t I? Trinity did enjoy the attention for a while, and it’s not as if she wanted to run the family business—

The ring of my phone causes my conscience to take cover. “Excuse me.” As Axel turns away, I clap my phone to my ear. “Piper Pick—uh,
Wick
.” Aargh!

“Obadiah Wick—uh,
Pickwick
,” my uncle grumbles. “For once I’m grateful that phone of yours is attached to you like a… um… you know…birth cord.”

Umbilical. Panged by his word-retrieval difficulty, I watch Axel step into the hallway and head from sight. “Is everything all right, Uncle Obe?”

“She’s singing one of her Cinderella songs again, and right down the hall—’Zip-a-dee-doo-dah’ this, ’Zip-a-dee-doo-dah that, then ‘bluebird on her shoulder’ this, ‘bluebird on her shoulder’ that.”

Not
a Cinderella song, but I don’t correct him. I come around the desk. “I’m heading back now.”

“Where are you?”

I hope he doesn’t read too much into this. “At the cottage.”

“Is Axel there?”

I step into the kitchen and catch sight of him through the window where he stands in the yard with his back to me. “He’s outside.”

“Is that right?” No doubt he thinks Axel and I were up to no-good.

“I came up to get the lotion, remember?”

“Of course I remember!” he snaps, as if in defense of the dementia I’m not supposed to know about. He clears his throat and says in a lighter tone, “That was a couple hours ago.”

As it’s better that he believes my prolonged absence is due to time spent getting to know Axel rather than his personal papers, I say, “Time flies when you’re having…”
Not fun
. “… a good conversation. I’ll head back now.”

“No rush.” He chuckles. “She’s singing ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’ now.”

Now
that
is a Cinderella song.

“Not that it’s any better, but it’s a change, so visit as long as you like.”

Incorrigible. “I’ll see you soon.” I return the phone to my waistband as I walk outside. “My uncle is awake, and Trinity is singing again.” I descend the stairs.

He steps forward and extends the bottle of lotion. “If the rash appears, wash again. If nothing else, it should lessen the severity.”

“Thank you.” Our fingers brush as I accept the bottle, and attraction hums through me. Did he feel that? I glance at him in time to catch the curve of his mouth before it flattens and his brow pinches. “Are you all right?”

He shifts his weight. “Just one of my phantom pains.”

I touch his arm. “I’m sorry about what I said in the garden.” I roll my eyes. “I mean, what I
didn’t
say when Uncle Obe asked if your… prosthesis bothers me.”

His eyes move from my hand on him to my face. “What didn’t you say?”

I snatch my hand back, only to wonder where to put it. As the options are limited, I clasp it with the other around the bottle, but it feels awkward. No wonder my clients groan and complain about the tasks I breezily set for them. It takes a tremendous amount of preparation and practice, both of which I’m lacking.

“What I didn’t say was that I hardly notice it anymore.”

Disbelief crosses Axel’s face, and I’m reminded of his fiancée’s inability to reconcile herself to his loss of a limb. “It makes a lot of women uncomfortable.”

“Not me,” I say with an eagerness that surprises—and embarrasses—me. “I mean, yes, it came as a shock, as I had no idea your limp was anything more than that, but it isn’t off-putting. In fact, I think you’re…” This is not the direction I should be going.

“What?”

Oh well. “You’re attractive, even with that whole”—I wave a hand at his lower face—“mustache-goatee-ponytail thing you have going on.”

His skepticism remains in effect, though I do detect amusement.

“I mean it.”

“Under the circumstances, you shouldn’t.” He smiles. “You are taken.”

Reminded of the last time attraction drew me to him, when Grant and I were still “on,” so to speak, I feel an urgent need to update him. “Actually, it’s basically over between me and… the man I was dating.”

Axel tilts his head. “Should I say I’m sorry?”

I almost laugh. “Would you mean it?”

“It depends on how heartbroken you are.”

Why am I not? I
was
practically engaged. Or was I? “I’m recovering fine.”

He glances at my mouth, which suddenly feels dry. And in need of kissing. Not good.

I hold up the lotion. “Thank you again.”

Without giving him time to respond, I hurry around the side of the cottage. As I start down the hill, I’m struck by a need to look back. Not that he’ll be there. He’s in the backyard where I left him, or else he’s gone inside the cottage. But…

I look around. There Axel is with his ponytail and blue-collar attire and unsophisticated, down-to-earth persona. Pickwick might not be such a bad place to live after all—

“Ah!” I jerk my head around in time to avoid a low-hanging branch. What has come over me? I am
not in
need of kissing! And Pickwick, even it didn’t have any dust, would not be compatible with me.

Maybe I need a shrink.

N
ow my partners are mad. This wasn’t supposed to take more than a week, and yet here I am heading into week number four with the Fourth of July parade just around the corner. Though Uncle Obe is getting around better and the words that go AWOL have yet to affect him in any significant way that I can tell, he has come to depend on me to meet many of his personal needs—for care, meals, and even companionship.

Of course, he’s also depending on me to help him make restitution to those wronged by the Pickwicks. I knew it would require time and effort to devise a workable plan but didn’t count on his unwillingness to allow me to handle the details. And to add one headache to another, he still doesn’t like the spin of philanthropy, although he grudgingly acknowledges its benefit with regard to protecting the family.

One instance where it won’t work is the compensation of the employees of the textile mill who continued to work for Bridget’s dad after he stopped paying them. Based on his assurance that paychecks were forthcoming, nearly a hundred employees worked a month without pay. Pay still due them, with interest. As it’s no secret the employees were wronged by Uncle Bartholomew and there are too many to expect them not to talk should anonymous checks
start appearing in their mailboxes, this has to be handled in a forthright manner. Thus, if you’re going to open old wounds, do it with salve and bandage in hand (in this case, an apology and generous compensation). If the press gets ahold of it, it will either be too scandal deficient to report or end up as a human-interest piece.

Uncle Obe liked that. What he doesn’t like is the spin I came up with to make good on the statue he dumped in Pickwick Lake. Not only does he say we ought to bypass the philanthropy angle, but he balked at announcing at next week’s Fourth of July celebration his plan to fund and commission a new statue. (And, no, I am not happy that I will be in town for that.) Uncle Obe was adamant that we write a check and be done with it, but when I pointed out that he wouldn’t have a say in what ended up in the town square, he became thoughtful and had a muttered conversation with himself as he clunked his cane around the library. When he returned to me, he said he had a sculptor in mind and asked for assurance that the choice would be his.

Surprised that he knew any artists, I reassured him. He hobbled off, calling over his shoulder that he needed to start his third draft of the letter to Antonio and Daisy and that he would get back to me.

I’m still waiting, though not for much longer since I need an answer by tomorrow in order to make arrangements with the event organizers. So today is the day I pry an answer out of him—
after
church.

As Axel helps Uncle Obe out of the Jeep, I make an effort not to pay him too much attention, which has become a problem. His eye catches mine, and I hurriedly lean into the space between the driver and passenger seat to gaze through the windshield at Church on the Square.

Since I returned to Pickwick, it has begun to feel as if every Sunday is a blank page. No matter how much I scribble on it with the pen of work, the pencil of Uncle Obe, or even the highlighter I’ve started applying to scriptures other than those that deal with dust, I don’t want to be here. And if this wasn’t my uncle’s first day back and he hadn’t asked me to attend, I wouldn’t have come.