Love Will Find a Way (10 page)

"Hey, buddy," Carly said. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Can I turn on the TV?" Before Rachel or Carly could answer, cartoons were playing on the small television screen in the nook opposite the table.

Carly picked up her bowl and went over to the sink.

Rachel leaned against the counter, watching her younger sister rinse her dish and put it in the dishwasher. She thought about all the times they'd had breakfast together, fought over doing the dishes and cleaning the counter. They'd grown up together in this house, but Rachel had always been the responsible one, the one who had to make sure Carly grew up with some manners.

"What are you looking at?" Carly turned an annoyed glance in Rachel's direction.

"Just thinking about how many times we've had breakfast together in this kitchen."

"Too many times," Carly grumbled.

"What are you mad about this morning?"

"You don't know? How could you not know?"

"I didn't know it was your pie, Carly. I never would have served it if I'd known, but I was distracted. Grandma kept handing me plates to take to the table. I am sorry." And she was sorry, because she certainly hadn't wanted to put Dylan anywhere near the special family apples.

"Fine," Carly said with a sigh. "I'll have to wait a few days for more of the apples to ripen."

"Maybe a few days will clear your head."

"I know what I want, and I'm going after it. You should be proud, not critical."

"Why don't you go after something besides a man? Like an education or a career or a hobby?"

"Because a man like Antonio could be an education, a career and a hobby," Carly said with a smile.

Rachel shook her head. "It's a mistake to wrap your whole life up in some man's arms."

"Why?"

"Because he could leave or he could die. You could end up alone, and then what will you have?"

Carly's smile faded. "You still have a lot, Rachel. You have Wesley. You have the family. You have the land that you love, the business to run."

"I wasn't talking about me," Rachel said, but they both knew it was a lie.

"I can't expect the worst. I can't live my life that way," Carly said. "And you shouldn't either."

"Kind of hard when the worst keeps kicking me in the face. Look, I don't want to see you get hurt. You're young. You're naive. You don't know what kind of a man Antonio is."

"I know him well enough. And I'm not that young or that naive. On that you'll have to trust me."

She gave up. Maybe it would be better to speak to Antonio. Carly would have a fit, but Rachel wasn't about to let some playboy break her sister's heart. Although, Carly wasn't nearly as small town as she was. Carly was more like their mother, destined to want adventure, to roam the world. She didn't understand that kind of thinking. Home was where the heart was. If you moved around all the time, what kind of a heart could you have? What sort of roots could you set down?

"I better get dressed," Carly said.

"Are you planning to do any work today?"

"I'll be down to the office later. I have some things to do."

Rachel frowned. "What kind of things? Where do you go? What do you do every day?"

"What do you mean?" Carly asked evasively.

"I mean that I seem to be seeing less and less of you. And despite the fact that you dropped two classes this semester, you appear to be busier than you were before you did that."

Carly shrugged. "I still have to study and go to the library. You're the one who hasn't been around much, Rachel. You're always working. If you weren't, you'd see more of me."

She didn't quite buy that explanation, but it was obviously the best one she would get this morning. "Well, stop in at the office later on. We still need to discuss the schedule for the Harvest Festival and the second picking."

"I don't know why we're bothering to pick. There won't be anywhere to ship the apples with all the plants closing down. We need to change, Rachel. We need to plant grapes, start a vineyard."

"This is an apple farm. It's been an apple farm for over a hundred years."

"The prices for wine grapes are going up, while the prices for apples are going down, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we're in the wrong business."

Rachel shook her head. She'd been hearing the same arguments at the local growers' meetings. Even her grandmother had dared to bring up the subject. But Rachel and her grandfather were firm on the fact that theirs was an apple farm, not a vineyard. Unfortunately, the rest of the family was not so convinced. Even some of her younger cousins were starting to mutter. She'd had to find other ways to make the farm profitable.

The gift shop was beginning to make money with the offering of homemade apple butter, jellies and crisps. And recently, they'd begun offering tours of the farm and picnic lunches down by the creek on the weekends. She needed to update their website and use the Internet to build up their business, but there were only so many hours in the day.

"I'm done, Mommy," Wesley said, bringing his plate to the sink.

"Thanks, honey. Brush your teeth and get your backpack. The school bus won't wait for you."

"What are you and Dylan doing today?" Carly asked after Wesley had left the room.

"There is no me and Dylan," Rachel snapped.

Carly raised an eyebrow. "Look who's touchy now."

"Dylan wants to look at the plans for the house. He's coming by sometime today to get them."

"Your dream house," Carly said with a compassionate tilt of her head. "Not much left of the dream, is there?"

Rachel shook her head.

"Maybe you should tear it down."

"I've thought about it, but I can't. Wesley wants it so badly. It seems to be all he has left to hold on to."

"Won't it feel wrong to live there without Gary?"

"Yes. But it feels wrong to live here without him."

"Is it? You grew up here. You lived a lot of years here without him. In fact, you lived a lot of days here without him in the last couple of years."

"He was home plenty of times," Rachel said defensively.

"He was on the road every other week."

"It wasn't that much."

"Of course it was that much. I was here, too. I saw you sitting on the porch all by your lonesome, looking out into the sunset."

"Gary had business. He provided for us with that business. He had to travel."

"I'm not criticizing him, Rachel, but he wasn't a saint. And you weren't always happy."

"I was happy," she said fiercely. "I was madly in love with Gary, and he was in love with me. Don't you ever say
otherwise.
"

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"I have to believe in him," she said, feeling a sense of desperation. "It's all I have left."

"Maybe you should forget about the insurance money, go on with your life, and stop asking questions that you really don't want the answers to."

"I want the answers. I just want them to be the right answers."

The phone on the kitchen wall rang and she was grateful for the interruption. She picked up the receiver and said, "Hello."

"Rachel?"

Dylan's voice was not the one she wanted to hear. "Yes."

"Can I come by and look at the plans?"

"I'll bring them down to the house," she told him. "Then you can compare the plans to what's been done already."

"All right. When?"

"A half hour? I have to get Wesley off to school."

"I'll meet you there."

"Okay." Rachel hung up and saw Carly watching her. "Do you need something?"

"No. I just can't figure out why you seem so nervous."

"I am not nervous. I'm a lot of other things, but nervous isn't one of them." But she was lying, Rachel realized. She was nervous about seeing Dylan, about building her house, going on without Gary, finding out things she didn't want to find out.

"You're shaking in your shoes," Carly observed quietly, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Is Dylan bothering you in some way? Is he trying to take advantage
-- "

"No! Of course not," she said quickly, aware that her sister was veering off in a direction she definitely did not want her to take. "He just makes me uncomfortable because of his relationship with
Gary.""Gary
told me once that Dylan was the brother he never had."

She nodded. "I think that's the way Dylan felt about Gary."

"They probably shared a lot of things, a lot of secrets."

"Don't say that word. And don't give me that look."

"You asked Dylan to help you find out what happened. Instead he's here building a house. How is that helping you get to the truth?"

"I'll get to it eventually. I still have boxes to go through and other people to talk to."

"What other people?"

"I don't know -- other people. Just let it alone, Carly."

"Fine, I'll let it alone. What do I know? I'm just your baby sister. I couldn't help you in any way. It's not like I'm smart or anything."

She sighed, knowing she'd hurt Carly's feelings. "This isn't about you."

"No, it's not about me. It's probably about someone named Laura, someone who called Gary here a bunch of times in the weeks before he died, someone he didn't want you to know about."

Rachel's jaw dropped open. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"I thought you didn't need my help," Carly said.

"Are you making this up because I offended you in some way?" A chill skimmed up Rachel's arms, raising goose bumps.

For a second Carly hesitated, guilt flashing in her eyes, then she shook her head. "No, I'm not making it up. I heard Gary talking on the phone to someone named Laura. She'd called a couple of times when he was in the city. I finally gave her his apartment number because she said it was important. When I asked Gary who she was, he said she was a business associate."

"Then that's who she was."

"A business associate who didn't know his office number, or the firm he worked for?"

Rachel swallowed hard. "Why didn't you say something to me?"

"Because Gary told me she didn't have anything to do with you, and I believed him. After he died, I forgot all about it, until I overheard you talking to Grandma about the insurance problems."

Rachel's stomach turned over. Who was Laura -- a client -- or someone else, someone who had had a more personal relationship with him? Maybe the person who'd left a perfume bottle in his apartment? She moved toward the table and sat down in a chair, needing something sturdy beneath her. "You should have told me before."

Carly sighed. "I shouldn't have told you now. But it drives me nuts that you won't even consider the fact that I could help you find out what happened."

"I know what happened. Gary ran his car off the road in an accident. And this Laura was no one important." Rachel bit down on her bottom lip as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.

"I'm ready," Wesley announced from the doorway, wearing his backpack. His eyes grew worried as he took in her expression. "Mommy, are you okay?"

"She's just tired," Carly answered for her. "How about I take you down to the bus stop?"

"Okay. Bye, Mommy."

"Bye, Wes. Give me a kiss first." Wesley ran over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. It almost undid her, but she managed to hold herself together until he'd left the room.

Carly paused in the doorway. "I'm sorry, Rachel. Sorry if I made things worse."

Carly didn't wait for an answer, which was good, because Rachel didn't feel in the mood to give one. Not that it was right to take out her anger on Carly. It wasn't her sister's fault that some woman had called Gary, not that it meant anything. Gary had women clients and female friends.
 
So what?

She heard the front door close and got to her feet. She had to get dressed and meet Dylan. She didn't have time to worry about a few mysterious phone calls. But as she walked out of the kitchen and down the hall, she found herself going into the study, past the desk and straight to the filing cabinet. Inside the top drawer was a folder marked "Phone Bills." She removed it,
then
paused.

She had a feeling she was about to open Pandora's box. And once it was open, would she ever be able to get it closed? But it wasn't like she had to do anything. Just looking wouldn't hurt, would it?

* * *

It hurt just to look at the damn house, to think about the man who had dreamed it up, about the family who would never live here together. Dylan leaned against his car. He'd seen a lot of buildings in his time, but none that affected him as deeply as this one did.

Dylan had once lived in a house like this one – before Jesse died, before his mother's second marriage. After that they'd moved into an apartment building in San Francisco. His stepfather had three girls of his own, one only two years old. The apartment had three bedrooms. His mother and stepfather took one room, the two older girls had another and the baby had the third. He had slept on a cot in the baby's room for a couple of years. Then he'd moved onto a pullout couch in the living room. They'd never made a room for him. Boys could sleep anywhere, his mother always said. They didn't need nearly as many things as girls.

Gary had lived a few streets over in another apartment building. His had been more run-down, with peeling paint on the walls, cockroaches in the hall and a cigarette smell that never went away. They'd spent most of their time together outside on their skateboards. They'd gone all over the city. Sometimes when they'd cruised through the richer neighborhoods and looked at the tall, stately houses, they'd peek in the windows and wonder what it would be like to live in such places.

Dylan shook his head at the memories. He'd been so good at forgetting. Now it was all coming back. He straightened up and looked around, wondering where the hell Rachel was. It was almost an hour since he'd spoken to her. He didn't want to stand here thinking about the past; he wanted to get going, study the plans, figure out what he wanted to do himself and what he wanted to hire out.

His cell phone rang and he opened it, relieved by the distraction. "Hello?"

"Dylan? Mike Connolly. How are you?"