Return to the Beach House (35 page)

He tried, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. It was the tone of her voice that concerned him. He looked for his robe but couldn’t find it, so put on a flannel shirt instead. The height of fashion—hairy legs topped with red plaid.

She was at the table, her open computer the only source of light—the candle of the twenty-first century. She glanced up and saw him. Grinning at his outfit, she poked her hand out of the rolled-up sleeve of his robe and waved him over. It seemed she’d taken to the robe thing after all. If he was ever going to get his returned, he’d have to make sure hers made it out of the washing machine.

“Are you sure it’s her?” she asked. “Marial is a pretty common surname, isn’t it?” She waited for the answer. “Yes, I can hold.” She reached for Matthew’s hand, and whispered, “Barbara—the woman I told you about with Save the Children—thinks they’ve found Sittina’s grandmother.”

“Why would someone claim to be her grandmother if they weren’t?”

“Every refugee camp has a criminal underground. Some specialize in preying on orphaned children, using them for everything from prostitution to thievery.”

“Right now I’m going with the idea that it’s really her grandmother,” he said. “This girl needs something good to happen to her—other than meeting you.”

The gentle kindness made Lindsey smile. “They won’t know for sure until they find Sittina. Barbara said she took off a couple of days ago to look for her grandmother, and they haven’t seen her since.”

Abruptly, Lindsey sat up straight and swung the phone back toward her mouth. “Yes—I’m here.”

Matthew got up and went into the kitchen to make coffee and check out the sweet rolls they’d bought that afternoon. As he passed the computer he saw that it wasn’t pictures of war or refugee camps or even Sittina that filled the screen. It was a mother otter grooming her baby. The picture wasn’t there for him to discover, she’d been working on it before he came into the room.

The discovery was a gift.

Minutes later Lindsey came into the kitchen and wrapped him in the folds of his bathrobe. “She’s going to call me back as soon as she hears something.”

Matthew gave her his own update. “Roger’s assistant said she’d get back to me as soon as she could reach him,” he said. “Seems he’s somewhere over the desert in Mongolia in a balloon. In the meantime, she’s contacted the people they have working in Gihembe to see what they can do on their end.”

She kissed him. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

He responded with a kiss of his own. “Actually, you have—and in some rather creative ways that I’d like you to remember for a repeat performance.”

She put her head against his chest, feeling both his heartbeat and the gentle pressure of the jade elephant. “Something brought us here. This house is more than a place to stay. There’s something special about it.”

“Still thinking about the old couple on the beach?”

He wasn’t teasing her or dismissing what she’d seen, and it didn’t matter that apparitions were rock bottom on his credibility scale—he believed in her and that was all he needed. “That’s part of it, but there’s so much more.”

“Like?”

“This is going to sound strange.” She tilted her head back to look at him. “Okay, it’s going to sound even stranger than ghosts. I have this feeling that I belong here. I’ve never felt this way about any other place we’ve stayed, not even the apartments in Atlanta and London. We’ve been here three days, and it’s like we’ve always been here, like it’s home.”

“It wasn’t home for me until I picked you up at the airport,” he admitted.

“See? Something was leading us here, and it had to be now, not last summer. I’ve always thought it didn’t matter where we were, as long as we were together. Now I have this weird hunger to set down roots.”

“How big a role does Sittina play in these feelings?”

Lindsey frowned. “In what way?”

“You want to give her something you don’t have.”

“It isn’t me. I want her to have what Rebecca has—a loving home, stability, education, even a full cupboard.”

“So you’re thinking about adoption?” Matthew asked, betraying none of the conflicting emotions he felt.

“It’s been on my mind almost constantly since I left her,” she admitted. “But it wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“The adoption process is in as much chaos as the country. And for some bizarre reason, several of the agencies have decided to deal only with children who are under five. They claim that older children don’t transition well to living in the States. There are five million children without parents or family members to take care of them, most come from traumatic backgrounds, are malnourished, plagued by parasites or other medical conditions, suffering from abuse, abandonment, and complete loss of hope.”

“Plainly you’ve done more than think about it.”

“Look at us. No agency would take us seriously once they found out what we do for a living. And as much as I hate to admit this, Sittina needs a constant in her life, not parents who visit her between assignments. Every reason we’ve ever had for not adopting children applies double when it comes to her.”

“And yet?”

“I can’t let her go.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Matthew said. “First we need to find Sittina and see if this woman really is her grandmother. Then we’ll talk to her and see what she wants to do.” He drew Lindsey closer. “In the meantime, we’ll check into what it would take to get her and her grandmother to the States. That could be easier than adoption, and they’d have us to help them get settled. Do you know if they have any relatives living here, someone who could sponsor them?”

“It’s not something we ever talked about.”

Matthew’s phone rang. Despite the hour, he didn’t even consider letting it go to voice mail. He checked the name and told Lindsey, “It’s Zach.”

She nodded. Knowing it would be a long call, she slipped out of his robe and draped it across his shoulders, then pressed a kiss to his temple and headed back to bed.

Lindsey could see light coming through the window when Matthew gently shook her awake. She rolled away from him. “Ten more minutes,” she pleaded.

“Okay—but you should know there’s a bright-eyed, freckle-faced young woman hopping from one foot to the other, waiting for you in the living room.”

“Oh my God,” Lindsey groaned. “I forgot I told Rebecca I’d meet her this morning.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her shirt. Running her hand through her hair was about as effective as trying to eliminate static electricity with an inflated balloon. “Give me five minutes. No, better make it ten.” She stuck one leg into her jeans. “Teach her something. Remember, she thinks you’re the world’s best nature photographer. Impress her.”

“With my charm or my wit?”

She smiled. “With your talent, of course.”

“When you get back, we need to talk.”

She stopped her frantic hopping. “Zach?”

“He wants me to give the eulogy at Ekaterina’s service.”

There were a hundred, a thousand, things Matthew did well, some of them better than anyone she knew. This wasn’t one of them. He was an incredible public speaker, able to captivate an audience in a couple of short sentences, but he could not get up in front of a crowd and talk about what it meant to lose someone as full of life as Ekaterina. The loss of his own sister had been too profound to separate from the loss of others.

The thought hit her like baseball-size hail falling from a cloudless sky, stunning her both mentally and physically. How could she have been so stupid as not to recognize the depth of the fear he must go through every time she left him? Matthew didn’t share the illusion that protected most people when they told a loved one good-bye—that they would see them again in the prescribed time and their lives would go on as before. He knew it could be a lie as big as the ones that led to most of the wars she covered.

“What did you tell him?”

He passed his hand over his face, then stood with both hands tucked in his back pockets. “When you get back. It’s too long to go into now.”

“I’ll postpone. Rebecca will understand.”

“No, don’t. I need some time to think about this anyway.”

She nodded. “Whatever you decide, I’m—”

“I know.”

She crossed the room and took him in her arms. “I’m so sorry, Matthew.”

“This isn’t about me.”

But it was. How could he stand in front of hundreds of people and talk about what it took for someone to do Ekaterina’s job and not be haunted by the realization that every time she and Mathew kissed good-bye at an airport Lindsey was headed into the same kind of danger. “I’ll make this fast.”

He nodded and gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll be here.”

Rebecca was sitting on the edge of one of the ottomans, her hands clasped between her knees. She stood and picked up her tripod as soon as she caught sight of Lindsey.

“This is a bad time,” she said. “Why don’t we wait until you get back?” Realizing she’d said more than she should, she added, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing you and Matthew talking.”

“Then you also must have heard that he wants some time alone.”

“No, he doesn’t,” she said with conviction. “Not really. I say that too all the time, but I don’t mean it.”

Lindsey gave her a questioning look.

“Six years ago, my mother and my little brother died in a house fire that started because she was heating the oil to make popcorn and forgot about it when a friend dropped by with some blow. They went down to the basement to get high. By the time I smelled the smoke, the flames were climbing the stairs to my room and it was too late to do anything but get outside and find someone to call the fire department. I broke my brother’s window to try to reach him, but it only made the fire worse.

“Later, everyone listened when I told them I wanted to be alone. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about the bottle of pills I stole from my first foster mom. She found me and got me to the hospital, but she didn’t want me to come back because I was a bad influence on the other kids.

“When you have something bad happen, you say you don’t want to talk about it, but you really do.”

“I’m sorry.” Lindsey didn’t know what else to say.

“It turned out okay. I got to move here.” Rebecca blinked away the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes. “And I got to see Joe and Maggie. They don’t talk a lot, but they’re really good at listening.”

Rebecca headed for the door. “Let me know if you still want to do this when you get back. If not, I understand.” She found a smile. “Don’t worry, it won’t slow me down.”

Lindsey followed her. “Maybe next time we’ll get Matthew to go with us.”

“I’d like that.”

“He would too. He’s a teacher at heart. If you get a chance, look him up on TED.”

“I will.” Rebecca turned to give a wave as she headed across the brick walkway. “I’m sorry about your friends.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lindsey replied, not sure Rebecca had heard her before she disappeared into the fog.

Chapter 11

Lindsey replaced the latest issue of
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
book on the table in front of her and went to the sideboard to fix a cup of tea. She’d have thought a New York City agency as prestigious as Lind Brothers would have a receptionist who brought drinks out on a tray.

A note in a plastic sleeve on the cover of the book had attracted her attention. It said that six of the photographers in the current book were represented by the agency, including the top prize-winner of the year, Matthew Stephens. Curious, she’d looked to see which of his pictures were included. There were a dozen, with over half devoted to the work he’d done on rhinos. He never entered contests himself, but the agency felt it was important enough for name recognition that they “encouraged” him to participate, doing everything short of choosing the pictures.

She wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t told her. Matthew’s satisfaction came from his work in the field, not from the awards. Still, according to his agent, the awards brought in enough assignments that he’d finally reached the point where he could choose the projects that interested him rather than having to take ones that simply kept him employed.

She heard someone coming and turned to look. It was another agent escorting another client—undoubtedly, if her own rumbling stomach was any indication, out somewhere for lunch.

She smiled as they passed and took her tea over to the window to look at the people working in the building across the street. The agency had a great address, but that didn’t always come with an equally great view, especially in New York.

Surprisingly, considering she hadn’t shared Matthew’s enthusiasm for spending a month in California, all she thought about now was getting back. The service for Ekaterina had been subdued, but heartbreaking. Fittingly, they’d celebrated her life with photographs, devoting a portion to her work, but the majority to her life with Zach. There were childhood images and pictures from family gatherings and others with her dozens and dozens of friends. Her infectious smile had reached into the hearts and minds of the mourners. It didn’t matter how often they were told that the service was a celebration of her life—there were no dry eyes.