Saving Laurel Springs (17 page)

Carter bit off an expletive before starting after her.

She was out of the water before he got to shore this time, pulling her T-shirt back over her underwear and slipping quickly back into her shorts.

He stood in the doorway of the gazebo, watching her dress. “How are you going to explain your wet clothes?”

She shrugged. “Tell the truth. That it was hot and I took a dip.”

His voice grew quiet. “But you won't add that you took a dip with me, will you?”

She didn't answer.

“Rhea, we can't keep denying what we feel for each other. And we can't keep playing games with everyone we know, pretending that we're only friends.”

She gave him a defiant look. “We
are
only friends.”

He shook his head as he started to pull his shorts back on. “Rhea Dean, we are much more than friends.”

“There's an attraction, I admit.” She sat down on the gazebo bench to lace up her tennis shoes.

“Well, at least you admit that.” He slid his arms into his shirt and sat down beside her.

“Look at me.” He reached over to lift her chin so he could look into her eyes. “I have loved you all my life and I still love you. I don't want to just play games with you. I want you to be a part of my life.”

“I don't want to hear this.” She stood up and started sprinting down the steps of the gazebo.

“Dang it, Rhea.” He slipped his feet into his loafers and started after her. Hearing him behind her, she ran. It took him a while to catch her and whirl her around to face him.

Panting, he asked her, “What do you want of me, Rhea Dean? Tell me.”

She shook her head and gave him an anguished look. “I don't know. I don't know.”

In annoyance, he leaned his face close to hers, to where she had to look into his eyes. “Well, you let me know when you figure it out.”

Then he stalked off down the road. He heard her following after him, but he didn't turn around.

They walked in silence to the turning at the road to Rhea's house.

“I'll let you find your own way down the driveway to your house,” he said, breaking the silence.

She stood watching him, and he could see the display of confusing emotions playing across her face. How could she not know how she felt about him?

“Is it because you can't forgive me for what happened?” he asked at last. “That I married Judith?”

He watched the pain flash over her face and knew that was it.

Carter sighed and shook his head. “We need to talk about this sometime. Really talk.”

She crossed her arms defensively. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“I know, and that's part of the problem.”

A small puddle of water had started to gather where she stood. He looked down at it in amusement. “You're leaking.”

“So are you,” she said, smirking, and drawing his attention to the trickle of water running down his legs and onto the ground.

“I guess we'd better call it a night.”

She nodded as both of them let their eyes rove over each other one last time. “Thanks for walking me home.”

Rhea turned to start down her driveway but then glanced back with a grin. “I almost beat you, Carter Layman—and would have if you hadn't gotten a head start.”

He grinned at her. She wanted the evening to end on a less emotional note. So did he.

Carter wiggled his eyebrows at her. “I hope the lake water comes out of that pretty lavender underwear.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “You always did have the sexiest underwear.”

“Well, I can't say the same for you.” She tossed her head as she headed down the drive. “If I'm not mistaken, there was a Mickey Mouse print on your jockey shorts.”

He laughed, turning his steps back toward the lake road toward home. “Taylor gave them to me for my birthday.”

“A likely story,” she added.

“Night, Rhea,” he called back, smart enough not to add his usual good-night call this time.

CHAPTER 15

R
hea woke the next morning with a splitting headache—and she never got headaches. Her neck felt stiff, and she'd slept fitfully. In all honesty, every time she got around Carter Layman for any length of time, she tossed and turned at night. Wretched man.

She made an effort to be pleasant while she helped Nana Dean tighten and straighten the quilt in progress on the quilting frame. Rummaging in the old pie safe, she took out an assortment of Nana's booklets and packaged quilt patterns that she sold after her demonstrations.

“What's this quilt pattern?” she asked, smoothing her hands over the partially completed quilt on the frame. She knew she'd acted grumpy and moody most of the morning—and Nana deserved better.

“It's called Bleeding Heart.” Her grandmother ran her hand over one of the patterned squares. “A fit name to go with your mood today, I'd say.”

Rhea scowled at her grandmother. “And what's that supposed to mean?”

“Just that it's no secret, at least to me, that your heart's pining after Carter Layman and you're denying your heart ease.”

“My heart is
not
bleeding over Carter Layman.” Rhea crossed her arms in irritation. “I've already been through bleeding over him quite enough in the past. I have no intention of going there again.”

“Hmmmph.” Nana offered a soft little laugh. “Despite your words, your
heart
hasn't gotten the message your head is telling it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Now don't start reading things into my spending a little time with Carter. We're just friends.”

Nana sat down in a caned chair beside the quilting frame, starting to look for her thimble, needle, and thread in her sewing basket. Pushing her favorite metal thimble onto her middle finger, she looked up at Rhea thoughtfully. “I haven't said anything before this, Rhea Kaden Dean, because I figured even a person as stubborn as you would figure it out—given enough time. You still hold a place in your heart for that boy, no matter what you say.”

Rhea turned to look out the window. “I don't want to care for Carter, Nana. Surely you can understand why.”

“I understand you got hurt in the past, but time goes on. Often we get a second chance for happiness in some areas.” She threaded her needle with white thread, knotting off the end of her thread neatly.

Out the window, Rhea watched several ladies coming up the cabin pathway to attend Nana's quilting demonstration. Going toward the door to open it, she gave her grandmother a defiant look. “I don't want to be a
second
chance or a
second
choice, Nana.”

She ushered in the arriving guests before Nana could reply. Then with a small wave of her hand, she slipped out to head toward the ad-min building at the assembly grounds to lead her Saturday morning tour.

However, not thinking about Carter Layman proved more difficult than escaping from Nana Dean. Everywhere Rhea drove the tour tram, something reminded her of him—the new bell tower above the church; fresh pavement on the lake road; bright red canoes at the dockside replacing the battered, leaky ones; the shiny new roof on the gazebo. It wasn't fair that Carter had accomplished all this in so short a time, become the local hero, when she'd worked and slaved so hard all these years keeping the place up, keeping everything going. And for what thanks?

In a foul mood, Rhea strode into the ad-min building after the tour ended, planning to work on her column for next week's newspaper. At the doorway to her office, she stopped in shock. Every surface lay covered in drop cloths, and a workman she'd never met stood on a ladder painting her walls!

Anger flaring, Rhea stomped down the hall to her mother's office, waiting in a fury until she saw her hang up the phone. “What is that man doing in my office, Mother?”

Her mother lifted an eyebrow at her. “The one painting?”

“Yes!” Rhea crossed her arms in irritation. “I don't recall asking anyone to paint my office, and I'll just bet this is Carter Layman's doing. Taking charge, pushing his way in and initiating things, without even discussing the plans with anyone. Well, I've just about had it with him taking over and making changes around here without soliciting my opinion once. He had no right to paint my office, and choose the color, without even asking me.”

Her mother leveled a hard glance at her. “Sit down, Rhea,” she said in that no-nonsense, authoritative voice of hers, pointing to the chair across from her desk.

Reluctantly, Rhea slumped into the chair.

Her mother studied her quietly, making Rhea squirm in the lengthy silence. Rhea had time to note her mother's short salt-and-pepper hair, her mannish face with no makeup, her trim figure and tailored clothes. Rhea certainly looked more like her father.

“I think I have suggested to you on more than one occasion that you need to learn to curb that temper of yours. I also have frequently advised you to take time to get all the facts of a matter before you fly off the handle and react.”

She tapped a pencil on her palm, weighing her next words. “I've had my resentments against Carter from the past, I'll admit, but your criticisms of him just now are unwarranted.”

Rhea leaned forward, feeling her anger flare again. “Yet you do admit there's a man in my office painting. Was I asked about that? Did I even get any choice in the paint color for my own office?”

Her mother shook her head slowly. “I personally gave the order to have your office painted, Rhea—not Carter. If you recall, it was you, yourself, who complained, only this winter, that the walls in your office ‘looked nasty,' to quote your own words. You slapped a paint chart on my desk and told me specifically that you wanted your walls painted Pacific Blue when I could find enough money for some interior paint. I recall you being in rather a snit about it, said you'd paint the office yourself and do the vestibule and the library, too, if I'd only get the paint.”

She opened the drawer and took out the paint chart, passing it across the desk to Rhea. “If you'll walk through the building, you'll see that all the rooms you suggested are being repainted—and in the colors
you
chose. I thought you might be pleased about that, Rhea, instead of roaring in here, throwing a childish fit over it.”

Chastised, Rhea glanced down at the paint chart, noting her paint choices and notes scrawled across it. “I'm sorry, Mother.” There was nothing else to say.

She squirmed in her seat. “It's just that Carter is doing so many new things around the assembly grounds, making so many changes, and I've had little voice in anything.”

Her mother steepled her fingers. “Laurel Springs Assembly Grounds belongs to Grampa Layman, Wes and Mary Jane Layman, Nana Dean, and myself—as your father's heir. Carter met with us to explain all the changes he wanted to finance, to get our approval and our input. We would have been foolish to have turned down a gift of the magnitude Carter offered us freely.”

Lillian Dean frowned, looking toward the picture of her husband and Rhea's father, Sam Dean, on the wall. Her voice grew quiet. “I wish Sam could have lived to see the old place come back to life as it has.” Her eyes moved to Rhea's. “It never dawned on me you that wouldn't be thrilled to see these renovations and changes happen.”

She tapped the pencil into her palm again. “Many of the ongoing repairs and restorations are ones you always dreamed of and wished we could make since you were a girl.”

“I know.” Rhea picked at her fingernails, not wanting to meet her mother's eyes.

“Rhea, I realize it has been difficult for you having Carter—and his young son—back here again. I know you loved him deeply and your father and I both knew you wanted to marry. Carter spoke to your father before he died, did you know that? He asked his permission to marry you.” She put the paint chart back in her desk drawer. “He did that before he ever went away to college.”

She chuckled softly in remembrance. “Your father asked Carter if he planned to wait to marry until the two of you finished college and Carter said he'd like that to happen but he wasn't sure he could hold out that long. It gave Sam a good laugh at a very difficult time for him.”

“I didn't know that.” Rhea felt a sweep of regret wash over her.

Her mother tucked the pencil behind her ear distractedly. “I've long wished I'd insisted on you going out to California with Carter that fall. Sam told me he asked you to stay and help me, but he shouldn't have done that. You had your own life to live, and we'd have managed.”

Rhea felt tears push at the back of her eyes. She sniffed and pulled her chin up. “It isn't your fault or Daddy's that Carter married someone else, Mother. That was his choice.”

Her mother shook her head. “There's something we don't know about all that, Rhea. I sense it. You know I'm a no-nonsense person, and not particularly intuitive, but there's a way Carter looks when that woman's name comes up that isn't quite right. I've buried a spouse and I know some about loss and grief. I don't know what it is—but there's something.”

She studied Rhea. “Have you ever talked to him about it?”

Rhea crossed her arms and frowned. “I don't
want
to talk to him about it.”

“I see.” Her mother cleared her throat. “And I'd wager that stubborn attitude and old resentment I'm hearing lay behind your earlier outburst.”

Rhea, annoyed, stood up, preparing to leave.

Her mother's eyes caught hers. “You may think, as your mother, that I don't know much about what goes on with you or about what you're feeling, but anyone who knows you and Carter well would have to be blind and bone dense not to feel the heat in the air when the two of you are together.”

Rhea gasped.

“You'd better figure out some sensible way to handle that heat, before some un-sensible moment occurs and you find yourself in way over your head. I'd like a grandchild someday, but I'd like one in the old-fashioned way, after attending your wedding.”

Rhea tried to find words to reply to her mother but struggled over any that came to mind. Finally she said, “Carter and I are just friends, Mother.”

“And pigs fly,” she replied, reaching for the phone as it started to ring and waving Rhea out of the room.

Restless now and knowing she couldn't work in her office, Rhea decided to walk over and help Jeannie finish cleaning out the two cabins on East Cabin Road. She probably hadn't finished with both yet.

Rhea cut across the meeting grounds and through the woods trail to the East Cabin Road. She found Jeannie at a cute cottage called Bluebird Stop, sweeping the front porch.

“It figures you'd show up too late to help out.” Jeannie tossed her a saucy look.

“You know I had the tour.” Rhea frowned at her.

“I know. I'm just teasing. Lighten up.” She looked toward a bundle of laundry on the porch swing. “You could throw that laundry into the truck if you wouldn't mind, though.”

Rhea walked up on the porch, gathered the laundry into her arms, waddled down the sidewalk, and tossed the linens into the truck. She stopped with surprise as she looked across the street at a little bungalow called the Crescent Moon.

“Doesn't the cottage look great?” Jeannie called, seeing her pause. “The roof's been replaced and it's totally refinished inside and out.”

“I see that.” Rhea stalked back up on the porch. “Who said the color could be changed and shutters put up? Was it Carter's idea?”

Jeannie looked at her quizzically, picking up on Rhea's cross voice. “What's eating you today?” She sat down on the porch swing and patted the seat beside her.

Rhea sat down reluctantly, hoping she wasn't in for a session with Jeannie after already dealing with Nana Dean and her mother earlier.

Jeannie smoothed a few flyaway wisps of hair behind her ear. “Listen, Rhea. I told Carter and Billy Wade about that old picture you found of the Crescent Moon when it was first built. Remember? You found the picture in some historical book, made a copy of it, and put it in the library scrapbook at the ad-min building. You told me once it would be nice if the Crescent Moon could have shutters like in the picture again.”

She lifted her hands expressively. “I told them I thought it would be neat to restore it to how it once looked—painted soft yellow and trimmed in black with moon wisps cut out on each shutter. Carter paid one of the carpenters extra to make the shutters. We thought you'd love it.”

Rhea felt a flush of embarrassment rise in her cheeks.

Jeannie gave her a questioning look. “Don't you like it? It was your idea, after all.” She blew out a breath. “I hope you're not mad at me for telling Billy and Carter about it.”

“No.” Rhea pushed the swing into motion for something distracting to do. “I just forgot—that's all.” She tried to smile. “It looks nice, Jeannie.”

Smiling back, Jeannie changed the subject in her usual way. “Guess what?”

“What?” Rhea answered, glad to move to a new topic.

Jeannie patted her stomach. “Billy Wade and I are going to have another baby.”

Rhea's eyes flew to Jeannie's in surprise. “Really?”

“Really. I found out yesterday.” She rubbed her tummy affectionately. “I hope it's going to be a little girl this time.”

Rhea looked toward the truck in alarm, thinking of the big load of laundry she'd just thrown into the back. “I don't want you doing heavy lifting or too much work around here for a while.”

“I won't be—and neither will you. Carter found two women to clean the cabins now instead of us. Whoopee!” She punched a fist in the air. “Won't that be sweet?”