Summertime Dream (3 page)

The sociable hailstorm of questions didn’t stop at Grandma Loretta and the house, but hit his job, marital status, life in California, hobbies, schools, baseball, football, NASCAR, and favorite pie, just to skim a few topics, leaving him as dizzy as if he’d been stuck on that whirligig ride over at the amusements set up for the kids.

Mealtime finally arrived, giving him the excuse of chewing to slow down having to talk. On the plus side, Margie’s grouchy brother was busy cooking at the grills, leaving Christopher free to enjoy sitting beside Margie, and sitting shoulder to shoulder kept him from staring at her like a fool.

Christopher had to admit this town served up terrific food. Apparently, every resident took this day as some unofficial cook-off challenge, not settling for the usual picnic fare of hot dogs and hamburgers, but offering up ribs and anything else that could be barbecued, fried chicken, every variety of casserole, salad, pickle, condiment, and dessert. By the time he was done listening to Margie, Debi, and Margie’s mother suggest what he ought to try, his taste buds were sated and his belly was groaning.

A lull arrived in the feast and talkfest, leaving Margie and Christopher momentarily alone.

After a delicate sip of her beer, she glanced at him shyly. “Hey, I have an idea. Would you like to see your house? It’s walking distance from here.”

“Really?” Once he’d conceded to the holiday and attending the picnic, he’d moved checking out the house into tomorrow’s plans. But he could use a walk to work off this meal.

She slipped off the bench, taking her beer. “You have to be curious, right? Grab your beer and let’s go.”

“Okay. Too bad I left the keys at my room.” At least a pound of keys, old and new, arrayed the key ring and he’d tossed the bulky collection in a drawer with the paperwork after the meeting last night.

“Well, you’ll know where it is at least.” She held out her hand.

“True.” As he stood and took her hand, the interest prickling through him had nothing to do with the house.

****

Oh, my. Whatever possessed her to hold hands with Christopher, Margie didn’t know, but the simple, careless act was enlightening.

Like Dad’s and Joe’s, Christopher’s hand was warm and big and filled with strength, yet wildly, interestingly different on so many levels.

And no confusing Christopher’s hand with Eddie’s.

Margie squashed down the clench of pain. That chapter of her life was closed.

She scanned around for Mom, or anyone beside Joe, to tell them where she was going to save herself explaining herself to Joe. The entire town filling the picnic grounds transformed the place into a boisterous sea of heads. She spotted Debi helping out at the dessert table.

“Hey, Debi. I’m going to show Christopher the Falk house. We’ll be back in a bit. “

Debi paused in slicing a blackberry crumb pie and gave thumbs-up. “Have fun!”

Margie led Christopher on the shortcut across the softball field over to River Road, and the scenic view of the river’s deep curving route that gave the town its name. One block north on Apple Street brought them up to her home, a tidy two-story house with crisp white siding and green trim. The garden beds she loved to work in bloomed with early summer vigor.

“That’s where I live with my family.” Her dog Penny woke from napping on the porch glider and raced to the fence, bouncing and wiggling with joyful whimpers.

“Nice house. Been there long?”

“All my life. My grandparents owned it, and then sold it to Dad when he and Mom married.” She patted Penny’s silky copper head through the fence.

“Really? I’ve lost count of all the places I’ve lived. Cute dog. What kind is she?”

“Some sort of spaniel mix, we think. Do you like dogs?”

“Yeah. Never had one though.”

She opened the gate and Penny bounded to her first for loves and then over to investigate Christopher, jumping against his legs.

“Sit,” Christopher ordered, firmly, but kindly.

Penny dropped to her haunches, vibrating with doggy joy.

Christopher grinned, and crouched down to scratch her soft ears. “That’s a good girl. Friendly, aren’t you?”

Oh, yes, she really liked his smile. “So, how many places have you lived?”

“Well, if I thought about it...Dad was in the Army, like Granddad, and we moved a lot when I was growing up. Let me think.” He pondered, stroking his hand over Penny. “Twenty different places, give or take, and four countries since I was born.”

“Wow. That must have been wild, moving around and going to different schools.”

“It had its pluses and minuses. Some schools were good, and I didn’t want to leave. Others, well, leaving was a good thing.”

“A good way to make lots of new friends.”

He shrugged and straightened. “How far is the house from here?”

“Just a few blocks over on Peach Street. Okay, time to go home, Penny.”

Penny bounced to her paws and raced to the porch, where she spun around with a sharp bark, as if to say,
“I win! I beat you home!”

“Good girl.” Margie shut the gate and they resumed their stroll.

Two blocks further, she turned right on Peach Street and another two blocks along led to the huge old mansion presiding over the neighborhood in all its boarded-up, moldering glory.

A tower with round windows topped the fancy curved slate roof of the three-story home and made the Falk house the tallest building in Falk’s Bend. She’d always wanted to climb the tower and see the view out those windows over the trees. Her favorite part, a broad porch with elegant paired columns, wrapped around the whole house. The disrepair the once-beautiful house had fallen into was heartbreaking.

“Aw, hell.” Christopher’s face was grim. “I hoped everyone was kidding.”

“Sorry about that. Honestly, most of the falling down started long before Mrs. Falk passed. The church ladies fussed about Mrs. Falk living all alone at her age, but she did her shopping and attended church and seemed like she’d never die. It was a shock when she finally passed. She lived in that house until the day she died at ninety-nine, did you know? The Sorensons and neighborhood did their best to look after the property. She was eccentric—well, to be frank, she was a crabby old lady, and she wouldn’t let people help her. She terrified me when I was little. She loved her roses, though.”

Her fear hadn’t kept her from walking home the long way from school, just to see the roses in bloom. Then came the day Mrs. Falk caught her stealing a rosebud that hung over the white picket fence and ordered her up to the porch, smacking her cane with fierce taps against the top step. When Margie stammered out how she stopped by to admire the roses, Mrs. Falk had then taken her around the yard and taught Margie the names of every single rosebush, mellow and sweet, as if she was someone else than the screechy witch of an old lady. She’d had green eyes, too, all faded with cataracts.

He snapped a picture with his phone. “Okay, lead on.”

Margie opened the peeling gate, wincing at the screeching hinges.

The men may have kept the front and side yards mowed, but dandelions and crabgrass had conquered the lawn and the abandoned garden beds had gone downright wild. Time and neglect had reduced Mrs. Falk’s prized roses to sucker-choked, unkempt tangles of sprawling canes with only a few scattered blooms hinting at their former beauty. Vines of trumpet creeper, bright with orange flowers, twined over the porch rails along with the shaggy brown remains of last year’s morning glories.

She led him up the cracked flagstone walk to the sweeping front porch steps. A porch like this called for rocking chairs, ice-cold lemonade, and a dog or cat or two sleeping in the sun.

As they stepped onto the porch, Christopher caught her arm. “Careful, some of the boards don’t look safe.”

Some boards were spongy, creaking under their steps, loud in the quiet afternoon, but on the whole, the porch was surprisingly solid.

Two panels of peeling plywood closed with a padlock hid the ancient screen doors and ornate arched double front entry. Oh, if he only had the keys. Would the leaded glass windows still be intact? They had once sparkled like cut glass jewelry and the screen doors had fanned out like butterfly wings on either side.

More plywood covered each window. Faded, cracked, and peeling pale yellow paint on the siding hinted at previous coats of white, green, and peach.

They reached the rear of the house. Christopher muttered a serious cuss under his breath. She didn’t blame him.

Vandals had paint-balled the boarded windows and doors. Beer cans, bottles, broken glass, and cigarette butts littered the flaking porch boards and trash lurked in every nook of the weedy, overgrown beds. Falk’s Bend was a nice town, but still had its share of bored kids looking for a little illicit thrill.

The crabgrass- and dandelion-choked drive led to the carriage house and small sagging barn, both structures boarded up, paint-splotched, and swathed with honeysuckle and trumpet creeper.

He finished his beer and looked around the littered porch with a clenched jaw, pacing sharply. “Hell, I suppose one more bottle here won’t matter at the moment. Might as well leave yours too.” He took her empty bottle and set the pair neatly by the back door. “Looks like chore one is trash bags and a shovel.” One more look around, and he shook his head. “I better make that a Dumpster.”

Margie touched his shoulder and had him turn away from the mess to focus on the view toward the river.

Here the picturesque natural beauty of the property began: the land sloped gently down past the ancient summer house and purple martin houses to the reedy pond where a duck flew in and landed with a quack, and stretched on through weedy tangles of wild blackberry and rogue saplings to the ancient apple and plum trees sagging with unripe fruit, and beyond to the river invisible in the distance, marking where the Engberg’s farm began on the far bank.

Appreciation softened his tense face.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? I fell so in love with this place when I was little and dreamed I’d live in a house like this someday.” Margie laughed. “Of course, in my dreams it was a bit less rundown.”

“I’d imagine so. Interested in buying?”

“Oh, if only I could, I would in an instant. I’m sure the property alone is worth far more than I can afford. It’s a huge piece of land. And the repairs and restoration...” Longing swelled. She sighed. Someone else would buy and live in her dream home.

Quiet fell between them for a while. Bees buzzed in the clover. Birds sang, chirped, and flitted. A hummingbird whizzed past. Two more ducks joined the first amid quiet bickering quacks. Dandelion fluff drifted by on an unfelt breeze.

A truck rattled down the lane, breaking the moment.

“Suppose we ought to head back...” Christopher turned, so close their arms brushed, but instead of retreating, he hesitated. Their eyes locked. Where dismay and frustration had filled his green eyes, want simmered. The heavy air electrified.

You need a change
.

On a surge of bewildering crazy courage, she stretched up and kissed him. The brief brush of lips to lips left her shaken and her heart pounding, like she had just come up for air.

His eyes widened in his serious, craggy face.

No, oh, no. Blowing out an unsteady breath, she pressed a hand to her stomach. She’d carried her day’s adventure one impetuous step too far. Her heroines were the daring part of her. She’d never even kissed on a first date before, and this wasn’t even a date.

Before the apology fluttering in her mind could break free, he cupped her cheek and touched his mouth down on hers.

Thinking faded as feeling soared. His gentle touch sweet and fascinating, his lips warm and firm played over hers, unhurried in his caresses and enticing brushes. He laced his fingers into her hair, cradling her head in his hand. He tenderly nipped her lip and licked at her mouth, inviting her rather than taking.

She sighed, delighting in this lovely, reckless rush. Yes. Yes. Yes. Forget that they had just met. She
could
want again.

Gripping his shoulder, she accepted the heady invitation, and the kiss deepened into perfect.

Chapter Two

Margie’s soft mouth and her kisses, as sweet and shy as her voice, raised a tumult of unexpectedly intense and tender feelings.

And they’d just met.

Christopher groaned and wrenched his lips from hers. “I should probably apologize,” he murmured against her cheek. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, and he should get his hands off her.
Now
. But he held her close, relishing the soft, fascinating warmth of her in his arms too much to be sensible.

“Why?”

“I should have asked, or—” Or something.

“Truth? That was wonderful. And I would very much like another.”

“Yes.” Yes, to both, for him as well.

Determined to prove himself a gentleman, he held her lightly, taking only the kiss, sweet and slow and intense as the first.

But this kiss too had to end.

Christopher rested his forehead against hers. A big mistake, that kiss, but incredible. A chuckle escaped him.

“What’s funny?”

“Just this day turned out so different than I planned this morning.”

“For me, too. A far better day. Thank you.”

An out-of-left-field, disconcerting thought clobbered him. “Shit.” He knew nothing about his roots here...He yanked his hands away.

“What’s the matter?”

Feeling foolish, he had to ask. “We’re not related, are we?” Be just his luck if she ended up being some sort of cousin...

Margie’s laughter rang out. “No, not at all.”

“Thank goodness.” Christopher shifted, hooking thumbs into his pockets to keep his hands in check. “I have to say, it’s a strange feeling, standing here. To find I had family and a history I never knew. That they lived in this place for so many generations.”

“I bet.”

“My grandmother must have stood in this spot, played out in that yard, yet she never let on even a hint of her past. What happened to make her cut herself and us off from here so thoroughly?” He shook his head at the jungle of weeds. The bright day had slipped into the sideways golden glow of approaching sunset. How long had they been out here?