Moorehouse Legacy: Beauty and the Black Sheep Part 25

"Hey, bud. What's up?"

Since their conversation on the dock, the kid had managed to corner him two more times. They'd covered vegetables while on a tour of Frankie's garden and then bread-making.

"We're leaving." Henry marched forward, holding out an envelope. "I wanted to give this to you so you could remember me. We're coming next year, and even though your kitchen's ruined now, I want to see you when I come back so we can sit on the dock again. Because you never did finish telling me about chickens, you know, and I really should know about them if I'm going to go to cooking school like you did and wear a big tall hat..."

Nate took the envelope and glanced at the boy's mother. She smiled and mouthed the words, thank you for being his friend.

"...and my dad said it's only about three hundred miles to the city so you could come visit us if you wanted to..."

As the chatter continued, Nate realized he was going to miss the kid.

"...and that's all I have to say about that." Henry put his hands on his hips. "So can I have a hug now?"

Nate swallowed. And then carefully put the envelope on the counter. He knelt down and opened his arms, not sure what to expect. Henry, however, was an old hat at the hug thing. He launched himself like a bottle rocket into the chest that was being offered and grabbed onto Nate's neck so hard Nate saw stars.

Henry pulled back. "See you next summer."

And then he marched over to his mother, took her hand, and led her out the door.

Nate let himself fall back onto the floor.

A moment later, he reached up for the envelope. Inside was a black-and-white photograph of Henry and him in the garden. Nate was pointing over the boy's shoulder to a tomato plant and Henry was looking up gravely. One of Henry's parents must have taken it, though Nate had never noticed because keeping up with that kid required a lot of concentration.

After staring at the image for a long time, Nate took the picture and put it to his chest.

In the distance, he heard the phone ring and Frankie's voice as she picked up in her office. She'd just returned from Albany. The gemologist had been out that morning, but the jeweler's a.s.sistant had promised her an answer from the man soon.

"Nate! It's for you."

He put the picture back into the envelope so it was safe and went to her office. After giving her a quick kiss on the mouth, he picked up the receiver.

Spike got right to the point. "Change in plan, Walkman. Evidently, I talked Tamale's owners into selling on my own. They're putting the place on the market tomorrow at noon and I'm at our lawyer's right now. What did the bank say we could do, outside limit?"

Nate rattled off the numbers for a down payment and final purchase price, knowing them by heart. As he talked, he was aware that Frankie was scribbling on a sheet of paper, trying to look disinterested.

When he was finished, Spike read the figures back. "Do I have this right?"

"Wait," Nate blurted.

"What did I screw up?"

There was a tense silence. Nate had a sour taste in his mouth, like he'd chewed tin. His stomach was on fire.

"Nate? What's the problem?" When he didn't answer, Spike's voice grew frustrated. "What's going on? This is exactly what we've been waiting for and the d.a.m.n thing's going to go fast. I'll fax the papers to you so you can review and sign them and then first thing tomorrow our lawyer's going to put the bid in. We need to be on the ball here."

"I know." So why did he feel deflated?

"Are we going to do this thing or what?"

Nate forced himself to speak. "Yeah. Let's do it."

He hung up and found himself staring at Frankie's hand as it gripped the pen she'd been moving in aimless circles. Her knuckles were white.

"I hope you get the place," she said brightly as she looked up. "I know you're going to be a huge success."

But her eyes didn't meet his. They were focused over his shoulder, and when he glanced behind him, he saw what she was looking at.

It was the picture of her family together, taken all those years ago.

Frankie snuck out of the house an hour later. Nate was busy getting faxes off the machine and reviewing his offer. He'd looked up when she told him she was going out. He'd wanted to know where she was headed and she told him she wasn't sure, she'd just wanted some air.Except she knew exactly where she was going. And she wanted to go there alone.

She crossed Route 22 and walked into the woods, picking up the dirt road. When the trailhead appeared to the left, she stayed in her tire groove as it curved in the opposite direction. When the cemetery's entrance appeared, she faltered briefly, the sight of all the gravestones chilling her. But she forced herself to keep going, stepping forward and walking around the gate. Inside, the gra.s.s under foot was long, ready for a mowing.

Her parents' headstones were over to the left and she went to them slowly. Joy's flowers had long wilted and the pink taffeta bow had collapsed in on itself. Frankie picked up the bouquet, stripped off the bow and tossed the dead flowers into the bushes.

While she tucked the ribbon into her pocket, she read the inscription on her father's marker. It was a relief to find she didn't feel like screaming at him. She was sad and she missed him, but she was too distraught to yell.

Nate was leaving, her heart was breaking, and what she was looking for from the slate headstones, what she wanted from the cool quiet of the place, was peace. Peace with her decision to stay when part of her wanted to go. Peace with the sacrifice she was making.

She looked at her mother's stone and reached down to brush off some of the memorial hemlock's needles from the top.

Maybe she'd also come up because of what Alex had said to her the night before. The idea that her parents would have been proud of her was a balm of sorts. And Alex, though he didn't say a lot, always spoke the truth.

Before she knew what she was doing, she sat down in the gra.s.s and leaned back against the hemlock. Its trunk was strong, supporting her weight easily while she stared at her parents' graves.

She took deep breaths in spite of the ache in her heart. And after a while, a kind of calm came. There would be no peace, she realized. Not without Nate in her life. But there was relief to be had that White Caps was safe for at least another year or two. Alex would be able to recover at home. Grand-Em would have the continuity with her past that helped preserve what little of her sanity was left. And Joy wouldn't have to go out and get some office job to support herself. She could continue to design dresses and work with the fabrics she loved so much.

And as for her, Frankie thought. What would she have?

Her family.

They'd been enough for her before she'd known Nate. And they would have to suffice now, too. Because as much as she loved him, she couldn't give up her sister and her brother and her grandmother and her home and the place she loved to live in just for a man who was only "emotionally attached."

If he'd loved her, things might have been different.

But he'd never said the words and she wasn't about to ask. That was just too much like begging for her to stomach.

Besides, if you had to pose the question, chances were you weren't going to like the answer.

The next morning, Nate woke up alone. He'd overslept after having tossed and turned for most of the night. The bid that he and Spike had put together was a good one and he should have been thrilled. But triumph was not what had kept him up.He swung his legs over the side of the mattress and looked out at the water. It was another crystal clear day, an early harbinger of fall's arrival. Looking at the cloudless blue sky, he thought of Frankie saying that she'd found herself in the seasons of Saranac Lake.

He could see why.

When he went downstairs, he looked for her and found her in her office. She smiled at him, but her eyes were vacant. This was not a surprise. Ever since the call from Spike had come in yesterday, she'd been pulling away by inches and then feet. She'd even stayed on her side of the bed last night.

"Hey," he said, leaning against the doorjamb.

She shuffled some papers. "Good morning. How did you sleep?"

Her tone was flat, as if he were a guest.

"Badly." He stepped into the room. He wanted to talk with her about when she'd come down to the city to visit in September, when he could come back to White Caps.

As if by making plans, he could keep them together.

"Listen, Frankie-"

The phone rang and she answered in that same pleasant monotone. But then her voice grew tense. "Mr. Robinson, thanks for getting back to me so fast. What's the ring worth?"

Nate scanned her face, hoping it was a big number. A huge number. A number that would keep her house safe. Take some of the pressure off of her. Make her happy.

But her mouth sagged and her eyes blinked rapidly.

A sickening jolt went through him.

"You're kidding me," she whispered. "No, no, I trust you. I do. You were always fair to us before. Yeah, I'll come by and pick it up. Actually, could you just mail it to me?"

When she put the receiver down, her skin was the color of fog.

"Paste," she murmured. "The ring is paste. Worth maybe a hundred bucks."

Nate cursed under his breath.

The sound of his voice seemed to energize her and she leaped to her feet, throwing her chair back. Her body began to shake, her eyes going opaque with frustrated agony. She looked down, breath coming out in short bursts as her emotions surged.

There was a long silence so tense, he thought he was going to have to scream for her.

But then with a violent heave, she pushed everything off the top of her desk. Just swept it clean with her arms. The phone and the pens and pencils, the pads of paper and the files, it all hit the floor in a loud clatter. She started crying in great heaves, making guttural noises that were nothing like words. Wheeling around, she looked with wild eyes at the room as if searching for something else to destroy. And then she threw herself upon her bookshelves with a vengeance. She tore at them with clawlike hands, ripping the volumes out, slinging them behind her.

He didn't try and stop her. Instead, he quickly shut the door to the office and braced his back against it, in case anyone tried to get in. He knew exactly how she felt. When he'd learned about what Celia had done to their child, he'd trashed his whole apartment.

But Frankie didn't take it that far.

Moments later, she collapsed on the floor, in the middle of the mess she'd made. She was crippled by wave upon wave of the dry heaves, falling on to her side, her tears streaming down as her body spasmed.

That was when he went to her. He gathered her close, but held her loosely because he didn't want her to feel trapped.

As he held her sobbing body, he realized he couldn't leave her.

Not for the dreams he'd held for so long. Not for Spike. Not for the promise of independence and respect.

G.o.d, he loved her. He loved her. Loved her like no other. And life without her, even in the glamorous world of New York City, was going to be pale and uninteresting and worthless.

He smoothed her hair back from her face.

And realized he had the power to do what the ring couldn't. He had the money to save her house.

Keeping her against his chest, he dragged the phone over. He had to work to get a dial tone, but eventually one came and when Spike answered his cell phone, relief hit Nate like a linebacker.

"I can't do it, Spike. I'm sorry man, I can't do it. I can't put that offer in."

Frankie stiffened against him.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" his friend demanded.

"I'm sorry. I've got...another thing I have to do."

Frankie pulled away, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "What are you doing?" she croaked.

Spike was equally shocked. "You can't be serious-"

"What are you doing?" Frankie repeated, voice getting stronger. "I'm not going to let you-"

"What the h.e.l.l are you saying, Walker!"

Nate gave them both a chance to yell at him. And then he took control of the situation.

"Let me call you back, Spike." He hung up and held onto Frankie as she tried to stand up. "I can help you, Frankie. The money I have will-"

"No! I don't want your charity," she said.

He grinned. Such a d.a.m.n fighter. "Then how about we go into business together? Partners."

She shook her head, still trying to get away from him. "No. No way. You're going to end up hating it here. You're going to resent me and this house and everything you've given up."

"Since when can you see into the future?"

"Nate, I'm not going to let you do this. Just because you feel badly for me-"

"Shut up." He kissed her. "I love you. That's why I'm doing it."

She blinked at him, as if he'd spoken in a foreign language. "You what?"

"I. Love. You." G.o.d, his heart felt lighter than it had in years. It was positively singing in his chest. "I love you. I love you. I love you. You know, those three words have quite a ring to them."

Frankie shook her head. "But what about your dreams? You're giving them up."

"Naw. Just changing their address. And I'll talk to Spike. I don't think he cares where we are as long as we're working."

When she just stared at him, he felt a moment's panic. What if she didn't love him back?

Nate stroked her cheek with his thumb, tension tightening his shoulders. "Say something. Frankie? Will you please...just say something."

"I love you, too," she blurted.

He closed his eyes. "G.o.d, I was hoping-"

"But you're crazy! To give up-"