Balancing a plate of hors d’oeuvres and a glass of punch, Gabe stood in the doorway to what had probably been the family’s living room. Folding chairs filled in the gaps between a couple of seating areas and various displays. All he had to do was claim one.
He noted the room’s exits—an open door leading to the outside patio, a set of closed double doors, and the entrance from the hallway he’d just walked through. None of the unoccupied chairs gave him a line of sight to all three.
He shifted toward the sound of a childish laugh. A small sofa sat at an angle to the fireplace, the hearth graced with a large bouquet of flowers. Amy Somers sat beside a young boy bent over an electronic tablet. The two seemed lost in their own world.
In this unguarded moment, Amy’s expression showed none of the wary defensiveness she’d worn at the creek. Before he could stop himself, he glanced at her left hand. The same surreptitious peek he’d managed earlier when she’d clutched the picnic table. No wedding band then and none now.
Yet the boy’s blond hair matched hers almost exactly. Their family resemblance was unmistakable.
Just then Amy glanced up and caught him staring. He tried to hide his embarrassment with a broad smile. “Mind if I join you? I never quite got the trick of handling a plate and a glass at the same time.”
“If you wish,” she said distantly.
He set his plate and glass on the coffee table, then situated a folding chair so his back was to the double doors. Under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. Not that he expected any trouble here.
Once he was seated, he focused on the boy. “Who’s this young man?”
Amy playfully poked the boy with her elbow.
“I’m Jonah,” he said as he looked up from the screen. “Jonah Jensen.”
“Glad to meet you. I’m Gabe Kendall.”
“Are you a friend of Aunt Amy’s?”
An odd sense of relief buoyed Gabe’s spirits. So Jonah was her nephew, not her son. Not that it should matter.
“He’s an acquaintance,” Amy said.
Gabe started to say something about them knowing each other when they were teenagers but changed his mind. “We met earlier today back at the creek.”
“By the engagement tree?” Jonah asked.
“What’s the engagement tree?”
“It’s a nickname for the weeping willow,” Amy answered.
“We go fishing there sometimes,” Jonah chimed in.
“Do you catch anything?”
“Naw,” the boy said. “Uncle AJ says we’re just drowning worms. But it’s still fun.”
“Sure is. Guess I’ll have to take my fishing gear with me next time I ride out there.”
“Ride?” Jonah’s eyes widened. “Like on a motorcycle?”
“Like on a horse.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse before.” His voice was filled with awe. “Have you, Aunt Amy?”
She pasted on a smile and gazed at Gabe. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I tagged along with Tess. She’s on a committee for the Lassiter foundation. Though I guess you already know that.”
“Actually, I don’t. I haven’t been involved with the heritage project. Or anything else to do with this place.”
“I’m glad that didn’t keep you from coming tonight.”
“Dad made her,” Jonah said.
“He did not,” Amy protested.
“He said—”
“Never mind what he said.” She straightened her shoulders and gave Gabe a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Are you interested in local history?”
“Not sure I ever gave it much thought.”
“Then you’ll want to avoid our hostess. It’s about the only thing she talks about.”
“Shelby? I talked to her and AJ when we got here.” He focused on Amy’s facial expression while keeping his tone nonchalant. “Though it turns out Shelby and I met a couple of times when we were kids. We actually remember each other. AJ remembered me too.”
“How interesting,” Amy said drily.
“Do you know about the hidden room?” Jonah asked.
Amy immediately squeezed Jonah’s knee and whispered, “You’re not supposed to talk about that.”
“You just said not to tell Elizabeth and Tabby,” he whispered back. “And Dad.”
“But I meant no one. Their mom doesn’t want them to know where it is.”
“You won’t say anything, will you?” Jonah said, a tentative expression in his clear blue eyes as he looked at Gabe.
“Who are Elizabeth and Tabby?”
“They’re just girls. We’re kinda cousins.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be our secret.” Gabe leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. “Any chance of seeing this hidden room?”
“It’s under the floor.” Jonah tilted his head toward the wall behind him with a knowing look. “In the hall closet.”
“Don’t you dare go near it,” Amy said. “Not with all these people around. And never without me. Promise?”
“I promise.” Jonah’s tone clearly said “enough already.”
The kid’s impudence gave Gabe a mischievous urge to pursue the topic despite Amy’s irritation.
“Have you been in it?” he asked.
“Once.” Jonah pretended to flinch as Amy shot him a “would you be quiet” look.
“If you must know,” she said, bending forward so no one else could hear, “Jonah and I explored the room when no one else was here.” She put her arm around the boy and gave him a little shake. “It’s supposed to be our secret.”
“What’s it like?” Gabe tensed as a blond man entered the door from the hallway. He carried a snack plate and smiled when he noticed Jonah and Amy.
Jonah’s face lit up. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey there, buddy.” The man tousled Jonah’s hair as he settled onto the couch beside Amy. He nodded at Gabe. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Brett Somers.”
Of course. Amy’s brother. “Gabe Kendall.”
“Nice to meet you, Gabe. Amy didn’t tell me she was bringing a date.”
Amy’s eyes shot daggers at her brother. “He’s not my date.”
Brett leaned back in exaggerated response to her vehemence, almost exactly mirroring Jonah when he’d done the same. “I didn’t recognize you as one of the locals,” he said to Gabe, “so I thought she dragged you here. Sorry.”
“Tess Marshall was married to my uncle,” Gabe said. “I stayed with them sometimes as a kid.”
“I thought you looked vaguely familiar.” Brett’s congenial tone was welcoming. Certainly more than Amy’s had been. “I remember going to the stables a couple times. That was years ago.”
“I don’t recall you spending much time in the saddle.”
“Riding was Amy’s hobby, not mine.”
Gabe glanced at Amy. She stared at the game Jonah was playing, but her thoughts were obviously somewhere else. Sitting beside her brother, she looked even slighter than she had before. A fragility surrounded her as an adult that he didn’t remember seeing in her when they were younger. But of course, he’d been a kid then himself. Kids didn’t notice such things.
“Aunt Amy, do you know how to ride a horse?”
“I used to.”
“Can you teach me? Please.”
Emotions cascaded across Amy’s face, there and gone before Gabe could catch any of them. She seemed to be drowning right before his eyes. He wanted to pull her from whatever turmoil held her in its grasp, but he didn’t know how.
“I want to ride,” Jonah said. “Can I, Dad?”
“Maybe when you’re older, son.” Brett gently touched Amy’s arm, and the cascade stilled.
If not for Amy’s reaction, Gabe would have volunteered to give Jonah a couple of lessons. But he sensed an undercurrent between her and Brett, and the last thing he wanted was to get sucked into it. Or to think too much about why the people he barely knew—AJ, Shelby, and Brett—remembered him. But Amy, who’d gone riding with him every chance she could, claimed she didn’t.
“I never get to do anything.” Jonah put the game on the table, then crossed his arms. “How old were you when you rode a horse?”
Gabe wasn’t sure who the question was directed to, but before he could decide whether or not to answer, Amy spoke. “It doesn’t matter.” Her quiet voice was steadier than Gabe would have expected. “Our circumstances are different.”
“Is that why you don’t ride anymore?” Jonah asked. “Because now we’re the same?”
“It’s more than that.”
Suddenly Gabe felt like an intruder. He didn’t belong in this private place Jonah and Amy had entered, a place where only the two of them understood the conversation.
“What do you mean, you’re the same?” Brett asked. Even he seemed confused.
“We both stayed in a hosp—” Jonah began.
“Hotel,” Amy broke in. “We both stayed in a hotel when we . . . when we went on vacation. Didn’t we, Jonah?”
Amy stared at the boy and he stared back, then he nodded his head slowly. “Yeah. That’s what we did.”
“Always fun staying at a hotel,” Gabe said lamely.
The eddy beneath the conversation swirled around and between them. Brett, engrossed with the shrimp on his plate, seemed to regret asking the question, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know what Jonah had intended to say.
Not hotel but hospital.
So why had he and Amy both been in the hospital? And why didn’t she want Gabe to know?
Not that it was any of his business. He wasn’t here to get entangled in the lives of these people. Especially not Amy’s, since she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him.
He only wanted to help Tess spruce up her property while he figured out the next chapter in his life. For now, God alone knew what the future held, and he wasn’t telling. All Gabe could do was pray that this time he made the right decisions, did the right things.
In quietness and trust is my strength.
His paraphrase of the Isaiah verse gave him hope that the answers would eventually come.
Gabe’s own plan for his life certainly hadn’t worked out. One reckless moment, and the path he’d been on had been destroyed.
Now he wished he’d stayed at Tess’s this evening. Sprawling on the sofa with a remote in one hand and a sports drink in the other was preferable to maneuvering around the Somers family landmines.
“Gabe?” Amy said softly.
“Beg your pardon.”
“I just asked what you do,” Brett said.
“You don’t know?”
“How would I?”
“Guess you wouldn’t.” Gabe forced a tight smile. “I’m kind of between jobs right now. So it seemed a good time to visit Tess. Help out around her place. What about you?”
“Property development. Investments. That kind of thing.”
“Don’t let Brett mislead you,” Amy said. “He’s put his company on autopilot. Who knows what will be left of it by the time he returns. If he ever does.”
“I talk to my assistant every day,” Brett said, then looked sheepish. “Almost every day. Nothing’s on autopilot.”
“It’s not the way Sully did things.”
“I’m not Sully. And I don’t want to be.”
Gabe shifted in his seat. Maybe he should make an excuse and leave the siblings to their spat. Besides, he’d been sitting too long.
Brett must have noticed his discomfort. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re having a difference of opinion on my current management style.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Gabe said. “I need to stretch my legs a bit anyway.” He nodded, then left the living room. As he entered the hall, a young woman asked if she could take his plate. He handed it to her, then looked around the hallway. A stairway to his right led up to the second floor. He rubbed his hand against the banister’s polished wood.
He and Nate had slid down this banister a few times during their furtive hijinks all those years ago. The house had been broken then, debris covering the floors and strange haunting noises coming from the attic. Probably nothing more dangerous than a few squirrels, but boys being boys, they’d concocted a couple of eerie ghost stories.
The murmur of multiple conversations came from the room across the hall, but Gabe had no desire to chitchat with anyone. As he stood in the foyer, undecided what to do, two young girls followed by a yellow retriever entered through the front door, and a cool breeze wafted through the hall.
That was where he wanted to be. Outside. Breathing fresh air.
He couldn’t get enough of it.