Amie Denman - Back To The Lake Breeze Hotel

Instead of speaking, Alice held up the item he’d come for. He crossed her small office, took his sandwich and laid hers in front of her without a word.

“Thank you,” she said.

Nate was almost to the door, but he paused and half turned. “You’re welcome. I know you hate mustard.”

He slipped into the hallway, leaving her no chance to respond. It was just mustard, of course, but the fact he remembered... That was going to make it twice as hard to work with the man she’d chosen not to marry only hours before their own wedding.

* * *

“I USED TO love pumpkin pie,” Henry said. “But I don’t think I can ever enjoy it again after this.”

Virginia laughed. “It’s not so bad. If we take enough painkillers tonight, we’ll live to do this all over again tomorrow.”

She took a small pumpkin from a wagon and tossed it to Henry. He walked to a flowerbed, glanced at a color-coded map and placed it beside a green squash.

Nearby, the midway fountain had been transformed into an autumn display of colors and textures. All summer long, refreshing spray from the light blue splash pad tempted children to play in the water and cooled the air for people passing by. The water was turned off for the fall festival, though, and a giant inflatable pumpkin crouched over the area. Children could run through the pumpkin’s grinning mouth while their parents rested on the benches circling it.

In addition to the hay bales and pumpkins artfully placed around the seating area, Virginia and Henry were laying out various sizes and colors of pumpkins and squash in the flowerbed. When completed, the vegetables would create a fall landscape scene, but it took attention to detail. It reminded Virginia of the paint-by-number projects she’d done with her children during long, snowy Michigan winters.

“I better look at the diagram again,” Henry said. “I don’t want our artwork to look like a couple of teenagers dashed it together so they could quit early.”

“Nothing against the kids,” Virginia said, “but old age does have its advantages.”

Henry stepped close and stood over Virginia, blocking the sun and smiling down at her. Small wrinkles around his eyes were accentuated by the smile, and she noticed one white hair mixed with his blond eyebrows.

“We are not old,” he said. “Especially not you.”

“Fifty-seven earlier this summer,” Virginia said. Henry stood so close she could smell his soap. It was clean and practical, just like the rest of him. He had a lean, straight build and walked with confidence, as if he were a man accustomed to responsibility. She’d noticed, though, that he was happy helping out however he could, and he seemed to take pride in executing the fall displays exactly as depicted on the directions. His skill was probably a result of following flight diagrams and paying attention to detail. It was also probably a relief, she thought, to fuss over gourds instead of turbulence after years of being responsible for hundreds and thousands of lives.

She’d felt a similar relief when she handed over Starlight Point to her children Jack, June and Evie. A grieving and shocked widow at the time, she hadn’t thought she could put one more thing on her plate, and she was confident her children were stronger than she was. In the five summers since her beloved Ford had succumbed to a heart attack, she’d seen for certain the strength of her three children.

And her own strength.

“I’m just a little closer to sixty than you are,” Henry said, drawing her back into their conversation. “But I feel like eighty after setting out straw bales and lifting pumpkins all day yesterday.”

“Is it still better than sitting in the cockpit of a plane?”

Henry ran a hand through his hair and looked down the midway as if he were considering the question. Virginia wondered if he missed his old job now that he was retired. Without a family, did he feel lonely? She’d felt as if she’d been set adrift when Ford died, but she still had her children to give her a reason to get out of bed.

“Most days, yes. It’s nice not worrying about hijackers, lightning and schedules.”

“We have lightning and schedules here,” Virginia said.

“So I guess I feel right at home,” he replied, smiling. “Just don’t bring in any hijackers for my benefit.”

Virginia laid a paper copy of the decoration placement diagram on the wagon’s wood floor and smoothed it with both hands. “Alice saw to every detail,” she said.

Henry leaned over her shoulder to view the diagram, and Virginia felt the warmth from his body. There was a touch of autumn in the air, just enough to make his warmth welcome. It had been a long time since she’d thought about men and heat in the same sentence. Or noticed what a man smelled like. Or wondered if one found her attractive.

“Mom.”

Virginia turned so quickly she almost knocked Henry off his feet. Evie, blond ponytail making her look as if she were twelve and not twenty-five, handed a bottle of cold water to her and Henry. “I could get someone else to do all this physical labor.”

Virginia realized her heart was racing. Was it the new awareness of Henry, a man with whom she’d worked all summer? Or was it this new consciousness being interrupted by her daughter—and making her feel guilty?

There was no reason she should feel guilty.

“You mean someone younger?” she asked Evie, keeping her tone light and playful.

Evie laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Maybe a little. Can I help it that I love my mother?” Evie put an arm around Virginia’s shoulders, which increased her distance from Henry. He stepped back, eyes on the ground. “And, besides,” Evie continued. “I don’t want you to wear yourself out. You have to save energy for Gladys.”

Virginia smiled at the thought of her new labrador.

Henry removed the cap from his water bottle and took a long drink. “Who’s Gladys?”

“My new dog.”

“New?” Henry asked.

“I had a dog named Betty for years,” Virginia said.

“Roughly one hundred years,” Evie added.

“She wasn’t that old,” Virginia protested, and then she laughed when Evie waggled her eyebrows at Henry. “Fine, she was fourteen but she was wonderful.”

Evie straightened her smirk into a neutral expression. “She had many wonderful qualities in addition to her less wonderful ones.”

“Don’t we all?” Henry asked. “So is your new dog—?”

“Gladys,” Virginia supplied.

“Gladys. Is she a puppy?”

Virginia shook her head. “She’s about four or five.” She’d given serious thought to a litter of puppies curled into a ball at the humane society, but then Gladys had stolen her heart.

A chocolate lab with a few years under her belt, her soulful eyes had looked deep into Virginia’s own and forged a connection. Virginia had signed the paperwork immediately and driven to her small house on the old road adjoining Starlight Point, a warm nose on her shoulder the whole way. It was nice having another living soul in the house again after being alone so long. In the few days they’d been together, she’d taken Gladys for a morning walk through Starlight Point before it opened for the day, two romps on the beachs and one trip to the pet-friendly supply store in Bayside.

“And she was already saddled with the name Gladys,” Evie said. “Mom didn’t pick that one.”

“You could probably change it,” Henry said. “Maybe to something that rhymes with Gladys so it doesn’t confuse her.” Virginia and Evie swung their heads in unison to stare at Henry and he held up both hands. “Don’t ask me to think of something that rhymes with that.”

“Already tried it. My brother thought of a few suggestions, but we had to reject them.”