Darlene Gardner - The Truth About Tara

“That’s right,” she said. “Nothing exotic. I’m just an American girl from Charlotte.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Gustavo said. “I quite like Southern girls.”

Was he flirting with her? No, that was highly unlikely given their age difference.

She nodded to the empty chair at the table. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Not at all.” He folded his hands on top of the papers while she settled into the chair. “Is there something I can help you with, Carrie?”

She shouldn’t be flattered that he remembered her name. She’d been at orientation last week and they were more than halfway through the first day of camp. She’d never heard Carrie pronounced quite that way, though, with the slight rolling of the r’s.

Strangely reluctant to bring up the reason she’d sought him out, she asked, “Aren’t you going to have lunch?”

“A little later,” he said. “But that’s not what you came to see me about, is it?”

Still not ready to talk money, Carrie smiled at him. It wasn’t difficult. Gustavo had a face that made her want to smile. She got a whiff of something. Not cologne. Something clean and fresh like soap or shampoo. Whatever it was, it made him smell good. “I’m wondering how you got to be director of a camp like this?”

“It’s important to me that Susie have the camp experience,” he said. “There wasn’t a special-needs camp close enough, so I decided to start one. First I had to set up as a nonprofit agency. Then I was lucky enough to get a grant to offset some of the costs. We’re starting small this year with the ten campers, but my plan is to keep growing. We might even make next year’s camp residential.”

“I’m impressed,” she said. “You can’t have lived here very long or we’d have run into each other.”

“About six months,” he said. “I’ve been homeschooling Susie, so haven’t met a lot of people yet. We moved from Baltimore when my grandmother had a heart attack. She was running a bed-and-breakfast. Maybe you know it? The Bay Breeze?”

“That sounds familiar,” Carrie said. “It’s a two-story house on the water, right? Not far from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel?”

“Right,” he said. “My parents moved back to Argentina a few years ago. Dad couldn’t get away, so it made the most sense for me to help Grandma run the place until she got better, even though I had to quit my teaching job in Baltimore. Except she never made it out of the hospital.”

Carrie’s heart twisted and she laid her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. She was a great lady.”

“Will you and your wife keep the B and B going?” she asked, realizing she was fishing around for his marital status. His daughter, Susie, was a camper, but thus far he hadn’t mentioned a wife.

“I’m divorced,” he said. “And no. I’ve got a special ed job lined up for the fall. I closed the Bay Breeze to guests after my grandma died. I’m putting it on the market once I find another place for Susie and me to live. The place needs too much—how can I put it?—TLC.”

“If you’re in charge of a camp like this, you must be awfully good at TLC,” she pointed out.

He looked down at the table, where her hand still rested on his, and lifted his green eyes. “Thank you.”

She drew her hand back quickly, breaking the contact. Oh, no. Now she’d gone and done it. When she broached the subject of Danny’s tuition, he could get the wrong idea.

“I wasn’t flirting with you,” she blurted out.

“You weren’t?” He actually looked disappointed. “You’re not married, are you?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Widowed.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Me, too.” She sensed he was about to ask her questions she’d rather not answer and cast around for something else to say. “Besides, you’re way too young for the likes of me.”

“I doubt that,” he said. “I’m forty-seven.”

She usually wouldn’t reveal her true age unless threatened at gunpoint, but she was trying to make a point. “I’ll have you know I’m fifty-four.”

“You don’t look it.” His accented words seemed to glide over her skin. She should be gracious and thank him. Surely she’d blush if she did, though.

“Believe it,” she said. “You’re the first person I haven’t lied to about my age in years.”

He threw back his head and laughed, revealing even teeth that looked very white against his tanned skin.

“Is Susie your only child?” she asked, partly because she wanted to know, but mostly to change the subject.

“Yes,” he said. “How about you? Do you have other children besides Tara and Danny?”

Carrie didn’t pause before answering. “Another daughter. We call her Sunny because she’s happy all the time.”

“Cute,” Gustavo said.

Carrie didn’t care to examine why she talked about Sunny as though she were alive. She was about to explain that Danny was her foster child when Susie Miller came running into the office, her face split in a wide smile.

“Daddy!” Susie cried. If she hadn’t made sure the entire camp knew she was eleven, Carrie never would have guessed her age. She was short and on the stocky side, with a round, flat face that was always smiling. In her fine, straight brownish-blond hair, she wore a pink bow. “Look what I found!”

Her hands were cradled together. She opened them and a spider with eight spindly legs jumped out on the table. Carrie took an involuntary step backward. It was a daddy longlegs.

“Look how cute it is!” Susie cried.

Gustavo laughed and hoisted his daughter onto his lap. “Only you would call a spider cute. You were careful with him, weren’t you, mi hija dulce?”

Carrie knew enough Spanish to figure out that translated to “my sweet daughter.”

“Yeah. See how fast he moves,” Susie said, her attention on the spider. Her speech was quite good, clearer than Danny’s. Down syndrome children commonly had significant language delays. She must have had a good speech therapist.

“He’s trying to get away.” Gustavo blocked a side of the table so the spider didn’t scramble to the floor.

“Why?” Susie asked. “We won’t hurt him.”

“He doesn’t know that.” Gustavo set his daughter back on the floor and got to his feet. He easily caught the spider in his cupped hands. “Let’s take him outside where he belongs.”

Susie’s face fell. “I didn’t mean to make him sad.”

“Are you kidding me, sweetheart? If not for you, he might never find his way outside.” He slanted a look at Carrie. “You’ll have to excuse me. Fatherhood calls.”

“Go,” Carrie said.

He smiled at Carrie. The bulk of his attention, however, was on his daughter, where it rightly should be. She watched them leave, forming the impression that Gustavo Miller was a very nice man and an even better father.

It wasn’t until he was almost out of sight that she realized she never had gotten around to asking him to waive the second half of Danny’s tuition.

* * *

TARA BLINKED ONCE, then twice. It did no good. Jack

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