Enright Family Collection (9 page)

His eyes were dancing as he looked into hers, and she nodded, somewhat dumbly, that she did in fact have one of those … whatever it was he had asked for. It was hard to concentrate when he stared directly into her eyes like that, like they were the oldest, the very best of friends, friends who had shared so very much.

But then again, she told herself, they had shared something special. They had both been blessed with Ry’s presence in their lives. It made Nick less of a stranger, more of a friend.

“And we need to set the oven to 350 degrees,” Nick said, reading from her aunt’s crisply printed instructions.

India rummaged around in her cupboard and emerged with a baking pan. “Will this do?”

“That’ll do just fine.” He smiled, and those little dimples she’d noticed that day on the beach emerged to taunt her.

She handed him the pan, wondering what she had done to deserve having a man like Nick Enright show up on her birthday to cook her dinner.

“August said to heat these up in the microwave.” From the deep basket he removed a dish of rosemary potatoes in one hand and a brown bag in the other. He plopped the bag onto the counter. “These we can just steam. Green beans. The last from Liddy Osborn’s garden.”

“And what’s in there?” She pointed to the long object wrapped in foil and packed in ice, which Nick had removed from the basket.

“That’s what we need the baking pan for.” Nick began to unwrap the bundle.

“Ohmygod!” India nearly melted in anticipation. “Aunt August’s stuffed bluefish.”

“We caught it,” Corri piped up, “me and Nick. Out by Heron Cove.”

“I can’t believe it!” Indy all but swooned. “My favorite dinner. You don’t know how I dreamed of Aunt August’s stuffed and baked bluefish. Just thinking about it makes me ravenous.”

“Well, you sit right down there, Birthday Girl—” Nick pulled out a kitchen chair and motioned for her to sit— “while I prepare to make your dream come true.”

“And I will set the table.” Corri abandoned her little zoo of soap animals and hopped on one foot into the kitchen. “I know how.”

“Is that a deck I see out there?” With one finger Nick drew the curtain aside from the window overlooking the small back yard.

“Yes,” Indy replied. “The previous owners had it built. I haven’t used it much.”

“I want to see out back,” Corri told her, the table-setting assignment momentarily forgotten.

India unlocked the back door and opened it to step onto the deck, which faced an overgrown yard.

“Indy, you need to cut your
grass.”
Corri pointed toward the lawn.

“I know, sweetie,” a somewhat abashed India admitted. “I just haven’t had time.”

“It’s too tall to walk in,” Corri said, frowning from the bottom of the steps.

“I’m sorry, Corri. Maybe by the next time you come I’ll have gotten to it.”

Nick appeared in the doorway.

“Got a lawn mower?” he asked.

“Well, yes, I do, but …”

“Get it out,” he told her, “and I’ll cut the grass. You don’t have much of a yard. I’ll have it done by the time the oven has heated for the fish.”

“Nick, you don’t have to cut my grass. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or I’ll try to find someone in the neighborhood—”

He had already bounded past her and down the steps. “Out here?” he asked, pointing to the small cedar-sided shed that stood near the far corner.

“Well, yes, but …”

He was already into the shed and had lifted the small lawn mower out before she had finished her sentence. Soon he had the mower running, and she leaned on the deck railing, watching as he left trails of grassy clumps in his wake as he crossed back and forth across the small yard, the mower humming as he attended efficiently to the task.

“You really didn’t have to do all this,” she told him as he finished and turned off the mower.

“It’s your birthday,” he said solemnly, “and it was important to Corri to be with you, to surprise you. Ry talked a lot about making a difference in her life—it was important to him to try to give her some security after she lost her mother. He said he knew just how frightening it was for a child to lose a parent. He didn’t want her to feel alone.”

India nodded. “Our mother died when Ry was barely four years old, just about the same age as Corri was when Maris died. I was just a baby, but Ry said many times how scared he had been, that she just seemed to have gone away, and he never saw her again.”

“Maris’s death was hard enough on her, but now, with Ry gone, I think it’s even more important for her to feel
wanted, to feel a part of something. I owe it to Ry to do what I can, when I can. Corri really wanted to celebrate your birthday with you. I needed to make sure that happened for her. And for you.”

“Thank you, Nick,” she said simply. “For Corri. And for me.”

“And for Ry,” he reminded her.

“Certainly,” she said softly, “for Ry.”

Of course, that was why he had made this trip, why he had brought Corri to her. Because of Ry, because of his respect and fondness for her brother. Unexpectedly, her heart was stung by the slightest trace of disappointment as she acknowledged the reason for his presence there, in her home, on her birthday.

But even knowing that, once back inside her tidy house, she watched him fill her kitchen with energy and humor and wondered if she had ever known a man quite like him.

Dinner was exquisite, lacking only Aunt August’s presence to make it the perfect birthday feast. Nick lifted the bluefish from the oven and slid it onto an old platter, happily chattering with Corri, taking pains to draw India into the conversation from time to time. They talked about various personalities in Devlin’s Light, about the start of the school year and who was in Corri’s class, why the art teacher was great and the music teacher not so. All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. India could not remember the last one that had brought her more pleasure.

Corri bit her lip with happy anticipation as India opened the card that had been made just for her, watercolored rainbows and balloons painted on light blue construction paper.

“Aunt August helped me with some of the words,” Corri announced proudly, “but I drew the pictures myself.”

Happy birthday, Indy. I love you. Corri.

“Balloons and rainbows are two of my most favorite things.” Indy hugged her, holding the child close for a very long minute.

“Mine too. I used blue paper so it would be like the sky. See, rainbows are in the sky, and that’s where your balloons go if you don’t hold on to them.”

“It’s a wonderful card, simply beautiful, Corri. I’ll have to find a good place to keep it.”

“Oh!” Corri jumped from her seat. “We forgot!” She stuck her face into the picnic basket. “Here, India.” Corri handed over two small yellow and white plastic daisies.

“What are these?” India asked.

“They are magnets, silly.” Corri took them from her and used them to hold the card in place on the refrigerator door.

“Why, how very clever!” India laughed. “Thank you. Now I can see my pretty card every time I come into the kitchen.”

“Thank Aunt August,” Corri told her brightly, “it was her idea. She said it was time we started spreading around the ’frigerator art.”

“And she wasn’t kidding,” Nick told her as he cleared the table. “I have a few of those little collector’s items myself. August does believe in sharing the wealth.”

“I painted ducks for Nick. And a bird sitting on cattails.”

“Which was actually quite good,” Nick told her.

Corri beamed, basking in the happy moment for a split second before bouncing up and clapping her hands. “Now we can have birthday cake!”

India’s favorite coconut cake with white frosting had survived the trip from Devlin’s Light with little more than some mooshed frosting on one side. Corri planted the candles across the top layer and Nick lit them, and both of them sang the birthday song while Indy closed her eyes and, for a moment, was transported back to another birthday, another time.

“Make a wish Indy,” Ry was saying. “Wish with your heart and blow the candles out at the same time, and whatever you wish for will come true.”

She opened her eyes and looked up into the smiling faces of two people who had become, suddenly, achingly precious to her. Taking a deep breath, enough to blow out all twenty-nine candles at the same time, India looked into eyes the color of caramels and knew exactly what to wish for.

Maybe, she thought as she watched the tiny lights on the cake go out, when this trial was over, she’d have time to work on making that wish come true. For now, she just
wanted to hold on to what remained of the evening, to the warmth that came, not from the candles’ glow, but from the heart of a child and the eyes of a very special man.

Great-Aunt Nola’s Award-Winning
Coconut Cake

Cake:

2½
cups plus 2 tablespoons flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1½ cups sugar

3/4 cups butter

3 eggs, separated

3/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

3/4 cup flaked coconut (soak in 2 tablespoons milk)

Preheat oven to 350° and prepare 2 cake pans (grease and flour). Add vanilla and coconut extracts to milk and set aside. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside. Cream butter with mixer for 30 seconds, then gradually add sugar and mix on medium speed for 5 minutes. Beat egg yolks and add to butter mixture. Add flour and milk alternately to butter mix, stirring after each addition, until smooth. Stir in coconut. With clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into batter. Turn into pans
^*
, baking at 25 minutes for 8-inch round or square pans. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then invert onto racks and cool completely before frosting.

Frosting (makes enough for 2 layers or one 9x13x2-inch sheet cake):

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 lb. box of 10X sugar, sifted

4 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons coconut

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Soak coconut in milk. Beat butter with mixer on medium speed 30 seconds. Add 1/2 of the sugar, beat well. Drain coconut and add milk to butter mixture, beating well. Gradually add remaining sugar until desired consistency. Blend in extracts and coconut. Frost cake and cover with as much coconut as the cake will hold.

^*
Makes 2 8- or 9-inch layers or one 13x9x2-inch sheet.

Chapter 6

The glow was, sadly, short lived, since first thing Monday morning found India back in court, battling with Axel Thomas’s attorney on technical issues. The trial dragged on for three more very tense weeks, every day of which was war. Certainly it had been a war worth fighting, she later noted with satisfaction. Particularly since she had emerged the victor and had the pleasure of knowing that Axel’s sorry butt would soon be hauled to the state prison for what would surely be a long and miserable stay.

“Indy, we saw you on television!” Corri chirped into the phone, which had been ringing even as India had unlocked her front door and stepped inside following several hours of postverdict celebrations with her colleagues. “You looked pretty.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” India laughed. She had, of course, seen the film, but she hadn’t noticed whether she looked pretty or not, couldn’t have told with any degree of certainty what she had been wearing or who else had been framed by the camera’s lens following the pronouncement of the jury’s verdict.

“I’m so proud of you.” Aunt August’s whisper filled her ear and gladdened her heart. “I always am, India. This time especially, I applaud your efforts.”

“Thank you, Aunt August.” India squeezed her eyes
tightly closed, bringing back the scene in the courtroom. The hush as the judge climbed three steps to his seat, his black robes trailing slightly behind him like a nun’s habit. The rustle of skirts and the
tap-tap-tap
of one juror’s high-heeled shoes as they crossed the ancient pine floor to the jury box. A poorly smothered cough from somewhere behind her. The mass of apprehensive uncertainty that filled her chest, threatening to displace every bit of oxygen in her lungs, as she waited, the very picture of composure and self-assurance, while inside her intestines twisted grotesquely. Axel Thomas’s stare, deliberate and unconcerned, sure of his impending freedom, as he sought to engage her eyes in one last bemused gesture of contempt.

And then the judge asked, “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor,” replied the foreman, a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair and round-framed glasses too large for his elongated and dole face.

“How do you find?”

“We find the defendant, Axel Edward Thomas, guilty on all counts, Your Honor.”

There was just the barest hesitation, a heartbeat’s worth of silence, before pandemonium erupted. Those members of India’s staff who had gathered across the back of the courtroom holding their breaths without even realizing they were doing so shouted and applauded the jury’s decision. India fought back tears as Herbie fought to control his own exaltation, as he rubbed a shaking hand across her shoulders to signal it was all right now, the weeks of traveling into the mind of a killer were over. Axel’s mask of bemused certainty dissolved into contentious disbelief, then snapped into crude threats thrown aggressively in every direction. India, the judge, his own attorney, all bore the brunt of his incensed declarations over the excited chatter in the courtroom.