A Dream to Cling To (17 page)

“There you are.” A portly woman with sparkling blue eyes walked into the room and scattered Sam’s thoughts. “I’m Ida Plunkett, and you must be the Sam that’s been lighting sparks in our Brittany’s eyes. I’m so happy to meet you!”

The smile returned to his face in a flash and he strode over to meet Ida Plunkett.

He shook her hand warmly, met her laughing eyes, and made a friend.

“We haven’t seen Brittany in some time,” Ida confided. “And she’s never brought a friend before. This is quite nice for all of us. Now, come.”

She had Sam by the arm and was leading him through a wide hallway then into the kitchen, where a jumble of happy voices greeted him.

“Hi, Sam, come on in!” Brittany sat at a round oak table in the huge country kitchen, a curly-haired baby bouncing up and down on her knee. The chorus of voices that echoed her invitation came from tiny and
not so tiny mouths covered with jam and honey. “Meet Ida and Jack’s grandchildren.”

The five kids grinned between bites as they were introduced and Ida ushered Sam to an empty chair beside Brittany.

“Quite a brood, Ida,” he said. He rubbed the tousled hair of Henry, who was eight, and graciously took an offered bite of shy six-year-old Danny’s apple. “An admirable dynasty, to say the least.”

Ida nodded, loving each one with a twinkling smile. “They live over in Evergreen but spend lots of time here. I think it’s my buttermilk biscuits that keeps ’em coming back.” She stepped around a tiny puppy licking up the crumbs and slipped a basketful beneath Sam’s nose. “Now, you tell me if they’re worth coming back for, Sam.”

He swallowed one in a single bite. “Ida, I’m staying. For a few years or maybe forever. Henry, pass the honey please.”

“Me, too,” Danny promptly agreed, sidling up to Sam and offering his approval. “I’m staying forever. Me and Sam.”

Ida laughed and tweaked Danny’s ear with grandmotherly affection. “That will be just fine with us. Which reminds me of more serious things, Brittany dear. We’ve had several interested nibbles on your place.”

Brittany’s smile faded. “Well, I guess that’s good, Ida.” She concentrated on the toddler in her lap, tickling her fat tummy. “I’ll tell Dad when I get back. He’s greatly relieved you’re handling the sale for him. He didn’t want an agency doing it that might turn it into Lord knows what.”

“Well, dear, your father has been more than good to us, you know. It pains us to have that property change hands, though. It just doesn’t seem right to Jack and me, even though we know it makes sense, and of course there will always be rooms ready for you here.” She shook her head and briskly wiped her hands off on her
apron. “I do need you to look at the description we wrote up before you leave. Maybe I could get it now …”

Brittany nodded as she frowned down at the infant. “Oh-oh. It’ll have to wait, Ida, I think Missy here needs me more.”

Henry wrinkled his nose. “Missy’s her own rain forest, Pop says.” The other kids giggled while Ida fished a diaper out of the large plastic bag on the counter and handed it to Brittany. “You don’t mind, dear?”

“Here.” Sam held out his arms to Missy, who immediately gurgled her consent. He captured the tiny round body in his large hands and held her secure. “My turn. Hello, beautiful.” He smiled charmingly at the baby.

“Sam,” Brittany started to argue.

“Hey, you go look at those papers with Ida. And don’t be so sexist about this, you’ll give the kids a bad example. Come on, gang, I’ll give you all a lesson in efficiency here.”

Brittany shrugged, but snuck glances over her shoulder as Sam scooted his chair back, rested the wriggling baby girl on his long lap, and whipped the diaper out of its folds. “Okay, gang,” he instructed with exaggerated authority and a giant wink, “first you make sure we’re talking rain forest here and not the more serious stuff.” The kids giggled hilariously as Sam twisted his face into a variety of expressions and expertly relieved Missy of her dampened diaper.

Ida handed her a piece of paper and she skimmed the description of the house. “That’s fine, Ida,” she said distractedly, still snatching amazed looks at the group huddled around Sam’s knees.

“And don’t you worry about the place,” Ida said. “Jack will keep an eagle eye on it and we’ll plow the drive as always.”

Brittany drew her attention back to the gentle innkeeper. “Oh, I know you will. Thank you.” She hugged
Ida impulsively, wrapping her arms tight around the soft, plump form.

Ida smiled into Brittany’s hair and patted her gently on the back. She knew what the hug and emotion were all about, even if Brittany didn’t. Had nothing to do with plowing a drive, that was for sure! She knew Brittany Ellsbeth was finally, wholeheartedly in love. With gentle affection she pulled away and looked over her shoulder at Sam. He was playing pattycake with the baby while teaching the others a string trick with Jenny’s hair ribbon. Uh-huh. And
he
was over the edge too. Fine. Just fine. Maybe the cottage wouldn’t have to be sold after all.

“Ida, we’d better be going back,” Brittany said. “We’ve got some things to do at the cottage, and we plan to drive on into town tonight.”

Ida immediately glided over to a cupboard and began rustling out paper sacks and napkins from a drawer. “Not without some honey and biscuits.”

“Oh, Ida.” Brittany laughed. “Don’t trouble—”

“Speak for yourself, Ms. Winters.” Sam kissed Missy on top of a thicket of curls and set her gently on the floor. “I for one will drive better by a factor of ten with Ida’s biscuits at my side.”

Ida beamed.

“And you,” he continued to Brittany, “if you behave yourself, can share them with me.” He tugged on a loose strand of her hair and let his fingers rub gently against her cheek. “Okay?”

She grinned. “Okay.”

Good-byes were hugs for everyone and promises to come back soon, and Brittany finally pulled Sam down the back steps and through the yard to the edge of the woods.

“Okay, Lawrence, ’fess up,” she whispered with mock seriousness. “Where did you become so adept at diaper patrol? I’m beginning to think you have a baseball
team of children hidden away somewhere that you’ve forgotten to mention.”

“Do you want the truth or an elaborate tale that would add color to the day?”

“Sam, you’re about all the color I can handle today. Let’s try truth.”

“That’s fine too.” He wound his arm about her shoulders and led her out of a patch of fading sunlight and into the cool dampness of the woods. “Once upon a time, there was a—”

“Sam!”

“Right, truth.” He drew his brows together seriously. “I spent some time with some French friends one spring while I did an article for a magazine on photography.”

“You
write
too?”

“Shh, my love, you’re interrupting my truth.” He tapped his fingers lightly on her lips, leaving them tingling. “My friend Simone happened to give birth to twins the second week I was there. Anthony
Samson
Boullier and his sister, Nicole.”

“Samson?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded proudly. “He’s a handsome, terrific kid, and Nicole is a charmer. Someday you will meet them. Anyway, I was there, and home writing much of the time, so I appointed myself their temporary Uncle
Nounou.
”

“Sam …” she murmured.

“I
do
like the way you say my name, Ms. Winters.” He smiled at her, then added seriously, “I had a
wonderful
time with those babies. Leaving them was one of my more painful farewells. But I see them whenever I can.”

“Well,” Brittany said, wrapping one arm around him, “I shall tuck that info away in case I should ever need a diaper man.”

“You whistle, I’ll come,” he said quietly, and led her around a thick tree branch that had tumbled over the path.

They walked in silence for a while, their breath white
puffs in the cold air, each sifting through the tangle of emotions that clouded their thoughts. The afternoon sun had melted most of the snow and left the woods full of the clean odor of nutritious mulch beneath their feet. Wet pine needles stuck to the soles of their shoes and a soft shuffle accompanied their slow walk.

“I see why you love it here,” Sam said presently. “I’m sorry for you that your father’s selling it.”

She nodded. “I thought about buying it myself.”

“Why don’t you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s such a big house, I guess I felt selfish. It’s a family house, a house for children, not a place for just me.”

“It’s the kind of place that could mend spirits, replenish the soul.”

She looked up at him, her face still. Why had he said that? How much of her soul could he read?

He rubbed his fingers lightly across her slender shoulder. “Your mother said you spent a lot of time here after your trip to Europe.”

It wasn’t a question, but Brittany sensed an invitation in his voice, if she wanted to take it. She tipped her head back and looked up into the tangled branches of the trees. “Yes, I moved in here for a while.” She smiled. “To mend my spirit and replenish the soul.”

“It was that difficult for you, to recover from your … relationship in Europe?” Why couldn’t he just say it—say “man” or “lover”? But it pained him now to think of her loving someone else, even in the past.

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t that. It was really myself I needed to put together again. I didn’t have the same kind of feelings—” She was about to say “as I have for you,” but she shied from it now and instead began again. “I was very fond of David. We both wanted the same things from our relationship—fun and excitement. I was young in many ways, Sam. I’d never let myself loose like that before and I really
wanted
to. So I did. I was sad when it ended, but had known from the
very beginning that it would end. We—neither of us—wanted marriage then.”

“But you mourned the relationship. And it still seems to affect you, Brittany …”

She shook her head and tightened her grip around his waist, feeling his strength. “No, Sam, I mourned the baby.”

He stopped in the middle of the path and stared at her. The sadness in her eyes confirmed her words.

“He … left you pregnant?” The clenching of his teeth was nearly audible in the still woods.

“No,” she said softly. “He never knew I was pregnant. I didn’t know until just before he left. It wasn’t in the plan, you see.”

“What the hell—”

The storm she spotted in Sam’s eyes frightened her, and she quickly placed her hand on his arm, forestalling his words. “You don’t understand, Sam. He wasn’t the fathering kind. He—he needed to be off, to experience the world, to lift and land when he wanted to.” Like you, she whispered painfully in a silent pocket of her mind.

“That’s a damn stupid thing to say, Brittany. ‘Fathering kind.’ What the hell is that?” Both arms had circled her now and held her still in front of him. His eyes bore into hers. “What did you do about the baby?” he asked harshly.

“I loved him for three months. And then I mourned him when I miscarried.” Her voice was hushed.

Sam moaned softly as he crushed her to him. “Oh, my sweet Brittany, I’m so sorry.”

Tears slid down her cheeks as she pressed her face into his sweater. “I never told anyone before, Sam.”

The stillness of the woods cushioned them as they stood with arms wound tightly around each other. With each passing moment Brittany breathed more freely as the sorrow of her memory and the tight ball of pain began slowly to unravel.

“You should have told someone,” Sam said. “That’s too much to carry alone.”

She nodded. “But it doesn’t matter. I have now, Sam.”

“Were you alone?”

Her head brushed against his sweater and she didn’t mind if he saw the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “Yes, I stayed there until after it happened. And then I came back here to recover. No one ever knew. I couldn’t bear people telling me how it was all for the best.”

He dropped kisses into her hair and held her tightly. “What a hell of a thing to go through.”

She drew away slightly and saw the sad understanding in his eyes. “Yes, it was. But it was my bed, Sam, I made it.”

There was no self-pity in her voice, only sorrow. He brushed a strand of hair back from her face.

“You know, Sam, until this moment I think I blamed myself for the miscarriage.”

“Brittany, that—”

“I know. It doesn’t make sense. But I think I did. Deep down, somewhere in my sorrow. Because I had foolishly made a choice … to have that affair … and the consequences were ones I never considered, never planned for.” She flung out the feelings, wanting to release them into the past.

“But it wasn’t your fault.” He cradled her in his arms, soothing her.

She shook her head and whispered, “No, it wasn’t, Sam, was it?”

“No, my love. It wasn’t. And you’re going to have other babies, and be the most wonderful mother in the world.”

She clung to him for a long time, her spirit lifting until she felt scooped out, released, and her breathing grew deeper, smoother. The sorrow lingered, but the sharing had lifted the burden until she could hold it out in front of her, handle it. And in time, she knew now, she could bury it.

They started walking again, Sam’s arm wrapped firmly around her shoulder and hers stretched loosely around his waist. Another link had invisibly stretched itself out and bonded the two of them together, and she wondered at the irony of it all, at the way Sam had fallen into her ordered life, had filled such needs in her, becoming her dear friend … her lover. Against all reasonable, rational expectations. They were pieces of a puzzle that shouldn’t fit together. Her emotional exhaustion prevented any further thought, and all she could manage was a gentle squeeze where her fingers curled into Sam’s waist.

“What’s that all about?” he asked.

She shook her head and wiped the dampness from her eyes. “Just the result of wandering thoughts. It has something to do with the peculiar twists of fate.”

“You don’t like twists much, do you, Brittany?”

“No.”

“But sometimes they can be a shot in the arm. Sometimes the unexpected can bring real joy.”

“Or real sadness.”

He nodded. “Sure, I guess so. Life’s kind of a mixture.”