Time Is a River (20 page)

“They’re very good.”

She couldn’t speak as the blush deepened. The compliment struck too deep.

“You know, the wildflowers remind me of some paintings I saw on the wall of one of the bedrooms at Watkins Lodge. They were done long ago. More a mural, I think.”

Mia’s attention sharpened. “You mean the paintings are still on the wall? In a bedroom? My God, they weren’t painted over?”

“Apparently not. Why? Do you know the artist?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, still stunned and thrilled. “They were done by Kate Watkins when she was a little girl. How wonderful that they’re still there. Can I see them?”

“I don’t see why not. I can bring you over if you like.”

“Would you? I’d love that. I can’t begin to tell you how much it would mean to me to see them.” She was beaming. “When?”

“Well, first I’ll have to see if the room is taken by a guest. That’s easy enough. We won’t finish the walkway till tomorrow, that is if the stone gets here. So, maybe the next day, or the day after?”

“You’re going to help with the walk tomorrow?”

“I don’t see how you’re going to get it done if I don’t. The stones can be heavy.” When he saw she was going to protest, he looked sternly at her and said, “I thought we’d settled all that.”

Mia took a breath. “Thank you.”

She walked toward the kitchen, feeling his gaze on her back. “I’m forgetting my manners. You wanted some water. In the meantime, the bathroom is right over there, by the kitchen. Please, help yourself.”

At the big farm sink Mia lathered soap in her hands and scrubbed beneath her nails to get the tenacious dirt out. Her khaki shorts were splattered with mud and her cotton blouse was sweaty. What she really wanted right now was a bath. She unbuttoned the top of her blouse and splashed cool water on her face and neck. Droplets of water streaked across her chest. She looked down and saw the softly mounded breast on her right and the padded bra on her left. Beneath, the scar was pale against her skin.

Mia heard a noise, and looking over her shoulder she saw Stuart emerge from the bathroom. His face was scrubbed and the short hair framing his forehead was damp. In a panic she lurched for a towel and patted her face, keeping her back to him while she quickly buttoned her blouse.

“I’ll get that water,” she called out.

“Thanks.”

She had an inspiration. “We worked pretty hard out there and I’m starving. Can I make you some lunch?”

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”

“Now who’s not letting someone be nice?”

“OK then,” he said, spreading out his hands in mock defeat.

Mia felt a surge of satisfaction as she scrounged through the fridge. The pickings were slim but thank goodness she had some of Becky’s crusty whole wheat bread, a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese, and some ripe tomatoes. “How does a grilled cheese sandwich sound to you?”

“Like heaven,” he called back from the main room.

She was still smiling as she began slicing thick pieces of cheese. She added butter to the big cast-iron skillet and turned on the heat. As Mia cooked on the stove, Stuart walked around the main room. After a length of silence she stepped back a few paces to look over at him, curious about what caught his interest.

Stuart was standing at the bookcase with his back to her, reading. A fissure of warning coursed through her. She’d not hidden the diaries. With deliberate calm she turned off the stove and walked to his side, clenching and unclenching her fists. Stuart was completely captured by the book and didn’t hear her approach. She glanced around his shoulder. Her worst fears were realized. In his hands was Kate’s fishing diary. The brilliant colors of her glorious watercolors seemed to leap off the pages.

He sensed her presence beside him and looked at her. “This is unbelievable,” he said, his voice tinged with awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Look at the detail on that rainbow trout. And there,” he said, pointing to a pencil sketch of a trout leaping from the water. “She’s got it exactly right.” He turned to Mia, the soft hairs of his arm brushing hers. “Who did this? Kate Watkins?”

Mia froze, her secret uncovered. She reached out to carefully take the diary from his hands, her own hands trembling. She closed it, then went to the bookcase and placed it back into its box. She rested her fingertips on the leather, her back to him, knowing he stood watching her, waiting for an answer. Mia thought through the possibilities. Stuart would innocently mention the diary to someone at Watkins Lodge, and of course they’d want to see it. They’d be mad for it and the inquiries would begin. Everyone would know about the diaries and she’d have no choice but to turn them over. Her only hope was honesty.

Mia wrapped her arms around herself and, mustering her trust, told Stuart about her obsession with Kate Watkins. She began slowly, describing her arrival at the dirty, empty cabin. She explained how she sensed Kate’s presence in the cabin from the start, how she’d found the treasures in the armoire. His eyes widened when she mentioned the Payne split bamboo rod, but he didn’t interrupt. He listened patiently when she told him how she’d found the child’s diary, then later the two fishing diaries. How she’d come to feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, and that now she was in this whole new world and how, like Alice, she was chasing her white rabbit—Kate Watkins’s mysterious history.

He seemed genuinely moved by her story and took his time responding. “And you don’t want me telling anyone about these diaries.”

It was more a statement than a question and she appreciated that he understood. Mia nodded, enormously relieved. “They belong to Belle, I know that. I’m going to give them to her when she returns. But I knew if I gave them to her when I first found them she would have taken them away. It would have been her right, I know that. It’s just…I wasn’t ready to let them go. It may sound strange, but I needed them. Kate’s words, her spirit—even her fly-fishing tips—have been healing for me. I feel—” Mia stumbled with words, trying to explain what she didn’t completely understand herself. “I feel connected to her somehow. Anyway, what started out as idle curiosity about her turned into a quest.”

“So, you’ve stolen a bit of fire, have you?”

“Yes,” she replied, delighted with his analogy. She looked up at him with appeal in her gaze. “Please, I’m asking you to keep all this between you and me. I feel I can trust you.” She paused. “Can I?”

“I think you know the answer to that, or you wouldn’t have told me.”

Mia exhaled heavily, feeling her tension slide out on a plume of air. “Stuart, thank you.”

“Hey, I love a good fish tale as well as the next guy. I’d like to know more about this lady myself. Anyone who could create a fishing diary like that…” He shook his head. “My hat’s off to her.”

“Her father has one, too. Though not nearly as gorgeous or elaborate. I’ll show it to you after lunch. Come on, I can smell the grilled cheese. I’m starving.”

She hurried to the kitchen, where the smell of cheese and butter was tantalizing. Sunlight poured in from the row of four windows. She picked basil leaves from the small pots of herbs on the counter, then went to the cabinet to gather plates. He came beside her to take the plates from her hands. Then he reached up to grab glasses and carried them to the table.

“Tableware?” he asked.

“Over there,” she replied, pointing to a drawer. He laid out the forks and knives, then filled the glasses with water. They worked in tandem. Mia carried the skillet to the table and served the two sandwiches, which were warm and oozing cheese. Then she cut thick slices of tomatoes, topped them with fresh basil, and set some on each plate.

Mia sat primly in her chair and smoothed the napkin across her lap.

Across the table Stuart looked at her and laid his hand flat on the table, but didn’t say anything.

Her heart quickened at the gesture, sensing that his apprehension matched her own that their friendship was inching toward new ground.

“I have to tell you. That’s a beauty of a cast-iron stove you got over there,” he said, breaking the awkward silence. “In prime condition. Do you cook on it?”

“Me? No, I’m afraid of it.”

“Why? It’s a great oven, bakes like a charm. My mother loves hers. She cooks on it whenever we go to our mountain house.”

“Do you go there often?”

“Not lately, but I try. I’ve been pretty busy at the shop.”

“How are things going at Orvis?”

“Good.” He picked up his sandwich and took a big bite. “Delicious.”

“Thanks.”

While he ate his sandwich, Stuart’s gaze circled the room. “That Kate Watkins had a sense of the absurd, didn’t she?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling protective.

“The furniture. This grand table, that velvet couch over there. I wouldn’t have picked it myself for a cabin, but seeing it in here, I have to say I like it. It’s unexpected.”

“I think so, too,” she said, brightening. “That’s Kate for you. I’m getting the sense that she was a woman who did what she liked and didn’t worry if anyone else approved.”

“A woman ahead of her time.”

“Yes and no. Don’t forget that was the era when women were chaining themselves to gates of federal buildings to get the vote, and Amelia Earhart was giving Lucky Lindy a run for the money in the sky.”

“So Kate was giving them hell in the rivers.”

“Something like that.” She set down her sandwich, barely eaten. “To be honest, I’ve been really bothered by something I learned about Kate Watkins the other day. Apparently she was having a long love affair with a married man from New York. I never thought her capable of that.”

“Knocked her down a peg from your pedestal, did it?”

“Yes.”

“She was only human. Is it possible you made her out to be something more?”

She took a sip of water, wondering. A few months ago that fact wouldn’t have made much of a dent in her opinion. Now that she was on the other side of the bed, so to speak, the wife betrayed, she found thinking of Kate as the
other woman
disconcerting.

She put her glass on the table. “I wasn’t completely honest with you the other day when we were talking in the storm.”

His face registered mild surprise and he, too, set his sandwich down. He wiped his fingers on the napkin, then waited.

“I told you I was divorced. I’m not, yet. I’m in the process.”

“I see.” He leaned back in his chair and asked in a serious tone, “Are you hiding out up here?”

“No, no,” she said, rushing to correct what he was thinking. “He never physically hurt me. Never would.” She laughed lightly at the thought. “He’s far too civilized for that.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Where to start? she asked herself. “I got cancer,” she replied simply. “We were sailing along and it took the wind right out of our sails. Because my mother died of cancer I didn’t think I was going to live.” She brought her fingers to her chin, stroking it gently. The memory came as a gush of feeling. “I really expected to die. But I didn’t. Then I went through six weeks of chemotherapy. I had the intense therapy. Not everyone can handle dose-dense therapy, but it offered a slightly higher chance for recovery, so I took it. I’m proud that I got through it. It was hard, though,” she said in gross understatement. “Very hard. After that came a round of radiation, the hair loss, the fatigue. He wasn’t very sympathetic and we grew apart.”

She sighed, sorry to feel the undertow of the conversation start to drag her under. “Some marriages make it through that.” She shrugged in summation. “And some don’t. I came home one day and found him cheating with another woman. It’s actually pretty embarrassing to tell you that.”

“He’s an idiot.”

She glanced up at him shyly, surprised by the fury in his eyes. “Yeah, well, it happens. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last.”

“It doesn’t make it right.”

“No,” she conceded. “It doesn’t.” She reached out to trace the drop of condensation flowing down the side of her glass. She felt suddenly very exposed, like she was standing naked in the room. She didn’t want to stand alone. “What about you? Are you married?”

He laughed shortly. “Me? No.”

“Not ever?”

“Nope. This is one fish that’s never been caught.”

She drew her hand back. “Interesting way of putting it.”

“Sorry. It’s sort of an old family saying. My father’s brother never married and two of my grandfather’s brothers—the wild Scots, we called them—were committed bachelors. I guess it runs in the family.”

“Being your father’s only son, I’m sure he’s not too thrilled that his prospects for a MacDougal heir are trimmed.”

He only shrugged.

“Do you live at the lodge?”

“Temporarily. They let me live in a furnished condo for the duration of the project. We’re making the carriage house over to be the Orvis shop.”

“Where’s home?”

“Where I hang my hat, I guess.”

“I suppose that’s freeing. I mean, to go wherever you want, whenever you want.”

“I don’t think of it quite like that. It’s more I haven’t found a place that can hold me.”