Touching Stars (3 page)

What had she gotten out of this?

When the scenery was suddenly unfamiliar, he realized how much time had passed since he’d last been here. There were several new houses on the road leading to the inn. And the road itself, which had not been completely paved, was pristine blacktop all the way.

“There’s the first sign,” he said, pointing. “Daughter of the Stars, A Bed and Breakfast Inn.”

“Classy.”

“The place may be in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a class act.”

She slowed even more and took the required turn. “You’ll keep in touch?”

“I plan to.”

“I can be here in a day if you need me, Eric.”

He kept his voice light. “I wouldn’t ask you to rescue me twice in one lifetime.”

“We all need occasional rescue. The people we choose to ask? That says a lot about us.”

“Then it says I have good taste.”

She stopped at the end of the driveway that led up to the front door. He gazed at the familiar structure. The inn sprawled in several directions, a barn-red building with white trim and black shutters. Window boxes filled with ivy, purple petunias and white geraniums graced the upstairs windows, while pots on the porch sprouted with flowers he had no names for. To one side of the house a new rose garden added gaudier splashes of color. As he opened his door, their fragrance seemed to lift him out of the car, hypnotic, sensual and welcoming.

He heard a shout from inside, and the screen door banged. Though he had grown, clearly the boy who emerged was Dillon. No one else moved with the same hyperkinetic lack of grace. His son’s gold hair shone in the summer sunlight. His smile was both radiant and hesitant.

“My God, Eric, he’s your clone,” Ariel said softly from the driver’s seat.

He heard her words, then Dillon’s shout.

“Dad’s here. Dad’s really here!”

In that moment Eric understood the duality of his son’s smile. He was filled with the radiance of homecoming, of being loved this much, of having a place in this lonely aching world that he could, at least temporarily, call home.

But in the same moment he wanted to get back into the car and beg Ariel to take him anywhere. Any place where nobody needed him.

The screen door opened again, and Gayle stepped out, followed by their two older sons, who held back. They stood behind their mother as if to say they had chosen sides, and Eric had better understand it. That they would be right there to protect her and watch over her this summer.

Gayle stepped forward first. She put her hand on Dillon’s shoulder, whispered something in his ear, then stepped down off the porch and started toward Eric. When she was only a few feet away she extended her hands and grasped his. Then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

“Welcome home, Eric,” she said. “We are all very glad to see this day.”

“I’
m glad you’re here, Dad.” Jared gave his father a quick bear hug. “I’m glad you’re, you know…back.”

Eric knew exactly what his son meant. The word he hadn’t been able to say was
alive.

Noah danced around the word, too, but got closer. “Yeah, we’re glad you made it.”

Jared reached out an arm for his middle son, and he saw Noah hesitate. Then Noah leaned closer and let his father hug him. But only for a moment.

“Hey, he probably needs to sit down or something.” Dillon danced from foot to foot at the edge of the group. He’d been the first to offer his arms to his father, but watching the other boys greet Eric seemed to frustrate him.

“I’m okay,” Eric assured them. He held out his arm to Ariel. “Ariel, come meet everybody.”

Ariel wore tight black capris and sandals with three-inch heels that showcased lethally red toenails. Her navel was adorned with a ruby that winked every time she lifted an arm. Eric saw Jared and Noah give her an admiring glance.

“What a good-looking crew,” she said as she joined them. She held out her hand to Gayle before Eric could make the introduction. “Ariel Kensington.”

Gayle’s smile seemed genuine. “I recognize you from the series you did on natural disasters a couple of years ago on the Discovery Channel. I’m so glad you could drive Eric here, Miss Kensington.”

“Ariel.”

“And I’m Gayle.”

Eric watched as Gayle introduced the boys. About fifty percent of marriages in the United States ended in divorce, but to his knowledge, no one had written a rulebook for moments like this. Luckily the two women didn’t seem to need one. An awkward moment had been waved away by mature adults.

He hadn’t seen Gayle for a year, and then only in passing. He thought she looked much the same. Her chin-length hair was the pale gold of Jared’s, fine, straight and expertly layered to fall around her face. Her gray eyes were steady and serious, but her smile, although not the star caliber of Ariel’s, was genuine and warm. Years ago he had fallen in love with the smile, then the woman. The smile conveyed everything about her. Integrity. Wisdom. And just a hint of the wilder woman inside. He had been captivated, and, like any good journalist, he had known she was a story worth uncovering.

Now she was telling Ariel about the inn. “Would you like a tour?” she asked after a truncated history. “You can’t rush off. You must need a break from driving.”

“Just a short one. I have to catch a plane out of Dulles late this afternoon, and you know airports these days. I always give myself plenty of time.”

“Then a glass of tea and a quick look, and we’ll have you back on the road.”

“Perfect,” Ariel said.

“You can’t just leave Dad standing here.” Dillon moved to his father’s side, as if to prop him up. “He’s sick. Look how skinny he is!”

The words had fallen into a conversational void, and Dillon’s decibel level was always high.

Gayle flashed an apology to Eric with a glance he remembered well. Then she put her hand on Dillon’s shoulder.

“Your father may need to rest, but that’s his call, don’t you think? I promise we aren’t going to let him topple over in the driveway.”

“I’m not sick.” Eric’s words were sharper than he had intended, but they did the job. Silence fell. He glanced at Ariel, who shrugged, and he remembered what she had said in the car about the anger in his voice.

“I’m not sick,” he said in a gentler tone. “I just lost weight on this assignment. I’m planning to gain it all back.”

“Well, you don’t look like you used to,” Dillon said with a pout. “You look older and—”

Noah dragged his brother away from Eric. “Let’s go see if everything’s ready in Dad’s room.”

“But I already—”

“No, you didn’t,” Noah said.

Noah was the only brown-haired son, a throwback to Eric’s father or Gayle’s, but his nose was hers, as was the shape of his face. He was muscular and strong, and Dillon yelped as Noah dragged him away. Noah was everybody’s friend, but underneath the carefree grin, the terms were always his.

Gayle looked unhappy, but she didn’t try to stop the boys. “That’s one thing about Dillon. You can always count on him to tell the truth with unnecessary force. You
are
thin, Eric, but you’ve come to the right place. Feeding people is our specialty. And your sons make a mean waffle. No one else’s compare.”

He was grateful to her and not surprised. This was Gayle at her best. Facing the truth, making it feel lighter than it was, finishing on a positive note.

“Now you’re making me sorry I’m not staying overnight,” Ariel said.

Gayle turned to start up the steps. “I’ll give you a chocolate-chip muffin as a consolation prize.”

“If I stayed around here, I wouldn’t fit behind the news desk.”

Gayle laughed, and this, too, seemed genuine. “Ariel, if you stayed around here, you’d find there’s no news to report.”

The two women climbed the steps together. Eric and Jared were left below as the screen door closed.

Eric looked at his son, who was gazing into the distance. Along with her pale blond hair, Jared had inherited Gayle’s straight nose and gray eyes. His forehead was broader, and his chin strong and square. There was nothing childishly soft about Jared now. Eric’s oldest son was a man, and he felt a pang as he realized it. Jared had been six when Gayle and Eric divorced, the only child old enough to realize that things would somehow be different from that point on.

Eric knew this son the best and loved him the best. Other parents might not admit to favoring one child, but Eric only had one son he really understood and felt close to.

“You’re really all right?” Jared asked.

“No, but there’s nothing wrong that food, rest and a few pills won’t cure. It’s good of your mother to let me stay until the tenants move out of my condo in Atlanta. It can’t be easy for her, having a full-time boarder for the summer.”

“She insisted. We’ve been worried enough.”

“There’s really nothing to worry about now. But you can keep an eye on me for a while if it makes you feel better.”

“It must have been hell.”

One man to another. Eric heard it, and realized Jared’s words and the way he said them were completely genuine. Unaccountably, he was nostalgic for the little boy who was no more.

Eric cleared his throat. “It’s over. I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

Eric put his hand on Jared’s arm. “How about a little support for the old man? Stairs aren’t my friends yet.”

“You got it.”

“I hadn’t expected to need this kind of help until I was ninety.”

“We’ll pretend it’s preparation.”

Eric laughed, rested his hand on his son’s and started the climb.

The inn’s Lone Star room was one of Gayle’s favorites, because it had a small porch with a view of the mountains and river. Each of the eight bedrooms was named after a different star quilt and decorated in harmony with the colors of the quilt displayed there. The Lone Star room was dominated by an Amish-made Lone Star wall hanging in southwestern sunset colors.

To highlight the quilt, she had painted the walls of the room a pale gold with a caramel glaze, hung burnt-red curtains, and accented with turquoise and deep purple pillows. The furniture was dark and heavy; the bed with its sand-colored duvet sat high off the floor. The effect was pleasing and more masculine than some of the other rooms. The fact that Eric had been born in the Lone Star state gave the decision to house him here the necessary note of humor.

They were going to need all the laughter they could muster.

Gayle opened drapes and turned on lights to make the room even more welcoming. Ariel was back on the road, and Noah was keeping Dillon temporarily at bay. She and Jared were attempting to make Eric feel at home.

“You travel so light,” she told him, as Jared deposited his father’s two small suitcases beside the closet. “You’ll have room to spare in the dressers.”

Eric looked alarmingly pale. Pale, thin and, yes, as Dillon had blurted out, older. But he was still Eric. He carried himself like a prince; he hadn’t quite forgotten how to smile. He had a strong, classic bone structure that was too prominent now, but still pleasing. Eric would be handsome at eighty.

“I’m sorry, Dad, but I have to go out,” Jared said. “And I figured you’d need some time just to rest. I’ll be back later.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.” Eric made as if to get a suitcase and unpack, but Gayle stopped him.

“I can do that. Let me, okay? No fussing. Once you’ve had a few days to rest up, I’m going to put you to work.”

“I don’t need anything right now except some pills in the outside flap of that one.” He gestured to the largest suitcase. “I’ll take care of the rest of it a little at a time.”

She didn’t argue. She unzipped the flap and took out half a dozen containers, and set them on the table beside his bed, where the boys had put bottled water and three glasses on a tray. “We can get your prescriptions transferred to a local pharmacy.”

“I picked up a bug in—” He stopped. “Nothing much to worry about. I just need to be on a couple of things for a while, including some vitamins.”

“I’m heading out now.” Jared made a fist and gently punched his father’s arm. “See you later.”

Eric smiled wanly. “You bet. Thanks for the help.” He watched Jared disappear through the door before he turned.

“When did he turn into a man?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “I guess when his father was taken hostage and nearly killed by terrorists.”

“They called themselves
freedom fighters.
”

“Only it wasn’t your freedom they were fighting for, was it?”

“Funny, Jared’s turned into a man, while I feel like a helpless kid.” Eric perched on the edge of the bed, his feet just skimming the ground. “We traded places.”

“I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”

“I can’t imagine I’m here talking about it.” He looked up at her. “But let’s not.”

She answered by moving to the dresser and lifting a handmade basket filled with everything from cans of nuts to muffins. “What else do you need? The boys made a basket of goodies for you to snack on.”

“I’ll devour everything eventually, I’m sure.”

“We aren’t having guests this week. With Jared’s graduation and party tomorrow, and your arrival, it seemed easiest. So you’ll have peace and quiet to rest.”

“I can imagine what losing a week of income is going to do to your budget.”

She let that pass, since she couldn’t disagree. “The bathroom is stocked with more toiletries than you can use in a lifetime. We change towels daily and sheets twice a week, unless you need them changed more often. No television in the rooms, but lots of books. And there’s a flat screen in the guest parlor whenever you want to watch it.”

“It’s better than fine, Gayle. It’s a gift I don’t deserve, and I know it.”

“It’s a gift I’m happy to give the father of my sons. I want you to be here. They need to have you in reach for a while.”

He looked more tired by the moment, but he stopped her before she could leave. “Where was Jared off to?”

“Graduation practice.” She hesitated. “And I imagine he has to pick up Brandy so she can watch. They’re inseparable.”

“Brandy’s the girlfriend, right?”

“She is. The first serious girlfriend. They’ve been together all year.”

“Why do I think you don’t like her?”

She was sorry her tone had given her away. “I’m not sure I understand teenage girls, never having had practice raising one and being pretty far away from those days myself. But Brandy’s absolutely committed to chaining Jared to her side.”

“Pretty?”

“Long black hair, a lush figure, a cute little pout when she doesn’t get her way.”

“You
definitely
don’t like her.”

Gayle considered. “Not true. She’s a nice girl. She doesn’t have any career aspirations, but she’s helpful and sweet tempered most of the time. She just wants to be part of the family a lot sooner than I want her to be.”

“The lioness protecting her cub.”

“Jared has his whole life ahead of him. He’s been such a star in high school, and he’s going to need the stimulation of MIT. I just want so much for him. Unfortunately, he’s utterly devoted to her happiness.”

“I’m not sure where he learned that kind of devotion. Not from me, I guess.”

She was surprised he would bring up their past so soon. She didn’t know what to say.

He sighed. “That was supposed to be a joke. But it wasn’t a very good one, was it?”

“You look exhausted. I’m going to stop fussing and let you get a nap. Do you need any help before I go?”

“I think I can still undress myself.”

That
was an image she didn’t want in her head. “Or nap in your clothes. Who’ll care?”

The door opened wider, and Dillon charged in. “Do you like the basket? You like chocolate, don’t you? I put M&M’s in there, and some chocolate-covered raisins.”