Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (40 page)

After Walker had carried the painting, wrapped in brown paper, out to Anne’s car, and said his good-byes to her, he came back into the gallery.

He found Allie seething with anger.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You sold the painting, didn’t you?”

“I sold the painting to
you,
” Allie pointed out. “I wanted to sell it to
her
.”

“What’s the difference?” Walker asked, walking over to the counter where Allie was straightening things out.

“The difference is something I would think you, as a businessman, would understand. I’m not just trying to sell a painting to her, Walker. I’m trying to build a relationship with her. So that the next time she’s here—and there will be a next time, because her sister owns a cabin up here—she’ll come back and buy something else.”

Walker blew a breath out. He felt, quite literally, deflated. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. But, Allie, I’m desperate. I need to talk to you. And I figured if I came in here, you wouldn’t be able to get rid of me as easily as you get rid of me every place else in town.”

“You were right about that,” Allie said, with a ghost of a smile, her anger subsiding a little. She sat down on a high stool behind the counter, took out a brown paper bag, and slid out a sandwich, wrapped in waxed paper. “If it’s okay with you,” she said, unwrapping the sandwich, “I’m going to have my lunch while we talk.” Then she corrected herself, saying, “While
you
talk.”

“You haven’t had lunch yet?” he asked, glancing at his watch. It was two thirty.

“I’ve been busy,” she said, picking up the sandwich.

“Then let me take you out,” he said, quickly. “I mean, I’m sure that sandwich is fine, if you made it. But, honestly, it just looks . . . it looks a little sad.”

Allie looked at the sandwich, sighed, and put it down. “It
does
look a little sad,” she admitted, stuffing it and the waxed paper back into the brown paper bag.

“Let me take you to Pearl’s, then,” he said, feeling a twinge of hope. “The BLT’s on special today. Can someone else be here? For a little while?”

“I can close for half an hour. Sara doesn’t mind if I do that when I’m alone here. But it needs to be quick,” she added, still not meeting his eyes.

Allie put a
BACK
SOON
sign in the window, locked the door, and followed Walker across the street to Pearl’s. The lunch rush was over, and, except for a few stragglers, most of the tables were free.

Caroline was there, of course, leaning on the counter, and talking to Jax, who was sitting on one of the swivel seats, holding her baby. Walker, glancing over, marveled at how tiny the baby was. How old would she be now, he wondered. A month? He couldn’t imagine how anyone could be brave enough to hold something that looked so small, and so vulnerable.

But Jax looked perfectly comfortable, holding Jenna upright on her chest so that Jenna’s cheek rested on her shoulder. She waved to Allie, but when she saw she was with Walker, she politely looked away. Caroline was reserved, too. She came over, took their orders—two lemonades and two BLTs—and immediately retreated.

“How’s Jax doing?” Walker asked, quietly, glancing over at her again.

Allie shrugged, noncommittally. “She’s fine,” she said.

“She left her husband and three of her children and she’s fine?” Walker asked, skeptically.

“She’s sees the older girls here every day,” Allie said, with a little frown. “But the rest of it . . . it’s complicated.”

“I’ll bet it is. I saw Jeremy at the hardware store yesterday,” he said, after Caroline had brought both of them a lemonade. “He looked terrible. Like he hasn’t slept in days. I was afraid he was going to fall asleep right there in the power tool aisle.” Walker didn’t tell her that he’d sympathized with Jeremy, then. He hadn’t been sleeping all that well himself lately.

“I don’t know how Jeremy’s doing,” Allie admitted. “But Jax is a survivor,” she said, loyally. “One way or another, she’ll come through this. But this isn’t what you brought me here to talk about, is it?” she asked, sipping her lemonade.

“No,” Walker said, glancing around nervously. He knew he was running out of time. But he didn’t want there to be any interruptions when he told her what he’d come to tell her. He decided to wait until their orders came.

“How’s Wyatt doing?” he asked, instead, really wanting to know.

Allie’s face softened instantly. “He just started kindergarten,” she said, proudly. “And he loves it. He thinks his teacher, Ms. Conover, looks like a princess. And, of course, he loves having a best friend, Jade, who’s in the first grade. That definitely gives him bragging rights on the playground.”

Walker smiled. “Bragging rights are important. And a teacher who looks like a princess? That’s definitely a bonus.” He chuckled, some of his nervousness fading. “But what about fishing?” he asked. “Have you taken him fishing recently?”

“No,” Allie said, with a little shake of her head. “I’ve tried. But I’m a poor substitute for you, apparently. Wyatt said . . .” But she stopped midsentence. “Never mind,” she amended, quickly.

But Walker understood. And if Wyatt missed their early morning fishing trips, he knew exactly how he felt. He missed them, too. He hadn’t been fishing, in fact, since the last time he’d gone with Wyatt. It felt wrong, somehow, to go without him.

Caroline brought their sandwiches over, and when Walker looked up, a few minutes later, she’d disappeared, along with Jax and the baby, and the few other customers who’d been lingering over their lunches. They had the place all to themselves, he realized. No more excuses for him to stall, then.

“Look,” he said, his nervousness returning as he fidgeted with his napkin. “I’m not very good at talking. That’s why I like fishing, I guess. No talking necessary. But I need you to understand why I acted the way I did. So just hear me out, okay? And try to keep an open mind. I just . . . I just really need you to listen.”

“I’m listening,” Allie said, her face unreadable.

So he took a deep breath and started, without any preamble. He began with the day that Caitlin had come to his office at the boatyard and told him she was pregnant. The day he’d proposed to her. And then he moved on to the long, lonely months that followed, the two of them living together, as man and wife, but also, it turned out, as perfect strangers.

He was careful not to shift the blame on to Caitlin. In fact, he accepted all of it himself. He could have been honest with Caitlin when he’d realized their marriage was a mistake, he admitted to Allie. But instead, he’d ignored her and buried himself in his work. It was easier than telling Caitlin the truth, he said. But it was also more cowardly.

When he reached the part about Caitlin’s not being able to feel the baby move anymore, he stumbled a little. This was new to him, this openness. He’d never talked about these things with anyone before. Not even his brother, Reid, who’d had to fill in most of the blanks on his own. But he kept going. There was no turning back now. Not when the stakes were this high.

So he told her about taking Caitlin to the hospital. About the news they’d gotten there. About her plans to leave him as soon as she was released. And about his convincing her to come home with him and give their marriage another try, even though, he’d realized later, he had no intention of trying again himself. And, finally, he told her about Caitlin’s leaving, in the early hours of that snowy January morning.

He’d been looking down at his paper napkin—which he’d by now systematically shredded—but he stole a glance at Allie, half expecting her to look appalled by his insensitivity. Or disgusted by his selfishness. But she didn’t look either of those things. She just looked sad.

“That was the last time I saw her,” he said, reaching for another napkin from the napkin dispenser. “Until she came up here a month ago. And I might not have seen her again, Allie, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Me?” she said, surprised.

“You,” he nodded. “Because the morning after we spent the night together, I realized two things. The first was that I needed to see Caitlin again. I knew, then, my relationship with her wasn’t over yet. It was over on paper. But that was all.”

Allie frowned, not understanding.

“I don’t mean that I still cared about her in that way,” he said, quickly. “In a romantic way. But I cared about her as a person. And I owed her an apology, Allie. A
big
apology.

“As it turned out, though, I had no idea how to get in touch with her. Probably because she didn’t
want
me to be able to get in touch with her. I finally tracked her down through a friend of hers, though, and I asked her if I could come down to Minneapolis to see her. But, instead, she came up here. I didn’t know she was coming, Allie. I would have told you if I had. But she explained to me later that she didn’t call ahead because she didn’t know until she pulled into my driveway whether or not she’d be able to go through with it.
That’s
how angry she still was.”

He watched, now, while Allie looked down at her BLT and prodded it gently with one finger. But she didn’t eat it.

“Anyway,” Walker went on, “she stayed at the White Pines for a couple days, and we spent some time together. I’m not going to lie. It was a little tense at first. But we talked. We talked more than we did when we were actually married to each other. She told me that she’d gotten engaged.” He brightened at the memory of how happy Caitlin had been whenever she’d mentioned her fiancé. “And I told her that I was sorry. And that . . . that I still blame myself for her losing the baby.”

“Walker,” Allie said, shaking her head. But he kept talking. “No, it’s true, Allie. I do. Her doctor made some speech about how ‘these things happen, and we don’t necessarily know why.’ But would it have happened if she hadn’t been so miserable? Honestly, I have my doubts about that. I think I always will.

“But, still, it was good for us to see each other. Good for us to finally end our marriage, in a way our divorce never could. I think, I
know,
she’s let go of some of the anger she felt at me. And I got to give her something I had that belonged to her. Nothing valuable. Just something she’d left behind.” He shook his head, remembering the nightgown that, for a time, had taken up residence on the top shelf of his hall closet.

“But, Allie?” he went on, returning to the task at hand. “I realized something else that morning, lying in bed with you, watching you sleep . . .” He saw her color, slightly, at the intimate image his words evoked. “I realized that I was terrified. Terrified of the fact that I was in love with you,” he said, looking steadily at her.

Her hazel eyes widened in surprise, and her golden skin flushed an even warmer pink. She definitely had not expected a declaration of love with her lunch order, Walker decided.

“It’s true,” he said, simply. “Not only that, but it was a first for me. I’ve never been in love before. And it scared the hell out of me. For a minute, I panicked. I thought I was having a heart attack.” He chuckled at the memory. “Before then, I guess, I thought of falling in love as something that happened to other people, but not to me. I wasn’t stupid enough to do that. But looking at you—and you looked beautiful, by the way—I was so filled with love for you. And I realized that you were it, Allie. And I thought, ‘God help me, because I’m done for now.’ ”

Walker went on. “The simplest thing to do would have been to tell you how I felt. But that would have required more courage than I actually had. And when Caitlin came, I used that as an excuse to try to buy some time. I didn’t realize you’d react that way, Allie, and tell me to get lost for good.” He was still chagrined at the memory.

“I don’t think those were my exact words,” Allie murmured, with the closest thing to a smile he’d seen from her that afternoon.

“No,” he agreed, “you were too polite to say that. But if you had said it, it probably wouldn’t have been any less than I deserved.”

He smiled at Allie now, marveling at how pretty she looked in the slats of light coming in through the coffee shop’s half-closed blinds. A strand of hair had worked itself loose from the knot at the nape of her neck, he saw, and it was all he could do not to reach over and brush it off her cheek.

“Walker,” she said, suddenly, straightening up in her chair, “I appreciate your honesty. I do. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to tell me everything you’ve told me. But I don’t see how it changes anything. Between you and me, I mean.”

He started in surprise. “Allie, it changes
everything,
” he said.

But she looked doubtful. “I don’t know that it does. I mean, it sounds like you’ve been able to gain some perspective on your past. And that’s a good thing. But as far as I know, you’re still the same man who panicked the morning after he spent the night with me. What makes you think you’ve changed? And what makes you think you won’t panic again the next time? If there is a next time.”

If.
He didn’t like the sound of that word.

“Look, Allie, I
was
that man. But I’m not that man anymore. I love you. And loving you, it’s given me a courage I didn’t even know I had. Maybe that’s what love does to people. I don’t know. I guess my learning curve is still pretty high.”

But she shook her head. “Walker, how do you know this is love? How do you know it’s not just some kind of infatuation?”

“I’ve considered that,” he admitted. “Especially since this all feels new to me. The not being able to sleep. Or eat. Or concentrate at work. Or do anything, really, besides think about you. But I don’t think it’s just an adolescent crush, Allie. I think it’s gone way beyond that. I think—or I like to think—that I’m capable of more now. I like to think I’m capable of loving you.”

She thought for a second. “So that feeling you felt that morning, after we spent the night together, that fear, it’s gone?” she asked.

He shrugged. “There’s a little left, I guess. But mostly, that old fear has been replaced by a new fear. A fear of you not being part of my life.”