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Almost nothing would make Rose happier. Her mother could call her ungrateful all she wanted, but Rose had been anticipating the day as a righteous reprisal ever since she’d moved home.
For now, she did as her mother wanted, and Maxine refused to close the cottages. Business had slowed to a trickle even before Black Jack’s death; now it came one drop at a time. These days, even the type of rough-and-tumble sportsmen they catered to expected more comfort and conveniences than the spartan stone cottages offered. While Rose did what she could, little money had been put into upkeep over the years and the place had deteriorated into a shabbiness that was a painful contrast to the natural beauty of the peaceful river setting.
Maxine’s Cottages consisted of a central home and office surrounded by eight one- and two-room cabins perched along the Blackbear River. Rose lived in the farthest cottage, all her worldly possessions contained in its one room, with space to spare.
Before going home, she stopped at the main house to check on her mother. It was a duty she bore with equal parts of exasperation and sympathy. Maxine Robbin had led a hard life—married to a hell-raiser at sixteen, often in bad health, scraping by for a living, putting up with Black Jack’s temper. The only break she’d ever had was when an uncle had died and left her the cottages.
The door was unlocked. Rose scraped her shoes on the rubber welcome mat before entering. The Robbins’ house was not much bigger than the rentals—two bedrooms, a kitchen and an L-shaped combination living/dining area, with the cubbyhole office at the front. Rose’s brothers had shared the second bedroom. She, the youngest and reportedly an unexpected mistake, had been given a daybed in a curtained-off corner of the living area. Small wonder that as a girl she’d spent all her daylight hours outdoors—and even the nighttime ones whenever she was able to sneak out.
At the sound of the door, Maxine’s querulous voice rose from the back bedroom. “Is that you, Rose? I dropped my clicker and I can’t find it. I’ve been lying here in misery, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling. Why you had to pile my bed with all these extra blankets and pillows is beyond me.”
Because if I hadn’t you’d be calling me back to complain about the hard mattress or the cold draft. Rose stopped outside the bedroom door and took a deep breath, wishing for the patience needed to deal with her mother.
Black Jack’s dominating personality had turned Maxine into a mealy-mouthed complainer. Her voice was like a mosquito—an annoying high-pitched whine that went on and on for so long a body began hoping for the sting that would end it. Remembering that Maxine had been swatted down more often than any person should have to be was how Rose made it through each long day.
Rustling sounds came from the bedroom. The mattress creaked. “Ohhh. It hurts so much I can’t get out of bed. My arthritis is acting up.”
“I’m here.” Rose slipped into the bedroom and began straightening the blankets and picking up pillows. She found the remote control in the folds of the comforter and set it on the bedside table. “How was your evening, Mom? Did Alice stop by?”
“She brought a store-bought coffee cake that tasted like gravel. Came carrying tales, of course. You know Alice.” Maxine shrugged bony shoulders. She’d always been a petite woman, but illness and worry had shrunk her to a wizened, sallow shadow. At fifty-six, she was old before her time.
She droned on about Alice’s gossip, finishing with, “As if I give two hoots what the ladies of the book club or the guests at Bay House have gotten up to.”
Rose smiled to herself as she continued straightening the room. One of her mother’s remaining pleasures was a good gab with Alice Sjoholm, who was kind enough to look in on Maxine when Rose was at work. But it simply wasn’t in Maxine’s makeup to admit to any enjoyment.
“At least Alice is someone to talk to,” Maxine said. “I get zilch outta you.”
“I have nothing to talk about. You know that not much happens at the Buck Stop. It’s a drudge job.”
Maxine snorted. “That scarred hermit Noah Saari was coming into the store and you never said a word until I heard from Alice that he was courting some fancy gal at Bay House.” Maxine tilted her head, eyes narrowing at Rose. “You always were a Miss Butter-Won’t-Melt-in-Her-Mouth. Such a sneaky child, running off into the woods and keeping secrets.”
“I wonder why,” Rose muttered.
“Eh? What’s that?”
Rose sniffed the air. The ashtray on the bureau was wiped clean, but when she checked beneath the tissues in the wastebasket she found black residue and several stubbed-out cigarettes.
“Mom.” Rose let out a big sigh. “You’ve been smoking again.”
Maxine went into instant-whine mode. “I’m all alone. I get nervous at night.”
“You know you can’t smoke with the oxygen tank in the room. You’ll blow yourself to smithereens!”
“Then take it out of here.” Maxine gave the tank beside the bed a disdainful glance before she drooped into a familiar, imploring pose. “Don’t yell at me, Rose. Shouldn’t I be able to do what I please, now that your father is gone? Bless his soul.”
Rose knew quite well that her mother was using emotional blackmail. Even so, she couldn’t seem to stop the rush of pity that often became capitulation.
Maxine had an advanced stage of emphysema. She could still get around, though she often preferred not to, and her doctors had said that with vigilant care she might have years to live. A stronger person would have become determined to enjoy their remaining time, but Maxine was too cowed to fight. And she’d soon realized that the illness was a surefire way to keep hold of her only daughter and manipulate Rose to her bidding.
Maxine’s wants were simple enough, if wearing, so Rose usually found herself complying. She believed that her mother deserved some happiness. Even if it was a twisted, bitter sort.
“I’m not yelling, Mom. I’m worried.”
Maxine smiled. “What goes around comes around.”
Avoiding that, Rose found the pack of cigarettes hidden under her mother’s pillow and stuck them in her jacket pocket. “It’s the cigs or the oxygen,” she said, overriding Maxine’s complaints. She glanced around the room, which had changed little in twenty years. Same with the entire house. Black Jack’s boots were still parked under the bed and his fishing hat hung on the back door. She itched to get rid of them, but her mother refused that, too. Any sane person would have wanted to shed herself of reminders of a sorry life, but not Maxine.
“Should I help you to the bathroom before I go?” Rose asked.
“I suppose.”
Rose gave Maxine her arm and escorted the woman to the adjoining bath. She was quite capable of getting there on her own, but Rose had learned it was easier to help out now than be called on in the middle of the night.
After her mother was resettled in bed, Rose put a brisk tone in her voice. “All right, then. I’m leaving. Are you all set for the night?”
Maxine fussed with the bedclothes. “Can’t think of anything I need. But I can always ring.”
Rose stifled a groan. She had no telephone in her cottage, but there was an old farmhouse bell hanging at the front door, put there so arriving guests could ring for help when no one was in the office to check them in. Maxine seemed to take pleasure in rousing Rose at least once a night with the clanging.
“It’s after midnight,” Rose said. “I need a good night’s sleep.” For a change.
“So do I.” Maxine shifted in bed. “I can hardly get an hour’s sleep without waking up wheezing and coughing. But you don’t hear me complaining.”
Yeah, right. Rose plumped the pillows, smoothed back her mother’s hair, once black as her daughter’s but now heavily laced with steel-gray, and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Night, Mom.”
“Night, Rose.” Maxine patted her arm. “You’re a good daughter. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
The praise was perfunctory. Yet it worked. Rose had been given so little praise in her life that even crumbs seemed worthwhile. Her chest tightened as she pulled away.
She paused at the door, wanting to speak from her heart but not knowing how.
And of course Maxine couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Your brothers never call,” she moaned. “And you could run away again at any time. What would I do then? I’m so afraid of being left on my own.”
“That’s not going to happen, Mom. I’ve promised to stay. Now go to sleep.” Rose flicked off the light and hurried away before her mother saw the tears of frustration welling in her eyes.
She dashed them away, swearing at herself as she left the house and grabbed her bike by the handlebars. When would she learn?
She was the one who was on her own.
“And I like it that way,” Rose said out loud to the whispering pines and the black rushing water.
But for the first time in a long while, she wondered if she was lying to herself.
THE NEXT DAY, Evan had no practice scheduled and was able to pick Lucy up from her sitter’s early. They decided to make a trip to the library, one of Lucy’s favorite places in Alouette. Not being a big reader himself, Evan worried that his daughter was spending too much time with books when she should be outdoors in the fresh air. But he couldn’t argue with the benefits, or the pleasure it gave her.
The biggest bonus was that visiting with Tess Bucek always made Lucy happy.
Tess was the librarian. She and Evan had dated for a short while, earlier that year. Although the relationship hadn’t progressed very far, he’d considered asking her to marry him simply because Lucy had been so hungry for Tess’s motherly touch.
He’d backed off when he realized that making a wrong marriage would be worse for Lucy in the end. Tess was now a good friend, and happily engaged to a newcomer to Alouette, a writer named Connor Reed who lived in the keeper’s cottage of the Gull Rock lighthouse.
Lucy ran ahead, pushing open the door to the rainbow-hued Victorian house that had been converted into a small library. Evan followed her through the entryway, thinking how good it was to see Lucy so enthusiastic.
She raced into the library proper. He heard her voice, very bright. “Hi!”
After a pause the answer came, and it wasn’t Tess. “’Lo.”
A moment later, Tess chimed in, greeting Lucy with her usual perky cheer.
Evan arrived, his senses already heightened. Wild Rose Robbin looked at him, smiled and then hurriedly looked away, tucking her lips inward as if to keep the smile from escaping. She edged a stack of books across the checkout desk, toward Tess.
“You know Rose, right, Evan?” Tess was saying, looking from Lucy to Evan to Rose with a bright-eyed interest.
Evan cleared his throat. “We’ve met.”
“She showed me how to draw leafs in the woods,” Lucy said. She was staring up at Rose with an awe that approached reverence. One step closer and she’d be hanging off the woman’s sweater, begging for attention. Normally she was shy to the point of invisibility, especially around new people.
“Have you practiced?” When she looked into Lucy’s face, Rose’s mouth curved into a smile that was as natural and pretty as a daisy dancing in the breeze.
“I tried to.” Lucy put her hands on her hips, acting almost belligerent. She bobbed her head. “But my teacher said I was scribbling!”
Evan blinked in surprise. This was a new Lucy. Or, rather, the Lucy his daughter had started out to be, before the loss of her mother.
“I bet she wanted you to make a perfect leaf.” Rose held up one hand and drew a maple leaf in the air.
“Uh-huh,” Lucy breathed. She raised her own hand in imitation.
Rose shook her head. “Your teacher hasn’t really looked at the autumn leaves, then, has she?”
“Nope. They’re all, like, curly and nibbled on and—and—” Lucy scrunched her hand into a fist.
“So that’s how you should draw them,” Rose said. “Right?”
Even while she processed the books, Tess hadn’t missed an inflection of the conversation. She threw a significant look at Evan.
He shrugged, although the interaction was pretty amazing. Even with Tess, Lucy hadn’t come out of her shell so quickly.
“How are you, Rose?” he asked.
“Going to work.” She looked down at her books, a reflex to fill the awkward silence.
He followed her gaze. She’d checked out a large tome of Audubon bird prints, a hardcover he couldn’t see the title of and two paperbacks that featured embracing couples with flowing hair and ample cleavage. Hard to tell which was the male and which was the female.
Rose saw him looking and gathered up the books. “For my mother.”
“I loved Passionate Impulse,” Tess said. Her eyes danced.
Evan was sorry he’d noticed. “Uh, sure. Listen, Rose, I was thinking—”
“I have to go,” she interrupted. She made for the doorway, ducking past him with her rumpled hair falling across her forehead into her face. “G’bye, Lucy.”
Lucy followed the woman’s departure with beseeching eyes. “Bye.”
“Go on, Lucy, find yourself a few books,” Evan said when the door had clanged shut and she still hadn’t moved. The children’s room was adjacent to the main area, a space filled with light, plants, craft projects and colorful decorations. Throughout the summer he’d brought his daughter to story hour twice a week, but now that she’d started kindergarten and he was busy with basketball practice after school, their visits would be less frequent.
Lucy trotted off obediently. Evan stared after her, not yet willing to face Tess’s curiosity. He could feel it rolling off her, ripe with questions.
“The sequel, Passionate Embrace, wasn’t quite as good,” Tess finally said with a laugh in her voice.
“You women.” Evan had to grin. “All that romance gives you barmy ideas.”
“Sure, blame us if it makes you feel better.” Tess was petite, with short coppery hair and a warm personality—the kind of person who was a pillar of the community, with her penchant for running charity tag sales and Scrabble tournaments. “Got something besides romance on your mind, Evan?”
He shrugged. What the hell. In for a penny…
“Don’t read anything into this,” he said.
The librarian made an agreeable sound that he didn’t believe for a second.
“But…”
Tess made an impatient gesture. “C’mon. Out with it, man.”
He gave in. “Tell me about Wild Rose.”
CHAPTER THREE
TESS FROWNED INSTEAD of continuing to tease him. “Like what?”
“How she got her name, for starters.”
“She’s had it forever, it seems. I couldn’t say.”
“You could say. If you wanted to. She’s about your age, right? You must have gone to school together.”
“She was a grade behind me.”
“It’s a small school system. I’m sure you knew her.”
“Yes, but we didn’t hang out. Rose was…”
“Wild?”
Tess shook her head. “Not then. I mean, when we were younger. Maybe a little—she grew up with two older brothers. It wasn’t until later that…” She shrugged.
“So you do know how and when she got the nickname.”
“Evan, why don’t you just go by what she is now? I’ve been the subject of town gossip myself, so I’m not that eager to repeat tales about another person. Especially when it’s old talk. And who knows what’s truth and what’s exaggeration?”
