Chapter Twelve
Renee glanced out the kitchen window at the sound of tires on the gravel drive. She always felt a thrill of relief when her husband returned home from a shift. She had thought she understood what she was signing up for when she married a man in law enforcement, but the worry was even more constant than she’d expected.
She dropped her pen onto the notepaper that sported her long grocery list and poured a hot cup of coffee for Matt. He’d need it.
After tightening her robe, she stepped outside to meet him. The early morning dew tickled her bare feet. Birds twittered, announcing a new day.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Matt said. “But I might be even more relieved to see that steaming cup of coffee in your hands than your beautiful face.”
Renee handed him the mug, noting that his eyes actually looked sore. His haggard expression matched the news she already knew was coming. “I’m sorry the rescue wasn’t successful.”
He took a long drink of coffee before responding. He grimaced at the heat of it, then sighed. “You already heard, huh? I thought they were going to keep it out of the press until they could notify his family. The guy was from out east somewhere. We’re still trying to piece together what happened.”
Nodding, Renee threaded her arm through her husband’s, nudging him toward the house. “There are no secrets anymore. I saw a post on social media. Do you want some breakfast? I could make eggs.”
He shook his head, then drained the rest of his coffee and handed the empty mug back to her before opening the door into their kitchen. “I’m not hungry. I just need sleep. It would be even better if you’d come back to bed and snuggle in beside me. You know I always sleep better with you there. What are you doing up already? It’s barely six.”
Renee released his arm and preceded him into the house. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m afraid I have too much to do. Val is waiting for my list of what we want to eat this week before she can go to the grocery store. She had us well stocked with meals for this past weekend, but not for the full two weeks of the girls’ visit.”
She sat back down to her list. After pouring himself a glass of orange juice, Matt wandered back to stand behind her. He rested a hand on her shoulder while he drained the glass, then dropped a kiss on the top of her head. After a tough day—or in this case, night—at work, he was often more affectionate. She knew the horrors he witnessed from time to time helped him appreciate what he had to come home to.
He must have glanced at her list, because he snorted and squeezed her shoulder. “This is what I was afraid of. I know you were excited to have your friends stay here, but does it even feel like a vacation to you? And didn’t you say it’s your turn to plan next year’s trip? When do you get to relax?”
She patted his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t mind. It feels good to have people around here again. I just hope they’re having fun.”
He squeezed her again, then stepped away and pulled his shirt out of his waistband. She watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, and when he caught her looking, he wriggled his eyebrows at her. His grin eased some of the exhaustion from his features. It wasn’t hard to read his mind.
Laughing, she took one last look at her list and pushed it away. “The kids are both still asleep.”
Matt shrugged. “We’ve kind of mastered the art of keeping quiet.”
“Not really. Besides, you just said all you wanted to do was sleep. I know that look. You aren’t thinking about sleep anymore.”
He reached for both of her hands and eased her up out of her chair. “Oh, I still need to sleep. But first, I just want to enjoy the thrill of being alive for a few minutes. You wouldn’t deny me that, would you?”
She allowed him to pull her close and slipped her hands under the white V-neck tank he always wore under his uniform, running her fingers up his flat abdomen. “Val is going to be mad at me if I don’t get her that list by seven. She wanted to run to the store before her boys get up and Luke has to leave for work.”
He pulled her close and nuzzled her neck, coaxing a giggle from her. “Stop,” she whispered. “That tickles! You’re acting like a newlywed.”
“I think four years still qualifies for newlywed status. Don’t you?” He rested his forehead against hers and breathed deeply. “You smell so good. Come back to the bedroom with me for just a little while. Please?”
As if she could deny him when he asked like that. But her cell phone in the pocket of her robe vibrated with a text.
He must have felt it, too. “Val can wait. Oh, that reminds me. George called me this morning.”
She pulled her face back a few inches. “He already called this morning? But it’s so early. Why is my dad bothering you at the crack of dawn?”
Matt chuckled. “He wasn’t bothering me. He knows my night shifts usually end around six. He was just checking to see if I’d be home later this afternoon. Said something about unloading a trailer and he could use some help. He knows you’re busy with company.”
She took two steps back, and her husband’s hands fell away. Mention of one’s parents was a surefire buzzkill. “Unloading a trailer? Of what? I don’t know anything about that.”
But Matt wasn’t to be dissuaded. He caught her hand and turned them toward their bedroom. “I don’t know either, and right now I don’t care. I’ll be here to help, but only if I get some rest. To do that, I need you to come back and sing me a lullaby.”
She laughed. “A lullaby, huh? Is that what we’re calling it these days?” But she allowed him to pull her out of the kitchen. Then she stopped. “I better lock the kitchen door. God knows my friends wouldn’t think twice about walking in here looking for some early morning coffee.”
Matt released her and finished pulling off his uniform top. “Good point. I love those ladies, but right now you are the only one I want to see. Don’t be long.”
Renee hurried back to the door and flipped the lock. She took a quick peek out the window. They had built their house back in the trees, but they kept a path clear so she could see a bit of the resort from here. All looked quiet.
She sometimes felt like an outsider when hanging out with her friends, given how much better the other four knew each other, but she always felt right at home in her husband’s arms.
“I think it’s so sweet that the two of you still act like newlyweds,” Kit said between bites of her chef salad. “Dean doesn’t even look at me like that anymore, and we haven’t reached our two-year anniversary.”
Renee smiled, remembering her earlier conversation with Matt. “What do you mean? We’re hardly newlyweds. It’s been four years already since we got married.”
“That’s not what it looked like this morning.”
She set her iced tea down. “This morning?” She heard Annie giggle and swiveled her gaze to her left. Busted. “Were you spying on us this morning? I told Matt it was a good idea to lock the door!”
Kit slapped the table and pointed at Jackie and Lynette. “See? We told you so!”
“I just thought you were trying to make me feel even worse about my romantic dry spell,” Lynette said, jabbing a fork in Kit’s direction.
Renee’s confusion morphed into frustration. “Do you four want to let me in on your little secret? I’m feeling left out again.”
The second the words left her mouth, Renee regretted them.
The smile fell from Lynette’s face. “You feel left out? Oh, honey, we never want you to feel like that. You’re one of us. You know that. The five Kaleidoscope Girls, forever!”
“Never mind,” she murmured.
Why did she have to open her big mouth? She’d tossed and turned with worry over Matt most of the night. Sometimes she said things she regretted when she was tired.
But Lynette wasn’t one to let something go. She set down her fork and reached across the table toward her.
Renee hated the flush she could feel creeping up her neck. “No, seriously. Forget I even said that. Come on. This is supposed to be a fun day for shopping and lunch. Did I show you the shoes Jackie and I found when you two were in the bookstore?”
Lynette wriggled her fingers at her. She wasn’t to be deterred.
Now Renee worried she might have hurt all their feelings. She sighed, placing her hand reluctantly in Lynette’s.
“Look, Renee,” the other woman said, clasping her fingers tightly. “You are every bit as important to me as these three are, and I know they feel the same way. Just because you didn’t go to high school with us doesn’t diminish the importance of our history together. And how much we mean to each other now, as grown-ass adults.”
Annie and Jackie nodded and layered their hands on top of Renee’s and Lynette’s.
Only Kit hung back. Always the more practical and straight-talking of the five, she shook her head. “I am so sorry, Renee. I was just teasing. We weren’t spying on you. You told us you get up early when Matt works a night shift so you can make sure he gets home all right, and we needed coffee. We were going to come steal a cup from you before he got home. But then we saw you step outside in your robe when he drove up. We remembered he’d left early last night to go help at a possible drowning, so we hightailed it out of there to give you privacy. Regardless of how that rescue turned out, he obviously had a long night. You looked so welcoming toward him, and we didn’t want to interfere. That’s all I meant by my earlier comment.”
She sounded sincere, and Renee didn’t want to cast any shadows over their day. She eased her hand out from under the others’, dismissing the whole discussion. She decided to diffuse the tension with humor. “And here I was, worried that you saw him rip my robe off the second we reached the kitchen. The poor man can hardly keep his hands off me.”
Annie covered her ears, pretending she didn’t want to hear. “Don’t rub it in,” she cried.
“Fine,” Lynette said as everyone’s laughter died down. She was the last to pull her hand back. “I’ll forget what you said about feeling left out, but only if you share a little more about your love life with your sexy sheriff husband.”
Renee grinned. “The only way I’d even consider doing that is around a campfire, when the shadows hide my blushing cheeks—and with plenty of wine involved.”
Jackie raised her glass of soda, as if in a toast. “I’m sure we could arrange that.”
Later, in the clothing boutique at the end of Main, Renee’s cell phone chimed. Everyone was still laughing at Annie in the chunky ivory sweater that she was trying on. Its knit sleeves reached her knees. Renee glanced at her screen, then dropped the phone back into her purse.
“I’m sorry to break this up, ladies, but Matt just sent a text. My folks and sister are at the resort, and they could use a little help. We should get back.”
They’d all piled into Renee’s vehicle for their day of shopping, so they wrapped things up at the boutique and climbed back into the car. When she pulled into the lodge’s parking lot thirty minutes later, a pickup sat off to the side with a construction trailer hooked to the back. The trailer bore her brother’s company logo. The back cargo door was down and a half-dozen sizable boxes crowded around the end of it.
She spied a family playing on the beach, but no one else was in sight.
“Is that them?” Jackie asked, pointing toward the truck and trailer.
“Yep. That’s Dad’s pickup and Ethan’s trailer, but I don’t know what could be in all those boxes.” She parked and turned off the vehicle. “Matt said Dad needed help to unload something this afternoon. Let’s go see what’s going on. Maybe they’re all in the lodge.”
The five headed inside. They found Renee’s sister Val and her mother, Lavonne, in the back kitchen, but neither Matt nor her dad.
After a round of introductions and hugs, Renee opened the refrigerator.
“Don’t worry, I got everything you asked for,” Val assured her. “Even though you were late sending me your grocery list this morning.”
“Imagine that,” Annie mumbled.
Renee rolled her eyes and Jackie, Kit, and Lynette all grinned. Val and Lavonne kept pulling food out of the bags of groceries strewn across the massive kitchen island.
“You’re keeping track of your receipts so we can reimburse you, right?” Kit asked.
Renee wondered if Kit still felt bad for upsetting her earlier and was now trying to make it up to her by steering the conversation away from anything that might embarrass her in front of her family.
“You bet I am,” Val said with a nod. “I have four boys between the ages of ten and sixteen at home. School starts next month. I can’t afford to foot your grocery bill, too.”
Kit wagged her head. “I can’t imagine four of them. I have one and, I swear, our cupboards are bare the next day after we grocery shop. I have two younger brothers, but I never realized how hard it must have been for our grandparents to keep enough food in the house.”
Lavonne looked curious at Kit’s comments, and Renee realized her own mother didn’t know Kit’s history. She’d fill her in later.
“Mom, thanks for helping Val with the food. We really appreciate it. But I’m dying to know what the deal is with those boxes and the whole trailer thing. What gives?”
The older woman folded the last of the empty paper grocery bags and carried a whole pile of them over to the large recycling bin in the corner. “What gives is a little surprise. Val, can you get the rest of this? I’d like to take the girls out back and find your father. He and Matt might need some help, too.”
“Sure, go.”
Renee nodded appreciatively to her little sister and followed Lavonne out the lodge’s backdoor. She spied her father and husband near the firepit, working on something. Whatever it was looked red, but she couldn’t make out anything else. “Are they building something?”
Lavonne grinned back at her, but kept walking. A quick peek over her shoulder told Renee that her friends were following along behind, also looking curious. Unable to wait any longer, Renee skipped ahead.
Matt was holding what looked like the bottom half of a chair. Her father was bent over him with a ratchet.
“What are you guys doing?” she yelled before she’d reached them.
George straightened at the sound of his daughter’s voice, a hand going to his lower back. “Well, hello, kiddo. We were wondering if you’d get back in time to help.”
She glanced between her father, her husband, and what she could now see was indeed the bottom half of a chair. It was one of those heavy-duty, Adirondack styles—the kind she’d been wanting for the resort, but she could never justify the cost. Meeting Matt’s eyes, which thankfully didn’t look as tired since he’d gotten some sleep, she smiled.
“Did you get these for me?”
Matt straightened. The chair base remained in one piece, so they must have been working on it for a while. “No. I had no idea, other than George saying he needed a hand this afternoon, like I told you earlier. This is all his doing.”
Lavonne cleared her throat as she reached Renee’s side. “To be clear, it’s technically not his doing. It’s Celia’s.”
“Celia’s?” Kit repeated as Renee’s friends joined them.
“As in your famous Aunt Celia?” Lynette asked.
George tossed the ratchet onto the dirt at his feet and eased himself down onto the grass. “I need to rest a minute. And as far as Celia goes, I think my big sister was more infamous than famous, but yeah, she’s behind this.”
Renee really needed to get to bed earlier tonight. She kept feeling like she was out of the loop today. “Celia?” she repeated.
“You better explain, Dad,” Val said, surprising them all with her appearance. “What? The food is all put away, and I didn’t want to miss this.”
George smiled. “I’ll explain, but why doesn’t everyone have a seat before I get a kink in my neck from looking up at all of you? Sorry we don’t have the chairs put together for you yet, but the grass is dry.”
“If I get down there, I’ll never get up again,” Renee’s mother said. “My knee doesn’t bend like that anymore. I’ll stand. Go on, George.”
While everyone else settled on the grass, Matt jogged to the side of Annie’s cabin. He returned with a collapsible chair and opened it for his mother-in-law.
“I want one of those,” Lynette said, watching him wistfully.
“The chair?”
Lynette laughed. “No, the man, Renee. Not yours, of course. I’ll find my own.”
“You wanted red, right, Renee?” George said, pulling everyone’s attention back.
“Red? Well, yes, I’ve been drooling over red Adirondack chairs online for quite some time, Dad. But how could you possibly know that? And what does Celia have to do with these chairs mysteriously showing up today?”
Val snorted. “We all knew you wanted them. You mention it often enough. But you were too cheap to buy them for the resort.”
“Not too cheap. I was just trying to be an astute business woman, Val. The woman Celia expected me to be.”
A few snickered at the bickering sisters.
“Dad?” Renee said, needing an explanation.
George nodded. He bent one knee up and rested an arm across it, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe the ground wasn’t such a good idea. I’ll be brief. Renee, I want you to know that I’m confident Celia would be proud of everything you’ve accomplished out here at Whispering Pines. You not only brought it back from the brink of ruin, you have made it even more than a family destination by incorporating your off-season retreats into your business plan. Celia would certainly have loved that idea.”
“So she sent me new red chairs from the grave? Come on, Dad, what gives?”
He shook his head. “Renee, sometimes you’re as impatient as she used to be. I’m getting to it. Now, you’ve done great things out here with the gift Celia left you. Your two sisters and your brother are making the most of their inheritances, too. But we’ve never talked much about how your mother and I are trying to maximize the gifts Celia left to us.”
Renee gasped. “Wow. You’re right, Dad. I guess I just kind of assumed that if Celia left you and Mom anything, and maybe Uncle Gerry and Aunt Letty, you were choosing to keep those details private.”
“And you’d be right, dear,” Lavonne said. “We don’t plan to get into details now, either. For heaven’s sake, George, get to the point.”
“I would if all of you women would stop interrupting me.”
Val laughed. She didn’t look as confused as Renee felt. Maybe she already knew the story.
“Part of my inheritance from Celia included a few certificates of deposit,” George explained. “My sister probably thought that, given our age, relatively risk-free investments would be best for us. Anyhow, a certificate was coming due, and instead of reinvesting it right now, we decided to cash it in and put it to good use. Because, as we all know, we can’t take it with us.”
Renee hated it when her beloved father made off-hand comments about his mortality. As if sensing her unease, he gave her a wistful smile.
“Did you decide to split the proceeds four ways?” Renee asked. It seemed the most logical path.
“That would be the fairest,” Annie chimed in.
“And life’s always fair, right, Annie?” Lynette said. But her expression suggested to Renee that her friend didn’t believe a word of it.
George shrugged. “No, it wasn’t a huge sum of money, and splitting it four ways would make it less impactful. There will be additional money in the future, and your mother and I will decide who might benefit from it most. Right now, we think that person is you, Renee.”
Renee wasn’t comfortable with his thought process. “Matt and I are doing fine, Dad. Yes, things are tighter out here after losing a full year of income last year, but things are looking much better this summer.”
“Can I try to explain our rationale, George?” Lavonne asked, looking between her husband and Renee.
“Go for it.”
Her mother took a deep breath. “While dear Celia left Whispering Pines to you, Renee, no one can deny that we all benefit from your work to get it up and running again. This place has become a peaceful getaway for the whole family. You seldom let us pay to stay out here, which is kind of you, but it doesn’t help keep the lights on. Your father and I wanted to figure out some way to help support you. We don’t need the money personally. I guess you could say we want to keep Celia’s legacy going strong. She was one of the most generous women I’ve ever known, and we can keep that generosity flowing. A dozen new chairs isn’t an earth-shattering gift, but they will spruce things up out here.”
She paused to look around, then continued. “We thought maybe you could split them up, with six down on the beach and six around the firepit, but you can divvy them up however you choose. Now do you understand why we said they are actually from Celia?”
A wave of gratitude washed through Renee. “I understand perfectly. This is all very generous of you. And Celia. I love how you are keeping her legacy alive.”
“She deserves nothing less,” George said.
Lynette, who was sitting next to Renee, lay back to stretch out on the grass. “Skip what I said a few minutes ago about wanting a helpful man in my life. I want to be like Celia, and like both of you, Lavonne and George. I want to give. I want to do big and little things that make a difference.”
Jackie raised a hand. “Me, too!”
Annie stood back up. “I think our age is showing, friends. Because all of this talk about leaving a legacy is resonating with me, as well.”
Kit held a hand out to Annie. “Help me up. Let’s get these chairs built first, then we can figure out ways the Kaleidoscope Girls can save the world.”
Renee laughed. “I love your practicality, Kit.”
“And I’d love to relax in these amazing chairs around the fire tonight while you make all of us jealous with tales of your red-hot sex life, Renee,” Kit said.
Renee ducked her head, embarrassed, and Val groaned.
“On that note, I am out of here,” her youngest sister said. “I have a dinner to prepare, and the last thing I want to listen to is disgusting stories about my big sister’s sex life.”
Renee felt a strong arm around her waist, and she buried her face against her husband’s chest. “I swear, Matt, I never agreed to disclose anything private around the fire tonight!”
She felt him laugh. “Honey, you are almost as red as your new chairs. But relax. I know you’d never share anything with your besties that would make them feel so jealous and inadequate.”
“Stop!” Renee heard Lynette yell. “No more sex talk!”
Everyone laughed, and Renee was reminded that while she might question whether she was a true part of the Kaleidoscope Girls, she never had to worry about her relationship with her husband. He’d never allow anything to come between the two of them.