Chapter Fourteen
Lynette arranged one more red chair around the firepit. “You said ten, right? Because I doubt we could squeeze any more in than that.”
“Right,” Renee said. She dropped a stack of firewood next to the existing pile. “There. This should be enough wood to hold us for a while. If we need more, Matt would probably be willing to grab us some before he heads in to work. Thanks for bringing four chairs up from the beach. I know they aren’t light.”
“Hey, anything to get out of dish duty.”
Laughing, Renee dropped into the closest Adirondack. “I couldn’t agree more. We’ll leave the washing and drying to Jackie, Kit, and Annie. Knowing Val, she’s already prepping our breakfasts and lunches for the next couple days. I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday. Two weeks sounded like such a long time, but now our vacation is already almost half over! It makes me sad.”
Lynette eased into the chair next to Renee. “It makes me sad, too. But it was nice to just hang out yesterday and today. This trip is different from Hawaii and Arizona. Those were amazing, but this one is so laid back. It feels good. The rain doesn’t even bother me. A girl can only take so much beach time. Although, when I was a kid, I probably never imagined saying those words out loud.”
Renee rested her head against the back of her chair and looked to the sky. “A few rainy days are nice. But I’m glad the weather cleared for tonight. I’ve actually been looking forward to giving you a chance to get to know my family better. I know you met Val and my folks on Monday, but there’s nothing like a visit around a campfire to get to know someone. By the way, I think my niece Lauren has a little crush on you.”
Lynette unzipped her sweatshirt. With the rain moved on, the early evening sun still offered some heat. “It was cute the way she insisted her mother move so she could sit by me at dinner. I hope I didn’t disappoint her, now that I’m just a middle-aged woman with a cat, living in little Ruby Shores, instead of a fashion mogul in New York City.”
Renee brought her head back up to look at Lynette. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Lynette asked, surprised by the clip in her friend’s tone.
“Belittle yourself. Just because you sold your company doesn’t mean you are a different person. If getting laid off from my corporate job taught me anything, it was that we are so much more than our jobs. We can’t let our careers define us. You are still the same smart, creative woman you were when Lauren first read your name in the online fashion reports that she follows so closely.”
Lynette pulled her sweatshirt off completely. It might not be the sun making her so hot. She’d thought she was done with hot flashes, but maybe not. “You give me too much credit, Renee. You have no idea what my days look like now, compared to two years ago.”
“So tell me,” Renee said.
“I’d hate to bore you.”
Before Renee could challenge her further, voices approached from the direction of the lodge.
“Saved by the crowd,” Lynette joked.
“We aren’t done with this conversation yet,” Renee said, pushing out of her chair. “Man! Don’t tell Mom and Dad I said this, and I really love these new chairs, but dang . . . they are hard to climb out of.”
Lynette’s arms and back were already aching from carrying four chairs, one at a time, up from the beach. She might need a hand to get out of her chair at the evening’s conclusion.
Renee turned toward her approaching family and friends. “Val, did you remember the s’more stuff?”
“Sure did, sis,” Val said, holding a picnic basket aloft.
Lynette recognized the basket from the beach picnic on their first morning back at Whispering Pines. “You are spoiling us, Val. In case your sister doesn’t tell you how amazing you are often enough, please know how grateful we are for you. You have incredible skills in the kitchen.”
Val dropped the basket of supplies near the chair Renee had just exited and then sat in the one on Lynette’s opposite side. “I appreciate that, Lynette. But I’m done with my duties tonight. We’ll let Renee handle the s’more making.
Everyone else reached the firepit and settled into the remaining chairs. Lauren sat in Renee’s old chair, to Lynette’s right, until Val pointed at the nearby basket and warned her that the chair came with responsibilities.
“Fine,” the young woman huffed, moving around the still-cold firepit to sit next to Julie, Renee’s daughter. She pulled her phone out. A pout marred her youthful features.
Lynette noticed that Julie also seemed more intrigued by whatever was displaying on her phone than the people around the firepit.
“Today’s youth,” she whispered to Val. “Is there any hope for our future?”
Val took a moment to consider the question before nodding. “I do worry about kids’ social skills. And I’ll lump my four boys into that generalization, too, though my youngest two don’t have phones yet.”
“It would have been fun to meet your kids. And your husband. What are they up to tonight?” Lynette asked. She accepted a dripping bottle of water from Renee as the woman made her way around the circle of chairs with a cooler.
Val took one, too. “Believe it or not, Luke, my husband, had promised to take Dave, our oldest, driving. Dave wants to schedule his license test before winter.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Jess, who’d been visiting with her mother in nearby chairs, must have overheard. “What’s a good idea?”
Val swiveled toward her other sister. “Luke’s helping Dave practice driving tonight so he can take his test before the roads get icy.”
Jess shook her head. “I am so thankful that those days are behind me. Student driving almost killed me.” She looked across the firepit toward her daughter and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Lauren I told you this, but she didn’t pass her permit test until her third try. You don’t have kids, right, Lynette?”
Lynette nodded, but before she could say anything, Val gave her sister a friendly tap on the knee. “Oh, but my dear sister, you forget. The whole ‘student driver’ thing isn’t over for you yet.”
Jess tossed her hands in the air. “And that is just one more grudge I can hold against my dear ex-husband.”
“You might need to explain that to Lynette,” Val said.
“Actually, Renee mentioned you adopted a young child that your ex fathered,” Lynette spoke up. “As a childless woman, I have to admit that sounds either incredibly brave or stupid of you.”
Jess coughed when a plume of ashes wafted toward her face. Jackie gasped the second she realized what had happened when she threw the first log into the pit.
Lynette waved her discarded sweatshirt to clear the surrounding air. “Don’t mind Jackie. She’s always been inept at starting campfires. When we were kids at camp, they had a session about safety and tried to teach us the correct way to start a fire to cook with or keep warm.”
“And I admit I couldn’t quite master it back then either,” Jackie finished for her. “But I didn’t think we wanted to sit around a firepit without a fire.”
Renee finished handing out refreshments and returned to her chair. “I forgot about that. If I’d remembered, I’d have assigned Jackie a different job.”
Lynette laughed, then turned her attention back to Jess. “I thought maybe you’d bring your little one tonight. What’s her name?”
“Harper. And I might have let her come along, but I had to take her to the clinic this morning. Ear infection. So my hubby offered to keep her home with him tonight so I could enjoy myself. None of us got much sleep last night.”
Val twisted the top off her water bottle. “I may have four young male drivers in my future, but at least they’re all past the earache phase. Or I sure hope they are.”
Lynette was enjoying visiting with Renee’s sisters. It was fun to pick out their similarities, while also seeing how unique each was from the other. Renee used to talk about her sisters and brother in the letters she’d write her, back when they did a better job as pen pals. “So, Jess, you have Harper and Lauren. And—sorry, I forgot your husband’s name. What does he do?”
“I have a twenty-six-year-old, too. Nathan. My husband is Seth. He owns his own business. Actually, that’s how I met him. Through his business, I mean. Our aunt—the same one who passed Whispering Pines on to Renee—left me an ownership share in a few different businesses.”
Their aunt Celia sounded more and more intriguing to Lynette all the time. “Wait. Your aunt was a partial owner of your current husband’s business? How the heck did that happen?”
A cloud of smoke obscured Jess’s face for a second.
“Jackie, are you trying to kill us?” she laughed, waving ineffectively at the wafting smoke before turning her attention back to Lynette. “Seth was actually the grandson of one of Celia’s best friends.”
That made a little more sense. She nodded. “And what is his business?”
“Well, he sells vintage architectural pieces that he rescues from old buildings facing demolition. He finds them in other places, too. He also works in stained glass. She—Celia, I mean—helped him get one of his first stained glass gigs when he was younger.”
At the mention of stained glass, Lynette’s mind immediately went to the circular window at the landing of her staircase back home. “Stained glass, huh? As in, full windows?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “Why?”
“Well, I have what could be an amazing circular window in my house. Just the other night, when it was storming outside and I was sitting on the bottom step with my cat, I imagined how incredible the window could look when the lightning flashed. But, sadly, it’s boarded up. A stained glass window would look amazing. Replacing the glass is on my honey-do list, but since I don’t currently have a honey, it’s hard to get things crossed off.”
“Ouch!” Kit yelped. A molten gob of white goo flew off her shaking hand and into the fire.
Lynette hadn’t noticed that Renee had pulled out the marshmallows and started roasting some until Kit’s little outburst. Annie looked up from her phone at the screech and caught Lynette’s eye.
“You are as bad as the kids, Annie. Put your phone away.”
“Sorry, Lynette. Since when are you the phone police? And speaking of phones, have you talked to your mom today?”
Lynette sighed. She was just about to ask Jess if her Seth might give her a bid to replace the broken window. Jess was already visiting about something new with Val.
“One second,” she said, holding a finger up to Annie. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Jess, but I have a quick question. Do you think Seth might be able to replace my broken window? I really want stained glass in there, but I don’t know anyone who does that kind of work.”
Annie slapped her hands on the arms of her chair in excitement. “Lynette, what if you had a kaleidoscope-type design made for your window? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“I actually love that idea! Jess, could Seth do something like that?”
Renee handed another marshmallow to Kit. “Seth is very talented. I bet he could make a kaleidoscope window.”
Jess nodded. “He probably could, but he’s pretty swamped. Might take some time to get him over to Ruby Shores to have a look. But I can mention it to him. Renee will get you his number.”
“Perfect! It’s all right if it isn’t right away. I’ve gone a year with it like that already. A few more months won’t matter.”
“Maybe the window broke in the storm that damaged my grandma’s house,” Kit chimed in. “Remember that, Jackie? Your Owen came to her rescue.”
“You four need to quit calling him my Owen,” Jackie said. She poked at her fire with the long metal rod Renee kept near the firepit for that very purpose.
“Lynette, you should call home,” Annie said. “Henry just sent me a text. So, no, I wasn’t just playing on my phone and ignoring all of you.”
Lynette’s mind connected some dots. “Wait. Did Henry have news from Relic? Relic is checking my house everyday so Mom could just do her thing while I’m gone. My cat is all right, isn’t she?”
“What’s your cat’s name?” Val asked.
“Ebony. I haven’t had her very long. She’s young and naughty. She likes to sneak out of the house. I hope she didn’t get away from Relic. I did warn him.”
Val snickered. “That sounds familiar. I don’t have a cat, but our dog, Storm, was the same way. She was always sneaking out of the house when she was a puppy. The boys were terrible about latching the door.”
Lynette felt torn between Annie’s nagging to call home and Val’s discussion about pets. Maybe home could wait for another minute. “What did you say your dog’s name was?”
“Storm.”
“It is not!” Lynette cried. “You won’t believe this, but my first boyfriend’s name was Storm.”
“That’s kind of crazy,” Val said. “But my Storm is a girl. And before you even ask, the answer is no. I didn’t name her. The boys did. With a name like that, I’m guessing your first boyfriend wasn’t your typical boy-next-door kind of kid?”
“Not at all,” Lynette laughed, allowing her mind to travel back in time again. “No one would have ever accused Storm of being typical. He was actually my manager at a pizza place where I worked when I was a senior in high school. We ended up going to prom together. He was only two years older than me. These girls here were all a little scandalized by my dating him, but I asked him anyway.”
Kit finished licking the marshmallow goo from her fingers. “I always thought you went with him because you knew we might not approve. Actually, do all of you know that Renee came to prom with us? Her date was this kid named Owen—he was more of the typical boy-next-door type. But, alas, they didn’t click, and we all knew why. Owen was in love with Jackie here. Still is, too, if you ask me.”
“Storm was so hot,” Annie chimed in. “My parents would never have allowed me to date someone like him in a million years. Lynette, you were so lucky Donna didn’t care. And don’t forget to call her! When Relic checked on your cat and house yesterday, he found water in your basement.”
All the titillating memories of her younger self with handsome bad boy, Storm, fled her mind. “Seriously, Annie? You couldn’t have led with that minor detail? And my phone is back in my cabin. I need to run and grab it.”
Annie held her hand out. “Wait. It isn’t an emergency or anything. Henry said he and a couple other guys helped your mom clean everything up. I just thought you might want to touch base with her when you have a minute.”
Lynette paused, torn between leaving the fun of the campfire to call her mother and waiting until morning.
“I’m sure Donna would have called if she was worried about the house,” Renee added. “Here, have a fresh s’more. Call your mom in the morning. It’s too beautiful of an evening to ruin it with bad news.”
Renee was right. Donna would have called if the water problem needed her immediate attention. “That does look tasty,” she said, accepting the sticky treat and sitting back in her chair. “You’re right, Renee. No more bad news tonight! I’m going to assume my house is as right as rain again.”
“Until it rains again,” Val said with a wink. “Sorry. Bad joke. But I couldn’t resist.”
A touch at her elbow made Lynette jump. She hadn’t even noticed Lauren move away from her chair on the other side of the pit. “Girl, you scared me!”
“I’m so sorry, Lynette,” Lauren said, keeping her voice low as she crouched down behind Lynette’s chair. “But I thought this might be something you’d want to see right away.”
The urgency in the younger woman’s voice set Lynette’s pulse racing yet again. What now? she thought, awkwardly reaching back for the girl’s phone with her left hand, since her right was full of graham crackers, chocolate, and dripping marshmallow.
She squinted down at the phone screen, immediately recognizing the two faces smiling back at her. They were the two women she’d sold her company to. The women she’d taken a chance on, despite the strong objections of both her lawyer and her mother.
One quick glance at the headline told Lynette she probably shouldn’t expect the second-to-last payment she was due anytime soon. Maybe never.
She hated it when Donna was right. Had Lynette misplaced her trust and faith? If the article was accurate, the idiots were in danger of running her previously stellar company right into the ground.