Chapter 23
Without warning, the stranger in her daydream pulled away from her and nudged her back into reality. As she opened her eyes, she realized the wedding bells weren’t ringing in her mind at all but were coming from the direction of the barn. “Do you hear that?” she asked, to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, while her heart danced in her chest from the best kiss she had ever enjoyed.
“It’s probably Leo, like yesterday. We should head that way and see what’s up.” Grant took his mug and downed the rest of his coffee, winking at her over the rim.
They threw on their shoes and jackets and headed the short distance to the barn. The damage was worse the closer they got. The stream, usually dry, was a torrent as it ripped around the back side of the barn, though the structure looked to be intact. Leo emerged from the side of the barn with three shovels and work gloves.
“You ready to get to work?” Leo asked and handed the gloves to Thandie. He turned his attention to Grant and shook his hand. “You know, I appreciate you staying with her last night. And please feel free to head out of town whenever you need to.”
Grant took gloves and a shovel. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay.” He grinned at Thandie. “So, Activities Director Thandie, what is on the schedule for today?”
She giggled at how professional he sounded. “I think we’re going to do some earth moving, followed by water remediation. Sound good?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
The three of them made their way around the barn and assessed the damage. The ground had held through the night where the stream turned a corner and all the sandbags had stayed securely in place. They got to work cutting a shallow ditch around the other side of the barn and down toward the dock. Other than the dirt being heavy and swollen from all the rain, it dug out easily. By mid-morning, the ditch was just about complete.
Leo and Grant ran back up and dug out the remaining few inches. Water began traveling down their new trench and relieved the pressure from the stream. They watched as the new trench filled to the brim and poured into the lake.
“Will you look at that?” Leo said. “Just like it used to be.”
“But how? There’s no dam holding the water back,” Thandie said.
“Christmas Cove was always a deeper section of the lake. I suppose it’ll hold some, for now anyway,” Leo said with a hopeful but realistic tone in his voice. The tone of a man that really wanted to be optimistic but had been let down before.
As they viewed their hard work, behind them, vehicles crested the road, honking their horns. A convoy of pickup trucks, heavy bulldozers, and backhoes came down the road and stopped in front of the barn.
Pa led the way from the cab of his blue pickup. Parking beside Leo’s red truck in the drive, he climbed out and rubbed his hands together. “I brought help.” Pa turned and helped out an older woman with silvery white hair pinned into a knot at the top of her head. America hopped down from the passenger side door and waved them over.
“What is all this?” Leo asked and gave America a quick kiss on the cheek. “How did you get here? I thought the big bridge washed out.”
“It held. And thank goodness it did, or we wouldn’t be here to help you, but I see you got a start without us.” Pa pointed over his shoulder at the man driving the bulldozer. “Look who came to help. Be nice.”
“Will you look at that?” Leo said and shook his head.
“That’s right. Your brother, the mayor, called this morning and asked how the city could help. And here he is with the full power of Elizabethtown.”
Leo’s eyes were wide, and his brows raised like mountains on his forehead.
“What am I missing?” Grant asked.
The older woman pushed the men aside and bobbled her head back and forth as she spoke. “Hi, I’m Carol. I live in town, and I know everything about everything. So, here’s the short of it. Leo here used to be the mayor of Christmas Cove, and his brother, John, is the mayor of neighboring Elizabethtown. Let’s just say they aren’t exactly best friends, so when Christmas Cove was incorporated by Elizabethtown, Leo lost his job, and his brother won.” She looked at Leo. “Does that about cover it?”
“Just about,” Leo said without taking his gaze off of his brother.
“You should be glad,” Pa whispered, leaning into Leo’s side. “This is the first real test of the new city agreement. And here they are, doing what needs to be done.”
“I suppose I should go give my thanks, then.”
“And marching orders,” Pa added.
As Leo got everyone squared away with assignments, the big equipment got to work. A dump truck emptied new, crushed gravel for the road and driveway. Another digger cleaned up and widened the hand-dug trench. A crew of townsfolk walked the grounds and picked up debris and trash.
Above them, the sun shone bright and hot, and the air was thick with humidity and hope. Before long, more people arrived. The Foundry was teeming with helpers. Chainsaws whined and made easy work of the fallen trees. Some people fixed roofs, while others ripped out soaking drywall from inside some of the cabins that hadn’t fared as well as hers. The carpets were cleaned and bedding stripped.
Thandie helped where she could, and the day passed by quickly. The chef had put out a spread of food on buffet tables just inside the propped open barn doors, and Thandie was determined now, more than ever, to track him down and make a proper introduction. Starving, and ready to eat a whole cow, she made her way to the dumpster with a final load of debris piled high in the bike cart before marching into the barn.
Just outside the barn doors, Leo talked with America, who was holding a plate of food. Seeing the food only made Thandie’s mouth water more. She walked by them, not wanting to be sidetracked by their serious-looking conversation.
Passing the food, she flew through the saloon-style cucina doors, which bounced off the door frame and nearly took her out when they rebounded. “Hello?” she sang into the sterile room. “Chef? Are you in here?”
From the open walk-in refrigerator, sounds of plastic food bins scraping and hitting against each other were followed by grunts, and what sounded like cursing echoed against the stainless-steel surfaces.
“Chef?” Thandie said and came around the corner. “Chef?”
He turned, startled, and removed his earbuds. “Out. Go out of my cucina,” he said in a cute Italian accent while shooing her back towards the door with exaggerated sweeps of his arms.
“Wait. Chef. Stop,” she said and pushed back against his shoulders. “I’m Thandie. I work here.” She waited for her words to sink in, and a sheepish grin pulled his cheek up on one side. “I wanted to thank you.”
“Yes, of course, Thandeka. Celiac like Alfonso, no?” Alfonso reached out and took her hand between both of his, shaking them up and down in a wild manner.
Through a giggle, Thandie said, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“And me to you.” Letting go of her hand, he turned and walked back to the walk-in. “This is all bad. All of it.”
“The food?” she said and peeked inside, where he was throwing items into surplus cardboard boxes. “When the power went out?”
“I do not know. I dislike very much this, how you say? Tossing out?”
“Yes, I think that is the right word. Let me help you. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” They sorted the last couple of crates on the floor, and Thandie used the moment to get to know him a bit. There was one question that she was eager to know the answer to. “Can I ask you about supper on the first night? It seemed you made dishes from the guests’ preference sheets?—”
“Yes. I did. What is the question?”
“Did you intend on making the foods that people indicated that they don’t like?”
“Do not like? How you know what you like and what you do not like until you try Alfonso cooking?”
Thandie considered the chef’s words. How does one know for certain about anything? Sometimes you just have to see things from a new perspective. That sentiment is easier said than done in reality. She acknowledged Alfonso with an affirmative grunt.
“Supper was wonderful. And thank you for your hard work this week,” she said. “I think we’re all finished here, and my tummy is growling for some of that delicious food that you put out.”
He stood up and brushed his hands on his blue apron. “Grazi.” He pointed to the tidied mess.
“You’re welcome,” she said and went straight to the buffet.
Out by the doors, she was indiscriminate in her selection. Everything looked appetizing. She took a whole-grain wrap and layered a piece of fresh-cut turkey with lettuce, tomato, and a slice of cheddar cheese. On another table, Alfonso had put out platters of fresh-cut fruit and veggies and a basket filled with individual bags of potato chips. She took one of everything.
Preferring to sit outside, Thandie turned to the doors where the late afternoon sunlight shone in and blinded her. She saw the silhouette of a person passing through, and they crashed shoulder to shoulder. Her plate of food slid from her hands, but the quick reactions of the other person saved it and replaced it in her grasp.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t see very well with the sun shining this way.”
“It was my fault. I was looking the other way and didn’t see anyone at all.” The man helped stabilize her.
She pulled down her sunglasses from the top of her head. Her eyes always watered in bright sunlight, and she blinked the wetness away, though she was certain she was hallucinating when the man came into clear view. “Davis?”
“Surprise!” he said with a joker of a smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“Grant told me you were here,” Davis said and pulled her to the side and out of the doorway so that one of the city workers could pass.
“Grant told you?” Just how Davis and Grant knew each other well enough to be speaking about her in any capacity was a question she desperately wanted an answer to. Was he spying on her somehow?
“What are you doing all the way out here, anyway?” Davis said as if nothing was strange about this encounter.
“I work here.”
He began to giggle and cleared his throat. “This place needs a botanist?”
“I’m the activities director. And you don’t need to laugh,” she said, putting down her plate on a little table, having lost her appetite. The man had never laughed at anything out of genuine joy, and now he finds something amusing about her situation, a situation he drove her to.
“So, you’re some kind of camp counselor?”
She could tell he was holding in a laugh again. When Grant had teased her with the same title, she wasn’t in the least offended, but when Davis said it, she was reminded in no uncertain terms that she had dodged a bullet when he had walked out on her the night before their wedding.
“I shouldn’t have said it that way.” Davis shrugged, but Thandie recognized that his words still fell short of an actual apology. “I found out from your cousin that you were heading this way. Only he didn’t know exactly which retreat you were working at in the area. You know that I’ve been looking at investing on the East Coast for a while now?—”
“You have?”
“Of course, silly. So, when I found out that you had a new job around here, I put out some feelers.”
“So, what you mean to say is that you were spying on me?”
“What? No.” Davis was quick to answer. “Technically, I had no idea that you worked here, at this specific location. But I hoped to find you at one of the resorts and have that reunion. I care about you, isn’t that clear?—”
“You care about something, that’s for sure, but I don’t know if it’s me,” Thandie said, and it felt good to speak her truth for once. “What do you want, Davis?” Not that it mattered anymore. He didn’t matter to her anymore. She had let go of the hurt and self-doubt of the past and was ready, for the first time in months, to see a new future for herself. A future that did not include ex-fiancés. “Did that slut from Vegas dump you or something?”
He shook his head back and forth with a grimace.
“She did, didn’t she?” Too much satisfaction licked at Thandie’s words. “How did it feel?”
“Awful,” Davis said. “And I told you that I made a mistake. I meant it.”
Thandie recognized that Davis claiming he made a mistake was not the same as an apology, but wondered if he was too proud to say it. “Is this about your voicemail?” she asked.
“Oh, so you did get it. Good!” he chuckled for no reason at all, which chafed her again.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest, the way she did whenever she was on defense. “Why are you here, Davis?”
“For you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t know you were the potential investor here, or I would have?—”
“Invited me sooner?” he finished. “I wish you would have. This place is a disaster. Not what I thought I’d be walking into today, to be honest,” he added and seemed to be looking past her and out to the property. “Grant’s my consultant, and he made this place out to be a paradise.”
“He did?” Thandie said, and her heart filled with gladness at such a glowing report about the week, despite the terrible weather.
“You know Grant. He’s great, right? Professional and to the point.”
Thandie kicked the ground on the way out into the sun. “How could I be so stupid?” He’d been the spy all along and she didn’t notice? Or she did suspect and wouldn’t admit the glaring truth to herself. She had convinced herself that the consultant was the bubbly Daisy and her disinterested Brent, and had ruled Grant out. Like an idiot.
Davis followed her outside. “Are you alright? You seem agitated,” he said.
She took a breath and relaxed into a pleasant face devoid of the ire she felt pressurizing in her chest. “Everything is fine.”
Davis reached for her hand and held it the way he used to with his fingers intertwined with hers. What used to be a comfort now felt wrong, and she pulled her hand back and faced him.
“I know that when you say you’re fine, you’re not. But no matter. I’m here now, and I have some business to get to. We can have a proper reunion later.” Davis leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. Holding her shoulders awkwardly, she was stiff as a cornstalk in October under his touch.
“Thandie?” Grant’s voice sounded from behind her.
Suddenly wanting to die, she rolled her eyes towards the sky, hoping to see a guardian angel there to save her from the blowback she was certain was about to hit. “Hi, Grant. I didn’t know you were standing there.”
“I see that,” Grant said with a shake in his voice. The same shake that had been present when he had spilled his heart to her about losing his wife so tragically.
She took a step toward him, and he took an equal step away from her. “Grant...” she reached for him, but he didn’t reach back. Instead, Davis caught her hand in midair and held her fingers intertwined with his.
“This Davis, is your Davis?” Grant asked.
Davis tugged on her arm so that she faced him again. “You told him that I was your Davis? So, you did get that voicemail. I was wondering because I never heard back from you, and I meant every single word. I want you back Than. I made the biggest mistake of my life letting you go.” Davis pulled her closer and locked her in an embrace. His lips crushed against hers and she was helpless to get away. His moan at their sudden connection turned her stomach.
Thandie slid her hands between them up to his chest and used her own body as leverage to push him away, but it was too late. When she finally freed herself from Davis’s hold, Grant was gone.