Hearts on Fire Read online

  He kept running until he reached the narrow gravel path that led to Secret Beach. Secret Beach wasn’t much of a secret though its complete lack of parking and facilities discouraged summer visitors from bothering with it. Jack hoped he’d find a cool breeze blowing in off the bay. The gravel path widened to a narrow sandy shoreline. He glanced left and right, relieved to see that the beach was empty. He collapsed onto a patch of warm sand and took a deep breath of sea-laced air.

  There was no breeze. The water of the bay was calm, and Jack sat and stared across it. A fishing boat motored past, working even on a day of rest. Fish didn’t rest, he supposed. Minutes later, a couple in matching kayaks glided by, their paddles soundless as they sliced through the nearly still water. He hadn’t been out in a kayak in years. He suddenly missed it, another thing that had fallen by the wayside in law school. Maybe Oliver still had his veritable fleet of boats. Jack could borrow one and paddle out into the bay, let the gentle rocking of the waves soothe the pity party that was constantly raging inside these days.

  He was twenty-five and way too old to be bawling over losing his mother. But hell, even Matt had a moment that morning when Jack told him he was going over to the house to make her breakfast. His brother was on shift at the fire department today, and for a moment Jack had seen a look of wistfulness and envy on Matt’s face.

  Breakfast with his mother had been nice. Pleasant. If he ignored the way her clothes hung off her emaciated body— and the sunny scarf covering the stubble on her scalp—he could almost pretend that things were normal. He’d told her that he wasn’t gay, contrary to Matt’s suggestion. He just didn’t have a girlfriend at the moment. As he watched the kayakers disappear around a bend in the shoreline, it occurred to him that maybe his mother had hoped he was gay—it might make it less likely that she’d miss out on grandchildren. Jack definitely wanted children. Someday.

  Or maybe not.

  He wouldn’t wish this pain, the sheer agony of losing your mother, on anyone else.

  He didn’t tell her about law school, though. He was torn. On the one hand, he didn’t want his mother to die being lied to. He hadn’t been raised to lie. None of the Wolfe boys were. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted her to go knowing that her youngest son wasn’t who he said he was.

  It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.

  That certainly applied here. Learning that he had dropped out of law school probably would have been less upsetting to her than learning now that he’d spent the past year lying to everyone. He brushed the sand off his calves, then pushed his exhausted legs into an upright position to begin the run back. At the fire station he waved to Matt and the other guys on his way in. After a shower and a change of clothes, he knocked on his father’s open office door.

  “Come on in, Jack.” His father looked away from his computer. “Have a good visit with mom?”

  “Yeah.” Jack sat in one of the visitor’s chairs. “I told her I’m not gay.”

  Tim Wolfe held up his hands. “I’m sorry, Jack. You’ve never brought any girls home to meet your mother.”

  “And Matt does?”

  “He’s brought a few. Granted, none of them ever seem to stick but …”

  “Well, I date some. But I’m not really in a position to get serious with anyone.”

  “Understood. Getting your career established first is not a bad plan.”

  “Yeah. About that …” He took a deep breath, then took the plunge. “I didn’t finish law school.”

  “Come again?”

  “I dropped out of law school last year.”

  His father leaned way back in his chair and templed his fingers. “So what have you been doing in California? Besides volunteering with a fire department? We all believed you worked for some hotshot technology firm.”

  “I do. I’m a security guard there.”

  He could see his father processing this information, reassessing him. “Okay. But you have a history degree. Summa cum laude. From Cornell. I was at your graduation so I know that for a fact. It’s not like you don’t have other options.”

  Jack scrubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know what to do, dad. I spent so long planning to be a lawyer and then … I just hated it so much. I thought I’d work the security job for awhile and figure out what I really wanted to do.”

  “And you haven’t come up with an answer.”

  “Except …” He glanced back toward the main bay of the fire station.

  His father regarded him carefully. “After …” There was no need to finish that thought. “You can do what you want. I’ll give you a recommendation if you need one. I might even be persuaded to make a few calls to other fire departments on your behalf. But I’m not hiring you on here. I’m not springing that on your mother at this point.”

  “I understand that, dad.”

  “Nor am I telling her about law school. You’ll have to tell her that yourself.”

  “Do you think I should?”

  Tim Wolfe shrugged. “Honestly, Jackie, I don’t know whether you should or not. Your mother would love you even if you were digging ditches for a living. But I’m trying to make things as easy as possible for her right now.”

  “I don’t want to make things difficult, either. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.”

  “Well then, if you’re going to be around all summer and you don’t have law cases to work on in your spare time, I’m going to put you to work.”

  Becca lifted up her end of the water-filled cooler and helped her father carry it over to her mother’s rose bushes.

  “All right. On three. One, two …” Dan Trevor counted. On “three,” they tipped the cooler over and poured the water into the flower bed. They carried it back to the deck and repeated the process with the other two coolers.

  “Thank you for helping out, sweetheart.” Dan gave his daughter a tight squeeze around the shoulders. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I work the dinner shift. Before then, I need to swing by Mrs. Wolfe’s house and pick up the quilt she wants me to finish for her.” And hope Jack isn’t there.

  “What kind of quilt is it?”

  “A wedding quilt. It’s for Jack.”

  “Didn’t realize Jack was getting married.”

  “He seemed unaware of that, too.” Then she laughed softly. “He’s not. I mean, not that I know of.” He could very well have a girlfriend out there in California. Had Cassidy thought of that? “Mrs. Wolfe has it pieced but she’s not going to be able to finish it.”

  “That’s nice of you to agree to do that. You’ve managed to put a lot on your plate since you’ve come home.”

  Becca shrugged. “Good to keep busy, right?”

  “Depends on what the ‘busy’ is.”

  He held open the door to the kitchen and she walked through. “I’m used to being busy.” As if to prove her point, she immediately opened the dishwasher and began unloading it.

  “Maybe you should take some time this summer and not be busy. Think about where your life should go from here.”

  She paused, a fistful of utensils in her hand.

  Her father continued. “We paid for your sisters to go to college. We’ll pay for you, too.”

  “Kinda' late for that. Plus, I’ve already cost you ten thousand dollars.”

  “It’s never too late to get your degree. We still have your 529 education account. It’s had a few extra years to grow, so there’s plenty of money in it.”

  She sorted the utensils into the drawer. Forks, spoons, knives. “I don’t know what I’d study.” Charlotte and Cassidy had both studied business at Talbot College. Lauren had gone to New York to study acting, then moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend. “My grades in high school weren’t that impressive. As you know.”

  “Anyone can take courses at the community college. You could transfer to a four-year school afterward.”

  Certainly, she had pondered the course her life might have taken had she gone
to college like her sisters. Pondered it quite a few times, in fact. Along with a whole host of other “what ifs.” What if she hadn’t gotten pregnant? What if she hadn’t gotten mixed up with Brandon? Or Jace before him? Or Wayne before that? What if her mother hadn’t died and she’d been raised in Ohio? What if, what if, what if.

  Her father’s light touch on her arm halted her busyness in the kitchen. “Take some time this summer to think about it, Becs. Please? Your mom and I are very happy to have you home this summer. We both miss you, but she feels like she failed you somehow.”

  “I failed myself.”

  “Failure isn’t forever. You’re young, Becca. Young enough to start over. I see a lot of your old classmates in my practice. They’re married with kids. Some are divorced with kids. They can’t reset their lives at this point, not easily anyhow. But you can.” He cupped her cheeks in his palms. “You did not cause the fire at Quilt Therapy. You absolutely did not. But even if you had, the best way to repay us would be to spend the summer here and let us help you reset your life.”

  It was almost noon when Becca pulled her car up to the curb in front of Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe’s house. The house was a sunny yellow Colonial with a pretty white front porch. She pushed open the gate to the white picket fence that enclosed the front yard with its profusion of colorful flowers. She climbed the steps to the porch and let herself into the front parlor. Mrs. Wolfe had told her that the front door would be unlocked.

  “Mrs. Wolfe?” she called out.

  “I'm in the back. In the sunroom.”

  Becca headed through the house toward the sound of Mrs. Wolfe’s voice. The Wolfes’ house was older, built probably in the nineteenth century. The wide plank pine floors creaked beneath her feet with each step. The house was small, as houses tended to be two hundred years ago, and it was hard to picture three rambunctious boys playing in here. Becca imagined that the noise level had been pretty high when Jack, Matt, and Oliver were young.

  The back of the house opened up into a sunroom and it was there, sitting in the sunshine streaming through the wall of windows, that she found Angie Wolfe. Despite the heat of the day, her mother’s friend was curled up under a blanket on the loveseat.

  “Hello, Becca. Don’t you look lovely?”

  Becca tugged at the hem of her navy blouse. “I borrowed it from mom.”

  “Ah, the perks of having a family of girls. A shared wardrobe. I always envied your mom, getting to dress up so many little girls. We’d go shopping together sometimes and she was picking out dresses and cute hairbands while I was stuck with jeans and tee shirts.” Mrs. Wolfe slid the blanket over to one side and patted the space next to her on the loveseat. “So make sure you have lots of girls. More fun to shop for.”

  Becca sat down, awkwardly. Add that to my list of crimes. Not only had she deprived Jack’s mother of a grandchild, but she had deprived a dying woman of the pleasure of shopping for a granddaughter. Her father had said failure wasn’t forever, but in this case it was. Jack’s mother was going to die before any of her sons had more children. She could have spent the past six years with her granddaughter, if Becca hadn’t made the choice to let another couple adopt her. Of course, she wouldn’t be sitting here with Mrs. Wolfe right now if she had. No doubt she would have despised Becca for trapping her youngest son in an early marriage.

  Sometimes you just can’t win. If she had learned anything about life, that was it. Growing up, her parents had talked to her and her sisters about good choices and bad choices. For Becca though, it often seemed like bad choices were the only options available.

  Mrs. Wolfe leaned slowly over the far arm of the loveseat and lifted up a large shopping bag. Becca hurried to help her.

  “So this is the quilt,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “It’s totally pieced, but that’s it. There’s a queen-size bat in the bag and fabric for the backing and binding.”

  Becca carefully lifted the quilt top from the bag and opened it partway on her lap. It was a double wedding ring pattern, pieced in white on white. She took a deep breath, but not quietly enough to avoid Mrs. Wolfe’s notice.

  “Now you see why I need an expert quilter,” the other woman said.

  Becca did indeed see why. A one-color quilt? No hiding uneven stitches in the print of a fabric on this one. She ran her finger along a seam. She could do it though. If there was one thing Becca Trevor was, it was an expert hand quilter. It was the one thing she was good at it. The only thing.

  “But none of that fourteen stitches per inch business,” Mrs. Wolfe continued. “I know you’re capable of it, but this quilt doesn’t require that.” Mrs. Wolfe’s sudden grin made her look younger, healthier. Just for a moment.

  “So twelve per inch would be sufficient?” Becca grinned back, one quilter to another. Even twelve stitches per inch was pretty darn impressive. Professional quality, for sure.

  “Jack won’t know the difference,” his mother added.

  “Yeah, I doubt he’ll get out a ruler and start counting.”

  “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know that quilters count stitches.”

  Becca folded up the quilt and put it back in the bag. Focus on the here and now. There was nothing she could do about the past, or the granddaughter she had deprived Angela Wolfe of. But she could finish this quilt for her, give her that closure. She’ll miss Jack’s wedding someday to a lovely, smart, competent woman. But she’ll be there in spirit through the wedding quilt. Becca could give her that.

  “How’s the fire quilt coming along?” Jack’s mother asked.

  “Good. The piecing will go quickly.”

  “I never had the attention span for that kind of pattern, just one shape over and over.”

  Becca knew Mrs. Wolfe was just being nice, saying that. The woman had been a history professor at Talbot College, for pete’s sake. It took quite an attention span to go through that much schooling. No wonder Jack was so smart.

  “So are you planning to stay in St. Caroline?”

  Becca wasn’t surprised by the question. She was getting used to hearing it. Everyone she ran into wanted to know.

  “Probably not,” she answered. “Though dad wants me to think about going to college. The community college,” she clarified.

  “You don’t sound so keen on that idea.”

  Becca shrugged. “I don’t know what I would major in, and it’s been a long time since I was in school.”

  “What has always stuck in my mind about you, Becca—besides your fierce independence—is how patient a teacher you were at Quilt Therapy. You had the patience of Job as a teenager. So teaching might be something for you to explore.”

  Becca shook her head incredulously. “There are a lot of teachers in St. Caroline who would probably shudder at the thought of me teaching. Being fiercely independent didn’t exactly put me on the honor roll.”

  “Some of us take longer to come into ourselves. I always thought it was kind of silly expecting teenagers to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives.” A car door slammed outside. “I think Jack must be here. He was bringing me lunch from the Purple Pickle.”

  Becca gathered up the quilt and her purse, then stood to leave.

  “Oh, you don’t have to rush off,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I need to get back home and work on the fire quilt some more before my shift at Skipjack’s.” And the less I see of your son, the better. That kiss he had deposited on her in the kitchen had felt way too good.

  Outside, she found Jack hunched over next to her car, peering into the back seat. Great. Not hard to figure out what he was remembering. Yup. Some failures are forever. She couldn’t stay in St. Caroline. Spend the rest of her life facing the Wolfe family, always wondering when Jack was going to spill the beans? She certainly couldn’t date or marry someone who lived in St. Caroline because sooner or later they would see the evidence of her pregnancy on her body. She would spend the summer here, pay her parents back the insurance deductible, and figure ou
t what to do next. Maybe that would be college, just not one nearby. Her parents would have to accept that she didn’t want to live out her life here.

  She descended the steps from the porch and hurried to her car. Jack straightened up, noticed the large bag nestled in her arms, and attempted to open the car door he had just been peering through. The locked door didn’t budge.

  “You don’t have to lock your car in St. Caroline,” he said.

  “Force of habit,” she replied. She held out the quilt. “Hold this for me while I get my key out.”

  He reached beneath the bag to take it from her arms. She felt his knuckles brush against her breast, and her traitorous nipples perked up. From the look on Jack’s face, he knew what he had touched, too. She took a hasty step back and buried her attention in her purse, rummaging until she found the key ring. She unlocked the door and he leaned into the back seat, carefully setting down the bag of fabric—right where the biggest mistake of her life had taken place. Of course, that’s what he had been thinking about. Jack may have been raised by parents who were pillars of the community, but he was still a man. A very attractive man. She cut that thought off right at the pass.

  “Thanks. That’s your wedding quilt in there. I’ll try to have it finished before—” She almost said “before your mom passes.” She might not be able to promise that though. Angie Wolfe wasn’t looking good. “Before your wedding,” she finished instead.

  Chapter 12

  Jack leaned down to set a red plastic firefighter’s helmet atop a toddler’s blonde head.

  “What do you say, Alex?” the boy’s mother prompted. “What do you say to …” The woman’s voice trailed away.