She turned to him now with a tremulous smile and said, “I think I love you.”
His wise, warm blue eyes sparkled, and he slid his arms around her and kissed her.
They stayed aloft admiring the view while enjoying a leisurely picnic lunch of fresh croissants, cheeses, grapes, and an excellent bottle of California white wine. They talked about everything they could think of that had nothing to do with Addie or Drake House or money. They stood and enjoyed the silence and the simple pleasure of being alone together. It was a wonderful treat. A perfect way to spend part of a perfect afternoon.
Sadly, Rachel knew they would have to come down to earth, both literally and figuratively. But she held the memory of their golden afternoon in her heart as they drove home. Maybe there was some merit in the occasional burst of reckless frivolity. She felt refreshed, rejuvenated. If that wasn’t magic, she didn’t know what was. Somewhere up in the sky she had left behind her guilt over abandoning Addie and their troubles for a few hours, and she didn’t miss it a bit. Now she felt ready to go back and face her financial troubles, ready to try again with Addie. And she had the man beside her to thank for it.
The real jolt to earth came as they turned up the coast road at the edge of Anastasia and headed north, toward Drake House. On the opposite side of the road a police car and a tow truck sat with their lights flashing. Officers and other assorted folk milled around. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, allowing all passersby a clear view of the trouble.
A rusty powder-blue Volvo station wagon had taken out a roadside vendor’s cart, then mushed its nose into a stone retaining wall. There were flowers everywhere-on the road, draped across the car’s hood and roof, crushed beneath the wheels of the police car. There were roses and daisies and carnations and tiger lilies, flowers of every color. It looked almost as if someone had strewn them about to make the scene of the accident look less tragic. The vendor’s cart had been reduced to a pathetic pile of toothpicks, and the vendor, a huge woman in a Hawaiian muumuu and a tennis visor, stood beside it looking stunned.
Rachel’s eyes widened in horror as realization dawned. “Oh, my-oh, my-That’s Mother’s car!”
Bryan was already steering the Chevette to the shoulder. They abandoned the car and made their way across the road, grim and silent.
“No more gawkers!” Deputy Skreawupp commanded in his gruff monotone. He scowled at them, his jowls drooping like a truculent bulldog’s. He pointed an index finger at Bryan as if it were a loaded gun. “This is police business, bub. Now, get out of here, or I’ll flatten you like pie crust, and I can do it.”
“That’s my mother’s car!” Rachel said, pushing her way past the deputy’s pot belly.
“Humph! Batty Addie’s gone and done it this time,” he said, flipping back a page in his pocket notebook. “Driving without a license, expired tags, reckless endangerment, destruction of property-”
Rachel wasn’t listening to the litany of charges. Her heart was hammering in her ears as she stumbled to the open driver’s door of the Volvo, where Addie sat with her legs out, her garden boots planted on the gravel. She was as white as the waxy day lily that was stuck under the windshield wiper. “Mother! Mother, are you all right?”
Addie looked, her eyes wide. She was still stunned from the accident, and the confusion of its aftermath had short-circuited her brain. She stared at the young woman crouching down in front of her and tried to concentrate on the girl’s face. She was someone Addie was certain she should recognize.
“Rachel?” she murmured uncertainly. Fear shivered through her. She’d never felt so old or so frail… or frightened.
“Mother, what happened?” Rachel asked gently. She took one of Addie’s thin, cold hands between hers and held it, both to comfort her mother and to reassure herself.
“I’m… not… sure,” Addie said slowly, tilting her head this way and that, as if the movement might jar loose a memory.
“I am,” Roberta said.
Bryan’s aunt was still strapped into the passenger’s seat. Her hair stood up around her head like an abused Brillo pad. “She can’t drive worth a damn, can she? It’s a good thing we remembered our seat belts. My gosh.”
It was a good thing they had remembered their seat belts, Rachel reflected, shaking her head. Too bad neither of them had remembered Addie wasn’t supposed to get behind the wheel.
Deputies came then to take the two ladies’ statements and Rachel wandered away from the wrecked car. Hugging herself, she stood beside the retaining wall and stared out at Anastasia, nestled below, picture-postcard perfect with its Victorian buildings and boat-filled bay.
“Nobody was hurt,” Bryan said, coming up behind her. He refrained from mentioning that the flower vendor was threatening to sue. He would speak with Alaina about that. Rachel looked rattled enough as it was. “I’m afraid Aunt Roberta misunderstood me when I told her Addie couldn’t drive. She thought I meant the car was broken, so, when she looked under the hood and saw that the only thing wrong was that the coil wire wasn’t hooked up to the distributor cap, she just fixed it,” he explained apologetically. “She learned to be a mechanic in the army. She was a WAC.”
“Wacky,” Rachel muttered darkly.
“That too.”
She wheeled on him suddenly, jabbing an index finger to his sternum. “I never should have let you talk me into leaving Mother with her! She’s certifiable; any sane, responsible person can see that.”
Bryan winced. “Rachel, I’m sorry. I should have been more thorough about disabling the car. I’ll accept responsibility-”
“Since when?” she asked angrily. All the fear and fury and frustration crested at once inside her, and she unleashed it on him without hesitation. “Since when do you accept responsibility? You’re the most irresponsible person I know. You with your don’t-worry-be-happy mentality. Everything will take care of itself. Everything will turn out fine,” she said bitterly. “If you knew anything about accepting responsibility, this never would have happened! I would have been home to keep an eye on Mother, not off in the wild blue yonder with you!”
She paced away from him, shaking her head in self-reproach.
“Don’t beat yourself up with guilt, Rachel. An accident happened. Nobody was hurt. I’ll take care of the rest. It’ll all work out.”
He couldn’t have chosen a worse phrase had he been deliberately trying to goad her. His last four words rang in her ears. She could hear Terence saying them and Bryan saying them, and she could see herself dealing with the messy reality while they blew it off because nobody had gotten hurt.
“Why can’t you face reality?” she asked, her violet eyes full of pleading and pain. “Things don’t just work out, Bryan. Things don’t just turn out fine. We struggle to do the best we can and we still get kicked in the teeth. That’s reality, not buried treasure and eating Brie in a hot air balloon.”
She shook her head again, lifting her hands to cradle it as it hung down. “I should have known better. I should have known from the start.”
I should never have gotten involved with you.
Bryan’s head snapped back sharply. She didn’t have to say the words; they arced between them like an electrical current that seared his nerve endings with excruciating pain. Their love meant so little to her, she was wishing it away. It was inconvenient, getting in the way of her noble self-sacrifice. His own defense mechanisms snapped into action to stem the flow of blood from his battered heart.
“Fine,” he said tightly. “You shouldn’t have any enjoyment in your life. God forbid! There’s work to be done, sins to be atoned for, hair shirts to be worn.”