Chapter Thirty-One
DAVIS
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. From the time the kids unloaded the food from the Lockwoods’ motor home, we’d been in nonstop motion. Callie had volunteered to manage all the lunch prep in the kitchen while I’d manned all the water-related activities.
I realized now what a gift those uninterrupted moments on that lake had been for us, especially now that Vivian’s pointed stares dug into my back every time I stepped within three feet of Callie.
I balanced the fishing rods on a boulder near shore and popped my tackle box open, double-checking the inventory while the boys skipped stone after stone into the lake.
Callie trailed over to me and sat down on a tree stump. “I might have to chop my feet off at the ankles before the day’s over.”
“That would be unfortunate. I’m fond of your feet.”
“Not as unfortunate as these stupid water shoes. If anybody needs me, I’ll be sitting right here for the next thirty years or so.”
At the sound of shifting pebbles, I caught Corrianna skip-jogging toward us, a bottle of sunscreen in her hand.
“Incoming.”
Callie sighed good-heartedly.
“Will you do my shoulders again, Aunt Callie? It’s my turn to go in the kayak next. Brandon’s gonna take me.”
“Sure, sweetie.” Callie grimaced as she got to her feet and squeezed the lotion into her palm. “Just remember to stay where we can see you, okay? Oh, and don’t try twisting around in your seat unless you’re planning to go for a swim.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Callie’s amused grin and shot her an it-worked-out-pretty-well-for-me look.
She rubbed her lips together, and I chuckled.
“Is the tackle box all ready?” Brandon asked with Collin in tow. “Papa said he’s going to come with us.”
“Great.” I glanced up to see Charles progressing down the path while Vivian continued to hold her post under the motor home’s veranda. She hadn’t ventured away from the road. Though there was a book in her hand, I doubted she’d read a single word all day.
“Wait, no!” Corrie’s indignation stopped everybody short. “Brandon said he would take me out next on the kayak. He promised.”
“Did you promise her a trip out?” I asked him.
“Uh . . . yeah, I did.” He huffed a sigh and scratched his head. “I forgot.”
Obviously, Corrie had not forgotten.
“Well, one of you two boys need to take her out.”
The boys looked at each other, a nonverbal game of rock-paper-scissors playing out before us.
“I’ll take her.”
A selfless offer made by Callie.
Corrianna spun around to face her aunt and then flung her arms around her waist. “You will? Really?”
“Yes, of course I will.” Callie’s hair had only just dried from our spontaneous swim a couple of hours earlier, and I knew she had no desire to go back out. But nothing about her voice would have made anybody else privy to such information. “Just not too far, since I have to be able to get us back to shore.”
“Woo-hoo!” her niece shouted. “I call the front seat!”
She shot off down the bank, over twigs and rocks and grass, and Callie and I both called out for her to slow down.
Charles collected the fishing poles from the bank, adding one of his own to the mix. “Lead the way, boys.”
Brandon started the hike to the fishing trail and then stopped. “Aren’t you coming with us, Dad?”
Such a simple question for a son to ask his father. Yet I didn’t miss the meaning underneath it: he wanted me with him. Relief and gratitude spread through me.
“Yeah, bud. I’ll meet you down at our spot in just a few minutes, okay?”
He nodded and then led the duo to our cove on the other side of the wooded inlet.
I bent and brushed a kiss on Callie’s cheek as she once again readied herself for the kayak.
“You’re sweet to take her out,” I said.
She rolled her eyes playfully and tugged on her life vest. “I think you mean insane.”
“That, too.”
Callie’s gaze slipped from my eyes and drifted to my mouth.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’ll be forced to give our audience a real show,” I said in a low voice.
She made a tiny sound in the back of her throat and flicked her gaze up to the road. “Vivian’s still watching us.”
“I know.”
“And she doesn’t look happy.”
“She rarely does.”
Callie worried her lip. “I tried talking to her when we were making sandwiches together in the motor home—well, it was more me talking and her cutting off crusts with a rather sharp knife.”
I could imagine the scene well.
I cupped her elbow and gave it a squeeze. “I appreciate you making an effort with her, Callie. Really. This is a first. For all of us.”
“A first?” Her eyebrows rose.
Maybe I hadn’t been clear enough before. “You’re the first and only woman I’ve introduced them to.”
“Aunt Callie! Aren’t you coming?”
Callie slid her gaze from me to the water and then back again. “Yes, uh, just a second, Corrie. I’ll be right there.”
“You know, the worry line between your eyebrows gives your overthinking away every single time.”
“It’s just . . . that’s a lot of pressure, Davis.” The stress in her voice was palpable.
“Only if you let it be.”
“Aunt Callie!”
“Time to go put more miles on your rowing arms.” I encouraged her toward the water. Corrianna was about a minute away from going adrift on her own, especially since the wind had picked up.
Callie started her trek down the bank to the water’s edge, glancing over her shoulder twice, her telltale worry line still visible even from here.
Once she and Corrie were fully entrenched in the kayak, I heaved a sigh and took the rocky trail up to the road.
It was time to finish the conversation from last night.
“Mind if I join you up here?”
Vivian closed her book and set it on her lap with the same delicacy she used to place a teacup on a saucer, though I doubted she could even recall the title if I asked.
I dropped into Charles’s chair beside her and took in the view. “Did you know I brought Stephanie out here once?”
Whatever she’d expected me to say, the arc in her eyebrow suggested this wasn’t it. “When was that?”
“Just before we found out she was pregnant.”
Viv smoothed the top cover of her book with her palm. “I don’t remember that. But she always did enjoy keeping things from me.”
“No, she just enjoyed her independence.” A rare occurrence given her poor health and protective parents. I ignored Viv’s sour face. “I think Steph would be happy to see you out here. She loved the water.”
Vivian kept her gaze fixated straight ahead. At the clear lake her daughter so appreciated.
“And do you also think she would be happy to see you here today? With your friend?” Her voice dripped with unsettling accusation.
“I know she would be.”
“Hmm.” Her chin rose a fraction of an inch. A look I’d come to know well.
“In the months following her final prognosis, we had no less than a dozen conversations regarding the future. I think I fought her on every single one of them . . . but you know how she was.”
Her silent acknowledgment was enough for me to continue.
“Stephanie didn’t want me to be a single dad forever. And she didn’t want Brandon to grow up without a mother.” I paused for a beat, waiting for the guilt to set in. It never did. “But after we lost her, I couldn’t imagine sharing my life with anybody else. Not when she was the only woman I’d ever truly loved.”
Viv closed her eyes for the briefest of moments. “I never doubted the strength of your feelings for my daughter.”
That was the highest compliment I’d ever received from Vivian Lockwood.
“I was certain the only way to give Stephanie what she wanted for Brandon would mean making a decision with my head and not my heart.” I’d come closer to that reality than I’d even realized, and for the first time in nearly two years, I felt nothing but gratitude toward Willa Hart-McCade. While I’d been so focused on narrow-minded criteria and credentials, she’d had the courage to want more than a relationship of convenience.
An echo of feminine laughter bounced off the lake, and I tracked Vivian’s gaze to the floating kayak. Callie was currently flapping her paddle against the water, trying—and failing—to lose whatever vegetation she’d managed to collect.
“That woman’s not right for you. Or for Brandon.”
“I disagree, especially since you barely know her.”
Her eyes sharpened on me. “I spent three hours with her overly chatty niece and nephew. I know plenty.”
I tamped down my frustration with logic. “Those kids adore her, and she adores them.”
“She’s a gypsy, Davis.” She hissed the word through her teeth as if it were an obscenity.
“No, she’s an artist.”
“The woman has no real job and no permanent address. You can’t possibly be serious about her.”
“And she’s experienced more life than the majority of people I know.”
“And what’s to stop her from experiencing even more life down the road? Listen to yourself, Davis, she’s not the type who settles down with a small-town veterinarian.” Her suggestive tone added a few more logs to my internal fire. “I was married by the time I was twenty-four. Caring for a family by the time I was twenty-seven. I relished in my responsibilities as a wife and mother.” The word relished pitched her voice to a nearly inaudible octave.
“Don’t make assumptions about her priorities. I’d never ask Callie to give up her art. It’s one of the things I love most about her.”
The puckered lines around her mouth eased in a momentary sabbatical from their tight purse.
“I love her, Vivian.”
She blinked twice, visibly recalculating before continuing on as if she hadn’t heard me at all. “Do you remember Margie Brickman? Charles’s former secretary?”
Whatever game she was playing, I wouldn’t humor her in it. But despite my unwillingness to answer her, she went on.
“One year at Christmastime she gave me a gift she couldn’t wait for me to open. She spun this elaborate tale about how she’d spent hours trying to choose the right present for me at Louis Vuitton in New York City. And when I opened the beautifully packaged box, I remember gasping at the sight of it. The purse was stunning—the style, color, functionality—it had everything I desired in a quality handbag.” She paused, her eyes assessing me as if to make sure I was hanging on her every word. “Only it wasn’t quality, Davis. In no less than a month the gold-plated zipper had snapped off, the fabric lining had torn like tissue paper on the inside, and the print I’d once adored so much had bled at the first drop of rain. She hadn’t purchased the purse from Fifth Avenue. She’d purchased a knockoff from Canal Street.”
“Callie is not a handbag,” I said through gritted teeth.
“And neither is she the kind of woman who can bring stability to your life and household.” She thrust her finger at the kayak. “She is a free spirit with no structure and no staying power. Any woman who can fit her entire existence into a house the size of my broom closet is far from qualified to deal with the realities that come with a family. Brandon’s already lost one mother, Davis. Don’t risk his heart over a nice-looking knockoff.”
I pushed out of the chair and stood. “I’ve given you tremendous grace for the last eight years—allowed you to speak your mind freely on all topics concerning me and my son. But I won’t sit here and listen to your bitter insults.”
“Insults sting most when they’re true.” Ever casual, as if we’d been speaking about nothing more important than the weather, she lifted her book again and opened it to the middle. Her finger slid down the page as if looking for the last line she’d read. “Have a nice time fishing.”
The woman was insufferable.
I scrubbed both hands down my face and refused the urge to snatch her novel from her grasp and hurl it into the water below.