Back To The Lake Breeze Hotel

“In a minute. I just have to find some stuff I stashed in this filing cabinet—plans for the fall festival weekends. Those start next weekend, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to need twenty-five-hour days to get everything ready.”

“You’ll be ready. I’ve seen you pull off some amazing things this summer.”

“Thanks.” I can use all the encouragement I can get.

Haley lingered in the doorway, combing her fingers through her bangs and frowning. “I’m thinking of getting blond highlights because I’m tired of my one-color hair. What do you think?”

Alice closed the filing drawer. “No way. If you just get highlights on top of your dark hair, you’ll look like a baby skunk.”

“Oh,” the younger girl said, her smile fading.

“A very cute baby skunk,” Alice said quickly. “But if you want a change, I think you should go with layers.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Haley said.

“Or a Starlight Point tattoo,” Alice said, grinning. “Someplace really obvious.”

Haley shook her head. “Very funny.”

“You asked. I think, in your heart, you probably thought it was a bad idea before you even heard my opinion.”

“At least I know that if I do something drastic and it looks awful, I’m sure you would tell me the truth.”

“I would. Unless it’s a tattoo—those are permanent. I’d tell you the truth if it was something you could fix.”

Haley smiled and crossed the hall to deliver Nate’s lunch. She and Nate laughed and talked for a while before Haley finally said goodbye. Of course she was trying to make a good impression on Nate—she wanted to become a public relations media consultant. And Nate was charming and pleasant when he wanted to be. Because he worked in PR, he knew how to make things look and sound good.

And, she had to admit, he still looked good, unchanged by the years except for a little more muscle and maturity in his expression. Tall with dark hair and eyes, he could easily win people over, which meant they could be working together a long, long time. There was no way to avoid the problem, and she should be honest with herself, march across the hall and...say something to Nate.

Instead, she sighed, squirted some sanitizer on her hands and sat down at her desk to eat. Maybe lunch would fuel her up to face what she had to. She rolled the sandwich over and read the name written in black marker on the package. Nate.

Alice groaned and closed her eyes. She could eat Nate’s sandwich, which, according to the wrapper, was ham, mustard and lettuce. That would mean giving up her favorite: turkey, provolone and pickles. Or she could bravely march across the hallway and trade with him.

“I believe this is yours.”

She dropped the sandwich and looked up. Nate leaned on her office door, a sandwich in his hand. He had beaten her to it, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Instead of speaking, Alice held up the item he’d come for. He crossed her small office, took his sandwich and laid hers in front of her without a word.

“Thank you,” she said.

Nate was almost to the door, but he paused and half turned. “You’re welcome. I know you hate mustard.”

He slipped into the hallway, leaving her no chance to respond. It was just mustard, of course, but the fact he remembered... That was going to make it twice as hard to work with the man she’d chosen not to marry only hours before their own wedding.

* * *

“I USED TO love pumpkin pie,” Henry said. “But I don’t think I can ever enjoy it again after this.”

Virginia laughed. “It’s not so bad. If we take enough painkillers tonight, we’ll live to do this all over again tomorrow.”

She took a small pumpkin from a wagon and tossed it to Henry. He walked to a flowerbed, glanced at a color-coded map and placed it beside a green squash.

Nearby, the midway fountain had been transformed into an autumn display of colors and textures. All summer long, refreshing spray from the light blue splash pad tempted children to play in the water and cooled the air for people passing by. The water was turned off for the fall festival, though, and a giant inflatable pumpkin crouched over the area. Children could run through the pumpkin’s grinning mouth while their parents rested on the benches circling it.

In addition to the hay bales and pumpkins artfully placed around the seating area, Virginia and Henry were laying out various sizes and colors of pumpkins and squash in the flowerbed. When completed, the vegetables would create a fall landscape scene, but it took attention to detail. It reminded Virginia of the paint-by-number projects she’d done with her children during long, snowy Michigan winters.

“I better look at the diagram again,” Henry said. “I don’t want our artwork to look like a couple of teenagers dashed it together so they could quit early.”

“Nothing against the kids,” Virginia said, “but old age does have its advantages.”

Henry stepped close and stood over Virginia, blocking the sun and smiling down at her. Small wrinkles around his eyes were accentuated by the smile, and she noticed one white hair mixed with his blond eyebrows.

“We are not old,” he said. “Especially not you.”

“Fifty-seven earlier this summer,” Virginia said. Henry stood so close she could smell his soap. It was clean and practical, just like the rest of him. He had a lean, straight build and walked with confidence, as if he were a man accustomed to responsibility. She’d noticed, though, that he was happy helping out however he could, and he seemed to take pride in executing the fall displays exactly as depicted on the directions. His skill was probably a result of following flight diagrams and paying attention to detail. It was also probably a relief, she thought, to fuss over gourds instead of turbulence after years of being responsible for hundreds and thousands of lives.

She’d felt a similar relief when she handed over Starlight Point to her children Jack, June and Evie. A grieving and shocked widow at the time, she hadn’t thought she could put one more thing on her plate, and she was confident her children were stronger than she was. In the five summers since her beloved Ford had succumbed to a heart attack, she’d seen for certain the strength of her three children.

And her own strength.

“I’m just a little closer to sixty than you are,” Henry said, drawing her back into their conversation. “But I feel like eighty after setting out straw bales and lifting pumpkins all day yesterday.”

“Is it still better than sitting in the cockpit of a plane?”

Henry ran a hand through his hair and looked down the midway as if he were considering the question. Virginia wondered if he missed his old job now that he was retired. Without a family, did he feel lonely? She’d felt as if she’d been set adrift when Ford died, but she still had her children to give her a reason to get out of bed.

“Most days, yes. It’s nice not worrying about hijackers, lightning and schedules.”

“We have lightning and schedules here,” Virginia said.

“So I guess I feel right at home,” he replied, smiling. “Just don’t bring in any hijackers for my benefit.”

Virginia laid a paper copy of the decoration placement diagram on the wagon’s wood floor and smoothed it with both hands. “Alice saw to every detail,” she said.

Henry leaned over her shoulder to view the diagram, and Virginia felt the warmth from his body. There was a touch of autumn in the air, just enough to make his warmth welcome. It had been a long time since she’d thought about men and heat in the same sentence. Or noticed what a man smelled like. Or wondered if one found her attractive.

“Mom.”

Virginia turned so quickly she almost knocked Henry off his feet. Evie, blond ponytail making her look as if she were twelve and not twenty-five, handed a bottle of cold water to her and Henry. “I could get someone else to do all this physical labor.”

Virginia realized her heart was racing. Was it the new awareness of Henry, a man with whom she’d worked all summer? Or was it this new consciousness being interrupted by her daughter—and making her feel guilty?

There was no reason she should feel guilty.

“You mean someone younger?” she asked Evie, keeping her tone light and playful.

Evie laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”