Gayle closed her eyes, a second’s respite from the cold reality of her past. “It might work.”
“Well, while you’re thinking about it, why don’t you come over to the house for a barbecue? The weather’s lovely. Neill has done a fantastic job putting a new deck on the back of the house, and we can talk wedding talk.” She smiled in encouragement. “Remember how much help you were to me when I was going through that awful time with Neill? Let me return the favor. You need to forget your worries for a while. And we need to pick out the flowers for the ceremony. I’ll talk to Nate when I get the chance, and we’ll find a way to make it happen. You can trust me.”
Gayle wasn’t good at trusting anyone. Not even her best friend. Yet an evening out would help her gain perspective, and allow her to share in Sherri’s happiness. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
“Then leave it with me. I’ll talk to Neill and get back to you.”
* * *
LATER THAT WEEK, as the sun’s light began to create long silhouettes along the tree line, broken only by the roof of the old barn at the back of Neill’s house, Gayle found herself sitting with Sherri and her fiancé on the new deck.
She had to agree with Sherri that the deck Neill had built on the back of the old house made a wonderful space for relaxing after a long day at work.
“Neill and I love this property, and plan to live here for a very long time,” Sherri said. A salt-tinged breeze moved through the pines behind the barn, creating a sighing sound that enhanced the gentle quiet of the evening.
Gayle looked at her two friends, and couldn’t stop the envy rising through her. All her life she’d wanted to be married to a man who truly loved her, and to live in a lovely old home looking out on the water. But what Gayle wanted had never been anyone’s priority, not even her own. It was a stroke of luck and fate that had given her the charming Victorian house she now owned in downtown Eden Harbor. Simply a case of her being the last remaining relative of someone she’d never even met.
All of that aside, she was delighted to be having dinner at Dr. Brandon’s home, and even more thrilled that Sherri had chosen her over all her other friends to be her maid of honor. Gayle felt blessed to see what her life had become. The only down note was Adam’s recent change in behavior.
“Would anyone like more wine?” Neill asked, holding up the bottle of chardonnay.
Gayle’s head was already feeling light. “No, thank you. Not me,” she said, placing her hand gently over the top of her glass. She wasn’t much of a drinker and had never taken drugs after growing up in the chaos of her mother and stepfather’s house.
Sherri shook her head. “One glass does it for me. I need to check my blood sugar now that I’ve eaten to be sure it’s okay.”
Gayle remembered the day Sherri had ended up in Emergency after going into diabetic shock, and how afraid everyone had been. In the end it had proved to be what Sherri and Neill needed to get their priorities straight and realize how much they loved each other. It was the first time Gayle had ever seen the powerful impact love could have someone’s life. She was sure that other people understood that power, but she didn’t.
“Why don’t I carry some things into the house for you?” Gayle asked.
Neill pushed back his chair. “That sounds great. While you ladies do your thing in the kitchen, I’ll put the barbecue away. Later, we can all sit here and enjoy the evening light...and talk.”
Gayle followed Sherri into the kitchen, placing the dishes on the counter while Sherri loaded the dishwasher. When Sherri reached for her meter to check her blood sugar, Gayle glanced around the huge kitchen. She had only been inside the house once before when she had come to pick Sherri up to go to a movie. She was completely in awe of the kitchen’s beautiful wood cabinets, and panoramic view of the back gardens.
“Did you get a new table and chairs?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t seen the wooden table surrounded by four wooden chairs with navy-blue-and-white cushions before.
“It’s new. The set Neill brought from Boston when he moved back home was all glass and wrought iron, not really a good match for the interior of this house. But he’d wanted his daughter, Morgan, to have as many things from her old life as possible, even though he’d disliked the modern set virtually from the day his ex bought it.”
“Did you and Neill choose this together?”
“We did. Our first purchase for our home.” Sherri smiled, her eyes alight with enthusiasm. “I have never been so excited in my life. After everything we’ve been through, all those years of misunderstanding and being apart from each other, marrying the wrong people, will finally be behind us in less than two months.”
Gayle hugged her friend. “You will be so gorgeous in that antique lace wedding dress. Being with you when you picked it out was a really special moment for me.” She wanted to tell her friend that she’d never been a part of anybody’s wedding before, but divulging any details of her past would lead to questions she couldn’t risk answering.
“And you and Morgan in your green dresses... Morgan is so pleased to be part of the wedding party. She’s talked about it for hours on end. Her favorite thing is that she got to pick out the color. And I’m so glad Neill’s best friend from medical school, Mark Leighton, can be a groomsman along with Nate.”
“Are we going to go over the flower choices tonight? And what about the reception? Have you chosen flowers for the tables yet?” Gayle pointed to the florist’s three-ring binder on the counter next to the phone.
Sherri sighed, her gaze turning anxious. “Let’s sit down. I need to talk to you about something first.”
Gayle tried to block her anxiety. Had Sherri been pressured into making someone else her maid of honor, someone who had a longer history of friendship with her than Gayle? “Sure. Go ahead,” she said, forcing her tone to be upbeat.
“Please don’t feel I’m prying into your life, but I need to ask you if anything has changed where Adam is concerned since he came into the clinic the other morning.”
Gayle forced her shoulders into a shrug and smiled gamely. “He’s been home the past two nights well before his curfew. We came to an agreement over the game he wants to buy. I loaned him the money, and he’ll pay me back when he mows lawns this weekend.”
“How’s he doing in school?”
Gayle had spent hours convincing Adam to do his homework this week. She’d made two trips back to the school to get materials he needed to complete his assignments, two of which she’d discovered were overdue. “Adam isn’t much of a student at the best of times.”
“What else is going on with him? Does he tell you where he’s been when he’s late?”
Gayle didn’t want to talk about Adam and spoil her only social outing in weeks. “Adam seems to be doing a little better.”
Sherri sighed. “I’m glad to hear that. What about the next time he stays out too late, or makes a scene at your work?”
Obviously her friend wasn’t going to let this go. “I know you think he needs help, but I need a little time to convince Adam to go along with seeing a counselor,” she said. That wasn’t the complete truth. She hadn’t broached the subject with her son yet. How she wished she could tell Sherri about her sordid past, about Harry, about her lies. But she was afraid of what her friend would think.
If she told anyone about her past, her present life would be over. Her son didn’t know the truth about his father, and couldn’t be told under any circumstances. And now that Gayle had all the things she needed so desperately in her life, she had to keep her past to herself.
Moving to Eden Harbor on the coast of Maine, a continent away, had provided her with enough distance to restart her life. After her divorce, she’d changed back to her maiden name, and she’d left her past behind.