The Peach Keeper

FOUR

Wish Lists

Colin sat in the corner café of Au Naturel Sporting Goods, nursing his cappuccino and staring out the large store window at the cars going by. Because this road led directly to the entrance of Cataract National Forest, there was a lot of traffic. This side of town had a completely different feel to it, hectic and slightly superficial. It had been a long time since he’d been here, but nothing much had changed, like the fact that locals rarely came to National Street because they considered it too touristy. The long rows of brick buildings were old, but the shops they housed were hip and new, and most were owned by transplants.

As much as he didn’t like acknowledging it, he was still connected to this place, if just by memory. He’d seen a lot of the world in his work. Urban landscaping wasn’t about homogenizing cities but drawing from their heritage, and he was one of the best landscape architects in the business. Learning about new cultures, traveling to new places, not staying in one place too long—it was exactly what he wanted to be doing. But then he would come home, usually only when forced by guilt from his mother or, in this instance, a request for help from his sister, who never asked for help, and he would feel a strange sensation, like his feet growing heavy. It was as if he was sinking back into the root system of this place. And he didn’t want to be that Colin anymore, the one planted here, the one pruned to exactly the size and shape everyone expected him to be.

He heard the bell over the door ring, and he turned.

Willa Jackson had just walked in. She was wearing jeans over black cowboy boots and a black sleeveless top that crisscrossed over her bare shoulders. Her honey-brown hair was wavy in a way that was no curl and all volume. It’d been much longer in high school, and she’d always worn it in a messy braid. Actually, he really didn’t know if she’d always worn it like that, it was just how he remembered it the last time he saw her, walking out of the school.

Now her hair ended just below her ears and she parted it on the side, catching the hair at one temple with a sparkly barrette. He liked it because it was spunky, and it suited the image of what he thought she’d become. He didn’t realize he’d gotten it so wrong. Surely he couldn’t have gotten it so wrong. Because if he was wrong about Willa, his inspiration, then maybe he was wrong about his own decisions, too.

The girl who’d earlier made him the cappuccino excused herself from talking to a customer and walked over to Willa. He could hear her say, “Someone is here to see you.”

“Who?” Willa asked.

“I don’t know. He came in about an hour ago and asked for you. I told him you’d be here soon, so he’s sitting in the café, waiting for you. Cappuccino with one raw sugar,” she said in a lower voice, reciting his order as if it was confidential information, some secret she was revealing about him.

Willa turned to walk toward the café but stopped when she saw him. She turned away quickly, which made him smile.

“What?” the dark-haired girl asked. “Who is he?”

“Colin Osgood,” Willa said.

“Related to Paxton?”

“Her brother.”

“Do you hate him, too?” the girl asked.

“Stop it. I don’t hate them,” Willa murmured before turning back around and walking over to him. She stopped at his table and gave him a polite smile. “I see you made it home alive.”

“Yes. And I want to apologize for last night. I haven’t been that tired in a long time.” He rubbed his eyes with one hand. He felt like a ghost of his former self, like someone could reach for him and get only air. “I could probably sleep for days more.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Pit stop on my way out.” He held up his lidded cup of cappuccino, which was actually very good.

“Leaving so soon?” The thought seemed to brighten her mood.

“No. I’ll be here for about a month. I’m just on my way to Asheville for the afternoon.”

She started to back away. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“You’re not.” He gestured to the chair on the other side of the table, and she stared at him, her lovely light gray eyes narrowed slightly, before she pulled it out and sat. “So, you own this store.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, as if it might be a trick question. “As I mentioned last night. And undoubtedly how you found me this morning.”

He took his eyes off her for a moment to look around. He’d counted two other sporting goods stores on National Street, but Willa seemed to have found something that set hers apart, specializing in organic wear and environmentally friendly equipment, with a café in the store that made the place smell like roasting coffee beans, sharp and dark. “You must do a lot of hiking and camping.”

“No. The last time I was in Cataract was during a field trip in third grade. I got poison ivy.”

“Then you must love coffee.”

“No more than usual.” Willa nodded to the girl clerk. “That’s my friend Rachel’s territory.”

He was confused. “Then why do you own a sporting goods store and café?”

She shrugged. “A few years ago I met someone who wanted to sell this place, and I needed something to do.”

“And this is what you chose.”

“Yes.”

He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. Why did this bother him so much? When he’d recognized her yesterday on Jackson Hill, sitting on top of her Jeep, he’d felt a surge of true happiness, like seeing a mentor. It was Willa Jackson, perpetrator of pranks so epic that on the rare occasion when he got together with his old classmates, it was still one of the first things they talked about. The care and detail and time that went into some of them was amazing—like her last one, pulling the fire alarm and then, when all the students were outside, unrolling a giant banner from the roof of the school, on which was written WILLA JACKSON IS THE WALLS OF WATER HIGH SCHOOL JOKER. “I watched you that day the police took you from the school, and you didn’t look embarrassed. You looked relieved. As if, finally, you could stop pretending. I thought you were going to leave here and never look back.”

She gave him an exasperated look. He didn’t blame her. He should just shut up. This was none of his business.

No, there was one more thing he needed to say. “You’re the reason I decided to follow my own path instead of coming back here and doing what everyone wanted me to do,” he said, which made her brows rise. “No one thought you were capable of all that mayhem, and you showed them not to underestimate you. If you could be that brave, then I thought I could be, too. I owe that to you. To the Joker.”

She shook her head. “That bravery, as you call it, resulted in a class-two misdemeanor when I pulled that fire alarm. I was charged, nearly expelled, and wasn’t allowed to go to graduation. And my dad was fired because of me, because I took his keys and his computer passwords to pull my pranks. Don’t glamorize it, Colin. I’m glad you found your path, and I’m happy it had something to do with me. But I found my path, too, even if it wasn’t what you expected.”

She thought her dad was fired? Colin knew for a fact that he’d quit. Colin had been there when it had happened. Why wouldn’t her father have told her?

Willa took advantage of his silence and stood. “I have to get to work,” she said. “Thanks for returning the invitation last night.”

“Still not going?” he asked as he, too, stood.

“No. And before you ask again, I’m not planning some big prank.”

“Too bad. That group could use some shaking up.”

She avoided his eyes and walked past him. “I’m not the girl to do it.”

He watched her walk away. She carried the scent of something fresh and sweet with her, like lemons. “Do you want to go out sometime?” he found himself calling after her, because somehow he knew he would regret it if he didn’t.

She stopped abruptly. The girl clerk looked up from the café counter with a smile. Willa turned and walked back to him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said in a low voice.

“I asked if you wanted to, not if it was a good idea.”

“You think they’re two different things?”

“With you, Willa, I think they are definitely two different things,” he said, taking a sip of his cappuccino, not taking his eyes off her.

“You’re only going to be here one month. I think it’s high-handed, not to mention completely ridiculous, to think you can make me see the error of my ways in that short period of time.” She had good instincts. She knew exactly what he was trying to do.

“Is that a challenge?”

“No.”

He walked to the door with a smile. “I’ll be seeing you, Willa.”

“Not if I see you first, Colin.”

Oh, yes, that was definitely a challenge.

Ha. The old Willa was somewhere in there, after all.

“Where were you last night? Mama had a hissy fit,” Paxton said when Colin got home that evening. She was coming in from work at the outreach center, where she had an office and oversaw the Osgood family’s charity ventures. They just happened to meet in the driveway at the same time, a synchronicity they’d always had, a twin thing that he sometimes missed.

“Sorry,” he said, putting his arm around Paxton as they walked inside. “I didn’t mean to worry everyone. I fell asleep on someone’s couch.”

“Someone? How very unspecific,” Paxton said as they walked to the kitchen. The housekeeper, Nola, was making dinner. Nola had been a fixture at Hickory Cottage for years. Her family had worked there for generations. She was a stickler for manners and respect, and Paxton and Colin had always given it to her. In return she’d given them secret snacks. Colin stopped to forage around in the refrigerator. Nola tsked at him and gave him one of the rolls she’d just made, then shooed them both out.

Colin followed Paxton to the patio, where she stopped and turned to him. “Out with it. Whose couch did you fall asleep on?”

He took a bite of the roll and smiled at her, which used to result in a smile back. Not now.

When he’d set eyes on his sister in the foyer yesterday, it had been the first time in almost a year, when she’d flown up to spend a week with him in New York to celebrate their thirtieth birthday. She’d been so excited by the prospect of finally moving out of Hickory Cottage. But those plans had fallen through—something that had their mother’s fingerprints all over it—and the difference between when he’d last seen Paxton and now was astounding. Unhappiness radiated from her like heat. She was beautiful, and always carried herself well, but she’d stayed too long in this house with their parents, shouldering absolutely everything it meant to be an Osgood. And it was partly his fault. He’d left her alone to deal with this. He’d known what was expected of him, and so had Paxton. But she’d embraced it. He’d wanted to establish something that was his alone, to prove that he could actually exist beyond Walls of Water. To Paxton, nothing existed outside Walls of Water.

“Come on,” Paxton said. “Tell me. Please?”

He finally shrugged and said, “It was Willa Jackson’s couch.”

Paxton looked surprised. “I had no idea you were friends with Willa.”

“I’m not,” he said, finishing the roll in another two bites. “When I was out yesterday, I saw her drop something, but I couldn’t catch up with her, so I thought I’d just drop it by her house. I had no idea how tired I really was. I think I embarrassed her.”

That made Paxton laugh. She didn’t do that often enough.

“So tell me about Willa,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the concrete balustrade.

Paxton adjusted that ever-present tote bag on her shoulder. “What do you want to know?”

“She seems to have a very quiet life.”

“Yes.” Paxton tilted her head. “Why are you surprised? Her family has always been quiet.”

“But Willa was the Walls of Water High School Joker,” he said.

“Yes?”

Paxton didn’t get it. Neither did he, exactly. “I just thought she’d be more … outgoing.”

“She grew up, Colin. We all did.”

He scratched his hand against the side of his face. “Why doesn’t she want to go to the gala? Her grandmother helped found the Women’s Society Club.”

“I don’t know. When I sent her the invitation, I wrote her a personal note about wanting to include her grandmother. But she blew me off.”

“She didn’t want to have anything to do with the restoration?”

Paxton looked confused by the question. “I didn’t ask her.”

“You didn’t ask if she had old photos or old papers? If she wanted to see what was going on inside as it was being restored? Anything?”

“There were enough photos on record to go by. Colin, honestly, this restoration was about contractors and designers and scouring art auctions and estate sales for period pieces. It didn’t have anything to do with Willa. What could she have contributed?”

He shrugged as he looked out over the patio, to the pool, the pool house, and the mountain landscape beyond. The rolling mountains looked like kids playing under a big green blanket. He had to admit, there was nowhere in the world like this place. Part of his heart was still here, somewhere. He just wished he knew where so he could take it back. “I guess it just would have been a nice thing to do.”

“I did the best I could,” she snapped. “And where were you when all this was happening? You coordinated everything with the landscaping by phone and email. You wouldn’t even do that in person.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me here for the duration.” He paused, frowning at her reaction. “No one asked you to take on this project alone, Pax.” He’d been surprised by Paxton’s call last year, asking him to do the landscaping, but he couldn’t say no. She’d wanted a large tree on the property, and after a lot of networking, Colin had found one being threatened by development nearby. But transplanting a tree that heavy and old had to be carefully choreographed. Everything had to be planned, down to the smallest detail. All year he’d been in touch weekly with the arborists they’d hired. And he’d taken off a month to oversee everything up until the grand opening of the Madam, which he’d considered a great sacrifice, because he hadn’t been home for that long in over a decade.

Paxton threw her hands in the air. “The Blue Ridge Madam is the first thing anyone sees as they drive into town. It was an eyesore. It was either tear it down or restore it. That house is part of our town history. I did a good thing, even if I didn’t ask Willa Jackson to help.”

“Calm down, Pax. What’s wrong?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just can’t ever seem to do enough.”

“Enough for who? Mom and Dad? You have to get over that. You’re never going to be happy until you live your own life.”

“Family is important, Colin. But that’s not something I’d expect you to understand.” She turned to leave. “Cover for me at dinner tonight, will you? Tell Mama and Daddy that I had to go finish up some work at the outreach center.”

“Why?”

She spun back around and said, “Can’t you do that for me? It’s not as if you’ve been around for the past ten years to do it.”

She was right. “Is that where you’re really going?” he asked as she stepped back into the kitchen.

“No.”

Paxton drove to Sebastian’s house and pulled in front. His car wasn’t there. That’s when she remembered that he kept late hours on Thursdays at his office, which was the reason he’d had the time to go with her to visit her grandmother that morning. Now she had to see him twice in order to get through the day? She wondered how she survived before he came to town. Basically, she’d kept her stress to herself, sublimating it with red licorice or trying to work it out through her endless series of private lists.

She buzzed down the windows in her car and cut the engine. She felt better just sitting here, looking at Shade Tree Cottage. Reaching over to her tote bag, she brought out a small notebook, one of dozens she carried around. Sometimes she used whatever she had on hand, a paper napkin or the back of an envelope. It all ended up in her bag. Most of her lists were about control, about breaking down her life into manageable pieces. But some of the lists were simply wishes. There was nothing more satisfying than putting what you wanted most onto paper. It gave substance to something that was before as thin as air. It made it one step closer to being real.

She flipped to a clean sheet of paper and started a list about Sebastian. She had a lot of lists about him. Sebastian’s Favorite Things. If Sebastian and I Went on Vacation Together, Where Would We Go?

Today she started:

REASONS WHY SEBASTIAN MAKES ME FEEL BETTER

He doesn’t care that I’m as tall as he is.

He doesn’t care that I weigh more.

He holds my hand through things and doesn’t think less of me for it.

He smells fantastic.

He’s all clean lines and perfect manners.

“Do you do this often when I’m not here? Sit outside my house and work on your lists?”

Paxton gave a start and turned to see Sebastian, his hands on top of her car as he leaned down to look in her window. The sun on his skin highlighted how clear and poreless it was, and turned his blue eyes crystalline. She hadn’t heard him approach, but she could see now that his car was parked behind hers in the driveway.

She smiled and quickly tucked her notebook away. “No, I was just waiting for you.”

He opened the car door for her and helped her out. “It’s too hot to be sitting in your car. Your hair is wet.” He put his cool hand to the base of her bare neck, which made her want to shiver. It was a base reaction from a place deep within her, a well full of sharp longings and pipe dreams. She couldn’t fill that well, couldn’t stopper it, as hard as she tried. But for the sake of their friendship, she did everything she could not to show it.

She smiled. “You never sweat. Are you actually human?”

“I enjoy air-conditioning too much to ever be long without it. Come in.” They walked to his door, where he unlocked it and gestured for her to enter first. He put his keys on the entryway table. She caught a glimpse of herself in the gold starburst mirror and immediately set her tote bag down and used both hands to slick back her hair, tucking all the loose strands into the knot she’d tied that morning.

“Have you had dinner yet?” he asked.

She dropped her hands. “No.”

“Join me, then. I’ll grill salmon. I’m glad I came home first.”

“First?”

“Sometimes I go to that diner on the highway.”

“The Happy Daze Diner?” she asked, disbelieving. The place seemed so unlike him. It had been a family diner at one time, now it was a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon, still doing business because elderly people who remembered it in its heyday continued to frequent the place.

He smiled at her reaction. “Believe it or not, I have fond memories of the place. My great-aunt used to take me there when I was a kid.” He loosened his tie. “So, how was your day?”

“The same. Until I got home this evening.” Paxton hesitated. “I think my brother is interested in Willa Jackson.”

He raised a single brow. “And you don’t approve?” His tie hissed as he pulled it off. Maybe it was because she was already on edge, but she thought it was a seductive sound. It made her skin prickle.

“No, it’s not that. I’d love her forever if she made him stay.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

She hesitated, still bothered by it. “He seems to think I should have invited her to participate in the restoration of the Blue Ridge Madam.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It didn’t occur to me,” she said. “Do you think I should have?”

He shrugged. “It would have been a nice thing to do.”

“That’s what Colin said. I didn’t mean to slight her.”

“I know you didn’t. You like being in control. It never occurs to you to ask for help.” He smiled and put a hand to her cheek. “But some things are worth asking for, darling.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said miserably.

“No, actually, it’s not,” he responded. “I’m going to change. You haven’t seen the upstairs since I redecorated my bedroom, have you?”

“No.”

“Come on, then.”

She knew where all the rooms were—the guest room, the room with expensive exercise equipment in it, the empty room he said he had vague plans to turn into an office, and his master suite. He’d mentioned having his bedroom painted last month, but she wasn’t prepared for the major overhaul he’d done. The gray walls had a metallic sheen, and the furniture was all black lacquer now. He’d spent most of his time when he first moved back decorating the downstairs and ridding the house of medieval décor left behind by the previous owner. She’d loved watching the transformation, watching it become more like Sebastian. This, though, wasn’t anything like what she thought it would be. Dark, moody, stark, masculine.

She started to leave so he could change, but he told her to stay, and disappeared into his dressing room.

“Why did you choose a house this big, when there’s only you?” she called as she walked around his bedroom. His bed was king-sized. There was room for someone else there; he just seemed to have no interest in issuing any invitations, though there was plenty of interest, from men and women alike.

“Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.”

“Wow, Sebastian. Profound.”

She heard him laugh.

She walked by his bed, trailing her fingers along the silken black cover. She stopped to look at a painting over his bureau. She’d never seen it before. It was cracked and dark, obviously old. It looked like something that should be in a folk art museum. It was of a red bowl filled with ripe red berries. A black-and-yellow bird was perched on the edge of the bowl, looking out angrily, as if daring someone to take a berry from him. The tip of his beak was red from berry juice, or maybe blood. It was a little disturbing.

“That belonged to my great-aunt,” Sebastian said. She could feel his chest brush the back of her arm as he came to a stop behind her. “She loved it. It hung in her living room, next to her woodstove. It’s all I have by way of family heirlooms. I had it packed away for years.”

“Why didn’t you bring it out before now?” she asked, still staring at the painting.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to stay.”

“In this house?”

“No, in Walls of Water. I didn’t know if things would work out.” He paused. “But they did.”

Her scalp tightened, as though she was in a barely avoided collision. She hadn’t known she’d almost lost him. What was so wrong with this place that people wanted to leave it? What was so wrong with home and history and family, even if they got on your nerves? Her back still to him, she said, “You’ve mentioned your great-aunt twice tonight. I don’t think you’ve ever talked about her before.”

“She was the only person in my family I knew loved me without reservation. But she passed away when I was ten.”

Sebastian didn’t talk much about his family, but from what little he had told her, she knew his father was verbally abusive, and that he had a much older brother who now lived in West Virginia. They had lived in a trailer park on the west side of town, near the county line. She guessed she’d answered her own question. Maybe there were some things you simply had to get away from. She could understand it from Sebastian. She still didn’t understand it from her brother. To change the subject, she smiled and turned around and said, “Dinner?”

She didn’t realize how close he was. “Unless there’s something else you want to do up here,” he said.

She wouldn’t touch that. She couldn’t. “Are you implying I need to use your workout room?” she joked.

He lowered his eyes and turned away. “Never, darling. I love you just the way you are.”