Autumn Dreams Read online

  He squinted into the sun diamonds sparkling on the water. Maybe he should get himself a boat.

  He watched a sleek Cigarette boat roar by, its wake crashing against the barricade on which he stood. What did you do on such a powerful motorboat on a bay this small? Somehow he couldn’t picture the driver—pilot?—going fishing, not with that gold jewelry he had draped around his neck. Did he plan to just drive around to impress people, especially the beautiful woman draped over the seat? Or did he plan to go out onto the ocean? He was heading that way.

  A catamaran with sails the colors of the rainbow caught his eye. It, like the speedboat, was heading for the inlet that opened into the Atlantic. Sailing in the ocean—or was it on the ocean?—now there was a challenge. Maybe he should get a sailboat. At least there was more to sailing than turning a key and steering.

  All he knew was that he didn’t want one of those little aluminum boats. It wasn’t size or money or trying to impress people. It was fishing itself. While he loved seafood, he disliked fishing. All that sitting and waiting. And waiting. He shook his head. He was just too impatient. He was more than happy to pay other people for catching the flounder and blues while he enjoyed the results.

  Of course, there was sport fishing for the big catches like blue marlin. That took stamina and skill. Not that you did that kind of fishing at Seaside. Such activity would involve a big trip to someplace like Baja California. He waited, but the idea raised not even the smallest spark of interest.

  Instead, his stomach loosed a rushing tide of acid, and he swallowed against the fear that hovered just behind his heart, the dread that nothing would raise a spark of interest for him ever again.

  He took several deep breaths to calm himself. He’d figure it out. Eventually. That was why he was in Seaside.

  He turned his back on the men and women traversing the bay, telling himself he wasn’t jealous. Well, he wasn’t, at least of their boats. He could have any one of them if he wanted. In fact, he could buy all of them if he wanted. It was the fact that they had a specific goal for today that he envied.

  Catch my limit.

  Impress the babes.

  Sail the Atlantic.

  For some reason he thought of Cassandra Marie, the lovely blond Amazon with the dippy mother. Even she had a goal—get Mom off the streets before she hurt herself.

  Never before had Dan not had a plan for his day. Even yesterday he’d had a plan—pack his duffel for Seaside and get the keys to the couple who were subletting his apartment indefinitely. Say good-bye to life as he knew it.

  Well, then, maybe today’s goal could be to say hello to life as it was going to be. He nodded, strangely comforted that he wasn’t floating in freefall after all. In the last two years, he and God had had many talks about what his life should look like. They even agreed on the ultimate goal.

  He should seek God’s will.

  Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t much help a compulsive, overachieving pragmatist like himself. Too abstract. Too lacking in something he could wrap his hands and mind around. Oh, he knew that the chief end of man was to love God and enjoy Him forever, but when he tried to imagine what that meant, especially the enjoying God part, and how he should accomplish it, his mind was as blank as an unused ledger and a lot more useless.

  The unknowns of waiting for understanding terrified him, and if he felt he had any choice, he wouldn’t be in Seaside uncomfortably anticipating who-knew-what.

  He climbed back in his car and continued driving around the island. At the far south end he parked and walked through the little state park and onto the wide beach. No people were nearby, just ocean unbroken to the horizon and sand that persisted on sifting over the edges of his loafers, making uncomfortable little mountains in his shoes.

  He’d forgotten about sand’s ability to go wherever it wanted—in your shoes, in your food, in your bathing suit, up your nose. As he slipped off a shoe, turned it over, and dumped the offending sand, the insight he’d first had two years ago slammed into him again.

  His life had been and was as insignificant as the stream of sand blowing away in the ocean breeze. Sure, he was extremely successful, and his company, the Harmon Group, had enjoyed an exceptional reputation. In leading THG, he’d piled up a considerable fortune for himself. But on 9/11, as he watched the Twin Towers come down from less than a block away, as he’d raced with everyone else from the great black cloud that threatened to swallow them whole, as he crouched behind a car and tried to protect himself and some unknown woman by wrapping his suit coat about their heads, he’d known with utter clarity that money was only money.

  “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

  Dan slipped his shoe back on and walked along the water’s edge, the moist sand giving under his loafers, the water that saturated it seeping through the seam between sole and leather upper. He didn’t care. What were wet feet compared to an empty life?

  God, I can’t do this! Forty-four is too old to have no specified future.

  A new thought seized him. What if he’d idealized Seaside, built it up in his mind as the place to find answers? What if he had decided God called him here, and he’d made a grave misjudgment?

  An incoming wave broke over his foot, soaking his sock and leaving a watery residue in his loafer. Shaking his head, Dan turned and walked back to his car. He climbed in, took a deep breath, and turned the key. Time to visit the place that had brought Seaside to his mind as a possible destination, the place that gleamed like a beacon lighting his way home: Seaside Chapel.

  As he pulled up beside the cedar shake structure, he was struck by how small it was in spite of the addition of a classroom wing. As a boy he’d thought the place enormous. Now that he was six four and then some, a man of the world, sophisticated, and enamored with the truly big, the church appeared little and quaint.

  He sat for a few minutes, waiting for the disillusionment to creep in and ruin his fond memories. With relief he noted that, if anything, his heart warmed, and the images in his memory brightened.

  He saw his mother, clad in the shorts she usually wore only in the house, running from her car to the church before anyone saw her to arrange flowers for the Communion table. He saw his father standing behind the pulpit, well-worn Bible in hand, preaching his heart out. He saw the single stained glass oriel window that sat high in the wall behind the pulpit where the morning light flooded through, washing over Jesus as He knelt, hands folded on a rock, praying. Glass a lighter shade of blue than most of the sky showed the Father’s blessing being poured onto His only Son.

  As a boy Dan had studied that picture Sunday after Sunday as his father preached. Finally, curiosity driving him, he asked, “Why is Jesus taking a shower?” In all the years he’d listened to his father and his Sunday school teachers, he’d never heard the shower story.

  When his parents stopped coughing like they were suddenly seized with a virulent strain of pneumonia, they explained about God’s blessing flowing onto Jesus. Dan had nodded sagely, but he’d never stopped looking for the showerhead at the picture’s edge.

  Was the window still there, hung high in the paneled wall? Maybe now he was old enough to spot the showerhead. He grinned to himself.

  The announcement board on the front lawn told him that someone named Paul Trevelyan was pastor now. What would it feel like to see this unknown man in a pulpit where he’d only known Dad dressed in his black suit, white button-down shirt, and either his red or blue tie no matter how hot the weather?

  He took a deep breath and sat up straight. Forget the past, Harmon. It’s today and tomorrow that need your attention. His agitation about his unknown future still unsettled his usually cast-iron stomach, but as he drove away, he felt a little less grim.

  When Dan pulled up to the corner that held SeaSong in its embrace, he was impressed in spite of himself. In fact, it looked even better in real life than on its website, which was not always the way it went.

  The pla
ce was a wonderfully restored Victorian of three stories with a nifty turret that wrapped one corner of the top two stories. It was painted a soft gray with darker gray, navy, and crimson detailing and white railings and window frames. Deep crimson, rose, and pink mums bloomed in profusion across the front of the house and in pots on the porch. A small but immaculately kept side lawn ran between SeaSong and its neighbor, with a slate path curving invitingly to a sitting area under a mature copper beech.

  He climbed the front steps and let himself into a small lobby where an antique walnut grandfather clock against the right wall bonged three times. Check-in time.

  A small registration counter sat perpendicular to the interior stairs, and a young woman in a navy sweatshirt sat behind it. Dan opened his mouth to speak to her, but something about the way all her attention was fixed on the phone in her hand stopped him. She held the receiver halfway to her ear while her fingers hovered uncertainly above the number pad.

  In a sudden rush she punched several digits, then paused, a look of panic rolling over her face. She slammed the receiver down, holding it in the cradle with both hands as though she expected it to jump up and attack her. Then her shoulders slumped, and a tear slid down her smooth cheek. She reached up and brushed it away with a sleeve, then brushed again as another escaped. She sighed and rose.

  Trouble in River City? Dan cleared his throat so she’d know he was there.

  She started at the sound, freezing for the slightest minute as if she’d been caught doing something terribly wrong.

  He smiled at her, hoping to relieve whatever made her so nervous. How old was she? Maybe twenty? She had the wonderful glow of youth about her, but true maturity hadn’t yet arrived.

  For some reason he thought of Cassandra Marie. True maturity. A woman in her prime. Many might think this pretty girl with her dark ponytail and brown eyes outshone Cassandra Marie, but for Dan’s money, the tall, leggy blonde won hands down. Undoubtedly, fashion mavens would say Cassandra wore a few too many pounds, but he disagreed. Cassandra was a real woman.

  The girl behind the counter blinked once, twice, and suddenly she smiled too brilliantly at him through her tears. “Hello! Welcome to SeaSong. Let me get Cass to help you.” She turned and fled—there was no other word for it—through a swinging door at the back of the lobby.

  Dan shrugged and stepped into the common room on his right to wait. The room was filled with several pieces of furniture so old and so well cared for that he knew they must be valuable antiques. He eyed a rose velvet sofa that looked very uncomfortable. What was it with people and antiques? He’d never understood the pull. It was the one modern piece, a navy recliner that screamed, “Sit in me and lean back!” that made him feel comfortable.

  He was about to sit when the small library just off the common room caught his eye. Someone had spent hours on the woodwork, the exceptional detailing and clean lines, but what impressed Dan the most was the uncanny imagination that had made such a small space so beautiful. He ran a hand over the satiny finish of the wood as he flashed a quick look at the eclectic collection of titles that lined the shelves. He was reaching for a book on sailing when a warm voice said, “Hello. Welcome to SeaSong. I see you’ve already found our library.”

  He turned and blinked as he found himself facing Cassandra Marie for the second time today. She held out her hand and smiled broadly. “I’m Cass Merton, the innkeeper.”

  When Dan realized she did not recognize him, he was amazed at how disappointed he felt.

  Three

  CASS UNLOCKED THE third-floor room in the turret and stepped back to let Mr. and Mrs. Harvey enter ahead of her. She followed them in, enjoying their looks of pleasure as they studied the attractive room. The walls were a soft apricot wash, the rug a deep pile cinnamon, and the quilt a floral in apricot, soft yellow, cinnamon, and several shades of green. The antique dresser held a pot of deep cinnamon mums, and the watercolors over the bed were shore birds standing in a marsh turned an autumnal gold, umber, and apricot.

  After showing them their fully renovated private bath with its one-piece shower stall and fluffy apricot towels, she excused herself and went back to the registration desk. Only two more couples to come. They wouldn’t arrive until close to nine, so she went through the swinging door behind the desk into the private part of SeaSong, the part that was home.

  She still had to pinch herself frequently when she thought of the miracle of owning SeaSong. All during her growing-up years she had watched the building slowly fall into disrepair as the Eshelmans, the elderly couple who owned it, could no longer maintain it. Somehow, though, they continued to rent rooms in the summer in spite of the neglected appearance of the place.

  “They must charge awfully low rates,” she told her parents.

  While she was in college, Cass worked two blocks over as a waitress at the Ocean House. She biked past the old place twice daily. Then as a new teacher at Seaside High, Cass parked across the street from the old Victorian. Often at the end of a trying day filled with recalcitrant students, she’d stop and stare at the house, always seeing it as it could be, not as it was. Renovated, painted, refurbished, it could rival any house in the state. She was sure of it.

  Slowly the idea of creating a bed-and-breakfast from the old derelict grew, and with it grew the tantalizing idea of trading her teaching career for one in hospitality. How much would the old house cost to buy? How much to renovate? What would she do with it if given the chance? She bought books on restoring old houses; she read and studied how- to booklets from Home Depot; she figured costs and saved every penny. She designed cozy bedrooms and began haunting antique stores and estate sales, making careful purchases.

  But she told no one. She knew what the brothers would say after they picked themselves up off the floor where they’d fallen when weak with laughter. The idea of their baby sister having such a pipe dream was ludicrous. She knew her parents could never help her financially and might not even support her outrageous scheme. She might stand five ten in her stocking feet and weigh twenty-five to thirty pounds too much, but her family still saw her as a little girl to be humored and guided away from her own foolish whims.

  So secretly, especially on nights when grading one more essay would make her scream, Cass made plans.

  When she had unexpectedly acquired the great white elephant of a house, everyone held the same opinion about what she should do with it.

  Sell it.

  “You’ll make a bundle,” the brothers said. “The land is worth hundreds of thousands.”

  “Wow! What a killing you’re going to make,” her fellow teachers said. “That land is a gold mine.”

  They were right, of course. Every inch of land in a small island resort like Seaside had an incredibly high monetary value. But it wasn’t the land that held Cass’s imagination, nor the money it could bring. It was the big, derelict house two blocks from the sea, the house that made her sing every time she remembered that, miracle of miracles, it was hers. So it became her SeaSong.

  “I’m keeping it,” she told everyone and moved in despite the gasps and groans and words of wisdom advising against such an action.

  “I’ve been praying about this for a long time, and it’s what I want to do. Why not? I’m single, strong, and motivated.”

  “You’re nuts.” No one except the brothers was impolite enough to actually say the words, but she knew what they all thought. She also didn’t care.

  Using the house and lot as collateral, she secured a sizeable loan and went to work. She hired men to put on a new roof, electricians to rewire the house and bring it up to code, and plumbers to modernize existing bathrooms and make new ones until each room had its own private facility. She met with a landscaper about making the most of the small corner lot, drawing up plans that she followed herself. She sanded woodwork and painted walls until her arms ached, prowled the entire state for furniture, and searched for and tried out countless recipes for what she hoped would become her signature gourmet br
eakfasts. And every night as she soaked out the stiffness in the Jacuzzi tub in the second floor turret room, she planned and dreamed. And prayed.

  Thank You, God. Thank You! Help me do this right.

  By the time the first summer arrived, the second- and third-floor turret rooms were repaired, repainted, and refurbished, their bathrooms renovated and fully modernized, and Cass rented them out. Because town laws and regulations prohibited building during the high tourist months—those who were the town’s lifeblood must not have their vacation rest disturbed by the pounding of hammers and the whir of saws—Cass could do nothing over the summer but learn the skills of an innkeeper. She found to her delight that she loved the very act of hospitality.

  “Welcome to SeaSong,” she’d greet each person. “I am so glad you’ve chosen to spend your vacation with us.”

  At first the use of the plural pronoun was strictly the royal we. She did everything herself, wearing herself to the bone, but she’d never been happier. When fall came and she didn’t return to teaching, she felt not a twinge of regret. She was too busy creating the best B&B in the state of New Jersey. Today, more than ten years later, her rooms were booked months in advance and for top dollar. Even the brothers, much as it pained them, had to agree that she’d done all she’d hoped and more.

  She hummed as she entered her sitting room, a small, cozy area with a pair of overstuffed love seats that had been her grandmother’s, a small screen TV and VCR, a maple rocker nowhere near as fine as the antique one up front in the common room, and a moderately sloppy desk crammed with all the nitty-gritty of running her inn. This room was where she and Flossie spent most of their free time.

  The other private room on the first floor, separated from the sitting room by a wide arch, was her kitchen. Fitted out with an oversize refrigerator, two ovens and a stove, as well as a small table that seated four, it was more than ample for the gourmet breakfasts she prepared and served each morning. As one of the few innkeepers who hadn’t gone to continental breakfasts, not even during the week, Cass was justly proud of her inn’s reputation for fine eating.