Heartwishes Part 26

"In love with her? What happened?"

"I wasn't there, but-Uh oh. I've been caught. It's impossible to snoop when your husband is a detective. Wait a minute." As he listened, Colin could hear Mike's low voice in the background. "My husband says he expects you at his gym tomorrow at six-thirty A.M. He said Gemma said she'd tell you everything then. I'm hanging up now to keep from saying another word. We have to leave tomorrow, so call me and tell me what's up with that robbery. Good night."

Colin called Gemma's cell again, but still only got voice mail. He left a message saying he'd heard that he'd been thrown over for Mr. Lang. Thirty minutes later, Colin had showered but there was still nothing from Gemma.

Finally, his father texted him that Gemma was okay and sleeping-and she didn't like being waked up. Colin went to bed and drifted into sleep, smiling.

19.

AFTER COLIN LEFT to investigate the robbery, Gemma took a shower and put clean sheets on the bed. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to stay there and wait for him or make her way home.

She wandered about the house, looking at the woodwork and thinking about the furniture they'd bought. She couldn't help wondering if she'd get to use that furniture. Would she ever live in a house that she liked as much as this one?

She thought about all Colin had told her about Jean and she knew she should feel some sympathy for him. The things Jean had said were hurtful. But then, Gemma was also sure she should feel sorry for Jean.

But she didn't feel any of what she should. Instead, she was glad of everything that had happened, happy that Colin had broken up with Jean and that he now . . . What? Belonged to Gemma?

It was a ridiculous thought. No one owned anyone else. She'd certainly never before felt that she possessed another person. No, Gemma had always been independent, the master of her own fate, the owner of little except what she carried in her mind.

She sat down on a kitchen stool. The truth was that since her father died, she'd "belonged" to no one.

Suddenly, she remembered that she'd thought that her "deepest wish" was to belong somewhere. And isn't that what was happening in Edilean? Since the day she'd arrived, she'd been falling into the clutches of the town. It wasn't just that she'd been meeting people. It was as though she'd been given a key to the very inside of the place.

In the short time she'd been in Edilean she'd seen that there were two sides to the town. There were the "newcomers" as she'd heard them called, and then there were the Fraziers and the McDowells, the Connors, the descendants of the seven founding families.

It was this older group that Gemma was being pulled into. It couldn't be just because she was staying at the Fraziers. It had to be more than that. What if she'd wanted to stay separate from the family? Or join some of the young women she'd seen in Ellie's store?

In a way, it was almost as though she'd had no choice in the matter. Almost as if someone had . . . She didn't want to acknowledge what was going through her mind.

It was as if her wish to belong had come from her heart and had been heard. By what? The Heartwishes Stone?

As she went to the refrigerator, she laughed at the idea. When she saw that the only thing in the fridge was a bottle of champagne, she closed the door and took a set of keys off the wall. The least she could do was get Colin some groceries. She looked at the big truck in the garage and hoped it hadn't been Frazierized and made into some lurching power beast.

When she backed out the vehicle, she was pleased to find that the truck was standard issue. As she drove, she told herself that the idea that she would be granted a Heartwish was ridiculous.

But then she remembered what Colin had written in his journal.

It works for lady Fraziers too.

What if the Stone granted wishes to women who were going to be a Frazier? she thought. But how could it know that? But then, she thought, if a rock could grant wishes-which it couldn't-and it read those wishes from a person's heart-absurd idea!-then of course it could know a person's future.

Still thinking of all this, Gemma went about the grocery filling her cart. She knew little of what Colin liked to eat, except for, as Jean said, beef, but she could guess. She got one of Ellie's fat chickens fresh off the rotisserie and put it in the basket.

By the time she got to the back of the store, her cart was nearly full, and all she needed was lunch meat. No one was behind the big gla.s.s counter. Instead, standing across from it, his back against the shelves between two aisles, was the oddest-looking man Gemma had ever seen. He was about five foot two, with a big, round head, no discernible neck, and a stout little body. When he turned to look at her, she had to work to keep from gasping. His huge eyes and small mouth made him look like a cross between a gnome and Gollum. His skin was pink and fairly tight, with few wrinkles. He could be forty years old or a hundred and ten; Gemma couldn't tell which.

Instantly, she knew who he was: the infamous Mr. Lang. And for some reason that she couldn't define, she liked him. Plain ol' liked him. She wanted to sit down with him and talk, get to know him.

But she didn't have to know him to see that right now he was very upset. For as solid as he was, he moved quickly, flitting back and forth from one side to the other, looking down one aisle then another.

Gemma didn't wait for introductions. "What's wrong?" she asked as she moved close to him. It was almost as though she wanted to protect him.

"They'll see me," he said in a deep, guttural voice that sounded as though it was rarely used.

She didn't waste time asking who. She looked down the aisle on the left and saw three women dressed as though they'd just come from church. They were in what appeared to be a very serious discussion about a jar of jam. The next aisle contained two women, dressed the same, but studying the label on a can of soup. There was no way Mr. Lang could race past either aisle and not be seen.

Gemma looked back at the little man. He was now lifting one foot after another, looking more desperate for escape with each second.

Gemma's mind raced. Was there some way she could use her body to conceal him and get him out of the store? If it were winter she could have thrown a coat over him, but she had nothing, saw nothing she could use.

With every second, her protective instinct grew stronger. She had to safeguard him! If she'd had a sword she would have stood in front of him and brandished it.

When she turned back, she saw a young store clerk walking past carrying a huge, empty box that had contained paper towels.

Gemma didn't give herself time to think but ran the few steps to the young man and grabbed the box. Mr. Lang seemed to have read her mind as he moved to the front of the big gla.s.s case. Gemma lifted the box over him and he obligingly sank down and the box rim went flat to the floor.

Seconds later, the five women came to the end of the aisles and they stopped at the sight of the big container in front of the gla.s.s case.

"It's not like Ellie to be so messy," one woman said.

"I think the overall service here has gone down in the last years," a second woman said.

"Do you think Ellie's in financial trouble?"

"For heaven's sake!" the tallest woman said. "Some clerk left a box behind. It isn't Ellie's fault. Let's just move the thing."

Gemma stepped around the box to put herself in front of the women. "I think it covers up something that spilled. You'd better not get your shoes near it," she said quickly.

"I hope it's not toxic," a woman said.

Gemma feared she was single-handedly destroying Ellie's reputation. "Actually, I think it's a broken bottle of maple syrup."

"I bet that Hausinger boy did it," a woman in a pink dress said. "I just saw him with his mother. That child is never disciplined."

"Where is someone to help us?" one of the women asked. "I need some sliced ham." She pounded on the bell on top of the case.

Gemma stepped between the women and the counter. Now all she had to do was keep the store workers from lifting the box and taking it away.

When Ellie came out of the back, Gemma wasn't sure how to tell her to play along. The women all started talking at once, very upset about the big box in front of the gla.s.s case. Gemma used the noise to slip to the back of the women and began waving her arms and vigorously shaking her head at Ellie. She pointed at the box and mouthed, "No!"

When one of the women looked back at Gemma, she dropped her hands.

Ellie doesn't miss a beat. "What can I get for you ladies today? The red snapper just came in." She had to listen to the women's complaints about the aisle being blocked, all of it presented in a way that was meant to sound constructive, even caring, but wasn't. When Ellie encouraged them to give their orders, one of the women looked at Gemma as though wondering who she was and said she was there first.

Gemma put her hand on top of the box, leaning on it in a proprietary way, and said that she hadn't made up her mind yet.

Ellie filled the orders of the women and dispatched them in record time. When one of them dawdled over the price, Ellie said she'd forgotten that for today only it was on sale at half price.

The second the women turned to leave, Ellie ran to the front of the counter. She told a clerk to follow the women to make sure they didn't double back, then she looked at Gemma. "What have you trapped? Please tell me it's not a rat."

Gemma couldn't help grinning mischievously as the two women lifted the big box straight up. Sitting on the floor, his legs crossed and looking perfectly content, was Mr. Lang.

"That's recycling at its finest," Ellie said, making Gemma laugh.

With the agility of a much younger person, Mr. Lang stood up and stared at Gemma for a moment. He started to leave, but then he turned back and said, "Thank you." He disappeared down an aisle.

"I'm not sure I've ever heard him say those words before," Ellie said as she nodded to a clerk to take the box away.

"You mind telling me what that was all about?" Gemma asked.

"Was Lang afraid the women would see him?"

"He acted like they had rifles and he was their prey."

Ellie chuckled. "If anyone did that it would be me. I'd go after him for overcharging me for his produce. Anyway, Lang knows about people in Edilean back to the 1930s, and he's become much sought after to answer people's questions about their ancestors."

"He's a genealogist?"

"Ha! Lang is a snoop, has been all his life. He likes to listen in on people and spy on them."

"That's not nice," Gemma said.

"Lang never tries to be 'nice.'"

"So who are the women?"

"They are members of the Edilean Ladies League and they want him to speak at their next meeting."

"But isn't that an honor? Or is he afraid of public speaking?"

"He's afraid of being seen. He likes to remain anonymous. If he could be invisible, he would be. Being recognized keeps him from being able to do his spying. He used to be somewhat feared in this town and he loved that, but now he's almost a celebrity." Ellie smiled. "Last fall when my daughter caught a couple of criminals, she inadvertently made Lang into a respectable person. It's been a joy to see his misery."

"That sounds ominous," Gemma said, but she couldn't help smiling at Ellie's gleeful tone.

Ellie waved her hand. "There's a lot of backstory to that man. Now, what can I get you?"

"Do you know what kind of lunch meat Colin likes?"

"I most certainly do," Ellie said, smiling as she went behind the counter. By the time she'd sliced the meat and packaged it, she was grinning broadly. "So you've conquered Colin and old man Lang too?" Her eyes were twinkling. "Welcome to Edilean, Gemma," she said. "But then, from the moment I saw you, I knew you belonged here."

"Thanks," Gemma said. Ellie had just said what Gemma had been thinking.

She drove back to Colin's house and put the groceries away. Her mind was fully on what had happened at the grocery. If Mr. Lang had spent his life snooping, he might be able to help Gemma piece together the mystery of Julian and Winnie and Tamsen.

After she'd put everything away, she still hadn't heard from Colin. Since in her experience he didn't let her know when he'd be returning, she decided to leave and walk back to the Frazier estate. It was about four miles, and it was getting dark, but she needed the time to think.

When she got back to what she now thought of as home, she said aloud, "I want to find out what Tamsen wrote about you . . . I mean the Stone." She felt ridiculous at saying such a thing out loud, but she couldn't help it, or maybe it was that she wanted to test the whole Heartwishes thing.

Twenty minutes later, young Shamus turned over in his sleep and knocked his favorite art kit off his bedside table. He'd found the thin wooden box in the stash his mother sent back from England. He'd taken the old papers out of it and left them in the guesthouse. It was a pretty box, just the right size for his sketch pad, and Rachel had made him a cloth holder for his pencils. On the front was an intaglio carving of a tree. Lanny said it looked like the old oak tree that grew in the center of Edilean square. But their dad said the case was so old that the tree on it was long dead.

Shamus had liked the box very much and it had rarely been out of his sight since his mother said he could keep it.

In the morning he was not going to like that the fall had damaged the corner of the box. A piece of the wood had broken away, exposing the tip of some very old papers hidden inside.

20.

THE NEXT MORNING, at 6:30 A.M., Gemma was outside Mike's gym. It wasn't yet full light and no one was about; she liked the quiet. She wondered if Colin would remember their appointment, but he opened the door to her. He was wearing a black tank top that showed his muscles and he looked very good. She felt such a spark of electricity shoot through her that she thought about grabbing his hand and heading back to her car.

He read her expression correctly. "Me too," he whispered, then stepped back and she saw Mike.

He looked from one to the other. "You two here to work out or you want to be alone?"

"To work, Master!" Gemma said loudly.

"She's got your number," Colin said to Mike.

Mike didn't smile. If there was one thing in his life he was serious about, it was his workouts.

For a few seconds, Gemma wasn't sure what to do. Years before, she'd learned that it was a bad idea to go to the gym with a boyfriend. The first thing he wanted to do was establish that he knew more than Gemma, so he started telling her what to do and how to do it. One guy, a fellow history major she'd been on a date with the night before, handed her a couple of two-pound dumbbells and showed her how to do a bicep curl. "If that's too heavy for you, let me know and I'll get you something lighter."

Without a word, Gemma picked up a couple of twenty-five-pound dumbbells and started curling them. He left the gym immediately, and later he avoided her in the cla.s.sroom.

Mike solved her dilemma. "You're used to working out with a trainer, aren't you?" he said.

"Yes," she answered. "We worked out in a group, and I miss the boys I used to train with."

Colin seemed to understand, and he stepped back. That he wasn't trying to play alpha male and take over made her like him more.

Gemma went with Mike, first for some cardio, then weights, and finally they got to the boxing. Through this, Colin had been working out by himself, but she'd been watching him.

He was phenomenally strong! He bench-pressed what it would take three average-size men to lift. He did dead lifts that would have dislocated the shoulders of most men.

When Mike saw her looking, he said quietly, "He's lifting light today. When he gets in here with his brothers and they start competing with each other . . . I've seen pros that were weaker than those guys."

"I could stand to see that," Gemma said as she got off the weight bench.

Mike told Colin he should take over the boxing with Gemma.