Small Town Secrets
by Margaret Watson

Wednesday afternoon

He’d thought he was ready for this.

The years away should have inoculated him against the emotions pouring through him – loss, pain, guilt and the familiar edgy tension Kendall Van Allen had always inspired.  He thought he’d dumped the baggage he’d been carrying when he left Sturgeon Falls seven years earlier.

He thought he’d gotten on with his life.

He was wrong

Gabe Townsend rolled his BMW to a stop on the smooth driveway and studied Van Allen House.  The fresh coat of creamy yellow paint, the green and rose colors of the contrasting trim, the flowers massed around the house all gleamed in the sunlight.  The house had certainly changed in the last seven years.

Had Kendall changed just as much?

Would she welcome him?  Or merely tolerate him?

Maybe he should have stayed away from Van Allen House.  The football field dedication committee had made the reservation, but he could have declined.  Maybe he should have stayed in one of Sturgeon Falls’ other B&B’s.

He got out of the car and shut the door.  He’d run away seven years ago, and he’d regretted it ever since.  He was done with running away.  He would stay here.  The dedication of the high school football field to Kendall’s husband Carter had brought him back to Sturgeon Falls, but more than the dedication was happening this weekend.

Kendall was going to need his help.  Even though she didn’t know it yet.

The doorknocker sounded just as Kendall Van Allen was pulling on her black slacks.  Shoving her feet into her image-creating Bruno Magli pumps, she finger-combed her short hair then buttoned her blouse as she hurried down the stairs.  The mysterious guest the committee had booked into her bed and breakfast was right on time.

The tall, lean figure of a man was visible behind the frosted glass panels in the door.  Kendall took a deep breath, checked one last time to make sure her all the buttons on her blouse were lined up, plastered a smile on her face and opened the door.

“Welcome to Van Allen House,” she said to her prospective guest’s back.  He was looking out over the expansive front lawn, his hands in the pockets of his elegant charcoal gray slacks, apparently studying the formal Van Allen garden.

He turned to face her.  “Very nice, Kendall.  You’ve done a lot of work.  It doesn’t look like the same place.”

The shock of recognition hit her like a blow.  Even after seven years, his black hair and blue eyes, his sensual mouth and beautiful face were unmistakable.  Her smile vanished.  “Gabe?”

“Hello, Kendall.”

Her hand curled around the door.  “What are you doing here?”

“I have a reservation.  Complements of the dedication committee.”

“You’re the mystery guest?”

“In the flesh.”

She itched to shut the door in his face.  But the bill for the hot water heater she’d replaced last week still sat on the desk in her office.  So even though she wanted nothing to do with Gabe Townsend or the memories that clung to him like stubborn cobwebs, she stepped aside, opening the door wider.  “Come in.”

He strolled into the foyer, his curious gaze cataloging everything, from the slightly threadbare rug on the floor to the faint depression in the plaster left by her daughter’s soccer ball to the pictures of ancestral Van Allens that marched up the wall along the stairs.

She closed the door a little harder than necessary.  “Why did you come to my B&B?  What do you want?”

He dropped his leather suitcase.  “Other than a room?  A ‘hello, Gabe’ would be nice.  A ‘welcome back to Sturgeon Falls’ would be even nicer.”

“If you came to Sturgeon Falls looking for a welcome from me, you’re going to be disappointed,” she said, moving to the small office she’d designed in the closet beneath the stairs.  “There’s nothing here for you.”

“The committee made the reservation,” he said.  “Maybe they thought it would be nostalgic.”

“I’m not much for nostalgia.”  She studied him, noticing the confident way he held himself, his assumption that he belonged.  “I didn’t think you were, either.”

He shrugged.  “That’s what this dedication is all about, isn’t it?  Old memories?  Looking at the past through rose-colored glasses?”

“I don’t want to look at the past at all.”

“No choice this time,” he said lightly.  “You’re coming to the ceremony, aren’t you?”  He set his credit card on her desk.

“Of course I am.  The girls are thrilled about the whole stupid thing.  They’ve been talking about it for weeks.”  Dragging her gaze away from his long, elegant fingers, she swiped the credit card through the card reader so hard that it flew out of her hand.  She grabbed it and snapped it back on the desk. 

“Let’s cut to the chase, Gabe.  I know I’m not the only bed and breakfast in town with a vacancy on Wednesday this early in June.  You could have stayed somewhere else.  Why are you staying here?”

She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.  They were as bright blue, and as inscrutable, as they’d been seven years earlier.

“When I’m doing business, I like to keep it in the family,” he said.

“I’m not part of your family.”

“I’m Jenna’s godfather.  Doesn’t that count?”

“I assumed you’d forgotten.”

Gabe held her gaze.  “I take my obligations very seriously.”

“We’re not one of your obligations, Gabe.  We never have been.  I thought I made that clear.”

“Obligation or not, I’m here for the dedication.  When the committee suggested I stay here, I agreed.  Why shouldn’t I have?”

“I can think of a lot of reasons.  Mostly because I’ve put the past behind me.  You should have, too.”

He watched her for a long moment.  “If you’d put the past behind you, Kendall, you wouldn’t be telling me to find another place to stay.”

Kendall took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then nodded.  “You’re right.  Business is business.  You can be sure I won’t forget again.”  She was an adult now, a successful businesswoman.  His money was as good as anyone else’s.  Pride wouldn’t pay for the hot water heater.  She finished the paperwork, then smiled stiffly.

“Let me show you the first floor before I show you your room.  This is the dining room,” she began.

Before she could continue, he asked, “Is that coffee on the buffet?”

“Yes.  Would you like a cup?”

“Please.”

She poured two mugs, then absently added cream to both of them and handed one mug to Gabe.  He stared at it for a moment, then looked at her.

“You remembered how I liked my coffee.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”  Her hand gripped her own mug, then she set it on the table.  “I made it like mine.”

He took a sip of his coffee, never taking his eyes off her.  “It’s been a long time, Kendall.  What have you been doing for the past seven years?”

She stirred her coffee, watched the dark liquid lighten as it mixed with the cream.  “Raising my daughters.  Running my business.  Living.  What about you?”

“I keep busy.  My business demands a lot of time.”

Gabe wasn’t any more eager to share his life story than she was.  The coffee she gulped burned all the way to her stomach.  “Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, I’ll show you your room.”

She pushed away from the table and picked up a key attached to a hard plastic, laminated business card on her way up the stairs.  Gabe was close behind her.  She turned to the right when she reached the second floor and opened a white-painted wooden door.

“This room has an updated bath and a view of the back yard and the beach,” she said in her tour guide voice, waving toward the window.  “Will it be all right?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said without looking at it.

She stepped back, but he made no effort to enter the room.  “Kendall,” he began.

“Breakfast is from 7 until 9 AM,” she said.  “I lock the front door at 9 PM, but your room key will unlock it.  The living room is a common area for everyone who’s staying in the house, so please make yourself comfortable there.  Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Not a damn thing.”

She gave him a tight, impersonal smile.  “Then I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”

He didn’t move as she headed down the stairs.  Pausing to pick up the two abandoned mugs of coffee, she carried them into the kitchen and emptied them into the sink.  Like old dreams, the coffee swirled down the drain and disappeared.

A half-hour later, Gabe walked down the stairs and into the living room.  Kendall was nowhere in sight.  He wasn’t surprised.

She probably wasn’t deliberately avoiding him.  But she wasn’t going to hang around, waiting to talk to him, either.

Running a business like a bed and breakfast was hard work, and he was guessing that Kendall did most of it herself.  She’d always thrown herself completely into a job, no matter how large or small it was.

And now she had an extra incentive for keeping busy.  Being occupied and unavailable was much more graceful than telling him to get lost.   

He hadn’t expected a warm welcome.  She’d made it clear seven years earlier that she wanted nothing to do with him.  He couldn’t blame her.  After all, as she’d pointed out at the time, he’d killed her husband.

The car crash had been an accident.  But that didn’t change the facts.  It was Gabe’s car.  The police told her it had been going too fast.  They told her Gabe had been driving.  And Carter was dead.

Leaving her a widow with two young daughters and very little money.

Kendall had taken the horrible hand she’d been dealt and turned it into a full house.  Gabe drew himself a mug of coffee from the thermos and stared out the window as he sipped it.  The back lawn of Van Allen House sloped gently down to a secluded private beach on Green Bay.  As a major Midwestern tourist destination, Door County, Wisconsin was a tangle of traffic jams, packed beaches and crowded shops every summer from June until September.  But even though the town of Sturgeon Falls was at the epicenter of the tourist area, Van Allen House was a calm oasis of peace.

Kendall had worked very hard to nourish that image.

He gazed out at the Adirondack chairs resting on the grass at the edge of the beach, with matching tables set between them.  On one side of the beach stretched the dense pine forest of a county park, and on the other side was the quiet beauty of the Van Allen cherry orchard.

The house itself was a mix of family heirlooms and modern comfort.  The rich cherry wood of the spool bed in his room had been polished by generations of Van Allens.  The adjacent bathroom contained every modern amenity, comfort blending expertly with sentiment.  Downstairs, the hardwood floors were covered by vivid oriental rugs, and the ornate wooden mantel of the fireplace in the living room was complemented by the comfortable chairs and couches that stood around it.

He saw Kendall’s hand in all of it.

The dazed young widow he remembered from seven years earlier who’d stood next to her husband’s grave clutching the hands of her daughters had vanished completely.  She’d been replaced by the cool, confident businesswoman who’d opened her door to him that morning.

She’d made it abundantly clear on that day seven years ago that she didn’t need anything from Gabe Townsend.  Clearly, today she needed even less from him.

The door to the kitchen swung open and Kendall backed through, holding a stack of plates.  When she turned and saw him, her hesitation was so brief that most people wouldn’t have noticed.

Gabe did.

He’d always noticed everything about her.

“Gabe.  Is everything all right in your room?”

“Yes.”  He gestured around the room.  “You’ve done a nice job with the house.  It’s beautiful.”

The plates clattered as she set them on the buffet.  “Thank you.  I had good bones to work with.”

She pulled a handful of silverware out of the pocket of her apron and arranged it in a wooden caddy next to the plates.  He noticed that she’d changed her clothes.  Instead of the black slacks, the expensive shoes and the blue silk blouse, she wore a tee shirt, cut-offs and sandals.  Her short blond hair looked as if she’d run her hands through it more than once.  When she noticed him looking, she smoothed her hands over the faded blue apron.

“Was there something you needed?”

She’d be surprised at what he needed.  “Not at all.  I’m just on my way out.”

She couldn’t quite disguise the flicker of relief in her whiskey-brown eyes, although she tried.  He set the coffee mug on the table with a sharp crack.  “I’ll see you later, Kendall.”

“I’ll be here.”

It was probably just his imagination that put the weariness in her voice.  When he paused and looked back, she’d already disappeared into the kitchen.

Time to deal with another piece of his past.  Amy Mitchell had different claims on him than Kendall, but they were almost as strong.  At first, they’d been a debt of honor.  But in the last seven years, Amy had become a friend.

Climbing into his car, he drove away from the quiet seclusion of the Van Allen estate and onto hectic County Road B that ran along the northwest side of Door County.  Merging into a steady stream of cars and trucks, he headed toward Amy’s house on the outskirts of Sturgeon Falls.

He stopped in front of a tidy white house surrounded by a picket fence.  He smiled.  If anyone was defined by a white picket fence, it was Amy.

A softly curved woman with dark, curly hair knelt on the ground in front of a flowerbed, digging in the sandy soil.  A flat of colorful snapdragons sat on the grass beside her.  She turned when she heard his car door closed and sat back on her heels, pushing her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand.  “Hi, Gabe,” Amy said.

He walked through the arbor that arched over the sidewalk and sat down on the front steps of her house.  “Hello, Amy.”

“I wondered when you’d show up.  Are you here to make sure I don’t back down?” she asked.”

“You’re not going to back down.  You know you can’t marry George without telling him.”

She placed a plant into the spot she’d prepared and pressed the dirt around it so hard her knuckles turned white.  “What happened is in the past.”

Gabe eased back against the stair, the wooden edge uncomfortable against his back.  “No, it’s not.  I think you know that, Amy.”

“George asked me once who Tommy’s father was.  I told him it didn’t matter, that it was in the past and Tommy’s father wasn’t a part of his life.  George accepted that.”

“Really?”

“George loves me.  And I love him.”

“That’s why you need to tell him, Amy.”

Amy dug another hole, the dirt flying past her hands.  “I promised I’d tell him, and I will.  You didn’t need to come to Sturgeon Falls for the big show.”

“I had to be here anyway.  And since I’m the one who’s pushing you, it’s only fair I help you through this.”

She flopped back onto the grass and sighed.  “I’m sorry I’m being so snotty,” she said.  “I know how hard it was for you to come back here.”

“If it hadn’t been for this football field dedication, I might not have come,” honesty compelled him to admit.  “But now that I’m here, I’ll stay until you get this resolved with George.”  He hesitated.  “And maybe I can help Kendall, too.  She’s going to be devastated.”

“I know.”  Amy dashed a hand across her eyes and he saw tears glisten in her dark eyes.  “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

“You were seventeen years old,” Gabe said gently.  “Making mistakes is part of growing up.”

“But some of us screw up worse than others,” she said.

Gabe held her gaze.  “At least you didn’t kill anyone.  Do you want to talk about what I did?”

“That was an accident,” Amy said, her voice hot.

“Accident or not, Carter’s still dead.”  He shoved the accident and its aftermath out of his mind.  “So let’s not use the words ‘screw up’, okay?  You made a mistake.  And you’ve lived with it for the past eight years.”

Amy smiled through her tears.  “I’m still making mistakes when it comes to men, aren’t I?  George Krippner is the last man I should have fallen in love with.  Of all the men in the world, I had to choose Kendall Van Allen’s brother.”

“Your heart doesn’t always listen to your head when it comes to choosing a mate,” Gabe said, his mouth twisting.  “I’m the last person to give advice on relationships.”

“What about Helen, back in Milwaukee?”

“What about her?”

“She sounds very nice.”

Gabe sighed.  “She is, but I broke it off before I came up here.  There was no spark between us.  It wasn’t fair to her.”

Amy’s eyes softened.  “Oh, George and I definitely spark.”

“That’s why you have to tell him the truth, Amy.  You can’t let this secret poison your relationship.”

“I know you’re right,” she said.  She brushed the dirt off her hands and set the snapdragons in the shade.  “I told myself it didn’t matter, but the truth elbows its way between us whenever we’re together.  I can hardly bear to look at him anymore.”  She wrapped her arms around her knees.  “I’m so scared.”

“But you’re going to do it anyway.  You always were gutsy, Amy.”

Amy rolled her eyes.  “Right.  That’s why you have to hold my hand while I tell George my big secret.”

“You don’t really need me,” Gabe said.  “I’m just here for moral support.”

Amy reached out to touch him, looked at the dirt clinging to her hand and drew away.  “You’ve been a good friend all these years.  “Carter was lucky he had you as a friend.”

“It went both ways,” Gabe answered.  “Carter was a good friend to me, too.”

“Was he?”

“He was the brother I didn’t have.  We didn’t always agree, but we were always there for each other.”

Amy plopped a snapdragon into a hole and pushed a pile of dirt around it.  “Does Kendall know you’re in town?”

“Yes.  I’m staying at her bed and breakfast.”

“Oh, Gabe.  Why did you do that?  If Kendall finds out you’re involved with this, that you’ve kept in touch with me all these years, you’ll spoil any chance you’ll ever have with her.”

Gabe gave Amy a smile devoid of humor.  “I gave up any chance with Kendall a long time ago.”

“Seven years is a long time.  Is Kendall the same woman she was when you left?”

“I have no idea.”  Kendall’s clear, even gaze, her cool, business-like attitude, floated through his mind.  “She didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms.”

“It’s not too late.  You don’t have to be here when I make my big revelation.  I’ll wait until you leave Sturgeon Falls to tell George.  Kendall will never have to know that you’re involved, that you knew all along.”

“I’m not leaving, Amy.  I came here to help you.  And it’s time to put the secrets in the past.”

“You’re willing to risk a relationship with Kendall?”

“I have no relationship with Kendall.  You know that.  She wants nothing to do with me.”

“You and Kendall would be good together.”

As Amy studied him, nerves jumped beneath Gabe’s skin.  He didn’t want anyone seeing that deeply inside of him.  He didn’t want anyone to know him that well.  “You’re a hopeless romantic, Amy.”

“I’m not the one who’s carried a torch for seven years.”

“I am not carrying a torch for Kendall.”  He closed his eyes, blotting out his memory of her.  “And you’re getting off the subject.  We’re talking about your problem, not some theoretical effect it’s going to have on a non-existent relationship between me and Kendall Van Allen.”

“I worry about you, Gabe.  I want you to be happy.  As happy as I am with George.  Except for…”

Gabe pounced on the chance to change the subject.  He stood and pulled Amy to her feet.  “I’m glad you found someone who makes you happy,” he said. “And I know you’re worried.  But if George is half the man I think he is, you’re going to be fine.  He’s not going to reject you because of something that happened eight years ago.”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?  He’s very close to Kendall.”  Amy brushed her hands on her cut-offs and walked into her house.  “I have no idea how I’m going to tell him.  I hope he’ll realize I’m a different person than the child I was eight years ago.  But if he doesn’t?”  She yanked on the faucet in the kitchen sink, and Gabe saw she was fighting tears.  “Well, I guess that’s my punishment for sleeping with a married man.”

“Amy, you’ve already punished yourself more than enough.  You’re looking for redemption,” Gabe said to her back.  “George can’t give that to you, and neither can I.  You have to find it within yourself.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Amy said.  She turned away from the sink, her hands dripping wet, her eyes wet, too.  “But redemption starts with the truth.  I can’t make this right until I tell George what I did.  Until I tell him that I slept with his sister’s husband.”  She swallowed again.  “Until I tell them that my son Tommy is Carter Van Allen’s son.”

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