“I would be happy to show it to him. We only have the one copy, though, so I’m afraid we can’t loan it out.”
“How wonderful that your brother could coordinate his research with your wedding and a vacation for his children,” Eppie said.
“Did his wife come on the trip with him?” Hazel asked. “I didn’t see the children’s mother at the grocery store with him.”
Gemma’s mouth tightened. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “Susan died last year.”
“Oh, no.” Andie Bailey, married to Katrina’s brother, Marshall, looked sorrowful. “Those poor children. She must have been young. What happened?”
Andie was one of the most compassionate people Samantha knew, maybe because she had walked a hard road herself. She had been a young widow when she arrived in Haven Point with her two children. Now she had a busy, joy-filled life and a houseful of children, including Marshall’s teenage son, a toddler and a new baby.
“Cancer,” Gemma said, still with that odd, closed look on her face. Her expression wasn’t sorrow exactly. It was closer to anger, for reasons Samantha didn’t understand. “She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. By the time they found out, it had metastasized throughout her body.”
What a horrible way to die, she thought again. Samantha didn’t want to think about it. Her mother’s death had been shocking, yes, completely unexpected. But at least Linda had died in her sleep of what doctors suspected was a massive heart attack and probably hadn’t even known what was happening. She hadn’t had to deal with a long, lingering, painful death, knowing she would be leaving behind those she loved.
Those poor children.
Her heart ached again for all of them.
“It’s been a hard year for them all,” Gemma went on.
“How nice that your wedding gave them a reason to take a vacation together,” Charlene Bailey said. “I’ve always found travel to be a great comfort.”
“Yes. This is the first vacation Ian and the children have taken since she died.”
“Well, they couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful time of year to visit our lake,” Barbara Serrano said loyally. “I was thinking this morning what a perfect June we’re having. I don’t think my flower garden has ever been this lush so early.”
To Samantha’s relief, the conversation shifted to gardening and the next cruise vacation Charlene and her husband, Mike, were taking later that summer.
Sam finished her lunch, her thoughts still centered on Ian and the children while she listened to the flow of conversation around her, which now focused on the Lake Haven Days celebration in a few more weeks and the group’s effort to raise funds to build a playground for children of all abilities at one of the city parks.
Ian’s children needed to grieve for their mother and they couldn’t do that by ignoring her life or her death. She knew firsthand how that only led to more pain.
She really didn’t want to talk to Ian about what Amelia had told her, that he was discouraging the children from talking about their pain. It was none of her business. She barely knew the man and was only connected to him at all because he was renting a temporary home near hers.
She couldn’t forget how much it had wounded her when her mother tried to erase the memory of Samantha’s father.
She wished her mother had given her an age-appropriate explanation about how mental illness and depression could sometimes lead unhappy people to take desperate action.
If she could have talked about Lyle more, remembered good times, received counseling when she was a vulnerable teenager struggling with the loss and pain and missing her father, perhaps she wouldn’t have this gaping hole in her heart.
How could she bring it up to Ian? And how would he respond to having a woman who was virtually a stranger question his parenting skills?
She knew one thing at least. Once she told him she thought he was wrong to discourage his children from dealing with their grief, he would probably no longer look at her with that glimmer of awareness in his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
HE WAS BECOMING addicted to these mountain evenings.
After the children were in bed, Ian walked outside the house toward the allure of the lake, with the gently lapping water and the glitter of stars overhead.
The grass was wet and rustled under his feet, the air sweet with the scent of pine and water and night.
He drew it deeply into his lungs, wishing he could bottle that scent and take it