to heat them in the oven, then helping Beau assemble a salad while Deenie directed Hunter’s mashed potato making. It was almost funny how completely included he felt, and more than a little bittersweet. Deenie reminded him of Grace—how she could make any gathering feel like a family dinner, make strangers feel connected in an instant.
As the last dish was set down, Charlie appeared with his walker in flannel pajamas, a handsome Pendleton wool robe, and a very comfortable looking pair of leather moccasins.
“Look who it is,” Beau said wryly. “The first to know and the last to tell.”
Charlie gave Beau a twinkling glance that softened as his eyes moved to James. He shook his head a little as he looked between them, then glanced at Deenie and moved to take a seat at the nearest end of the table.
“Yeah, I heard from Rose this morning about your run-in at the store,” Deenie said, and turned to James. “Charlie had a stroke a few years ago and has a hard time gettin’ words out, but he’s as sharp as ever. Just talk normal to ‘im.”
James nodded, feeling that uneasy buzz of anticipation returning. He didn’t want to eat dinner. He wanted to hear what they knew. Beau and Deenie took seats on either side of Charlie’s end of the table, and James sat next to Beau opposite Hunter. Dinner was a simple, irresistible feast of salmon baked with lemon, butter, and brown sugar, creamy mashed potatoes with scallions, and luscious garden greens. Deenie said a few lovely words of gratitude for the food before they all began to dig in.
They ate in silence at first, as if they were all too shy to talk. Then Beau spoke to Hunter. “That’s a beautiful place you’ve got. Hope you’ll forgive my trespassing.”
“What were you doing on his property?” Deenie asked, taken aback.
Beau’s eyes darted quickly between Hunter and James before he shrugged and took a drink of beer. “Took a wrong turn.”
Deenie rolled her eyes like she didn’t buy it, but let it go and turned to James. “Now, how did you and Hunter cross paths?”
“Um.” James swallowed a tender bite of salmon. “Well, I got stuck in the mud on River Road, so I was trying to walk back to town. Hunter came by and gave me a ride. We’ve been hanging out.”
“Picking up a hitchhiker on River Road, Hunter?” Beau asked with a sly smile. “That’s daring. Don’t you know your local legends?”
“Thought I did,” Hunter said. “Turns out I missed a few.”
It was unexpectedly exciting to see Beau and Hunter talking. It felt like another piece falling into place, another step toward something. What, he didn’t know. But it gave him a hopeful kind of feeling.
“We do have our share of stories, don’t we?” Deenie said with a sigh. “Good ones and bad ones.”
Charlie chuckled bitterly.
“Hunter said Ruth was a friend of yours,” James said, tentatively wading in.
“A very good friend. Ruth and Marni and me—that’s Hunter’s grandma. Used to be the queens of River Road.” Deenie gazed at her salad, idly poked around at the leaves. “There’s trails ‘tween all our places, you know. Old trails from Marni’s to Camp Five to here. Ruthie was in the middle, and my place was the closest. Anyway, it was heaven out here right up until Robert Ives knocked her up and talked her into getting married.”
Charlie made a disgusted sound.
“It wasn’t like he was all that bad,” Deenie said grudgingly. “Not at first, anyway. Typical bullheaded log truck driver, but he was nice enough to her. Had a truck accident right after Grace was born, couldn’t have no more kids. And years later the pain was bad enough he couldn’t drive. So they ended up movin’ to Salem, ‘cause he had a cousin there with a desk job for ‘im. That was in 1990. Grace would’ve been fourteen. That’s when the trouble started, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?” James asked, pushing his plate away.
“It went downhill between her and Robert, for one thing. Salem didn’t agree with either one of ‘em, and they started gettin’ at each other. Plus she was lonely there. Started going out to blow off steam. And one night ran into some handsome stranger just passin’ through town. Bought her a drink, one thing led to another…I don’t know what got into her.”
“Twins?” Beau suggested plainly, and looped an ankle around James’s under the table.
“That’s right,” Deenie said, looking ruefully at him. “Godawful timing.