would give you and me a chance to discuss that business you mentioned last night.” That was the best attempt at setting up a barrier Amy could manage.
Harry sighed. “Yes, there is that. Shall I pick the three of you up tomorrow, then? Around nine?”
A sweet shiver skittered down Amy’s spine. “Yes,” she heard herself say. But the moment Harry rang off, she wanted to call him back and say she’d changed her mind, she couldn’t possibly spend a day on Vashon. She would tell him she had to clean the garage or prune the lilac bushes or something.
Only she had no idea where to reach the charming Mr. Griffith. He hadn’t left a number or mentioned the name of a hotel.
Feeling restless, Amy pushed the microphone button on the telephone and thrust herself out of her chair. So much for balancing her checking account; thanks to Harry’s call, she wouldn’t have been able to subtract two from seven.
Amy paced in front of the natural rock fireplace, wondering where all this unwanted energy had come from. For two years, she’d been concentrating on basic emotional survival. Now, all of the sudden she felt as though she could replaster every wall in that big colonial house without even working up a sweat.
She dialed Debbie’s private number at the counseling center.
“I’m going crazy,” she blurted out the moment her friend answered.
Debbie laughed. “Amy, I presume? What’s happened now? Have you been visited by the ghost of Christmas Weird?”
Amy gave a sigh. “This is serious, Debbie. Harry Griffith just called and invited me to go to Vashon Island with him tomorrow, and I accepted!”
“That is terrible,” Debbie teased. “Think of it. After only two years of mourning, you’re actually coming back to life. Quick, head for the nearest closet and hide out until the urge passes!”
Rolling her eyes and twisting the telephone cord around her index finger, Amy replied, “Will you stop with the irony, please? Something very strange is going on here.”
Debbie’s voice became firm, reasonable. She had become the counselor. “I know a crazy person when I see one, Amy, and believe me, you’re completely sane.”
“I saw Tyler again last night,” Amy insisted. “He was sitting in the backyard swing.”
“Your deeper mind is trying to tell you something, Ryan. Pay attention.”
“You’ve been a tremendous help,” Amy said with dry annoyance.
Debbie sighed philosophically. “There go my fond hopes of writing a best-selling book, becoming the next self-help guru and appearing on Oprah.”
“Debbie.”
“Just relax, Amy. That’s all you have to do. Stop analyzing everything and just take things one day at a time.”
Amy let out a long breath, knowing her friend was right. Which didn’t mean for one moment that she’d be able to apply the information. “By the way, thanks for sending your cousin Max over last night. My virtue is safe.”
Debbie chuckled. “Too safe, methinks. Talk to you later.”
Amy said goodbye and hung up. She went into the kitchen and turned on the dishwasher. Almost immediately, water began to seep out from under the door.
“Great,” she muttered.
As the rest of the day passed, Amy discovered that her normal tactics for distracting herself weren’t working any better than the dishwasher. She had absolutely no desire to contact prospective clients, make follow-up calls or update her files.
At two o’clock, a serviceman came to repair the damage Max had unwittingly done to the dishwasher. Amy watched two soap operas, having no idea who the characters were or what in the world they were talking about. She was relieved when it was finally time to pick the kids up at day camp.
The announcement that Harry had invited the three of them to spend the next day on the island brought whoops of delight from Oliver and a sweet smile from Ashley.
After those reactions, Amy could not have disappointed her children for anything.
That night in bed, she tossed and turned, half hoping Tyler would appear again so she could give him a piece of her mind. Of course, she reasoned, he probably was a piece of her mind.
When the first finger of light reached over the mountains visible from Amy’s window, Oliver materialized at the foot of her bed. He scrambled onto the mattress and gave a few exuberant leaps.
“Get up, Mom! You’ve only got four hours to get beautiful before Harry comes to pick us up!”
Amy pulled the covers over her head and groaned. “Oliver, children have been disowned for lesser offenses.”
Oliver bounded to the head of the bed and bounced on his knees, simultaneously dragging the blankets back from Amy’s face. “This is your big chance, Mom,” he argued. “Don’t blow it!”
Shoving one hand through her rumpled hair, Amy let out a long sigh. “Trust me, Oliver—while I may appear hopeless to you, I have not quite reached the point of desperation.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth when Tyler’s accusation echoed in her mind. You’re not happy.
The assertion would have been much easier to deal with if it hadn’t been fundamentally true. Amy loved her children, and she found her work at least tolerable. She had good health, a nice home and plenty of money.
Those things should have been enough, to her way of thinking, but they weren’t. Amy wanted something more.
By the time nine o’clock rolled around, Amy had put on jeans and a navy sweater with red, white and yellow nautical designs. She wore light makeup and a narrow white scarf to hold her hair back from her face.
“Am I presentable?” she whispered to Oliver with a twinkle in her eyes, when the doorbell sounded.
Oliver had already rushed to answer the door, but Ashley examined her mother with a pensive frown and then nodded solemnly. “I suppose you’ll do,” she said.
When Amy saw Harry standing there on the porch, looking rakishly handsome even in jeans and a white cable-knit sweater, her heart raced the way it did when she was trying to get in step with a revolving door.
His too-blue eyes swept lightly over Amy, but with respect rather than condescension. “G’day,” he said.
The children’s laughter seemed to startle Harry, though he looked suavely good-natured, as usual.
“You sounded like Crocodile Dundee again,” Amy explained with an amused smile. She was grateful to the children for lightening up the situation; if it had been left to her, she probably wouldn’t have been able to manage a word. “Come in.”
Harry smiled at the kids and rumpled Oliver’s hair. Then, as if he hadn’t already charmed the eight-year-old right out of her sneakers, he bowed and kissed Ashley’s hand. The effect was oddly continental, despite the
