“We have to do something,” Heather said into her cell phone as she held onto the door of her husband’s pickup. “Really! I mean it. We have to stop this before it begins.”
“I don’t understand,” Betsy said. “Didn’t you say that Dr. Reede lifted Sophie and put her into the Jeep? That sounds like things are going well.”
“You think so? Roan McTern spent all day with her yesterday and bought her everything she needs for that restaurant. And he’s telling people that he’s going to be Sophie’s sous chef. He’s going to be spending fourteen hours a day with her! Roan is a big, good-looking man and if I weren’t married—” She broke off as she looked across the seat at her husband, Bill, who was rolling his eyes.
“I’m open for suggestions,” Betsy said. “Let me know what to do and I’ll do it. The whole sandwich shop thing has been a surprise to me. Did Sophie say anything to you about wanting to open a restaurant? I know she made dinner for the doc, but that’s different from cooking on a big scale.”
“All I know about her is that the doc is crazy mad for her and that she made that little sculpture out of clay for him. We should have asked Kim more about her.”
“Give her what she wants,” Bill said.
She frowned at her husband as she said, “Please don’t interrupt. This call is important. If those two break up, Dr. Reede will be in such a bad mood I’ll have to quit.” She went back to the call. “So, Betsy, maybe we can say we couldn’t get the apartment together so she has to stay with the doc.”
“She couldn’t go to a B&B or back to Kim’s empty house?” Betsy asked.
“Give her what she wants,” Bill said louder.
“Please!” Heather said in frustration. “I’m trying to talk to Betsy about something that will affect all of us.” She went back to the phone. “How about if tomorrow one of us helps her cook?” Bill stopped the truck at the campsite, opened the door, and got out while Heather stayed on the phone. “We have t
o come up with a way to get them together so they . . . ” As she watched her husband begin to fill a garbage bag with the leftovers from the picnic, she thought about what he’d said. “Betsy, you know where you got that clay for that little sculpture of Dr. Reede?”
“Of course.”
“Can you call them and get more delivered to the studio at the back of that house he rented? And some tools? Get whatever kind they use to carve clay.”
It took Betsy only seconds to understand what Heather was saying. She looked at the clock. “The store’s still open and I know a guy in Williamsburg who’ll go there and get whatever we need and deliver it to us. It should be here in two hours, tops.”
“This might work,” Heather said as she watched her husband cleaning up the campsite. As she hung up she remembered reading somewhere, probably in all the useless info on the Internet, that if a man wanted to turn on a woman he needed to use a vacuum cleaner now and then.
True or not, the memory of the words “give her what she wants” may have been the key to getting Dr. Reede and Sophie together—and those words had come from her husband.
She went to stand on the other side of the table from him.
He didn’t glance up. “Hand me those plates, would you?”
When she didn’t respond, he looked at her and was pleasantly surprised by the gleam in her eyes. With a one-sided smile he dropped the bag, walked around the table, and took her in his arms. They made love on the cool forest floor. They wouldn’t know for a few weeks, but their desire for a family was at last going to come true.
One of the fathers drove Reede and Sophie back to Edilean. The two men sat in the front while Sophie took the back. She wanted to think about what she needed to do, but as she thought, it all seemed overwhelming. What on earth had made her tell eight children that in just twenty-four hours she’d make animal sculptures for them? Out of clay? Why didn’t she just stay there and cut some more potato figures for them?
But she knew the potatoes would wrinkle and the children would be upset. So she’d said she’d make more permanent figures for them. After what they’d been through, they deserved them. But where was she going to get the clay? How would she pay for it? Ask Roan for the money? Reede?
He glanced back at her and when he saw the worried look on her face he frowned. A minute later his cell buzzed. He read the message, then handed his phone over the seat to Sophie.
FIFTY LBS OF SCULPTOR’S CLAY AND TOOLS TO BE DELIVERED TO STUDIO OF RENTAL HOUSE. OKAY? BETSY
Sophie read the text three times before handing the phone back to Reede. When he raised his eyebrows in question, she gave a quick nod and turned to look out the window. Just this once, she thought. Just this one more time she’d let herself be taken care of. Tomorrow for sure she was going to regain control of her own life.
When Reede told the man driving the car to take them to the newly rented house, he glanced at Sophie to see if she agreed. Yes. The sooner she started on the sculptures the faster they’d get done, then she could begin making soups and sandwiches.
After the man dropped them off, she and Reede stood there for a moment, not seeming to know what to do next. But then the wind changed and the temperature dropped. Sophie rubbed her upper arms as she followed him into the house.
It was just as she’d seen it the first time, with little furniture, but the late sun coming through the sun-room windows made it very welcoming. The rooms looked to be cleaner, but it still needed a new coat of paint. Three stools had been placed at the open kitchen counter, and Sophie sat on one.
Reede walked around the counter and looked in the refrigerator. It was full of food. “Looks like the girls did the shopping.”
“Do they wait on you hand and foot?”
“They do for Tristan but not for me.”