Angel's Rest(81)
As Sarah took a bite of one of Wendy Davis’ pinwheel cookies, she asked, “Shouldn’t we have a name for our group? Is this a guild or a bee?”
“A bee. A guild is a group of bees,” LaNelle said. “I do think we should choose a name. Any suggestions?”
Conversation lagged as they considered the question. “We could be the Eternity Quilters,” Sarah suggested.
Nic wrinkled her nose. “That’s boring.”
“Then you suggest something.”
With the disco song Gabe had teased her with earlier still playing through her mind, Nic came up with, “Okay, how about the Quilting Queens of Eternity Springs?”
Sarah gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “That’s stupid.”
Leaning against a cabinet and sipping a glass of water, Sage surveyed the room. Her gaze lingered on Celeste a moment, then she smiled. “I have it. I think we should call ourselves the Patchwork Angels.”
Celeste gasped and clapped her hands, her sky-blue eyes gleaming with delight. The name was adopted by acclamation and the Patchwork Angels Quilting Bee got down to work.
As spring finally arrived in the Rockies, ice cracked and creeks began to flow. Cottonwoods and aspen budded and bloomed, and the world turned green once more. Patches of snow would remain into May and sometimes even till June, but in Eternity Springs, citizens declared the official arrival of spring when Zach Turner posted signs forbidding skating on Hummingbird Lake.
Gabe and Nic had settled into a routine of sorts. In the mornings, he awoke ahead of her and showered and dressed first, then knocked on her bedroom door on his way downstairs to make coffee. Once Nic had washed and dressed, he carried her downstairs. Two weeks after the accident, Nic resumed clinic hours on a part-time basis. Gabe grew increasingly busy at Angel’s Rest as the healing center took shape.
In addition to refurbishing the main house, Celeste’s plans called for the construction of three slightly smaller Victorian-style structures to provide rooms for up to thirty guests on the property, along with a separate dining facility. By the first week of May, those buildings, including the spa facility that was part of Gabe’s design for the hot springs pools, were ready for finish work inside. Outdoors, landscape construction proceeded at such a pace that Gabe came home marveling about the progress almost every day. He’d never had a job go as smoothly as this. Of course, he’d never seen working conditions quite like this before, either.
To say that the citizens of Eternity Springs were grateful for the activity was an understatement of epic proportions. Local enterprises reported that business had more than doubled in March and April over the previous year. Townspeople were happy, and they showed their gratitude to laborers by being friendly and welcoming and by offering treats like cookie breaks in the afternoon and complimentary rounds of Miracle Mead microbrew at the Red Fox Pub. As a result, happy laborers worked harder and the project took shape ahead of schedule. Mayor Townsend’s favorite saying of late was that this was shaping up to be the greenest spring the town had ever seen. Crusty old Dale Parker even went so far as to rename the Fill-U-Up, calling it Eternity’s Angel Gas and Grocery Emporium in Celeste’s honor.
On an afternoon in early May, while finishing up a phone call with the chemist who had done the water testing for the center, Gabe glanced out the library window at Angel’s Rest and saw Nic sitting in the front porch swing reading a book.
After lunch, she had asked him to help her upstairs so that she could offer her opinion about room designs Celeste intended to finalize on an upcoming buying trip. Though her knee and ankle injuries were almost healed, she still needed assistance going up and down stairs. Gabe was happy to carry her. Truth be told, he enjoyed the contact.
He ended the call, but he couldn’t drag his gaze away from his wife. When he’d carried her back downstairs twenty minutes ago, he’d noticed she’d been wearing a new scent, a musky, spicy fragrance that made him want to pull her even closer. He’d supposed it was one of the custom scents that Celeste had commissioned for the healing center. If so, she’d hit a home run with the fragrance Nic wore, a combination of the peach scent that she liked and a heavier, exotic blend of spice. It had lingered in his senses for an hour now.
She’d been lingering in his thoughts for days. Weeks, even. Okay, months.
The friendship strategy had worked out well so far. They managed well together. The awkwardness between them rarely appeared anymore. He enjoyed her company. Her injury had effectively doused the sexual tension that had smoldered between them, allowing them to focus on getting to know each other. The more time he spent with her, the better he liked her. She was funny, witty, cranky in the morning, and soft and sweet in the evenings when she fell asleep on the sofa while watching TV.