“Is there a festival going on this weekend or something?”
Edith shakes her head. “There’s a barbecue cook-off in a few weeks. Don’t think there’s anything special going on today though.”
“So the town square’s always this packed on a Saturday?”
She follows my gaze, not as impressed as I am. “People drive down from around the hills looking for a weekend getaway. It’s the way it’s always been—country folk make a big to-do out of going into the city, while city slickers look for an escape out here.”
She says slickers like it’s a bad word, and I can’t help but smile.
“Blue Stone has a hotel of its own, right?”
She nods. “It’s nestled beside the vineyard, booked up a year in advance these days thanks to all the weddings.”
There’s a short wait at the diner, and as we’re seated in a booth by the window, I’m still thinking about the scene I saw outside and considering whether or not I could ever live in Cedar Creek permanently. There’s no mall or movie theater within 50 miles. I haven’t seen a yoga studio, and Edith confirms there isn’t one. If I stayed here, I’d probably miss the amenities of living in a place like Los Angeles, but I still can’t help but think that people here might have figured something out. Small town life looks pretty great.
With that thought, I glance up at the adorable blonde teenager waiting to take my order.
Edith and I both order All-American Scrambles then pass off our menus.
I sit back against the cushioned booth and meet Edith’s studying gaze.
“So, you survived your first week,” she comments.
I smile. “Sure did.”
“Any scars?”
“From Jack?” I laugh. “No. He’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“He wasn’t always like this.”
“Like what?” I feign innocence.
She scowls and pours some creamer in her coffee. “Don’t bother sparing my feelings. We both know my grandson is stubborn as a mule and kicks like one too. Won’t listen to a damn thing I tell him these days—”
“What changed?”
She looks up at me, confused. “Huh?”
“You said he didn’t used to be like this.”
“Ah.” She nods thoughtfully and sips her coffee before replying. “You probably ought to be hearing this from Jack, but he’ll never tell you, so I’ll just have to do it. When he was a junior in college, his parents passed away in a car accident out on I-38. He was only 20, and I know that might not seem all that young to you, but we were a close-knit family and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Still a kid, really. He should have been worrying about tests and goofing off with his friends. Instead, he had to cope with their passing while struggling with the newfound responsibility he wasn’t quite ready for: running Blue Stone. I tried to do my best to soften the blow, but the fact is, the day they died, the ranch and everything that went with it became his responsibility to bear.”
“How’d he handle it?”
Her focus is on her coffee as she continues, as if she can’t look me in the eye while she divulges details about Jack’s life. “He buckled down in school, graduated a year early. He was damn near ready to drop out and move home, but I made him finish. I knew he’d regret it otherwise.”
“Was he in over his head when he got here?”
She moves her gaze out the window as if recalling that time. “You know, as crazy as it sounds, that boy hit the ground running and never looked back. It had never been the plan for him to enter the family business so young, but he’d worked with his dad enough over the summers to know how the business worked. Not to mention, his grandpa and dad never went to college, so he was actually more prepared to take up the reins than he realized.”
I’m impressed. Even at twenty-eight, I don’t think I’d be able to do what he’s done.
“It’s come at a cost though,” she continues, guilt laced in her tone. “He’s not that same lighthearted kid he used to be. I think that part of him died with his parents on the highway that day.”
I cast my eyes down to the table. “I’m sure. There’s no way that kind of loss doesn’t change a person.”
“It’s not all bad, but I don’t think he gives himself enough time off from work. It’s like he’s constantly trying to make his parents proud, but they’ll never get another chance to say so, to tell him he’s allowed to take a break. Plus, living on the ranch offers no separation from work and life.”
“It’s just all work.”
She nods, agreeing. “It doesn’t help that ever since the accident, he pushes people away—friends, acquaintances, relatives. Arm’s length isn’t good enough for Jack. He wants a couple feet between him and everyone else, and he gets it…except for me, of course. It takes more than a little shoving around to shake me.”
“What about Alfred?”
She smiles, recalling the memory. “I brought Alfred home a couple years back without Jack’s consent. Boy was he pissed, and he didn’t give in easy, either. For weeks, the dog followed him around the house, just a little orphan fluff-ball who knew nothing but love.” She holds her hands out to cradle her palms, showing me how small he was back then. “Jack wanted nothing to do with him in the beginning, and he succeeded in keeping his distance there for a while.”
I laugh, thinking of the way the two are now. “Clearly you won in the end.”
She beams proudly. “That’s because I know Jack. I know deep down, he still wants love and affection. He just won’t open himself up to that vulnerability. It’s logical in his mind: he’ll never have to deal with another loss like that if he doesn’t let anyone get too close.”
I lean forward, more interested in the topic than I should be. “How’d you convince him to give Alfred a chance?”
She slaps her knee, laughing. “Convince him?! Haven’t you been listening? There is no convincing Jack. I used dirty tricks. I pushed Alfred into Jack’s room every night. That puppy would sleep on the foot of his bed and lick his face to wake him up every morning. Jack took to locking his door after a while, so I had to get creative. I trained Alfred and made sure he was the best dog anyone could ever ask for. I made sure Jack was around him as much as possible. I even complained about an ache in my shoulder so Jack would have to step in and throw the tennis ball for him a couple times a week.” She winks. “I’m just a frail old lady, y’know.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t done the same thing with a woman.”
Her eyes alight with mischief, but I don’t get the chance to dig deeper. Just then, a deep male voice interrupts our conversation.
“Meredith? Is that you?”
I jerk my attention toward the speaker, stunned by the man I see standing there.
14
Jack
“And do you know who surprised us at lunch?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Edith is unmoved by my obvious indifference.
“Tucker Carroway!”
“Makes sense, considering he works in the courthouse across the street. He probably eats there all the time. Will you hand me that wrench? No, not that one. To your left—that one.”
Edith slaps the tool impatiently into my open palm then continues. “Yes, obviously he eats there all the time—that’s not the weird part! The weird part is that he already knew Meredith! Did you know they were friends?”
Huh. I grip the wrench a little tighter.
“Had no clue.”
While that’s an interesting piece of information, I’m hoping this conversation will end soon. Edith found me as soon as she and Meredith returned from town. I’ve been out in the barn most of the morning, working on an old tractor, trying to see if I can get it to run again. It’s probably futile, but some part of me thinks the rusty beast still has a little life left in it. It belonged to my dad, and he took pretty good care of things when he could.
“Apparently the other day, when Meredith drove that old Chevy to the g
rocery store, Tucker helped her when it stalled on the side of the road. How sweet is that?”
I focus my attention on the tractor, trying to figure out why the carburetor’s flooding. The needle and seat could be dirty. There could be too much fuel pressure, and I’d just need to test the fuel pump—
“Jack.”
“Yeah, sure. Nice of him.”
“Anyway, Tucker didn’t just come over to say hello and dash off. He asked Meredith out on a date right in front of me.”
“What?”
I jerk up so fast, I knock over my workbench and tools go scattering to the ground. Edith smirks, having hit her mark. Now that I’ve given her a reaction, there’s no stopping her. She starts circling around me, sizing me up. If she had a pocketknife, she’d be flipping it open and closed menacingly.
“Oh, what with my old age, it’s been so long since I’ve seen romance like that.”
“What’d she say?”
“She tried to politely decline, but I wouldn’t let her. The attraction was obvious, so I invited him to sit down and stay for a cup of coffee. They talked the whole time—I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise. He’s such a nice man, and easy on the eyes too.”
“You are aware she’s married,” I point out caustically.
Edith rolls her eyes. “Something in her eyes tells me she’s been checked out of that relationship for a long time. Now that they’re separated, what is she supposed to do, shrivel up into an old maid at 28?”
“It’s only been a week!”
Her eyes go wide. “Boy, what’s got your panties in a twist?”
I bend down and start yanking tools off the ground. “It just says a lot about her sense of loyalty if she’s willing to jump ship like that. I’m not sure that trait makes for the best employee either.”
Edith’s brows arch with interest and her tone takes a sharp left turn. “Well she seems like a fine housekeeper so far, so you needn’t worry about that, and you’ve made yourself very clear about thinking she’s the scum of the earth. We’ll see what Tucker thinks.”
I furrow my brows and murmur, “She’s not the scum of the earth.”
I jerk up, having realized my mistake, and find Edith grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
I point an accusing finger straight at her. “I see what you’re doing.”
She ignores me and goes right back to telling me about lunch. “Anyway, Tucker couldn’t stay long—had to run back to the courthouse, I’m sure to a very important case—but long story short, he’s going to take her to David’s wedding!”
“David, my hand David?”
She beams. “One and the same.”
“Bullshit. She better’ve turned him down,” I say before explaining why I care. “I don’t want everyone pissed at me when she disappears back to California.”
Edith bats away my anger like it’s a wiffle ball, too accustomed to it by now. “She tried to, but I agreed for her, told her most of the town would be there and seeing as how she already has so many friends here, it’d be weird if she didn’t go.”
“You aren’t making any sense. Meredith has lived here for a week—ONE week. There’s no way she has that many friends.”
* * *
I’m wrong, of course. Meredith has more friends than I do, and this becomes painfully obvious when I’m in town on Sunday morning. I’m down at the hardware store bright and early, checking out their selection of window air conditioners for the shack, when Chris and David show up unannounced.
“Hey boss!”
Apparently, they also had plans to come down here and get a window unit for Meredith. Isn’t that thoughtful of them? The pair hardly has two nickels to rub together between them, but they were about to fork over two hundred bucks so Meredith could have a little cool air blowing on her face.
“We were maybe gonna ask you to reimburse us,” David explains with a proud smile.
And if I said no?
Something tells me they would have just put it on the credit card and hoped the Lord would provide.
What the hell did she put in those muffins?
I expect them to leave once they see I’m going to take care of it, but instead, they hang around and offer up unsolicited advice about which model I should buy—they seem to think she deserves the most expensive unit the store has to offer. Once we’re done with that, they bring up the wood floors again. I’ve already made up my mind to repair them, but they lay it on thick with prepared monologues about how quick they’d fix it up, and “how little trouble it’d be, really.” I agree, but I’m going to help them, because while they’re decent ranch hands, I’d bet money they’re shitty carpenters. We spend a few minutes grabbing those supplies, and then I think better of it. While I’m doing the floors, I might as well fix a few other things around the place.
By the time we check out, I’ve racked up over a thousand dollars in construction supplies for Miss California, though David and Chris are quick to point out that the shack is on my property, so really I’m fixing it up for myself. “You’re really making money on this whole thing.” Right.
We’re headed out of the hardware store to go load everything in my truck when I spot Dotty bee-lining down the sidewalk toward me. She’s the manager of the First National Bank, and she’s been there since I was a little kid.
“Jack! Yoo-hoo! Hold on there for a second.”
I motion for the guys to keep on loading the supplies then turn to greet her. “What can I do for you, Dotty?”
“Brought you a Dum Dum!”
I like Dotty—she helped me open my first bank account—but apparently, she’s another one of Meredith’s new friends.
“Oh, also, I was just hoping you could pass these along to Meredith for me?”
She’s holding out a Tupperware full of cookies, homemade from the looks of it.
“She came in yesterday to open an account, and she tried one of these,” Dotty explains, patting the lid. “I had them out for the patrons—open more accounts with cookies than with sales pitches, y’know. Anyway, she said they were the best cookies she’d ever had and she asked me for the recipe.”
“So you decided to bake her a batch?” I ask, amused.
She bats my arm playfully. “Well, I just felt so bad for forgetting to give her the recipe. She really was such a dear and went on and on about how good they were. Plus, we got a new teller down at the bank, young girl—Patrick Smith’s daughter? Anyway, it was her first day and Meredith was real patient with her. Mr. Rogers had come in just before and was so snippy, so her nerves were jumbled. He nearly made her cry—”
“I’ll make sure Meredith gets the cookies,” I say, cutting her off so I don’t get trapped here talking to her for God knows how long.
“Oh, okay, I’ll let you get to it. Just remember that the recipe card is right there on top. Make sure she gets that.”
I nod. “Will do.”
“It’s real nice seeing you. Oh! And my business card is there too in case she has any questions about the baking…or banking!”
“Got it.”
“We’ll make sure she gets the cookies, Miss Dotty!” Chris calls from behind me.
“Thanks boys. I’m sure y’all have a big day ahead of you,” she says, waving and backing away. Then she thinks better of it and steps toward me, holding her hand up like she’s just thought of one more thing. “You know what? Just have her call me. It’ll be easier to walk her through the steps. My handwriting probably isn’t all that good.”
I tip my head, tell her approximately twenty times I’ll have Meredith call her, and then make a break for it. In Texas, people have a knack for turning a simple goodbye into an all-day affair.
When I make it back to the ranch, I pull my truck up right over near the shack so unloading won’t take so long. David and Chris offered to come back and help, but I turned them down. I’m not planning on doing any work today other than installing the air conditioner, and that’ll take me five minutes to set up on my
own. I pop the tailgate and start unloading building supplies. Normally, I’d store everything in the barn, but the weather should hold and it’ll be more convenient to have everything at my fingertips when we get started tomorrow.
I expect Meredith to step outside to check on all the commotion, but I’m nearly finished unloading before the door opens.
I peer over at her from beneath the brim of my hat, jarred by her appearance. She’s still in her pajamas—one of my t-shirts with sleeping shorts creeping out from underneath. I open my mouth to demand—yet again—that she return my ill-gotten clothes, but then I glance up at her face. Normally, she’s glowing, one of those women with tan skin and a healthy complexion, like she just got back from a tropical vacation. This morning, however, her cheeks are splotchy and her eyes are a little red and puffy. She sniffs and crosses her arms over her chest.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks, her tone somewhere between annoyed and angry.
“Did I interrupt a call?” She’s clutching her cell phone in her right hand. It’s the first time I’ve seen her with the thing since she moved in. “I didn’t even know you had one of those.”
Even Edith carries hers around all day. She claims it’s so she can call me when she falls and breaks a hip, but we both know she’s addicted to Candy Crush. She’s the highest scorer among all her friends, and she can’t let the title slide. Also, she’s already had two hip replacements. At this point, if she falls, she’s liable to break whatever it is she lands on.
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