by Robert Hass
She sighed. Sloan. Every other thought was of him.
Jilly was right. She’d fallen in love with him despite her best intentions not to. But he hated this town and he would leave again. He’d told her as much.
Early this morning his guests had returned to Virginia, but not before Annie had noticed an undercurrent between Sloan and the beautiful Tara.
Well, who was she kidding? Sloan was an attractive man. Naturally, he’d have girlfriends.
She wondered why he’d never married.
He came into sight around a flowering shrub. T-shirt plastered to his body, face glistening with sweat and smudges of dirt, he tossed an arm over Justin’s shoulders. Annie’s heart fluttered like the butterfly feasting on the magenta blooms.
Father and son.
Part of her was glad for the attention Sloan had given their child. Justin had desperately needed a strong male in his life. Another part worried about what would happen once Sloan returned to Virginia. She’d tried to broach the subject with both of them and gotten nowhere.
Joey had already wounded Justin, and Annie’s father hadn’t helped with his tough cop mentality. Would another rejection shatter her child completely?
She’d have to try talking to Sloan again.
The hair on the back of Sloan’s neck tingled. He dropped his arm from Justin’s shoulders and glanced at the veranda. She wasn’t there.
He scanned the side of the house, coming to a stop at Lydia’s window. The quick stab of sorrow snagged his breath. Lydia wasn’t there, either.
“She wouldn’t want you to be sad.”
Sloan pivoted toward his son. Like him, Justin was a sweaty, dirty mess. “When did you become a mind reader?”
“Miss Lydia told me.” His shoulder hitched. “Sometimes she’d make me read to her and she’d tell me stuff.”
“Make you?”
“You know. She liked to hear me. Said I reminded her of you.”
The idea of his aunt patiently nurturing his son squeezed Sloan’s heart. “She knew about you even before I did.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Sloan stood in silence taking in the house the Hawkins family had called home for over a century. There were a lot of secrets in that old house, a lot of love and laughter and living, too. If only walls could talk.
“Mom was standing at the window a minute ago.”
Sloan removed a glove and whacked the dirt against his thigh. Was he that obvious? “She’s been a good friend helping me out.”
Balancing on his toes, Justin crouched next to a perennial bed and pinched the dead head of a coneflower. “You could take her out for pizza or steak or something. Pay her back.”
“Better not.”
Justin tossed the wilted flower aside and stood, dusting his already filthy hands on his jeans shorts. “Why?”
He knew the question went deeper than a steak dinner. “I can’t stay in Redemption, Justin.”
“Why not?”
“Life is complicated. I’ll explain it to you someday.” When I figure it out for myself.
“Don’t you like my mom?”
Sloan sighed. The kid was killing him. “Your mom’s great. I’ll expect you to take care of her and Delaney after I leave.”
The belligerent expression, gone most of the time of late, returned. “I’m just a dumb kid.”
“A kid, yes. Dumb, no way. Chip off the old block, remember?” He clapped a hand on Justin’s back. “You gonna be okay when I return to Virginia?”
The boy looked down, kicked a dirt clod. “Will you come back?”
Now there was a sticky question. “Maybe.”
“So if you’re leaving anyway, what could it hurt to take my mom out for pizza? I mean, as a thank-you gift, sort of?”
Sloan laughed. “See? I told you you’re not dumb. Come on, let’s finish planting those butterfly bushes before you get us both in hot water.”
The old-fashioned Redemption Hardware and Tack Store smelled exactly as Sloan remembered. He stopped in the doorway as nostalgia overwhelmed him. Axle grease, burned coffee and power tools—a man’s paradise. As a boy, he’d hung around the back waiting for a chance to help load a stove or other heavy item for a few cents’ tip. On especially hot days the owner, Simmy-John Case, descendent of the town’s founder, bought him a bottle of pop.
A head poked around the jumbled end cap of one aisle. Except for a few lines and a few extra pounds, Simmy-John hadn’t changed much. His hair was still black as ink and he still limped from a war wound. “Be with you in a minute, Sloan.”
A man didn’t get that kind of personal attention in the new megastores. Until now, he’d resented the notoriety but lately—well, lately the town seemed different. Death made people kind.
Expecting to find the lawnmower blades on his own, he waved the man away, though Simmy-John’s lined face had already disappeared. “No hurry.”
As though his subconscious remembered the store’s layout, Sloan headed toward the west side of the building past a bin overflowing with a hodgepodge of red bike reflectors, mismatched drawer knobs, and silver mailbox stencils. Green bread-loaf shaped mailboxes lined up next to oscillating fans and electric screwdrivers. He found the mower blades and carried them to the check-out counter near the back of the store, where three men leaned on their elbows, talking to the proprietor. One was an older farmer in jean overalls—Orville Warp. Another was Jace Carter, the quiet local contractor. The last was G.I. Jack, though Popbottle Jones was nowhere in sight.
“How you been, Sloan?” Simmy-John asked, making no move to check him out. Being “neighborly” was part of small-town etiquette. Rushing in and out without a real good excuse was considered rude.
“Doing pretty good. Yourselves?” Sloan’s greeting took in the group. Except for Jace, they were men he remembered from childhood.
“Fine as frog hair,” Simmy-John answered. “Sure was sorry about your Aunt Lydia. A finer woman never drew breath.”
“Funeral service was nice,” G.I. interjected. He was sorting through a pile of bolts and screws.
“How is Mr. Jones?” Sloan asked.
If G.I. was surprised at the question, he didn’t show it. “He’s all right. A little down.”
Sloan understood too well. “Tell him I asked about him.”
“Drop in anytime and tell him yourself.”
“I just might do that.”
Orville threaded thick fingers through his suspenders. “Heard you were opening the Weddin’ Garden again.”
A little taken aback at the rumor, Sloan fiddled with the shrink-wrap packaging. “No, just doing some upkeep.”
“Is that a fact? Well, that’s not what we heard,” Simmy-John said, taking the mower blades from Sloan. “I was just going to ask if you’re booking weddings yet. My daughter—I don’t know if you remember Sunny—she has her heart set on having a wedding in the garden just like me and her mama.”
Sloan remembered Sunny Case, but he couldn’t imagine the popular former cheerleader remaining single this long. She was close to his age.
“We still have a lot of work left to do, though I’m trying. Lydia wanted the garden restored and I’m determined to see it through before the place sells.”
“Pretty big task by yourself.”
“You’re right. It is. I’ve thought about hiring more, but I have a good helper.” Though, the garden was slow in coming and the work needed to be finished soon or left undone, the fact remained Sloan liked spending one-on-one time with Justin this way. He’d learned a lot about the boy, the town and even Annie. Having Justin around kept Annie close, as well.
How pathetic an admission was that?
Simmy-John pointed a scanning device at the back of the mower blades and a beep sounded. “Heard that, too. Annie Markham’s boy. He’s a pistol, ain’t he? Always into one thing or the other. Needs his britches fanned, I’m thinking, but Chief Dooley covers up for him since his daddy run off.”
Sloan took offense a
t the remark. “Justin’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s a good kid. And he works hard. If I had ten more like him, the garden would be open by fall.”
Orville sipped coffee from a disposable cup before tossing it in a trash can. “Did you say you were selling the Hawkins estate?”
“That’s the plan.” He figured on having a sale to liquidate the furniture, but first he had to go through everything, remove personal items, photos, papers, and make decisions on what to keep. The thought of the task ahead depressed him enough that he’d been putting it off to work on the garden instead.
“A Hawkins has owned that land since the Run,” Simmy-John said. “Won’t seem right with new owners. Sure you won’t change your mind and stay on?”
The question bewildered Sloan. He never expected anyone in Redemption to actually want him to live in the house again. “My business is in Virginia.”
“Exactly what kind of business are you in, Sloan? We’ve heard different things.”
Sloan laughed and told them, mulling the fact that he wasn’t offended by the nosiness. According to the gossip from Annie, he was evil on a motorcycle, selling drugs to babies or gambling away his inheritance like his daddy.
G.I. scooped a handful of black screws and dumped them into a paper cup. “I coulda told you that, Orville. Sloan is a security expert. If you want someone to guard your backside, he’s the man. Heard he was mighty good at it, too. Saved a senator from an assassin a while back.”
The detail had been protecting a Supreme Court justice, but Sloan didn’t bother to correct G.I.’s story. He’d never wanted to care what any of them thought about his lifestyle, but a glow of pleasure warmed his belly at the complimentary responses.
Simmy-John, however, was stuck on getting his daughter married in Lydia’s backyard. “What if you sell the house and the new owners won’t let folks have weddings there?”
Sloan hadn’t thought that far ahead. The fact that no weddings had taken place in the garden for several years seemed a moot point. “A lawyer might be able to write up a contract to that effect.”
Simmy-John handed over the mower blades in exchange for Sloan’s credit card. “That’ll be twenty-eight dollars and ninety-two cents. Still don’t seem right selling out.”
Selling didn’t seem right to Sloan either, but what else could he do?
By the time he returned to the house, Annie had finished her work and gone, along with the two children. Sloan roamed through the big, rambling house, completely alone for the first time since Lydia’s death. Everywhere he looked memories lurked, waiting to jump out and grab him. The sooner he could sell, the sooner he could banish these feelings.
If not for the personal nature of having someone else riffle through Lydia’s things, he’d hire a service to come in and do the job. Annie had offered to help with the task of boxing and sorting. Funny, but she was the only person other than himself he trusted to do the work. She was on vacation, she claimed, taking some time off between assignments. Losing Lydia had hit her hard, too.
She should go somewhere, take a rest, enjoy herself. He thought of the trips he and Lydia had enjoyed together, a lump welling in his chest. Had Annie ever taken a vacation? Had Joey taken her and the kids to Yellowstone or Disney World?
From what he’d learned about their marriage, probably not. He wondered what she’d say if he offered to take her little family on a trip.
He wandered down the hall toward the back of the house and the library where he’d once done his homework in front of the fireplace.
If he offered to pay for a vacation, sort of as a bonus for taking such good care of Lydia, would Annie be insulted?
“Lord,” he murmured, knowing there wasn’t another soul to hear. “What am I going to do about all this? The house. Annie. Justin. Life was a lot simpler before I came home.”
Simpler, yes, but emptier, too, if he’d admit the truth. Here in this town he’d despised, he’d begun a budding relationship with God as well as with his son. He would never regret either.
The wall phone in the kitchen jangled, half a house away. Lydia had never put in an extension. He let it ring into silence, not in the mood to talk to anyone, especially a telemarketer.
In the library, he found the stack of boxes he’d collected. No time like the present to begin sorting through his family, although he’d leave his bedroom and the kitchen until last. He didn’t know when he’d be able to face Lydia’s upstairs rooms, the ones where she’d basically lived until her illness forced her downstairs. He’d spent many hours in that suite of rooms, watching her quilt in the sunny sewing nook, listening to her advice or whining on her shoulder.
The house was large, with an attic and basement as well as two floors of high-ceilinged rooms and cubby holes, all filled with more than a century of stuff. Packing would take a while.
He began where he was, taking dusty books from the shelves. Some were familiar, others not. He paused to leaf through one and found an inscription from his grandfather to his grandmother scribbled in the flyleaf. Gently, he put the volume in a box he’d marked to keep.
He reached for the photo albums, curious about the Hawkinses who’d come before him. The first volume stunned him.
“Clayton Hawkins.” Sloan ran a hand over the embossed name and a photo of a handsome young man with dark hair and blue eyes. “Dad.” The name sounded strange on his lips. “I never even knew you.”
He opened the cover and a pile of letters tumbled out, all marked with the return address of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. His father had gone to prison for murder when Sloan was two and had died there a few years later. If his mother had kept in contact with her husband, Sloan never knew about it. But Lydia apparently had never forgotten the brother she’d babied and spoiled.
Mesmerized, Sloan put the letters aside for later reading and began to page through the scrapbook he hadn’t known existed. Photos of childhood birthday parties and circus trips gave way to faded yellow newspaper clippings that chronicled band concerts, football games and a class presidency. Clayton Hawkins had not always been bad.
Why hadn’t anyone told his son? Had the relationship between Sloan’s mother and Lydia been too contentious to allow a boy access to his father’s memory?
Vaguely, he heard a noise in the front of the house, but remained focused on stories of the Clayton Hawkins he hadn’t known. Noise in the old house was a common event.
He sneezed and a voice said, “Bless you.”
With a start, he looked up to find Annie standing in the arched doorway. As usual, his belly did that clenching thing.
“Are you okay?” She asked that a lot lately.
He dropped his propped feet to the floor. “When did you take up breaking and entering?”
“You didn’t answer the phone.”
“That was you? Were you worried?” He kind of liked the idea.
She cocked her head to one side. A lock of hair bunched on her shoulder. “No, Sloan, I drove across town late at night to borrow a cup of sugar. Of course I was concerned. You’ve had a devastating loss.”
He grinned and wiped a dusty hand down the front of his T-shirt. “I like it when you talk sassy.”
“You bring out the worst in me.”
The comment slapped him. He lost his sense of humor. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Jilly says I’m getting boring.”
“You?” Sloan frowned. If she got any less boring, he would lose his mind. “Not happening.”
“What are you doing back here?”
“Packing.”
Her face closed up. “Oh.”
“I have to do this, Annie.”
Her silence frustrated him. What did she expect? That he’d keep a house he couldn’t live in and torture himself with thoughts of coming home again? “Where are Delaney and Justin?”
“In the yard chasing fireflies.”
A flood of memories came with her statement. He could almost see Lydia standing on the veranda with
a fruit jar in hand while a laughing boy raced around the yard capturing the hapless insects. Only this time, the boy in his mind wasn’t him. It was Clayton Hawkins.
“Let’s go help them.”
“You’re kidding.”
But Sloan was already getting up from the sofa. “Come on, pretty girl. Come out and play.”
He stretched out a palm, waiting, hoping.
Annie hesitated only a moment. Then a slow smile elevated her killer cheekbones. “Promise not to jump out and scare me?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “What do you think?”
She laughed and placed her hand in his.
Chapter Eleven
They’d stayed up too late. Annie had enjoyed every minute of chasing fireflies and her children and Sloan around the yard. She hadn’t laughed that much in years. And Sloan was the boy she remembered minus the anger simmering beneath the surface. For that little while, he’d made her feel young and carefree and silly again.
She knew she was setting herself up for a hard fall, but Jilly was right. She’d been focused on working and caring for her kids and patients for so long, she’d become boring. She’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh and have fun with the people she cared about.
She glanced across the library where Sloan was sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor going through papers. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and in the disreputably ragged jeans that Justin considered too cool for words and a surprisingly tidy white T-shirt, Sloan did things to her heart that she’d forgotten existed. Good things. Things a woman needed to feel.
Last night, she’d prayed all the way home. She didn’t want to be hurt again but the old adage that “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” rang in her head. She’d been down that road before. Though the aftermath had been devastating and she would certainly do some things differently, if given the choice, wouldn’t she still have loved the wild teenage Sloan?
She sighed and the sound must have been loud because Sloan glanced up and grinned. “Tired already?”