by Liz Flaherty
“Wow. And he and Damaris aren’t married anymore, right?”
“No, not for years, but they’re both military—it made a difference in their relationship. She outranks him, too. That was a little explosive.”
Luke laughed even if he wasn’t sure it was funny. “I’ll bet it was.”
Cass hesitated. “He won’t like that you own half the orchard. He’ll blame Zoey for selling it to you.”
“Why should that matter to him?”
“He wanted to buy the whole thing from my grandparents when he and my mother were married, then he wanted to buy her half after she and Zoey inherited. He even called me about the orchard after Mother died. He likes to have things, to have people, but he doesn’t know what to do with them when he does. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “I don’t know you all that well, but I don’t think you’re like him.”
It was the right thing to say. Her turquoise eyes lit. “I’ve spent thirty-five years trying not to be, so I hope you’re right.”
“Tell me about Damaris.”
“She’s like a twenty-years-younger Zoey, I think, although Dad went ballistic when someone mentioned that to him. I’m not sure how they ever developed a relationship, much less a marriage, but they were together for several years.” Cass shrugged. “It’s a sure thing you can never know what someone else is thinking.”
Luke nodded agreement, then something occurred to him. “Is he going to stay at the farmhouse?”
She looked startled. “Good heavens, I hope not, but Aunt Zoey didn’t say in the note. He’ll want to, if for no other reason than his cheap streak.” She grinned. “It’s narrow but it’s mighty. He’s been retired for a good ten years and I think he’s still wearing his fatigues. Not because he wants to, particularly, but because it saves him buying new clothes.”
While Cass accepted payment from a table of patrons, Luke carried a carafe around and offered refills, the last ones of the night. When they were behind the counter cleaning up, she looked stricken. “I’m not sure I have coverage for the coffee shop in case taking care of Damaris requires more time than I’ve allotted.”
“I’ll take care of that.” Scheduling and hiring were things he was good at. Not to mention, the people who worked at the orchard bent over backward to be accommodating when it came to emergencies.
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Actually, you can, even though you didn’t. I know the shop is your baby, but we’re partners. If I need extra help with the orchard, either retail or wholesale, I expect it from you without asking. Fair enough?”
“It is.” She relaxed visibly, and the smile she aimed at him was blinding. “When was it you were going to ask me on that date?”
*
ONE OF DAMARIS’S ankles was broken, the other severely sprained, so she was in a wheelchair. Her right cheek and her left arm were bandaged and her short, dark hair was patchy where it had been trimmed away to repair cuts on her scalp. Cass and Royce, who weren’t army brats for nothing, told her she looked great but she needed to see a different barber.
Zoey greeted Damaris kindly, made her comfortable near the bay window in the dining room and brought her a bowl of potatoes to peel.
Ken carried in Damaris’s things, taking them to the maid’s quarters and coming back to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. Zoey was cooking and Cass was helping. Royce was setting the table and chatting nonstop to her mother.
No one paid any attention to him.
He cleared his throat. “Could I have some coffee?”
“It’s in the pot. Cups in the cupboard above it.” Zoey tossed him a brief—and not very friendly—look. “Are you staying for dinner?”
He looked startled, and Cass grinned down at the salad she was assembling. She wondered if he’d intended to stay at the farmhouse. Memory would have informed him there were empty bedrooms.
He walked over, selected a large cup and filled it. “If that’s an invitation, I will.” His throat clearing, a habit Cass had forgotten about, sounded strangled. “We need to discuss Damaris’s schedule for rehabilitation. Her doctors were reluctant to have her staying outside a facility.” He looked around, seemingly at a loss.
“Cream’s in the fridge, Dad,” Cass said. “In the door. Sugar and sweetener are there on the counter. Spoons in the drawer below.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t sound grateful. He sounded irritated.
He’d been single for several years, living alone in the Idaho condo he’d purchased while still active in the military. Cass wondered who waited on him in the absence of wives or daughters. Maybe he had a housekeeper.
“We’ll be able to get Damaris wherever she needs to go.” Cass took pity on him and handed him the coffee creamer, hoping he knew how to prepare his own cup. “Zoey’s and my schedules are both flexible.” She hoped they were flexible enough.
“Royce can help, too. She has her license.” He nodded in the direction of his younger daughter. “The responsibility would be good for her.”
“She also has school, a job and activities. She’s busy enough just being sixteen,” said Zoey crisply. She hooked a foot around the leg of a kitchen chair and pulled it out. “Sit down, Ken, before one of us trips over you.”
He sat, and Cass grinned again. The chair Zoey had pulled out was a side chair, not at the head of the table where he would automatically sit if not otherwise directed.
“How will you get her into bed if I’m not here?” he asked. He sipped from his coffee and closed his eyes for a moment. Cass wondered if it was in appreciation or if he was thinking up a suitable criticism.
“We won’t,” she said crisply, when Zoey showed no signs of answering. “A nurse from home health care will be here for two hours in the evening. Someone else will come in the morning. It will be a long several weeks for Damaris, but she and we will all cope just fine.” She raised her voice. “Right, Colonel?”
Her stepmother’s voice floated back, laughter rippling through it. “Right, stepgirl. Coping skills are in order.”
“That’s terribly expensive,” Ken objected. “I could stay and help her in and out of bed.”
Zoey turned to look at him, and the rest of the house fell silent. “Let’s get something real clear,” she said quietly. “This is our house, not yours. None of us are married to you. You have no control over any of us, even Royce, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. I can’t stop you from staying somewhere at the lake, and you’re free to visit Damaris and the girls whenever you like, but those are the limits, Ken. Do you get that?”
He started to speak, but she raised a peremptory hand. She wasn’t finished. “If it’s too expensive, we’ll work that out, but as it is, Damaris has served our country admirably and deserves the best we can do for her. At this point in time—” her smile was downright wicked “—the best isn’t you, Major.”
Cass thought the reminder that not only did his ex-wife not need him but she outranked him as well was the final blow. He didn’t say anything, only nodded.
“Now, take this platter of pork chops into the dining room and make sure Damaris is settled at the table. We’ll eat in a few minutes.”
The first meal as a strangely blended family started out fairly well. Damaris was anxious to catch up on what she’d missed with Royce, and even Ken sat quietly and listened. Most of the time.
“I notice the name Seth cropping up in nearly every sentence,” he said at the end of a story about a football game, a familiar irritated ripple in his voice. “Is that something your mother and I should be concerned about?”
Cass nearly laughed. The only times her father had ever been concerned about any of his daughters’ friends was if they were making noise or eating too much. He was of the seen-and-not-heard persuasion when it came to anyone either young or civilian or, even worse, both.
“He was my first friend here. Well, he and Mary and Isaac.” Royce’
s tone was defensive, her blue gaze frosty when she met her father’s.
“Sweetheart, will you bring in dessert?” Zoey requested. “It’s already dished up in the fridge in the laundry room.”
When Royce had left the room, Damaris said, “Back off, Ken. The only part you had in raising Royce was paying child support. It’s too late for you to start now.” Her voice was even but weary.
“Do you want her marrying right out of high school the way her sister did?” Ken spoke to Damaris, but it was Cass’s gaze he held, challenging her. “So she can be single in her thirties, living on inherited property with no money or future of her own?”
Damaris glared at him. “She could do much worse than to grow up like her sister.”
“Those books that so embarrass you sell very well, sir,” Cass murmured, anger making her stomach roil. “While I’m not rich, I do have a comfortable income. I believe my future will be whatever I choose for it to be.” She wasn’t sure of that at all, but her father didn’t need to know that. “The same goes for Royce. If you decide to toss her out of your life unsupported if you don’t like her choices, she’ll receive sustenance of all kinds from the others at this table.”
When Ken started to answer, she broke in, delighted with her own rudeness. “Please bear in mind that I haven’t asked for anything from you since the day I left home, nor have you given me anything. I’ve survived marriage, divorce, Mother’s death and breast cancer without paternal solicitude or support, so please don’t come into my home and presume to scorn my life choices.”
“This isn’t your home,” Ken said stiffly. “You lost your home in your divorce.”
Cass almost reminded him that she and Tony had had a prenuptial agreement, something the major was all too familiar with, but neither her financial situation nor her personal life were his business. She leaned back in her chair, beaming with relief when her sister backed through the swinging door into the room carrying a tray filled with bowls of banana pudding.
“If you’re arguing about me, let me just give you some new subject matter and bring you parental units up-to-date.” Royce held the tray so Zoey could serve the bowls. “Sister Coffee Shop has kept me in line for the most part. I love living here except for when I want to buy new clothes. Aunt Zoey and I are best buds. I’m passing calculus—I think. I’d like to have a car of my own. I want a kitten. I rolled a stop sign the other day and got a warning from a really cute state cop.”
Listening to the resultant laughter and argument, Cass thought this must be how conversation went in Luke’s family. Regardless of the stiffness that always came with her father’s presence, it was nice.
By ten o’clock, Ken had left for the bed-and-breakfast at the lake where he’d found a room and everyone except Cass had gone to bed. She gazed wearily at her computer. Surely she could come up with a few hundred words before falling asleep.
She’d just opened the file with Lucy Garten’s latest adventure half written in it when her cell phone percolated a text.
I’m on your back porch. Want to walk in the orchard?
She grabbed a jacket from the mudroom. She thought about getting a flashlight, too, but decided to let the full moon do its job. The ladies at the coffee shop had talked about it today, but Cass had forgotten until now. She didn’t think she’d paid attention to a harvest moon since the year she’d spent at the lake. She looked forward to seeing this one.
It was glorious, lighting the trees and the grass under them with a golden tone she’d never seen duplicated on canvas.
“So.” Luke captured her hand, and she was surprised at how sure her step was when she matched it to his. “How did it go?”
“It went okay after we got over the bumps.” And it had, she realized. Ken had wanted to do his Great Santini thing, but it hadn’t worked. “We were like that song Aunt Zoey taught Royce and her friends for the homecoming float—‘I Am Woman.’ There’s a line in there about roaring, and all four of us roared very quietly right over the major. It felt pretty good.”
At the end of a row of trees, they paused to look up at the great orangey moon. Cass’s throat tightened. She looked at Luke’s profile and had the inane thought that she would probably be okay with looking at him every day for the rest of her life. But something about the set of his jaw disturbed her, made her wonder if… “Are you happy?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I’m content.” He kept his gaze on the moon. “I like my life for the most part. Happy?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Jill wouldn’t like me saying that, but it’s true. I had happy with her and I just don’t think I’m one of those people who gets that again. At least not that kind.”
“You still miss her.”
He nodded. “I do, but I’m not holding on to her memory or anything like that. I can’t really remember the sound of her voice.” He lifted his hand, the one that held Cass’s. “I don’t recall how her hand felt or the scent of her skin. But I remember how I felt when I was with her—that’s what I think won’t happen again.”
She and Tony had loved each other, but it had never been that way for either of them. She’d probably wanted his family more than him, and he’d cared more about how she looked than who she was.
“I don’t think my ex and I ever had that feeling,” she confessed. “But contentment—that I understand.”
Luke looked at her then. “You’ve had a rough few years. Are you content now?”
She thought about that, falling into step beside him again. She saw the round barn silhouetted against the sky, the barns beyond it, and remembered the big farmhouse behind her. She thought of Ground in the Round and sitting at its corner table writing. She thought about the warmth of days with Zoey and Royce and how glad she was to have her stepmother in the house. “No,” she said, surprised, “I’m way beyond that.”
Saying that, and smiling with the rush of pleasure that came with it, she also felt heaviness still resting in the back of her mind. It warned her not to uncross her fingers.
CHAPTER TEN
“REALLY, ROYCE, ISN’T there enough going on?” Cass focused her irritation on her sister’s hopeful face. She knew if she looked at the kitten lapping hungrily from the saucer of milk she would be lost. “And how’s it going to look if a customer comes in and sees a cat sitting on one of the tables drinking from the same dishes we use in the coffee shop?”
Royce rolled her eyes, doing nothing at all toward assuaging Cass’s annoyance. “It’s a cardboard saucer—we use them once. And it’s time to close—no one’s here.” She stroked the kitten, a tiny black thing almost certainly too young to leave its mother. “Aunt Zoey doesn’t care—I asked—and I’ll take care of it and empty its litter. I’ll even buy its food.”
“And what if it trips your mother? She’s getting started on crutches, but it would only take one tumble to put her back in that chair. Plus Dad hates cats and he’ll complain every time he comes over.”
“Dad hates everything.”
Cass stopped typing. Making her deadline had become little more than a distant dream anyway. “He doesn’t,” she said wearily. “He just doesn’t know how to show affection.” Or any other kind of emotion other than disapproval. “He’s the only father we have, kiddo, so we may as well make the best of it.”
The kitten finished its milk, stepped daintily onto the computer’s keyboard and began to wash its feet, casting covert glances at Cass as it did so. As if it was saying, “Look at me. Aren’t I cute?”
“Yes, you certainly are.”
“What?” Royce came over to the table with steaming cups. “Oh, no. She’s on your keyboard.”
“She’s a girl? She won’t hurt it.” Against her will, and with a glower at her sister, Cass scooped the kitten into her hands. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Misty. Look at her eyes. They’re like looking at the sky at night when it’s raining.” Royce grinned, hope like a mist in her own eyes. “I won’t ask for another single thing. At least until
the winter formal in December, when I want a new dress.”
“Are you going with Seth?” Cass had wondered about that but hadn’t asked. She didn’t want to usurp any territory that belonged to Damaris.
Mist covered Royce’s eyes again and spilled over. “No. He’ll be on the king’s court even though he doesn’t want to be—he thinks it’s lame. So, anyway, he really needs to take one of the senior girls on the court to the dance because the pictures work out better that way.”
Cass set the cat down, watching her curl into the cloth napkin on the table. While she didn’t want a customer to see that, she had to admit it was really cute. “Did you really just say that? And does he feel that way? That the pictures are important?”
Royce sat down so suddenly Cass thought she heard a thump. “Aren’t they?”
Cass hit the save button and closed her laptop. “What do you think?”
“I went to a school where things like that mattered more than they do at this one, and I don’t exactly know what to do here. Seth and I are going out, but we’ve never said it was exclusive.” Royce chewed the edge of her thumbnail, a gesture Cass was still guilty of when she was being thoughtful. “I was ahead in my classes when I started the school year—you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I knew.” The guidance counselor had called her with the information within the first week of school. Royce had gone straight into advanced placement classes and was still ahead—most of her senior year would be credit-earning college courses if she stayed at the lake. “Your school in California was an academic wonder. Miniagua is…well, it’s good. But it’s small and its curriculum is on the small side, too. You might not be as ready for Berkeley as you’d like to be.”