Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 06 - A Season of Change

by Diane Greenwood Muir

  “First of all, nothing is going on. Secondly, Nan wouldn’t do this. Third … oh Polly, I don’t know what else to say. Of course I’m worried about the vandalism and I’m upset that it has something to do with me. I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with who it might be and I’ve got nothing. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “But it does make sense if it’s Nan Leadenhall. The timing makes perfect sense. She was here last fall to help her mom and now she’s back again. If she was in love with you, maybe she doesn’t want to let you go. Motive and opportunity. Bam.” Polly slapped the side of her truck. “I don’t know why you won’t be reasonable and talk about this with me.”

  Henry reached out to take her hand and Polly pulled away from him. “No. Don’t try to be nice to me,” she said. “I feel betrayed. Some honesty and openness would have helped, but you just keep shutting me down about her and that pisses me off.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Polly.”

  “I don’t either. And it’s not my job to figure that out for you. When you do, though, let me know. But as long as you decide to keep this close to your chest,” she punctuated her words by putting her hand on his chest and pushing him backwards, “you’re pissing me off.” Polly opened the door to her truck and climbed in. “Call me when you want to talk.”

  She slammed the truck door and took a breath. Henry started to approach, but she put her hand up and shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her seatbelt on and turned the key in the ignition. When she turned to look again, Henry was walking away to the construction trailer. Damn him. What in the world was he hiding from her about this Nan character? She gunned the accelerator and her tires spun in the mud before gaining traction and then she raced out of the lot. When she stopped at the first stop sign before the hotel, she breathed again. It wouldn’t do to go tearing through town. She gave a wry chuckle. That was all she needed - a ticket from someone in Ken Waller’s office.

  Polly pulled into the hotel parking lot and around to the caretaker’s house. She parked, got out and went inside. It was completely gutted. The walls had been stripped to the studs and even the ceiling was gone. The floor had been in good shape, so at least she could walk across the main room into the apartment behind. They had decided to finish the north wing of the hotel first, and then work on the house before completing the other two wings. Once things warmed up, Eliseo had offered to spend time landscaping the center of the U-shaped hotel. If they were going to put guests in here, it wouldn’t do to have that area completely destroyed.

  She walked to the back door and looked out at the mess, trying to envision what he might do. The old pool needed to be filled in and the ground leveled. He was going to be busy this spring, especially with the monster garden he was planning in the back yard of Sycamore House. He and Sylvie were already plotting and planning the list of vegetables.

  The Percherons were about to be put to work. Eliseo had talked to some of the older farmers in town. One old guy, Ralph Bedford, had used horses on his farm until the mid-nineties when his son began to take over. Ralph had been thrilled when Eliseo invited him to come spend time at Sycamore House. They’d found companies that produced new horse-drawn plows and Eliseo finally placed an order. Since Nan and Nat were comfortable pulling a wagon, he and Ralph were getting them used to the tack required to dig up ground. They were like a couple of kids with new toys. Polly was a little afraid that given the opportunity, the men and horses might dig up the entire neighborhood.

  She went back outside and headed for the first room on the wing. Doug and Billy were both here today with their boss, Jerry Allen, finishing up the wiring for this wing so internal construction could begin. Before she walked in the door, her phone rang. It was Henry. She looked at the screen, waiting for the ringing to stop, then slipped it back into her pocket. She was finally starting to calm down and didn’t want to get all worked up again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Feeling a little overwhelmed, Polly sat back in her office chair and rubbed her eyes. This getting married thing was too much trouble. She’d just gotten off the phone with Sal and still had to call her other two friends in Boston, Drea and Bunny. Drea would be thrilled, but Bunny would spend most of the call telling Polly about how interesting her own life was. Sal begged to be the maid of honor and Polly just agreed, knowing that whatever happened, Sal would be fine. Her phone had rung a couple of times with calls from Henry and Polly still didn’t want to deal with him. Sure, she knew that she’d told him to call when he was ready to talk, but the truth was, she wasn’t ready. She was pretty mad.

  Then she chuckled. Here she was telling her friends about their engagement and having a fight with him all at the same time. Yes, they really were practically married already.

  Her stomach growled. She wanted a tenderloin and fries.

  “Jeff?” she called as she got up and headed to his office.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m starving and I’m craving junk food. Do you want something from the Diner?”

  “I suppose I’ve been eating pretty healthy lately. At least Rachel’s cooking is good for me.” He pulled a menu out of his top drawer and looked at it. “Yes. I want a hot beef sandwich. Oh, I so want a hot beef sandwich.”

  “Cool. I’m getting out of here for a while. I’ll be back.”

  She pulled her phone out and brought up the Diner’s phone number while she walked to her truck. She gave her order to Lucy and ran upstairs for a jacket. It had gotten cold outside again. Would spring never get here? They were forecasting snow again and that just annoyed her.

  Polly stuck her head in the kitchen. “I know you’re probably cooking an awesome meal, but I need fried food. Do you want anything from the Diner, Rachel?”

  “I’d love a large pop with lots of ice!” Rachel said. “And the meal I made is awesome. There’s extra for supper since the boys will be here.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

  Polly got in her truck and headed downtown. She was early, so there were still parking spaces in front of the Diner.

  Lucy met her at the front door and hugged her. “Girl, I can’t believe you snagged that man. Congratulations!”

  “Thanks, Lucy,” Polly said. “I know I’m early. Can I get something to drink and I need to order a pop for Rachel, too.”

  “Sure. You sit down right here,” Lucy gestured at a stool in front of the counter, “and I’ll get you fixed right up. Joe’s already got your tenderloin cooking, so it won’t be just a minute.”

  People began to come in the front door in small groups and all of a sudden, Polly heard someone say, “Hi Nan, how’s your dad feeling today?” She spun around on her stool to see who Nan might be and then touched Lucy’s arm as she went past with a pot of coffee.

  “Is that Nan Leadenhall?” she whispered.

  “It sure is,” Lucy said and then her eyes got big. “Oh, that’s right! She used to date your Henry. Well, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She’s not interested in him anymore.”

  Polly looked closely at the young woman. She was attractive, with a round face and short, curly hair. Nan was shorter than Polly and had an easy smile, but her eyes looked tired and wrinkles were beginning to take a toll around her eyes.

  Lucy came back to the counter. “You know,” she said. “Nan went to Georgia because of her girlfriend.”

  “Her what?” Polly asked. She risked another glance at the woman.

  “Yeah. No one is supposed to know about it because people in Bellingwood can be pretty judgmental, but I know these things. You can’t get much past me.” Lucy reached across the counter and poked Polly’s shoulder. “I’m better than the beauty salon.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Polly chuckled. Well, that certainly gave her a little more insight into why Henry didn’t want to talk about it. She wondered how long the two had been together. What an ego smash that must have been for him. Did Nan know before or after they broke up? Polly
almost began feeling sorry for him and then shook her upper body. Nope. He needed to talk to her about these things. She would understand.

  Lucy put a bag in front of Polly. When Polly tried to hand a credit card to her, Lucy waved her off. “It isn’t every day one of my favorite customers gets engaged. This is on us.”

  “Thanks, Lucy,” Polly said. She hooked the bag over her wrist and walked out with the two glasses of pop and looked back once more to see Nan sneaking a glance at her. Polly smiled and went out to her truck.

  After she got the food settled in the passenger seat, she took her phone out and called Henry.

  “Polly, I’m sorry. We need to talk. I handled that really badly,” he said before she could start.

  “I was mad at you, you jerk.”

  “I know that and I need to explain.”

  “Well, I just saw Nan at the Diner and Lucy might have explained some of it to me. Henry, you could have told me.”

  “It’s not my story to tell. She had a pretty rough time here. People weren’t very nice about it. And besides, it really messed with my ego for a long time. I can’t even tell you.”

  Polly realized that this explained a lot about him and his infinite patience with her. “I get it, but I still need you to talk to me about these things. I hate getting sideswiped in front of people about things I should obviously know. But it makes sense now why your mother just let you gloss over it.”

  “Mom was cool. When Nan’s parents kicked her out, Mom and Dad let her stay with them until she found her own place.”

  “Were you living there?”

  “Not really. I’ll tell you all about it later. I just don’t want you hating me because of her.”

  “Well, if Nan isn’t vandalizing Sycamore House, who is?”

  “I have no idea. I told you, this doesn’t make any sense to me. You haven’t had anything else happen, have you?”

  “Not lately. It kind of feels like it’s stopped again.”

  “Just keep an eye out.”

  “Of course I will. The boys are spending the evening with us and Rachel is making supper. Do you want to come over? I thought maybe we could all eat in the kitchen so Sarah Heater could join us. She’s starting to feel a little better and I think she might be getting cabin fever.”

  “I’ll be there around six thirty. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds great, you’ll find us in the kitchen.”

  Polly started her truck and drove to Sycamore House. “I talked to Sal this morning. She wants to be my maid of honor.”

  “Did you tell her what we’re thinking?” Henry’s voice had brightened again. He was probably as relieved as Polly that they were no longer fighting.

  “I didn’t. If I said something to her, she’d be on the first flight out. And then Drea would be mad that she couldn’t be here and then Mark would know and Marnie and before we had even gotten in front of the judge, the whole city would be there.”

  “You’re right,” he laughed. “What was I thinking? Do you still want to get married this week?”

  “Will you move into my tiny little apartment with me?”

  “Polly, where else would I live?”

  “Well, you could stay with your parents.”

  “Not happening. If you’re my wife, we live together. Are you ready for that?”

  “Probably not, but if it has to happen, it might as well happen now.” She grinned to herself and waited for his response.

  “Really?”

  “No, you nut. I can’t wait. I don’t know where we’ll put all of your stuff, but it should only be for a week or so. Jeff says that the back room will open up next week and we could start moving our things in there.”

  “We haven’t talked about a honeymoon or anything.”

  “You know I don’t care about that, don’t you? I just want to be with you. If we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, we should start right now.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t want a big church wedding. I still can’t believe it. I thought I was going to have to buy a tuxedo and I’d get a bachelor party and …”

  “Do you want all of that, Henry? I shouldn’t presume that you don’t want a wedding just because I don’t want all of the fuss.”

  “Of course I don’t. We really are on the same page here. I just can’t believe it.”

  “I think I would like you to wear your nice suit,” she said. “And we have to think about a couple of witnesses.”

  “I have an idea, but you might not like it.”

  “Who?”

  “Aaron is already in Boone. Do you think Lydia would come down? The two of them could stand up with us.”

  “But won’t your parents be upset if they can’t be there? And how will I explain it to Nate and Joss and Sylvie and Beryl and Andy and Jason and Andrew. What about Rebecca and Doug and Billy and Jeff and Eliseo and …”

  “Okay, okay. That was a bad idea. What about Joss and Nate? They aren’t connected to any of those people. They’re our friends.”

  Polly pulled into her garage and turned the truck off. “That’s good. If the paperwork is done by Thursday, do you want to see if they’re free on Friday to drive to Boone with us?”

  “I’ll call Nate tonight and ask. Are we really doing this?”

  She giggled. “We really are. I love you, Henry.”

  “I love you too. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Polly set the drink in front of Rachel, who was peering at a recipe on her laptop, then took Jeff’s lunch in to him. He was on the phone, but looked up, smiled and mouthed a thank you. By the time she had loaded her tenderloin with ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions, her stomach was screaming at her to be fed.

  She was nearly finished with the sandwich when Rachel walked into her office.

  “Hey Rach, what’s up?”

  “Can I talk to you, Polly?”

  “Sure, what’s going on?”

  “I’m worried about Doug.”

  “Doug Randall?” Polly wiped ketchup from her mouth and closed the lid on the styrofoam container.

  “Yeah. I think he really screwed things up with Anita.”

  That got Polly’s attention. “What in the world did he do?”

  “Well, they had that date Saturday night and he won’t talk about it. Billy says that every time he brings it up, Doug tells Billy it’s none of his business. Polly, those two have told each other everything since they were in junior high.”

  “Well, maybe they don’t like each other as much as I thought they would.”

  “What if Doug did something stupid?”

  Polly chuckled. “What if he just doesn’t like her all that much? What if she did something stupid?”

  “Yeah. Like that could happen.” Rachel rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Polly said. “Doug has grown up a lot since he moved into the apartment with Billy. Good heavens, I hardly ever hear them call people ‘dude’ anymore.”

  “I know!” Rachel laughed. “I started pointing it out to Billy every time he said it. He finally got over it and when he stopped, Doug didn’t say it as much either.”

  “I kind of miss their Star Wars nights, but I guess they had to become responsible sometime.”

  “Oh, don’t feel too bad about their Star Wars escapades. Billy is saving up to buy a Storm Trooper uniform and Doug wants a wookie suit.” She shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll ever lose that. But it’s cool. Billy doesn’t give me any trouble about the way I look, so I have to give him a break.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl, Rachel.”

  “Even with electric blue hair?”

  “Especially because of it.” Rachel loved experimenting with wild hair colors. Polly was never sure what she would come up with next. Sometimes there were hot pink streaks, other times the entire head of hair was blue or purple or sometimes jet black.

  “So have you ever thought about giving your hair a break and wearing wigs?” Polly asked. “I can’t imagin
e all of that coloring is good for it.”

  Rachel chuckled. “You really just lay it out there, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Sometimes things get into my head and out of my mouth before I realize it. Forget I said anything.”

  Rachel pulled the electric blue hair back a little. “It is a wig. Mom talked to me about this a few months ago when I started doing full color dye jobs. This way I can do lots of crazy things and it doesn’t take that much work.”

  “Oh, girl, that’s awesome,” Polly said.

  “Between my wigs and my shoes,” Rachel held her foot up. She was wearing short black boots with four inch heels. “I’m running out of space in my room.” Polly had less than ten pairs of shoes. Four of those were work boots, two were tennis shoes and the others were assorted pumps and flats.

  “I should let you buy shoes for me,” Polly laughed. “I always put comfort above style.”

  “Oh, these are comfortable, trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you. They look like they’d kill me, but you’re young and I’m glad you like them.” Polly laughed. “So, did you take lunch into Mrs. Heater?”

  “She just wanted soup, especially since you are eating together tonight.”

  “I should check on her.”

  “She said she was bored, but I think she’s still really tired.”

  “I’ll bet she is. And I’ll keep an eye on Doug. I haven’t talked to Anita for a while either. Hopefully, nothing terrible happened.”

  “Thanks, Polly.” Rachel got up and went back to the kitchen.

  “Rachel?” Polly followed her out.

  “Yes?”

  “You know, you and Doug and Billy could eat dinner with us tonight. We’re just hanging out.”

  “Okay. We’ll see. Thanks.”

  Polly turned and headed for the addition. If Sarah Heater was bored, she wondered if she could help.

  She knocked softly on the door and said, “Sarah? It’s me, Polly.”