by June Shaw
But she never would again.
Erin looked at Mom Bea, the sparkle in her blue eyes the closest she might ever come to finding the same motherly warmth she’d experienced with her aunt.
“Tilly wanted you to do some things, didn’t she?” Mom Bea asked, putting away the butter.
“Yes. The envelope you gave me had some requests from her.”
Dane washed his silverware. “You know she wanted Erin to see the place.” He glanced over his shoulder. “For some reason.” He surprised Erin by taking the used dishes from her hands. “I’ll get those.”
Erin smiled. He washed her things, and she found a wet sponge and used it to clean off the table.
Mom Bea stood with hands on wide hips, grinning at both of them. “And did you see everything here?”
Erin dropped breadcrumbs into the small trashcan. “I think so.”
“Did you check out this whole house? And view the gardens?”
Dane’s head snapped back, his eyes smoldering at Mom Bea.
What was his problem? Erin wondered. Did he have something to hide in this place? Or did his preponderance with believing himself the new owner make him believe no one could inspect the grounds without his permission?
Until this moment, Erin had entertained no desire to walk out around that vast space with the steamy humid air. Dane’s attitude made her change her mind.
“I didn’t see everything,” she told Mom Bea. “But I will.”
Silver fillings in the older woman’s rear teeth showed with her smile.
Erin had no idea what the man behind her was doing. No sound came of him washing dishes. She thought she could feel his warm breath on her back.
Dane needed to ask Erin what he’d hoped. “Did you read Tilly’s other papers to see what else she said?”
Erin stood in front of him when he turned from the sink. His mother, near the table, glanced from one to the other of them, listening intently.
“No,” Erin said. “I didn’t read past what she wrote as instructions for day one, which I imagine this is.”
“Day one,” Mom Bea said, and Erin couldn’t tell whether she was asking a question or repeating what she already knew.
Erin took it upon herself to explain. “Aunt Tilly asked me not to look at the next page until day two.”
Dane thought his mother’s grin and nod suggested that she’d already known what was in that letter.
He needed to get this Erin, with her unsettling presence, to hurry back to where she came from. But today she wasn’t rushing. Rolling his eyes up slightly, he considered how he might get her to leave faster. An idea came, brightening his spirits. “But Tilly probably meant for yesterday to be day one, since it was your first day here. So today would be day two. Why don’t you go get her letter and see what it says for the second day?” He hoped it said to go home and work at her job.
Erin stared at the floor, eyes blinking, the knuckles of her hand covering her mouth while she thought.
She raised her head and glanced at Dane’s mother. Already he was thinking the name Mom Bea instead of just Mom seemed to fit her just fine.
The happy nod she gave Erin made Dane satisfied. Her affirmation of his suggestion might make their visitor read more of the letter, where he hoped Tilly would’ve explained that the instructions on her first page had been for play. Tilly, like his mother, had a great sense of humor, something Dane thought he’d also had once, but lost somewhere along the way.
“All right. I’ll get the letter.” Erin spun and left the room.
When Dane no longer heard her footsteps, he clasped his mother’s arm. “What’s all this foolishness about?”
She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Foolishness? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her arms slid up and wrapped around him. She gave him a squeeze. “Hm, I do wish you’d eat more.”
She let him go and traipsed to the counter. Retrieving a thick towel from a drawer, she started to take dishes out of the drain. “I’ll just dry these and put them away for you.”
Dane stepped closer to her, his sneaky suspicion growing. “You never dry dishes. You’ve always let them air dry before you pick them up.”
She shook the dry towel in his face. “It’s the change,” she said, fluttering the towel down to her hip. “Maybe I’m becoming a new woman. And soon I might have a great new body.” Her laugh was loud and warm.
Dane couldn’t help but laugh with her.
Erin returned, her steps quiet, her expression solemn. She held Tilly’s loose-leaf papers in one hand, the manila envelope in the other. She leaned back against the doorjamb and looked at both of them. “I read her next page.”
Dane stared, anticipation building while she didn’t move. Once he could stand the wait no longer, he asked, “Can you tell us what she said?”
She held out the pages that were clipped together.
Even while he was taking them, Dane could see that only a few words had been written on the top sheet.
Erin, again I ask you not to read farther than this page today. You are such a sweetie. You are the little girl I never gave birth to. Always remember, I adore you.
Day Two Instructions: Catch a fish.
“That’s all?” Dane lifted the bottom of the sheet to see what came next.
Erin grabbed the papers from him. “On this page, yes. But as you can see, she didn’t want the next pages read yet.”
His mother waited quietly beside them. She didn’t ask, but Erin told her what the instructions said. His mother grinned. “We have fish,” she said. “Dane used to catch lots of them all the time.”
He tightened his lips, feeling like they were sputtering. What did Tilly mean by instructing Erin to do such a thing?
She stared at the top piece of paper. Her eyes turned up to meet his, and her expression looked vacant. Surely she missed her pleasant aunt. And with Tilly calling Erin the child she’d never had….
Dane took hold of her hand that gripped the papers. Her face flashed surprise, and he gave her hand a small squeeze. Her lips, staying tight, spread into a smile of appreciation.
“Well then,” his mother said, reminding Dane of her presence, “I’ll just go on.”
“Can’t you stay?” Erin reached out to her with the hand that Dane released.
His mom gave Erin a hug. “Not now. You have things to do. Remember, you didn’t finish inspecting the plantation. I’m sure Dane will help you.”
He shook his head at his mother but stopped its shake when Erin looked at him. She gave him a questioning smile.
He could only, with lips tight, smile back at her.
Chapter Eight
Erin and Dane walked out the dining room’s door with the short, sturdy woman. She hated to see Mom Bea leave. After they’d all told each other goodbye and the red truck sped off, Erin kept the impression that the matronly figure hadn’t only been a cook in this house.
The truck disappeared on the highway. Erin turned to Dane. “Well,” she said.
His gaze had been aimed at her but shifted away. He peered at the vast lawn, and Erin looked there, too. She had noticed the large trees before, but now recalling the instruction to inspect the plantation, stared at each one.
The greenery was unbelievable. She had often seen small plots of grass, but here the lawn appeared to extend forever, finally disappearing from view into a stretch of distant woods. Massive oaks cloaked with moss dripped from big branches, many like heavy shoulders extending all the way to the ground. A hammock hung from the branch of the closest tree, with a brick barbecue pit standing nearby. Scattered in patches across the lawn, yellow and purple irises stood healthy and tall. Banana trees flourished near the detached two-car garage with its doors raised. One car was parked inside. Erin peered at Dane’s truck in the driveway beside her rented car. Did his truck usually occupy the garage’s empty space? The late-model car in the garage must have been used by her aunt and Cliff.
Erin felt Dane in a s
pace too close to her side. She shifted away and pointed to trees that looked similar. “What are those?”
“Pecan trees.”
“Do they bear?”
“Those trees have been responsible for too many batches of fudge and pecan pies to count.”
“Yummy.”
“Did you want to go out there?” he asked, tipping his head toward the lawn.
She stared out. The hammock lay limp. Not one breeze stirred the moss. Muggy air added to the heat of the early afternoon. “Not now, thanks. Everything about this whole place appears to barely move, and I’m used to the hub of the big city. Where’s your hub around here?”
His honey-brown eyes smiled at her. “Our hub? I guess that would be T-Fred’s Diner.”
She shook her head. Dane seemed to try to keep a straight face, but could not. He chuckled. She grinned with him.
Just the two of them together on the porch after Mom Bea left had felt strange at first, causing Erin to have antsy misgivings. But now with them sharing a lighter moment, her tension relaxed, so much so that she made a quiet yawn.
“I never take a nap,” she said, “but I’ve gotten so sleepy. I might lie down a few minutes. How do all of you get used to this heat?”
He gazed at her. “Some days are hotter than others.” He descended the stairs, taking them by twos. “Enjoy your nap. I’m going to work.”
“I won’t sleep,” she said, but he had climbed into the truck and slammed the door. Dane drove back toward the fields. Erin made another stretch, watching his truck until it took the curve past the banana trees and disappeared from sight.
Inside, the house felt empty, as if no one had lived in the rooms. Erin decided to peruse some of them, to see how her lively aunt lived, to see if she’d stopped living once she moved into this old large shell.
How could anyone clean spider webs off the ceilings, all at least ten feet high, she wondered. On a small screened porch off the hall near the kitchen, she located the answer. In one corner stood the longest broom she had ever seen, its handle worn, its bristles frayed. She touched the rough handle and decided not to try to lift it to touch the porch ceiling. She’d probably fall down trying to balance it. Her petite aunt surely had not been the person who used this broom. A strong man must have done that.
Long spider webs clung to this porch’s ceiling corners. No man had been coming in here lately to clean them out. The only things on the porch besides the broom were three ceramic planters, each filled with potting soil and brown shriveled flowers. The view outside offered nothing much, only a sign that flowerbeds had once grown there. Border trim marked off spaces now filled with scraggly bushes.
“Aunt Tilly, what happened to you?” Erin asked. She stared out, recalling how her little aunt fluttered around her well-kept flowerbeds and shiny house. Had this temperate climate tempered her aunt’s spirit?
Erin discovered still no other signs of what could have occurred to her once-lively elder when she studied what must be the office. Right off the short hall from the kitchen, that room held dark furnishing, including a pendulum clock and huge desk, the wine-colored leather chair in front of it turned at an angle, the seat indenture too large to have been her aunt’s. The area gave off the scent of a male, or maybe it only seemed that way.
Erin sat in the chair. She looked over the desktop holding a computer, pens and scattered papers, making it appear the most used space in this house. She lifted the pen that had been set down beside a leather-bound ledger. Fingering that ledger, she imagined Dane sitting here writing in it. Maybe if she looked inside, she could learn why he held the impression that this plantation now belonged to him.
The idea of reading other people’s personal papers seemed too much like cheating, and she discarded the idea. Her aunt had left her papers with whatever she’d wanted her to know. If Erin was to learn of her aunt’s other private matters, she would learn them from her aunt’s attorney or other family members.
The banister behind the desk led the way up the stairwell. A sharp bend in the way lent shadows to the stairs that ran farther up into darkness. Only storage rooms were locked up there, Dane had told her. She wondered.
Weariness sank in, making Erin give up her search. She spied a washer and drier through a partially-open door in a hall and reached the master bedroom, stretching sideways on the bed to close her eyes for just a few minutes.
When they opened again, the lowered sunrays filtering through slats on the green louvered door told her she had slept quite awhile. Unusual for her. Back in Manhattan, she normally had trouble sleeping. So many sounds, so much activity, so much of it all in her head.
She rose and stood beside the bed, listening.
The central air conditioner droned. Chirping birds had to be resting now, taking respite from the heat on the wide porch. No footsteps sounded on boards that creaked. No evidence that Dane had returned.
But he might have. The man, admittedly overseer of the place, could be inside this building he called his residence, sitting at that desk or in the kitchen drinking his late-afternoon coffee. Aunt Tilly had told Erin that the people living down here drank lots of it, even until they went to bed. Erin’s couldn’t imagine spiking her nerves even more with caffeine overdoses.
She crept out of the bedroom, anticipating that in the next room, she might run smack into Dane Cancienne.
Erin Westlake was what Dane hoped he would find after rounding that final curve in the road to his house. He wanted to see that signature at the bottom of a note stuck to the back door or on the kitchen table. And on that note she would have thanked him for the hospitality and told him she had gone home.
He had been hoping that the whole time he planted in his fields. He hadn’t been able to concentrate, and even old Jessie, also driving a cane planter that Dane almost ran into, asked what was the matter. He said Dane didn’t seem himself today.
Of course he wasn’t. He had that Yankee to contend with.
A grin sneaked up to Dane’s face. He recalled a few of the elder men who’d long since passed away. When each of them mentioned Yankee, they’d said it as though they had sworn. How times changed, Dane considered when he rounded the bend near the deserted chicken coop. Many of his relatives he admired lived up north now, although most of them remained in the Deep South. Dane stretched his head forward, anticipating spotting a piece of paper stuck near his back door.
A curse sprang to his lips when he spotted Erin.
He’d already passed the flower garden behind the house, and only her motion in his side vision let him notice her. He braked, threw his door open, and strode across the grass.
She snipped a fragrant Tea Rose and bent, placing its stem in a basket near her feet that held two others. She cut another pastel yellow one and stood with a smile when she saw him coming.
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
Her smile faded. “I found these gorgeous flowers and thought I’d cut some for the house. It could use some life.” Creases crossed her forehead. “Was I doing something wrong?”
He stared at the cut stems, what they meant to him not allowing him to speak.
Erin pointed to the rows of others. “This is such a lovely area, but I almost missed it with all those tall shrubs surrounding it. Who tended this garden, Aunt Tilly?”
His fiery gaze met hers. “Me.”
“Oh. Then no wonder you’re so--” She thrust the stem she held into the basket and headed back to the house, calling over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I had no idea this was your garden.”
He stared at the cut flowers. Dane stepped through rows of the many colored rose bushes, the acute sense of loss tormenting him. Anna’s sanctuary.
He had cleaned out the grass and trash bushes and then tilled up rows for her to plant. The reds, pinks, yellows and multicolored buds now filled in all six rows. Anna had rimmed the rose garden with azaleas and bridal wreath bushes. She’d added banana magnolias to give the secluded area more sweet fragrance in the sprin
g.
After she was gone, the roses quickly fell into disarray. Dane hadn’t bothered about other flowers around the house, but took a crash course in learning to care for these. He tended to them often. Heat sprang to his eyes.
Stomping out the garden, he glanced around, satisfied that he didn’t see Erin.
At the edge of the garden, he retrieved her basket. The flowers she’d cut would die a quick death in this sun.
He found his unwanted guest in the kitchen. “Here are the flowers you cut,” he said harshly.
Her back was to him. She stood near the stove, staring at the drip coffee pot. Dane’s fury had subsided from encountering her in the garden, but new anger swelled when he found her around the small pot that only Anna had used. This woman was helping herself to more of his deceased wife’s things.
Erin still didn’t turn.
Dane slammed the flower basket on the table, making her look at it.
Tears stained her cheeks. Erin glanced from the roses to him. “I didn’t know they were yours.” Her voice sounded small, quiet. “Or so important. It’s just that… I’ve been searching for signs that Aunt Tilly was around here. I thought I’d found those signs in that garden.”
Beyond her, Dane could see no fire burning beneath the teakettle. No dripping sound suggested she’d poured water in the pot. And he’d made her cry. He hadn’t meant to do that.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We can put these flowers in a vase. One’s right up there.”
He pointed to the cabinet behind her, but Erin didn’t turn. She swiped a hand across her eyes and sniffled.
Uncomfortable seeing anyone with tears, he said, “Here, I’ll do it.”
She moved aside for him to grab the vase. He poured water in, took the roses from the basket and set them in the vase, centering it on the table. “Now.”
Erin stared at the arrangement. She peered at him with misty doe eyes. Signs that Tilly had been in this house was what she wanted.