“Now you want to make something of his birthday. I don’t suppose anyone ever has.”
That was what Annie suspected.
“I have several reasons why I didn’t want you around,” she continued. “As you might have noticed, I don’t like many people, and the minute I saw you, I knew you were going to be an irritation.”
“Am I?”
“Oh yes. You started in on me right away, wanting to do this and that. Making demands and asking me questions I didn’t want to answer.”
Annie had to admit that Mellie was right. Only a week had gone by before Annie had asked Mellie if she could put in the garden.
“You’re a constant nuisance.”
Annie sat silently with her hands pressed between her thighs while she waited for Mellie to finish.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, to insult me further, you keep suggesting I could use a housekeeper.” She made a grumbling sound.
“The least you could do is meet Teresa.”
“Ha, ha. I already have.”
“You have?
“Yes, and she starts Monday.”
In her excitement, Annie nearly leapt off the ottoman. It demanded self-control to remain seated.
“On a trial basis,” Mellie added. “I told her I’d start her with three hours a week. I remember her from school, too. She was a senior when I was a freshman. She’s much thinner now.”
“Teresa’s great.”
“So you keep telling me. I made sure she understood she’s to keep her hands off my grandparents’ things. I’ll deal with all that when I’m ready. There’s a little dust here and there she can deal with and a few other household tasks I don’t enjoy.”
“I know she’ll do a good job.”
“She’d better. Far as I’m concerned, she needs to prove herself to me.” Her frown deepened.
“Teresa will be respectful.”
Mellie gave an unladylike snort. “Time will tell.”
Annie found it impossible to hold back her excitement. “I’m so pleased, Mellie. It means a lot that you’re willing to give her a shot. I’ll have a chance to talk to her, to encourage her.”
“Does that mean you’re going to make yourself even more of a pest than you already are?” she asked.
Annie couldn’t deny it. “Probably.”
Mellie rolled her eyes and looked toward the ceiling. “I was afraid of that.”
Pressing her hand over her heart, Annie pretended to be deeply hurt. “You wound me.”
“Ha. Your hide is as thick as leather. Same as Keaton’s.”
The remark made Annie think about the party they were planning for Keaton. “Should we invite Preston?”
Mellie let the question hang in the air. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Do you want me to ask him, or would you rather touch base with him?”
“I’ll do it.”
Mellie’s willingness surprised her, and Annie wondered if it was possible that she had feelings for Keaton’s friend. One way to find out was to ask. “Does he have a wife? It would be rude to exclude her.”
“No. He never married.”
Well, that, too, was interesting.
They settled on a Sunday afternoon for Keaton’s party. Annie was grateful for the opportunity to make his birthday special.
“You gonna buy the cake?” Mellie asked. “Or bake it yourself?”
“I’ll bake it; no guarantees how it will turn out, though.” She’d do what she could and hope for the best.
Mellie nodded approvingly and then shook her head and grumbled under her breath.
“What?” Annie asked, not knowing what she’d said to set the woman off.
Mellie set her book aside. “That’s the problem.”
“What is?”
“You.”
Annie didn’t have a clue what she’d done.
“You,” Mellie said. “Bringing me blueberries, supplying me with books, showing kindness to Keaton. Not what I expected. Not sure I like it, either.”
“Come on, Mellie, admit it. I’m growing on you.”
She shook her head, though denial was already on her lips when she broke into a rusty, almost painful smile.
“Okay, fair enough. You’re growing on me.”
CHAPTER 24
Something was up with Mellie. Keaton heard it in her voice when she called to ask him to stop by the house. In all the years he’d known her, she’d never once actually invited him to her home, other than when she needed something. This wasn’t the first change he’d noticed in Mellie since Annie’s arrival.
In fact, he’d begun to think Annie might be the force behind Mellie’s transformation. She’d listened to Annie and had hired the housekeeper, which astonished him. He found it shocking that Mellie would agree to let anyone touch her stuff. Whether Mellie knew it or not, she was a hoarder. Her house was filled to the rafters with what her grandparents had accumulated over the years.
Another effect of Annie being in Mellie’s life was finding Mellie reading on her iPad. Mellie chatted about a list of authors that Annie had recommended, and it seemed she’d found a few new titles on her own. Keaton never thought he’d see the day that Mellie would welcome Annie into her house, but he saw more and more of the two of them together.
As he headed over to Mellie’s he wondered if Annie would be there as well, seeing that she wasn’t home. When he reached the porch, Lennon let out a lone bark, as though to announce their arrival. Unlatching the door, he walked into the kitchen to discover Mellie, Annie, and Preston standing in front of the kitchen table.
That was odd. Something was off. Really off.
In unison, all three yelled, “Surprise!” Then they parted to reveal a cake with lit candles.
Keaton stared at it, completely puzzled.
“Happy birthday, Keaton,” Annie exclaimed, wearing a huge grin that took up half her face.
Keaton looked from Annie to Mellie, and then to Preston. “Is today my birthday?”
“According to your driver’s license, it is,” Mellie told him.
He was about to ask when she’d had a chance to look at his driver’s license but thought better of it.
“Aren’t you going to blow out the candles?” Preston asked.
“Make a wish,” Mellie added.
Caught off guard, Keaton remained too shocked to answer. To the best of his knowledge, he’d never had a birthday cake. Nor had he ever blown out candles. He didn’t have a clue about making a wish. A wish for what?
“How old are you?” Annie asked. “I guessed you must be around thirty-five.”
“Thirty-three,” he said, suddenly feeling anxious and uneasy. His heart beat hard and fast.
“Annie baked the cake,” Preston said, motioning toward it.
“I tried my best,” she added. “I’ve never made a layer cake before. It’s a little lopsided, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”
All Keaton could do was stare at the cake with the candles melting and wax running down the sides.
“It’s chocolate. You like chocolate, don’t you?”
“Who doesn’t like chocolate?” Mellie asked.
“Chocolate is okay,” he said, and his tongue went dry, making conversation difficult. Every bit of liquid had completely evaporated in his mouth. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off that birthday cake.
“I had Annie get vanilla ice cream, too,” Mellie added. “I remembered that you like vanilla.”
Lennon barked.
Everyone was watching him. They expected him to say something. Do something. His heart felt close to exploding. This was too much.
Suddenly, Keaton had the overwhelming need to escape. He had to get out of the house. He didn’t mean to offend anyone, but he had to leave. Offering a r
eason or an excuse would have been impossible, and so he did the only thing he could think to do. Turning away, he walked out of the house, down the stairs, struggling to breathe the entire way.
As he left, he heard the shocked gasps of the three most important people in his life. At the bottom of the steps, his knees threatened to buckle. His head was spinning, and he paused, too dizzy to continue. Leaning forward, he pressed his hands over his thighs and dragged oxygen into his lungs for fear he was about to lose consciousness. When his vision cleared, he started walking, not knowing where he was going or why. As soon as he gained his momentum he speed-walked, needing to put as much distance as possible between him and everyone else.
He heard the screen door slam and Annie shout out his name. It sounded like she was calling to him from the bottom of a deep crevasse.
“Keaton,” she cried. “Wait up.”
Because he could never refuse her, he stopped. If she asked him why he’d walked away, he wouldn’t have an answer for her. Fleeing this way must have offended those he valued most, and yet nothing could have kept him inside that kitchen.
Annie rushed to him, and he noticed she was breathless. He hadn’t realized he’d managed to put that much distance between him and the birthday cake. Unable to look at her for fear of what he would see in her eyes, he turned his head and looked to the sky. If she was angry, it would devastate him. She had baked him a cake.
A birthday cake.
With candles.
And wishes.
“Keaton,” she said softly. “It’s okay.” Her arms circled him, and she pressed the side of her face against his chest, holding him as he trembled.
As best he could, he resisted her, keeping his arms dangling at his sides. She was impossible to ignore, and his willpower was weak when it came to Annie. He needed her. Her gentleness. Her softness. Her love. Giving in, he wrapped her in his embrace and clung to her, unable to identify the rush of emotion that cascaded through him like a riptide. By holding her close, he seemed to be able to infuse order into his mind, to make sense of what was happening. Slowly, with Annie in his arms, his mind cleared and he could think.
Her small cry of pain made him realize he was crushing her. He immediately loosened his hold.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly.
“It’s all right. We shouldn’t have surprised you like that. It was too much for you.”
Was it? From the time he was a toddler, keeping control of his emotions had been ingrained in him by his brute of a father. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Tears were a sign of weakness, and he wasn’t a weak man. And yet there was moisture on his face. It burned his cheeks as he held on to Annie, unable to explain the hard tightness in his chest.
“Would you like some cake?” she asked.
Nodding was all he could manage.
Annie took hold of his hand, raised his fist to her lips, and kissed his knuckles.
Together, holding hands, they walked back to the big house. When they entered the kitchen, they found Mellie and Preston sitting at the table, eating chocolate birthday cake and vanilla ice cream.
At the table.
“You cleared off the table,” Keaton said. When he’d first walked in, right away he’d noticed something was different, but he’d been distracted by his three friends and the cake.
“Not me,” Mellie clarified. “Teresa managed it.”
The housekeeper.
Mellie had allowed the housekeeper to clear off the kitchen table? That was no small miracle. He didn’t dare ask where Teresa had put everything, because, frankly, he didn’t want to know.
Annie dished him up a slice of cake and a huge scoop of ice cream and set it down on the table for him.
“I blew out the candles for you,” Preston said, grinning at Mellie.
“Damn near started a fire in my kitchen,” she muttered.
“Did not,” Preston countered.
Annie scooted her chair closer to Keaton and smiled at the two of them.
Keaton took a bite of the cake; it was the best he’d ever tasted. “Never had my own birthday cake before,” he announced. He scooped up a huge bite and smiled at Annie, who closely watched him.
“I’m sorry it slid to one side.”
Keaton couldn’t take his eyes off her. “It’s a beautiful cake.”
Annie blushed with his praise. He was talking about the cake and about her.
“Do you want to open your gifts now?” she asked, seemingly embarrassed by the way he focused his attention on her. “You can wait, if you’d rather.”
“Gifts?” he repeated. It was one shock after another. No one gave him gifts. “I don’t need anything.”
“Doesn’t matter if you do or not,” Mellie told him. “We got you gifts.”
He never liked being the center of attention, and he didn’t want everyone watching while he unwrapped packages. “I’d rather do it later.”
“That’s fine,” Annie assured him.
“I’ll take them home with me.” He couldn’t imagine what people would buy him. This was uncharted territory; he was uncomfortable with anyone giving him gifts.
“We wanted to make your day special,” Annie said.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He stayed a while longer and ate a second huge piece of cake. Mellie insisted he take the rest of it home. She secured it in plastic wrap and gave it to him. Keaton took the cake along with his gifts. He thanked each of them, and then, with Lennon trailing behind him, he left Mellie’s.
* * *
—
It’d been almost two weeks since he’d last seen his father. Generally, he’d avoided the man responsible for his birth. It had never been a healthy relationship. Keaton could have won a gold medal at the Olympics and it wouldn’t have altered his father’s opinion of him. He’d accepted that long before he was a teenager. His father had never loved him.
Unfortunately, Keaton had no memories of his mother. He had to believe she’d loved him. His father refused to let him mention her name or ask about her. Once, when he was around five or six, he’d found a box with photos of his parents. They were smiling and walking hand in hand. His father had looked happy. Keaton could never remember his father smiling.
One photo caught his attention. His mom was pregnant with him; Keaton was only a small bump in her belly. Her hand was on her stomach as she smiled into the camera, joy radiating from her. Keaton lost track of how long he’d stared at that photograph.
Somehow, some way, the look in his mother’s eyes transmitted love, her love for her unborn child. For her husband. For life. Looking at it had instilled in him feelings of being wanted and having been deeply loved. Keaton knew his father blamed him for his mother’s death. He knew she died of cancer, but nothing more. If she had family, he never knew them. He instinctively knew talking about her brought his father pain he was looking to avoid.
For reasons Keaton couldn’t explain, after his surprise birthday party he drove to his father’s house. His father lived just outside of town. He’d always been a loner. While Keaton lived at home, his father had worked as a lumberjack, felling trees. The years of hard labor had taken a toll on his health. His back was bad, and he was no longer able to walk for any distance or stand for long periods of time.
His father rarely came into town; when he did, he ran his errands quickly, then returned home. Those visits had become infrequent of late, and Keaton only heard about them from others. In all the years since Keaton had moved out, his father had never once been to see him. That had never troubled him. To Keaton, that was more of a blessing than a slight.
He parked in front of the run-down house. The roof needed replacing and the outside needed to be painted. Moss grew along the rain gutters. Keaton would have taken care of the upkeep himself, but his father wouldn’t hear of
it.
Years earlier, his father had kept two dogs, which he’d trained to attack outsiders; it had infuriated Seth that neither one had ever tried to bite Keaton. Intuitively, they seemed to recognize that Keaton was a friend and not an intruder.
Without knocking, he walked into the house and saw that his father stood in the kitchen with a shotgun aimed at Keaton. “What do you want?” he demanded in a voice that rattled from years of tobacco use.
Keaton set the leftover cake on the table.
His old man’s gaze drifted to the cake. “You looking to poison me, boy?”
Keaton shook his head and looked around the house for signs of trouble. His father would never ask him for anything. The old man looked worse than usual. Though standing upright, he leaned against the side of the doorway, as if it demanded too much effort to remain standing on his own. His shotgun was directed right at the center of Keaton’s chest. This wasn’t the first time he’d looked down the barrel of a firearm.
“You’re not welcome here.”
Keaton didn’t need the reminder but nodded so his father would know that he understood.
Seth Keaton Sr. hadn’t remembered that it was his son’s birthday. It would be foolish to think he had. Stepping over to the kitchen, Keaton opened the silverware drawer and pulled out a fork. Keaton set it next to the cake, turned around, and walked away.
“I don’t need no cake,” his father shouted after him.
Most likely his father would toss it in the garbage rather than eat it. If anyone were to ask what prompted him to give the cake to his father, he wouldn’t have an answer. It might be his way of letting Seth know other people cared about him. Others loved him. He didn’t need anything from the old man.
It had been a day of oddities. A day of emotions and surprises.
* * *
—
Not until much later that night did Keaton open the gifts from his friends.
Mellie bought him a book. A mystery.
Preston bought him a new pair of gardening gloves, since the ones he’d used to rip out the blackberry vines were ruined.
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