by Janet Dailey
A wistful look crossed Ruth Ann’s face. “Seems like you inherited your grandpa Joe’s love of kids, too. When your father was young, Joe always enjoyed taking him fishing and hunting.”
Kristen stole another glance at Mitch. His relaxed posture had stiffened again.
“Anything to show off his son,” she continued. “Why, David was only five when Joe—”
“No need for the reminiscing, Ruth Ann,” Emmy said, straightening in her seat and casting a sidelong glance at Mitch. “He knew his dad well enough, and I’ve told him all there is to know about Joe over the years.”
Ruth Ann smoothed her skirt and picked at one of her nails. “Yes, but you may have overlooked a detail or two. I knew Joe as well as you did, and a well-rounded view of a person never hurt.”
Emmy’s mouth thinned and a small tic started below her right eye, but she remained silent.
Ruth Ann sighed, then tilted her head at Emmy. “What brought you in Lee’s direction this morning?”
“Business.” Smiling, Emmy patted Kristen’s wrist. “Me and Kristen are hittin’ the ground running today, and we want to offer Lee a partnership. Right, Kristen?”
She stilled. Emmy hadn’t discussed anything other than riding to the neighbors’. There’d been no talk of borrowing tractors, buckets, or land, and there had certainly been no firm plans of offering anyone any kind of partnership—just an “Ask Mitch to bring the truck around and let’s go” directive.
Kristen shifted awkwardly in her seat, studying the unspoken urging in Emmy’s eyes and the intense scrutiny in Ruth Ann’s. “I . . . yes.”
“I see.” A guarded tone entered Ruth Ann’s voice. “How long have you and Emmy been designing the intricacies of this new business endeavor?”
She swallowed a hefty swig of lemonade before answering. “Not long.”
Ruth Ann nodded. “I’d imagine, considering you just arrived yesterday.”
“Word travels fast here.” Kristen looked at Lee.
“I may have mentioned you were looking for work at Emmy’s place.” He grinned and leaned forward, then propped his elbows on his jean-clad thighs. “It’s not every day I bump into a pretty stranger on this old stretch of highway. You can’t blame a man for wanting to relive the moment in the telling.”
Kristen smiled. Emmy had been right. The man was definitely a big tease and more than handsome. He was as tall as Mitch, his muscular frame filled his chair, and the rippled strength of his arms was just as defined as the other man’s, but he didn’t stir her interest quite like Mitch.
Chancing a glance at Mitch, she caught him watching her, and the steady gaze of his blue eyes evoked flutters in her belly. She shrugged. “I appreciate the compliment, Lee, but—”
“I’m not sure how much work there’ll end up being for Kristen,” Mitch said, returning his attention to Lee. “Or Emmy, for that matter. Hart’s Hollow is on its last leg, and the county is about to seal the deal on that new bypass. Last I heard, it’s projected to cut across the center of our land.”
“That’s not true.” Emmy balled her hands into fists on her thighs. “That decision ain’t final yet, and I got a trick or two left up my sleeve. Namely, showing ’em at the next meeting in Peach Grove on Monday night that our land is too valuable to pave over. As a matter of fact, we’ve already grown four successful acres of strawberries, which are ripe and ready to pick. That’s why I need the buckets.” She turned to Lee. “I remember you saying you had a bunch left over from when you grew ’em a couple years ago. We’ll buy the lot off you if you can spare them.”
Lee nodded. “I no longer have a use for them, so I’ll sell them to you at half price. You can use my road sign, too, if you want. You’ll just need to paint over our logo and add your own.”
“Lee, don’t,” Ruth Ann said. “What if you decide to try again next season?”
He waved away her concern. “I barely made it work the last time I tried it. I was stretched too thin between the corn and the cotton. Couldn’t be in two places at once. And you remember how much you complained about all the extra traffic up and down the driveway when I opened the fruit stand?” He shook his head. “The return wasn’t worth the investment.”
“For you alone, maybe.” Emmy pointed a finger at his chest, then waved it toward Kristen. “But this time around, it won’t be a one-man operation. I’ll have help, and it’ll be a guaranteed success. Right, Kristen?”
All six pairs of eyes shifted to her and bored into her face. Oh, man. What had she gotten herself into? A little white lie was one thing, but these were piling up by the dozen.
Nodding, she forced her dry tongue to move. “We’ll do our best.”
“This is ridiculous,” Ruth Ann said. “Out of the question.”
“If you have a mind to take a shift at our stand once in a while,” Emmy put in over Ruth Ann, “I’ll cut you a percentage of the profit.”
Lee propped his chin in his hand and mulled it over for a moment. “And where do the tractor and the land come into play?”
“The land?” Ruth Ann’s mouth dropped open.
“That’s right,” Emmy said, “the land. Just a piece. That stretch you’ve already strip-tilled.” She gestured toward Ruth Ann’s gaping mouth. “And I wouldn’t keep that up if I were you. You’ll catch a fly.” She faced Lee again as Ruth Ann sputtered. “All I’m asking is to rent the tractor and the twenty acres I sold to you back in the day. I got extra corn I want Kristen to plant so I can up our profit and have a more persuasive argument in this bypass nonsense. And I’ll pay you extra for the work you already put into it.”
“No.” Ruth Ann shook her head. “You didn’t sell that land. Joe did. And he sold it to me.”
“I didn’t come here to argue, Ruth Ann. I’ve got as much pride as anyone else, but the fact is, I’m at my last gasp here. Do you want a bunch of asphalt-grinding semis tearing past your bedroom window at night? ’Cuz that’s what’ll happen if they get ahold of my land.” Emmy sighed. “I’m not asking for something that was never mine. Joe sold that lot to Daryl a year before he passed to keep us afloat when we were struggling. He would’ve never done it otherwise. Daryl was a good man. He assured us he’d give us the chance to earn it back.”
“No,” Ruth Ann repeated. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”
“You forbid? Would you have forbidden Joe if he’d asked?”
Kristen winced and glanced at the children. Sadie grabbed another slice of pound cake and started chewing, while Dylan looked up from his phone, his head swiveling toward Emmy, then Ruth Ann, and back.
Mitch held up a hand. “Emmy, you’ve gotten your ans—”
“I would never have forbidden Joe anything.” Ruth Ann’s face flushed a fiery red. “I knew Joe better than anyone—including you.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Can we please get past this?” Emmy’s right eye twitched faster. “We were friends once. Long before I married Joe. And we’re both widows now, so what’s to stop us from fixing this?”
“You broke my heart, Emmy.” Voice shaking, Ruth Ann slowly stood. “Joe was my first love. If you hadn’t started chasing him, I would’ve been his wife.”
“Now, Mama.” Lee scooted to the edge of his chair. “Let’s not go dragging all this u—”
“I know you loved Joe.” Mouth tight, Emmy nodded. “But the fact was, he didn’t love you back—not in that way at least—and he made that plain to you from the start. He couldn’t control who he loved any more than I could.”
Mitch cleared his throat. “That’s enough, Emmy.”
“How would you know?” Ruth Ann huffed. “You didn’t give him a chance to choose.”
“Oh, that ain’t true.” Emmy shoved to her feet but stumbled and grabbed the back of her chair, favoring her left leg.
Kristen rose and cupped her elbow. “Maybe we should come back another time.”
“If anything,” Emmy said, speaking over her, “it was the other way around, Ruth Ann. We were all good frien
ds. It’s just one day . . .” She spread her hands. “One day, things changed. That’s all.” A haunted look entered her eyes. “Sometimes things just change.”
“They never changed for me. I always loved Joe—right from the first.”
“And what about Daryl, huh?” Emmy asked. “Oughtn’t you have loved your own husband more than mine?”
Ruth Ann sucked in a horrified breath. “I did love Daryl. How dare you imply otherwise, you . . . you . . . !” Her slender frame shook, and a vein throbbed in her neck, her temper getting the best of her. “Damn devil.”
Silence fell over the porch. Cheeks flaming, Kristen shifted from one foot to the other and glanced at the others.
Mitch and Lee were poised on the edge of their chairs, looking on in dismay. Wide-eyed, Sadie sat perfectly still, both hands clutching pound cake and crumbs dangling from her lips, as she stared. Dylan smiled, lifted his cell phone higher, and focused the screen on Emmy and Ruth Ann.
“I think that’s enough visiting for today,” Mitch said quietly.
The cell phone buzzed as Dylan zoomed in.
Mitch thrust out his palm. “Hand it over.”
“But—”
“Hand. It. Over.”
Dylan issued a sound of disgust but placed the phone in Mitch’s hand.
Standing, Lee winced. “I’m sorry about this, Mitch.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Mitch nudged Dylan off the swing, then Sadie. “Thank you for the refreshments, Ruth Ann, but it’s time for us to go.”
Sadie stopped by his thigh. She looked up, garbling around a mouthful of cake, “She said a bad word, Uncle Mitch. The real bad one. Worse than Dylan.”
He smoothed a broad hand over her hair. “I know, baby. Please get in the truck with your brother.”
Mitch waited as she followed Dylan down the front steps, and then he walked over and took Emmy’s other elbow. “Time we got going.” Expression strained, he looked over Emmy’s head and asked in a sardonic drawl, “Right, Kristen?”
Urging Emmy forward on trembling legs, Kristen had to admit that in this instance, she agreed with Mitch.
CHAPTER 4
“Paint it white. Then add Hart’s Hollow Farm: Fresh Strawberries,” Emmy said, framing her hands and punctuating each phrase in the air.
Kristen looked up from her seated position under a tree on the front lawn and curled her fingers tighter around the wooden sign balanced on her lap. “Do you have any spray paint? It’d be faster to spray it.”
“No spray.” Emmy tugged two paintbrushes, one large and one small, from her waistband and tossed them on the grass, beside several paint cans. “Use those and dress her up as best you can while I help finish washing the buckets. Mitch said he’d get that sign on posts before he leaves tomorrow. If we don’t get it painted now, it won’t be dry by then.”
She ambled off and joined Mitch by the porch. He grabbed a dirty bucket from a large pile on the lawn, dipped it in a small metal tub filled with sudsy water, scrubbed hard, then handed it to Emmy. She sprayed it off with the water hose and passed it to Dylan, who rubbed it dry with a towel and stacked it with dozens of clean ones on the porch steps.
Yesterday, hours after Emmy’s bitter round with Ruth Ann, Old Beaut had rumbled up the farm’s driveway just as they were clearing dishes from supper, its bed filled to the brim with dusty buckets and a large sign. Lee had hopped out, apologized for the unpleasant scene earlier, and made Emmy a counteroffer regarding the strawberry endeavor.
In exchange for the buckets and the sign, Lee would take a bigger cut of the profits instead of cash, saving Emmy money up front and making money only if she did. It was the respectable thing for a neighbor to do, he’d explained, then offered assurances that he’d ask Ruth Ann to reconsider renting Emmy the twenty acres of land. Though he had made it clear it was a long shot.
Emmy had quickly agreed, thanked him, then put them all to work unloading the truck and washing buckets. Save for seven hours of sleep, they’d been washing ever since.
“I’m tired.” Dylan puffed his matted bangs out of his eyes, and a bead of sweat rolled down his red cheek, the late afternoon air having grown hot and sticky. “It’s Sunday. It’s supposed to be a rest day. Isn’t that what you always say?” he asked, glancing at Emmy.
“Not when there’s buckets to wash and fields to plow,” Emmy said as she sprayed the hose again. “God understands and forgives farmers.”
Dylan scoffed. “We’ve been doing this forever, and I’m sick of it.” He glared at Mitch. “When can I get my phone back?”
Mitch paused after dipping another bucket and dragged his forearm over his face. He wore jeans and a thin T-shirt instead of his usual khakis and collared shirt, and it did nothing to dampen his appeal. “When you’ve earned it.”
“When will that be?”
Mitch leveled a stern look in Dylan’s direction. “When you do as you’re told without complaining.” His jaw hardened. “And when you learn that it’s cruel to take pleasure in other people’s pain. You had no business recording that argument between Emmy and Ruth Ann.”
Dylan shrugged. “I thought it was funny, and I couldn’t upload it to anything anyway, because the Wi-Fi’s so slow out here.”
“The thought shouldn’t have even crossed your mind.” Mitch frowned. “I was surprised at that. You’ve always been kind and considerate to others, Dylan.”
The boy looked down and twisted the toe of his shoe in the grass, muttering, “What does that ever get anyone?”
Mitch started to speak, then shook his head and returned to his task.
“It got us buckets,” Kristen said, then stilled as Mitch and Dylan turned in her direction. “And a sign.”
Though she wasn’t looking forward to the idea of painting it. She hadn’t touched a paintbrush in years and had planned on never doing so again. Yet here she was, getting paid to paint. The task was a world apart from her previous career for sure, but it still managed to uncoil that dread lurking deep in her middle.
Tipping down the brim of her hat, she hid her face from Mitch’s scrutiny, then bent forward and dragged the paint cans and brushes closer.
Leaves rustled and a branch creaked overhead. Kristen glanced up just as Sadie shimmied toward her across a low branch, her arms and legs wound snug around the rough bark. She’d kept a moderate distance for most of the day, drying buckets for a while with Dylan, but when Kristen sat on the grass and began sanding the sign smooth, she’d climbed a tree and watched from above. She had asked Kristen questions occasionally, her cute face often hidden behind a clump of leaves, and had shown no reaction to the curt responses she received.
“What color you gonna paint the words in?” Sadie asked, her long hair cascading around her shy but curious expression.
A knot tightened in Kristen’s chest as the excited lilt of Anna’s voice whispered through her mind. What color should I use for the flowers, Mama?
She pulled in a strong breath and popped the tops off the cans. “I thought I’d use red.”
“Because it’s for strawberries?” Sadie loosened her grip on the branch, slid both legs to one side, then hopped down. She moved close, and her soft breaths brushed the back of Kristen’s neck as she leaned over and studied the materials. “Can I help?”
Mine doesn’t look as good as yours. Will you help me?
Be patient, Anna. Try again.
Chills spread across Kristen’s skin despite the heat, making her hands shake. She grabbed the large paintbrush and dunked it in the white paint. “I won’t need it, but thank you.”
“I can do it.” Sadie’s voice drew even closer as she squatted beside Kristen. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
Look, Mama. Eyes stinging, Kristen pressed the paintbrush to the wood. The memory of Anna poised in front of a small canvas, looking over her shoulder and smiling, superimposed itself on the sign. I did it almost as good as you, didn’t I?
Kristen’s throat tightened. Why hadn’t she helpe
d Anna that day? Exchanged teaching an artistic skill for the feel of Anna’s warm, healthy hand in hers one more time before it was lost to her forever?
Sadie touched the back of her hand, her small, unfamiliar fingers a painful press against Kristen’s flesh. “I can—”
“I said no!”
Sadie jumped to her feet, her face turning pale and her chin trembling. Tears welled onto her lashes.
Stomach dropping, Kristen winced as she backed away and whispered, “I’m sorry, Sadie. I—”
Sadie spun around, then ran across the front lawn into Mitch’s outstretched arms. He hugged Sadie close, murmuring low words of comfort and frowning at Kristen. Emmy stared in her direction, too. Only, her expression probed rather than admonished.
Face burning, Kristen put her head down again and resumed painting the sign with rough strokes. Nice. Real nice. Not only had she made Sadie cry, but she’d also made an absolute fool of herself.
Her mind raced and her mouth opened, then closed, as she wanted to explain. But how could she? There was no way to rationalize or defend the selfish pain that sometimes flooded her at the sight of other kids smiling, laughing—heaven help her, just playing —when Anna wasn’t. When Anna never would again.
“Come on, Dylan,” Emmy said, dropping the hose. “The sun’s dipping and it’ll be dark before long, so I guess you can knock off early and get a cool drink.” She started for the steps, holding out her hand. “Sadie, how ’bout some sweet tea?”
After shooting Kristen one last glance, Sadie slipped out of Mitch’s hold, took Emmy’s hand, and entered the house. Kristen continued painting, but the low snaps of twigs underfoot alerted her to Mitch’s approach.
His rough work boots stopped by her tennis shoes; then he sat on his haunches, his jeans pulling taut across his muscular thighs, and his damp T-shirt clinging to his wide upper body. He plucked a long blade of grass from the ground, held it with one tanned hand, and dragged his broad fingertips from one end to the other.
“You want to tell me what that was about?” he asked.
Kristen dunked the paintbrush into the paint again and attacked the lower half of the sign. “Not especially.”