Except that for a few days, she’d thought her plans would work out. She’d enjoy Leo’s company, she’d learn about the Crawfords and then she would magically discover why her mother had made the decision to leave everything behind rather than confront the truth.
No! Stop it. She had another chance. Two more chances. Myra Hammer and the lunch ladies. In the morning. She would pull herself together. She would tell Leo to keep his speculation to himself. For all the good that might do.
Still, she had to try. She couldn’t give up now, when she’d waited so long and come so far.
She turned the lock and opened the door. He sat on the arm of the sofa, wearing only jeans and a concerned expression, looking better than he had a right to. Hadn’t she told herself the first time she laid eyes on him that he was too good to be true?
She drew herself up to every inch of her five-foot-five-inch frame. “Thank you for dinner. I’m sorry things have to end this way, but they do. And also, I’m asking you not to say anything about your incorrect assumptions to anyone in town, especially Cal Crawford. This is my business and your so-called help is not needed or wanted.”
“There are people who care about you, even if you are just passing through.”
“People who care about someone don’t make assumptions. They don’t pretend to be concerned just to satisfy their curiosity.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
She nodded, biting back the tremendous hurt. She had to get out of here with a shred of her pride intact. “I think you wondered about me, asked me questions, spent time with me, all to satisfy your curious nature. And when you came up with something that made sense to you, you assumed you’d hit the truth.”
“You wouldn’t tell me anything!”
“That’s my right! I don’t owe you, even though you drove me around to yard sales and offered me a place to stay. That doesn’t give you the authority to demand answers that don’t concern you.”
“Even if they involve a friend of mine? If they concern Cal and Christie, a business partner?”
“I’m not here to hurt anyone!”
“Cal might see that differently.”
Amanda felt so angry, so frustrated, that she began to shake. Not enough for Leo to see, but enough for her to feel. She never got that angry. Never.
“Just leave me alone. I’ll be out of your condo tomorrow and out of your town by Wednesday. Whatever I have to say to anyone here is my business, not yours.”
Leo sighed. “You don’t have to leave the condo.”
“I’m not going to stay anywhere that I’m made to feel obliged to someone else. You obviously feel you have the right to question me and my motives. I won’t put myself in a position where you have any power over me.”
“I don’t feel that way. Christie and Toni want you to stay here. I want you to stay.”
Amanda shook her head. “Just keep out of my business and I’ll stay away from yours.” She clutched her socks and shoes and hurried to the door, so ready to leave Leo’s condo that she was nearly running as she reached the stairs. Her bare feet flew down the steps until she reached the door marked Two. She couldn’t wait to get inside, to shut and turn the dead bolt on the door. She hoped Leo didn’t have a master key that he could use to continue the argument long past its logical conclusion.
Because the only thing left for her to do was pack up and leave.
Chapter Eleven
Amanda clutched her file folder tightly as she walked toward the park where she would meet Myra Hammer. Past the law offices, she’d said. Across from the hardware store.
She refused to look across the street at Leo’s store. Not when he might be inside, looking out. Maybe he was still wondering about her, what she was up to.
Well, let him wonder. As long as he kept quiet about his theories, he could sit around and speculate until he turned blue in the face. She wasn’t going to spend any more time around him now that she had to constantly keep up her guard and watch every word. She wasn’t going to endure any more sympathy or listen to praise, when for all she knew it was a ploy to soften her up so she’d tell him everything.
And that hurt the most. She’d fallen for his softly spoken words because she’d wanted to believe that someone cared about her. She’d wanted to connect with him on the most personal level, and she thought she had, until he just had to make assumptions about who she really was and what she was doing in Brody’s Crossing.
She paused at the entry of the little park, set between a couple of two-story brick buildings right on Main Street. A fountain gurgled as the morning sunshine crept over the roof of the law office on the east side. Hardy ferns, blooming pansies and evergreen bushes circled the fountain and the walls. Several concrete benches provided a spot for folks to relax a moment.
An older woman clutching a handbag sat on one of the benches. She wore what appeared to be a perpetual frown, bifocal glasses and a lightweight tan jacket over knit pants and sensible shoes.
Amanda took a deep breath and walked forward, holding out her hand. “You must be Myra Hammer.”
“And you must be from Oregon,” the older woman said, not giving up her grip on her bag.
Amanda let her hand drop. So much for being civil. “Yes, I am. I’m Amanda.”
“Well, sit down and let me look at you.” Myra tilted her head back and studied Amanda as she perched on the hard bench. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“What did you bring, girl?”
Amanda placed the folder on Myra’s lap. “This is the pedigree chart I was telling you about.”
Myra picked up the top sheet, which was a printout of the Allen family with Luanna listed as the “Home Person.” “It’s easier to view this online, where you can click on the person and see their siblings, children, spouses and so forth,” Amanda explained.
“Luanna had a real contentious relationship with her mother,” Myra said after studying it for a short while. “She used to say her mother was never happy with her.” Myra snorted. “I guess that was the story of poor Luanna’s life.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She just had it rough, marrying that hard-ass Calvin Crawford. Never knew what she saw in that man.”
“Why a hard-ass?”
“He was raised that way, I suppose. His parents lived through the Depression and it was tough. I’ve heard stories from my relatives. Not only were prices for beef and hay way down, but we had a drought that just about killed off lots of ranches and farms. The Crawfords were proud folks from what my late in-laws said. They didn’t even want help from the government when it was offered.”
“That’s interesting. They were the self-reliant type of Texans.”
“Most Texans are self-reliant. They don’t trust anything that don’t have a lone star or a Confederate flag stamped on it.”
“I see.” Amanda crossed her legs. “What I meant, though, is what did Calvin do that made you call him a hard-ass.”
“It weren’t just me! Everyone knew that man loved the Rocking C first, then his boys and his wife came in a distant third. Luanna—I used to call her Lou—was a pretty woman when she first came to live here. She was lively, too. Why, we used to visit over coffee. Sometimes she would turn the radio up and we’d dance right there in my kitchen. I’d get to laughing so hard I nearly peed my pants!”
“Oh!” That must have been during one of her mother’s manic states. Either that or the bipolar disorder hadn’t kicked in yet and she was just…happy. Amanda had a hard time imagining her mother that way.
“Anyhow, once she got pregnant, she changed some. She got moody, you know? Lots of women do when they’re carrying a child. She loved that little baby, though. Calvin Crawford insisted on naming him after himself—and his father and grandfather, of course. Lou wanted to call him Charles Peter—he’d have the same initials—but Calvin wouldn’t hear of it. So, she lost that first battle and it went downhill after that.”
Amanda tried to wr
ap her mind around this new image of her mother, laughing and dancing to the radio in Myra’s kitchen, standing up to Calvin Crawford, if only for a while. She wished she had known her mother back then, before the disease and the years took their toll.
“She had another son several years later.”
“Yeah, Troy. Since Calvin already had his namesake and heir, he let Lou name the second baby. She liked the name Troy and she named him Allen after her family. He was always more of his momma’s son than Cal ever was.”
“What can you tell me about her reason for leaving Texas?” Amanda asked.
“Well, it wasn’t easy, that was for sure. Her boys were both in high school. Cal was just about to graduate. Troy was about four years younger.” Myra narrowed her eyes behind the thick bifocals and looked at Amanda intensely. “How much do you know about that?”
“Not much. She didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Did she show you the letters?”
Amanda shook her head. “I found them later.”
“Why did you come back here, girl?”
LEO STOOD AT THE FRONT WINDOW, staring across the street as Amanda sat on the bench with Myra Hammer.
He had few regrets in his life. A couple of times he’d gotten angry and said things that he wanted to pull back. A couple of hands he’d played when he’d been young and cocky. A car fender bender he’d had on a date back in high school when he hadn’t been paying attention.
Trusting that devious woman at his last blackjack tournament in Dubai….
But he’d never knowingly hurt anyone before. Before Amanda, that is.
She’d moved out of the condo very early this morning. When he’d stopped for coffee, Riley had told him not to bother getting one for Amanda because she was gone. She’d loaded up the Subaru, but thankfully hadn’t left town. It was still parked in the lot.
When he thought about the fact that she could have driven off and he might never see her again, he got a terrible feeling in his stomach. Yes, he knew he’d pushed too hard and she had every right to be angry with him. Yes, he’d jumped to conclusions. But dammit, he’d never met anyone more alone, more in need of someone to help her through what was obviously a difficult time.
Every time she got around Cal Crawford, Amanda practically freaked out. Wouldn’t that give anyone a clue that she had an issue with Cal? Or his late father?
And then there were those blue-gray Crawford eyes, with straight brows and darker brown lashes. Amanda and Cal were obviously related. Couldn’t everyone in town see it? Or maybe they had but just hadn’t said anything.
Maybe he should have asked someone else’s opinion first, but the timing…when they’d been snuggled together, deeply satisfied, as physically close as two people could be, had seemed perfect.
“You going to stand there all day?” Lola asked.
He nearly jumped. “You’ve got to start wearing shoes that aren’t so damn quiet,” he complained.
Lola looked outside. “Oh, isn’t that your new girlfriend from Oregon?”
“She is not my girlfriend.” Apparently she was no longer even his friend.
“Whatever you call it. Is that Myra Hammer she’s talking to? Poor girl. Myra is a tyrant.”
“Yes, she is. I wonder what they’re talking about?”
“Who knows? Maybe Myra is warning her to stay away from you.”
“Too late,” Leo muttered.
“Oh, so you two really are together.”
“No! I meant she’s too late because Amanda isn’t currently speaking to me.”
“You messed up, didn’t you? That’s what happens when you’re out of practice.” Lola shook her head. “You should have been dating all along so you wouldn’t be so rusty.”
“It’s awkward dating women in the town where I have a business. Besides, everyone I know of dating age is a friend. That’s just a recipe for disaster.”
“If you say so. Still, you just admitted that you screwed up with Amanda, so what’s the difference?”
“I didn’t say that I screwed up, just that she wasn’t speaking to me.”
Lola patted his arm. “Same difference.”
“Okay, I get the point. I’m going to my office.”
“Do you want anything for lunch? I’m making a run to the Burger Barn.”
Leo looked outside again. Maybe he needed an excuse to get out for a while. “No, I’ll pass. Thanks for the advice, for what it was worth.”
“It’s part of my job to help you in any way I can.”
Leo shook his head and walked upstairs to his office. Maybe he had interfered too much, or maybe his timing had been off.
He didn’t believe his theory was wrong, though. Amanda had asked him not to share his thoughts with anyone else in Brody’s Crossing, especially Cal Crawford. But she hadn’t said a thing about not talking to people outside town.
He got out his phone and looked up a number, then hit Talk. The phone rang a couple of times before a man answered.
“Hey, Troy. Something’s come up I need to tell you about.”
“I JUST WANT TO FIND OUT what happened nineteen years ago. Why she left. Why she never came back.”
“Why didn’t you ask her before she passed?”
“She wouldn’t talk about it. She’d say that what’s done is done.”
“It ain’t done as long as somebody’s festering. Seems to me that all three of you Crawfords aren’t done with it.”
Amanda nodded. What could she say? Myra was right.
The older woman looked her over, her graying brows drawn together. “I can see her in your face. Not your eyes, of course. They’re Crawford eyes. But you do look a bit like her, back in the time when we used to dance in my kitchen.”
For some unexpected and completely illogical reason, Amanda wanted to throw her arms around Myra Hammer and hug her tight. Tears came to her eyes for the second time in the past twenty-four hours. Tears, from someone who hardly ever cried.
“Now, don’t you get all maudlin,” Myra said. “I figured some day Lou’s daughter would come here, looking for her brothers.” She fished an old-fashioned handkerchief out of her purse and handed it to Amanda. “Sure took you long enough.”
Amanda nodded. “I’ve been a coward. I told myself that it didn’t matter whether they knew about me or not. It didn’t matter that they were my only close blood relatives. As the years went by, though, I thought about them more and more. And I kept wondering why my mother made the choice she did, to leave them behind. It must have been horrible for her to desert her sons.”
“It was the second hardest thing she’d ever done,” Myra said somberly.
“What was the hardest?”
“Leaving her newborn baby in Arkansas and coming back here like nothing at all happened.”
Amanda dabbed her eyes. “Why didn’t she stand up to Calvin Crawford? Why did she leave me with my grandmother?”
“Now that story, girl, is one I think those two brothers of yours should learn. Don’t you?”
Amanda took a deep breath, staring across the little park at the nicely trimmed bushes and flowers. “I don’t know if they care, or if they would even believe you. I’m pretty sure Cal, at least, is not going to believe me.”
“You never did tell me why you decided to come here now,” Myra said.
“Before my mother got sick, she was a waitress at a local restaurant that served breakfast and lunch. She had one customer who used to always sit at her table. I’d met him before. He was an older man, a real gentleman. He drove a red Chevy, I remember, and he always kept his car clean and parked it in the first parking spot where he could watch it from the booth he liked.”
“Sounds like almost every old man who’s a regular at the café, except they drive pickup trucks.”
Amanda nodded. “I remember my mother telling me how upset he was that she’d gotten sick. She tried to keep working, but she couldn’t. He used to send her cards. He told her not to worry, that things would be fine
no matter what happened.”
“Sounds like a sentimental old fool, but go ahead.”
“I discovered a few months ago that he’d died and left a good sum of money to the estate of Luanna Allen, to be divided among her heirs.”
“Did he know about Cal and Troy?”
“I have no idea. Mama never told me that she’d mentioned her situation to him. The lawyer who contacted me said that he would inform the sons that their mother had received an inheritance posthumously and they were entitled to the money. However, he also told me that he’d have to reveal how the money was divided.”
“So they’d find out about you.”
“Yes, from some legal document.” Amanda sighed. “That’s when I decided to come to Brody’s Crossing and try to meet them myself.”
“And what did you think of Cal and his family?”
“They seem very nice. The children are adorable. But Cal…he’s said some things that made me realize he’s still angry at our mother.”
“She hurt them a lot.” Myra pushed herself up from the bench. “Damn, my bottom’s sore from that hard concrete.” She rubbed her hip. “Now that you’re here, it’s time to put the past to rest.”
“I agree, but how—”
“You let me think on this for a while.”
“The lawyer is going to contact them on Wednesday with terms of the bequest. I have to tell them before he does.”
“Then I guess I’d better think fast.” She hobbled across the park, rubbing her hip. “We’ll get this straightened out.”
“But—”
“Don’t you run off,” Myra warned as she opened the door of her big, older model sedan parked at the curb.
I won’t, Amanda silently answered. Tonight she needed to find a place to sleep, but right now she had things to do in town.
She straightened the notes in her folder and rose from the bench. Myra was right; her bottom was sore. But not nearly as painful as her heart.
She had nearly an hour before she was meeting the lunch ladies at the café. Did she dare go back to the Coffee Crossing for a little Wi-Fi time and a vanilla latte? She had to check her online auctions, and with no place to stay, the coffee shop was the only option.
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