“I trust your judgment. Y’all haven’t sold me a bad one yet. Not like that bas—that fella over to Oxford.”
“Well, they’re used to having the university for a customer. They don’t have to face the folk they sell to every day, like we do here.” Analise stopped. “This is the one.” She pointed to the burlap-balled tree she’d spent an hour selecting yesterday.
“Ahhh, yes. That’s a good ’un, all right. Lois’ll be pleased.”
Analise nodded and called for Roy.
He peeked from around the trellis, where he’d obviously been loitering, waiting for Reverend Hammond to reappear.
“Could you get the dolly and load this into Mr. Baker’s truck?”
Roy glanced nervously toward the reverend’s car.
“I’m sure Reverend Hammond will be here a while yet.”
With obvious reluctance and a steady bead on the blue Crown Victoria in the drive, Roy went to retrieve the dolly.
Analise and Mr. Baker returned to the shop to settle the account.
“How’s Miss Livvie doing?” he asked as he signed the charge slip.
“She’s doing very well. As busy as ever.”
“Busy’s good. Helps dull the pain.”
Analise nodded. Mr. Baker knew what he was talking about; he and Lois had lost a daughter and grandchild to a car accident several years ago. Instead of the tragedy tearing them apart, it seemed to have made their marriage stronger.
They went outside just as Roy was climbing out of the bed of the truck. When he started to put up the rear gate, Analise said, “Wait a minute, Roy. We need to get some of that heavy twine in the back of the shop and secure the tree first.”
Roy looked at the reverend’s car again.
“He’s not out of the house yet. I’m sure you have time to get the twine.” Analise realized too late that her tone was much more biting than she’d intended.
Roy hunched his shoulders and went back inside.
While they waited, Mr. Baker started to talk about some trouble his wife was having with a few of the students in her class.
“She keeps threatening to retire. Says kids aren’t the same as they used to be. I hate the way it worries her. Just two days ago, there was a break-in at the school. Kids didn’t do much but dirty up the place, but once this type of thing gets started . . .”
“Do they know who was responsible?” Her skin tingled with dread.
“Oh, yeah, they’re pretty sure they know who, just don’t have enough to prove it yet. Shame of it is, seems it’s a group of ordinarily good kids.”
Analise tuned out everything else around her. Although she nudged and prodded, Mr. Baker was careful not to divulge names.
Roy called out the front door, “Miz Abbott, I cain’t find the string.”
“It’s next to the bags of fertilizer, on the shelf under the window.”
“You sure?” He inched farther out the door.
“Yes, I’m sure. I just put it there this morning.”
Turning as if his feet were heavy stones, he went back inside.
Analise tried to no avail to get some hint of the vandals’ identities. She was still engaged in the conversation when she heard Roy yell, “He’s leavin’!”
He dropped the roll of twine in the doorway and took off in a lumbering run after the Crown Vic that was just pulling out of the drive.
Apparently the reverend didn’t see Roy in his rearview mirror, because he pulled away and out of sight.
Roy ran out of steam when he got about even with the front porch. He stood there for a bit, his big shoulders rising and falling with his heaving breath. After a long minute during which Analise imagined Roy was trying to draw the minister back with sheer willpower, he turned around and began to return to the carriage house.
Analise watched him walk back. His shoulders were slumped even more than normal and he hung his head so low his chin touched his chest, but his movements were jerky, his step harsh—not the fluid lumbering she’d grown accustomed to seeing. She felt awful for letting the pastor get away. She’d been so caught up in trying to find out if Cole or his friends were involved in the most recent mischief, she didn’t even hear the man come out of the house.
Without so much as a pause or a glance in her direction, Roy passed her, saying, “You said I could pray.” The words were clipped, from between clenched teeth. His breathing was still ragged. “I need to pray.” He hit the doorjamb with his fist as he disappeared inside the shop.
“I’m sorry,” Analise called after him. Then she remembered Mr. Baker was still standing next to her. She picked up the twine and returned to the truck. “I’ll just get this secured for you—”
Mr. Baker took the twine from her hands. “Nonsense. I don’t need a slip of a girl to tie my tree down for me.” He climbed up into the bed of the truck with the agility of a thirty-year-old. After wrapping the twine around the trunk and securing the ends to the truck bed, he jumped down and handed the rest of the twine to Analise. “There, now. That should do fine.” Then he nodded toward the shop. “Your man there seemed pretty upset. Want me to go in and talk to him a spell?”
“No. Thank you, though. He wanted to see the reverend is all. He’ll be all right in a few minutes. I’m sure the reverend will be back tomorrow or the next day.”
Mr. Baker gave a knowing smile. “I ’spect he will.”
Had everyone in town noticed the man’s interest in Olivia?
Analise and Mr. Baker said their good-byes and then she went inside to find Roy and apologize. From the moment she’d met him, she had been certain his religious fervor was feigned, used only to gain what he wanted. Perhaps she’d been hasty in that assessment.
She didn’t see him right away. “Roy?” she called. When there was no answer, she checked the back room, then the greenhouses. He wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Glancing out the side window of the carriage house, she saw his truck was still sitting in its parking spot. Maybe he’d gone into the woods to sulk. Irked as she was at his irresponsibility, just disappearing in the middle of the workday, she now realized how important his visits with the pastor were to him.
Unable to do anything about it until Roy decided to show his face again, and totally out of the mood to work upstairs, she went into the stockroom to inventory supplies. Pretty soon there’d be high demand for potting soil and fertilizer; she didn’t want to be caught short.
She was shifting bags of peat from one corner to the other when she heard a foot scrape on the floor behind her.
She spun around just in time to hear the door to the stockroom slam shut. With only the light of the small window, it was so dim that she could only see Roy’s huge outline against the white door. His expression was hidden in shadow.
Nothing good could be coming of this. She tried to sidle around and maneuver herself nearer the door, yet remain out of reach of those long arms. “What is it, Roy?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, either, his bulk blocking the inward-swinging door.
“I’m sorry you missed Reverend Hammond.” She kept her voice light and cheerful, though all the while dark thoughts slithered through her mind. “I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow to see Mrs. Lejeune.” She couldn’t get any closer to the exit without putting herself within his grasp.
Rufus started whining on the other side of the door.
Looking around the room, she could see no weapon of any sort. There was a box cutter, but it was on the far side, dropped inside a box she’d just opened.
“Let’s work on unpacking some of those fertilizer stakes. Could you get that box over there?” She pointed across the room, hoping he’d at least move in that direction enough that she could get the door open.
He rotated his big head her way, staring at her for a moment. “I need to pray.”
“All right.” She swallowed. “I could use a little praying myself.” She motioned over by the window. “Maybe we could kneel down over there for a few minutes.�
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“Momma,” he said in a little-boy voice that sparked both hope and dread in Analise’s heart, “‘the devil,’ you said. You said . . . I shoulda listened better.” The last words trailed off into a near cry.
Analise dared move close enough to touch his arm, thinking to lead him away from the door while he seemed in a vulnerable state.
“No!” he bellowed, jerking away from her touch as if she’d branded him. Then he turned to face her fully and she realized what a horrible mistake she’d made. He leaned over her, forcing her backward.
Rufus howled and scratched at the door.
Roy kept coming forward, until Analise was backed against the wall. “Roy, calm down and let’s pray a bit.” Analise worked to keep her voice as calm as she could. “We can pray to Jesus.”
“Shut up!” he yelled. “You don’t say His name!” For a moment she thought he was going to grab her, but he just stood there with his hands balled at his sides. She couldn’t tell if he was furious or about to cry.
Rufus bayed and bumped repeatedly against the door. Maybe the latch wouldn’t hold. . . .
“Sinner.” His voice faded, sounding childlike again. He shook his head. “I’m a sinner.”
“God forgives sinners, Roy. You just have to ask—”
The door flew open. Luke grabbed Roy by the back of the neck and said, “Step away from her.”
Roy swung his right elbow around. Analise expected to hear the crack of that ham-sized elbow connecting with Luke’s face, but instead Roy dropped to his knees with a childlike whine.
Analise quickly stepped away from him.
Rufus had burst through right behind Luke and was bellowing and barking as he jumped from side to side, making such a racket that Analise’s ears started to ring. He darted toward Roy, then backed off a step.
“All right, Rufus! Down!” Analise shouted.
The dog mouthed a couple of mute barks, then dropped to the floor. A long thin whine continued to come from his throat.
Luke had a vise-grip on something in Roy’s neck that had him mewling like a kitten.
“Luke, it’s okay, let go.” There was a look in Luke’s eye that scared her almost as much as Roy’s outburst. It was as if he wanted Roy to do something foolish.
Rufus whined.
After a second, Luke looked up at her. His jaw pulsed with tension.
Roy whimpered.
Finally, Luke said, “I’m going to let you go. But don’t you move. Got it?”
“Yeeesss.” Roy curled into a tighter ball and slurred the word.
Luke released the pressure and Roy rocked to the side and sat with a thud.
“I’m s-s-orry.” Now Roy was crying, sounding like a repentant child. “I just needed to pray.”
“Get up,” Luke said.
Suddenly Roy appeared so lost, so much like the child he must still be in his mind. Analise now saw how fragile he was, how much he depended on guidance—which he’d found in Reverend Hammond now that his own mother was gone.
Frightened as she’d been, Analise still moved to help him stand.
Luke stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.
Her gaze snapped to his face.
He didn’t say anything, he simply moved her away from Roy.
“Get up,” Luke said.
Roy sniffled and slowly got to his feet.
Analise fought her instinct to put a comforting hand on him. He was no more than a child in a man’s body.
Luke looked at Analise, “How much do you owe him?”
Taken off guard, she blinked.
He prodded. “Wages?”
“Um, three days . . . around a hundred and forty.”
Luke reached in his pocket and pulled out some folded bills. He peeled off five fifties. Grabbing Roy’s hand, he stuffed the money into his fist. “That more than covers it. Leave now, and don’t even think of coming back here.”
“Wait a—”
Luke gave Analise a glare that froze her words in her throat and sent a shiver down her spine. He turned to Roy. “Go.”
Roy ran from the room.
“Wait!” Analise followed him, but Roy didn’t so much as look over his shoulder before he jumped in his truck. It ground to a start and he whipped it in a circle and headed out the drive in a cloud of dust that left her coughing.
She spun around just as Luke was coming out of the shop. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? You had no right—”
Luke stepped toward her. “That man was attacking you!”
“He was . . . upset. He didn’t get to pray with Reverend Hammond. He didn’t even touch me. I was handling it just fine until you burst in—”
“And kept him from touching you!”
“He was going to calm down. I didn’t realize how childlike he was until just now.”
“Childish in judgment—but he has a man’s force. I’ve seen men like that before; he wasn’t going to stop until he did some damage. Maybe not this time, but it would happen. You should stop discounting men’s actions because they’re ‘upset.’”
His insult over her reaction to Cole’s behavior stung. But her anger overrode all else.
Before she could say more, Luke asked, “What was your first instinct when he came in the room?”
Looking around, as if she could find the answer flitting about in thin air, she swallowed and said, “I was startled, I guess.” She thought of the way her stomach lurched and her skin tingled when she’d seen him there; how panic threatened to rise when he’d slammed the door. But that was before . . . before she knew he was just a child.
“You were scared.”
She couldn’t deny it.
He said, “You should always heed your first instinct.” As if he could sense her doubt and subsequent mental justification he added, “Rufus was raising a ruckus. You said yourself that he never wastes energy carrying on for nothing.” He pointed at the dog, now sitting in the doorway to the carriage house. “‘He knows when to get down to business.’”
Again, he was throwing her own words in her face. What pissed her off most was that there was no way to counter it. She had said it. Still, Luke had crossed the line. “You had no right to fire him.”
“What’s going on out here?” Olivia walked quickly toward them from the house. “Roy took off like a bat straight out of Hades.”
“Luke just fired him.” Analise put her hands on her hips.
Olivia looked from one face to the other, then to Rufus. “I heard Rufus.” She said it like that was proof positive that something was wrong.
Analise said, with as little resignation in her voice as she could manage, “Roy was getting a little out of hand.”
“What do you mean?” Concern creased Olivia’s brow.
Luke said, “He had Analise backed into a corner in the storeroom, threatening her.”
Analise put a hand on Olivia’s arm and shot Luke a nasty glare. “He was upset because he wanted to pray with Reverend Hammond and missed him.”
“Oh.” Olivia pursed her lips in thought. “Well, we can’t have someone around that’s unstable. I’d so hoped we could help him. . . .”
Analise wanted Olivia focused on the real problem. Yes, it was too bad they’d failed in getting Roy back on his feet, but there were currently bigger concerns for Magnolia Mile—or they’d need someone to get them back on their feet. The bank had already begun to make concerned queries about the financial solvency of the nursery. “Now we don’t have help—and next week is the Holly Ridge Park job.” Analise turned to Luke. “You had no right to fire him. It’s our business.” She faced Olivia again. “Maybe we can find him—”
Luke nearly shouted, “The man’s too dangerous to have around here with just two women—”
Olivia interrupted him with a shush and a raised hand. “We’ll just have to find someone else.”
“Between now and Monday?” Analise shook her head. “Hargrove Farms has gobbled up almost all of the available manpower around
here for that huge irrigation system. Whoever’s left has gone to work for the new plastics plant. We can’t compete with those wages.”
Olivia said, “Cole can help.”
“Yes,” Analise said. “After school. That cuts me to working with extra muscle for about three hours a day—then it’s too dark. Besides, Cole has soccer practice and needs to focus on his grades.” She rubbed her temples. “Don’t forget, the contract has penalties for not finishing on schedule.”
Olivia grumbled, “I knew when that Clint Braynard got into office he’d start trying to change things—wants to run this county like it’s a big city. When have we ever had penalties? Our word has always been enough.”
“Maybe we could get several of Cole’s friends. Three hours a day with four or five of them might do it—”
“I’ll stay.”
Both Analise and Olivia turned to Luke. Analise glanced back at Olivia, who had a look of concentration on her face, as if she were weighing the pros and cons of his staying.
He repeated, “I’ll stay and help . . . until you find someone else.”
Analise said, “Your knee—”
“Won’t keep me from digging holes. You’ve got a dolly for moving the heavy stuff.”
She set her jaw. “We can’t ask you to stay.”
He looked steadily at her. She didn’t like the way those blue eyes made her heart beat a little faster and her blood press against her veins.
“You didn’t ask,” he said. “I offered. In fact, I insist.”
“We can’t thank you enough,” Olivia said with a smile. “I promise to start looking for someone right away.”
Analise could see the glitter in Olivia’s eye; they both knew there would be no new help until that irrigation system was finished, unless it fell from the sky. Which was practically what had just happened with Luke’s unexpected arrival.
“What are you doing back here, anyway?” Analise asked with an edge still in her voice. “I thought you were on your way to Indiana.”
The second he riveted those blue eyes on her she realized her mistake. He looked at her for a long moment. Analise prayed he’d have the decency to keep his mouth shut in front of Olivia.
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