“Thank you, Lord, for the food and the company. Amen.” Cole Delacourte smiled kindly at his granddaughter. “Was that quick enough for you, Chloe?”
“It’s just that I’m not used to praying,” Chloe explained. “We never do at home.”
Nola Ruth addressed her granddaughter. “We don’t blame you for your lack of religious education, darling. Your mother was very remiss. I’m sure she sees the error of her ways.”
“There is more than one way to live a spiritual life, Mama,” Libby said, then changed the subject. “This chicken salad is delicious. I think Serena uses rosemary. Do you like it, Chloe?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Answer yes or no, darling,” Nola Ruth said. “Uh-huh isn’t polite.”
Coleson’s rare temper flared. “For Pete’s sake, Nola Ruth, let the child eat. You don’t need to educate her. She’s fine the way she is.”
“Of course she is,” Nola Ruth smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Chloe. I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m not offended, Grandma.” She looked at her mother. “Where did you go this morning?”
“I’ll tell you after lunch.”
“Tell us now,” Coleson said. “Unless it’s a secret.”
“No, it’s no secret,” Libby said slowly. “There’s an environmental problem here in Marshyhope Creek.” She looked pointedly at her daughter. “I’d like to talk to you about it after dinner, Chloe.”
“Why can’t you talk now?”
“It affects you as well as me,” Libby explained.
“Tell me now.”
“It can wait.”
Chloe set her fork down. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “May I be excused?”
“For heaven’s sake, Chloe,” her mother exploded. “You just don’t know when to stop. I’d like to talk to you about this sensibly, but if you’re going to pull your I’ll starve myself routine, I’ll tell you now. I’m going to work for the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Chloe’s face was very white.
Libby hurried on. “It’s not exactly permanent.”
“What does that mean?” her father asked.
Nola Ruth watched her daughter draw a deep breath.
“I don’t know. It could be a few months, maybe more, depending on how long it takes.”
“No,” Chloe cried out.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity, Chloe,” Libby said quickly. “You’ll see. I’ve always wanted to work in my field. When school starts you’ll make friends and everything will be fine.”
Nola Ruth glowed. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. How fortunate that things are turning out the way they are.”
“You promised,” Chloe whispered. “You said I could go home. You said six weeks, tops.”
“We haven’t been here for six weeks, Chloe.”
“You just said we could be here for months.”
Libby fell silent, shamed by the burning accusation in her daughter’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but this is important to me.”
“You’re not sorry. If you were really sorry, you’d take it back.”
Libby’s lips tightened. “What I meant is that I’m sorry you’re so disappointed. It won’t be as bad as you think.”
Chloe was standing now, rigid defiance stiffening her slight body. “It won’t be bad at all because I’m going home. I’m calling Dad. He promised that I could come home. He’ll come and get me if you don’t send me back.”
“Chloe, please,” Libby pleaded. “Stop this. You can’t go back to California. Your home is with me.”
“Who decided on that one?” Chloe shouted. “I don’t remember being asked who I wanted to live with.”
Nola Ruth opened her mouth. ‘‘Whom, darling, not who.”
Almost immediately her husband’s foot pressed down on hers warningly.
“Chloe, you’re behaving badly,” her mother said. “Sit down and let’s discuss this rationally.”
“I’m not discussing anything with someone who breaks her promises. You’re a liar.”
Nola Ruth gasped. Her husband’s hand clamped down on her arm.
Tears rolled down Chloe’s cheeks. “Dad will come and get me. You’ll see. I’m calling him now.” She ran from the room.
Nola Ruth turned on Cole. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded.
Cole resumed eating his lunch. “You were about to say something you would eventually regret. I stopped you. Chloe doesn’t need us to disapprove of her. It would hurt her to admit she would rather go home than stay here. I didn’t want to put her through that.”
“Are you saying that you approve of that child’s behavior?”
“That child is our granddaughter. She’s angry, hurt and scared. Her entire life has been disrupted. If what she says is true, I don’t blame her.” He looked at his daughter. “Look at me, Libba Jane,” he ordered. “Did you in fact promise Chloe that she could go back to California if you decided to stay?”
Tears welled up in Libby’s eyes. She nodded.
“What were you thinking?”
“She wouldn’t come with me. I thought she’d change her mind once we got here.”
“For pity’s sake, Libba Jane,” her mother interrupted. “Chloe is a little girl, a very spoiled little girl. That’s your fault. She actually believes she has the same rights and privileges as an adult. Children aren’t consulted as to where their parents decide to live. They aren’t capable of making those decisions. I can’t believe what I heard here today.”
“Chloe’s smart,” Cole said, “and insightful. I can see why you made the mistakes you did.” He sighed. “It’s not all your doing, honey. From what I can tell you were a single mother for the most part, too busy with earning a living and acquiring an education to build friendships. It’s no wonder you turned to Chloe. Now you’ve got to live with what you’ve created.”
“She can’t go home,” Libby said woodenly.
“It might not be a bad idea to allow her to live part of the year with her father,” Cole said gently. “It’s not an unusual arrangement for a teenager.”
Libby pressed her fingertips against her eyelids, willing the tears back. “You don’t understand, Daddy. Eric won’t take her. He doesn’t want her. Oh, he’ll act the part of the adoring father now and then, but he won’t have her living with him. He’s not capable of doing for anyone else.”
“Well, it’s settled, then. Chloe stays here with us.” Nola Ruth leaned her head back against the high chair and smiled. “Don’t tell me that you aren’t delighted, Cole. You’ve always wanted Libba to come home.”
“That was never the issue,” Cole replied dryly.
Libby was beyond misery. She wanted to explain, but the hurt was too personal, too deep. She’d learned long ago that vulnerability was not something Nola Ruth Delacourte appreciated. Her mother flourished when life ran smoothly. Keeping up appearances was as necessary to her as sugar in her coffee and jelly on her toast. Keep the late-night confidences for the confessional, she’d told her daughter. Libby had never forgotten. She’d learned her lessons early and well. If an invitation to a party never came, she said nothing. If a secret valentine didn’t reciprocate, no one ever knew. If someone hurt her feelings or called her a name or tripped her at school, she breathed hard, lift her chin and shrugged it off. But Chloe was a horse of a different color. She’d been raised very differently, and at this very moment, her father was most likely breaking her heart.
Libby crumpled her napkin and left it beside her plate. “Excuse me,” she said. “I need to find Chloe.”
Her father nodded. Her mother was uncharacteristically silent.
She found Chloe in the study, a masculine room with deep leather sofas, shelves of thick books, hunter-green accents and the faint smell of cigars. The child sat curled up in a corner couch, the phone tucked between her chin and shoulder. Her hands shook and her words, monosyllabic and muted, were thick with tears.
Libby waited, unseen, just
inside the door until Chloe hung up the phone and buried her face in her arms.
“Chloe,” Libby said brokenly, “please, listen. Give me a minute.”
Chloe shook her head. “Go away.”
“It won’t be that bad. You’ll see.” Libby approached the couch and reached out a hand to touch the narrow, tanned shoulder.
Chloe jumped up, wild-eyed. “Don’t touch me. I hate you. I’ll hate you forever. I’m leaving this place as soon as I can, and when I do, I’m never speaking to you again. I’ll never call you or visit you or see you.” Saliva and mucus ran down her face. Libby pulled a tissue from a box on an end table and handed it to her. Angrily, Chloe rejected it, wiped her nose on the back of her hand and then on her shorts and ran out of the room, down the long hallway, through the kitchen and out the back door.
She continued running along the road, past the peach grove and the bee farms, past the fruit vendors and the fishing holes. Ignoring the waves of heat swimming up from the pavement, she tripped, rolled down the embankment, lurched to her feet, waded across the creek, climbed the other side and ran into the cool, green woods. She ran until she could no longer summon her breath, until the parched rawness in her throat screamed for water, until the dizziness blurred her vision and shards of pain exploded behind her eyes, until chills and nausea brought her to her knees and she crawled, gasping and sick, into the shelter of a tree brilliant with white bark and silver leaves. Leaning her head weakly against the trunk, she cried until her swollen eyes could no longer open. Then she fell asleep.
She lay unconscious, oblivious to the changing afternoon, the darkening clouds, the shifting wind, the rustle of leaves, the cry of a loon and the approaching footsteps. It wasn’t until she heard a human voice, amused and faintly familiar, that her awareness returned.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” the voice said. “Remember me?”
Chloe rolled over, forced open her swollen eyelids and met Bailey Jones’s dark and curious gaze.
Eleven
Chloe rolled over on her stomach, her humiliation complete. “Go away.”
“You look like you could use a friend.”
“Oh, really,” she said bitterly. “Now you want to be my friend. You weren’t so eager the other day.”
“That was different.”
The boy squatted down beside her, balancing on the balls of his feet. Through the space between the crook of her elbow, she ventured a glance at him. He was completely still and comfortable against the backdrop of the woods. Somehow she knew he would wait her out no matter how long it took. If only her eyes weren’t so swollen.
“Why was it different?” she asked.
“That was about me. This isn’t.”
Chloe rolled over and sat up. She had nothing to lose. “My mother is staying here and I have to stay with her. My dad doesn’t want me.”
Bailey nodded but did not look surprised. He said nothing.
There was something about him, the dark eyes, the intensity of his pose, that encouraged confidences. Chloe kept talking. “My mother promised that we’d go home. I wouldn’t have come with her if I thought she was staying.”
“What about your dad?”
Her lip quivered. “He promised, too. Both of them lied to me.”
Again he nodded.
“I hate them,” Chloe sobbed, dropping her head in her hands. “I can’t stay here. I just can’t.”
“I suppose you’ve never broken a promise,” said Bailey.
“No, I haven’t, at least not an important one,” she amended. “Have you?”
He thought a minute. “Not that I recall, but then I don’t promise much. You never know when life changes.”
Suddenly, she wanted very much to know what he was thinking. “What’ll I do?”
He shrugged “Nothing to do. Living with Cole Delacourte in that big old house with your mama can’t be all that bad. You’ll do all right.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “That’s easy for you to say. No one’s making you stay in a place you hate. You don’t even go to school when you don’t want to.”
He stared at her. “Do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Come out and say things like they’re God’s truth when you don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about?”
Chloe’s blue eyes glared back at him. “I think I hate you, too.”
Bailey laughed. “You don’t know me well enough to hate me.” He stretched out his hand. “Dry your eyes and come on home with me. I’ll feed you.”
Chloe hesitated. She was both attracted to and repelled by this strange boy with his quicksilver moods, his matter-of-fact acceptance of his place in the world and his beautiful, beautiful face. “Are you a decent cook?”
“Better’n most,” he admitted. “I’m not sure you’ll like what’s on the menu, but if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat anything, I guess.”
The woods were dim and cool and darkly shadowed. All at once Chloe was worried about the time. “I should call my grandfather. He’ll be worried about me.”
“There’s no phone where we’re going.” He stood completely still, waiting for her answer.
Chloe stood and dusted pine needles off the back of her shorts. “Who else lives with you?”
“Just Mama and me.”
“Where’s your dad?”
Bailey took off ahead of her. “Don’t know,” he answered. “He left before I was born.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“No,” he said again. “I’m the only one.”
Chloe ran to catch up with him. “Like me,” she said.
She watched the corners of his mouth turn up.
“Like you,” he said softly. “That’s about the only way we’re alike.”
“Verna Lee said we should be friends,” she said conversationally.
Bailey shoved his hands into his pockets. “How do you know Verna Lee?”
“She gave me iced tea when the hardware store was closed. I like her.”
Bailey nodded.
“Do you think she’s beautiful?” Chloe asked.
He frowned. “I never thought much about it.”
“I do,” confided Chloe. “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“You must have seen quite a few living in California.”
Chloe tilted her head. “California has lots of beautiful people, but most of them are plastic.”
“Plastic people?”
“You know, artificial. They have plastic surgery and colored hair. Verna Lee is naturally beautiful, like my mother.”
Bailey reached out to tug a strand of Chloe’s silvery hair with its black tips. “What about this? Is it real, or do you dye it?”
“Most of it is real. The black isn’t.”
“You don’t look much like your mama.”
“No.” Chloe’s voice was hollow. “I look like my dad, sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m blond and blue-eyed like he is, but that’s about it. He’s an actor,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I’m not as good-looking as either of my parents.”
Again, she’d called up in him that brief, flashing smile. “You look all right, Chloe” was all he said.
She hadn’t been fishing for a compliment, but it pleased her, small concession that it was. Chloe stopped talking and looked around. “How far is it to your house?”
“It’s not a house.” He pointed straight ahead. “We’re nearly there.”
She strained her eyes. At the end of the path was a trailer, as old and rusted as the truck beside it. The door was open and a delicious, meaty smell floated toward them. Smoke curled up from a firepit outside. Laundry hung from a line anchored between two trees. A picnic table was spread with a tablecloth and two place settings. Outside the trailer, on a wooden bench, sat a woman with long black hair and a faded but clean cotton dress that had seen better days. She did not get up when the two
of them approached. Her stare was vacant, the dark eyes empty of life. All at once Chloe saw that she was blind.
“Mama,” Bailey said gently. “I’ve brought someone home. Her name is Chloe Richards.”
“Richards.” The woman rolled her tongue around the name, testing it. “I don’t know anyone named Richards.”
“Chloe is from California. She’s Cole Delacourte’s granddaughter.”
The woman’s forehead wrinkled as if she was deep in thought. “Come here, child.”
Chloe looked at Bailey. He nodded. She stepped forward.
The woman lifted her hands, long and thin and elegant, to Chloe’s face. Gently, she examined it, tracing her bones, outlining her lips, the forehead, the fullness of her cheeks.“My, you’re a pretty thing,” she said in her husky drawl. “You must be Libba Jane’s daughter.”
Chloe found her voice. “Yes.”
“I’m Lizzie Jones. You’re welcome here, child.”
“Thank you.” Her stomach growled.
The woman laughed. “We’re having stew. It’s not much, but it’ll fill the hole in your stomach.”
Suddenly, all Chloe wanted to do was sit around the table and share a meal with this sad, pretty woman and her beautiful son. “I’ll set the rest of the table,” she volunteered.
“I’ll find another plate,” Bailey said, and disappeared into the trailer.
“Bailey doesn’t bring friends home very often,” said his mother. “You must be special.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Chloe. “I think he feels sorry for me.”
“Why is that?”
“I want to go home to California,” Chloe said honestly. “My mother said we were coming for a visit and now she’s found a job here.”
Lizzie Jones listened intently as if what Chloe said was of utmost importance. “Have you taken a dislike to Marshyhope Creek?” she asked.
“It’s not that.” Chloe sat down beside her. The woman’s eyes followed as if she could see. “I have friends at home, a whole life and things I want to do. My dad is there, too.”
“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” the woman said, and Chloe believed her. “I think Bailey would rather be somewhere else, too.”
“Why can’t you move?”
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