Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three

by Inglath Cooper

  Was it true? The question pops up in uncharacteristic defiance. Of course it was true. Jeffrey hadn’t cared about anything or anyone but Jillie and their girls. She owed Poppy everything. Even the mere fact that she and her mother were able to stay in the home she’d grown up in without being kicked out by Jillie.

  Suddenly, Angela realizes she owes Poppy an apology. As much as she hates admitting it.

  41

  Tate

  AS AN ADULT, I’ve found life to be pretty predictable for the most part. Work hard. Set goals. Don’t expect anything to be handed to you. Remember that perfection doesn’t exist.

  But tonight. That I hadn’t expected.

  There’s little furniture in the house, but there is a great, old, farm-style table just off the kitchen. Jillie and her girls sit on one side. I’m sitting on the other. Both Kala and Corey are eating the mac and cheese I’d prepared as if it really is Michelin quality, and I’m pretty proud of the effort.

  “What’s your secret?” Jillie asks, glancing at the girls with a smile.

  “Quadruple cheese,” I say. “Cheese fixes everything.”

  “I’ll have to get your recipe.”

  “Happy to share it,” I say.

  The wall sconces throw out soft light. I’ve left a couple of windows open, and a late spring breeze dances across the room.

  “I never imagined that you would like cooking,” Jillie says.

  “Neither did I,” I agree, with a shrug.

  “Where did you learn?”

  “I spent some time in a little village in France a few years ago. The whole town smelled like you imagine your grandma’s kitchen should smell.”

  “Who taught you to cook?”

  “The owner/chef at the small hotel where I stayed. He saw food as art, a way to create. I actually enjoyed learning another way to funnel creativity.”

  “Well,” Jillie says, “the people you cook for are the lucky ones.”

  “This is yummy,” Corey says, licking her fork.

  “Thanks. I can teach you girls how to make it.”

  “Awesome,” Corey says. “I could eat this breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  “I guess that’s the ultimate compliment,” Jillie says.

  “I’m sure your mom’s a much better cook than I am,” I say to the girls.

  “She makes a really good peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Corey says with all seriousness.

  Kala rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

  “The secret’s out,” Jillie says.

  We make small talk for the remainder of dinner. It’s after eight when Kala says, “We have homework, Mom.”

  “I’ve got the cleanup,” I say. “You all better get to that homework.”

  “Kala, why don’t you go ahead with Corey? I’ll help with the dishes and be right there.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “I’m happy to,” Jillie interrupts. “Can Audie walk them back?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Kala brightens at the prospect of Audie going with them. Both girls politely thank me for dinner and head out of the house.

  Jillie and I gather the dishes from the table, carrying them to the kitchen in a newly awkward silence. She puts the plates in the sink and begins to rinse them one by one. “I don’t know how to thank you, Tate. I feel incredibly indebted to you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I say, realizing I am not comfortable with Jillie feeling as if she owes me.

  She rinses the last plate, adds it to the stack waiting for the dishwasher, then turns to face me. “Actually, I do.”

  Her gaze holds mine, and I’m suddenly remembering how easily I could get lost in her eyes. “Jillie—”

  She raises a hand to stop me, saying quickly, “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to pay you back.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  She looks down at the floor, crosses her arms across her chest. “I should have left Stone Meadow after Jeffrey died. I’m ashamed that it took Kala running away to make me realize I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Hey,” I say, reaching out to tip her chin up so that she is facing me.

  “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

  “I do, actually. I knew we weren’t wanted there, but I was too scared to try to make it on my own.”

  “What do you mean on your own?”

  She bites her lip, looks down at her hands.

  “Jillie,” I say. “What is it?”

  “Jeffrey . . . he didn’t leave anything to me. Or the girls.”

  “There was no will?”

  “There was. But everything went to Angela and Mrs. Taylor.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, looking up at me now, tears in her eyes. She wipes the back of her hand across her face, as if she resents letting me see her cry.

  “What about insurance?”

  “His policy wouldn’t pay because—” she hesitates, and then says in a low voice, “he took his own life.”

  I feel as if someone has slammed a fist into my gut. Whatever I had imagined Jillie’s life at Stone Meadow to be like, it wasn’t this.

  “I don’t care whether he left anything to me or not,” she says. “But his daughters . . . I will never understand—”

  I drop the drying towel in my hand, reaching out to pull her to me.

  “Shh,” I say, rubbing my hand across her back. “Damn, Jillie. I’m sorry you’ve been through all this.”

  “I don’t want your pity,” she says, her face pressed against my shirt.

  “It’s not pity that I feel,” I say, my hand going still between her shoulder blades.

  “I know I must look like such a fool. There were plenty of people around here who thought I married Jeffrey for his money. They probably think I got what I deserved.”

  “Anyone who knows you at all, knows that wouldn’t be true.” I hold her against me, neither of us saying anything for a good bit.

  I finally pull back and look down at her. “Can I ask you something?”

  She nods.

  “Why did you marry him, Jillie?” I hear the hurt underscoring my own question, wish for a moment that I could take it back, but I need to know.

  She shakes her head a little. “I was lost, Tate. After you left, I didn’t know what to do with myself. And then when Daddy had the heart attack and I was on my own, I didn’t know where to begin. Jeffrey was kind to me. I didn’t have the courage to walk away from the security he was offering. I was a coward.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

  “If I hadn’t doubted you when Angela accused you of—”

  “Don’t,” I say. “Water under the bridge.”

  “I’m sorry, Tate. If I could go back and do that differently—”

  “We’d both do some things differently,” I interrupt.

  “I wouldn’t trade my girls for anything. So I can’t regret my choices.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’ve made a great life for yourself.”

  “Do you think I wouldn’t have traded it all for what you and I wanted together?”

  The question clearly surprises her. “Don’t, Tate. Neither one of us can afford to go there.”

  “Down Regret Lane?”

  She laughs a shaky laugh. “Yeah.”

  “Jillie, a good attorney could probably get you a different outcome. Your daughters have a right to—”

  “I don’t want that,” she interrupts. “That’s exactly what Mrs. Taylor would expect me to do. She never believed I was anything but a gold digger.”

  “Then she never made the effort to know you.”

  “You don’t know me anymore, Tate.”

  “Have you changed so much?”

  “Sometimes, I think so.”

  “When I look at you, I see the girl I used to know.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Believe it.”

>   She’s quiet for a bit before saying, “Do you think it’s too late for me to—”

  “No,” I say without letting her finish.

  “I really want to help you make this farm what it once was.”

  “Good.”

  “But you have to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “That the moment you no longer want to be here, you’ll say so. That you won’t do this just because you pity me.”

  “I don’t pity you.”

  She stares up at me, tears welling in her eyes. I reach out and brush them away with my thumb.

  “I believe there’s such a thing as starting over. Do you?”

  “I want to.”

  “That’s all that matters then.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “I think maybe it is,” I say.

  She squeezes my hand, steps back, and says, “I’d better go check on the girls. Thank you, Tate. For everything.”

  “Good night, Jillie.”

  “Good night, Tate.”

  I watch her walk out of the kitchen, listen to her footsteps in the hallway, and I can’t deny the feeling that she’s not the only one starting over here.

  42

  Jillie

  I WANT TO act as if everything is normal. I had set the alarm on my phone for my regular wake-up time of 5:45. I’m just getting out of the shower when I hear a knock at the door. I fumble for the robe I packed at the bottom of my suitcase and hustle to the front door, opening it to find a tray with a pot of French press coffee, a cup, cream, sugar, and a bottle of orange juice with two glasses.

  I pick up the folded note, take in the familiar handwriting.

  Kind of forgot you would need breakfast. Meager, but something to get you going.

  It is signed Tate, but he’s nowhere in sight. The kindness of the gesture thickens my throat, and I realize that it’s been a very long time since someone else thought of me and my needs.

  Even the thought makes me feel selfish and self-centered. My life could have been far more difficult than it has been to date. But even knowing that, I can’t deny that it’s nice to have such a gesture directed at me.

  I pick up the tray and carry it back inside the house, place it on the kitchen counter before pouring myself a cup of the steaming coffee. The smell is delicious. I add a little cream and sugar and take a sip with an appreciative sigh. I pour a glass of juice for each of the girls and take it into their room, calling them awake with a cheerful, “Good morning, sleepy heads. Time for school.”

  Kala rolls over with a groan and pulls the pillow across her face. “It’s not Saturday?”

  I smile at the question. It’s something she used to ask me when she was younger every day of the school week. “No. But it’s Friday. So just one more day.”

  “Morning, Mommy,” Corey says, in her adorable, sleep-tinged voice.

  I sit down on the twin bed next to her, rub my hand across her hair, and say, “How did you sleep?”

  “Good,” she says. “You?”

  “I did.”

  “What’s for breakfast?” she mumbles.

  “Juice for starters,” I say. “Courtesy of Mr. Callahan.”

  “He said we could call him Tate,” Kala says, pulling the pillow from her face.

  “Courtesy of Tate,” I correct. “We’ll stop for a smoothie on the way in to school. You girls get up and get at it.”

  I leave the room on a chorus of half-hearted protest, retrieve my coffee from the kitchen counter and take it outside to the back porch.

  The old glider swing from my childhood is still there. I sit down on it, slide forward and back again, the instant squeak telling me it’s in need of some oil.

  Several small paddocks are visible from here, the grass inside each has grown nearly to the top of the board fencing, which is in desperate need of a good spray washing and painting. I remember how these fields had once looked, manicured and taken care of in the way of a piece of property dearly loved by its owner. I had loved it like that too, even though I had no claim of ownership.

  The fact that Tate now does startles me all over again. And I wonder how this could possibly have happened, what the truth really is behind his purchasing this place.

  Is it about memories, wanting to create something of the past in order to find his way to a new future? And what about my reason for coming here?

  I can admit the obvious. It was an immediate solution to my realization that I could no longer stay at Stone Meadow. But I know it’s more than that.

  Where Tate is concerned, it’s always been more than the obvious. I don’t have all the answers to my own questions, but there is one thing I know for sure.

  I want to help make this place beautiful again. I want to be a part of what Tate envisions for it. Where I will go from here, I honestly have no idea.

  Maybe, for now, that doesn’t matter. Maybe, for now, all that matters is this new beginning, in this place that had once been the center of my world, Smith Mountain Lake, with its namesake mountain visible in the distance.

  It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt this hopeful.

  43

  Tate

  I WATCH THEM leave, from the wide, bay window of the living room at the front of the house. I realize I’m a little sad to see them go, and, at the same time, aware that it’s anything but healthy to be forming an attachment to Jillie or her daughters.

  Whatever this is, we both know it’s not permanent, and I’ll be far better off in the long run owning that up front.

  I down another coffee, give Audie his breakfast. We both head out the back door off the kitchen to the barn. I’m going to do an inventory of what tools, if any, have been left on the farm. From there, I’ll figure out what we’ll need to start getting things in shape again.

  I walk down the pea gravel drive to the right-hand end of the barn and the tool room I remember being there. The door is unlocked. I open it, flip on the light and am relieved to see an old push mower and a weed eater. That’s about it, but it’s a start.

  I grab a couple of empty, red, plastic gas cans, call Audie out of the room, and then head for the car.

  I DRIVE OVER TO Hayden’s Marina to get some gas for the mower and the weed eater, Audie on the seat beside me, his head sticking out of the window.

  We pull up to the tank next to the dock. A pretty, young girl with light-blonde hair and an instant smile stands next to one of the pumps.

  “Good morning,” she calls out. “May I help you with something today?”

  I pull the cans from the back seat, saying, “Wanted to see if I could get these filled up.”

  “Regular or premium?” she asks.

  “Regular, please.”

  “Doing some mowing?”

  I set the cans down beside the pump. “Yeah. I’ll probably be back for a few refills.”

  “That’s a lot of mowing. Are you new at the lake? Haven’t seen you around before.”

  “Sort of. I used to live here. I just bought the old Mason place.”

  “Cross Country?”

  I nod.

  “Oh, I love that farm,” she says, her pretty smile wide and contagious. “It’s nice to know someone’s going to get it back in shape again.”

  “It’s gotten a little grown up,” I say.

  “Yeah, but it won’t take that much to get it looking nice again. Hope you’ve got some help.”

  “Probably need to look into that.”

  “I’m Kat, by the way.”

  “Tate.”

  A door behind us opens, slams shut. I look around to see a man walking toward us.

  “You need some help, honey?” he asks, looking at the girl.

  “No, I’m good. I’m sorry,” she says, looking at me, “I didn’t get your name. This is my dad, Sam. Dad, this is—”

  “Tate Callahan,” I interject, reaching out to shake the other man’s hand.

  He looks surprised, saying, “You’re the writer. You m
ade the bestseller lists a couple of years ago.”

  “Yeah,” I say, glancing down.

  “Enjoyed the book,” Sam says. “I’m a big reader.”

  “He’s living on Smith Mountain Lake now,” the girl says, putting the caps back on the cans and standing up with a smile.

  “We could use some more writers in the neighborhood,” Sam says. “Have you met Bowie Dare?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I say, recognizing the other writer’s name. “Like his work though.”

  “Me too. He lives here on the lake now. I’ll have to get you two together. You’d have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.”

  “Be great to meet him.”

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Actually, I was getting ready to start some weed eating before it gets too hot.”

  “Come in and let Myrtle fix you a bite first. Kat here’s on hiatus from the kitchen. She’s one of our two resident, gourmet cooks.”

  “Gotta go on strike every now and then,” she says, “just so you can stay appreciated. Can your dog come in?” She points to Audie, staring at us with his head sticking over the lowered window of the car.

  “Sure. Let me take these cans over, and I’ll get him.”

  Sam leads the way inside the café. Audie and I follow, his tail wagging so hard it’s nearly a blur. The smell of wonderful home-cooked food hits me, and I realize how hungry I am.

  He waves me over to the open counter that looks into the kitchen. Kat has now joined the woman at the grill, who looks over her shoulder and says, “Now don’t be telling me, Sam, that you’re already back for seconds.”

  “We wrangled you up a new customer, Myrtle.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” she says. “Morning, sir, what can I get you?”

  “Scrambled eggs sounds good,” I say, glancing at the menu.

  “You should have some pancakes with that,” Kat advises. “Myrtle is known far and wide for her pancakes.”

  “Don’t know how I can turn down that endorsement,” I say. “A couple of pancakes with the eggs would be great.”