“At least have a cup of coffee,” I say, holding up my mug. “I’ve never had better.”
“You’ll be hard-pressed to beat Lucille’s cooking,” Jillie says, smiling a little.
“Come and sit down,” Lucille scolds Jillie, “before I start to get a big head.” She’s already herding Jillie from the door to the table, setting a mug down in front of her.
She takes the chair across from me, but even with the table between us, I feel the zing of current left over from last night. Jillie focuses on Lucille’s coffee pouring, but somehow I know she feels it too.
“Thought maybe we could pick up a couple of spray-washers this morning and get started on the fencing,” I say. “See what kind of paint is left when we’re done.”
“That sounds good,” she says, taking a small sip from the hot cup.
Lucille places a plate in front of both of us. “Since you’re sitting here, you might as well have some of my pancakes. I’ll save some for the girls when they get up.”
Lucille’s cell phone rings. She reaches in her apron pocket and pulls it out, glancing at the screen and saying, “I need to take this. Be right back.”
She puts the phone to her ear, says hello, and walks out of the kitchen. That leaves Jillie and me in an instant, awkward cloud of silence. I feel the need to get us back on neutral footing. I set my coffee mug down and say, “Can we please—”
“Not talk about last night?” she finishes for me.
“Seems like we might need to talk about it.”
“I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen.”
“But it did.”
“And it won’t again.”
“That’s not what I was hoping for.”
“Don’t tease me, Tate.”
“I’m not teasing you.”
She draws in a long breath and says, “We both know that’s not a direction that’s going to serve either of us—”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
She glares at me and says, “What?”
“That’s still how you neutralize things you don’t want to put importance on.”
“What?” she asks again.
“You get all formal and wordy.”
“Wordy?”
“It’s the reader in you.”
She shakes her head a little, as if she can’t figure out what to say to me.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Another reader word.”
At her gasp, I laugh and say, “Okay, I quit. On a serious note, let’s not waste energy telling each other last night was a mistake, and it didn’t mean anything, and it’ll never happen again.”
“But that’s all true.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Tate, don’t.”
We study each other across the table for several long seconds before I say, “I’m not promising anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not promising it won’t happen again. Because right now, I really want to come around this table and kiss the living daylights out of you.”
She looks surprised by this. And maybe a little pleased. “We have to make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“I’m here to help you get this place back to what it once was. Coincidentally, that gives me the opportunity to start a new life for me and my girls. I don’t want to mess that up. So if I’m going to stay, last night can’t happen again. It’s not optional.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Tate. Seriously.”
“I take it this is an ultimatum.”
“It is.”
“Well, that doesn’t leave me much choice, does it?”
“It’s a good Saturday for spray washing.”
I lean back in my chair, lace my hands behind my head, and give her a long look. I don’t bother to hide the fact that I still want her. I know she sees it in my eyes, but she doesn’t budge from her stance, so I say what she wants to hear. “I’ll be a good boy.”
She slides her coffee cup away from her, stands, and says, “All right then. You go get the spray washers, and we’ll be ready to get started when you get back. Deal?”
“Deal,” I say.
She’s out the door before I can add another word. Lucille walks back into the kitchen, saying, “She barely touched her pancakes.”
“I don’t think she was hungry,” I say.
“Oh, is that what it was?” she asks, giving me a look that says she knows better.
52
Kala
IT’S WEIRD WAKING up in a different house. At first, Kala thinks she’s back in her grandma’s house, and she blinks hard to take in the differences she immediately senses in the room.
There’s not much furniture, and what’s here isn’t nearly as nice as the room she grew up in. But even as she thinks about that, she feels so relieved that she’s not at Stone Meadow. This is a small house. That was a big house. There’s a feeling of peacefulness here though, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
She pats the other side of the bed and finds Corey’s leg tangled up in the sheets the way she always is in the mornings. She flops and rolls all night. Kala used to find it irritating, but she’s secretly glad her sister is in the bed next to her.
The door opens, and her mom sticks her head inside. “Anybody awake?” she calls out.
“Yeah,” Kala answers in a groggy voice.
“Lucille’s made pancakes, and she’s saving some for you.”
Kala smiles before she can stop herself. “Really?”
Her mom nods, walks over, and sits down on the side of the bed. She rubs her hand across Kala’s hair and says, “How did you sleep?”
“Good.” Kala studies her mom’s face for a few moments and says, “You look different.”
“I just went for a run.”
“It’s not that. You look happier. Or something.”
A flash of what looks like regret registers in her mom’s eyes, and Kala feels bad for making the happiness go away. “I just meant maybe things aren’t as hard here.”
“In some ways, that’s going to be true, honey. But I’m going to have to figure out how to make a living. Which means we aren’t going to have some of the nice things we’re used to.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe not your ponies.”
Kala presses her lips together, tears instantly springing to her eyes. The thought of not seeing her precious Munchy stabs her with the same kind of pain she had felt when her daddy died. “That’s how Grandma can pay you back for leaving, right?”
“Kala—”
“Don’t say it’s not true,” she says. “I’m not a baby. I can see how things are.”
“I’m sorry,” her mom says.
“You didn’t make her like that. You don’t have to defend her.”
“She’s your grandmother.”
“Then she should act like one.”
Her mom sighs, looks out the bedroom window where the sun is now fully splayed across the backyard of the house. “You’re right.”
There’s some little glimmer of satisfaction in hearing the words, but it slips away, and Kala says, “I don’t want to be right. I just want us to be happy again.”
Her mom leans over and kisses her forehead. “Me, too. Starting today. Tate has a project for us, just as soon as you and Corey finish your pancakes.”
Kala likes the light note in her mom’s voice. She reaches over to give Corey a big shake and says, “Get up, sleepyhead! We’ve got stuff to do.”
53
Jillie
THE DAY TURNS out to be a hot one. Mid-eighties, which is a bit unusual for May but perfect for the task we’ve taken on.
Tate arrives back at the house just before ten with the two spray washers. He runs a multitude of water hoses from the pump at the side of the barn and then gets the machines set up at the far end of the biggest pasture, one on the outside of the fence, one on the inside. He and Kala partner up on the inside, Corey and I on the outside.
I’m responsible for pushing the machine while Corey sprays the boards. Tate pushes the other machine while Kala sprays.
We’re using plain water without bleach. And the idea is that Tate and Kala stay a board’s length ahead of Corey and me so we don’t end up spraying one another, but that doesn’t last for long and within an hour, we’re all soaking wet. Audie runs along in front of us, leaping at the arcs of water and barking in what sounds like sheer joy. He’s completely drenched as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard my girls laugh so much.
Some of the sprayings are accidental, others aren’t, but as the fence starts to regain its formerly sparkling white finish, the four of us are getting more direct hits than the fence.
At one point, Lucille steps out of the house and calls across the field, “What on earth is going on out there?”
Kala waves at her and calls out, “Just working, Lucille!”
“Looks more like playing,” she disagrees, shaking her head and ducking back into the house.
“Think we’re in trouble?” Tate asks, looking at me.
“Lucille is serious about work,” I say. “I don’t think playing is allowed.”
“All right, then, crew, shape up!” Tate says in a scolding voice, just as Corey hits him square in the chest with a blasting spray of water.
54
Tate
LUNCH IS GRILLED cheese and steamed broccoli. Apparently, Lucille’s deal with the girls is that for every indulgence she cooks for them – grilled cheese – they agree to eat something extra nutritious: broccoli.
Surprisingly, they don’t argue, devouring both with the appetite of kids who’ve spent the morning working outside. Arguably, the broccoli is the best I’ve ever tasted, so I understand their willingness. Both girls, between mouthfuls, are talking nonstop, asking about which pasture we’ll do next and throwing out the possibility of doing the barn today as well.
“We might have to put that off for another day,” Jillie says. “By the time we finish the next fence, I’ll be waterlogged.”
“Aww,” both girls complain in unison.
“Now, listen to your mama, you two, and eat every morsel of that broccoli or no more grilled cheese,” Lucille pipes up from the sink where she’s rinsing dishes.
It occurs to me that I could feel like an outsider, listening to how comfortable they all are with one another, saying what they think without fear of being criticized. I could, but I don’t.
I feel like part of the circle, part of a family. And that’s something I can’t say I’ve ever had before.
It feels nice.
Actually, it feels amazing.
55
Poppy
INCREDIBLE THAT A company the size of TaylorMade Industries has only one person working on Saturday. Is there any wonder profits are down?
Poppy is the one person, of course. She would give herself credit for deserving anything she’s gotten from this business, but even that is getting old. She stares at the computer screen, the columns of numbers starting to blend together.
She’s been at her desk since six-thirty, halfway expecting Angela to show up out of guilt, if nothing else. But then she should know better. When it comes right down to it, Angela is spoiled and lazy. She takes for granted every single, silver spoon she’s had access to since birth.
Poppy is the one who works six days a week minimum. More on average since Jeffrey is no longer here.
She doesn’t let herself think about him very often, annoyed for a moment that his name has popped into her mind. For a sliver of a second, she remembers what Saturdays at the office used to be like when they were together. The way in which they’d been free to show their feelings, instead of covering them up behind indifferent exteriors.
She does miss the way he had looked at her. As if she were the purpose he had finally found for existing.
Mostly, Poppy refuses to revisit memories she has no use for. And everything related to Jeffrey falls under that category.
But on impulse, she stands and pushes her chair back from her desk.
She walks out of her office and down the short corridor to the corner office that had belonged to Jeffrey. The door is closed. She turns the handle and steps inside, closing it behind her on the off chance that someone might actually show up today.
Everything is the same. That’s a little eerie. But then it’s not up to her to clear out Jeffrey’s office. That’s up to his family. His official family.
Angela had said that Jillie offered to come and do it, but Mrs. Taylor wouldn’t hear of it. Had there ever been a woman born with such a control complex?
Maybe the question is a little ironic coming from her.
Poppy is aware of her own narcissistic tendencies. But she would have had the office cleared the day after Jeffrey’s exit from this world. That was the difference between her and Judith Taylor. Poppy knew how to call a lost cause exactly what it was.
She walks over to the desk, runs her fingers across the computer keyboard, and then sits down in the oversized leather chair.
How many times had they made love in this chair?
She leans her head back and closes her eyes, letting in another memory.
It had been a rainy, winter afternoon. Poppy had left her own office on the pretense of bringing him a file to review. She’d stepped inside the office, locking the door behind her. She can still clearly recall the look of surprise on his face when she’d begun unbuttoning her dress, neck to hem, opening it wide to let him see the only thing she had on beneath was a thong and thigh-high stockings.
That look on his face, the one of utter captivity, of complete inability to resist her—that was the look she missed more than she would have believed possible. The control she’d had over him, the way she could cup her hand to the back of his neck and pull him straight across the line.
How she missed that.
No other man had ever given her that kind of satisfaction. Because, frankly, she’d never wanted a man in the same way. Yes, there had been physical attraction with other men, but beyond that, above that, was the fact that she, Poppy Sullivan, the preacher’s daughter, had snagged the heart of the otherwise unattainable Jeffrey Taylor. The Jeffrey Taylor she had secretly wanted since the day she’d been dropped off at Angela’s birthday party in her father’s rusty, old car. The Jeffrey Taylor who had ended up marrying Jillie Andrews.
Just the thought ignites a burn deep inside her stomach.
What was it about Jillie that made guys like Tate Callahan and Jeffrey Taylor fall all over themselves to have her? As far as Poppy could see, she was a wet dish rag of a woman who didn’t have a clue when her husband had it bad for someone else.
And Jeffrey did have it bad for her at one time. For nearly a year, they’d taken every opportunity they could possibly find to get out of their clothes and into each other.
For a moment, anger lights a ravine of pain up the center of her chest.
When she lets herself think about what they could have had together, she can barely stand the thought that it slipped through her fingers.
Stupid idiot, that’s what he was.
They could have made it work. His bratty kids would have gotten over it. And besides, kids grow up. Had he thought they were going to need him forever? That his betrayal of his family was something they would never get over?
She’d like to deny it, but she knows that is exactly what he’d thought.
And those damn antidepressants he’d started taking had only made things worse. She’d told him not to take them, that everybody had bouts of being depressed. What they’d needed was a secret getaway to somewhere far away where no one knew them, and they could be alone and be themselves without his guilty conscience getting between them.
Anger snaps Poppy’s eyes wide open, and she’s staring at the walls of Jeffrey’s office, stunningly aware of his absence. It’s like a knife stabbing through her heart, and for a moment, just a moment, she almost lets herself cry.
But she doesn’t. Her grief is never going to use that outlet. Crying is weak and spineless. No, her grief is actually going to take a road that means something.
She pushes back from the desk, striding out of the office and slamming the door behind her. Back in her own office, she taps the keyboard to her computer and waits for the screen to pop up.
She logs in under the fake name she’d created early on, long before she’d fully realized what she was going to do with it. Once in, she goes to the website of the Cayman Islands bank where she had set up an account in her own name. Brazen, she supposes, but she had convoluted the tracks of the transfers enough that not one of them was ever going to get as far as this last bank.
Even if someone were deliberately looking.
Like that’s going to happen, anyway.
The Taylors are so rich and spoiled, where their money is concerned, that it wouldn’t occur to them to notice the reason behind the incremental slipping in the company’s profits these past few years. And she is the senior accountant, after all.
She fancies herself a kind of puppetmaster these days. And she isn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
56
Tate
FOR THREE WEEKS, we spend every waking minute working on the farm. When the girls aren’t in school, they are eager to help. I’m amazed at their diligence and tell Jillie as much one afternoon when we’re working inside the barn, adding a finishing coat of stain to the stall boards.
“You’ve done an amazing job with them,” I say, dipping my brush into the stain bucket.
Jillie smiles in the direction of her daughters’ laughter. They’re working on a corner stall, and it’s nice to hear that it’s more like play to them than work.
“Thanks,” she says, running her brush along the edge of a board. “I’m not sure I get any credit.”
“Sure you do.”
“Maybe despite rather than because of.”
“Why do you say that?”
She focuses on her staining for a stretch of silence. When she answers, she says, “Things were kind of rocky between Jeffrey and me, once the girls started to get a little older. I know they felt it.”
Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three Page 16