by Zoe York
The chisel slipped, and, as if on cue, the crunch of gravel beneath tires signaled a visitor. Bram heaved a sigh and checked his watch. When shuffling footsteps drew closer, he set the bowl aside and let his hands dangle from his knees. “I thought you'd be here earlier,” he called.
Al Hatchett appeared in the shop doorway with a foil-covered plate. “Me? Why, I'm only here to drop off this apple pie your mama thought you needed.”
“Uh-huh.”
Al set the plate on the workbench and opened the ancient Frigidaire. He pulled out two bottles of beer and made his way toward Bram. “Has absolutely nothing to do with Jerry Johnson blabbing to everyone in town about how your truck happened to be parked at the Burdock place when he passed on his mail route.”
With a snort, Bram reached for both bottles of beer. In deference to his father's arthritic fingers, he twisted off the tops and let the caps tumble to the concrete floor.
The older man accepted his bottle of contraband hooch and settled into another folding chair. “Your mama thought you would surely perish if you didn't have pie tonight.”
“I'm sure.”
The old man smiled as he lowered his bottle, licking the foam from his lips with relish. “I confess I might be a little curious myself....”
“I checked the porch.”
Gray eyebrows wriggled and danced when he fixed his only child with a piercing gaze. “You check anything else?”
“No.” Bram snatched the bowl he'd been carving from the floor, running his thumb over the raw grain of the wood. “And even if I had, it's nobody's damn business.”
Al smiled—a slow, knowing curl of his lips. “You're my business.”
“I'm a grown man.” The protest that looped its way through his head every thirty seconds since he left the hatchery tumbled from his lips.
“You've been my business for nearly fifty years.” Bram ducked his head, focusing on the bowl in his hand. He traced the outline of a flower with his thumbnail. One gnarled hand came to rest on the nape of his neck. The old man's fingers were beer-bottle cool, but the heat of his palm seeped into the knots of tension coiled in hard muscle.
“Let me tell you what bein' a grown man means, boy. It means realizing you've got a lot of life left to live. Lord, I remember being your age.” Al sighed, his hand trailing across his son's shoulder as he sat back in the metal chair. “You'd got yourself married, and I had your mama all to myself at last. Not that I wasn't fond of you,” he added with a chuckle. “But, I got to court her all over again. We had to get to know each other as...well, as adults, I guess. We were so young when we married. We had you, and the business, and the farm. All of a sudden, we were all alone. God, what a wonderful time.”
“Dad,” he croaked.
“You were robbed of that with Susan,” Al continued, his voice low but firm. “I hate that for you. But, son, you're still a young man. You still have a lot of living to do.” He took a pull from his bottle of beer and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I loved Susan as if she was my own daughter—you know I did. I loved her nearly as much as I love you, and I grieve her every damn day, but not as much as I grieve you.”
Bram swallowed hard, trying to force his way past the knot of tears tangled in his throat.
“I can't stand to see you sittin' out here all alone, whittlin' your life away.”
“So you think I should go chasing after some big city woman who'll leave here and never look back?”
“No. I'm only sayin' I want you to take a chance—any chance. You might fall flat on your ass, but damn, at least you'd be doin' something.” He chuckled as he held his bottle up to the light. “Hell, you can take Anna Albertson up on her offers, for all I care.” Bram snorted and shook his head. “Well, at least you aren't desperate, huh?”
“Yet.”
Al let his hand rest on Bram's shoulder while he drained the last of his beer. The warmth of his palm seeped through the flannel and soothed him. “You're a good man, Bram, and a damn good-lookin' one, if I do say so myself. A woman—any woman, no matter how city-slicked she might be—would be lucky to have you.”
All he managed was a little grunt. “Uh-huh.”
His father stood and smoothed his hand over the crisply pressed placket of his faded cotton shirt. “Your mama will be waitin' on me.”
“Tell her thanks for the pie.”
Al nodded and shuffled toward the door. “A particularly good one, I have to say.”
Bram raised his head. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, son?”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, son.” He flashed a sly smile. “Setting you straight is my business.”
“Right.”
The old man took another step then gripped the rough-hewn frame of the shop door. “And Abram,” he said, turning to meet his gaze head-on, “seeing as how you're so mature and all, I know you know just because something is pretty doesn't mean it has any real worth. You also need to remember there are things in this world just as strong as they are beautiful.” He paused to pull his keys from his pocket. They jingled against the old man's palm as he fixed Bram with another one of those stares. “Take a good look at your mama sometime. You'll get what I mean.”
Restlessness nearly drove her over the brink.
After spending the remainder of the afternoon and evening unpacking and washing the kitchenware she'd unearthed from the chicken house, Lynne tried tucking herself into a corner of the worn sofa with one of her aunt's trashy novels but the book failed to hold her attention. She couldn't stop thinking about the Abram Hatchett in that old photograph and the Abram Hatchett she'd met that afternoon. Thinking about the latter Abram Hatchett made her unaccountably nervous.
Unable to decide on a dinner menu, she found herself sitting at the battered kitchen table downing slice after slice of Anna Albertson's incredibly good pound cake. Three-quarters of the loaf disappeared before she pried herself from the table.
She killed another fifteen minutes moving from window to window, trying in vain to find a spot where her laptop might pick up a signal. Heaving a sigh, she set the computer aside, resigned to relying on her cell for contact with the outside world. Finally, she gave in to the mixture of trepidation and desperation burbling inside and dialed her son, Justin.
Christine, her daughter-in-law, answered the phone in her usual brisk manner. “Hello, Chris. It's Lynne.”
“I was thinking about calling you. You won't believe what came in today's mail.”
“What?”
“Only an invitation to a baby shower. For Carnivorous Cara. I didn't even know she was pregnant. I almost died.”
The mention of her ex-husband's new wife and the younger woman's humiliating pregnancy made Lynne's stomach shrivel. She squeezed her eyes shut, thankful she hadn't been able to get a signal on the laptop. She wouldn't want her son's wife to witness his mother curling into a teeny-tiny ball via web cam. Any discussion of Richard or his new wife set her teeth on edge, but Lynne was reluctant to be drawn into a Cara-bashing session. As much as she appreciated Christine's unswerving loyalty, she knew herself well enough to know she'd feel compelled to admit her own unseemly behavior, and she wasn't ready to face that. Not yet.
“Oh, um, yeah,” she managed to mutter. “She is pregnant.”
“I swear, I'm going to kill Justin when he gets back. How could he forget to tell me he's going to have a little brother or sister?”
“I, uh....” She swallowed the brick lodged in her throat. “Justin isn't home?”
“What? Oh, no. He flew to San Francisco for a series of briefings on the Webster case.”
“I see.”
“He's been so wrapped up in this trial,” Christine murmured. “Of course, I've been preparing for depositions all week, so I hardly noticed he was gone.”
“You're both so busy.” Lynne heard the wistfulness in her own voice and bit her lip. Everything's going well?”
“It's L.A.—the sun shines all the time, if you can ge
t past the smog,” Chris added with a laugh. “How are you? Still freezing your patootie off?”
She exhaled through her nose. “Actually, I'm not in Chicago.”
“Where are you then?”
“Arkansas. My aunt left my grandparents' farm to me when she passed away a few years ago. I've been leasing the house, but the tenants moved out so I came down to make arrangements to sell.”
“I think Justin mentioned something about Arkansas once.” She snorted. “It's hard to imagine your mother growing up in Arkansas.”
Lynne chuckled. She always enjoyed her daughter-in-law's razor-edged observations. As much as she appreciated her son's can-do optimism, there were days when only Christine's dry, dark humor could cut through her post-divorce ennui. “It's hard to imagine my mother outside Nieman Marcus.”
Christine chortled. “I hear that magnolia blossom drawl and picture her sipping mint juleps on the verandah at Tara, not minding a still in some backwoods little town in Arkansas.”
This time the younger woman's snide assessment made Lynne bristle. “There was no still. Just a working farm. And my mother took years of diction lessons to perfect that drawl. I'm not sure she would appreciate the picture you paint.”
“I'm sure she'd appreciate any picture which doesn't include Arkansas.”
“Have you ever been here?”
Her daughter-in-law snorted. “God, no. Why would I?”
“You don't know what you're missing. It's beautiful. Miles and miles of forests, mountains, rivers, rich farmland....” She trailed off as her baby chick began to chirp.
“Wow. Maybe the tourism board should hire you to do their P.R.”
“I think it's hard to judge a place you've never visited.”
“I'll defer to your judgment on the matter.”
“Spoken like a true attorney.” Rosemary's peeps grew loud and insistent, and Lynne rose from the chair. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know where I am. I'll probably be here for a few weeks overseeing some repairs and getting the place ready to sell.”
“I'll tell Justin. Not that he ever shows me the same courtesy. I can't believe he didn't tell me.”
Lynne peered into the box. When she reached in to stroke the chick's fluffy head, Rosemary scurried out of reach. “Well, men.”
“What's that noise?”
She jerked back and hurried into the living room. “Oh, uh, nothing.”
“Sounds like your smoke detector needs a new battery.”
“Yeah. I, um, bought some today.”
“I forgot the best part....”
“Best part?”
“Cara's friend who's throwing the shower? She says old Dickie and Carnie Cara aren't registering for gifts. Get this—we're all supposed to chip in to buy her a hand-carved rocking chair. Can you picture Cara rocking a baby to sleep?”
“Um.” Rosemary chirped and chirped, calling to her from the kitchen.
“I pulled it up on the Internet. The damn chair costs over two thousand dollars.”
“Whoa.”
“I know. Crazy, huh?”
Desperation beat trepidation to a pulp. “Chris, I need to go. That damn smoke alarm is driving me crazy.”
“Okay, well, we can catch up later. I'll tell Justin you called.”
“Great. Uh, okay, bye.” She ended the call, tossed the phone into the couch cushions, and balled her fingers into fists. “Dammit, Rosemary, shut up!”
It didn't help. The persistent peeps pecked at what little sanity she had left. Stomping into the kitchen, Lynne snatched the box from the counter. “What? What do you want? I gave you food, I gave you water, you won't let me pet you, and you poop every time I try to hold you. What? What am I not giving you?”
Pinpoint black eyes stared back at her. A meek, little peep escaped the bird's tiny beak. “I gave you everything you're supposed to need.”
She sank to the floor clutching the cardboard box to her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes then spilled onto her cheeks. “Why? Why can't I do this?” she whispered. Rosemary chirped, her little feet rasping against cardboard as she fluttered about the box. “I did everything right. I did everything I was supposed to do,” she whispered. “What's wrong with me?”
Chapter 7
Bram pulled to a stop in the lane behind the Burdock house. A frosty nip hung in the early morning air. Intrepid birds chased insomniac worms. Business as usual—except for the fact that he was skulking around a strange woman's house at the crack of dawn.
He shrugged into the fleece jacket he'd snagged on his way out the door then retrieved the thermal cup that held the remains of his morning coffee. Without missing a step, he snatched his tool belt from the bed of the truck and carried it to the porch.
Ten minutes later, he'd tested each rotting board again, marked more than a dozen for replacement, and pried his tape measure from the belt he'd dropped on the ground. He noted a few measurements on a battered bank envelope he'd prized from the seat of his truck then pulled the tape taut across the width of the bottom stair. When a sharp cry split the morning quiet, his head jerked up.
Straightening to his full height, he eyed the back door. A string of muffled curses faded into a keening moan. Bram sprang into action. Heart in his throat, he wrenched open the storm door and crossed the mudroom in three strides.
“Ms. Prescott.” Peeling paint fluttered to the floor when he hammered the door with the side of his fist. “Ms. Prescott? Are you okay?” he bellowed.
His question was answered by the slow snick of the deadbolt being withdrawn. Another click and the knob he clenched in his hand turned. The kitchen door swung wide, and she stared up at him in shock.
Her hair was a tangled mess of sleep-tousled knots, her cheeks damp and splotchy, and her lips cracked and dry but for the tears that seeped into the corners of her mouth.
“I killed her,” she whispered.
“What?”
Her gazed dropped, and his followed. He spotted the tiny yellow bird cradled in her outstretched palm. The desolation so clearly written on her face clued him in, and he barely managed to rein in a nervous laugh of relief. “Aw, now, Ms. Prescott.”
“I don't know what I did wrong,” she cried. “I did what the man told me to do. Poor Rosemary.” She stroked the little bird's fluffy feathers with the pad of one finger. “I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”
His hands coiled into fists. His every instinct screamed for him to comfort her. “Ms. Prescott. These birds...a lot of them don't make it,” he began haltingly. How the hell do you comfort a woman you can't even call by her given name? When she looked up with a puzzled frown, he took a deep breath. “They're bred to be producing chickens. A good number of these chicks aren't as strong as some of the others.”
She stared up at him with tear-drenched eyes, and he swallowed the lump rising in his throat. Her vulnerability ate at him. For God's sake, it's just a stupid chicken. He bit his tongue and drew a steadying breath through his nose. “It wasn't anything you did. Trust me. I own a hatchery. I should know, right?”
“Right.”
“Tell you what. Give, uh, Rosemary to me,” he said, offering his hand palm-up. She placed the puff of fluff in his hand. “Do you have a shoebox?”
“Shoebox?”
“Something to put her in?”
“Oh. Yes. I have something.” With a brisk nod, she turned on her heel and hurried for the living room.
The rustle of plastic bags drew his attention from the hapless little bird. Bram craned his neck to check on her. He sucked in a sharp breath. She bent over the bags piled on a ratty old recliner and pulled a box free from the tangle. The thin cotton nightgown she wore rose over the backs of long, muscular thighs.
He clenched his jaw and wrenched his gaze from her, focusing instead on the foil-wrapped lump on the kitchen table. Somehow the new view didn't help to keep his heart from jittering like a jackhammer in his chest.
Lynne padded back into the room, carefully rearranging the single scrap of
tissue paper that lined the box. “It's probably too big.” She set the box on the table, but when he stepped toward it, she placed one hand on his arm to stop him. He froze, standing still as a statue. “Let me get some paper towels,” she said quietly.
He watched as she unfurled a dozen sheets of towels and folded them into a plush bed. Bram called on super-human strength he didn't know he possessed to keep his gaze resolutely north of her legs while she lined the box. He was starting to feel pretty proud of himself when she turned and gave him a solemn nod.
The dead chicken in his hand was forgotten. His thoughts were light-years from the rotten boards he was supposed to be replacing on her porch, and they couldn't be farther from the call he meant to make to Percy Jenkins that afternoon. Sunlight streamed through the window, silhouetting her slim figure and turning her hair into a halo of burnished gold. His fingers closed convulsively around the baby bird. Lynne gave a little yelp of distress and snapped him back to his senses.
“Oh, geez,” he grunted. Reaching past her, he carefully slipped Rosemary into her cardboard coffin. “I'll just...I'll bury her.”
“Thank you.”
He placed the lid on the box and clutched it to his chest like a shield. Taking a hasty step back, he kept his gaze averted. “Do you have a spade?”
“A spade?”
“A shovel,” he clarified.
“Oh. No. I mean, I might, but if I do it's probably in the back of that chicken house.”
Her voice caught on the word chicken, and suddenly he had to beat down the overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms. Instead, he hugged the shoebox. “I've got one at home. I'll bury her there.”
“Do you live nearby? I don't want you to go out of your way.”
“My farm's on the other side of the pond.”
“Oh. So, we're neighbors?”