by Zoe York
“A misunderstanding,” she whispered. She pushed her hair back from her face. “A misunderstanding.”
The second time she said it with more conviction. She flexed her foot, letting up on the brake. A battered Toyota beeped a warning, and she jerked to a stop again. Grimacing, she risked a glance at the two old men in the rocking chairs. Rufus shook his head, and Al raised one hand in a wave. This time, she checked to be certain the coast was clear before making a run for it.
Bram grumbled under his breath and tossed another shovelful of dirt into the grave. His cell phone rang, but he ignored the call. One of the remaining chickens let out a squawk. He blocked their chatter out too, glancing at his watch then plunging the shovel into the small mound of loose earth.
Let her have her head start. I'll be an hour behind—two tops. I'll catch up with her.
Clumps of grass and dirt slid from the shovel into the hole.
No chickens, no nosy neighbors, no fried chicken and puddin' pound cake. We're gonna talk this out. She can have her snit fit, but she'll cool down and we can talk.
His cell chirped, alerting him to a message. He jerked it from the belt clip and glared at the display, sighing when he spotted the store's phone number.
“Crap.”
Bram gave the idea of returning his mother's call about two seconds' thought then dismissed it. Not now, Mama. I'm not up for a lecture. He snapped the phone into the clip and stabbed at the pile of dirt once more. When the tip of the shovel hit unturned earth, the impact jarred his arm. A car door closed, and he froze.
She spoke before he could gather the courage to face her. “I'm not running away.”
Her voice was low, tremulous, and it beat the shit out of the hum of tilling tractors and trilling birds. Bram shook his head and forced his muscles to move. He hefted a shovelful of soil. “Sure looked like it.”
“Yeahwell, I'm not.”
A surge of righteous indignation fired his cheeks. He tamped the loose dirt down with the back of the shovel, pounding the ground with a tad too much force. He reined in his temper and turned to face her, planting the tip of the shovel in the dirt between them. She stood still, her feet braced in a wide stance and her arms wrapped tightly around her middle.
Rooted. A soft snort escaped him. Wishful thinking, buddy.
He gripped the shovel's wooden handle, fighting to keep from fidgeting under her steady gaze. Finally, she glanced at the chickens pecking their way around her feet. Her voice came in a whisper. “When I was little, my grandmother's chickens would follow me around the yard.” A sad smile twitched her lips. “I thought I was magic—like the Pied Piper or something. Now I know they thought I was going to feed them every time I stepped outside.”
“Maybe to them you were magic,” he offered gruffly.
“I suppose, but....”
He pushed a hand through his hair and swallowed hard, trying to force the lump lodged in his throat to merge with the knot in his belly. “Listen, I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about the farm. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't thinking about it much.”
“No?”
The hopeful wariness in her eyes started to unravel the twisted knot of fear in his gut. The skepticism that lingered in her gaze was almost enough to make him flinch. He clung to the handle in a vain attempt to brace himself. “I can't believe you'd think that after...I told you everything.”
“Not quite everything.”
The quiet surety in her voice sliced him as easily as a hot knife sliding through butter. He met her gaze directly, giving a tiny shake of his head. “I told you everything that mattered. Everything real.”
“Your wife's unhappiness wasn't real?”
“We had everything,” he said in a low, vehement tone. “Everything we ever dreamed of, everything we planned.”
“But something changed,” she said flatly. “What she wanted changed, and you couldn't see that. You couldn't see her.”
You don't see me, Bram. You don't see anything but what you want.
He shook his head harder, desperate to dislodge the memory of Susan's angry accusations. His jaw throbbed in time with the dull thud of his heart. He couldn't bear to look at Lynne. “No, I didn't want to see that.” He drew a quavering breath. “I thought it should be enough. Me and Susie, our marriage. I thought I should be.” He blinked and averted his gaze again. “I did everything to make her happy. Everything but leave. I was too scared to leave.”
“Would you have? If she didn't come home, would you have gone after her?”
He drew a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, turning back to confront her head-on. “I learned my lesson.”
“Did you?”
“The minute I saw you, my plans changed.”
“Did they?”
The suspicion in her tone made the air seep from his lungs. His shoulders slumped, and he let go of the handle. The shovel fell to the ground at her feet. He glanced down at the freshly turned earth and shook his head. “You're right. We don't know each other at all,” he said quietly and stepped past her to head for his truck.
“He made a fool out of me,” she called after him. He met her dull blue gaze. “I allowed my ex-husband to make a fool of me.” Her chin tipped up a notch. “I won't be used again. By you or anyone else.”
“I'm not Richard, and I never took you for a fool.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Even when I thought Thelma and Louise had made a break for it?”
The tension humming between them snapped like a twig. His lips curved. “Okay, maybe then.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but his cell rang again. Bram jerked the phone from the clip, checked the display and silenced the call. He grimaced as he snapped the phone back into place. “I have to get back to the store. Abe's off today and I kinda took off....”
She stooped to pick up the shovel. “Thanks for, uh....” Her hand fluttered toward the tiny grave.
His fingers wrapped around the doorframe, clinging to what he feared would be one last moment with her. “The hell of it is, I want to know you,” he said in a low, soft voice. “I want you to want me to know you.”
She hesitated for one heart-stopping moment. “I think I want that too. Both ways,” she clarified with a sheepish smile. “That's why I came back.”
He closed his eyes for a second, letting her words sink in as relief washed over him. Meeting her gaze again, he asked, “How can I be sure you won't take off the minute I leave?”
She exhaled a rueful laugh and let the shovel fall once more. He watched her tromp across the grass to her car and pop the latch on the lift gate. A moment later, she tossed a heavy trash bag at his chest. He caught it instinctively, staring down at the crumpled black plastic.
“Run those through your dryer for me tonight, will you?” she asked, pinning him to the spot with a hopeful gaze.
He gripped the bag harder than necessary, but it was the only way he could keep a hold on himself. “You'll call me?”
“I'll have to. You have my good jeans.”
“Good.” He started to climb into the truck then pulled back. “I will tell you this, and you can believe it because it's the God's honest truth, Ms. Prescott,” he said, clutching the bag of wet clothes to his chest. “I saw you, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to see anything else.”
Lynne ducked her head and took a step back, a pleased smile lifting her pink cheeks. “Go. Before I make a fool of myself.”
He climbed into the truck, tossing the bag of laundry onto the seat beside him. Glancing back, he caught her watching him and raised one hand in a wave before starting the engine. The truck bumped and bounced its way through the yard to the lane. All the while, he kept one hand on the trash bag, determined he wouldn't let it slip away.
Chapter 24
A steady drip-drip-drip reverberated off the bathroom walls. Each tiny drop gathered on the tile floor, forming a miniature pond. Lynne tapped the pool with her big toe, smiling as the droplets sprang up and clu
ng to her ankle. She shook out the cotton nightgown she'd washed in the kitchen sink and slipped a hanger through the sleeves.
The wire rasped against the metal shower rod. Amidst the bras and panties she'd flung over the rod to dry, the thin white gown swung back and forth, hovering over the tub and tile like a specter. Soon, the excess water would pool in its hem and add to the puddle at her feet. Eventually, she must decide if she had the strength to give Bram more than tiny droplets of information.
She tapped the shallow pool with her toe again. I should put a towel down. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, signaling the arrival of another e-mail. She watched the water ripple around her bare toes. The first drop fell from the gown, landing atop her foot and startling her from her reverie.
Lynne pulled the phone from her pocket and scanned the message. Another missive from her friend Melanie. She scanned the message then closed her eyes, trying to muster the energy to call her friend as commanded.
She opened her eyes, staring blindly at the dripping lingerie while her thumb pressed the speed dial key. I'm not running away.
She whirled and stalked from the bathroom, holding the phone to her ear. “Hi, it's me,” she said when her friend answered.
“Where are you?” Melanie gasped. “You couldn’t call me back?”
“I've been busy.”
“I guess so. All I got was one e-mail saying you had to go out of town, and then nothing. The ScreenSavers benefit is in ten days, Lynne.”
“I know, I know. I'm sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Where are you?” Melanie asked again.
“Arkansas.”
“What's in Arkansas? Why are you there?”
Lynne moved to the kitchen window and stared out at the back yard. Patches of rich brown soil pocked the spring grass. Tender green leaves clung to the elm's branches, catching the waning evening light. The sky burned with a fiery pink as the sun sank behind the hills. A gold-brown rustle of feathers captured her attention. “Chickens.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, trying to reroute her thoughts after their detour. “My grandparents had a farm here. My aunt left the property to me when she passed away. I came down to get the place ready to sell.”
Or not.
“And that couldn't wait until next month?” Melanie cried. “We're going crazy here.”
“I'm sorry,” she said again.
Melanie sighed then chuckled. “Nah, we're okay. Everything is running smoothly—better than expected. I only wanted to give you a healthy dose of guilt for running out on us.”
Her laugh came surprisingly easy. “It worked.”
“When you took off like that, we were worried.”
Lynne beat back a wave of remorse. “I...I had to take care of this.” She picked up the index card with Anna Albertson's pound cake recipe and scowled. “Um, I may have a buyer.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, so I had to come down here.”
“I was worried it had something to do with that little snot Dickie married.”
The relief in Melanie's tone was palpable. Guilt wrapped its bony hands around Lynne's heart and squeezed. Hard. “That didn't help,” Lynne admitted at last.
“I know.”
Sympathy and understanding rang true and honest in her friend's words, cutting through the distance she tried so hard to maintain. “Years,” she whispered. “I knew what he was for years, but that doesn't make reality any easier.”
“He's an ass.” Melanie paused for a beat then added, “A dick—in every sense of the word.”
The constricting ache in her chest eased and she laughed. “Yes, he is.”
“And that little bitch, practically waving it in your face.” She hesitated for a long moment, but in her typical blunt fashion, plunged ahead. “That's what I needed to tell you. Doctor Dickie's wife wants to buy an entire table for the benefit,” she said in a low voice. “Do you want me to tell her no?”
Her head jerked up. She peered into the waning light, watching as two dark blobs bobbed their way toward the chicken coop. “No.”
“Is that a 'Don't tell her' no, or a 'The bitch can't buy a table' no?”
Lynne wet her lips then stared at the index card in her hand. Giving into the impulse, she tore the card in two and dropped the pieces onto the counter. “Take her money,” she answered, giving her reflection in the window a brisk nod.
“Done. Can I charge her double?”
“Go ahead.” A short, bitter laugh died on her lips when she caught sight of the canister of chicken feed on her kitchen counter. “I might not be back to see you pick her pocket.”
“What do you mean? You can't come back for the benefit? But Lynne, you worked so hard on this. It's your fault I can't complain.”
“We all worked hard.”
“But this is your baby. You started this. It’s our biggest year yet. Sarah says we've already raised more than last year, and that's not even including the proceeds from the auction. You're going to miss it all to sell some farm?”
The bewilderment in Melanie's tone only served to underscore the certainty blooming in her chest.
“It's not because of the farm.”
“Then what?”
She met her own gaze in the window. A secret smile played at her lips. “A man.”
“A man? What man? Richard? You're not coming back because of Richard?”
“No. Not Richard. I met a man.” A blush rose hot in her cheeks, prickling her skin and setting her nerve endings on fire.
“You met a man in Arkansas?”
“Yes, and before you ask, he wears shoes and has all his teeth.”
Melanie laughed. “You forget my family's from Mississippi. Therefore, I know it's a valid question.”
A high-pitched, girlish giggle burst from her. She clamped her mouth shut, hoping she didn't sound nearly as hysterical to her friend's ears as she did to her own.
“You met a man?” Melanie asked in a leading tone.
“And he's...he makes me feel....”
Her gaze roamed the ceiling as if the right words would be scrawled across the yellowed paint. She ducked her head and inspected the pink-polished tips of her toes. The giggle threatened to surface again. The sound of gravel crunching beneath rubber wafted through the open window. Her heart stuttered. Her mind raced.
“He makes you feel sexy?” Melanie prodded. “Young? Horny? Happy?”
Headlights swept the yard. The chickens scattered, ruffling their feathers and squawking their displeasure. The engine cut out. The hinges on the driver's door shrieked. Bram unfolded from the seat and straightened, rolling his shoulders back as he lifted his head and met her gaze through the thin pane of glass.
“All of the above,” Lynne whispered on a sigh. “I have to go. He's here.”
Before Melanie could protest, she ended the call, rushed through the mudroom and hit the broken storm door with the palms of her hands. Bram pulled a large metal cage from the bed of his truck. Her eyebrows shot for her hairline. “Stealing my chickens?”
“Mizz Prescott, you are a peril to poultry,” he drawled, turning to face her.
She cocked her head. “You don't think I'm magic?”
“If things keep going the way they have been around here, folks are gonna start thinking you practice black magic.”
She smiled and took a step forward, wrapping her arms around a post and chipping at the peeling paint with her thumbnail. “I told you I'd call.”
He stared up at her, squinting through the dusky darkness to meet her gaze. “I wanted to be sure you were still here. I didn't want to give you too much of a head start if you decided to run away after all.”
The implication should have stung more, but all she latched onto was the meaning behind his words. “Head start? Were you going to chase after me?”
“Would you want me to?”
Lynne unwound her arms and starte
d down the porch steps. “I realized something today,” she said softly. Drawing to a halt on the bottom step, she lifted her chin and gulped a deep breath. “I've been running away my whole life.”
He set the cage on the ground and moved toward her. “How do you mean?”
“I couldn't wait to go off to college. I needed to get out from under my mother's thumb. I married Richard because that was the next step after college.” She sank down onto the porch step with a sigh. “I ran away from my husband's, uh, infidelity by focusing everything I had on my son. He was my world.”
“You never wanted more children?”
“After Justin was born, Richard said he didn't want any more, and I just...said okay.”
He drew closer, peering down at her as the gloaming closed in around them. “But you wanted more.”
“He had a vasectomy.”
His eyebrows drew together. “He...I thought you said she's pregnant.”
“He had it reversed. Long before our divorce was final.”
He staggered back a step, and Lynne stared at the print his boot made in the soft earth. She wanted many things from him, but sympathy wasn't one of them. Rubbing her palms together, she worked up the nerve to tell him the rest.
“Justin grew up, was accepted to Stanford, and then he was gone. Did I take a good, hard look at what my life would be like without him in it? No. I ran away from the loneliness by throwing myself into charity work and committees and tennis matches, waiting for him to come home,” she said, bitterness lacing her voice.
“And he didn't,” he concluded. After a beat, he shrugged. “There are worse ways to spend your time.”
“There was nothing else for me to do. He was grown and happy, and I was happy for him—really, I was.” She took a shaky breath. “I was happy for him. I didn't know how to be happy for myself.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, the anger she'd held back for too long rising to a boil inside of her. “My husband, the man I'd been married to for half my life, told me he wanted a divorce so he could marry his little girlfriend, and I rolled over and agreed to almost everything he wanted rather than facing what should have been the fight of my life. I gave him everything. Twenty-five years of stupid dinner parties and mind-numbing hospital fundraisers. Toadying to the board so he could take my father's place.”