Hideaway Home

by Hannah Alexander

  Lilly took a breath and straightened her shoulders. “Now, don’t you start that. Joseph was a good friend. He helped me here at the house any time I needed it. With Red gone, I couldn’t do everything myself, and Joseph knew that. He was always checkin’ up on me because he was such a good man, and that’s all.”

  Bertie couldn’t suppress a smile. “I heard tell you fed him a few times for his trouble.”

  Lilly nodded.

  “Well, I know…knew Dad pretty well. With Mom gone and Lloyd living far away, Dad and I did a lot of talking. He admired you, spoke of you quite a few times, when he could be sure the neighbors weren’t listening to our calls.”

  Pink crept up Lilly’s neck, and she fanned herself with the dish towel. “Roberta Moennig, don’t you go teasing me like that. Your pa could’ve landed himself pert near any woman he’d want in this town. No reason he’d be lookin’ at a fat woman like me for a wife. We was good friends, and that’s all we was.”

  Bertie shook her head. Lilly sure didn’t see herself the way most other folks in town saw her. Anyone who knew her saw a charming woman with a strong and loving spirit.

  Lilly got up and reached to turn the bacon, then sliced more from the slab. “Roberta Moennig, I know you and your tomboy ways, and you’d fight a wild boar if you had a mind to, but there ain’t a lot of women around like you.”

  Bertie watched her, waiting.

  “I don’t want you to up and decide you’re gonna move into the farmhouse in spite of what Red thinks, or what I think.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  Lilly gave her a suspicious look. “You promise?”

  Bertie nodded. “Promise.”

  Lilly nodded. “Folks’ll start coming in soon. I’ve got to finish laying out breakfast on the sideboard. How about whipping me up some of that delicious cream gravy like your ma always used to make?”

  Bertie got up, glad for the work to keep her occupied.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Edith came through the back door carrying a burlap bag of garden produce. She had dirt under her fingernails, mud on the shoes she kicked off outside the door, and a thoughtful smile on her face, the likes of which Bertie had never seen before.

  Lilly was in the dining room setting the long table, and Ivan had gone in to help her with the other two tables she used for the breakfast crowd. Their voices could be heard from the dining room, Lilly teasing Ivan about something, and Ivan’s laughter filling the house.

  Edith glanced over her shoulder at Bertie. “That Ivan Potts is one of the nicest young men I’ve met in a long while.”

  “You don’t say,” Bertie said dryly as she spooned all but a few tablespoons of hot bacon grease from the huge cast iron skillet. “With the heart of a poet, no doubt. Was he quoting his poetry to you out there in the garden a few minutes ago, when you picked green tomatoes instead of ripe ones?”

  “Oh, you wipe that smirk off your face,” Edith warned with a chuckle. “All I said was he’s nice. He has a good head on his shoulders, he’s funny and he’s literate. And yes, the man can quote a poem off the top of his head about something as mundane as a carrot.”

  “I don’t know many men who’d care enough to try.”

  “I don’t know many men who could do it even if they wanted to.”

  “That’s our Ivan, all right,” Bertie said.

  “I told him his talent would be wasted in a stuffy old bank, and that he should be a school teacher.”

  “Well, maybe he should marry one,” Bertie said. “He’s going to be a banker. His mother already has the plans made.”

  Laughter and additional voices reached them through the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room.

  “Speaking of Ivan’s mother,” Edith said, “he told me that Red had been by to see her at the library yesterday afternoon.”

  “The library? You don’t say. I wonder what’s up there. Red’s hardly ever stepped foot in the library.”

  “Maybe she’s doling out advice for the lovelorn,” Edith suggested.

  “Then she might oughta think about giving her own son some advice before long, you think?” Bertie sprinkled flour over the grease and stirred until it thickened, then started adding fresh milk to the mixture. She realized, after several seconds, that Edith still hadn’t responded.

  She glanced around to find Edith staring down at the vegetables she’d picked. Just staring.

  “It’s not a sin to find a fella attractive, you know,” Bertie told her.

  Edith picked up a bunch of dirt-covered carrots and set them in the sink to run water over them. “I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought about what you’re going to do in the next few days.”

  “I sure have. Lilly talked me into staying on here for a spell. Changing the subject? You must really be taken with Ivan.”

  Edith looked up from her work. “You’re staying for good, aren’t you?”

  “I’m leaning in that that direction more all the time.” In fact, down deep in her heart, Bertie wasn’t sure she’d even considered going back to California. Not seriously. How could she leave again, with Red here in Hideaway?

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Edith said.

  Bertie stirred the gravy, adding salt and pepper. “I’m needed here, and I’m not about to let somebody run me off the land our family worked so hard to cultivate. The question is, what will you do now?”

  “I told you I wasn’t leaving you until I knew you were settled. Nothing’s changed since Monday, and I sure don’t see you settled yet.”

  Bertie grinned at her. “I don’t suppose Ivan could be giving you a little more reason to stay.”

  Edith turned to look at the garden. “How far does Lilly’s land go?”

  “It goes back about an eighth of a mile. The road in front of the house divides her acreage. The rest of her land stretches downhill between the road and the river. She had a lot more before she sold off acreage to the town for the city’s expansion. Folks say this town’s gonna double in size in the next few decades.” Bertie rubbed some dried sage between her fingers over the gravy as she stirred. “Edith, I’m serious, it’s not wrong to be attracted to another man.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “How?”

  “I promised myself at Harper’s funeral that I’d never marry another man in the armed forces, or a policeman or anyone who might die on me. I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

  “And Ivan’s headed back to the war next week,” Bertie said softly.

  “That’s right.”

  “So what’s the problem? There won’t be enough time for you two to fall in love, but you could sure enjoy his company while you’re both in town.”

  Edith placed the carrots carefully on the dish drainer and reached for some snap beans. “You’ve lost loved ones, Bertie. You know how it rips something apart inside you.”

  “Yes, and it hurts somethin’ awful. And I know I haven’t lost a husband like you have, so I’ve no room to be telling you what to do or who to date.”

  “Well, I can tell you that losing the person you love most in all the world is like being ripped apart, then being left on your own to grow back.”

  Bertie knew that. Losing both her parents in the space of three years had been like that.

  “And then people think you should be fine in just a few months,” Edith said.

  “I never thought that,” Bertie said.

  “For me, it’s been three and a half years, and sometimes I think I haven’t even begun to heal.” Edith picked up a scrub brush and worked at the carrots until part of their skin was worn off, exposing the brighter orange beneath. “Ivan told me Lilly makes the best fried green tomatoes in the state.”

  “That’s right. She has several recipes for green tomatoes. I know folks here in Hideaway who are addicted to Lilly’s green-tomato preserves.” Bertie looked out the window and saw Red riding Seymour into the corral.

  He wore his work boots
and jeans with an old plaid shirt that Bertie remembered was his favorite before he joined the Army. It stretched too tightly across his shoulders now.

  He stumbled when he got off the horse, but caught himself quickly, reaching for the cane tied to the saddle.

  He glanced over his shoulder toward the house, as if ashamed of his weakness and hoping no one had seen.

  For some reason, she stepped away from the window. If he hadn’t wanted her to know about his injury in the first place, he for sure wouldn’t want her to see the weakness. She watched him lean the cane against the stable door and uncinch the saddle, a little unsteady on his feet. At that moment, she felt such a rush of love for him, and pride in him, because she understood. Charles Frederick Meyer was an honorable man. That part of him had never changed. The war had injured him, but it had also taken the good man he’d been before the war and fired him into an even better version of himself. That was what testing did to good men.

  Red was doing all he could, with only one good leg, to find her father’s killer. Most men who were whole and healthy couldn’t do what he was doing. And he was trying to protect her through it all.

  Why hadn’t she seen?

  “Oh, Edith, I’ve been such a fool.”

  Her friend joined her at the sink. “How is that?”

  “I was angry with him for not telling me about his leg. I did everything wrong yesterday when I saw him, but I was so hurt that no one had told me.”

  “I heard from Ivan that no one knew. In fact, Ivan didn’t even realize it when he first saw Red on the train.”

  “That’s because he didn’t want me to know,” Bertie said. “If anyone in town had known about it, I’d have heard, and he wanted to wait and tell me himself. And I was so angry with him. It was a horrible way for me to treat a war hero. Especially the man I love.”

  Bertie slid the skillet from the burner and glanced at Edith. “Do you think you could—”

  “I’ll find a gravy boat. You go on out and talk to Red. Better hurry, though. I hear people coming in the front door.”

  Bertie didn’t hesitate.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Red ran a currycomb down Seymour’s withers, feeling the tremor of flesh beneath the metal. The horse loved to be groomed.

  “What do you think we oughta do now, boy?” He smoothed the glossy hair with his hand. Seymour hadn’t even worked up a good sweat this morning, but combing him gave Red a sense of peace that he couldn’t seem to find anywhere else right now. “I can’t just go around town asking people to show me the soles of their shoes.”

  He thought about the tracks he’d seen at the back of the house, leading from the kitchen door, and the words scrawled on the window, and he gripped the comb so hard he thought he might hear it crack.

  A soft sound of a footfall came from behind him, and he jerked around to see Bertie as she reached the whitewashed corral fence. Her hair was tied back with a blue bandana, and she wore a blue plaid shirt and blue jeans.

  She climbed the fence instead of walking around to the gate, and he had a good view of her shoes. Sturdy walking shoes.

  He ran the comb down Seymour’s back. “Sure some good smells comin’ from the kitchen,” he said. “Guess you helped Ma with breakfast this morning.”

  “Guess I did. Have you been out looking for more evidence?”

  He nodded. “May’ve found some, too.”

  “Where?” She reached for the currycomb.

  He held it out of her reach. “You don’t need to take my work away from me. I can still groom a horse.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Why don’t you let me do a little more investigating before you start asking questions?” He kept his voice gentle. Her father’s funeral was today, and she didn’t need to be yelled at.

  “I’m not trying to check up on you, I just want to know about my father.”

  He gave the horse a final swipe with the comb, patted him on the haunch, and hung the comb on a nail in the wall. “I’m checkin’ a few things out.” He pointed down at her shoes. “For instance, I was out at your house a while ago. Seems you were there before me.”

  Her eyes widened, and her lips parted in dismay.

  “I thought we’d decided you wouldn’t go out there by yourself.” Still, he kept his voice gentle.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Who went with you?”

  “Edith.”

  He took a deep, slow breath. “What happened?”

  “I guess you saw the words on the window.”

  “Yes. Were you the one who left the back door wide open?”

  Seymour chose that time to nuzzle Bertie’s hair, and she reached up to rub his nose. “Yes. We wanted to air the house out.”

  “Air it out?”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it, but I was so sure you’d try to pack me up and haul me back to the train station before I could even attend Dad’s funeral, that I decided to wait until after the funeral to tell you about it.”

  He gritted his teeth. She must think he was some kind of bully. He didn’t mean for her to feel that way, but how else could he keep her safe without watching her every minute?

  “I wouldn’t have hauled you to the train station,” he said.

  “Good, because I wouldn’t have gone, anyway. I just didn’t want to fight with you.” She took a step toward him, her gaze gentle and…what was the word? Vulnerable? “That’s the last thing I want to do, Red.”

  “Why did you want to air out the house?”

  She bit her lower lip and jammed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Someone had turned all the gas jets wide open on the stove, and the pilots were out. All the kitchen doors were closed, and I found Herman lying between the stove and the wall.”

  He closed his eyes as horror washed through him. She could’ve been killed! “That’s what the words on the window meant. Nazi gas chamber.”

  She nodded.

  “The cat okay?”

  “He came to pretty quickly.” She held her arms out, and he saw the scratches on them.

  He reached for her hands. “The cat did this? Are you okay? Did you doctor these—”

  “I’m fine, Red.” She looked up at him, a tiny smile touching her lips. “Edith and I ran all the way back here.”

  “Looks like whoever wrote that message used an old tube of lipstick from the house. I found it on the ground.”

  “But no idea who put it there?”

  “I know who I suspect. Good ol’ Gramercy. But it can’t be that easy.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nothing’s ever that easy. Bertie, you’ve got to promise me one thing.” He resisted the powerful urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her. He would shake her gently, of course. But he needed her to see reason.

  “I know,” she said. “I can’t go back out to the house alone.”

  “Or drag poor Edith out there and risk both your lives.”

  “Before we ran back here yesterday, I made a side trip to the pump house and got Dad’s old hunting rifle and a box of bullets. Edith and I both know how to shoot.”

  Red grimaced. That didn’t make him breathe any easier. Sometimes this woman made his head want to explode. “Did you call the sheriff?”

  “I didn’t call anybody. Edith wanted me to tell you.”

  Sure she did. She at least has the sense God gave a goose. He glanced toward the house. “No use in arguing. What’s done is done.”

  “I turned off the gas.”

  He nodded. “Like I said, no use arguing. And like I also said, breakfast sure smells good. Guess I’d better get washed up and get some of this horse hair off me before I try to sit at the table.”

  He turned to walk toward the house. Bertie followed him. “Red, you’ve got to stop telling me to go back to California.”

  His steps slowed, but he didn’t turn around. Now what? He saw his reflection in the window he’d installed Wednesday. He looked
grim, jaw jutting out, red brows drawn into a heavy frown. He tried to relax his expression a little, but it didn’t do much good.

  “I’ve decided I’m not going back,” she said.

  He stopped. In the window reflection, his frown deepened. He saw her standing behind him, and knew she could see how her words were affecting him, same as he could.

  “If you’d been here the past year,” she said, “I’d’ve never left in the first place. With you back home, I’m stayin’ right here where I’ve always belonged. And don’t go trying to change my mind.” She paused, swallowed. “I don’t know about you, but nothing’s changed for me in three years.”

  He wanted to groan out loud with frustration, and at the same time he had a hard time keeping a sudden grin from popping out on his face. What was it about this woman that could make him act like a five-year-old kid?

  He bowed his head, kicking at a stone on the ground with his bad leg. “It won’t work, Bertie.” It amazed him that he was able to keep his voice quiet, gentle, sane.

  He turned around, leaning hard on the cane as he looked at her. “Please don’t even try it.”

  He saw the sudden hurt in her eyes, but she shook her head. “I’m not trying anything, I’m telling you my plans. I’m staying. I know you’ve got to have time to recover some from the war, but I’m going to be here waiting when you do.”

  “You didn’t ask for a cripple,” Red said.

  Her eyes flashed with a brief show of her typical spirit. “And you didn’t ask to be crippled.”

  “You deserve more.”

  “I deserve better than the treatment I’m getting from you right now. I deserve the man I waited for and wrote to all this time. I deserve a hero.”

  “That’s not me.”

  “It sure is.”

  “Not now.”

  “Lilly told me you’ve got a whole drawer full of medals you earned over the last three years. You have a Purple Heart. You risked everything for your country, and if your letters were telling the truth, you risked all that for me. I’d like to know who in that army is a hero if you’re not.”