by Josie Kerr
Tally surveyed the woman from head to toe. She was tall, statuesque, pretty in a hard way. The kind of woman who could be in her late twenties to midforties but was probably somewhere in the middle. The woman leaned into Tally, obviously expecting a response, but Tally merely finished putting her groceries in the front seat of her car, shut the door and locked it, and then put her grocery cart in the corral. When she returned to her car, the woman was still standing there next to it, but Tally refused to further acknowledge her. It was only after pulling out of the pothole-riddled parking lot that Tally began to shake, and instead of going home, she headed to the Owl Creek Orchards and Vineyards.
The full force of Tally’s wrath erased the grin that Rob greeted her with when he stepped out of the mash house.
“What is the deal with you, Robert McFerrin?” she ranted. “Why have I had not one but two different people come up to me today and give me warnings about how my dating you is going to have an adverse effect on Chloe? Are you that much of a . . . a . . . manwhore?”
“What the actual fuck, Tally?”
“That’s right, Rob. What the actual fuck? First, I was ready to go all DEFCON-5 mama bear on Chad Friggin’ Bryson’s smarmy butt about him being all creepy to Chloe, but then he got in my face about you following him into the Hemlock Creek Tavern and threatening him and putting your hands on him—”
“Darlin’, I barely even—” he interrupted, which was a mistake.
“Oh, don’t you ‘darlin’ ’ me! I saw the mark on his neck, Rob. You choked him!” she raged. “And I do not need you to fight my battles for me, Robert McFerrin. I’d been fighting them long before I met you, and I’ll most likely be fighting them long after you flake out and move on to the next new thing.”
“Tallulah—”
But she wasn’t finished. “And then this. . .this . . .woman approached me in the grocery store when I was just trying to buy snacks and told me the exact same thing, and I’ve just had it and this town is too small and how on earth did you survive growing up here? Really, thank God my mother’s father sent her away. It was probably the kindest thing he could have done, given the way that people gossip and judge.”
“You done?” Rob’s normally easygoing expression was nowhere to be seen. Instead, his eyes were hard and his jaw clenched, his hands shoved into the pockets of those jeans that fit him so well.
Tally grunted because she shouldn’t have been noticing how well his jeans fit, when he was the source of a lot of her stress. “Maybe. I reserve the right to resume my tirade at a later time.”
The side of Rob’s mouth twitched. “You sure you’re not some sort of legal professional?”
“I’m still mad, Robbie Mac.”
“Fair enough. You gonna let me explain some things, or are you going to be bullheaded?”
Tally drew a line in the red Georgia clay with the toe of her shoe. “I can listen and be bullheaded at the same time,” she said without looking up. “You said you were going home.”
“I was, but on my way home, Penny texted and said that Lily was fed and sacked out and that I should take a little time for myself. I was right in town, and I knew Chloe was supposed to be at Jet’s, so I decided to just take a look-see. Courtney’s a good kid, but sometimes he doesn’t make the best decisions, so I wanted to just check up on them. I saw Bryson approach her. She didn’t look comfortable at all. None of those kids did, but I will say that Courtney looked like he was getting ready to punch Chad, the fact that Chad’s a big-time lawyer notwithstanding. I just couldn’t let that lie, so I had a little chat with Chad.” He grinned then. “Totally cockblocked him.”
“That’s why he was so mad.” Tally heaved a sigh. “What am I gonna do with you, Robbie Mac?”
“Come over for dinner this weekend like originally planned? We won’t have to deal with any of the Gossip Brigade. We’ll just have a nice meal, maybe a little make-out session on the couch, then I’ll take you home.”
“Oh, Rob, I don’t know. Greg called Chloe a couple of times yesterday, and she’s really freaked out. I’m not sure she’s really okay with this whole ‘Mom’s dating’ thing.”
“You deserve to have a life, too, Tally.”
“You mean to tell me that if Lily was having problems with someone you were dating, you’d ignore that?”
A frown creased Rob’s forehead. “Chloe has a problem with me?”
“Not you particularly, but she’s having a hard time with me and her father not being together, even if she knows it’s for the best.” Tally leaned against the side of the mash house. “What’s the deal with you and Chad?”
“When we were in high school, Chad and I were . . . friendly competitors. We ran in the same circles, kind of, even though I wasn’t really qualified, but, you know, my dad was the local bootlegger, so that had some social perks. One Friday night there was supposed to be a party at one of the docks, and for some reason, Chad’s usual beer connection fell through, so he had the brilliant idea to cross the county line and get beer with his brand-new fake ID.”
“Oh boy. That doesn’t seem smart.”
Rob snorted. “Right? I tried to convince him that we’d be fine with some spiked watermelons, but Chad was all swagger and bluster. So we pulled up to the Quickie Pickie, and of course, the clerk knew good and well that Chadwick Bryson Jr., son of the Honorable Chadwick Bryson, circuit judge, wasn’t anywhere near twenty-one. Long story short, I got caught with four liters of illegal ’shine along with the beer that Chad purchased and put in my dad’s truck because ‘there was more room.’ ”
“Oh no . . .”
“Oh yeah. I was two days short of eighteen, and there was enough beer to make it a felony.”
“And Chad was just gonna let you take the fall.”
“Yep. Thank God the clerk had some balls and a flaming dislike of Chad—Chad didn’t treat the clerk’s baby sister very well—and so he had no problem serving Chad up. Of course, the felony disappeared and Chad got something ridiculous, like two hours of community service. I had a five-hundred-dollar fine and forty hours of community service, but I didn’t get time, and Dad didn’t either. I still don’t know what favors he had to call in, but I’ll tell you what—I never fucked up like that again. It’s one thing to be an idiotic teenager. It’s another to screw with your family’s livelihood, and that’s what I was doing. I straightened up after that, got my act together, applied for college, and . . .”
“Here you are.”
“Here I am.” Tally saw Rob’s chest rise and fall. “Come over for dinner. Please.”
“Maybe. I wanna see what Chloe’s up to, if she has any plans.”
“That’s fair.” Rob frowned again. “You said a woman approached you in the grocery store?”
“Oh God, yes, in the checkout line. It was just bizarre, and then she followed me out to the car.”
“What did this woman look like? Kind of like Miranda Lambert if Miranda Lambert was a freeze-dried chain-smoker?”
“Rob! That is terrible!” She cackled. “But it’s kind of true. I take it she’s one of your girlfriends.”
“Tawney kept Lily once, but it was apparent that she was just doing it to impress me with how down she was with a single dad.” Rob shook his head. “She was never my girlfriend. We . . . you know . . . a few times, and then I called it off. But she kept showing up, and I am sad to say that I kept taking what she was offering, though she didn’t have anything to offer, not really.” Rob shook his head. “I’ll go by where she works and have a word with her.”
Tally’s mouth fell open. “What did I just get finished telling you?”
“That you’re a big girl and can take care of yourself?” He grinned sheepishly.
“Uh-huh. That’s right.” She rolled her eyes at him but didn’t balk when he took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I can take care of myself, but it’s nice to have someone looking out for me.” She squeezed his hand back. “I’ll call you tonight after I talk to Chloe about thi
s whole dating thing.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“What?” Rob had a funny look on his face, so Tally huffed at him and gave him her best “mom glare” to make him fess up.
“I would really like to kiss you.”
Tally felt herself flush, and she couldn’t keep a pleased little grin off her face. “Well, go ahead.”
Rob stepped into her space, backing her up against the wall of the mash house. He leaned his elbows against the wall, boxing her in. Tally’s body thrummed with anticipation while he peered at her as if trying to decide the best angle to attack her mouth. Rob ran the tip of his nose down her cheekbone, peppering little kisses across the swell of her cheek. Finally he got to her mouth, and it took all of Tally’s willpower to not thrust her tongue into his mouth while climbing him like a tree and rubbing up against him like some sort of deranged she-beast. His tongue caressed hers, and then he moved his attention to her neck, her earlobes, and her jaw before giving her one last, long, soft, wet kiss on the mouth and then straightening up.
“We’re going to definitely plan on a make-out session,” he said with a wink.
“Oh yeah. That’s a given,” Tally rasped.
He squeezed her hand and drew her close to him. “I’ll walk you to your car, okay? Then I gotta finish distilling a batch of moonshine to bring down to the city for a pub crawl.”
“Okay.” She was still partially dazed from the man’s kisses, but Tally had recovered by the time she got back to her car.
Rob looked at the groceries on the passenger seat as he got her settled inside the car. “I hope nothing was frozen or perishable.”
“Nah,” Tally lied. “It’s all good.”
“Good.” Rob gave her one more kiss. “Whew. See ya soon, Tally.”
“See ya, Rob.”
He stepped back, and she rolled the window up and headed to her house. She didn’t need that ice cream anyway.
Rob looked at the list written in Lily’s eight-year-old blocky handwriting and grinned. She’d written down everything she needed for her trip with Becca’s parents and put them in her suitcase. Of course, Rob had to refold everything, and she didn’t need quite so many nightgowns or so few socks, but in general, she’d done a good job in getting things together.
“You ready to go with Nanny and PawPaw?” Rob tucked one last glittery T-shirt into the suitcase.
“Yes!” Lily bounced on the bed, her movement threatening to dump the suitcase and its contents on the floor. “I’m excited! We’re going to go to the aquarium and then to see the waterfalls, and then we’re going to See! Rock! City!” The last words were punctuated with bounces and squeals.
“That sounds like a big time!”
Lily cocked her head at him. “Why aren’t you coming with us, Daddy?”
“I have to finish up some work, but I’ll tell you what—next week, after you get back, we’ll go to the fishery and do some fishing and look for turtles. How does that sound?”
“Yes!” she squealed. “But I wish you were coming with us.”
“I wish I were, too, Lilybelle.” Rob zipped the suitcase and set it next to the wall. A lump formed in his throat, and he found himself struggling for breath, the beginnings of a panic attack. He hadn’t had one of those in a few years, and he didn’t miss the tightness in his chest one bit.
“Are you okay, Daddy? You sound funny, like you have a stuffy nose.”
Rob breathed through his mouth for a few moments until the worst of the attack had passed.
“Yeah, I’m good. I was just practicing my Darth Vader imitation,” Rob said with a wink, and Lily giggled.
“You’re silly, Daddy.” She pulled a thick book from a stack on her nightstand. “Time for Harry!”
Rob sank down next to Lily on the bed and opened the book, then began reading about the boy who lived. Exhausted from the excitement of preparing to go on the trip, Lily fell asleep shortly after Rob began reading. He switched the bedside lamp to the night-light setting but didn’t get up. He watched his daughter sleep in the half darkness as he listened to the wind picking up outside.
He heard the phone ringing in the other room, the landline, and, with a quick kiss to Lily’s forehead, went to go answer it. After a brief, stilted conversation with Becca’s father, confirming they would pick Lily up directly from school, Rob poured two fingers of whiskey from the latest batch and went out to the porch to watch the storm arrive.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he answered without checking to see who was calling.
“Hello?”
“Robbie Mac.”
Rob grinned, instantly jolted from his melancholy mood by the sound of Tally’s voice. “Hey, Tally.”
“Um, I just wanted to tell you that, um, I’m free for the evening tomorrow. Heaven help me, Chloe has a date, so I could come over after Courtney picks her up. I would need to be back before her curfew because I need to be home to do my motherly duty of flashing the lights off and on at them.” She cleared her throat. “So yeah. I could come over for dinner or . . . whatever.”
“Sounds good, Tallulah. Come over whenever you’d like.” Pinecones and loose branches rattled against the tin roof of the house, sounding like it was raining.
“Are you outside?”
“Yeah, I am. I like watching the storms roll in over the mountains.” As if Mother Nature wanted to express her approval, a bolt of lightning illuminated the dark sky, followed closely by a crack of thunder. “But I’m going inside now,” he said, pushing out of the chair and making his way through the kitchen and into the dark living room. He leaned against the back of the couch. “So you’ll be over tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Excellent. Sweet dreams, Tally.”
“Good night, Rob.”
He gripped the phone in his hand long after Tally ended the call. The wind still roared and a flash of lightning lit up the living room, but no rain fell. He knew the grounds would be a mess after the storm, and he had moonshine to distill, which made for a long day, so he headed up the stairs to bed.
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Rob had been dreaming of the last time he, Becca, and Lily had taken a family trip. Becca had been undergoing chemo, so even though it wasn’t much more than a day trip, they’d stayed the night at a small cabin. It was autumn in the mountains, and because it had been a dry spring and summer, the foliage blazed with fiery reds, oranges, and yellows.
He smiled, eyes still closed, relishing the memory. He could almost hear the crackle of the leaves, which sounded like seasonal bonfires lit during the cooling fall nights. Suddenly the scream of an alarm erupted, but it wasn’t his alarm. Rob put his hand over his face, thinking the nights got shorter and shorter.
“Daddy? Why is the hallway alarm going off?” Lily coughed and rubbed her eyes.
Rob flew out of the bed and grabbed Lily. He ran down the hall, the alarm growing louder and louder. He glanced out the kitchen’s bay window to see the backyard, the mash house, and the orchard in flames. He turned. The front of the house was still dark, so he ran out the front door with Lily and went to the orchard’s truck, the one he drove for deliveries. He pulled his business phone from the door pocket and called 911, then stood helplessly as the fire raged.
Rob didn’t know where to start, so he just stood next to the burned-out mash house and stared at the partially destroyed orchard. The fire had been ruled as an “act of nature.” Lightning had struck the mash house, and sparks from the resulting fire spread to the orchard. Most of his apple trees escaped the blaze, which was a relief because the orchard brought in good money with the “U Pick” apples and with his apple cider and apple moonshine. Unfortunately, the two fig trees were a total loss, as were the blackberry bushes.
What was more devastating than the loss of the trees was the potential loss of his grandfather’s copper still. The mash house had a storeroom on the side, which was where the lightning struck. The still was in that storeroom, an
d that small annex/room was completely destroyed. He hadn’t been brave enough to look at the damage yet, and he was sure there was damage.
Thank God the house was spared except for a few licks of soot on the porch. It was damn lucky that the wind died down before the fire started. The more he thought about it, though, the more he wondered why/how the fire spread so quickly if the wind was negligible?
What if he hadn’t woken up? What if the wind had been stronger, blown another direction? What if the mash had ignited and exploded? Rob began shaking, imagining all the variables that lined up in order for this situation to not be worse than it was. He sank to the ground, his breathing sounding suspiciously like sobbing. At least Lily was at school so she didn’t see her father fall apart.
“Rob?”
God, now he was hearing things. He sucked in a shuddering breath, panting.
And then arms snaked around his shaking torso, and he felt the soft warmth of a body curl around him.
“You’re okay, Rob. You’re okay.”
“Tally?”
“I heard about the fire. I’m so glad you and Lily are safe. So, so glad.” She clung to him, and Rob sank down against her, sobbing. Rob let Tally rock him, pet his head, rub his back, until he calmed.
“Thank you.” Rob sat up but kept his hands folded over her arms. “Sorry about that,” he said, craning his head around so he could face her, though he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“No need to be sorry. This is . . . awful.” Tally leaned her forehead against the side of his. “What do you say we go inside? Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”
Rob chuckled. “You’re such a mom.”
He felt her grin against his neck. “I suppose I am.” She gave him a squeeze and pressed her lips to the back of his neck. “Okay, big man, come on.” She tugged on his arm, and Rob allowed himself to be led into the house.
Half an hour later, after Tally had whipped up a surprisingly delicious meal from the hodgepodge of leftovers in Rob’s refrigerator, Rob sat at his kitchen table, watching her as she bustled around the kitchen.