Not on Her Own

by Cynthia Reese

  “Your daughter?” he prompted gently. “What about Penelope?”

  “Don’t you see? He’s using her. He’s manipulating her, and because I wouldn’t tell her all this when she was young, now she wants to believe her grandfather is a kind old man. She’ll close her eyes to everything. That’s how Penelope always is, loyal to a fault.”

  “So why shouldn’t she be loyal to Richard Murphy? I mean, I know my reasons. What’s yours?”

  Brandon let her stew in the indecision that played over her face. He waited her out, holding his breath.

  “My father used to take me along with him when we’d collect the rent,” Marlene finally said. “I was maybe eight or so. This was before my parents divorced.”

  Marlene bounced up from her seat again and walked over to the window. When she spoke, her voice was softer, her Southern accent more pronounced, as though she were channeling who she was in a previous life. “I liked going with Daddy. It didn’t matter that the kids I met on those trips were sharecroppers’ kids. I liked playing with them. I don’t know whether they liked me or whether they played with me because I was the landlord’s daughter, but I’d play while Daddy collected the rent.”

  Brandon tried to be patient.

  Marlene went on. “There was one family I liked best. They always played the neatest games, and they had an old tire swing they’d rigged up to look like a horse. I wanted a horse so badly—horse-crazy, Daddy said I was. He wouldn’t give me one, told me I wasn’t old enough to look after it.”

  Knew he wouldn’t have an animal he couldn’t eat. Marlene would have had more luck asking for a pig. Aloud, though, he responded with an, “Uh-huh.”

  “Their granddaddy lived with them, a black man—the family was black—and I remember one day, in the summer, we went to collect the rent. He was out under a mimosa tree, trying to learn how to read. I felt like such a big girl because I could read it. It was simple, really, but the old man was illiterate, I know that now. So I helped him memorize it. I was so proud.” Marlene turned to face Brandon.

  He was surprised by the tears in her eyes. Nothing he’d heard should trigger such a powerful response.

  Marlene gathered her composure. “I told Daddy on the way home. He acted so proud of me, wanted to know exactly what I’d taught the man. Sweet, oh, he was so sweet. My daddy could charm flies away from honey when he wanted to.”

  Again, Brandon was confused. What could be so painful about this?

  “But later, I heard Mama and Daddy arguing. She wanted him to stay, but he said…all I could gather was that he had to go out. He hit her, that night, when she tried to stop him. I remember crawling in bed beside Mama, holding her as she cried. I was scared, because I’d never seen Mama cry in front of me.”

  “He abused your mom? Is that why she divorced him?”

  But Marlene didn’t hear him. “Daddy came into the bedroom when he got in that night. He was…a little drunk, I think now. But he was happy. Satisfied, the way he was after he’d collected all the rents. He told Mama…he told her, I can’t remember the words, but something about buying the old man a cocktail. He said, I remember, ‘That’s the only drink I’ll ever buy one of their kind. It was worth losing the house just to show ’em what happens when they get uppity.’ He laughed and laughed, like it was the funniest thing. And Mama just cried.”

  Brandon struggled to put the pieces together. Marlene beat him to the punch, drawing in a strangled breath and wiping away tears. “Mama took me away that night. I didn’t understand, not until I was older. The cocktail he’d bought that man was a Molotov cocktail. He’d burnt him out of his house because I’d helped the old man study for the literacy test the man had to take in order to vote.”

  HALFWAY TO THE CATERER, Penelope realized she’d forgotten the swatch of fabric Jill’s mom had decided on for the table runners. She punched in her mom’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

  Perfect. Whatever project Mom had Brandon tangled up in had taken them out of the house. Penelope would have to return for the swatch.

  Her mother’s car was still in the driveway when Penelope pulled back in. Odd. They weren’t outside. Had Jill or her mom come by and picked them up?

  The swatch was where she’d left it, on the kitchen counter with her notepad of wedding details. But curiosity got the best of her.

  Penelope walked through the house until she got to the front hall, off the study. Voices filtered out, her mother’s and Brandon’s.

  “I don’t know, I just don’t know!” her mother wept. “I wish I could remember more. My mother refuses to talk about it. Surely someone in the county remembers something.”

  “I can check. I’ll ask Uncle Jake. But, unless someone was killed, arson’s statute of limitations ran out years ago. Plus, it was Murphy’s house, so it might not even be considered arson. Unless the feds might be interested in tacking on a hate crime or a civil rights violation to Murphy’s indictment.”

  Penelope sucked in a breath, felt suddenly cold. She shoved the study door open.

  “What the hell are you doing? Was this the reason you came?”

  Her mother put her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Penelope, darling, no. It’s not like that at all. He’s not interrogating me. I asked him to come. I wanted to—”

  “You wanted to what?” Bile rose in her throat. “Make sure Grandpa dies in prison?” She jerked her head toward Brandon, whose face was as green as it had been on the airplane coming here. “You’re conspiring with him? You’re…God, I don’t know either of you. What’s more, I don’t think I want to know.”

  Penelope spun on her heel. Brandon was up now, behind her.

  “Wait, Penelope. It’s not what you think. Penelope, give me a chance to—”

  She barely heard him over her own heaving breaths. She slammed out of the house at a dead run for the car, fumbling for her keys. They slipped from her grasp onto the driveway.

  She couldn’t scoop them up in time to escape Brandon. He blocked her access to the car. Penelope stared at him, saw him gulp in air from the sprint, and started to push past him.

  “Penelope, you’ve got to hear me out. You owe me that much.”

  “I don’t owe you squat. And if you don’t move, I’ll lay you on the ground. Don’t think I can’t.”

  Brandon stepped aside. “Won’t you just listen?”

  She snatched open the car door. “So I can what? Hear more lies? Or are you going to try to tell me you and Mom weren’t…” Penelope swallowed bile.

  “Your grandfather is not who you think he is or hope he is. And if you’d only listen to your mother…”

  Tears scalded the back of her throat. Her mother. Her mother had admitted she’d brought Brandon out here to help plan his attack on an old man who’d die in prison if Penelope didn’t do something to stop them.

  She threw up both hands, shook her head and got into the car. Penelope put the car in Reverse. Backing out of the driveway, she saw Brandon still standing there, fists clenched by his side, his eyebrows lowered in a glare.

  A car horn wailed behind Penelope and she stomped on the brake to avoid backing into the passing car. Brandon took a step toward her, but a quick glance in the mirror told her the road was clear. She backed out, not caring which direction she took. Anywhere but here.

  At the end of her parents’ street, she stopped the car and gasped for breath. Tears streamed down her face.

  I have to do something.

  Penelope fumbled through her purse for her cell phone. With fingers that trembled so much she had to redial, she punched in the digits.

  “Grandpa? Grandpa, you were right. I—I…” She sobbed, leaning against the steering wheel. “I can’t trust Brandon. He…” She couldn’t bear to tell him about his own daughter turning traitor. “Whatever you need me to do, I’m ready to do it. Okay?”

  On the other end of the line, she heard him breathe out a long sigh. “Well, now, Penny-girl,” he said in the gentlest of tones. “Well, now. I k
new I could count on you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  BRANDON RESTED his hands on the fence and stared at Penelope’s little house. She’d been avoiding him for days. He no longer saw her on her back porch in the mornings. She was conspicuously absent, though her car was in the driveway, whenever he’d come by to try to talk some sense into her.

  The flight home had been quiet and tense, and this time not due to Brandon’s dislike of flying.

  After Penelope had caught him and Marlene talking about Murphy, the weekend was a bust. He’d tried everything, but Penelope had refused to listen to anything either he or Marlene said. Whenever she would meet his eyes, her huge dark ones overflowed with hurt.

  Why does it have to come down to this choice of Murphy over me? Over common human decency? He’s a crook. He’s not worth the consideration Penelope has in her little finger.

  Brandon started to turn. As he did, an engine’s thrum filled the air and a small dark helicopter circled overhead. The helicopter seemed to be searching out a landing spot and it found it, all right, in the middle of his just-planted, barely sprouted winter wheat.

  With a hand on a metal post and a foot in the wire, Brandon jumped the fence and started toward the damned idiots. Couldn’t they see they’d landed in a cultivated field?

  The blades slowed as Brandon approached the helicopter. A slick GQ type and a rotund little man with maybe three strands of blond hair across his pink scalp ducked under the blades and jogged over to meet Brandon.

  “Hi, there,” the GQ type shouted over the dying noise of the helicopter’s blades. “I’m Todd Jeffers with Mid-Florida Environmental Solutions! Are you here to meet us?”

  If the introduction was supposed to clue Brandon in, it didn’t. “You’re in my field!” he snapped. “You just landed that damn helicopter in my field!”

  From somewhere behind him, Murphy said, “I told them they could.”

  Brandon had that oh-so-familiar stomach-churning reaction to Murphy’s smug voice. He turned to see Penelope and Murphy closing the gap between them.

  “Hi, there!” Penelope held out a hand to the strangers. “I’m Penelope Langston. You’re Rudy Richardson and Todd Jeffers?”

  The rotund man wiped a forearm across his perspiring face and then accepted Penelope’s hand. “Yes, I’m Rudy!” He turned to Brandon. “Sorry if we messed anything up. My pilot there—” he jabbed a thumb in the direction of the helicopter “—said it was as good a place to land as any.”

  Brandon started to speak but found he couldn’t. He looked at Penelope, who was looking at where the helicopter had landed.

  She said in a halting voice, “I…I’d said you could land close to the pond. That’s Brandon’s winter wheat.”

  “And I said they could land anywhere they wanted,” Murphy repeated, jabbing his thumb against his chest. “After all, when we sell this part of the land, they can do whatever they please.”

  “Sell? Penelope? You’re selling? But you…I wanted…” Brandon broke off as he saw the softness in Penelope’s expression turn hard and cold.

  “You made it perfectly clear what you wanted in Oregon. Guys? I think we’ll have more privacy in the house.”

  PENELOPE LED the way past her barn and into the kitchen. Chairs scraped on the old linoleum as everyone took a seat. For a moment, she was swept away in memories of how Brandon and she had shared more than one meal at this table. Through the window, she let her gaze follow Brandon’s departing, ever-smaller figure across the field and then stared at the helicopter. It looked like a huge black widow in the middle of Brandon’s winter wheat.

  Why, after she knew what he wanted to do to her grandfather, after she’d caught him red-handed, couldn’t this be easier? Why did she still feel…remorse? Love? Could she love him? Could she love a man she’d had all wrong?

  I should have never made love with him.

  She dragged her attention back to the conversation unfolding. This Grandpa Murphy sounded completely different from the one she’d come to know. He was slick and professional, with facts and figures at his fingertips.

  When Rudy wanted to know about workforce potential, Grandpa tossed off high school graduation rates with the casual ease of a chamber of commerce director. When Todd wanted to know the depth and the flood stage of the creek, Grandpa replied without hesitation. When Rudy asked about the abandoned rail spur on the property, Grandpa referred him to the railroad’s owner and recapped a conversation he’d had with the man.

  Penelope’s stomach churned. She didn’t know this Grandpa Murphy at all.

  “You have no idea what a pleasure it is talking with you. This parcel seems perfect, based on what you’ve said. Of course…” Rudy narrowed his eyes. “I’ve thought that before. That’s why we keep coming back to you on this land. This makes the fourth ‘perfect’ piece of land I’ve looked at for this project. Something always goes south at the last minute, and I can tell you, I’m damn tired of shucking out option money for property we don’t acquire.”

  “So if your project is so great for the community, why aren’t more towns vying for it?” Penelope couldn’t help asking.

  Grandpa shot her a warning look.

  “Good question,” Rudy answered, sitting back in his chair. “Tell me and we’ll both know. All you have to do is say the words ‘solid-waste facility’ and people start screaming. They won’t even listen. They picket their county commissions. They picket their land-use boards. They scream about how we’re trucking in garbage.”

  “But they have a point,” Penelope said, ignoring Grandpa’s intake of breath.

  “People don’t understand. You use this stuff, you put it in the trash, somebody’s gotta do something with it. At least I’m sorting it and recycling what I can. It’s all done by computer, using robotic equipment. It goes in as mountains of garbage, and it either comes out as recyclable plastic or paper or very clean smoke and steam.”

  Todd leaned across the table and tapped the copy of the plat they’d been studying. “That’s why our company is willing to pay you at least twice what the market value is for this land. Because, even though Brazelton County has no zoning or land-use ordinances in its incorporated areas, Rudy knows you’re going to have to deal with a lot of grief. And because, frankly, his investors are getting nervous. If Rudy doesn’t get the ground-breaking done on this within the next year, well…”

  “Now, Todd, let’s not make it sound so dire. Yeah, my money guys want me to expand, and they’re willing to pony up the dollars to do that. They’re not going to wait forever, that’s true enough.”

  Penelope examined the facility’s blueprints. It looked full to the brim of modern technology and robotics. “But how many actual jobs would this bring to the community?”

  Todd and Rudy exchanged a brief look. “Well, you know, nobody actually wants to handle garbage. So we use a lot of equipment.”

  “How many jobs?” she insisted.

  “Maybe twenty-five, fifty, to start.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, it depends. On company profits and feasibility.”

  Rudy must have seen she wasn’t pleased with Todd’s answer. “Of course we’ll add more jobs. But this is a poor area of the state, Ms. Langston. And any jobs are better than no jobs. Plus, these will be high-paying jobs.”

  They answered her other questions with something Penelope could only call slick. Grandpa seemed to buy their pat answers.

  She willed him to see through it, to see these two as she saw them. Couldn’t he see the way they hesitated, a fraction, before answering? How they put their fingers to their mouths as they replied to one of her tougher questions?

  Maybe he does notice, but he’s not saying anything.

  Grandpa Murphy remained upbeat as the four of them rode out to the abandoned rail spur at the far end of Penelope’s land.

  Rudy stomped around, shaded his eyes and nodded in satisfaction. “Creek’s that way?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Pe
nelope said. “And that’s an unpaved county road that divides the property.”

  “You’d have to talk to the county commission,” Grandpa said, “but since this road has no houses on it now, I’d say that a quitclaim was a definite probability.”

  “Perfect,” Rudy said. “I like it. This looks perfect.”

  “Now, to show you we’re seriously interested in this parcel, we’re willing to put up a quarter of the purchase price as an option payment,” Todd said. The way he fixed his eyes on Penelope in a hard, assessing stare reminded her of a rattler just before it strikes. “Of course, for that much in-earnest money, we’ll need a fairly in-depth options contract.”

  “Of course,” Grandpa replied for her. “You folks want to be sure you’ve got a deal.” Penelope wanted to shake him, to yell at him until he came out of whatever kind of spell this was.

  Grandpa gave her a meaningful glance and jerked his head. He obviously expected her to say something at this point.

  Say what? “Where’s the dotted line?”

  Penelope cleared her throat. “You can talk big fat percentages all you want, but until you make me a firm offer, I can’t possibly entertain tying up the land.”

  Todd and Rudy looked at each other. Rudy nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Well…” Todd covered his mouth again and cleared his throat. “Providing all this checks out, of course, we’re prepared to offer you ten grand.”

  Penelope laughed. The constriction around her lungs eased at the lowball price they’d given her. She could turn this offer down immediately. “Ten thousand? You have got to be out of your mind!”

  Todd looked to Rudy and when Rudy nodded again, Todd said, “Okay, we’ll go to fifteen grand an acre, but that’s it.”

  “Fifteen thousand an acre?” she choked out. “For twenty-five acres?”

  “Anything else, and we have to get approval from our full board of directors,” Rudy told her. “But give us a firm option today, and we can write you a check for a quarter of that.”