Colleen was about to say that she’d be glad to help with the garden. Her mouth was open, the words on the tip of her tongue, when she remembered that she wouldn’t be here next summer. For the first time, that knowledge sent a stabbing pain through her midsection.
“Dinner’s ready.” He turned from the stove, a plate in each hand. “Sit. Make yourself at home. Can I get you a glass of wine?”
“I don’t drink.”
He set her plate down in front of her. “I know, but a little glass of wine with dinner isn’t like—”
“Harley,” she said. “I. Don’t. Drink. At all.”
Still holding his own plate, he opened his mouth to speak. She saw it in his eyes, the instant he comprehended what she was saying. “Oh,” he said.
“Yes. Oh.”
“My apologies. I think I have a bottle of apple juice in the fridge.”
“It’s fine. Really. I don’t need a drink.”
They both sat. Colleen picked up her knife and sliced open her potato. Steam poured out of it, and she deposited a pat of butter in its center. While Harley scraped potato from its skin and mashed it on his plate, she ate a sliver of chicken. She’d never been one for small talk. Now, with her enthusiasm dampened by the knowledge that this relationship—if you wanted to call it that—couldn’t possibly go anywhere beyond the bedroom, she struggled to come up with something intelligent to say. The chicken’s delicious. Oh, hell. How was she supposed to sit across the table from this man and pretend she gave a damn about dinner when all she wanted was to take him upstairs, rip his clothes off, and ravish him?
She cleared her throat and said, “So how did a hockey-playing lawyer from Georgia end up as a dairy farmer in Maine?”
He glanced up from his plate, opened his mouth, and said, “Shit.”
“Shit?”
“I forgot the damn cranberry sauce. All I had to do was open the can, and I forgot it.” He shook his head in disgust. “Can’t let me out without a keeper.”
“I hate cranberry sauce.”
“Really?” He looked so hopeful, she had to laugh.
“No,” she said. “But you sounded so distraught that I thought it would make you feel better.”
In the flickering light from the candle, she could see one corner of his mouth turn up in the beginnings of a grin. “You lied to spare my feelings, Berkowitz?”
“Forget the freaking cranberry sauce, Atkins, and answer the damn question.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You want the story I tell everyone, or the real one?”
“What’s the story you tell everyone?”
“My marriage broke up, I got custody of my kid, and I decided Annabel and I needed a change of scenery.”
Somehow, she knew there was much more to it than this. “All right,” she said. “Now, let’s hear the real story.”
“I grew up on a farm. Nothing like this one. We had a small herd of milk cows. Sheep, chickens, a couple of pigs. We didn’t have much money. It was a hard life. My daddy was a mean old drunk who used to thrash us whenever the urge hit, which happened entirely too often. My momma used to intercede when she could, but for the most part, she stayed out of it. She was a scrawny, colorless woman. Old before her time, every hour of that hard livin’ etched on her face.”
“Was?”
“She’s gone now. Died a few years back, most likely from a broken heart. Because she loved the old fool. And I loved her. I haven’t been back since her funeral.”
Something happened inside her, a softening in recognition of his pain. Quietly, she said, “And your father?”
His mouth thinned. “Big Earl. Last I heard, the son-of-a-bitch was still alive, still running herd over my younger sister. Far as I know, she’s still living with him. I think she’s afraid to leave. There were five of us, three boys and two girls. My brother Earl and I were close. We still keep in touch. He’s in Atlanta, with a wife and kids. Doing well. The rest of ‘em I gave up on years ago.”
“I lost my mother when I was thirteen. She was a gracious, lovely woman. The most solid presence in my entire life. Her love was unconditional. I’ll miss her until the day I die.”
Their gazes locked across the table in perfect understanding. With no need for words, he nodded curtly. “I left that place as soon as I graduated from high school. Worked my way through college. Got a law degree. I met Amy—my ex-wife—at the University of Southern Maine law school. Two kids from Georgia, here in the frozen north, we were naturally attracted to each other. We had all these glorious ideals. We’d sit up all night talking about the future. We were planning to practice family law in some rural county in the Deep South.” His smile was rueful. “We were young, too young to understand that the two of us weren’t enough to save the world.”
“So how’d you end up in New York?”
“Amy’s dad was an Atlanta lawyer. Very successful. I should’ve known right from the beginning that it wouldn’t work out. She grew up with all the advantages. Ballet lessons, private school, country club. A new car for her sixteenth birthday. Me, by the age of five, I was milking cows by hand. But she said the lifestyle her parents lived was bullshit. Phony. I believed her. And for a while, life was good. Until some friend of her father’s offered her a job with his Manhattan firm. Corporate law. I was against it. We had a small practice outside of Atlanta. We weren’t rich, but we were getting by. But she insisted this was the chance of a lifetime. Told me how great it would be for Annabel, to be raised in the cultural capital of the Western world. I finally caved, and she told the old man that she’d take the job if he’d hire me, too. Ten seconds later, I was a junior associate in a corporate law firm, living in a high-rise condo in uptown Manhattan.”
He straightened in his chair. “Corporate law was the absolute antithesis to my own values. I cared about people, not the fat-cat corporations that were raping them. New York was exciting. It has this dynamic vibe that you can get drunk on. I never regretted raising Annabel in that atmosphere. But I hated what I was doing with my life. Amy, on the other hand, ate it right up. She loved the money, the power, the high-roller lifestyle we were living. Loved crushing less powerful entities in court. She lusted after that corner office, the one with the dramatic view of the Manhattan skyline. And she got it. By sleeping with the old man.”
“Her father’s friend?”
“That would be the one. When I found out about the affair and confronted her, she left me. Walked away from me, away from Annabel, without so much as a backward glance. When I met you—” He paused.
She finished his sentence for him. “You thought I was just like her.”
“I did. I’m sorry. I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t know what happened between you and Jesse, or why you left Mikey behind. But you’re not like Amy. You have a heart. She has a big black hole in her chest where her heart’s supposed to be.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s behind me. What she did to Annabel is inexcusable, but we’re doing our best to move past it. Amy’s married to the old goat now. He’s a serial womanizer with five or six broken marriages before this one. I hope she’s happy. I hear karma’s a bitch.”
“So you walked away from it all. The ruined marriage, the city, the life you hated so much.”
“And I came back to farming. It just felt right. Pretty much every penny I have is tied up in this place. The house needs work, I don’t always get the single dad thing right, and the hours are grueling. I’m exhausted most of the time, and I’m in debt up to my eyebrows. And you know what? It’s the damnedest thing, but I wake up every morning, before the sun comes up, glad to be alive. I have no idea what’s ahead of me, but I’m grateful that I followed my instincts. Because coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”
“And now,” she said shakily, “you are, among other things, a savior of lost and damaged dogs.”
“Not to mention lost and damaged women.”
A tear trickled down her
cheek. Her gaze dropped to the plate of food that sat virtually untouched in front of her, then it returned to his face, that beautiful face, with its dark, arching brows, its full lips, its widow’s peak. What was this emotion blossoming inside her, squeezing her lungs until it threatened to cut off her breath and smother her? Was this the legendary, mythical, inexplicable Moment she’d heard about? The moment when everything that had previously been muddled became crystal clear, changing hearts and lives forever? Because if it was, this was a really shitty time for it to happen. Her husband had been dead for less than a year. Her life was in turmoil.
And she’d be gone in a few weeks.
He set down his fork and narrowed his eyes. “Colleen?” he said. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. This was a disaster of epic proportions. She was leaving here forever. And Harley was staying, as firmly rooted in the rocky Maine soil as the row of hemlocks her grandfather had planted behind the house as a wind break. She couldn’t fall in love with him. Not now. Not ever. Except that she suspected it was already too late. Because she’d never felt this way before. Had never experienced this wild, exquisite blend of joy and pain. Certainly not with Jesse. Nor with the second husband she’d divorced after seven months of marriage.
Not even with Irv.
Oh, Irv, she thought, I’m so sorry.
And into her ear, as clearly as though he’d been standing at her side, her dead husband whispered: Go for it!
Slowly, Harley scraped back his chair. Stood and walked around the table to her. Knelt in front of her. “Honey?” he said.
Nobody had ever called her that before. Not since Mama died. Instead of answering, she did what she’d been waiting to do since the first time she’d seen him minus the mud and the overalls and the ugly yellow slicker. She reached out a hand and touched his face. It was warm and smooth, unmarred by any wayward whiskers. He turned his head and pressed a soft kiss to her palm.
“You shaved before I got here,” she said.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Does this mean you had expectations for tonight?”
He shrugged. Said amiably, “A man can always hope.”
Through tears, she let out a snort of laughter. “Atkins?” she said.
“Yeah, Berkowitz?”
“Turn that boom box back on and go lock the damn door.”
Mikey
When his stepmother opened the door, Chauncey raced outside to greet him, hindquarters wagging an ecstatic hello. “Hey, buddy,” he said, bending to rub the dog’s thick, tangled fur. “How’ve you been?” When his dad had married Rose, Chauncey had been one of the added bennies, along with a new stepbrother and stepsister. He and Luke were tight. They’d hit it off right from the start. Devon had taken a little longer, but then, at the time Devon’s mother dragged her off to Maine, his stepsister had been going through a black period when she hated the world. Once she’d outgrown that and turned into a regular human being, she’d been awesome. And when he got to Stanford, a year behind her, she’d taken him under her wing and played the role of big sister to the hilt.
“Rose,” he said, straightening.
“Mikey. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
“Can I come in? I know Dad’s not here, it’s his school board night. I waited at the Big Apple until I saw him go by. If it’s not too late, I was hoping to see Beth.”
Rose hesitated for an instant, then swung the door wider and stepped back. “Come on in. I just put her to bed, but she’s not asleep yet. Go on up.”
He climbed the carpeted stairs. In Luke’s room, the television was playing softly. His stepbrother used to run his stereo at a volume that shook the house to its foundation, but after Beth came along, things had changed. Babies had a way of doing that, changing people’s lives in unexpected ways. Mikey passed Luke’s closed door, passed the master bedroom, and stopped at the room across the hall from Rose and Dad’s. The door was ajar, the room illuminated by a Sesame Street night light. He opened the door all the way and paused at the threshold, watching her as she carried on an unintelligible conversation with her stuffed elephant. She was going on two now. Soon, she’d be out of the crib and in a twin bed. Time moved on, and little kids changed so quickly. Who knew when he might see her again? He could end up anywhere. Europe, Japan, the Middle East. It could be years before he came back to Jackson Falls. Hell, it was even possible that he might not come back. His throat swelled with emotion. The rest of them, he didn’t mind leaving behind. Beth was the only one it would be hard to say goodbye to.
He took a step toward the crib, and she saw him from the corner of her eye. His baby sister sat up and gave him a smile that wrapped itself around his heart and squeezed. “My-my,” she said in delight, and reached out her arms to him. “My-my!”
“Hi, Bethie. How’s my girl?” He crossed the room, lifted her out of the crib, and cradled her to his chest. She began babbling in some language that might as well have been Martian. His dad and Rose claimed they understood everything she said, but to him, it just sounded like gibberish. It clearly meant something to Beth, though. Her words might not make much sense yet, but she had a good ear; her inflections were correct, and her babbling sounded like English, only with different words. Pretty soon, the right words would follow. By the time he saw her again, she’d sound just like a regular kid. He hated the idea of her losing that wonderful baby innocence. Hated even more his fear that by the time he came home again, she wouldn’t even remember him. He’d never cared that he couldn’t translate her primitive speech into English; he understood her anyway, because no matter how the sounds came out, what she spoke was the language of love.
He found one of her books, one he knew she liked, and he sat in Rose’s old wooden rocker, held his baby sister in his arms, and read to her. She helped him, turning the pages, pointing to the pictures, and talking in her own special baby language. When he finished the book, she held it up, flapped it around a little, and said something that he interpreted to mean again.
So he read it to her again. She leaned back against him, sucking her thumb, and listened quietly. By the time he finished, she was asleep. Mikey carried her back to her crib and gently lay her down. He carefully pulled the thumb out of her mouth and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I love you, Bethie,” he whispered. “Don’t ever forget that.”
And he escaped before Rose could corner him and start asking questions.
He drove into town, to the Big Apple, where there was a pay phone attached to the side of the building. He tossed in a couple of coins, listened as they fell. When he heard the dial tone, he punched in Paige’s number.
Antsy, he danced around on nervous feet, waiting for somebody to answer. If it was Casey or Rob, he would hang up and try again later. But to his immense relief, it was Paige who picked up. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Can you talk?”
“Yeah. They’re out somewhere. I’m babysitting.”
“Sunday night,” he said. “Can you be ready on Sunday night? That should give us plenty of time to get there. We can stop in Vegas and get married. It’s on the way.”
“What time on Sunday?”
Some guy came out of the store and eyed him with suspicion. Mikey turned away from him, faced the wall of the store. “Midnight. You know the school bus turnaround just past Conley’s? I’ll pick you up there. If I’m at my mom’s, they’ll hear the truck start up in the yard. We can’t take that chance. I’ll hang around with a friend or something until it’s time to get you.”
“Can I bring my guitar?”
“Of course you can.”
“What about Leroy?”
He hadn’t given a thought to Leroy. “Jesus, Paige…I don’t know. They might not allow him.”
At her end of the phone, there was a heavy silence. For a minute, he thought he’d lost her, and his heart rate skyrocketed. What if she refused to come if she had to leave Leroy behind? That
little dog was her best friend. Leroy had been her only comfort when her mom died, had been her only friend when she first came here to live with her dad.
“I’ll leave him with Dad and Casey for now,” she said. “But later, if we find out I can have him—”
“If you can have him, we’ll find a way to get him. Even if it means we have to fly home to pick him up. Do you trust me?”
“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
He didn’t know what else to say. For a time, as he held the receiver to his ear, there was nothing but the sound of his own breathing. “Paige?” he said. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“I love you.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she said, “I love you, too.”
And she hung up.
Colleen
She knew this song. When she was a kid, sometimes late at night, if the atmospheric conditions were right, Dad would tune in WWVA out of Wheeling, West Virginia on the old AM kitchen radio. It came in a little scratchy, waxing and waning, but the music was still listenable. Dad wasn’t a hardcore country-and-western fan, but he enjoyed it once in a while. Colleen, not so much. Some of it was okay, but certain singers irritated her with their cowboy twang. Ray Price was one of the irritating ones. Crazy Arms was not among her favorite songs.
“You have atrocious taste in music,” she said.
Standing in front of her, Harley laughed. “I grew up on country music. You can take the boy out of the Bible belt, but you can’t take the Bible belt out of the boy.”
Redemption Road: Jackson Falls Book 5 (Jackson Falls Series) Page 18