Cherry Pie
Samantha Kane
www.loose-id.com
Cherry Pie
Copyright © April 2011 by Samantha Kane
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eISBN 978-1-60737-995-9
Editor: Jana J. Hanson
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Printed in the United States of America
Published by
Loose Id LLC
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San Francisco CA 94142-5960
www.loose-id.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to the New South. And to small towns and cities everywhere that are struggling to find their place in a rapidly changing world. Second chances aren’t just for people.
“If Heaven” by Gretchen Peters (sung by Andy Griggs)
If heaven was a pie it would be cherry
So cool and sweet and heavy on the tongue.
And just one bite would satisfy your hunger
And there’d always be enough for everyone.
Chapter One
He was there again, sitting in the shade of the scraggly crape myrtle across the street. This was the third day in a row. Well, the second day. He’d arrived two nights ago. So two nights and two days. Not that John was counting.
He looked young, but it was hard to tell from here. He was wearing baggy jeans and a dark hoodie, definitely not your typical Thursday morning uniform here in Mercury, North Carolina. At least not that John had seen in his few months here.
John took a sip of his coffee. It was still too hot. He wished he could figure out how to lower the temperature on the machine, but that kind of shit had been Steve’s job. John hated little gadgets like espresso machines. Which was ironic considering he’d made his fortune as a computer programmer and designer. But the Italian monstrosity that Steve had insisted on didn’t come with a keyboard. It barely came with instructions. Steve had fallen instantly in love with it and talked to the damn thing every morning he’d been home.
With a shaky hand John set his coffee down on the table in the entryway. He blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair, which felt a little greasy and very messy. He unlocked the door. Now was as good a time as any to find out who this guy was and what he wanted.
As soon as he stepped out the front door onto his beat-up porch, the guy put his book down and stood up, his hands shoved in his pockets. He looked defensive. Not in a threatening way, just wary.
“Are you casing the joint?” John called out congenially. He casually leaned against the post at the top of the stairs. It was a big wraparound porch, the kind that made him think of a younger America—families on the porch after church on Sunday, kids and dogs running up and down the steps while the grown-ups rocked on the porch and sipped lemonade and mint juleps. It was why John had bought the house. That and the backyard.
“No,” the guy answered. His voice was deep. He hadn’t even had to yell. John had heard that bass tone easily, spoken from across the quiet street. No kid, then.
John waited, but there was nothing more forthcoming. He frowned and pursed his lips. Thought about going back in. Rejected that plan. “What are you doing here, then?”
The guy looked down and scuffed his shoe in the dirt. “That was my mama’s house.”
A jolt of surprise went through John. “They told me there was no family. I bought the house at auction.”
The guy nodded and looked to his right, down the street. “Yes, sir. They couldn’t find me. I’ve been gone awhile.”
They stood there for a few more minutes, the stranger studiously not looking at John, and John staring holes through him. Finally he turned to John, and his direct stare shocked John enough to make him straighten up and take a step back.
“I just wanted to come in for a minute,” he said. He spoke quietly, but that voice of his carried on the cool morning air. “I just want to walk around for a bit.”
John shut his ears to the grief in the other man’s voice. “No.” He turned and went back inside.
The day grew warm. And humid. John wasn’t used to the Southern weather. Cool spring in the morning, hot summer by afternoon. Well, hot for him. People around here laughed when he called it hot. That did not bode well, in his opinion, for the summer.
He was still there. He’d taken his hoodie off and wore a faded red T-shirt underneath. Still, he had to be suffering in those jeans. By midday that crape myrtle wasn’t offering much shade anymore. His back was against it as he sat there watching the house, his gaze wandering up and down the street now and then. He had one knee bent and his arm rested on it, pointing to nowhere. A Southern David, waiting for the touch of Robert E. Lee to bring him back to life.
John wondered why no one else found his presence odd. None of his neighbors had come out to investigate. No one had called the cops. True, he wasn’t doing much more than sitting there. His neighbors probably thought he belonged to John. They didn’t know what to make of that Californian who’d bought the old Meecham place. John’s lips quirked in wry amusement. He didn’t know what to do with him either.
He turned resolutely away from the window. Lunch was over. Back to work.
At dusk he was gone. John was irritated that he was worried about him. Did he have a place to stay? He knew he had no family around here.
He shook it off. The stranger’s voice, his demeanor, everything about him told John that he wasn’t as young as he’d first thought. He had the patience of Job to sit out there waiting. A man had to learn that the hard way. John knew all about waiting.
John didn’t go look first thing in the morning. He forced himself to keep to his routine. Not that there was much to it. Roll out of bed, run his hand through his hair, and pull a T-shirt on over his flannel pajama pants. Steve had hated those pants. He complained they made him hot, lying there next to John. So John left them off when Steve was home. He didn’t have to worry about that now. He could wear them whenever he wanted.
This morning’s T-shirt was blue. He’d bought it at a Walmart in Oklahoma City on the drive from California to North Carolina, just because he could. Just because he’d never bought a shirt at Walmart before.
He turned on the coffee machine. Good Morning, the LCD screen said. Your espresso machine is heating.
“Good morning,” John automatically replied. He’d started talking to the machine the morning he knew Steve wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want it to get lonely
.
He stared out the kitchen window to the backyard. He’d gotten quite a bit done out there yesterday. He was replacing the fence. The old one had been falling down when he moved in. It was the first major job he had to do outside. He was going to get the yard in shape before he tackled the front porch. And the house needed to be painted. He’d never done any work like this before. It was slow going.
The gardening was going to be tough. He wasn’t a gardener. He didn’t have a rapport with plants. But there was no nice Japanese gentleman here that he could hire to come and make his yard bloom year-round with beautiful exotic plants. He’d left Mr. Natsumi in LA. He’d been one of the hardest things to leave behind. Actually, he was the only thing that was hard to leave behind.
On that depressing thought, John turned back to the coffee machine. Make your selection, the screen said.
“Thanks, I will,” John answered. “How about a regular cup of normal coffee, not too hot?” Just like every other morning, there was no response. So with a sigh, he grabbed a mug from the cupboard and got his own too-hot espresso.
John finally allowed himself to check about half an hour later. He was back. John stood there in front of the bay window wearing the khakis he’d replaced his flannels with as he sipped his second cup of coffee. That sort of diligence deserved a reward, he supposed. And he could spare a minute or two while he finished his coffee.
He walked over and opened the front door.
Chapter Two
John stood there, his back to the street, his arm straight out as he held the door open, waiting.
He heard the guy cross the street and open the front gate. The slap of his shoes on the concrete changed to a graveled shuffle when he hit the path from the sidewalk to the porch. At that point John simply walked away. He moved off and went to the kitchen, not sure why he’d left him to enter the house on his own.
John leaned his ass against the kitchen counter, right in front of the sink. He could see straight through the house from here, right to the front door. The stranger came in and wiped his feet on the small rug in front of the door for that purpose. John had to smile. At least he’d been raised properly. Idly John wondered if there had been a rug there when this guy’s mom owned the house. He pulled the hoodie off and looked up to see John watching him. He had dark blue eyes and really dark brown hair, wavy and thick. That was a nice head of hair. Bastard. John had always wanted hair like that.
“May I come in?” he asked. His manners should have seemed out of place, but instead they somehow added depth to the picture he made standing there in his tattered clothes with his thick, messy hair.
John waved a hand in front of him like Vanna revealing the letter of the day. “Be my guest,” he said politely. “You wore me down.”
He was a big one. Taller than John by several inches, he barely cleared the low door frames of the old house. His shoulders were wider than they ought to be, as if they used to belong to someone who had more bulk than this tall, lean, young man. John watched him as he turned and closed the front door, producing a quiet snick in the heavy silence. He set a raggedy gym bag down on the floor.
When he turned back to John, he rubbed his palms nervously on his thighs. “Thanks for letting me come in.”
John tipped his head. “What do you want?” He was merely curious. He found himself strangely detached today.
“Just to look around,” he said in rush. “I swear. I just wanted to see the old house. I’ll leave soon.” He had a thick accent. Swear came out more like sway-eh. It was a good thing John was getting good at the local lingo.
“You waited outside for days just to look around for a few minutes?” John was suspiciously disbelieving.
His visitor smiled, and all vestiges of youth fell away. “This old place has got a hold on me, you know?”
John shook his head. “No.” And he really didn’t. He’d never been that attached to any place. Only one person, and they’d never had a place.
That brown-haired head shook, with pity or perhaps regret. He didn’t say anything, just looked around. John could see the memories swirling through his blue eyes. But he revealed nothing. John watched him walk slowly around the living room trailing his hand along the wooden chair rail absentmindedly. He yanked his hand back suddenly and wiped it on his pants again, as if he was afraid he was leaving a stain behind.
“I’m John Ford,” he offered.
Guarded eyes met his. “Connor Meecham.”
John laughed. “Meecham. Of course.”
“Meaning?” Connor wasn’t laughing. His tone was flat.
John held his hands up before him, placating. “Nothing. Just that everyone calls this house the Meecham place. If it was your mother’s house, then of course you’d be a Meecham.”
“Sorry,” Connor grumbled, blushing as he looked away.
It was clear Connor had been prepared for something else. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.
“You painted the place.”
John gratefully accepted the change of topic. “Yep. Needed it badly. But I haven’t got much eye for color. I just went with white and some kind of brown the Sherwin-Williams lady called cafe au lait.”
Connor laughed. It sounded rusty. “It’s a nice brown.” He shook his head again. “I can picture my mama here like it was yesterday.”
John didn’t know what to say to that. “You know,” he chose to observe instead, “Southern men are the only ones who can say ‘Mama’ and not sound like idiots.” That earned another rusty laugh. John had the strange fleeting thought that he should keep count. “‘Daddy’ still gives me the heebie-jeebies however.”
The laugh settled into a chuckle. “No ‘Daddy’ here,” came the laconic reply.
John was shocked when he had a flash of that heavy Southern bass whispering “Daddy” in his ear. He shivered. Then he was disgusted with himself. That had never turned him on. And the reality was, he didn’t think it would if Connor Meecham actually did it. It was fantasy material, though.
“May I?” Connor was gesturing up the stairs.
“Be my guest,” John said, surprised at his own hospitality. He followed along a few steps behind Connor. He barely glanced into John’s room on the first floor, which was the master bedroom only because the bathroom was attached. The room was actually smaller than the other bedroom. The bathroom had obviously been an add-on. John followed him up the stairs and at the door to the second bedroom, Connor stopped, his hands gripping the frame. He just stared at the room, empty except for a bed and some boxes full of knickknacks and Steve’s various trophies. Steve’s guitar sat on top of the pile. John forced himself to look away from it.
“Your old room?” John asked quietly.
Connor just nodded. “You haven’t painted it.” It was a statement, not a question.
John looked at the faded gray-blue walls full of nail holes. “No. I don’t really need this room right now. I’m focusing on the main areas and outside first.”
Connor nodded again, and then he turned and walked toward the stairs. “Is it okay if I go out back?”
John almost said no. He was a little embarrassed by the backyard. Not because of what he hadn’t done yet, but because of what he had. At his hesitation, Connor slowed down and looked over his shoulder at John, a question on his face. “Yes, go ahead,” John assured him. He followed him down and through the kitchen to the back door. His stomach clenched as Connor opened the creaky screen door and stepped out.
John knew the minute he saw it. Connor’s shoulders tensed. Then he took the three steps down to the yard and walked over to the little grave under the live oak in the corner.
When John had found the small moss-covered rock in the yard, he hadn’t been sure what it was. It was only after he’d cleared all the weeds out that he saw it was a store-bought pet headstone with the name DIGGER hand-etched in the stone. For some stupid reason he’d taken it to a trophy shop a couple of towns over and had the name professionally engraved on the sto
ne. It looked brand-new now. He’d even planted some flowers around it. Today it seemed silly to him, what he’d done. All that work to do on the house and the yard, and he’d wasted hours on that little grave.
He waited for Connor to say something smart, trailing after him reluctantly. Instead Connor unexpectedly sank to his knees and laid his forehead on the ground in front of the headstone. His arms came up, and he covered his head as if to protect it, and his shoulders started to shake. It took John a moment to realize he was crying. Bone-shaking, silent sobs racked his big frame and froze John in his tracks.
Without a word John turned around and walked back into the house. He’d been there. Those were private tears, and he left Connor to them.
John busied himself sanding down the posts on the front porch for the next couple of hours, as far from Connor as he could get. He hadn’t done any work out front yet, and it was hard going. Eventually he thought he ought to go and check on him. The man had a breakdown in his backyard, after all. And he’d been awfully quiet back there ever since.
When he tentatively pushed open the back door, he was a little scared of what he might find since he’d forgotten about all the sharp tools back there until just a few minutes ago. He was relieved to see Connor just sitting there next to the grave. His knees were bent, and his wrists were resting on them casually. He looked calm and approachable. John released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He hadn’t made any noise that he was aware of, but Connor turned toward him. “I’m all right,” he said, and John could hear the truth of that in his voice.
He wandered over to the tree and stood off to Connor’s right, in the shade. He felt awkward and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Have you got someplace to stay?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to say that, but once the words were out, he was glad he had. He didn’t want to spend another restless night worrying about Connor. He had a lot of work to do around here and needed his sleep.
Cherry Pie Page 1