by Nicole Deese
Ford shifted in his seat to rest his forearm on the back of the wooden chair. “Yes, I was quite surprised myself. Especially when he told me where he’d had the pleasure of meeting you.”
A tug—just a single tug of guilt. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
Ford sighed. “You and I seem to hold different definitions of that phrase.”
“Cal never even knew I was there, trust me. I made sure to keep my distance. And just look what a little party crashing over at the Shelbys got us? First with the honey sale—” He caught himself before Rayne’s name could slip out of his mouth the way she’d so easily slipped into his thoughts. But Snow White Shelby was nothing more than a fantasy. An adolescent crush. He cleared his throat. “And then landing the Tom Hutchinson account. Well worth it, I’d say.”
“Poke at the hornet’s nest and you’re gonna get stung, son.”
Levi held his arms out wide, palms up. “I was simply proving a point.”
“And what point is that?”
“That Cal and his cronies might own the majority of Shelby Falls, but there are still businessmen smart enough to see past his deceptions.” And most importantly, willing to contract with the farm.
“Do you really think getting a few of their big-name, big-walleted friends to contract with us will show them anything? It won’t, Levi. If you mess with their world, they will mess with yours.”
“You know, Ford, even after all these years, there are still times I don’t understand you. Haven’t you rolled over and played dead long enough? Because I have, and I’ve only been doing it for half the amount of time as you. Eighteen years is a long time to live under their lies, Ford. Too long. You are ten times the man Cal Shelby will ever be, and yet, you’ve never fought back. You’ve never challenged his threats or the way he’s slandered your character all over this town.” Levi took a breath, tempering his tone. “But no matter what that man thinks, this land was always meant to be yours—and if I’m being honest, you deserved a whole lot more than this farm after the position William left you in with his family.”
“William Shelby was a good man.”
Levi refrained from commenting.
Ford was a good man, but Levi had his own opinions when it came to the Great William Shelby. Unfortunately, he’d never have the chance to meet the man for himself. He’d been dead for eighteen years. “I’m tired of playing opossum around them.”
“Be careful, Levi. Bitterness can compromise a heart the way fireblight disease can consume an apple orchard. When you learned the truth all those years ago, my hope was not that you’d take on an attitude of vengeance but that you’d weigh the complexities of my situation before agreeing to our partnership. What’s done is done. God’s heard my prayers and He’s been faithful to answer them. With peace.”
“Peace is overrated.”
“Peace is never overrated.”
“Seems we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.” Levi flashed a smile, and Ford conceded with a long sigh.
“I’ve gotta check the fences before nightfall.” Ford secured his hat over his wiry hair and stood. “Good job with the sale, Levi. You did well, but in the future, I’d prefer it if you kept a much quieter profile around our neighbors.”
“Is that a suggestion or a mandate?”
“If I tell you it’s a mandate you’ll only find a way around it, but if I tell you it’s a suggestion, you’ll let it roll off your back.”
Levi grinned. “So you’re saying I have a problem with authority?”
Ford shook his head as he pushed through the squeaky screen door, his tone teasing. “Eighteen years I’ve stayed clear of that lodge and you go and eat dinner with them . . .”
“Hey, I’ll buy you that new tractor attachment you’ve been eyeing with our first check from good ol’ Tom,” Levi called after him. “Promise.”
He could hear Ford’s rumbly laughter well past the gravel drive that separated their houses. No sound in the world could possibly please Levi more.
CHAPTER FIVE
There was little Levi despised more than patching fences. Not only was the supply store a twenty-four-minute drive from the farm, but where there was one boundary breach, there were sure to be others. Like jackrabbits, fence holes seemed to multiply quickly. But better he be the one to patch them than Ford. As it was, the man overdid it on physical labor. Thankfully, Levi had only made the mistake in saying so once. Turned out, pride didn’t fade with age.
With a stride that could have mowed down several small children, Levi exited the “Lawn and Garden” area, five metal T-posts stacked high on his shoulder. As he neared the self-checkout register, his gaze snagged on a loose black braid and then shifted to a pair of white cotton shorts and a set of Oscar-worthy legs.
Two steps more and he would have slammed straight into a display of wheelbarrows.
Rayne didn’t flinch at the commotion of his sudden stop—though he couldn’t have been more than ten feet from the woman. Her focus was so intent on the lined paper in her hand he was fairly certain he could spin doughnuts with a hijacked forklift and still not garner so much as a blink.
He ought to keep walking. Pay for his merchandise. Exit the store. Hightail it back to his Chevy.
And if not for her curious muttering, he would have done just that.
Either Rayne Shelby had an imaginary friend standing in front of her, or she hadn’t a clue what she was doing in a hardware store. But why he made that his problem he hadn’t a clue.
She lifted her head and searched the aisle banners, mumbling, “What the heck is a flapper?”
He ignored the “Do Not Proceed” sign flashing in his frontal lobe and approached. After all, she’d been the one to break the barrier of silence between them the day she’d rolled onto his farm. “Depends on who you ask. If this were Chicago in the nineteen twenties, you’d be in the wrong place altogether.”
At the very least, he’d expected an awkward chuckle-and-nod combination, or maybe some kind of refined, high-society brush-off, the kind her father excelled at. But instead, the expression that crossed her face could have turned back the hands of time. A look of quiet restraint he’d saved to his mental hard drive nine years ago. A look that said, We can’t be seen together.
Back then, as an eighteen-year-old Shelby Falls transplant, he couldn’t understand the reason behind her overnight metamorphosis—how a kindhearted girl who’d befriended him, a girl who’d promised she’d return to the rocky shore the following evening, could morph into a girl who wouldn’t stand within twenty feet of his shadow. From the time Rayne had climbed into the backseat of her uncle Tony’s patrol car that night to when he saw her on the steps of the lodge the next morning, everything had changed. And she’d made it clear that whatever connection they’d shared at the Falls had fallen under the same immoral slogan as a sin-filled weekend in Vegas.
But Levi had grown up since then. And he’d made a few promises of his own, to an old man who’d chosen peace over payback.
With the slightest dip of her chin, and a poorly masked farewell in her eyes, Rayne smoothed out the list in her hand and started down the main aisle.
In the wrong direction.
Levi slid his gaze from the exit doors to Rayne.
No. It wasn’t his job to rescue her. Their deal was done. Complete. He’d upheld his end of the bargain. This was in no way a damsel-in-distress situation. He wasn’t leaving Rayne stranded on some old abandoned highway with a flat tire and a dead cell phone. He was in a hardware store where there were at least a half dozen employees roaming the floor in blue vests with the words “How May I Help You?” embroidered on their backs. Yet as he watched her retreat, the burn in his conscience intensified.
No matter what he felt about the Shelby family as a whole, Rayne had been single-handedly responsible for the most lucrative business contract he’d ever negotiated. He owed her. And he hated owing anyone.
“You’re headed in the wrong direction,” he called out after he
r.
Rayne kept walking.
“The flapper’s the other way.”
A pleasantly plump woman near the entrance giggled at his outburst, and he shot her a cheeky grin. “At least one person in this store has a sense of humor.”
Levi leaned his fence posts against a patio table and jogged after the girl with the hypnotic hip swing. The clipped pitter-patter of her sandals against the concrete caused a laugh to stall in his throat. “Did you run track at that prep school of yours?”
She startled and glanced over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Funny, that exact question was currently beating up his common sense. “I need a flapper too.”
She stopped full and raised both eyebrows. “Are you serious?”
“No, but I doubt the good employees of Hardware Depot have recently reshelved the toilet flappers next to the . . .” He cocked his head and pointed to the sign behind her. “Spray paint.”
Pink blotched her cheeks. “I would have found it eventually.”
“You seem in too much of a hurry for eventually, and interestingly enough, I have a few extra minutes in my schedule today, so . . .” He scanned her lowered list and held out his hand.
“You’re offering to help me?” The suspicion in her tone ate at his resolve. “Why?”
So we’ll be even. “Because I know this store the way you know your lodge.” He peered at the perfectly scripted items. “But, hey, I’ll leave you to tackle it on your own if you can tell me what an aerator is.”
She handed him the list and didn’t say another word until they reached the plumbing aisle.
This was exactly what her grandfather had warned her about as a child. If you told a lie, white or otherwise, well intentioned or not, repercussions always followed. Because truth always leaves a trail. And her trail was currently strolling the home-improvement aisle beside her.
“I believe this is what you’re looking for.” Levi pinched a rubber ring between his fingers and dropped it into the blue basket looped around her arm. He did the same with several more items on her list, swiping the objects off hooks and shelves nearby. And amid the randomness was a shiny metal sink piece called an aerator.
“Thank you.” The words dried out her mouth like chalk—which she was quite positive Levi could locate in this oversized warehouse nightmare. Why was he helping her? Their deal was over. Finished. They could both go back to normal now by pretending the other didn’t exist.
On a sudden turn, her shoulder collided with his chest, setting both her feet and mouth in an awkward dance of stumbling apologies. But Levi merely smiled and continued down the aisle with her list in hand.
He shot her a sideways glance. “Doesn’t the lodge have a handyman on payroll? What qualified you for flapper duty today?”
Careful to avoid eye contact, she kept her answer simple, though, in truth, she’d wondered the same thing this morning. “I don’t mind running errands.”
She’d been nothing short of surprised when Cal had requested she be the one to gather supplies instead of calling Teddy, their night clerk. But the maintenance list he’d handed her wasn’t a random inventory of lodge to-dos. It was an itemized repair list for a fourth-floor suite she’d called the Blue Jay, chosen for the nickname her grandfather had given her years ago. The room was a whimsical space with sky-blue walls and an octagon window complete with stained glass panels. Her childhood haven.
“I’ll be listing this room as available on the lodge website once you head off to college this fall,” Cal announced on her eighteenth birthday.
She was stunned at first, caught off guard by the unexpected flood of grief at the thought of strangers sleeping in her space, their perfumes and aftershaves tainting the scents of her childhood: the smell of worn pages read from her favorite bedtime stories and the peachy leave-in conditioner Gia kept on Rayne’s vanity. She didn’t want the heart-shaped purple nail polish stain on the bathroom tile to be rubbed out, or the deep grooves from her grandfather’s rocking chair under the window to be refinished.
“But where will I stay when I come home in the summers?” Her tone had been much too desperate, but she couldn’t bear the thought of advertising a room crammed full of her favorite memories like some generic guestroom suite.
“You’re not a child anymore, Rayne. Keeping that room for the sake of nostalgia would be a costly and foolish business decision on my part. You can move your belongings out to the cabin near the greenhouse.” At the sight of her unshed tears, Cal released an irritated sigh. “Part of becoming a responsible adult is learning when to let go of juvenile desires. It’s time you grew up.”
Cal had said something eerily similar the night she’d been caught fraternizing with the neighbor boy—right before he’d demanded she cut ties with Levi completely.
A weighty deposit in her basket shook her back to the present.
“Where’d you go?” Levi asked, staring.
At the sight of him, a tempting sort of wistfulness tugged at her insides. “I . . . nowhere.”
“Could have fooled me,” he said with a wink.
Newly awakened nerves churned in her belly. How long had she been walking these very public aisles with him? Too long to be safe. She pointed to the college-ruled paper in his hand. “Um, how many more items do I have left on there? Maybe you could just point me in the right direction so I can grab the rest on my own?”
Levi folded his arms, her list crinkling in the crook of his elbow. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were embarrassed to be seen with me. But I’m sure that’s just my imagination. It acts up from time to time.” With a lazy grin he turned back to the merchandise.
As she watched him pluck another few items from metal hooks, her guard lowered just enough to wonder at the what-ifs she’d abandoned nearly a decade ago: What if she had been just any girl and he just any boy the night they’d met? What if she’d gone back to the Falls like she’d promised him? What if there’d been no fence lines keeping them apart?
A mental roadblock slammed into place, putting an end to her dangerous musings.
She needed to get out of this store. Now.
She glanced at her invisible wristwatch. “Well, hey, thanks for your help with all this.” She raised her pregnant basket. “I appreciate it, but I really do need to get going. This is only my first stop of many today.” She scooted past him, careful to avoid an accidental brush with one of his knotted biceps. Not that she’d noticed his biceps. Or any other part of his carved physique, for that matter.
“Actually, there’s only one item left on here.” He showed her the list. “And it’s in the security hardware aisle, right across from the checkout lanes.”
Of course it was.
Levi mistook her mental stumble as an agreement, matching stride with her before she could form an appropriate exit strategy. They strode in tandem until they arrived in a section almost as foreign to her as plumbing. Metal, glass, and wood doors hung on endcap displays, showcasing a variety of knobs, locks, and dead-bolt combinations. Dead bolt happened to be the only item on her shopping list she’d recognized.
Levi tapped his pointer finger on a few different lock combo packages. “Which finish do you need? Nickel, chrome, or gold?”
She tugged at the end of her braid, her anxiety building. “Oiled bronze.”
Levi chuckled. “Of course.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There was a tilt to his mouth when he spoke. “You realize that oiled bronze is double the price of every other option here, right?”
“That may be, but it’s the finish we have throughout the lodge.” Was she actually trying to justify a piece of hardware? To Levi Harding?
“Naturally.” He didn’t add the lock combo to her pile. Instead, he inclined his head toward the end of the aisle and reached for her basket. “Here, I can carry all this up to the front for you.”
She stepped back. “No, that’s okay, really. I can manage it.” She swi
tched the cumbersome basket to her opposite arm and held out her hand to take the lock package from him.
He did not oblige her.
A deep crease appeared in the center of his forehead. “So this is how it’s going to be, then—like the other day never happened? Like I didn’t save your bacon?”
She locked her knees in place and met his gaze. “We had a deal, Levi.”
“Yes, we did.”
“So why are you doing this? Why are you talking to me, helping me, following me around like we’re—”
“Two people shopping at the same hardware store?”
“You know what I mean.” She was certain he knew exactly what she meant, though the story he’d been told about Ford swindling her grandfather out of his land had most likely been twisted by fallacy and falsehood.
“Maybe I’m just being neighborly.”
She nearly laughed at his uncouth joke. “We’ve never been neighborly.”
“And whose fault is that?”
She shook her head. This had to stop. Now. “My family is—”
“Not like you.” His words punctured the air and pierced the center of her chest. “That’s the thing, Rayne. There’s something about you that doesn’t quite add up for me—never has. If not for that nightshade hair of yours, I’d question if you were one of them at all.”
She raised her chin. “Well, I am. One of them.” Lamest. Reply. Ever.
His eyes narrowed. “So which one are you? The Rayne who showed compassion to a drifter nine years ago at the Falls? Or the Rayne who cowers under her family’s every wish and whim?”
She reared back a step. “Excuse me?”
“You may have grown up since that night at the Falls, but you’re just as afraid of them now as you were back then.”
Heat climbed her neck at the memory—their connected hands, their whispered words, and the endless horizon reflected in their eyes.
What she wouldn’t give to slam one of the store’s display doors on this entire interaction. “I am not afraid of my family.”
“Sounds like a bad case of denial to me.”
Doorknob package still in hand, he headed in the direction of the cash registers.