A Conard County Courtship

by Rachel Lee

  Did she have to deal with anything?

  Oddly, she realized she was envying Matthew. Stable home, great father, an unshadowed childhood. Which assumed a lot, she admitted to herself. She didn’t really know him yet—or Tim, for that matter.

  But Tim was thinking he might move on. Her idea of moving on wasn’t a good one. She hoped that it wouldn’t adversely affect Matthew.

  Then, with the quiet footsteps becoming a background to the storm, she drifted into dreams.

  * * *

  Matthew’s piping voice awoke her in the morning. Half dozing, she listened to Tim trying to make him speak more quietly, but that amount of energy couldn’t be easily contained.

  It was still dark outside, and for some reason that made her think of Christmases when she was really young and couldn’t wait for her parents to come tell her that Santa had been there.

  Those days had been much better, much happier, and to be fair, until the mess with Higgins had blown up, she’d had a happy childhood. Probably much like Matthew’s, except Matthew didn’t have a mother.

  She wondered how much that saddened him, or if he just felt it was the normal way of things. According to Tim, he couldn’t remember her at all. But other kids had mothers. Maybe that had an impact. To judge by the sound of Matthew’s voice right now, however, the boy was perfectly happy to be facing a snow day.

  The sounds made her smile.

  A little later, after a nice warm shower, she dressed in her warmest fleece and socks, and made her way to the happy sounds in the kitchen. Just as she opened the bedroom door, she heard Tim say, “She’s not here yet. Hold your horses. You’re not going to starve before I find out if she wants any.”

  Her smile grew wider as she walked down the polished hall, around the dining room into the kitchen. Before she had a chance to say good morning, Matthew was hopping up in front of her.

  “You want pancakes, don’t you? With real maple syrup?”

  “Let the lady open her eyes,” Tim scolded mildly.

  “I’d love pancakes,” she assured Matthew, then took Tim’s gesture to sit at the kitchen table.

  “With real maple syrup,” Matthew reminded her.

  “I haven’t had any real maple syrup in years.” She smiled her thanks as Tim put coffee in front of her.

  “It’s a treat,” Matthew informed her. “Daddy says it’s expensive, so we only have it once in a while.”

  “Like once a year,” Tim interjected. “You want anything in your coffee?”

  “Black is great,” she answered.

  “Settle, son,” Tim said to the boy, “or I won’t dare let you help with the pancakes.”

  Matthew immediately embarked on a valiant effort to contain his excitement. Vanessa decided pancakes weren’t a regular item in this household. Still, even though he grew quiet, the boy’s energy was palpable.

  He climbed on a step stool beside the counter, while Tim measured the mix and milk into a large bowl, and listened intently as Tim told him they didn’t want to mix it too much. Beside them was an electric griddle, and Tim showed how to test when it was ready by flicking a little water on it.

  “See the droplets dance? That says the griddle is really hot and ready. Now remember, pancakes don’t take long. You’re going to start with a small one, okay?”

  Vanessa enjoyed the entire show, start to finish. Matthew managed to make himself a stack of small pancakes, and Tim brought a plate of larger ones to the table. Vanessa offered to set the table, but Tim rightly pointed out she didn’t know her way around the kitchen and it would only take Matthew a moment. He proved it. Almost instantly she had a plate, fork and knife in front of her. A butter dish was added, and soon they were all eating.

  Vanessa savored the maple syrup and commented on it.

  “I told you it was good,” Matthew said immediately.

  “Special treat,” she agreed. “A very special one.”

  Tim spoke. “Hardly worth making pancakes without it.”

  Matthew giggled. “You make them with blueberry jam, and sometimes with cinnamon and sugar.”

  “And not very often.”

  Matthew screwed up his face. “I know. Not healthy.”

  Tim chuckled. “Anyway, Vanessa, we’re going to be shoveling snow as soon as the storm lets up some more, and Matthew wants to make a snowman. Care to join us?”

  “That sounds like fun.” She meant it, and realized that her discomfort with coming back to this town was rapidly evaporating. She didn’t feel as if she were wearing the mark of Cain, and now that she was here, she thought how silly her concerns had been. Why should anyone care what had happened over twenty years ago? And even if they did, she’d been a child like Matthew back then, not responsible for any of it.

  Of course, there was still the house, but as she got her feet under her, she was beginning to think she’d be able to handle that. She’d face it and deal. She could do that.

  A smile remained on her face as she helped load dishes into the dishwasher after Matthew and Tim emptied the previous load. While they put them away, she watched so she could learn. If she was invited to stay over again tonight, she wanted to be able to help more.

  It was still snowing rather heavily, a fact that Vanessa had utterly missed because all the curtains were drawn against the cold. But when Tim peeled back the curtain over the sink, she saw white flakes whirling everywhere.

  “This is so cool!” Matthew pronounced.

  “You think so?” Tim answered. “Wait till I hand you that shovel.” He dropped the curtain and eyed Vanessa. “You may not remember, but heavy snow didn’t used to be common. Now we’re seeing more of it. Back when, most of the snow dropped before the storm crossed the mountains, and then dropped the rest farther east. These days we’re getting snowed in almost as much as anybody else.”

  “That’s cool,” Matthew insisted. “Maybe no school again tomorrow.”

  “Don’t count on it, kiddo. These roads will be clean before the day is over.”

  Not even that dampened Matthew, however. He skated off to the living room, announcing he was going to pick a DVD to watch.

  “The creeks and ponds will be full this spring,” Tim said as he joined her at the table with some coffee for himself. She declined his offer of more. “Happy ranchers. Water can often be a problem around here. As for your house...” He shook his head. “A lot of shoveling and plowing is going to have to happen before we can get over there.”

  “I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat,” she admitted.

  “What is it about that house?” he asked. “It’s just a building, but it seems to mean a whole lot more to you.”

  She looked down, running her fingertip slowly across the tabletop as if she were doodling invisibly. “It’s hard to explain,” she admitted. “It’s more feelings that any specific thing. Mixed feelings.”

  “I’m interested,” he said.

  She could have felt pushed. This was some pretty personal territory. But for some reason, she felt the question was friendly, not prying.

  She hesitated for another few seconds, seeking words that wouldn’t sound totally crazy. “I had a lot of fun there when I was little. Bob had two kids, just a little older than me, and we’d go over to visit the family on weekends. The girls and I played a lot, and Bob often had some little gift for me. My parents and Bob and his wife seemed to be really good friends. I always looked forward to those visits.”

  “I see. But then it changed.”

  “Radically. At first I didn’t even grasp that something bad was going on. We stopped going over there, but I knew my dad still went. Then there were angry phone calls. Any time I asked when we were going over there again, I was told that they weren’t our friends anymore. I didn’t get it. I didn’t even really get it when we moved across the co
untry, except that I lost everything and everyone I knew except my parents. It was years before I began to find out what had happened.”

  “And when you did, you knew where to focus a whole lot of confusion and hurt.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Oh, yeah.” She sighed. “I know it was long ago, but it changed me, changed my life. Things were never the same again. Never. I remember that we’d been a happy family up until then. Afterward...no happiness left.”

  “I’m really sorry. That’s a sad story. And all because of one man’s greed.”

  “My dad trusted him,” she said, finally raising her gaze, but not to look at Tim. Instead she looked toward the sink, finding it easier than seeing an expression on another’s face. After all these years. All these years and those old pains could rise up and strike her in the face. Shouldn’t she have outgrown all that by now?

  She certainly thought she had, but this trip, this entire series of events, was teaching her that it wasn’t true, that all she’d done was bury things that, zombie-like, could rise up with the right stimulus.

  Tim spoke. “Your dad’s trust being abused that way...that’s the hard part to swallow, I’d think.”

  She nodded slightly, unsure if she agreed.

  “For me, at least,” he continued, “I think I could deal with the loss of everything I own better than I could deal with someone abusing my trust and friendship so egregiously. But it’s never happened to me, so I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “You may be right,” she said after a few seconds. “Like I said, it’s all mixed up. My dad never recovered, whether it was from being treated that way by a friend, or from losing everything he and his family had worked for, or from both. And I got it all secondhand. All I know is he drank himself to death over the next fifteen years, we had to keep moving because he’d lose his job and have to find another, and every move stressed my mother and required her to find a new job. She didn’t survive him for very long.”

  He shook his head, frowning sadly. “That’s bad. I’m not surprised you don’t want that house. Didn’t want any reminders like that.”

  “I can’t imagine what Higgins was thinking,” she admitted, her voice taking on an edge. “My dear old uncle Bob, as I used to call him. Destroyed my family then dumps this on me? Earl keeps trying to make it sound like Bob regretted what he’d done and wanted to make up for it. I don’t think he was capable of any such thing, Tim.”

  “Maybe not.” He paused. “Probably not. A guy who could do what he did—if he didn’t have a conscience back then, I doubt he grew one in prison.”

  “Me, too. You know, part of what made it so hard on my dad, I think, was that his trust for Bob’s financial management abilities helped draw in other people. I don’t think he felt ashamed just because he got robbed, but because he unwittingly helped others get robbed. I think that’s the reason he always felt that he’d be judged harshly if he came back here.”

  “That could be.” Tim paused thoughtfully. “Did he make you feel that way, too, that folks here would judge you?”

  Stupid as it sounded, she admitted it. “Yes.”

  “Now I’m really sorry. I’m sure we have some rotten apples here—what place doesn’t?—but you were only seven. How could anyone hold you responsible?”

  “I know it sounds silly.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It seems I have some leftover hang-ups.”

  “Coming back here would certainly wake them up. Want some fresh coffee or something else?”

  She’d only downed half the cup he’d given her before breakfast, and she realized that the taste of maple remained on her tongue, growing a bit cloying. “Coffee, please.”

  He rose, emptied her cup in the sink and poured fresh for both of them before returning to sit across from her. From the living room, she could hear the noises of what sounded like a fast-paced cartoon. It wasn’t a far reach to remember her own snowy mornings and weekends in the Before Days, as she thought of them. When it had been too bitterly cold to run around outside, only then had she been allowed to watch TV in the daytime.

  Her spirits began to rise again, and she decided to push off the entire matter of Higgins and her family for another time. It was beginning to seem that she’d be dealing with this mess for the rest of her life. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have fun in between.

  “Matthew is adorable,” she said, pointedly changing the topic.

  “I agree, of course.” He smiled. “I think shoveling will slow him down a bit. Then a snowman. When was the last time you made one?”

  “A snowman? When I was Matthew’s age. It used to drive me crazy, though, because I could never get them to look like a drawing or photo, perfectly rounded. Mine looked kinda clunky.”

  “Well, we’ll work on that skill today,” he joked.

  She grinned. “I could always find rocks for the nose and eyes, but Mom would never part with a carrot. Anyway, I was never really happy with ones I made.”

  “Did you have any help?”

  “I was a singleton, and no one else on the ranch was interested. Too busy.”

  “Well, nobody’s too busy today.”

  She decided that sounded really good.

  Chapter Four

  Many hands made for swift work in clearing the snow, and for the first time Vanessa helped build a snowman that looked as if it had stepped from the pages of a storybook. Matthew and Tim showed her how to smooth it out, and Tim wasn’t stingy with the carrot. He even broke off some small limbs from his shrubbery to make arms.

  “Want a photo of that?” he asked with a wide smile.

  The shoveling and building of the snowman had kept them warm, but finally they started to chill and headed inside. Tim served up a big pot of hot chocolate along with some chicken soup.

  “Not the best flavor combination,” he remarked, “but I think it’s going to go down well.”

  Vanessa admired the easy way he handled everything. He could repair things, build things, clear a sidewalk, make a snowman and cook very well. A man of many talents.

  A very handsome man of many talents.

  But then she reminded herself not to pay attention to her unexpected attraction to him. She was just passing through, the way she had for most of her life. Senseless to invest herself in people she wouldn’t know for long. As a self-protective posture, it had become part of her personality, and it worked. Even at the museum, where she would probably continue working for a great many years, she kept a certain reserve, a space between herself and her coworkers.

  “So what’s it like working at the museum?” Tim asked as they ate. “Lots of interesting people, I bet.”

  “Dinosaurs,” said Matthew, almost as if he were correcting his father.

  “Well, yes, dinosaurs,” she agreed. “And knowledgeable people. I learn something every day.” She turned to Matthew. “But I don’t only work with dinosaur bones.”

  His eyes widened a shade. “Really? Is there other good stuff, too?”

  She had to laugh. “Lots of good stuff. Bones don’t have to be big to tell a story.”

  Matthew thought about that while he drank cocoa then looked at her while wearing a chocolate mustache. “How can bones talk?”

  That was one of her favorite subjects. “They don’t talk like you and I do. But they definitely have stories to tell. When I study them, I can learn when they lived and how they lived, and maybe even how they died. I can tell if they were babies, or grown-ups, and did they live alone or have families. Now, not every bone is going to give me all that information, but with time and more bones, it’s like putting a puzzle together into a picture.”

  He nodded, evidently grasping what she was saying. “So they don’t tell a story but they make a puzzle picture.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” she agreed. “
But over time I get more than just one puzzle picture. That’s when I start to get a story.”

  “Okay. But dinosaur bones are the best.”

  She and Tim laughed. “You come visit my museum sometime, and I’ll show you.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Tim just before Matthew turned to him.

  “Can we, Dad? Can we?”

  “Albuquerque is a bit of a drive,” he answered.

  Vanessa hesitated, realizing she had put him on the spot without intending to. “Sorry,” she said to Tim.

  His smile turned crooked. “Frankly, I was expecting this from the moment you mentioned dinosaurs. We’ll see, Matthew. We couldn’t go before next summer, regardless. And maybe by then you’ll want to go to a truck museum.”

  Vanessa stifled a laugh, pressing her lips tightly together.

  “I don’t like trucks that much,” Matthew said decisively. “Anyway, they don’t have museums.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Tim replied. “There seem to be museums for just about anything.”

  But Matthew was already moving on. “Do you dig up the bones?” he asked Vanessa.

  “Sometimes,” she answered.

  “I wanna do that.”

  “Maybe you’ll get the chance. It’s fun—for a little while, anyway. Then it gets hot, you get tired, and it takes a long, long time to get some little bone out of the ground. Longer for a big bone.”

  Tim spoke. “I take it you prefer working in the museum.”

  “Mostly. But I get into the field once in a while. When I’m there I don’t do much of the digging, but I do a lot of preservation work. Some of those bones come out of the stone ready to crumble. They haven’t been exposed the elements for maybe millions of years, and they start deteriorating the minute they hit the air and humidity.”