Baby Blues and Wedding Bells

by Patricia McLinn

  She didn’t waste any time. “That first day—why did you leave your car down the hill, Zach? Why didn’t you drive?”

  “Wanted to see the neighborhood. Didn’t want to drive past and miss things.”

  She looked at him, not trying to hide her disappointment at that nonanswer. “Okay.”

  He grunted and said, “I knew if I drove up, it would be too easy to keep going. It would only take a couple seconds to go past and be on my way.”

  So, he’d made it harder on himself to take the easy way out. Yes, Zach had definitely changed.

  “Why did you come back?”

  “The absent are always at fault.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a saying someone told me—maybe I didn’t want to be at fault anymore. You know those twelve-step programs where they say you have to say you’re sorry to the people you’ve wronged?”

  “You’re in a twelve-step program?”

  His mouth shifted into a rueful grin. “I don’t think they have one for being a Corbett. No, I’m not in any twelve-step program. But a guy who is in one found me and wanted to make amends for a wrong he’d done me. Maybe that planted the seed a year or so ago—the idea of coming back. I thought I’d make it better by coming here, setting things to rest. I never expected I’d make it worse.”

  “What had he done, the man who wanted to make amends?”

  “He stole my bike. It was the last thing I had, and it left me flat busted and he knew it.”

  They’d reached Bliss House. She pulled into the drive beside a Trevetti Building truck and turned off the ignition. “Did you accept his apology?”

  “No. No—don’t look at me like that.”

  “I wasn’t looking at you any way.”

  “Yeah, you were, with those big caramel eyes all gentle and disappointed, but refusing to judge.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I didn’t accept his apology because he’d done me a favor.” That stopped her protests over his absurd comment about her eyes. “After he left me busted, I had to accept help from this guy whose barn we’d slept in, this great old guy.”

  He chuckled. “God, Elliott would hate to hear me describe him that way. He prided himself on being a cranky old cuss. After the guy took off with my bike, Elliott gave me a place to stay in exchange for doing work he couldn’t do. He was on oxygen and couldn’t get around real well.

  “I don’t know that I’d ever had a friend who wasn’t looking for something from me, but Elliott wasn’t. Didn’t take any guff, either. Laid out what he expected and what he’d give in return and lived by it to the letter. After a few months with him, I started seeing things straighter.”

  “For example?”

  “For example, that I had to suck it up and be something. When winter set in he said I could stay on, but I would be marking time and I was too damned young to do that. So I entered the army.” He laughed. “You should have seen your face when I told Nell that.”

  She couldn’t help it. She’d felt as if the world had turned over and shuddered. Zach Corbett in the army. Taking orders. Marching in time to anything, much less a command.

  “You…you liked it?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. It wasn’t the career for me, but I did okay after a while.” His mouth twisted. “It was a rocky start. But it worked out okay. More than okay. Elliott had said it would be the making of me, and he was right. They gave me training, more courses toward a degree and some great friends. It was a good experience. I told Elliott that the last time I saw him, last January.” She saw his sorrow, knew what he would say next. “I got out there a couple times a year, but this time…he was failing. I knew that, but I wasn’t prepared when I got the call three weeks later that he’d died.”

  “I’m sorry, Zach.”

  “You’d have liked him, Fran.” He grinned suddenly. “And he’d have thought you were the best thing he’d ever seen.”

  She didn’t know how to react to that, so she didn’t. “You left the army…when?”

  “Four years ago.”

  “And since then?”

  He looked out the passenger window. “I work for a county government in northern Virginia, across the river from Washington. Who’d have believed I’d end up like Steve, working for local government. But it’s a good group. Finally got my degree last summer. Have a little house I’m fixing up. It’s a good life, Fran.”

  She’d sensed changes in him, but nothing like this.

  And through the amazement, Fran felt a thread of uneasiness. The Zach who had left Tobias would have been a lousy father for Nell. In fact, he probably wouldn’t have been much interested in her. But what about this man?

  And what risk did that pose to the happy family who lived on Kelly Street?

  She nodded, acknowledging his assessment of his life, then opened her car door. Abruptly, she pivoted back to face him.

  “Do you have a family?” she asked. “I mean kids, because—”

  “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

  At the look he gave her, a shiver went through her. This could be even more complicated than anyone else in Tobias knew.

  Why hadn’t he told her the whole truth?

  Zach didn’t know exactly.

  He’d decided before he set off for Tobias that he wouldn’t tell Lana about his life. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say on the issue, and the only way to keep her from saying something was to give her nothing to say anything about.

  He’d half expected Steve to be far from Tobias; he’d figured he would seek out his brother afterward. But when he’d set off, his only thought was to tell Lana face-to-face that he was alive and that he was done with the past once and for all.

  The past will not stop speaking to me….

  Clearing up the residue of his distant past, putting it in its place, so the recent past could settle in where it belonged. So he could move on to the future, the way the old man had said.

  Fate clearly had other ideas. The past wasn’t finished with him.

  Maybe that’s why he hadn’t told Fran all he’d done with what the army had taught him—he was afraid he’d end up telling her about the old man. And the dreams.

  Kay pulled into the driveway fast enough to spurt adrenaline into Zach’s bloodstream.

  He rose from his seat on the porch steps and shifted his hold on the stick he’d been using to dislodge today’s dirt from the treads in his running shoes.

  A gray sedan that had been closely following Kay’s car parked across the entry to the drive, and a man with the straps of two cameras and a tape recorder crisscrossed over his shabby T-shirt and protruding belly emerged at a surprising speed, considering his girth.

  “Kay! Kay! I just want a statement. How do you feel about this guy you’re living with being in the middle of a scandal? Is it like reliving a nightmare? Give me a statement! How does your father feel about you being with somebody who’s gonna send guys to prison like your grandmother did to him?”

  Zach started toward Kay. There was a haunted wariness in her eyes, but she didn’t flinch and she didn’t alter her pace as she headed for the house.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, once he’d reached her.

  “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, Zach.”

  Right. He believed that.

  “Go on in the house, Kay. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Zach…”

  He strode down the deep lawn to the guy, who backed up as Zach neared.

  “I’m on a public street!” the guy shouted. “I’m on a public street!”

  “If you weren’t, I’d already have called the cops.”

  That seemed to calm the man. “Okay. All right. Glad you understand I have a job to do.”

  “You’re mistaken. It’s not all right, and I don’t understand bottom-feeders like you. If you trespass, I’ll call the cops. But understand this, I don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not you’re on a public street. You’re in my town and you’re
bothering my friend. You’d be well-advised to stop doing both.”

  He gave the guy a cold stare, then pivoted to return to the house.

  “Hey! I know you from somewhere. Where the—? I’ve seen you somewhere. Heard that voice. Who are you?”

  “Wrong again.” Zach told his muscles to keep going and they obeyed.

  “I know that face. I don’t forget faces. It’ll come to me.”

  Zach turned back, arms crossed over his chest, and glared at the weasel.

  As he expected, the guy climbed into his car, still yelling how he’d never give up while, in fact, giving up.

  With the car out of sight, Zach once more turned to the house and saw Fran just inside the porch door.

  “What was that about?” she asked.

  “That should be my question, shouldn’t it?”

  “I mean that reporter saying he knew you.”

  “That’s not a reporter—not a real one, anyway—and he’s wrong about knowing me. But why would a guy like that chase Kay? Is this connected to that phone call the other morning?”

  “I’ll fill you in,” Kay said, stepping onto the porch from the kitchen. “Let me call Rob first, then we’ll get comfortable.”

  She was as good as her word. Fifteen minutes later, they sat on the porch with Chester leaning against Kay’s knees.

  “So why was that tabloid sleaze chasing you, Kay?” Zach asked.

  “Ah,” Kay said. “So you recognized him as tabloid sleaze. I did, too, as soon as I saw him outside the cleaners. That’s where he spotted me. My family was hounded by tabloid reporters when I was a kid after my grandmother turned in my father for breaking the law. I won’t bore you with the details, but it had a lot of elements the tabloids love: famous artist, family feud, society figures, betrayal, big money. They were drooling.

  “Most of the coverage of the investigation into Rob’s firm is from the financial angle. Only a few are trying to pump this up to a scandal, then connect it to my family’s history. This guy is one of them.”

  “You let me know if he bothers you again,” Zach said.

  A smile spread across Kay’s face. “As tempting as that is, it’s not necessary. Just now on the phone, I told Rob about our visitor and persuaded him I’ll be better off in his building in Chicago, with its doorman and security. And with me gone, the sleazes won’t hound Fran or anyone else here in Tobias.”

  Fran tamped the ground where Canterbury bells would bloom their old-fashioned colors of blue and white in front of the spiraea.

  “That’s it for today. I can’t believe how much we’ve accomplished these past three days.”

  She arched her back to ease those muscles, and saw that Zach was doing the same. The move looked entirely different on him, emphasizing the width of his shoulders, the power of his thighs under his jeans.

  “I have a new appreciation for Johnny Appleseed,” he grumbled.

  Plant orders had begun to arrive Tuesday morning, continued through Wednesday and today. According to her clipboard, they were down to one midsize and two small deliveries due tomorrow. They’d kept up better than she’d hoped. There would still be planting to do after Fred Buchell moved the donated trees into place Sunday. But that was all within her schedule.

  The gardens were going to be ready for the opening.

  They would give only a hint of what they would offer next spring and summer, but judicious plantings of pansies and mums, plus some late-blooming roses, would keep visitors interested.

  “These gardens would never have been done in time without you, Zach.” She wondered if working hard eased any of his frustration at having no contact with Nell or Steve these past days. It clearly didn’t ease all of the frustration. One night Chester’s low bark woke her and she’d looked out the window to see Zach jogging up the back lawn, apparently at the end of a predawn run. “Thank you.”

  He cocked a brow. “You’re welcome, but somehow I think you would have figured out a way to get them done.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad I didn’t have to figure it out.”

  A slow grin lifted the corners of his mouth. He stepped closer, pulling off his work gloves. “There you go again, getting a dirty face.”

  He brought one hand up, the pad of his thumb stroking across her lips.

  He’d done this before, that first day. She’d wondered at the gesture, decided he’d been telling her to stay still, not to move or speak, so he could wipe off the dirt on her face.

  She’d been wrong. That wasn’t what he’d been communicating then and it wasn’t what he was communicating now.

  But…

  That was as far as her mind could get. But…

  He leaned in.

  Her lungs stopped functioning, her heart went into overdrive, and her mind did come up with another thought:

  Zach Corbett is going to kiss me.

  “Fran? Fran, my dear?”

  Miss Trudi’s fluting call barely penetrated her mental fog, but Zach swung away.

  “Oh, Fran, my dear, there you are. I have been searching for you and Zach to— Oh, my, what a magnificent canvas you have created of this garden. Why, it quite takes my breath away.”

  Having regained her breath—and her sanity—during Miss Trudi’s fluttering speech, Fran jumped in at the first opening. “Why were you looking for us, Miss Trudi?”

  “Oh, my, didn’t I say? A delivery has arrived that Annette is quite certain contains the seed packets. We did not care to open boxes addressed to you, although we are quite eager to see the packets.”

  “Me, too. Let me get my tools…”

  Zach beat her to it, gathering the fork, spade and rake and putting them in the wheelbarrow. He followed behind the two women with it, while Miss Trudi told him the seed packets were part of Kay’s goal to spread the word about the gardens. When he veered toward the potting shed, Miss Trudi insisted he join them.

  “Oh, good,” said Suz when they came into the kitchen. “Now we can open these.”

  Beyond Suz, Fran saw Max, Annette and Steve sitting at a table loaded with three large boxes.

  Had Miss Trudi purposely neglected to mention that Steve was in the kitchen when she’d urged Zach to join them?

  “Here are scissors for the tape.”

  Fran took them from Annette, just as Zach moved into her peripheral vision. Miss Trudi’s hand was on his arm, drawing him forward.

  “You better open that box fast, Fran, before these two explode,” Max said, nodding toward Suz and Annette.

  She’d hesitated, she realized, waiting for communication between Steve and Zach. There was none, and Max’s urging got her busy. Eagerly, she reached in and removed…

  “Oh, no.”

  One more thing she’d have to figure out how to get done.

  “I thought they were supposed to be labeled,” Annette said.

  “They were.” Fran saw that each packet had growing instructions stamped on the back, but the front was pristine, glaring white, with only a sticker tucked under the rubber band around each bunch to tell the kind of seeds.

  Methodically, Fran checked the stacks of packets. They were all that way. Max opened the other boxes and shook his head. She found the packing list.

  “It’s the right order, all the kinds of seeds we ordered.”

  “What are we going to do?” Annette asked.

  “We’ll have to send them back,” Max said.

  Fran shook her head. “There isn’t time. Not by the opening.”

  “What a shame,” Suz said. “But that’s okay. We’ll get the right ones and give them out later. People at the opening weren’t expecting them so they won’t be disappointed, and—”

  “No,” Fran broke in. “We’ll make labels. It’s too good an idea for promoting Bliss House to pass up. Suz and Annette, I’ll need your computer expertise, but we can do this. We can use the prototype I sent the seed company.”

  “You’re right,” Annette said. “We can make our own labels.”

  “
Then it’s just a matter of sticking them on. Everyone come over Saturday, we’ll have pizza and put them on.”

  “Like an old-fashioned sewing bee. That’s a great idea,” Suz said.

  “Yes, of course,” Miss Trudi agreed. “Many hands will make light work. Why, Nell and her friend, Laura Ellen, can also lend assistance.”

  “I don’t think Nell—”

  “Why ever not, Steve?” Miss Trudi asked with the guileless look that indicated she was at her most dangerous. “Surely you aren’t objecting to Nell joining because Zach will be involved. You are aware, are you not, that Nell has had conversations with Zach in Fran’s company?”

  Steve shot a look toward Zach. “I know Nell’s been over a couple of mornings before school for a few minutes, but for a—”

  “More than ten minutes isn’t in your rule book?” Zach demanded. “You want to set more rules about when I can see my daughter?”

  The word reverberated in the room like the tick of a bomb.

  Steve turned so the brothers faced off across the corner of the table.

  “I am Nell’s father, Zach. Getting a woman pregnant doesn’t make you or any man a father. All you did was donate sperm—as reckless as ever.”

  Fran thought Steve’s words sliced into Zach, but he was too angry, too intent for her to be sure. And out of his anger came an accusation.

  “You told Nell about me because you thought I was dead. If you’d known I might come back and foul things up for you, you wouldn’t have told her.”

  “We told her because a child should know—a person should know—the truth. You must agree or you wouldn’t have tried to tell me that Ambrose wasn’t my father.”

  Fran held her breath to keep from gasping. But she was the only one reacting. The rest of them had already known.

  Zach, still glaring, softened the slightest degree. “I didn’t know how to tell you straight out. I should have.”

  “You’re damn right you should have. But you were never the best at doing what you should have, were you?”

  Zach rammed the wheelbarrow over a rut. But when he reached the shed he forced himself to put the tools away carefully.

  You were never the best at doing what you should have, were you?