by Jeannie Watt
Especially when she hadn’t sorted out how much of this connection was because she enjoyed talking to Darcy, or how much was because she was attracted to the father.
* * *
DARCY GOT HOME late from quilting and it wasn’t hard for Zach to guess why. She’d stopped at Tess’s house again. Probably checking on Misty the cat, who hadn’t yet shown up. Emma was beside herself and there was nothing he could do about it. The best he could do was promise Emma a new house cat if Misty never returned.
“Hey, Dad,” Darcy said as she came into the kitchen. She dropped her tote on the table and pulled out two finished purple and orange squares. Actually, with the black background, they weren’t quite as heinous as he’d first thought they’d be when he’d seen the fabric she’d chosen, but he wondered how many raffle tickets were going to sell this year.
“Very purple and orange,” he said.
Darcy snorted. “It’s cool-looking.”
“Indeed.”
“Don’t patronize.”
“Where’d you learn that?” Zach asked.
“One of this week’s vocabulary words. I’m supposed to use it three times.”
Great. “Did you stop at Tess’s place on the way home?”
“Yeah. I didn’t think you’d care, since you didn’t tell me not to stop there after the pasture deal. But,” she said just as Zach was about to answer, “she wants me to tell you whenever we go over there. And—” Darcy hesitated for that split second that told him something was coming she wasn’t quite sure of “—tomorrow Emma and Lizzie and I are going to stop by on our way home from school.”
“Lizzie?”
“Unless she’s afraid. If she is, then we’ll come straight home.” Darcy lifted her shoulders. “I told Tess if she told Lizzie how she really hurt her face then Lizzie might come around. But she just said it was a lot scarier than the trespassing story and that Lizzie shouldn’t hear it.”
“Well, she should know.”
“Don’t you wonder, Dad?”
“I do,” he said. All the time.
“And when you see the side of her face that isn’t messed up, it’s like really pretty, you know?” Zach didn’t answer, but he’d noticed.
“I told her about Mom,” Darcy said, staring down at her hands with a slight frown, “because I thought it’d help her see that we all have something bad in our lives, but...” She shrugged again and met his eyes.
“Um, you know, Darcy, you need to be careful not to stick your nose too far into a stranger’s business...or to tell her too much of ours.” Especially when Zach was still working out exactly how he wanted to proceed with Tess. Did he pursue the attraction? Would it affect his daughters if he did, and if so, how? He didn’t want Darcy in the middle as he figured this stuff out, but forbidding her to see Tess wasn’t going to fly, either.
“I’m not doing that,” Darcy said earnestly. “I just didn’t want her to think she was alone in having trouble. You know how Grandma always talks about how bad her life is whenever something bad happens to someone else? I thought maybe it’d help her get...”
She gestured and Zach said, “Perspective?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“It’s not your job to help Tess get perspective.”
Darcy carefully folded the quilt squares into fourths. “I think she’s lonely.”
“She’s not a stray kitten.”
“I know. But she is lonely and I like talking to her.”
* * *
TESS DIDN’T KNOW how many of Zach’s daughters would stop by after school, if any, but when she answered the door at 3:15 all three girls stood on her porch. One of them looked very unhappy. Tess tamped down the stab of guilt and stepped back.
“Come on in.” She held the door open and the middle girl stepped inside, followed by the youngest girl, after Darcy had given the tiny blonde a firm nudge in the lower back.
“Thanks for coming,” Tess said, feeling ridiculously awkward.
“No problem,” Darcy said. “I thought maybe you could show us what you want to do and then I can help you do it?”
“Sure.”
The little girl stared at the floor.
“It’s okay,” Tess said to her. “You can look at my face. I’m sorry for what I said about trespassing.”
“Dad says you were lying to me.” The girl’s gaze remained glued to the floorboards.
“I exaggerated,” Tess said, wondering if this had come from one of those late-night talks Zach had said he’d had. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
The girl’s lips pursed together and then she said, “Can I wait on the porch?”
“Lizzie—” the middle girl started to say, but Tess cut her off with a quick lift of her hand.
“Do you want the dogs to come with you? They need some exercise.” Please don’t be afraid of dogs.
“No, thank you,” Lizzie said politely as she walked to the door. Tess and the other two girls stood silently as Lizzie slipped outside.
Lizzie was going to be a hard sell.
Lizzie? Darcy? She turned to the middle girl. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“Emma,” the girl said, pushing one long braid back over her shoulder and then she and Darcy said simultaneously, “We know.”
Tess smiled. “Your parents must be die-hard Jane Austen fans.”
“Only Mom,” Emma said. “Dad didn’t even know.”
“Does he now?”
“Somebody told him after Lizzie was born,” Darcy said as she picked up the evil Very Easy pattern Tess was still trying to figure out. “Dad doesn’t read much. He’s more of a music guy.”
“Have you read any Austen books?” Tess asked.
“Not yet,” Darcy said. “Tia—Aunt Beth—says they’ll be more fun when we’re older.”
“She’s probably right,” Tess said, still smiling.
“Greg—one of the high schoolers—had to read it for a class,” Emma said, “and he said it’s all mushy, so I don’t know if I even want to read it.”
Tess gave a serious nod. Emma looked to be about nine years old, so yeah, mushy probably wasn’t going to float her boat.
“This isn’t that hard,” Darcy said, looking up from the pattern instructions she’d been reading. “Usually I need Tia to translate, but even I can figure out these directions. Most of them anyway.”
“Great,” Tess said, feeling a wee bit stupid.
“I told Dad we’d be home by four-thirty,” Darcy said, “so let’s lay out your fabric and I can show you how to pin it. Then we can come back tomorrow and help with the next steps.”
Tess was pretty certain she could do the pinning part with no assistance, but if Darcy wanted to help, she wasn’t going to send her home. “Will Lizzie be all right out there?”
“Her choice,” Emma said. “I sew a little, but I’m too young for quilt club.”
“Well, ladies,” Tess said. “Let’s do it.”
“First we have to make sure your grain is straight,” Darcy said, picking up the length of fabric Tess had draped over the back of her sewing chair.
“Isn’t that only for cotton?” Emma said.
Darcy gave her a superior look. “All grains have to be straight.”
“What’s the grain?” Tess knew the answer to that from her DVD, but wanted to hear Darcy’s answer.
“The way the threads run. Do you want to cut it out here on the floor?”
“Can’t thi
nk of a better place,” Tess said.
“Tia makes us mop first when we use the floor,” Emma said, crouching down as Darcy flipped the fabric out.
Tia sounds like a lot of fun. And Tess still wondered why she lived on Zach’s ranch. She hoped it was to take care of her nieces, even though she didn’t want to admit that to herself.
“The floor’s clean,” Tess said. Fairly clean. She’d swept that morning, but having two dogs in the house did tend to generate dust bunnies.
The girls helped her fold the fabric in two, making certain the grain lines were straight, and then Darcy patiently showed her how to use the guide in the pattern to lay out her pieces, matching the arrows on the pattern pieces to the grain.
“If the arrows are crooked, then whatever you’re sewing won’t hang right.”
Tess noticed that Lizzie had begun to pace on the porch. Her blond head passed by the window like a soldier on watch. “Should we check on her?” Tess asked at one point, but Darcy waved off the question.
When they finished half an hour later, Tess hadn’t learned anything she hadn’t already gleaned from the DVDs but she’d had company, and tomorrow she would start on stuff she hadn’t been able to grasp from the diagrams on the pattern instructions—things that her twelve-year-old tutor could grasp, but Tess wasn’t going to dwell on that.
“We can’t come by tomorrow,” Emma said as the three of them walked to the door, “because we have a 4-H meeting, but we can come back the day after.”
“Just practice your seams,” Darcy warned. “Don’t screw up the dress.”
Tess fought a smile. “Yes, ma’am.” She gestured toward the porch. “Any hints on how to make your sister feel more at home?”
“Ignore her,” Darcy said.
“Seems harsh,” Tess answered.
Emma scrunched up her nose as she said, “It’ll work. Always does. And if it doesn’t, try sugar.”
Tess laughed as Darcy opened the door. Lizzie’s head came up at the sound and then she abruptly turned away.
“See you day after tomorrow,” Emma said and then a second later the girls were gone.
And Tess was alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN JIM ANDERSON had owned the place, Zach would check his cattle every week or so—mainly by driving by and taking a look. But Tess O’Neil wasn’t cow-savvy, so he needed to keep a closer eye on them.
He was lying to himself, of course.
It didn’t take long to check the cattle, see that everything was well and the fence was fine, and it didn’t long to figure out that Tess wasn’t going to leave her house.
Zach solved that problem by tying Roscoe to the fence before walking up to the front door and knocking.
The dogs made a huge racket and a second later Tess opened the door with the dogs poking their sharp black noses out from either side of her.
“Is there a problem?” She’d forgotten her glasses again and again he was struck by the unusual color of her eyes.
“No. I—” feel ridiculously self-conscious after our last parting “—was checking the cows. Thought I’d let you know.”
“The dogs already informed me.”
“I imagine they did. So, anyway.” He raised a hand in a less than suave salute, and started back across the porch when he stopped and turned back. “I was wondering after our last conversation...would you like to learn to ride?”
Those green eyes widened slightly. “Why would you do that?”
“Teach you to ride?”
“Yes.”
“Just being neighborly.” A patently disbelieving look crossed her face. “And I’m grateful that you’ve given Darcy a mission. She thinks she’s the answer to all your sewing problems.”
“She is,” Tess said, folding her arms over her chest. Was she backing off? “I know nothing and she’s helped me make sense of the DVDs. I bought too high of a level.”
“You should have seen how she fought learning to sew.”
“Really? She seems to love it now.”
“Stubborn kid. If my sister-in-law hadn’t been more stubborn, you wouldn’t have a tutor right now.”
“Your sister-in-law who lives with you.” It was more of a question than a statement. A request for clarification.
“In the hired hand trailer. She’s been a lot of help since...my wife died.”
“I’m very sorry about your loss,” Tess said. Again, simply spoken, but he did not doubt her sincerity. Tess, too, had suffered loss.
“It was not an easy time.” Still wasn’t, but something had shifted since meeting Tess. He didn’t know if she was simply there at the right time, when his grieving had finally hit the point where he could move on, or if she’d somehow prodded that part of him he’d buried away after Karen’s death back into being.
Tess idly reached up to touch her scars, a gesture he noticed she made when she was thinking. She didn’t look at him for a long moment and he wished he knew what was going on in her head. A yes or a no. That’s all he needed.
When she did finally meet his eyes, he saw that she was torn. “After what happened to you, I’m not exactly anxious to get on a horse,” she pointed out.
“I have other horses.”
“Then why do you ride that one?” She gestured at Roscoe, who was happily eating her flowering bush. Zach made a shooing motion and the horse stopped, bobbing his head with flowers sticking out both sides of his mouth.
“He understands cows and I can ride him for fourteen hours straight if I have to.”
“Unless he leaves you on the mountain.”
Zach gave her a smile. “He doesn’t shy at all after hour ten. If I can stay on him for that long, I’m good.” He waited then to see what Tess would say. He wanted her to say yes.
“Tempting,” she finally said.
“Then...?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
* * *
TESS SHUT THE door as Zach started down the steps, refusing to let herself watch him walk away—even if those short, fringed leather chaps he wore emphasized his butt in a good way. How deeply involved could she allow herself to become with her neighbors?
You’ve encouraged the girls to drop by after school...
That was a way to give herself some company—even if Lizzie wasn’t about to forgive her. But this...thing with Zach...this felt more like pursuing an attraction.
Mainly because that was exactly what it was—and it went two ways. He was attracted to her, scars and all.
So why her?
Because he’d lost his wife? Because she was handy?
Was she someone safe to dally with—a first dip back into the dating pool? Someone who wouldn’t expect him to hang around for long?
Tess clapped both hands on top of her head, which reminded her it was time to redo her roots, cover the good half inch of dark auburn that was showing. Her drugstore order hadn’t arrived and she was on her last box of dye, but hopefully the next shipment would get here before she had to touch up again. And she’d forgotten her glasses the past few times she’d been with Zach. She was getting complacent. It was one thing to get on with her life as Detective Hiller had told her, and another to totally shove aside the possibility of being recognized.
Not knowing how careful she had to be was hell—and made it so tempting to grasp at any straw of normality she could. Like a hot cowboy neighbor who seemed interested.
<
br /> And heaven help her, if he had temporary in mind, as in easing back into the dating world after a painful loss, she was very, very tempted. Temporary she could do.
* * *
SUGAR DIDN’T WORK.
Tess had spent the morning baking cookies, something she could do competently, thanks to her grandmother’s best friend, Helen, who’d taught Tess to bake the summer she’d turned ten. Three years before the bad times started.
As she stirred the dough, Tess realized this was the first time she’d baked Helen’s recipe since her grandmother had died. There’d definitely been no baking when she’d lived with her mom and Eddie. She’d spent those years holed up in her bedroom with the door locked—except for the time Jared had broken it down. It felt good to relive some of the happier moments of her life while making the ginger cookies, but despite the warm scent of sweet spice that hung in the air when the girls arrived, Lizzie made it clear she was not impressed. Darcy and Emma both took cookies, biting into them and making appreciative noises, but Lizzie stubbornly stood with her hands behind her back.
“Take a cookie,” Tess heard Darcy order in a low voice when she went into the kitchen for the milk she’d picked up at the mercantile that day along with six plastic glasses—her company glasses.
Lizzie’s voice came next. “I don’t— Mmmph!”
Tess could only imagine what had happened, but when she went back into the room, Lizzie was chewing away at the cookie and avoiding her eyes.
The sewing lesson was slightly more successful than the ploy to win over Lizzie. They made the pleats in the dress bodice and skirt, basting them into place by hand, even though the pattern said to use the machine. Darcy had been taught the “old school” methods and insisted that Tess learn the same.
“You can always fall back on basic skills,” she said.
“Did someone say that to you?” Tess asked.
“About nine hundred times,” Darcy muttered.
Lizzie sat in the recliner, which was better than exiling herself to the porch where the dogs lay in the sun. Progress. Tess’s sketch pad lay on the overturned crate she used as an end table and Lizzie started flipping through the pages. When Tess smiled at her, she instantly stopped, but a few minutes later, when she thought Tess wasn’t looking, she picked up the pad again.