by Ava Miles
As Tammy pulled through John Parker McGuiness’ unobtrusive wooden gates, the memories of their lovely meal together played in her mind. There was so much she liked and admired about him. For one thing, few adults seemed to know how to talk to kids, least of all listen, but he always listened to her kids. Heck, he listened to everyone, she’d noticed. Including her. And he was a good and loyal friend to her brother.
She wanted him, plain and simple.
What in the world was she supposed to do about that? She knew she wasn’t ready for a relationship yet, and she didn’t know when she would be.
While landscaping John Parker’s grounds, she’d be working in close proximity to him for weeks, which would only make things worse, but Tammy couldn’t pass up this opportunity for her new business, especially since he didn’t have a budget. Oh, the things she could envision…
As she pulled down his long drive, she took stock of his place with new eyes and noticed the road to his house was lined with ancient, towering oaks that provided shade from the brutal sunlight. The feel of his land was country and wooded. Private. That she’d remembered.
There were wild ferns mixed with weeds and brush in his woods, but there was a clean trail through the thicket, and the tracks from his mountain bike were visible in the dirt. When she broke through the clearing, she smiled. Yes, his house was just as she remembered it—beautiful in its simplicity. The white wrap-around porch seemed to call out for serene family gatherings and evenings spent swaying on the porch swing in the hot breeze.
Two stories with dormer windows, the house was painted a dark gray with white shutters and a bright red door. Old-fashioned. He had some azalea bushes out front, she noticed, and a crepe myrtle to the right of the door, bursting with red blossoms. There was an Annabelle hydrangea on the left, her favorite for obvious reasons, with its white mop heads lying on the ground like a tired child who had fallen asleep. A Lancifolia hosta in full sun had curly, mottled green leaves crying out for shade. White Shasta daisies drooped alongside of the house next to a massive humming air conditioner.
He needed her help, all right.
When John Parker stepped out onto the porch with Charleston, his red setter by his side, she firmed her shoulders. Her new leather satchel in her hand made her feel more professional.
“Hi there! Picked a hot one to start, didn’t we?” he called out.
“Yes, the hottest so far this year.” And it worried her some. The plants would need to root, and in this heat…
He walked to the edge of the porch to greet her as she climbed up the steps, and she noticed his outfit—khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. “At least you dressed for it. Is this another new outfit?”
She fought the urge to tug her simple yellow shirt down over her red khaki Capris. “Yes.”
“It looks lovely,” he said, leaning against the railing. “Do you want some sweet tea? We can take it with us as we walk around.”
The sugar would only make her jittery, but she loved the honeyed taste on hot days like today. “That would be lovely.”
“You remember Charleston,” he said as he gave the dog a gentle scratch under her ears. “She’s getting on in years, but I love her.”
“Have you had her for a long time?” she asked, stooping to pet the dog as well. It was nice not to have a rambunctious dog around for once. Bullet and Banjo were driving her crazy, and while Rory’s dog minded pretty well, it took some doing to stay on top of them all.
“Since I graduated from law school. She’s a sweetheart.”
He opened the door for Tammy and waited for her to pass. Charleston stayed where she was without as much as a whimper. The inside of his house charmed her in a way Rye’s hadn’t when she’d first arrived in Dare River. It was her first opportunity to really soak in the atmosphere, since his barbecue had been primarily held out back. John Parker’s place managed to be both cozy and elegant. She could easily imagine him entertaining his family here.
An impressive maple wood staircase was nestled directly past the entryway. A deep-set window seat at the top of the stairs, covered in plush white cushions, made her long for the time to curl up with a book. The floors were hardwood in a deep caramel, covered in some places with plush silk rugs. His dining room to the left showcased an antique country style table and china cabinet. The formal living room decked out with shiny musical instruments drew her attention. A violin was casually splayed on its side with a silver harmonica resting nearby. A guitar laid on an overstuffed pillow like it was taking a nap from making music, a legal pad not far away on the forest green sofa.
“You work in here,” she said, spying the notes and words on that yellow paper.
“Yes. I have an office, but it’s mostly legal stuff there. Writing songs in here when it’s this hot out has become my new normal. When the weather’s nice, I like to write on the porch.”
And, just like that, she could hear him singing “You’re the One” at Rye’s wedding. She’d felt like he was singing to her, and it had unsettled her as surely as the moment when Barkley Cole had asked her to dance in fifth grade.
“I love all your photos,” she said, pointing to the frames resting on the mantle over the fireplace. Mama didn’t believe in chronicling those “simpering memories,” but now Tammy was amassing her own collection of family photos around her brother’s house.
“Thank you.”
She picked up one picture in a gold frame and studied it. He stood behind his three sisters, trying to pick them up at the same time, while his mama looked on with a great big smile on her face. “Y’all look happy here, and you really favor each other.”
“Families tend to do that.”
Her heart tripped. “People always say I favor my mama. I hate that.”
“Is that why you cut your hair?”
“That’s a rather personal question, don’t you think?”
His eyes were like a calm lake on a sunny day— inviting and warm. “Not between friends, it’s not.”
She straightened the photo on the mantle, taking her time. “Well, I’ve had the same style for more years than I can count. Maybe I simply wanted a new look.” Saying anything more wouldn’t be fitting.
“Nothing wrong with that.” He picked up the nearby harmonica and ran it over his palm. “I don’t think you look like your mama.”
“You don’t?” she asked in shock.
Hearing that was like being given her first funnel cake at the state fair.
“Nope. You both are blond and elegant, and your faces and eyes might even be the same shape. But do you know why you look nothing like her?”
She found herself moving closer to him, and the harmonica shined in the light when he turned it over in his hands. “No, why?”
“It’s your mouth.”
Awareness between them grew. Her finger trembled as she touched the place in question. She’d carefully lined her lips and filled them in with a delicate pink pearl lipstick. “My mouth?” she asked in a breathy voice, one she was shocked to hear from herself.
“Your mother has this pinched and disapproving mouth that makes me think of icicles and whippings. Your mouth doesn’t look anything like it. It makes me think of caramel apples at Halloween and that first cannonball at the lake when summer rolls around.”
Stupefied, she only stared at him. “No wonder people pay you to write songs. That’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.”
His smile was filled with secrets then, and she wondered what else he wanted to say to her. Heck, if he kept talking like that, she’d keep listening, like a little kid putting money into a jukebox over and over again.
Fishing for more compliments, Tammy reached up and touched her hair. “Do you really like my hair?”
He led her to the designer mirror behind the piano. “Yes, I do. It makes me think about the hero in "Rapunzel" and how he called up to the woman he loved in the tower to let down her hair.”
“My hair isn’t long enough to climb,” she
said, feeling her lungs cry for air over the crushing pressure in her chest.
Their eyes met in the mirror. He put his hands on her shoulders, and his touch sent ribbons of desire down her spine.
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t you see it? You look young again.”
Amelia Ann and her hairdresser had said the same thing. “Did I look old before?” The hint of sarcasm was as light as a trail of pipe smoke.
“You know better than that. You’re beautiful. No, what I mean is that you look like you believe your whole life is ahead of you again. That you still hope your dreams will come true.”
She studied her feet at that, deeply affected by his words. “I don’t know if a single mother can afford to dream.” Her business was one thing, but something like love…
Turning her to face him, he tipped her chin up. His smile was gentle, his dimple winking like the night star guiding her to a new awareness of herself. “Why not? My mama did it, and there were four of us. Look how tall she stands now.”
“When did she marry your stepdaddy?” she asked.
John Parker left her and picked up another photo. “When I was a sophomore in high school. Mama had just realized she wanted to become a preacher, and Dale did everything he could to support her, including driving us kids to every school or church event on the calendar. He’s a great man and the love of her life. Mama said it took a while to find him, but she knew God would bring him along.”
Her own faith had taken a beating, being married to Sterling. Cutting her hair was easy compared to recovering her belief in that kind of grace. But oh, how she wanted to.
“They seemed so happy together at Rye’s wedding,” Tammy said. “She deserves it.”
“Yes, she does. We all do.”
“And your daddy?” she hesitantly asked.
“He left when I was five. No doubt he was a troubled man, but it doesn’t excuse him for up and leaving. He’s never contacted us, and I’ve made my peace with that. I expect it’s for the best. You ready for that sweet tea now?”
How she admired his attitude. She wanted so badly to make peace with her own inner demons. But rather than saying anything so personal, anything that would stretch the line of tact, she nodded and followed him into the kitchen. It was modern with white cabinets and slate blue Silestone® counters. The tile floor was a deep tan with flecks of gold. There was a hint of bacon in the air, making her long for a good B.L.T. She couldn’t wait for her heirlooms to produce big, fat, juicy tomatoes.
He gave her a tour of his property once they both had a sweating glass of sweet tea in hand, showing her the parts of his property nestled in the surrounding woods. Just as she’d remembered, acres of freshly cut green grass bled into the tree line. His massive patio was lined with a picnic table and a manly grill, but little else. He needed containers of plants bursting with color and something to dress up the bare-bones feel. Maybe a pergola.
“Where’s Dare River?” she asked.
Pointing to the patch of woods off to the right, he said, “There’s a path to the dock where I go boating or canoeing or just fishing.”
“Your lawn is beautiful,” she commented, and it was. It reminded her of an emerald carpet.
“I’ve always liked to walk around in bare feet on the grass. Have it tickle my toes.”
There was something sweet in the way he said that, and she sensed again that John Parker was a man who was deeply in touch with the nature around him.
“How would you feel about me cutting into your lawn?”
“Honey, I saw what you did to Rye’s yard. I know you’re gonna take chunks of my sod out, and I’m fine with it.”
Good. That gave her more flexibility. She could already see some nice curvy beds on the sides of his tree line, and certainly it would look more elegant if she added a few around the patio area. But she wanted to make her statement in the middle of his yard, creating a massive garden there in the shape of a kidney with a water feature and some type of structure. His preferences would give her ideas on what that should be.
“Okay, I’ve seen enough.” She already had some ideas about what could work in front of the house to better accentuate his fabulous white porch, and then they needed to do something about hiding his ugly air conditioner. A trailing Leucothoe perhaps?
When they arrived back inside, he led her to the kitchen table. It was a farmer style beauty of varnished old planks, and she’d instantly fallen in love with it.
“Did your sister decorate your house?”
He waggled his brows. “What? You don’t think I have a talent for putting things together?”
“Not when one of your sisters is a celebrated interior decorator.”
“Yes, she did. Now what else can I tell you?” he asked, taking a sip of his tea.
“Well, I have a few questions. Ones designed to elicit what kind of design you might like for your property. Does that work for you?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, let me just grab my legal pad from my satchel.” She’d left it in his music room.
When she returned, she arranged her supplies on the table and smiled nervously up at him. With Rye, she’d done exactly what she wanted. With John Parker, she needed to uncover what would make him happy.
“Thank you for waiting. So, just answer my questions with the first thing that comes to mind.”
His dimple winked at her. “All right.”
“Do you like circles or squares?”
His brows winged up. “Ah, squares.”
“Crooked or straight lines?”
He leaned back now, tilting his head to the side as he studied her. Like he had no idea what in the world she was doing. Taking a breath, she assured herself she did.
“Crooked.”
“Easy going or predictable?”
This time he crossed his arms over his muscular chest, and her mouth went dry. “What do you think?”
She thought she knew, but she looked around the kitchen to see if there were any clues there to confirm her suspicion. There was clutter on the counter in the corners and dirty dishes above the dishwasher. The house was clean but not fussy. And he hadn’t dressed up for her visit either.
“Easy going.”
He saluted her, causing her to smile.
“What is your favorite food?”
“Chocolate.”
Okay, that was surprising. “That’s not a food, John Parker.”
“It is in the McGuiness family. It’s the sixth food group. We all have sweet tooths, and we get cranky if we don’t get our daily chocolate fix.”
Since Mama never let them eat sweets growing up, it was hard to imagine such a thing. “Every day? Wow. What’s your favorite?”
“Dark.”
And the way he said it made her hand tremble, causing her to mark the legal pad with an inverted line.
“I see.” She scribbled down words just to break the sudden tension that had arisen between them. “Let’s pursue this for a minute.”
Easy laughter flowed out of him. “Do you want me to lie down? Visualize something? You sound like a psychologist.”
“Feel free to get a pillow and a chocolate bar if that will help,” she volleyed back, and then realized she was teasing him. Flirting even. The ground shook a little. Well, well. What would Mrs. Augusta have to say about that?
“I’m going to grab some chocolate now that you’ve made me hungry for it, and I insist on you trying some too. We’ll call it gardening research.”
There was no preventing her laughter then. It was so easy to talk with him, be with him. She’d never had conversations like this, filled with fun, witty sarcasm, until she’d arrived at Rye’s house. Rye and Tory were always bantering back and forth, and while she’d grown proficient at this new language, it still felt a bit foreign at times. Scandalous even.
But fun. Mostly fun.
He pulled open a cupboard, which did indeed feature a large selection of chocolate, and fished out two bars wrapped in pale green pap
er. When he sat down, he extended one to her and tore open his own.
He expected her to eat an entire bar of chocolate?
Crunching on his own dark brown squares, he gave a soft moan of delight, and the sound pierced the deepest corner of her soul.
She wanted to moan like that.
Had she ever? So simply and easily, over something like chocolate?
Sterling would have dug his fingers into her wrist if she’d done such a thing. Sharing that type of pleasure in life hadn’t been allowed. It wasn’t ladylike. It wasn’t done.
Everything inside her contracted at those memories.
To combat them, she tore off the wrapper and took an enormous bite. It was hard on her teeth at first, but then it started to melt. The sweetness of it, mixed with the dark power of the cocoa, covered her tongue, infusing her with a heady magic. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten candy this way. Her eyelids fluttered, and she had to curb the urge to moan. Moan. God, what a feeling.
Yes, she wanted a release, but moaning on a gardening consultation would hardly be professional.
“Do you go often?” she asked to bring her senses back under control.
“Where?”
“To the psychologist.” She was joking, but a part of her wondered if she should see someone. There was so much she was afraid to say to Rye and Amelia Ann and Daddy. It was shameful enough that they knew Sterling had abused her and cheated on her, and she’d just taken it.
His dimple winked. “Nearly every week. I’m a troubled man, honey. You know what they say about artists.”
From his tone, she knew he was kidding. If he was troubled, then she was Mother Teresa. And she wasn’t.
“Okay, back to chocolate,” she said. “Do you like anything in your chocolate?”
“Yep. I can do raspberry, cherry, pomegranate, orange, blueberry, and apricot. Oh, and nuts. I love texture in my chocolate.”
Good heavens, the man was a chocolate connoisseur. “I’ve never heard of some of those combinations.”
“Then let’s fix that right now.” He shoved back from the table again. “How about trying some dark-chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds? They are heaven on earth, trust me.” After rummaging through what she would now call his chocolate cabinet, he grabbed a white bowl from another drawer and filled it with some small chocolate bites from a plastic container.