“Who’s worried?” Buffy said. “I’ll feed Allie while you’re gone.”
“You do that.” He scurried out of the truck, fast. While he headed for the house with an armload of supplies, she freed the baby and sat back to nurse. To her relief, there was no gunfire. The front door simply opened a crack and Carter disappeared inside.
Buffy couldn’t picture him, or anyone, growing up here. Of course, his mother had been alive then, and he must have had a horse to ride, and friends at school. But there was something missing, not only shopping and traffic, but something essential, if she could just put her finger on it.
Dreams. That was it, Buffy thought. Dreams of glamour and excitement. What could you dream about in a place like this?
She thought about her own childhood. Her father, who’d abandoned the family the day after her fourth birthday, was nothing but a blurry figure. When she tried to picture him, the image that popped into her mind was of an actor, Tom Selleck, or occasionally Sam Neill. She’d happily take either one.
The home she remembered best from a series of rentals had been an over-the-garage apartment a block from a major Hollywood thoroughfare. Its outstanding feature had been its view of a billboard.
While her mother waitressed, Buffy had baby-sat her younger sister, Stephanie. They would sit on the steps, memorizing every detail of the latest advertisement on that sign.
It told them of romantic movies. Rock stars. Ladies in black silk, luring men to drink vodka. Once a museum had promoted an exhibit of Impressionist paintings and the displayed image had been a misty garden vibrant with flowers.
The key element, to Buffy, had been her longing for a world richer and more special than the one she lived in. Hope, that’s what the sign had brought.
Carter didn’t seem to require hope, or ambition. He appeared utterly contented in this small town, running his garage.
Had he been equally satisfied growing up? What images had filled his mental billboard and inspired him to meet the future?
Buffy might have hoped that one of his wishes was to have a child. But she couldn’t fool herself anymore. When he donated sperm at the clinic, he’d been under the impression that in some bizarre fashion he was helping the school district. Becoming a father hadn’t entered his mind.
This whole trip to Texas was a crazy idea. She couldn’t make up for her fatherless childhood by trying to turn Carter into something he wasn’t. Allie would have to survive on dreams the way Buffy had.
It would be safest to wait until after she left town, then write him an email, or—if she worked up the nerve--tell him on the phone. When he cut her off, the pain wouldn’t last as long as if she saw the disgust on his face. Thank goodness she hadn’t spilled the truth already. It wasn’t too late to beat a strategic, if cowardly, retreat once she raised the money to pay for her car repair.
As Allie finished nursing, Carter emerged from the house with an older man. He was about the same height and build as Carter except that his checked shirt and jeans hung loose on a gaunt frame. He had salt-and-pepper hair that might once have been black.
Buffy straightened her clothes and patted the baby against her shoulder. “Hi,” she called through the window. “I’m Buffy.”
“So you are.” It wasn’t an encouraging response.
“Dad,” Carter murmured. “She’s my guest.”
“I don’t recall inviting her to be my guest,” was the retort.
Allie wriggled and turned to see what was going on. Murdock Murchison went stock-still on the walkway.
“Dad?” said his son. “What’s wrong?”
“That little girl,” he said. “Can’t you see the resemblance?”
“What resemblance?”
“She’s the spitting image of Emma,” Murdock muttered. “Good Lord, son, your mother’s come back to life.”
Chapter Five
Carter studied the baby from a fresh perspective. “I knew she reminded me of somebody.”
“We must be related.” His father shambled to the window. “What’s your last name, Buffy?”
“My married name’s Arden,” she said.
“What about before that?”
“My birth name was Zinkov.”
Murdock shook his head. “Nope, that’s not the connection. Emma’s maiden name was Phillips. What about your mom? What was her maiden name?”
“O’Reilly.” Buffy had a strange look on her face, but no wonder. The man that Carter had billed as antisocial was chatting as if this were a family reunion.
“We might be related through your husband,” his father continued. “You wouldn’t happen to know his mother’s maiden name, would you?”
“I don’t even know his mother,” Buffy said. “Let alone her maiden name.”
“We ought to track her down,” Murdock said. “I guess I’ll have to get a computer and learn to use that Internet thing. I read in a magazine that there’s a geology—that’s not the word I want, but it’s a next-door neighbor--you know, one of those sites that tells your family history.”
“Genealogy.” Judging by the way Buffy was cringing, she must believe Dad was doomed to disappointment. Of course, Carter knew as well as she did that they weren’t likely to be related, but he couldn’t help rejoicing at his father’s display of interest.
“If you like, I’ll help you set up a computer,” Carter said. “Or maybe one of those tablets.”
“You do that. And get on it fast!” Murdock smacked his hand against the truck door for emphasis. Allie let out a cry. “Hey, honey, I didn’t mean to frighten you. You sure are a cute little girl.”
Then Buffy did something that made Carter want to hug her. She said, “Would you like to hold the baby?”
From the side, he saw his father’s face glow with anticipation. “May I?”
“Sure.” She angled Allie carefully through the open window. “She just ate, so you might want to be careful.”
“I won’t hurt the little doll.” But as Murdock gripped the baby’s sides, he must have pressed her tummy. Right on cue, a white spot blossomed on his shirt.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“That’s nothing.” He held the little girl out where they could gaze into each other’s eyes, and addressed her directly. “I can see you’re going to be a real handful.” To Buffy, he said, “What’s her name?”
“Alison. Allie for short.”
“Well, Miss Allie, don’t you go dating any of these local boys until I check them out for you,” Murdock told the baby. “If they get fresh, you upchuck on their shirts. I’ve seen that you know how to do it.”
“Da?” she said.
The man’s expression filled with wonder. The weathered creases and the world-weariness vanished and Carter glimpsed his father as he must have looked fifty years ago, young and in love.
“I wish I were your Da,” he told Allie. “We never had a daughter. We sure would have liked to.”
That was news to Carter. He’d never known much about his parents’ inner lives, their wishes and dreams and sorrows. It had probably never occurred to them to discuss their feelings, any more than it occurred to him.
“You have to come over for dinner this week so you and Allie can get better acquainted,” Buffy said. “How about Saturday?”
“What’s today?”
“Wednesday.”
Murdock thought for a moment, as if he had a busy social calendar to review. “I guess I can do that.”
“I’ll pick you up at five.” Carter got behind the wheel.
Reluctantly his father handed the baby to her mother. “She favors you a bit, but that’s not the part that looks like Emma. Must be through your husband. It’d be funny if he turned out to be kin.”
“It wouldn’t be funny, it would be awful,” she said. “My ex is not a nice person.”
“Good character can skip a generation.” Murdock beamed at his son. “Although not in our case.”
The man was brimming over with the milk of human
kindness today, Carter thought. He hoped it wouldn’t go sour anytime soon.
“We’ll see you Saturday,” he told his dad as he put the truck in gear. When they reached the main road, he said, “I haven’t seen him this happy in years.”
“Carter...” Buffy paused, and he sensed she was working up to something. “Would it be so terrible if Allie were related to you?”
He hoped he was wrong about her motive. In his limited experience, however, strangers didn’t claim to be related without a nefarious motive. “You wouldn’t be trying to persuade me to lower that bill, would you?”
She stared at him in dismay. “Of course not!”
“Then why speculate about such a thing?”
“I just.. .never mind.” She turned away.
“Ba ba,” said Allie. “Ba ba da da.”
“Aren’t they supposed to say ‘goo goo’?” he asked, hoping to jolly Buffy into talking to him again, but she ignored him.
He hadn’t been very tactful, Carter supposed. The truth was, he’d fallen out of practice in relating to women on a boy-girl level. His mother would have said he’d reverted to the wild-bachelor state.
Not long before she died, she’d urged him to find a wife. A good marriage was the key to happiness, she’d said, and his father had nodded in agreement.
Out of respect for his mother, Carter had taken a closer look at the various women he knew in town, without experiencing even a glimmer of bliss. He’d dropped into a square dance over in Groundhog Station as well. That hadn’t worked, either, and until now he’d put his mother’s advice out of his mind.
It occurred to Carter that he didn’t really know whether he was happy. He had assumed that he was, until last night. Meeting Buffy had stirred up longings he’d believed were confined to his fantasies.
A what-if sort of man might suppose that he and Buffy were suited to each other. They talked easily, and it didn’t take much imagination to know they would fit together in bed.
If only she wasn’t such a quick-witted, glittery woman, the kind that could tie him up in knots until he behaved like a fool. Heck, she’d done it to him once already in Los Angeles.
He needed a solid, small-town girl like Mimsy Miles. Except the only things he wanted to do with his old classmate were go fishing or watch a football game on TV.
Buffy didn’t speak again for the rest of the ride home. He must have hurt her feelings, Carter thought regretfully.
But he was grateful for the distance between them, too.
*
Buffy had tried to tell Carter the truth. He’d refused to hear it. Worse, he’d accused her of having an ulterior motive.
She went to bed feeling restless, and drifted in and out of sleep all night. She had vague, tangled dreams about Carter lying beside her. He was a sexy man, with a firm mouth and kind eyes. As for his hands, she felt certain they could tweak and tune and tease her body till she hummed like a Lexus.
Oh, hell, make it a Rolls-Royce.
In the morning, while her daughter slept late, she mentally reviewed Murdock’s enthusiasm for Allie. Didn’t he have a right to know that he was a grandfather, regardless of how his son felt on the subject? “This is ridiculous,” she told Toast as she folded away her sleeping bag. “What a mess.”
The cat walked over and sniffed the bag. Its nose wrinkled disapprovingly.
“You think it has fleas? Think again!” Buffy said. “Are you listening or what?”
The cat regarded her steadily. Taking a seat, it began licking its paws.
“Well, first things first, wouldn’t you say?” Buffy continued, pleased to be assured of an audience. “If I can pay Carter what I owe, maybe he’ll be less suspicious of my motives.”
It was reassuring to have a goal. Once she raised, say, a thousand dollars as a down payment, she would lay everything on the line for him about Allie’s origins. Then she would clear out of Nowhere Junction and send him the rest of the money from wherever.
An hour later, having eaten breakfast, fed the baby and entrusted her to a delighted Mazeppa, Buffy set off on foot into Nowhere Junction. It was only four blocks to the Weinbucket Real Estate office.
On the way, she noted the location of the Nowhere Junction Hospital. Despite her appreciation for advertising, she was glad it wasn’t called the Caring Hearts of Texas Medical Center or The Hometown Family Center for Better Health. There was something to be said for giving places straightforward names.
Good heavens, this town was starting to make sense to her. What did that signify? She hoped she wasn’t losing her edge.
Rather than edge, brink might be a better term, Buffy reflected. She was perched on the brink of destruction, unless she could beg or borrow a store.
At the real estate office, she saw that the front window displayed photographs of ranches. Other than that, there didn’t appear to be any property for sale in Nowhere Junction.
Inside, two desks sat empty. When no one answered Buffy’s “hello?” she walked through a connecting door into the bank, which was nearly empty, too.
“Isn’t there anyone in the real estate office?” she asked the lone teller, a woman in her late thirties with thickly braided light brown hair.
The woman looked up with a start from her romance novel. Cissy Leroy—as she was identified on a nameplate on the counter—regarded her with wide-eyed interest. “You must be Buffy!”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
Cissy, who wore a blouse covered with tiny flowers, gestured at Buffy’s outfit. Today, she’d selected a straight black skirt and a V-necked white blouse with a turquoise cummerbund. “Nobody else dresses like that around here.”
Buffy chose to take the remark as a compliment. “Thanks. I’m looking for a store to rent,” she said. “On consignment or credit, if that’s possible. I don’t have any money up front.”
“I never heard of anybody renting on consignment.” Cissy sighed. “I work in the real estate office, too. But the only vacant store we’ve listed is that one next to the grocery. Gigi owns it and, believe me, that woman strikes a hard bargain.”
“It doesn’t have to be a real store.” Buffy was aware that she had to be flexible, in light of her budgetary limitations. “Maybe someone has a spare storage unit that opens on a busy street.” Was there a busy street in Nowhere Junction? “Or a kiosk I could set up on the sidewalk, although that would make it hard for customers to try on clothes.”
“Did I hear someone mention clothes?” A door opened from the bank office and Finella emerged, carrying a plate of pastries. “Oh, hi, Buffy! Want to try one of my spring rolls? My husband George loves them.”
Cissy shot her a warning look that Finella didn’t see.
“I’m on a diet,” Buffy said. “What’s in them, anyway?”
“Sardines.” Finella nibbled on one. “And raspberry jam. The ingredients were on sale at Gigi’s last month.”
“Very inventive.” That explained Cissy’s warning glance.
“What brings you here?” Finella asked.
Buffy seized happily on the topic. “I’m planning to open a dress store.”
“That’s a good idea, although you’ll have to secure capital. It’s too bad your ex-husband is giving you such a hard time.” Where Finella had heard that, Buffy wasn’t sure. She suspected the woman had done a little snooping in Carter’s office.
Buffy valued her privacy. On the other hand, these days the federal government read her email before she did and could probably tally the cost of her wardrobe down to the penny. She might as well spill the rest.
“I can’t pay rent up front, so I’m hoping to find a landlord who’s eager for a tenant,” she said. “Also, I need some ladies who’ll sew on consignment, to my design specifications.”
“We could sure use a dress shop around here.” Finella nodded vigorously. “At the last PTA meeting, Minnie Finkins was wearing a dress she’d made by mistake from one of her husband’s woodworking patterns. It fit badly, to say the
least.”
“I sew!” Popping out from behind her counter, Cissy pirouetted to show off a flowered skirt that matched her blouse. “Sewing for you sounds like fun.”
“May I?” Buffy lifted the edge of the skirt to examine the workmanship. The seams were straight and the edges of fabric neatly finished. “Very nice.”
“I got an A in home ec in high school,” Cissy said. “It was the best grade I ever earned.”
“Mrs. Parker gave you an A?” Finella frowned. “The best she ever gave me was a B plus.”
“Did home ec include cooking?” Buffy asked.
“Of course! She said I was the most creative student she ever saw. I was so advanced, she wasn’t sure she actually taught me anything.”
Buffy didn’t doubt that for a minute.
“You know,” Cissy said. “I have an idea where you could sell your clothes. It’s on a major thoroughfare and there’s plenty of display space.”
“What would it cost?”
“Nothing! Let’s discuss it at lunch, and then we three can go to Popsworthy’s and pick out patterns and fabric. I can’t wait to get started.”
“It does sound like fun,” Finella agreed. “I’ll call the rest of the PTA. We can whip up a few things tonight, and donate whatever we earn to the school building fund. Of course, I was going to experiment with using mashed potatoes and chocolate chips for fritters—have you seen the new special at Gigi’s, Cissy?—but I suppose that can wait.”
Buffy could have sworn that, from deep within the bank office, she heard a male voice say, “Yes, please, Lord!” No one else seemed to notice.
The prospect of securing a shop at no cost buoyed her spirits. She just hoped Finella wouldn’t get inspired to hold a bake sale there as well. Customers with sticky fingers would soil the merchandise.
*
When Carter came indoors on Thursday evening, the house smelled of roasting chicken. His mouth watered.
Hungry though he was, he knew better than to enter a woman’s kitchen without taking a shower, not to mention his distaste for being seen with oil and transmission fluid smeared on his clothes. Stepping over the sleeping dog, he went to his bedroom.
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