Barbecue and Bad News

by Nancy Naigle

  He hugged her and then sat down in the desk chair. “Come here.”

  She suddenly felt self-conscious about being naked and stepped behind the chair, draping her arms around his neck. Then kissed him on the shoulder. His skin was salty from the sweat. Hers probably was too. It was going to be really hard to work at this desk tomorrow.

  She started laughing.

  “It’s not nice to laugh when a guy is naked.”

  That made her laugh harder. “I’m sorry. I just don’t even know how we ended up in here. My bedroom is across the hall.”

  “Me either, but I’m not complaining.” He spun the chair around and kissed her again.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a bruise on my tailbone.”

  “I can make that better,” he said, pulling her into the chair.

  “Promises, promises.”

  He tapped his finger on the tip of her nose. “I know this is happening fast, but I want you to know I’ll never break a promise to you.”

  She sucked in a breath and then smiled. “I know that, even if you do make me feel off balance.”

  “You’re not going to fall.”

  Savannah knew he was wrong. She already was falling. Falling in love, and that realization scared her. She stood up. “I’m going to get us something to drink.”

  “That would be great.”

  She pulled her shirt back on and rounded up her panties. She stepped one leg and then the other into them, feeling self-conscious with him watching, but in a nice way.

  Her bare feet slapped against the wooden floor as she went to the kitchen and made two glasses of ice water for them.

  She carried both glasses, enjoying the tinkling sound of the ice cubes as she moved toward the office where Scott had turned on the light.

  Scott pulled his belt through the buckle and pushed his feet into his shoes.

  “What’s the matter?” Her eyes darted from the desk to where her pants still lay on the floor behind him, to the papers clenched in his hand. The printouts from GetItNowNews. The stats. The article.

  “You did this?” He shook the papers in the air.

  She looked like a squirrel in the middle of the road, undecided as to whether to go forward or back. “I?”

  “Don’t.” Across the desk, where they’d just made love, crinkled sticky notes were pressed out. His tone forbade any further argument.

  She stepped forward and put the two glasses down on the credenza near the door.

  His words came out like darts. Sharp and pointed. “You were never working on a novel.”

  “I—” She looked like she was gasping for her last breath.

  “This is all just a big-ass joke to you, isn’t it? Well, this is my life. My career. You made fun of our life in this town.” The betrayal he felt was impossible to put into words.

  One by one he swept those sticky notes and scraps of papers to the center and began reading each one. “Mailman reading the mail. That’s a crime, darlin’. Everyone has the same haircut. Cookie Cutter Salon. Who are you to judge? Looking for Mr. Feed and Seed. Seriously? Time warp? Well if you ask me these are gifts. Not problems.” He swept them all off of the desk in one motion. “This community doesn’t need the likes of you.”

  “Wait.” She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “No. Scott.”

  But he wasn’t going to listen to excuses. All he wanted was to get the hell out of here.

  “Please. I can explain. I didn’t even know you when I wrote that.”

  He spun around, his eyes narrowing. “Do you think that makes it better?”

  “I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry.” She rushed toward him.

  He held his arm out, keeping her back. “Damn right, I’m angry. I don’t need your permission for that. You’re not who I thought you were.”

  “I’m sorry. I told you I was a mess—”

  “You sure weren’t lying about that.”

  Her voice shook. “I was going to tell you.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, but then it was so nice. The kisses. I—”

  “It’s all a big game to you. That article was mean-spirited. This is my life.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking—”

  “It wasn’t bad enough you dragged me through the dirt, but it really hurts to think you reeled my mom in too. What? Did you just need more dirt on me?”

  “It’s not like that.” Her knees went slack, and she wished she could undo what was happening. “I think the world of your mother.” She placed her hands over her eyes. “And you. I think the world of you too.” She heaved in a breath and dropped her hands. “Please forgive me.”

  “No. Mike was right to warn me. Not only did you write that article that slammed me, but he told me that you’re the one who writes that Advice from Van column.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  He leaned toward her. “Do you know what people think about that column? It’s not very flattering, especially for a lady.”

  She lowered her head. “Please don’t tell anyone that was me.”

  “Yeah. I’d be embarrassed too. What kind of uncaring kook are you?”

  “It’s not like you think, Scott. Please stop. I was going to tell you, but—”

  “You had plenty of chances to tell me if you’d wanted to. I asked you a dozen times about your work. You dodged every opportunity like a rodeo clown.”

  “I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid. I was doing my job. I never intended to write that column. It was all this crazy April Fool’s joke. Only it went viral and the money rolled in and the joke was on me. Really. You have to believe me. I was just trying to live my best life. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “No. No, Savannah. You are not living your best life. You’re hiding from it. You run from anything the least bit hard. You should have at least owned up to that article.”

  “I was afraid you would walk away from me.”

  He turned his back on her and headed to the door. He heard her pleading from behind him. “Like this. Like right now. Please, Scott, I’m not hiding anymore. Please believe me.”

  She cared. It stung. She wasn’t the woman he’d made her out to be. What had made him think this time would be any different? Talk about fools.

  He jerked the front door open. “You’re still hiding, Savannah. You’re keeping your life safe . . . and small . . . and you don’t even realize what you’ve done here. If you knew what living your best life meant, you wouldn’t have stayed the hell away from your family back in Belles Corner. You had a bad turn, I get it, but do you think you were the only one affected by their deaths? No. Death affects a whole community.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Stop it. You are bad news, girl.” His jaw tensed. He closed his eyes and put his hand up to stop her. “Just. Stop.”

  When Scott stepped onto the landing, he found Mike staring into the apartment through the open door. He must have heard the ruckus.

  Scott shook his head. Mike may have warned him, but the last thing he needed right now was a told-you-so.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you, man. Sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am,” Scott said, taking the stairs two at a time. When he threw his truck in gear, the tires squealed against the pavement.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Savannah stared out the window into the dark night, wishing Scott would call, or come back, but all she got was more sad and tired. He’d never forgive her. What she’d done was an attack not only on him, but on his people. His community. The ultimate betrayal. At sunrise she crawled into bed emotionally drained. She didn’t bother getting up, instead staying tucked under the covers torturing herself with the instant replay in her mind the rest of the day.

  She’d done it to herself.

 
She should have told him when she’d had the chance. He might not have understood, but then she wouldn’t have fallen for him either. It would have been early enough that things would have stopped before they ever started, and that would’ve been for the best.

  She turned over and hugged her pillow.

  Or maybe not. It had felt good to have feelings like that. For the first time in her life, she understood the look in Momma’s eyes when she watched Daddy. She’d felt it.

  But it wasn’t meant to be. Must not have been, or it wouldn’t have turned out this way.

  She’d thought she’d been brought to Adams Grove for a reason. After getting to know Scott, and his mother, she’d begun to believe that her trip here was fate. Destiny. That finally she was finding a home for her heart. How would she ever make it up to him, to everyone in this special town?

  Maybe the whole reason she’d landed in Adams Grove wasn’t Scott Calvin, or his mom and her teashop. Maybe it had been that mural and the possibility of solving a heartbreak the community had suffered long ago—still suffered.

  Once word got around that she’d written that article about Scott, everyone would be mad at her.

  “Now what?”

  She didn’t have any desire to go back to DC, which was what she should do. It was where her apartment and her job were, after all.

  And she’d promised Daphne she’d help with the tearoom. She didn’t want to let Daphne down.

  Once Scott told his mother what Savannah had done, Daphne wouldn’t want her help, though.

  He didn’t want to listen to her reasons; no one else would either. What was it about small towns that hated her? She just couldn’t survive them.

  She closed her eyes and chased the thoughts away, praying she could dream of something better or maybe nothing at all.

  She pulled the sheet up over her head and went to sleep.

  When she woke up the next morning she felt so empty that she didn’t bother to get up and brush her teeth. Didn’t bother to even go get coffee. Even her stomach growling couldn’t convince her to get out of bed.

  She twisted and turned under the covers for an hour, but rest wasn’t going to come.

  She got out of bed and went into the kitchen. She was out of sugar.

  “Great. Can’t really borrow a cup from my neighbor.” She could hardly go down to Mac’s and get a cup either. What if she ran into Scott?

  She went into her room and packed all of her things. There was really no sense in staying now.

  With her overnight bag over her shoulder and her laptop bag hanging by her side, she locked the apartment and headed downstairs. She wondered if Connor had already heard about everything. She twisted the key in the palm of her hand. At the last minute, she decided not to give Connor the key. She could mail it back rather than face him.

  All of her bags just barely made it in the car between what she’d packed for the wedding and the additional stuff she’d picked up for her extended stay. She’d carried down the boxes of CDs from Jack too. She’d have to overnight those back to him. The back hatch just barely closed, but everything fit. Well, the physical baggage anyway. She had more emotional baggage than she could fit on an aircraft carrier.

  She headed out of town and got up on the interstate heading north. She drove past three exits before she realized she wasn’t headed where she really needed to go.

  Three hours later she was in Belles Corner.

  She drove past the house she grew up in. A new family lived there now. There was a Barbie Jeep in the side yard and a Frisbee stuck in the gutter of the roof. The irises Momma had planted on the side of the house where her bedroom had been had grown tall. Their blooms would be so beautiful before long.

  Momma always had flowers in the house. She’d cut them fresh from the garden and place them in tall vases in nearly every room, even one in each bedroom, all summer long. Savannah had always loved the way those delicate petals of the irises hung over like a colorful waterfall.

  She took a right. It had been way too long since she’d come back to visit her parents graves, but things hadn’t changed much. The cemetery should be only a couple of miles away. A cocktail of shame and sorrow whirled in her gut. There would be flowers; she’d seen to that with the money they’d set aside for her. It was the only thing she could really bring herself to ever spend it on.

  The local florist let her pay for flowers six months at a time and arranged the delivery and placement for her. She’d kept fresh flowers on the graves, but she’d never made the trip back once she left town. That would have been more than she could bear.

  She wasn’t quite sure what was drawing her here now, except that Scott’s words had stung. And what he said mattered to her. She had no idea if she’d find answers here, but she knew she wouldn’t find them by hiding from what had happened.

  The cemetery was much smaller than she’d remembered. She slowly pulled her car through the arched, scrolled gates and inched her way through the grounds. Nothing seemed familiar until she spotted the small cement bench with the cherub perched on it. She’d forgotten about that.

  When she had still lived here in Belles Corner, she’d come every day until the headstone had been made and delivered. She’d sit on that little bench, trying to stay connected to her parents. To anything. Sometimes she’d sit right on the ground and just lean back as if that angelic cherub was on her shoulder telling her she’d be okay. Not that she believed it. That stone cherub had been the only thing that had brought her any peace during that time. Maybe that’s what she was hoping for today.

  She got out of the car and walked over to the bench. The ringlets of curls atop the cherub’s sweet face reminded her of the image in that mural. That poor little girl.

  Her parents’ headstone was clean and well cared for. The flowers on the top were just as she’d ordered them.

  Roses because it was June.

  For as long as she could remember, Daddy had sent Momma the flower of the month. By the time Savannah was ten she could recite the whole list by memory. It seemed only fitting to carry on that tradition with these flowers, even if she’d never come to see them.

  Next week would have been Momma’s birthday. Dad would bring her one single red rose on that day.

  “Happy birthday, Momma.”

  She stooped in front of the headstone and closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her hands shook as she swept a tear from her face. “I’ve made such a mess of things. I’ve run. I’ve tried to forget. I’ve done so many things wrong. You wouldn’t be proud of me.”

  A breeze kicked up, pushing her hair back from her face. She opened her eyes to an ominous sky.

  Light raindrops began to spatter on the grass around her.

  “I wish I could start over. I wish I could turn back the clock and never have called you that night.”

  Large, heavy drops started to fall. The flowers in the arrangement parted. She tugged a single rose from it and twisted it in her fingers. The rain felt cool compared to the hot air.

  When she’d made that call home, asking her momma to come get her because she was drunk, her mother hadn’t had one unkind word to say. She didn’t preach. She didn’t complain. She’d simply told Savannah to stay right where she was, that she’d be on her way.

  When the car pulled up and her dad was driving, she’d been scared to death, but they’d told her they were proud of her for doing the right thing and thanked her for calling.

  She’d been so out of it when the headlights of the oncoming car nearly blinded them that the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. Still did even in her memory today. She hadn’t realized that she’d been thrown from the vehicle until the sheriff’s flashlight was in her eyes. Red and blue lights were bouncing off everything and she couldn’t focus on a thing. She’d been tangled in the brush along the roadside. They’d taken her to the hospi
tal in the ambulance, and when she woke up the next morning she’d learned that the dream she’d thought she’d been having wasn’t a dream at all. The car accident was real. She’d been the only survivor.

  Her tears mixed with the cool raindrops.

  She stepped back to the little bench and sat, placing the rose in the cherub’s hands. “Save this one for Momma’s birthday.”

  She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and prayed.

  The rain was coming down hard now and between it and her tears, she couldn’t focus on a thing. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands, satisfied to just be here.

  “Savannah?”

  She jerked her head up, frightened by the sound of her name. A familiar sound. Momma?

  The silhouette of a woman in a raincoat carrying an umbrella negotiated the puddled lawn toward her.

  “Savannah? Is that you?”

  “Aunt Cathy?”

  “Oh, Savannah.”

  Savannah stood and her aunt pulled her into her arms. “Oh, honey. I prayed you’d be back one day. Look at you. My goodness, you are the spitting image of your mother.”

  Savannah gulped back the tears that fell uncontrollably now.

  “My sweet Savannah. How I’ve missed you. I love you so much.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop that. What are you doing sitting out here in the rain? Have you been here long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come.” Aunt Cathy took her hand. “Let me get you home.”

  Home? Savannah didn’t even know where home was anymore.

  She let her aunt corral her to her car, leaving the blue Mini Cooper behind. Savannah huddled in the car, shivering. The rain pounded so loudly that there was no way you could carry on a conversation, and that was just as well.

  A few minutes later, her aunt pulled into the driveway of a small white house.

  “You don’t live at the farmhouse anymore?”

  “No, honey. Not since your uncle Johnny died.”

  Savannah felt like her lungs had just deflated. She tried to catch a breath, but she couldn’t utter a word.