Warm Front

by Patricia McLinn

  “Don’t worry about that. Corine let Darcie know and she and Zeke have gone out to take care of things at the farm. They’ll even checking on Grandy.”

  “That’s how you knew, from Darcie?”

  “Yup.”

  She started to sit up, but he held her tight. “I have to let Mrs. R know,” she protested.

  “All taken care of. Darcie called Josh. He and Vanessa are going over there to tell her in person. You just rest now. I’ll wake you up when he stirs.”

  She stroked his cheek, absorbing the comfort of his body around her.

  “There’s something else, Quince. Everett wanted to — before this. He said we should sell. Do the co-op. That’s what we’re going to do.”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  “No. No need. It’s settled.” She looked toward the bed. “It’s all settled.”

  She rested her head on Quince’s shoulder and slept.

  *

  She woke when a nurse came in to check on Everett.

  “Stable,” she said with a neutral smile. “Want some coffee?”

  “Please,” Quince said.

  An aide came in with two paper cups on a little tray.

  She took a sip and put it down. Quince kept drinking. “Wish they’d repeal the law that hospital coffee has to be crappy,” he said.

  He must have spent many nights with Fiona in hospitals — probably nights like this when what the morning would bring hung in the balance.

  Nights when he’d felt as helpless and uncertain as she did now. When he would give anything if he could make things right for the person in that bed. A person you loved.

  If only you could … fix everything for them.

  “I’m sorry, Quince.”

  “You? What are you sorry about?”

  “What I said about you thinking you could fix everything.”

  He made a harsh sound. “You were right. That’s what I tried to do. And failed.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I can’t stop you from losing Hooper Farm, Anne. I know what having your roots there means to you. But all I can do is offer an alternative that lets you and Everett come away with something.”

  “That’s a lot, Quince. That’s everything. Just as truly loving someone is everything. I’m not sure I did.”

  It took him an extra beat. “Chris?”

  “I loved the farm — that was love at first sight. I loved farming. I loved the idea of being his partner. I’m not sure, I’ll never be sure, I really loved him.” She turned partway to him. “And I’ll always wonder if that’s why he killed himself.”

  “Anne Hooper, you listen. All I’ve heard from Everett and everyone else is how good you were for and to Chris. How he became part of the community again when you came into his life. And how he loved how you look out for Everett. You have not one solitary reason to feel remorse or guilt. And you damned well better start believing that.”

  “I…” She swallowed the protest, instead letting the certainty in his eyes cushion and warm the jagged piece of ice that cut at her. It wasn’t gone. Maybe it would be someday, with Quince melting it away, bit by bit. “I’ll try.”

  “Good.” He tightened his hold on her, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head. Then he eased her away, still supporting her back, but leaving enough room between them so she could see his face. “Besides, it doesn’t matter whether or not you married him for the farm when you would have given it up to save him. Just as you’re doing for Everett.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The first week, Quince figured it was because of Everett’s recovery.

  The man was not a good patient, to no one’s surprise. He was more cheerful when he was released from — or kicked out of, depending on who was telling the story — the hospital, but no less demanding.

  Mrs. Richards helped with his care, but that meant even less privacy for Quince and Anne, as well as another person for Anne to feed.

  All that tired Anne out, plus the work she was putting in as she and the others moved forward on the co-op plan.

  The bank chewed up more time, interviewing her about her dealings with Chitmell, who was no longer manager.

  Somehow the bank board had gotten wind that it should look into Chitmell’s activities. Lo and behold, he was in cahoots with a developer who’d been trying to scoop up farms near the Zeke-Tech site for less than the going rate.

  Quince’s name didn’t come into that anywhere. Not even when a suggestion came to the bank’s attention that a possible good-will gesture to ease bad feelings over Chitmell’s machinations would be to fund repairs — and updates — to the high school’s Chem Lab.

  Heck, the Hoopers had even agreed to buy Macklin farm from him when the proceeds from the co-op sale of Hooper Farm came through.

  Everything was going better than he could have imagined.

  So what the hell was the problem with Anne?

  She was never around. At least not when he was, except for brief updates that felt more like a board meeting than a conversation.

  He’d kissed her precisely twice since Everett came home. As for sleeping together—

  “Right, Quince?”

  He heard Zeke’s question. It was the words before it he’d missed — the words he was supposed to be agreeing with.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

  He and Zeke and Vanessa were meeting at the temporary Zeke-Tech headquarters. He should have been listening.

  Zeke opened his mouth, probably to repeat what he’d said, but Vanessa forestalled him. “What’s wrong, Quince? Is it Anne?”

  Another time he might have smiled — Vanessa Irish asking about his private life. His emotions for crying out loud. My, how things had changed.

  But maybe they hadn’t changed enough. Not between him and Anne.

  Was that why she was so distant?

  “Or Everett? The new farm? The deal?” Vanessa was trying to draw him out.

  He shook his head.

  “Everett’s making good progress. The rest is on track.”

  “Anne,” Vanessa said, and it wasn’t a question.

  He shook his head again, but not in denial this time. “Something’s going on. There’s something she’s not telling me.”

  Vanessa looked down at her hands. Zeke discovered a sudden interest in the ceiling.

  “She’s pulling away, withdrawing.”

  “Maybe you’re imagining it,” Zeke offered, still looking at the ceiling. “Or … or it’s a mood. Women have hormones, you know.”

  “It’s not my imagination or a mood or hormones,” Quince said shortly. “I’m the people person, remember?”

  “But Zeke is married now,” Vanessa said. “So he knows—”

  “Darcie. I’ll grant that. Not women in general, and not Anne.” That brought both of their gazes to him. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. I know you’re trying to help.”

  Zeke and Vanessa looked at each other, then their gazes ricocheted away.

  “Why don’t you give it a couple more weeks,” Vanessa said. “You’re all so busy, and with all the changes. Give yourselves time.”

  Changes…

  He kept thinking it was Anne, but what about him?

  He needed to find out.

  *

  Quince sounded strange when he called her from the airport.

  The airport.

  Had she seen his note? A sudden trip came up. Wouldn’t be gone long. No, didn’t know exactly how long. She could always get him on his cell if she needed him.

  I need you. Now. Here.

  “I hear there’s a warm front coming in,” he said. “Don’t work yourself too hard, Anne.”

  A warm front.

  What he’d been in her life. Warming and thawing and loving.

  Maybe if she told him…

  No.

  Telling him wouldn’t do it.

  “Have a good trip, Quince.”

  *

  He parked the rental car outside the Dut
ch Colonial house with two big trees in front, separated by a walkway to the bright blue front door.

  Fiona’s favorite color.

  The door had been subdued when he first came here. Her dad had painted it this color before she came home the last time.

  And clearly had kept it this color in memory of her.

  He hesitated a couple yards short of that door.

  How would they feel having memories stirred by seeing him?

  They’d said it was okay when he’d emailed. But they might have felt obligated. And what the hell did he hope to accomplish?

  Like they could unravel Anne for him.

  Or unravel him.

  Someone flung the door open with a shout of “Quince!”

  His head knew it wasn’t Fiona. That it had to be her little sister Mandy, now college age herself.

  His heart stopped.

  For what had been.

  For what could never be.

  And then Mandy was pulling him inside to where they all waited.

  Her parents hugged him. Her brother and his wife, now parents of three rambunctious kids, pumped his hand. Even her formidable aunt, Justine, smiled at him.

  Welcoming him.

  *

  “Jennifer? Quince is gone. He took his coat — his good coat. But he left his jackets.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jennifer didn’t sound impressed. Maybe she didn’t get the implications — he’d left his farm jackets, taken his beautiful city coat.

  “What if… What if…”

  “Was there a note?”

  “It just said he’d be gone a few days. Then he called from the airport and that’s what he said, too.”

  “There’s your answer. Quit juggling what ifs — useless what ifs.”

  “What do we do if he doesn’t come back? In time, I mean.”

  A lie. A total lie, because what she really meant was what if he didn’t come back at all.

  “We’ll adjust.” Then, as if answering the deeper question, Jennifer added, “And go on.”

  *

  The afternoon with Fiona’s family lingered into dinner.

  There had been a few tears, but far more laughter.

  Memories had been leavened with much discussion of what each of them was doing now.

  Fiona would be so happy to know — if she didn’t already — they had joy in their lives, that their mutual missing of her drew them even closer.

  Finally, he said goodnight and started back to the car.

  “Quince.”

  It was Aunt Justine. The front door hadn’t reopened, so she must have come around from the back.

  She stood at the end of the driveway, where a camellia hedge blocked the view if anyone happened to look out the living room window. He joined her there.

  “It was good that you came. Good for them.” Before he could say he was glad she thought so, she added, “And good for you. I’ve been waiting for this visit.”

  “You have?” He might as well have said, “Huh?”

  “Yes. You’ve fallen in love.”

  She didn’t make it a question. She left him no room to hem or haw.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded curtly. “Fiona hoped you would. You took your time about it.”

  He almost smiled at that. “Wasn’t intending to do it now.”

  Her eyes narrowed and he had the uncomfortable feeling she saw more than anyone should be able to in these shadows.

  “Is she dying?” she asked abruptly.

  “What? No.”

  “But she’s in trouble.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Let me ask— No, it’s not me. It’s really Fiona. Because she talked to me about this before she died. She’s the reason I’m out here. She gave me instructions — a message. So consider this Fiona asking if you would have loved her if she’d sat back, waiting to die, and said woe is me?”

  At another time he might have laughed at the idea of Fiona responding like that. “She never would have done that. Just wasn’t her.”

  “So, you loved a woman who wouldn’t sit back, wait to die, and say woe is me. Yet you’re worried that you loved her because she was dying—”

  “I didn’t— I never—” He broke off the protests in the face of Justine’s implacable calm. Then another angle pierced him. “Fiona?”

  Slowly, she nodded. “She knew you worried about that. She also knew you were wrong.” A smile lifted her stern mouth. “She was a remarkable girl — woman — to never doubt your love when most females would have been fretting about their looks and their physical abilities being taken away. She never did. She would have said that was because of you, Quince.” Her eyes gleamed in the dark with unshed tears. “We’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

  Pressure built behind his eyes. “But she wouldn’t marry me.”

  “You know why.”

  “Insurance.”

  She nodded. “Yes, the insurance. She didn’t want you to start the rest of your life with the burden of debt. Or with being a widower.”

  “She said that, but—”

  “But you thought it was because she worried that you loved her because she was sick. She knew better, Quince. She knew you loved her for her. And because of the way she lived. You have to know that, too, now that you love again. Love someone because of the way she lives.”

  *

  He was back.

  First, Anne thought she’d imagined the familiar growl of his car as she twisted under the covers in useless pursuit of the sleep she needed.

  She stilled. It was his car.

  She listened for him opening the back door, entering, quietly come up the stairs. Stopped breathing when he paused at the top of the stairs. Resumed on a sigh when he turned toward his room, not hers.

  That’s when she looked at the clock.

  Four Sunday morning.

  She stared at the ceiling, drifting until it was time to get up. Still dark, she sent three texts saying Quince was back, then got into her work clothes.

  Quince was still in his room, presumably asleep.

  “He’s back?” Everett asked from the kitchen doorway.

  “Yes.”

  That was it for conversation.

  He sent several sharp looks her way over breakfast. She didn’t return them.

  When Peggy Richards and Beverly Mudge arrived to give him a ride, he paused a long moment, then said to her, “It’s up to you now.”

  “I know.”

  He grunted. “See you later then.”

  “See you later,” she echoed.

  Before she went to the barn, she took the precaution of taking Quince’s car keys from his coat pocket so he couldn’t leave.

  Still not a peep from him when she came back in not long before noon. But as she hung up the last of her outer clothes, she heard the shower turn on upstairs.

  *

  “Quince?” she said, at the same time she tapped on the door.

  “Hi, Anne. I’m in the shower.”

  “I, uh, I know. May I come in?”

  “Sure.”

  She stepped in to the warmth of the small room. Not quite steamy, but getting there.

  He pulled back the shower curtain a slice and smiled at her.

  She hurried to speak before she lost her nerve. “I thought — if you don’t mind… I’ve, uh, I’ve been working and I could use a shower, too, so maybe—”

  “Hell, no, I don’t mind. But you’re way overdressed.”

  Aware of him watching her, she shed her clothes with more economy than grace.

  He welcomed her by widening the opening of the shower curtain.

  As she stepped over the side of the tub, she reached out to steady herself with a hand to his chest, then snatched it back, nearly pitching herself headfirst into the bathtub.

  He grasped her arms and half hauled her in.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said, not looking at him.

  “Anne.”

  “I forgot how cold—”


  “Anne.”

  “—my hands are.”

  “Anne.”

  Finally, she looked up at him.

  “It’s good to see you.”

  She found a smile to reply to the bit of wryness in that, since she already had evidence he was glad to see her. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  He slid his hold down her arms to take her decidedly cold hands in his, then brought them up to his chest, warming them between his hands and his heart.

  “As for the cold hands, we’ll take care of that.”

  He shifted both her hands into one of his while his free hand stroked down her side, over her hip, then reached behind her thigh. With that encouragement, she raised her leg, supported by his hold. He came up against her.

  He kissed where her neck angled into her shoulder. Than sucked there.

  Against her skin, wet and now well-heated, he murmured, “We’ll take care of that and more.”

  And they did.

  *

  Some time later, she looked over her shoulder at him, as his soap-slick hands slid over her. “I don’t know how much longer the hot water’s going to last.”

  “I think we’re heating the water instead of the other way around. Ahhh. Especially when you do that.”

  She’d reached behind her and was reciprocating the soapy hands-sliding.

  “Just be ready to jump out when the hot water goes so we don’t become icicles. There are beds, after all.”

  “How long is Everett gone?”

  “For a while. But I want you to come with me someplace— Ah. What are you…? Oh. Yes. That’s so good…”

  “I’ll go anywhere with you.” He grasped her hips and slid deeper. “Anywhere.”

  *

  The hot water ran out.

  That wouldn’t have bothered him — after all there was a bed only a few yards away — but it seemed to chill Anne in other ways.

  She was holding him off again.

  He wanted to tell her about the trip. But Anne evaded his efforts to open discussion.

  Instead, what he got from her was that they needed to get dressed. They needed to get downstairs. They needed to go somewhere — where, she wouldn’t say — without even delaying for some food.

  Behind the wheel of the truck, on the way to a destination she wouldn’t disclose, but was in the opposite direction from town, she fell back into the tormenting silence and distance of the past weeks.