In Firefly Valley

by Amanda Cabot

  As Blake let his arm drop, Marisa felt a sense of loss. It was probably silly, but the combination of his sympathetic words and his arm around her shoulders had made her feel more than comforted; she had felt connected. The sense that they shared something special had filled her heart, but with the physical connection severed, she’d been jolted back to the reality that they were virtual strangers.

  Marisa shook her head, determined to regain the camaraderie that had made the walk so pleasant. “My English teacher would tell you that Shakespeare wrote, ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ not ‘lead on.’ She claimed that’s one of the Bard’s most frequently misquoted phrases.”

  Blake’s laugh was light and carefree, telling Marisa she’d succeeded in changing the mood along with the subject. “We must have had the same English teacher. Mine said the same thing but told us that it’s been misquoted for more than a century. According to her, in something like 1898, a London drunk named Joseph Callaway is reported to have shouted ‘Lead on, Macduff’ when he was being arrested for disorderly conduct. So I’m in good or, rather, dubious, company.”

  Blake chuckled. Though Marisa guessed she was supposed to laugh, she couldn’t when the word drunk kept reverberating through her brain.

  “Your dad’s the town drunk.”

  “How’s it feel, living with a drunk?”

  “Your old man’s nothing but a drunk.”

  It had been years since she’d heard the cruel taunts, but the memories lingered, ready to ambush her when she least expected it. It wasn’t Blake’s fault. He had no way of knowing that his story would touch a sensitive chord. Marisa took a deep breath, trying to regain her equilibrium.

  “Are you sure you can stand the excitement?” she asked, forcing a lilt to her voice.

  Blake nodded. “If your feet can survive it, so can I.”

  They began to retrace their footsteps. When they reached Live Oak, Marisa turned south. She wouldn’t even venture a glance in the opposite direction, for she had no desire to see the house that held so many memories. Lauren claimed that it was vacant now but that the last tenants had taken good care of the yard, nurturing Mom’s flowers.

  Marisa didn’t care if they’d turned it into the Taj Mahal. It was still the house where dreams had died. She would not revisit it. Instead, she put on her tour guide persona and proceeded to tell Blake that the north-south streets were named for trees, pointing out the live oaks that had given this street its name. Four blocks later, they turned on Avenue H and headed to Pecan.

  Marisa wondered whether Blake would comment on the number of empty storefronts. Although Lauren had said that the mayor and town council believed the changes to Rainbow’s End would attract new businesses to Dupree, it was too soon to see if their predictions would come true, and so a full third of the shops on Pecan remained vacant.

  Blake said nothing, although Marisa saw the assessing looks he gave the first two shops. One was boarded up with plywood, while the other had a now-dusty plate glass window that had once been filled with toys. Fortunately, the next one practically shouted prosperity.

  “This is my friend Lauren’s shop,” Marisa said as she paused in front of Hill Country Pieces. The storefront boasted a new blue awning and a polished oak door, but what drew the passersby’s attention was the red, white, and blue quilt with the Texas flag as its central design hanging in the front window.

  Blake gave a low whistle. “I don’t know much about quilts, but that’s impressive.”

  In less talented hands, it might have been gaudy, but Lauren had chosen lighter shades of blue to contrast with the vivid blue of the flag, and the only red she’d used besides the flag itself was for the outer border and the backing.

  “She’s very good. So is Samantha.” Marisa led the way across the street to Sam’s Bootery, the family-owned enterprise that was gaining nationwide recognition, thanks to Kate and her suggestions for Samantha’s website.

  Blake studied the assortment of footwear. The boots ranged from child size to adult and from relatively simple to intricate designs, but what they shared was meticulous tooling.

  “Looking at those is almost enough to convince me to buy a pair.”

  “I can assure you that they’re the most comfortable footwear in town.” Which was more than she could say for what she was currently wearing. Though she wouldn’t admit it to Blake, Marisa’s feet were beginning to ache. The shoes that had seemed comfortable for brief walks in Atlanta hadn’t been the best choice for a stroll through Dupree.

  “Because this is the only store?”

  “Exactly. But Sam’s boots are remarkably comfortable. My college friends couldn’t believe it when they tried mine.”

  Gesturing to the other side of the street, Marisa pointed out the Sit ‘n’ Sip. “This is the best—and only—place to eat in Dupree. The coffee’s not the world’s finest, but Russ Walker makes a mean omelet, and the muffins are almost as good as my mom’s.”

  When Blake nodded, Marisa continued to the intersection. “And here we are, back on Lone Star. There’s a sporting goods store two blocks north on Cherry, and the school’s at the end. You’ve already seen the park, so that concludes our grand tour.”

  Blake looked up and down Lone Star, as if imprinting the locations on his brain. “You’ve got almost everything people need, with one exception. I didn’t see a bookstore.”

  Marisa nodded. “You’re right. We don’t have one, although we have a pretty good library.” That had been one of Marisa’s childhood haunts, because although she loved to read, her family could not afford to buy many books. “The supermarket carries a few paperback bestsellers. For anything else, folks go to San Antonio or shop online. Were you looking for something specific?”

  While Blake had displayed a knowledge of Macbeth, Marisa doubted he read Shakespeare on a daily basis, and she wondered what books would appeal to him. Had he read classics as a child? It was unlikely he’d ever opened the covers of her favorite, the Anne of Green Gables series, but he must have read something.

  “Nothing specific,” he said, disappointing her. “I’m just curious.”

  “Are you one of those who agrees with Thomas Jefferson when he said, ‘I cannot live without books’?”

  An ironic smile lit Blake’s face. “You could say that.”

  6

  Are you sure this is all I can do to help?” Blake asked as he took the pan of lasagna from Carmen. Though he’d insisted that she did not need to provide supper for him, Carmen had dismissed his protests, pointing out that she was already cooking for herself and Marisa and that it was no trouble to set another place at the table.

  It hadn’t taken much to persuade him. The truth was, Blake welcomed the opportunity to learn more about Marisa. For all that she appeared open and friendly, he sensed depths to her that she let few see. He hadn’t missed the way she’d avoided looking north on Live Oak, and it hadn’t been his imagination that something about the Macduff conversation had bothered her. Watching the interaction between Marisa and her mother might reveal new clues to the mystery of the beautiful woman with the pain-filled eyes.

  Carmen grabbed a bowl of tossed salad with one hand and a covered basket whose distinctive aroma told Blake it contained garlic bread with the other. “You’re saving me a trip; that’s all the help I need.” As she switched off the lights in Rainbow’s End’s industrial-sized kitchen, Marisa’s mother shrugged. “We have a kitchen in the cabin, but it can’t compare to this, so I do all my cooking here.”

  Though Blake had no aspirations of becoming a chef, he also had no trouble understanding why this was Carmen’s preferred work space. She was in her element here, just as he’d once been in his element in his office, surrounded by all the tools he needed to make Cliff Pearson’s adventures come to life. Unfortunately, writer’s block had ended that.

  As they walked toward the front of the building, Carmen knocked on the next door before opening it. “Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,” she called to her daughter.


  Marisa looked up from her desk, the furrows between her eyes telling Blake she had been trying to concentrate. “Thanks,” she said, sounding more than a little distracted. “I have one more thing to check.”

  “There’s spumoni in the freezer. Bring it when you come.” When Marisa nodded and returned her attention to the papers that covered the desk, Carmen shook her head. “She’ll forget. When she starts working, she forgets the rest of the world exists.”

  It had always been like that for Blake when he was writing. Though he doubted anyone who wasn’t a writer would understand, he had felt as if he were transported to another world. He’d forget to eat and drink. He’d forget everything except the story that was taking shape in his mind. While his fingers flew across the keyboard, it was almost as if he became Cliff Pearson.

  But Blake would not tell Carmen that. Other than Greg and now Kate, no one at Rainbow’s End knew that he was Ken Blake, and he intended to keep it that way. Instead he said, “I can’t speak for Kate, but at least when he owned his software company, Greg was a workaholic. He’ll appreciate Marisa’s work ethic.”

  As Blake held the outside door open for Carmen, she scowled. “He’d better not take advantage of her the way her last bosses did.”

  Blake knew he shouldn’t pry, but Carmen had given him an opening. “What happened?”

  Carmen’s scowl deepened. “They were happy enough when she worked night and day to get hundreds of tax returns done, but then they laid her off on April 16. They didn’t even give her her bonus.” Carmen muttered a few Spanish phrases that left Blake no doubt of her anger and that if Marisa’s former bosses were within earshot, she would give them a piece of her mind.

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” he said, wondering if the abrupt and apparently unpleasant end of Marisa’s job was the reason for the occasional flashes of pain he’d seen.

  As Carmen led the way up the steps to her cabin, she nodded. “It wasn’t, but one good thing came out of it. I got my daughter back.”

  She switched on lights, then put the lasagna and garlic bread into the oven to keep them warm. “It probably seems silly, carrying everything over here when we have a table in the kitchen and a perfectly good dining room right next to it.”

  Blake thought he understood Carmen’s motives. “This is your home. You’re comfortable here.”

  She nodded vigorously. “You understand.”

  As Carmen pulled place mats and silverware from a drawer, Blake offered to set the table. Though she shook her head, Carmen smiled. “You have good manners, Blake. Your mother taught you well.”

  “The credit goes to my dad. My mother died when I was two—complications from measles, if you can believe it.”

  “And your father never remarried.” She made it a statement rather than a question. When Blake shook his head, Carmen continued. “It must have been hard for him, raising you alone.” Her words reminded him that she was a single parent too.

  “Dad had help.” If you could call it that. Blake tried not to frown at the memory of his grandfather’s stern and often disapproving face and the sound of his angry shouts. Grandfather was gone, his tyranny ended. Keeping his voice as even as he could, Blake said, “Dad’s father lived with us.”

  Carmen smiled as she arranged the place mats. “So you had both a father’s and a grandfather’s love. You were a lucky boy.”

  Lucky wasn’t the way Blake would have described it. Though he’d come to accept that his grandfather had loved him as best he could, he had spent the majority of his adolescence wishing the man lived on another planet or at least on the opposite side of the continent.

  Eager to change the subject, Blake looked at the two photos on the end table. One showed a very young Marisa standing in what Blake guessed was her backyard. Holding what appeared to be a mason jar, she was the picture of happiness. The second picture showed a far more serious young woman in a cap and gown.

  He might not have paid too much attention to the pictures had it not been for the fact that the Marisa in both of them was a blue-eyed blonde. Blake knew women who bleached their hair and wore colored contacts to transform themselves into the stereotypical California blonde, but this was the first time he’d seen anyone disguise such glorious natural color.

  “Wow! I didn’t realize Marisa was a blonde. She’s even more beautiful that way.”

  “That’s what I told her.” Carmen placed three glasses on the table and stood back, narrowing her eyes as if verifying that she had forgotten nothing. “She was the spitting image of Eric, her father.”

  Though he was curious about the reason for such a dramatic change of appearance, Blake didn’t want to squander the opportunity to learn more about Marisa’s father. The fact that Carmen still wore a wedding ring made him believe she was a widow. What he didn’t know was how long Eric St. George had been gone and how he had died. “When did your husband—”

  Before Blake could finish the sentence, Marisa rushed into the cabin, a large towel-wrapped container in her hand, her expression so carefree that Blake knew he’d do nothing to destroy the mood. His opportunity had evaporated.

  “I remembered the spumoni.”

  Carmen chuckled. “There’s hope for you yet.”

  There was no hope for this system. Marisa glared at the computer screen, as if that would change the display. The fancy sales brochure promised that it was user-friendly. Reality was far different. It was true that the optimistically named Acme Premier Hospitality System would generate a general ledger, but doing that required too many steps and far too much time.

  And that was the least of its flaws. One of Marisa’s requirements for the system was that anyone could enter a reservation without special training. Acme Premier failed that test. Rainbow’s End needed—and deserved—better than this.

  Fortunately, she had one more system on her short list of likely packages. If that one proved to have substance behind the marketing hype, she’d be able to deliver on her promise to have software selection completed before Kate and Greg returned from their honeymoon. Then she could begin to develop an operating budget.

  Kate had admitted that she and Greg hadn’t worried about how much they were spending on renovations—one of the advantages of being a billionaire—but they both realized they needed a budget and the accountability that came with it.

  And then . . . Marisa sighed, unsure how she would fill her days. There had never been a shortage of work at Haslett Associates. To the contrary, she had often felt as if she could be in the office 24/7 and still not complete everything. But working here was far different from being an employee of a firm with hundreds of clients.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Marisa smiled as Blake poked his head into her office two hours later. It had taken her that long to get the final software package loaded and configured on her computer. Now she was ready to begin the evaluation.

  “You are interrupting,” she told him, “but it’s welcome.” She rose from behind her desk and flexed her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks. It had been a long morning, and though Mom had protested, Marisa had refused to take a normal lunch break. Instead, she’d remained at her desk, a sandwich in one hand as she clicked her way through the installation instructions. “I can use a break.”

  Blake grinned and handed her a can of soda. “I thought you might need this. I can’t count the number of midafternoon caffeine breaks I’ve taken.”

  “Perfect timing. Now I’ll have the energy to finish this.” She gestured toward the computer. “This is my last hope. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to resort to the B list, and I don’t want to do that.” When Blake raised an eyebrow, Marisa explained that she’d categorized more than a dozen software packages based on the features they provided. The A list had everything she wanted; the Bs were lacking in one or more aspects.

  “How long will it take before you know?”

  “If I’m lucky, five or six hours.”

  “And you plan to work through
dinner again.”

  Marisa nodded. Though she’d enjoyed the meal Blake had shared with her and Mom, she had worked through dinner last night, determined to make progress on the software selection.

  Wrinkling his nose in apparent disapproval, Blake said, “I was hoping I could convince you to play hooky. I have one of those offers you can’t refuse.”

  As tempting as time with him sounded, Marisa couldn’t forget the promises she had made to Kate and Greg. “I’ve got a lot of work.”

  “It’s only one night.” Blake gave her his most persuasive smile. “Think of it as a public service. You can tell your workaholic side that you’ll be saving this guest from terminal boredom.”

  Marisa knew that was an exaggeration. Blake had plenty of ways to pass the time. He’d gotten a stack of books from the library this morning, and her mother had issued a standing challenge to a game of checkers. Still, spending an evening with Blake was undeniably appealing.

  “What was that offer I can’t refuse?”

  As if sensing that she was on the verge of agreeing, Blake’s smile widened. “The Bijou is having double feature week. Tonight’s An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle. I haven’t seen either of them.” He made that sound as if it were a grave personal deficiency.

  “I’m not surprised. They’re chick flicks. From what I’ve heard, men only go to movies like those on dates.” And, by even the most conservative definition, this would be a date. Marisa couldn’t deny the rush of pleasure that thought gave her.

  “According to Mr. Benton, my life will not be complete unless I see those particular movies.” Blake forced his face into a parody of despair.

  Marisa couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Now I understand. This would be more than a public service. It would be humanitarian aid.”

  When Blake nodded, obviously struggling to keep his expression solemn, Marisa chuckled. This light banter was just what she needed, and though it might mean working extra late tomorrow, she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity Blake offered.