by Liz Flaherty
So she owed him one.
They stepped apart and continued their walk, looping back to the car, singing “Sundown” and at one point playing a rousing game of hopscotch on a grid someone had chalked onto the path.
“Did you know that song was about the writer’s girlfriend at the time?” Tucker looked ridiculous hopping on the grid, which completely charmed the little girls who’d come over to play with them.
“I did. We learned that when we sang it in high school choir.” Libby took her turn, knowing she looked just as silly jumping with the skirt of her dress flipping around above her knees as he did in his jeans and sweater.
“It’s about fidelity.”
She knew that, too.
They waved goodbye to the little girls and their waiting mothers and walked on, reaching the car a few minutes later. “I’m looking for that.” He opened the passenger door for her and walked around to get in the other side. “I don’t mean the whole sexual faithfulness thing—although I want that, too—but I’m talking about mental and emotional loyalty. Like what we have.” He started the car and buckled his seat belt, then put a finger under her chin to turn her face toward his. “Means you can’t renege on that pact, Miss Libby. If I’m going to forgive to make myself a more whole person, so are you. I’m not playing that particular gig alone.”
She sighed, then did it again more heavily to ensure he knew what a pain he was being. “Fine. I can’t believe what I have to go through just to make you a better husband for someone else.”
They both laughed. Then he told her he was thinking about buying a boat in addition to the pontoon he shared with his brother, and they spent the ride home discussing which of them was the better water skier. She was, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit that. He was still getting over the shame of having fallen—several times—while roller-skating.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“ISN’T IT HARD for you sometimes, coming in here?” The barn at the family farm had fresh red paint on its exterior, with big white letters above the original front entry that said Worth Farm, 1915. Inside, however, it was unrecognizable. Jesse’s veterinary practice took up most of the ground floor. Downstairs, where the stables and milking parlor had been, were boarding kennels. The loft held an exercise room and Jesse’s art studio.
“Not anymore, and it’s different for me. I didn’t see what you did.” Jesse talked Pretty Boy into standing almost still on the scale. “Ah, good. He’s gaining some weight. No table food, right?”
“Not much. He has an affinity for chicken salad. Since I do, too, we share it sometimes.”
Libby’s older brother scowled at her. She beamed back, not holding the expression long because her chin would tremble if she did.
“How’s Elijah?” He gave the dog a rub and a treat, then led the way out of the clinic.
They walked across the parking lot to the redbrick house. “He’s fine. He’s decided Pretty Boy can stay.” She stopped at her car. “I’m going home.”
She’d been here for forty-five minutes. They’d shared coffee and Jesse had given the dog a cursory once-over. She knew her brother would be impatient to be by himself again.
He looked at her, surprised. “You sure? I have broccoli soup in the Crock-Pot. I don’t mind sharing, especially since you made it in the first place.” His somber gaze captured hers, and she couldn’t look away. “Come on, Lib.” His voice was as quiet as always, his face as unsmiling. Almost. There was a barely imperceptible lift at the corner of his mouth and just the slightest twinkle in his eyes. “I’ll even let you load the dishwasher.”
Other than a few distant cousins who lived in other states, Jesse was her only relative. She wished they saw each other more, but it was Jesse’s choice to hold himself apart. Yet he was inviting her to supper. She had cinnamon rolls to bake, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten up at three to do it.
“All right.” She went inside with him, grateful as always that, like the barn, the house looked almost nothing like it had when they grew up in it. The kitchen had been expanded into the old dining room, with custom-built cabinets and granite countertops added. The walls were painted red, the windows replaced with bigger, mullioned ones and left uncovered. Sycamore Hill’s orchard and grape arbors were visible through the one over the big sink.
Dad would have hated seeing them. He’d fought the sale of so much as a square inch of land until the day he died, even knowing selling the winery acreage to the Grangers would save the rest of the farm.
He’d been so wrong.
“Mom would have loved this.” Libby said it every time she visited. She never added the other part: that their father would have hated it. Change, in his eyes, had never been good.
Jesse stirred the soup. “She would. You want to make us some sandwiches? A client brought me part of a ham today.”
Libby nodded, smiling approval at the sourdough bread she found in the drawer. “Homemade?”
“Holly brought it by. She got it at the new Amish bakery at the lake. It’s good.”
“Holly, huh?” It wasn’t the first time they’d been together, although Holly was as quiet about Jesse as he was about her. “Anything you’d like to confide there, big brother?”
He gave her a look that should have singed her eyelashes off, and she opened the loaf. She had tried the pastries from the bakery. They were at least as good as hers. Their coconut cream pie was better. She frowned, spreading mayonnaise on the dense bread. “I wonder.”
Jesse set bowls of soup across from each other on the breakfast bar. “Wonder what? What do you want to drink?”
“Water’s good. I wonder if I could afford to give up baking for the Grill and the Silver Moon.” She cut the sandwiches in neat triangles and put them on plates—her mother’s beloved supermarket-premium china—and carried them to the counter. “I love what I do. I love the tearoom. But I’m tired, too.”
Jesse glanced at her, and his gaze sharpened. She wondered what he was seeing. “I can help you. At least give you a loan on your half of the farm income if you won’t take money straight out.”
She shook her head. “Thank you, but I don’t need help. However, I don’t want to work myself to death, either. We saw Dad do that. I mean, he obviously chose to die when he did, but he never saw anything in life beyond work. That was why Mom didn’t have a nice kitchen and her dishes came from the grocery store. She couldn’t buy dishes at the department store or have a new faucet because Dad wanted to buy ‘just one more cow.’”
“I think not working yourself to death would be a good idea.” It was there again, that hint of a twinkle in his eye. “What are you thinking of doing instead?”
“We’re putting the party space in the carriage house, but the truth is that’s Neely’s baby. I don’t want to give it the time or interest it requires.” She took a taste of her soup. It was really good; maybe she should give everything up and make soup for a living. But, no, she loved the tearoom. She just wanted more. Or different. Something.
“I don’t know.” She set down her spoon. “I don’t have an ‘instead’ lined up.” Jesse had one—he was an accomplished artist. Nearly everyone she knew had a talent or skill with which they either made their living or enhanced their lives. Arlie made beautiful quilts. Holly wrote romance novels. Jack did woodworking.
Libby made good soup. She didn’t think that qualified.
“How are the adventures coming?” Jesse refilled his bowl. “Tucker was talking about it when we played poker.”
“Fine. They’re fun.” Although she wondered if they were the root reason for her discontent. If they were the fuel feeding the depression viper. She’d had to go into the restroom at work and take deep breaths just the day before when a customer was rude. If the tearoom hadn’t been full, she would have screamed, too.
Well, no, she w
ouldn’t have—Libby wasn’t a screamer. But she might have taken an extra dose of the anti-anxiety medication hiding behind the pain relievers in her medicine cabinet.
“I think Tuck’s liking them, too. He said you were more fun than we were. We all took exception to that, but Jack and Sam both admitted he was probably right.”
Libby grinned at him. “You don’t think Holly’s more fun than playing cards and drinking beer?”
He gave her the look again, the eyelash-singeing one. “Since we’ve evidently delved into the dark underworld of minding each other’s business, little sister, how’s your love life?”
She was startled that he’d asked and thought about making something up, but he’d probably have figured it out, or gleaned enough from conversation with Tucker to know the truth. “Nonexistent.”
Sympathy flickered in Jesse’s dark eyes but went unspoken. “Do you want some pie?”
“From the Amish bakery?”
“Yes. Coconut cream.”
“Then I’d like a great big piece. As big as the one you’re eating.” She got up to make the coffee.
Jesse walked her to her car when she left, telling Pretty Boy to stay away from too much chicken salad. He patted her shoulder, the gesture awkward—they hardly ever touched each other. “Whatever you decide you want to do, I’ll help you however I can.”
Driving home through the early spring coolness, she thought having supper with her big brother was probably good for her soul as well as her heart. Not to mention, coconut cream pie was an excellent adventure in and of itself.
* * *
“I KNOW YOU want more grandkids, Mum, but Charlie makes up for a whole flock of them, you know.”
Tucker’s mother’s laugh, crisp and British even across the ocean that separated them, made him yearn to see her. Ellen Curtis had moved back to her native England when Tucker had graduated from college, although she made annual trips back to Lake Miniagua to spend time with her son and stepson. Tucker thought he might take a long weekend and go to England—it had been a year since his grandmother died, when Ellen had made the long flight to attend her funeral.
“Charlie’s a delight,” said his mother, “and so is Arlie, but I’d like to see both my boys settled down before I’m completely in my dotage.”
Tucker rolled his eyes at his brother. “She’s talking about her dotage again.”
Jack laughed. “Remind her Charlie’s spending a week with her during our honeymoon. There’ll be no time for dotage then.”
“I heard that.” She was laughing, too. “You two just take care of each other and I’ll see you at the wedding. All right?”
“All right. We both love you, Mum.” Tucker pushed the button on his phone that broke the connection and dropped it into one of the pockets on his cargo pants. “There. I’m sure we’ve scared all the fish away by now. What do you say we take a ride around the lake?”
His brother shook his head at him. “We’re testing lures. You know that. It’s one of the charms of our company that no product ever hits the catalog unless everyone on staff who knows how to cast a line into the water has tried it out.”
Tucker leaned back in his chair on the deck of the company’s fishing boat. “So, here we are, like the Manning brothers—only we’re fishermen instead of quarterbacks. I guess that’s cool.”
“Unfortunately—” Jack detached a very small bluegill from his hook and tossed it back into the water “—we’re no better at fishing than we would be at quarterbacking. It’s the thought that counts.”
“Have I mentioned that it’s barely March and I’m freezing?”
“Only four or five times.”
These are the best days. The thought lodged in Tucker’s mind when he was filling their cups from the thermos that sat between their chairs. The long years after the accident, when his relationship with Jack had been nominal at best and too often contentious, seemed far away now, but he never took their closeness for granted.
They’d been extraordinarily close before the wreck, born only ten months apart to different mothers. In sober moments, their father had referred to them as his Irish twins. When Jack’s mentally ill mother died—by suicide, which gave him and Libby an unhappy connection—Ellen reared both boys in the little yellow house on the lake she’d once shared with their father until the Llewellyn money and their grandmother’s indomitable will intervened and they went to live at the Albatross. The boys had been each other’s lifelines.
Now they were very close again, and Tucker loved it. They shared the CEO position at the company and drove each other crazy and he loved that, too.
“How did you get over worrying about being a good dad?” he asked, setting his fishing rod into the pole rest and giving his coffee the attention it deserved.
Jack snorted. “Who gets over it? But Arlie’s influence and Charlie himself convinced me I did more harm trying to stay on the child-support-paying periphery of his life than I’d do if I waded in, mistakes and all.” He caught Tucker’s gaze, holding it. “What’s on your mind, little brother? You and Meredith?”
“No.” Tucker was surprised at how quickly the answer came. “When I was traveling all the time, I didn’t miss having a family like I do now. If I had an itch, you loaned me Charlie until I got over it. But you guys, and Sam and Penny, and Dan and Alice Parsons—you all make me want what I don’t have. That’s why Libby’s doing the thing introducing me to her friends. And Arlie’s friends.”
Jack stared out across the lake, his expression thoughtful. He sipped his coffee. “What about Libby?”
Tucker frowned and straightened in his chair. “What do you mean, what about Libby? She’s okay, isn’t she? Do you know something I don’t know? I just saw her the other day.” Panic surged, making his heart thump fast and hard against his ribs.
“She’s okay as far as I know. What I meant was, what about you and Libby, as in...you and Libby?”
“You mean, like a couple?” Tucker reached to pull his brother’s cap down over his face. “In the first place, she barely knows I’m a guy. In the second place, I want a family and she doesn’t—I thought she was going to have to go to counseling before she got a dog. In the third place, there’s not an iota of chemistry between us.” Well, there probably was, but not any he was admitting to. “In the fourth, I’ve known her since we were born—the idea of there being anything boy-girl between us is just creepy. In the fifth—”
“Whoa!” Jack pushed his cap back into place and raised his hands in supplication. “Enough already. It was just a thought. We all love Libby. She already feels like family. I just thought—”
“Stop thinking. Just shut up.” Tucker pointed. “You have a bite. Reel in your fish and leave me alone. And shut up,” he added, in case Jack hadn’t heard it the first time.
* * *
“THERE ARE TIMES I feel as if I’m the only one who doesn’t have any issues.” Arlie spoke breezily, turning in a circle in the tearoom, her eyes wide and sparkling with delight. “If I’d known a bridal shower would be so much fun, I’d have gotten married years ago.”
“Not only that, you get presents.” Holly stopped her midtwirl and pushed her away from the table where the gifts from people unable to attend had been arranged. “However, if you say one more time that you don’t have any issues, Libby and I will be happy to start reminding you of what they are.”
“Yes, we will.” Libby set a tray of sandwiches on the buffet and covered it with a plastic dome. “We might even make some stuff up.” She accepted a glass of wine from Holly, clinking gently against the one her friend still held. “To friends with issues.” She sipped, then set her glass down to go for another tray.
She pushed back through the door a minute later. “Speaking of issues, my brother is being even more secretive and silent than usual concerning his social life.” She cove
red a cracker with Gianna’s spinach dip and took a bite, then spoke into Holly’s silence, spraying a few crumbs. “That dip is so good, I think I’ll take it back into the kitchen and eat it later all by myself. Out of a cereal bowl. With a really big spoon.” She beamed at Holly. “I’ll tell your mom Arlie took it. She’s getting away with murder these days.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that the truth? She’s going to be the favorite daughter now, at least until I find a boyfriend. Which I haven’t. Exactly.” She took the bowl from Libby’s predatory hands. “But she wouldn’t believe Arlie took it, because she doesn’t even like it. And, no, I have no idea why Jesse’s being more taciturn than usual.”
“Hmm. Only a romance author would use the word taciturn instead of just saying he’s grumpy,” said Libby. She chewed thoughtfully, trying to figure out the extra ingredient in the dip.
“He’s not grumpy—he’s private.” Holly spoke instantly, sharply, then went to survey the items on the gift table, her cheeks a bright and becoming pink.
Arlie’s friends from the lake, all the women who worked at A Woman’s Place and mothers whose babies she had delivered had been invited to the shower. They all either attended or had dropped off gifts earlier. During the shower, nearly all the food was eaten and the punch bowls were emptied. By the time the last guest left, the tearoom had been booked for two more showers, a birthday party and a tea for the women of Miniagua High School’s class of 1967. It was good for the business. It made Libby tired.
When she locked the door, Arlie and Holly went into the kitchen to help with cleanup. Neely took the vacuum cleaner into the two rooms where the party had been held.
“You don’t have to do this.” Libby stood at the sink, filling it with hot water to wash the glassware.
Arlie bumped her to one side. “Sure we do.”
Libby scowled at her. “You do remember that Holly paid for this shower, right? Cleanup is part of what she paid for.”