by Nicole James
“Why?”
“I figured they’d warn you off me.”
“They did. Why is that?” she asked, folding her arms, her hip jutting out in a no-nonsense stance.
“It’s a long story. Got nothin’ to do with you. Steve’s a jealous son-of-a-bitch. He and I haven’t gotten along since high school.”
“Nothing to do with me?” she asked disbelieving.
“Nope.”
“Why don’t I believe that? Maybe because I always seem to be in the middle of it.”
He tossed the tool he was holding on the floor and came towards her. “Well, since you brought it up, let’s get into that. You tell me something, babe. Did I misread what happened in here yesterday?” He stopped right in front of her, and she had to look up at him.
She saw the bruising on the side of his jaw and reached up to touch it. “Oh, Justin, your face. I’m so sorry. He hurt you-”
He closed his hand over hers, capturing her palm against his face. “You didn’t answer me, Summer. Did I misread it? You came in here, looking pretty as a picture in that dress, bringing me baked goods. I thought you were interested in me. Was I wrong?”
“I…I…”
He backed her up against the door panel of a car parked in the next bay. Putting he hands on the car’s roof on either side of her, he boxed her in. “Didn’t I feel something when we kissed? Weren’t those sparks I felt fly between us? Huh? Didn’t you feel it, too?”
She looked up at him, finding it hard to breathe, and then he was leaning down kissing her, gathering her close in his arms. Her hands came up, pushing against his chest, and she broke the kiss.
He looked down at her, studying her face. “I guess I have my answer.” He pushed away, turned, and walked back toward the car he’d been working on.
“Justin, wait,” she called.
He stopped, but didn’t turn. He waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he turned his head and said over his shoulder. “We could have been real good together, Summer.”
And then he went back to work.
She turned and walked out.
Chapter Nine
Late that afternoon, Summer was in the kitchen, cutting up potatoes and carrots for a beef stew. She had on a cotton sundress, with an apron tied around her waist.
Pop walked in and set the mail on the table. “Bills and more bills.”
Summer turned, wiping her hands on her apron. “Can I get you something, Pop?”
“No, ma’am. I think I’ll go out on the porch and sit a spell.”
A few minutes later, Summer followed him out onto the porch.
He turned at the sound of the screen door creaking open and saw her carrying out two glasses of lemonade.
“I thought you might be thirsty,” she said, offering him a glass.
He was sitting in one of the two rocking chairs, smoking his pipe. “Why that’s mighty nice of you, dear,” he said, taking the glass. “Here, sit with me a while. You work too hard.”
Summer sat in the other rocking chair and took a sip of her drink. It was nice to take a break.
“These old bones of mine sure are aching today.” He took a sip of lemonade and set the glass down on the small table between them.
“How old are you, Pop? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Be eighty next spring,” he answered, rocking away, his pipe still in his mouth.
“You get around pretty good,” Summer commented with a smile.
“Got a few good years left, I hope,” he replied.
Summer rocked and looked out over the landscape, across the road to the meadow and fields that stretched to the hills. “I envy Steve, growing up here. It’s so beautiful.”
“Steve didn’t grow up here,” Pop informed her, puffing on his pipe.
Summer turned to look at him, surprise written all over her face. “He didn’t? I don’t understand.”
“Steve didn’t come to live here until he was seventeen. Until then, I didn’t even know he existed,” Pop clarified.
“What? How can that be?” she asked.
“Steve’s mother, Cindy, met my son, David, when he was at Fort Benning. He was there for basic training. It was the summer of 1970.” Pop explained, taking another puff off his pipe, his eyes drifting across the landscape. “David was sent to Viet Nam that fall. He was in-country only three weeks when he was killed in action.
“I’m so sorry for you, Pop,” Summer said, reaching over and touching his hand.
“It was an awful thing, an awful thing. He was so young. Emma, my wife, took it hard. He was our only child.” He stopped and took another puff on his pipe.
Summer noticed the gleam of tears in his eyes.
“Like I said, we didn’t know about Steve or his mother. They hadn’t married. David had never even mentioned her. She later told us that she’d written to him when she found out she was carrying his child, but he never wrote back. After David died, the Army forwarded his mail to us. He died before ever receiving that letter. He never even knew he was going to be a father.”
“How awful,” Summer whispered.
“Emma read the letter. The return address had been water damaged at some point in its travels, and it was illegible. All we knew was that somewhere in this world was a woman named Cindy, who was carrying our son’s child, or at least claiming to.” He shook his head, remembering.
“What happened?” Summer prompted.
“Nothing. We thought...we hoped she’d try to contact us. But we never heard another word, until seventeen years later. Cindy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her parents were dead, and she knew she needed someone to be there for Steven when she passed. She knew David was from here in Ruby Falls, and she found us.” He took a drink of lemonade.
“Go on, please,” Summer whispered.
“One summer afternoon, they pulled up the drive in an old battered station wagon. She got out of the car, and then Steven got out. I took one look at him, and knew this was our son’s child, and that this was the woman from the letter. Steve, at seventeen, looked exactly like David had that summer he left for boot camp.”
“She’d never tried to find you before that?” Summer asked.
“No, she didn’t even know David had been killed. She had just assumed he’d gotten her letter, and when he never replied, she thought he didn’t want anything more to do with her,” Pop explained, taking out a foil packet of tobacco and refilling his pipe. “When Cindy came, she thought she was coming to tell a man about his son, not grandparents about their grandchild.” He lit a match and relit his pipe. “Emma insisted they stay. They moved in, and Steve’s been here ever since.”
“And his mother?” Summer asked.
“She died during Steve’s senior year of high school. My Emma died about three months later. It was a hard year for us. Steve and I barely knew each other, and we had both lost the most important women in our lives. I was glad when Steve found Rita. She did a lot of healing for Steve. He had a lot of anger, for a long time, but then when Jessie was born it was like a peace settled over him.” He smiled. “She’s been a blessing to both of us. Having a child in the house again…I do love that great-grandbaby of mine.”
“I know you do, you spoil her rotten,” Summer teased.
“Yeah. It’s so much fun,” he leaned toward Summer, whispering to her like a co-conspirator, “and it drives Steven crazy.” There was a distant sound of cowbells. Pop and Summer looked off to the pasture to the right and saw the cows coming over the hill. “Well, its milking time,” Pop declared.
Summer looked at her watch and smiled. “Four-fifteen.”
“The boys will be coming in from the field soon.”
“Yes, and I need to get the sheets in off the line and get dinner going.” She reached over and touched Pop’s arm. “Thank you for telling me all that. It helps me understand him a little better.”
“Yeah. He’s had a hard life, Summer.”
Steve walked out of the barn, took his h
at off, and wiped his brow on his sleeve. He looked over and stopped dead in his tracks.
There was a line of white bed sheets hung out to dry in the sun and flapping in the breeze. He could see the figure of a woman behind the line of sheets, the bottom hem of her dress and her legs visible below the edge of the sheet.
“Rita,” he whispered. And then she bent down, picked up the wicker basket, and walked around the line of laundry. The sun was in his eyes, and he could only see her in silhouette. Her long hair moved, sweeping her waist from side to side as she walked. And then she spoke and broke the spell.
“Steve, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Summer asked, as she walked up to him carrying the basket on her hip.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Just tired, I guess.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Well, come on in the house. I’ll pour you a glass of lemonade.” She smiled and turned away.
“Summer, wait.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her back around.
She looked back at him.
“About last night…” He paused, looking off at the horizon a moment and then turned back to her. “I’m sorry. For all of it. I’m not gonna stand here and give you a bunch of excuses, because that’s all they’d be, excuses. And there’s no excuse for the way I behaved.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said quietly, startling him.
“I am?”
“Of course.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Now let me get you that drink.” She turned and walked toward the house.
He put his hat back on his head, his hand shaking, and followed her inside. Stopping inside the mudroom, Summer set the basket on top of the dryer. He took his hat off, hung it on a peg, and followed her into the kitchen. She went to the sink and reached above to a cabinet, taking down two glasses.
He sat in a chair and watched her moving around the kitchen. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? How closely her shape and figure compared to Rita’s. Even the long hair, except that Summer’s was a soft blonde.
She put ice in the glasses, and then got a glass pitcher out of the refrigerator. She brought it to the table and poured them both a glass. Sitting across from him, she tucked one bare foot up under her. He noticed.
“You always walk around barefoot?” he asked, smiling.
She grinned. “Only around the house and yard,” she confessed.
“Imp,” he teased. He watched her take a sip from her lemonade, and he did the same.
“You look better now. For a moment out there, you were white as a sheet,” she admitted, reaching across the table to touch his hand.
“Just tired, like I said.” He rotated his neck, trying to pop it.
“Here, let me.” She came around the table and stood behind his chair. Her hands slid onto his shoulders and began to massage them.
It was heaven. He rolled his head from side to side as she slowly worked out all the tension. “God, that feels good. I could get used to this,” he murmured.
“Steve, you’re exhausted. You’ve been working like a dog the past few days. You need to lie down. Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll wake you in an hour when dinner is ready.”
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I will.” He got up. “Thanks for the neck rub.” He went up to his room, shut the door, and lay down on top of the old patchwork quilt. The iron bed creaked with his weight. He closed his eyes and was asleep in moments.
And for the first time in years, he dreamed of Rita.
Summer carried their glasses to the sink and stood looking out the window wondering what to make for dinner and wondering if maybe she should let Steve sleep longer than an hour. He looked so exhausted.
Jessie walked into the kitchen, holding her cat, Eddie, stroking his fur. “What are you doing Summer?”
Summer turned, startled from her thoughts. “Oh, Jessie. I guess I was just daydreaming. Well, that and trying to come up with something to make for dinner.”
“I could make dinner tonight,” Jessie offered, dropping Eddie to his paws on the floor.
“You? You can cook?”
“Sure. I’ll make my goulash. Pop taught me the recipe.”
Summer cocked her head. “You sure?”
“Yep. You go take a load off,”
“I can help you with it.”
“Nope. I work better alone. Now, go.” Jessie shooed her from the room.
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Well, I did have some shirts of your dad’s to mend.”
Jessie made a face. “Mending? Forget that. Do something for yourself. Paint your nails. Take a bubble bath.”
“Umm. A bubble bath, that sounds heavenly.”
“Go. Soak. Enjoy.”
“Love you, squirt.”
“Since when did everyone start calling me squirt?” Jessie made a face at her.
Summer giggled and went upstairs.
Steve shifted restlessly in the bed and dreamed of Rita. A vivid, rich dream that calmed his soul. “Steve…Steve…” she was calling to him from the front porch, looking just as sweet as the day he married her. He started to walk towards her. He was almost there. His foot was on the bottom porch step. She was reaching out to him, smiling, her eyes filled with love.
“Steve, wake up.” An arm shook him, and his eyes flew open. Summer was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Wake up, sleepy head. You’ve slept an hour and a half already. Dinner’s on the table.”
He blinked, coming up on his elbows. “Okay. I’m awake.”
Summer stood up. “Jessie made it.”
Steve swung his feet to the floor, sitting up on the bed. He took a deep breath. “Jessie made what?”
“Dinner, silly.”
He ran his hand over his face, trying to wake up. “Jessie cooked?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. How ‘bout that. You help her?” He scratched his head, running his fingers through his bed-head hair.
“Nope. She did this one all on her own.” She smiled.
“Really? Well, I’ll be right down.” Summer turned and left. Steve sat there a moment. The dream had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. It had been so damn real. He could swear to God, she had been right there, clear as day. “Did you hear that, honey, our baby cooked dinner? How about that?” he whispered to his wife. Then he took a deep breath, rose to his feet, and went down to dinner.
Cary came in the back door, as Jessie was carrying a large rectangular glass casserole dish from the kitchen into the dining room, her hands in two oven mitts. He sniffed the air, following behind her. “What’s that smell?”
“Dinner,” she replied, setting the hot dish down on a trivet in the center of the dining table and pulling off the oven mitts.
Cary stood behind his chair, his hands on the chair’s back, looking down at the entrée, frowning. “What is that?”
“Goulash,” Jessie replied. “Sit down.”
“Goulash?” Cary repeated, looking down at what looked more to him like canned dog food, and if he was gonna be honest, smelled like it, too. “Who cooked this?”
“Me.”
“You?” He looked up at her, his eyebrows raised.
She smiled proudly. “Yes, me.”
“Where’d you learn to cook?”
“From Pop.”
“Pop? Whoever told you he could cook?” He looked up at her and shook his head, backing away. “I just remembered I’ve got some fence to mend.”
Steve and Summer came into the room.
Jessie stared down Cary. “So, I never claimed to be Julia Child, smartass-”
“Hey, watch your mouth,” Steve scolded her.
She continued on, as if she didn’t even hear him. “Now sit your butt down, Cary. You will eat it. Every bite, and without complaint.”
Cary raised his eyebrows, a little surprised by her outburst. “Yes, ma’am.” He sat down.
Steve, Summer and Pop all sat, a
s well.
Cary picked up the large serving spoon, looked at Jessie, huffed out a breath, and scooped up a portion, plopping it on his plate. He put the spoon back in the dish, angling it toward Steve.
Steve looked at the unappetizing muck and glanced at Summer.
Summer gave him a look that told him he had better eat it and like it.
Steve looked over at Jessie and plastered a big smile on his face. “Umm. This looks great, baby girl.” He plopped a scoop on his plate.
Cary scooped up a forkful and raised it toward his mouth. He caught Jessie’s eyes on his, her face smiling, obviously wanting him to like it. He held his breath as he jammed it into his mouth and tried to force a smile around the mouthful. “Umm.”
Everyone at the table was watching him.
The flavor exploded in his mouth, and he fought the urge to gag. He tried to swallow it down, but his throat was having none of it. He gagged, spitting it back onto his plate. “Christ, Jess. What’s in this?”
Jessie burst into tears and ran from the room. The backdoor slamming behind her as she grabbed her purse off the counter and ran outside.
Summer gave him a look that said he’d better go after her and apologize.
He huffed out a breath and threw down his fork. “I’m goin’.”
Steve watched him rise from the table and follow Jessie out the door. Then he looked down at his own forkful and tasted it. A moment later, he was spitting it out on his plate. “Holy crap, it tastes like dog food.”
“Steve!”
Cary caught up with her next to her car. “Jessie, wait. Where you goin’?”
“Away from you.”
“Jess. Stop.” He grabbed her arm and spun her around.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes, but instead looked off toward the barn. “What?” she snapped.
He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes reflected in the sunset. “Jessie, baby-doll, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “All girls make mistakes when they’re learning how to cook. Don’t worry, you’ll learn. It just takes practice.”
She swiped at her cheeks, brushing the tears away.