Her Small-Town Hero

by Arlene James

  He spread his hands in easy capitulation. “Might as well.”

  “Four and four it is.”

  “Well, my cobbler’s safe tonight,” some fellow teased.

  “I don’t know,” Holt said, deadpan. “I’m powerful hungry.”

  They laughed and made jokes all over the room about eating faster and guarding their food. Joanie, meanwhile, pointed to Ace.

  “What about him, sugar? You want to order something for him? We got some applesauce, and Cookie will mash up some potatoes and beans for you, if you want.”

  “Applesauce,” Cara decided, smiling wanly. “I brought along some jars of baby food anyway.”

  “I’ll be right back with your corn cake.” Joanie slid away, swimming a curvy path in and out among the tables.

  “Corn cake?” Cara asked Holt.

  “Best corn bread this side of Georgia,” he bragged.

  “Oh. I like corn bread,” Cara said, brightening with the memory of Aunt Jane’s sweet batter, baked or sometimes fried.

  A chair scraped and a female voice asked, “You ever gonna introduce us to your girl, Holt?”

  He jerked, then sent a look straight into Cara’s eyes. That look said, “Sorry. I’ll try to set the record straight.” Cara surreptitiously sucked in a deep breath. He cleared his throat and half turned in his chair, hanging one elbow over the back of it.

  “’Fraid I can’t call her mine, Angevine. This here is Cara Jane Wynne. She works for Hap down at the motel, and since she’s taken Charlotte’s place, we figured she deserves Charlotte’s night out.”

  A heavyset redhead in her mid-to late thirties materialized at Cara’s elbow, offering a surprisingly dainty hand. “Nice to meet you, Cara Jane. I’m Angevine Martin. I saw you in church on Sunday, but you were gone when we got out the door.”

  “Oh, uh, Ace got restless, so we left a little early.”

  “Ace, that’s her boy there,” Holt said with a wave of his hand. Winking at Ace, he added, “He likes singing and hats.”

  Angevine giggled, glancing at Holt’s bare head. He’d left his hat in the truck, predicting correctly that there wouldn’t be room for it inside, but the curving sweep of his hair showed where it could usually be found.

  “Well, that’s something y’all have in common,” Angevine gushed. Then she shocked Cara by patting her on both cheeks. “I’m just so happy to meet you!” She patted Holt on the shoulder as she pranced back to her seat. “First Charlotte, now you. I guess Ryan’ll be next. About time the Jefford kids started settling down.”

  As murmurs of agreement spread throughout the room, Holt sent Cara another apologetic look, but he said nothing more to refute the idea that the two of them made a couple. Cara understood from his expression that anything he might say would simply add fuel to the fire at this point. She tried not to cringe, but she’d gladly have crawled under the table just then. Fortunately, talk turned to descriptions of Charlotte’s wedding, with comments flying about everything from the food to the decorations to the groom’s family.

  “Never seen the like,” an elderly fellow said on his way to pay his check. “They came in here with caterers and florists and decorators.” He flew a hand into the air, adding pointedly, “In limousines. Every one of ’em in limousines. They’ll pro’bly build that new house with lumber shipped in by limousine.”

  He ambled off without waiting for any rebuttal, which wouldn’t have come at any rate. Holt just chuckled and shook his head, while conversation abruptly shifted to the house that Charlotte and her new husband planned. One woman had heard that they’d bought sixty acres from a ranch west of town and were building a twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion.

  “It’s eight thousand square feet and thirty acres,” Holt corrected. “They bought the Moffat place out east of the school grounds. Already pulled down the old house.”

  “That didn’t take much, I warrant,” someone put in, amidst gasps about the true size of the house.

  “Nope. Just hooked a chain to the door lintel and the bumper of my truck,” Holt confided. “Ty was going to send a wrecking crew, but I told him, ‘Why bother?’”

  Joanie brought the corn bread, still steaming from the oven. Holt set aside a piece to cool for Ace while someone asked whatever happened to Old Man Moffat. Several people debated the exact year of his death until Holt gave it to them around mouthfuls of buttered corn bread. Cara hadn’t yet managed to split her piece, so hot it blistered her fingertips and so soft it fairly crumbled when touched.

  “I remember because the drought was so bad that year they couldn’t get the grave dug,” Holt said to the room at large. “They called Daddy out to break up the ground with one of his big bits. It was the year before he died.”

  The atmosphere immediately took on a solemn feel.

  “Good man, your daddy,” a voice grated.

  The sentiment echoed softly around the room.

  “Good man.”

  “Good ’un.”

  Holt wiped crumbs from his shirtfront into his lap, but Cara knew memories of his father played fresh in his mind. On impulse, she slipped a hand beneath the table, intending to give him a slight touch on the knee. Instead, he dropped his hand just then, so she gave it a sort of fumbling squeeze. She meant it to be a simple gesture of sympathy and understanding, but Holt’s long fingers closed over hers and suddenly they were holding hands, palm to palm. He never so much as lifted his gaze to hers, but their clasped hands hung there between them for several heartbeats while talk began to swirl around them once more and Cara’s breath heated inside her lungs.

  Joanie appeared, sliding plates and bowls and baskets onto the table, giving Cara the perfect excuse to break free. She quickly snatched up a corner of cooled corn bread and poked it into her mouth, humming with self-conscious appreciation. Just then, Joanie placed a bowl of applesauce in front of Ace, and everyone at the table reached for it.

  Holt got to the applesauce first, sliding it out of Ace’s grasp just before disaster could strike, leaving Ace with a smidge of applesauce on the tip of one finger, which Ace promptly popped into his mouth. Laughing, Holt scooted closer to the table, shunted aside his own food and spent a good five minutes spooning applesauce between Ace’s smacking lips while Cara mashed big, meaty slices of fried potatoes with spoonfuls of pureed beef and peas.

  Watching Holt feed her son touched Cara. No other man had ever done such a thing for him. Not his father, who’d seemed rather impatient and frightened of his tiny newborn son in the short time they’d had together. Not his uncle, who barely acknowledged his nephew’s existence, and not his grandfather, who was much too important to be bothered with such things.

  As soon as the last of the applesauce disappeared, Holt set to his own dinner while Cara split her time between feeding Ace and herself. It amazed Cara how much that man could eat, and it made her wonder if she shouldn’t start cooking larger quantities. Her own meal tasted very good, but it was filling fare, which meant that Holt had plenty with which to gorge himself. No one seemed to think a thing of him eating off her plate.

  “Waste not, want not,” he quipped with a wink, helping himself to pieces of whole fish, potatoes and red beans, for which she’d never developed a taste despite her aunt’s attempts to feed them to her. He did leave her half-eaten coleslaw untouched, though he scoffed down every bit of his own before lolling back in his chair, replete. By the time Holt had eaten his fill, Ace’s head bobbed, his eyelids drooping to half-mast.

  “Now I see why you don’t like to eat alone,” she teased. “One meal isn’t enough for you.”

  “Nailed that, did you?” He patted his lean middle, adding, “I’ve about reached my limit tonight, though.” He sat up straight again, glancing at Ace, just as Joanie delivered steaming bowls of peach cobbler. “I may even have to share my dessert with Ace.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Cara said, pushing away her own dish. She just didn’t have room. “No sweets for him. If you fill him with sugar he won’t sle
ep tonight.”

  “He’s asleep sitting up now,” Holt pointed out, scraping back his chair.

  “Guess you’ll be wanting these to go,” Joanie said, dropping the check and scooping up the cobblers again.

  Holt nodded and picked up the bill. “I’ll just settle this while you get Ace ready. Then we’ll take our dessert and head out.”

  Cara rose to begin stuffing Ace into his outdoor layers. While she did so, folks kept coming by to offer personal welcomes.

  “So good to meet you,” said a complete stranger whose name had never even been mentioned to Cara.

  “Hope you’ll be happy here in Eden,” a sweet-faced, elderly matron crooned. “Right fine little town.”

  “You couldn’t do no better than to land with the Jeffords,” pronounced a lipless fellow in a gimme cap and ragged coveralls. “Good people.”

  “You couldn’t do no better than Holt, either,” the plain-looking woman on his arm said. Cara opened her mouth to dispute the connection, then closed it again as the couple moved off.

  “If you’ll be wanting to get into the Ladies’ Auxiliary, hon. I’ll put your name up,” Angevine Martin told her with a giggle just before she swamped Cara in a pillowy hug.

  Cara hardly knew what to say to these well-meaning folk, so she just smiled and nodded and smiled some more. Joanie dropped off the cobbler in one large disposable cup. Holt returned at about the same time and hoisted Ace into his arms.

  “Y’all come back now,” a voice called, and Holt swept the owner a wave.

  The trio started toward the door. Just then a young man half rose from his chair, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Hey, Holt! Could you go back to wherever you got her and get me one?”

  Cara’s face instantly flamed. She felt sure it must clash with her outfit. Then Holt’s strong arm ushered her through the door. At the same time he yelled back over his shoulder, “Sorry. One of a kind!”

  They carried laughter with them into the cold air and, in Cara’s case, a secret sense of delight.

  She told herself that it would be foolish to hope for something personal with Holt Jefford. First, he didn’t trust her in the slightest. Second, his lack of trust would be fully validated if he ever learned the truth. He would most likely hate her then or, at the very least, turn away.

  She didn’t even want to think about the third reason, but she forced herself to face it.

  The day that the Elmonts discovered her whereabouts, she’d have to run again. How could she leave her heart behind her when she went?

  No, it would be far better never to even start down that road.

  She could only hope that it wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter Nine

  H olt kept his arm looped around Cara Jane as he escorted her toward the truck, Ace snug in the curve of the opposite elbow. He told himself that it was because of the cold, but in truth he just liked having her close to him. That should have terrified him, but something else seemed to override his good sense.

  For one thing, the assumptions of the townsfolk concerning a romantic development between him and Cara Jane didn’t trouble him nearly as much as they should. The fact that he hadn’t realized that everyone would figure Cara Jane for his girlfriend troubled him more than the assumption itself. He hated that she had been embarrassed by it. If he’d been thinking at all, he could have prepared her for what she would encounter, but he’d been too intent on getting information out of her to consider beyond that.

  “I should’ve warned you about all the carrying on,” he told her. “There’s always lots of teasing and talk going back and forth. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else, so any newcomer is of interest.”

  “I understand,” Cara replied, glancing around at the crowded parking lot, if an expanse of bare, dusty ground punctuated with trees, piles of debris and a propane tank the size of a small whale could be termed a parking lot. “Looks like the whole town’s here tonight.”

  “Naw, just half of it,” Holt quipped, relieved that she didn’t sound offended by all the talk. “The other half came last night. This place is sort of the town’s unofficial social club.”

  “I see. Tonight’s crowd is certainly a friendly bunch.”

  “They are that,” he agreed, but his conscience wouldn’t let him ignore the real issue, so he added, “I just never realized how much interest there is in the romantic status of the Jefford siblings.”

  Cara shrugged, saying nonchalantly, “Obviously your sister’s wedding is still in the forefront of everyone’s mind.”

  “Obviously.” He felt sure it was more than that, however, and he wanted her to be prepared, so as they reached the truck and he slipped his keys from his coat pocket, he said, “You can bet, though, that the main topic of conversation for the immediate future is going to be the two of us and this little guy right here, including his father and why he’s out of the picture.”

  Holt looked down at her, saw the sad resignation behind those soft gray eyes and felt like a complete heel. He’d hoped to shake loose some new information by spending time with her, not to make her an object of speculation or, worse, gossip. Had he thought for two minutes about something other than his suspicions, he’d have known this would happen.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have realized what you were in for.”

  He kept expecting her to be upset with him, but she stood there between him and his truck, shivering inside her meager denim jacket, and broadcast forgiveness with a wan smile. A spark burst to flame inside his heart and spread warmth throughout his chest.

  “Ace’s father is dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “It was a freak accident. He stopped to help another car broken down on a busy highway overpass. The witnesses all thought it was a woman driving, a young one, probably, which is the only thing that makes sense because I can’t imagine Addison stopping otherwise. Then, somehow, he fell, and that’s all there is to say.”

  Holt knew the truth when he heard it. He knew pain, too, even pain as layered as hers.

  Nodding, he opened the truck and deposited a flagging Ace into his seat. Poor little guy didn’t even bother protesting this time, just turned his head into the corner and closed his eyes. To Holt’s surprise, Cara left him to perform the buckling process, hurrying around to climb up inside the front cab. Aware of how the cold must be affecting her, he joined her as quickly as he could, not at all offended that she turned to check his handiwork while he started the engine and got them moving.

  They drove in silence for a moment before something she’d said triggered a thought. “Seems like that woman he’d stopped to help should’ve hung around after he fell, doesn’t it?”

  Cara shrugged. “I’m not sure she even realized it had happened. No one actually saw what went down.”

  “Huh. That doesn’t sound a little suspicious to you?” he asked.

  Cara turned her head toward him, meeting his glance. “I don’t see why. The police did try to track her down, but the car turned out to be a rental.”

  “Didn’t they follow up on that?”

  “I can’t imagine why they would, really. Addison didn’t have any enemies.”

  “That you know of,” Holt replied. Suspicion—or was it something else, something outside himself?—tightened his chest. He had to ask, “Have you considered other reasons for her behavior?”

  Cara bowed her head, her face shadowed by the dim light from the dashboard. “You mean, that maybe he was cheating on me, that she was his girlfriend and had called him for help that day, then sped away after the accident because she didn’t want it to come out?”

  “Something like that,” Holt admitted, his stomach starting to churn.

  Cara looked out into the dark landscape passing by her window and softly admitted, “It was a distinct possibility.” She looked at him. “But what difference does it make now?”

  Uncomfortably wounded on her behalf, Holt fiddled with the temperature gauge on the heater, which had only just beg
un to blow tepid air. “I admire your attitude,” he said, “but if you’ll forgive my saying so, your late husband doesn’t sound like much of a prize.”

  She leaned her head against the window, admitting raggedly, “Our marriage wasn’t the greatest. But it wasn’t the worst, either. It wasn’t much of anything at all. But he gave me Ace. That’s reason enough to grieve him.”

  “Yes, it is,” Holt agreed gently.

  The heater blew warmer now, so he turned it up, knowing that she couldn’t be comfortable in those summer-weight clothes, clothes she could not have had much use for back in Oregon. If that’s where she’d truly come from.

  Truth and lies in one pretty little bundle, he thought.

  He wished for everyone’s sake that he could believe otherwise, that he could just accept what she’d told them and trust that nothing from her past would reach out to bite him and his family. Unfortunately, he just didn’t know how to turn off the uneasy feeling that she hid something important.

  All in all, he had learned new information about her tonight, he mused. He’d learned that she’d been hurt by her late husband and unhappy in her marriage but that she had managed to let go of her pain and be thankful for her blessings.

  He could have done without that knowledge. It made him feel ashamed of his suspicions while doing nothing to lessen his concerns.

  The rest of the trip passed in warm silence, both lost in their own thoughts.

  After they arrived back at the motel, Holt carried in Ace for her. It had almost become a ritual with them, one he liked more than seemed wise, but he simply could not stand by while she struggled with the boy’s dead weight and maybe even woke him in the process.

  Cara Jane thanked Holt for his help.

  “No problem.”

  It was their standard interaction lately, but as he was going out the door again, she suddenly said, “I had a lot of fun tonight.”

  That surprised him. He’d sensed her embarrassment and discomfort at times during dinner, and his guilt about that returned forcefully; he knew he’d be talking to God about it later.