Home to Chicory Lane (9781426796074)

by Raney, Deborah;

  After a few minutes, she looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Can we agree that we’re in this together? Not just because of the baby, but because—we promised each other.”

  “I’m willing if you are.”

  She nodded against his chest. “We have a lot of things to figure out.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  * * *

  “This is not what we agreed on, Chase.” Miles paced the length of his office wringing his hands. “I hope you know what you’re throwing away.”

  Chase’s chest constricted, and he sat up straighter on the chair in front of Miles’s tidy desk. It crossed his mind that this might be what a heart attack felt like. He and Landyn had talked late into the night last night and finally decided they would go back to Missouri to regroup. Stay with CeeCee while they tried to sell one of the cars, get Landyn to the doctor, smooth things over with her dad. Beyond that, they didn’t know what the future held, but it seemed best to get away from the city for a while.

  But Miles was not a happy camper.

  “Are you telling me you won’t represent me if I leave New York?” Chase braced for his agent’s answer.

  “I didn’t say that,” Miles furrowed his forehead. “But you’re not going to sell as well remotely. You can bank on that.”

  “Or not,” Chase said wryly.

  Miles didn’t seem to see the humor. “You’re leaving at exactly the wrong time. We just had some momentum going.” He turned and paced the other way. “This is crazy. And now you want to give the apartment up too? I went to bat for you on that, man. I had people standing in line for that place. I gave you the first crack at it because I saw promise in you.”

  “I know you did, Miles. And—I appreciate it. I do. Maybe we can find a way to keep the studio. It’d be good to have a place to stay whenever I come back. Someplace I could work a little bit, too.” Purely wishful thinking. He doubted he could afford airfare to come back to New York once, let alone the once a month Miles had talked about. Never mind hotel and food and cab fare.

  But the notion seemed to calm Miles down a little. He stopped pacing and came around to stand behind his swivel chair, resting his forearms on its high back. “I’ll see if I can move a few more pieces in the next week or two. Give you a little extra rent money.”

  “That’d be great.” Maybe they could keep the studio after all. The thought buoyed him.

  “At least don’t sublet the place until after the first of the year. Unless you can find someone short-term. That’ll give us some time to see if your stuff is going to keep trending.”

  So he was trending now? “Then, you’ll give me a chance to prove I can do it? From Missouri? At least a few weeks? I think it would be good for my wife to spend Christmas with her family.” Maybe New Years, too. But he didn’t tell Miles that. He hadn’t mentioned the coming baby either. Mostly because he didn’t trust his voice not to betray his emotions on that subject.

  Miles shook his head and all but rolled his eyes. “We’ll give it a go.”

  Chase stood and extended a hand. “Thank you, Miles. You don’t know what that means.”

  The art rep waved him off. “Don’t thank me yet. And don’t hear promises I’m not making, Chase. We’ll see how it goes. That’s all. But”—he looked at the floor—“I know you’re a praying man. Don’t be surprised if I say a few prayers myself about where you end up. And about how well things go in Missouri.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or not.”

  That made Chase laugh. Then sober. He didn’t remember ever mentioning to Miles that he prayed. But he was glad the fact had apparently come through in their dealings. He hated disappointing his agent, he really did. And he was glad Landyn hadn’t been here for this meeting. No doubt she would have found it far more discouraging than he did—and that was plenty. Still, Missouri seemed like a better place to try to stitch things back together with Landyn.

  He felt for the commission check in his pocket, then shook Miles’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “And you know where to find me.” Miles gripped his hand. “Best of luck to you. Don’t forget to drop those inks off before you leave town.”

  Chase tapped his phone. “On my to-do list. And—thank you, Miles. I mean it.”

  25

  You’re sure we got everything?” Chase stood between their two vehicles, both packed almost to the ceilings, with only a sliver of space cleared so they could see out the back windshields.

  He’d turned in the keys to the studio to Ray last night—interrupting the super’s family Thanksgiving feast—so he and Landyn could get on the road before the sun came up. They were leaving behind only what furniture they couldn’t fit in the cars.

  Ray had made an exception to the sublet policy after Chase told him Landyn was pregnant, and at the last minute, Miles had rustled up someone—another client—to sublease the place for a month, which helped immensely. And gave them some time to decide whether they could afford to keep the studio—or whether they’d even need it.

  When Chase had told the super their news about the baby, Ray had clapped him on the back and beamed. “That’s great news, my friend. The best!” The super’s reaction gave Chase a glimmer of hope, but he tried not to think too much about what his life would look like a few short months from now. Less than five months if Landyn’s math was right. Her pregnancy was half over. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t had to carry this burden for a full nine months.

  “Chase, let’s go.” Landyn’s voice broke his focus. “You’re the one who wanted to be on the road at this ungodly hour. If we forgot something, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “You say that, but if it’s your blow dryer or your makeup we forgot, I’ll hear about it all the way to the Missouri border.”

  He hated that they were traveling in separate cars. Time together in the car for the long drive home would have been a gift. But they’d given up trying to sell his car in New York. He shot up a prayer that they could sell it quickly in Missouri. They needed the cash.

  Chase had a feeling they might not be coming back to New York as soon as either of them imagined. And he fleetingly wondered if he should bid the city farewell forever. But he was grateful—he was taking the most important thing with him. He bent to kiss her through the open driver’s side window. “Okay. You ready, baby?”

  “Hey, I’m an old pro at this, remember? But next time we make this trip, you are driving, you hear? The whole way.”

  “You have your phone on for sure?”

  She patted her purse in the passenger seat beside her. “On and fully charged.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this.” His breath came in puffs of steam in the chill, early morning air.

  She gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, and revved the engine of her Honda. He gave a little salute, kissed her again, and went to get in his car.

  Landyn seemed almost excited about the trip, and he had to admit, he was too. Except for the fear that loomed over him because of the baby, these days together in Brooklyn had been good ones. Days that had reminded them both, he thought, of why they’d gotten married in the first place. He’d said as much to Landyn and she feigned a disgusted look. “It’s always all about the bedroom, isn’t it?”

  He smiled, remembering. Well, that hadn’t hurt matters, he had to admit. But it was so much more than that. For the first time he felt like he could finally talk to her and that she heard what he said. The secrets they’d kept from each other had put up walls between them. Getting them out in the open, painful as it was, had worked a small miracle.

  There were still hard decisions to be made. And their financial situation was precarious at best. He was terrified his sales at the gallery would drop off once he left the city. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. But as unhappy as Miles was about his decision, the agent seemed resigned to helping Chase make it work long-distance.

  Landyn pulled onto the street and led the way out of the borough and across the bridge.
They’d agreed they wouldn’t worry too much about trying to stay together until they got on the Interstate outside the city. Even at five a.m., traffic was too crazy going out of the city, and they were more likely to have a wreck trying to keep up with the same lights and turns. Besides, they had their cell phones to stay in touch.

  They managed to not get separated all the way through the Holland Tunnel and back onto I-78 headed west. Chase thought it was a good omen.

  He watched Landyn’s Honda in front of him and whispered a prayer for her safety. Unbidden, on its heels came a prayer for their child.

  Seeing the lights of the city recede behind them he felt a little like he had the first time he’d jumped off the high dive at the Langhorne Municipal Swimming Pool—brave, daring, exhilarated . . . And scared out of his mind.

  * * *

  Audrey dusted powdered sugar over the scones, then checked the sausage-and-egg casserole in the oven. After making Thanksgiving dinner for fourteen yesterday—including Bree’s parents—then getting the rooms ready for guests to check in that evening, baking was the last thing she was in the mood to do. Especially for guests who wanted breakfast at seven a.m.

  But hey, at least they had guests. And the kitchen was clean. Her daughters, and Bree and her mother, had helped her clean up after their turkey dinner yesterday. Never mind that while they were cleaning up, the little girls were turning the family room upside down—right under the noses of the menfolk, who apparently could not watch football and babysit at the same time.

  She let out a sigh. Next year, they would not book the inn on Thanksgiving weekend at all. She didn’t care how much money they lost. She wondered what their family would look like next year. Landyn and Chase would have a baby. But would they be here or would they be living in New York? It had been hard not to have them here for the holiday. Since Tim’s death, it seemed all the more important to have the whole family around the table for holidays.

  She heard someone rolling luggage across the hardwood floors in the foyer. Wiping her hands, she went to greet them. “Them” turned out to be one man. One very noisy man.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

  “Slept okay, I guess,” the forty-something, burly man said. “That is, once the guy in the next room quit snoring.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry,” she said in a stage whisper. She didn’t tell him there hadn’t been anyone staying in the room next door to him last night. She had a feeling it was Grant’s snoring the guy had heard—in the room above. She hadn’t slept so hot herself. “Well, breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. Do you need help with your luggage, Mr. Larmont?”

  “Nah. I got it.” Larmont shouldered the screen door and dragged another suitcase across the threshold and through the door. Did people not have any concept of being careful of shiny wood floors and expensive doors? She was beginning to wonder.

  The woman, Becky, who’d checked in with Mr. Larmont—his wife, she assumed, though they’d adopted an “ask no questions” policy—trotted down the stairs.

  “Oh, hey,” Becky said when she spotted Audrey. “Did you see where Mike went?”

  Audrey pasted on her hostess smile. “He just took a bag out to the car.”

  The woman spit out a curse. “I told him I wasn’t finished with my bag.” Brushing past Audrey, she stood at the screen door and hollered across the lawn. “Mike! Bring my bag back in here right now!”

  Becky ran toward the car just as Grant came in from the back porch.

  He shot Audrey a questioning look as their irate guest swept past him. “I hope nobody was trying to sleep in this morn—”

  An ear-splitting crash sounded from the front yard.

  Grant and Audrey exchanged wide-eyed glances and raced each other to the front door.

  Audrey gasped. “Grant! That guy just backed over the fence!”

  Grant shot out the door and down the steps.

  A nauseous feeling settled in the pit of Audrey’s stomach. There went another thousand dollars. Or more. This place—her dream—was turning into a money pit. The thought had barely formed when she heard Grant’s frantic shouts—and then the sickening crunch of tires on wood.

  The fence had somehow lodged in the undercarriage of the car and yet the man kept gunning the engine, grinding fence, lawn, and car to a pulp with every rev of the engine.

  Grant bounded off the porch and ran around to the driver’s side. He yanked the car door open. “Are you okay?”

  Their guest hopped out like his seat was on fire. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a fence back there? Just look at my car!”

  “Just look at my fence,” Grant yelled back.

  “You ought to have a sign or something posted.”

  “And you ought to check your rearview mirror before you back up.”

  As if things couldn’t get worse, Huckleberry came dashing around the side of the house, muddy from the creek. Audrey knew that look in his eyes. He was going to defend his master against the evil stranger. “Huck!” she yelled.

  Too late. The Lab charged toward Mike, barking like he’d treed a squirrel.

  The man scrambled onto the hood of his car. “Call off your dog!”

  “Huck!” Grant took up the call and lunged for Huckleberry. He managed to get a grasp on his collar and calm him down. The man on top of the car hood was another matter.

  Their guest ranted for a full five minutes, alternately informing Grant that he had a lawyer friend they’d be hearing from—and blaming his wife for the fact that he didn’t see the six-foot tall, bright red fence on which he’d impaled his vehicle.

  To Grant’s credit, not one curse word left his mouth. But to Audrey’s chagrin, the civil words that did leave her husband’s mouth were delivered with such velocity they may as well have been curse words. Not that the rude guest didn’t deserve them, but this would not end well.

  “Lord, don’t let them kill each other,” Audrey whispered. “Please help Grant control his temper.”

  Ten minutes later, after exchanging insurance information, the man assured Grant he’d be hearing from an attorney. The man paid their bill under protest—and with a refund for the breakfast they didn’t eat—and, with his testy wife in tow, roared down the driveway.

  Audrey stood behind her husband, watching as the car disappeared down the drive in a whirlwind of dust. The chill November breeze whisked across the porch, sending leaves whirling as she followed Grant into the house.

  Red-faced and breathless, he paced the length of the kitchen. “This wouldn’t be a half bad business if it wasn’t for people like that.” He pointed out the window where the mangled fence rested. “Tell me, how could you miss a fence like that? Big as life and he backs right into it. And then blames the fence? The gall of some people—”

  “Grant. Just calm down.” She didn’t dare suggest Grant check his blood pressure right now, but if she were a betting woman . . .He was going to put himself in an early grave if he didn’t settle down. “It could have been worse.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Well, for one it could have been another guest he ran over.”

  “Too bad somebody didn’t run over him. The world would be a better place—”

  “Grant! You don’t mean that.” She put a hand on his arm, trying to stop his pacing. “Whatever happened to ‘the customer is always right’? I thought that was going to be our business motto.”

  “Like blazes it is.”

  “Besides, you know what they say: ‘When you’re right, you can afford to keep your temper; when you’re wrong, you can’t afford not to.’ ”

  “Well, I was right,” he huffed.

  “So you didn’t need to lose your temper.”

  “And what I can’t afford is a new fence,” he shot back.

  “Okay, okay . . . Please calm down. I suppose our insurance will cover it.”

  “Oh, they’ll cover it all right. Happily. And then they’ll happily raise our rates through the roof, which by
then will probably need repairing because some guest decided to go shingle-climbing.”

  Audrey couldn’t suppress the giggle that came at the image.

  But Grant didn’t seem to share her humor. “I doubt it would even pay to file a claim after figuring the deductible.” He picked up a soggy dishtowel and threw it back down again. “This place is going to nickel and dime us to death.”

  “It will be okay, babe.”

  Grant brushed her off, then lifted his head and sniffed. He looked around the room. “Do you smell that? Something’s burning.”

  “My casserole!” She reached the oven in two strides and opened the door. Thick smoke billowed out, and a second later the smoke alarm in the entryway began its high-pitched blare.

  Audrey held a hand over her mouth, coughing.

  “Shut the door!” Grant took her by the shoulders and moved her aside, slamming the oven door shut, then punching the controls.

  “Everything all right down here?” The bathrobed woman from the second floor suite—Ms. Jennings, if memory served—looked down at them from the staircase landing.

  Audrey pasted the smile back on and went to the bottom of the stairway. “So sorry. We had a little issue with the oven. Everything’s fine, but breakfast might be a little late this morning.”

  The woman didn’t reply but, apparently satisfied that everything was under control, padded back to her room.

  “Grant,” she hissed. “I have to get that casserole out of there. What am I going to serve for breakfast?”

  “Well, it’s not going to be that hunk of charcoal.”

  Teeth gritted, she scoured the fridge for the makings of a second breakfast. There were no guests scheduled for the next two nights so she hadn’t stocked up on groceries.

  She carried a carton of eggs to the counter while Grant gingerly set the blackened casserole dish in the deep apron sink on the island. Before she could stop him, he turned the water on.

  “Grant!”