Love in Deed: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 6)

by Smartypants Romance

  “I’d remember him if he came into the club.” She dismisses my jab as she often does. Her response drives the resentful knife deeper. My daughter isn’t blind. She recognizes a handsome man when she sees one, which he is.

  “Are you attracted to him?” The question eats at my soul. My stomach churns with concern and a twinge of emotions I hate to admit I hold against my child. When her eyes close, I recognize the look. It’s her give-me-patience-Lord look.

  “He’s nice looking for an older guy.”

  “He wasn’t that old,” I defend, curious why I’m suddenly defending him.

  “No, he wasn’t, Momma, but he isn’t my type.” She sighs, exasperated with me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? He is extremely good looking.” Now I’m really off my rocker, trying to argue my daughter into attraction with a man twice her age.

  “Oh, so you noticed?” She lifts a perfectly arched eyebrow at me, and my face heats.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap, swiping at invisible lint on my pants. Pants which are old, outdated, and a color I hate, but Hannah got them for me, and she works hard for us, for me.

  “It’s okay, you know.” Hannah’s voice softens. “You can look. You could even fall in love again.” Is her comment willful hope that she can stop taking care of me or wistful desperation for love to happen for her?

  My head jolts up at my daughter’s words, and I wave a dismissive hand. We both know that’s a lie stronger than a double shot of espresso. “That will never happen.” In hindsight, I’m not certain I’ve ever been in first love for there to be a second chance. Oh, I’d believed all kinds of things about Howard. He’d love me forever. He’d make it good for me. He’d take care of us. An iron skillet of reality upside the head had finally made me see the light and realize Howard’s true nature.

  He loved women—all kinds of women—just not the one labeled his wife.

  Howard was critical of the female body. Had some quirks and tics about positions. He couldn’t possibly have been stepping out. Yet he had been, plain as the weeds in my garden. There’d been rumors about him for years, but I hadn’t wanted to believe them. Scotia had tried to warn me while Naomi had pitied me. Both my sisters’ attitudes had upset me terribly.

  While I slaved on my man’s land, he’d been out playing the field, and like a pea being shucked, I’d snapped one night.

  Flipped a wig.

  Derailed.

  Pick your cliché for the madness that had consumed me as I drank myself silly…and then drove.

  I twaught I saw a pudty cat. That night, like a hunter on the prowl, I’d been determined to kick that pussy’s ass right after I strangled Howard. Only there was no confrontation; there’d been a collision.

  And my life had spiraled off course once again.

  “Get me to my room,” I bark at Hannah, frustrated by talk of love and the possibility of Jedd Flemming being attracted to my daughter. It isn’t her fault I’m in this position, but I take out my emotions on her. “And take a shower. You smell like smoke and cheap men.”

  Hannah shakes her head, tugging at my hands to help me stand and then supporting me to my room because the wheelchair’s stored there. I lean on her as I always do, and my chest pinches. She really is the best slice of my dysfunctional life, and I send up a silent prayer for forgiveness for treating her like she’s burnt crust.

  My room is the former dining room of our traditional farmhouse. Since the stairs are difficult for me, I’ve been reduced to this location between the living room and kitchen. Hannah thought it best I remain on a single level. With tight spaces for heating and cooling purposes, the house was a nightmare to maneuver in a wheelchair. We had too much furniture in most areas. Since the accident, the first floor looks more like a minimalist moved in. A detached garage is out back behind the house with the hay barn across the drive. From my room, I have a clear view of the old structure and the gravel drive leading up to it.

  Rehab Dad airs on the television in my room. The smaller set balances on an old nightstand. The burly man rehabbing homes isn’t as humorous as Tripper Hanes, but he’s clever in his own way. With a thick beard and a gruff Georgian accent, he’s good looking in a manner opposite Tripper. I like the rugged look, which makes me reconsider Jedd Flemming, withdrawing my attention from Rehab Dad Duncan to gaze at the barn.

  The building looks dilapidated and lists to one side like my body. Worn strips of red paint and a weathered gray roof give the appearance of abandonment. Bales of hay for feed used to fill that barn near to the top, a sign of prosperity and dedication. Now, it stands empty and worthless.

  Left behind.

  “Horses?” I mutter aloud. “What do I know about horses?” When I’d first moved here, a house that had been in the Townsen family for generations, I’d cared surprisingly little for weather conditions and growing anything from scratch. But I’d quickly learned to care under the tutelage of Howard’s father, Ewell.

  Ewell was a coarse man, crotchety and stern, but an excellent mentor. He was kind in an unusual manner, and I took comfort in his grouchy ways. He seemed to get me on some level. Perhaps our sarcasm drew us together. Perhaps he felt sorry for me and the way Howard had treated me. We didn’t discuss emotional things or my marriage, so I’ve never known why he took a liking to me. Through his teachings, I developed an understanding of the soil and raising chickens. When Hannah began to look into colleges, I discovered the study of agriculture was actually a degree. Soil science. Horticulture. Food production. Everyday labors were an actual course of study, and I could have graduated in something similar had I ever gone to university.

  “A woman’s place is in the home,” my mother had sermonized. “Making babies and bread as God intended.” Only Mother wasn’t quite so God-loving of her offspring when I’d created the baby before having the breadwinning husband.

  As a child, I’d blocked out my mother’s preaching on most days, which often lead to my getting in trouble. I was only one rung above my sister Naomi on Satan’s ladder down to hell. Naomi had done the unmentionable as well, and the timing coincided with a terrible family tragedy. Mother and Daddy couldn’t separate the two, and they considered Naomi a real-life Jezebel and thought God had cursed them for her sin. At least I’d dated Howard a time or two before I slept with him, if you call a diner meeting and a cup of coffee a date. The first night we were together, I got pregnant. That’s sex education 101—it only takes once.

  Howard married me because his father made him do it.

  “You’ll get nothing if you don’t claim that baby,” Ewell had warned his only child.

  “Horses,” I scoff again.

  Of course, I didn’t know anything about raising chickens back when I had them. Or children. Hannah had been a blessing, and I was grateful for her existence. Howard clearly hadn’t been. He hadn’t been attentive. Or loving. Or patient. Love is patient. Love is kind. Quick to criticize, he had a comment about everything I’d done or said or wore or cooked or cleaned or tried in the bedroom. I’d tried to please him, I really had, but in the end, I wasn’t enough.

  He wasn’t enough for you either, my abandoned heart whispers.

  Jedd continues to haunt my thoughts, as does my reaction to him. My heart pattered. My mouth dried. My hands grew clammy. He was so intense with those penetrating eyes and his sharp jaw, yet I was strangely curious about his salt-n-pepper stubble and full lips. How might they taste and feel against mine? That was when I knew I was in trouble because I hadn’t had the urge to kiss someone in over ten years, let alone a strange someone.

  Jedd saw my weakness, too. Could there be anything more embarrassing than falling on my ass? But it wasn’t just my physical difficulty he observed.

  I turn to face the old full-length oval mirror resting on solid oak feet. It’s an antique that once belonged to Howard’s mother, whom I never met. In the reflection, my hair is severely pulled back like an ancient schoolmarm, slightly greasy and grayed. M
y angular face is sallow and sordid in color. The once-called-exotic eyes staring back at me have lost all luster. My fingers retrace the path he made, brushing back my hair. The phantom touch remains. Then negative thoughts crash.

  He’d never want to kiss someone like me.

  “What do I care?” I snap, smoothing a hand over the loose skin under said eyes, drawing down the bags and noticing more wrinkles in the corners. Releasing my face, I quickly turn away from my reflection to stare out the window again at the decrepit building across the drive.

  I’m just like that faded structure. Right before everyone’s eyes yet no one notices me.

  I sigh.

  “It doesn’t take much to turn something old into something new again,” Rehab Dad states in the background. He’s fixing up a post-Civil War home in Georgia, and it’s turning out lovely, but my concentration drifts.

  Horses. Four-legged creatures roaming this land. Metaphorically, I’ve become a four-legged creature with gangly and angular movements like a newborn filly. What would it feel like to run again, the liberation of laughing in the sunshine with the wind blowing in my hair? Visions of chasing Hannah as a child flitter through my memory. The hay billowing in the breeze. The smell of earth and the pride of growth. The sense of accomplishment in keeping this farm afloat.

  Could something in Jedd’s proposition benefit us?

  The question has been niggling at me all afternoon.

  Could a bargain with him relieve Hannah?

  The thought saddens me. I hear the shower turn off on the upper level, and a lump forms in my throat. Why did I say what I said to her? She works hard, even if I don’t like her place of employment. My daughter’s been here too long, trapped just like me, and while I don’t want to suffer alone in my misery, she’s too young to continue beside me. At least one of us should be freed.

  I should tell Hannah about Jedd’s suggestion.

  “You never know the things you’ll find when you tear down an old wall,” Rehab Dad states, lifting his mallet to demo old plaster. “But the unknown never holds me back.”

  Hannah’s feet patter down the stairs, and the fear of losing her holds me hostage. I decide to keep silent about Jedd’s proposal, dismissing the possibility of change, and get lost in my second favorite home improvement program.

  Chapter Four

  [Jedd]

  The Pink Pony is just what one would expect in a strip club: dark corners, a haze of smoke, and bright highlighter-pink lights over a dim stage, plus ladies disrobing. A carousel pony on a pole takes center stage. It’s the day after my failed attempt to bargain with Beverly Townsen, and I’m here to see Hank Weller, not the naked girls. I’ve had my share of buckle bunnies over the years—groupie sorts for rodeos—but quickly burned out on the disconnect with women only wanting one thing with a cowboy warrior.

  As I sit at the bar, vaguely recognizing the song with an 80s beat, I can see the legs of a girl in the reflection of the mirror mostly crowded with liquor bottles opposite me. I lower my eyes. I don’t need to see something I shouldn’t see. These girls are young enough to be my offspring.

  “What’s up, man?” Hank’s cheerful greeting breaks into my thoughts. At nearly thirty, he has a twinkle in his eye along with a sly smile.

  “Hey.” A week ago, I came to this club to inquire after my missing brother, my reason for returning to Green Valley after a twenty-year hiatus. Boone is…different. When he’d stopped answering my calls, I’d worried, but not overly. When my sister had called me, the panic in her voice told me it was time to return. Vernon knew Boone frequented the Pony, and he recommended I come here for information. Tonight, I have other questions.

  “What do you know about Beverly Townsen?” I question, my curiosity getting the best of me.

  “I know her daughter works for me, so she’s off-limits.” His warning is clear, but that isn’t what registers. Her daughter works here? No wonder her momma was nasty about the stripping industry. I hold nothing against stripping, but I can see how a mother might not want it as her daughter’s chosen profession.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I ask.

  “You weren’t asking.” Hank isn’t wrong. When I’d first come to the Pink Pony at Vernon’s suggestion, we discussed my missing brother. It wasn’t up to Hank to hand over a list of the girls he employed.

  “Crap.” I really got off on the wrong foot with Beverly, and that idiom makes me think of her feet. She collapsed before me. Her daughter mentioned crutches. “Did she recently hurt herself? Beverly, I mean, not the girl.” Hannah was her name, right?

  “You sweet on Mrs. Townsen?” Hank teases. The nomenclature is a reminder that Beverly is married, or was, to one of my nemeses.

  “If I was, I wouldn’t be sharing that information with you before mentioning it to her, but I’m curious about the Townsen land.”

  Hank’s brows rise. “I don’t pass out information for free.” He nods at my glass, which is almost empty. He gave me a freebie the other night when I mentioned my time in the service. A beer on the house for my dedication to our country. Tonight, he’s not so generous with either the alcohol or the information.

  “She’s about your age, isn’t she?” Hank hints. Uncertain of the insinuation, I’m quickly learning he’s a business shark, but does that mean he’s a matchmaker as well? I doubt it, even if parading barely-clad woman constitutes his income.

  “Her land?” I question again, tipping a brow at my only interest in Beverly.

  “It’s not for sale,” he states, crossing his arms as if defending his answer or the Townsens. His expression turns serious as his eyes focus behind me. “I’ve been trying to help them for years.”

  His eyes soften a bit, and I wonder about the story behind him hiring Hannah. Without forking over more money than I care to spend on liquor, I don’t think I’ll get any details.

  “I’ll give you fair warning, new friend. Beverly is one tough woman. She had to be with old Howard, and her daughter’s even tougher.” Hank’s eyes leap up to the stage again, and I stiffen, nervous Hannah might be the next act. Her naked body is not something I want to observe. “If you’re just looking for land, I could recommend a few other places.”

  “I want that property,” I interject, my indoor voice probably louder than it needs to be. Between the ringing in one ear and the thumping bass in the other, I’ve spoken with a passion I haven’t felt since before viewing the property. It’s been too long, my heart sings.

  “Hmm.” He shakes his head as if he’s all-knowing, and he might be as he is familiar with my brother. Changing the subject, he brings up my younger sibling. “Anything on Boone?”

  I’m sensing this establishment’s owner might have looked out for him a time or two. I shake my head. Nothing’s turning up on him, and nothing’s making sense about his disappearance. Where are you?

  “If you have a mystery, I’d suggest an introduction to Cletus Winston. He knows everything about everyone in this town. Perhaps he knows something.”

  “Cletus Winston? Don’t know the name.”

  Hank eyes me suspiciously. “Winston? His mother was an Oliver. You said you were from around here.”

  Oliver? “Bethany Oliver?”

  Hank slowly smiles as recognition dawns. “She married Darrell Winston, an Iron Wraith.” A what? The name sounds like a motorcycle gang.

  “Cletus is her third son.” There’s pride in Hank’s speaking of this man, and I assume they are friends.

  “I’ll look him up,” I mention, although I don’t know that I will.

  “He’s easy enough to find. He owns Winston Brothers Auto Shop.”

  I nod in gratitude for the information, and then we fall silent for a moment as Hank watches the goings-on behind me. I refuse to lift my head, suddenly worried I’ll see something of Hannah Townsen I shouldn’t. A naked peek of her slender body is only going to remind me of her mother when she was younger, and I don’t need the reminder.

  I’m here for
the land, not the lady.

  Still, my thoughts keep returning to Beverly. The way she looked at me was a toss-up between wanting to scoop out my innards and lick up my sternum. Either way, the image of her hands on me has been doing things to me for the past twenty-four hours.

  “Whatever you want to know about Beverly, you could always just ask Hannah. Although I don’t think she’ll be so forthcoming in passing out particulars about her momma, either.” Another clear warning. “She’s protective of her.”

  The statement rings with pity and sympathy, both of which I surmise tough Beverly Townsen would hate. I called her Bee as I was leaving because the name is fitting. Her tongue stings like the pesky pollinator. Wonder what else it could do?

  The thumping bass behind me abruptly ends, and a hesitant, sporadic clap applauds the performance. Hank’s brows scowl as he stands to his full height. He nods at something, or more likely someone, and I take another sip of my beer. A nice cold one in a chilled glass is a luxury I never take for granted. I rap my knuckles on the bar for Hank’s attention.

  “Let me close out.”

  “You got it,” Hank says, but he doesn’t move from his position. I lay a twenty on the bar top and spin on the stool when my knees nearly collide with long legs in a short pink kimono. My gaze drags up the bare skin, over the silky hem, and collides with familiar eyes.

  “Hannah?”

  “Hey. Mr. Flemming, right? Is there some place we can talk?” Her hand comes to my shoulders as she leans toward my right ear. Instantly, I glance at Hank who straightens even taller behind the bar. A dark expression covers his otherwise friendly face.

  “I’m not interested,” I say to Hank, while addressing Hannah. This has all kinds of trouble written on it, and I don’t need what this girl is offering. Raising my right hand to remove hers from my shoulder, I’m a little surprised she’s touched me as Hank has a strict no-touching on the premises policy.