Hometown Hope

by Laurel Blount

  Probably not the best idea to go into any of that with Anna right now.

  “My point is there’s plenty you can do to bring in some more business, even without a lot of money to invest. Maybe you’ll have to get a little more creative, but if you do some cross-promotions with other local business owners—”

  Anna shook her head. “Look, Hoyt, I appreciate the offer, and I understand that you want to do whatever it takes to keep Jess talking. I do. But making the decision to close my father’s bookstore wasn’t something I did lightly. There’s nothing that can be done at this point.”

  His frustration level bobbed upward. She wasn’t listening to him, and he thought he knew why. “Nothing that can be done? Or nothing I can do?”

  Anna sighed. “It’s the same thing, Hoyt. Although, believe me, I do appreciate the fact that you, of all people, are trying to save a bookstore.”

  You. Of all people.

  Something about that wry remark hit him a little too hard, and before he thought better of it, he hit back.

  “Maybe I’m not much on books, Anna, but I’m turning down construction jobs right now. Trish Saunders didn’t go to college, either, but that flower shop she started on a shoestring seems to be doing all right, too. Believe it or not, out here in the real world people learn some pretty useful things outside of a classroom. If you’d ever pulled your nose out of a book long enough, you might have figured that out already.”

  Anna’s cheeks had turned fire-engine red. She stood. “I think we’re done here.”

  Reading faces was another survival skill Hoyt had learned from dealing with his dad, so he knew there wasn’t much point in trying to smooth things over. But he was desperate, so he took a shot anyway, as she turned and headed for the door.

  “Anna, I’m sorry. Please wait.”

  For a second she hesitated, just long enough to get his hopes up. But then she squared her shoulders and went out the door.

  * * *

  Later, after putting Jess to bed, Hoyt sat on his back deck, listening to the chirring of the frogs down by the pond. He’d had more than his share of sleepless nights during the last few years, and he could tell he was gearing up for another one.

  After all his careful planning, he’d blown things with Anna because he hadn’t been able to keep a lid on his temper.

  Delaney hadn’t meant anything by that little jab. She’d just been cracking wise with him, the way they always did. It wasn’t her fault she’d hit him on a sore spot. He shouldn’t have overreacted.

  His restless mind dredged up an uncomfortable memory. One afternoon in the heat of a pickup basketball game, a classmate had elbowed him in the ribs. Nothing new about that, but this time the blow just happened to land right where his father had slammed him the night before, when Hoyt had wedged himself in front of his cowering mother. Agony had exploded, and without even thinking about it, Hoyt had rammed the backside of his forearm into the other player’s nose.

  It had been nothing but a reflex on Hoyt’s part, but the guy’s nose bled all over the gym floor just the same as if Hoyt had set out to break it.

  The incident had taught him a lesson. You couldn’t allow your pain to splash over onto other people. It wasn’t right.

  He should have let Anna’s little dig pass.

  His cell phone buzzed, vibrating itself across the wooden table beside his rocking chair. He snatched it up and read the name on the screen. Dr. Amanda Mills. It was the call he’d been waiting for.

  “Dr. Mills, thanks for getting back to me. I’m really sorry to bug you. I know you’re busy taking care of your mom. How’s she doing?”

  “The doctors are still running tests. We don’t know much yet, except that she’s had a massive stroke. And you can call me about Jess anytime, Hoyt. You know that.” He did. The gray-haired pediatric therapist had been an answer to prayer.

  He didn’t want to waste her time, so he jumped right to the purpose of his call. “Jess is still talking only to me.” He’d quizzed Bailey when she and Jess had returned from their pizza date, but no dice. According to Bailey, Jess had seemed content, and she’d eaten her weight in pizza, but she hadn’t said a word. “What do you think that means?”

  “Maybe nothing. Jess has always been on her own timetable. Most children with selective mutism start talking again in a matter of months, but Jess held out on us for years. This may run the same way. When she’s good and ready, she’ll talk to somebody else, and her social interactions will expand from there.”

  “Or?”

  Dr. Mills sighed. “Or only talking to you could be her new normal. That’s unlikely, but like I said, Jess is an unusual case.”

  Hoyt braced himself. “Any possibility she’ll go back to not talking at all?”

  “Hoyt—”

  “Bottom line, Doc.”

  Dr. Mills hesitated for a second, but she’d always been honest with him. “Yes. There’s always a possibility—a small possibility—of regression in cases like this.”

  “And if something happened that reminded her of how she felt back when her mom died, then that could up the chances of her going radio silent again? Couldn’t it?”

  Another heavy sigh. “Hoyt, I realize I’ve told you this before, but please try to hear me this time. Jess’s problems are not your fault.”

  Yeah, right. “I broke a promise to her, and she stopped talking.”

  “It was a promise you couldn’t possibly keep, involving a situation you couldn’t control. You’ve said yourself nobody knew how serious your wife’s illness was at first. Of course you promised Jess she’d get better. Any father would have promised a worried two-year-old the same thing. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

  Easier said than done. “Thanks, Dr. Mills. I appreciate your time.”

  “You’re always welcome. For now, just keep doing what you’ve been doing, and we’ll see what happens. I’m working Jess into my schedule the minute I get back home to Georgia. I’m confident we’ll see even more amazing progress by that point.”

  “Me, too.” Hoyt wasn’t blowing smoke. He was confident.

  He was going to do whatever it took to make sure Jess kept talking. First off, he needed to figure out how to get back on Anna’s good side because he needed her on Jess’s team. He’d probably better make a fresh pot of coffee and get started on that.

  After tonight, winning Anna over wasn’t going to be easy.

  Chapter Three

  Two days later Anna massaged her temples while the voice on the other end of the phone told her that her newest plan wasn’t going to work any better than the old ones. “Are you sure there’s no way for me to reapply for the grant I had before?” She listened as the university financial aid officer explained again that because she only lacked a year to finish her PhD, she was ineligible for the grant.

  She’d heard him the first time, but she’d been hoping there might be some sort of loophole. Apparently there wasn’t.

  “I was a Presidential Scholar, and I only left school midsemester because my father’s Alzheimer’s got so bad... Yes, I know it looks like I failed those classes, but that’s not true. I’ve got a call in to the dean of students’ office to see if we can get that straightened out.” The bell on the bookstore door jingled, and she glanced up. Hoyt came in, leading Jess by the hand. He had his go-big-or-go-home expression on his face.

  Oh, boy. Not good. And absolutely the last thing she needed right now.

  She held up a warning finger, and he nodded. Jess made a beeline for the children’s section, but Hoyt leaned his muscled bulk against a wall and crossed his arms in front of his chest, apparently prepared to wait until she got off the phone.

  Anna shifted her position so the Bradleys were out of her line of vision and did her best to refocus her attention on her conversation.

  “Is there any other kind of financial aid avai
lable? Well, may I at least come and talk to you in person? This is really important to me. I need to finish my degree. I see.” She sneaked another glance at Hoyt. He was still standing in the same place, and he wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop on her conversation. “Well, I’ll have to find another way, I suppose. Thank you for your time.” She ended the call.

  “You’re going back to college?” Hoyt shot a cautious look in Jess’s direction. She’d pulled out three storybooks and had settled herself cross-legged on the floor to examine them. She was paying her father and Anna absolutely no attention, but Hoyt kept his voice down. “What about the store?”

  “The store’s closing, Hoyt. I have to make other plans.” If she could find any that would actually work, that is.

  “You know, I never took you for a quitter, Delaney.”

  Anna froze, her coffee mug halfway to her mouth. “I’m not a quitter.”

  “Well, closing your dad’s bookstore when you’ve got a solid possibility of saving it sure sounds a lot like quitting to me.” He waited a beat or two, watching her. “Anna, we need to talk about what happened at my house.”

  She’d spent two sleepless nights having imaginary conversations with this man on that very subject, and she’d been brilliant in every one of them. Of course, now that he was standing in front of her, every razor-sharp gibe she’d come up with had gone slap out of her mind.

  “Now’s not a good time.” She shuffled some random papers around. “I’m really busy.”

  “Yeah. I can see that.” Hoyt surveyed the store with one lifted eyebrow. The three of them were its only occupants.

  When he glanced back in her direction, his hazel eyes still glimmered with his trademark teasing amusement, but something new was in his expression, as well.

  Pity.

  Anna’s cheeks flushed. Hoyt Bradley, the guy his senior class had affectionately voted “most likely to flunk study hall,” felt sorry for her.

  Her life just kept getting better and better.

  “Anna, I owe you an apology. What I said the other night—” he halted, looking uncertain “—I shouldn’t have said it,” he finished finally. He closed the gap between them and held out his hand. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  I shouldn’t have said it. Not, it isn’t true.

  Not knowing what else to do, she took his offered hand. His fingers were warm, and his hand was calloused and rough. Most of the men she knew had much softer hands.

  This, though, was a working man’s hand. A hand that built strong, lasting things.

  A hand she should already have let go of. Hoyt was looking at her funny.

  She released it quickly and clasped her own hands behind her back, out of the danger zone. Was she ever going to stop embarrassing herself around this guy?

  “Don’t worry about that. It’s fine.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded brittle.

  “No, it isn’t.” Hoyt dropped his big frame onto the spindly antique chair she’d picked up at an estate sale. “I’m sorry I shot off my mouth like that. I know we’ve got our differences, but back in the day we were friends, me and you.” He’d used the incorrect grammar on purpose, to tease her. She saw him waiting for her to make the correction. When she didn’t, he sighed and leaned forward, causing the overburdened chair to squeak a protest. “At least we were, until that whole cheating thing came up. You sure didn’t have much use for me after that.”

  He paused as if waiting for her to argue, but she didn’t. She only said, “I still don’t understand why you did...what you did.”

  “No. I’m sure you don’t.” He sounded genuinely regretful, but he didn’t elaborate. “But I’m hoping maybe you could see your way to letting bygones be bygones. No offense, but you’re kind of going for a gold medal in grudge-holding, Delaney. I’d like to mend our fences, especially since I’ve got a good bit of skin in this particular game.” His eyes strayed over to Jess, who was hunched over the book in her lap. “Besides, this could turn out all right for you, too. I know you care about this store, because I know you cared about your dad. You wouldn’t have come home and spent years looking after him, otherwise. And I really do believe I can help you figure out how to stay open. I know you think you’re too smart to learn anything from somebody like me—”

  Anna flinched. He made her sound like some sort of conceited snot. Was that really how she came across? “That’s not true! I don’t think any such thing!”

  He held her gaze for a minute. She must have passed whatever test he was giving, because he nodded shortly and got to his feet. “Okay. Maybe I misunderstood. In that case, close up the store for the afternoon and come with Jess and me. I want to show you something.”

  “What?” Anna stood up, too, but only because he was less intimidating that way. A little less. Hoyt Bradley was built like a brick wall.

  “Come with me and find out.” The mischievous gleam in his eyes had Anna shaking her head before he even finished the sentence. That look was nothing but trouble. The last time she’d seen it, she’d found a half-dissected frog in her backpack.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Scared?”

  “Of you?” Definitely. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Prove it.”

  He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. The ridiculous man was daring her. Anna opened her mouth to say she didn’t have to prove anything to him, and, besides, she had work to do. After all, this store wasn’t going to close itself.

  “All right,” she heard herself saying instead. “You’re on.”

  * * *

  “This? This is your big idea? What’s wrong with you, Hoyt? Are you nuts? There’s no way I’m getting in that thing.”

  Anna had a death grip on the door handle of his truck, and her green eyes were wide. Hoyt coughed. It was either that or laugh, and at this point he figured a laugh would get him swatted.

  “That thing is a Cessna 172, and it’s a perfectly safe single-engine plane,” he stated in his most reasonable tone. “And I’m a legally licensed pilot.”

  Anna’s eyes opened even wider, and she shook her head so hard that her spirally curls swung wildly around the cab. “You seriously expect me to go up in that tin-can contraption with you flying it?”

  Okay, that stung. He’d worked hard for his license, and he was proud of it. In fact, one of the reasons he’d come up with this idea was to show Anna that he wasn’t the blockhead she remembered from their high school days. “I take Jess up all the time. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” From the back seat of his truck, Jess nodded enthusiastically. She loved flying. “You don’t think I’d do that if I believed it was dangerous, do you?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean that like it sounded.” Anna was looking at the plane through the window, with narrowed eyes. “At least—not entirely. It’s just that I don’t fly. Ever. Not even on nice big jets with nice big professional pilots in charge. I just don’t.”

  Well, all right. That might be a problem.

  A loud bang on the side of the truck made them both jump. Hoyt glanced over to see his friend Everett standing beside the pickup, grinning. Hoyt rolled down the window reluctantly.

  “What’s the matter, Bradley? Can’t get the little lady out of the truck?” The older man craned his head around Hoyt to look at Anna. “I don’t blame you a bit, honey. You stay right there.” He winked. “I sure would if I was you.”

  “Not funny, Everett,” Hoyt muttered under his breath. Then aloud, he said, “Anna, this is Everett Darden. That plane over there belongs to him.”

  “Oh!” Anna nodded, and the color came back to her cheeks in a rush. “He’s the pilot. All that stuff about you flying planes, that was just a joke, right?”

  “Oh, Bradley can fly planes all right.” Everett’s face was solemn, but his eyes were twinkling. “Teaching him to do that was no trouble at all. Teaching him to land �
��em, now. That was more problematic. It’s how I got most of these gray hairs.” He tugged on a lock of the sparse hair that glinted silver in the sunlight.

  Anna’s mouth dropped open, and Hoyt blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Everett, could you rein it in a little? The lady’s never flown before.”

  “Oh.” Belated understanding dawned on the older man’s face. “I was just joshing, ma’am. I taught this fellow to fly myself, and I’d never have cleared him if he wasn’t safe. You won’t come to no harm up there with Hoyt. You have my word on it. Now see that plane coming in right now? That’s another one of my students. This is his first solo.”

  Anna focused her attention on the red-and-white Beechcraft Bonanza coming in for a landing, and Hoyt smothered a groan. Just what Anna needed to see right now. An amateur landing a plane by himself for the very first time.

  He said a quick prayer for the newbie pilot. Let him ace this, God. I’ve got a lot on the line down here.

  Hoyt held his breath as the plane’s wings wobbled a little, then steadied. The wheels bumped down gently, and Everett whooped and banged on the side of the truck again.

  “Looka there! Perfect landing—or nearabouts, anyway!”

  As Everett headed off to congratulate his student, Hoyt studied Anna’s face. She was pale, and there was a muscle jumping in her cheek. This whole flying idea was really freaking her out. Maybe he’d better scratch this plan and come up with something else.

  “We don’t have to do this. I can take you home, and—”

  “Can’t we take Miss Anna flying, Daddy?” Hoyt glanced in the rearview to see Jess leaning forward against her seat belt, her face pleading. As he watched, his daughter’s gaze shifted briefly from him to Anna. “Please?”

  His heart locked in place. Was that please directed at Anna? Was Jess actually speaking to her?

  He wasn’t sure, but if so...

  If so, that was a really big deal.