Chapter Two
Matt bounced down the road to the Chisolm’s farm in his pristine black ‘90 Chevy SS 454 pickup. His hand stroked the steering wheel as he dodged the worst of the potholes.
He could afford a brand new, top of the line truck or SUV for what it cost to keep his baby maintained in showroom condition. But he didn’t want a newer truck. In fact, he’d done a nationwide search to find this exact make, model, and year, until he’d finally found a low-mileage vehicle from Georgia where it had been spared winter road salt. The local dealer had fixed it up so that it was like new, and regular washing, waxing, and engine services kept it that way.
This was the model his teenaged heart had lusted after, with the dealer added red and purple pinstripes. It had gleamed with latent power on the showroom floor, and he’d dreamed of thundering up and down the streets of Hargrove behind the wheel. It had been the symbol of everything unobtainable. And now it was his.
Spotting the Chisolm’s number on a mailbox, he turned into the driveway that led up to their farm. Dirt and grass flecked with pink and white wildflowers bordered the long drive winding up to the white clapboard farmhouse and red barn.
He mentally calculated how many cars could be parked in the space. Twenty, easily. Thirty if they doubled up on the left. And there’d probably be more land that could be used for parking further up. Since the profit of a corn maze was directly related to the number of people that could be run through it, the more space for parking, the better.
He pulled up outside the house, pausing to admire the brilliant red and yellow mounds of daisy-like flowers leading up to the porch steps, and the hanging baskets that spilled cascades of tiny red flowers the length of the porch. Those cheerful, welcoming touches hadn’t been here when he’d come to pay his respects after Brian Chisolm’s death two years ago. He automatically catalogued the changes, noting the house’s increased curb appeal and revising his estimate of the property’s worth.
Neatly laid out gardens hugged the house on both sides, obviously well tended. He recalled seeing simple lines of the usual flowers, like daisies, day lilies and mums, on his last visit. The garden plots had doubled if not tripled in size, and now contained a profusion of plants that he didn’t recognize, mounded and clumped in a style that was somehow both wild and neatly ordered.
The flowers had obviously been added by Ms. Chisolm’s sister, Ally Nichols. According to the Hargrove gossips, the sister was also responsible for converting Brian’s general organic farm into a prosperous specialty farm for organic popcorn, as well as for various more or less likely nefarious plots against her sister.
Popular sentiment had at first respected her for coming to take care of her family, but had shifted to resentment when an outsider, and a woman at that, had made more of a success of the farm than a local boy. That’s when the various rumors of Ally’s underhanded mistreatment of her sister had begun.
He wondered if this offer to help raise money for the school district was a way to try and win back public approval. If so, it might easily backfire, underscoring that she could afford to give up one of her crop fields when that would have spelled disaster for other farmers.
There was only one way to find out. He stepped out of the truck and strode up to the door.
He rang the bell, smiling at the old-fashioned buzzer. Ally had apparently confined her improvements to the grounds. A moment later, the door was pulled open by Susan Chisolm.
“Hello, Mr. Cantrell. Ally’s waiting for you in the living room.” A hint of a smile crossed her face. “Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“No, thank you. I’m here to discuss the corn maze, so we’ll be going right out into the fields.”
She nodded, then turned and led him into the house. Matt closed the front door, which she seemed to have forgotten about, and followed her down the hallway.
“Ally, Mr. Cantrell is here for you,” Susan called through an open doorway.
Her sister appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Mr. Cantrell. Thank you for your help and advice on this project.”
She held out her hand, and he reached out to shake it automatically, his gaze flicking rapidly between the two sisters. He’d only met Ally once before, at her brother-in-law’s wake. He’d seen her around town since then, but always at a distance, since she’d kept herself on the farm unless she was buying supplies or attending a meeting for her niece’s school. From a distance, Ally resembled her sister. But now that he compared them up close, the differences far outweighed the similarities.
Both sisters wore their hair long and straight, but Ally’s thick strawberry blonde fall stopped in the middle of her back, while Susan’s finer champagne blonde tresses came down to her waist. Susan’s skin was a pale porcelain, while Ally sported a dusting of golden freckles across her nose and cheeks, highlighting her tan. They even dressed differently, with Susan wearing sandals and a long, simple dress covered in tiny flowers, and Ally clothed in jeans, work boots, and a blue and green striped T-shirt. And while Susan was thin, Ally was lean, the well-defined arm muscles revealed by her T-shirt making him wonder about the strength in the rest of her muscles.
Her chaff-dusted jeans clung to her hips and thighs as if they’d been molded around her. Matt swallowed, his throat dry, at the image of those muscled thighs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deep into her. He forced his gaze up to her face, hoping his thoughts didn’t show in his expression.
That’s when he discovered the most important difference between the sisters. Susan’s China blue eyes held a dreamy, unfocused look, as if she might drift away at any moment. Ally’s cornflower blue eyes shone with intelligence, and the hallway fairly vibrated with the force of her presence.
“You can let go of my hand, now.” She grinned, teasing him rather than accusing.
His fingers tightened around hers. “Not until you call me Matt. We agreed, remember?”
“Thank you, Matt. Can I have my hand back now?”
Reluctantly, he released her hand.
“I’ve drawn out the field we’ll be using. I thought that would help with your designs.” Without waiting for his comment, she turned and headed for the dining room table where he could see a paper lying on top of the gleaming dark wood.
Beside him, Susan said softly, “I’ll leave you two alone, now.”
She disappeared down the hallway as quietly as a ghost. Shaking his head, he went into the living room and joined Ally at the table.
She’d drawn out the field on graph paper, neatly noting the scale of one square per two yards in the corner. Not only had she included the outline of the field, she’d sketched in the rows of corn.
His eye was drawn to a single square opening in the center of the field, and he tapped it with his finger. “What’s this?”
She kept her gaze riveted to the paper. “Scarecrow.”
“A lot of space for a scarecrow, but it’ll be perfect for the maze. Block off all the entrances except two, and use it as the goal. Put out a bench or two for folks to take a rest before trying to find their way back out of the maze.”
He nodded to himself, already transforming the neat lines of the field into the convoluted pathways of a maze.
The field was slightly longer than it was wide, eighty yards by just over sixty. Barely an acre, it was smaller than most cornfields, but well sized for a corn maze.
“This looks perfect. I’d like to see the actual field now.”
Ally looked up at him, her blue eyes wide. “I thought you’d be able to get everything you needed from the chart.”
“It’s very helpful. But I still need to walk the field.” When she hesitated, chewing her lower lip in indecision, he asked, “Is there some reason you don’t want me walking in the field?”
“The Japanese white hybrid popcorn is very delicate.”
“I promise not to touch the corn. Okay?”
She sighed, but stepped away from the table. “Okay.”
They p
assed through the kitchen, where Susan was wreathed by steam as she canned pints of tiny, fall red raspberries. The smells of warm fruit and wax filled the room, familiar from his childhood.
Passing out the back door, they wound through an extensive herb garden, followed by a neat and orderly vegetable garden. As Ally led the way to the cornfield, she glanced over her shoulder toward the house.
“She’s getting better.”
Matt automatically looked back toward the house as well, but could see nothing except the screen door bouncing against the jamb. “Your sister?”
Ally nodded. “Did you know her before Brian’s death?”
“No, not really. I saw the two of them around town occasionally, but that was it.”
“I took care of her when we were younger. She always needed looking after. I thought she would have outgrown that when she had a child to care for. But now I’m not sure.”
Matt was thrown for a loss by the strange turn in their conversation. He’d come out here to look at their cornfield. Why was Ally confiding the details of her sister’s life to him?
A horrible thought occurred to him. Had she decided Susan needed a husband to look after her, and settled upon him as a likely candidate? If she’d asked anyone about him, they’d have told her that he was seeing Cecelia, and had been for years. Ever since his early business success had given him a need for a protective shield against matchmaking mothers eager to set up their daughters with an attractive meal ticket. He might be able to countenance marriage to an independent career woman like Cecelia, who could give him the wife and children he wanted without taking him away from his business. But there was no way he’d be interested in a high-maintenance woman like Susan Chisolm.
Ally blew out her breath in a heavy gust. “At first, I put it down to grief over Brian’s death. But it’s been nearly two years. Maybe this is how she was before he died, unable to make any decisions or form any long-term plans. It’s not like she’s crying all the time, or not eating, or something like that.”
“You think she might be depressed?” For someone who spent most of his life talking to people, he was having a difficult time following her conversation.
“I looked up the symptoms. She doesn’t have any eating disorders. She sleeps a regular eight hours every night. She laughs and plays with Cindy. But then she’s also unable to make plans, shows no interest in the future, and is easily overwhelmed by ordinary events.”
Matt tugged at his uncomfortably tight shirt collar. “I’m just a real estate salesman and developer. This is completely outside my realm of expertise.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. Forget I said anything.”
Her competent and capable demeanor cracked ever so slightly, as she hunched her shoulders and stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans. She looked like she was bracing for an icy winter wind, even though the late summer breezes were listless puffs of warm air.
He ran forward to catch up to her, then fell into step beside her. Echoing her body language, he slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“I don’t know if this helps, but Marlene down at the bank, the woman who does mortgage loans, said Susan didn’t say a word during any of their loan discussions, just signed the paperwork when Brian told her to.”
Ally’s shoulders relaxed, but she still didn’t look at him. “Thanks. It does.”
They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Normally, Matt was adept at casual conversation, talking about inconsequentials like sports scores and events around town, to put people at their ease. But with Ally, he sensed that he didn’t have to say anything. For whatever reason, she’d already bared her soul. To ask whether she planned to attend the Harvest Festival parade, or any other empty conversation, would be insulting. Not only that, but for the first time, he wasn’t sure how someone would respond to his chatter. What if she revealed some other family secret in response to his innocuous questions?
The vegetable garden ended where it met the driveway curving around the house toward the barn. A dust-covered blue Ram pickup and an older model Geo in an unnatural shade of green shared the wide swath of crushed stone.
Ally followed the direction of his gaze. “I should probably sell my car, since I’m always driving Susan’s truck. It’s more practical. But I figure I’ll need my own car, later.”
Matt just nodded, not wanting to open that can of worms again. He pointed at the cornfield on the other side of the driveway.
“Is that the one?”
“Yeah. So, what do you think?”
Carefully keeping his hands in his pockets, he entered the rows. The hybrid popcorn stalks were shorter than regular corn, but were still taller than his eye level. Even standing on his toes, he couldn’t see more than the tips of the stalks one row over. And at 6’2”, he was taller than most men. It would be an adequate height.
Next, he turned his attention to the thickness of the row. Like regular corn, the plentiful leaves of the stalks overlapped, making an impenetrable forest of green.
“Can people push between the stalks?” he asked. He would’ve tested the barrier himself, but he’d promised Ally he wouldn’t touch her delicate crop.
“The leaves are as sharp as regular corn. Anyone who tries will get sliced up pretty badly.”
“They might cut through one row, then, if they’re desperate, but won’t cheat the entire maze. Good.”
Finally, he glanced down at the base of the stalks, to judge how secure they were. Tiny flower petals, still golden orange in spots but mostly brown, dusted the ground beneath the popcorn. Dropping to one knee, he reached out for one of the petals.
“Don’t do that.” Ally grabbed his arm, preventing him from touching them.
He glanced up at her, surprised to find her lips tight and her face pale. Was she frightened that he was going to damage her precious corn?
“I wasn’t going to touch the corn. I just wanted to see what kind of flowers these were, and what they were doing in a cornfield.”
“Chrysanthemums.”
He felt his eyebrows rising. “You put them here?”
“It’s part of the organic farming. You’ve heard of companion plantings?”
“Yeah. That’s where you plant a flower or second crop with your primary crop to help it grow, or keep harmful bugs away, or attract helpful bugs.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips softened briefly into a smile before tightening again. “Well, that’s what they are.”
“I thought companion plants were supposed to be live plants, growing side by side with the main crop.”
She shrugged. “They were. Now they’re not, but the petals are still useful.”
Matt shook his head. He didn’t think that was how it was supposed to work, but she was the one with the degree in botany. And he couldn’t argue with her results.
He pulled himself upright, then bent to brush off the knee of his slacks.
“Whatever. It won’t matter for the maze.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. Matt hid a grin. She was not cut out for the life of a professional poker player, that’s for sure. His active imagination provided a picture of him teaching her the game of strip poker, which brought his thoughts back to her sleekly muscled body.
He started to get hard at the mental image, which was rapidly morphing into a scene of her in a skimpy bikini, lathering his truck. Wet and nearly naked, with strategic bits of foam clinging to the tips of her breasts.
Matt strode forward down the row, eager to put some distance between himself and the unsettling moment. He was a professional adult, for God’s sake, not some randy teenager at the mercy of his hormones. Desperate for a distraction, he started talking.
“This is good, flat land. No hills or rises… I mean, no high spots… People won’t see something they’re not supposed to… Oh, hell.”
He turned to face her. Ally was standing with one hand on her hip, her head tipped and h
er forehead creased.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Just talking to myself. Nothing important. Let’s get out of this row, and go down the one in the middle. I want to take a look at the opening in the center of the field.”
His gaze dipped to her snug jeans that cupped her opening, making him long to plow a furrow of his own. He forced his focus back up to her face, fisting his hands inside his pockets to stretch out the front of his slacks and prevent any embarrassing bulges. His physical reactions had never been so out of control, not since he’d made it through puberty. She must’ve shaken him more than he’d realized when she’d confided the secret of her sister’s suspected depression.
She hesitated a moment, then turned and led him back the way they’d come, the stalks of corn swaying gently in the breeze of her passing. Matt breathed deeply, the scent of the corn grounding him in memories of the backbreaking work he’d done during his teenaged years. His arousal faded.
They walked up the side of the field, until they reached a row marked with a small pile of glossy stones, in various shades of green from a pale white-green to a deep emerald. A similar pile marked the next row over.
“This is the center aisle.”
He knelt again, picking up one of the unique stones. It was a smooth and polished oval as long as his thumb, half as wide, and about a quarter inch thick. The stone was warm to the touch, having been sitting out in the summer sun. He cupped his hand, instinctively holding it as if he planned on skipping it across a stream.
Ally’s eyes widened. “Put that back!”
Matt dropped the rock onto the pile. “Sorry.”
“Just, don’t touch anything else, okay?” She fell to her knees on the ground beside him, and carefully rebuilt the pile of rocks according to some structure only she could see. Her hair fell down to hide her face behind a red-gold curtain, releasing a scent of honey and strawberries that made him want to gather handfuls of her hair in his fists and sniff them.
Her skin gleamed with the sun-kissed warmth of mellow honey. Would it taste as sweet as her hair smelled?
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