“No,” Faith said, “but I insisted…oh, two years ago, I think, that he get a thorough physical. They didn’t find anything wrong with him. He’s just…” She shrugged, not looking at her sister.
“If he was to sell the farm, what would he do with himself?” The idea of their father forcibly retired and idle was unimaginable. Watching him now, confined to a bed, was painful enough.
“I don’t know,” Faith whispered. She had set down the dirty dishes beside the sink and stood with her head bent, looking frail. Had she lost weight? Charlotte had felt bony, even brittle, compared to her sister when she’d first arrived, but she knew she must be gaining weight. She’d been eating like a pig, maybe because she was physically active, maybe because the food here was just plain better than the microwavable stuff she usually subsisted on. But Faith’s appetite hadn’t been great, she realized, thinking back. Especially since the fire, she’d picked at the food on her plate.
Oh, good. Give them another few weeks, and they’d probably weigh exactly the same amount, as they frequently had when they took turns on the scale during their adolescence. Like all the other ways they were identical, Charlotte had abhorred not even being able to separate herself from her sister by a pound or two.
This time…well, this time what she felt was worry.
Chief Wheeler had damn well better find Rory Hardesty and throw his ass in jail. She could talk to Gray, ask him to push Wheeler.
She heard his voice, gentle but utterly determined. I’ll call, Charlotte.
Oh, damn. Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand to her chest. What would she say when he called, or the next time he stopped by? Yeah, sure, kissing you could be fun, but, hey, let’s not start anything when we both know I’ll be outta here in just a few weeks?
Reason said she could look at it as a summer fling. People did things like that when they were on vacation.
I can’t! I just can’t! It was a cry that came from deep inside her, where misery and panic grew, pressing at her rib cage until she felt she needed to wrap her arms around herself to contain it.
Gray could make her feel too much. She couldn’t afford that. Because it would be temporary, and it would hurt when it ended. And because… She didn’t know why. Only that this clawing fear felt something like her desperate need not to be an identical twin.
Not to be so intimate with another person that she couldn’t pull away.
If he called—when he called—she would say, Sorry, not interested.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GRAY DID CALL THAT EVENING, even though his gut told him it was a mistake. Charlotte had a harder time saying no to his face. But he’d dropped by the farm casually so many times, he was running out of excuses. Anyway—shouldn’t he be able to call and ask a woman on a date, like normal people did?
Faith answered and passed the phone to Charlotte, who said, “Hello, Gray,” with deep reserve in her voice.
Gray pushed open the French doors to his back deck and stepped outside. “I just talked to Ben Wheeler. Hardesty isn’t surfacing. Wheeler asked me to beg you two to consider getting a gun and learning to use it.”
“Can you really picture either of us shooting someone?”
I think you could. The realization sprang into his mind, and he wasn’t sure if he should tell her he believed she was capable of killing if she had to. Jaw tightening, Gray thought, Yeah, she could do it, but then she’d fall apart.
No, he didn’t like the idea of either of the Russell sisters armed or—God forbid—having to defend themselves with a gun.
He cleared his throat. “Just passing on a message.”
“Fine.”
Silence.
He walked to the edge of the deck and gazed down at the river, running low with late summer. He usually considered himself a decent strategist; two years ago, he’d decided he wanted to be mayor and had set about taking the steps to make it happen. He’d done his best since he laid eyes on Charlotte Russell to back her into a corner and make her realize she wanted him. Unfortunately, this time he was well aware he was failing.
But, damn it, he had to ask. Turning his back on the river, he said, “Charlotte, will you have dinner with me one of these nights?”
She didn’t even hesitate, which told him she’d prepared her answer. “Gray, it’s not a good idea. I won’t be in West Fork for long, and I’m not interested in short-term involvement.”
Feeling desperate, he pointed out, “You had dinner with Wheeler.”
This time, she was quiet for a moment. “That was…an impulse.”
“You weren’t really interested in him, were you? Which made him safe.”
“Is that ego talking?” she challenged. “I must have the hots for you, or I wouldn’t be saying no?”
“Only you can tell me that.”
“Well, I’m not going to! Good night, Gray.”
Dead air told him she’d hung up. He suspected that in the good old days she’d have slammed the phone down.
The fact that she was angry didn’t surprise him. Charlotte clearly didn’t like being vulnerable, and for some reason she feared that he had the capability of making her feel just that. But wasn’t that part of falling in love? Hell, even of sex? Was she determined not to have either in her life?
He set his phone down and dropped into an Adirondack chair. Head back, he tried to let the cool evening air and the quiet of his aerie on the bluff above the river valley relax him.
It was time to give up on her. Whether he liked it or not, Charlotte had slammed the door in his face. He knew she was attracted to him; he’d felt her response hum through her when their lips had touched. He’d seen the flare of alarm whenever their eyes met. But that meant nothing if she was determined to shut him out.
And she was.
He’d known from the beginning that she was a complex and conflicted woman. He’d felt some primitive urge to soothe her, to make her life easier, to take care of her.
Well, she was having none of it.
Get over it, he told himself bleakly. Stay away from the Russell farm.
She’d be gone, back to California, before he knew it.
But the tension in his body didn’t abate any more than the frustration in his gut. Forgetting about Charlotte Russell wasn’t going to be easy. He wanted too badly to know what drove her, why she was afraid of him, and what it would be like to make love with her.
He also couldn’t forget that Rory Hardesty was still out there, still angry. Or that Charlotte wasn’t about to let the bastard get to Faith without going through her first.
A FEW DAYS LATER, CHARLOTTE persuaded Faith to leave her in charge.
“You know you should start getting your classroom ready for the first day of school. And you have meetings you have to attend some of the days. Today you can just concentrate on…whatever it is you do.”
Faith smiled. “I decorate. When school lets out, we have to pack away everything. I’ve been assigned a different classroom this year. I need to cover the bulletin board with construction paper and put the alphabet stencils up. I make signs with the students’ names to assign cubbies. I put books on the shelves, and plan some of the first projects and do whatever copying and cutting out has to be done in advance. I…”
Charlotte held up a hand. “Okay, I get the idea. Go. I’ll be fine.” When she saw that Faith was still hesitating, she said, “I have your cell-phone number if I need you. I can run to the house and check on Dad quickly when there aren’t any customers. I’m a capable human being, I promise.”
So Faith went, leaving Charlotte to chat with customers, to ring up a handful of purchases, to water the perennials, annuals and shrubs in pots outside. To dash to the house several times only to find Dad sleeping or watching TV. And, when she had nothing else to do, to stare at the pages of a thriller she’d picked up at the San Francisco airport.
Of course, every time she picked up the book, instead of actually being able to concentrate on the words, she stewed.
Her list of worries had grown and metamorphosed since the call from Faith that had brought Charlotte home.
Rory had been, and still was, at the top, of course. He’d clearly gone off the deep end, and Charlotte hoped Police Chief Ben Wheeler understood that. She was irritated that he hadn’t been by the farm or called either her or Faith in days. Gray’s secondhand reports weren’t an adequate substitute, and even he’d been absent since Charlotte had declined to go out to dinner with him.
Dad was healing, if more slowly than he liked, which was a relief. His state of mind was another story, though. He’d lost all the determination that made him the man she once knew. Unlike Faith, Charlotte could imagine life without the farm still being here as a home-base; what she couldn’t imagine was her father without the farm. He didn’t know how to do anything else! He’d never been interested in taking cruises, or going to Hawaii or even out to dinner in Everett—never mind Seattle. His idea of a high time was playing bingo at the church hall or going to pancake breakfasts at the grange. He had friends, a few other crusty farmers—or, at least, he’d had friends. Charlotte frowned. She’d noticed a new gas station and minimart out near the freeway where the O’Brien farm had once been. And the Guthries’ house still stood, but the fields surrounding it were strangled by weeds and blackberry bushes. Were the Guthries even there anymore?
And then there was Faith, who, having lost her dream of husband and family, was unwilling even to think about her childhood home going under the bulldozer. She was tough, she’d survive. But she would be further diminished if she failed to hold on to the farm. Faith, Charlotte knew, had always been fragile in a way she herself wasn’t. There’d been times the knowledge of that fragility made Charlotte angry, mostly as a cover for her guilt. Because, of course, Faith had been losing her twin sister, too, from the time they reached kindergarten age.
Finally, somewhere at the bottom of her list, Charlotte had to acknowledge her own problems. She needed to make a decision about finding a new job. She had scanned job-listing sites online, but hadn’t sent out a résumé since coming home. In the meantime, a whopping mortgage payment would be automatically withdrawn from her account on September 1. She would have to put her condo on the market, and soon. Even if she found another job in the Bay Area, it was likely to be in San Jose or Palo Alto, more of a commute than she’d want to make. Selling it could well take a good long while, given the recession, and every month that mortgage payment would take another whack out of her limited savings.
But she wasn’t ready to go back to San Francisco, even long enough to list the condo. How could she leave while Rory was still out there, plotting how he could hurt Faith? Or while Dad was confined to a hospital bed in the living room? Or, for that matter, when her departure would mean that Faith would have to pay for help she couldn’t afford?
For the first time, she acknowledged openly to herself that she was considering staying in Washington for good. She could find a job in the software industry here as easily as the Bay Area. She might not want to live in West Fork, but she’d be close by if Dad or Faith needed her. She’d feel…rooted in a way she hadn’t since she left home.
Charlotte reluctantly added Mayor Gray Van Dusen to her list, since she’d been failing to keep herself from thinking about him, about his smiles and his kiss. A relationship with him wouldn’t be impossible if she moved back to the area. She was trying very hard, though, to believe that he wasn’t part of the equation she was juggling when making a decision about her future. The idea of never seeing him again scared her almost as much as the idea of getting involved with him did. Neither possibility loosened the knot that had lodged in her chest almost from the moment she’d met him, and that had ached ever since.
I’m a mess, she mourned. Would he even want me if he knew?
It infuriated her that she couldn’t dismiss thoughts of him like she would a job listing that was briefly appealing but ultimately didn’t meet her needs. She’d always been able to put men out of her mind! No one had ever been important enough to make him linger despite her best efforts. Why Gray? she asked herself.
Because of his smile, which was gentle and somehow knowing and impossibly sexy? And the thoughtful way he looked at her with those gray eyes, as though he saw deep inside her where she was confused and frightened and needy?
Oh, God, she thought. I’ve missed him these past few days. So much.
And she’d pretty much told him to get lost.
Charlotte was so grateful when a car pulled in off the highway, she jumped off her stool behind the counter and strolled out, even though the people probably just wanted to pick out five ears of corn from the wagonful out front. She grimaced. Yep, another fifty cents of profit for the Russell operation.
But the couple who got out of the car ignored the corn and wandered in, the woman heading for the arts and crafts, the husband asking, “Do you sell any Japanese maples?”
Glad she at least knew what a maple leaf looked like, Charlotte left the woman to her own devices and led the husband to the rows of tree saplings, where Faith did indeed offer half a dozen varieties of Japanese maple. Most were red-leafed, one had vivid green leaves and yet another had cream and pale green variegated foliage. She stole a look at the price tags and blinked. Did people really pay that much for a tree still so frail it could be snapped off if the family German shepherd leaned on it?
“I’d like five of the same variety,” the man said. “We just bought a place with no yard in yet except for a front lawn. I intend to plant them in a row along the street. Do you know which one has the best fall color? And do you have five of any one of these?”
“I’m told they all have spectacular fall color,” Charlotte assured him, echoing what she’d heard Faith telling a customer the other day. “And yes, we have more out in our wholesale area.” She hoped.
Faith kept a small library of gardening books behind the counter inside, and Charlotte was able to find one that described the particular virtues of a number of the maple hybrids.
Having given it to him to read, she went back into the barn to find the wife oohing and aahing over a circa 1880 walnut bedroom set that had become available after a very elderly woman in town had died. The original dark finish was in good shape, and the set included footboard and headboard, bedside stand, tallboy dresser and armoire. Faith had priced the lot at $2,000, a steal by antique store standards, but a whole lot of money by Russell Family Farm standards.
Wishing for a moment that she did have a helper, Charlotte finally gambled on their honesty and excused herself to race out to the back forty to verify that yes indeed, they could supply five of either of the two varieties of maple the man was still weighing.
And when she got back, it was to find that the woman had dragged the man in to study the bedroom set.
Ten minutes later, she rang up a sale that totalled $2,500 plus tax. Kenneth Engelhart promised to be back the next morning with a U-Haul truck to pick up the walnut bedroom set and five potted Oshio-Beni maples with bright red-orange, delicately serrated leaves.
Smiling, she saw them out, chatted with some people buying corn and waited on two women who browsed for half an hour before buying one of Faith’s hand-painted Welcome signs and a flat of pansies.
She was back to reading the thriller when she saw Faith drive in and park by the house. When her sister walked into the barn a minute later, Charlotte lifted her head.
“Hey. Take a look at the bedroom set.”
Faith stopped, turned and gaped at the Sold tag hanging from the footboard. Her mouth was still hanging open when she spun back to face Charlotte. “How much did you have to come down?”
Charlotte dropped the book and grinned. “They didn’t even try to bargain.”
A disbelieving laugh erupted out of Faith’s throat. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth. Behind it, she was chortling.
“And—get this—they bought five Japanese maples, too. A twenty-five-hundred-dollar sale!” She danced her way arou
nd the end of the counter and to Faith, grabbing her hands. “Man, it was fun. I wish you’d been here!”
Faith let out a belly laugh and began to dance, too. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”
Somewhere during their celebration, it occurred to Charlotte that she hadn’t bubbled with happiness like this in…years. It had to be years. In designing software, triumphs were incremental. There was hardly ever a huge leap of inspiration and accomplishment that could make her laugh out loud. This…this joy, she thought, was because the one big sale made it possible to hope again. And she’d done something that really mattered to Faith, and maybe to Dad. Best of all, she wasn’t dancing and laughing alone.
Still clasping both of her sister’s hands, Charlotte said, “I’ve missed you.”
Faith’s smile faded. Her face softened for a moment, a too-fleeting one, before she wrapped herself in caution and reserve as though they were a blanket tugged close at night. She said quietly, “I’ve always missed you,” and then turned away. “I’ll do the last watering if you’ll close out the cash register.”
Happiness congealing, becoming something thick and lumpy and uncomfortable, Charlotte said, “Sure.” She didn’t watch as her twin left the barn, a momentary dark silhouette against the bright square of sunlight before disappearing outside.
Charlotte had never been so achingly aware that she’d done too much damage for them to be able to go back to a time when they’d been a unit.
It was my choice, she knew.
She wished she was the only one paying the price, that Faith hadn’t been hurt, too. Charlotte didn’t understand why, now, she had begun to regret the decision she’d made to sever a relationship she’d once believed reduced her to half a person, that left her terrified that even her thoughts and dreams weren’t her own.
Standing still right where her sister had left her, Charlotte thought with some shock, I don’t believe that anymore. I am myself. Faith is herself. We may look alike, but we’re not alike under the skin, where it counts.
Charlotte's Homecoming Page 11
