Here With Me

by Louise, Tia

  I look around her small room in the Pine Hills Nursing Home where I work, blinking away the persistent memory.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Are you okay? Your cheeks are so pink!”

  “Of course!” My laugh is strained, so I clear my throat. “You said Noel’s coming for a visit?”

  “I asked what do you think about Isabel graduating.” The old woman grins like she can read my mind, which she can’t. “But yes, Noel is coming by this evening—why do you ask?”

  Ms. Jessica is settled in her room, and I start for the door. “She wanted royal jelly.”

  “From your mother’s bees? Oh, she must be planning a new face cream.” The old lady’s brown eyes light. “Do you help her?”

  “With her cosmetics?”

  The old lady shakes her head. “Your mother. With the bees.”

  “Oh, lord, no. The one time I tried that, I got stung. I only do her labels.” I created the tiny yellow and black watercolor bee that became my mom’s Honey Farms logo.

  “And you created Noel’s logo for her cosmetics… You’re so talented.”

  I think about the simple line of a sun rising over trees I drew at sixteen when my best friend got the idea to start an all-natural skin care line based on peaches.

  “It’s pretty primitive. I wish she’d let me redo it.”

  “Nonsense. It’s perfect. You have a gift.” She nods slowly. “Which means you’ll be leaving us soon. Heading to the big city where you can make some real money with your art degree.”

  I pull her shawl around her shoulders. I’ve actually considered moving before, but I can’t leave my mom… Or something.

  “Oprah says if you don’t know what to do, be still.”

  “I know that handsome young man Deacon Dring is from Dallas.” Her eyes slant, and she’s grinning again like she knows something.

  She doesn’t.

  Everyone thinks Deacon and I are dating, and I guess we have gone out a few times. Still, our relationship is strictly platonic. The truth is we’re both in the same boat when it comes to love, and misery loves company.

  “Deacon is from Plano, which is just outside Dallas.”

  “Is he the reason you’re so distracted these days?”

  No. Again, I don’t say it out loud. Instead, I feign innocence. “Am I distracted?”

  She gives my arm a squeeze. “You’re a smart girl, Mindy. I know you won’t let some boy determine your future. You’ll do what’s right for you.”

  If only that were true. I suppose if she knew the full story, she wouldn’t be announcing her confidence in me so emphatically. But when you keep secrets, you have to be prepared to be misunderstood.

  “Tell you what, I won’t move away without giving you plenty of notice. Okay?” She grins, and I squeeze her thin shoulders. “Night.”

  It’s only five, but most of the residents have had their suppers and are getting ready for bed—the ones who are mobile, that is.

  I retrace the familiar hallway to my desk just inside the front door. I’ve worked at the nursing home since I was a junior in high school, all through college, even now, after graduation, while I’m “figuring out my next steps”—which has lasted longer than it should.

  I view it as a steady paycheck while I pick up freelance design jobs and do my own watercolors on the side. Harristown isn’t big enough to support a thriving arts community, but we get the yearly burst of tourists every summer around Peach Festival time who buy my art.

  Peaches. Harristown is known for peaches, and my best friend’s family operates the biggest orchard in town—they have since before we were born, since before her parents died and her oldest brother Sawyer took over running the place.

  My bottom lip slips between my teeth, and I glance up at the clock as I slowly collect my things, setting the jar of royal jelly on the edge of my desk.

  Noel comes rushing through the glass front doors just as I’m slinging my purse over my shoulder. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Hey! No worries.” We give each other a quick hug and air kisses. “Everything okay? How’s Dove?”

  Noel’s daughter was an unexpected burst of sunshine that appeared six years ago. I’d always thought of surprise pregnancies as a bad thing. I’m not so sure I feel that way anymore. At least not every time.

  “Dove is Dove.” She pushes a smooth lock of dark brown hair behind her ear. Noel has perfect hair, which I do not envy. Much. “She’s practicing for the Princess Peach pageant nonstop, singing every Dolly Parton song she knows…”

  “You have your mamma to thank for that.”

  Noel’s mamma was a legend around here. When she was our age, she won every beauty pageant in the region, and she probably would have been Miss Louisiana and then Miss America if Noel’s daddy hadn’t put a ring on it.

  Noel has never liked the pageant scene, but her daughter is hilariously precocious and the exact opposite.

  “I guess liking things like pageants skips a generation. Oh!” her eyes light and she picks up the jar of bee product. “Yesss.” She turns it back and forth, gazing at it like it’s pure gold.

  I can’t resist. “I’m pretty sure that stuff comes out of their butts.”

  “Bee butts are so cute.”

  “Or they vomit it up.”

  “Don’t be gross.” She shoves the jar in her oversized bag. “I’m launching a whole new anti-aging line. Royal jelly provides a younger and clearer appearance to the skin.”

  She passes me a twenty, and I shove it in my pocket. “You know Ma would never charge you for it.”

  “Your mother has done more for my family than we can ever repay.”

  Her words make my stomach tighten. My mother’s generosity is a big reason I’ve never had the one thing I can’t live without. “Yeah.”

  “I’d better go check on Ms. Jessica. You coming by the house later?”

  Her question makes me jump. It’s like she’s reading my mind or something. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Another hug, and I’m out the door, walking to my car. The sun is dipping toward the horizon, and the darker it grows, the tighter my insides twist.

  It’s the same every year at this time, the same old memory, the same tension in my chest. I won’t sleep tonight. I’ll do my best to eat and smile and be brave around my mom, but only one person holds me together. When everyone goes to bed, I know where I’ll be headed.

  And I’ll regret it like I always do, because it won’t change a damn thing.

  “How was work?” Ma opens the Cruset pot on the stove and the tomatoey-licious aroma of marinara hits my nose. I snag a piece of bread and hurry to dip it, but she swats me away. “Don’t mess up my sauce!”

  “Ow!” I rub my hand frowning. “I just wanted a taste.”

  Ma is the quintessential Italian mother. She’s shorter than me, rounder than me, bossy as hell, and cooks like nobody’s business.

  She likes to say how when she moved to Harristown years ago with my Scotch-Irish dad, she was referred to as “the dark one.” She laughs about how intimidated she was by their prejudice.

  I don’t believe it.

  My mom has never been anything but fierce.

  “Tell me about your day. What happened at work?” She shoves a glossy-black sausage curl behind her ear.

  I stomp over to pour myself a glass of wine from the decanter. “You know everything that happens at my work.”

  “It’s called making conversation, Melinda Claire. Now, tell me about your day.”

  “Let’s see…” I pop the un-sauced bread in my mouth, and sip my wine, thinking of what she doesn’t know. “Around lunchtime I caught Mr. Hebert sneaking into Ms. Turner’s room—after he’d just left Ms. Wilson’s room. That two-timing old goat’s going to get busted, and who knows if they’re even practicing safe sex.”

  “What is this?” Ma’s eyes widen in horror. “You think I want to hear that?”

  I shrug. “I was making conversation.”
r />   “Let’s stick to topics that won’t make me barf in my mouth.”

  “You’re being very old-school.” I take another sip of wine. “Elder sex is a beautiful thing… Provided the old ladies are getting their lube and the men have plenty of Viagra. Otherwise, it’s just a floppy, dry mess—”

  Ma’s brow lowers, and she gives me The Look. “I will wash your mouth out with soap. And Mr. Hebert’s, too…”

  I make a whatever face. “Mr. Grady wants to hold a senior beauty pageant to coincide with the Peach Festival this year, sponsored by Grady’s Used Cars, of course…”

  “That man…” She waves her hand as she stirs. “He is always trying to find a way to sell cars.”

  “Mrs. Irene says my aura is pure gold right now…”

  She looks me up and down. “You look the same to me.”

  “Maybe if you were blind you’d see my golden aura.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Irene can see the sun.”

  Mrs. Irene is my favorite eighty-something, blind mystic. “She says I’m illuminated and inspired.”

  “Have you started your paintings for the festival?”

  “Not yet.” Digging in my pocket, I hand over the twenty. “But Noel said thanks for the royal jelly.”

  Ma waves it away. “Keep it. You probably need money for lunch.”

  “I’m not in high school anymore.” Still, I shove the bill in my pocket.

  “I don’t know why they haven’t made you administrator of that nursing home. You practically run the place as it is.” She’s been harping on that old string since I graduated from college.

  “It’s simple. I don’t want to be the administrator. That job sucks.”

  Her eyes fix on mine. “What do you want to do, Patatina?”

  Be Sawyer LaGrange’s wife. I shoot the thought down as fast as it pops up. Stop being an idiot, Mindy.

  It’s been that kind of day, so I decide to level with her. “I want to own my own design firm. I want to run ad campaigns and do marketing, plan PR events, create logos for businesses and entrepreneurs like you and Noel…”

  My mother’s forehead wrinkles. “Is that something you could do in Harristown?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Worry fills her eyes, and anxiety fills my stomach. I know the idea of me leaving is hard for her. Hell, it’s hard for me.

  After my dad died, Ma clung to my two sisters and me like we were all she had left in the world. Then when Tatum, my oldest sister, moved to Atlanta right out of high school, Ma cried for weeks.

  Selfishly, I was kind of glad to see her go. She’d been Sawyer’s date to the homecoming dance and to prom, and I’d lain awake both nights in my bed, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.

  She’d said they were nothing more than friends.

  He never said a word either way.

  I wanted to die.

  Still, Tatum’s leaving and my mother’s reaction made a big impression on Tamara and me, not that my middle sister has ever wanted to leave this small town. She didn’t even move to New Orleans when her husband went to dental school for two years.

  “Deacon’s helping me with my business plan. He knows I’d like to stay close if possible. Maybe we can find a way—”

  “Deacon!” Ma’s eyes brighten. “He’s such a smart young man and so polite. Why don’t you ever invite him over to dinner? I’d like to get to know him better.”

  Because he’s just a friend, and the last thing I need is you getting ideas?

  “He was here at Thanksgiving, remember?”

  “Six months ago!” She takes the pot of boiling pasta off the stove and carries it to the sink. “Have him come for dinner Friday. I’ll ask him to advise me about my bees.”

  I take two bowls from the cabinet. “You can’t ask him for free financial advice. It’s his job, Ma.”

  “I’m feeding him dinner, aren’t I? I bet he hasn’t had a home-cooked meal since Thanksgiving.”

  Arguing with my mother is pointless, and anyway, Deacon likes visiting our house. He says it’s the home life he never had. I tell him to watch what you wish for.

  “I’ll ask him.”

  We sit down to steaming bowls of penne with marinara, French bread, and red wine. Before we start to eat, after we’ve said the blessing, she raises her glass and toasts my dad.

  Thirteen years ago this night, he closed his eyes and never opened them again.

  His favorite camellias were blooming milky white and red, neon-pink azaleas were bursting on the bushes in front of the house, and he left us as quiet as a spring breeze.

  Unshed tears tighten my throat, but I take another, longer drink of wine to ease them away. She longs for him on his birthday, on their anniversary, but this night every year is mine. This is the night I can’t sleep.

  Hours later, I’m lying awake in the darkness, staring at the blue shadows moving across the ceiling when I do what I always do. I get out of bed, pick up the small bag beside my dresser, grab my coat off the rack, and creep down the stairs and out to my car.

  The oversized farmhouse is silent and dark when I arrive.

  A street lamp sits high on a pole in the middle of the large yard separating the farm house from the foreman’s cottage a little farther down. I park behind the peach shed where no one will see and leave the bag and my keys inside.

  I know this place so well. I’ve been coming here just about every day since I was a little girl, since my ma stepped in to help Sawyer with Noel and Leon.

  Sawyer’s never needed anybody…

  I go around to the ladder trellis reaching up to his second-floor window. I first climbed it the night after we buried my daddy. The night after we found him dead.

  He said I could come to him if I needed somebody to talk to, and every year on this night I do just that.

  The window is open a crack when I reach it. It slides without a sound, and I slip inside. He’s sitting up with his back against the headboard, but his eyes are closed. I hear his rhythmic breathing, and I know he’s fallen asleep.

  It doesn’t matter. I go to the bed, leaving my jacket on the chair. The night is warm, and he’s not wearing a shirt. Silver moonlight deepens the lines of muscle in his arms, his broad shoulders. Sawyer works so hard, lifting crates of peaches, hauling boxes to the truck. He has the best body.

  I can’t remember when he went from being the boy who held my hand and dried my tears to the man I can’t live without. I only know he’s owned my heart as long as I’ve been able to love.

  Lifting the thin comforter, I slip in beside him and rest my cheek against his warm chest.

  “Mm…” His voice vibrates against my skin. “Hey.”

  Strong arms go around me, and I close my eyes, letting the warmth of his embrace relax my racing insides. I hold him, inhaling his scent of soap, cedar, and Sawyer.

  “I tried not to wake you.” I sound so small.

  “How you doing?” I love his voice, the low drawl, the touch of honey in his Louisiana accent.

  “Same as every year.”

  “I know, baby girl.” A large, callused hand slides up and down my bare arm, scratching my skin, waking my insides. “Let it happen. It’ll pass.”

  Only the thinnest cotton nightgown separates my naked body from his, and I ache for him to want me again. One time will never be enough, and it’s been so long.

  Ever since he came back from the military, there’s been this wall between us. He didn’t come back to me—he didn’t come back to anyone. Still, my heart waits for him, waits for the day he’ll let me in again.

  Stretching my legs, arching my back, I search for his mouth in the darkness. My fingers fumble to his muscular neck, and I thread them in his soft hair, curling them and pulling his face to mine.

  I don’t know if it’s because he’s drowsy or if it’s the darkness, but I manage to capture his full lips briefly. I push them apart, and our tongues meet. He kisses me back, before pulling away and settling me down at his side.

&n
bsp; “You need to sleep.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut against the tears, I nod and return to my place, sheltered at his side, under his arm, my heart irrevocably devoted to him.

  2

  Sawyer

  My phone alarm lights up, vibrating in my face at six a.m., and I scramble to tap it off.

  God, I hate this fucking time of year. I hate waking up at the crack of dawn. I hate busting my ass in the blazing heat all day for weeks without a break. I’ve hated it since I was sixteen and the world dropped out from under us, and I hate it now.

  But you know what? I get my ass out of bed and do what needs to be done.

  Mindy is curled up beside me in a little ball sleeping. Her hands are under her chin, and she looks so peaceful. She sleeps like a baby when she’s with me, and my stomach tightens with protective warmth. This girl.

  She’s as fucking beautiful as she ever was. As I predicted, she went from being a pretty little girl crying in the field to this stunning woman with gorgeous curves, flashing green eyes, and wicked sense of humor.

  I want to slide the chestnut wave off her cheek, but if she opens her bright green eyes, I don’t know what might happen. It’s morning, and I’m a healthy thirty-one-year-old man.

  A man who knows to make the right decision and leave her alone. Mindy doesn’t want this life, and she sure as hell doesn’t need to deal with my shit. Joining the Marines was supposed to help me escape the past. Instead, it only heaped on more baggage.

  I understand why she came here last night. I know the pain of losing your dad. No matter how many years pass, the anniversary always stings like hell. When she kissed me… Her soft lips, her smooth, velvety skin… I could taste the wine on her breath, and I wouldn’t take advantage of her vulnerable state.

  Dealing with women is not my strong suit—it never was. They’re always talking, always reading shit into situations that Just. Isn’t. There.

  Mindy’s not like that.

  When she put her hand in mine that day, something happened between us. It’s like a strange connection…

  Or maybe it’s just me.

  Still, I can’t resist touching the side of her hair, carefully, so as not to wake her. She wears it in long, sleek waves now, and if I bury my face in it, I’ll be surrounded by her scent of fresh air and lilacs. It’s fucking irresistible.