by Ciara Knight
Mary-Beth didn’t need to suffer the Elder Inquisition, so she painted on her best smile and greeted everyone. “Good afternoon. I have a Darjeeling for Ms. Melba, Earl Grey for Ms. Gina, English Breakfast for Davey, and a mint for Ms. Hughes. Here’s the creamer—oh, and Ms. Gina, I included a hint of lavender in it the way you like it.” She placed the special tiny white pitcher next to the Earl Grey and retreated.
“Not so fast,” Davey hollered after her. “Spill it.”
She halted, took a breath, and then turned on her heels to face the inquisitive bunch. “Spill what?”
“What’s got you all mixed up and turned around?” Davey said, pointing to the cup in front of him. Shoot, she’d mixed them all up. No way Davey would drink tea with a lemon on the side of his cup. “Oh no, sorry. I’m just tired. You know, raising a teenage boy who is obsessed with football can be exhausting.” She flung her hair back for extra drama and then switched the cups around to their correct positions.
“We heard Tanner is coaching Andy. How you feel about that?” Davey asked.
“Fine. It’s a great idea. I asked him to do it, you know. Andy deserves the opportunity to get a scholarship. He’s really good.” Was her tone convincing?
“As good as the legend?” Ms. Melba asked.
“He’s better than Tanner.” Mary-Beth stuck her nose in the air and marched to the counter.
“Funny, she thought I was talking about Tanner. I meant Charles Frankinslip from 1946.”
Mary-Beth refused to be baited into a conversation about Tanner. “That would be a little before my time, you know.”
“She’s calling us old,” Ms. Gina said with a little spittle at the corner of her mouth.
Mary-Beth grabbed a rag and scrubbed all the kitchen surfaces with vigor.
“I bet she’s still hung up on that boy and he’s gonna break her heart again,” Davey said. “Then I’ll have to fight him.” He put up his tiny, sun-spotted fists and duked it out with the air.
Ms. Gina put a loving hand over his knuckles and lowered them to the table. “No need. It was the other way around; she broke his heart,” Ms. Gina whispered but at a yelling level so she could hear herself.
“Is that what the town thinks? That I chased him away?” She tossed the rag into the sink and bolted to the back room, fuming. What did it matter what the town thought? It was better they didn’t know the truth. At this moment, she wished she couldn’t see the big picture. Because if she did, she’d have to admit that her friends were right that the man who she’d sworn off years ago still held her past, present, and future hostage in his athletic grip.
No more.
She slid her phone from her pants pocket and texted Seth. “Sorry to cancel our last date. If you’re free tomorrow night, I can go out after I’m done helping at the farm. I’ll meet you at the coffeehouse at seven.”
Three dots danced instantly.
See you then.
And with that one text, she vowed to pry her heart loose. Nothing Tanner could say or do would change the past, and it was time for her to look toward the future.
Chapter Ten
The kids were pumped and worked harder than any of the college students he’d trained over the last several years. Andy was as good, if not better than Tanner had been at his age. He watched the kid run like he had wings on his cleats. The boy was talented and deserved his chance at a college scholarship. But was Andy one tackle away from his career ending before it ever began? Tanner wanted to make sure the boy knew the challenges that faced him, to prepare him the way no one had ever prepared Tanner himself.
When practice ended, he felt a love for the game he’d lost a few years back. The rush he used to experience on the field had returned for the first time since his injury all those years ago. Tanner chalked it up to first day energy and the kids trying to impress their small-town football hero. That would fade if he stuck around. The kids would drag, and he’d find himself making excuses not to attend practice all the time. After all, he had responsibilities at the farm. How could he afford the time to coach high school football? And at some point, he’d return to his assistant coach position. Was it only platitudes, or did the university mean it when they told him they’d welcome him back when he was ready?
Andy tossed the ball at Tanner and removed his helmet. “So, coach? Do you think I have what it takes to snag a college scholarship?”
If the boy understood how loaded that question was, he wouldn’t ask Tanner to answer it.
Andy’s mood melted in front of him. “You don’t?” He deflated as if someone let the air out of his shoulder pads, and Tanner knew he couldn’t take the chance at his dreams away from the boy.
“I absolutely think you have what it takes. As a matter of fact, I’ll even make a few calls on your behalf.”
Andy jumped like he was warming up for a game.
Tanner tossed the ball back to him. “Hold up a minute. I know this is exciting, but I want you to know all the facts before you decide your future. If you want me to make those calls, then we need to have a man-to-man talk.”
“Anything. What’s up?”
Tanner eyed his watch. “Can’t this minute. I need to get back to the farm.”
“Tomorrow. Before school. We can meet at the coffee shop.” Andy bolted to the locker room before Tanner could argue the point. The boy was floating on dreams and ambition without a thought to the fact his cloud could burst at any moment with no warning, flooding his future full of disappointment.
The principal of Sugar Maple High School and a few men with him, one toting a camera, headed his way. The last thing Tanner wanted was to be in the local paper, so he darted to his bike and tore out of there. The thought of returning to fan admiration made him feel hollow. He’d felt empty for so long. When was the last time he’d felt full?
He shook off the notion of Mary-Beth and focused on the road ahead, winding through the mountain pass and up to the farm, where he found the Sugar Maple gang parked across his front drive. Everyone he’d tried to avoid was standing on his front porch, in his barn, or at his field. Avoidance was no longer an option. He could send them away like his father, the man who’d bullied people to get what he wanted in life, but since when did he want to be like the man who’d kept secrets and told lies? The man he’d once been so close to who had made him feel abandoned and unloved. Had he had a clue what that did to a man?
The crowd gathered, as if waiting for him to catch the winning pass, but all he could do was roll his bike to a stop and remove his helmet. That’s when he found himself searching the audience for Mary-Beth, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Welcome home!” Mr. Strickland, the infamous fiancé of Mayor Horton, held out his hand. The man was a legend with the women, but for some reason Mayor Horton had never given up on him and she finally had won him over.
“Good to see you again, sir.” Tanner unzipped his jacket and greeted the remaining members of his hometown community. Once the fuss had ended, he made his way into the barn and checked on the roof repairs. To his surprise, the work was going well, so he went to the garden, where he found Felicia and some man working.
“Hi, Tanner. I want to introduce you to my boyfriend, Declan.”
The man was large enough to be a linebacker but had a gentleness about him when he looked at Felicia. “Nice to meet you.” Declan held up his gloved hands to show why he didn’t offer to shake.
Tanner was happy for Felicia. The girl had had it rough growing up. Thank goodness she’d had the Fabulous Five to protect her when the kids were cruel, teasing her because she’d been born from a white mother and a black father. He’d never understood why they’d teased her, since she was so beautiful, but kids were cruel, usually out of jealousy.
“She’s in the field working with Stella on the tractor.” Felicia winked.
“I wasn’t…” He realized his gaze had been everywhere but on the two he was speaking with.
“Weren’t you?” She smiled. “Even if
you weren’t, you should head out there to check on the combine. Last I heard, Stella was cursing and threw a wrench, asking how anyone could treat a machine so poorly.”
“Sounds like Stella. And she isn’t wrong.” He’d thought the same thing when he’d spotted the poor machine for the first time upon his return.
He pushed up his sleeves and headed for the fields. The sun was almost to the edge of the mountaintop in the distance, and the corn stalks waved with the breeze as if to welcome him home. He’d forgotten how beautiful it was in Sugar Maple and how fresh the air smelled compared to anywhere else he’d ever lived. Life had different meaning in the country. It wasn’t all fast paced and who’s better than who. Instead, it was more friendship and kindness and love.
Clanking of metal sounded before he caught sight of Stella and Mary-Beth. Her hair looked like a fresh wheat field glistening in the sun. He’d dated lots of beautiful women, but they were all enhanced with eyeliner and mascara and special clothes. Mary-Beth was different. Some in the city would call her plain, but he saw the natural beauty that didn’t need to be dressed up and paraded around to garner attention. Well, except for her jewelry. She always had loved bling.
“You!” Stella growled. “You best not be coming out here to see if this thing is running yet. I can’t believe you left this poor beast out to rust and corrode like this.”
Tanner shook his head. “Not me. I wasn’t here.”
“That’s the problem. You abandoned it and—”
“What she means is that this is going to take some time, so don’t expected Gobbles to be ready tonight. But I know Stella can work her magic and fix the poor old girl.” Mary-Beth shot in front of Stella and shooed him back the way he’d come. “Before I forget, Mayor Horton needs to speak to you. She’s in the house.”
“You best run. The way you treated this poor girl is unforgivable,” Stella shouted after them.
Tanner turned to plead his case, but Mary-Beth snagged his arm to lead him away. Her soft fingers wrapped a quarter of the way around his bicep, and his skin awoke in a distracting rush of warmth. The aroma of espresso and flowers wafted from Mary-Beth, and the chiming of her bracelets sang as they walked toward the house.
“You better stay clear of Stella. I can only use the free coffee card for so long until she loses her temper. You know how she gets when she sees a machine mistreated. I’m not sure, but I think she believes they are living, breathing creatures.”
“I remember. Do you think she can fix the old girl?”
“I have no doubt. If I’m the Coffee Whisperer, she’s the Machine Whisperer. Of course, I guess I can’t claim that title anymore since I can’t get your beverage right.”
He squeezed his arm, trapping her hand between his ribs and his bicep to stop her by his side. “You know, a lot went on all those years ago. Things I have a feeling we both probably either regret or we’re upset about.” He let out a lungful of hot air. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that if we’re going to be around each other, maybe we should talk or something.”
“You, Mr. Jock, want to talk about feelings?” She laughed.
He pulled away and marched to the back corner of the house. “This was a mistake.”
“Wait.” Mary-Beth caught up to him and snagged the back of his shirt, pulling him to a stop. “You used to be able to take a joke. Apparently I’ll have to be more sensitive in the future.”
Tanner didn’t like her words, but he didn’t try to run either. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and even if he wanted to get away from Mary-Beth, he knew it wouldn’t work. After all, he’d planned on hiding out at the farm and avoiding all the townspeople until he could escape, and that failed like an interception in the end zone. “Listen, we obviously will have to work together, so that means we’ll need to be civil, okay?”
“Civil?” Mary-Beth’s bright eyes softened into a sadness he recognized from when they were younger and she’d get a bad grade on a test, or someone picked on one of her friends, or one of the girls flirted with him.
“What?” He faced her and really looked at her for the first time since he’d arrived. And as he’d feared, the sight of her melted his insides and made him want to make the world better for her. He brushed a strand of grass from her chin with his thumb. Her lips parted, and she sucked in a quick breath. Did his touch affect her still the way it had when they were teenagers? That magic was only for high schoolers who lived on hormones and Red Bull. It didn’t exist in adulthood. He knew. He’d been chasing after it for years.
“It’s just that I thought perhaps we could at least be friends for the sake of the town.”
“Were we ever friends?” he asked.
She quirked her head to the side. “I thought we were.”
“I mean, we were a couple since before we were old enough to date. I’ve never thought of you only as a friend since…” He cupped her cheek, and flashes of them kissing by the lake drew him closer. The memories of their love and promises erupted inside him with such intensity, he had to escape. “Never mind.”
She let him go, but not without a harsh word to follow him. “As I thought. Always running from something.”
He thought about turning around and having it out with her about what happened all those years ago, but the entire town would stand as witness. No, that was a private conversation. A conversation he could have with her in the morning at the coffee shop once Andy left for school but before she opened her doors. A conversation long overdue. At the edge of the house, he cleared his throat but didn’t turn to face her. “Tell your brother I’ll be at the coffee shop at six in the morning to discuss his future. We’ll talk then.”
Before he about-faced and took Mary-Beth into his arms to see if his memories could be a reality, if the desire boiling inside him was real or fantasy, he retreated into the house and couldn’t help but think Mary-Beth had spoken some sort of truth about him. He could’ve come home despite his father’s protests at some point, but he hadn’t. Because he didn’t want to face his father’s disappointment at his failure in college ball. Perhaps if he had manned up and returned, life would be different for them all. His father might still be alive if he hadn’t worked so hard on the farm alone.
For the rest of the day and far into the night, Tanner allowed himself to think about his past for the first time in years, but he only knew one thing—that returning to Sugar Maple was even more difficult than he’d thought it would be, but it was time for him to start mending the fences of his past or suffer even more regrets in his future.
Chapter Eleven
A nervous energy and the drying heater that smelled of burned chemicals wouldn’t allow Mary-Beth to sleep. It always smelled the first time it ran each year, and since the temperature had dropped last night, it had cut on, if only for a few hours. Once the sun came up, it would be pleasantly cool but not bitterly cold.
The old-fashioned clock Mrs. McCadden had given her for Christmas a long time ago—it had belonged to her mother—clicked away, as if reminding Mary-Beth of every minute she’d spent away from the McCadden Farm over the years.
The clock chimed three, so she tossed off the covers and went to her hope chest. Another item that had been given to her from Mrs. McCadden. This one had appeared after the death of Mr. McCadden, left on the porch at the back entrance of her apartment over the coffee shop with only a note that read:
This should have been yours. And now it is.
The old wooden chest with hand-carved flowers on the lid looked like it had belonged to Mrs. McCadden’s grandmother’s grandmother. Mary-Beth had always admired it in the front parlor, where she’d sit and have hot cocoa on a fall evening, waiting for Mr. McCadden and Tanner to arrive home from football practice. She’d always been closer to his parents than her own. Probably because both her parents worked so much and Mrs. McCadden was always there. Until she wasn’t anymore.
Mary-Beth lifted the lid that creaked from age, and the calming scent of cedar rushed at her with one deep bre
ath. She spotted the artifacts of her high school life with Tanner. The picture book she’d made for him their sophomore year with their childhood visits to the lake, fireworks, picnics, school dances, post middle school and high school football game celebrations, and the town fair. They were children and happy. The way every childhood should be.
Rain drizzled against her bedroom window. She watched the drips streak down the glass. It would be a busy day in the coffee shop since everyone would seek a warm place to huddle out of the weather. This was always the beginning of her busiest season. She needed rest, but if she’d ever be able to sleep again, she needed to work through her ten years of avoidance.
She opened a shoebox to find tossed items and memorabilia inside. Report cards, pictures of her dancing at the local recreation center, acceptance letters to them both for college, her corsage from prom, and handwritten notes they used to leave each other in the metal box inside the secret panel in their old tree house they’d built in the woods between his farm and her childhood home.
The old envelopes were worn but legible, and they chronologized their relationship from third grade to senior year. The handwriting changed, the verbiage matured, but they all read of missing each other when they were apart a few hours, longing for when they’d marry and live together, making their own rules. Naïve childhood promises that they had believed once.
She giggled at the sight of their handwriting in fourth grade. Tanner had teased her that she’d need to be a doctor since only he could decipher her writing. She’d thought about it for a while, but being a doctor wasn’t her calling. Business and people were her thing after dance. Besides, she belonged in Sugar Maple. Once she’d realized she couldn’t outrun the pain of losing Tanner, there was no reason she’d needed to stay away. Until now.
The letters slipped through her fingers, landing in a trash heap of broken thoughts, and she slammed the hope chest closed. There was no use in returning to bed for her to toss and turn all night, so she dressed and headed downstairs to start prepping for the morning rush. She needed to be done early anyway if she’d be sitting down to speak with Tanner. About what, she had no idea.
