Count on Me (Petal, Georgia)

by Lauren Dane

  “I’m trying to readjust my speed for Petal. Things are different here. I’m already different enough, I’m trying not to make it harder. I have a swearing problem.”

  His laughter died to a snort. “I get it. But between you and me, I’m not going to be offended. Also, I get the feeling you sort of enjoy being tossed into the deep end. You seem to be the type who thrives on a challenge.”

  She shrugged. “Makes me happy to keep busy. I like to work hard and play hard. There are plenty of attorneys who hate the courtroom and are happy to write motions and briefs. Me? I love the courtroom. I love the constant and varied challenges with trial. It’s a person’s life, so I always take it seriously. But there’s an art to it as well as skill. I’m weird, what can I say.”

  “That’s not weird at all.” In fact it was totally sexy. But he’d wait to share that until they’d been around each other more. He also bet that intensity translated to how she’d be in bed. And he really wanted to know that firsthand.

  “Anyway, so to recap, busy work week. Free cake and chicken casserole. I’m having a beer with a handsome man I used to crush on hard back in school. Not a bad first week at all.”

  “You had a crush on me?” Pleasure swamped him.

  “Duh. Who didn’t have a crush on you? You have that smile, the slow, sexy one that makes all the girls tingly. You’re pretty to look at. You have an extremely fantastic rear end.”

  She paused when their meal arrived.

  “You were saying about my ass?”

  “Hush you. You know you have a nice butt. Anyway how was your week?”

  “Dealing with a root-worm problem with the cabbage. Lost about half the crop. My aunt has been helpfully gathering bits of gossip about you. She’s pleased you have a good job and says I could do a lot worse than a gal with some gumption even if she is related to Abigail Lassiter. I probably shouldn’t have said that last bit out loud.”

  Caroline laughed and drank her beer. “It comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows my grandmother that she can be off-putting. Bossy. Annoying. Judgmental. She’s very sure of herself. It’s just everyone else who disappoints her.”

  Royal was very glad he’d been raised by his aunt and uncle after his dad had died and his mom had pretty much given up on parenting. They’d always been so good to him. They were solid, committed to family and community. The Lassiters were of that class who tended to look down on half of Petal. Oh sure they did things for the “disadvantaged” but while Polly did it with an open heart and love, Abigail did it because it was expected and with a barely withheld put-upon sigh.

  Frankly, he was surprised Caroline had turned out as normal as she had under the circumstances.

  “Right now you’re asking yourself, how did she turn out the way she has when her grandmother is so prissy and uptight.”

  He blushed. “I’m told I can be rude sometimes. But in my defense, I did keep it in my head. I can’t help it if you go and snatch it from my thoughts.”

  She shrugged. “You’re not rude. I love my grandparents, but I wasn’t raised by them. I was raised by my parents and later by my dad’s people. Different philosophy. They did okay by my brother and sister.”

  Mindy Lassiter was sort of prissy too, but Royal kept that to himself.

  “Anyway, root worms? That sounds gross and not fun in any way. And you said your farm was organic now, so how do you deal with that when you can’t use chemicals?”

  “There are some natural ways to deal with it. I spent most of the week pulling out the diseased plants. Had to burn those and hope the rest are not affected. There’s this stuff, you sprinkle it around the plant on the dirt and it cuts up any bug, worm, whatever, that tries to get past. Try not to be mesmerized by my job. I know it’s incredibly exciting.”

  “It is interesting! Why did you switch over to the organics?”

  “We had a bigger spread but it was increasingly harder to compete against the big factory-farm industry.” He shrugged. “My uncle wanted to retire and give me the operation, so I had to figure out what I wanted to do.” It had happened at a point in his life when he was at a low. In love with a woman who loved him back, just not enough. So he’d sort of leapt. Seeking something totally new. While it had taken him another year and a half to break things off with Anne for good, the shift to an organic operation had been easier to accept.

  Traditional farming had been the family business, but he and his uncle spent all their time trying to stay afloat and ahead of loan payments. He’d read a number of pieces about organic farming and had done a lot of research into all sorts of ways to go about it. When he’d presented a business plan to his uncle, the old man had grinned, slapped his back and thrown all his confidence and support Royal’s way.

  “I proposed that we sell off all but fifty acres and move from two major crops to several smaller organic crops to sell to restaurants, start a CSA box, and to distribute to local farmer’s markets and grocery stores who carried organic produce.

  “It took a while. You can’t just not use pesticides and call yourself organic. There’s a process. Lots of hoops to go through. About two years from the day I decided to give it a go, we planted the first crops. Last year we added the CSA box. We work with several small farms and have three hundred subscribers in this area. Next year we might work with one in the Atlanta metro area, but I don’t want to expand so fast we screw up our balance. We hit the local farmer’s markets, and many grocery stores within a sixty-mile radius stock our stuff. We’re going step by step at this point. Some stuff works, other stuff not so much. I like being a farmer, you know? This land has been in my family for generations so it means something to me to continue on with my own stamp on the place.”

  “Wow, this is awesome. Congratulations, Royal. I’d really love a tour. I used to get a produce box back in Seattle. I was just thinking I needed to look around for one here.”

  She wasn’t just saying it, wasn’t flattering to fill the silence. Her eyes were warm, her smile open, and something about that appealed to him a great deal.

  “I think I can hook you up with both a tour and a subscription.”

  She talked with her hands. Animated. Her face open and full of emotion. Having a conversation with Caroline Mendoza was a full-speed race one minute and a slow drive through the country at sunset the next.

  She exhilarated him. She was interesting. Fascinating really. Beautiful. Funny. Smart too.

  “So why did you come back?” He held up a hand. “Feel free to skip that question if it’s too personal.”

  “I came back because”—she took a bracing gulp of beer—“I don’t like not handling things.”

  He sat back, patient enough to let her speak at her own pace.

  “I like having my shit under control. I like facing things that make me worried or sad. I know my grandparents on my dad’s side. My abuela is still alive and raising Cain. I’ve got a big, close-knit family in Los Angeles and Portland. My uncle and his partner live in Long Beach. I have three other uncles, two of which also live in Southern California, the third in Portland. They’re married and have kids. I’ve got great-aunts and great-uncles, cousins and second cousins. I know them. They know me. I can show up on any of their doorsteps and not have to knock before going inside.”

  Royal nodded. “That’s a good feeling.”

  She smiled, feeling understood. “It is. They keep me grounded and loved. I never had to…” She sighed. “I never have to hide my whole self when I’m with them. It’s comfortable and good, and I miss them all very much.

  “But there’s this space.” She pressed the heel of her hand over her heart. “My sister and brother should be part of that in my life. I love them both so much. But I’m closer to my cousins than I am to my own siblings. I knock when I visit my grandparents. I schedule time to spend with my sister and brother. My brother who calls himself Shep like half of himself doesn’t exist.”

  She nodded her thanks when he poured her some more beer. />
  “I hate that I don’t have that ease with my mom’s people. I hate that I feel like an outsider in the town I was born and raised in. I hate that my brother and sister have shut the door on all that love I just talked about, and I hate that my mom’s parents have made it that way.”

  He nodded. “I get that. So Mindy and Shep, they don’t see or have contact with your dad’s people at all?”

  “Since the day my mother died, they’ve refused. My grandparents, the Lassiters I mean, have consistently stood in the way. At first the Mendozas tried via the courts, but my dad’s parents didn’t want to make things harder. Mindy and Shep were a lot younger than I was, they had it…different than I did. By the time they got older, it was painful for my dad’s side of the family just to try to get access. In the end, it would have hurt my siblings so the Mendozas backed off.”

  “So you came back to smooth the way between your daddy’s people and your siblings?”

  She shook her head. “When my dad died in prison, everything I’d sort of compartmentalized fell apart. All the spaces in my life where I’d neatly stored people and relationships just sort of dissolved into a messy heap. I realized I couldn’t deal with this distance between me and my siblings. That I couldn’t just walk away from this place, which is as much a part of me and who I am as it is my siblings’. I can’t make them want to have a relationship with our dad’s family. But I’m their sister and they should know me. More than me a few times a year. My dad would want that. My mom would want that.”

  He leaned forward and slid his fingers through hers, tangling them. “I think they’re lucky to have you as a big sister.”

  “I’m not sure they think that way. As much as I want it to be so, we’re not close.” She raised a shoulder. “They suspect my motives. I end up being so careful all the time to not upset anyone that I’m not totally me. It’s artificial and that’s not something you can build a real foundation on.”

  His mouth flattened out. Angry on her behalf. She warmed at that defense, even so subtle. “Why are you being careful? Mindy is an adult, Shep is nearly so, they don’t need you to tiptoe around who you are.”

  What could she say? That when she was twenty her grandmother hauled her into a side room and threatened to never let her see her brother and sister again if she ever spoke of her father or his innocence? That she’d reminded Caroline just how easy it would be to poison Mindy and Shep against her so they’d refuse to see her like they did their father’s family?

  She took a deep breath. “I have to skirt the elephant in the room to keep the peace. We—that is my siblings and I—experienced the death of our mother very differently. I was far older than they were so I had a more developed relationship with our parents. And their families too. We’re very different and my grandparents… Well I suppose I believe they’ve used that to their advantage to keep that gulf between me and the rest of them.”

  “Why do you think that?” Not a judgmental question.

  “Look, I’m not knocking their grief. I lost her too. But my grandmother is every bit of the control freak I am now. She was given a story of what happened and that is that. To even question it is to choose a side in her mind. Feeding Mindy and Shep an absolute is a way to keep them on my grandmother’s correct side of things. It makes it easy to control them, where they go to school, who they see. What they believe. I’m a wild card. I’m a messy bed and unfolded laundry, and as you might imagine, Abigail Lassiter doesn’t like either of those things. I wanted to see my sister and brother. I wanted to keep this part of my life alive, even if strained. So I danced to her tune.”

  “But you’re going to change the record now?” One corner of his mouth quirked up.

  “I guess you should know this up front, before we go out again or anything like that. I have spent a huge portion of my life, especially the last fourteen or so years, trying to prove my father’s innocence. I don’t push it in my siblings’ faces, but if it comes up, I speak the truth. The truth as I see it. The truth as I’ve pieced it together after combing through every little piece of evidence I come across over and over. He’s dead now. That he lost his wife, his children and his freedom and ultimately his life to the acts of a person who is still out there is something I cannot remain silent about. They kept saying I should move here, my grandparents I mean, so I have. But I’m not Mindy. I’m not easily controlled. And they’re old enough to deal with me as adults now.” She shrugged.

  “First things first. There will most definitely be more dates and things like that.” He snagged one of the last onion rings off her plate, and she snorted. “I like the way you smell. I like that you’re up front with what you want and how you feel. You have no idea how fucking refreshing that is. Sexy too. As for the rest? I don’t know the whole story, and as we get to know one another, I’d like to hear your side, what you know. Whatever the reasons you’re back, I’m glad of it.”

  That easy acceptance of her—of the way she felt and her right to feel it—should have been commonplace but it wasn’t. She was Caroline Mendoza, the daughter of a convicted murderer.

  Back in Petal, there was a thin line, the sharpest she’d ever walked. While she’d been able to build relationships in her life in Los Angeles and Seattle, they hadn’t experienced the events surrounding her mother’s murder and the trial in the same way people in Petal had. They had an ownership over the history, up close and personal that others didn’t.

  She’d been pitied and reviled. Humored and ignored. But being believed, or at the very least given the space to have her own feelings and beliefs, well that was rare and it made her appreciate Royal even more.

  “Thank you for that. If you have questions, ask them. I’ll answer them the best I can.”

  He kissed her fingertips. “I think we need to finish our beer and food, blow out of here, grab something sweet and maybe smooch a while.”

  “I’m totally on board with that plan.”

  After they’d finished, the sheer volume in the room had risen as it had gotten past nine on a Friday night. People played pool in the back, servers shuttled through the room with pitchers of beer, and there was a lot of laughter, shit talking and curious looks her way.

  A bunch of people came in and shouted his name. He tore his gaze away from her—a thing she liked a whole lot—and grinned, waving. “Hey!”

  She recognized a few of the Chases in the throng of handsome men. Some other faces looked vaguely familiar, but they’d all grown up in the time she’d been away.

  “You gonna play tonight?” they called out.

  Royal looked back her way and she rolled her eyes. “Depends,” she said quietly with a smirk. “I won’t be insulted if you want to play pool either.”

  “I was about to introduce you. I have no desire to play pool with my reprobate friends when I’m on a date with you. But I surely do like the sound of that depends.”

  He tossed down money to pay the bill and slid out from the booth, holding a hand she took and let him haul her to her feet.

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they strolled over to his friends with her snugged up to his side. And she totally pretended to miss the way some of his friends’ eyes widened momentarily.

  “Y’all, this is Caroline Mendoza. I think several of you may have known her at school, though most of us were older except for Trey and Jacob who were probably still in middle school when she was in high school.” He’d told most of them about her. Hell, he saw most of them at least three times any given week anyway.

  He pointed. “That’s Nathan Murphy.” Nathan shot her a smile and a wave. Though Nathan was his ex’s older brother, he was one of Royal’s closest friends and he’d been the one to urge Royal to finally end things or settle for what Anne was willing to give him. “He’s a high school teacher.” He went down the line. “Trey Rosario and Jacob Murphy who also used to be my housemates. Marc Chase and his older brother Kyle.”

  “Oh! Marc as in the walls talking?”

  He burs
t out laughing and nodded. “Yes, one and the same.” He turned his attention to Marc. “She’s renting your old apartment.”

  “Ah! Well it’s a great location. Safe, well lit. You’re the same Caroline who came to work with our father, right? Welcome home.” He shook her hand and gave her a handsome, genuine smile, and it made Royal glad to see.

  The others followed suit, though Nathan gave him a brow rise when Caroline’s attention was elsewhere.

  They all chatted a while before Royal stole her away, done with sharing her for the night. Of course that’s when Anne walked in with a passel of Chase and Murphy women. She saw him and came over to give him a big hug and kiss smack on the lips.

  She was still one of his closest friends so it wasn’t like it meant anything romantic. But Caroline stiffened a little so he put his arm around her shoulders again. Anne, however, remained at his other side, her arm around his waist.

  Not awkward at all. He rolled his eyes inwardly.

  “Anne, this is the woman I told you about. Caroline Mendoza, this is Anne Murphy. Anne is one of my oldest and dearest friends.”

  Anne raised her brow his way. “Um and we were seriously dating for six years. He must have forgotten that part.”

  He tried not to goggle at Anne’s words. There was an edge to them, which wasn’t usual for her at all. But Caroline held her hand out to shake Anne’s. “I think we were in school around the same time. Your sister Beth was in my year.”

  Anne looked slightly abashed when her rudeness was not reciprocated. Caroline was so confident and well mannered it made Anne’s words seem even more petty.

  Anne nodded and looked back to Royal. “You guys hanging out here to play pool and drink beer?”

  “Nope. We had dinner, and I am about to squire Caroline out for some pie and coffee. See y’all later.”

  They waved but Royal held her close to his side as they headed back out.

  “I’m sorry about that. She didn’t mean to sound rude.”