“Go ahead, darlin’. Help yourself. You won’t get much if I pass it to the boys first,” he prompted.
Once the plates and bowls had made their rounds, an awkward silence descended on the table. Bobby Walters cleared his throat. “I, uh, I hear you’re from Chicago, Ms. Prescott.”
“It’s Lynne, and yes,” she answered, passing the basket of biscuits. “I live just north of the city.”
“I have cousins up there. Visited them a couple of years ago. They took me to a ball game.”
She returned his friendly smile, noting the smattering of boyish freckles that dusted the young man's open face. “Cubs or Sox?”
“Cubs.”
“Games at Wrigley Field are always fun.”
“Yes, ma’am. We had a good time.”
Spoons and forks scraped earthenware plates. Lynne speared a forkful of green beans.
“Your mama is doing well?” Ada inquired.
The conversation paused. Lynne’s fork hovered near her lips. “Yes, very well.”
“You knew her mother?” Willene blurted, and every head swiveled toward her.
Ada met the girl’s mildly accusatory stare head-on. “Of course I did, Picklepuss. Everyone knew Elizabeth Burdock. She was the first and only Miss Arkansas from around here.”
“Your mother was Miss Arkansas?” Jennifer asked, her eyes widening with interest.
Lynne promptly shoveled the green beans into her mouth. The salty tang of bacon exploded on her tongue. She nodded as she chewed, a soft moan humming in her throat.
“Good, huh?” Bram asked with a low chuckle.
“What year was it? Fifty-two? Fifty-three?” Ada mused.
“Fifty-three,” Lynne and Al answered in unison.
She turned to Bram’s father, a surprised laugh bubbling from her lips. “You have a good memory.”
“Oh, Alsom would never forget that,” Ada drawled, an amused gleam lighting her eyes. “He was sweet on your mama.”
“I was not.” The older man shook his head vehemently.
“Lizzie-Beth Burdock didn’t have much time for gawky, goggle-eyed sixteen-year-olds,” Ada continued. “Luckily, I was around to mend his broken heart when she moved off to Little Rock.”
Al snorted. “Tried to break it yourself a time or two,” he muttered with a vicious stab at the beans on his plate.
“Wanted to know if I could.” Ada gave his hand a conciliatory pat. “Turns out, I was pretty good at it.”
Lynne spared Bram a quick glance from under her lashes. He was engrossed in decimating the mountain of mashed potatoes on his plate, so she turned her attention to her own meal.
Jennifer jumped into the pool of silence. “Do your folks still live near you?”
Lynne scraped at her potatoes with the tines of her fork. “Uh, no. My mother moved to Arizona not long after my father passed away three years ago.”
Ada’s face softened. “I’m sorry to hear about your daddy. I only saw him the once, just after he and Elizabeth married. He was a handsome man.”
“Thank you. Yes, he was.” Lynne took advantage of the pause by shoveling the spuds into her mouth to avoid having to say more.
“Looked like that movie star,” Ada murmured. Her brow furrowed as she searched her memory.
Lynne’s eyebrows rose. She cast a glance at Bram then his father. “Movie star?”
“Redford. Robert Redford,” Ada concluded with a sly smile. “He was so handsome in that movie with Barbara Streisand.”
Bram raised an eyebrow. “Robert Redford?”
A smile lifted Lynne’s lips. “Well, he was blond.”
“A doctor, wasn’t he?” Ada persisted.
“Yes. A cardiologist.”
Bram’s head jerked up. “Your father was a doctor, too?”
“Yes. He was Chief of Staff at Northshore Memorial.”
He picked up his drumstick and eyed it speculatively. “Huh.”
“Too?” Ada prompted.
“My, uh, ex-husband is a surgeon.”
“Oh.”
Somehow the older woman managed to infuse an encyclopedia’s worth of acknowledgment into a single syllable. Lynne’s cheeks warmed. Bram stared at his drumstick but didn’t take a bite.
Willene piped up, filling the lull in conversation. “What do you do, Ms. Prescott?”
Lynne’s head swiveled. “Me? Oh, I don’t….”
The younger woman pounced. “You don’t work?”
Bram’s drumstick landed in his green beans with a plop. “She didn’t say that, Willene.”
The blush burned in her cheeks. Lynne’s fingers grazed his forearm, stilling him. “There are a few charities—”
“But not real work,” Willene persisted.
She eyed the girl coolly and smoothed the antique lace tablecloth under her damp palm. “I don’t get paid, no,” she answered, her voice calm.
Jennifer leaned across Abe to ask, “Do you do those fancy benefits and fundraisers? The pictures in the Sunday paper are always so glamorous.”
A rush of gratitude warmed her. “We do a couple of those. They can be fun, but mostly they’re a lot of work. They can raise a good deal of money, though.”
“Oh, I know what you mean. They’re always printing pictures of some swanky dinner-dance in the Gazette,” Willene said, fixing her father with a bland stare. She nudged her fiancé with her elbow. “The guys dress up like penguins to save spotted owls.”
“Honey?” Bram asked in low voice.
Lynne startled, blinking at him like one of the alleged owls.
“Do you want some honey for your biscuit?” Her gaze fell to the jar of liquid gold in his hand. “It’s good,” he prompted.
“Thank you.” She glanced at his rapidly depleting plate and wondered if she’d actually get a chance to eat more than a bite of each thing. She drizzled honey over the buttered bread and decided to take the plunge.
“I haven’t done much with environmental causes,” she admitted.
Bram stiffened beside her when Willene turned an unflinching stare on Lynne. “No? Well, I suppose since you aren’t into farming.”
“Right.” She conceded with a brisk nod. “I don’t know much about those things.” Abe shoveled a heaping forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth, and Lynne admired the wisdom of his choice. She cleared her throat and chanced a sip of iced tea. “My best friend passed away seven years ago. Some friends and I established a foundation in her memory.”
Willene quirked an eyebrow. “Providing soccer balls to needy private school kids?”
“Willene.” Bram snapped.
This time, Lynne’s fingers closed around his wrist. She met his daughter’s stare with a level gaze. “We work with a clinic in the city to provide free mammograms to women without health insurance.”
The scrape of utensils ceased. Abe covered his mouth with his napkin and coughed softly, and Willene’s hands slid from the table into her lap. For the first time since the meal began, Al’s fork came to rest on his plate.
The sudden silence unnerved her. Lynne turned to Bram, searching his face for a clue to what she’d said wrong. Oblivious, A.J. hummed softly as he rebuilt the mashed potato dam his last forkful demolished. “Can I have more potatoes?”
“Eat what you have,” Jennifer whispered.
Bram covered her hand with his and turned his steady blue gaze on her. He swallowed hard then cleared his throat. “I think that’s great.”
She gave him a tremulous smile, gratified by the frank admiration in his eyes. “It’s a drop in the bucket.”
“It’s something. You’re doing something.”
Making the most of the sudden silence enveloping the room, A.J. poked his head up and said, “I totally sacked Jimmy Carson in gym today.”
A laugh whooshed from Bram as he ruffled the boy’s hair. “Didn’t they tell you you’re not supposed to tackle in flag football?”
A.J. shrugged and stretched for another biscuit. Jennifer gave his hand a
swat and pointed to the untouched beans on his plate. Lynne ducked her head, stifling a small smile as she picked up the breast she’d chosen. Bram smiled and nodded encouragingly.
She took a healthy bite and her eyes widened. Covering her mouth, she moaned when the savory breading melted on her tongue. She wiped her lips and turned to Ada. “I don’t suppose you’d share this recipe?”
The old woman laughed. “Sweetheart, no woman worth her salt shares her best recipe.”
“Careful, Mama. Lynne makes a mean pot roast. You might want that one.”
Ada’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so?” She turned her attention to her plate. “Maybe we’ll talk.”
****
Bram tried to protest when his mother insisted the men clear the table, but she relentlessly loaded his hands with plates and herded him into the kitchen.
“Mama—”
“She’ll be fine,” Ada murmured, prodding him along by poking him in the butt with a fork.
He rinsed and stacked the plates in the dishwasher in record time. Abe shot him a sympathetic glance as he squeezed liquid soap into the sink, and Al gave his arm a bump when he shuffled past. A.J. made his best effort at wheedling his way out of the work, only to be shooed into the kitchen by his mother.
Bobby eyed the cake and pie on the counter and smacked his lips. Snagging a clean towel, he stepped up to the sink. “I’ll dry. It’ll go faster,” he said and took a dripping bowl from Abe’s hand.
Resigned, Bram hustled into the dining room to clear the rest of the dishes. Ada led Jennifer down the hall to her sewing room, chattering on about a project she had going. He craned his neck and caught a glimpse of Lynne standing in front of the fireplace, inspecting the framed photos on the mantel. When Willene sidled up next to her, he bowed up.
His father reappeared, peeked around the corner, and reached for the bowls Bram clutched. He jerked his head toward the living room. “Go. You’ll be no damn good to us anyway.”
He didn’t bother to put up even a token resistance. “Thanks, Dad.”
The two women stared at the framed portrait taken at his wedding. He opened his mouth to call out but stopped when Lynne spoke. “Your mother was very beautiful.”
“Yes, she was,” Willie answered.
“Abe looks like her.”
The girl smirked. “Daddy always said they got one of each of them.”
“You favor her, too. Your chin.”
“The mouth,” Willene murmured.
He stepped into the room, but Lynne cast a quick glance in his direction, pinning him to the spot. “You’re protective of him. I don’t blame you.”
“He’d tell you he doesn’t need my protection.”
“No matter what the TV shows tell you, father doesn’t always know best.”
Willene stared hard at the framed photograph. “It seemed to happen so fast. Less than six months after we found out, she was gone.”
Lynne hummed an acknowledgement. “I always wonder—is that better or worse? I watched Maribeth fight so hard for so long. Over two years. Right up to the end, she fought. I don’t know how she did it. I’m not sure I could.”
“When it’s important, you fight.”
“I suppose so. I’ve never been much of a fighter.”
“No?”
Lynne shrugged. “I’ve always done what I was supposed to do, so I guess I had no reason to fight.”
Bram braced himself to step in when Willene turned to face Lynne head-on. “There’s never been anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Lynne turned back to the photo and gave a slight shrug. “I’m not sure how this is supposed to go either, but I can tell you it’s as scary as it is amazing.” They fell silent for a moment. Lynne turned to meet his daughter’s gaze. “Maybe I’m not quite what you think.”
The tension stretched taut, humming through the room. Finally, Willene jerked her chin at the beige summer suit he wore in the wedding photograph. “Nice suit, huh? Looks like it was made out of cardboard.”
Bram stepped forward, prepared to defend both his decisions and his fashion choices.
Lynne snorted. “That’s nothing. My ex-husband’s tux was powder blue. He was a dead ringer for Tom Jones.”
“Who’s Tom Jones?”
Swooping in, he saved her from having to explain. He pressed his hand to the small of her back and pointed to a shot of a roly-poly, naked baby. “I know someone who looked like she swallowed doughnuts whole.”
“Daddy.”
He dropped a kiss to Willene’s cheek. “Tom Jones is the guy who sang ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ You’d call him totally cheesy…Pussycat.”
Willene gasped and swatted his arm. “I thought you made that up.”
He wrapped his arm around his daughter’s shoulder and pulled her close, brushing a kiss to her hair. “Maybe I’m not what you think either, Sassypants. Now be polite.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lynne pinched a crease in her skirt, running her thumbnail along the peak in the material. Night blanketed the freshly turned fields. Silence reigned supreme in the cab of the truck.
The quiet soothed her ragged nerves. The tension that hummed through dinner gave way to incessant chatter and good-natured ribbing the moment dessert was presented. She’d sat back, watching and listening as she nibbled the delicious apple-walnut cake. She’d smiled when Bram managed to wolf down two slices of his mother’s pie.
If she’d had more experience with a close-knit family, she would have been prepared for the fresh barrage of questions that flew at her the moment she set her empty plate aside. Well-meaning inquiries about Justin made her heart ache. The curious probing about Chicago, her marriage, and the choices—or lack of choices—she’d made in her life left her feeling raw and exposed.
She glanced over at Bram. He wet his lips, and her heart did that freaky fluttery thing. He turned toward her and her mouth watered. “You okay?”
His voice was low and soft, an intimate caress that warmed her cheeks and set her nerve endings on fire. She turned, staring straight through the windshield. “I’m fine.”
“They can be a bit much.”
“They were fine. Lovely.”
He slowed to a stop behind her car, killed the engine, and turned to face her. “I’m sorry about Willie.”
“She was fine, Bram.”
“She was rude.”
“She feels threatened.”
His eyebrows rose. “Threatened?” She held his gaze. His breath stirred her hair when he exhaled slowly. “Maybe she does.”
“It’s only natural.”
He pursed those perfect lips, tempting her beyond all endurance. She kissed him softly and reached for the door handle.
“Hang on,” he ordered, scrambling from the truck.
She smiled when he yanked the door open, holding his hand out palm-up. Slipping from the cab, she fell into his waiting embrace and inhaled the fresh scent of cut wood that clung to his skin. Oh God, he smells too good. He tasted even better. Like blueberries, tangy and temptingly sweet. Lynne pressed one hand to his chest, forcing her eyes open.
“Goodnight, Bram.”
Confusion played across his face. Her fingers itched to trace the lines etched around his mouth. Her lips still tingled from his kiss.
“Goodnight?” he croaked, his voice breaking the word into a question.
“Goodnight,” she repeated.
Her fingers trailed down his stomach, reluctant to give up the contact. She managed two steps toward the back steps before he caught her hand. “Did I do something wrong?”
She looked up, startled. “No, not at all.”
“Why can’t I…” He ran his hand over his mouth. “You won’t even let me walk you to the door?”
Her smile blossomed. “Walk me to the door? Is that all you want to do?”
“I just….”
Once again, his broad palm raked down his face. Taking pity on him, she laced
her fingers through his and spoke low and soft. “Neither of us got much sleep last night.” Those sculpted lips tightened, but his eyes glowed an eerie blue with moonlight and memories. “It’s been kind of a long day.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Okay.”
The easy capitulation made her stomach drop. The ambivalence that roiled in her gut all evening flared and burned out, leaving behind a hole of gaping need. “Unless….”
“Unless?” he prompted, taking a step closer.
“You want to…just stay.”
He nodded eagerly. “Yeah, just stay.”
The corners of her lips twitched. “You might be a little too easy, Mr. Hatchett.”
“I’m too old to mess around. I want to be with you.”
The ticklish flutter in her chest morphed into a slow, dull throb threatening to bruise her breastbone. “Your mom thought my dad looked like Robert Redford.”
“Did he?”
“Not at all.”
Bram smiled. “Too bad. You coulda been my Sundance.”
“Huh?”
Disengaging his fingers, he slung his arm over her shoulder and drew her close, starting for the door. “My mama thinks I look like Paul Newman.”
“You do. You totally do.” She beamed up at him. “Can I call you Butch?”
Bram snorted as he opened the screen door. He gave her a playful push into the mudroom. “No.”
****
Grasshoppers, cut worms, earworms… Stop thinking about worms.
Lynne sighed and then snuggled her bottom against his groin. Bram tried to switch to brand names of herbicides—pre- and post-emergent—but came up empty.
Oh, how the worm turns.
He did his level best to ignore the telltale constriction of his cotton briefs.
Boll weevils, whiteflies, aphids, and caterpillars. No, not caterpillars….
Not working. He tried to scoot away, but she straightened her legs. Satiny skin slid against his. Squeezing his eyes shut, he smothered a groan. Her shoulder blades cut into his chest. The smooth, firm flesh of her bottom cradled his crotch. She shifted, and his hand slipped low on her belly. The tip of his middle finger dipped into her navel and she giggled.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 44
