She gazed straight ahead at the narrow, rutted lane. “Let me go, Bram,” she whispered. “This was just a bump in the road.”
“Wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Am I?” Her deep blue gaze fixed on him once more.
He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said in a voice as wispy as the wind. “You don’t know who I am and what I want.”
“How can I if you leave? Tell me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it for you.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Like three dozen chickens?” A sad smile lifted one corner of her mouth. She shook her head. “You need to learn not to promise what you can’t give.”
Bram sucked in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to muffle the pounding of his heart with a handful of feathers. “Don't leave. Please. Talk to me.”
“You honestly want to know what I want?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers wound around the wheel, slender and graceful, but ringless and unpolished. “I want clean jeans and my own pillows. I want someone to want me for me and nothing more. I want a cannoli.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I have no idea what a cannoli is, but—”
“I know you don’t,” she said, cutting him off again.
“Who gives a damn about the stupid cannoli? I think you owe it to me to stay and talk about this.”
She shook her head. “I owe you nothing, Bram. I have to go home and you have a chicken to bury.”
Gravel popped under the tires as the car crept forward. He had to give them one last shot.
“Lynne—”
“A cannoli is an Italian pastry. Delicious cream-filled goodness. You should try one sometime.” The window began to rise. “Goodbye, Bram. Sorry about the chicken.”
He stepped back, watching until her taillights winked from view. “Yeah. Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As soon as the tires touched pavement, Lynne released the breath she’d been holding. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed Bram hadn’t followed. He wouldn’t. If he wouldn’t chase his wife of more than twenty years, he sure as hell isn’t going to chase me. At least, not farther than the end of the driveway.
Tension ebbed from her shoulders and neck. She took an experimental breath and felt lucky it didn’t choke her. She eased her foot from the gas, letting the incline of the blacktop pull her toward the crossroad. The car jerked to a halt at the stop sign, and she glanced down at the foot pressing the brake in surprise.
“Huh. Let’s hear it for reflexes.”
Her head swiveled, checking for traffic in either direction. The freshly turned earth caught her eye. She sighed.
I’m running away.
She gave her head a brisk shake and shot across the intersection. “No, I’m not,” she muttered between clenched teeth.
Speeding toward the highway, she mentally checked off each landmark. Grain elevator. Tractor supply store. House with the weird purple shutters.
At Main Street, she slowed to a stop. A woman walked out of the market with two tow-headed kids hot on her heels. They followed her down the sidewalk, skipping to compensate for the woman’s longer stride. When she reached the corner, she turned to the children with a smile and pulled two ice cream bars from the brown paper bag in her hand. Lynne stared, mesmerized by the expectant grins on the children’s faces as their mother unwrapped the treats.
She closed her eyes. The memory of a gaggle of clucking birds chasing after a skinny girl with blonde braids and dusty sneakers rushed back. She could still recall the musty scent of the grain clutched in her grimy hand.
I’m running away.
Opening her eyes wide, she turned from the chocolate-smudged smiles, focusing on the cheerful yellow awning above the door to Walters’ Mercantile. True to form, Al Hatchett and Rufus McArdle rocked lazily as they greeted passersby. Her heart tripped a lively tarantella when her gaze came to rest on Bram’s father. The old man looked up, and his piercing blue gaze seemed to cut right through the windshield.
He knows I’m leaving.
Thankfully, Al’s attention was diverted by his wife. Lynne took the opportunity to move her foot from the brake to the gas. She cranked the wheel and sailed past, casting a wary glance out of the corner of her eye. Miss Ada’s head turned.
Oh God, don’t look at me like that.
Her throat ached. Tears burned behind her eyes. Loss and disappointment sat in her stomach like a cannonball. She bashed the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. “I’m not running away. I’m going back where I belong.”
One tire bumped the curb, and she jammed on the brakes. A pick-up truck’s horn blared. Lynne glanced over her shoulder as the truck swerved to miss her rear bumper. She let off the brake, creeping forward until the car was out of the lane. A flash of green caught her eye. She spied Miss Ada crossing the street. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, searching for a shred of dignity to go with the last scrap of her pride as she hit the button to lower the window.
“Are you okay, honey?”
Mustering one ounce of nerve, she met the older woman’s gaze. The genuine worry etched into her lined face made her crumble. “No.”
Ada placed one freckled hand on the open window, her fingers curling in the exact spot her son’s had a short time before. “Can I help?”
“No.”
“You had a spat?” Her head jerked up and she spotted the smile curving Ada’s lips. “I know my boy.”
“It wasn’t a spat.”
“A misunderstanding then.”
The word wound its way into her brain, rattled around, and then settled into place like a dog curling up in front of a fire. “A misunderstanding,” she repeated.
“Bram isn’t real good with saying what he means.” She gave Lynne a conspiratorial wink. “He’s a doer, not a talker.”
A laugh sputtered from her. She gave her head a rueful shake. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Ada leaned into the window, heedless of the traffic stirring the skirt of her spring green dress. “I’ll tell you a little secret.”
“Secret?”
“You have to be direct. Beating around the bush is completely lost on Bram, and dropping hints is like speaking to him in Hindi.” With a kind smile, she stepped back from the car. “Talk straight with the boy, and you’ll get this all worked out.”
“It’s not so easy.”
“Sweetheart, when you get to be my age you’ll realize things are as easy as you want them to be and more complicated than you ever imagined.”
Lynne laughed again. “That makes no sense.”
The old woman glanced over her shoulder and raised her hand, giving her husband a coy wave. From the look on his face, the gesture hadn’t lost its impact over their fifty-year marriage.
“Neither does love, honey,” she murmured, flashing a wan smile. “Love never has made a lick of sense. A damn nuisance is what it is.”
“Bram and Iwe aren’tI mean.”
“Call it whatever you want, just talk to him. You’ll see—it’s as easy as pie.”
With that, Ada turned smartly on one heel and crossed the street. Lynne’s gaze flickered to Al. He was openly ogling his wife as she stepped up onto the curb. Ada pointed a stern finger at him as she reached for the door to the hatchery, and he smiled wide enough to garner a swish of the sassy septuagenarian’s hips.
“A misunderstanding,” she whispered. She pushed her hair back from her face. “A misunderstanding.”
The second time she said it with more conviction. She flexed her foot, letting up on the brake. A battered Toyota beeped a warning, and she jerked to a stop again. Grimacing, she risked a glance at the two old men in the rocking chairs. Rufus shook his head, and Al raised one hand in a wave. This time, she checked to be certain the coast was clear before making a run for it.
****
Bram grumbled under his breath and tossed another shovelful of dirt into
the grave. His cell phone rang, but he ignored the call. One of the remaining chickens let out a squawk. He blocked their chatter out too, glancing at his watch then plunging the shovel into the small mound of loose earth.
Let her have her head start. I’ll be an hour behind—two tops. I’ll catch up with her.
Clumps of grass and dirt slid from the shovel into the hole.
No chickens, no nosy neighbors, no fried chicken and puddin’ pound cake. We’re gonna talk this out. She can have her snit fit, but she’ll cool down and we can talk.
His cell chirped, alerting him to a message. He jerked it from the belt clip and glared at the display, sighing when he spotted the store’s phone number.
“Crap.”
Bram gave the idea of returning his mother’s call about two seconds’ thought then dismissed it. Not now, Mama. I’m not up for a lecture. He snapped the phone into the clip and stabbed at the pile of dirt once more. When the tip of the shovel hit unturned earth, the impact jarred his arm. A car door closed, and he froze.
She spoke before he could gather the courage to face her. “I’m not running away.”
Her voice was low, tremulous, and it beat the shit out of the hum of tilling tractors and trilling birds. Bram shook his head and forced his muscles to move. He hefted a shovelful of soil. “Sure looked like it.”
“Yeahwell, I’m not.”
A surge of righteous indignation fired his cheeks. He tamped the loose dirt down with the back of the shovel, pounding the ground with a tad too much force. He reined in his temper and turned to face her, planting the tip of the shovel in the dirt between them. She stood still, her feet braced in a wide stance and her arms wrapped tightly around her middle.
Rooted. A soft snort escaped him. Wishful thinking, buddy.
He gripped the shovel’s wooden handle, fighting to keep from fidgeting under her steady gaze. Finally, she glanced at the chickens pecking their way around her feet. Her voice came in a whisper. “When I was little, my grandmother’s chickens would follow me around the yard.” A sad smile twitched her lips. “I thought I was magic—like the Pied Piper or something. Now I know they thought I was going to feed them every time I stepped outside.”
“Maybe to them you were magic,” he offered gruffly.
“I suppose, but….”
He pushed a hand through his hair and swallowed hard, trying to force the lump lodged in his throat to merge with the knot in his belly. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about the farm. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t thinking about it much.”
“No?”
The hopeful wariness in her eyes started to unravel the twisted knot of fear in his gut. The skepticism that lingered in her gaze was almost enough to make him flinch. He clung to the handle in a vain attempt to brace himself. “I can’t believe you’d think that after…I told you everything.”
“Not quite everything.”
The quiet surety in her voice sliced him as easily as a hot knife sliding through butter. He met her gaze directly, giving a tiny shake of his head. “I told you everything that mattered. Everything real.”
“Your wife’s unhappiness wasn’t real?”
“We had everything,” he said in a low, vehement tone. “Everything we ever dreamed of, everything we planned.”
“But something changed,” she said flatly. “What she wanted changed, and you couldn’t see that. You couldn’t see her.”
You don’t see me, Bram. You don’t see anything but what you want.
He shook his head harder, desperate to dislodge the memory of Susan’s angry accusations. His jaw throbbed in time with the dull thud of his heart. He couldn’t bear to look at Lynne. “No, I didn’t want to see that.” He drew a quavering breath. “I thought it should be enough. Me and Susie, our marriage. I thought I should be.” He blinked and averted his gaze again. “I did everything to make her happy. Everything but leave. I was too scared to leave.”
“Would you have? If she didn’t come home, would you have gone after her?”
He drew a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, turning back to confront her head-on. “I learned my lesson.”
“Did you?”
“The minute I saw you, my plans changed.”
“Did they?”
The suspicion in her tone made the air seep from his lungs. His shoulders slumped, and he let go of the handle. The shovel fell to the ground at her feet. He glanced down at the freshly turned earth and shook his head. “You’re right. We don’t know each other at all,” he said quietly and stepped past her to head for his truck.
“He made a fool out of me,” she called after him. He met her dull blue gaze. “I allowed my ex-husband to make a fool of me.” Her chin tipped up a notch. “I won’t be used again. By you or anyone else.”
“I’m not Richard, and I never took you for a fool.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Even when I thought Thelma and Louise had made a break for it?”
The tension humming between them snapped like a twig. His lips curved. “Okay, maybe then.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but his cell rang again. Bram jerked the phone from the clip, checked the display and silenced the call. He grimaced as he snapped the phone back into place. “I have to get back to the store. Abe’s off today, and I kinda took off….”
She stooped to pick up the shovel. “Thanks for, uh…” Her hand fluttered toward the tiny grave.
His fingers wrapped around the doorframe, clinging to what he feared would be one last moment with her. “The hell of it is, I want to know you,” he said in a low, soft voice. “I want you to want me to know you.”
She hesitated for one heart-stopping moment. “I think I want that too. Both ways,” she clarified with a sheepish smile. “That’s why I came back.”
He closed his eyes for a second, letting her words sink in as relief washed over him. Meeting her gaze again, he asked, “How can I be sure you won’t take off the minute I leave?”
She exhaled a rueful laugh and let the shovel fall once more. He watched her tromp across the grass to her car and pop the latch on the lift gate. A moment later, she tossed a heavy trash bag at his chest. He caught it instinctively, staring down at the crumpled black plastic.
“Run those through your dryer for me tonight, will you?” she asked, pinning him to the spot with a hopeful gaze.
He gripped the bag harder than necessary, but it was the only way he could keep a hold on himself. “You’ll call me?”
“I’ll have to. You have my good jeans.”
“Good.” He started to climb into the truck then pulled back. “I will tell you this, and you can believe it because it’s the God’s honest truth, Ms. Prescott,” he said, clutching the bag of wet clothes to his chest. “I saw you, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to see anything else.”
Lynne ducked her head and took a step back, a pleased smile lifting her pink cheeks. “Go. Before I make a fool of myself.”
He climbed into the truck, tossing the bag of laundry onto the seat beside him. Glancing back, he caught her watching him and raised one hand in a wave before starting the engine. The truck bumped and bounced its way through the yard to the lane. All the while, he kept one hand on the trash bag, determined he wouldn’t let it slip away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A steady drip-drip-drip reverberated off the bathroom walls. Each tiny drop gathered on the tile floor, forming a miniature pond. Lynne tapped the pool with her big toe, smiling as the droplets sprang up and clung to her ankle. She shook out the cotton nightgown she’d washed in the kitchen sink and slipped a hanger through the sleeves.
The wire rasped against the metal shower rod. Amidst the bras and panties she’d flung over the rod to dry, the thin white gown swung back and forth, hovering over the tub and tile like a specter. Soon, the excess water would pool in its hem and add to the puddle at her feet. Eventually, she must decide if she had the strength to give Bram more than tiny droplets of info
rmation.
She tapped the shallow pool with her toe again. I should put a towel down. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, signaling the arrival of another e-mail. She watched the water ripple around her bare toes. The first drop fell from the gown, landing atop her foot and startling her from her reverie.
Lynne pulled the phone from her pocket and scanned the message. Another missive from her friend Melanie. She scanned the message then closed her eyes, trying to muster the energy to call her friend as commanded.
She opened her eyes, staring blindly at the dripping lingerie while her thumb pressed the speed dial key. I’m not running away.
She whirled and stalked from the bathroom, holding the phone to her ear. “Hi, it’s me,” she said when her friend answered.
“Where are you?” Melanie gasped. “You couldn’t call me back?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I guess so. All I got was one e-mail saying you had to go out of town, and then nothing. The ScreenSavers benefit is in ten days, Lynne.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Where are you?” Melanie asked again.
“Arkansas.”
“What’s in Arkansas? Why are you there?”
Lynne moved to the kitchen window and stared out at the back yard. Patches of rich brown soil pocked the spring grass. Tender green leaves clung to the elm’s branches, catching the waning evening light. The sky burned with a fiery pink as the sun sank behind the hills. A gold-brown rustle of feathers captured her attention. “Chickens.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, trying to reroute her thoughts after their detour. “My grandparents had a farm here. My aunt left the property to me when she passed away. I came down to get the place ready to sell.”
Or not.
“And that couldn’t wait until next month?” Melanie cried. “We’re going crazy here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 48
