“I should get home.” His gaze followed Lena and then rested on Colby, his dismay evident. “Emma’ll have dinner ready. Don’t want to make her wait.”
“She’s a better cook, anyway.”
Samuel put his arm around her shoulders, then pulled her close. “Don’t be too hard on yourself over this thing with Lena.”
An unexpected surge of emotion swelled in Colby’s chest. “Oh, Dad, I wish I could just wave a magic wand and make everything like it used to be.”
“That’s both the beauty and the sorrow of life, honey. Nothing ever stays the same. But she’ll come around with whatever’s bothering her soon enough. Take my word for it.”
Colby hugged her father, grateful for his steady reassurance. She wanted to believe him. More than anything, she wanted to believe him.
17
Upstairs, Lena turned on her stereo, putting on the heavy metal group she knew her mother liked least. She cranked the volume and flopped down on the bed, telling herself that she did like it. Staring up at the ceiling, she forced herself not to think about the hurt look on her mother’s face when she’d ignored her. She didn’t want to be so mean to her, but she just couldn’t help it. It felt like some ugly person had gotten inside her, and she no longer had any control over herself.
Flipping over on her side, she reached in her nightstand drawer and lifted out the wrinkled envelope she’d found in the top of her mom’s old closet at Grandma’s house. The letter had been written on notebook paper, the kind with blue lines and read so many times that it had gone thin and lifeless.
Lena unfolded it and let her eyes scan the page, even though she’d long since memorized the words.
Dear Colby,
I wish I didn’t have to say this, but things aren’t working out. There are too many differences between us for it ever to last. As for the baby, the decision was yours. I can’t be a part of it.
Doug
Unwanted tears stung Lena’s eyes. She refolded the letter and carefully tucked it back inside the envelope. All these years, she’d believed her mother when she said her father died. She remembered asking her mom why they had the same last name as Grandma and Grandpa Williams. Her mom explained that she’d just decided to keep her own when she and Lena’s father married. And after he had “gone away,” as she always put it, she’d wanted them both to have the same surname. At the time, she’d been too young to question the story. Looking back on it, she remembered the guilty look on her mom’s face and knew now that the lie had been behind it.
Lena’s father never married her mother. Lena had been born out of wedlock. Given her mother’s maiden name.
A knock sounded at the door, followed by her mom’s voice. Lena shoved the envelope back in her nightstand drawer and sat up on the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. “Yeah?”
The door opened. “I’ve got dinner ready,” her mother said, sticking her head around the corner. “Why don’t you come on down?”
“I’m not hungry.” Lena studied the bedspread, hearing the sullen note in her own voice. “I have homework to do.”
“I made your favorite. Macaroni and cheese.”
The desire to hurt as she hurt felt too strong to resist. She glanced up at her and said, “No, thanks.”
“You’re sure?”
Ignoring the look of surprise in her mother’s eyes, Lena reached for the book on the nightstand and turned to the marked page. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
After a second or two, her mother stepped out and closed the door behind her. Lena almost called her back but squashed the desire before the words were out.
She lay there for a few moments, regretting her actions, but then pushed away her remorse and let her thoughts wander to Luke McKinley, instead.
She thought about him all the time now. The problem? He didn’t know she existed.
She’d been trying to find a way to introduce herself to him since the first day of school. But what did a girl say to a guy like that? He was gorgeous. No, more than gorgeous. He had coal black hair and moody blue eyes that looked as if he’d seen things most of the kids here hadn’t even thought of yet.
She’d had her chance one afternoon after school when she and Millie went to the Dairy Queen. Lena had just placed her order at the register when she turned around to find him standing behind her in line. At first, she completely blanked, but realizing this might be her only chance, she smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Lena Williams. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking surprised. “I’m Luke McKinley.”
“I know. I mean, someone mentioned your name.”
He didn’t say anything for several seconds. He just stared down at her with those incredible eyes of his while her cheeks caught fire, and she longed for enough sophistication to throw out something cute and flirty, but nothing came to mind. He finally said, “I’d better place my order.”
She stepped back and lifted a hand. “Okay. See you around.”
“Yeah. See you around.”
Lena went back to her table, where Millie demanded all the details.
At home that night, Lena longed to talk to her mom about Luke. Ask her how to get him to notice her. She and her mom had been best friends for as long as she could remember. She’d always asked her advice on everything. But all that changed when she found the letter. Her mother had lied to her. Now that Lena knew that, how would she ever believe another word she said?
18
MONDAY MORNING TURNED out to be a busy one at the clinic. After things finally slowed down a bit, Colby told Stacey to go to lunch with Laura and Ruth-Ann. Cecil Maynard had just brought in his German shepherd, Wally, for his yearly shots, but she’d manage that on her own.
“The old lady was supposed to bring him in during her lunch hour,” Cecil said when Colby lifted the dog up on the table. “She had to work though, so I just brought him in myself.”
Colby opened the cabinet beside her and took out the supplies she needed. She’d never considered herself a bra-burning feminist, but there were times when she understood why the whole movement got started. “Exactly how old is Myrna, Cecil?”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “She’s forty-something.”
“I see her car at the Exercise Hut on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’d say she’s a pretty well-maintained forty-something.”
“Reckon she is.”
“Then why do you call her your ‘old lady’?”
A few seconds of puzzled silence followed the question. “Heck, I don’t know, Doc. It’s just a figure of speech. What difference does it make?”
“Let’s put it this way, Cecil,” Colby said, aware that some of her outrage for Myrna stemmed from her own recent experience with the lack of sensitivity on the part of the male gender. “She doesn’t go to the Exercise Hut twice a week to keep herself looking good just so her husband can call her his old lady.”
Another pause and then a chagrined, “I expect you’re right.”
“Hello.”
Colby looked up to find Ian standing in the doorway of the examining room. The sight of him caught her by surprise. She struggled for a professional smile and said, “I’m with someone at the moment. If you’ll have a seat in the waiting room, I’ll be with you when I’m finished.”
“Sure,” he said, looking a little taken aback by her tone.
So much for tact today. First, she’d attacked Cecil on behalf of womankind, and now she was giving Ian the deep freeze. After giving Wally his shot, she put the dog back on the floor and said, “Stacey’s at lunch, so we’ll send you a bill.”
“Sure thing, Doc. I’ll be sure and tell Myrna you said hello,” he said with a grin.
She smiled and shook her head. “You do that.”
Once Cecil left, Colby took a moment to gather her composure. Cool, calm, poised. That was the picture she would present. She didn’t want to provide Ian with another reason to think she’d given a second thought to his surprise fiancée. Tucking her hair behi
nd her ears, she stepped into the room and found Ian sitting on one of the benches with Don Juan stretched out beside him, the dog’s head in his lap. He stood up and smiled at her. “Very diplomatic. I’m surprised Myrna didn’t hit him over the head with the frying pan a long time ago.”
Colby shrugged and met his gaze head-on. “I guess some men don’t realize how their words or actions might be perceived by others.”
Ian shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked more than uncomfortable. “Including me, right? Look, Colby, I should have said something about being engaged Friday night. I started to, but once I figured out what Phoebe and Frank had in mind, I didn’t want to embarrass them or you. As it turns out, Mabel played a little part in all this. I threatened to hide her kitchen step stool if she ever did it again.”
As hard as she tried not to, Colby smiled. He made it difficult to stay angry with him. After all, he’d been under no obligation to tell her anything about himself.
“I never meant to deceive you, Colby,” he said. “Everything about that night caught me off guard. I guess I was just enjoying myself and. . . .”
They stood for a moment looking at each other, and she found herself wishing he would finish the sentence.
But he didn’t. “Well,” he said, running a hand around the back of his neck. “I’d better be going. I just wanted to stop and thank you for the pie. It was all gone by last night. I couldn’t keep Luke out of the refrigerator.”
“You’re welcome. The least I could do to repay you for carting me around. Not to mention getting your car stuck in the mud.”
“That was my fault,” he said, smiling suddenly. He stood there for a few moments, watching her, before saying, “Okay. I should go.”
“Yeah. I’ve got things to do.”
Still, neither of them moved. They just stared at one another until he finally backed away, then turned and pushed through the door. Colby heard him pull off and told herself that it made no difference that he semi-redeemed himself by apologizing as if he really meant it. The man was engaged. And even if he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t be fooled by some too-handsome, too well-off, out-of-towner who was nothing if not a surefire prescription for heartbreak.
19
ON THE WAY home, Ian stopped by Thurman’s Hardware to pick up some paint. In the back, leafing through sample chips, he overheard a conversation with his name in it. He stretched his head around the corner and saw two older men in bib overalls standing by the cash register. He recognized them as the Nolen twins, Dillard and Willard. The other times he’d been in the store, he’d noticed them sitting on the wooden bench where locals gathered to talk. Willard had just reached into his pocket for a pack of tobacco when Dillard said, “It’s a shame to see the place go to weeds like that. I’d hoped whoever bought it would get it back in shape.”
“Yeah, that’s some of the best farmland around,” Willard agreed.
“That McKinley seems a nice enough fella, but I doubt if he’d know the front end of a tractor from the back. City slicker if I ever saw one.”
They both chuckled. Ian stayed put, feeling inadequate in ways he’d never imagined would bother him. He’d gone to college on scholarship and built a career that earned him more money than he would ever likely spend, and yet he felt like less than a man because two old geezers labeled him as the city boy he was.
When he got home, he put the paint inside the storage building behind the house and looked out at the farm. As much as he hated to admit it, the Nolen brothers were right. The weeds were taking over. And it was up to him to do something about it.
The tractor sat parked at the back of the barn, full of gas, the mowing blade attached. If he drove a car, he could certainly drive this thing. Not like it could be that hard. He’d show those two old-timers city slicker.
Luke was in school, and Mabel had taken the day to visit her brother two towns up the Interstate. Rachel had returned to New York. At least if he messed up, there would be no one here to witness it.
He found the ignition and turned the key. The tractor sputtered and lurched forward, coming dangerously close to rolling through the wall in front of him. He slammed his foot on the brake, realizing he’d forgotten to press in the clutch.
Honest enough mistake. Might have happened to anyone.
He tried again. The old tractor labored to life, black smoke billowing out the back. He fumbled with the gears until he hit reverse. The tractor torpedoed backward out of the barn at a speed that would have flattened anyone unlucky enough to be standing in its path. Ian sent a frantic glance over his shoulder to make sure it hadn’t done exactly that.
Saying a quick prayer of thanks, he finagled the transmission into first with a grinding of metal against metal, then lurched toward the south pasture. He arrived there in a frenzy of jerks and starts that suggested the engine might be on its last leg. He stopped at the gate, got out and opened it, then rolled through, the sputtering tractor bouncing him around like a basketball at center court.
Inside the field, he worked with a few levers until he figured out how to raise and lower the mean-looking blade attached to the back. That took no time at all, and with a ridiculous sense of pride, he set off across the pasture, the tall grass falling in his wake.
Despite feeling as if he were in the middle of a “Green Acres” episode, he decided this wasn’t too bad, after all. No problem. Over the years, he’d grown so used to financial success that it simply became a part of what he did. As a reward, it had lost some of its gratification. But this, crazy as it sounded, made him feel as if he’d accomplished something. He considered driving into town just to roll past Thurman’s Hardware and see the look of shock on the faces of Dillard and Willard Nolen.
He had too much time on his hands. Clearly. Either that or he was losing his mind.
He worked on for an hour or more, feeling something almost peaceful about jostling along on the old tractor with the warm September breeze tugging at the collar of his shirt. He rolled across a slope now, the tractor at what all at once seemed too steep an angle. He probably shouldn’t go any higher. . . .
Suddenly, the machine tilted. For a moment, it held there, suspended, then tipped and teetered drunkenly. He tried to hold on, thinking it would right itself.
In the next instant, he went airborne, projecting himself as far from the machine as he could manage. He landed on his back with a crack that ripped the air from his lungs. The blade hung over him, swaying like a guillotine about to drop.
Ian rolled, tumbling down the hill, his head slamming against the ground. And before he figured out whether he’d outrun the blade or not, the blue sky above him went black.
20
HE WOULD HAVE come back for them sooner or later.
Colby eyed the set of keys bouncing on her dashboard. She wouldn’t have bothered to drop them off if she hadn’t needed to deliver some medicine to the Carter farm anyway. When she’d gotten back from lunch, Stacey found them on the bench where Ian had been sitting next to Don Juan. Realizing they must have been for something other than his car, Colby told Stacey she would take care of them, not mentioning that she thought they were Ian’s. That way there would be no probing questions.
She could have mailed them to him. Asked Stacey to run them by his house. Left them outside the clinic for him to pick up. But here she was. Delivering them in person when common sense told her she shouldn’t be.
Pulling up to the house, she cut the engine and sat for a moment. The front yard looked newly mown. The pasture gate hung open. She went to the back door of the house and knocked, but no answer. Ian’s car sat in the driveway though.
She peered out across the yard, then toward the field behind the barn, hearing a noise she didn’t recognize.
It sounded like an engine running. Faint, but a definite chug, chug, chug. A tractor engine.
She stepped down from the porch and called out, “Ian?”
Silence except for the still idling machine.
She ventured to the open gate. He wouldn’t be out on the tractor. Would he? She’d walk out a bit and see.
She’d gone no more than fifty yards past the gate when she spotted the tractor sitting at a crazy angle on the hill. And then she saw Ian. She took off at a run for the ravine at the bottom of the incline.
He lay flat on his back, his face turned to one side. Her first thought? He was dead.
Her heart pounded against the wall of her chest, and sweat beaded across her forehead.
Dropping down beside him, she checked his pulse, relieved to find it steady.
“Ian?” She put her hand to his cheek and repeated his name several times.
His eyes opened finally, slowly, his pupils dilated and unfocused. “What happened?”
“You must have had an accident. Can you move? Where do you hurt?”
“I’m not sure.” He tried to struggle up on one elbow, then sank back onto the ground, one hand going to his neck. “Ouch. That answers that.”
“Don’t move,” she said. “You might have a concussion. Wait here and I’ll go call the rescue squad.”
“No. Don’t. No need for that.”
“We won’t know until we get you checked out. I’ll be right back, okay?”
He nodded, wincing again as if the action made his head hurt.
“I’m going to turn off the tractor first,” she said, heading up the hill at a run.
Part of the blade lay on the slope, as if it had been broken off. A few yards from the machine, she thought she noticed one tire roll back slightly. She kept her gaze on the tires. The right one slipped a notch. It was moving! She sent a frantic look over her left shoulder. Ian lay in the direct path of the now-rolling tractor.
She had no time to try to stop it. Without thinking, Colby sprinted toward Ian, reacting on pure adrenaline. A glance back told her the machine was gaining on her. She tackled him, and rolled, pulling him with her. Over and over they went. She groaned with each turn.
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