Home with You

by Shirlee McCoy

  She’d led him through the narrow aisles, stopping at a dusty display case filled with broken jewelry and broken beaded handbags, and then she’d told him to choose something that he thought Heavenly would like.

  The challenge had scared the crap out of him. He’d brought Rumer so he wouldn’t have to make a wild guess about what a newly thirteen-year-old would like.

  He stood there staring at what looked like old junk, thinking that there was nothing a goth-ish girl like Heavenly would like. And then he’d noticed a small box filled with what looked like tiny charms. He’d asked to see it, and had been surprised when the clerk pulled out an old charm bracelet. A cat, a bird, a flower, a heart, two musical notes, a grand piano, a book, and a feather all dangled from a tarnished silver bracelet.

  He’d bought it, because it reminded him of Heavenly—scraped and wounded and tarnished from years of neglect, but somehow still unique and lovely.

  Rumer had chosen a small beaded handbag and a stack of old sheet music that had been lying in a heap next to a bookshelf filled with old books. She was standing there now, thumbing through an old version of Dick and Jane, her hair deep brown in the dim light, her skin flawless. She wore faded overalls that were three sizes too big, the cuffs dragging the floor and nearly hiding the old leather work boots she wore. A thermal shirt clung to her chest and rode up her waist. He could see hints of creamy skin between it and faded denim, hidden and then revealed as her old wool coat flapped open and closed again. He didn’t think she’d brushed her hair that morning, and he was pretty damn sure she had a couple of pieces of straw lost in the wild curls. There were shadows beneath her eyes, a smudge of dirt on her left cheek, and she was still the most stunning woman he’d ever seen.

  She met his eyes. “You’re staring.”

  “Am I?”

  “You know you are,” she said, setting the book back on the shelf and grabbing a small stack of old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries.

  “Sorry, it’s a bad habit. Something I do when I want to memorize something,” he said, but he wasn’t sorry at all.

  “Why in the world would you want to memorize me?” she asked with a shaky laugh. She was nervous. He’d noticed that on the car ride into Spokane, and it had surprised him. The first day they’d met—when she’d been heading into the unknown, applying for a job she’d seen advertised in a small-town newspaper—she’d been confident and self-assured and hadn’t shown even a hint of caution or anxiety.

  Now, she seemed jumpy and skittish, her muscles taut and tense.

  “I like to get the details right when I sketch something,” he responded.

  “I don’t think I gave you permission to sketch me.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “If I say yes, will you?” She paid for the books, dropping them into her purse.

  “No,” he answered honestly. “Probably not.”

  That made her smile. “Sullivan, what are we doing?”

  “Shopping for gifts for Heavenly,” he replied, opening the door and holding it so she could step outside. He caught a whiff of fresh hay and sunshine, of wildflowers and soap, and he thought that if he spent the rest of his life walking beside her, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”

  “Are we back to discussing the kiss?” He thought they probably were.

  “There was more than one,” she reminded him as if he might have forgotten, as if that would ever be possible.

  “If there were more than a million, I don’t think it would be enough,” he said, and she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turning so she could face him.

  “Don’t say things like that, okay?”

  “I always tell the truth, Rumer. It’s a habit I’ve cultivated for years. I’m not going to stop now because the truth makes you uncomfortable.”

  She frowned. “I’m not asking you to be dishonest.”

  “Sure you are. You want me to hide the way I feel and pretend something that isn’t true. If that’s not dishonest, I don’t know what is.”

  “I’m not asking you to pretend, either. I just . . .” She shrugged and started walking again.

  “Just what?”

  “Truehart women can do a lot of things, Sullivan. They can run businesses and corral kids and organize chaos, but there are a couple of things none of them have ever been able to figure out.” She raked a hand through her hair, tugged a small piece of straw from the curls, and scowled, watching as it floated to the ground.

  “Are you going to tell me what they are?” he finally asked, because it seemed like she was done talking, but he wasn’t done listening.

  He thought she planned to ignore the question, to keep her silence, but they’d reached his SUV, and she stopped there, lifting the cuff of her overalls. “We can’t sew a straight hem. Not one of us.”

  “Sounds like a fatal flaw,” he said solemnly, and she offered a quick, sad smile.

  “That’s not the real problem. The real problem is that we also can’t figure out how to choose a good man.”

  “What?” he asked, certain he must have heard her wrong.

  “Haven’t you noticed that there are three generations of Truehart women, and not one of them has a man in her life?” They’d reached his SUV, and she’d turned to face him again, her eyes the color of summer skies and silvery rivers. If he’d had his sketch pad, he would have drawn just that part of her. The windows to the soul, but hers were shuttered, whatever she was feeling hidden beneath a veil of indifference that he found both annoying and frustrating.

  He believed in honesty. He gave it without holding back.

  He expected the same from the people in his life.

  “One of them does,” he pointed out, and she scowled.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. I don’t, because what you’re saying is that three obviously intelligent women can’t figure out the difference between a decent human being and an asshole.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah. You are.” He opened her door, and she scrambled in, her eyes flashing with annoyance.

  “We know the difference. We just tend to attract—”

  “Stop,” he said, more irritated then he should be. Maybe more offended, too. “Because the more you talk, the more I’m hearing that because you’re attracted to me, I must be one of the assholes the women in your family are trying to avoid.”

  “Who said I’m attracted?” she asked, and then sighed. “That was probably the stupidest question I’ve asked in a while.”

  “Probably.” He closed her door. Gently. Because he’d never be the man his father was, rounded the SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “You’re angry,” she said.

  “And?”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you, Sullivan. Or to imply that you’re the one with the problem. You aren’t. I am. I’ve got baggage. Sometimes it weighs me down.”

  “So, stop carrying it.”

  “That’s an easy thing to say when you’re not the one who’s been carting it from place to place and relationship to relationship your entire life.” There was no heat in her voice. She sounded more resigned than angry.

  “So, you’re just going to quit traveling because you’ve filled up your suitcases with other people’s junk?” he asked, pulling onto the road, the soft hum of the engine drowning out her sudden silence.

  He waited, not speaking into the moment, because he didn’t want to fill it with useless platitudes. He had his baggage, too. He knew what a burden it could be.

  “It’s not other people’s junk. It’s mine. I don’t want to be hurt, Sullivan. I’d rather have nothing than have everything and lose it.”

  “That’s a piss-poor reason to walk away every time you have a chance at something good.”

  “You wanted honesty. I gave it to you.”

  “Here’s a little honesty for you, Rumer. My father was a bastard. When I was
a kid, I watched him beat my mother. I listened to him torture her verbally. She didn’t leave him, and she didn’t live long enough for me to ask why not. I spent the next few years planning my escape. I left when I was eighteen, and I had no intention of ever returning. I sure as hell didn’t plan on returning and becoming a surrogate parent to six kids, because I was damn certain I was going to be as shitty of a father as my dad was. But, here I am, out on a Sunday morning buying old jewelry for a little girl, because I want her to be happy.”

  “Heavenly is lucky to—”

  “I wasn’t fishing for compliments.” He cut her off. “I was stating facts. I wanted to walk away, because I didn’t want to hurt the kids any more than they’d already been hurt. I stayed because I was all they had. Somewhere in between those two things, I realized the kids didn’t care about my baggage or my bastard father or my inability to make a damn birthday cake. All they cared about was having someone around.”

  “You’re making it really hard for me to keep my distance,” she whispered, her face turned away, her eyes focused on the landscape that was zipping by.

  “Maybe you need to figure out why you want to.”

  “I already told you why.”

  “You gave me an excuse,” he said gently. “You don’t want to be hurt, and I’m not planning to hurt you, but the truth is, relationships are about risks, they’re about wanting something so badly you’re willing to get your heart broken to have it.”

  That was it. All he was going to say, because he was a straight shooter, he didn’t believe in games, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to beg for something she didn’t want to give.

  “I know,” she finally said so quietly he almost didn’t hear the brokenness in her voice.

  Almost.

  But, he did, and he couldn’t ignore it any more than he would ever be able to ignore her.

  “Do you think Heavenly will like the bracelet?” he asked, giving her an easy out, a change in subject, letting her have the space she obviously wanted.

  “I think she’ll love it,” she responded.

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so. Did you notice how excited she got when Minnie offered to bring her a vintage dress?”

  “It was the first time I’d ever seen her really excited about something.”

  “I was thinking the same,” she said.

  “Great minds?”

  She glanced at him then, offering a quick smile. “We’re definitely getting the hang of this parenting thing.”

  “Getting the hang of it? I’d say we make a damn fine parenting team, Rumer Truehart.”

  She laughed, and he reached for her hand, planning to give it a friendly squeeze, but she held on, her fingers weaving through his as he merged onto the highway and headed back toward home.

  Chapter Twelve

  So, she’d messed things up.

  Which, she’d been bound to do.

  She was, after all, a Truehart. When it came to things like love, she was an absolute expert at ruining them.

  She’d known that her whole life. Why it was suddenly pissing her off, she couldn’t say.

  Wouldn’t say?

  Yeah. That was more the case, because she actually did know why she was pissed off about it.

  She’d spent the past week cleaning house, chauffeuring kids, going to teacher meetings, and cooking meals. Nothing different than the prior week, except that Sullivan had been making himself scarce. Instead of eating with the family, he took a plate to his room, claiming research paper deadlines or bookkeeping for the farm.

  Which, by the way, was beginning to shape up.

  Kane had made good on his promise, sending out dozens of volunteers to get the land ready for planting season. Clementine had been good to her word, too. She knew how to get things done. Even the orchard was being renewed, the trees trimmed back, the dead ones removed.

  Pleasant Valley Organic Farm was running like a well-oiled machine, everyone doing his or her part. All of them working together to keep things going until Sunday recovered enough to take over. She’d been moved to a rehab facility Monday. Rumer and the kids had visited her twice since then. She always seemed a little confused and a little sad, her speech slightly slurred, her movements sluggish. She had her right arm in a brace and braces on both legs, but she’d managed to take a few steps to show the kids that she could.

  As far as recoveries went, hers was going about as well as could be expected. Rumer told the kids that all the time. She explained things like head injuries and brain damage and memory dysfunction, but she hadn’t out and out told them that Sunday remembered very little of their lives together.

  She suspected they knew.

  They were always quiet when they visited and silent after, but Rumer and Sullivan had agreed to let things play out for a while longer. There’d been some improvements in Sunday’s memory, and the doctors were hopeful for more.

  Time was what was needed, and she and Sullivan had agreed to wait a little longer before they explained the truth to the kids.

  They’d agreed and then they’d moved on. Sullivan doing his thing. Rumer doing hers. No more great minds thinking alike. No more co-parenting. She was the housekeeper doing her job, and he was the uncle doing his best for his brother’s kids.

  She was supposed to be happy about that.

  He’d obviously listened to what she’d said about not wanting to be hurt. He’d obviously decided to respect her boundaries.

  And that was what she was pissed about.

  Not at him.

  At herself for being too scared to tell him the truth—she didn’t want the boundaries, she didn’t want the distance. She wanted him.

  “You really need to stop being such a chicken,” she muttered, opening her closet and pulling out the soft sweater dress she’d borrowed from Minnie. Tonight was the music festival. Flynn and Porter had flown back for the night just to hear Heavenly sing. The choir was scheduled to perform at seven. Heavenly would perform at eight. She had to be at the school at five, and the rest of the family was dropping her off and then going to dinner.

  The family.

  Which Rumer was not.

  She’d helped the crew get ready—clean clothes, brushed hair, shiny shoes, lectures on respectful behavior.

  The whole nine yards.

  She’d helped Heavenly into the seventies prom dress she’d chosen from Minnie’s collection. Pale lavender eyelet with Swiss dot sleeves and a high neckline, it worked perfectly with her wispy pixie haircut and gamine features. Her choir robe had been pressed and hung, and Rumer had handed it to Sullivan as the entire clan walked outside. He’d looked as nervous as Heavenly. Maybe a little more, his tie crooked, his hair mussed.

  She’d wanted to straighten the one and smooth the other. She’d wanted to stand on her tiptoes and kiss his lips, and tell him that everything was going to be just fine.

  But...

  He was respecting her boundaries, and so she’d just stood at the door and waved and promised that she’d be there before the choir sang.

  “Dummy,” she growled, wrestling herself into the dress, smoothing it down over her hips, and eyeing herself in the mirror above the dresser.

  Good enough.

  That was her verdict, and since she didn’t need to be any better than that, she figured she was ready to go. She grabbed a blazer from the closet, shrugging into it, and snagging her purse from the hook. It was heavy with books and toys and crayons; heavy with the feel of kids and family and love. She’d miss that when this gig was over.

  She walked downstairs, moving through the empty house, listening to the creak of old wood and the settling of century-old beams. Did Sunday remember any of this? Did she miss it? Or had home become the place she was? Had the hospital and staff, nurses and doctors become her place of refuge?

  One way or another, it would be a difficult adjustment when she returned. The kids would struggle. She’d struggle.

  And, Rumer would be in Seattle, back at
work, back in her neat and orderly apartment with no one knocking on her door before dawn or screaming in the middle of the night.

  “God, I’m going to miss that,” she said as she stepped outside.

  “Miss what?” a woman responded, and Rumer nearly jumped out of her skin.

  She whirled around, saw that Clementine was sitting on the old porch swing, legs crossed and hidden by a long cotton skirt, her hair pulled back into a perfect braid.

  “Holy cow, Clementine! You nearly scared the tar out of me!”

  “Sorry about that. If it makes you feel any better, you scared me, too. I thought everyone had gone to the festival.”

  “Then, why are you sitting on the porch?”

  “I like the view, and Sunday never minded.” She smiled, but there was something dark in her eyes, something sad and secretive. “Are you heading to the school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I ask why you didn’t just go with the rest of the family?”

  “I’m not family.”

  She snorted.

  “I’m not.”

  “Tell that to the kids. See what they have to say about it.”

  “They know that I’m working for their uncles.”

  “What they know and what they feel are two different things, Rumer. Love happens quickly for children.”

  “I know.”

  “Then, don’t plan on walking away with your heart free and your soul unattached.”

  “Who says I was?”

  “No one. I’m just making a statement. I’ve always liked Sunday and the kids. I want what’s best for them.”

  “Sunday and the kids? Not Matt?”

  “I liked Matt, too, but, then, everyone did.”

  “I get the feeling there’s a story in that.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not mine to tell.” She smoothed her hair and glanced at her watch. “What time does the festival start?”

  “About an hour from now, but Heavenly’s group isn’t performing until seven.”

  “It’s only five-thirty. You’re leaving early.”