“Why the secret?”
“Go ask him. He was a strange bird. The miracle of it is that Bree’s so normal. She’s got a strength in her most people don’t.” He raised a warning finger. “So don’t mess with it, you hear?” He sat back. As an afterthought, he took a drink of his coffee.
“How did her father die?” Tom asked.
Still holding his coffee cup, Eliot slid out of the booth. “Terminal ill humor,” he said and stalked off.
Tom was finishing his own coffee when Martin Sprague took Eliot’s place. The tired look that Martin always wore was even more so than usual. With his face drawn and his eyebrows lowered, he was all business.
“I think you should know that I handle Bree’s legal affairs,” he said, without prelude.
Tom was taken aback. Not sure how to respond, he settled for a polite “Yes?”
“So if you’re broke because you spent it all,” Martin warned, “don’t go looking for money from her. She doesn’t have any.”
“I’m not broke.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to think she’s loaded, coming from that family, but I handled Haywood’s legal affairs and his father’s before him, so I know. There’s no money left. None.”
“Was there once?”
“Once. Osgood Miller owned some of the best hardwood forest for miles around. He was good with the trees, but he didn’t have an ounce of business sense. When he should’ve been building his own lumberyard so that he could make the most of what he cut, he was putting his money into foolish things. Most of it was gone before Bree was born. The rest went after. Haywood wasn’t any better with money than Ozzie. Between them, they lost the land, the trucks, the name. The house was all Bree got, and it’s a sad old pile of wood.”
Tom had stopped seeing the frayed parts. Bree divided her time between the bedroom and the den, so he did, too. Both of those rooms were brighter.
“It looks okay to me,” he said.
“Look closer,” Martin advised, pushing himself out of the booth. “Walls are rotting, furnace is dying. She’s going to have to put big money into the place before long.” With a final look, he said, “So you’d best stay where you are.”
If that meant staying at the bungalow and away from Bree, Tom couldn’t comply. The time he spent with her was more rewarding than anything he had done in years. When she smiled, or laughed, or looked up at him with a face full of warmth, he felt like a million bucks, so much so that he started staying longer. Rather than leaving after breakfast, he lingered into the morning. Rather than waiting until nine at night to return, he began going straight from the diner. He took her for drives when she was feeling shut in, took her for walks through the backyard leaves when she wanted exercise, took her to the general store for soft-serve Oreo fudge frozen yogurt when she had a sudden sharp craving. Eliot was right. She was recovering fast.
At the end of her second week at home, he took her to the diner. Visiting royalty couldn’t have received a more rousing welcome. She was escorted from booth to booth, from one seat of honor to the next. Superfluous, Tom fell into the background.
Emma found him there. “Could I have a minute, please?” she asked, and gestured toward the empty booth at the far end of the row. As soon as they were seated, she faced him straight out and said, “I’m worried about Bree.”
“She’s healing well.”
“That’s not what worries me. People are starting to talk.”
“About . . .?”
“Bree. And you.”
Surprise, surprise. “Ah.”
“You spend too much time with her. Her friends are feeling left out. I can’t tell you how many come up to me to ask if I know what’s going on.”
Tom was curious. “What do you say?”
“What can I say? I don’t know what’s going on. What is going on?”
He was trying to figure it out himself. All he felt safe saying was, “Nothing sinister.”
“Maybe not, but your presence is putting a wedge between Bree and her friends, and that’s an awful thing to happen. One day you’ll be gone, and then where will Bree be? She needs her friends. They’re her family, now that poor Haywood is gone.” Her eyes grew distant. She fingered her pearls in dismay. “Poor Haywood. All those years, and he never recovered.” She refocused on Tom. “She was a free spirit, Bree’s mother was, and he fell for her hard. When he came back without her, he was the shadow of a man.”
“I was under the impression he was the shadow of a man before.”
Emma frowned. “Who told you that? That’s not true at all. Haywood might have been quiet, but he stood on his own two feet. He was always proper and polite. He never missed a town meeting. He went to church every Sunday.”
Some of the worst scoundrels did, Tom mused.
“Poor Haywood,” Emma went on, lost in it now. “He didn’t have an easy time, with a mother like that. Hannah Miller was a rigid woman. She gave new meaning to the words proper and polite. Long after the rest of the women eased up, she was still wearing dresses that buttoned up to her chin. Everything around her was neat as a pin. Everything was regimented. She was the kind of woman who made the rest of us grateful for our own mothers.”
“Did she help raise Bree?”
“She had to. Poor Haywood couldn’t have done it on his own, what with needing to work to earn money for food. There wasn’t any day care center in the basement of the church in those days. Ozzie was dead, or just as good as dead, so the burden of it all was on poor Haywood.” She shook her head. “What that woman did to him . . .”
Tom was about to ask whether she was talking about Hannah Miller or Bree’s mother, when Dotty materialized at the booth. As sisters went, there was little physical resemblance between the two women. Though the younger of the two, Dotty was taller, thinner, and grayer than Emma, who never failed to look the part of town leader with her stylish suit, her light makeup, her hair that was a tad too auburn.
Their differences were exaggerated now by Dotty’s scowl. “What are you telling him, Emma?”
“I’m just giving him a history lesson,” Emma said, sliding out of the booth. “Don’t get all ruffled up, sister.”
“You’re the one always telling me I talk too much.”
“You do,” Emma declared, and walked off.
Dotty glared after her, men, still glaring, turned back to Tom. “Don’t ask me why we voted her town meeting moderator. She’s been insufferable ever since.”
“How long’s it been?” Tom asked. He had arrived in town shortly before the last town meeting but hadn’t bothered to go. He wondered if Emma’s election was one of the things he had missed.
Apparently it wasn’t.
“Eight years,” Dotty replied, “and each one of those it gets worse. She thinks she can stick her nose into everyone else’s business, sitting there with Earl and Eliot each and every day. John must be turning over in his grave. He wanted his wife in his home. He’d never have let her do what she does if he’d been alive. If he knew the half of it, he’d lock her up.” She slid into the booth. Her manner sweetened. “What was she telling you?”
“She was talking about poor Haywood,” Tom said.
Dotty rolled her eyes. “Poor Haywood, my foot. She always had her eye on him was her problem, but he couldn’t talk his way out of a paper bag, much less court a woman, so she married John, and even then she kept an eye on Haywood. Did she tell you he was handsome?”
“No.”
“That’s a surprise. Usually it’s the first thing she says. Well, he was handsome, I have to admit. Handsome and dull. And drab. And sour. Even he knew there was something wrong with his life. That’s why he left that year. He went down to Boston to see about getting work there. Then he met that woman.”
“Bree’s mother?”
“What other? He never used her name, once he was back here. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Haywood, he was nearing forty. He happened to run into her in a sandwich shop one day, and that
was all it took,” She threw up a hand. “He was gone. Crazy in love. But a love like that never lasts, not between a woman so young and spirited and a man with his feet rooted so deep in New England soil. He needed to come back here to live, and she couldn’t do that, so he came back alone, he and Bree.” Her voice went higher. “Can you imagine turning your back on a baby that way?”
Tom, who knew well how to play devil’s advocate, imagined that there might be situations in which walking away from a baby was the most compassionate thing to do, particularly when the baby had a father and a home. He didn’t know enough about Bree’s mother’s situation to judge one way or the other.
“So what happened?” Dotty asked, sounding affronted. “People talked. They talked when he came back to town without a word as to where he’d been and what he’d done, and they talked when they learned there was a baby and no wife. They talked about that child from the time she was old enough to walk down the street by herself, and they still talk, when you get them going. So”—she looked him dead in the eye—“that’s why what you’re doing to her is wrong.”
He drew his head back. “What am I doing to her?”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s my point. They’ll talk if you give them the slightest cause, and she deserves better.”
Tom couldn’t help himself. “Maybe you could tell them not to talk. Maybe you could set an example. You know, live and let live?”
Dotty straightened. “Are you saying that I talk? I’m no worse than anyone else in this town. My goodness, if I don’t talk, the others will anyway, and then all the wrong things will be heard.” She scooted across the bench and out of the booth. “You have no call to attack me. I was only giving you friendly advice.” With a righteous look, she was gone.
Jane Hale caught up with him in the parking lot when he went out to bring the car around for Bree. She glanced back to make sure they were alone, pulled her coat tighter around her with fingers whose nails were bitten short, and said in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry about my mother. She tells herself she’s doing the right thing. Don’t let her put you off.”
Tom smiled. What Jane lacked in looks she more than made up for in gentleness. It was hard not to like her. “I won’t. She only did what other people have been doing all week.”
“They’re worried, is all. They like Bree. So do I. She’s my oldest friend. I mean, she isn’t old, but we’ve been friends a long time.”
He indicated his understanding with a nod.
She glanced back again, drew her collar up higher against the brisk air. “We became friends in first grade. She was lonely because her grandmother kept her apart, and I was lonely because, well, my mother was always right there, so it was better sometimes not to have friends at the house.” She looked down, then behind her, then straight at him again. “I’m not complaining. My mother loves me. I wish Bree had that.”
“Didn’t her father love her?”
“I suppose. But he was unhappy. Maybe he wanted to be a good parent but didn’t know how. Bree’s mother must have been the colorful one. Bree had to get her spirit from someone, and it wasn’t from him.” She was instantly contrite. “I shouldn’t say that, his being dead and all.” She paused, then blurted, “But I remember him, and he was grim. Bree’s mother was probably the most exciting thing that ever happened to him. It’s like he spent the rest of his life mourning her.”
“Is that what Bree thinks?”
Jane nodded. “We used to talk about it. She always wondered about her mother. She used to imagine all kinds of things, mostly pretty things, flattering things.”
“Didn’t her father tell her anything?”
“Her grandmother wouldn’t let them talk about her, and after Hannah died, well, I guess the course was set. Haywood got quieter and quieter and more and more dark. Bree was keeping house for him and pretty much raising herself. She started working part-time at the diner when she was fifteen, just to get away. She wanted to be with people who talked and smiled and laughed. The diner was more of a home to her than the house on South Forest.” She dug her hands into her pockets. “Here I am, jabbering on like my mother.”
“There’s a difference,” Tom said, which was as close as he would come to criticizing Dotty in front of Jane. “Did Bree’s mother ever try to reach her?”
“No.”
“Did Bree ever try to hunt her down?”
“No. By the time Haywood died, she’d lost interest.”
Tom thought about the Bree he was coming to know. “She’s remarkable to have overcome all that.”
“Yes.” Jane seemed suddenly less concerned about who might see her in the parking lot than about what she wanted Tom to know. “That’s why people are protective of her.”
“I understand.”
“They’re worried she’ll come to depend on you and then you’ll leave.”
“She’s getting more independent by the day.”
“She may be more vulnerable because of the accident.”
“Because of her near-death experience, you mean?”
Jane nodded.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
“Jane!” The voice was distant but definitely Dotty’s.
Jane gasped. With a last, pleading look that made him envious of the loyalty she felt for Bree, she slipped off between the cars so that she wouldn’t be anywhere near Tom when her mother tracked her down.
Flash had his say when he stopped by to visit Bree several days later. Tom had been reading in the den, while Bree napped on the sofa there. She opened unfocused eyes at the sound of the back door opening and closing. He tossed another log on the fire and motioned her to stay where she was.
“Just as well,” Flash said, when Tom explained. “I have to talk to you alone.” He set a foil-wrapped bundle on the counter. “Lasagna, with sausage and extra cheese. She needs fattening up.”
Tom’s hand went to his stomach. Several day before, it had been an extra-rich fettuccine Alfredo, a few days before that, a thick-gravied beef stew. When Bree refused to eat either, he was the one who ended up stuffed.
“It’s still warm,” Flash went on. “If you use it for dinner, all it’ll need is ten minutes in a hot oven. Put what’s left over in the fridge. It’ll be even better tomorrow.” Bracing himself against the counter, he looked at Tom. “I’m not here because of me. I want you to know that. I don’t think you’re so bad, and besides, Bree’s been taking care of herself for a long time with regard to everything else, so I’m sure she can take care of herself with regard to this, too. The problem is, being so close to Bree and all, I don’t hear the end of it. Half the town’s on my back to learn what I can.”
Tom leaned against the enamel sink and folded his arms. “I’m not sure what’s left that the others haven’t asked, but you’re welcome to give it a shot.”
“You want to make fun of us, go ahead, but you ought to know that what’s happening here is highly unusual.”
“My helping Bree? Isn’t that what this town is about? If I weren’t here right now, someone else from town would be.”
“No. Bree wouldn’t have had that. Remember when she told me to cancel the nighttime detail? That was the Bree this town knows, the independent-to-a-fault Bree. Her letting you hang around is not normal, and don’t tell me she needs you to fetch and carry, because she’s perfectly capable of doing that for herself. Moreover,” he said, with gusto, “this is the first time since I’ve known her that she’s had a man in this house.”
Tom was startled but pleased. “No kidding?”
“Don’t get me wrong. She isn’t some shrinking violet. She’s had relationships with men. But none of those has ever stayed here one night, let alone however many you have.”
“Sixteen,” Tom put in.
“Christ. Are you paying rent?”
“No, and for what it’s worth, I sleep on the sofa while she’s up in her bed.”
“No matter,” Flash said. “Bree likes her space.” He frowned. “Maybe
it’s different since she isn’t coming to work. She has a lot of people there. Here she doesn’t. So she’s lonely. You know?”
Tom didn’t point out that she continued to choose his company over that of others who offered to come. “Tell me. Who has she dated in town?”
“No one,” was Flash’s automatic response. Then, as though the temptation to be the one to tell was too much to resist, he said, “At least not since I’ve been here. I heard she and Curtis Lamb were a number in high school, but there hasn’t been anyone local since then.”
Tom waited, then asked, “That’s it? Just Curtis Lamb?”
“From Panama.”
Again Tom waited.
And again it was as if Flash couldn’t resist. “Men are always coming to the diner from one place or another. They pass through once a week, once a month. She had a thing for a while with a trucker, and for a while after that with a computer salesman, but she never brought them back here. It was kind of a rule she had. They were both good-looking guys, too, both love-’em-and-leave-’em types. She wanted to be the one doing the loving and leaving.”
“You make her sound hardhearted.”
“No. She just knows how to protect herself.”
“If she knows how to protect herself, why are you all so worried about me?” Tom asked.
“Because she lowered the bridge and let you in. So now people are wondering why you’re still here and how long you’re planning to stay.”
“Ah,” Tom said.
“What does that mean?”
It meant that Tom didn’t know the answers. He had never felt as innocent an attraction to a woman as he felt toward Bree. Hell, he hadn’t even kissed her. “Just . . . ‘ah.’ ”
“What does that mean?”
“Hi, Flash,” Bree said from the door. She crossed to him, slipped an arm around his waist, and kissed his cheek. “How’s my favorite boss today?”
Flash glowered. “Lousy. I tried to do the payroll and screwed up the figures. I need you, Bree. When are you coming back?”
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