by McNear, Mary
“Tear it down?” she repeated, aghast. More pinkness flooded her tawny cheeks. Even he could see that she was angry now. Very angry.
“My grandfather built that cabin himself,” she said. “And it was built to last. It’s not ostentatious, like some of the later cabins on the lake,” she added, pointedly. “But it’s not meant to be, either.”
Ouch, thought Walker. It was impossible to miss that dig. He felt the tiniest flicker of embarrassment. Maybe because when he’d built his cabin he’d wondered himself if it was perhaps just a tiny bit pretentious to build something that big on that lake.
But he was reluctant to end the conversation on a sour note. They were, after all, neighbors now.
“Is your husband a fisherman?” he asked, changing the subject.
“My husband?” she asked, startled.
Walker checked her ring finger again. It was definitely a wedding ring. She followed his eyes to it and looked at it as if she were seeing it for the first time. Maybe he’d been wrong about it being a wedding ring, he thought. But if it wasn’t a wedding ring, she probably wouldn’t have worn it on the ring finger of her left hand.
“My husband’s not here,” she said, looking back up at him. And there was something about the way she said it that led him to believe their separation was permanent. He could relate to that, although, in his case, there hadn’t been a young child involved. That was bound to make things more complicated. He wondered if she wore the ring for her son’s sake. Maybe she thought taking it off would upset him.
“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Ford,” she said now, and Walker almost winced. She’d said it was nice meeting him the same way she might have said it was nice going to the dentist. He watched while she led her son back to his seat at the counter. Then he picked up his cup of coffee and headed out the door.
“That went well,” he muttered to himself, as he drove his pickup truck to the boatyard outside of town. He reminded himself that it didn’t matter whether the two of them liked each other or not. In fact, it was probably better if they didn’t. He didn’t want a neighbor, and, apparently, neither did she.
So why, he wondered, did their meeting only add to his irritability? He had no idea. But it did. And not only that, but for the rest of the day, when he should have been thinking about work, he found himself thinking instead about Allie Beckett and her son. There was something strangely unsettling about his meeting with them.
Maybe Reid was right. Maybe he did have cabin fever. He needed to get away from Butternut, he decided. He’d go to Minneapolis on Friday. A couple of days in the city would do him good. Clear his head. And, with any luck, help him forget about the nightgown he’d found in the closet. Because, as ridiculous as it seemed, Walker couldn’t help thinking that his finding it was a bad omen, a harbinger of more trouble to come.
CHAPTER 5
By five o’clock that evening, Allie’s earlier optimism had completely evaporated. She and Wyatt were sitting on the cabin’s lopsided front steps. Wyatt was playing with his Hot Wheels, and she was swatting listlessly at the mosquitoes and wondering what on earth had possessed her to move here. She was already nostalgic for the snug ranch house they’d left behind, especially when another shingle fell, unceremoniously, off the roof of the cabin, barely missing the front steps they were sitting on.
It brought to mind what her new neighbor, Walker Ford, had said about the cabin that morning. Wouldn’t it be easier to just tear it down? She’d bristled at that remark, but the man had a point. Because while the cabin had a certain ramshackle charm, it was beginning to dawn on her that when it came to actually living with it, charm might be an overrated commodity.
Wyatt, at least, seemed content. He was propelling a bright red car along one of the cabin’s warped front steps, supplying the sound effects for it whenever he thought it necessary.
Soon, she knew, it would be time to make his dinner. Run his bath. Read him a bedtime story. And otherwise pretend that it was business as usual, and that she hadn’t made a terrible mistake in uprooting their suburban lives and bringing them here, to what suddenly felt like the end of the earth.
Wyatt stopped playing now and looked up. Something had caught his attention. In the next moment, Allie realized what it was. It was the sound of a truck, coming up the long gravel driveway to the cabin.
She couldn’t imagine who it might be. She didn’t know anyone here. And the few people she did know now—Caroline Keegan and Walker Ford—seemed unlikely candidates for a visit. But in the next moment, a red pickup truck coasted into view and stopped, and a petite woman swung open the driver’s-side door and jumped lightly out.
“Jax?” Allie said in astonishment, standing up and going to meet her halfway. She hadn’t seen Jax since the summer they were sixteen years old, but as far as Allie could tell, she still looked exactly the same. She’d been tiny then, and she was tiny now. Barely five feet tall and just a shade under a hundred pounds, as Allie recalled. She still wore her jet black hair in a ponytail, and her eyes, fringed by dark lashes, were still a vivid blue. She even had the same spray of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose that she’d had when they were teenagers.
But when Jax came over to hug her, Allie saw, and then felt, that there was one difference between the Jax then and the Jax now. This Jax was pregnant. Quite pregnant.
“It is so good to see you,” Allie said, hugging her. And when the firm roundness of Jax’s belly intruded between them, Allie laughed and held her at arm’s length to look at her. “When are you due?” she asked.
“Not for three more months, if you can believe it,” Jax said with a sigh. “It’s because I’m so small,” she explained. “The pregnancy weight doesn’t have anywhere else to go, so it all goes right here,” she added, pointing to her swollen belly.
“Well, that may be,” Allie said, “but other than being pregnant, you don’t look any different than the last time I saw you.”
Jax shrugged. “I’m thirty now, the same as you, Allie. But I know how young I look. I know because whenever I take the kids to the Kmart out on Highway 53, all the grandmothers there give me dirty looks. You know, ‘children having children.’ That kind of thing.”
Allie laughed. Those grandmothers must have been shocked to see a woman who looked barely old enough to drive a car with three children in tow, and a fourth on the way.
“Speaking of children,” Jax said, approaching Wyatt, “this must be Wyatt. Caroline told me you are a world-class pancake eater.” Her blue eyes were dancing.
Wyatt looked shyly down, but he didn’t say anything, and Allie felt her heart contract. She remembered Wyatt as a toddler. He’d been positively gregarious. When had he started to change? But that was a silly question. She knew exactly when he’d started to change.
Jax, though, was undaunted by his shyness. “You know, Wyatt,” she said, lowering herself onto the step beside him, “I have three daughters at home. Joy is twelve, Josie is nine, and Jade is six.”
Wyatt frowned. “That’s a lot of girls,” he said softly. He looked worried.
Jax laughed, but then her expression turned serious. “That is a lot of girls,” she agreed. “And, just between you and me, there’s going to be at least one more,” she said, running a hand over her belly. “Because this baby is going to be a girl, too.”
Wyatt had nothing to say to that, but the worry lines on his forehead deepened.
“I should tell you though, Wyatt,” Jax said, her tone still serious, “the three girls we already have are no ordinary girls. Their father has taught each one of them how to hit a fastball.” That got Wyatt’s attention. He looked up, interested.
Jax leaned closer and lowered her voice. “And if the truth be told, Wyatt, I think their father would like to keep going until we have enough daughters for our own baseball team. That would be nine in all.” She smiled and brushed his cheek lightly with her fingertips, and Allie was relieved to see that Wyatt didn’t recoil under her touch. Instead
, he stared expectantly at her, waiting to hear what she would say next.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, jumping up. “I brought you two something.” She went back to her truck and reached into the backseat. Then she lifted out a whole flat of strawberries, six quarts in all.
“Let me help you,” Allie said, coming over to her, but Jax waved her away.
“I picked these from our garden this morning,” she explained. “You’ll probably want them in the refrigerator,” she added, heading up the front steps of the cabin.
“Careful on the steps,” Allie called, rushing to keep up with her. Pregnant or not, Jax was remarkably agile.
Jax opened the door to the cabin and Allie followed her inside. Wyatt, still looking interested, trailed behind them. But no sooner had she gotten over the threshold than Jax stopped.
“It looks exactly the same,” she said, her eyes traveling around the room. Allie smiled. She’d felt the same way when they’d arrived last night. Entering the cabin, for her, had been like entering a time capsule. She imagined that Jax was feeling the same way now.
“I feel like I’m sixteen again,” Jax said softly. “Remember that summer? I think we spent most of it French braiding each other’s hair.”
Allie smiled, remembering.
“But I don’t remember that,” Jax said with a frown, pointing at the buck’s head. Allie had tried to take it down that morning, but it had proved too difficult. Instead she’d covered it with a blanket.
“Oh that,” Allie said, leading Jax into the kitchen. “That’s that old buck’s head my grandfather put up. Wyatt doesn’t like it, but I couldn’t get it down.”
“I don’t like them much myself,” Jax admitted, setting the strawberries down on the kitchen counter. “But Wyatt had better get used to them. People in these parts take their hunting very seriously.”
Allie opened the refrigerator door and started putting the strawberries in. But then she paused. “Jax, Wyatt and I can’t eat all these strawberries.”
“Oh, you don’t have to eat all of them now. You can use whatever you don’t eat to make strawberry jam.”
“I don’t know how to make jam,” Allie admitted, arranging strawberries.
“Well, that’s going to have to change if you’re planning on living up here,” Jax said, an amused expression on her face. “Canning is practically a sport in Butternut. Second only to hunting, really.”
Allie smiled. “Well, maybe you can teach me how to can sometime. But until then, are you sure you don’t want to take some of these back with you?”
Jax shook her head.
“Well, thank you then. They’re beautiful. Can I least offer you an iced tea before you leave?”
“I’d love an iced tea,” Jax said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
Allie poured them both a glass of iced tea and poured Wyatt, who’d followed them into the kitchen, a glass of milk. He took it into the living room with him and started playing with a train set he and Allie had set up that afternoon.
“How are your parents and your brother?” Jax asked, as Allie joined her at the table.
“They’re fine. My parents live in a retirement community in Florida. They wanted Wyatt and me to move down there too. But I couldn’t see us joining them for the early bird special every night. And my brother, Cal, lives in Seattle with his wife. They’re both total workaholics, but otherwise, they’re fine. What about your parents?” she asked, then immediately regretted asking it. She didn’t know a lot about Jax’s family. But she knew enough to know it had not been a happy one.
But Jax only shrugged. “My parents are both gone now. A diet rich in bourbon whiskey, apparently, doesn’t lend itself to old age,” she said, with a sigh.
Allie flushed. She was sorry she’d brought them up.
But Jax reached over and patted her arm. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “Because twelve years ago I met Jeremy. And things started to turn around for me.”
“Caroline said the two of you own the hardware store. And that you make having three children look easy.”
Jax smiled. “I don’t know about easy,” she said. But then her expression clouded over. “Caroline told me about your husband. I’m so sorry.”
Allie’s throat tightened. “He was a specialist in the Minnesota National Guard and his unit was deployed to Afghanistan,” she said, forcing herself to speak evenly, and to maintain eye contact with Jax. “They were resupplying mobile combat units in the field when the Humvee Gregg was riding in drove over an IED.” She paused. “He didn’t survive.”
“Oh, Allie. You must miss him so much,” Jax said, gently.
“I do miss him. He was my best friend.” And had been, really, since the moment she’d met him. It was on her first day of college, in her Introduction to Psychology class. Gregg had walked over to her row and asked, with a shy smile, brushing his sandy brown hair out of his eyes, “Is this seat taken?”
“No,” she’d said, a little flustered, and he’d sat down next to her. The next time they’d been apart—really apart—was ten years later, when he’d left for Afghanistan.
Jax reached over now and took Allie’s hand and held it in her own small, almost childlike hand.
“Allie? I’m glad you moved up here,” she said. “I really am.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” Allie said, only half joking.
“You’re not sorry, are you?”
“I don’t know if I am or not,” Allie confessed. “But it’s occurred to me it might have been a selfish decision on my part. I mean, I moved here because I wanted to get away. But what about Wyatt? He didn’t get to vote or even weigh in with an opinion.”
Jax considered this, then said, “You don’t strike me as a selfish person, Allie. Besides, making decisions is part of a parent’s job. And usually, what’s best for us is what’s best for them, too.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “But, at the risk of prying into your personal life, why did you decide to move up here?”
“Too many memories at home,” Allie said, deciding to keep her answer simple. After all, that was part of the reason she’d decided to leave. “Gregg and I never had time to come up here when we were together,” she explained. “We were so busy, and it always seemed so far away. Besides, Gregg hated fishing. He said it was less exciting than watching grass grow. And you know what, Jax?”
“What?”
“Now I’m glad we never came up here together. There are no memories of him here. Except, of course, the ones that I brought with me,” she added, with a little sigh.
“Won’t you be homesick, though?” Jax asked, concerned.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I got so tired of everyone feeling sorry for me. It’s exhausting to be the object of so much pity. And so much well-meaning advice.”
Jax considered that. “Well, you won’t have that problem here,” she said finally, with a sad little smile. “People up here have plenty of troubles of their own. I mean, you remember Walter Starr, don’t you? He owns the bait and tackle shop. He’s got advanced prostate cancer. And Don and Liz Weber, remember them? They used to own the gas station? Last spring they lost everything—everything—in a house fire. And Caroline, from Pearl’s? Her daughter left for college this summer. That child is everything to her, and Caroline misses her so much that sometimes, I swear, I’m afraid her heart will break in two. I could go on”—Jax shrugged—“but I won’t.”
Allie felt her eyes glazing over with tears. She knew Jax hadn’t meant to make her feel like a jerk, but she felt like one anyway. “I know how selfish I must sound,” she confessed now. “But one of the worst parts of losing someone you love is that it makes you so self-absorbed. Sometimes I forget that Wyatt and I aren’t the only people in the world who have a reason to grieve.”
“You have every reason to grieve,” Jax said, staunchly. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t. But the people of this town aren’t strangers to hardship, either. So you don’t need to feel like your misfortun
e will make you some kind of curiosity to them. It won’t.” She added, with a rueful smile, “Although I should probably warn you, like most people who live in small towns, they’re not immune to a little gossiping, either.”
“And speaking of gossip,” Jax continued, refilling her glass from the pitcher of iced tea on the table, “have you met your new neighbor?”
Allie nodded. “Walker Ford, right? I met him this morning at Pearl’s. We didn’t get off to a very good start with each other,” she admitted.
“No?” Jax asked. “Well, he can be a little aloof.”
“Aloof? I was going to say arrogant.”
“Arrogant? Well, maybe a little,” Jax conceded. “But he’s done a lot for Butternut. I mean, when he took over that boatyard a few years ago, it was barely limping along. Now, after the lumber mill, it’s the biggest employer in town. Besides,” she continued, a mischievous gleam in her eye, “that’s not the only public service he’s provided around here.”
Allie raised her eyebrows, curious in spite of herself.
“Well, as I said,” Jax continued, “people up here do occasionally gossip. And he’s given us all plenty to gossip about.”
“Really?” Allie was intrigued.
“Well, you’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Jax asked. “The man looks like a movie star, for God’s sake.”
Allie reviewed their meeting. Walker was tall and athletically built, with close-cropped, dark hair, a summer-tanned complexion, and dark blue eyes. He wasn’t bad-looking, she supposed. But she couldn’t say he was good-looking, either. She simply didn’t see men in that way anymore.
But Jax brushed off her ambivalence. “Well, whatever you think of him, he’s found many admirers up here,” she continued. “I mean, his looks aside, he’s under forty, successful, and single.” She ticked off these attributes on the fingers of one hand. “In other words, he’s in a small minority of the population in a town the size of Butternut. But he was also married—briefly—which only added to the intrigue. Everyone loves to speculate about what went wrong in that marriage.”
