Home Again

by Shirlee McCoy

  “What size are you, Heavenly?” she asked, and the young girl stiffened.

  “Why?”

  “Because I have a sweaterdress back at my place that I was making for my niece’s birthday. I thought her favorite color was blue. Apparently, it’s green.”

  “I don’t need your charity, Clementine,” Heavenly said haughtily, her chin up, her eyes flashing.

  “What charity? I want you to try it on, because you and my niece are almost the same size. If it fits you, I’ll use the same pattern to make the green dress.”

  “What’s her name?” Heavenly asked, obviously doubting Clementine’s story. Her doubt was justified. Clementine had made the sweaterdress, but she’d planned to barter it for some canning jars at the local flea market the next weekend.

  “Apple Blossom. She’s fourteen, but she’s not much bigger than you.” That, at least, was true. She did have a niece named Apple Blossom. She and her family lived in Anchorage, Alaska.

  “I’ll try it on, I guess, but we need to hurry. I hate walking in after everyone else is already there. They stare, and it’s embarrassing.”

  “It won’t take long,” Clementine promised, opening the back door so that Heavenly could slide into the Pontiac.

  Porter was climbing into the passenger seat, and every hope she’d had that he’d forget about their run fled as he closed the door.

  Chapter Three

  The dress fit perfectly, the waist snug, the A-line skirt falling an inch above Heavenly’s knees. Even better, Clementine had insisted that the teen remove her makeup before pulling the dress on over her head. She’d also dug a pair of fleece-lined, knee-high boots from her closet. They were big, but more functional than the black pumps. Now Heavenly looked like the young woman she was becoming rather than the wounded foster kid she’d once been.

  Clementine watched her walk across the crowded diner and take a seat at a table filled with chatting kids, and she felt just a little bit of pride at what she’d accomplished.

  That should have been a warning.

  Pride always led to downfall.

  She’d had that pounded into her head by her father when she was a kid. Humility, he’d always said, was the key to success, and pride was the surest way to fail. Keep it real and right and as close to truth as you can make it, and never brag about even your greatest accomplishment. That is the way to succeed, but more importantly, it’s the path to fulfillment.

  She quoted his words in lectures sometimes, when she told the stories he’d passed down to her.

  So, yeah, she was feeling a little bit proud, and she should have been expecting trouble, but she wasn’t. She was too busy watching Heavenly take a seat at the youth group’s table, lift a menu and hold it up so that her face was hidden.

  “She’s embarrassed that we walked her in.” Clementine stated the obvious.

  “She’ll get over it. Come on. Let’s go introduce ourselves.” Porter grabbed her hand and tugged her to the table.

  Which would have been okay except that she had no desire to meet the kids or the youth group leaders, and she sure as hell didn’t want to stand in the middle of the Saturday morning brunch crowd. She’d come back to Benevolence to repay a favor. She’d planned to keep to herself while she did that, because she knew exactly how people felt about her. The fact that she’d been part of the biggest drama to ever happen in Benevolence had sealed their opinions, and there wasn’t much she could do to change that.

  Even if there had been, she wouldn’t have tried.

  She would be in Benevolence for a few months, and she had no desire to explain her part in what had happened, no reason to justify what she’d done. She didn’t want to go into details about the young couple who had been living with her and Sim, the baby who had been born and then abandoned. She didn’t want to defend her decision to a group of people who’d already tried and convicted her in their minds.

  A year ago, she’d explained the facts to the sheriff.

  Just the facts.

  No weaving words to make things better. Just an account of things as she’d experienced them. The sheriff had decided not to press charges, even though she’d withheld information that could have led him to the young mother sooner.

  She’d had her reasons.

  Phoebe Tanner had been young and scared. She’d made a mistake. Had the mistake resulted in baby Miracle’s death, Clementine would have felt obligated to go to the police. But the baby had been found and taken to the hospital. She’d gotten treatment for a heart defect. She’d been thriving in the care of Willow Lamont, and Clementine hadn’t felt that going to the police would make things any better.

  She’d explained all that to the sheriff, but she’d had no desire to explain it to the rest of the town. She sure as hell hadn’t intended to give interviews to the local or national press. Leaving town had been the best and, really, only option.

  Of course, she’d thought she’d be leaving with Sim.

  She’d planned on returning to the house and telling him that they had to pack up and go back to their old lives. Only she’d returned to an empty house, an empty bank account, and the sickening knowledge that she’d been duped by the guy she’d spent ten years trying to love. Funny how hard she’d worked at something that should have been as natural as breathing.

  Maybe that kind of love existed. Maybe it was fulfilling and right and comfortable and exciting. But for Clementine, love had only ever been work, and she’d been exhausted by the time she’d found the empty accounts and the empty house.

  It had been a bad day.

  The four years of days preceding it had also been bad.

  Clementine had vowed that the next days and years and decades were going to be better.

  And yet, here she was, standing in a diner in the town that held her partially responsible for the drama that had unfolded there over a year ago. She couldn’t really blame them for that. She was a college professor, well educated, perfectly capable of going to the police about something as serious as an abandoned baby. The fact that she hadn’t put her right up there with Charles Manson and Ted Bundy in the town’s list of evil people.

  She could feel the judgmental gaze of every person there. Usually when she traded yarn, she walked into the owner’s little office, handed over the beautiful skeins of hand-dyed alpaca, and walked out with the eggs and jam. People noticed, but they didn’t dare comment. They just stared as she moved through, watching suspiciously, as if they worried that she’d pull a gun and rob the place.

  Today, of course, was different.

  She was with two people who were part of the second biggest story that had ever happened in Benevolence. Matthias’s death had rocked the little town to its foundation. Clementine hadn’t had to be there to know that the entire community had been shaken. People died of old age here. They weren’t killed by drunk drivers when they were on their way home from their anniversary dinners.

  Two months after Matt’s body had been pulled from his crushed vehicle, the town was still buzzing with frenetic energy, desperate to make something good out of something horrible.

  She doubted anyone living there thought she could be part of that good thing. As a matter of fact, she figured three-quarters of the community would be very happy to run her out of town. They questioned her motives, doubted her sincerity, wondered—loudly enough for her to hear—whether she was going to stir up more trouble, but they weren’t going to chase her away.

  She’d promised to help Sunday.

  She was going to do it.

  But that didn’t mean she had to offer more fodder for the gossips, and it didn’t mean she had to stand in the middle of a hostile crowd.

  “Well, look who we have here!” a man said, his cheerful voice cutting through tense silence. “Clementine Warren! I’ve been hoping I’d get a chance to speak with you.”

  She didn’t have to turn around to know who the voice belonged to. She turned anyway, because her father had taught her to never have her back to a
predator. As far as she was concerned, Randall Custard was that.

  A puffed-up peacock of a man with perfectly tailored clothes and a too wide smile, Randall was the owner, editor, and chief reporter for the Benevolence Times. He’d spent his life snooping out stories in a town that really didn’t have any.

  The abandoned baby left beside the town’s iconic chocolate shop had been the story of a lifetime, and he’d been determined to obtain exclusive interviews with everyone who’d been even slightly involved.

  Clementine had been nose deep in it, but the story hadn’t been hers to tell. It had been Phoebe’s. They’d met at a farmers’ market near Spokane. Phoebe and her husband, Elias, had been selling herbs. Clementine had been selling hand-pulled yarn, and she’d felt just sorry enough for the young couple to strike up a conversation.

  The next thing she’d known, she’d had two kids living in the rancher. Neither had a clue about how the world worked. They’d been raised in a religious cult, sheltered from life, and somehow, they’d broken away and were trying to live on their own terms.

  Even after baby Miracle was born and it had become obvious that Phoebe and Elias hadn’t seen eye to eye on what to do with the sickly little girl, Clementine had respected the fact that two eighteen-year-old kids were willing to go it alone rather than subscribe to the fanatical ideals of their parents.

  And then she’d woken up one morning and the baby was gone, the town was buzzing. Life as she’d been trying to create it had been shaken and tossed and turned on its head.

  “I’m not giving any interviews,” she said to Randall, walking past him and heading for the door, the bag of yarn thumping against her thigh.

  “Who said I wanted an interview?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well . . . yes, but that’s not the only reason I wanted to talk.”

  “No?” She stepped outside, inhaling a calming breath, exhaling her tension.

  Her yogi mother would be proud.

  “Of course not.” He followed her outside, sunlight gleaming on his handlebar mustache.

  That was new.

  Had he applied glitter to it?

  She shifted her gaze, because it wasn’t polite to stare. Even at abominations like Randall’s mustache. “Okay. I’ll bite. What do you want to discuss?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that the town is having a fundraiser for the Bradshaw family.”

  “No. I haven’t,” she said.

  “Well, then it’s a good thing we ran into each other.”

  “We didn’t run into each other, Randall. You approached me. Obviously with an agenda.” She unlocked her car, tossed the yarn bag into the backseat, and shoved her keys in her vest pocket. “Since I’m going for a run and don’t have a lot of time, how about you tell me what that is.”

  “The community is obviously very concerned about the Bradshaw kids. With Sunday in the hospital and probably not going to recover—”

  “She’ll recover,” she said, even though she had no idea if it was true.

  Words had power. She might not believe things could be brought into being by speaking them, but she wasn’t going to let Randall’s negative words go unchallenged.

  “We’re all hoping for that, but I visited the rehab center a couple of days ago, and the nurses I spoke to says it doesn’t look promising.”

  “The day doesn’t ever look promising before the sun rises,” she replied.

  “You understand what I’m saying, Clementine.”

  “I understand that I’m still standing here instead of running. What do you need, Randall?”

  “Okay. I’ll be brief. The town council voted to host a black-tie dinner and silent auction. All the proceeds will be put into an account that will be used to keep Pleasant Valley Organic Farm running until the kids are old enough to decide what they want to do with it.”

  “That’s very generous. I’m sure the family will appreciate it.”

  “We don’t need appreciation. We need a venue. One that is spectacular enough to garner public attention. Not just here but in neighboring towns.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve been discussing it, and it’s been decided that the Lee Harris house will be the perfect location.”

  “I have no idea where that is or what it has to do with me.”

  “It’s that huge house on Maine and Evergreen. Wrought iron fence, overgrown yard, boarded up windows?”

  She’d seen it mostly because it was impossible to miss. The Gothic mansion was as out of place in Benevolence as she was.

  “I still don’t know what that has to do with me.”

  “It belongs to the Bradshaws.”

  “Sunday owns that house?” She knew she sounded surprised. She felt surprised. The place was ostentatious in the extreme. Something Sunday had never been. She’d inherited the farm from her parents, and she’d kept the house cozy, comfortable, and inviting. Even the land had a comforting feel. The way the fields and orchards were laid out, the lazy river winding through the golden landscape. The generations who’d lived there and worked the land hadn’t been doing it for wealth and comfort. They’d done it for love. All a person had to do was stand on the farmhouse porch and look out over the fallow fields to know that.

  “Not Sunday. The Bradshaw brothers,” he corrected. “They grew up there.”

  “They did?”

  “Yes. Their father was born here. His father was the town drunk. His mother wasn’t around. From what I’ve heard, Porter’s dad was raised in a trailer on a tiny piece of land right outside town. He went to school but never hung out with the other kids. Never made friends. Disappeared right after he graduated high school. Twelve years later, he made a fortune in software development. He bought that house and moved back. When he died, he left it to his sons. I guess none of them want it, because they haven’t occupied the property since he died.”

  “It’s an interesting story.” A very interesting one. One that intrigued her. Made her want to ask questions and learn more. She was a collector of stories. Just like her father.

  But she wasn’t going to collect this one. She was here for a couple of months. Not to gather myth and lore, but to bring Sunday’s land back to life.

  “I still don’t know what this has to do with me.”

  “We need the Bradshaws’ permission to use the property.”

  “If you think I can help you get that, you’re mistaken.”

  “You live on the farm.”

  “So?”

  “You’re helping bring it back to life. They owe you.”

  “No. They don’t.”

  “They do. And that gives you an in none of us have.”

  “I’m not doing it, Randall.”

  “If Sunday doesn’t recover, what are those kids going to do?”

  “Their uncles will be here for them.”

  “Here? Or somewhere else? From what I’ve heard, one of them lives in Portland. One is in LA. The other one is down in Texas. Texas!”

  “Texas is not the pit of hell.”

  “It’s thousands of miles from home, Clementine. The first stable, loving home any of those kids have ever had. What’s going to happen to them if they’re ripped away from that?” he asked, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked sincere. Even with his glittery mustache.

  Even with his smarmy, puffed-up chest.

  He looked like he cared, like he really was concerned about the kids and their future, and she couldn’t ignore that any more than she could ignore her promise to Sunday.

  Damnit!

  “With an account set up to keep the farm running and no financial burden associated with that, it’s possible the Bradshaws will agree that letting the kids continue to live there is in their best interest.” He pressed his advantage, and she caved, because she cared about Sunday and her wild bunch of kids.

  “What are you hoping I can do?”

  “Just mention it. Casually. In passing. Like it’s not a big deal. See what the
boys have to say and report back to me.”

  “They aren’t boys,” she pointed out. “And I’m not comfortable being a spy for the enemy camp.”

  “We’re not enemies.”

  “Figure of speech, Randall. I’m not going to gather information on the sly. If I ask, I’m going to be overt about it.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, doll.” He grinned. “Now, while I have you here, I’d also like to discuss—”

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “You want to interview me.”

  “I want to take you to dinner. Now that we’re both single, there’s nothing holding us back from exploring the more passionate sides of our natures.”

  “Ready for our run?” Porter called, striding toward them, his body looking all kinds of masculine in his running gear.

  Not that she was noticing that, or the way his eyes glowed like molten silver.

  God, he was handsome.

  And she was a fool, because she was noticing, her heart doing a wild little tap dance of happiness as he smiled. “Sorry for taking so long,” he said. “The youth group leaders had a lot to say about Heavenly.”

  “Good things, I hope.”

  “She’s got the voice of an angel and the heart of a warrior. That’s a direct quote.” His gaze shifted to Randall, and his smile slipped away. “Randall Custard, right?”

  “I’m surprised you remember. We didn’t run with the same crowds in school.”

  “I didn’t run with any crowds,” Porter responded, his voice clipped and hard. “But the school was small, and you’re difficult to forget.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment. Heavenly will be done in an hour, so if we’re going to get some exercise, now’s probably the time.”

  “Right,” Clementine said, as eager as he apparently was to end the conversation with Randall. “See you around, Randall.”

  “We were right in the middle of a conversation,” he protested, jogging along beside her as she followed Porter onto the sidewalk.

  “We were at the end of it.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “No. Thanks.”