by Zoe York
Bram nodded again, but his thoughts were way ahead of him. Double A batteries, duct tape, and rubber bands. Maybe the market still has those mixed bouquets by the register.
“The appraiser hasn't heard from her,” Percy continued.
“Huh?”
“I gave her his number when she came to pick up the keys, but when I talked to him this morning, Alvin didn't have the farm on his list.”
“The farm?”
“The Burdock place. You are still interested, aren't you?”
“Well, uh, yeah—”
“I figured you were. Maybe you can convince her to get moving.”
“Moving?”
“I'd like to get it listed this month. The market's gonna start picking up now that the weather is turning.”
“Listed?”
The realtor raised his bushy eyebrows with a suggestive leer. “Unless you're trying to get in before she decides to list it.”
His jaw tightened. “I need to get back to work.”
“I don't suppose you can give her a little nudge? Get her to make a decision one way or another?”
The jerk actually winked at him, and Bram had a flashback to high school. As the captain of the basketball team, Percy thought he was the big man in school. He'd also had his eye on Susan. His fingers curled into a fist. “She'll do what she wants to do when she wants to do it.”
Percy grinned. “A live one, huh?”
He glowered at the other man. “Ms. Prescott will make her decision when she's damn good and ready.”
“I'll talk to her about it again. Be warned—I'm going to advise her not to accept any offer until we get an appraisal. The land alone has to be worth much more than it was when Miss Corrine died.”
“Good luck convincing her,” Bram muttered through clenched teeth.
“Stubborn?”
“Let's just say she has her own ideas about things.”
Percy gave his head a shake. “Yankees.”
The man’s smug superiority made Bram smirk. “Yeah, Yankees. You know they'll believe about anything. Tell her you know a guy who wants to turn it into a free-range chicken farm.”
A perplexed frown creased Percy's too-high forehead. “You wanna raise free-range chickens?”
“She likes chickens. You know, she thinks she had a couple of ballsy chicks bust their way right out of her house.”
“She does?”
“Yep. There's your angle. See you later, Percy.”
Percy caught his arm as he tried to scoot past. “All jokin' aside, I was hoping you'd use your, uh...influence with her, Bram.”
“What makes you think I have any influence on her?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Ah, so you have lost your touch. Too bad. I guess Susie was a fluke.”
Bram jerked his arm from Percy's grasp and ignored the taunting laugh that followed him down the sidewalk.
Lynne tried to ignore the twisting, churning morass of fear and confusion that coiled her insides into a knot. She hadn't stopped to plan what she'd say or do. She didn't have room for reason amidst the memories that snaked their way into her head.
I am your father's heir apparent.
She tried in vain to banish Richard's voice from her head as she slowed to a stop at the crossroads.
I've been named Chief of Staff.
She forced herself to check the traffic in each direction before flooring the gas.
I've fallen in love with Cara.
The laugh she let slip when her husband said those words still threatened to strangle her again. Her fingers wound around the wheel. Her knuckles glowed white against her skin.
I want a divorce.
She let up on the gas, coasting past the grain elevator that marked the entrance to Heartsfield.
I'm not sure I ever loved you.
Her heartbeat slowed to a dull thud. She pressed the brake, hoping to halt her thoughts as the stop sign rushed to meet her. She cast a longing glance toward the business district but chickened out. Turning away from the shops, she wound her way through the streets named for fruits instead.
You didn't know they were expecting?
The memory of her friend Melanie's incredulous tone made her gut twist. Lynne jerked the wheel, screeching to a stop near the crumbling curb. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead in a vain attempt to block the memory of Melanie's questions.
“No,” she whispered, choking on a sob. “How could I know? It was impossible.” Bracketing her cheeks with her palms, she tried to dampen the burning humiliation that scorched her face.
Bram said he'd be at the store most of the day. She forced herself to raise her head and stared through the bug-splattered windshield, swiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. He only wanted one thing from me, and he got it. She bit her lip, drawing blood in exchange for fighting back a fresh flow of tears.
I can't listen to Anna. She wants him. He doesn't want her. She's jealous.
She took a bracing breath and sat back in her seat, locking her elbows and wringing the steering wheel.
Bram's not like Richard. This isn't about the farm. He wouldn't do that.
She clenched her jaw in stubborn determination, pulled from the curb, and sped toward the town square. Drawing to a stop at Main Street, she glanced to her left then her right. That's when she spotted them.
Bram and Percy Jenkins stood on the sidewalk in front of the market engrossed in what appeared to be intense negotiation.
Thumping her hand to her heart, she tried to beat back the flame of humiliation burning in her chest. She sat there long enough to see Bram step past her realtor and hurry to the door of Walters' Mercantile before she cranked the wheel and pulled a U-turn in the middle of Main Street.
The squeal of her tires caused the skinny Sheriff's deputy on the corner to jump back. Lynne glanced into the rearview mirror and muttered, “Come and get me, Barney Fife.”
The bell almost jangled from its moorings when the door slammed shut. Willene rose from behind the counter, her dark brows winging for her hairline. “You know the rules—you break it, you buy it.”
“Double A batteries, duct tape, and rubber bands,” Bram growled in response.
She laughed. “If you weren't my daddy, I'd make an obscene joke right now.”
He crossed to the counter and planted his hands flat on the worn wooden surface. “I am your daddy, so you'll keep your smart mouth shut,” he said in a deep, authoritative tone.
An uncertain smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. “Whoa! What happened to you? Wake up on the wrong side of Ms. Prescott's bed?”
The flat of his palm hit the counter with a resounding thud. “No. You will not say those things to me, and you will not talk about her that way.”
She took a step back, her jaw dropping as she stared at him. He glowered at her, steeling himself against his daughter's wounded glare and trembling scowl. He grimaced when she threw her shoulders back and tipped her chin up. “What did you need again?” she asked coolly.
“Willie....”
“Double A batteries,” she snapped, grabbing a package from the rack near the register and tossing them on the counter. “You know where the duct tape is, and rubber bands are with the school supplies. I'll put them on your account.”
She stomped toward the back room, and he followed her, as expected. He stopped in the doorway. Willene faced the blank wall, her arms wrapped around her middle.
“Baby,” he murmured, and she stiffened. He placed his hands on her shoulders and the muscles tensed. “I'm sorry. I don't know what to do.”
The silence stretched between them. “About what?” she asked at last.
“About any of this.” When she nipped out from under his grasp, he sighed again. “People are flapping their gums, your grandma keeps pushing and you keep pulling.”
She turned to face him, running him through with her piercing blue gaze. “Do you love her?”
Yes.
He pressed his lips together, desperate to ke
ep the answer to her terrifying question to himself a little longer. “I...I think I care about her. A lot.” His shoulders rose in a helpless shrug. “I haven't known her very long.”
“No, you haven't.” Willene tilted her head. “She makes you laugh.”
A rogue smile broke through the tight rein he tried to hold on his emotions. “She does.”
“I like seeing you laugh.”
He reached out to stroke his little girl's tousled curls. “I want you to like her.”
She gave him a shy smile. “She's nice.”
“She is.”
She brushed some dust from the shoulder of his shirt. “She better treat you right.” His smile widened, and he allowed himself to bask in her fussing for one minute. “Remember what you told me when Bobby gave me this ring?” she asked, waggling her fingers in front of his eyes.
“The bit about a shotgun shell with his name on it?”
“Yeah.” She nestled into the crook of his neck, just as she had when she was a baby. “Same goes.”
“I'll warn her.”
“Make sure you do.”
He gave her a tight squeeze. Resting his chin atop the nest of dark curls, he exhaled slowly. “Tell me where the duct tape is again.”
“Notions aisle.”
His cell phone vibrated. Bram set her away from him and dug into his jeans pocket as he started for the storefront. “Oughta be in hardware,” he called over his shoulder.
Chapter 21
Lynne didn't want to think. Thinking led to trouble. Too much thinking led to memories, and at the moment memories of the past were twisted into a jumble with the here and now. She had to focus on other things. More practical things—like getting the hell out of Heartsfield, Arkansas.
It took only ten minutes to make her calls to the real estate appraiser recommended by Percy Jenkins, then to the realtor himself. The next quarter hour was spent tossing her belongings into her suitcase and scouring the house for anything she might have left behind.
She slammed the back door behind her and dropped the house keys into the basket of clothespins. She stared straight ahead as she lumbered down the steps, refusing to even glance at the unfinished planks dotting the porch. The reinforced corners of her suitcase banged against her thigh.
That's gonna leave a bruise.
A plastic garbage bag filled with wet jeans wrapped around her left hand and cut into her skin, its heavy burden abusing her left shin. I need to find a Laundromat, or a hotel with a laundry room.
She hobbled toward the SUV parked under the tree and dropped both bags to the ground. A puff of dust rose on impact. Clucking chickens chupped their displeasure, scattering in the yard.
Lynne stopped and stared at the four plump brown hens pecking their way through the scrubby grass, her mouth agape. She spun, her glare focusing like a laser on the makeshift pen her hens had called home. A part of her was shocked the mangled metal didn't smolder from the heat of the frustration rising inside of her. But it didn’t. Like everything else in this slow-moving towns, the rusted chicken wire waved languidly in the spring breeze.
A vision of Bram's hands hooking the wayward wire around rusted nails the day before popped into her head. She threw her arms into the air, vanquishing the mental image and in the process terrifying a couple of chickens. “Stupid birds.”
The other two hens were completely unfazed. She stared at them, incredulous. “Get back in there.”
Oblivious to her distress, they continued pecking their way through her yard. She shook her head and pressed the remote to open the lift gate. “Fine.”
A hoarse grunt tangled in her throat when she heaved the suitcase into the back of the car. The trash bag landed on the back deck with a splat. She slammed the gate closed and stomped to the driver's door. There, she stopped to nudge one inquisitive hen from the front tire.
“Run away for all I care,” she muttered between clenched teeth, giving the door handle a vicious yank. “The place is all yours. Make sure he pays the lease on the acreage. That should keep you girls in style.”
She heaved herself into the seat and started the car, revving the engine as a warning to other curious chickens. Her hand closed around the gearshift and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, drawing a deep breath. “I'm not running away.”
She opened her eyes and glanced at the rearview mirror. Wide blue eyes filled with panic and pain stared back at her. Her hand tightened on the gear- shift and her gaze fell to the dash. “I'm going back where I belong.”
She popped the car into reverse, avoided glancing in the mirror, and ignored the rearview video displayed on the dash. She draped one arm over the passenger seat. Her nails dug into the soft leather upholstery as she craned her neck and pressed the gas.
A sickening thump jerked her foot off the accelerator. The all-terrain tires continued to roll over a heart-wrenching bump. She banged her knee on the steering wheel and her leg tingled as she jammed on the brake, slamming the gear-shift into park.
“Goddammit!”
Her hands gripped the top of the wheel and she crumpled, resting her forehead on her knuckles. Blood whooshed in her ears as she reached for the door handle. Her heartbeat throbbed in her throat as she peered down. A motionless brown lump of feathers lay between the front and rear tires.
“Damn, damn, damn stupid chickens.”
She fell out of the car, reaching for her latest victim. The icy layer of stubborn resolve that coated her battered heart cracked. Tears coursed unchecked along the line of her jaw, dropping in fat, wet plops onto the dirt-crusted brown feathers in her lap.
“I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry,” she whispered, brushing clumps of dried mud from the hen's plumage.
As if staring down from above, she watched her finger glide over the chicken's side. One of the bird's cohorts moved closer, but she barely noticed. All she could see were Bram's hands—wide-palmed and rough—stroking her leg. Soothing her. Like she was trying to soothe a bird that was beyond all comfort.
Closing her eyes, she blocked the image from her mind, but it was replaced by another. Richard reaching for her. Long, graceful surgeon's fingers closed around hers as he stretched across her attorney's conference table. The firm handshake marked the polite dismissal of a quarter century of her life.
She forced her eyes open, but it was too late. The memory of another pair of hands fluttering like butterfly wings over a gently rounded belly came rushing back. So did a hot, fresh wave of humiliation.
The same scalding blush that heated her face that day burned beneath her skin. The unmistakable roundness of a pregnancy belly encased in tight Lycra. The utter silence in the Rolling Hills Country Club locker room when she ran straight into the woman who had replaced her. An unattractive smirk twisted Cara Prescott's plump lips, but all Lynne could do was stare at the bump.
“You're pregnant?”
The younger woman smiled. “Yes. Almost five months.”
“Does Richard know?”
The question escaped before she could catch it. The three young women standing behind Cara tittered. Melanie, Lynne's tennis partner, sidled up beside her. “You didn't know they were expecting?” she asked in a low, shocked tone.
Cara's carefree laughter rattled Lynne's teeth. “Of course he knows. I'd be in big trouble if he didn't,” she said, rolling her eyes for their audience's benefit. “You're looking well, Lynne. It's nice that you're able to stay so active. I hope I look half as good when I'm your age.”
“He had a vasectomy,” she whispered. “Richard didn't want any more children. He had a vasectomy.”
The younger woman dismissed her accusation with one perfectly manicured wave of her hand. “Vasectomies can be reversed these days.” She flashed a smug smile. “I believe Richard had his done about—oh—four years ago, now?”
“Four years?”
“Well, we had to wait for your father to retire, or drop dead. Whichever came first. Then we had to be certain of Richard's promotion, but we kne
w even in your grief you'd throw a few excellent dinner parties.” She paused and cocked her head. “You're so good with that. Maybe you should become a caterer.”
Lynne sucked in a sharp breath as Cara crossed her arms over her chest, staring at her belligerently.
“I was getting tired of waiting.” She ran her hand over her stomach again. “Richard wanted to give me some guarantee we'd have the life we planned together. Wasn't that sweet? I guess things finally fell into place.”
Lynne snarled. “You bitch!”
Melanie took her arm in a firm grasp, pulling her from the gathering crowd. “Don't give her the satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction? How else is she going to get any satisfaction married to Richard Prescott?” she shouted, wrenching her arm from her friend's grasp. “She was probably inseminated. Lord knows she'd get more action from a turkey baster.”
Cara smiled. “Now, Lynne, isn’t it a little late to put up a fight? Besides, at your age you need to be careful—your blood pressure.”
“Cheating little bitch!”
“Oh, please.” Cara waved her delicate hand. “You lost him long before I came around. I only showed him what he could have—if he had the balls to go for it.” She smirked again. “Apparently, he does.”
Lynne took a menacing step closer to the younger woman, and Melanie grabbed her arm again. “Don't. She's not worth it.”
And she wasn’t. Neither was Richard. Lynne shook her head, dislodging the memory. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. A fresh burst of remorse coursed through her as she focused on the dead chicken in her lap.
“I'm so sorry,” she whispered, brushing her fingers over the downy feathers.
She rocked to her feet, cradling the chicken in her hands. Her glance swept the yard, coming to rest on the chicken coop. As quick as it flared, the regret was gone. Drawing a deep breath, she mustered up a healthy dose of resolve instead.
She opened the back door of the car and gently placed the bird on the supple leather seat. Oblivious to the birds gathered at her feet, she started toward the dilapidated little building. When she spied the padlock, she pushed her hair from her face with the back of her hand and glanced down at the birds dogging her footsteps.
