Till I Kissed You

by Laura Trentham

  He crooked his pinky. This time a true smile lit her from the inside, and she curled her pinky around his. “Say it,” he whispered.

  “I won’t serve crayfish. Promise.” Neither of them unfurled their finger. “As long as we’re talking toe-stepping, you should know I’m planning a little Mississippi block party for next Saturday night. Can you let us have the night?”

  “Sure. We weren’t planning anything over on our side for that weekend anyway. I’m curious to see what all you have planned.”

  “You’re welcome to come on over and find out. Starts at five.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  She tightened her finger around his. “You know, the last time I did this, I promised Monroe I wouldn’t tell Peter Perkins she had a crush on him in seventh grade.”

  He returned her smile. “Did you tell him?”

  “Nope. She lost interest not long after anyway.” Her smile tempered, a crinkle appearing between her eyes. “Because of your brother, I suppose.”

  Cade had only recently confessed his past association with Monroe to Sawyer. “Did you know from the beginning?”

  If he hadn’t known her so well, the flash of hurt wouldn’t have registered. “She only just told me. I get why she kept it a secret. I do.”

  “Cade only just told me too if it’s any consolation.”

  “I guess everyone has secrets.” She pulled her hand away. He stepped back, but she didn’t bolt like he’d expected. “What if you win? What are you going to do with the money?”

  “Do you have a minute?”

  She glanced toward her studio. “Sure. My next appointment’s not until two.”

  He chucked his head and led them back through the wildflowers and onto River Street. She fell into step beside him, and he kept the pace leisurely in case her foot was paining her.

  “The flowers are beautiful, Sawyer.” Her voice was easy and comfortable, and she bent slightly to let her fingertips skim over the tallest of the blooms.

  “Thanks.” The word croaked out and he cleared his throat, looking in the opposite direction. “I crept back to the old house and dug up some of the lilies my mama had planted. They were overrunning the front and needed dividing anyway. The rest are some of her favorite wildflowers.”

  Her fingers brushed the back of his hand, but when he looked over, she was walking with her hands clasped over the folded top of the brown paper bag. She stopped. “What happened here?”

  A bare patch marred his manicured bed. “Uncle Delmar took Ms. Leora a bouquet of flowers. Said it was more romantic if he picked them himself.”

  “Cheaper too.” Laughter lilted her voice, and her smile was infectious. “Where are we headed?”

  “Old Cottonbloom Park.”

  She made a knowing humming sound. “You plan to fix it back up.”

  “Uncle Del said it used to be awesome. A better field than either school. Concession stand. Playground. This was the heart of the town. Now look at it.”

  They had reached the edge of the decrepit playground, the rusted-out swings motionless in the hot air. Metal stairs reached fifteen feet into the air leading to nothing, the slide long gone. Hardy weeds had encroached into the dirt-packed ground. The abandoned playground reminded him of his own childhood cut short by the death of his parents, but echoes of happiness remained and he wanted to recapture it.

  He sensed her stare but kept walking until they reached the overgrown baseball field. A trace of Kelly green paint remained on the nearest dugout, the boards weathered and covered in messages from generations of teenagers who had used the abandoned park as a hangout.

  “You want to restart a baseball league, don’t you? Relive your glory days?” The tease in her voice held a tentativeness. It had been a long time since the two of them had done anything but throw dirty looks and accusations at each other across the river.

  “You know, this park could bring us back together.” His words registered a split second after he said them. “By ‘us’ I mean the two sides of Cottonbloom. Not … you and me.” Clamping his mouth shut, he rubbed his nape. Why couldn’t he control what came out of his mouth around her?

  Her little laugh dropped his tensed shoulder down from his ears. She stepped through the tall grass and ran a finger over the nearest board, picking her way over crumbled concrete, weeds, and rotted, falling-down boards. “You brought me out here one night. Do you remember?”

  A flash of heat that had nothing to do with the blazing August sun broke a sweat on his back. “Vaguely.” A lie. He remembered it like it was yesterday. The dugout hadn’t been in such bad shape a decade earlier. They had made out, and it was the first time she’d let him go up her shirt. It had been dark and secluded and he’d written something for her on one of the boards.

  She disappeared farther into the dugout. Sunlight slashed through the roof where boards were gone. Part of him hoped the piece of wood in question had rotted into sawdust, but with a desperation he didn’t understand, he joined her, searching for the ancient message.

  He found it and blew out a sigh. It was faded, a couple of the words erased by time, but it was there. He planned to walk away and claim he couldn’t find it, but she noticed his stillness.

  “You found it.” She stood close. Close enough for him to smell the citrusy scent of her shampoo. “You never let me see it, said I would have to find it later, but I never could.”

  “You came back to look?” He turned his head toward her.

  She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyes flared. “Maybe.”

  “When?”

  She bent at the waist and leaned closer. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Silence fell between them while she read the message. For some reason it did matter.

  He could recite the message by heart. Regan Lovell, someday I’m going to marry you. Love, Sawyer Fournette. It had been his promise to her. His covenant. Until everything went to hell between them.

  “Stupid, right? We were what? Seventeen?” A sense of claustrophobia overwhelmed him. He left the dugout for the open air, closed his eyes, and raised his face toward the sun, pinpricks dancing behind his eyelids.

  Her voice startled him. “It would be a good thing to bring this place back to life, Sawyer.” Her face was serious, but a warmth softened her eyes.

  She walked away and he let her go, standing in the abandoned baseball field until she crossed the river.

  Chapter Five

  With the noonday sun beating down on Monday morning, Regan left her studio for the Quilting Bee. She stopped in the shadow of the brick wall and looked across the river. A few trucks and cars were parked on the opposite side, but not a big black truck. Sawyer’s flowers wavered in the breeze coming off the river, making for a pretty picture against the multihued brick storefronts. Her gaze skated over what she could see of Cottonbloom Park.

  Her heart echoed the uncomfortable cramping sensation that had made her lightheaded when she read his long-ago message to her. She had gone looking for it several times over the years. Even after they’d broken up she’d felt compelled to torture herself, scouring the planks of wood for his even-handed lettering, never finding it.

  Now, she wished she hadn’t seen it. Wished she could steer them back into the acrimonious waters they’d been treading for the past decade. The memories and feelings were sharp and agonizing and beautiful all at the same time.

  A decade ago, closer to his parents’ deaths, his pain had made her physically ache. Then, she could pepper kisses over him and hug him and tell him he wasn’t alone. That wasn’t her place anymore, yet she’d nearly taken his hand hearing him talk about his mother’s flowers. The echoes of the past were strong. As soon as she’d made contact with the bare skin of his hand, she’d come to her senses. Like he’d said, ancient history.

  Shaking herself out of her strange mood she knocked on the Quilting Bee’s door at the appointed time. A CLOSED sign hung askew in front of a pulled-down blind. She cupped her hands around
her eyes and peeked into the darkened interior through a slit.

  She knocked again. Shadowy movement not three feet from where she pressed her face had her reeling back. Her heart thumped as she smoothed her skirt down. The locks on the other side of the door jangled, and Ms. Martha gestured her inside.

  “Well, hello Regan. Have you been waiting long? I was already in the back with Mr. Rockford.” Ms. Martha favored her with a smile, but it looked as forced as Regan’s own smile felt.

  Regan checked the screen of her phone. No, she was on time. “I didn’t get the times mixed up, did I?”

  “No, Mr. Rockford didn’t want to miss his lunch, so he came early. Come on back.”

  Regan allowed her smile to pull into a grimace as soon as Ms. Martha’s back was turned. Glen Rockford could stand to miss a few lunches. Ms. Martha led her into a large storage room that made Regan almost salivate. This was the kind of space she longed for.

  Glen turned, and Regan ran her tongue over her teeth, an old pageant trick to keep her fake smile from sticking. “Hello, Glen. You should have told me you were coming early.”

  “The missus informed me this morning that she was making greens and ham for lunch. Now, you know I can’t miss that.” Glen patted the massive overhang of his stomach nearly popping the bottom buttons of his short-sleeve shirt.

  Glen was good-natured and downright nice, which is why he was reelected cycle after cycle to be the city manager. It had nothing to do with his skills. Although running a business replacing windows in houses and cars did afford him a certain amount of business acumen, Regan wasn’t as confident in his abilities as a builder.

  “That’s okay. Have you found anything?” She stepped around bolts of fabric and bins of quilting scraps and brown boxes to the brick wall in the back.

  “Ms. Martha’s right, I think. Looky here.” Glen waved his pen like a wand along a crack that ran diagonal from the corner of the cement floor to halfway up the opposite wall.

  A faint tapping sounded on the front door. She turned to Ms. Martha. “That will be Mr. Neely. He’ll be able to tell us whether this is structural or cosmetic. Could you bring him on back, Ms. Martha?”

  Ms. Martha bustled off. Glen had the look of a little boy who’d gotten picked last for the team. “My opinion is that the crack is structural.”

  No one had warned her a big part of being mayor was smoothing ruffled feathers. “And I value your opinion Glen, I really do. But, Mr. Neely is a builder. He deals with building codes and renovations every day. He’ll be able to tell us definitively whether this is structural or cosmetic.” She squatted and fingered the crack.

  If Glen was correct, it would be like opening a vat of worms. Every business owner in town would want their places reassessed—again—hoping to lower their tax burden.

  Mr. Neely entered the room with a crackle of energy. Regan had worked with him on several projects through the region and liked him immensely. Even more important, she respected him. His iron-gray closely cropped Afro and booming voice lent him an air of gravitas that reminded her of a preacher. And, like a preacher, his word on the structural integrity of the building would be accepted as gospel.

  They exchanged handshakes before she pointed. “The crack starts in the corner near the floor.”

  He hummed and stepped over to the wall. Glen dogged his heels while Ms. Martha stood back and called out her opinions. Regan shook her head and left Mr. Neely to his work, mentally calculating square footage. The storage area really was drool-worthy. If Ms. Martha would be willing, she’d switch storefronts today and happily pay the higher taxes.

  Regan fanned herself with a hand and looked up. Did the air conditioning not extend to the storage room? No ducts crisscrossed overhead. She moved some bins from the edge of the wall and lifted off a lengthy piece of canvas to check the baseboards. The smell of gasoline wrinkled her nose. A red plastic gas can was on the floor. She scooted it aside with her foot, but there was no vent behind it. She laid the canvas back over it.

  Her hands stilled, and a wave of heat that had nothing to do with the close conditions blew through her body like a forest fire igniting. A simple explanation probably existed for the presence of a gas can in Ms. Martha’s storage area. Maybe her car often ran out of gas. Maybe she kept it to power a generator in case of emergencies.

  She turned back to the trio across the room. Ms. Martha wore a homemade jumper, T-shirt, and sandals. Her legs looked solid and strong, but she wasn’t a spring chicken, for goodness’ sake. Midfifties if Regan’s math was correct. The path her thoughts tread was ridiculous. Outrageous.

  No matter how strong Ms. Martha’s legs were, she couldn’t handle the crayfish baskets, and it had definitely been a man at her mother’s house. The two men went out a side door to the alley behind the buildings, and Ms. Martha pivoted around. Had her gaze dropped to the canvas-covered gas can before meeting Regan’s?

  She was hyperaware of what was behind her and shuffled toward the door to the store. “I don’t suppose it’s any cooler in the store?”

  “I’m sure it is. I’ve blocked most of the vents to the storeroom. Can’t afford to cool it. You’re looking a bit peaked. Come on through and let me get you some tea.” Ms. Martha patted her arm and opened up the door to the store. A poof of cool air enveloped them.

  Her motherly manner, even though she had never married or bore children, set Regan’s doubts to fluttering once more. Ms. Martha retreated down a small hallway, opened a small walk-in closet bursting with shelves of fabric, and retrieved a plastic pitcher from a small refrigerator tucked underneath.

  The store was homey and welcoming. Cloth and machines crowded the floor, but chairs and a round table took up one corner for the ladies’ quilting circle. A half-dozen magazines with names like Quilting Today and A Stitch in Time were spread on the table, the pages thumbed through and some ripped out entirely. Who knew there were so many magazines devoted to quilting?

  Finished quilts hung along the walls. Regan fingered the closest one, sniffing the fabric. The cloth was old and held hints of cedar and pine, the thread along some of the panels unraveling. It brought to mind the log cabins and settlers in her history books from school. It was beautiful. Brown, red, and orange triangular pieces of different sizes gave the impression of the chaos of fall leaves, yet they had been hand-stitched together with an amazing precision.

  “My great-grandmother sewed this one.”

  Regan startled around. Ms. Martha stood slightly behind her, holding two glasses of tea and staring up at the quilt.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s a bear claw pattern. It tells escaping slaves to stay in the woods where the bear lives. This quilt isn’t that old, of course, but quilts hold history. They tell a story if you’re willing to listen.”

  Regan took the glass of tea Ms. Martha offered and sipped. It was sweet and cold. “Are any of these yours?”

  A huff that sounded distinctly ironic escaped Ms. Martha. “Actually, I don’t quilt.”

  “I assumed…” Regan gestured around them.

  “Yes. Most people do. My mother was the quilter. The storyteller. This place is hers.” She ran her hand over the next quilt, the fabric whispering with the movement. Blue and pink circles interlocked on a cream background. “The wedding ring pattern. She made it for me, but I never had cause to use it.”

  Regan couldn’t put a name to the emotion in Ms. Martha’s voice, but it was something her heart recognized. Regret? Longing? Sadness?

  A companionable silence settled until Glen and Mr. Neely entered the building through the front door. Glen mopped sweat from his eyes with a red bandana.

  “What’s the verdict, gentlemen?” Regan’s hand tensed around the glass, her fingers slipping over condensation.

  “It’s structural,” Glen said with an inappropriate glee and a smug smile.

  She looked to Mr. Neely who nodded. Another set of responsibilities weighed on her.

  “I don’t have the capita
l to invest in repairs.” Ms. Martha set her glass down on a bolt of fabric, a wet ring forming on the light blue cloth.

  “The building’s not in danger of collapsing, but if you want to sell, it would affect your price for certain. Every seasonal expansion and contraction will grow the problem,” Mr. Neely said.

  Ms. Martha turned to Regan. “Don’t you see? I can’t pay these taxes and fix that wall and stay in business. You want me gone, don’t you?”

  The understanding Regan sensed between them had vanished. Everyone’s eyes were on her, and she felt like the Wicked Witch of the West. “Of course I don’t want you gone. You have a lovely store, and you’re a fixture in Cottonbloom. We can work something out.”

  It took another few minutes of soothing reassurances from Mr. Neely that the crack wasn’t an imminent danger before they stepped outside. Glen waved good-bye and headed to his truck muttering something about a hambone. She and Mr. Neely walked in the opposite direction side by side.

  “Shouldn’t the assessment people have noted that crack, Mr. Neely?”

  “They’re more focused on square footage than structural integrity. Anyway, most of them wouldn’t have the background to recognize an issue. If they even scooted the bins away to look, they may have assumed the crack was confined to the brick façade.”

  She rubbed a temple. “Every business owner is going to want another inspection based on this. What’s your workload like this week? Can you help me out? I need someone I can trust, but more importantly, someone everyone can trust.”

  He harrumphed at her not-so-subtle attempt to butter him up, but an uncommon half-smile turned his lips as he shuffled to a stop and pulled a smartphone out of a holster on his belt. He scrolled through it. “I have a few pockets of time. I’ll jot you in.”

  “Appreciate you,” Regan called as he walked across the street to his SUV. He gave a wave over his head as his answer.

  She meandered back to her interior design studio. The studio was closed on Mondays, as were many of the shops. No customers would be breaking down her door, but she had plenty of work to do. She typically spent Mondays organizing for the week. Efficiency and organization were keys to her success. Fabric and paint swatches, pictures of furniture, gridded layout suggestions were gathered and presented after an initial consultation with a client.