Some of Mee-Maw’s feistiness evaporated, and tears welled up in her eyes. She sank down on her bed. “I raised my babies here. And my grandbabies. Thought I’d see more of my great-grands running around barefoot under the pecan trees. I nursed my little ones right here in this bed. Sewed this quilt while I was expecting my youngest…”
The foreman shuffled his feet. “Aw, boy. This is the lowest… If I didn’t have three kids to feed, I’d quit right this instant.” He straightened up and met Ryan’s eyes. “Go on. Put the thing on the truck. If Murphy finds out, he can just take it out of my pay.”
Ryan didn’t hesitate. He hefted up the machine and its cabinet and headed for the back door. If he could take anything from this place that would give Mee-Maw even part of her past, he would. Murphy would have to come through him to get it back.
The sewing machine had been the last of the things he’d battled with the foreman over. He could empathize with the guy, understood that he didn’t want to get on Murphy’s bad side.
But this was Mee-Maw’s stuff. Gramps was probably spinning in his grave right now at what was happening.
Jack, out of his cast, helped him load the sewing machine on the back of the truck—Jack’s truck, not Gramps’s.
A lump Ryan couldn’t swallow formed in his throat at the thought of leaving Gramps’s old pickup here. But, like Mee-Maw’s beds and her rocker and the old kitchen table Ryan had crawled under as a baby, the truck was part of the “foreclosed estate.” It would stay behind, no matter the pain leaving it cost.
He brushed his hands together and cast a worried glance at the lowering sun.
Jack seemed to read his thoughts. He said to Ryan, “It’s getting late. I don’t want to go head-to-head with Murphy. I’m surprised he’s not already here. He said the close of business…and it’s nearly six.”
“Murphy wouldn’t know a real business day if it bit him. The man starts at ten in the morning and calls it a day by three.”
For all of Ryan’s bravado, however, he, too, was concerned. Mainly he wanted to get this last load gone before Murphy had a chance to see it—and protest that it belonged to him.
“Let’s go see what else there is,” Jack suggested.
Ryan stopped at the door of Mee-Maw’s bedroom to see her staring vacantly at her empty closet—a closet where just this morning her clothes had hung. She looked more than a little lost.
“Mee-Maw?” he prompted gently.
“Hmm?” she responded in an abstracted voice.
“What next?”
She didn’t reply, didn’t even act as though she heard.
Jack spoke up, a bit louder. “Mee-Maw, is there anything else? It’s getting late—”
She stayed him with a hand, then let that palm trail over the top of her dresser, which was bare of the photographs that had weighed it down only last night.
“I know, I know. It’s way past time. But how in tarnation is a woman s’posed to pack up a lifetime in a day? Just… Oh, Jack. Just give an old lady a chance to say goodbye to her home. Okay?”
Ryan pressed his lips together to hold back the scream of agony Mee-Maw’s words caused him. This was his fault, all his fault. If he’d just—
What? Listened to his gut? His gut hadn’t known what to do, either.
He looked over at Jack, who seemed as miserable as Ryan felt.
“You, um, go on. Get that load to your house. I’ll stay here with Mee-Maw until…until she’s ready to go, okay? I’ll call you then to come pick us up.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. If you need me, if Murphy gives you any trouble, I’ll be trying to figure out where to put all this stuff.”
Ryan saw him looking at Mee-Maw, trying to figure out what words to say to comfort her…and like him, finding none. So instead, Jack about-faced out the door.
A moment later, Ryan saw Jack’s pickup lumber down the drive past Mee-Maw’s bedroom window.
The sound of the truck signaled something to Mee-Maw.
“One more walk-through then.” She said it matter-of-factly and led Ryan on a tour of the house.
It looked gutted without her personal effects, but Mee-Maw didn’t act as if she noticed the difference. Instead, she’d stop and touch this or that piece of furniture, patting it with a bittersweet smile on her lips. She halted at the door of the kitchen and beamed at the notches on the door frame.
“That’s you, Ryan. See? You started out on the short side…” A gnarled finger trailed up the battered paint. “But look how you shot up…and just in one year.” She closed her eyes and breathed out, long and low.
Ryan felt as if his heart had been ripped out of him by the time they stood on the back porch.
“Well, now. Just one more thing to do.”
“What’s that, Mee-Maw?”
Mee-Maw took his hand in hers and squeezed. “I want to say goodbye to Mac, Ryan. Who knows when Murphy’ll let me back up here. So…can you drive me up there? I know Murphy said not to drive the truck off the property…but the family plot, well, that’s not off the property, is it? Can you take me to say goodbye to Mac?”
Ryan closed his eyes and nodded. He’d take Mee-Maw anywhere.
* * *
THE OLD OAK TREE’S BRANCHES creaked in the light evening breeze as Ryan guided Mee-Maw over the rough path to Gramps’s grave. Out before him, the sun hung low in the sky, painting the horizon vivid scarlet and orange. If the old wives’ tales were true, then tomorrow should dawn clear and fair—perfect for plowing.
Plowing that Ryan wouldn’t be doing.
For the first time, he thought about what the future would hold for him.
No cows to feed and tend to and persuade that the grass really was greener on the other side of the fence.
No hens to battle for eggs.
No butter beans to break his back over.
No cotton to plow and worry over.
Well, really, when he thought about it, the prospect sounded…like utter misery.
Mee-Maw’s low-heeled shoes scraped along the gravel surrounding Gramps’s plot. She knelt down, stiff and slow, and lay a palm on the smooth granite.
“Well, Mac. Never thought I’d see this day,” she murmured.
Ryan would have stepped back, given her some privacy, but she reached up and twined her fingers around his.
“The boys think they can get the farm back, eventually. Don’t know that I’ll ever see it. I’m afraid, Mac…afraid that, away from this ground, I’ll be as dead as a lamp unplugged. And about as useless.”
Ryan wanted to run, get away from Mee-Maw’s words, but losing the farm was his fault. Maybe, if the punishment fit the crime, this was the perfect, fitting punishment. He forced himself to listen.
“I know what you’d tell me. You’d tell me to fight. You’d tell me not to give up. So…I’m gonna do that. Best I can, anyway.”
Mee-Maw fell silent. Ryan thought she was done, but she started again.
“I thought the day you died was the worst day of my life. Then I thought, no, the day we put you in the ground was the worst. And then, no, it had to be the day after the funeral… I miss you. Every day. I look for you. I miss you. I miss the way you left the razor on the sink—sixty years, and you never learned to put it away.” Tears choked Mee-Maw’s chuckle.
“I miss a lot of things,” she whispered. “I miss the way you’d hold my hand when we said grace. I miss the way you never liked the weather. I miss your kisses. But I thought…living here that I’d always have a piece of you. Guess it wasn’t meant to be. Guess you’ll just have to wait for me to get to Heaven. Guess…guess I’ll have to find some other place to be buried. You won’t mind, will you, Mac? That I won’t be here beside you? You’ll understand, won’t you?”
Now she hid her face in her hands and wept in earnest. “I wish I had flowers to put on your grave, but I don’t. I sure am sorry, Mac. I sure wish I didn’t have to say goodbye this way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NEITHER RYAN NOR Mee-Maw said much on the ride back to the house. He pulled up in Gramps’s usual spot and parked the truck. Ryan couldn’t bring himself to look at Mee-Maw, so instead he just stared out the windshield.
Trying not to see what all they were losing.
Then Mee-Maw cleared her throat. She lifted a trembling hand to her hair, patting it.
“I sure thank you, Ryan.”
He couldn’t help himself. “What for? All I’ve done is lose this place for you. This is my fault.”
“Pshaw. It’s not and you know it. Well, not all yours, anyway. A good portion of the blame’s mine. What could you have done anyway to stop Murphy?”
“I should have escorted Becca Reynolds to the county line and told her not to come back until she had a posse of federal investigators and a slew of warrants. I shouldn’t have fooled myself into thinking I could win any standoff with Murphy. Jack warned me I was playing with fire. If I’d just not let Becca onto the property to begin with, this whole game of chicken with Murphy wouldn’t have started. At least, Murphy wouldn’t blame me for Becca’s digging. That way, at least it wouldn’t be my fault that Murphy got so riled up.”
Mee-Maw made a disappointed clucking sound. “Wouldn’t have solved anything, just put it off a bit. Becca was only doing her job. No point blaming her, either. You’re not, are you?”
“She knew, Mee-Maw. She knew from the start who I was, what was going on…she baited me—”
“You don’t know that, Ryan. Before you go jumping to any conclusions, you talk to her. Now, I’ll tell you what you could have done. You could have gone to the insurance company the minute you knew something was up with that vine.”
“Mee-Maw…” Ryan shook his head and closed his eyes, then opened them and looked straight at her. “I didn’t feel like I could. Not with so many unanswered questions about J.T. and what with Murphy saying Gramps had something to do with bringing the vine here—”
“Should have asked me. I could have told you—didn’t have to ask anybody, anyway. You should know better than to think Mac was mixed up with the likes of Murphy.”
“It was that check. I—I’d think about that check you wrote…”
“See now, that was my fault. I should have told you about that, but I’d given J.T. my word, and I didn’t know a thing about that old tax bill.” Mee-Maw let out a long breath. “No point in it now. I have faith in Becca, even if you don’t, and I think that girl will move heaven and earth to get Murphy behind bars. Maybe you can get the farm back after that. Until then, why, we’ll just have to make do.”
“I’m glad you’ve got faith in Becca. I wish I could.”
Mee-Maw pinned him with a hard stare from her blue eyes. She shook a gnarled finger at him. “Now, you listen. We got in this mess because all of us were tippy-toeing around, too skeert to ask or say what was on our minds. You don’t make that mistake with Becca. You care for her, right?”
Ryan’s heart squeezed. He thought about the times he’d spent with Becca, the long e-mails he’d shared with Sunny. Were the two women so different? “I cared for who I thought she was.”
“That’s who she is, and you know it. Your heart won’t steer you wrong, Ryan. You listen to it.”
“Yeah, right. I listened to it to begin with and look where it got me,” he started, but then he saw Mee-Maw about to blast him again. To appease her, he said, “All right, I’ll talk to her. Later, okay? I just don’t want to see her right now.”
“Too late.”
“What?”
“There she comes, if my eye ain’t mistaken. That her car? I believe it is. You go on and talk to her. I just need to rest a bit in the truck. Go on. I’ll be okay.”
Ryan peered around Mee-Maw to get a better look. Sure enough, the setting sun reflected off the light of Becca’s car as it bounced up the driveway.
* * *
RYAN WAS WAITING for her when she got out of her car, Wilbur at his feet. Ryan stood there against his grandfather’s truck, arms folded, mouth tight, eyes devoid of any trusting twinkle she might find.
Becca tucked her shaking hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Hi.”
Ryan didn’t answer.
Okay, he was going for the stone-faced approach. Well, then. She swallowed hard. “I wanted to ask you…”
Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you answer my phone calls? Why won’t you let me explain?
But Becca didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, she opted for the professional approach. “My dad has picked up J.T. at the airport, and they’re on their way back here. J.T. wanted to see Charlotte—and Mee-Maw. He asked specifically to see Mee-Maw before he would talk to any federal authorities. So…Dad wants to know…where, um, you want them to go.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “It could have been here if you’d gone along and bought us some more time.”
Anger and hurt whirled inside of her, making her words hard to get out. “Look, I did the best I could—and you can blame me all you want to, but if you and Mee-Maw had just come clean earlier—”
“Well, we didn’t, did we? And neither did you, Sunny.”
The taunt hit her hard—as he’d intended, she was sure. “I won’t deny that I kept things from you, Ryan. But I didn’t know anything about this case before I came down here. You can believe me or not. That’s your choice. But what we had…what went on…it was real. To me, anyway. There was no lie.”
For a moment, emotion shattered his poker face. She couldn’t, in that split second, decide whether it was anger or pain or a mix of both, but then Ryan composed himself.
“When will your dad and J.T. get here?”
His cold indifference wounded her more than anything he could have raged at her. But if this was how he was going to play it… Becca glanced at her watch. “Probably another half hour or so. Where do you want to meet them?”
“We’re taking Mee-Maw to Jack’s. That’s—” Ryan closed his eyes, compressed his lips.
She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, Becca asked, “Okay. Should I follow you?”
Ryan laughed, the chuckle hollow and sardonic. “You don’t get it, do you? We lost everything, Becca. Everything. The house, the farm, the truck, the animals—well, except for Wilbur. He’s considered a personal item, since he’s the family pet. We’re waiting on Jack to come back and get us.”
His despair, fresh and raw, stabbed at her heart. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I am so, so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, so am I. Sorry that I ever listened to you when you assured me that Murphy was just bluffing.”
The passenger-side door of the truck swung open. “Ryan…help me out here. Getting so stiff—”
Becca realized for the first time that Mee-Maw had been waiting in the truck. She walked around to see the old woman trying to get her feet on the ground.
“Here,” Becca said, “let me—”
But Ryan came between them. With accusing eyes, he said, “I think you’ve helped quite enough, thank you.” He assisted Mee-Maw out of the truck.
“Thank you, honey,” Mee-Maw said to Becca, as if Ryan hadn’t spoken. “I was a-wonderin’…since we can’t take the truck, you reckon you could give us a lift into town? I’m mighty tired. I just want to lie down for a bit.”
Becca exchanged a pointed look with Ryan. “Yes, ma’am. I’d be happy to.”
“Did I hear you say J.T. was back?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I sure have missed that boy.”
“I’ll call Dad a
nd tell him to meet us at Jack’s, then. Ryan, can you and Wilbur fit in the backseat?”
He nodded without speaking. Becca knew from his stubborn expression that, if not for Mee-Maw, Ryan would have walked to California barefoot before he would have ever asked Becca for a ride.
Maybe it’s for the best this thing between us is over. What was I thinking, anyway? That I’d get to play Green Acres with Ryan for the rest of my life?
* * *
BECCA WOUND UP SITTING with Mee-Maw and Charlotte on Jack’s front porch swing while they waited for J.T.’s arrival.
Charlotte couldn’t sit still—or keep quiet. She peppered Becca with a thousand questions about what would happen next—would J.T. have to go back to jail? Or would he be in any sort of trouble?
All Becca could answer was an honest, “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”
She knew her dad had been in contact with an assistant U.S. attorney that he knew. He’d fluttered a few hypotheticals the feds’ way. Still, until the government heard J.T.’s story and decided whether or not he was a good enough witness, there were no guarantees.
The one bright spot was that Ag-Sure had already promised not to press charges of conspiracy to defraud against Ryan, Mee-Maw or J.T. if they agreed to testify in civil and criminal trials against Murphy. Becca knew that under federal and state statutes, Ryan and Mee-Maw were both subject to conspiracy charges. It didn’t matter that neither had actually been active participants. Ryan and Mee-Maw had known about the scam and had aided and abetted Murphy with their silence.
As for J.T., he still had quite a bit of explaining to do. It was clear from what Becca’s dad had told her of J.T.’s story, the hired hand was in up to his neck.
The rental car her dad had used to make the trip to Savannah turned into Jack’s drive. Charlotte rocked the swing violently as she sprang up and hurled herself down the front steps.
“J.T.!”
The man of the hour stopped in the open car door to wrap his arms around Charlotte, holding her tight. Becca bit back tears of envy that flooded her at the sight.
Seeds of Trust Page 22
