She set the glass back down and squared her shoulders. They were family. And, oh boy, did she need some family right now. “I’m so sorry, Alva. I’m going to be staying for a while. I promise I’ll stop by to check on y’all every few days.”
Alva’s brows furrowed. “You’re staying?
How much should I say? Alva would press for more. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. Her longstanding friendship with Dorothy Campbell almost required Alva to fuss over Maren like a kindly old aunt.
On the other hand, Alva was a member in good standing of the Shepherdsville Ladies’ League, the town’s club for gossipy little old ladies. The idea of being the subject of their monthly meeting held zero appeal.
She ignored that thought. Alva wouldn’t do that to her.
“For a little while,” she answered after a moment.
Alva’s weathered blue eyes clouded. “What’s wrong, honey?”
An image of a group of blue-haired ladies rocking, quilting, and tittering over her love life skittered through her head.
She shook it off. Alva loved her. She wouldn’t air her problems to the gossips. And even if she did, a little sympathy wouldn’t hurt Maren’s cause.
Maren picked up the glass of tea and rolled it between her hands. “I got engaged. It turned out that he wasn’t such a good guy.”
Alva placed a wrinkled hand over her mouth and her eyes flicked to Maren’s hand. “You’re going to be married?”
“No.” Maren shook her head. “Well, I was, but I broke it off. I…” She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to admit to the rest. She had been a pitiful judge of character, and she hadn’t even bothered to bring him home to meet the only two people that still cared about her. Shame clutched at her, and the sugar that had made it past her tongue churned in her stomach.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Alva reached across the table, took Maren’s hand from her glass, and squeezed it briefly. “I haven’t had man problems since I was very young, but I still remember.” Something about Alva’s prim but creaky voice made Maren smile. She tried to imagine a younger version of Alva—dark haired, sharp eyed and smooth skinned—with someone other than Hank and couldn’t do it.
“I’m okay. I’m just happy I figured it out before it was too late.” Her voice caught, and she took a deep breath.
“Well, that’s a good thing, right?” Alva said, her voice a little too bright. “You wouldn’t want to be married to the wrong man.”
“No.” Maren dropped her eyes to her glass. Talk about understatements. When Maren had found out about her future husband’s theft of almost a million dollars from their law firm’s trust account, a dozen thoughts had assaulted her at once. One of those thoughts had been relief that she had been saved from marriage to someone like him. Shame and betrayal had followed as soon as she realized he meant to frame her for his crime.
“I’m glad you came back home.” Alva gave her a decisive nod. “Home is where you need to be when you have troubles.”
Yeah. Sure. Like I’ve left all my troubles behind. She gave the older woman a tight smile. “That’s what I thought.”
“How long will you be staying?”
Another good question. Her law firm had put her on administrative leave while they investigated her role in the theft. Indefinite leave. If they cleared her, her partners had assured Maren that she could go back as though nothing had happened.
If they didn’t, she would never practice law again. Oh, and you might end up in jail. Let’s don’t forget that part.
“I don’t know. I don’t have any plans to go back right now.”
“Oh, now, it can’t be that bad,” Alva said. “Before long, I bet you’ll be happy to be rid of him. Then you can go back to your life without even missing him.”
She struggled to keep a scowl off her face and raised her glass in a silent salute. “Already there.” In fact, the only reason she would want to see him again would be to take a swing at him or turn him over to the police. Possibly both. “That’s why I came home. I knew if I could get back to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm, I’d be okay.”
Hank and Alva glanced at each other, their faces creased in identical worried frowns. “Maren,” Alva began, “the county is taking your farm. They’re supposed to vote at the next meeting, but everyone knows what’s going to happen.”
Maren gripped her glass tighter. “They can’t. The farm is all I have left. I can’t let that happen.”
“Oh, honey.” Alva shook her head. “I’d tell you to fight, but I don’t understand what you’re fighting for.”
Really? Hank and Alva should have understood better than anyone why she would want to keep that farm. They knew her grandparents, and they knew all about her childhood. “For my grandparent’s home.”
Alva studied her for a long moment. “I know you’re having some problems, but you have a life and a home somewhere else. Your grandparents loved you more than anything in this world. They wouldn’t have wanted you to give up the life you love for the sake of a patch of dirt.”
“Giving up the farm may be the best thing for you to do,” Hank agreed.
Maren clenched her jaw to keep it from dropping. “Give it up?”
He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. “After they lost your mama, all in the world your grandparents wanted was to take care of you. When you left, you had their blessing. They knew the farm was their life, not yours.”
“That’s right,” Alva said. “If selling the farm would mean money to take care of yourself, I know they would have wanted you to sell it.”
Her stomach gave another heave. Sell the farm? “I don’t know if I can do that.”
That’s a lie. She knew she couldn’t do it. That farm had sat empty for five years because she couldn’t let it go. She would keep it until she died or someone took it away from her.
Someone like Jack.
She kicked that thought out of her head before it could take hold. Jack’s betrayal made a bad situation worse. She couldn’t undo what he had done. Better to focus on what she could do.
“I know it’s hard.” Alva gave Maren’s hand another squeeze. “But you have to do what makes sense for you. Man troubles won’t keep you here forever.”
True. She would have to go back to Seattle, sooner rather than later if staying here meant she would have to face the fact that Jack had stabbed her in the back every time she had to hear about that stupid plant. She couldn’t delude herself into thinking she could simply move back home and start over.
That didn’t seem to matter, though. She had nothing left of her grandparents except for their house. She wanted her farm. Needed it. Her heart ached at the thought of giving it up.
And her blood boiled at the thought of giving it to Jack.
No way. He had left her for Brenda. He had chosen her farm for spite. Then he had used Hank’s illness against her. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had kissed her, and she hadn’t slept last night because of it. She refused to let him win.
Especially when the prize was the only home she had ever known.
# # #
“I hope you’re happy.”
Jack stepped through the door of his father’s workshop without waiting for an invitation. John Mason switched off his router, propped safety glasses on his head, and peered up at his son without surprise. Figures. His father would know what had brought him here. He’d probably been waiting for Jack to show up.
“I’m usually very happy. About what?”
“The complex.” Jack took his customary seat to the right of the workbench, turning the chair to sit with his elbows propped against the seat back.
John’s eyebrows furrowed. “Twenty-nine years old, and you still can’t figure out how to use a chair.”
Jack glared back at him and waited.
After a moment, his father returned his attention to the small door that lay on the router’s surface. “Yes, Jack. I’m very proud of you. That complex is going to be something speci
al. The Board is sure to give your proposal a glowing review and a unanimous vote,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Aren’t you a little old to be asking for gold stars on your report card, son?”
Jack let out a harsh sigh. “I’m talking about Maren Campbell.”
His father focused his attention on a small detail carved in the door’s corner. He brushed his finger over the ridge in the wood, then blew the dust from the surface. “Maren, huh? Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Yeah, right. “You know she’s in town.”
“Nope, I hadn’t heard that.”
John refused to look up.
“Is that right?” Jack stared hard at the back of his father’s head. He’d spent most of his life unable to breathe without his father knowing about it. John hadn’t always been a woodworker. Before he settled down to start his family, John had led a different life. He never talked about it, but in a town this small, Jack had heard the stories. And with that life had come an endless string of connections. Jack had often wondered why his father had never run for mayor. He would have been a shoe in. “Then you also didn’t know she’s going to fight the development.”
John’s eyebrows lifted, but his focus remained on the door. “Will she? That’s unexpected.”
“To me it is,” Jack replied. “Why don’t I believe you’re shocked to hear it?”
His father straightened, dusted his hands on his apron, and finally met Jack’s gaze. “I had no idea she was here or that she would fight the plant.”
“I see.” Jack sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “And I suppose that never crossed your mind when you nudged me into putting in a bid for the project?”
“I nudged you?” John raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never been able to talk you into doing anything you didn’t want to do. I distinctly remember—”
“Okay, okay.” He held up a hand. “I know I was pigheaded as a teenager. Sorry. But yes, you nudged me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Is that right?” Jack drawled. “You’ve never left the Marquette County Times laying around the house unless there was something you wanted me to see. That article about the plant didn’t spend three weeks lying on the foyer table for nothing.”
John nodded. “It was an interesting article.”
“No one has ever used the word ‘interesting’ to describe anything written in the Times,” Jack retorted. “You were baiting me. Weren’t you?”
“It was a great idea, son. You know it was.” His father leaned back against the router and fixed him with stern green eyes. “This town is dying. We need jobs to keep people here.”
Impatience twisted in his gut. “I know.”
“And no one would have supported it if those boys from Chicago had been behind it.” He rolled his eyes. “Chicago. Folks would have run them out of town. The project needed someone local.”
“That’s why I did it.”
“Yes.” John grinned. “Not that your ego needs stroking, but that place is going to be first class because of you.”
His father had set him up. Why else would he try so hard to steer the subject away from Maren? “That’s not the point.”
“You’re providing jobs, revitalizing the town and, if you don’t mind me saying, you stand to make a lot of money off this project.” His heavy brows furrowed. “So why did you come over here to complain?”
Jack glared up at his father. “Maren Campbell’s farm.”
John straightened and turned his attention back to the cabinet door. “So? If Maren’s farm was a problem, why’d you take on the project?”
“You know why. By the time I found out her farm was part of the deal, it was too late.” He pushed out of his chair. “I had a contract, dad. I’d submitted the bid, and I’d hooked the Board with the preliminary plans. Those plans were outstanding. Heck, I’d hooked myself with them.”
John chuckled. “I knew your ego didn’t need stroking. Hand me that chisel over there, will you?”
“Dad,” Jack growled.
His father met his gaze carefully. “What?”
“When I made the pitch, I didn’t know about her farm.”
John turned to his workbench and picked up the chisel himself. “Then there’s no reason to blame yourself.”
What? “Me? I’m talking about you. You knew, didn’t you?”
John’s mouth twitched, and he pressed his lips together. He couldn’t hide the sudden spark in his eyes, though. He leaned over and pressed the chisel against a groove in the door. “Why does it matter? You didn’t care when the Board showed you the plot. Why does her coming home change anything?”
The epithet that bounced through Jack’s head would have gotten him two weeks of hard labor when he was younger. Oh, yeah. His father had set him up, all right. That satisfied smirk said it all. “You mean other than the fact that she hates me, and she’ll fight even harder because I’m involved?”
“She doesn’t hate you.” His father let the grin loose. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”
Jack counted to three before he continued. “You knew what properties were being considered, didn’t you? Nothing like that ever gets past you. You’ve always had friends in the right places.”
“Would it have changed your mind?”
Jack opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. Would it have? He didn’t know. He wouldn’t have wanted to go out of his way to hurt her. On the other hand, Maren hadn’t been home in years. And she had never wanted to be there. Would he have let a farm she didn’t care about get in the way of a plan he had been so excited about? Maybe not.
Still, his father had sent him into a trap. And Jack didn’t have to be a genius to figure out why.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
John frowned. “I don’t know. Someone may have mentioned it.”
The word raced through Jack’s mind again.
“When Maren graduated from college, you left the paper on the coffee table until I got home from that job in California,” Jack said. “When she graduated from law school, you left it on the table in the entryway.”
John glanced up, his eyes dancing. “You noticed? I never could tell for sure.”
Jack closed his eyes and raised his fingers to his temple. “Dad, what are you doing? She’s the one that didn’t want to be here. Did you think this would make her change her mind and come back?”
His father’s smile widened. “Well, she did, didn’t she?”
“I don’t believe this.” Jack gritted his teeth.
John shook his head. “Son, I knew the subject of Maren was off limits after you left her for Brenda Mayfield.”
“I didn’t leave her for Brenda,” Jack snapped.
“You left her and then you ended up with Brenda,” John said. “What would you call it?”
“I called it moving on.”
“That’s not what the rest of us called it.”
Enough. His dad had played him. Fine. Jack would be more careful in the future. He would start by stopping this particular walk down memory lane. He pushed away from the table. “Never mind.”
His father’s good humor suddenly vanished, and his expression turned ominous. “Stop.”
Jack glanced at his father, eyebrows raised. “What?”
John fixed him with a thunderous expression and pointed a finger at the chair next to him. “Sit down. You brought it up. I’m going to speak my piece.”
Jack paused. He ought to leave. He had brought it up, but his dad had set all this in motion. On purpose. I’m the injured party here, right? He shouldn’t get to play the dad card.
Still, Jack couldn’t turn his back on twenty-nine years of training. He settled back down in his chair. His dad had always been an imposing man. At least he still had a little spunk left in him. “Fire away.”
John straightened, laid down his chisel, and relaxed against the workbench. “Your mom and I were so disappointed when you and Maren part
ed ways. We knew you were crazy about her.”
“Dad—”
John held up his hand. “Hush. First it was Brenda. Then Susan. Then that Jackie Wesson. Ugh, your mom couldn’t stand that one.” John shuddered. “Wasn’t too crazy about her myself. I lost track of them after that. None of them suited you.”
Jack folded his arms. “Is there going to be a point anytime soon?”
“That one you kept around a couple years back—the real estate agent—what was her name?” He twirled his finger in a circle. “Was it Mildred?”
“Maggie,” Jack corrected him, trying not to laugh. Somewhere along the way, his father had turned into an old woman. Jack had no idea his dad had been paying that much attention.
John snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. Maggie. She was the closest thing you ever came to a commitment, and she only lasted six months.”
Wow. As if he needed a lecture from his dad about his love life. What horrible sin had he committed to deserve this? “We both worked a lot.”
“Maren, though, she was different,” John said. “Your mom and I thought—”
“Okay, we’re done here.” Jack stood and returned the chair to its spot against the wall. He could indulge his father a little, but Jack had his limits. “Not that I need to give you any excuses when it comes to my love life, but we broke up because she wanted to go. I didn’t leave her for Brenda. She wanted out. End of story. Is that enough for you to stop meddling?”
“Son—”
Jack held his hand up. “I’m going to find another plot. There’s got to be another place we can put this thing without me spending months in court fighting a lawyer with an ax to grind. I don’t need the aggravation.”
“You might not want to do that.”
Jack’s ears filled with white noise. What has he done now? No matter how many times he told his father to stop, John couldn’t resist the occasional off-the-record deal to advance his son’s career. They usually came with strings. Jack hated strings.
“Why not?”
“I might have made some promises to make sure you got a spot in the project.” His father shrugged. “No big deal.”
Wonderful. Jack closed his eyes. “Dad—”
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