“Figured. Otherwise you might have just called her on the phone rather than tracking her down here, over hill and dale. Literally.”
Mac looked to make sure Olivia and Stark were occupied and safely out of earshot. Stark was showing the teenager something in the office before they started currying. “She kicked me out.”
“Before or after?”
Mac felt his mouth twist. “After.”
Royal hooted. “Oh, burn, brother.”
“Shut it.”
“The girl of your dreams kicks you out of bed? You ever been tossed after the deed before?”
“No,” Mac said. “Have you?”
“So many times I can’t even count.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, not since I made all the money, no. Women don’t do that to me now.” He looked wistful for a moment. “It was kind of nicer when I didn’t know what they wanted. Now I do. And it’s not my body.” He patted his beer belly. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Mac finished putting his saddle on the hanging rack. “I blew it. I’m not sure how, but I did.”
“And you’re giving up?”
“No.” Mac scowled.
“Because it kind of sounds like you are.”
“You’re just worried about your new land.”
“True,” Royal acknowledged. “But you’re my friend.”
“And the one who’s supposed to get the deal done for you.”
“I like to hedge my bets.”
Mac shook his head. “I’m going to finish this and then we’re out of here.”
“Royal?” Olivia approached, brushing her dirty hands on her black pants, leaving a dusty trail on the fabric. “Can you guys give me a ride home? Stark said she would, but she’s all stressed out about a group that’s coming tomorrow.”
Royal agreed, and they waved goodbye to Stark. Palming the wheel of the giant car, Royal guided the Rolls smoothly over the dirt road, down the hill, gliding into town.
As Royal made the turn onto Chestnut, a woman getting her mail out of her mailbox spun in place as they slowly drove past. Two teenagers leaning against a Honda, both texting, did a double take, their thumbs slowing as they followed the Rolls with their eyes. Phyllis Gill, who’d been ancient when Mac had lived in town and who was doubly ancient now, almost fell right over into the rosebush she was pruning.
“I told you we should have taken my truck out here,” Mac muttered.
“It’s a good thing she’s wearing her glasses, because I think her eyes would be popping out of her head right now,” said Olivia with a delighted laugh.
Royal shrugged. “It’s just a car.”
“For you,” Mac said. “For you, this is a way to get from point A to point B. For people who live in this town, this is a rolling symbol of more than they’ll ever have in their bank account. Ever.”
“Oh,” said Royal in a smaller voice as he slowed.
“No way,” said Olivia, sliding from one side of the leather bucket seat to the other. “I feel like I’m in a movie. I want to drive past the houses of all of my enemies and let them see me.”
Royal grinned. “Wanna? We can. Dude! We could toilet paper! I was too square in high school to ever do it, but I feel like I missed out on something important. Do you have a house you wanna TP?”
“Hmmm. A couple.” Olivia’s voice was satisfied as she thought about it. “Oh, this is awesome.”
Even Mac, grumpy as he was with the day and with himself, couldn’t fault her. He’d have felt the same way if he’d been chauffeured home in a sweet ride at her age.
“But I gotta get home before Mom does,” continued Olivia. “If she sees me looking like this, she’ll know. She’ll sniff it out of me. She can smell a horse at a hundred paces. I found that out last week the hard way. She has the nose of a bloodhound. Speaking of bloodhounds, did you know there’s a couple of dogs in California specially trained to sniff out suspects who’ve left crime scenes in cars? I think my mom could do that if I ever ran away. She could just point her nose out of the car and follow my scent. That is, if I’d left the window down. Right? If I’d left in a car, then there wouldn’t be a scent trail to follow.” She took a quick breath and popped forward between the front seats. “Right?”
Mac shook his head. “What?”
“There,” she pointed the house out to Royal. “The little blue one.”
“I can’t believe she’s still in the same house.”
Olivia looked at him curiously. “You came here when she lived with my grandparents, right? Before they died?”
Crap. Mac nodded, wishing he hadn’t said anything.
“You dated?”
“Um…”
“Oh, shit,” said Olivia, clutching the headrest of Royal’s seat. “Keep going! Keep driving!”
The front door of the blue house opened.
“Nope,” said Royal, pulling over to the curb. “We’ve been made already.”
Trixie walked toward them, determination in her step. For one brief moment, Mac was transported back. He was pulling up in front on a Friday night, and Trixie was darting out of the house, yelling something at her parents as she flew down the walkway. In a second she’d be in the car, seated next to him, scooting over to kiss him, and then pulling back immediately to complain about something – that she could smell cigarette smoke on him if he’d smoked with Logan behind the barn, that he smelled like sweat if he’d worked at the barn before coming to get her. Even his deodorant sometimes bothered her. Hell, half of everything he’d ever done had bothered Trixie. They hadn’t dated long, but apparently, it had been long enough for her.
Now her hair was still as red, but again, it struck him how bottled, how artificial the color looked, especially outside. She still had the same body style, but she moved differently now. Less bounce, maybe. More sway.
And she could still throw him that same I’m-beyond-pissed-at-you look. Ouch.
Olivia threw open the car door. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“You’re fine? What does that mean? What were you out doing that you have to tell me you’re fine for? Why are you with them?”
“Yow. I’ve got so much homework.” She lugged the backpack up to her shoulder. Mac hadn’t even noticed her carrying one before, but she lifted it now as if it weighed a thousand pounds. “And I’m tired” She drew the last word out so that it was three or four syllables.
“Where were you?”
“They just gave me a ride home. I asked.”
“From where?”
If someone didn’t tell Trixie, her head was going to explode. But before Mac could say anything, Royal had already stepped forward. “I am so sorry. I told her I would call you and tell you where we all were, but then I forgot to get your number from her, and we just got carried away.”
Trixie’s eyebrows couldn’t go any higher and still be attached to her forehead.
“We were riding. Mac and I were. We stumbled over your daughter at the beach, and then we rode back with her. Just to make sure she was safe.”
Trixie whirled on Olivia. “You went to the beach alone?”
Worse and worse. Mac didn’t want to be the one to break it to her. But someone had to –
Olivia, though, spoke. “Mom. No biggie. I was with Cora Sylvan. She met me out there and we went to the beach.”
Trixie said nothing, appearing flabbergasted. Then she managed, “Her? I thought I told you…”
“You did. But I can make my own friends.”
“She’s not your friend.” Trixie’s voice was dangerous. Mac remembered that tone – it came right before all hell broke loose. Back then, everything was always his fault. Years later, he was still in the path, and worse, so was her daughter. Trixie stepped forward and took a deep breath. Mac thought of the big bad wolf, and steeled himself to stand in the face of the wind.
But again, Olivia surprised him. In a casual voice she said, “Yes, she is. She’s just like you, actually. I keep bei
ng surprised by how much you have in common. It’s nice. You might like her, if you gave her a chance. Anyway,” she smiled at the men. “Thanks for the ride. See you around.” And with that, Olivia walked easily into the house, as if there was nothing wrong.
Maybe that was the whole point. There wasn’t.
Trixie’s shoulders fell. “That’s it?” she asked. “That’s all the answer I get?”
But the heat was gone from her voice and she lifted her eyes to Royal, who was somehow at her side, hand poised to place below her elbow. He guided her to the Rolls and opened the broad rear door. “There,” he said. “Just sit.”
“Are you going to offer me champagne or something now?” She pushed the hair from her forehead. “Isn’t that what people with cars like this do?”
“Nah,” said Royal. “But I have bottled water. Sparkly. I like the bubbles. Want one?”
Trixie shook her head. “I’ve done something wrong. I’m not sure what it is, but she won’t talk to me. That’s the most I’ve heard her say in weeks, and she only said it because she’s happy she’s spent the day with someone I…”
“Have a bubbly water,” insisted Royal, but Trixie fixed him with a look, and Mac felt his pain. That look used to be able to stop the entire football team from ruining a pep squad with a pre-planned group full moon.
“She’s really okay, Trix. She seems like a good girl. A lot like you were at that age.” Mac squatted to sit on the curb so that he was below her. Couldn’t hurt. “She knows what she likes.”
“What do you mean?”
“You loved writing. That’s what you wanted to do. And now you write professionally. You did that for yourself.”
Trixie laughed, and for the first time, Mac saw age in her face. Tiny lines at the corners of her eyes crinkled, and it made her look more human. Mac remembered the girl that she’d used to be, the fun one, the one that he’d wanted to hang out with back then.
“I have a shitty job at a tiny podunk newspaper. Approximately sixteen people, if that, read my paper, and on any given day the biggest news story is what bluegrass band is playing that night at the VFW. On a good week, I get a car crash to report on. Bad weeks, I write about how honey production is down again.” She pushed the heels of her hands against her temples. “This wasn’t what I went to school for. This isn’t what I pictured my life to be like.”
Royal said, “Are you kidding? You have a family. You know what I got?” He jerked a thumb at Mac. “Him.”
“And…” Trixie looked around the inside of the Rolls. “You have enough.”
Royal’s voice became serious. “Enough is just something you work on getting while you’re waiting to find your family.”
Trixie looked as surprised as Mac felt.
Royal went on, “You already have that. Do me a favor and don’t lose sight of that.”
Mac expected Trixie to come back with a smart-assed answer. She’d cut him down, and that would be that. Or she’d flirt outrageously in the hopes of turning the tables just to upset the balance, using her wiles. And she had ’em, Mac knew that. They didn’t work on him anymore. If they ever really had.
Instead, though, Trixie stood and turned to face Royal. She seemed to be deciding something. Then she said, “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
Royal’s eyes widened. He poked his chest with his forefinger and glanced over his shoulder before looking back at her. “Me?”
“You.”
“Yes.” He grinned.
“Good,” she said, and Mac heard relief tinge the word.
“I’ll need that phone number I mentioned, the one I don’t have for you.” Royal had a smile for when he closed big deals, when he was on top. And he had a smile for when he ordered the biggest ice cream sundae with extra bananas and hot fudge. This was the latter. Royal was smiling his joyful ice cream smile, and even though it was strange as hell that it was Trixie who was putting that smile on his face, Mac was glad.
“You don’t mind, do you, Mac?” Trixie asked as she scribbled her number on the back of one of Royal’s business card. “With our history and all.”
“You kids knock yourselves out,” said Mac. “Just don’t go to the animal shelter, because I’ve got a hot date planned scooping poop.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Every once in a while, your colors will clash. The yarn won’t show the cables. The lace will be muddied. Go for a walk. Play chess. Make a kite with a child. Do something else. The knitting will wait. – E.C.
Cora sent Cindi home with the promise that she’d take care of the rest of the closing chores. “I know how to feed everyone, and you’ve marked the runs that need cleaning. I know where to file these papers, don’t worry.”
“Are you sure?” asked Cindi. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. If you’re serious, I’d be thrilled to get out of here. Richard went home this afternoon with the flu and I told him I’d bring him wonton soup. It’ll be nice to get home earlier than normal.”
“Everything,” said Cora. “We’ll do it all. I have a helper coming, and I’m going to make him work.”
Cindi escaped gratefully, and Cora did a quick tour through the shelter. Apart from the normal poop-scooping, the last three dog kennels needed to be hosed down, the floors and walls scrubbed.
“Good,” Cora said as she jotted notes on a Post-it. “Let’s see if he can hack it.” She sat at the front desk and did the filing Cindi had left in a pile so she could keep an eye on the front door. With great effort, she kept from resting her head on the desk and bursting into tears. It was hitting her hard – this revelation that Mac wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. Even though he’d disappointed her by not coming home when Logan was dying, she’d always felt – believed – that deep down Mac was a good man.
But a good man didn’t knock up a small-town girl and flee.
A good man didn’t turn his back on his responsibilities.
A good man didn’t leave a baby behind, to grow up alone, without a father. A girl needed a father, goddammit.
When she accidentally shut the filing cabinet on her thumb, she just stared at it, watching the thumbnail slowly turn blue. It should have hurt, and somewhere in her body she knew that it did. But she couldn’t register the pain. It didn’t exist, and that fact, while interesting, couldn’t stop her from raging at Mac inside her mind.
He’d abandoned her.
Olivia, she meant. Mac had abandoned his child.
There had been gossip, of course, about whose baby Trixie was carrying, she remembered that. But by then, Trixie and Mac had broken up. Cora, pregnant herself, had thought it was sad that the father of Trixie’s baby, a rodeo rider that Logan knew from the circuit, had left no forwarding address or phone number for Trixie.
“Pathetic. Men are weak,” she remembered saying to Logan late at night as he talked to her baby bump. She would never, ever have guessed that there was no rodeo rider. That Trixie’s pregnancy was why Mac had hightailed it out of town. And why he hadn’t come back.
If Cora hadn’t lost the baby, she and Trixie might have actually ended up being friends. Isn’t that what pregnant women did? They bonded over booties and the difficulty of opening umbrella strollers, spending time at the same playgrounds, working in the same co-op pre-schools. Olivia and her little girl – Cora’s heart ached, as it always did – could have been friends.
The animal shelter phone rang, startling her back to the present. She answered it, hoping it was Mac calling to cancel. It wasn’t, just someone about a dog license. “Call tomorrow after eight,” she said, injecting false cheer into her voice. “Thanks, you too.” Releasing a long breath, she collapsed against the desk, resting her forehead on the calendar blotter.
She and Logan had laughed about their shotgun wedding, but in the most important respect, it really had been one – if Eliza Carpenter had been the shotgun-wielding type, which she wasn’t. Instead, Eliza had just said rather sadly, “Oh.” She’d clicked her needles a little harder tha
n normal. “Are you in love with him?”
“Of course. I mean, I love him… He’s Logan. Everyone loves him.”
Eliza had given her a sharp look. “Well, I’ll miss you being here, my girl.” Cora’s heart had broken a little bit then – in her mind she’d halfway imagined continuing to live in Eliza’s cupola room in the cottage, dating Logan, raising her child on Eliza’s sheep farm.
But instead they’d married and moved into the farm house. Cora had planted flowers and had said, ‘Home, home, home,’ under her breath as she rattled around the rooms, her hands placed protectively over her stomach.
Then she’d lost the baby. Just one of those things, they said. It happened. She was young. She’d barely been married a month. She’d have more chances. Cora could barely find the strength to get out of bed, to stop the stupid tears that kept coming even after she swore she was finally done crying.
And during her grief, in the few snatched seconds that she wasn’t thinking only about her lost daughter, she thought of that moment. With Mac. When he didn’t kiss her.
Her life had been divided – Cora realized that now – into before that moment and after it. Even though she hadn’t ever had Mac, after that non-kiss, she knew she’d lost him. By staying in place, standing her ground, she’d chosen to lose him forever. And lord, she’d already been so experienced in losing the things that mattered most. Friendship. Families. Love.
After watching Mac walk away from her as she stood frozen in her wedding dress, she knew that what she had with Logan was good. Sweet. Going forward, they were kind to each other, and she knew Logan loved her in the way he could love anything that wasn’t a horse. She’d thought she could lean on him but what had turned out to be true was that she’d had to learn to be even stronger. For him. Logan wasn’t strong. But he was real, and he loved her.
And she knew she didn’t love Logan the right way, the way he’d deserved to be loved. She didn’t exactly know what the right way was, which was the worst part. She didn’t know how to fix it. So Cora had done everything in her power to make that up to him every minute of every day. She made them a home, and she made it the best, brightest, happiest home that was in her power to make. He loved apple muffins – Cora made the best in the county. She planned for emergencies. She went to bed with her What If book and made lists. She’d made herself strong.
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