The Sugarhouse Blues

by Mariah Stewart

  “And now you’re having to share her attention with other people. Me, Barney, Cara—and now Mark and a new group of friends. I get it,” Des assured her. “The older she gets, the more people she’ll let into her life.”

  “Oh, I get it, too,” Allie admitted. “I just don’t like it.”

  “She’s going to keep on growing up, Al. It’s her job to grow up.”

  “I know that, too. It’s just that . . . she’s all I have, understand?”

  “I do.” Des put her arm around her sister and turned her toward the side of the field where Seth, Cara, and Joe waited.

  “Come on. We’ll get the others and then go get ice cream.”

  They’d almost made it to the edge of the field when Allie stopped. “There’s that man again.”

  “That man . . . ?” Des frowned, then laughed. “You mean Ben.”

  “Keep moving.” Allie gave her a light shove in the middle of her back.

  “So did you save your kid from my cousin’s son?” Seth asked when they caught up.

  “No. And God knows who all those other kids are. Could be a bunch of budding felons.” Allie sounded as if she was only half kidding.

  “Hey, want me to run some background checks?” Ben said.

  “Would you?” Allie’s eyes lit up.

  “No.” Ben shook his head.

  “What good is having the sheriff around if he won’t come through in a pinch?” Allie complained.

  “What good is a sheriff who spies on the local kids at the whim of an overprotective mother?” he replied.

  “Spoken like a man who has . . .” Allie’s words died in her mouth. A moment later, she finished the sentence. “Like a man who has a sheriff’s badge.”

  Ben stared long and hard at her. He looked at Seth and said simply, “See you around.”

  “See you around two, you mean,” Seth said.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Ben backed away from the group, his eyes on Allie.

  “No maybe, man. I’m counting on you for second base.”

  Ben walked away, his back stiff.

  “Oh my God.” Allie’s hand covered her mouth. “I can’t believe how stupid I am.”

  “What just happened here?” Des asked.

  “I almost said the worst possible thing in the world. Oh God, I hate myself right now.” Allie’s eyes filled with tears.

  “What are you talking about?” Des wasn’t sure what she’d missed.

  “I almost said . . . when he said I was an overprotective mother, I started to say . . .” Allie was having trouble getting the words out. “I wasn’t thinking, I swear it. And it was so obvious. I tried to cover up but . . .”

  “What did you almost say that was so terrible?”

  “I started to say—” Again she stopped, as if she couldn’t repeat the words.

  “She was going to say, said the man who has no children,” Seth finished for her. “Am I right?”

  Allie nodded. “I swear I would never . . . knowing what happened to his little boy. Oh God, I am so sorry.”

  “God probably knows that,” Seth told her. “It’s Ben you’re going to have to convince.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The First Annual MacLeod Farm Fourth of July Bash was everything Seth had promised—loud, crowded, friendly, with lots of food and chatter and competition. Des’s head was spinning the entire time. She helped Seth with whatever needed to be done: watching the grill when he had to step away, chatting with people he introduced her to, gathering abandoned paper plates and cups and soda cans and tossing them into the appropriate containers. The day had almost ended when it occurred to her that she had in fact, as Seth predicted, fallen into the role of hostess without even realizing it.

  The thought had come unbidden, but there it was. She’d never had a better time, never felt more comfortable in her own skin, never felt more a part of something bigger than herself, other than with her shelter staff back in Montana. Thinking of them gave her a pang—she missed them, even chatty Fran, who never met a story she couldn’t drag out. This was different, though. It was as if Hidden Falls was part of her. When had that happened?

  She wondered how her father had been able to leave it behind, then reminded herself that in time, she would be doing the same.

  She’d watched Seth walk up the hill from the grapevines with his arm around a tall, pretty woman in a linen dress that buttoned down the front and looked so much cooler than the shorts Des wore. The resemblance between them was so strong that Des was certain the woman could only be his sister, Amy.

  When Seth sought her out to introduce her, Des said, “I’d know you anywhere. You must be Amy.”

  “And you must be the girl my little brother can’t stop talking about.”

  Des looked up at Seth, who was one of the tallest men she’d ever known. “It’s tough thinking of you as anyone’s little brother.”

  “There was a time when I was taller, if you can imagine that.” Amy’s eyes were dark and warm like Seth’s, her dark curly hair tucked behind her ears. For the first time, Des wondered what color hair Seth had been born with. Maybe sometime she’d ask.

  “This is some bash, isn’t it?” Amy glanced around at the crowd. “I understand you had a hand in organizing all this. Nice job.”

  “Thanks.” Des grinned. “I wasn’t so sure he was going to be able to pull it off, but he did. There must be over a hundred people here.”

  “Oh, easily. And before too much longer, there will be even more. The folks who clean up at the park will be finishing up real soon, and I heard they’re all heading over.”

  Des must have looked horrified, because Amy patted her on the arm.

  “Not to panic. They’re bringing more burgers.”

  She’d have liked to have spent some time talking with Seth’s sister, but Amy was on call and her beeper went off. She excused herself, took a call, then came back with apologies.

  “I’m so sorry. I have to go. Could we have lunch one day, just you and me? I’d like to get to know you. I know my brother is very fond of you. He’s never really talked about anyone he’s dated, but he talks about you all the time. And you got him to take in not one but two dogs. Seth, who never expressed any interest in having a pet, has two dogs.” Amy shook her head. “You must have put a spell on him.”

  “She has.” Seth put an arm around Des. “Wait up, Amy. I’ll walk you out.”

  “No need. I’ll call you this week. Des, it’s been a pleasure. I’ll get your number from Seth and I’ll call you to see about that lunch.” Amy disappeared around the corner of the house.

  “Having lunch with my sister, eh? Think you’re going to find out all my secrets?”

  “Of course. That’s what sisters do.” Des looked around the backyard. Cara and Joe were sitting with a group under the maple tree, Joe apparently entertaining everyone with a story. Allie, however, was nowhere to be seen. “Have you seen Allie?” she asked.

  Seth shook his head. “Barney’s over there by the picnic table, and I saw Nikki with a bunch of kids down near the pond, but I haven’t seen Allie. She must be here somewhere. Everyone else in town is.”

  “Is Ben here yet?”

  “I haven’t seen him, either. He’d better show up soon. The baseball game starts in ten minutes, and he’s covering second.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “How are you in the outfield?”

  As it turned out, she was terrible, even with Nikki backing her up. Cara played a mean third base, Mark pitched, Seth played third, and Joe was the catcher. Ben never did show for the game, so one of Mark’s friends filled in. Des hadn’t ever really been part of a sports team, so all the hooting, hollering, and trash-talking was a bit disconcerting at first. She struck out every time she came up to bat, to the point where the opposing team applauded when she walked to the plate with the bat over her shoulder. She found it liberating to laugh at herself, as if celebrating her shortcomings with a group of friends was a good time.

  Of course, they were all Seth�
�s friends—most were Barney’s friends as well—but everyone offered that same friendship to Des. She held babies while their mothers pitched horseshoes or served cake, tied shoelaces for toddlers, flipped burgers, and complimented everyone on the dishes they’d brought to share. As for the food itself, she’d never seen so much in the same place. Seth had borrowed folding tables from several of his friends to hold all the dishes that had been brought, and even at that, there were bowls waiting in the refrigerator for space on the tables. She’d never have imagined there were so many ways to make potato salad, from the classic mayo and celery to salads made with purple and gold potatoes, salads with bacon or hard-cooked eggs—several with both. There were mountains of macaroni salad, platters of roasted vegetables sprinkled with balsamic vinaigrette (which Des had noticed Cara went back to several times), salads with mixed greens, plates piled with sliced tomatoes, and several green bean salads. Des had been tempted to sample a little of this and a little of that, and at the end of the day, she had to admit she’d never tasted better food.

  “I told you it would all work out just fine,” Seth told her after most of the guests had left to head into town for the fireworks display, leaving behind a small cleanup crew consisting of Joe and Cara, Mark, his sister, a few of their friends, and Nikki.

  “You did. I have to admit having had a few minutes of panic now and then. It just seemed like such an overwhelming number of people.”

  “Yeah, we had quite a crowd.”

  “I was surprised by how many people I actually knew,” she said. “People I’ve seen around town and people I’ve met in passing with Barney. Everyone knew about the theater and asked when it would be open again.”

  “Think that’ll ever happen?” He was tying off a large plastic bag filled with discarded paper plates.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think that someday, someone will take it over. Buy it from us, maybe.” Des hadn’t really wanted to think about what would happen to the Sugarhouse once they’d done their part.

  “Could you do that?” He paused. “Sell it to a stranger and just walk away?”

  She had no answer, so she simply shrugged and went inside on the pretext of cleaning up in the kitchen, which she and Cara had already done.

  Most of the cleanup completed, the crew took off. Seth brought in the dogs—exhausted after endless games of Frisbee and fetch—and locked up the house. They rode the bike into town, and once at the field, Des sat on a blanket on the lawn between Seth and Joe, leaning against Seth’s strong chest, and watched spectacular fireworks overhead. They ooh’d and ahh’d as each display lit up the night sky, and flinched every time a rocket went off with a bang.

  “Just like Devlin’s Light,” Cara said. “Except the fireworks are going over the field instead of the Delaware Bay.”

  “Best display yet,” Joe proclaimed once the show was over.

  “We say that every year, bro,” Seth reminded him.

  “Every year it’s true,” Joe said.

  Des and Seth returned to Hudson Street and settled into a lounge in the backyard together.

  “So. Your first Hidden Falls Fourth of July. Your thoughts?” Seth asked.

  “Best day ever.” Des relaxed back in his arms. “I’m exhausted. It was like living three or four days in one.”

  “We’ll have to do it again next year.”

  “Right. This having been the First Annual MacLeod Farm Fourth of July Bash.”

  “You’ll be there?” he asked tentatively.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Ever.” The thought that in time, another woman might be playing hostess crossed her mind, and she shooed it away. She couldn’t think about that now, not when Seth’s arms were around her, his breath soft against her forehead, the many moments of their shared day yet to be relived.

  “I can’t even tell you how much you being there meant to me,” he was saying.

  “I’m a good second in command.”

  “It wasn’t just that, and you know it. It felt right, you being with me. This is my life, Des. My farm, my family, my community. It meant a lot to me that you shared it with me.”

  She wanted to say how much sharing it meant to her, too, but she couldn’t find the words that wouldn’t sound like a promise she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep.

  Instead, she said, “Hey, I had a great time. Best birthday party I ever had.”

  “You didn’t tell me your birthday was today.” He sat up, his forehead creasing as he frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, it’s not really until Saturday, but close enough. And this was like the biggest party anyone ever had. It was almost overwhelming. My head was spinning like that girl in The Exorcist.”

  “Why’d you have to put that movie in my head?” Seth covered his eyes. “I had nightmares for years after I saw that. Didn’t even stay till the end. Ran out of the theater screaming like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.”

  “You did not.” She laughed softly at the visual image that flashed through her mind.

  “Ask Joe. Or Ben.” Seth paused. “I’m still wondering what happened to Ben today. He never did show up at the farm. I tried to call him a couple of times but he didn’t pick up, didn’t respond to any of my texts, either.”

  “Maybe there was some kind of police emergency. Maybe an accident or something,” she suggested.

  “That would make sense. He probably worked at least one shift today since it was a holiday and I know he likes to give his guys days off when he can. He didn’t mention it this morning when I asked him if he’d be at the farm, though.”

  “I thought I saw him at one point at the field when one of those big rockets went off, but it was just for a second, and he was gone. If it was him.” Des glanced at the house, where the only lights were in the kitchen and Barney’s room upstairs. “Come to think of it, I didn’t see Allie, either.”

  “That’s a really strange coincidence,” he noted.

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation. In the meantime, want to come in?”

  “I’ll take a rain check. I want to get home, let the dogs out one last time, then fall face-first into bed. I’ve got chickens to feed in the morning and a bunch of stuff to pick to take into Clarks Summit to a friend’s restaurant first thing. And I know you’re tired. You worked your tail off today.”

  “I did, but it was totally worth it. Your first party was a huge success.”

  “I don’t know that I can wait till next year for another one. Maybe we should start thinking about Octoberfest. Or Halloween. Or—”

  “Stop.” She laughed. “Let me recover from this one first.”

  She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, and she smiled when she felt what she’d come to think of as a little zing in the pit of her stomach.

  “Are you smiling?” He leaned back and observed. “You are smiling. I never heard of anyone smiling and kissing at the same time.”

  “I’m smiling because kissing you makes me happy. If it bothers you, I’ll try to stop.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s the cutest thing I ever saw. Let’s see if I can make you smile again.”

  “Betcha can.”

  “Bet I can.”

  He did.

  “Keep the weekend open for me,” he told her as he was leaving. “We’ll celebrate your birthday.”

  * * *

  Des lay upon the quilt that covered her bed, images from the day running through her brain like a film on fast-forward she was unable to slow down. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she told Seth she’d been overwhelmed. Every one of her senses had seemed to be hyperaware. Everything had seemed more vivid, every sensation more intense. The people, the chatter, the laughter. The food. The music. The games. The scents wafting from the grill and from the clover field near the orchard and the various bouquets of flowers guests brought for the tables.

  More than once during the day she’d stopped to look around, wondering if the mysterious J was in the crowd, if she’d been part of t
he crowd that had stood on the sidewalk as Barney drove Lucille through the town, or if she was at Seth’s that afternoon, maybe one of the many women she’d met and shared idle chatter with. She couldn’t help but wonder who the woman was. It shouldn’t have mattered—she knew that—but it was in her head and she couldn’t seem to shake it out.

  On a whim, Des got up and turned on the light, then opened her laptop. Assuming J would be around Fritz’s age, she might have been born between, say, 1948 and 1952. She went to a search engine and typed. Within seconds she had a list of popular baby girl names for the late 1940s through the early 1950s. She glanced over the list and found little variations for those four years: Judith and Judy, Joann and Joanne, Jean and Jeanne, Joyce, Janice, Janet, Jane, Jo, and Jacqueline, the popularity of which she attributed to so many Americans having made the trip to France after the Second World War and becoming enamored of all things French. But nothing stood out as a name she’d heard that day.

  She turned off the laptop just as she heard giggling from the room across the hall. Praying that it wasn’t a drunk Allie giggling to herself, she went across the hall and peered in through the open door. Allie and Nikki sat on the bed, Nikki relating a story Mark had told that afternoon.

  “I’m sorry you weren’t feeling well enough to come out to the farm. It was the best party I ever went to,” Nikki was saying. “I have never had so much fun in my life.”

  “What did you do that was so much fun?” Allie asked quietly.

  “Everything. We played baseball. I got to play in the outfield with Aunt Des. Mom, I love her, but she was terrible. She couldn’t catch the ball and she couldn’t hit it.”

  “Sad but true.” Des was smiling when she came into the room. “Is this a private party?”

  “Aunt Des, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.” Nikki looked totally chagrined.

  “Not to worry, pumpkin. Every word was true. I suck at team sports.” Without waiting for Allie’s invitation, Des sat at the end of the bed. “Cara, on the other hand . . .”