Didn't he?
Maybe not, a sly voice whispered in his head.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but we're here for at least eighteen months or so. Depending on the cost of living and how long my savings lasts. After that, if I get my career back on track, we stay forever. If I don't…" Some of the pleasure left her expression. "We move to a place where I can find a full-time job and write on the side."
Eighteen months, and they could be gone. He could buy Edna's house and that last acre, and his isolation would be complete. But after eighteen months of neighbors, of seeing them and talking to them and answering Lucy's ten thousand questions, how lonely was his isolation going to be? Today was only the tenth day since they'd moved in and already they had made things different. After five hundred and forty days…
Deliberately he led the conversation back to the original topic—Lucy having to tell her grandparents goodbye. "Or you could persuade your folks to move down here. They're retired. You're here. Lucy's here. What's keeping them in Chicago?"
She stared at him—just stared, mouth open—until Rebecca came to stand in front of them, order pad in one hand, coffeepot in the other. She reached across and closed Jayne's mouth with one finger. "Good way to catch flies—not that there are any flies in my restaurant. What will you two have?"
"The usual," Tyler said, and Rebecca smirked. "Already got it down. Jayne?"
Still looking at him, she murmured, "Pecan waffle. Hash browns. Diet Coke."
"Jeez, Bubba, what did you say to her?" Rebecca asked but didn't wait for an answer.
"Does the diet pop balance out the sugar, starch, oil, butter and syrup?" he asked as he emptied a packet of sugar into his coffee.
"Of course it does. Everyone knows that." Jayne shook her head, setting her hair swaying, and the faint tropical scents of her shampoo drifted on the air. "If my parents moved down here to be close to us and I had to move again to find a full-time job, they would never forgive me."
"How hard is it to earn a living at writing?"
"It depends on a lot—sales, expenses, how fast you can write. Fifteen percent of my income goes to my agent. I'm self-employed, so another big chunk goes to taxes. At my current advances and with the money I've saved, Lucy and I can get by on two books a year until the savings run out. Then either I need bigger advances or I'll have to do three books a year."
"I thought Greg took everything of value."
Her smile was faint but satisfied. "Everything he knew about. For the last few years we were married I put all my writing income in an account he knew nothing about."
Divorce must have been inevitable if she'd begun planning for it that long ago. Maybe that had made the actual end of the marriage easier to bear. It wasn't as if he'd surprised her with, "Hey, I don't love you anymore. I want out." On the other hand, living in a dying marriage couldn't have been fun.
Because he didn't want to know—how she'd felt, whether she'd loved Greg, whether she'd been hurt—he stuck to the subject. "How do you get bigger advances?"
"Get my name out there, get published more often, hope that my publisher will support me. Truthfully, other than writing the best books I can as fast as I can, there's not much I can do. In the beginning, my books came out every four or five months and sales increased with each new one. Then I got married, and they started coming out every twelve to fifteen months. My sales just sort of stagnated. I'm hoping to change that by getting back to a two- or three-times-a-year schedule."
He didn't ask why marriage had changed her schedule so drastically. He was pretty sure she hadn't been just so damn happy and that Lucy hadn't been the cause of the slowdown either.
So she'd come to Sweetwater because she owned the house, it was cheap and she would have nothing but Lucy to distract her from her work. In an ideal world, that knowledge would help him keep his distance.
But considering the last ten days … he doubted it.
* * *
A week and a half ago, Jayne had said goodbye to her parents, loaded Lucy in the truck and left Bill and Clarice standing in their driveway all blue and weepy. She'd been a little blue herself, but her excitement had far outweighed it. She and Lucy were going on an adventure!
Now it was her parents' turn to drive away and leave them standing in the road. Doing the leaving was a whole lot easier than being the one left.
"But I don't want you to go!" Lucy wailed, her arms twined around Clarice's neck.
"We'll be back, honey," Clarice assured her, holding her tightly with one arm, patting her gently with her free hand. "It's not that far. You can come and visit us, and we'll come and visit you."
"But I don't want you to go now!"
Bill slid his arm around Jayne's shoulder. He'd already had his go-round with Lucy, and he looked as if he'd barely survived. "We will be back," he murmured. "Not often enough to interfere with your writing but so often you'll be sick of us."
"I couldn't get sick of you." Jayne thought about Tyler's suggestion the day before. With a trembling smile, she mentioned it now to her father. "You know, if you ever get tired of those Chicago winters, you could move here."
Bill's gaze shifted off to the woods that covered the hills around them. "On the way back from the landfall yesterday, Tyler showed me a couple of pieces of land that are for sale. Pretty little places just begging for a log cabin."
She gazed down the road at Tyler's house. Had he maneuvered the conversation around to available land? Taken advantage of a For Sale sign they'd passed? Probably not. He had likely been blunt and to the point, as usual. It would mean a lot to your daughter and granddaughter if you relocated down here.
She was holding her breath, she realized, and slowly she let it out. As if it was the most inconsequential thing in the world, she asked, "Are you considering it?"
Bill looked around again—at the wildflowers peeking up through the grass, the apple trees in full blossom, the mountains rising above them—and a solemn look came to his face. "You know, I think I am. Of course, I'd have to talk to your mother about it. After we're at sea."
Jayne nodded. "When you've just finished an outstanding meal."
"With a few glasses of wine under her belt."
"And a plate of gourmet chocolates at the ready."
He drew her into his embrace, and for a moment she closed her eyes, savoring the feel, the warmth, the smell of him. No matter how grown up she was, he would always be her daddy and she would always be his little girl. She would always feel safe from the world in his arms.
Finally he released her and, in a falsely cheerful voice, said, "It's time to get this show on the road. Lucy…" He freed her from Clarice's embrace and handed her to Jayne, then kissed her soundly. "I love you, pumpkin." He followed that with a kiss for Jayne. "Love you, too, big pumpkin."
Abruptly his face brightened. Jayne didn't need to look behind her to know that Tyler was approaching.
"I thought you might drop by to say goodbye." Bill offered his hand, and Tyler stepped up to shake it. "Thanks for all your help."
"You're welcome. Have a good trip."
"I'm getting my sweetheart on a boat and going to sea, where the wind blows, the wine flows and the nights are long and private. How could it be anything but good?" Bill teased, waggling his eyebrows.
"Oh, Bill! Not in front of the kids!" Clarice dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, removing the moisture without disturbing her makeup. "Tyler, thank you."
Arms wide, she had him in a hug before he could avoid it—and he would have avoided it, Jayne thought. She'd seen his muscles tense, caught a glimpse of panic in his eyes, then tight-jawed resignation. So it wasn't just her touch he withdrew from.
She was considering that so intently that she almost missed her mother's murmur. "Take care of my girls, will you?"
Her face turning red, Jayne looked away, but not before seeing that hint of panic return to his dark eyes.
It took a few more minutes for the final goodbyes, then Bill and Clarice climbed int
o the rental truck. The ground seemed to rumble as they drove away.
Lucy's wails increased for a moment, her whole body shaking as if her heart was breaking. Jayne would have cried with her if Tyler hadn't been standing there. Instead she blinked her tears away, patted Lucy soothingly and murmured silly things like It's okay and Go ahead and cry. From Lucy's perspective, it wasn't okay and she wasn't waiting for anyone's permission to cry.
After a time, Tyler did something she'd never seen except for the time he'd helped her up when she'd fallen—he initiated contact with another person. He reached across the space that separated them and very gently tugged at a strand of Lucy's hair. "Hey, Lucky girl. You ever been to a farm?"
Lucy's tears stopped midsob, and she tilted her head to one side so she could see him, then shook her head.
"You wanna go?"
A sniffle was followed by a hiccup. "Does it have animals?"
"Cows and calves and chickens and kittens and goats."
She lifted her head. "And a tractor?"
"Yeah."
Lucy swiped her hand across her cheeks as excitement replaced the tears in her eyes. "Can I go, Mom?"
"Whose farm is this?" Jayne asked.
"My grandparents'. The whole family gets together on Sundays for dinner." Tyler paused a moment, then added, "You can come, too."
Jayne had never been to a farm, either. The closest she got to cows was the burgers and steaks on her dinner plate. "Sounds like fun."
"I'll get the truck while you lock up."
Lucy wriggled to the ground and raced to the house. Jayne started to follow her, but turned instead. "Hey, Tyler."
He faced her but didn't stop walking. "Don't say thank you."
"All right." She'd said it so many times that he was probably getting sick of it. Slowly she smiled and said something else that, at its simplest, was still an expression of gratitude. "You're welcome."
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
The Morris farm was back toward town. Where they would have made a right turn to go to the Ryans' place, instead they turned left. The dirt road was narrow and hard-worn and began a steep climb almost immediately. Trees formed a heavy canopy overhead, leaving little to see besides occasional rutted lanes disappearing to one side or the other. The road would be a pleasant walk on a cool fall day, with the leaves changing to brilliant hues, but Jayne would find it downright spooky after dark.
"Zachary and Beth Adams live at the end of the road," Tyler commented. "They've got the top of Laurel Mountain to themselves. My grandparents' farm is Laurel Valley. It's been in the family for five or six generations."
"It's hard to imagine there's a space along here open enough to farm. Have they ever considered cutting down some of these trees and letting the sun in?"
"Why bother? They're not going to plant crops in the road."
After a moment, his mouth quirked and he came this close to smiling. "When we first moved here, Rebecca was convinced that the bogeyman lived in these woods."
"And I don't suppose her older brother had anything to do with planting that notion in her head?"
The moment's ease faded into grimness. "Not me. I knew where the real bogeyman lived."
The temptation to touch him was so strong that Jayne laced her fingers together in her lap to avoid it. "You don't have a lot of happy memories from your childhood, do you?"
He remained quiet for so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer. At last, though, he did, in a voice barely audible. "Not so you'd notice."
After that, Lucy took over the conversation. "How many cows does your farm have? How old are the kittens? Do the goats have names?" Jayne let their voices fade into the distance and gazed at the winding road instead.
She'd never lived in a small town before, but most of her characters did. She knew what they were like—intimate, familiar. Everyone knew everyone else's business, and spreading it around was the favorite pastime. She would bet her next advance that it would be easy enough to get Tyler's story out of someone in town—the older man at the feed store who'd given her painting instructions, the chatty secretary at the insurance agent's office or Sarah Ryan or Beth Adams. Maybe even Rebecca.
And what right did she have to that information? Nothing justified her snooping into Tyler's past—not neighborly curiosity, not friendship, if she could even apply the word to their awkward relationship.
He had a right to privacy. She had an obligation to respect it.
But darn if it wasn't hard.
A dinged-up sign listed drunkenly at the side of the road, its lettering so faded that it was barely legible: Road Ends, ½ Mile.
A few yards past it, a trail angled off through the trees. Tyler turned, then slowed the truck to little more than a crawl to bump over several deep holes filled with rocks. Gradually the trees thinned, letting in a ray or two of light, then they rounded a curve and the valley opened up before them.
The road broadened, with grass growing on either side. Pastures were fenced off here and there, and crops dotted the landscape like squares on a checkerboard. In the middle sat a collection of buildings and a fair number of cars.
"Are there gonna be any kids my age?" Lucy asked hopefully.
"There should be a couple close enough," Tyler replied as he parked in the first available spot alongside the road. They walked the rest of the way. The house was plain and sturdy but wore its shabbiness like a cloak. There was a concrete porch but no roof to shade it from the afternoon sun. It needed paint and, like her own house, half its shutters were missing. The window screens were rusty and showed numerous patches, and the screen door opened only halfway until Tyler lifted it on its loose hinges.
His expression was a mix of embarrassment, belligerence and defensiveness. Did he expect her to judge his grandparents' home and find it lacking? She was hardly in a position to criticize anyone's living arrangements. Besides, she didn't care. The Morrises were apparently good, hardworking people—they'd taken in their daughter and grandchildren and were farmers. Enough said.
A din of voices greeted them as they stepped directly into the living room, but the room was empty except for a teenage girl talking on the phone. She rolled her gaze and turned to shield the conversation as they walked past.
The dining room was next and held nothing but a solid oak table, but the voices were louder, mostly female with an occasional baritone thrown in. The conversation stopped suddenly when they walked through the door into the kitchen. Eight or ten women and one teenage boy stared at them as if they'd never seen such a sight. At least two of them had, though, Jayne acknowledged as she saw Rebecca and one of their brothers.
"Grandma." Tyler bent to kiss an older woman's cheek. She was plump, with white hair and care lines etched into her face. Next to her, peeling potatoes, was a much thinner version, her pale brown hair heavily mixed with gray, her brown eyes faded, her movements nervous and jerky, even surrounded, as she was, by family. Tyler kissed her next and let her envelop him in a quick hug. "Mom," he said quietly.
"I'm glad you came," she said, her voice girlishly pitched, her smile unsteady. "And you brought friends."
A blush colored his cheeks as he made one-sided introductions. "This is Jayne Miller and her daughter Lucy. Lucy is Edna Miller's great-granddaughter."
"Hi, Jayne. I'm Ruth."
"I'm Carrie," Tyler's mother said.
"I'm Alex," his brother added.
Rebecca burst out laughing. "Do we sound like the Mouseketeers?"
"Hilda and I—" one great-aunt gestured toward the other "—went to school with Edna. That boy of hers was pretty much worthless. Was his boy any better?"
"Not in front of his daughter, Bertrice," Hilda chided. "Besides, she's here and he's not. That pretty much answers the question, doesn't it?"
"Tyler, why don't you take Lucy out and introduce her to some of the kids?" Carrie suggested.
He looked happy for the chance to escape. Jayne would have been ha
ppy to escape with him, but he and Lucy made a beeline for the back door without so much as a glance in her direction. Left behind, she summoned a smile for all the curious faces and asked, "What can I do to help?"
"If you don't mind, those eggs need peeling," Ruth said.
Jayne washed up at the old-fashioned farm sink, then started peeling the small mountain of hard-boiled eggs, all the while waiting for the conversation to resume and hoping it didn't revolve around her. She was disappointed.
"So … how did Edna's grandson turn out?" Bertrice asked.
"About the way you remember his father," Jayne replied. "Self-centered, irresponsible, unreliable. What was Edna like?" Greg had told her a little about his grandmother, but he hadn't remembered much and what he had remembered had so far been proved false.
"She was a good woman," Ruth said, and all the older women in the room nodded. "Her husband died when Darren was a boy, and she worked hard to support him—even sent him to college. Never did get much thanks from him for it."
"She was good to Tyler," Carrie said, sounding timid. "She needed him, and he did a lot for her."
"We hear he's been doing a lot for you," Bertrice said.
"And enjoying it a whole lot more than he did with Edna," Hilda added with a lecherous grin.
"How could he not? Edna was old enough to be his grandmother—"
"His great-grandmother," Ruth interrupted huffily. "She was a good fifteen years older than me."
"And this one's young enough and pretty enough to be trouble," Bertrice went on.
"With a capital T," Hilda finished.
Jayne couldn't help but laugh. In her entire life, no one had ever called her trouble. She was nice, easygoing and certainly never trouble.
"Okay. I think this conversation's gone far enough. Aunt Weezy, you were telling us about Crystal's new boyfriend and all his tattoos." Rebecca looked at Jayne, crossed her eyes, then grinned as one of the other women immediately took over the conversation.
Jayne peeled egg after egg, listening to dating-teenage-daughter horror stories, and was glad she'd come. She still had an ache in her stomach when she thought of her parents and the months before she would see them again, but it wasn't nearly as big as it would be if she and Lucy were moping around the house. Thank heavens Tyler had listened when she'd commented that their leaving would make Lucy blue. Such an offhand remark would have gone in one ear and out the other with Greg—even important stuff did that. But Tyler had listened, and he'd done something to help.
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