“So you don’t think I should slink away and leave the happy little family alone, too.”
“No. And I don’t believe Steve or Annette think that, either. Most of all I don’t believe it would be good for Nell.”
He stopped pacing and faced her. “How is my sticking around better for her than my taking off?”
“She has a lot of questions, a lot of doubts. If you went away—again—before they were answered, they could haunt her forever. You came back, and now you have a responsibility to stay and see this through.”
He resumed pacing, but it was different. He was working through the issues driving him. And, more vital to her physical safety, she figured he wouldn’t run her over if their paths crossed now.
Keeping an eye on him, she went to the fridge and put away the leftovers.
He began to recount what Steve had said. Steve and Annette wanted him to leave Nell alone unless she came to him.
“What’re the chances she’ll do that?” he said.
“One hundred percent.”
That stopped him again. “You think she’ll have questions?”
“I know she has questions. She’s had them about her Uncle Zach for a long time. Being told you’re her biological father raised more. And now that you’ve shown up, there will be even more questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“You’ll see.” And she smiled.
“That’s not reassuring, Fran.”
Her smile deepened. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Fran heard giggling even before she turned the corner of Bliss House, and she knew, absolutely knew, that Zach was the cause. She remembered hearing that sort of giggling in his vicinity frequently during his teens.
It was a perfect fall day at the end of September. Warm with a crisp breeze. Sunny with occasional trails of clouds to break up the light blue expanse. The kind of day that made you glad to spend it from morning to dusk digging in the dirt.
She spotted Zach first. His jeans were drawn taut over his even tauter rear end as he raised one foot to drive a shovel into the ground. Then he bent and lifted the clod of earth, shifting muscles in his thighs, across his back and down his arms.
Her mouth went dry.
And then her field of vision widened to the gigglers.
It was the Tobias Garden Club. Half the women clustered around him were old enough to be his mother, the other half could have been his grandmother.
And she’d reacted like a jealous teenybopper.
How stupid. Beyond stupid. Stupid might apply if she had a right to be jealous. But, come on, she and Zach were not even in a universe where the concept of jealousy existed. It was the equivalent of being jealous of a movie star.
“Ready for the pansies, ladies?” she asked.
As one they scurried away from Zach like iron filings released from a magnet.
“Not quite,” called Muriel Henderson from the far end of the garden. “A few more minutes.”
Zach looked over his shoulder and smiled at Fran as he drove the shovel into the ground again.
“Are you done preparing for the shrubs in the Moonlight Garden?” she asked.
“Nope. Ran into a problem with the snowball.”
“I’m surprised you’ve had time to run into problems.”
One of his eyebrows hiked up. “Sorry, boss. I was trying to make it a little easier for your volunteers—”
“And lapping up their adoration like a cat with cream.” She smiled to show it wasn’t a serious criticism, simply a wry observation, but he turned his head away, apparently fascinated by Bliss House’s roofline.
“I suppose I was.” He sounded thoughtful. “I knew most of those women when I was a kid. Muriel Henderson, Miriam Jenkins and the others. I don’t remember talking with them like that. In fact, I knew Miriam from when she worked at the high school and I used to get sent to the principal. Guess it was a novelty not being frowned at as the bad boy of Tobias.”
“Not everyone frowned at you for being the bad boy,” Fran teased. “I remember girls swooning over you and your baby-blue eyes.”
He looked at her, and her grin died under that laser stare.
“But not you, Fran, right? Never you.”
Before she could interpret the remark, the light in his eyes switched to low. A multipurpose beam she had almost grown accustomed to.
He thrust the shovel into the ground, took off his gloves and slapped them on his thigh. Fine dirt sprayed out and left a print on his leg like a hand curved around that hard, lean muscle.
“C’mon, I’ll show you the problem with the snowball,” he said, moving off. “That old maple has a main root right where you wanted to put the new bush. Could be why the old one died. I’ll have to shift the spot, but any way I go will put it closer to the others than you wanted. So you’ll have to tell me what you think.”
She didn’t budge until he turned back from the path leading out of the Grandmother’s Garden. “Are you coming, Fran?”
“Yes.” Coming unglued, that’s what.
Friday morning, Zach was closer to the back door than Fran was when Chester gave her first excited bark. Also, he could see Fran was still trying to accept the reality that she was up and moving, so he stepped outside to see what it was all about.
The dog stood looking out the screen door, her tail wagging industriously. At the bottom of the steps Zach saw Nell leaning her bicycle against the railing. She was grinning up at the dog.
Then she saw him.
She stopped with one hand on the railing but both feet still on the ground.
He heard Fran behind him. She barely hesitated before moving around him to open the door from the house, cross the porch and open the outside door.
“Hello, Nell, come on in.”
The girl’s eyes shifted to him, then back to Fran. “I came to see Chester and her puppies.” If she’d added not you, the message couldn’t have been clearer. “Annette says I can’t bring Pansy over yet. She and Chester are friends, but Chester won’t like other dogs around her puppies. But Pansy thinks I’ve left for school so she won’t get her feelings hurt.”
Fran nodded. “That’s a good plan, Nell. And you picked a great time to visit. Some of the puppies have opened their eyes.”
“Really?”
The girl shot up the steps, greeted Chester with mutual delight then moved to the whelping box.
Zach had shifted his weight in preparation to leave when Fran’s voice stopped him.
“Zach? Weren’t you saying you wanted to see the puppies, too?”
“He can see them anytime,” Nell grumbled.
“No, remember what Kay told us, not to have too many different visits from people these first few weeks. We don’t want to interrupt Chester getting to know her puppies well.”
“Bonding,” Nell said.
“Exactly. So even though Zach’s here, he’s leaving Chester and her puppies lots of privacy.”
Nell snorted, but Zach joined her and Fran at that end of the porch. Chester stepped into the box, threading her way among the tumbling balls of fluff, nudging two into a position that better pleased her. Nell knelt in front of the box.
“There’s one. Look, the light red one has his eyes open. And that one with the spots. And that one, that’s the same color as Chester.”
“From what Dr. Maclaine says, they should all have their eyes open in another day,” Fran told her. “Then they’ll bark at each other and really start to move around. And we’ll have trouble keeping them in the box.”
Nell sighed. “I wish I’d seen Pansy when she was this little. I never got to see her until she was lots bigger.”
Something squeezed Zach’s chest. All the landmarks he would never see Nell reach. Walking, talking—hell, he didn’t even know what else happened with a kid.
“You can help me take care of the puppies, so you’ll get to see the stages now,” Fran said. “But you don’t want Pansy to feel neglected, do you?”
&
nbsp; “I won’t ever let her feel neglected. I only leave her when I have to, like for school.” Nell twisted around as if to look at Zach, but her gaze stopped short. “Where’d you go when you left?”
There was no mistaking the challenge that bordered on condemnation. He couldn’t say she wasn’t entitled.
“I went a lot of places. Montana first.”
“What did you do there?”
“I worked for a rancher.”
“Like a cowboy?”
“No. More like a farmhand.”
“Oh.” He’d pricked the balloon of her interest. “How long did you stay there?”
“Until winter hit.”
“You left because it was cold?” What a wuss, was the un-spoken message.
“Because the rancher didn’t need me to work anymore so I didn’t have a job.”
“Oh. Then where?”
“I joined the army.”
Fran’s brows popped up, but Nell didn’t seem impressed.
Before she could ask, he added, “I moved all over with the army. Too many places to list.”
The little girl considered that. “Where do you live now?”
“Virginia.”
“Oh.”
He had no idea how to take the syllable. It was not quite dismissive.
Fran said, “Nell, if you don’t get going you’ll be late for school.”
Zach felt as if the bell had rung to end round one of a fight against the champion, and he was a definite underdog.
He and Fran, side by side, watched Nell ride away on her bike.
“After that, you shouldn’t worry any more that she won’t be asking you questions,” Fran said.
He looked over at her. She was smiling.
Maybe he wasn’t ready to focus yet on this first Q-and-A session with his daughter—if you didn’t count their meeting at Corbett House, and he sure as hell didn’t—because his mind zeroed in on something else.
Fran. She knew Nell so well. Far better, it seemed to him, than an ordinary neighbor would.
“Did you know at the time that Steve had married Lily to protect the baby?”
She gave him a look. It wasn’t obvious, but he was pretty sure of what it said.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
He’d been right. Her look had said: What do you take me for? An idiot?
“For starters,” she continued, “he was in love with Annette. Second, the guy had been going around like he was in the advanced stages of shell shock.”
“Because Annette walked out after Lily burst into their wedding—you told me that last night.”
She eyed him for a second, and he knew he wasn’t going to like whatever she was about to say. “It started before that. It started when you left.”
He felt a strange sensation in his chest, as if a huge blood pressure cuff had been wrapped around it and pumped way over the limit.
“He was worried about you, Zach. From that first night you took off. Then when Lily came to him—”
“Wait, how do you know Lily went to him?”
“I saw them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. Other people put their own spin on it. And some told Annette.”
“But you didn’t—tell Annette, I mean.”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t, would you. You keep things to yourself.”
He saw a tinge of pink deepen in her cheeks, but she gave no other reaction.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“So you got to know Nell after you came back to care for your dad?”
“Oh, I saw them before that. When Steve was in grad school in Madison, and I’d started at UW, I babysat for Nell. Lily wasn’t around much, even at the start, and they divorced quickly.”
“So what happened?”
“What do you mean what happened?” She looked puzzled. Of course she was puzzled. She couldn’t figure out why on earth he’d growled the question at her. Neither could he.
What the hell business was it of his? None.
His brother and Fran had been in close quarters, united in caring about this child—his child. Steve and Fran and Nell…
“Why did you and Steve stop seeing each other?”
“Why?” Her brows arched in wry surprise. “Because we never started. You think Steve and I…? That’s nuts.”
Now it was his turn to be puzzled. “Why? You spent time together, you both cared about Nell. He had to be lonely— Oh, I get it. There was somebody else.”
“No—that’s… Oh, yes. You mean Annette.”
It wasn’t what he’d meant. He’d meant someone else for her, not Steve. Is that what had rattled her? Because calm, serene, cool Fran Dalton was absolutely rattled. But why?
Before he could probe for an answer, she’d regained a close approximation of her usual composure.
“There was never anything between Steve and me. The idea is laughable. He’s Steve Corbett, for heaven’s sake.”
“Yeah, so? And you’re Fran Dalton.”
“That’s exactly right—funny little Fran Dalton from next door. Even the people who don’t live next door see me that way.”
And she smiled.
Zach watched from the upstairs hall window as Fran’s brother and sister-in-law-to-be arrived.
For the first time, Fran had agreed to stop working at Bliss House before she’d put in a day that would bring a stevedore to his knees. After a shower, Zach had made a run to the grocery store for items he’d missed the first time through.
Fran was in the basement doing something. He’d called out when he got back, but all she’d said in return was, “I’ll be right up.” But she hadn’t come up.
He’d put away the groceries, prepared Stromboli for dinner and come upstairs to check his messages in Virginia. Maybe check in with work, even though Taz had said he didn’t need to.
As Zach walked past the window, he’d seen the unfamiliar car behind the house. Then he’d noticed the Illinois plates.
Rob Dalton parked on Kelly Street. He got out of the car looking weary. A woman with quicksilver moves popped out from the passenger side. When their arms went around each other’s backs, it was as if air had been pumped back into Rob. Together they walked across the street to Steve’s house.
“Oh, good, Rob and Kay are here,” Fran said from behind him.
“Not here. They’ve gone to Steve’s house.”
“Sure. He’s gone to see for himself how Steve and Annette feel about all this, and to give his support.”
He faced her. She held a stack of folded clean laundry that came up to her nose. “What about you?”
“What about me what?”
“Your brother should be supporting you.”
She clicked her tongue. “What would I need support for?”
He leaned back, looking at her. “How about for taking in the pariah of Tobias?”
“Taking you in? This is a fair exchange, Zach—your labor for the room and board. Now what are you smiling about?”
“You. You didn’t argue about me being the pariah of Tobias. Forget Abe Lincoln, we should all remember Honest Fran Dalton.”
She chuckled. “I’d rather be Abe Lincoln than George Washington—wooden teeth.” She shuddered. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Taking this mountain of laundry from you.”
“I don’t need—”
“Of course not, Honest Fran Dalton doesn’t need anything. Humor me. Now, where do you want this?”
She huffed out a breath but quit wrestling him for the laundry. “My room.”
He followed her down the hall to the opposite end of the house from where he was staying.
Despite the flannel shirt she wore over a turtleneck and jeans he would have liked to shrink a couple sizes, he could see the movement of her firm rear end and the slight, natural roll of her hips.
“On the bed is fine,” she said.
For a nanosecond, he forgot she was talking about the armload of laundry he held. It was a ver
y hot, very happy nanosecond.
He set the pile on the bed. When he started to pull his arms out, it threatened to topple. Fran reached across him to hold the top steady.
That scent of sweet earth and tart lemons. He turned his head to breathe it in more deeply. Her profile was inches away, the curves and angles of her forehead, nose, lips and chin creating a landscape that no gardener could manufacture. Her smooth cheek would taste of that lemony scent, if he put his lips on it. And then on her mouth and—
“I have to sort the pile. There are clean towels for you toward the bottom, if you want to wait.”
Her brisk voice jerked him back to the moment. “Sure,” he said, quickly straightening. He turned around. “Nice room.”
It was a lot like her. Clean, spare, functional furniture that might be considered austere if not for beautiful lines and warming red tones in the wood. The pieces didn’t match, but they blended, like old friends.
“Thanks. I’ve always liked Shaker.”
“What’s the wood?”
“Natural cherry.”
“You had this growing up?”
“No, I bought it in Madison. Got rid of everything I’d had before. Fresh start.”
There’d been a slight hesitation after the word before that made him wonder, before what? But during his early-morning run today he’d realized that Fran hadn’t pushed into any area he hadn’t volunteered information about. He couldn’t do anything but give her the same space. Could he?
He wandered over to the padded window seat that faced Corbett House. He remembered seeing her as a kid, sitting in this window. He’d never realized what a good view she’d had of his childhood home. He wondered how much she had seen.
Then he spotted the books on the table beside the window seat. They were about volunteering in national parks, teaching in inner cities, and taking courses at about a score of colleges.
“Are you planning on leaving, Fran?”
He barely recognized his hoarse question, had no idea where the accusation in it came from.
She raised her head. “At some point. After all, I’ve been coasting these past couple of years since Dad died and I can’t do that forever. I should get out, get a job like a normal adult.”
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