by Ava Miles
Tammy was wiping water droplets off her shirt when John Parker walked forward, his hands on Bullet and Banjo’s collars to keep them from racing toward her. “Sorry! I didn’t think she’d go for you. Rory, let’s put your uncle’s dogs in the mudroom until they calm down.”
Those dogs had spent an awful lot of time in the mudroom with her crew around.
When John Parker returned laughing with her son, it was hard not to enjoy watching him. He was dripping like the kids, and his white T-shirt clung to his chest, defining every muscle. Something she so shouldn’t be noticing considering that he was her boss…at least for this project.
Annabelle squirted him cleanly across his chest, and he snatched her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “You’re gonna pay for that, missy.”
“Let me down, let me down, let me down.”
“Not unless you promise to take your finger off the trigger until I shout, ‘Commence war.’”
Tammy’s brows rose at that. War? Wonderful.
Annabelle’s voice was high-pitched as she pleaded, “Please, Mr. McGuiness. We have to get out of here. Mama’s putting poop in those pots again. It’s so gross.”
Rory ran over to Tammy. “You okay, Mama?”
She kissed his wet cheek. “I’m fine.”
“That Annabelle’s a pistol, isn’t she?” he said, his wording unintentionally older than his years.
Tammy’s lips twitched. “She sure is, honey.”
John Parker lowered Annabelle gently to the ground. “Better go hide before I commence war.”
Annabelle screamed and ran off.
“You too, son,” he called out across the yard.
Rory grinned before taking off. “Gotta go make war, Mama.”
She crossed her arms and gave her handsome client a lopsided smile as he jogged toward her rather than after the kids, giving them an ample head start. “Commence war?”
“It’s a great game. We used to play it with the neighbor kids when I was their age. You know, Annabelle cracks me up every time she calls the fertilizer poop.”
Her daughter seemed obsessed with the phrase. “It’s hard to explain the commercial uses to a five-year-old. We bought some after a rainstorm at the local hardware store one time, and it stunk up the car. She’s never forgotten.”
He edged closer and rubbed her cheek with his thumb, igniting forest fires in the dark woods of her body. “You have dirt on your face.” The husky tenor of his deep voice sent an army of goosebumps across her sensitive skin.
“I do?” she said breathlessly, leaning into him one inch at a time. His body was a contrast of wet cloth and warm skin, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from following a water drop’s journey down his neck.
“Tammy?” he asked softly, and even though she wasn’t consciously sure what he meant, deeper, lower inside her body, she responded to him.
And leaned in more closely until their bodies touched.
“Mr. McGuiness, come on!” Annabelle yelled then, interrupting the thick silence between them. “We’re ready for war.”
Almost as if coming out of a trance, Tammy gave them both some distance. “You’d better go get them.”
He nodded and rubbed her cheek again. “Yeah.”
“Do I still have dirt on my face?” she asked when his thumb slid over her cheekbone.
His gaze dipped to her lips again, and his dimple winked as he smiled slowly. “No.” And with that, he turned and jogged after her kids.
Tammy pulled a glove off and raised her hand to the place where he’d touched her. It was hard not to feel his intense blue gaze even now. She shook herself and turned back to her work— she knew far more about planting than she ever would about men.
But she knew this.
He’d wanted to kiss her.
And she would have let him. Wasn’t that a surprise?
Her cell phone chimed the lovely opening of Beetoven’s Moonlight Sonata. A smile broke across her face. She wondered if it was Reva Merrifield calling to set up a time for a consultation. The country star had raved about Tammy’s work at Rye’s wedding. They’d played phone tag over the past week or so. Landscaping Reva’s property would be a big coup for Visionary Gardening. Taking off her other glove, she looked at the glass display and felt a sinking sensation in her stomach.
It was Mama’s number. She closed her eyes, trying to decide if she should let it go to voicemail. Oh how she wanted to, but guilt won out. Her mother rarely called her, and they hadn’t spoken since the wedding.
“Mama? Is everything all right?”
“No, Tammy Lynn, everything is not all right. Your daddy has gone plumb crazy.” Her voice rose, the hysteria trailing from it like pungent wisteria.
Tammy prayed for patience. “Mama, what do you mean?”
“Your father has told me that we’re separating.”
If lightning had struck a tree and set it on fire, she wouldn’t have been more surprised.
“He moved out today to live in Granddaddy Crenshaw’s old place. It’s your fault for bringing divorce into this family again, so you have to talk to him. Tell him this is madness.”
The phone fell from her hand as everything went numb. My fault? The shame Mama was trying to pile on her was as thick as the manure she was adding to the containers.
Picking the phone up, she pressed it to her ear. “Mama, I don’t know what to say.” Okay, she knew what she wanted to say. Good for you, Daddy.
“Tammy, you are the first person to get divorced in this family since Daddy Crenshaw left my mama for that trollop from across the tracks.” Even though she’d been a school teacher and a member of the town’s Baptist choir, her Mama had always referred to Adelaide Crenshaw as “that trollop.” Of course, Granddaddy Crenshaw and “that trollop” had been in love until they were separated by her death.
“Mama, I think it’s unfair of you to blame Daddy’s actions on me.” There. She’d spoken her true feelings to her mama. Why did she want to throw up now?
“Well, that’s too bad, missy. Who else do you think put this idea in his head?”
Like heartburn, a knot of molten anger formed in her gut. This wasn’t fair, and she was tired of Mama putting her down. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but if I’m the one who’s following in Granddaddy Crenshaw’s example, I am the last person you should call for help. Didn’t you say that man had no hope for redemption?”
“Tammy, your Daddy said he decided he couldn’t stay married to me after the wedding breakfast you put on for Rye and that cook. He said he’d overheard some of things I said to you and would not tolerate my ways anymore.”
So, she’d played a role after all. Well, though Mama would never admit to any wrongdoing, she had been mean and spiteful that day. “I’m sorry, Mama. Daddy’s entitled to his own opinions.”
“That just won’t do. Tammy Lynn, you have to tell him you decided I was right. About Sterling and the ring and the kids going to his wedding. Then he’ll come back. I will not be separated from my husband. It just isn’t done!”
Tammy pressed her fingers hard against her throbbing temples. She remembered Daddy’s face as he’d stood in the kitchen doorway that bright morning of Rye and Tory’s wedding breakfast. It should have been a happy moment. But like so many others, Mama had ruined it.
“Mama, I won’t do that. You weren’t right about Sterling or anything else.” She shut her eyelids tightly to say what needed saying. It was foolish, really, but it stopped her from imagining the look on Mama’s face over the phone. “In fact, you were downright ugly. And selfish too. It was Rye and Tory’s wedding breakfast, Mama…and you ruined it.”
Her head changed from throbbing to woozy.
“I don’t want to talk about Rye and his horrible little cook. They ruined everything. I should never have let Rye come home after your daddy had his heart attack. Nothing’s been the same since.”
Hearing a cacophony of shrieks and giggles, she turned her head. Annabelle and Rory fell to the grass
next to their dogs as the animals barked and licked their faces. John Parker stood over them, laughing as he sprayed them with water from the hose.
“No, it’s not the same. It’s been so much better, Mama, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”
“You’re all fools. A woman’s place is with her husband. My place is with the man I married. He made promises to me.”
Oh, those sticky things called vows. She’d tossed and turned over that conundrum. Sterling hadn’t honored the most important ones, and her own faithfulness to her vows hadn’t been enough to make it work.
“Tammy, this whole conversation only speaks to your selfishness,” she continued to rail on. “How else could you refuse to let the husband you left see his two small children?”
She couldn’t speak for a moment. Picking up her gardening trowel, she stabbed it in the potting soil, viciously clawing the dirt.
“There’s something you should know about Sterling, Mama, besides his womanizing and his agreement to sell his wife and children for a million dollars.” She took a breath, saying words she’d never spoken out loud to anyone. “He hit me a few times. Other times, he threatened to do it or left horrible bruises. Do you remember all those sore wrists and shoulders I used to have, Mama? Where do you think they came from?”
The silence was thick on the line. “You’re lying to make yourself seem more righteous, Tammy Lynn. Sterling would never do such a thing. No man of his class would. I don’t recognize you anymore. You’re as lost to me as Rye.”
Confessing her deepest darkest secret hadn’t changed anything with Mama, but the pieces that were still broken inside her started fusing together, being re-knit by her courage in telling the truth to the person who needed to hear it.
Tammy reached for her hair and let the short curls remind her of her new life—her new image. “No, Mama, we’re not lost. We’ve found ourselves and become happy. I’m sorry you can’t accept that. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Goodbye, Mama.”
Moments after she ended the call, a wet nose nudged her bare calf. Barbie’s big eyes looked soulful. The crisp pink bow that normally graced her neck now drooped like a wet sorority rag. Tammy picked her up, not caring a lick about the wet dog smell, and hugged her.
For a while, she just rocked the dog, taking comfort from her. Then she stood, needing to fill her vision with her two happy children. Tucking Barbie under one arm, she walked into the sun. The rays warmed up any lingering coldness from the phone call as she approached the giggling trio.
John Parker glanced over. “Tammy? Is everything all right?”
She clutched Barbie to refrain from crying. “Everything is fine.” But even she could hear how hoarse her voice was.
Rye and Amelia Ann would know soon, she expected, so there would be more discussion about this cataclysmic news. For the moment, she didn’t want to think about it.
The weighing look John Parker gave her suggested he sensed there was more to her answer. She put Barbie down, and the dog immediately trotted over to her daughter. “Rory. Annabelle. Why don’t you go check on Bullet and Banjo and then give all the dogs a treat?”
“I saw you on the phone,” he said after the kids disappeared inside. “Tell me who called, Tammy, and put such misery on your face.”
This kind of intimate news shouldn’t be shared outside of the family, particularly not before her siblings heard of it. “It’s of no mind.”
“Talk to me, Tammy.”
“It’s a family matter,” she said, walking back to her planters, feeling like the news wouldn’t stay put inside her, like it was trying to keep from being put back in a dark box on the underside of her heart.
“I’m family,” he said, crouching beside her as she clenched her gardening trowel. “Now, tell me who called.”
“John Parker—”
“Don’t make me get out my water gun, missy.” The joke didn’t reach his eyes.
Like a jack-in-a-box, the word popped out of her mouth. “Mama.”
John Parker knelt beside her without a care for the dirt she’d spilled on the ground.
“My daddy says they’re getting separated, and Mama’s in a tiff. He’s moved into my Granddaddy Crenshaw’s house on our property.”
“What else?”
Time for the hard confession. “She blames me.”
“That seems illogical. Why is that, honey?”
Illogical. She liked that word. “Because I re-introduced divorce into our otherwise pristine family tree, hearkening back to Granddaddy Crenshaw, who divorced her mama.”
“That’s rich.”
His dry tone was a balm to her wounds.
“And to make matters worse, apparently I need to tell Daddy that Mama was completely right when she said I needed to let Rory and Annabelle go to their daddy’s future wedding, and I should give back my wedding ring. It’s been in their family since 1841, you see, and goes to all the Morrison brides.”
She started to laugh, brittle and hard, clutching her stomach.
John Parker simply watched her.
“And do you know why that’s so funny? I can’t give it back. I flushed it down the toilet at a gas station on the way to Nashville.” She laughed again, the sound strange to her ears. “He didn’t ask for it in the settlement, and I was just so mad…”
“Good for you, honey.”
“I know I should feel terrible about that rash act, but do you know what, John Parker?”
“What?” he said softly.
“I never did like that ring. And considering the lives his mama and grandmamma have led, I can’t say it was a ring that symbolized happy marriages. They were just like me. Caught up in tradition and convention, suffocating under perfect clothes and makeup. That ring needed to be flushed down the toilet, John Parker.”
He leaned forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Sounds like. If I’d have been there, I would have applauded.”
“That’s a nice thing to say, John Parker.”
When his arms wrapped around his knees, he was boyish and handsome all at once.
“Ah, shucks, ma’am.”
And he was funny, something she’d never really experienced in a man.
She playfully swatted his arm. “You know what I mean.”
He rubbed dirt off her hand and held it. “Tell me the rest.”
And she did. Well, not the part about finally telling Mama what Sterling had done to her. That was too shameful to share. Would it change his impression of her?
“She’s wrong, honey,” he said gently when she finished. “But you know that. That’s why it hurts so much.”
And it did, as if someone had turned over all her containers and stomped on her precious creations. “I need to call Daddy when I get home.”
John Parker let go of her hand to touch the skin right above her cheek. His warm touch was thrilling, but in the raw aftermath of her confession to Mama, she was afraid to have any man touch her right now, even John Parker.
“We should probably go see how Annabelle and Rory are,” she said.
She stood then, and together they went inside. The kids were playing with all four dogs in the mudroom, and John Parker immediately took Bullet and Banjo by their collars and released them at the back door. The other dogs followed, and Rory and Annabelle streamed out behind them.
“I’m going to go play with the kids while you sit a spell.”
“I don’t need to,” she protested, but she did. Right now, her skin felt like it was made of glass.
“Just have some lemonade at the kitchen table. You can find us when you’re ready.”
Before she could dissent, he had filled her water glass with lemonade from the refrigerator.
“Not too many men keep lemonade around,” she said, trying to hold it together until he left, taking it from him and sitting at the table.
“No, but my mama and sisters like it, and sometimes it’s the perfect antidote to a hot day.”
Taking a sip, she r
ealized he was more than right. It was soothing in the same way the silence inside his house was.
“Enjoy the peace and quiet.”
Still, old habits died hard. “I’ll finish the containers tonight, I promise.”
“The flowers will keep. I’m going to give you thirty minutes.”
When he set the egg timer on the stove, she reluctantly laughed. “You’re timing me?”
“I know you women. My stepdad does it to my mama when she needs to take a moment.”
Such a simple action, yet it was sweeter than a bouquet of roses.
“Then later, how about I give the kids a bath?” he asked.
“What?”
His dimple winked at her again, as if daring her to touch it. “I’m not sending you home with kids plastered with grass and mud when the games I suggested are the reason they’re dirty.”
Mud and grass were badges of childhood, and she was delighted to see her children play with such happy abandon after the immaculate upbringing they’d endured in Meade.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can manage it.”
“Nope, I mean it. I’ll clean them up once we’ve finished playing outside.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure. I’ll just chuck them in the shower and have them all spit and polished in a jiffy.” He opened the door and then turned again as if making a sudden decision. “You know, Tammy, your daddy must love you an awful lot to separate from your mama after she was so ugly to you. Seems you have a lot of folks in your camp these days. Just thought you should know you can count me in that company too.”
He sailed through the door before she could reply.
Like she’d ever doubted that.
The man just kept proving over and over again how wonderful he was.
She eased back against the back of her chair, feeling more solid with each breath. The silence held a comfort and peace she’d come to cherish. It was nice to know that someone she trusted was taking care of her babies while she was comfortably situated. There’d been so few people to count on until a year ago. And they’d all come with conditions. Yet now, the people in her life cared freely. They listened. They accepted her and the kids. It was the greatest gift she’d ever received, and she hadn’t even realized she was starving for it. Living with Sterling had been like an endless famine.
