One Good Man

by Charlotte Douglas

Jeff grinned. “That’s what we were aiming for. Trace’s sister is an interior decorator. We followed her advice.”

  His megawatt smile made her stomach flip-flop. She drew in a deep breath and fought against the magnetic appeal of a man who cared deeply about children whom the rest of society wanted simply to lock away. Maybe fresh air would slow her galloping pulse. “Show me what you’ve done outside.”

  She followed him out of the dorm and into the gardens, where they spoke briefly with Ricochet and Daniel and admired the first crop of lettuces almost ready for picking. Then they rounded the coop where the free-range chickens were settling in for the night and passed through the barn. The entire farm was immaculately clean, the crisp mountain air redolent with the scent of rich earth, fresh hay and flowers.

  Beside the barn in the new, spanking-clean dairy with its tile floor and whitewashed walls, Kermit placed stainless-steel canisters of fresh milk into a huge refrigerator.

  “This is quite an operation,” Jodie said with admiration.

  Kermit nodded. “We haven’t started cheese production yet. But it won’t be long now.”

  Jeff led Jodie out of the dairy and across the yard to a split-rail fence that enclosed the pasture. A goat kid left the herd and scampered over to greet them.

  Jodie scratched the animal’s head through the rails. “Does it have a name?”

  “Gunny. After my gunnery sergeant at boot camp.”

  “Was the sergeant this cute?” The goat nuzzled her hand.

  Jeff scowled. “He was a son of a...gun. And he smelled a whole lot worse than this little guy. Gunny, here, with his sweet disposition, is nothing like his namesake.”

  “Then why name him that?”

  Jeff grinned. “For the satisfaction of knowing how ticked off Gunny would be if he knew.”

  The sun was sinking toward the rim of the western mountains, the air had chilled, and the sky had turned from blue to an amazing apricot. The sight filled Jodie with a quiet peace. Beside her, Jeff folded his arms on the top rail and gazed across the meadow, his expression thoughtful, and his profile, like the regal image on an old Roman coin, even more handsome than she’d remembered.

  “You must be very proud of your farm,” she said.

  Jeff nodded. “I used to hate it. Couldn’t wait to be anywhere but here. With the help of my team, though, we’ve changed it. It’s a home now, a place I hope our clients will want to be.”

  “It definitely beats prison.”

  “That’s the idea.” He turned and looked at her. “Will you answer a question?”

  Guessing what he was about to say, she wished she had prepared an explanation. “You’re wondering why I changed my mind about accepting your business offer?”

  His expression solemn, he shook his head. “I want to know why you refused in the first place.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jeff’s question caught Jodie by surprise, apparent in her swift intake of breath, the widening of her magnificent eyes and the sudden stillness of her hands. But he wasn’t sorry he’d asked. He needed to know whether she still thought of him as the town pariah. If so, keeping their relationship strictly business would be a whole lot easier. Her prejudice would help banish her from his thoughts so he could concentrate on the challenges of Archer Farm without distraction.

  She took forever to speak. A flurry of emotions scudded across her pretty features, and her face flushed as pink as a windblown rose. “I’m not sure I want to answer.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s personal.”

  So, his suspicion that she still considered him an outcast was true, and even though he’d expected her attitude, he was disappointed. “I have a thick skin.”

  “But I don’t.” Sadness filled her eyes before she looked away and focused on the flock of ducks, barely rippling the smooth surface of the pond with their sedate paddling.

  Confusion gripped him. “I don’t understand.”

  Continuing to avoid his gaze, she stared across the pasture. Her lower lip trembled with a sweet vulnerability. “Admitting that I’m not a good mother isn’t easy.”

  “What?” Maybe she’d misunderstood his question. What did her status as a mother have to do with refusing his business deal?

  “One reason I’ve wanted nothing to do with Archer Farms,” she said softly, “is because of Brittany.”

  She looked so stricken, he wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her close and reassure her. Instead he kept his voice even to disguise how deeply her distress touched him. “What makes you think you’re not a good mother?”

  She leaned down, pulled a stem of meadow grass and wound it around her fingers. “When Brittany was much younger, she asked about her father. I told her he was dead.”

  “Is he?” Jeff couldn’t help being curious. To his knowledge, no one in Pleasant Valley had ever identified the father of Jodie’s child.

  “I wouldn’t lie to her, not about something that important,” Jodie said. “But when Brittany entered her teens, she pressed me for more details.”

  Interested as he was, Jodie’s extreme discomfort with the subject bothered him. “You don’t have to tell me. Like you said, it’s personal.”

  Jodie lifted her face and gave him a straightforward look. “I want to tell you. So you’ll understand why I have to keep Brittany away from your farm and your clients. So you’ll know it has nothing to do with you.”

  A weight in his heart lifted at her words, but he didn’t want to add to her distress. “Tell me only if you’re sure you want to.”

  “I’m sure.” She took a deep breath, wiped her grass-stained fingers on her jeans, and continued. “When Brittany reached her teens, I told her everything. How I’d been a bashful, clumsy teen working in Daddy’s store when Landry Mercer and his son Randy came in.”

  “Senator Landry Mercer?”

  She nodded. “They were in Pleasant Valley for trout fishing and had rented a place on the river. Randy came into the store for supplies.”

  Jeff recalled that Mr. Nathan had always stocked a section of sporting goods in his hardware store, including fishing tackle and handmade flies.

  “I was a high school freshman then,” Jodie continued.

  Jeff remembered. Jodie had been shy and not as mature as most girls her age, but she’d always had a sunny smile and a friendly hello, unlike others, who had shunned him entirely.

  “Randy was a senior at his high school in Columbia,” Jodie was saying. “Tall and athletic with blond hair and blue eyes, he was the best-looking boy I’d ever met. And most of all, he seemed interested in me. I was hooked faster than any fish he ever caught. And too young and naive to recognize that Randy didn’t care about me. He was merely bored out of his skull with trout fishing and looking for other amusement.”

  Jeff frowned. He’d met plenty of Randy’s type. Good-looking boys from wealthy, prominent families who felt entitled to whatever they wanted, no matter the cost or who they hurt in the process.

  “To make a long story short,” Jodie said, “I believed I was madly in love with Randy and thought he loved me. We saw a lot of each other, behind our parents’ backs, of course, because I was under strict orders not to date until I was sixteen. One thing led to another, and...you can imagine my surprise and complete heartbreak when he returned to Columbia and I never heard from him again. But that surprise was nothing compared to the discovery that I was pregnant.”

  “That must have been tough,” Jeff said, “especially in a small town like Pleasant Valley. I know firsthand how vicious gossip can be.”

  “Remaining here would have been impossible, if not for my family. They stood by me with unconditional love. My parents contacted the senator, but he vigorously denied that Randy was the father of my child. He even accused them of attempting blackmail. Public acknowledgment of Randy’s role would have been a political nightmare for the senator, so he made threats. To save me further embarrassment, my folks dropped the matter.”

  “Never l
iked the man,” Jeff said, liking the power-hungry senator even less now. “Never voted for him. Never will.”

  “The following year, after Brittany was born, Randy was killed in a car crash. He was a freshman at Clemson and driving drunk. I guess he felt invincible, knowing that no matter what mess he caused, his father would rescue him. But even the powerful Senator Mercer couldn’t raise his son from the dead.”

  “And you told all this to Brittany?”

  Jodie nodded. “Once she was old enough and started asking probing questions, I answered them the best I could. I hoped that honesty was the best policy.”

  The devastation in her expression said otherwise. “And it wasn’t?”

  “It backfired. Big-time.”

  Touched by her anguish, Jeff slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She was apparently too upset by her story to pull away, and he delighted in her softness. Her head barely reached his shoulder, and the setting sun brought out the highlights in her hair. He pressed his cheek against her head and breathed in the subtle sweet fragrance of her magnolia shampoo, felt the rise and fall of her breathing against his chest and reveled in the perfection of the moment.

  “How did it backfire?” he asked gently.

  “A year ago Brittany decided to contact her grandfather. She was convinced that I’d somehow bungled things. That if I hadn’t, her famous granddad would be happy to claim her.”

  Jodie leaned against him, and Jeff tightened his embrace. “I’m guessing things didn’t turn out the way she wanted,” he said.

  She shook her head. “The senator refused to take her calls and never answered her letters.”

  “That must have been rough,” Jeff murmured. He remembered how his father had ignored him, except when he had work for Jeff to do. Or was drunk and needed a punching bag. Being invisible hadn’t been much of a self-esteem builder.

  “Brit took the Senator’s rejection hard. And again blamed it on me. She started acting out. You’ve probably noticed her Goth look.”

  Jeff shrugged. “If that’s the worst of her problems...”

  “It isn’t. And, except for nixing tattoos and body piercing, I haven’t objected to the way she dresses, hoping she’ll eventually tire of it. But Brittany’s gone far beyond violating dress codes. She started skipping school and hanging out with a rough group of kids at Carsons Corner. One stole a car a while back and took Brit and her friends for a joy ride. The highway patrol caught them.”

  “Brittany has a record?” No wonder Jodie was edgy about his clients.

  “No, but only because Chief Sawyer and Brynn intervened.”

  Jeff recalled Brynn’s kindly father, the police chief who had tried without success to intercede on his behalf almost three decades ago. The chief who’d looked the other way when Jeff had made his moonshine deliveries, knowing the boy’s father would beat him within an inch of his life if he didn’t carry out his old man’s wishes.

  “Did her brush with the law teach her a lesson?” Jeff asked.

  Jodie shook her head. “If anything, she’s been worse. When Merrilee returned from New York last March, Brittany flattened her car tires and made anonymous threatening phone calls.”

  “Why?”

  “She was angry at Merrilee for breaking Grant’s heart years ago. And I have to believe Brit took satisfaction in intimidating my best friend.”

  “Sounds like your girl has a barn-size chip on her shoulder.” Jeff felt for Jodie, but he could also understand where Brittany was coming from, a place Jeff knew well from his own growing up.

  “She’s been on restriction ever since the stolen car incident,” Jodie said, “which hasn’t exactly improved our relationship. Brittany still blames me for all her problems, her alienation from her paternal grandparents, her separation from her friends.” She forced a weak smile. “Sometimes she even blames me for the weather and the lack of good shows on TV.”

  “Have you considered counseling?” Jeff asked.

  “That’s my next step.”

  “Maybe you could talk to Gofer,” he suggested.

  She shook her head. “I won’t impose. He’s going to have his hands full.”

  Jeff placed his hands on her shoulders and rotated her to face him. “Thank you for sharing your concerns about Brittany. I’ll do everything in my power to keep my program from impacting her negatively.”

  Jodie stared up at him with a sad, little smile. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  Her smile widened then. “Are we?”

  “What?”

  “Friends?”

  “You’ve been my friend for longer than you know.” He cursed the huskiness in his voice and garnered his self-restraint to keep from kissing her again. “Ever since high school.”

  “I barely knew you then.”

  He brushed the back of his hand against the curve of her cheek, soft as a sun-ripe peach. “You were the only girl in school who ever spoke to me. I know it sounds crazy, but your friendly hellos meant a lot.”

  * * *

  FRIENDS.

  Remembering Sunday’s conversation with her mother, Jodie groaned and pulled away from Jeff.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You’re going to need all the friends you can get.”

  “I have friends,” he said with a dazzling grin and a gesture that took in the entire farm. “The best friends a man could want.”

  She shook her head. “You need more than your team. You need friends in town. Powerful friends.”

  “Why?”

  Her heart sank. If he didn’t know about the petition, she’d be the bearer of very bad news. And she hoped he wouldn’t shoot the messenger.

  A wave of dizziness washed over her. She’d read somewhere that infatuation changes brain chemistry. Her obsession had definitely fried the circuits in her brain. She’d already blabbed her life story, and here she was spilling the latest town gossip. Usually referred to by her family as the quiet one, she had suddenly transformed into a regular Chatty Cathy.

  Since she’d brought up the allusion to the petition, however, she couldn’t back out now. “You haven’t heard about the petition?”

  His smile faded and his gray eyes turned dark as a night sky. “What petition?”

  “The one circulating at Grant’s reception. I didn’t know about it either, until Mama mentioned it yesterday.”

  Jeff leaned backward against the fence and propped his elbows on the top rail. But his casual posture didn’t fool her. His phenomenal self-control couldn’t hide the slight tick in his right cheek, the pulse throbbing in the vein at his neck or the heat lightning in his eyes. He had the stillness of a predator, poised to attack.

  “What does the petition say?” His tone was hard, cold, like lava that had solidified to cover boiling magma beneath its crust.

  “I haven’t seen it,” she admitted, “but I heard it’s a request for a county ordinance to ban Archer Farm’s operation as a rehabilitation facility.”

  Get to know him, her mother had said. Get him out of your system. How long, Jodie wondered, before familiarity bred distance? The more she was around him, the more she liked him. Compassion flooded her for the man whose dream was threatened, and, more than anything, she wanted to reach out and touch him.

  “I have the proper permits.” Jeff’s words were clipped and crisp, as if he held back what he really wanted to say. “Our attorney assured me we’ve met all the legal requirements.”

  The muscle in his cheek ticked faster. Military men were infamous for their wide vocabulary of curses, and Jodie guessed that Jeff had to be exercising tremendous control to keep from swearing. She’d be cussing up a blue streak if someone had launched a petition to shut down her café.

  “Maybe the petition will die from lack of signatures,” she said.

  “And maybe the sun will rise in the west tomorrow,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “You know how people in this county feel
about us Davidsons.”

  “You’re not your father,” Jodie reminded him.

  He shoved away from the fence. “And I can’t worry about things I have no control over. My best weapon against this petition is to prove the project can be successful. We’d better get to work.”

  “Work?” She blinked in surprise.

  “We have an agreement to draw up,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Of course,” she mumbled, and followed him to the farmhouse with cheeks flaming, all too aware that his sympathetic listening and unsettling proximity had addled her mind until she’d forgotten why she came.

  * * *

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Jeff parked on Piedmont Avenue and scanned the town that, with the exception of Jodie’s place, hadn’t changed in the years he’d been away. With its early-twentieth-century brick storefronts, wide tree-lined sidewalks, and sleepy two-lane main drag, the street seemed caught in a time warp.

  Before leaving Pleasant Valley to join the Marines, Jeff had hated the town with a white-hot passion, had found the attitudes of its inhabitants suffocating, its locale provincial, its lack of possibilities depressing, its unspoken hostilities unbearable.

  Once he’d left, however, he’d undergone an unexpected transformation. Lying in his barracks bunk late at night at the Parris Island boot camp, he’d been stricken with a fierce homesickness, not for his father or the farm, but for the familiar town and Mr. and Mrs. Weatherstone. Later, hiding in the underbrush on a freezing, windswept slope of an Afghan mountain, facedown in the sands of an Iraqi desert, or deployed in any of a dozen countries where he’d risked his life, he’d longed for the peace, tranquility, and predictability of Pleasant Valley. In the long, tension-filled waiting to complete dangerous missions, memories of the Weatherstones’ many kindnesses, the gentle encouragement of Cat Stratton, his English teacher, and the willingly blind eye of crusty old Chief Sawyer to Jeff’s teenage transgressions had often thawed his heart from the icy fear that gripped it.

  While in the service, Jeff had believed that his homesickness sprang merely from the fact that he couldn’t return, not as long as his father lived. But now, standing on the main street, his longing fulfilled, he couldn’t deny his contentment at coming home or the overwhelming sensation that he was exactly where he belonged.