A minute later he climbed back into the van and started the engine.
Halfway back to town, Red said, “There’s a romantic comedy at the drive in Friday night. I wouldn’t mind seeing it.”
At least he wouldn’t have to think of things to talk about. And maybe he’d even get to first base.
“I’ll drive,” she added. “That way you can drink some wine.”
Done.
“What time?”
* * * *
“It’s supposed to storm,” called Grandma to Red out the door of the trailer.
“Can’t be too bad,” Red called out her car window as she backed out of the driveway the next day. She couldn’t pass up a Sunday to look for the saltbox. Summer or winter, storms were rare in this part of Oregon. The Chamber of Commerce touted the misty, cool climate as one of the factors in the success of the local wine industry.
She headed west out Meadlowlake Road toward the McGuire Reservoir. She’d been down this road before looking for the house, but even GPS was no help when you didn’t know the address you were looking for.
She drove her trusty old Impala up hills and down, across boulder-strewn streams, through desolate stands of towering Douglas fir, and around switch backs so sharp that one minute she was headed straight south and the next, north.
Twenty minutes into her drive, the light changed. The innocuous white puffs of clouds dotting the western horizon had begun to build.
At a vaguely familiar intersection, she frowned, looking for the rickety old lean-to made out of corrugated metal. There it was, collapsed onto itself, half covered with vines.
All at once, the clouds burst.
Red hadn’t seen another car in miles. Windshield wipers swishing, she sat in the intersection, debating which way to turn. She was pretty sure that the last time she’d come to this crossroads, she’d taken the left. Now she went right.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had begun. Red splashed at a snail’s pace through muddy ruts until she came to a fork.
She idled beneath a dripping canopy of tree branches, biting her lip. It was kind of eerie. Surely, not even her adventurous mom would have driven all the way out here just to pick berries. No one in the world knew where she was. If something happened to her, she might never be found.
That’s when she saw the hand-lettered sign that said “Strawberries. U-pick” half hidden in the weeds.
Her heart leapt. Could this be it? She turned down the narrow road, wincing as branches scratched the sides of her car like fingernails. She was debating putting it in reverse when the sun came out. A little farther on, she came to a clearing.
She stopped and peered out the squeaky clean windshield. There sat a wooden frame house with two stories in the front sloping to one in the back with a chimney in the middle.
The earth steamed. Raindrops sparkled like diamonds on every blade of grass.
But this couldn’t be her saltbox. Moss grew on the roof shingles and ivy climbed the corners.
She pulled up the picture on her phone, comparing it with what lay before her. There was the hill behind the house and the boardwalk along the side leading to the back, enclosed by the Popsicle stick fence.
The house sagged in the comfortable way that an old lady sits, a little tired, but rooted, immovable. The kind of solidity Red had never had, always craved.
The branches of a once-dainty lilac now scraped against the second story windows. What had been a close-cropped yard inside the fence now looked more like pasture, uneven and dotted with clumps of crabgrass.
She got out and walked slowly toward the house. The invigorating smell of pine oil on dry rocks released by the rain and wind filled her nostrils.
This was it.
This was her dream house.
A wave of emptiness overcame her…homesickness for the home she’d never had.
Up against the house, barely noticeable, a small white cross poked up through the weeds. Kneeling, she saw that it was crudely nailed together from wood scraps, as if made by a child. She straightened the crooked cross bar. Odd place to bury a pet—assuming that’s what it was.
She rose, dismissing the cross from her thoughts. Much more intriguing was the late-model pickup truck parked out front.
But even that couldn’t draw her attention for long from the house she had dreamed of, back when she still believed in happily ever afters.
If it was neglected, maybe that meant it was available.
She struggled with the rusty latch on the gate, then strolled through calf-high wet grass, heedless of her sandals becoming soaked.
From the center of the yard she peered up at the sky. She spun in a circle, gathering in the energy of the place, grounding herself in its center.
A wave of self-consciousness swept over her and she stopped cold. What if someone was watching? She scanned the windows, but all she saw were dark rectangles.
Gingerly she approached the front door—only to find that a padlock had been installed on it.
She tried pulling out the shank, but it was in tight.
If no one lived here, then whose truck was that?
Overhead, a blackbird sailed by.
She abandoned the door for the nearest window. The interior was white with brick-red trim. The cupboards were painted a soft, Colonial blue. There was a chandelier with flame-shaped bulbs above a shabby-chic table that would fetch a pretty penny at an antiques store.
From the look of the charred black surround, the fireplace had been well used. Above the mantel hung an old hunting rifle. The faint smell of wood smoke lingered in the air.
She pressed palms and nose to the glass, conjuring up her fantasy family to go along with her dream house: a dad who never left, a mom who didn’t latch on to every man who showed the slightest interest in her.
After a moment, she left the window to search for signs of the strawberry patch. Across the yard she found fruit still growing on untended plants with runners reaching out in spokes like wagon wheels. She bent over and picked a berry, fat and freshly washed in rainwater, and it was as sweet and delicious as she remembered. She went to her car and got a bag to fill with berries. Wouldn’t Grandma be surprised.
She got out her phone and began photographing the house from every possible angle. She couldn’t wait to bring Sam here. Maybe if he saw this place with his own eyes she could make him see what it was about old houses that she loved so much.
Chapter 10
Red threw open the door to the mobile home.
“Grandma! The house. I found it!”
“What are you going on about?” Grandma looked up from the sink.
“I found the house.”
She thrust her phone under Grandma’s nose. “Remember? The house where Mom and I picked berries.”
“Let me dry my hands off. Hand me my readers.”
Red snatched them off the end table next to Grandma’s recliner and waited impatiently for her to unfold them and slip them on. Behind the lenses’ magnification, Grandma’s hazy, cornflower eyes grew huge.
“Only your mother would haul you out in the middle of God’s green acre.”
“And here,” Red dangled a bag under her nose, “strawberries. The old patch is still there, among the weeds.”
Grandma picked out a berry that wasn’t too smooshed and ate it.
Red waited for her approval.
“Not like the ones you get nowadays from the supermarket.”
“I can’t tell if anyone lives there or not. There was a pickup parked there, but nobody came to the door.”
“You knocked?”
“I was dying to see inside. I looked through the windows. It’s mostly original, with a few modern appliances. Not much in the way of furniture. I’m hoping whoever owns this place might want to sell it. By the looks of things it’s an older person wh
o doesn’t have the means or the energy to keep it up.”
“Seems like an awful lot for a single girl to take on all by herself. How far away’d you say it was?”
“About twenty miles.”
“You want to live all the way out there in the country like that?”
“It’s nothing! Lots of people commute farther than that. You’ll love living there. Wait till you see it. We’ll revive the old strawberry patch. Maybe even start selling them again. It’s so peaceful there you can hear the whoosh of birds’ wings.”
“Me? What makes you think I’m going anywhere?”
“You’re coming with me, of course. You don’t think I’d leave you here, do you?”
She shook her head and returned to her sink full of dishes. “You won’t get me out there in the sticks where I got to drive forever to get a quart of milk.”
“You won’t have to,” said Red, trailing her to the sink. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll see that you have everything you need.”
“You heard me. I’ll come visit—that is, when the roads are clear, and only when it’s light out. I don’t like driving in the dark any more than I have to.”
“Grandma. You have to come. You’re my family. The only family that counts.” She tipped her head, forcing Grandma to meet her eyes. “I always wanted to live in a real house. But if you won’t come…”
Grandma slid a dripping plate into a slot in the dish drainer. “Someday you will live in a real house. You, of all people. But not me.”
All Red’s excitement fell flat.
Grandma inched her way back to her kitchen chair.
“Don’t pout. Come over here, sugar,” she said, patting her lap.
“Grandma.” Red rolled her eyes. “I’m too old for that. And”—she assessed Grandma’s fragile frame—“too big.”
“You’re never too old to sit on your grandma’s lap. Now, get over here.”
Reluctantly, Red circled around the table. Grandma was so slender, she made Red’s arms register as legs. “You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
Gingerly, she began lowering her weight.
Grandma gasped. “Ugh. Good God, Sophia, you’re enormous.”
Red jumped up and spun around, red-faced. “I told you.”
“Now you listen. It’s not the house that’s important. I’m thankful for growing up the way I did, in that house. All six of us kids were. We had a lot of good times. But things weren’t always peaches and cream. The girls at school were jealous of me, with my matching accessories. You know how girls that age can be. My mother threw me a sweet sixteen birthday party and nobody came.”
Red lowered her eyes. No matter how many times Grandma repeated that story, the image of her all dressed up in a room hung with twisted crepe paper and a cake in the center of the table, waiting for her schoolmates to arrive, eventually realizing they weren’t going to come always made her heart squeeze.
“Thursday and Friday nights when the stores stayed open late Pap didn’t come home till after nine. Lots of other nights, too, when he started going to his Rotary and the Masons and every other group in town. Mam was worn out from raising us kids by herself. No such thing as microwaves or dishwashers back then. She made every meal from scratch. I remember nights when she would sit at the dining room table and cry, suspecting that he was stepping out on her. I didn’t ask about the particulars. What could I have done about it? It was something that, even though you may not like it, that’s just the way things were.
“A house doesn’t buy happiness. It’s who you share it with. Always remember that.”
But things will be different for me, thought Red. Her great-grandmother had gotten pregnant at seventeen and never finished high school. Red was highly educated, earned her own living and lived in a time when women had almost complete control over the number of children they decided to have—or not have.
She was sure that, once she had her dream house, everything else would fall neatly into place around her.
Chapter 11
Red told Sam she’d pick him up at six, well before dark fell and the outdoor movie could start.
He was waiting for her outside when she pulled up to his house in her ancient Chevy.
“Show doesn’t start for hours. Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. Wait till you see.”
Red drove west out Meadlowlake Road.
“I know. You’re taking me to Gran Moraine. I’ve been wanting to go back there. They do a nice, sappy Chardonnay.”
“Nope.”
He gazed wistfully over his shoulder as her car blew past the estate’s entrance. Gran Moraine was the only winery he knew of out this way. The vast majority of Willamette tasting rooms hedged a north-south line between the Coast Range and the Cascades.
“Foothills Taxidermy?”
Red looked at him sideways. “Maybe another time.”
On they went, through canyons of ash and cedar, leaning first right and then left as they rounded bends in the road.
A bad feeling came over Sam. He told himself to relax.
“You’re taking me fishing.”
“People fish in the evening?”
“Fishing’s excellent that time of day. Water cools off. Fish come up to feed.”
“Sorry, but no, that’s not where we’re going. Anyway, when was the last time you heard of me going fishing?”
“A man can dream.”
Despite his calm exterior, his suspicions were growing by the mile.
Regulate. Don’t go there yet. There was any number of things to do out this way. Hiking paths. Wading streams. Maybe Red had reconsidered her new rules. Maybe she was taking him to some scenic new spot to make love.
He had never seriously considered the possibility that she would find the saltbox. His dad had carefully chosen the site for its secluded location, well outside town. Decades later, it was still as backwoods as you could get.
But when Red turned onto the Nestucca Lake Access Road, he couldn’t deny it any longer.
He strategized on the fly. Fake a sudden bout of gastritis? An important meeting he’d forgotten about?
Why was he so bent out of shape? This little predicament was nothing compared with the high-threat assignments he’d handled. He had the training, experience, and ability to think on his feet. He was a pro at leading a double life, deceiving people, forming false relationships based on half-truths and manipulations. So why was he sweating bullets over a house?
The difference was that those relationships were with despicable thugs. The baddest of bad guys, not sweet-yet-exasperating, innocent yet sexy-as-all-get-out Red.
He needed to figure out how to react in a way that would serve his purposes, both right now and in the future. And he needed to figure it out now.
Dammit! Why hadn’t he taken her seriously? Thought this out before he found himself minutes away from arriving in that clearing, sitting next to her where she could read his face? She was a therapist. She read people for a living.
They came to the intersection where his bus used to stop. He avoided looking at the corrugated metal in the brush, so as to not draw attention to it and spark a conversation that would only lead to more lies.
Why had he gone and lied to Red to begin with? Now, if he admitted the house was his, she would demand to know why he hadn’t told her earlier. And that would open up a Pandora’s box of questions.
He took a long, slow breath through his nose, filling his lower lungs, then his upper lungs, holding to the count of three, the way he’d been taught. He exhaled slowly through slightly parted lips while relaxing the muscles in his face, jaw, shoulders, and stomach.
But inside, his heart still banged against his chest wall. His pulse still raced.
There was the fork in the road. The vehicle bounced from side to side
. Roads like this weren’t meant for low-slung cars like Red’s.
Estimated time of arrival, one minute.
How deep would she dig? She had gotten houses put on the historical register or whatever it was called. It would be child’s play for her to research the deed, find out that it belonged to one George Owens.
Up ahead was the clearing.
Ten seconds…
The only thing he could do was to tell himself she didn’t matter to him. That way, it wouldn’t matter if he hurt her.
“Ta da! Do you recognize it from my picture? The saltbox!”
“You found it.”
“At first I wasn’t sure it was the right one. It’s kind of run down since I was a girl, and the trees are a lot taller and of course no one comes back here to pick strawberries anymore. But I compared it to the photo, and this is definitely it.”
Sam sat glued to the seat of her car, looking out the windshield at the house he had been in only days ago. The house where he’d grown up.
Red’s hand was on the door handle. “What are you sitting there for? Don’t you want to get out and take a closer look?”
“Hold it,” he said, pointing to his dad’s pickup. “Somebody lives here.”
“No they don’t. That truck hasn’t moved since last Sunday. And there’s a padlock on the door.”
“It’s still private property. You can’t just—” he said to the sound of her slamming door.
He had no choice but to get out. As he watched her practically skip down the boardwalk his dad built to keep from tracking mud into the house, his thoughts raced.
He had to treat this like any other covert operation.
“See over there?” Red pointed to the garden. “That’s where Mom and I used to pick berries. Let me go get you one.”
“I hate strawberries.” In his mind’s eye Sam saw his own mom bent over, weeding her precious berry patch, back during one of those Arcadian summers spent hanging with Jeff and Derek. Once when he slipped into the pantry to grab some Cheerios to take back to their fort, he’d caught her depositing the day’s take in an old cider jug. Sometime after she left, Sam checked and found that it was empty. That strawberry patch had been her means of escape.
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine Page 7
