Swept Away

by Karen Templeton

  Carly bit her tongue. Because she’d known a whole bunch of Seans in her day, and heard a whole bunch of sorry-assed promises that meant exactly the opposite. But it wasn’t her place to either counsel this girl or shatter her illusions. Especially since, by Libby’s age, Carly had a very different outlook on life and sex and boys, one she was pretty sure would give Sam Frazier a coronary. So she said, “Have you said any of this to your father?”

  “What’s the point? It’s not like he’s going to believe me.”

  Carly had the feeling it wasn’t his daughter Sam would have a hard time believing, but again, she kept her mouth shut. “He might feel better, though, hearing what you’re thinking. If you don’t say anything…”

  She let the girl come to her own conclusions. Which she did after a couple of seconds. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. I just wonder, though…”

  “What?”

  “Whether maybe he’s overreacting because he’s the only parent, you know? I just can’t help thinking if Mom were still around maybe she’d calm him down a little so he wouldn’t get on my case so much.”

  Carly heard the longing in the girl’s voice, one which echoed all too clearly inside Carly’s head. And heart. As much as she’d been secretly grateful to see Mom released from the prison of her illness, and even though they’d grown apart more than Carly might have liked, she still hadn’t quite accepted that she couldn’t pick up the phone and call her mother, or drop in to see her, whenever the mood struck. She really missed her, even though she’d been in her midthirties when her mother died. She could only imagine how Libby must have felt, losing hers at eleven.

  “If my own father was anything to go by,” she said, “I doubt your mother—or any other woman—would make any difference. My mother certainly didn’t. In fact, the more she tried to take my side, the worse Dad got. Trying to protect daughters is what dads do.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe she’d at least distract him every once in a while. If you know what I mean.”

  The blush caught Carly totally unawares, stealing across her cheeks and down her neck like a brushfire. So she got up, making some excuse about needing to use the bathroom, adding she probably wouldn’t be back until after Libby went to sleep since she could rarely get to sleep herself before midnight.

  “Carly?” Libby said before Carly could get out the door. She turned. “I guess it won’t be too bad, having you stay here. I mean, talking to you is kinda like talking to a shrink, huh? I can pretty much say whatever I’m thinking, but you won’t say anything to anybody else, right?”

  Oh, dear God. All she’d wanted was to smooth over the resentment so she wouldn’t feel ice daggers in her back every time she walked into the room. Becoming a teenage girl’s confidante, however, was something else entirely.

  “Sure,” she said with a weak smile, hightailing it out of the room, realizing with a sickening thud that she’d never been much good at saying “no,” either.

  The squawk of a floorboard was Carly’s first clue that she wasn’t alone on the back porch. She flinched, turning her head in the direction of the noise, willing her eyes to adjust after the bright lights of the kitchen.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” came Sam’s low, soft voice out of the darkness.

  “You didn’t. Exactly.” She rubbed her arms through her sweater, against the chill of the evening, against the warmth of Sam’s chuckle. “Thought farmers all went to bed by nine.”

  The floor groaned again; she could now almost make him out, sitting in a rocking chair with one foot parked up on the porch railing.

  “I’ve never needed more than five or six hours sleep, for some reason. Long as I’m in bed by eleven, I’m up by five, no problem.”

  “Hell, I’m not sure I’m even breathing at that hour.”

  Another low laugh drifted across the porch. Then: “Where’s your dad?”

  “Watching TV.”

  “Ah.”

  “I take it you don’t?”

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light enough to see him shake his head. “Don’t have much use for it, to tell you the truth. If I’m looking for entertainment, I like to read.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Another rocker sat expectantly a few feet from Sam’s. Close enough for conversation, far enough away to still be in the safety zone. “Like what?” she said, lowering herself into the chair.

  “Pretty much anything I can get my hands on. History, biographies, mysteries. The classics, sometimes. Hemingway, Dickens.”

  “Tell me you’re one of the two people on the planet who’s actually read War and Peace?”

  “It’s next on my list, as a matter of fact.”

  “You are one sick puppy,” she said, and he laughed. Then she said, “Gotta admit, it’s nice out here. Listening to the quiet.” Well, quiet if you didn’t count the late crickets and the constant bang! bang! bang! of the pig feeder.

  “Yep,” Sam said. “That’s why I come out here almost every night, even in the dead of winter. Gives me a chance to collect my thoughts, think on everything I’ve got to be grateful for.”

  A definite fall breeze whisked across the porch, making her shiver. She tucked her arms around her middle and said, “This can’t be an easy life, though. It certainly wasn’t for my grandparents, even though I know they loved it, too.”

  “Guess that makes me a man who likes challenges,” Sam said, and Carly smiled. “So…your grandparents were farmers?”

  “My dad’s folks, in Iowa. They had a dairy farm. I used to spend summers there as a kid.”

  “And you hated every minute.”

  “Actually, no. I had a blast. Just couldn’t see doing it twenty-four/seven for the rest of my life.”

  “I can understand that. Farming’s definitely not for everybody. It’s either in your blood or it isn’t.” He leaned back in his chair, looking out into the darkness. “This land’s been in our family for four generations. But my daddy didn’t want to split it between my brother Josh and me, so he bought the farmstead next door before he passed, when Josh and I were still in our early twenties. Unfortunately he had no idea my brother wasn’t the least bit interested in being a farmer.”

  “So what happened?”

  “With my brother, you mean? He took off for Seattle and eventually became an architect. His place has been up for sale ever since. Well, actually, he had one taker, about five years ago, an artist from back East who’d gotten halfway through redoing the barn—apparently he wanted to live in it and tear down the old farmhouse—when he ran out of money.”

  “Oh…that must be the place Dad and I saw when we were out.” She scanned the dark horizon, trying to get her bearings, then pointed east. “Over…there?”

  “Yep. That’s it. I’ve been working about half the acreage until we find a buyer. House needs a lot of work, though. Place is structurally sound, just badly neglected. You warm enough over there?”

  Her head jerked around; she hadn’t even realized she’d shivered again, let alone that he’d noticed. “What? Oh…yeah, I’m fine.”

  “It gets chilly at night this time of year,” Sam said, shifting in his chair to work out of his jacket. “Here, put this around your shoulders.”

  “No, I’m okay, really…”

  He got up and walked over to her, his footsteps sure against the floorboards, the jacket dangling from one hand. “Lean forward,” he gently commanded. After a second or two, she did, a tingle racing down her spine when the stiff material draped over her back and shoulders. “That better?” he said above her head.

  “Yes.” She pulled the jacket more closed; it was impregnated with his body heat, his scent. “Thank you,” she said, even as she steeled herself against the onslaught to her senses.

  Sam walked back to his chair and dropped into it. “You’re welcome. I figured, considering you don’t have enough insulation on your bones to keep a flea warm, you had to be cold.”

  Now huddled under the jacket—okay, so it did feel pretty good—she glanced ov
er. “Look who’s talking.”

  She saw a flash of teeth in the darkness. “Oh, my engine’s always idlin’ on high. I hardly ever feel the cold. Never seem to put on any weight, either.”

  “You do realize I may have to kill you for that?”

  His laugh warmed her far more than the jacket, and she thought Not good. She also thought, because things were getting far too cozy, Get up, fool, and go back inside. Now. Except then Sam said, “Guess you survived your first supper with my brood okay,” and it would have seemed rude to cut him off.

  “If you don’t count the slight ringing in my left ear.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does get a little loud when they all get together. But I figure they’ll all scatter soon enough. Until then, I can deal with a little noise.”

  A little noise? She’d been to quieter rock concerts. Then she heard herself say, “Did you and your wife actually plan on having six kids?”

  “Can’t say as we planned on that many, no.” Amusement tinged his words. “Can’t say as we planned on not having that many, either.”

  “Would you have had more?”

  “No, I think it’s safe to say we were done.” He gave a low chuckle. “You really do come right out and say whatever’s in your head, don’t you?”

  She thought of her conversation with Libby. “No. Not always.”

  “You and Libby work out a few things?” he asked, as if he’d read her mind.

  “Enough. We…talked for a while after dinner.”

  “I don’t dare ask what about, do I?”

  “No.”

  “I figured as much. But I tell you, she gets those girlfriends of hers over here and brother—you can hardly hear yourself think for all the yakking.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I know she misses her mom. The two of them…well. It was really something to see them together.”

  “You still miss your wife, too, don’t you?”

  Sam took his time before answering. “One day, I realized I’d gotten through a whole hour without thinking about her. And at first I thought something was wrong with me, that somehow, it didn’t seem right not to hurt, not when you loved somebody as much as I’d loved her. Then, when the hour stretched to two, then sometimes even half a day, it finally began to sink in that missing somebody implies a vacuum of some kind, a hole in your life where this person used to be. And I thought, hell—after all those years we’d had together…” He shook his head. “All these kids, each one of ’em reminding me of her in some way. Travis has her eyes, and Frankie’s got this weird way of looking at everything like she did. And Libby gets this set to her mouth that’s Jeannie all over. It was Jeannie’s idea, painting the walls all those bright colors. The snowball bush out front, the lilac over there in front of the kitchen window, the row of cherry trees over there…all her doing.”

  With a gentle smile, he turned to Carly. “I suppose some people would find all those reminders painful. But I find ’em a comfort. After all, it’s kinda hard to miss somebody who’s everywhere I look.”

  Unable to move, hardly able to catch a breath, Carly sat, staring over the porch railing as the night absorbed Sam’s words. She’d never been particularly religious, but she thought this was what people meant when they talked about “grace”—the ability to not only accept a situation, or even to make the best of it, but to be lifted above it. And without warning, regret swept through her, not that she hadn’t experienced a loss like that, but she’d never loved, or been loved, that completely and deeply and thoroughly.

  And she doubted she ever would, if for no other reason than she wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of love if it smacked her in the face.

  Her lungs suddenly expanded, like those of a drowning person breaking the water’s surface; the cool, earth-sweet air rushed in, clearing her head, if not those deeper, darker places inside her that had been shut off from light and proper ventilation for far too long. She slowly rose from the chair, her legs stiff—she hadn’t stretched at all in two days, and her muscles were giving her grief for it. Aware of Sam’s eyes on her, she let the jacket slip from her shoulders, her back tensing as the night’s chill instantly wicked away the borrowed warmth.

  “Going inside?” he said, slowly taking the jacket from her.

  “Yeah. Guess I’m more tired than I thought. Besides, I interrupted your head-clearing time, so I’ll let you get back to it.”

  His gaze was steady. “You didn’t interrupt anything, Carly. Believe me, if I’d wanted to be left alone, I’d’ve let you know.”

  Way in the distance, a train blew its whistle, the sound comforting and mournful at the same time, and she thought of how that train had a purpose, a direction. Like Sam. Like she used to, before she realized she’d only taken half her life into account, and now that half had been shot out from under her.

  Dear God, she was in a maudlin mood tonight. She sucked in another breath and said, “Dad and I thought we might do some sightseeing, if you’re sure you don’t need the van?”

  “I’m not planning on it, no. So you go right ahead.”

  Her throat tightened, at this stranger’s kindness and generosity and how the-God-she-wasn’t-entirely-sure-she-believed-in was clearly having a good laugh at her expense. Especially when she started to leave and Sam’s hand caught hers, the rough honesty of his calluses almost a rebuke to her softness.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure. Just tired, like I said. Well…g’night.”

  He dropped her hand. “Night. Oh, and if you hear footsteps overhead? It’s just me checking on the kids before I turn in.”

  She nodded once, then left.

  Instead of getting up, doing his final check of the barn and pens, Sam stayed put as if glued to the rocking chair, listening to the silence and breathing in the remnants of Carly’s perfume, lingering in the air, on his jacket.

  It was a damn good thing she wasn’t sticking around long, was all he had to say. Because what he’d said about not missing Jeannie was true, as far as it went. He had taken solace in all those reminders of her, reminders that had blunted, then reformed his grief into a kind of contentment he’d had no reason to doubt before this. His life was full, and full of meaning, and he had no right to ask for a second helping of something a lot of folks never even got to taste.

  And yet something about this gal was shaking him up but good. Something he couldn’t figure out—not surprising, considering that with one regrettable exception his experience with women started and ended with Jeannie, whom he’d known better than he’d known himself. But whatever it was, Sam didn’t want it. Didn’t need it. Not when it had taken him the better part of these three years to finally trust that contentment, that peace, both of which he’d come to count on as surely as the Mason jars full of beets and applesauce and peaches lining the shelves in his cellar storeroom.

  Except every so often, for all sorts of reasons beyond his or anyone else’s control, those shelves went empty.

  He forced himself out of the chair and slipped his jacket back on, then headed out to check on his livestock, feeling the cold in a way he couldn’t ever remember.

  Chapter 5

  The sun razored through the cloudless sky, making it feel much hotter than the sixty-five or so it probably was. Lane took a swig from the bottle of cool water, swiping his shirtsleeve across his forehead—it had been more than forty years since he’d smelled the sweet, pungent tang of newly mowed alfalfa. Or felt the itch of it against his damp skin. When Carly had suggested this trip, the last thing he expected was to find himself driving a tractor, helping a farmer bale his last hay cutting of the season. Or that doing so would make more sense than anything had since Dena’s death.

  Except that it did didn’t make any sense at all.

  He could see the derelict farmhouse from here, could barely make out the faded For Sale sign; he forced his gaze away, telling himself no. Infatuation, was all this was, his senses bombarded by the sheer novelty of being away, doing something dif
ferent. Doing something, period. They’d only been here for four days, for God’s sake….

  “Here,” Sam said, dragging Lane away from the path that led to madness. He tossed him a ham sandwich from the cooler, then called over the kid who’d been working alongside them all morning, Billy something-or-other. Big guy, just shy of twenty, Lane thought, hardworking from what he could tell, but not inclined to conversation. Billy took a couple sandwiches and a jug of milk, nodding his thanks before striding away to sit by himself in the narrow patch of shadow hugging one of the large round bales. Lane lowered himself to the cool, bare ground underneath the lone oak still in full leaf at the end of the field, considering his host, wondering what exactly was going on underneath that ball cap of his. They weren’t that far from the house, they could easily have gone back for lunch. But Sam had said, since he’d had to substitute teach the last two days, he was in a split to get the alfalfa baled before the weather turned and he risked losing the whole cutting, so he hadn’t wanted to take the extra time.

  Right.

  Not that he’d ever let on, but Lane had overheard enough of Sam’s and his daughter’s conversation on the porch that first night to not only get a pretty good idea that something was bubbling between them, but that neither of them had the slightest idea what to do about it. Probably not a bad thing, all told, since from where he was sitting, they didn’t seem to have much in common. A shame, in a way, since Sam struck Lane as somebody a woman—or anybody else, for that matter—could count on. Solid. Stable. Words he unfortunately couldn’t use to describe his daughter, as much as he loved her.

  Yes, she was a grown woman. And no, it wasn’t any of Lane’s business how Carly chose to live her life. But watching her flit from relationship to relationship—and noticing her valiant attempts at shrugging off each breakup—Lane had begun to wonder if it was a desire for freedom, or simply habit, driving her choices these days.