The buyer wanted paint touch ups and new faucets on both the kitchen and bathroom sinks. The closing was set for late the next week, but he wanted to get everything done while he knew he had the time. It gave him plenty of time to think.
By Monday morning, he’d decided his draw to Bunny was as strong as his need to keep her at a distance. The day-to-day uncertainty of Morton’s health was already enough for him to handle. Add in the fact that he and Bunny worked together and the situation was even more problematic. The complications were becoming more and more of a burden.
He didn’t need the world knowing his personal business. He’d pull back, and let things cool off. He could be friendly, but nothing more, because frankly, she deserved way more than he could give.
Tate reverted back to his old ways and entered the Nature Center from the rear, rather than the front door. He’d been gone nearly a week so there was plenty of work to keep him busy and away from the front desk.
As soon as Lydia and Ross arrived at nine, he called them into his office for a meeting to make sure they were all on the same page with regards to spring events around Rustic Woods.
He kept them talking for two hours with the door closed. By the end, Lydia and Ross were exchanging glances, and he knew he’d taken the avoidance game too far. His meetings never ran over twenty minutes. They were smart naturalists, knew their jobs and did them without much supervision from him. He released them, and they left his office whispering something he couldn’t hear. They were probably questioning his sanity.
Avoiding Bunny entirely was impossible. He decided to get a cup of coffee, make a quick appearance with a smile on his face—see, things are fine and normal and no, my stomach doesn’t jump into my throat when I see Bunny Bergen—then head back to his office to finish the voice and emails lingering from the previous week.
Things might have gone just about that way if his cell phone hadn’t rung. It was Morton’s day nurse. Morton had a question. “A question?” Tate asked her. “Is that what he said?”
“Not exactly. But he wanted me to get you on the phone.”
“Okay.” Tate pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes. He felt a headache coming on. “Thanks. You can put him on.”
A moment later Morton’s voice, sounding a little weaker than the day before, asked, “Is that you?”
“It’s Tate, Mort. Are you feeling okay?”
In the usual Morton manner, he didn’t answer the question. “Doug Hobbs,” he said instead. “Tell him yes.”
“You mean, you want him to visit?”
“Sure.” Morton coughed hard into the phone. The cough sounded painful. When he finally caught his breath, he said, “Tell him yes. Come for a visit.”
After hanging up, Tate resisted the overwhelming urge to throw his phone across the room.
Instead, he sucked in a deep breath. It appeared that he would be talking to Bunny after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SITTING IN HER CAR WAITING for a red light to change, Bunny wondered if Tate was behaving strangely, or if it was just her insecure imagination working overtime. She tapped the steering wheel with her thumbs as she stared through the sunglasses that shielded her eyes from the late afternoon sun. The days were getting longer. That usually put a smile on her face, but she have one now. Despite the fact that Tate had sought her out to ask if Daddy was available, something about his manner was different. He’d seemed aloof or distracted maybe.
Daddy sat next to her, turning the radio tuner. Static plucked at her nerves until a station came in clearly. Bunny recognized the song immediately: “More Than Words.” It was the song she and Tate had danced to at the prom years ago. Hearing it now made her uncomfortable.
“Not that station, Daddy, please.” The light turned green, and she concentrated on turning the corner.
“I’m looking for that oldies station,” he said. “Where is it?”
She pointed to a set of buttons under the radio tuner. “It’s a preset. The second button.”
The song grated on her nerves worse than the static had, and she wished he’d press the stupid preset button already. She would have done it herself, but her eyes were busy looking for Morton Kilbourn’s street, Wild Cherry Terrace.
Rustic Woods might have been a suburb in a bustling and sprawling metropolitan area, but it had a small town personality. People who moved to Rustic Woods often spent the rest of their lives there. Her best friend in high school, Anna Lutz, had lived on Wild Cherry Terrace, just six houses away from the Kilbourns. Anna’s parents still lived on Wild Cherry Terrace, and Anna lived on the north side of town and taught at the elementary school.
Bunny had also babysat for the Websters who lived on Wild Cherry Terrace. Both of those kids were grown now and still lived in Rustic Woods. She’d seen the youngest, Brittney, just the other day at the grocery store with a baby girl of her own.
So when Tate tried to give her his father’s address, she was able to say, “That’s alright, I remember where he lives.”
Pulling into the driveway next to Tate’s truck, Bunny was surprised at how run-down the house had become. It stuck out like a sore thumb along Wild Cherry Terrace. The garage door had two cracked window panes, the concrete walkway to the front door was crumbling apart, and the wood siding was in desperate need of painting or complete replacement.
A nurse in scrubs answered the door when they rang, and Bunny’s heart sank just a little bit. She had been hoping Tate would greet them. “I’m Bunny Bergen,” she said, “and this is my father Doug Hobbs. We’re here to see Mr. Kilbourn?”
“Mort,” Daddy added.
The woman let them in, and they followed as she walked them through the living room and down a long hall to a first floor bedroom that seemed to be nearly consumed with the hospital bed.
The bed was half-raised, supporting a frail man with thin, white hair and an oxygen tube under his nose. He didn’t crack a smile, but raised his hand just enough to acknowledge their arrival. “Doug,” he said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Daddy shuffled to Morton’s bedside and patted his arm lightly. “You either. I see you’re still up to your old tricks, making everyone wait on you hand and foot, right?”
Morton coughed, but didn’t reply.
“Mort,” Daddy said, “this is my daughter, Bunny.”
Bunny stood in the door way feeling very awkward. The little room was too small for the three of them and when the nurse showed up again with a chair for Daddy, she had to squeeze against the door jam to make way. She gave him a little wave though. “Hi, there Mr. Kilbourn. Nice to meet you.”
The man raised his hand again. “Pleasure,” he said to her. “Sit, Doug, sit.”
Daddy sat in the folding chair, and Bunny decided she should let the men do their talking. “I think I’ll get our of your way,” she said. “Is Tate around?”
The nurse answered Bunny on her way back down the hall. “He’s out in the backyard chopping up a fallen tree.”
The sun had dipped just below the tree line as Bunny crossed the soft ground, her small heels sinking with each step. She wasn’t paying much attention to the ground or her heels though. Tate had most of her attention. Actually, Tate had all of her attention. A white t-shirt hugged his biceps as he gripped an axe, bringing it down hard onto the large fallen tree. Dirty and sweaty, the man still made her go all woozy inside.
“You should be wearing safety goggles,” she said, staying far enough away to avoid the flying wood chips.
He squinted one eye at her, then wiped sweat from his face with his t-shirt sleeve. “Yeah. I know.”
“What happened here?” She immediately regretted the ridiculous question. A tree fell, Bunny. Duh.
“Tree fell last night.”
She nodded. “It’s a big tree.” She bit her lip. She sounded so stupid.
“Yeah.”
She nodded some more. “Lot of chopping.” World, meet Bunny Bergen, Master Conversationalist.
“Yeah.” He opened and closed his hand a couple of times. “Your dad is in with Mort?”
Beginning to feel like a bobble head, she forced herself to stop the incessant nodding. “He is. They’re talking. So far so good.” Darn, she nodded again. “Is your brother still here?”
Tate gripped the ax firmly, raised it over his head and brought it down with intense force. Bunny didn’t see how, even with those marvelous muscles, that Tate was ever going to make a reasonable dent in the huge tree with a simple ax.
“He left yesterday,” Tate said, wiping more sweat from his forehead. He examined the work in front of him, rather than look her way.
“Oh.” Now Bunny knew she hadn’t been imagining his aloofness. Tate hadn’t said anything about his brother except that they hadn’t seen each other in several years, but she suspected that his current mood was related somehow. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That he left, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” He squinted at the tree, then pushed at it with his foot. The thing didn’t budge.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry for what?” Tate didn’t wait for an answer before taking another chop at the tree trunk. Wood chips flew several feet in all directions. He’d thrown a lot of energy into that one. The ax sliced in deeply.
As he tugged the ax loose, Bunny answered. “I don’t know. You just seem upset. I’m sure this is a really hard time for you and your family.”
Tate stopped to finally look at Bunny. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I wanted to make some headway on this thing before I lose the light.”
Her face flushed. She’d gone too far. “Sure.” She nodded again, but didn’t care. She just wanted to go hide in the house. “I understand.” She turned and made several strides across the yard, but decided to make one more offer. It was the woman and the mother in her.
She turned to face him again. “Let’s be honest. You’re never going to chop that tree up with a stupid ax. It took three men with chain saws to take apart one in my yard that was half that size. I’m sure it just feels good to hit something right now, but if you feel like talking instead, I’m a good listener.”
In response, Tate turned his gaze back to the tree and lifted the ax again, bringing it down fast and hard.
Bunny returned to the house and sat uncomfortably on the worn living room couch. It was a sad room. A small shaft of light crept through between a pair of curtains that were partially open, but the light wasn’t enough to brighten the place. There were no pictures of kids on the walls; no prized pieces of handmade art from school years past; nothing that said a family had ever thrived there. Sorry for what? he had asked her? Sorry for this.
She heard laughter from the bedroom and felt glad that something around the gloomy old house could make her smile. Shifting to cross her legs, her heart raced a little at the sound of a door opening and footsteps she knew were Tate’s.
He appeared around a corner and leaned against the wall. His deep brown eyes made her melt inside. Outside, his expression had been hard, tight, and determined, but now it had softened. He looked down at his hand. “You’re right about the tree. And the stupid ax.”
“Did you get a blister?”
He held up the hand to show her. “Three.” He smiled. “Guess I should get the number for those tree guys of yours.”
Bunny turned her head at the sound of Daddy’s voice in the hallway.
“Get some rest, Mort. Good to see you.” Daddy shuffled toward them and offered Tate his hand. “You must be Tate.”
Bunny watched as the two men shook hands.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Hobbs,” Tate said.
“Call me Doug. And I’d like to come again. He said he likes the company.”
Bunny watched Tate’s face for a reaction, but there was none. She rose from the couch and jangled her car keys. “We should leave and get out of their way and back home, Daddy. The crew will be there soon ready to work.” She opened the front door for him and turned to Tate. “See you at work tomorrow, I guess.”
He offered her a nod as she stepped out.
“Doug,” he said to Daddy, “I want to thank you for helping Bunny take over the set building project for the play.”
“Glad to do it. Enjoying the heck out of myself, I have to admit. We’ll have them done soon and moved to the school.” Then he shook a finger, remembering something. “Speaking of the play, who is the girl Mort talked about? Is that your daughter?”
A deep crease formed between Tate’s brows. “Willow is my daughter. Did he talk about her?”
“He said he’s not going anywhere until he sees ‘the girl’ sing in the play. Seems to mean a lot to him.”
“Mr. Kilbourn,” the nurse said from the hallway, “your father asked for you.”
Tate turned. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Have a good night,” Bunny said, giving a little wave. She wished that instead of a wave, she could have hugged him tightly and offered him love, warmth, and understanding. He seemed to need it so badly. “Call me,” she said to him. “If you want to talk or anything.”
On the drive back to her house, she asked Daddy what the two men had talked about.
“Golf. He asked me if I still played.”
“Anything else?” She was curious about Tate’s dad.
Daddy shrugged. “Nothing really important. I tried to keep it light.”
She shook her head while watching the road. “Families are tricky things, aren’t they, Daddy?”
“That they are, Bunny Cakes. That they are.”
At home, Bunny quickly chowed down some left-over macaroni and cheese before heading over to the high school. Ms Steffler had summoned her via an urgent text.
It appeared that Hildie Page had just resigned as volunteer coordinator, and Ms. Steffler was desperate for someone organized to step in and take over during the crucial last couple of weeks.
“I thought of you first, Ms. Bergen,” Ms. Steffler said. “Tell me you will agree.”
Bunny noticed that Steffler hadn’t exactly asked, but she had called her Ms. Bergen instead of Mrs., so Bunny was pleased. She was also flattered and not about to turn down the chance to prove to the Rustic Woods community that she was both smart and competent. “Yes,” said Bunny, “I’ll be glad to take over.”
She smiled the entire way home.
When she pulled into her driveway, the garage door was open and kids from the crew were scattered about, working hard. Daddy and Harry stood in one corner discussing a large piece of the set. Harry pointed and Daddy nodded. It looked like an important decision was being made.
She turned off the ignition and was about to open her car door when she noticed an unmistakably familiar dark head of hair. Tate was working a screw driver into something at the far back of her garage. She’d seen a truck parked on the street when she returned, but in the dark, hadn’t recognize it as Tate’s.
He pulled back to inspect his work, and then turned his gaze in her direction. To her surprise and relief, he smiled. That was a nice change from earlier. She returned the smile and waved through the windshield before slipping out of her front seat.
He made his way through the maze of set pieces and people. The April night was surprisingly warm so she knew it wasn’t cool air causing goosebumps to sprout on her arms.
“I came over to say thank you, and they put me to work,” he said, using a rag to wipe some dust from his neck. He pointed to the For Sale sign in her yard. “You’re selling?”
She sighed. “I can’t afford the mortgage. I wanted to wait until the play was over, but my agent said the sooner the better to catch spring buyers. I’m hoping to buy a condo or townhouse near the Nature Center.” She cocked her head, still wondering about the reason he gave for stopping by. “Thank you for what?”
“To you and your father.” He shook out the rag. “I won’t say the visit cheered Morton up exactly, since he hasn’t had a cheerful day since I’ve known him.”
“But,” he continued, “he seems to be feeling better.”
“That’s good. I’m glad.”
“And he asked to see Samuel.”
This took her a bit by surprise. “They didn’t see each other when your brother was in town?”
Tate shook his head. He looked almost embarrassed. “They haven’t talked in over thirty years.”
Bunny thought about Tate’s mood and the tree chopping. It was starting to make sense. “That’s terrible.”
Four boys from the crew waved at Bunny on their way out. “We have to go Ms. Bergen. See you Thursday.”
Bunny waved back and at the same time, noticed Tate’s muscles tense.
“I should go too,” he said.
She touched his arm. “Stay. I have wine in the house. I’d like to hear about your brother.”
“Thanks.” He pulled his arm away. “But I have things to do.”
He raised his hand to catch Daddy’s attention. “I’m heading out, Doug!”
“Catcha later, Tate!” Daddy shouted.
Before Bunny could object further, Tate was leaving. As she watched him walk away from her, she realized that she didn’t have a silly high school crush on Tate Kilbourn anymore. She wasn’t just feeling the after glow of a satisfying one-night-stand. She had fallen in love with him. Horribly so. Every time she thought about him, every time she saw him, every time she was near him, her longing increased. And darn it, life was short. She was going make something happen, because she had the feeling that he needed her just as badly as she wanted him.
The next several days were very busy for Bunny, but she never stopped thinking about Tate.
He was either very busy himself or doing an excellent job of avoiding her. He managed to be out in the field by the time she arrived at the Nature Center each morning, but Lydia and Ross were also already out. It was springtime in Rustic Woods—the naturalists had a lot to do.
Kiss Me, Tate (Love in Rustic Woods) Page 18
