You'll Think of Me

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  Chapter 15

  Ruth had heard about Alycia Hallston’s mishap before Derek sat down in her kitchen the next morning.

  “You’d think Brooklyn never got into any scrapes when she was a kid,” he muttered as he stared into his coffee mug. “And I don’t know why she was mad at me anyway. I wasn’t the one who broke the rules. Alycia did, and the kid was sorry for it. Like she should be.”

  “Brooklyn was frightened.”

  “She was frightened? I was the one who found Alycia hanging over the fence, about to fall on her head or get it kicked in by a horse. It took a half dozen years off my life. But I had enough good sense to know all she got was a sprained ankle out of it.”

  He’d been scared the way a parent would have been. Ruth could have told him so, but she supposed it was better for him to figure that out on his own.

  It didn’t take him long. “I guess I scared a few years off Mom’s and Dad’s lives when I was a kid.”

  She answered with a soft chuckle.

  “I’ll apologize the next time I talk to them.”

  “Just don’t confess to misdeeds they don’t already know about. All that does is give them nightmares about what could have happened to you in the past.”

  He frowned. “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Someday you’ll understand, once you have adult children of your own.”

  They were silent for a while, both of them sipping the dark brew in their mugs.

  Finally, Derek said, “Did I tell you I asked if Brooklyn would sell me some of her land? That was before I knew about her B&B plans.”

  “No. You didn’t mention it.”

  “Yeah, well, I did. And she said she’d think about it.” He shrugged. “Then when I heard about the B&B, it felt like she’d led me on.” He paused for a moment. “I didn’t react well to her news, and we exchanged a few words over it.”

  “Oh.” That explained why he’d left so abruptly after that Sunday dinner.

  He took a drink of coffee. “I apologized to her. I knew I wasn’t being fair, the way I reacted. And we seemed to be getting along. It felt like we were becoming friends even. And now this.”

  “Sounds like you need to earn back her trust.”

  A humorless laugh escaped him. “Not sure I’d made that much progress with her in the first place. She’s a skittish filly.”

  “Then earn her trust now,” Ruth replied softly.

  “That might be easier said than done.”

  “Anything worthwhile is rarely easy to obtain.”

  He drew in a deep, slow breath. He seemed to know she had more to say. He was right.

  “Seriously, Derek, you should remember something: we are all products of our pasts. The good and the bad. You’re the man you are because of your environment. Because of your parents and your friends and your education.” Ruth gave her grandson a firm look. “Brooklyn is too. Take the time to understand why she responded the way she did. I believe it goes deeper than concern for her daughter’s health or even because she was being overprotective. And be patient with her.”

  “Okay, Gran. I’ll try.” He rose from the chair. “Time I was on my way.”

  Derek’s arm around Ruth’s shoulders, they walked to the back door. It made Ruth remember a hundred different times when they’d walked together this same way. Through this house. Across the park. Lots of places. And even though he’d towered over her since before his fifteenth birthday, her memories were filled with the days when it was her arm that had rested comfortably on his shoulders instead of the way it was now. She remembered his little boy face turned up at her with a grin, freckles from the summer sun smattering his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

  Thankfulness washed over her. She understood why her two sons and only daughter, along with their spouses, had moved away from Thunder Creek, relocating to locations where better jobs awaited them. But she was endlessly grateful that Derek had chosen to remain, that his roots in this small town had gone as deep as her own.

  They stopped at the doorway, and he leaned low to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for the advice, Gran. I’ll do my best to follow it.”

  “I know, dear. I have faith in you.”

  “You always did.”

  “Grandmother’s prerogative.”

  He pulled a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his gray T-shirt and slipped them on. It was a good look on him with his short-cropped hair and his sun-burnished skin. Every bit as handsome as his grandfather had been, although taller and more muscular.

  “I’ll see you at church in the morning,” Derek said, catching her before her thoughts could wander too far into the past.

  “Yes, dear. See you there.”

  On her break, Brooklyn stepped out behind the diner to call home. Alycia answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She envisioned her daughter the way she’d left her that morning, on the sofa in the living room, her leg propped up on a couple of pillows. “Hi, honey. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine. Just like I was when you left.” Alycia sighed for dramatic effect.

  “I get to worry if I want to. I’m the mom.”

  “I know.” There was a moment or two of silence, then Alycia added, “It wasn’t Mr. Johnson’s fault that I got hurt, you know. Don’t be mad at him, Mom.”

  “I’m not mad, honey. Really I’m not.”

  “Will you tell him you’re not mad?”

  She hesitated a moment before answering, “Yes, I’ll tell him.”

  “Thanks! ’Cause I don’t want him to say I can’t help with Trouble anymore.”

  Brooklyn smiled. She should have known the dog was of major concern in her daughter’s mind.

  After telling Alycia she would call again later, Brooklyn went back inside. In a narrow room off the kitchen, she left her phone in the small locker assigned to her. She’d barely turned around when Zach entered.

  “Brooklyn, I keep forgetting to ask you: will you be able to work our food booth on the Fourth? I only need you for a few hours in the afternoon. I’ve got the evening hours covered.”

  After how tolerant and kind Zach Mason had been to her, she couldn’t refuse him. And it wasn’t as if she and Alycia hadn’t planned to go to the town’s annual celebration in the park. “Sure,” she answered her boss. “Whatever you need.”

  “One to four sound all right? After the parade.”

  She nodded. “One to four. I’ll be there.”

  When she was a girl, the same age Alycia was now, Brooklyn had longed to be able to spend the entire day at the park on the Fourth of July, sampling the food, listening to the music, enjoying the fireworks with a few friends. But her dad had said it was a celebration that invited drunkenness and reckless behavior, and no daughter of his was going to be tempted to be like her mother. The words had stung, even though she hadn’t completely understood them.

  As a teenager, Brooklyn had simply slipped out of her bedroom window and gone to the park anyway. Those last two summers in Thunder Creek, Chad had met her there. They’d held hands and danced and kissed. And once he’d brought a bottle of tequila with him. She’d gotten sick, throwing up in the bushes. That was the last time she’d drunk any liquor with Chad. If her dad had found out . . . A shudder passed through her, and she shook her head, driving away the unpleasant memory—as was becoming a habit now. Then she headed out to continue her shift.

  The Moonlight Diner was always popular. True, that was partly because they were the only sit-down full-menu restaurant within the town limits. But it was also because they had good food at good prices. Tough to beat that.

  Saturdays were especially busy. Brooklyn had always preferred those kinds of shifts. It made the hours fly by. She didn’t notice her tired feet or tired back as long as she rushed from table to table, taking orders, delivering food, and offering smiles. While it wasn’t her intention to remain a waitress any longer than necessary, she was good at it. God willing, she would be just as good at running a B&B—
although that day was still far in the future.

  Around four o’clock, a group of teenaged girls—dressed in cheerleading attire—entered the diner, laughing and talking and laughing some more. Brooklyn guessed they’d been rehearsing for the upcoming Fourth of July parade, since there was no other reason to be in those outfits in the summer. All six of them piled into a booth meant for four. They hardly glanced at her when she delivered their menus.

  “I’ll be back with your water,” she said to no one in particular.

  They weren’t paying attention to her anyway. They were laughing again, and a few scattered words made it clear that boys were the focus of their conversation. No surprise there. Brooklyn wondered what it would be like to be their age and popular, confident, carefree. Unafraid to go home. But it was pointless to wonder such things.

  When she stepped behind the counter a few moments later, Lucca leaned close and said, “I wouldn’t be that age again for a million bucks.”

  “I was never that age.” She hoped that didn’t sound like self-pity.

  If it did, Lucca didn’t let on. She simply turned to pick up some plates of hot food.

  Brooklyn filled six tumblers with water and ice, dropped drinking straws onto the tray, and returned to the booth. At the moment she reached it, one of girls said, “He’s a hottie for sure.”

  Brooklyn looked up as she set the tumblers on the table. All of the girls were staring out the window.

  A different one said, “I suppose. For a guy his age.”

  Brooklyn’s gaze followed theirs. Across the street, outside Kitchner’s Sweet Shop—oh, the amazing fudge that had come out of that little store since the First World War, as their sign proudly stated—was Derek, talking to an elderly woman with a walker. The short sleeves of his gray T-shirt revealed his suntanned biceps, and the dark glasses he wore made him look more like a movie star than a farmer.

  One of the girls said, “I don’t care how old he is. He’s definitely Deputy McDreamy.”

  Agreement made her pulse quicken. He is a hottie.

  Horrified by the thought, she glanced down and finished setting the water glasses on the table. Then, tray now tucked under one arm, she asked, “Are you ready to order?”

  After escorting Mrs. Holtzman to her car and putting her walker behind the driver seat, Derek returned to Kitchner’s. He paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the diner. Brooklyn had been in his thoughts for most of the day. Maybe because Gran had encouraged him to earn his neighbor’s trust.

  Or maybe it was something more than that.

  He entered the candy store.

  “Be right with you.”

  Owen Kitchner, the fourth-generation owner—or was he the fifth by now?—of Kitchner’s Sweet Shop, was a small man. No taller than five foot four. And he weighed no more than a hundred and thirty pounds by Derek’s estimate. He had thick gray hair and a wide smile, and his temperament was as sweet as the candy he made. But it was that deep voice coming from such a slight body that always made Derek want to grin.

  “Hey, Derek.” Owen walked through a doorway from the back of the building where the candy was made, wiping his hands on a towel. “Haven’t seen you in here in a month of Sundays.”

  “You know me, Owen. I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth.”

  “Ouch.” The man pressed a hand to his chest. “You know how to hurt a guy.”

  “Sorry.” Derek laughed. “But I am here to buy, if that’s any consolation.”

  “Could be. Just could be.” Owen dropped the towel on the counter and moved to stand behind the lighted display. “What can I get for you?”

  Derek didn’t have to think long and hard. He remembered what Brooklyn’s favorite candy had been back in high school. Chad used to come in here to buy it a piece or two at a time, and more often than not, Derek had tagged along with him. “I’ll take a pound of the Idaho Dreams fudge.”

  “A pound.” Owen grinned. “She must be special.” He winked before reaching for a box.

  “She’s ten,” Derek countered. But of course that was a half-truth. If the candy had been only for Alycia, he would have bought an assortment instead of an entire pound of her mother’s favorite.

  “Plain or with nuts?”

  “Plain.” Odd, wasn’t it, that he remembered that detail as well.

  Owen hummed to himself as he took fudge from the tray in the display and arranged pieces in the fancy-paper-lined box. When he finished, he settled the gold-foiled cover over the top. “Want a gift card?” He carried the box to the register.

  “No, thanks. She’s ten.” This time it felt like a full-out lie rather than a half-truth.

  Owen chuckled. “Suit yourself.” He punched in some numbers. “That’ll be sixteen dollars and ninety-five cents.”

  Derek took a credit card from his wallet and held it out to the proprietor, all the while wondering why he was spending seventeen dollars on a box of candy. For what? Would a box of fudge earn Brooklyn’s trust? Would it make her want to sell him some of those ten acres? Not likely. And was that even what he wanted it to do? He wasn’t sure. But he bought the pound of fudge anyway.

  A few minutes later, the transaction completed, Derek stepped through the door of the candy store and headed down the street toward where he’d parked his truck. As he walked, he heard Gran’s words in his head: “We are all products of our pasts.”

  He hadn’t thought of it when sitting in Gran’s kitchen, but now the words reminded him of something. Earlier this year, a friend had sent him an article about daughters without dads. Michael had thought it was good information for an officer of the law to have. Derek had skimmed the article, then filed it away. Now the little he remembered nagged at him. Maybe because even that little bit seemed to describe both Brooklyn and her daughter.

  Arriving at his truck, he tossed the box of candy onto the passenger seat as he climbed into the cab. When he got home, he was going to look for that article. Maybe it would help him figure out what he was supposed to do next.

  An hour later, Derek sat in front of his laptop, reviewing for the third or fourth time the information contained in the article. What an eye opener. He hadn’t known that twenty-seven percent of children in the United States lived apart from their fathers. He hadn’t known that many girls who grew up without fathers in the home, according to multiple studies, became sexually active at a younger age than girls with whole families. He hadn’t known that girls without dads were fifty-three percent more likely to marry as teenagers and twenty percent less likely to attend college.

  How could he have read this, even just skimming, and not taken in what it meant for society as a whole? And now for his neighbors in particular.

  Sure, Brooklyn had had a physically present dad while she was growing up, but Reggie Myers had emotionally abandoned her. He’d been, at the very least, verbally cruel. No wonder she’d run away with the first guy who’d been nice to her. She’d married young and missed college and who knew what else. As for Alycia, Chad had completely abandoned her. Before she’d even been born. Would these dour statistics prove true for her?

  “Not if I can help it,” he promised aloud.

  He no longer wanted to be a father figure for Alycia as a way of honoring the request of a dying friend. Now he wanted to do it for Alycia’s sake alone.

  And perhaps for Brooklyn’s sake too.

  Chapter 16

  Brooklyn and Alycia stayed home from church the following Sunday. Brooklyn’s excuse for the decision was her daughter’s ankle, even though Alycia was mobile by then. Only the trace of a limp remained, most noticeable when she hurried down the stairs.

  The real reason for staying home, Brooklyn acknowledged midmorning, had hazel eyes, close-cropped brown hair, chiseled features, and broad shoulders.

  She groaned.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  Brooklyn glanced toward her daughter, lying on the sofa with the Kindle held between her hands.

 
; “Nothing, honey. I just thought about something. It isn’t . . . anything important.”

  “Oh.” Alycia’s attention went back to the book on the device.

  Now she was telling lies to her daughter. Great.

  Brooklyn set aside the crossword puzzle she’d been working on and rose from the chair. She walked to the large living-room window and looked outside. Despite the intense summer heat, the lawn was a deep emerald green, thanks to the irrigation canals and rivers that channeled water to communities and farmers throughout the Treasure Valley.

  Farmers . . .

  She wondered if Derek would return to his place after church let out or if he’d go to his grandmother’s for Sunday dinner as he so often did.

  Giving her head a shake, she turned from the window. “I’m going to get lunch started.”

  “Okay,” Alycia answered without looking up.

  “What book are you reading?”

  “The City of Ember.”

  “Again?”

  “It’s so good, Mom. You should read it.”

  “I did read it. Before you did. But once was enough for me.”

  Alycia made a dismissive sound in her throat—a sound that said her mother was too old to understand so there was no point trying to explain.

  Brooklyn managed not to chuckle as she walked toward the kitchen. She was thankful, of course, that her daughter would rather read than play video games. Alycia was bright and inquisitive, which made her a good student, but she wasn’t a shy homebody. She liked adventure, which undoubtedly had played a part in her mishap over at Derek’s.

  Derek. Again. Why couldn’t he stay out of her thoughts?

  With another shake of her head, she opened the refrigerator door and pulled open the vegetable drawer. She withdrew the yellow, green, and red peppers, followed by a large purple onion and a container of mushrooms. Next she looked in the deli drawer for the boneless chicken breasts she’d bought two days before. After slicing and dicing the vegetables and sautéing the chicken until it was cooked through—while somehow managing to keep a particular sheriff’s deputy from reentering her thoughts—Brooklyn put it all together in a skillet, seasoned it, and left it to simmer until the peppers and onions were tender.