Monique was her father’s fourth wife. Elise had only met her once, at the wedding. She’d been a cold fish—perfect for her father. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. And she meant it. She felt sorry for her father because she knew he had to be lonely. He just didn’t realize it.
“Thank God I had the good sense to see that prenup lawyer before the wedding. This won’t be anything but a blip on the radar screen. Listen, I have to go. A call coming in from California.”
“Okay, well, thanks for calling,” she said.
“Right.”
Her father hung up and she listened to the dial tone for a moment before she set the phone on her desk. She wondered what her father would have said if she had told him Zane was a chicken farmer.
Her gaze strayed from the phone on her desk to the Husband Finder checklist beside it. She picked it up, hesitated for a moment and then grabbed a bold magic marker. In a childish fit of retaliation against her father and all Edwin Montgomery stood for, she wrote beneath the Career heading, “Chicken Farmer” in daring block print. Then she scanned both sheets front and back.
There was no place to write “good heart” or “sentimental.” She could note the type of car Zane drove, how well he was invested in the stock market, how many times he had been divorced, but there was no place to say that he was a thirty-five-year-old man who wanted to buy back his grandfather’s childhood farm so the family could own it once again. With her bold marker, she scrawled across top of the first page, Good Heart. Ten point bonus!
And then she smiled, feeling better about herself than she had in a very long time.
Chapter Four
It’s imperative that a man and woman’s lifestyles mesh. Having similar upbringings lends itself to successful relationships and successful marriages.
The following day, Elise rose with a strange sense that her life was changing. She worked out at the gym in the morning, and then cleaned her apartment, giving it a good once-over. With her bathroom tile sparkling, she took a long soak in the tub and read a paperback novel someone had passed to her years ago. At twelve-thirty, she grabbed some marinated mushrooms, one of the few things she could make that were edible, and headed for Zane’s. She never called into the office and she didn’t check her voice mail. For once she wanted to forget about work. She just wanted to try being who she thought she might want to be. Her father, a seven-day-workweek workaholic, would have had a cow if he’d known. It was probably the first Saturday she hadn’t worked since she was sixteen and started her first job in her father’s office filing paperwork.
And it felt incredible.
Elise followed Zane’s directions on a meandering country road and turned down a long lane, not sure what to expect. The closest she had ever been to a chicken farm was the glossy photos of one she had sold last year and that buyer had purchased it sight unseen. All she knew about chicken farms was that they consisted of long row houses that she saw dotting the countryside and that they were big business in the county.
She pulled her car into the yard under a big oak tree beside Zane’s old pickup and some other cars including the BMW sedan he had taken her home in that night. She stared in awe at the white clapboard farmhouse with its wraparound screen porch and green shutters. The property was as neat as a pin with a freshly mowed lawn and trimmed hedges. It looked like it had come right out of a Disney movie, down to the tire swing hanging from a shade tree in the backyard.
Taking a deep breath, Elise climbed out of her car, hugging her Tupperware container of marinated mushrooms and cut across the lawn toward the house. A black Labrador retriever raced by her, carrying a small white sneaker, shortly followed by identical twin boys of seven or eight. They squealed with delight as they blew by her, one boy hopping along in his stocking foot as he tried to chase down his shoe.
Elise heard a screen door slap shut, and she looked up to see Zane strolling toward her, drying his hands on a towel. He was dressed in a pair of navy shorts and a surfing T-shirt, his boyish blond hair brushed casually to one side. He looked good. Young. More like a surfer than a chicken farmer this afternoon. “You made it,” he called.
She nodded, feeling a little flustered at seeing him again. A day later, she could still taste his mouth on hers. Still feel his hands on her hips. And then there was that yearning in her belly. “I made it. I brought marinated mushrooms.” She offered them. “I don’t know if they go with crabs, but it’s one of the few things I can make that isn’t toxic.”
“Not much of a cook, huh?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not much.”
He studied her for a moment as if processing that information. “Well,” he said. “Luckily my sister makes a mean potato salad. Come on up on the porch. Crabs are steaming and just about ready to eat. I’ll tell you who’s who in this crazy family of mine.”
She followed him.
“The dog that just ran by is my best buddy, Scootie. That’s Meagan, my sister, on the porch with her new baby girl, Alyssa. She’s got three more rug rats, all boys, around here somewhere. We don’t bother with their names half the time—we use numbers. Her husband is Ted in charge of the crab steamer around back. Big guy.” He drew his hands across his chest. “State cop.” He opened the door for her. “That’s my cousin Mattie with the red hair, and her daughter Olivia. She’s the one I was telling you about.” He pointed to a young woman in her early thirties with a little girl on her lap. “Her twin boys, Noah and Zeb, are the ones running around the house screaming like wild things. Mattie’s husband Joe and my other cousin, Carter, will be back soon. Carter’s getting married soon—his fiancée, Amy, couldn’t make it. The guys went out for beer. Apparently my homemade iced tea doesn’t suit them.”
She smiled feeling a little overwhelmed.
“Don’t worry, there won’t be a test.” Zane stood on the brick step and held the screen door to the porch open for her. “And that’s my grandfather,” he said quietly.
Elise’s gaze settled on the elderly man seated in a wheelchair on the far side of the porch, near the picnic table that had been covered with newspaper. Someone had turned his chair around so that he could see the field beyond the grassy line of the backyard.
“He has Alzheimer’s,” Zane said explained. “He lives in a home now—my dad and I just couldn’t take care of him anymore.” His gaze rested on his grandfather; Elise could hear the love in his voice. The pain. And her first impulse was to touch him in some way. She brushed her hand against his.
“We don’t know what he understands anymore, what he doesn’t. He gets very confused. Forgets how to brush his teeth, drink from a straw. Walk.” Zane shrugged. “Some days he seems to be better than others. We talk to him like he knows what’s going on anyway. You never know.”
She walked up the steps, passing him.
“All, this is Elise,” Zane called over the din of all his family members talking at once. Several looked at her with interest. “I’m not making introductions. You can do that yourself. Just be nice,” he warned. He indicated the door to the house. “Want to help me inside for a sec?”
She smiled, relieved. She wasn’t sure she was ready to be thrown to the family lions yet. “Sure.”
The inside of the house was as quaint as the outside. There was a big eat-in kitchen with a table covered with a red-checked tablecloth. An airy living room with a fireplace that looked like you could burn wood in it…and a big-screen TV. She’d seen enough houses to know a man ruled this roost. There was also a den Zane used as an office and a full bathroom on the first floor. A large center staircase that she assumed led to bedrooms upstairs dominated the front hall.
Zane’s house was nothing like the grand, hollow marble mansion she had grown up in. It wasn’t like her apartment either, where there was never a thing out of place. A place that was cold and unwelcoming no matter what additional shades she added to the color palette of her rooms at the suggestion of her decorator. Zane’s home was full of warmth and life. A homemade
quilt thrown over a couch that looked more like a piece of artwork than a bedcovering. A pile of newspapers beside the chair in front of the TV. On the refrigerator, there was even children’s artwork. A gift to Uncle Zane, no doubt, from one of his nieces or nephews.
At Zane’s instruction, Elise helped him carry all the makings of a Delmarva crab feast onto the screened-in section of the back porch. Two picnic tables covered in newsprint were piled high with spicy steamed blue claws, buttery corn on the cob, homemade potato salad and fried chicken for those who didn’t want to attempt the crabs.
For the next two hours, Elise sat beside Zane and listened to the family banter. In a way, it was mind-boggling. The noise. The confusion. The phone was ringing and the dog was barking. Babies were crying. Children ran out the back door, across the porch, around the house, in through the front door and back onto the porch again. There was lots of laughter and good-natured teasing. Zane’s brother-in-law created a sculpture of empty beer cans on the end of the porch, and the children took turns bowling them over with apples they had taken off the kitchen table.
Elise was completely overwhelmed by the melee, and fascinated at the very same time. Everyone was so nice to each other. There were no fights and no cold shoulders. No one threatened to remove anyone from their will or revoke their trust fund. There were no broken martini glasses on the Italian tile floor.
Finally, when Elise couldn’t eat another bite, she used baby wipes Zane’s sister offered to clean her hands and walked out onto the back lawn to stretch her legs. Zane had gone into the house for something. In the backyard, Elise watched the twin boys play on the tire swing. They were wearing paper pirate hats someone had made for them from newspaper. Her gaze shifted to Grandpop Keaton, seated beneath a big apple tree. Zane had pushed his wheelchair down the ramp, off the porch, and parked it beneath the sweet-smelling tree boughs because he said his grandfather loved the scent of apple leaves.
Glancing at the porch, but seeing no sign of Zane, Elise hesitantly approached the elderly Mr. Keaton. “Hi,” she said, feeling a little funny talking to him. What if he didn’t understand what she was saying? But Zane did say they didn’t know. “My name’s Elise. I—” She pointed in the direction of the house. “I’m Zane’s friend.”
To her surprise, the old man shifted his cloudy blue-eyed gaze to her. She wasn’t certain, but he appeared to be listening.
She smiled and crouched beside his wheelchair taking note that someone took great care in dressing him. He wore a bright teal golf shirt, khaki shorts and a green ball cap that said John Deere across the brim. “You have a nice place here.” She looked up at the tree limbs above and imagined what it must have been to grow up here. From what she had heard at the table, Zane and his sister had lived here with their father and grandparents. She tried to imagine what it must have been like to have been Zane and Meagan and been surrounded with family who accepted them for who they were. Loved them.
She studied old Grandpop’s craggy face, foolishly wishing for a moment he was her grandfather. “You have a very nice grandson,” she said. “A nice family.” She looked around the yard. “A nice place.”
He seemed to be studying her face. Concentrating on her words. She sensed he wanted her to keep talking. What did she say?
“Umm…Zane took me out on his boat on the bay yesterday. Did he tell you? He showed the land that he said was your father’s. Where you grew up.” She hesitated. “Zane’s asked me to look into the possibility that it might be for sale. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To have your father’s land back in the family after all these years?”
He made no response.
She pressed her lips together, coming to her feet. “Well, I just wanted to say hi.” She started to walk away, and she felt something touch her hand. It almost felt like a leaf at first. Dry. Cool.
Startled, she turned around and to see Grandpop Keaton’s small, wrinkled hand in hers. Her gaze shifted to his worn, wrinkled face. He was smiling at her with bright white teeth. At her.
She smiled back, feeling a tenderness she didn’t even know existed inside her.
Then he let go of her hand and turned his head ever so slightly away from her. Whatever connection they had made for that moment was gone.
Elise was still smiling when she entered house through the front door and went to the bathroom to wash the last hint of the smell of crabs from her hands. As she came out of the tastefully wallpapered old-fashioned bathroom, complete with a giant claw-foot tub, she stopped near Zane’s office door at the foot of the staircase to study some family photos on the wall.
As she looked at the old school pictures of a young boy who had to be Zane, she heard his voice. He was in the kitchen talking to someone. His sister?
“Look, I’m not trying to poke my nose into your business,” Elise heard the woman say.
It was definitely Meagan. Stay-at-home mom, Meagan, in her flowered long skirt, long, untrimmed hair and no makeup. Everything was about being a mother to her. All she had talked about at the picnic table was nursing the new baby, carpooling to school and soccer games. She was pleasant enough, but she seemed like a creature from another planet to Elise. They didn’t live in the same world.
“But you shouldn’t have invited her here,” Meagan’s voice cut into Elise’s thoughts. “She doesn’t fit in, Zane. Not in your life. Not in our family.”
Elise held her breath, knowing very well who Meagan was talking about. Her.
Elise didn’t know what to do now. Did she just walk into the kitchen and look Meagan straight in the eye? Did she go out the front door and around back to the porch and pretend she hadn’t overheard Zane and his sister? Or did she make a run for it? Just get in her car and drive home. Better yet, go to the office and get some work done? When Zane called later to ask what had happened, she just wouldn’t return his calls.
“You don’t even know her,” Elise heard Zane say.
“And neither do you. But you know women like her. Don’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about Mom, if that’s what this is about,” he said angrily.
Elise heard water running in the kitchen sink. He had to be rinsing off dishes to put in the stainless steel dishwasher she had noticed when she’d been in the kitchen.
“How about Judy? You don’t want to talk about her, either, do you?” Meagan asked pointedly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Zane. She broke your heart! Why would you fall for this again? Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time around? There are some women you marry and some you don’t. And you’re past the age of dating the don’ts if you’re still serious about wanting a family some day.”
Elise heard a pot clatter on the counter. More water.
“You’re right. This isn’t any of your business,” Zane said, still angry. “This is my home and I can invite over anyone I want to invite. Besides, what are you getting your panties all in a twist about? She’s just someone I met, that’s all. I told you she was a real estate agent. She’s going to see what she can find out about Great-Grandpop Keaton’s land.”
Just some real estate agent? That hurt as much as what Meagan had said.
“You can’t lie to me. This is me you’re talking to,” his sister continued. “I saw the way you looked at her on the porch. Like you wanted to eat her up and wash her down with a beer.”
Elise felt her heart give a little patter. His sister thought Zane was attracted to her?
Her mind skipped from disjointed thought to thought.
But who was this Judy? What did she have to do with his mother? What did either of them have to do with her?
Elise started to grow annoyed.
What right did Meagan have to judge her?
“Meagan—” Zane said.
“Look,” his sister interrupted. “I’ve said my piece and now I’m going out on the porch to scoop ice cream. You do what you want.”
“I will,” he snapped. “And if I want your advice, next time I’ll ask for it.”
Elise heard the kitchen door open and shut and the kitchen water continue to run. Zane was still in the kitchen.
Getting up her nerve, she walked into the hall from the office and into kitchen.
“Ellie?” Zane turned around from the sink and shut off the water.
She just stood there for a minute. She hadn’t liked the tone of voice Meagan had used when speaking of her, and she hadn’t liked what she had said. It had hurt. Zane was right, she didn’t even know her. How could Meagan say Elise wasn’t for Zane? And how could he have said she was just some real estate agent he was working with? Hadn’t that kiss last night meant anything to him?
Apparently not.
He glanced at the screen door that led to the porch and then back at Elise. “You overheard that, didn’t you?”
She nodded, her frustration blossoming into anger. In any of her previous relationships she would never have stood here. She would have walked out, ended the relationship before it ever had a chance to be one, and never said why. She could make an excellent ice queen when she wanted to. It was a Montgomery trait she had learned early on in life.
“I’m sorry,” he said, walking around the butcher block counter to her.
She glanced at the door. “Who was Judy?”
He crossed his arms over his chest; his hands were still wet with dishwater. He leaned against the counter, studying her carefully. “My ex-fiancée. We would have gotten married last year. Fourth of July.” He laughed, but it was obvious he saw nothing humorous in it. “She left two years ago for Singapore. A job offer she couldn’t turn down.”
At the tone of his voice, Elise lowered her gaze to her new white sneakers. A lump rose in her throat. She saw where this was going now. She wasn’t the kind of woman Zane was looking for because she had a good-paying job? She was a career woman who had set goals for herself and achieved most of them?
Then, in the back of her head, she heard her father’s voice. He told her she could never depend on someone else. Never really trust a man. Never make a relationship work; her career was what she had going for her. The only thing she had going for her. No one could ever love her.
Barefoot and Pregnant? Page 5
