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With a flourish, Valery placed a glass of orange juice in front of the boy. “In fact, girls can be kind of handy. Do you like bacon?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“French toast?”
This time the boy floundered. He stared at his juice.
“Ever had French toast, Brody?” Hayden asked gently.
The boy shook his head.
“Might as well try it,” Valery said. “Julia makes the best.”
“It’s sort of like pancakes, only better,” Hayden said.
This brought Brody’s head up. “I love pancakes.”
“There you go, then. French toast with plenty of powdered sugar and syrup coming right up.” Valery flounced out of the room like a flamenco dancer. The innkeeper was flashy, a head turner, with dark hair curling around her shoulders and bright red lipstick.
Food was served, and Brody ate like a starved pup, speaking only once to say, his mouth stuffed with French toast, “This is good.”
The exceptional meal made Hayden sleepy and lethargic. If he ate like this every day for the next few months, he would have to do some serious walking or find a gym.
During the meal, he made polite conversation with Eli and listened to sweet exchanges between the father and son that stirred thoughts of his own father. Donald Briggs had been his light in a dark childhood and when that light went out, Hayden had been lost. If not for an English teacher who had seen his talent, he’d still be lost, likely in the same drug-dulled world that had sucked Dora Lee under.
Eli’s son, Alex, finished his meal, hopped down from his chair and hugged his father. “I missed you, Daddy.”
Hayden experienced a pinch beneath his breastbone. He missed his daddy, too.
Hayden tossed his napkin on the table. He must need sleep worse than he’d thought.
* * *
Brody was stuffed. He couldn’t remember when he’d tasted anything as good Miss Julia’s French toast.
With both hands on his full belly, he leaned back in the seat of Carrie Riley’s Volkswagen Bug. The inside smelled good, like something strawberry coming from a little tree dangling from the rearview mirror. Miss Riley smelled good, too. He always noticed that about her when she helped him with something at the library. She smelled like cinnamon, he thought. Or maybe gingerbread. The smell was nice, like her. She was always nice to him, and sometimes he imagined his mother had been like her or like Mrs. Timmons, the art teacher, who told him he had talent.
He liked drawing animals, especially wildlife like Max, but the Sweat twins let him draw their parrot, too. Mrs. Timmons said Binky was his best work, and she’d entered the picture in the county art show.
“What grade are you in this year, Brody?” Miss Carrie asked as they pulled out of the driveway onto the pavement leading into Honey Ridge.
“Fifth.”
“Who’s your teacher?”
“Mrs. Krouper.”
“You like her?”
He hiked one shoulder. “She’s okay.”
“I’ve heard she’s pretty strict.”
“Yeah. She sent me to detention for a whole week.” He didn’t know why he’d told her that. Maybe because his belly was full and he’d slept in that soft bed last night, where he’d dreamed of riding a horse. He’d always wanted to ride a horse.
Miss Riley grinned at him. “Uh-oh. What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
When she hiked an eyebrow, he felt compelled to explain. He didn’t know why. He just did.
“There’s this boy. He’s a bully, but no one does anything about it. He was picking on this little kid named Jacob, so I told him to stop and he kicked me. We kind of got in a fight.” He hated fighting, but when Jacob cried and looked all helpless, he had to do something. Like the time he’d found a cat with its head stuck in a soup can.
“Did you tell your dad? Maybe he could have talked to the teacher?”
“He wouldn’t.” Why’d she have to bring up his dad? Now he was thinking about him again. Would the old man be sober yet? Or would he still be drunk enough to be mad that Brody had been out all night?
Miss Riley cut him a curious look, so he hurriedly said, “My dad works a lot. He’s real busy.”
“Where does your dad work?”
“Big Wave, on the second shift. I don’t know what he does.”
“Something to do with boats, I’m sure.” And she laughed. She had a pretty laugh with a little hiccup on the end that made his chest tickle.
“Which way?” She pulled the VW Bug to a stop at the red light in the center of Honey Ridge.
“My house is not far. I can walk from here.” Brody reached for the door handle.
“Brody,” she said gently. “Which way?”
She was so nice, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings or look like some kind of ungrateful kid without a lick of manners, so he guided her down the side streets, across the railroad track.
His heart beat hard enough to hurt in his belly. If he was lucky, the old man would still be asleep. He wasn’t lucky very often.
“Right there.” He pointed. “Where the white car is.”
“Looks like your dad is home now.”
“Yeah.”
Brody hoped Max was okay, still safely tucked in a shoe box under the bed. He should have brought him camping like usual, but the old man had already been drunk when school let out, and he’d been afraid to chance a return to the house.
“Was he really gone somewhere last night, Brody?”
She was hard to lie to. “He might have been.”
“I see.”
He sure hoped not. He tugged at the door handle and stepped out. No sign of his father. “Thank you, Miss Riley.”
“See you at the library.”
He slammed the door and hustled across the mowed grass, tension in his neck slowly easing. The old man was probably still sleeping it off. His relief was short-lived when Clint Thomson appeared in the doorway without his shirt, his black eyebrows pulled low in a frown of displeasure at the sight of his son. No big surprise there.
“Where you been?”
Brody heard Miss Riley’s car backing out of the driveway and hoped she’d leave quickly.
He searched for a lie that would appease his father but finding none, told the truth. “I went camping.”
“Why is someone driving you home?” His dad listed to one side, wobbly. He slapped the door to catch himself, and Brody jumped. “You’re not supposed to ride with strangers.”
“That’s Miss Carrie from the library.” Knowing a glance could be mistaken for defiance, he kept his eyes trained on the porch. “She’s not a stranger.”
His dad cuffed the back of his head. “Don’t get smart with me.”
Brody snuck a fast glance at the street and saw the blue Volkswagen turn the corner. Relieved, he ducked inside the house before his father could really get going.
6 (#ulink_3427c288-4f57-5577-a09c-9a1a0e156876)
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?
—Lily Tomlin
The library was always busy after the weekend.
The small one-story building in the middle of Honey Ridge was Carrie’s domain, her vocation and avocation. She loved the tidy rows, loved reading and sharing books and loved that the library sponsored adult literacy classes. In fact, she loved everything about the library, including her sometimes troublesome patrons.
Herman Peabody, bless his heart, couldn’t hear a freight train if it ran over his foot, but he forgot his hearing aids as often as he remembered them. Whenever that happened, his voice never dropped below bullhorn level.
Patrons of the library looked at him with either annoyance or resignation.
Wearing a jaunty tam angled on his semi-bald head and in blue overalls that could use a good scrub, Herman Peabody was one of the afternoon regulars.
“Am I talking too loud again?” he asked.
She leaned close, refusing to insult him by wrinkling her nose at his less-than-pleasant scent. “Did you forget your hearing aids?”
He slapped at his ears. A twinkly smile wrinkled an already-wrinkled cheek. “I guess I did.”
Carrie aimed an eye at his overalls. “Maybe in your pocket?”
He squinted and leaned closer. “What?”
She pointed. “Your pocket.”
Recognition dawned, and he patted the overall bib, coming up with a small pair of flesh-colored hearing aids. He popped them in, winced, made an adjustment and then said, “All better?”
Carrie smiled. Most people didn’t bother to know Mr. Peabody had been a Nashville studio musician back in the day when self-trained artists played by ear and before time took away his ability to do exactly that. Now he had nothing to fall back on and barely eked by on a meager Social Security check. She knew this because she volunteered at Interfaith Partnership, a social charity that collected and distributed food and clothing to the needy.
After Mr. Peabody settled onto one of the couches with a sigh and a groan, grabbing at his left knee, she handed him the Honey Ridge Register. “Do you need some aspirin for that knee?”
“Nah. Just an old man’s stiff joints. I must have sat too long with the good ol’ boys down at the café.”
The café was the coffee klatch of retired men who gathered at the Miniature Golf Café every morning without fail to shoot the breeze and resolve the political and social ills of the universe.
“Did you fellas come up with a solution to world peace?”
“Just about.” He nodded, chuckling. “Just about. Mr. B. says we’ll never get out of this world alive, so what difference does it make?”
Carrie laughed. Mr. B., short for Bastarache, a name few of them could pronounce, was the town undertaker. His fatalistic views were legendary.
“Well, that’s Mr. B. for you,” she said. “You tell me if you need some aspirin for that knee, okay? I have a bottle in my purse.”
He patted her hand. “You’re a good girl, Miss Carrie. Your mama raised you right.”
Carrie’s chest squeezed in affectionate sympathy for the man as she returned to the front desk.
“Why doesn’t he loiter somewhere else?” Tawny Brown, the other media specialist, ran the scanner gun across the bar code on the back of The Cat in the Hat. The computer beeped, and she crammed the book onto a roller cart for reshelving.
Carrie offered a sympathetic glance but said nothing. Tawny got all stirred up about the computer hogs and the regulars who hung out for lack of anything better to do. In Carrie’s opinion, everyone needed time in the safe haven of a library.
The thought of a safe haven brought Brody Thomson to mind, which brought Hayden Winters to mind, as well. The boy concerned her, but she didn’t know what to do about it. The man—well, he was a famous writer and she was a book person.
Beyond his incredible gift of words and the stormy night encounter at Peach Orchard Inn she didn’t know anything about him. He was an enigma even to book lovers.
Out of curiosity, she’d read his website bio, which was primarily about his novels and devoid of personal information. Because of his profession and hers, she also followed him, along with other popular authors, on Facebook and Twitter. Again, no personal information on Hayden Winters. Only book talk. A writer of his stature probably had an assistant handling social media anyway.
She’d had coffee, in her pajamas no less, with Hayden Winters.
Laughing at herself a little, she focused on work. The man had probably put her out of his mind the moment she’d driven away.
At noon, her sister Nikki came flying in, a swirl of energy and beauty. All the Riley siblings had dark hair, but Nikki took hers to a whole other dimension. Sleek as a mink and layer-cut in the latest style, Nikki’s hair gleamed. Today, the fashionista sister wore eggplant heels as high as the biography stacks. Carrie’s back hurt to look at them. No matter how hard she’d tried in high school, she’d never been able to pull off the beauty-queen look.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Taking me out to lunch or jumping off into the deep to actually read something besides Fashion and Fad magazine?”
Nikki ignored the jab.
“Wasn’t this weekend at Peach Orchard Inn fun?” Her sister leaned an elbow on the circulation desk.
“Except for the tornado.”
Nikki rolled luminous brown eyes. “Don’t be a ninny. I slept right through it.”
“Two glasses of wine will do that to you.”
“Three, but who’s counting.”
