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“Son, I’m glad to see you.” His mother offered him an embrace, a good deal more restrained than Theresa’s. “Dinner is ready. Let’s sit down.”
The formal dining room, with its elegantly carved wainscoting, crown molding and woodwork, had inspired Adam’s own building efforts. But the antique mahogany table and his assigned chair—immediately to his father’s right—had been the setting for some of the most painful moments in his life.
He took his seat and dragged in a deep breath, glanced down and found his hand clenched on his thigh again. Phoebe’s voice came to him. Relax.
Adam tried. “S-smells g-great, M-Mother.”
Cynthia smiled. “Thank you. Your great-grandmother’s recipe for roast never fails.” She looked down the length of the table to her husband at the other end. “Shall we say grace?”
The four of them bowed their heads as his dad prayed. Then there was all the passing of dishes and carving of meat to occupy their attention, but Adam knew his moment was coming. His mother arranged her battle plans with the efficiency of a four-star general.
Sure enough, she attacked halfway through the meal. “Adam, the news you gave your father Wednesday night was surprising, to say the least. You filed papers with the board of elections to run for mayor of New Skye?”
He settled for one clear word. “Yes.”
“You didn’t think this was a matter for discussion with your family?”
That answer called for more than one word. “I’m s-still p-planning, M-Mother. I w-wanted t-to w-wait until the s-s-situation was s-set.” He was clenching his fist again, dammit.
“Your father says he suggested you reconsider. Have you?”
“N-no.”
Cynthia gazed at him, then set her fork down and folded her hands together on the edge of the table. “Adam, dear, as your family, we are patient with your…difficulty. We love you and we understand. But how can you campaign for public office? What chance do you have of actually winning? You’ll never be understood, or even listened to. As mayor, you would have many ceremonial public duties. How could you possibly execute those responsibilities, given your…challenges?”
In his head, Adam heard a line from an old TV commercial. He said the words almost in unison with the memory. “We th-thank you for your support.”
“I think we have fully supported you in your endeavors. Your father loaned you the money to start your business—”
Preston held up a hand. “Which the boy has paid back. With interest.”
His wife nodded. “Of course. I’m only concerned about the reception you’ll receive from the public, Adam. Crowds can be most unkind. I hate to see you exposing yourself to that kind of ridicule when it’s not necessary.”
“I-I think i-it i-is n-n-necess-sary.” Adam loosened his fist yet again. “D-Dad and I talked about this at your b-b-birthday d-d-dinner. This town n-needs honest l-leaders. I’m tired of c-c-corrupt g-government. S-since I’m the one w-with the c-complaint, I’m the one d-d-doing s-someth-thing about it.” By the end of the speech, his fist was pounding against his thigh. He uncurled his fingers enough to pick up his napkin and place it on the table. “Excuse m-me, p-p-please. I have to g-go n-n-now.”
The other three stood as he got to his feet. Preston put a hand on his arm. “Son, don’t leave mad. Let’s talk this over.”
“Sit down, Adam,” his mother commanded. “We haven’t finished talking. I have not given you permission to leave.”
But whatever his failings, he wasn’t a little boy anymore and he didn’t take orders, even from his mother. Adam shook his head and left the dining room. Theresa followed. “You can’t leave me here alone with them,” she whispered in his ear. “Mother will start on why I’m not married.”
With the front door open, he turned back and gave her a sympathetic smile. “N-nobody’s p-p-perfect.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek. “G-good luck.”
“Jerk.” But she grinned as she said it.
By the time he reached the truck, he’d taken off his jacket and tie and rolled back his shirtsleeves. Without thinking too much about the decision, he put the engine in gear, abandoned the perfectly groomed neighborhood he’d grown up in and headed south. To Swallowtail Farm.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SOUND OF A VEHICLE coming up her gravel driveway startled Phoebe, since the only guests she expected were already here. When she recognized Adam’s truck, she was doubly surprised.
They’d had another intense session Friday night, with Adam getting increasingly frustrated over what he perceived as a lack of progress. She’d battled her own frustration, as well, trying to maintain complete objectivity when it would be so terribly easy to step over the line between therapist and friend.
Or more. In fact, she’d been wondering if she should recommend that he see Jenna instead of herself for therapy. Happily married and the mother of a new baby, Jenna wouldn’t be so sensitive to her client’s every reaction.
Adam got out of the truck, and Phoebe met him halfway between the drive and the riding ring. The dogs stayed behind, in the shade of an apple tree, instead of following her as they usually would. They knew they would not be wanted.
“S-sorry t-to j-just d-d-drop in,” Adam said, before she could even say hello. “I-I-I d-d-didn’t r-realize y-you had c-c-company unt-til I-I’d almost r-reached th-the h-house.” His face was tight, his fist clenched.
“I’m glad to see you, whether I have company or not.” Taking a risk, Phoebe put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “We’re just having fun with the horses. Come watch.” She caught his right fist with her left hand and led him toward the ring, hoping the physical contact would help him relax. Or so she told herself.
As they got close, Dixon Bell eased Cristal to a halt in front of them. “Hey, DeVries, what brings you out? Good to see you.” He leaned down and reached out to shake Adam’s hand, which Phoebe reluctantly let go.
“You t-two kn-know each other?” Adam glanced at her in question.
“Cristal and Brady belong to Dixon. He boards them with me and comes out to ride most weekends.” She looked from one man to the other. “Now it’s my turn to ask…y’all are friends?”
“Went to high school together,” Dixon explained, soothing Cristal as she protested having to stand still. “And every grade before that, come to think of it. Kate, too,” he said, referring to his fiancé, who was bringing Brady slowly around the ring toward them. “DeVries and I play basketball together Saturday mornings with some of the other guys from our class.”
“I g-give him s-some help remodeling his house f-f-from time to time. And p-plan to d-dance at his w-wedding.” Adam nodded at Dixon. “F-from th-the way you handle th-that h-horse, I’d say you’ve sp-spent s-some t-time in th-the saddle in your day.” His stutter had diminished a bit as he became more relaxed.
Dixon grinned. “An hour here and there.” He had, Phoebe knew from Kate, worked on a ranch out west for a number of years before coming back home to New Skye.
Kate brought Brady to a stop nearby. “Hi, Adam, how are you? I’d lean down for a kiss, but I’m not sure my balance is that good.”
He gave her his wonderful smile. “I’ll take a rain check. Sh-show m-me what y-you can d-do.”
For another thirty minutes or so, Phoebe and Adam stood at the fence to watch Kate and Dixon work. To be accurate, Adam watched the riders and Phoebe divided her time between the horses and the man at her side. He was now more at ease than she’d ever seen him, which meant he felt very comfortable with Dixon and Kate.
And me? Phoebe wondered, wishing she didn’t care quite so much. What trauma had brought him this far out of town on a Sunday evening? Why in the world had he come to her, of all people?
She kept her questions to herself and the four of them chatted as Dixon and Kate untacked and cooled down their horses. The men brought flakes of alfalfa hay and buckets of grain rations to the pasture while Kate and Phoebe leaned on the fence to talk.
“New Skye can be a very small world,” Kate said, watching Adam dump grain into the different feed dishes. “How did you meet Adam?”
Phoebe hesitated. Did he want even his good friends to know he was undergoing speech therapy?
Kate was quick enough to spare her the choice. “Ah…I understand. Never mind. I didn’t ask. I’m glad to see him out here, though. He works too hard and spends too much time alone. I think you and your farm could be really good for Adam.” Kate belonged to another of New Skye’s prominent families, the Bowdreys. The Bells held a similar position, and Dixon was also related to the Crawfords, including Tommy, who was a cousin. Kate had explained some of the connections to Phoebe, along with tidbits about the DeVries clan.
“He does seem to relax when he comes out.” She felt better, having Kate’s approval. “Would you and Dixon mind if I invited him to join us for dinner?”
Kate laughed. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
When asked, Adam tried to beg off, of course. “I-I d-don’t want to intr-trude.”
Dixon threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, right. We’re all just putting up with you to be polite. And your punishment is rabbit food.”
Adam looked at Phoebe. “R-rabbit food?”
“Phoebe’s a vegetarian,” Kate said, with a severe frown in her fiancé’s direction. “This is the one meal in a week I can convince Dixon to forgo meat.”
“And, man, it’s tough. But Phoebe fixes pretty good rabbit food, so I manage to make it all the way back to town before I need a burger.”
Phoebe punched Dixon in the side as she stalked toward the house. “You’ll eat those words. I guarantee it.”
“No way.”
“Want to bet?”
“Sure. What’re the stakes?”
“If you aren’t stuffed to the gills after this dinner, I’ll grill you a two-pound steak next time you’re out here.”
Dixon grinned. “And if I am?”
“You have to sing for me after dessert.”
He pretended to consider. “Mighty high stakes there, ma’am. But you’re on.”
As they sat on the screened porch after the meal, with a warm breeze occasionally tilting the flames of the candles on the table, Dixon groaned. “I give in, Phoebe. You win. I didn’t know jambalaya could taste so good without meat.”
She stuck her tongue out at him even as she reached to the floor beside her chair and handed him the guitar waiting there. “Told you so. Now, pay up.”
Dixon looked over to Adam. “What’ll it be?”
“It’s n-not m-my b-bet.”
“Aw, come on, help me out here. How about ‘Crazy’?”
Adam sighed and shook his head. “G-give m-me an intro.”
Phoebe looked from one man to the other, not sure what was happening. Dixon played a jazzy set of chords, and Adam sat forward. The next thing she knew, Adam’s voice eased into the twilight, crooning the old country song in a smooth, stutter-free baritone. Adam DeVries could sing. Boy, could he sing. She felt like a puddle of melted chocolate by the time he’d reached the final phrase.
Between them, the guys produced an amazing reel of tunes, from romantic to rowdy, while she sat and marveled at their combined talent. “You two are incredible,” she said when the music came to an end. “I had no idea either of you was this good.”
Adam shrugged and Dixon grinned. “Just a couple of good ol’ boys, pickin’ and hummin’.”
“Right.” Dixon wrote songs for a living, among them some of the most popular recordings on the charts. “Can I make a request?”
“Do we know it?”
“Doesn’t everybody? I’d like to hear ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’”
Dixon started the chords, but Adam stirred in his chair. “That’s a s-s-sad one.”
Kate leaned forward to put her hand on his. “I’ve never heard you sing it. Please?”
With a tilt of his head, Adam gave in. On this song, Dixon joined in with harmony. Phoebe felt tears gather, and fall, as the two men sang the day into night with Hank Williams’s poignant words.
A long silence followed the final notes. Finally, Phoebe wiped her eyes. There weren’t words to describe how she felt. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” With a squeeze of Kate’s fingers, Dixon propped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “The kids will be home in about an hour, so I guess we’d better get there to meet them.” Kate’s children had spent the weekend with her ex-husband and their father, L. T. LaRue.
Adam stood, as well, evidently prepared to take his own leave. Phoebe smothered her disappointment. She’d been hoping he would stay for a while and give her a chance to ask what had been bothering him when he arrived.
By luck or by his intent, Adam did stay to see Dixon and Kate drive away and only then turned to her with his own goodbye. “I-it’s b-been n-nice. Th-thanks for letting m-me stay.”
“You’re more than welcome. I wondered what h-had upset you. Why you c-came out.” Her tension was bringing back her own stutter.
Adam didn’t seem to notice. He shoved his fists into his pockets and looked away. “W-went to d-d-dinner at m-my p-p-parents’, who are p-p-pissed that I didn’t t-talk the c-campaign over with them f-first. They implied I was s-sure to lose, and I g-got p-pissed, too.”
Phoebe kept her indignation to herself. “I would think so. There’s no reason you can’t win this election.”
“M-my d-d-difficulty, as m-my m-m-mother calls it, w-will g-get in the way.”
“So we’ll work on that. I think you can do it.” Phoebe put her hand on his bare wrist, desperately trying to ignore the warmth of his tanned skin against her palm.
Adam brought his hand to her cheek. “Wh-when I’m out h-here, s-so d-do I. I g-guess that’s why I came. You help me believe.” He gazed at her for a long moment, and his touch lightened, as if he were about to step away. Suddenly, though, he tilted her face up with his palm and gave her a smile. “You’re s-something sp-special, Phoebe Moss.”
He was going to kiss her. That would be heaven…and a complete disaster.
She backed away from him, turning toward the pasture as if the horses had made a noise she had to check out. “The singing…you know, quite a large percentage of people who stutter can sing clearly.”
“That’s what I’ve read.”
“You could use that as you practice—sing the words instead of saying them, gradually working to decrease the tune and simply talk.” Keeping her own words clear was a challenge tonight—she felt herself falling into the stutter. Eyes on the horses, Phoebe focused on staying relaxed.
“I’ll work on that.”
“So you’ll be here T-Tuesday night? Seven-thirty?” Still, she didn’t look at him.
After a long silence, Adam cleared his throat. “C-count on it. I-I’ll l-lock the g-gate.” His footsteps crunched on the gravel drive, his truck door squeaked open and slammed shut.
At that sound, she felt safe to look over, and she watched until his taillights disappeared in the dark.
ADAM FIGURED PHOEBE WOULD have finished dinner when he arrived Tuesday evening, so he stopped by the Carolina Diner for something to eat before driving out of town. Unlike last week, business was slow, and Abby came out right away with his iced tea.
“F-fried ch-chicken,” he told her. “I’m f-feeling tr-traditional t-tonight. With m-mashed potatoes and gr-green beans.”
“The perfect Southern dinner,” she agreed. “You want white and dark meat, right?”
“R-right.”
She nodded and made a note on her pad, then leaned her hip against the opposite side of the booth. “I hadn’t heard until today that you’d decided to run for mayor.”
“Y-you m-must’ve been the l-last one to find out.”
Her brown eyes crinkled as she laughed. “Not easy keeping secrets in this town. I just wanted to say I’m proud of you. We could use somebody with a sense of decency running New Skye for a change.” A car door slammed outside and she glanced through the window. “Damn. Speak of the devil. I’ll get your meal. You—” she poked a finger into his shoulder “—stay out of trouble.”
