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And that was more important than his family’s welfare? “I’d like to be able to set your mind at ease,” Noah said, putting aside his anger and disgust, “but you’re the only one who can do that.”
“We’ve worked long and hard to get this far and it don’t sit right just giving up.”
Noah shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. If you don’t sell, someone else will.”
The man still hesitated.
“Mr. Gardner, I know how you feel.”
“You got no idea—”
“Yes, I do.” Noah tried to tell himself this was about business and nothing else, but it was too late for that. “I grew up on a farm like this,” he said. “My father didn’t have the money to buy cattle, so we worked, harder and harder every year, trying to get a decent cash crop in a state where winter lasts eight months of the year and spring and fall make up the other four.” And the worse things got, the more often he’d felt the back of his old man’s hand. Then after his mother died…
He’d gone a long way to forget those years. There was no point in remembering them now. “I know you want better for your family, Mr. Gardner. That’s not going to happen as long as you stay here, and we both know it.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, both of them taken aback by how much it mattered to Noah, and not just because he wanted the property.
“I know I’m being stubborn, son, but—”
“Do you think another chance like this is going to come along? Ever?”
Gardner took a deep breath, let it out. “When you put it that way…”
The farmer held out his hand. Noah shook it, but the relief he felt had nothing to do with getting the job done. “You should have a lawyer check that purchase agreement over before you sign it,” he said.
“Hell, Bryant, you seem trustworthy.”
Noah countersigned the paperwork, thinking a lot of people made the mistake of thinking he wasn’t trustworthy, but one of the first lessons he’d learned was to look out for number one. The second lesson was that by the time somebody had stabbed him in the back, it was too late to do anything about it. Little by little he’d adopted an offensive strategy toward life—he never purposely hurt anyone, but if someone got in his way, he didn’t waste his energy on regrets.
The Gardners, however, had nothing to worry about; the purchase agreement was aboveboard and soon they’d be on their way to a new life. It wouldn’t take much to be an improvement over this one, Noah thought, as he stepped outside.
The main house was mostly gray, with white paint still clinging to the weathered wood in enough places to give it a strange mottled appearance. The barn listed badly to one side and the other outbuildings weren’t much better, including one Noah would’ve sworn was an outhouse. The Gardners followed him, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner looking eerily like the couple in the painting American Gothic with Mr. Gardner clutching the purchase agreement instead of a pitchfork.
Noah climbed into his car and started it, savoring the smell of leather and his own aftershave, the coolness of the air-conditioning on his face and the comfort of the seat, with its built-in heat and lumbar support, beneath him. He felt more at ease—not because of the luxury that surrounded him, but because the world could do with one less place like this. Even if some of the people hereabouts lamented its loss, at least the Gardner children would benefit.
He bumped and jounced down the potholed driveway, along the slightly smoother two-mile stretch of dirt road that led to the main gravel road, and finally to the two-lane highway, a straight and unforgiving line of blacktop that stretched to the mountains behind him and the horizon in front. He heard the throaty purr of the Porsche’s engine, felt the rumble of it through his seat and saw the landscape passing by the car windows, yet he felt like he was going nowhere.
Two weeks ago he’d known exactly who he was and where he was going, and his world had been what he made it. He’d been a man without a past, at least as far as anyone he knew in Los Angeles was concerned. His friends had learned not to ask him about his childhood; he only made jokes, or if they pushed him, gave answers that were vague at best. And the women he dated weren’t really interested in the past—or the future, for that matter. He made very sure of that.
Now, here he was, stepping right back into the life he’d managed to escape. And he’d done it willingly, not to mention arrogantly, certain he could walk in his own footsteps without any consequences. Hah. How deluded had he been to think that? And he wasn’t talking about the stroll he’d just taken through the worst moments of his childhood.
He was talking about the best moments. All of which revolved around Janey.
She’d saved him from everything, the travesty of his family, from closed minds and unsympathetic authority figures, from his own self-destructive tendencies. At a point in his life when he was the town outsider, when almost no one in Erskine accepted him, Janey had. It was that simple.
And when she’d needed him, where had he been? Where was he now? Still focused on his career, his future, his own wants.
Sure, he’d called her house twice in the two weeks since he’d discovered he had a daughter. Both times she and Jessie had been gone and he’d left messages, grateful they weren’t there to ask questions while resenting the fact that he felt obliged to check in with her at all.
He gunned the engine, watched the speedometer notch up to seventy, a foolish speed to be traveling on a backcountry road where a cow or a slow-moving tractor could be over the next hill. He didn’t slow down, even when he passed the turnoff for Erskine. He wasn’t ready to go back there yet. Besides, Jessie didn’t want him around, anyway; she’d made that perfectly clear.
SPRING IN ERSKINE. There was no better season, Janey decided, and no better place to spend it than her hometown.
Erskine didn’t change from year to year, the same old buildings, the same mountains and pastures and hay meadows, but in the spring it always seemed…newer, fresher. People opened windows to let in the breeze off the mountains, a breeze so crisp and clean it slipped into corners and swept through shadows, and left them brighter somehow. The winter’s accumulation of dirt and dead leaves had been banished from the doorways, window boxes had been filled with geraniums and impatiens, and planters hung from eaves, dripping with ivy and crowded with glossy-leaved begonias.
It was such a beautiful day that she’d left her car at home and walked to the school for her afternoon art classes. She really should have taken Jessie directly home after school; she had a hundred tasks to complete, grades to tally for final report cards, trim to paint. Phone messages to listen to…
She looked down at her daughter and decided there wasn’t any rush to get home. Two weeks had passed since Noah had left with a promise that he’d be back. Two weeks and two phone messages, they still hadn’t seen him. As the days continued to add up, facing the answering machine each evening had become a real challenge. If the message light was blinking, it meant Noah couldn’t make it again. If there was no message, it was even worse.
No one else in town knew about Noah’s visit, a kind of unspoken agreement between mother and daughter not to bring up a subject sure to inspire gossip they didn’t want to hear and questions they couldn’t answer. But Jessie wouldn’t talk to her about Noah, either, and that worried Janey.
“Clary’s truck is at the sheriff’s office,” Jessie said. “Can I go say hi?”
“Absolutely. Tell him hi for me, too.”
“You could tell him yourself.”
Janey considered doing just that, for all of ten seconds. The hope on Jessie’s face held her back.
Deputy Sheriff Clarence Beeber was not only Jessie’s fishing buddy and good friend, he was the closest thing she had to a father. But it wasn’t any secret that he wanted to be her father for real one day. It was Janey who was taking her sweet time. And she let them think that, because, honestly, she didn’t know what else to do.
She didn’t want to string Clary along, but she’d always been afraid of what it might mean for Jessie if she told him outright that they’d never be more than friends. So Janey walked a fine line between not encouraging Clary, but not discouraging him so much it became uncomfortable for him to see Jessie. Walking that line was even more important now, when the last thing her daughter needed was more change in her life.
“I have about a million things to do, Jessie, but you go on ahead. Just be home for supper.”
Jessie headed off, dragging her feet, nothing like her usual upbeat self. Janey knew Clary would cheer her up, though, and in the meantime, she’d go home and weed or wash windows. Whatever kept her hands occupied and her mind off Noah Bryant.
“Hey there, Janey,” Earl Tilford called out as she turned the corner onto Main Street and passed the bakery.
Janey backpedaled a couple of steps and stuck her head in the wide-open doorway. “How’s it going, Mr. Tilford?”
“I was about to ask you that. I heard Bryant’s in town.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Came by way of the usual sources.”
Which meant Dory Shasta, wife of Mike Shasta, owner of the Ersk Inn. If the Ersk Inn was the town watering hole, Dory Shasta was a prospector who spent all her spare time panning for little nuggets of information that she used to her best advantage. In Erskine, gossip was currency.
There was no telling how Dory had found out. Mrs. Halliwell might have seen Noah outside her house two weeks ago, or maybe somebody had recognized him when he gassed up on his way out of town. Or he was here now, which not only gave Janey a serious case of butterflies, it made more sense. No way would it have taken two weeks for such a juicy rumor to get around.
This kind of information ran through town like a bad case of the flu. That thought made Janey smile, since in both instances stuff was coming out of people’s mouths that would’ve been better off kept inside. Not that she resented the gossip all that much, even when she was at the center of it. Some people might not appreciate having everyone know their business, but to Janey it felt like being part of a huge, caring family. Being alone in the world and responsible for a daughter was a little less scary in Erskine.
“You being our newly elected mayor and all,” Earl said, “maybe you could make a law against ex-boyfriends who show up every decade or so and cause trouble. I’m sure Clary would be happy to enforce it.”
Janey didn’t quibble with Mr. Tilford’s assumption that Noah was there to cause trouble. Intentional or not, trouble was what he brought. As for the rest of it, “I think I can handle Noah without throwing around my political weight,” she said, tongue firmly tucked in cheek, “or calling in local law enforcement.”
“Well, at the very least, a girl could use a cookie when she’s facing an ordeal like this.” Earl came out from behind the counter and offered her one of the huge cookies—loaded with nuts and chocolate chips—that he was famous for.
“Just the air in here is enough to put ten pounds on me,” Janey protested, but she took the cookie, broke off a piece and slipped it into her mouth. She closed her eyes and let it melt on her tongue, sighing her approval. “Then again, this is worth a couple hundred extra sit-ups.”
“Here’s one for Jessie,” he said, handing her a bakery bag and waving off her thanks. “Knowing you appreciate it is reward enough for getting up at 3:00 a.m. If I was twenty years younger—”
“You’d still marry Meggie and break my heart.”
“You’re right. And my girls would still grow up and leave town.” Earl sighed, but the smile was back on his face by the time he ducked under the pass-through and straightened to look over the counter. “Dee’s stationed in Germany these days, and Andie’s a fancy pastry chef in one of them New York hotels. Meggie’s working on her, but the harder she pushes Andie to come home for a visit, the more stubborn the girl gets. I think Meggie’d be smarter to back off, use that reverse psychology I always hear about, but—” he shrugged “—they’re peas in a pod, one of them just as pigheaded as the other.”
“My money’s on Meg,” Janey said with a smile. Literally. There was a pool down at the Ersk Inn, and Janey had put down her five dollars like everyone else in town. “If Meg can get Andie to visit by the Fourth of July, I’ll have more to thank you for than your cookies.”
She left Earl laughing, stepping out into streaming sunshine and nearly colliding with Sam Tucker. Besides owning one of the biggest ranches around, Sam was also the town veterinarian. As if that wasn’t enough, he was tall and handsome, with a body that belonged on a billboard—the kind that advertised boxers. Or briefs. When Sam was in town, girls sighed and went dreamy, mothers got that wedding glint in their eyes, and fathers made sure their shotguns were loaded with rock salt. Better to chase him off in the first place than deal with the broken heart he always left behind. Sam wasn’t known for monogamy.
Janey had gone out with him once or twice, but she’d been in no danger. Her heart had already been broken before Sam came into the picture.
Sam dropped a kiss on her cheek and plucked the rest of the cookie out of her hand in one smooth motion. “You going to marry me, Janey?”
“Not today,” she teased back, watching the rest of her cookie disappear in two huge bites. “Y’know, Earl sells those right in there.”
Sam craned his head to peer in the open door of the bakery, then gave her the kind of grin he used to charm women out of more than baked goods. “I’ve got a perfectly fine kitchen of my own out at the ranch.”
“Then maybe you should stop flirting with every girl in the state and marry one who can put that kitchen to use.”
“I keep asking you, but you keep turning me down.”
“You keep asking me because you know I’ll turn you down,” Janey said, setting off down the raised wooden walk-way that was a holdover from pioneer days, when the streets were dirt, or mud, and concrete wasn’t a fact of life yet.
Sam laughed, slinging an arm over her shoulder and falling into step with her. “It’s just wrong for a woman to keep this kind of anatomy to herself.” He made a big show of peering over his shoulder.
Janey elbowed him in the side. “Forget my anatomy.”
“Your anatomy is unforgettable. Nobody fills out a pair of jeans the way you do.” Sam faced forward again. “But I should’ve known it was hopeless when I heard Noah Bryant was back in town.”
“When did you hear that?” she asked, knowing she hadn’t managed to sound casual when Sam tightened his grip, turning it into a comforting one-armed hug.
“George Donaldson ran into him in Plains City around lunch today. Said Noah told him he’d be in town on business for a little while.”
“C’mon, Sam, can you believe anything George says?”
“Why would he make it up?”
“Well, it’s George,” was the nicest explanation she could come up with.
“It’s no secret George gets a kick out of winding other people up and then watching them walk into walls, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to make up something like this,” Sam said. “If Max didn’t kick George’s ass, then Noah would. The two of them never got along. I remember one time…”
Janey tuned him out. She didn’t need Sam’s version of history; she’d lived it. “Do you know if he’s in town yet?”
That question earned her another hug. “I don’t know. But here’s Clary. I’ll bet he knows.”
“Knows what?”
Janey looked up just as Clarence Beeber stepped onto the boardwalk, Jessie at his side. His gaze dropped to Sam’s arm, still draped over Janey’s shoulder. Clary didn’t say a word, but Sam took his arm back and put some distance between them.
Janey smiled and shook her head. Even if Sam’s flirting had been more than big talk, he would never have moved in on a woman Clary was interested in. The two had been best friends practically from the womb.
“What am I supposed to know?” Clary asked again.
“Just the latest gossip,” Sam said, glancing at Jessie, all big ears and wide eyes, hanging on every word—spoken and unspoken.
Clary’s face hardened, and Janey knew he’d heard about Noah’s return already. Even if his expression hadn’t given it away, there was no need to guess how he was taking it. Everything about Clary was starched, from his uniform to his personality, and once he made up his mind, there was no changing it. He had very definite ideas of right and wrong, the kind of ideas that could best be described as black and white. As far as he was concerned, Noah had screwed up, and no shades of gray, like youth or ignorance, could mitigate his crime. But Clary would never say as much in front of Jessie. He might apply the law as if it were set in stone, but he did it with compassion—when he felt compassion was warranted.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you’d leave it alone altogether, Clary,” Janey said.
Sam snorted. “You’d have more luck asking old man Winston’s prize bull why he keeps charging with the barbed-wire fence.”
“If you’re done insulting me, Sam, you ought to go on out there and stitch him up again.”
“That’s where I was headed, before I decided to propose to Janey.” Sam winked at her. “She turned me down, Clary. Maybe you should give it a try.”
Clary went red from his collar to his hairline. Sam clapped him on the shoulder and sauntered off in the direction of the vet clinic, laughing the whole way.
“Sam’s just giving you a hard time,” Janey said, turning toward home because the longer she looked at Clary, the more embarrassed he seemed to get, and she didn’t want to be responsible for his head bursting into flame.
He started walking with her, but he kept Jessie between them, the poor kid’s head swiveling back and forth like a tennis court official’s, even though no one was talking. Or maybe because no one was talking. They continued in silence for another block or so before Clary spoke. Janey didn’t miss the fact that Jessie got him going with a nudge.
“Can I, uh, give you and Jessie a ride to the graduation party tomorrow?” he asked.
Since everyone in Erskine and Plains City knew everyone else, they’d decided years ago to have one party each year for the eighth graders graduating from Erskine Elementary and the seniors who’d survived Plains City High School. Sara and Max Devlin didn’t have any actual graduates, but they had a nice, big ranch not too far from either town, and they’d offered to host.
“Jessie and I are going out to Sara’s early to help them set up,” Janey said.
“I think it would be a good idea if I drove the two of you.” Clary looked over at her. “You know,” he said, his eyes dropping to nine-year-old level, then back up. “Just in case.”
“In case of what?” Jessie piped up.
“Just in case,” Janey said to her daughter. “Do me a favor and go on home. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
“You’re going to talk about me, aren’t you?”
“I think we’re going to talk about Noah,” Janey said, giving in to the inevitable.
“That’s still about me. I have a right—”
“You’re nine years old. You don’t have any rights.”
“Janey!”
“Mom…” Jessie said at the same time, making that one word about three syllables long, and loading it with indignation.
“Jessie, you know there are occasions when you get sent out of the room—or sent home, in this instance—so I can talk without having to worry about what I say. Sometimes that conversation will be about you, and sometimes it won’t, but it’s always going to be something I don’t think you’re ready to hear, and stamping your foot and scowling at me won’t change that fact.”
