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“You should have heard the little weasel.” Zander grimaced. “Kid should be an actor. He spread honey on her like she was his own personal biscuit. Ninety-three percent of it pure baloney, if you ask me.”
“But I didn’t.” Susannah tightened her voice. “I didn’t ask either of you. It’s my decision.”
Zander growled under his breath, like a fussy old hound. “You do remember what he did at the Clayton place, don’t you? You remember he walked away from a sick horse, didn’t care whether the animal lived or died? You remember Trent had to fire him?”
“She remembers.” Trent’s smile was gone. In its place was cool speculation. “Is that part of the appeal, Susannah? Do you think it would be fun to tweak my nose a bit?”
It might be fun, she thought, to see if she could slap that insufferable arrogance off his face. But she gritted her teeth and braided her hands behind her back. Her famous self-control was the only thing that kept Zander from quitting. She’d heard him say it was beneath him to work for a woman, but Ms. Everly didn’t really act like one, so he didn’t mind too much.
She lifted her chin. “As I’ve pointed out before, Trent, not everything I do is about you.”
But he just grinned again, and her palms itched. How did he do this to her? Why couldn’t she learn to be immune to his snarky comments and his laughing eyes?
She had been vacillating about Eli, but suddenly her mind was made up.
She moved to the door, opened it, then turned to her foreman. “Hire him. Ask him if he has a brother, an uncle, a dog. Hire them all.”
“Dumb decision,” Zander muttered. “You’ll regret it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Trent said pleasantly. Susannah had let the door begin to fall shut, so she almost missed the rest of the comment.
But his words were loud enough to follow her, like a dart finding its bull’s eye.
“Our Susannah’s a clever woman, Zan. Trust me. If she regrets it, she can always find a way to wriggle out of it.”
CHAPTER THREE
AT THREE O’CLOCK that afternoon, Trent knocked at the baby blue door of a little white cottage over in Darlonsville.
“Trent!” Peggy Archer held out her hand. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed momentarily speechless. “I didn’t expect to see you today. Shouldn’t you be with…her?”
Trent sensed the trembling in her fingers and squeezed them reassuringly. “I’ve had a date with you every Saturday afternoon for five years now, Peggy. Marriage isn’t going to change that.”
She nodded slowly. “Especially that marriage.”
“Not any marriage. You told me your satellite dish is broken. I know you can’t live without your Sunday night football.”
He smiled, aware that Peggy never watched sports on TV, but hoping to distract her from the subject of Susannah. It was a sore one in this house.
Long ago, when they were kids, Peggy’s son Paul had been part of the inseparable quartet, the Fugitive Four. Trent, Chase and Susannah had all been Peggy’s surrogate children, eating her corn dogs and hot chili every summer afternoon at the Bull’s Eye ranch, the ten-thousand-acre Archer homestead.
But then, eleven years ago, a quarrel between Trent and Susannah had escalated into tragedy, and Peggy’s son, Paul, had ended up dead. It had been about ninety-nine percent Trent’s fault, and it had taken him years to find the courage to come back to Texas and face what he’d done.
Facing Peggy had been the toughest. But little by little, she had forgiven him and let him slip into the role of surrogate son once more. Oddly, as the years had gone on, she had ended up blaming Susannah the most.
When Trent had told her about the one-year marriage, the news had seemed to distress her out of all proportion. Trent had assumed it had been because of Paul, but he wondered now if Peggy had simply feared she’d lose Trent’s weekly visit.
Darn it. Foolishly, he’d taken for granted that she would understand. He’d never stop coming to see her, not as long as she needed him.
His debt to her was eternal. It would never be paid.
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Hey. Don’t I get invited in?”
“Of course, but—” She glanced over her shoulder as she backed away from the door. “I thought you weren’t coming, so—”
Just at that moment, her ex-husband, Harrison Archer, ambled in from the kitchen, muttering under his breath and studying the bracket that ordinarily held the satellite dish up on the roof.
Harrison was a balding, Texas-sized good old boy with a chest as round and barrel-shaped as any of his steers. At his heels trailed his son Sean, who at eight years old already looked shockingly like Paul. Both sons from Harrison’s second marriage did. It was the red hair, mostly. Harrison’s new wife, Nora, was half Peggy’s age, but otherwise could have been her clone—same fiery hair, petite body and smart hazel eyes.
Everyone knew what Harrison was doing when he married Nora, only two years after Paul’s death. He was doubling back to square one and starting over. Or trying to. But in spite of the healthy new sons and the pretty wife, there was still something dead in his eyes that made Trent uncomfortable whenever their gazes met.
“Trent. Thank God you’re here.” Harrison held up the bracket. “I can’t figure this blame thing out to save my life. And Sean has a game tonight. All right if I let you take over?”
“Sure.” Trent smiled at Harrison and then at Sean, who was a cute kid, gangly in his miniature polyester Red Sox uniform. “Hi, kiddo.”
“Sean is pitching today,” Harrison said in his deepest proud-father voice, his chest expanding subtly, stretching the buttons of his five-hundred-dollar denim shirt.
Trent wasn’t sure how to respond. For starters, he couldn’t believe the man had brought Sean here suited up like this, like the ghost of Paul. Mentioning the pitching was almost unbelievably insensitive.
But the kid looked excited, so Trent couldn’t just ignore it. “Oh, yeah? Cool.”
Sean grinned. “I’m working on my knuckleball. Dad says I’m getting pretty good.”
Instinctively, Trent shot a glance at Peggy. Once, Paul had pitched for the high school team. He’d been good—almost great. A&M had offered him a full scholarship. But at the very moment when he should have been reporting for practice, he’d been lying in a hospital bed.
Burned over seventy percent of his body.
Dying.
And now Harrison was teaching the famous Archer knuckleball to this freckle-faced replacement son. Peggy stared at the wall, apparently determined not to look at Sean. Her cheeks were pale, her hazel eyes ominously glassy. Trent’s shoulders tightened. It was like torture, rubbing salt in a wound that already refused to heal.
“I need to sit down.” Peggy let go of Trent’s hand and led the way into the small blue-and-white living room.
Her limp was worse this week, Trent noticed. She must be in a lot of pain. Though only in her early fifties, she moved like a woman of ninety. Her hip replacement surgery was scheduled for July, a long six weeks from now. She was dreading it, but Trent privately hoped it would give her a sort of fresh start, too.
Harrison set the bracket down on the coffee table, not bothering to hide his eagerness to escape. “So, you can handle this alone, right? It’s not that big a job, and we probably should hit the road. Nora gets out of Pilates at four, and she needs to shower before the game.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Trent repressed the urge to shake the older man. Was he doing this deliberately? Why would he mention Nora’s daily exercise class, when his ex-wife could barely walk?
As if Peggy didn’t already know that a heartbroken, postmenopausal arthritic could never hold a candle to the buoyant young wife who waited for Harrison at home.
“Good. Well, then, we’ll be going.” Harrison looked over at Peggy, who had lowered herself into a white rocker and picked up her knitting, as if to say, Yes, I’m a middle-aged woman, and I don’t care. “Goodbye, then, Peg.”
“Bye, Peggy,” Sean echoed politely. “Thanks for having me.”
She didn’t look up from her yarn. “Goodbye.”
The word was so cold it sent a small gust of frigid air out into the room. Bristling, Harrison drew his eyebrows together. He handed his son the car keys and whispered something. Sean nodded and headed toward the front stairs.
As soon as the door shut behind the boy, Harrison turned and glared at his ex-wife. “None of this is Sean’s fault, you know,” he said gruffly.
She kept knitting. Her fingers looked almost as white as the yarn.
“Damn it, Peggy. You could be a little nicer to him.”
She finally looked up. “No. As a matter of fact, Harry, I couldn’t. Don’t ever bring that boy into my house again.”
Harrison made a sharp move forward, but Trent threw out his arm. He’d seen the Archer temper all too often in the old days. Back then, he’d been too young, too intimidated by the Archer acres, to know what he should do about it.
But he knew now.
“Hey,” he said. “Easy.”
The older man’s chest pushed against Trent’s forearm, as if he might put up a fight. His breath came harsh and heavy. They stood that way about ten seconds, with Harrison clearly struggling for composure.
Finally he eased back an inch or two. He transferred his glare to Trent. “I need to talk to you, son,” he said. “Outside.”
Trent didn’t much like the autocratic tone, but he very much liked the idea of getting the agitated man away from Peggy. He nodded and followed Harrison through the door and onto the front porch.
“Bitch,” Harrison muttered as the door shut behind him. Trent ignored it, but he placed himself between the older man and the entry, just in case.
“You said you wanted to talk to me?”
Harrison took one last deep breath, and ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It’s just that even after all these years, she can still get my goat. She’s stuck in the past, Trent. Damn it, I loved Paul, too, but I have to get on with my life, don’t I? And she hates me for it.”
“Maybe she just hates having your new life thrown in her face.”
Harrison’s fleshy cheeks reddened. “Thrown in her face? Look, I didn’t choose to come here. She called me. She said she needed help. And look what it turned out to be! The damn television set!”
Trent didn’t bother to try to make Harrison understand how important television could be to someone as lonely as Peggy. Empathy wasn’t the man’s strong suit.
“Well, I’m here now, so you’re off the hook. Take Sean to the game and forget about it.”
“It’s ridiculous, anyhow.” Harrison glanced toward the house with distaste. “Why the hell didn’t she just hire someone to fix it? God knows the allowance I give her is big enough.”
Trent’s jaw was so tight he could hardly get words out. “I think she likes the company. Half the time when I come over, she tells me to forget the repairs. She just wants to sit and talk.”
Harrison laughed. “What? You think she just likes to hang out with you? Don’t kid yourself, son. She’s using you. She knows you’ve got a guilty conscience, so she plays on it.”
Trent had heard enough. “You know, I think it’s time for you to go.”
To his surprise, the edict didn’t seem to inflame the older man’s tinderbox temper. Instead, Harrison’s face softened, as if swept by a sudden and rare compassion. “You really care about her, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Poor kid.” Harrison rested his meaty hand gently on Trent’s shoulder. “I know you think you can make it up to her. But you can’t. It’s too big, what happened.”
Trent shrugged. “Maybe. I come because I like to. That’s all.”
“Okay.” Harrison nodded, but he chewed on the inside of his cheek as if something troubled him. “Still…you need to watch your step, son. Because I promise you this. Deep down inside where nobody sees, that woman hates you.”
* * *
THOUGH MONDAY was only Eli Breslin’s first day, by midafternoon Susannah was guardedly pleased with his performance. During the lunch break, when Zander and Susannah had gone over business in the foreman’s office, even the older man had grudgingly admitted that, so far, the boy took instruction meekly and worked hard.
Maybe too hard. Mid-May in Central Texas could be cool, but summer was sneaking in early this year, and temperatures were already hitting eighty.
When Susannah drove the flatbed out to see how the tree thinning was coming along, she caught a glimpse of Eli, leaning against the bright yellow shaking machine, dirty and sweaty and shirtless. He held a plastic water bottle above his head and was letting its contents pour over his upturned face and run glistening down his sunburned chest.
For the first time, Susannah could sort of see why Nikki had fallen for him. He did have that hunky blond surfer boy thing going on big-time.
And that had always been Nikki’s type.
Susannah, on the other hand, had always been fatally drawn to the black-haired, blue-eyed dangerous devil thing. So when this sweaty young sexpot smiled wetly over at her, the only thing she felt was mild anxiety. He was so fair-skinned…would that mean he was susceptible to heatstroke?
A sudden pang pierced just under her ribs. She wished that things could have been different. If only she and Nikki could have been normal sisters. If only they could have laughed about boys, shared secrets, conspired to hide mischief from their parents. Instead, because their mother and father had died when Susannah was fifteen, and Nikki only a toddler, Susannah had been forced into the role of surrogate mother.
How Nikki had hated it, all these years. She had no idea that Susannah had hated it, too. But she did—she hated the injustice of it. They’d both been cheated of their parents. But they’d also been cheated of each other. Even after Nikki passed through adolescence, they would probably never have the tight friendship that real sisters should have.
Susannah squeezed her eyes, as if she could squeeze away the self-pity. She didn’t have time to lament tragedies that had happened so long ago. She couldn’t change the past. All she could hope was that maybe she could keep the present and future from capsizing, too.
Suddenly, Zander was at Susannah’s elbow, wiping a dirty rag across his own sweaty face. “Little brat broke the shaking machine.”
“What?”
Susannah looked again toward Eli and realized belatedly that the machine should not have been silent and still. It should have been roaring and grumbling away, moving among the trees, grabbing trunks with its tail-like pincers, and jostling dime-sized peaches from branches like a blush-colored rain.
She sniffed, and finally she smelled it—the stench of steam and burning rubber wafting through the orchard, a dark undercurrent below the sweetness of the fruit-littered ground.
Eli seemed to think she was staring at him, because he smiled again, carving dimples into his cheeks. He pointed the empty water bottle toward the shaking machine, then used it to draw an imaginary line across his throat.
The message was clear. The machine was dead. And Eli thought it was mildly amusing.
Well, he could afford to consider this a little gift from the go-home-early gods, but Susannah wanted to cuss. It could take days to get it repaired. And now that every fruit grower in central Texas was in the throes of thinning season, where would she be able to borrow another one in the meantime?
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Zander muttered. “I knew all this perfect employee crap was just an act.”
“It’s not Eli’s fault.” Somehow Susannah kept her voice cool. “It broke on you last year, too, Zander. It’s just old. We need a new one.”
“We can’t afford a new one.”
She slapped her work gloves into the palm of her hand, trying to hold back the retort that sprang to her lips. Of course she knew they couldn’t afford one. If they hadn’t been in dire straits, did Zander think she would have sold herself into a year of matrimonial bondage?
“Maybe,” she said, “Chase will loan us his.”
“Yes. You should ask Trent about it ASAP.” Zander frowned. “Where is he, anyhow? Haven’t seen him around all weekend.”
That was, of course, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Where was her brand-new husband? He had slept at Everly every night, she knew that. That first night he’d used the sofa, but after that he’d confiscated her grandfather’s bedroom. He came in late, then left again early in the morning.
