Читать книгу His Most Important Win - Cynthia Thomason, Cynthia Thomason - Страница 9

Marjorie Benton slid another pancake on top of the stack she’d already layered on Bryce’s plate. “You ready for more bacon?” she asked.

He stared up at her. “Mom, enough. I’ve only been home a few days, and I’ve probably gained five pounds.”

She scooted the syrup bottle closer to him. “It’s Sunday, Brycie. We always have big breakfasts on weekends, remember?”

Bryce sought help from his father who remained hidden behind the newspaper. “So that plate of scrambled eggs and sausage that you brought to me in the wholesale market on Friday morning was a light meal?” he said to her.

Roland Benton covered up a chuckle with a rustle of the sports section.

Marjorie sat at the table next to her son. “It wouldn’t hurt you to put on a few pounds,” she said. “I know you don’t cook for yourself as a bachelor …”

He started to tell her that he was a good cook, even had a recipe box in one of the cartons currently stored in the garage, but figured she’d then tell everyone in town about her son, the kitchen wizard. Probably not the best image for the new football coach to project. Besides he could always tell when his mother was on a roll and knew the futility of trying to stop her.

“… I suspect you haven’t eaten properly in years,” she continued. “I know that woman you were married to didn’t like to cook.” She paused. “Or keep a clean house.”

Bryce smiled around a bite of doughy pancake. It wasn’t as if he and that woman had lived in squalor for four years. True, Audrey hadn’t been the domestic type, but she’d made sure the cleaning lady showed up weekly, so he’d never been able to write his initials in the dust. And she’d mapped out the best take-out restaurants in Lubbock, so when he didn’t feel like cooking for the two of them, they’d never gone hungry. Housekeeping issues hadn’t been what broke them up.

Marjorie raised one finger in the air. “But …”

Bryce swallowed and washed down the pancake with a big gulp of milk. Here it comes.

“I think we should discuss what’s really concerning me this morning,” his mother said. Behind his newspaper, Roland took a long swallow of coffee.

Bryce set down his fork and pushed away his plate. “Mom, do we really need to go over this?”

She tapped a manicured fingernail on the tabletop. “I don’t see why you’re meeting with a real estate agent today, Bryce. Give me one good reason why you’re rushing into this.”

He set his elbows on the table and looked at her. “Mom, would you like to see my driver’s license? It’s proof that I’m thirty-three years old.”

Her spine stiffened. “I know how old you are, Bryce. I was there the day you were born.”

“But you haven’t been there every day for the last fifteen years,” he said. “I’m used to living on my own. I need my own place.”

“What’s wrong with your old room?”

“Nothing. It has four sturdy walls, a big window overlooking the back patio, a view of the cornfield and the peach orchards. It’s a paradise.” He took a deep breath. “In fact, I think you and Dad should strip it bare, paint the walls a bright sunny color, move in your sewing machine and cutting table and make it your home hobby center.”

“Really, Bryce! I’m only thinking of you.”

He glanced at the ceiling as if inspiration, and patience, could be found there before covering her hand with his and once again wishing he weren’t an only child. “Mom, I love you. You know that.”

She brushed a strand of blond hair off her forehead and sniffed.

“I want a home—my home—and I want it in this town.”

She pursed her lips a moment. “This is your home, Bryce. What need do your father and I have for this big house?”

“That’s a good question,” he said. “And one for you and Dad to think about. But for now, I’m tired of living in places that, for the last fifteen years, have always seemed like temporary shelters to me. Dorm rooms, apartments, condos. I want a house, a little bit of land, some grass with honest-to-goodness roots that I can fertilize and watch grow. I’ve waited a long time for this opportunity to come my way, and I want those roots in Whistler Creek soil. Soil with my name on the deed.”

Marjorie looked out the sliding glass doors which opened onto a view of acres and acres of rich Benton farmland. “But all this will eventually be your soil, Bryce.”

“Maybe so, Mom, and I look forward to helping Dad when he needs me. But for now …”

Marjorie started to speak, but stopped when Roland suddenly made a show of folding the newspaper and setting it on the table. Roland didn’t say much, but when he did, everyone in the room generally gave him the floor. “He’s a grown man, Marjorie. He’s going to contribute to this community in more ways than just as the heir to Benton Farms.” Roland leaned forward, leveling a steely gray gaze on his wife’s face. “Let him go. What’s a few miles between you and him anyway?”

Marjorie fingered the flowery buttons on her robe before standing to her full, impressive five feet eight inches. She picked up Bryce’s plate and walked to the sink. “Fine,” she snapped, turning the water on full blast.

Bryce sat in the uncomfortable silence for a full minute wondering if he should say something to bridge a gap between his parents which all at once seemed cavernous. And then his father reached across the table for a slice of crisp bacon on a platter. He picked it up and had it halfway to his mouth when Marjorie, the always effective eyes in the back of her head in full operational mode, stormed the table and smacked his hand. “Don’t even think about it,” she said, pointing to his chest as if his heart had ears.

Roland dropped the bacon, gave his son a little smile and picked up his newspaper.

Bryce stood in the middle of a stand of live oak trees and looked at the front of the weathered clapboard house he’d just toured. Turning to the real estate agent he’d hired, he said, “I can’t believe how many times I’ve driven this road, Lisa, seen this driveway, but never really knew what was back here behind all these trees.”

“I’m not surprised,” the agent said. “You can’t see the structure from the road.” She consulted notes in her portfolio. “The house was built in 1953 by a Canadian man, Clive Harbin. It’s only had two owners, Clive and his son, who inherited the place and used it as a winter residence since sometime in the ‘80s. The son, whose name is Wyatt, has been unable to make the trip for the last three years, and the house has remained unoccupied all that time. I guess that’s why Wyatt’s kids convinced him to sell.”

Bryce noted the missing shingles, crumbling bricks on the chimney. “It needs work,” he said. “Gutters need to be replaced. The whole house needs painting, inside and out.” Even as he listed the home’s problems, his hands itched to get to work on it. An hour ago, when he’d cleared the narrow, rutted drive and had his first view of the house, he’d fallen in love with its clean, traditional lines. Now he was trying to keep his enthusiasm at a reasonable level so he wouldn’t make a mistake with an offer.

A classic cottage farmhouse, the Realtor had called it. Steep second-story roof, a pair of gabled windows, an inviting porch that extended along the front and wrapped around one side. The inside floor plan met his needs exactly. A big living room with a stone fireplace, nice-size dining room, a kitchen that needed updating but was plenty big enough for a small table and chairs. A master bedroom downstairs with a small bonus room he could use as an office, and two small bedrooms upstairs.

“Let’s walk around back,” the agent suggested. “It says on my specs that the property extends three hundred yards into the wooded area.”

As they made their way around the side of the house, Bryce noted the well and water softener, and a patch of green grass that probably indicated the septic system. The rest of the yard was mostly weeds and overgrown shrubs. “How much total acreage?” he asked when they looked beyond the border of the backyard to a forest of pine, oak and magnolia trees.

“Four-and-a-half acres,” Lisa said, looking down at her shoes. “I’m not going into the woods with you in these new heels, but you go ahead.”

Bryce walked into the thick forest and returned after a few minutes. His mind buzzed with plans. He’d need to hire a backhoe operator to clear the wild shrubs and scrub trees, buy a decent chainsaw and weed eater….

“So what do you think?” she asked. “When you gave me your wish list, I immediately thought of this place.”

“It’s the best of the three we’ve seen,” he said.

“And its location on Fox Hollow Road makes it easily accessible to town.”

And the Campano’s house, Bryce thought. As he was following the agent to this property, he’d passed the home where he’d spent so many happy days growing up. When he’d glanced at the house, his heart had lurched in his chest. For most of his formative years, Bryce had felt as comfortable in the Campano home as he had in his own house. Maybe even more so. He and Ricky and Rosalie had been like siblings, Enzo and Claudia, like second parents.

He’d noticed too, the cars parked at Claudia Campano’s roadside stand. Not surprising that on a beautiful Sunday afternoon folks would be stopping for fresh produce. He hadn’t seen Rosalie. Bryce made up his mind to stop at the stand on his way back down Fox Hollow Road and say hello to Mrs. Campano.

“What do you want to do?” the agent said, breaking into his thoughts. “I’d love to draw up a contract on this house.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “I think it would be perfect for our town’s new football coach.”

“I’ll need to arrange inspections first,” he said. “Check for termites. Check the roof, plumbing and electrical.”

“Of course. But we can make the contract contingent on the inspections coming in satisfactorily.” She tapped a pen on the top of her portfolio. “You don’t want to lose this place by not having your name on the dotted line.”

He smiled. “How many offers have you had on this property since it was listed last year?” he said.

She shrugged. “Admittedly it’s been a slow market.”

Bryce was going to own this house. He felt it in the jangle of excited nerves in the pit of his stomach. “It’s listed at ninety thousand?”

“That’s right.”

“Write up an offer at twenty percent under that price. We’ll see what happens.”

She held out her hand. “Meet me in my office in a half hour. I’ll get the paperwork started.”

Rosalie joined her son and her mother at the produce stand midafternoon on Sunday. “When are your friends picking you up to go to the park?” she asked Danny.

He checked his watch. “They should be here any minute. I need to get my gear. Are you staying to help Grandma?”

“Yes. You go on.”

“Thanks.” He pointed to an insufficient number of small baskets of tomatoes sitting in a bin. “You need to restock. I was just getting ready to do that.”

“Sure. Looks like it’s been a good day.”

He agreed, said goodbye to Claudia and jogged away just as a Honda Civic pulled into the drive and followed him toward the house. Rosalie waved to Danny’s friend at the wheel. She took a stack of miniature bushel baskets from under the bin and started to fill them with tomatoes from a large crate. Her attention was diverted when a black pickup with sparkling chrome accessories braked in front of the stand. She immediately noticed a front bumper license plate in black and gold that said Texas Tech University, and a moment later, Bryce Benton got out of the driver’s seat.

He started to walk to Rosalie but stopped when Claudia hooted so loud a customer spilled a bag of peaches. “Bryce Benton! Oh, my stars. Get over here.”

Bryce strode around the back of the stand and gave Claudia a hug. When she finally let him loose, she placed the flat of her hand over her heart and stared up into his face. “You have gotten even better looking, if that’s possible.”

Rosalie hurried to the front to help the customer retrieve her peaches. As she worked, she couldn’t help thinking that her mother’s reaction to seeing Bryce was amazing, and not in a good way. For a time, both women, and Rosalie’s father as well, had nurtured bad feelings against Bryce every bit as strong as the ones Rosalie still seemed to cling to.

Numb with grief at the sudden, tragic death of their son, Rosalie’s parents had sought comfort in the only way they knew how—by blaming the young man whose show-off antics had resulted in the accident which took the life of his best friend. Looking back, Rosalie realized that the anger and bitterness against Bryce, rightly or wrongly, had probably been the glue that had held the Campano family together through the weeks and months of mourning.

And then Danny came along and their lives progressed according to a new purpose and pace. Rosalie continued to cry every night for her brother. Enzo Campano buried his grief so deep that Rosalie often wondered if he allowed himself to think about Ricky at all. And Claudia threw her efforts and mothering skills into making a home for her grandson.

Unlike her daughter and her husband, at some point, she’d let go of the anguish and resentment. At least she said she had. But had she ever really forgiven Bryce? Since the Campanos didn’t talk much about the incident, Rosalie had always wondered. Today, however, almost sixteen years after her son’s death, Claudia tried to convince her daughter in this grandiose gesture of welcoming Bryce home that she had.

“You’re the talk of the town, Bryce,” Claudia said. He grinned in a seemingly modest way and chatted quietly with her.

Rosalie rang up the customer’s order. When the lady got in her car and drove away, Bryce walked over. “So how’s business, Rosalie?” he said.

“It’s okay.”

The Honda sped past with Danny in the backseat. The driver honked his horn and turned onto Fox Hollow Road.

Bryce stared at the car for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “That’s right. You have a kid, don’t you? My mother told me you went to college, met a guy and had a baby.”

“That’s right.”

“A boy?”

“Yes.”

“And you moved back home with Claudia?”

“Right again.”

The car rounded a curve and disappeared. Rosalie hoped that would be the end of the conversation. Nope.

“Is your son in high school yet?” Bryce asked.

Vague. Vague. Keep your answers vague. Divert attention away from Danny. “Starts this year,” she said, returning to the task of packing tomato boxes. Bryce didn’t take the hint and move away, so she looked up at him, swallowed an involuntary sigh, and said, “You’re surrounded by fruits and vegetables at your house, Bryce, so you’re obviously not here to shop.”

He smiled. “Not today.”

“Then …?”

He leaned a hip against the stand. “Campanos does business with Benton Farms, and I’m grateful for your years of support. Would you believe it’s customer appreciation day?”

Right. She rearranged tomatoes to fit more boxes in the bin. “Not unless this magnanimous event just started today.”

“As a matter of fact, it did.”

She huffed. “And exactly how many Benton customers have you visited so far to show your appreciation?”

The grin broadened. “You’re the first.”

She frowned at him and continued working, though on some deeper emotional level she was aware of his every move. “As you can see, I’m busy. If you want to go appreciate someone else, feel free.”

“I stopped by for another reason, too,” he said.

“And that would be?”

He stood straight and looked down the road. “You and I are going to be neighbors.”

Her hand stilled. She clutched her fists at her sides. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m about to become a home owner. I put a bid in for a place down the road, about halfway between your house and the old gristmill.”

Her mind scrambled to come up with a location. Houses were separated by acres of land on Fox Hollow Road. There were no close neighbors in the traditional sense. The only property she knew of that was for sale was the old Harbin place. Surely he didn’t mean the homestead that was less than a mile away.

“I just left the Harbin property,” he said. “I’ve made an offer.”

She could only stare, reining in her first impulse to shout at him that he had no right. That she didn’t want him living so near. That she didn’t need to be thinking about him driving past her house every day, invading the space in her heart that once had been filled with him. Instead, after a few moments she found her voice. “That place has been vacant for quite a while.”

“I know. It needs some work. Have you ever driven back there to see the house?”

She had once or twice, when she was a kid. But she couldn’t tell him right now what the house even looked like. “My dad knew old Mr. Clive,” she said. “And he sometimes drove produce out to Wyatt Harbin when he was in town. I don’t remember much about the place. The people who stayed there kept to themselves.”

Light animated Bryce’s eyes. “It’s a great place, Rosalie. Got real potential. I can’t wait to start fixing it up.”

It wasn’t enough that she was going to work with Bryce at the high school. Now they were going to be neighbors. In a spread-out, rural community the size of Whistler Creek, why hadn’t he found a house miles away on one of the other country roads?

She realized he was talking and forced herself to tune in.

“… a done deal yet. The family will have to accept the offer….” He stopped, stared at her. “But I really want that house, Rosalie. I’ll start to feel more like a part of the community once I’ve moved in.” He waited for a reaction from her and when he didn’t get one he said, “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

At the risk of choking she said, “Congratulations, Bryce.” She almost said, Once again you’ll get everything you want, but instead said the words she knew her eavesdropping mother would be waiting for. “I hope you’re happy in the new place.”

He smiled. “Since we’ll be living so close, maybe you’ll bring me a cup of sugar if I need to borrow it.”

That was the last straw. In spite of Claudia’s listening to every word, Rosalie said, “Look around you, Bryce. Nothing but fields and barns and open space. This isn’t Wisteria Lane for heaven’s sake. We don’t meet in the mornings for coffee and in the afternoons for margaritas.”

She spared a glance in her mother’s direction and immediately felt the sting of her heated gaze. Well, sorry, Ma.

“I’m kind of disappointed to hear that, Rosalie,” Bryce said. “I was hoping we could put the past behind us.”

Rosalie let out a long breath and with it, some of the anger trapped in her chest. “Bryce, I hope you become the best football coach this town has ever known. And I hope you get as much out of this job as you can. I really do. But as far as you and I are concerned, the past will always be an issue. It won’t go away. It shaped us, made us who we are.” And I won’t let your coming back to town change the woman I’ve become now. I can’t.

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her an intense stare. “Rosalie, Ricky was the best friend I ever had,” he said so only she could hear. “You were the second-best until one day you became so much more. I can’t forget that. I don’t want to forget it.”

“Then you’ll have to live with it any way you can. That’s what I’ve had to do.”

He started to say something but stopped when two cars pulled into the lot. Excited passengers spilled out of the doors and headed to the stand. Bryce gave her one last look, filled with sadness and longing. “I’ll see you around, Rosie-girl,” he said, calling her by a former pet name. “But it’s all just a damn shame.”

“That we can agree on,” she said.

He said goodbye to Claudia, got in his truck and drove off. And Rosalie began greeting customers. Anything to avoid the censure in her mother’s eyes and an old longing that was trying to squeeze its way into her heart.