Читать книгу The Long Road Home - Lynn Patrick - Страница 14
Оглавление“COME ON, AUNT PRISCILLA,” called Mia, heading for the car. “I can’t wait to get on the back of a horse again!”
“You are the back of...” started Alyssa before a dirty look from Priscilla stopped her from completing the sentence.
The teenager clamped her mouth shut and got into the front seat, while Priscilla slid behind the steering wheel.
They were heading out to Sam’s ranch again, after a couple of days’ break while Mom had kept the girls busy running around Sparrow Lake. Though she felt guilty for admitting it, Priscilla had enjoyed taking time off from her nieces and working at the cheese shop. It was peaceful in comparison to the chaos upstairs. She was glad she had the business since the place had become her second home, especially at night, when the apartment’s bathroom was too often occupied and her office commandeered as a third bedroom. The cot in the guest bedroom hadn’t worked out, since Alyssa’s phone had been too noisy for Mia, even on vibrate. After the first night sleeping on the love seat—luckily, the sisters hadn’t come to blows—Mia had asked Priscilla if they could move the cot to the office. Priscilla had complied, but now there was no space left to use the computer or the desk in that room.
Today she was taking the girls back to the Larson Dude Ranch for that promised Western lesson. She felt on edge, though she wasn’t sure what made her more nervous, the possibility of her nieces getting into another argument or seeing Sam again.
She needn’t have worried about Sam, however. Once they got to the ranch and were saddling up horses, he barely seemed to notice her. He merely gave her a quick nod before turning his attention to Mia and Alyssa, and she couldn’t help feeling a little hurt. Then, watching him work with the girls, she realized he wasn’t acting like the Sam she knew at all today. Though he appeared totally professional and gave one hundred percent to the girls, he didn’t do so with that easy charm that had won her young heart.
Charm he hadn’t lost if measured by their meeting the other day.
Something must be wrong.
“Where’s Logan?” asked Alyssa.
“He’ll be around later.”
“Okay.” With a look of resignation, Alyssa mounted her horse, not making too much of a fuss over the real reason she had probably come out to the dude ranch. At least the lack of reception for her phone meant she had to do something else besides text.
Sitting on the fence, her legs dangling into the corral, Priscilla watched the riding lesson closely. When it ended, Sam instructed the girls to remove tack, to brush down their horses’ backs with towels to dry them, then to check their feet and clean their hooves if necessary before bringing them out to the pasture.
As the girls got busy, he seemed as if he was trying to make up his mind as to what to do next—leave or stay. In the end, he walked over to Priscilla and climbed up on the fence to sit next to her. His arm brushed hers, making her catch her breath. She steeled herself against the sensation.
Clearing her throat, she asked, “You’re going to let them work on their own?”
“I can see them from here. Besides, they’re not beginners. They know what they’re doing.”
“They seem to,” Priscilla agreed, surprised that Alyssa took as much care with her horse as Mia did.
And Sam was still in that down mood. His brow was drawn and his mouth was pulled into a straight line instead of the teasing smile that always got to her. She wondered what was going on with him, but she wasn’t about to ask. She didn’t have to. Apparently he needed someone to talk to.
“I only wish I knew what I was doing,” Sam said.
“In what respect?”
“I’m worried about the future of the farm.”
Apparently, he was taking all the responsibility for the land on his shoulders despite the fact that his father had intended to sell the place.
“You’re just getting started, Sam. Take it easy. You just need a little patience.”
She felt like patting his hand or something for encouragement, but, not wanting to touch him, she kept her distance.
Sam sounded even more depressed when he said, “What I need is luck. I nearly lost some horses the other night when they mysteriously got out of the pasture.”
The way he said that made her ask, “And you think someone did it on purpose?”
“Logan swore the gate was locked when he finished. And the horses didn’t just wander out calmly. They were a little freaked, like someone purposely spooked them.”
“Oh, Sam, that’s terrible.”
“It could have been worse if one of them had wandered onto the highway. And that’s not all.”
“What else happened?” This didn’t sound good.
“The other day, after the ride, while I was at my cabin having supper, someone scattered boards with big nails in the parking lot. Loose nails and screws, too. If I hadn’t cleaned it up, some of my customers would have had ruined tires. That probably would have been it for them. They wouldn’t have come back.”
Priscilla frowned. “I haven’t heard about any kids messing around on people’s property, not since Brian Lange and his buddies were caught playing pranks and straightened out doing some community service. That happened a couple of summers ago. I wasn’t here at the time, but I heard all about it from his sister Kristen. You remember her, right? My best friend in high school?”
“Vaguely. Smart. Ambitious. Couldn’t wait to graduate to get out of Dodge.”
“She did that, but she came home to Sparrow Lake, too. Now she manages her aunt’s quilting shop.”
“You’d think there was some magic about this area, pulling us all back.”
“Not everyone. My brother doesn’t even visit more than once every couple of years.”
“A big-shot lawyer has innumerable choices about what to do with his life.”
Though obviously not enough time to discipline teenagers, Priscilla thought glumly, thinking again about the problems with Alyssa.
But she was being selfish. Sam’s woes were far more pressing. Furthermore, she had the feeling that his mood had to do with more than loose horses and boards with nails. With more than fearing his business would fail. He’d said rodeo was a young man’s game, but she was pretty certain many competitors were in their forties and even fifties. Maybe there was another reason he couldn’t or didn’t want to go back. And maybe he’d been doing one thing for so long, he didn’t think he had any other viable choices. She wished she knew more so she could be supportive, but she hesitated asking him more directly. If he wanted her to know what had happened, surely he would tell her.
He suddenly asked, “You haven’t heard about anyone in Sparrow Lake having it in for me, have you?”
“No. I didn’t even know you were back in town until we showed up for the trail ride. I’ll keep an ear open and ask around, though. Mom seems to know what’s going on with everyone.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” His grim expression lightened a bit, as if having her on his side made a difference. “I asked around about the Main Street Cheese Shop. I hear you’re all the rage these days.”
“I’m doing okay. It usually takes a business about three years to really succeed, but I’m making pretty encouraging progress.”
“You’ll have to tell me how you did it.”
“Sure. It’s not a secret. Just a lot of hard work.”
“I’ve never been afraid of hard work. Maybe we can have dinner and talk about what you did more specifically. I could use some pointers.”
Despite her reservations about getting too involved with Sam, Priscilla agreed. “Right. I told you I thought that was a good idea.”
She sympathized with him having such trouble getting his business off the ground. From experience, she knew it was difficult enough to get a new business going successfully without the kind of setbacks he was having. But she didn’t just have herself to think about this summer.
“My parents want to take the girls to Lake Geneva for a day.” A beautiful little resort town with mansions facing a lake, boutiques for Alyssa and boat rides for Mia. “I’m not sure when they plan to do that, not as yet. Sometime in the next few days, I think. I’ll find out.”
He nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks, Prissy.” He covered her hand with his calloused one.
Despite her pulse fluttering at his touch, she would have to be cautious, not fool herself into thinking they could have something more personal going simply because she still felt attracted to him. After all, she didn’t know if she could trust Sam Larson with more than friendship after the way he’d simply left town right after he’d kissed her and told her he wanted her to be his girl.
No one knew why he’d left. That still bothered her. Not that she was going to ask. She didn’t want to get into an uncomfortable discussion. Anything to avoid that kind of tension. She remembered in high school, Sam was voted the most likely to end up dead by 30. Had he done something terrible? Was that why he’d left? Was whatever he had done somehow reflecting back on him now? If he had some big secret he was hiding, he wasn’t exactly being honest with her.
Again.
She’d gotten over him once—at least she’d convinced herself she had—and she didn’t need to go back there. They’d been just kids, then, really. Still, it had obviously had a lasting influence on her. Could it be that Sam’s disappointing her the way he had was part of the reason she’d never given herself fully to any other man? She’d had a serious boyfriend in Madison and a couple more in Milwaukee, but those relationships had never worked out. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride—that was the running joke she had with her girlfriends.
A joke based on the disappointing truth.
* * *
PRISCILLA TRIED NOT to think about Sam that evening. Mom had invited them for a barbeque, but when they arrived at her parents’ backyard, Mom was fuming.
“Supper will be a little late.” Mom’s eyes were narrowed behind her glasses. “Your father forgot to light the coals.”
He muttered, “I was distracted.”
“And then he fell asleep. You’re always sleeping, Roger.”
Priscilla didn’t say a word. Though her mother had a point, she wasn’t about to get in the middle of their ongoing argument.
“Didn’t you sleep last night, Gramps?” Mia asked.
“Oh, a little.”
Mia furrowed her brows. “Does Grams text, too?”
“Text?” he asked.
Mom laughed. “No, honey, old people like us don’t text all that much, though you’ve explained so much about it, I may take it up.”
“Text?” he repeated.
“You type on a little keyboard,” explained Priscilla, “on a phone.”
Dad merely grunted but Mom told Mia, “Gramps just likes to get some rest in his recliner before he comes to bed. You know, in front of the TV, with his eyes closed. Last night he did about six hours of ‘resting’ before he came to bed.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Dad objected. “I was watching a program.”
“Watching what program?” Mom asked.
“Uh, well...something about history.”
Mom snorted. “Looked like an old basketball game to me, on the classic sports channel. You’d have remembered if you hadn’t been resting so hard.” She gestured toward the grill. “Let’s get those burgers on.”
“Okay, okay.”
Shutting out the bickering, which tended to get on her nerves, Priscilla stared around her at the pretty flowerbeds. Mom was some gardener. Too bad the big patio didn’t look as neat and pretty. Grass and weeds poked out between the irregular stones. One of the legs on the table loaded with platters of uncooked burgers and corn on the cob was held together with duct tape. And the chairs around it could use a new coat of paint. The patio was one of those projects Dad wasn’t doing that Mom kept complaining about.
“Aren’t those coals ready yet?”
“I don’t know, Helen.” Dad sounded down, like he didn’t really care. He looked as if he didn’t care about much. Sweat trickled down his balding head into his face, but he didn’t even bother to wipe it off. His shirttail hung out of his pants and the button holding it together at his waist looked ready to pop. “Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”
Mom made a sound of frustration and spun on her heel. “I’ll be inside.”
Priscilla followed her. “I’ll come with you.”
First she glanced over at the girls to see if they would come after her. Mia was standing by the grill next to Dad, her arm around his thick waist. His expression brightened a bit, and he gave her a one-armed hug. A tuned-out Alyssa was sprawled out in one of the lounge chairs, texting, as usual.
Sighing, Priscilla entered the kitchen where her mother was digging in the refrigerator. “Let me help you, Mom.”
She took a giant container of potato salad from her mother and then searched for a place to set it down. Every flat surface in the cramped, outdated kitchen seemed to be filled with something. Wow, this was worse than usual. Priscilla swept a bunch of Dad’s sports magazines to one side on the kitchen table and put the bowl down. Mom set a container of coleslaw next to it.
“Bad enough your father couldn’t get to fixing up the patio before the girls came from New York.”
“Right.”
“But not even lighting the coals today?” Mom shook her head, then punched her glasses back up her nose. “He’s not paying attention.”
“Right.”
Mom’s voice went up a notch. “He’s been like this ever since he retired from the Post Office.”
“Right.”
“If you ask me, he needs to see a counselor.”
“Right...” Priscilla started. “Uh, do you think he would?”
Her mother sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. He doesn’t listen to me anymore. Maybe if you talked to him about it.”
The last thing Priscilla wanted to do was get in the middle of this ongoing battle between her parents. Their lifelong bickering had always bothered her, and the only way she could deal with it was to stay out of their fights. But this sounded more serious than usual, and if Dad needed her help...
“Doesn’t Dad have any interests anymore?”
“Just watching television with that remote going, changing channels till he falls asleep.”
Which reminded her of Alyssa texting and Mia playing games on their phones. “Maybe the girls inherited gadget fever from their grandfather.”
Mom looked confused. “Gadget fever?”
“They both like to work with their phones. Play games, text.”
“Oh, right. I noticed.”
“But, if you ask me, Alyssa is carrying it too far.” Priscilla felt she had to confide in someone. “Do you know she won’t even turn her phone off when she goes to sleep? She keeps it under her pillow and replies to text messages from her friends all night. If anyone is lacking sleep, it’s her.”
“My, my.” Mom shook her head. “Kids these days.”
“I had to put a cot in the office for Mia. She says the vibrations from her sister’s phone bothers her.” Priscilla admitted, “It’s been a mess. I don’t know whether to discipline her or go easy...”
Mom interrupted, “Oh, I wouldn’t be disciplining her, dear. At least not for something that isn’t so serious. They’re not in school.”
“But it can’t be good for a girl to be up all night with her phone on. I’ve almost been tempted to call Paul.”
“Overseas?” Mom looked concerned. “Now I wouldn’t do that, Prissy.”
“I know. I don’t want to bother him.”
“And my grandkids may never come see me if things get too unpleasant for them.”
Priscilla sighed. “I know that, too. I just don’t want to be an...irresponsible aunt.”
Mom came closer and gave her a hug. “You’re not irresponsible. Don’t even think that. Kids are technology-crazy nowadays. In fact, we all have too much technology for our own good.”
“We sure do,” Priscilla agreed, hugging her mother back. “Too bad we can’t get updated along with our computers.” She had to ask one more question, “Do you think it’s normal for Alyssa and Mia to fight so much?”
Mom laughed. “Oh, honey, I thought you and Paul were going to start World War III when he was in high school.”
“That was because he was so many years older than me.” In comparison to Alyssa and Mia, who were closer in age. “He thought you were a little pest. One time he locked you in a closet.”
Priscilla nodded grimly. “I remember that.”
“However, I don’t think he would have done that if you hadn’t thrown his sneakers out the window or spied on him and his friends.”
Priscilla didn’t remember that. She objected, “I was a good little girl!”
“Well, you were never aggressive in an openly hostile way.”
Her mother certainly had a different view of things. “I wasn’t aggressive at all!”
Mom laughed. “Sweetheart, all kids are naughty at one time or another. You’re only human. Kids will be kids. They outgrow their stages.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind.” And she knew no one was perfect, including herself. She’d just forgotten about the sneakers, she guessed. As they put condiments out on a tray to take outside, Priscilla decided to bring the conversation back to her father. “Maybe Dad will outgrow his behavior, too.” Though she intended to keep an eye on him. “Maybe he has something like post-traumatic retirement syndrome.”
Mom smiled. “Well, we can hope so anyway.”
“Say, what about Dad’s bowling? He used to go every week.”
“He’s not doing it anymore. Some younger guy insisted on keeping score, which your dad used to do. Roger says he’s not useful anymore there, either, so he quit the league. Of course he could be useful around here, but—”
“Let me think about this, Mom,” Priscilla said, cutting her off before she could go another round. She’d been hoping for a nice relaxing evening with the whole family together. “Maybe I can come up with a way to get Dad in a better mood.”
“Someone has to!”
To distract Mom, she changed the subject. “People can have worse problems. Sam was pretty down this afternoon, too. It seems someone around here doesn’t like him.”
“What happened? Did he get into another fight?”
“Mom, that was when he was a teenager. He told me that, last week, someone opened the pasture gate and spooked his horses. And the other evening, someone spread boards with big nails around his parking lot. That could have caused a lot of damage to customers’ tires.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
“No, and he’s worried that the culprit is out to ruin his business.”
“How terrible!” Mom pulled a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge, set it on the counter between a mixer and a blender. “Sam is just getting started.”
“You haven’t heard any kind of rumors about Sam or the ranch, have you?”
Mom shook her head. “No. Nothing. At the library, some of the kids said they were excited because their parents were going to let them try a trail ride.”
“So you’ve only heard positive stuff.”
“So far. Maybe you should go over to the hardware store and talk to old Bob Kinney. Everyone winds up in his place, so if there’s any gossip going around town, he’s probably heard it.”
“Good idea. If you don’t mind having the girls to yourself again, I might head over there after supper.”
Mom’s expression lit at the suggestion. “Mind? I would love it. I can’t get enough time with those girls.”
“Even Alyssa?”
Mom grinned. “I’ll just ask her to shut off her phone.”
“And you think that will work?”
“The power of a grandmother...”
They both smiled and headed back outside to see if the coals were finally ready.
* * *
PRISCILLA WALKED INTO Kinney’s Hardware an hour before closing. There were still quite a few customers in the aisles, browsing the goods. Some homes in the area were a century old and older, and when they needed to be repaired, Kinney’s was the place to look for parts. The shelves were packed with everything anyone could possibly require for home maintenance.
Old Bob Kinney was ringing up purchases for a woman nearly as elderly as he was. People called him Old Bob because he’d been a town fixture forever. And he looked it. His short hair was white, his face wrinkled with time. Although when she was a kid, he’d been a tall man who could fill a doorway, now he was a bit stooped and had little flesh left on his bones. He had to be in his early nineties, but he’d never considered retiring that she knew. Good for him. She saw for herself how being forced into retiring had made Dad miserable. And Mom.
While she was waiting, Priscilla chose a half dozen color identifiers for keys to her shop and to her apartment. And when Old Bob handed the customer her bag and she left, Priscilla stepped right up to the old-fashioned register and set the colorful rubber rings on the counter.
“Priscilla.” Old Bob smiled at her, revealing a missing tooth. “Haven’t seen you in a cow’s age.”
Though she had no idea of how long a “cow’s age” might be, she merely said, “I’ve been lucky that I didn’t have anything I needed to fix lately. How are you, Bob?”
“Can’t say I’m as spry as I used to be, but I’m still getting along.” He picked up the key identifiers and dropped them in a bag, then rang them up. “I hear your brother Paul’s girls are in town.”
Terrific. He just gave her the perfect in to the real reason she was here. “They are, for a good part of the summer.” She handed him money. “I’ve taken them out to the new Larson Dude Ranch a couple of times.”
Old Bob grunted.
Uh-oh, didn’t sound like he approved. She said, “Sam is doing a great job with the place.”
“Putting his old man out of business.”
Priscilla didn’t miss the note of disapproval in his tone as he handed her the change.
In case he wasn’t aware of the fact, she told him, “Dwayne retired before Sam came back.”
Old Bob just grunted again. He probably identified with Dwayne Larson, even though the man had chosen to retire.
“Are you angry with Sam for some reason?” she asked.
“Personally? I haven’t had any bad dealings with him since he got back in town. But you wait...just give him a chance.”
That’s what she was trying to do—give Sam a chance to succeed—but Old Bob meant it in a negative way. “Why? Did someone say something bad about him?”
“Didn’t have to. Sam Larson’s reputation precedes him. He was always trouble with a capital T.”
“When he was a teenager,” she agreed.
“No one can forget what he did to Will Berger’s kid.”
Priscilla took a deep breath. Sam hadn’t had that motorcycle accident on an icy road with Tim on purpose, but the boy’s father had blamed him anyway. And Tim might have come away with a limp, but other than that, she was pretty sure he was okay.
“That happened fifteen years ago. I thought maybe you heard a customer say something bad about Sam now.”
“Sam? You talkin’ about Sam Larson?”
The familiar smoke-roughened voice grated on her. Priscilla turned to see Cooper Peterson, an old rival and sometimes pal of Sam’s, directly behind her. He was holding packets of screws and a couple of strange-looking tools. His hands were streaked with black grease—he worked as a mechanic for one of the local gas and repair stations. And he belonged to a stock car club whose latest exploit was driving into mud holes and racing out of them.
“Cooper.”
“Priscilla.”
His grin showed off shiny white teeth, the best-looking part of him as far as Priscilla was concerned. His long hair was stringy, he sported one of those little chin beards she disliked, and he smelled like cigarette smoke. He was from a whole family that a lot of people disliked, partially because they were unpleasant and partially because they were often up to no good. But what she liked least about Coop was that he was still the low-life he’d been in high school, especially when it came to using women. He sported a different one on his arm every other month. She couldn’t believe so many foolish females lived in one area, but he was romancing them younger and younger, apparently to keep up the supply.
