Читать книгу The Husband She Can't Forget - Patricia Forsythe, Patricia Forsythe - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

THE NEXT MORNING, Carly stood on the lane that sloped north to south across her fields and watched her employees as they picked and loaded produce. Everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion this morning. Probably due to the Memorial Day holiday. Any kind of break in the routine seemed to throw her teenage helpers off their stride. The delivery to the Mustang Supermarket would be late today, but she’d called to tell the manager about the delay. Now she needed to not stress over it.

She couldn’t blame the holiday weekend for her sleepless night or the edginess that had awakened her with the first light of dawn and sent her roaming the fields for peace. She couldn’t stop thinking about Luke and the fact that he was going to be around Reston. She didn’t know how long he would be staying—although his mention of buying property certainly suggested a lengthy stay—or when she would see him again, but she dreaded it.

Turning back toward her equipment shed, she took a deep breath and worked to quell the anxious flutter that had started in her stomach. She didn’t want to think about Luke, and she hated being late or appearing unreliable. That was why she had resisted Lisa and Gemma’s efforts to get her to open a shop in which to sell her recycled goods. Keeping up the stock, finding old pieces to transform into new ones, having regular shop hours had all seemed overwhelming until her friends had convinced her to at least give it a try. If it was too much or if the shop was unsuccessful, they’d argued, she could go back to posting her pieces online and either shipping them or having the new owners pick them up.

She didn’t like the idea of quitting if her shop didn’t succeed. Giving up wasn’t in her nature. She had only ever given up on one thing in her life—marriage to Luke—and that wasn’t a decision she’d made alone.

For the new shop, Lisa had helped her find a couple of reliable employees and Carly had hired more help for her gardens to free her up for the shop. She only hoped her newest commercial enterprise didn’t turn out to be a huge mistake.

For some reason she’d been feeling restless lately, ready to take on something new but not sure what that would be. Her two best friends thought she was a little crazy to work so hard when she was finally in a position to hire more employees, but she’d developed the habit when she’d returned to Reston after she and Luke had broken up. She had recovered from her double heartbreak by spending days in the fields or the greenhouse and evenings refinishing furniture. All that labor had consumed her time and thoughts, and exhausted her so much that she’d fallen into dreamless sleep every night. Now those habits were so ingrained she couldn’t change.

She walked up to the front of the shed as Jay and Sheena arrived, driving four-wheeled utility vehicles pulling garden carts full of vegetables. They began loading the produce into the big plastic bins she used for deliveries and stacking them carefully in the back of her truck while Carly hurried inside to brush her hair into a ponytail, slather on sunscreen and plop a wide-brimmed hat onto her head.

As she passed through the living room, she gave Wendolin’s trunk a yearning glance. She was eager to open it and begin going through the contents. It would bring her closer to the sweet woman she had known, and it might help her put parts of her long-ago marriage to Luke into perspective. Even after all this time, she still didn’t fully understand some of the things that had happened. Tonight, she promised herself. She would open it tonight.

By the time she returned to the shed, the kids had the produce loaded and Jay was ready to go. Watching them work as she hurried from the house, Carly thought again how lucky she was to have these two working for her. There were two other occasional employees who operated her produce stand, but they didn’t have the work ethic of Sheena and Jay.

Sheena Blake was the oldest of five children of a single mom and needed to earn money to help out at home. She was pretty in a quiet and earnest way, and willing to work.

Jay Morton was the son of the mayor of Reston, and he’d been raised to be a hard worker. She knew he liked video games and electronic devices. A couple of times she had caught him playing games on his phone when he should have been sorting and packing produce but, for the most part, he was a good employee.

Carly smiled as she handed Sheena the clipboard with the paperwork Jay would need. He was eager to get going, finish this job and go on to the next one, while Sheena was fixated on double-checking everything. Carly feared that her own meticulous habits were beginning to affect the girl.

“Don’t drive too fast,” she said to Jay. “I don’t know where all the extra people have come from, but traffic in town seems heavier than usual.”

“I know, Carly. I just came from town,” he said, nodding toward the motorcycle he rode everywhere. He shook his head and exchanged looks with Sheena as if he thought their persnickety boss was losing her mind. Sheena smiled back as color rushed into her face.

“Oh, of course.” Carly gave him the keys.

As he pulled out, she and Sheena went back to work, picking the remainder of the vegetables they needed to deliver today and getting them ready to go. Carly was grateful for the manual labor that left her too busy to think about yesterday’s encounters with Luke.

When they took a break, Sheena took a long drink of water from one of the bottles Carly always kept in a cooler in the shed, then poured some into her hand and splashed it on her face. Once she was cooled off, she turned troubled eyes to Carly. “Have you seen Mrs. Salyer lately?”

Carly paused, trying to remember the last time she’d seen her elderly neighbor. “No, not in a few weeks. Why?”

“My mom stopped to see her yesterday and she said Mrs. Salyer was in bed. In the middle of the day.”

“Era wasn’t sewing or gardening or...putting a new roof on her house?”

“No. Mom said it looks like Mrs. Salyer didn’t even put in a garden this year.”

“Is she sick?”

“She said she’s just tired. At least, that’s what she told Mom.”

“I’d better check on her.” Hearing that Era Salyer was napping instead of working was like learning the sun had decided not to rise one morning. It simply didn’t happen. “Can you finish up here?”

“Sure.”

Carly scooped her cell phone out of her pocket and called Era, but there was no answer. She grabbed a basket and filled it with fresh produce.

Carly hurried to one of the four-wheelers and rode down the highway, being careful to keep her slower vehicle at the edge of the pavement.

At the mailbox marked Salyer, she turned in and made her way over the rutted lane, which wasn’t in much better shape than her own. She stopped in front of Era’s small house, noting the unaccustomed sight of dry and drooping roses and hydrangeas. At the side of the house, the plot that usually held Era’s lush vegetable garden was choked with weeds.

Carly hurried to the front door. A scuffling noise followed her knock and, after a pause, Era called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Carly Joslin, Mrs. Salyer. I haven’t seen you in a while so I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Instead of opening the door wide as was her custom and embracing her, Era opened it only as far as the guard chain would allow and peeped out.

“Oh, hi, Carly. How are you?”

“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” Carly tried to look past the older lady, but could see nothing in the dim room—a room whose windows had always been open to light and air. She brought her attention back to Era, noting that her face seemed thinner.

“I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me, honey. Just a little tired.”

Carly held up the basket. “I brought you some vegetables and some berries.”

Era frowned. “Berries? Oh, I thought you already left me some...”

When her voice trailed off, Carly asked, “Thought I left you what?”

“Oh, oh, nothing. I...don’t know what I was going to say.” She looked up and smiled. “Thank you, honey. Just leave it on the porch. I don’t want to open the door because... I might have a cold and I don’t want to get you sick, too.”

Carly blinked and did as the older lady asked, setting down the basket as she said, “Era, please let me know if you need anything. Really, anything at all.”

“I will, hon. Thank you.”

Before Carly could say another thing, Era closed the door. The dead bolt clicked into place.

Puzzled, Carly walked slowly to her four-wheeler.

“This is so strange,” she whispered. She couldn’t recall a single time when Era had behaved this way. A widow for many years, she had lost her only son to an oilfield accident a few years ago. In spite of those hardships, she had always seemed content with her life. She was hardworking and independent and had been friendly and welcoming to her neighbors.

Carly couldn’t think of anything that would have caused such a change in her, unless she really was sick.

She glanced over her shoulder to see that Era was holding back one of the living room curtains to give a reassuring wave and a smile.

It was as if she didn’t want Carly around but didn’t want her to worry, either.

Deciding to call again in a few days, or to send someone, Carly drove home and reported the visit to Sheena, who said she would tell her mom about it.

Jay returned from town with the truck and the three of them were finished by noon. Since Sheena lived on the outskirts of Reston, less than three miles away, she rode home on her bicycle, leaving Carly and Jay to load the last delivery onto the truck.

When they were done, she said, “Jay, I can take this to the restaurant. I’ve got to go into Toncaville, anyway.”

He grinned. “Did your favorite secondhand store get a new delivery of beat-up furniture?”

Teasingly, she narrowed her eyes at him. “I think you’ve been working for me too long. You know me too well.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I’m pretty sure I deserve a raise.”

She only laughed and waved him off as he mounted his motorcycle, but he paused before putting on his helmet. “Um, Carly, did you pick any of the blueberries yet?”

“Only a few to take to Mrs. Salyer. She loves my berries. Why?”

“I don’t know, just seems like there aren’t as many on the bushes as there were a few days ago.” He rubbed his chin, where he was attempting to grow his scraggly few whiskers into a beard. “’Course, it might be rabbits, skunks, squirrels.”

“Animals that can open the protective chicken-wire cages?” Carly asked.

“Nah, I guess not. Besides, I didn’t see any tracks.” With a shrug, Jay put on his helmet, started the engine and roared away.

Carly smiled as she watched him go. A raise was in the near future, but she wasn’t quite sure when it would happen. He was a good employee and she was going to miss him when he went to college in the fall of next year. In the meantime, she would take a look at the blueberry bushes, as soon as she got the chance.

After making sure the produce was shielded from the sun beneath a damp cloth, Carly rushed inside to shower and change for the trip into town.

When she opened her closet, she didn’t grab shorts to go with the turquoise tank top she’d pulled over her head, but instead took out a dark purple peasant skirt with an asymmetrical hem that fell to midcalf.

She held it up and admired the beautiful color. Lisa had dragged her to Tulsa on a shopping spree, insisting that Carly needed to wear something besides work clothes and boots. Carly had argued she had nowhere to wear skirts like this. Lisa, who worked in real estate and dressed up every day, insisted she could invent a reason.

“Invent a reason?” Carly had asked.

Looking at the beautiful skirt now, Carly thought there was no reason to wear it. She would only be dropping vegetables off at a restaurant, then making a quick stop at The Classy Junque Trunk to look for items she could freshen up and resell at Upcycle—once she actually decided on a space.

She slipped it on and twirled in front of the mirror. No reason to wear such a dressy skirt, except that she loved it and sometimes, like last night, she needed to dress like a girl. Grabbing her purse, she hurried outside, locked the door and turned around, only to see Luke Sanderson’s truck stopped beside hers and him stepping out.