Down by the River (10 page)

But she'd gone away to college in Nashville at Vanderbilt on scholarship, while Myra had stayed home to commute to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and marry her high school sweetheart, Philip Kline. Actually, Myra had married Philip before Grace even left home, being four years older than Grace. And Leonard had just turned twelve when Grace went away to college. Now, Leonard was married, too, and he and Myra both worked in the business. Only Grace had left.

“I want to get close to my family again, Lord. Over the years, Charles and I were so busy with our own lives in Nashville. I know I didn't get home often enough. And Charles's mother Jane never had any real use for my family. That made it hard whenever they came to Nashville to visit. She always came over and acted rude to them.”

Grace paused and sighed. “Plus there was so much difference in the way we lived.” Grace had married into a wealthy, prominent Nashville family. Her own family, although wonderful, good people, lived more simply, and they all worked hard. After Grace had married, she'd stopped working and stayed home, and that had made her even more different from her mother and Myra. She knew they hadn't always respected her lifestyle and how she lived. It rankled sometimes.

Grace had friends in Nashville who were close to their sisters, and she had always envied that, wishing she and Myra were closer. However, Grace had known, even by late middle school, that Myra didn't like her much. She'd never understood why. She thought that would change when they became adults, when the age difference between them wasn't so significant. But it had never happened.

She looked over toward Charlie's picture again. “There's still that reserve between Myra and me, Charlie. When I was over at the house with everyone, I still sensed it. You always said I was discerning, but I've never been able to discern why Myra doesn't like me. I'd like to figure that out.”

Grace sat up with resolve then and tossed the pillow back onto the bed. “Enough negative thinking and moodiness. I have a wonderful new business, new friends, and new interests. And I
am
going to find a way to form a bond with my family again. I also
am
going to get sensible about Jack Teague and stop acting like a teenager over him every time he comes around. And I
am
going to breach this big rift with my own children in Nashville about this move I've made, in due time. Show them that I'm successful and happy and that I did the right thing.”

With that, Grace set off to the kitchen to start planning dinner. She had guests coming in tonight. And she had work to do.

J
ack made sure that word got around Townsend that he'd been by to see Grace Conley. He started walking back and forth to work again many days, purposely walking across the swinging bridge and cutting across the backyard of the Mimosa Inn. Taking the well-worn path that led through Grace's property to Creekside Lane. He went back to church on Sunday and sat with his girls and his mother in their regular pew. As Roger had suggested, it was important to put to rest any negative rumors that he had personal problems he couldn't resolve with the widow Conley.

However, the fact that Jack thought about Grace Conley more than he should was his own business. And his own dilemma to wrestle with. Grace had turned out to be a bigger problem than Jack had expected. She stayed on his mind and in his thoughts. He watched for sights of her walking out in the yard of the Mimosa or down along the River Road. She took long walks most every day. Jack had started noticing things like that, fought himself not to go and walk along with her. She took strolls down the River Road, took the loop trail over the two swinging bridges that spanned the Little River, and ambled across the highway and up to Tiger Drive to get library books and to attend the Townsend book group that met there. She biked, too. Often with his girls—down the River Road or out to the highway to get ice cream. He was envious when his girls talked about it. Jack liked to hear their impressions of Grace, but he often thought too much about their stories later on.

“Guess what we're doing today?” Morgan told him at the breakfast table one morning.

“What?” Jack smiled at her while he salted his eggs.

“Ms. Grace is taking us into town to get Scout uniforms. We ordered them, and they've come in at J.C. Penney's.” She poured a glass of orange juice from a pitcher on the table. “Aunt Bebe said it was all right for us to go with Ms. Grace today, but that we needed to ask you for some money. We're getting our Scout books, too.”

Bebe, or Beatrice Butler—Jack's aunt and Roger's mother—came into the room carrying a plate of hot pancakes then. “Grace Conley offered to take the girls with her when she went into town today. I thought it would be all right.”

Jack nodded.

Meredith smiled at Jack. “We're going to have our very first Junior Scout meeting next week, Daddy, and we're going to start working on our first badges soon.”

Morgan forked two hot pancakes onto her plate. “Ms. Grace says we all have to do our bridging activities first. That's how you move from Brownies to Scouts. Then we'll have an official ceremony and be real Scouts and everything.”

“That sounds good.” Jack helped himself to several pancakes and slathered them with syrup. “Did Ms. Grace tell you how much money you'll need?”

Aunt Bebe answered that. “I have the order information and the total. We ordered everything a week or so ago from a catalog Grace had. It isn't much, Jack. The girls are going to wear their own white shirts and khaki shorts—or slacks when it's cooler—with their Girl Scout vests. And the badge and Scout books were very inexpensive.”

Jack nodded, working on his breakfast while it was still hot. It was a pleasure to enjoy Bebe's cooking in the mornings. During the school year, Jack fixed breakfast for himself and the girls and then dropped them off at the nearby elementary school on his way to the realty office. After school they rode the bus to stay at Aunt Bebe's house until he could pick them up. But in the summers when school was out, Bebe came over early in the morning to stay with the girls most days. Other days Jack dropped them at her house.

“Great breakfast, Aunt Bebe,” Jack said. He truly meant it. “It reminds me of the big breakfasts you used to fix for Roger and me when we were kids out of school for our summer vacations.”

Bebe grinned. “Those were good days. You two boys sure could eat.”

The girls chattered on to Bebe, talking about the Scout troop and the things they already were planning to do. Jack tuned out, thinking back to his own younger years.

When he was five, Bebe had come back home to Townsend—widowed by a war tragedy. She'd moved back into the old Teague farmhouse with Jack's grandfather, Duncan Teague. Bebe's older brother, Verlin, had been married and working with his father in the family realty business by then. Grandfather Duncan was a recent widower, and he had been glad to have his girl come back home to cook and clean house for him. Plus he loved her four-year-old boy Roger, just as Duncan was crazy about Jack.

Jack and Roger bonded immediately, and since Jack's mother, Althea, worked in the realty business with Duncan and Verlin, Bebe took on Jack's care—along with taking care of Roger. Jack had known a series of sitters before that, and Bebe brought him a new stability and sense of family. Roger became like a brother to Jack, and Aunt Bebe became a second mother figure.

Nine years ago, when Celine had walked out on Jack and left him with two babies still in diapers, Bebe had stepped in to mother his girls. Jack would be eternally grateful to her for that. With Bebe's and Althea's care and love, the girls had suffered less from being deserted than they might have if Jack had been on his own.

Jack got up to get another cup of coffee, and gave Bebe a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was white-headed now, wore bifocal glasses, and was more full-figured—but she was still beautiful to Jack. “You're an amazing woman, Bebe. I hope I remember to thank you often enough for all you do. And for all you've always done for me and the girls.”

“Pooh. Now what brought on this sentimental moment, Jack?” She hugged him back fondly. “You know you're just my other boy—and that these are my precious grandchildren as much as Daisy and Ruby are.”

Daisy and Ruby were his cousin Roger's children. When Roger and Samantha had started their family, Samantha had given up her teaching job for a few years to stay home with the girls. Two years ago, when her old job had opened back up at Townsend Elementary, Samantha had gone back to teach kindergarten. Bebe kept four-year-old Ruby during the school year, and kept ten-year-old Daisy along with Meredith and Morgan after school.

Bebe patted Jack's shoulder now as she came to sit down at the table. “You know, I've often thought how good God has been to me—giving me a family of boys to raise when I was young and then a sweet family of little girls to raise when I grew older.”

Jack grinned at her. “Are you saying Roger and I weren't sweet?”

“There were moments when you two boys
were
sweet.” She laughed. “Like when you were both asleep.”

The girls giggled over that.

“Were Roger and Daddy bad?” Meredith asked, cocking her head to one side.

“Sometimes,” Bebe answered. “Between the two of them they kept my days lively and full, I can tell you that.”

Morgan's eyes brightened. “Tell us a story about Daddy and Uncle Roger when they were bad, Aunt Bebe.”

Bebe smiled at her indulgently. “Well, let's see . . . I remember one time those boys nearly scared two lives out of me getting themselves lost in Tuckaleechee Caverns.”

Jack saw Morgan's and Meredith's eyes grow wide with fascination, and he chuckled. He remembered this story well, too.

“You want to tell it, Jack?”

He nodded. “Back in the sixties when Roger and I were growing up, the cave didn't get as many visitors as it does today. Sometimes the owners got a little lax back then about policing the entrance real well. Roger and I found an opportunity to slip into the cave unobserved and then followed along with a tour group. We had us a fine time learning all about the history of the cave, how the Cherokees discovered it long ago, and how the giant stalagmites and stalactites formed. When the group got ready to leave, we lagged behind, not wanting the man at the entrance gate to catch too close a look at us.”

Jack paused and took a drink of his coffee. “The problem was, the owners were getting ready to shut down the cave for the day. We didn't know that. While we dawdled around, the owners, the Vanadas, locked up and then turned off the lights. And there Roger and I were, locked into a pitch-dark cave.”

Morgan gasped. “Were you scared?”

“Scared to death.” Jack grinned and shook his head. “You haven't seen dark until you experience dark in an underground cave.”

“Like when they turn off the lights now during the tour of Tuckaleechee,” Meredith said. “I was really scared then, even when you held my hand.”

“The lucky thing for us was that Roger had one of those little penlight flashlights in his pocket. By using that we finally found our way back up toward the entrance. But when we got there, everything was locked up tight. We hollered and hollered, but nobody came to let us out.”

“What did you do?” Morgan asked, leaning forward and biting her lip.

“Sat down against the door and waited. We didn't know what else to do.”

Bebe shook her head in remembrance. “In the meantime, Althea, Verlin, and I were searching all over the place trying to find Roger and Jack. We knew they'd gone across the highway, up the Tuckaleechee Road, and down Old Cades Cove Road to their friend Danny Miller's place. The boys shouldn't have gone that far, of course, but we learned they'd both been seen there when we started searching. Danny's dog had just delivered new pups, and we found out the boys had sneaked over there on their bikes to see them.”

She gave Jack an admonishing look. “Jack told me they were going down to the store on the highway to get colas and penny candy.”

Jack laughed. “We did do that, Aunt Bebe. We simply extended our trip a little.”

She tut-tutted. “It was the bikes that saved those poor boys from spending a long, dark night in the cave. Some of the men on the search team found the bikes propped against the fence near the parking lot at the caves.”

Bebe shook her head. “Land-a-mercy, I remember Bill Vanada and Harry Myers were sure mad when we roused them out of a good sleep to come open up their cave to see if you two boys were in there.”

“They weren't as mad as my daddy was.” Jack wrinkled his nose in remembrance. “I don't think Roger or I sat down without wincing for two days after that.”

Meredith blinked, her mouth forming a big
O
. “Did you get a spanking?”

“We did, and we deserved it. What we did was wrong and dangerous.” Fathering had taught Jack to put the right endings on his stories.

“Wow, that's a cool story.” Morgan grinned. “I'm going to tell it to Ms. Grace today. I wonder if she's ever been to Tuckaleechee Caverns.”

Jack smiled. “Well, maybe your Girl Scout group can work on a rock or geology badge and go there as a troop. You could get a group rate for everyone. It would be fun.”

“That's a swell idea, Daddy.” Morgan's eyes lit up.

“We visited the cave so long ago I've forgotten almost everything now,” Meredith put in. “I'd like to go again. Maybe you could come, too, Daddy?”

Meredith was sweet like that, always thinking of others.

“I'd like that, peanut.” He tweaked her cheek.

Bebe eyed the clock in the kitchen. “You'd better get on to the realty office, Jack. You said you had a nine thirty appointment.”

“So I do,” he said, getting up to leave and buzzing both the girls and Aunt Bebe on the cheek before he left.

 

Jack felt happy and blessed to have his girls in his life, and he thought about them often through his day. He also thought about Grace Conley. It was good of her to take his girls to get their Scout uniforms. Maybe he should get her a little gift for being so nice to Meredith and Morgan. It would give him a chance to stop by to see her again to present it to her. He'd like that. He wanted to see if she still stirred him up. Jack found women attractive, but he also found that he tired of most of them quickly. The electricity kicked in for a while, and then the initial attraction faded. He'd be glad when his attraction to Grace faded. It was disruptive. Kept him antsy and unfocused. Distracted. Even irritable. He wasn't used to that.

It was Friday night now. Since Meredith and Morgan were spending the night at Stacy Clark's for a birthday sleepover, Jack had a free night to go out. There was a party over at Rookie Beezer's place. A group of the singles from around the area was going to be there. Jack dropped by about eight and hung around for an hour or so. He laughed, had a few beers, flirted with some girls, danced, and listened to jokes and stories. And was bored. Utterly. As the evening wore on, the group got rowdier and louder. Couples broke off and found quiet, dark places to neck. With many of the guys drinking too much, the noise level rose. The stories and jokes got raunchier, too. Feeling restless, Jack slipped out onto the deck behind Rookie's place. He leaned his arms on the deck rail and looked off down the mountain, savoring the quiet. After a few moments, Wyleen Deadrick let herself out the screen door to join him.

“You seem a little blue tonight, Jack.” She came up to stand beside him and put a friendly arm around his waist.

Wyleen knew Jack well enough for that, but he made no response in return.

“What's wrong, Jack? You haven't seemed like yourself tonight.” Her fingers began to comfortably find their way around his back and under the belt of his pants. She looked up at him with suggestive gray eyes. Pretty eyes. Wyleen was still a fine-looking woman, even after having been married twice now.

“I heard you took your name back again after your divorce from Grady.”

“Yeah.” A faint smile played over her lips. “I didn't like the name Millhouse much. And Grady's mother was real glad to see me go back to being Wyleen Deadrick. She wasn't very fond of me, you know.”

Considering that Wyleen had cheated on Grady the whole three years they'd been married, Jack could hardly blame Grady's mother. And Jack liked Grady Millhouse.