“You’re welcome to have supper here tonight, Granddad.”
“You know I don’t see well enough to drive at night,” he roared. “I suppose, if I ran off into a ditch and died, it wouldn’t be any skin off your nose.”
Lacey was never sure how to respond when he said things like that. She wondered if her grandfather had any love for her at all. She’d been nothing but a burden and a disappointment to him since her parents died. It was a fact he’d never hidden.
“At least tell me that your trip wasn’t wasted,” he groused.
“I spoke to the man who owns the real estate company. He wants to divide this place into two-acre lots and sell it off as ranchettes, but he’s agreed to give me a month to come up with the money to buy the whole place.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have the money. This’ll be a miserable town if a bunch of city dudes move in trying to act like ranchers.”
“Are you sure you can’t help me out, Granddad? I’d be guaranteed a loan with your signature.” Lacey hated to beg. Especially when she knew the outcome would be unsuccessful.
Clarence Carlyle had been the president of Indian Lakes’ only bank for forty years. Everyone knew and respected him. Even though he was an unpleasant sort, you never knew when you might have to make a late payment or need a loan. He still carried a lot of clout in the community.
“You moved out of my house eight years ago,” he said. “I told you then that this farm was a bad idea. You’re trying to do the work of a man. Nothing good can come from it. Now, maybe you can get a regular job and start acting like a woman. You’re lucky enough the man was willing to talk to you. Why he’d bother, I can’t imagine. Surely he could see that you’re not up for this responsibility.”
Lacey’s face flamed with temper. “I’ve run this farm for eight years. It’s kept food on the table and a roof overhead.”
Clarence sauntered to the door with a limp. “You’re going to have to figure this out on your own, girl. I’m too old to keep pulling you out of messes.”
He didn’t know how badly those words hurt her. He probably wouldn’t care if he did.
“The man’s looking for a wife,” Lacey informed him. “He says if I marry him, he’ll let me keep the place.”
Clarence croaked out a dry laugh. “Are you that stupid? He’ll spend a night or two with you, and then be on his way. He’ll leave you out on the street. No self-respecting man would have anything more than that to do with you.”
“What if the man was Alex Benson?” Lacey countered.
Clarence stopped in the doorway. He looked more furious than Lacey had ever seen him. “After all I’ve done for you. I can’t believe that you’d speak that man’s name in my presence.”
Lacey jumped when the screen door slammed behind him. He had a way of making her feel small and dirty. Sometimes she wished he’d let her be taken into foster care after her parents died. Her life would have been so much different now.
The fatal car accident was the most horrible event of her life, but seventeen-year-old Lacey had taken a small amount of comfort in the fact that her parents died together. They’d been so in love, neither of them would have survived without the other. Sometimes she wished she’d been with them.
On the evening after the funeral, everyone in town gathered at her grandfather’s house. They all loved John and Lily Carlyle.
“What a sweet couple,” they all said. “It’s such a shame.”
Of course there’s always a fly in the ointment. Miss Dell, from the drugstore cosmetics counter, had pulled Lacey aside. “Lacey, honey, you’re a lucky girl. Your grandfather can raise you like a proper lady now. I don’t know what your parents were thinking when they let you work in the fields like a common farmhand.”
Lacey had been brought up to respect her elders. She made no reply to Miss Dell’s callous comment. She walked out her grandfather’s back door and then broke into a run for the lake. That’s where Alex had found her. She and Alex had known each other all their lives, but that was the first time he’d seen her as a woman.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Lacey was startled from her memories. She smiled down at her son and brushed the unruly curls from his forehead. “Yeah, I’m okay. I was just having a moment of nostalgia. Old people tend to do that, you know. Did you get your chores done like I asked you to?”
“Yes ma’am, for the most part.” Jerrod dug his toe into the dirt and twisted out a divot. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Lacey raised a brow. She knew the bull was about to leave the barn. “Oh?”
“Well, yes’m. You see, Granddad says inside chores are a woman’s work and I tend to agree.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. Clarence Carlyle had struck again. She forced herself to look sincere. “I’ve always thought that was an old-fashioned notion, but if that’s what you really think, we could give it a try.”
Jerrod’s smile beamed in the moonlight. “Really Mom, do you mean it? No more dishes or dusting and stuff?”
“Sure,” Lacey shrugged. “I’ll miss working with you, but I think you can take care of this place on your own now. The new fence posts and wire are in the barn for the west side of the pasture. You’ll find the paint in there too. After you lay the new floor on the porch, you’ll need to paint the railing, and then the shutters will have to be done to match. Maybe you should clean out the feed bins first though. You can do that along with mucking out the stalls. If you get a chance to take a break, the dogs need to be bathed and dipped. I want to start you out easy.”
Jerrod nearly shook with panic. “I’d have to do all that by myself?”
“Well son.” Lacey smiled. “You are the only man around here and all that stuff is man’s work, according to your granddad. I guess I’ll finally have enough time to teach your sister how to knit and sew. Personally, I’m not looking forward to her cooking, but if you can take it, I guess I can too. She has to learn woman’s work sooner or later.”
“Not even Granddad can take Jenna’s cooking, and he’ll eat about anything.” Jerrod grimaced. “I’m thinking he may be wrong about this man’s work and woman’s work stuff. Things get done pretty well around here the way they are.”
“I’ve always thought we made a good team.” Lacey kissed the top of Jerrod’s head and watched him walk back to the house.
She looked across the lake and waited for her grandfather’s kitchen light to come on before she followed. She did care about the old man, no matter how mean he was. He had taken care of her all those years ago and, besides the kids, he was all the family she had.
****
Seaman Apprentice Alex Benson walked out of the mailroom with two envelopes in his hand. He’d been disappointed so many times, he was afraid to look at them.
He’d been in the Navy for six months. The first two were spent on basic training, the second two, training for a job as a carrier crewmember. Now that he was aboard ship, his routine was still hectic. No matter how busy he was, though, he still found time to write to Lacey. He wished he could say the same for her. Not once had she answered one of his letters.
Lacey had been upset with him for going into the Navy. Why couldn’t she understand that he was trying to prepare for their future? College would have been expensive and taken too much time. With the Navy, he’d be trained in a career field within a year and he was already putting away money.
Aboard ship, he was more homesick for Lacey than he’d been on dry land. Her continued silence caused him to suspect all kinds of crazy things. Could she have lied when she said she loved him? Had she gotten tired of waiting for him already? Could she be seeing someone else?
Alex gathered his courage and turned over the first envelope in his hand. It had Lacey’s address scrolled across the front in his own handwriting, and over it were large letters written in red marker, RETURN TO SENDER. It was the third letter to be returned unopened.
The second envelope contained a Christmas card from his parents. “Merry friggin’ Christmas to me,” Alex muttered as he passed the engine room door.
A sound like thunder resonated through the narrow passage. Alex turned in time to see a ball of fire shoot toward him from inside the room. It threw him against the wall. The empty corridor was suddenly filled with the sounds of running footsteps and shouting. Smoke filled his lungs. A screaming siren was accompanied by a pulsing red light. Then there was nothing but unimaginable pain…
Alex sprang into a sitting position on the bed. He used the edge of the sheet to wipe sweat and sleep from his eyes. Sunlight was streaming through a crack between his bedroom curtains. It had taken him a long time to fall asleep and all he’d gotten for his trouble was the same damned nightmare.
He looked around at the small apartment bedroom. He owned a real estate company, but had never bought his own house. No place had felt like home to him for thirteen years.
Alex rolled to his side and pressed the button on the answering machine. He listened to Lacey’s message for, probably the hundredth time. “Hi Alex, I’m calling to let you know I got home safely.” There was a pause. Had she wanted to say something and decided against it? Was she thinking about that scorching kiss, the way he had half the night?
“Have a good night,” she finished before hanging up.
“To hell with it!” Alex threw off the covers. He’d take a quick shower and buy a cup of coffee on his way to Indian Lakes. It was time to start exorcizing this woman from his blackened soul.
Chapter Four
It was nearly noon when Lacey walked to the road to collect the mail. She and the kids had gone fishing after an early breakfast. Tonight’s supper would be fresh catfish. They’d brought in six, cleaned and skinned on the boat. Now they were soaking in buttermilk. Everything else they’d caught had been thrown back into the lake for another day.
She didn’t know why she’d kept so many fish. The three of them usually ate four. The kids were growing and had big appetites. They’d split the extra one. Maybe it was due to the guilt she felt over her argument with her grandfather. Her subconscious wanted to invite him for supper. Her conscious mind wasn’t crazy about the idea.
The disparity with Granddad had started years ago and was a constant irritation. He was judgmental, opinionated, and unforgiving. She often worried about the influence he’d have over Jerrod. Clarence Carlyle wouldn’t be her first choice for a male role model for her son. Thankfully, he and Jenna tended to avoid each other. Her daughter had learned at a young age that Granddad wasn’t susceptible to female charm.
Despite her grumpy grandfather’s opinion of their lifestyle, she and the kids loved the farm. It was exactly the life Lacey had wanted for Jerrod and Jenna; fresh air, wide-open spaces, and working with the earth and animals. If they had to give it up, she didn’t know what she’d do. Perhaps she could sell off the livestock for the money to live on while she found some other kind of work. The young calves and piglets weren’t worth much yet, but she wouldn’t have a place to keep them soon anyway.
She refused to entertain the thought of marrying Alex. His motives were less than honorable. She’d already found out that his word couldn’t be trusted. Those weren’t even the most compelling reasons to keep him out of her life. The way he’d kissed her, the day before, had proved that her body still yearned for him. A man would just muck up her hectic life.
Lacey pulled a few envelopes from the roadside mailbox. She hoped for notice of an inheritance or a large sweepstakes prize. Instead, she found a bill from the electric company and another from the feed store.
Gravel crunched under slow moving tires on the road. Lacey used the envelopes to shade her eyes as she squinted in their direction. A silver BMW was approaching. “Son of a bitch,” she murmured.
Alex let the car idle beside her as he lowered the window. “I’m glad to see you have a real mailbox now. It seems, from your claim, that the post office box wasn’t very reliable.”
“Granddad checked that box every day on his way home. We never noticed anything else missing.” The pleasantness of the day had just ended. “What do you want, Alex?”
“Get in and I’ll take you up to the house.” He reached over and opened the passenger side door. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“You could have called,” Lacey said.
Alex ignored her statement. “Hey, I like your brand.” He leaned into the steering wheel for a better view of the oval wooden sign above the gate. It had two capital Js overlapping in the center and a scalloped pattern on the border. It was burned into the wood, not painted. “What does it stand for?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Lacey slid into the car seat feeling like one of her catfish: caught, skinned, gutted, and waiting to be fried. It was best to get it over with. The kids were in the barn doing chores. She had a little time to sit down with him and explain. Two mischievous children were not part of his weekend plans. They would probably be the deal breaker. Yes, she wanted to break the deal. No, she didn’t want to give up her farm.
Alex rolled to a stop when the house came into view. “I know this house,” he said, surprised. “Mark Garvey lived here when we were kids. I used to sleep over with him all the time. His mom made the best peanut butter cookies in the world. I wonder what happened to good old Mark and his folks.”
She wondered if Alex had noticed how rundown the house had gotten after all these years. She didn’t have the resources Mr. Garvey had. Most of her money and energy went into the livestock and garden. Those were the things that fed her family and paid the bills.
“Mark moved to Atlanta, got married and had two kids,” she told him. “His parents sold the place to move closer to them.”
“Can you imagine that—Mark, a family man? He probably has an SUV with a big sloppy dog hanging out the window. I can see him now, driving the little monsters to soccer practice and ballet lessons.” Chuckling, he turned to Lacey. “You know, my brother Travis has two little girls. He’s such a dope over them, but he always was a loser.”
Lacey jumped out of the car leaving the door hanging open. She stomped across the lawn and up the steps to her front porch. She remembered Travis. He was a couple of years older than Alex. He wasn’t as athletic or quite as good-looking, but he wasn’t a loser. Being a good dad certainly didn’t make him a loser. Who did Alex think he was, saying such a thing?