A Shadow on the Ground (2 page)

“Morgan? Whatcha doin'?”

Crystal.

“Don't come in here!” Morgan jumped up and blocked Crystal's view. She couldn't let an eight-year-old see a dead body. The image of Harlan’s blood smeared corpse had already seared into her own brain, promising cold sweat nightmares for decades to come.

“But I
want
to
see
the
barn
.” The little girl leaned against the doorway. Her huge blue eyes stared at Morgan from beneath a cloud of white-blond curls. Her inverted index finger hooked deep into the recesses of her right nostril.

“Get in the truck, Crystal,
now!
Or I’ll tell your mother!”

“What's that stuff on your pants?”

Morgan didn't have to look. She could feel Harlan's blood seeping through the worn knees of her jeans. “Dammit, Crystal!
Get your butt back in the truck!
”

Crystal scampered up the hill.

Morgan dialed 911. Halfway through the call, the muscles in her legs turned to rubber. She stumbled outside and lowered herself onto a bed of chickweed.

How was she going to tell Sean? How could she tell her brother that the one man who thought he could keep their family's orchard from plunging into bankruptcy was dead? Tears welled up in her eyes. Hot selfish tears. The kind Morgan’s mother always said would scald her soul. She should be crying for the poor man lying dead in the slaughterhouse, drenched in his own blood. Or for her brother, who had lost a trusted mentor and friend. But all she could think of was herself.

And how she was stuck.

Again.

She slid Harlan’s phone into her pocket and looked up. A low cloud clung to the side of Blackstone Mountain, like a climber frozen in his tracks, unable to move up, down, or sideways.

A quiet, hysterical laugh tried to work its way past the dry, thin pockets of air she kept swallowing. The realization of what had happened, and what it could mean for all of them, tightened in her chest. She gulped in more air.

Harlan was dead. How could she desert Sean now? Her brother was the only real family she had left, and she could never leave him in the lurch no matter how desperate she was to cut and run. She knew Sean better than anyone. He would fight the good fight until there was nothing left to fight for. He would never give up. She had no choice but to stay. At least until things settled down.

But the instant it became clear whether Maguire Orchard and Apple Butter Barn was destined to survive or go belly up, she was going to pack her bags, get the hell out of Riverbirch, and return to civilization.

And this time, there'd be no looking back.

The distant wail of a siren reverberated across the valley. Morgan took a deep breath and blew it out. Then she stared at the blood on her hands and waited.

Chapter 2

Gage Kirkland forced himself to calm down. The raw anticipation that had burned through his gut for the last forty minutes was beginning to give him the kind of heartburn no amount of antacid could touch.

The woman he'd found pacing the Maguire's front porch in a low-cut ruffled blouse, chain smoking menthol cigarettes as fast as she could light one off the other, was worried Morgan hadn't shown up with her kid. What was the woman’s name—Peach? Peach was sure something bad had happened to them. And who was Gage to say she was wrong? If he'd learned anything skulking around the most dangerous streets in Atlanta, it was to respect another person’s fears. Sometimes they were unfounded. Most of the time they weren’t.

“I’m not a rich woman,” Peach wailed. “I live in a trailer park and work two jobs. I can’t afford daycare, so I pay Morgan to keep Crystal every day after school. If she takes my baby somewhere, she’s supposed to leave a note.” She gazed up and down the road, panic growing in her dark kohl lined eyes. “Being a single parent can sure be the pits sometimes.”

“Yes, it can.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about my two boys. They live with their father in Cherokee Bluff, so I only have to fool with them every other weekend.” She batted her thick black lashes. “Dammit! Where are they? I’ve gotta be at work at five.” She turned back to Gage. “You're not gonna leave me here alone, are you? Please say you're not gonna leave.”

“I'm not gonna leave.”

“We're
staying
?” Jeremy glanced up from a dog-eared copy of
The Time Machine
and scowled. He managed to avoid looking directly into Gage's eyes, a feat he'd perfected during the last two months. “
Jeez!
How long are we staying here? Until it's time to eat?”

“Maybe.”

Jeremy threw the book on the wicker loveseat. “Then can I go inside and take a—” He glanced at Peach, thought better of it. “Can I use the bathroom?”

“Go ahead,” Peach said. “Morgan won't mind. Top of the stairs to your left.”

Jeremy shuffled into the house. The screen door banged behind him.

“Is your boy here to take piano lessons?”

“Uh...no.” Gage ducked under a string of wind chimes. “I'm here to meet Sean Maguire.” He leaned against a wooden porch post and followed Peach's anxious gaze to the road winding in front of the house. It had taken him half an hour to find the place. He lived on the other side of the mountain in Cherokee Bluff, and had forgotten how tricky the back roads near Riverbirch could be.

He glanced over his shoulder. The view from the big wraparound porch looked like the picture postcards he’d seen at the Tennessee Welcome Center. A large painted wooden square decorated the front of the gray weathered barn—some kind of quilt pattern that looked like apples. He'd seen painted wooden quilt blocks with different colors and patterns hanging on barns all over Tennessee, and they always made him smile. Such a sweet, homey way to decorate the countryside. As if the idyllic scenery wasn’t beautiful enough.

Below the Maguire’s rambling three-story Victorian, neat rows of apple trees, heavy with fruit, spread across a lush, rolling valley. According to the tax records, theirs was a high-density orchard, 175 trees per acre, on about thirty-seven acres, flanked on one side by Deer Creek and the other by the south end of Blackstone Mountain. He sighed contentedly. A little slice of heaven plopped down in the middle of nowhere. “Nice place,” he said. “I’m from Georgia. Is Blackstone part of the Appalachian Mountains or the Smokies?”

“Appalachians. And I’m glad you pronounced it the right way. It’s downright insulting when some of those big know-it-all announcers on
The
Weather Channel
pronounce it ‘App-a-
lay
-chuns.’ The only people who say it like that are the people who don’t live here.”

Gage glanced behind him. “This house is huge.”

“This house is a monster,” Peach said, laughing. “In winter, they close off half the rooms just to heat it.” She sighed. “But I love it here. Morgan doesn’t know how lucky she is. She's never been much of a country girl.”

“Has she always lived here?”

“She lived in Atlanta while she was married, then moved back here, then moved to Nashville for a few months until last spring. She keeps trying to get off this farm, but somebody always needs her for something. Then she has to come home again.”

“What did she do in Nashville?”

“Played the organ for some big church.’Course, she had to quit to help take care of her grandpa.” Peach shook her head. “Robert Maguire was a hard man, but I wouldn't wish a death like his on anyone. Cancer. The poor man was eat up with it. That's where Morgan and I met. I work at the nursing home part-time, and I stayed with him at night.”

“You're a nurse?” He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Well, not yet. But I’d like to be.” She took a breath and went on. “After Mr. Maguire died, his second wife, Opal, said she never wanted to see another apple tree as long as she lived. She threatened to contest the will, and forced Sean and Morgan to give her part of their inheritance. It left them in a pretty bad place financially, which is why Sean begged Morgan to stay until he gets the farm back on its feet. She won’t hang around, though. Once they get the harvest apples in, she’ll leave again.”

Gage wondered what Morgan Maguire would look like now.

He hadn't allowed himself to trust the memory he carried in his head, buried so deep no amount of effort or whisky could destroy it. Its luster should have faded, or at least morphed into the kind of hazy fantasy that had been trotted out and brooded over so many times, it had nothing to do with the real thing. Her eyes, her hair, the smile that had made his twenty-two-year-old heart ache with desire, couldn't be the same as he remembered. People never stayed the same. Life changed them. Other people changed them. Chances were he wouldn't even recognize her.

He'd know her voice, though. Low and throaty, with the barest hint of a rasp. A voice no man in his right mind could ever forget. When he'd called to confirm the appointment with her brother, the sound of her voice on the answering machine startled him into tripping over a crate of empty wine bottles. Then sent him sprawling headfirst into the tasting room wall.

“Your son looks like you,” Peach said. “Cute kid. He isn’t real thrilled to be here, is he?”

“At the moment, Jeremy isn't real thrilled to be anywhere.”

“They sure go through phases, don't they?”

“Oh, lady,” he said softly. “This is way more than a phase.”

Gage glanced at the screen door. He wished Jeremy would come bounding out and flash him the laid-back grin Gage had always taken for granted. But those days were gone. The last few months had turned Jeremy into a boy whose pinched face couldn't hide his anger. Whose volatile temper remained cocked and ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Refusing to look his father in the eye was something Jeremy withheld out of spite. It was the knife he could plunge into Gage's heart, the revenge he could exact without breaking a sweat.

He’s just a kid
.
He deserves to feel happy.

Gage didn't believe in happiness. Not for himself, anyway. Not anymore. It was something reserved for the elderly with brains so ravaged by dementia, they couldn't remember their own names, much less the person who had ruined their lives fifty years ago. And for the children, young, innocent souls still untouched by the meanness in the world. He'd always considered a person's innocence a sacred thing. Which is why he would never forgive himself for destroying it for his own son.

“They’re here!” Peach jumped up and down. Polka dot ruffles flapped against her ample, bouncing bosom.

A pale blue truck, so beat up it looked like it should be balanced on cinderblocks in somebody's front yard, turned into the driveway and rumbled toward the house. It ground to a halt beside the white fence. A little girl, the spitting image of Peach, sans about a hundred pounds, scrambled out of the cab and ran toward them. Her thin arms flailed in the wind.

“
Mama, Mama!
Morgan found a—”

“Crystal Darlene! Where have you been?” Peach flipped her cigarette behind a clump of azaleas and scooped her daughter into her arms. “I've been worried sick about you.”

“Listen,
listen,
Mama! Morgan found a dead—”

“Not now, sugar. Mama’s talking.”

Gage stared at the truck cab, waiting.

If he thought for one second she'd even remember him, he'd...no. He laughed softly. He couldn't imagine she would. It had been too long. The time they’d spent together had only been a spit in a bucket. They’d danced around each other for a day and a night like opposite ends of a magnet, shared a makeshift bed, made a few empty promises. By the next morning, she'd probably forgotten all about him, shaken off their time together like a dream barely worth remembering. He'd thought their lovemaking had been pretty spectacular, even by twenty-year-old standards, but what had he known? A kid who had hidden his inexperience and vulnerability beneath a veil of bravado, then let his better judgment and raging hormones get the best of him?

Nothing much had changed there.

The shallow part of him hoped she’d let herself go, turned into one of those hefty women he saw at the grocery store, who smelled like bacon grease, and enjoyed speeding down the aisles, terrorizing the other shoppers in their motorized carts. Or maybe that was the cowardly part.

He blinked at the truck. Why didn't she get out? Had she seen him? Did he look familiar to her? He took another deep, ragged breath. Something sharp stabbed at the shell surrounding his heart, leaving it scratched and sore.

What would she think of him now? Irresponsible? Inadequate? Disappointing? If she did remember him, how surprised would she be he had changed so little? That beneath the grown-up, slightly weathered exterior, he was still the same immature kid afraid to trust his own judgment? That he was still making the wrong choices and blaming himself because the life he’d screwed up hadn’t turned out like he wanted? He used to think that at least his heart was in the right place, but he wasn’t even sure of that anymore. He wasn’t sure of anything.

He crossed his arms and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His heart thumped against his ribs. Double-time. Like Bugs Bunny staring down the barrel of Elmer Fudd’s shotgun. It occurred to him that when they finally came face to face, he might actually be required to speak. He tried to swallow, but all available spit had left the building.

Two scuffed brown leather boots slowly emerged from the truck, followed by a pair of jean clad legs that seemed to go on forever. The woman attached to them slid from the cab, stepped back, and slammed the door. She took off her dilapidated straw hat, shook out a cascade of dark brown hair, then stood for a moment, looking at him.

Had she always been that tall? As tall as him? Maybe. They'd only spent one day in each other’s company, and they hadn't wasted much time standing. They’d sat on a bench at the Harvest Festival beside a huge copper kettle while she stirred figure eights into boiling apple butter with a long wooden paddle. Then later, they'd lain on a cot in his uncle's Lake Shanleigh boathouse with the moonlight streaming through the wooden slats, caressing her pale, smooth skin until it shimmered. She still had the kind of porcelain skin that looked as if she spent her days indoors, protected by steel and UV coated glass, instead of trailing through a sunny apple orchard in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.