Heart and Home (17 page)

“Sounds like fun.”

“Oh,” I smiled and gestured
for him to have a seat at the kitchen table. “She’ll be happy when I call her
back.”

“Marty’s a nice guy.” He
ladled soup into my bowl first.

“I haven’t really seen him
yet.” Realizing I forgot to grab spoons, I hopped up and plucked two soup
spoons from the drawer. “I mean, I remember him only vaguely from school. He
was ahead of us.”

“Yeah, a couple years.”

“Becky’s been so great since
I’ve been back. I guess she and my mom did a lot of scrapbooking together.”

I watched him lift the spoon
to his mouth and wondered if he was as nervous as I was. If he was, how could
even eat? But then I remembered men had iron stomachs that begged to be filled,
even in the event of extreme nerves. I swirled my spoon around between carrots
and beans, the occasional piece of celery floating to the top.

“We’ve gotten really close
these last couple of days,” I admitted. “It certainly won’t be easy to just
leave here come Sunday.”

“No.” He didn’t look up from
the bowl in front of him, but instead mimicked my nervous stirring motions
unknowingly. “I imagine not.”

The silence circulating
through the room was stiff and suffocating. I could tell that he was avoiding
looking up, even as I tried my hardest to keep from looking at him as well. It
hadn’t even really begun yet, and already it was too difficult to think about.
Even reminding myself what Becky said about not turning my back on love just
because it didn’t fit into my agenda wasn’t making it any easier.

Our date was intense, and
there he was bringing me lunch just looking for an excuse to see me. If we
spent the next three days together, and that was looking rather likely at the
rate we were going, what would separation feel like come Sunday? Just thinking
about not being able to drop by Becky’s on a whim was painful enough.

I pushed a small chunk of
ham under the creamy white broth with my spoon and weighed my options. “So your
mom sent you over here with lunch?”

“She did, yes,” he admitted,
a sheepish hesitation in his voice. “She said you were too skinny from living
in the city all alone, and that I should bring you a nice home cooked meal.”

“She did not!”

“She says that about
everyone. I swear she’s on a mission to feed the world.” I watched his hands,
they were weathered and cracked, the skin dry from the cold and there was a
fresh cut down the back of his hand that hadn’t been there night before. I felt
a shudder of desire move through me as I thought again about how his hands
might feel against my skin, calloused and rough, but gentle and attentive.

I reached across the table
and traced my finger alongside the cut, “That’s new.”

“Yeah, I did that this
morning,” he turned it over to have a look. “Caught it on a nail in the barn.”

I sucked in a tortured
breath, “Ooh, does it hurt?”

I curled my fingers around
the inside of his palm and brought his hand back around. I moved my thumb
gently along the curve of the cut and realized I just completely ignored
everything I’d been fighting against for a chance to hold his hand. Had I
already lost the battle for my heart so early in the game? I drew his hand
closer and pressed my lips against the skin there.

“Not anymore.” He moved in
slowly and when he kissed me the butterflies that seemed to dictate my every
thought and feeling in his company surged into overdrive. We sat with our
foreheads pressed together for a moment, and then he moved back again. “You
didn’t tell Becky about the hayride?”

“Oh, no. I just told her we
went for a drive.” I squirmed in my seat and tucked on ankle under me so that I
sat a little higher.

“Good,” he went back to
swirling his spoon around the soup, taking the occasional bite.

I managed a couple bites myself,
and he was right. His mother really did make the best bean soup in three
counties, but eating in his company seemed impossible. Never before in my life
had I felt so strange and self-conscious, so alive and yet so afraid that every
moment would go up in smoke before I had a chance to really live it. I wanted
to kiss him again, or even better give into my increasing desire to know what
his body felt like pressed close to mine.

“Troy,” I lowered the spoon
into my soup and sat back in my chair. “I know when you asked me out to dinner,
you said it wasn’t anything complicated, and really, it isn’t, but I am going
to be brutally honest here when I say I am feeling a lot of complicated things
inside.”

The blue of his eyes nearly
melted me when he focused his stare on me. He had to know what he was getting
into, and maybe it was his plan all along to confuse me into a sense of
starry-eyed bedazzlement that made it impossible to even think about leaving
Sonesville or him behind ever again.

“I didn’t want it to be
complicated, Janice,” he admitted. “I thought maybe we’d go out, and have a
good time…”

“But that’s the thing, we
did have a good time,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Troy, I had a great
time. In fact, I will admit that even before you asked me out I’d been thinking
about you, hoping that maybe you would, but what’s going to happen when I go
back to Pittsburgh? Are you going to come and see me there?”

“I don’t know, Janice,” he
looked away. “I mean of course, if you wanted me to come and I was able, then
yes, but… I don’t know. I just thought we could take some time while you were
here and see how it all played out. Once you have to go back, we can play it by
ear.”

“But I’m only here for a
couple more days, what if it isn’t enough time.”

“Then we’ll cross that
bridge when we come to it.”

“I guess,” a slow nod moved
my head, but it wasn’t something I controlled. “I mean, as long as we both take
that into consideration.”

“Absolutely,” he nodded.

“I mean,” my head was moving
again without me telling it to, this time shaking back and forth in confusion.
“I guess I just don’t want to… I really like you, Troy. I don’t want to get
hurt.”

His firm gaze returned to
mine, “You have my promise, Janice. I will do everything in my power not to
hurt you.”

“Okay,” I agreed, a slow
smile forming at the corners of my mouth. “And I will try my hardest to make
sure I don’t hurt you either.”

“Sounds like a deal,” he
held his hand out so we could shake on it, but once I accepted it, he drew me
into another kiss. He cupped my face against his hand, and after he kissed me,
he nestled his cheek into mine and kept his eyes closed.

Chapter Sixteen

I followed Becky into the
kitchen with an armload of dirty dishes and leaned against the counter as she
began to run dishwater. So far the night was a lot of fun, the kind of night
that would definitely make you feel even more comfortable with someone you were
just getting to know. Troy and Marty seemed to hit off well, and Becky’s boys
were both excited when they learned that Troy had tractors, cows, horses and a
farm full of other animals. They already begged Troy to let them come over and
feed his pigs, a proposition not even Becky could deter them from.

She leaned nudgingly into me
and sighed. “It’s the nights like this that make you daydream about the future.
Having your own place, inviting your friends over.”

“Well, I’m not ready to
think about the future yet,” I muttered, despite the inner-voice that seemed to
wilt at the prospect of there being no future for Troy and me. “He’s so good
with your kids,” I noted, hoping to steer the subject away from our
relationship.

“Yeah,” she followed my gaze
into the dining room where her youngest son had managed to hoist himself onto
Troy’s lap. “Definitely a good quality, I mean if you ever wanted to have
kids.”

“I keep forgetting you have
already married us off in your head,” I laughed. “But in all honesty, I don’t
think that thought is on either one of our minds, and it’s probably better if
we keep it that way for a while.”

She shrugged, “You never
know. I know you’ve been pretty career minded, but what comes after career for
you? Have you ever thought you might want to get married, start a family?”

I shook my head and pressed
my back into the counter behind me. Crossing my arms over my chest, I clamped
my lips a little tighter before I said, “I never really thought about it at
all. I always just assumed those things would present themselves when it was
time for me to think about them.”

“Hello?” she waved her hands
in front of me.

I started to laugh at her,
“Just stop it, you!”

“It’s a guilty fault,” she
admitted. “I just can’t stand to see two people I know belong together beating
around the bush about it, but I’ll back off a little.”

“Thank you,” I was still
laughing at her. “But seriously, thanks for having us over. I’m having a good
time, and I think he is too.”

“Yeah, well, I have a
feeling it wouldn’t matter if you guys were sitting at the dentist. He’d be
having a good time just so long as you were there.” She took the dishes I’d set
down on the counter and placed them in the rising, soapy water. “I swear he
hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”

“That’s not entirely true,”
my face flushed pink with warmth. “He makes eye contact with Marty every time
they talk.”

“There is that,” she chuckled.
“So, onto other matters while we have a minute to ourselves, did you find
anything else out about the ghost situation?”

“No, I didn’t get much of a
chance to do anymore research today, what with him coming over for lunch, and
then having to take those bags of clothing up to the women’s shelter. I did
find this forum for people who have had similar experiences to mine.”

“Did you post?”

I shook my head, “Not yet. I
read a few of them though, strange stories.” I shrugged off a chill as it began
to move through me. “Truth is I still feel a little weird about it all, like
maybe I’m just crazy, or something.”

Becky switched off the
water, and then turned in to face me. “You’re not crazy, Janice.”

I lowered my eyes toward the
bubbles in the sink and sheepishly admitted, “I tried to talk to her this
morning.” I paused as my throat constricted with emotion and waited until it
passed before I added, “I tried to reach out and let her know I was listening,
but nothing happened.”

A frown stretched the
corners of her mouth, and as if she knew exactly what I needed, she leaned in
and gave me a hug, squeezing my shoulders gently. “We’ll get to the bottom of
this.”

“I hope so,” I nodded. “I
hate to think that she’s trying to tell me something and I can’t hear her. It
gives me the shivers.”

“Mama, I wanna have dessert
now,” her oldest son came barreling into the kitchen and threw his arms around
Becky’s legs.

She moved away to lift him
up, and I admired her from the side. I really hadn’t ever put any thought into
getting married or having kids of my own one day. It was always about my
career, which numbed me into a false sense of satisfaction. I realized that
when we’d been out with Becky’s friends on Tuesday night. I was writing for a
living, and I really loved it, but sometimes it really did overtake my entire
life. I don’t think I’d even realized just how much I was missing until my
mom’s death forced me to slow down and take a look around me.

“I made cheesecake,” she
grinned over at me. “With home-made strawberry topping that I froze during the
summer for just such an occasion.”

“I like strawberries,” Galen
said.

Becky nuzzled her nose
against his, her grin more precious than anything I’d ever seen. “I know you
do, now why don’t you go sit down in your seat and I’ll be right out.” She
lowered him to the floor and he raced back into the dining room.

After desert, Becky put the
boys down for bed and then we played cards. More than playing though, we
talked, and the games kept getting put on hold while we’d get caught up in
conversations about old teachers and future vacation plans. It was just going
on ten o’clock when I noticed Troy trying desperately to hide a yawn.

“Last round,” I noted. “Poor
Troy was up two hours before the sun this morning. I have a feeling he’s going
to nod off into his hand if I don’t let him go home and go to bed.”

He reached for his iced tea
and took a sip. “I’m used to it. I’ll have to get up and do it again tomorrow,”
he said. “It’s that time of year.”

“The harvest,” Marty noted.
“Are you doing most of the work on your own now?”

“No way,” he shook his head.
“I’ve got my cousin and a couple of hands I hire part time that work spring
through summer and then help with the harvest in the fall. There’s no way I
could maintain it all myself.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Marty
acknowledged.

“Speaking of, you guys ought
to bring your kids over to the hayride tomorrow night,” he winked over at me,
and I grinned. “We’re having it over at the farm this year, and it’s really
gonna be some show.”

Becky leaned into the table,
holding the mug of hot tea she’d just made herself. “I didn’t know that started
tomorrow night.”

“I’m gonna go check it out,”
I said. “Maybe you and Marty want to bring the kids and tagalong?”

“We could do that.”

“Sure,” Marty agreed.

When our final game fizzled
out it was just past ten, and by ten-thirty we were clearing up the cards and
saying goodnight to Becky and Marty. Troy helped me into my coat before he
turned his attention to Becky and Marty. “Thank you for having us over, Becky. I
had a good time.”

“Me too,” I chimed in.

“Anytime,” she shrugged as
Marty slipped in behind her and braced her shoulders affectionately. “If Janice
didn’t live so far away right now, I’d say let’s do it again next Thursday.”

I pinched my lips tightly
together before working up the courage to promise, “There will be other
Thursdays. Come on, there are a whole slew of holidays coming up in the next
six weeks that I won’t be able to leave my dad alone on.”

“I’m gonna hold you to
that,” she promised, leaning in to hug me.

“You and me both,” Troy
added.

They saw us out into the
chilly evening. Troy rested his arm across my shoulders as we walked toward his
truck, and then he opened the passenger’s side door. I climbed inside, while
Becky and Marty stood on their doorstep watching us leave. When I looked out
the window at her, even from the curb I thought I noted a weary sadness about
her.

While I wasn’t sure what
brought it on, I felt a little sad myself. I hadn’t had a friend like Becky in
years. I still talked to Erika through email when we actually had time to
respond to each other, but everyone in Pittsburgh was an acquaintance or a
colleague. I was sure that there was some lesson, some stark truth about how I
was being punished for isolating myself in the city. I mean, really, there was
no denying I hadn’t dated anyone like Troy all my life, so there was no sense
in even dwelling on that aspect of things anymore. I drew my coat closer to me,
despite the evident heat blowing from the vents, and tried to warm away the
cold I felt inside.

Earlier in the week I would
have felt sure that once I was back in Pittsburgh, back to work and slipping
into my old routines, it would be easy enough to just forget Sonesville and
move on again. But the truth of the matter was that for the first time since
I’d left for college I was starting to think maybe the city wasn’t the right
place for me. After all, I took an extra week off of work out of concern for my
dad, and I hadn’t spent much time taking care of him at all. I’d been with
Becky and Troy, and deny it as I might try, I felt comfortable with the two of
them in a way I couldn’t explain.

“You’re quiet,” Troy
noticed.

“I was just thinking.”

I was caught off guard when
he asked, “Should I be afraid to ask?”

“Oh,” I glanced across the
car at his profile, which was highlighted by the passage of an oncoming car.
“It was just Becky,” I said. “She looked so sad when we left. It broke my heart
a little.”

“She seemed real happy that
we came over,” he noted.

“Yeah, she was,” I nodded.
“It’s just how close we’ve gotten this last week. It’s almost unreal.”

“The universe works in
mysterious ways.”

“It seems right now like
it’s working double-time against me,” I muttered, glancing out the window at
the blur of street stretching alongside us.

“You’re still thinking about
leaving on Sunday,” he surmised.

I watched the air freshener
sway against the blowing heater and reflect the glow from the dashboard lights.
I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I felt his stare on me. “Maybe just a
little,” my admission was a stubborn one, and I hugged my arms tighter against
my chest. “I mean, you don’t spend your whole life dying to get away from this
place only to come back for two weeks and have a complete change of heart.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m
just confused and frustrated because I know I have to go back, but there’s a
greater part of me than I ever expected that doesn’t want to.”

“Janice, your mother just
passed away,” his voice was quiet, thoughtful as though it took a great deal of
courage for him to speak up and remind me of the obvious. “Now, I am no
psychologist, hell I don’t even watch that Dr. Phil guy, so maybe I don’t know
what I’m talking about, but it just seems like making any kind of rash decision
so quickly after losing someone so close to you is a bad idea.”

I knew he was right, the
tingling of truth pricked at the nerves in my spine. “So,” I reached across the
truck and rested my hand on the top of his thigh, “if what you’re saying is
true, letting myself fall for you should be out of the question.”

“Well,” his gaze drifted
momentarily downward, and he cleared his throat. “Theoretically, you’re
probably right. Grief is a very powerful emotion.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It can confuse everything
you think and feel.”

Hadn’t I spent the hours
before breakfast that morning sobbing in bed?

“So, you think that maybe my
sudden change of heart about this place… you think it’s because of my mom
dying?”

“I think that…” he hesitated
as we drew up to a red light. “I think it would be a bad idea to come rushing
back here without giving yourself a little more time to think things through.”
The light changed, and the truck sluggishly moved forward. “Don’t get me wrong,
I can see how close you and Becky have become, and I certainly wouldn’t
complain if I knew we didn’t have just two more days to really make a lasting
impression on each other, but…”

“But staying here now really
wouldn’t have anything to do with you or Becky,” I said quietly, knowing that
even if that wasn’t what he was going to say, it was the truth.

“You might even grow to
resent us,” he said.

And while I couldn’t imagine
it even for a second, the thought alone was heart wrenching enough. I withdrew
my hand and glanced over my shoulder at the abandoned
Standard
building. The sign suddenly seemed sadder than it ever
had. I remembered what Katy said to me at breakfast two days earlier and felt
an eerie prickling sensation roll down the back of my neck.

I sat back in my seat and
tried not to let my emotions get the best of me. I hated the truth; the fact
that I was so vulnerable and confused was so unlike me I didn’t know how to
deal with it. Even the things I was sure were right and made sense suddenly
seemed clouded and strange.