On Lavender Lane (33 page)

He flushed a bit at that and gave her a sideways glance. “Sorry. That was definitely too much information.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “But it’s nice that you were able to keep your marriage together during what must have been difficult times.”

“They were hell. I came home pretty messed up, but we’d both grown up on farms. Me in Oregon; Mia—that was my wife’s name—in Idaho. So, since farming was what I knew, and working for my dad and brothers definitely wasn’t good for family harmony, and since I wasn’t the same kid who’d joined the Marines after I graduated with a degree in agricultural sciences from Oregon State, getting our own place seemed the sensible thing to do.…My parents weren’t real happy about me enlisting.”

“They probably worried about you getting wounded. Or even killed.”

“I think that was part of it. Mom cried when I told her. Dad was mostly pissed off because I was the first Concannon in the family to go to college, which, although he never was one for handing out compliments, apparently he considered it a really big deal. So he hated the idea of me throwing my life away.”

“I can understand that.”

Hadn’t her own parents felt much the same way? They’d also tried to coax her into going back to school after her marriage. But in the beginning, she thought Peter’s urging against the idea was because he wanted to be able to spend
more time with her. It wasn’t until much later that she realized he wanted to keep her from meeting anyone else.

“So could I,” he said. “But it was just something I wanted to do. Plus, my older brother made it clear that he resented me even getting a degree. So, when I went home after I got out of the military, taking with me the new environmental ideas I’d learned about farming in school, we mixed about as well as gasoline and a flame thrower.”

She gave him a sideways glance and wondered if she’d made a mistake coming out to this remote farm with a man she didn’t even know. Even if Sofia had vouched for him.

“You don’t seem like a man who’d lose his temper.”

“I’m not. As a rule. Unless someone hurts a child or a woman. Or,” he added, “an animal. Which I realize probably sounds ironic, coming from someone who raises livestock for market—”

“I grew up on a ranch,” she reminded him.

“Well, then, you know slaughter’s never pretty. Even when it’s done humanely. But I will say that it’s the only bad day any of Blue Heron’s animals will ever have.”

“What do you raise?”

“Vegetables, which you already know. As for livestock, I’ve settled on cattle, hogs, and chickens. The chickens as much for the eggs as for eating.

“I was really leaning toward sheep, but as much as Mia liked the idea of learning to weave from their wool, and we weren’t going to keep them penned, she couldn’t get past the idea of baby lambs gamboling over the hillsides. So, although there’s a strong market for lamb, I ditched that plan.”

And hadn’t picked it back up again, even though his wife was no longer around to resist.

“Mia was a lucky woman,” she said.

“I was the lucky one,” he said simply as he pulled up in front of a grassy pasture. “These are our free-rangers.” He pointed out the flocks of brown birds. “I had to go to France
for a breed that can take cool nights and warm days. They’re slower growing—twelve weeks instead of five or six—but they’re strong enough to live outdoors, the way chickens are meant to. They eat grass—we move them around so they’ll always have fresh pastureland. They have perches to sleep on at night, and dust to bathe in.

“Not only do they taste a lot better than ones who are fed chicken chow, but all that running around gives them larger thighs, which make for really good eating and have gotten more and more popular with home and professional cooks. They’re also more expensive, so we also have more ordinary free-range chickens.”

He pointed in the distance, where she saw a row of tidy henhouses. “They’re encouraged to peck for their own food outside, which is why we leave the doors open, unlike a lot of so-called organic farms that only open a tiny window an hour a day. But if they want to go inside and roost, especially for nesting, that works, too. They’re vegetarian fed from feed that’s strictly organic. The hogs, too.”

“That’s why you pick up whatever leftover parts of the vegetables we don’t use,” she said.

“Yep. The ultimate farm to table, then back to the farm, then back to the table as bacon.” He rocked back on his heels in obvious satisfaction with what he’d created. Which was so different from Peter, who’d certainly enjoyed the wealth and privilege his family’s business provided but had never seemed interested in contributing that much to its growth.

“You must be really proud,” she said.

“The farm’s not where I’d like it to be yet, but more and more the monthly bottom line is showing positive numbers. I’ve gotten together with some other local organic farmers and we’ve formed a cooperative. We even have a guy in Skohomish, Washington, who makes artist paintbrushes. He was getting all his hog bristles from China, but the quality’s gone down, so we’ve established a market for those, too.”

“You’ve really thought this through.”

“Yeah, I have. My next project is to build an anaerobic digester that’ll produce methane and generate enough electricity to run the entire farm from manure and other waste projects. I made the plans for it while I was in school. I always figured I’d build something to leave to my son and future generations.”

“I don’t want to diminish your loss in any way,” she said carefully, not because she worried about angering him, but because she didn’t want to add to his personal pain. “But you’re still a young man.”

“True.” He rubbed his jaw as he looked out over the rolling green meadows and fertile fields and the home he’d built for the family who’d been so cruelly taken from him. “I’ve been pouring all my energies into this place, but”—he shrugged—“my mom keeps telling me that there’s more to life than work.”

“Well”—despite the seriousness of the topic, Phoebe smiled a bit—“you know what they say about mothers always knowing best.”

“I’ve heard that theory.” He looked down at her. “Do you think it’s true? That a person can have more than one soul mate in a single lifetime?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. Then thought about his situation. “But I do believe in that butterfly effect—that the smallest thing can change the universe. So it only seems natural that our lives are always in flux.”

And didn’t she know a great deal about that lately?

“And that sometimes, because of something seemingly unrelated, good things really can happen to good people.”

And if there was ever any man who deserved something good in his life, it was Ethan Concannon.

Their gazes met. And held.

He had lovely eyes. The color of a clear blue mountain lake. But warmer.

“Maybe,” he suggested slowly, thoughtfully, “something good is already happening. To both of us.”

To hear her own secret thoughts stated aloud caused confused emotions to swell up in her, so unsettling and unbearably strong, all she could do was stare up at him.

Then he broke the spell.

“Cows need milking,” he said, returning the conversation back to mundane farm talk. “We sell the milk to Clover Hill Farm, which uses it to make cheeses that literally melt in your mouth.” He laced his long, dark fingers with hers and began walking back toward the truck. “Guess you never milked a cow growing up on a beef ranch.”

“You’d guess wrong.”

As relaxed as she was, being outside with the scent of freshly mown grass and bees buzzing over the clover, Phoebe was becoming more comfortable talking back to him. One thing living in a dangerous marriage had taught her was to sense moods. And intentions. Ethan Concannon wasn’t the type of man who’d ever hit a woman.

“Our Herefords usually only gave enough for their calves,” she said. “But the Angus gave great milk with a deliciously high butterfat.”

“Well, then,” he said, “although we’re automated here, what would you say to a friendly milking competition?”

He was flirting with her. And although even a week ago, that would’ve had her trembling in her new sneakers, Phoebe discovered she was actually enjoying it. Enough that although she’d never developed any skills herself, she dared test him.

She flexed the fingers of the hand he wasn’t still holding. “I’d say you’d better have your game on, Farmer Boy.”

42

“I have a couple of problems,” Kara said as she came out onto the porch with a plate of nachos, a glass of iced tea, and a Corona on an enameled tray. She’d even put the wedge of lime in the neck of the bottle.

“One is that you’re wearing too many clothes,” Sax said, taking the beer she held out to him.

“Ha ha.” She looked down at the oversized sweatshirt, jeans, and thick wool striped socks that reminded him of a colorful caterpillar. “I think we’ve got a storm coming in. The temperature’s dropped a good ten degrees in the last hour.”

“Spring on the Oregon coast,” he said. “If you don’t like the weather, just wait ten minutes.”

“That’s pretty much the weather all year round.”

She sat down beside him and pulled a chip from the mountain of nachos. That was one of the many things Sax really liked about Kara. Unlike a lot of women he’d dated over the years, she ate like a real person and not an anorexic rabbit.

“So,” he said, squeezing the lime into the bottle. “Are these professional or personal problems?”

“A little bit of both.” She bit into the cheese-drenched chip and looked out over the water, which was growing steelier by the minute. She was probably right about the storm. “There’s one that isn’t really a problem yet. But it
could be. You know how Shelter Bay is a sister city to that town in Ireland?”

“Sure. Castlelough. We were in middle school when they linked up and all the boys had to learn to sing ‘Danny Boy’ for the Castlelough mayor’s visit.”

“I’d forgotten that part.”

“Probably because your voice wasn’t changing. That song’s damn tough to sing on a good day. When you’re trying to keep from croaking it, the torture tends to stick in your mind.”

“Poor baby.” She patted his cheek. “Well, Castlelough just happens to be the hometown of Mary Joyce.”

“The movie star?”

“Yeah.” She took another bite of chip. “And screenwriter. Apparently, although she based those selkie movies of hers mostly on her hometown, she also sprinkled in bits of this one. Like our whales—and lighthouse.”

“She’s been here?”

“For a visit with her family when she was a teenager. Her sister’s husband is Quinn Gallagher.”

“The horror novelist?”

“That would be him. And it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one not up on my celebrity news. The woman from the studio acted as if I’ve been living in a cave somewhere the past three years not to have known that.”

“You’ve been a bit busy.”

“True. But not so busy that I haven’t heard about those crazy fans who show up at her movie openings. Which is why I’m less than thrilled the studio’s thinking of holding the premiere here.”

“Here?” Sax scooped up a chip. “In Shelter Bay?”

“That’s what they’re considering. I told them that we don’t have nearly the police force to handle security for a huge crowd, and they assured me the fans wouldn’t prove a problem, because if they do decide to open here in Shelter
Bay, they’re not going to release the location until the day of the premiere.”

“Like no one’s going to leak it?”

“That’s what I said.” She sighed. “However, since nothing’s been settled, I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

“Meanwhile, I have another problem that’s more personal. Which is why it’s got to stay just between us.”

“You’ve got it.”

“There’s a new resident at Haven House.”

“And?”

“And I ran into her the other day at Take the Cake. She was a mess.”

“Makes sense, since that place isn’t exactly a day spa.”

“True. But here’s the thing. It makes sense she’d be nervous, because any woman Zelda takes in has suffered abuse. But I got the feeling what was really freaking her out was my uniform.”

The funny thing was, most women would look more masculine in the stiff khaki with the shiny badge and heavy black leather gun belt. Sax had always found the contrast between the uniform and the hot female wearing it sexy. Plus, there was always something to be said for a woman who carried her own handcuffs. Especially when that woman just happened to be living with you.

“Maybe the guy she’s running away from is a cop.”

“I thought of that. I asked Zelda for any information that might give me a heads-up, in case it was a cop who might come looking for her, but except for saying ‘No, it’s not,’ she was closemouthed.”

“No surprise there.”

He put his arm around her shoulder as they sat there, as was their custom whenever they both had free time together. Trey was having dinner at Sax’s parents’. He and Bernard, Sax’s grandfather, had a checkers tournament going. Although the score seesawed back and forth from
week to week, when they’d dropped him off tonight, Trey was claiming a two-game lead.

“And I guess, since it’d be hard to bring out the bright lights and rubber hoses to interrogate a seventy-year-old former Russian ballet dancer, who probably weighs ninety pounds soaking wet, you’re just going to let her remain an uncooperative witness and keep your eyes open.”

“I know you think I’m being an overly suspicious cop—”

“No. Correction: I
know
that you take that protect-and-serve thing as seriously as a heart attack. And that you want to make sure you’re ready if she’s in more than the usual problematic abused-woman situation.”

“You’ve always known me so well.”

Sax laughed. “
Chère
, any man who’d claim to know a woman well is either a liar or a fool. I’m not the first and would prefer not to think of myself as the second. However, living with a cop has taught me that the job’s a lot like being a SEAL. And that a failure to plan is a plan for failure.”

“That’s precisely what I plan to do.” She took a sip of tea. “Plan for the worst and hope for the best. I was also hoping you’d let me know if anyone new comes into Bon Temps looking for a woman.”