Texas Redeemed (14 page)

Why was she
showering him with so much information?

“I didn’t see
Felicity.”

“She saw you. So
did I.”

“Saw me?”

“In the bistro with
your date, Peyton. Is Lark Norton so unforgettable that you had to hunt down
her look-alike?”

Peyton took her
elbow but she shook off his touch. “You’re wrong.”

“About?”

“Pretty much
everything you just said. First, the woman you saw in the bistro is my cousin
Nora. From California. She’s in town on business and after a morning-long
meeting with Grandpa, she got hungry and I did the nice-guy thing and brought
her here for lunch.” Peyton edged closer, invading her space, prompting her to
press even tighter against the pillar. “Second, I stopped thinking about Lark
Norton years ago, but you haven’t and for some reason the idea of her upsets
you. Third, why do you care so much?”

“If you’re with
someone, you should at least tell Lucy.”

“So it wouldn’t
bother
you
if I was with someone?”

Valerie swallowed.
He was almost as close to her as he’d been that day at the cemetery. “Don’t be
silly.”

A suggestion of a
frown flitted over his face. “Then why concern yourself over whether I hunted
down a replacement for Lark Norton?” He paused a beat. “I’m not a saint or a
boy scout—never wanted to be. I’ve been places … been with women other than
Lark and you. And I want you to know I’ve been careful, Valerie. Every time.”

“I’m done
discussing this, Peyton. Can we move on?”

He stepped back,
releasing the hold his nearness had had on her. Grateful, Valerie moved away
from the pillar and saw Felicity, who still managed to look fashionable in
short denim cutoffs and a ripped-necked sweatshirt, with a backpack slung over
one shoulder.

“Good afternoon,
Doctor Turner. Are you and your date enjoying just the bistro today, or will
you require a room?”

“No thanks,
Felicity,” Peyton said neutrally, but his jaw ticked. Probably at the
disturbing thought of he and his cousin
requiring a room.

Valerie urged her
friend toward the revolving doors. She turned back to tell Peyton she’d
straighten it out, but he was already walking away. And the damage from her jealousy—something
savage that she hadn’t been able to control—was already done.

O
N THE
WAY
to the open, lush wilderness of Dunesboro Wild, Valerie cleared up the whole
misunderstanding. In hindsight it was a little funny, though she figured Peyton
probably wouldn’t agree.

“Good thing I didn’t call him a dick, to boot,” Felicity
said as she followed Valerie up a steep slope. “That’s what I called him in
high school.”

“Yeah, good thing.” Valerie
lifted the digital camera she carried on a strap around her wrist. “There’s a
deer … I saw it out the corner of my eye.”

Felicity stilled, but leaves coating the forest floor
rustled beneath her boots. “Which way did it go?”

Valerie scanned their surroundings through the lens.
Above them was a tangled shelter of tree branches. Around them were the
uninhibited sounds of nature. “North. C’mon!”

Almost two hours later, deep into the afternoon, they
rested on a heavy, fallen tree and rummaged for snacks.

“I swear that was a cottontail rabbit,” Felicity said,
reaching for Valerie’s camera to view the recently saved photos. “Blurry shot,
but I just know that’s what it was.”

“Maybe,” Valerie said, though convinced that the
quick-footed animal had been a squirrel. They’d both squealed to spot the
elusive deer, a snake and a woodpecker. “I’ve got celery and baby carrots. What
about you?”

“Trail mix. I wish I’d brought
cookies instead. Sure you don’t have any Halloween candy stashed away?”

“Positive.” She shared the vegetables and scooped out
some of the mix. “The ranch is too out-of-the-way for trick-or-treaters, plus
everybody’s going to be at the orchard tonight. A chocolate chip cookie does
sound like heaven right now.”

“So, Val, now that we know Peyton’s free, what does that
mean for the two of you?”

Valerie picked up a snapped branch and scratched it
against the dirt and leaves in front of her feet. “Nothing’s changed.”

“You’re not at least considering getting back together?”

“There’s no ‘back’ to get to. He and I slept together
once—forever ago. It was a mistake.”

Felicity twisted her mouth. “Sure, the mistake taken
right from your dirty little teenage fantasies, I’ll bet. I remember you
following him around at the batting cage when we were growing up.” Big Bros’
Cages had once been a popular haunt for teens. Now the diner and a few places
on the main street were the places to be.

Valerie didn’t remember crossing paths with Felicity, but
she was a few years younger and back then had been caught up in her own little
world that centered on the boy she’d fancied a hero.

Snacks eaten, they gathered their gear and returned to
the pickup. When Valerie dropped her friend off at Peridot,
Felicity stayed in her seat, scavenging for something in her backpack. “My gift
to you,” she said sweetly, presenting two condoms.

Valerie stared at the foil packets. “Uh …”

“Just in case. Hello, hiker
woman, you should always be prepared.”

“Who said I plan on having sex with Peyton?”

“You didn’t plan it the last time.” Felicity paused,
considering. “Actually, I’ll need one of those back. I’m seeing Denny Lazarus
tonight.”

“Lazarus. He and his guys did the plumbing for the
house.”

“The man sure knows his way around my pipes.”

Valerie choked on a giggle, coughed to clear her throat.
“Take your condoms. If I need any, I’ll buy a box.”

“A box? Pardon me, Miss
Energizer Bunny.”

“Get out,” Valerie said, full-out laughing now. Her
friend swiped one condom and scooted out of the truck, promising to call the
next day.

Later, alone at home, Valerie stared at the packet.
“I want you to know I’ve been careful,
Valerie,”
Peyton had said. She was the one who’d pried, who’d all but asked
him who he’d had sex with. But there was something more to the words, something
that felt almost like an invitation.

Flustered and exhausted, she stuffed the condom into her
purse and after a short, restless nap filled with dreams of the man who
simultaneously pissed her off and excited her, she went straight into the
kitchen and opened the bear-shaped cookie jar. She’d fill the thing with
chocolate chip cookies—homemade, from-scratch ones. If she spent the next
several hours baking and doing chores and baking some more, then she wouldn’t
have time to think about the little foil square burning a hole through her
purse … or the man she’d dreamed about sharing it with.

M
ILLER
S
TAR
O
RCHARD
saw its biggest crowds at
Halloween and Christmas. Lucy had often overheard Pastor Bruin’s wife, Rowena,
say with a haughty sniff that it was a true shame that the same folks who
celebrated Jesus’s day would celebrate the Devil’s day with just as much
enthusiasm.

As far back as Lucy could remember, Rowena and the other
Old Faithfuls had complained at town hall meetings
every year about the party that had become a tradition. And every year they
eventually gave up the fight because all the proceeds were donated to the churches
and other charities that these women climbed over themselves to be involved
with.

How had her great-grandmother Estella, whom people still
praised for being a lovely Christian woman but criticized for coddling her
degenerate of a grandson, endured moving in the same circles as Rowena Bruin
and her big group of phonies?

Tonight, the orchard was all lit up and crawling with
costumed people. Many were eating at picnic tables in the barn; others were
working their way through the haunted corn maze or scoping out the offerings in
the pumpkin patch or novelty booths. But most—including Cordelia
and Jack, whom she’d spotted earlier while having dinner in the barn with the Carews—were lumped together in a crowd, cheering on a
wedding singer who had an okay voice and a good band and was putting serious
effort into “It Will Rain.”

Lucy had given up halfway through the maze and demanded
that a ghoulish-looking clown lead her to the exit. She now stood at a dessert
table munching on a caramel apple, eavesdropping on Rowena Bruin’s
conversation.

As much as she’d looked forward to the party, the reality
of it all fell short because it didn’t seem right for her to be having so much
fun. She wanted to be at her great-grandfather’s house, drawing. Or on the ranch, at her windmill with a flashlight and a good book.

Or—possibly—in the crowd listening to the band, with Owen
McNamara snuggled up behind her with his arms around her.

She turned a curious eye toward the spookily decorated
stage but couldn’t spot him in the swaying audience. Sarah had gotten them
invited on the hayride with him and some other high schoolers,
but after that he’d gone off with Minnie Hawthorne to have his fortune read by
the woman who owned the New Age bookshop, and she hadn’t seen him since.

“Hey, doll.”

As tall as she was, Lucy still had to lift her chin to
look up at Chief Bishop’s daughter, Eliza, who, in a short dress with her badge
secured to a skinny belt, looked like she’d chosen to be “naughty cop” for
Halloween. Half of the town was in love with her because she was pretty and
helped out at the VFW post and knew the craziest jokes. Most of the other half
feared her because she was a merciless detective.

Lucy was on the fence, but what she
did
know for certain was that there was nothing like standing next
to Barbie’s hotter sister to remind Lucy of what she lacked. It didn’t matter
that Eliza was twice her age—she was gorgeous and Lucy wasn’t and it just wasn’t
fair, damn it.

“Love the costume,” Eliza said.

Dressed up like Princess Fiona from
Shrek—
not human Fiona, but green-skinned ogre Fiona—Lucy looked like a freak.
Who
could love this costume? Or the girl wearing it?
“Thanks.”

“I’d planned to dress up as SpongeBob this year, but I
had to leave my costume at home ’cause I’m on the job.”

“You?”
Maybe it was out of line to say the word the way she did, but Lucy found it
hard to believe that somebody who looked like the detective would hide all her
goods inside of a giant sponge. “I mean, you like
SpongeBob SquarePants?
”

“Ever since my nephew was a little kid.
Those big, bright eyes and that quirky laugh? What’s
not to love?” Eliza grabbed a gazillion-calorie pastry from the dessert table,
and with a wink and a friendly “Take care!” she strode off.

And nearly every guy in the vicinity watched her walk
away.

Lucy took a vicious bite of the caramel apple. Women like
Eliza Bishop and girls like Minnie Hawthorne turned guys’ heads. Minnie
remained nowhere in sight, and so did Owen. He seemed different now. Taller. Tougher. More mature—for a
guy, anyway. Even his voice was starting to sound more like a man and less like
the boy she’d known in middle school. He was probably thinking like a man now,
too, and wanting the sort of things men want.

In her ogre getup, Lucy
so
wasn’t what any guy would want.

No surprise there. She didn’t fit in anywhere. More like
the wrong puzzle piece that someone had jammed into place and just forgotten
about. Her friends all had normal families, normal memories, normal
lives. Not her. She had a twin who’d died, a stranger for a dad and a mom who
couldn’t understand her even if she tried. How much more
un-
normal could she get?

Lucy dumped her treat, lifted the hem of her long, dark
green velvet dress and started to search for Sarah. A girl dressed as a
pink-haired retro cartoon rock star shouldn’t be that hard to find, right?

After scanning the orchard twice without venturing forth
into the maze again, she had worked up a sweat in the heavy dress and finally
approached Rowena Bruin, who had remained in the exact same spot as if time had
frozen her there. This was probably a prime vantage point that would allow her
to survey everyone’s activities and tsk-tsk over anything that appeared
questionable.

“Ma’am, have you seen Sarah Carew? She’s dressed up like Jem from
Jem
and the Holograms.
Big pink hair, crazy makeup …”

“Oh, I’ve seen
that
one, all right,” the woman remarked in no-holds-barred distaste. She paused as
a group of teenage cowgirls in identical bedazzled hats and Western shirts
hurried past and, unable to pinpoint impropriety or immorality right away, said
to Lucy, “Although where she’s run off to now, I don’t know. Now dear, do you
sing? Our choir—”

“Gotta go.”
Yup, her mother would get an earful about Lucy’s rudeness the next time she ran
into any of the Old Faithfuls, but her habit of
sticking it to authority really shouldn’t come as a surprise. She was rude and
wild, a schemer and a kid who talked too much for her own good. She hadn’t
planned to turn out to be such a pain but after her sister died, she figured
out there was no point in trying so hard to be well behaved. She’d never be as
good as Anna, never become the daughter her mother deserved. Sometimes it was even
comforting to be a troublemaker. Having people in this town dislike her was better than having them feel sorry for her because
she’d lost her twin and part of her hearing and had grown up without a father.

At the maze’s entrance, she muttered a word guaranteed to
get her grounded, and forged on. Night Sky didn’t have the best horror actors,
so things like this didn’t frighten her. But tonight she’d felt as if some
invisible prankster was on her heels … as if she were being watched.

“Saaaarahhh!” she called.

No response except a burst of laughter and a guy’s
frustrated shout of “Wrong way, bro! I told you. Let’s go this way.”

As she moved deeper into the maze, the music—now in the
hands of a DJ who was playing Johnny Cash—began to grow softer.

“Sarah!” she tried again.

“The young lady with the pink wig?” asked someone to her
left, behind a row of stalks.

Lucy parted the stalks to see a woman in a standard
department-store witch’s costume. “Know where she is?”

“Not in the maze. I heard she’d gotten hurt.” The woman
smiled but the exaggerated plastic witch nose concealed most of her mouth.
“Come, I’ll show you the way out.”

This old man, he
played nine. He played knick-knack on my spine …
The nursery rhyme lyrics
came to Lucy as another kooky chill traveled over her. “No thanks.” She turned
and rushed off the same way she’d come, not caring whether it was against the
rules to exit through the entrance. “I know the way out.”

She found Sarah in the orchard barn surrounded by her
mother and five-year-old sister, Megan, and a handful of onlookers.

“Your arm doesn’t
look
broken,” Megan the ladybug said around the slobbery lump of Tootsie Roll in her
mouth. “Lemme see.”

“It’s broken, I know it is,” Sarah wailed as her mother
led her out of the barn with her bruised arm tucked close to her chest. Her
enormous wig slipped off and Lucy quickly scooped it up and plopped it
crookedly on Sarah’s head.