- -
- 100%
- +
In the courtroom yesterday, she’d been upset by the judge’s lack of professionalism. His sly looks, the pleasure he seemed to take in convicting her, had irked her and yet, he had agreed to the plea bargain that got her sentence reduced. So confusing. She meant to get to the bottom of it.
The scents of fried food made her mouth water, but Monica was watching her figure.
When she slid into the booth across from her dad, he didn’t seem surprised to see her.
She ordered a cup of coffee with skim milk and a toasted bagel with light cream cheese. Her father picked up his glass of Scotch to drain its contents, looking everywhere but at her. Curious.
“What was that all about?” Monica asked.
“What?” He stared at a point behind her left shoulder.
“You know what, Daddy. I heard the noise you made when Judge Easton entered the courtroom and sat on the bench. When he passed down my sentence, he actually smirked.”
Milton Ian Accord rattled the ice cubes in his glass. He hated his first name. Everyone in town knew him as Ian. Why on earth the Accord family used such old-fashioned names was beyond Monica. Monica. Case in point. An old-fashioned name.
They used names of ancestors that had been handed down from generation to generation. She supposed it was simply tradition.
Ian carried his age well, but signs of unhappiness, of discontentment, hovered around a sullen mouth. Whatever was bothering him had come on lately, but he wouldn’t share it with her.
She stared at him hard. She wasn’t going away. He finally gave in. “Gord Easton and I went to high school together.”
“High school?” That old man and her dad?
He nodded.
“Same grade?”
Another nod.
“That’s hard to believe. He looks a lot older than you.”
“Gord likes sun, whiskey and cigars, and has the money to indulge as much as he wants.” Tone derisive, he glanced around as though checking to make sure the man wasn’t sitting nearby. Was the drink making him paranoid? Lately, there’d been a lot of this furtive checking-his-surroundings behavior. He wouldn’t respond to direct questions about it, though, and Monica had run out of ideas to get out of him what was going on.
“He pampers himself with regular visits to the spa,” Ian continued, “but with his lifestyle, it’s like throwing a coat of paint on a house that’s about to keel over. He owns a boat in Florida and spends all of his spare time on it.”
“That explains his too-tanned skin—the alcohol and cigars explain how dull it is. The guy needs a good diet and exercise regimen.”
Her dad laughed. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“So you went to school together. That doesn’t explain his animosity toward you.”
Dad raised his glass and signaled the waitress for another. He ran his finger around wet rings of condensation on the table then said quietly, “It started in high school, but got worse over the years. We’re both competitive. I seem to have a golden touch where investments are concerned, a real knack that Gord lacks. He envies my skill.”
“But how would that have started in high school? You were already investing back then?”
“No. It wasn’t that. In school, we were both in love with the same girl.”
“Mom?” On a dime, Monica’s mood became wistful. She wished she’d known her. Mom had died giving birth to her, and didn’t that just leave her feeling bad, even all of these years later. Monica figured that was the thing that continually felt missing from her life—her mom.
With a philosophical shrug, her dad said, “I won the fair maiden’s hand in marriage. And that’s where the competition started. Gord was angry for years afterward. But how could we know the joke would be on the two of us?”
When Monica realized her dad was slurring his words, her already low spirits plummeted further. How could he be drunk at only one in the afternoon? This was so recent, she didn’t know what to make of it.
“Mom’s death was a joke?” she asked, her voice a sharp knife cutting the air.
Ian reared back. “God, no. Of course not.”
He didn’t elaborate. He’d been making a lot of cryptic remarks lately, but whenever she asked for clarification, he would change the subject.
“Well, what do you mean?” she queried. “What joke?”
His gaze had become unfocused. “Huh?”
“What joke was on you and Judge Easton?”
He shook his head and shuttered his expression. “Nothing.”
She knew that closed look. No trespassing. This part of the discussion was over. She knew her dad well enough to understand she wouldn’t get any more out of him. Okay, then she would change her tack.
“So he was getting revenge on losing Mom by sending your daughter farming? How does that make sense?”
“You never knew...your mother’s parents died when you were still a toddler. Do you remember them?”
She shook her head.
“Your mother grew up on a farm. She and her family were the products of generations of farmers.” When the waitress brought Monica’s food, she also brought her dad another drink. Monica frowned, but he ignored it. “Gord thinks it’s funny for my pampered daughter to now have to work on the land.”
Monica’s hackles raised at being called pampered, but only briefly. She was and she knew it. Or had been. Daddy had always given her everything she’d ever wanted.
Those days were gone because of her self-imposed austerity plan. By hook or by crook, she was supporting herself from now on.
She lifted the coffee to her lips.
Dad sipped his drink then said, “The farm Noah owns? The one Judge Easton sent you to?”
“What about it?” She took a sip.
“Used to be your mother’s.”
Monica finished choking on her coffee then wiped her mouth with her serviette. “Mom grew up on that farm and you never told me?”
“There was no point in mentioning it.” Dad swirled his Scotch in his glass.
To a daughter craving every detail about a mother who had never actually existed in her life, Monica disagreed.
Why had Daddy felt it necessary to hide it from her? Or had he just never thought that her heritage mattered to her?
It did. She already knew all there was to know about the Accords. Talk about heritage. Dad had been super proud of his.
His great-grandfather Ian Accord had been a railway baron, had made his fortune building spur lines all over the West. Then he’d settled in the big Victorian that was now the town’s B-and-B and bought up the surrounding land. When settlers flocked to the area, he sold that land at inflated prices, increasing his fortune. He spent his life nurturing and building his wealth for future generations.
Apparently, Daddy came by his business acumen honestly.
Ian had built schools and the bank and the library, along with an impressive city hall.
Then he had married a woman from back east named Maisie Hamilton and had started a dynasty.
Daddy had finished it.
Or maybe Monica had.
The likelihood of her having a family was slim to none.
She’d never worried about it until now.
“There’s been a lot of death in our family, hasn’t there?” she asked quietly, thinking of grandparents on both sides dying too young. With Mom’s parents, it had been a car accident. With Dad’s, a plane crash in the Rockies, with her grandfather at the controls in bad weather. Within weeks, her extended family had been decimated. No wonder Dad had been a heavy drinker for a while back then, or so she’d heard. Seems he was at it again. She wondered for the umpteenth time what was going on.
“Yes,” her dad agreed soberly. “Far too much death.”
“It’s just you and me, Dad. We don’t have any other family left. Lots of deaths and too many only children.” Dad had been an only child, like her. She missed having aunts and uncles.
“Yeah,” he said shortly, his gaze sliding away, and Monica wondered what that was about.
Where was the history on her mother’s side? Who were the Montgomerys? When she had asked him questions, he’d been vague at times, loquacious but nonspecific at others. He’d talked about Mom’s character, her personality as bright as a new penny, her laughter that lit up a room, but nothing about her background.
Mom used to live on that farm.
When she asked, “So I’ll be farming where Mom grew up?” she heard the yearning in her own voice.
Her father’s lips compressed into a hard line. “Yep.”
“So,” she mused, “Judge Easton thinks it’s poetic justice to send me off to my mother’s farm to muck around in the soil and get my hands dirty.”
“Essentially, yes. He probably agreed to the lesser charge to avoid jail time, to get you onto the farm.”
She should be angry. In fact, a flash of refreshing righteousness passed through her, but was quickly replaced by curiosity. Mom had lived on Noah’s farm. Monica would be putting her hands into the same earth her mother probably had.
Monica had relied on Daddy through the years to make her mother real for her. She did so again now.
“Tell me about her.”
Ian Accord glanced away too swiftly and Monica wondered yet again what his action meant. Dad was shifty today. Indirect.
In the next moment, though, a sad, sweet smile spread across his face and he opened his mouth to speak, bringing Monica into that dreamy state she entered before going to sleep at night.
“Did I ever tell you about the time she put a frog down the back of my pants? I was only ten, and she did it at school. I ran around the schoolyard like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get that thing to shake out of one of my pant legs.”
He laughed. “I pretended to be angry with her, but I wasn’t really. I was already halfway to being in love with the girl.”
Daddy’s memories about Monica’s mother had always been a lonely little girl’s favorite bedtime stories.
That evening when she got home from work, she reached for the only photo she had of her mother. Her mood threatened to turn melancholy. That troublesome loneliness dogged her again. Look how it had gotten her into trouble last week. She couldn’t let it get to her tonight.
Best to shake it off.
One thing she could do was make amends to Noah as best she could.
She turned on her computer and went online to search for vintage bikes. She had told Noah she would replace his bike and she meant to. He might not think her useful or smart, but there were two things she knew well—shopping and vintage anything.
Two hours later, she was ready to admit defeat. Who knew vintage bikes would be so hard to come by?
The only lead she found was a man in California who rebuilt bikes from parts. Tomorrow morning, she would get Noah’s wrecked bike from him.
* * *
MONICA ROLLED OVER in bed onto her back and stared at the ceiling, motivation to get up and start another day eluding her. Her radio alarm had gone off at 6:00 a.m. and the same questions she faced every morning troubled her.
Do I care? Should I care? Why should I care?
On the radio, a female sang a bright and chirpy song. The falsely engineered cheer passed over her like a specter.
She spread a hand across the empty side of the bed, across the sheets that had been washed hundreds of times since Billy had gone to war. His pillowcase, though? That she hadn’t changed or washed since he’d left for Afghanistan. For many nights afterward, she had curled herself around his pillow, drinking in his scent and missing him.
She changed and washed the sheets every week, turned and flipped the mattress twice a year, vacuumed under the bed, but never, ever, washed her late husband’s pillow or pillowcase.
I miss you, Billy.
He’d been dead five years. Shouldn’t the pain have eased by now? Why couldn’t she let go of the grief?
You already know, don’t you? What would you replace it with? What would fill your emptiness without your grief for your dead husband?
She hated when her smart-alecky brain or psyche or common sense, or whatever it was, knew the answers to questions she didn’t really want solved.
The vacancy on Billy’s side of the bed represented the gap in her life, in her soul, but then, it had always been there, hadn’t it? Even long before hormones had kicked in and she’d started looking at cute, funny Billy Stone differently, she’d been empty. He’d become the most magical creature she’d ever known. He’d made her laugh.
He’d been everything. Her first, her one and only. He’d made love like an oversized puppy dog, with enthusiasm and greed and joy. Even in bed, they’d had a lot of fun.
She’d never slept with another man. She wouldn’t even know how to approach sex with someone else.
He’d filled in the hollow, hungry holes that had been part of her for as far back as she could remember. Now he was gone and those holes were back, and she didn’t have a clue how to fill them.
She reached over and flicked off the radio, cutting off some irritating song that would be played half a dozen more times before the day was over. The ensuing silence closed in on her, broken only by the tick of the ormolu clock on the mantel in the living room.
She hated the silence, hated all silence, had always hated that void that needed filling, and the feeling that something was missing. There was too much quiet and emptiness in her life these days.
On Friday night when she’d gone out drinking, she’d been going bonkers in this apartment. She’d been sick of the sound of her own voice, of the irritating ticking of the clock, of the useless, mind-numbing junk on TV.
Billy used to keep the void at bay. His practical jokes, wisecracks and ceaseless banter used to destroy the silence. Used to annihilate it. Now it was back in full force and Monica was lost.
No wonder she’d gone drinking when the silence of her apartment had made her climb the walls. She just shouldn’t have driven home afterward.
She crawled out of bed with the energy of an old woman, reluctant to face Noah’s wrath when she pulled plants instead of weeds. They all looked the same to her.
Then she remembered she was going to the farm her mom had grown up on.
Okay, maybe today she cared a little.
* * *
NOAH WALKED ALONG the row of green peppers to check on Monica and found her with her back to him, bent over at the waist plucking something from the earth.
Gold stitching on the back pockets of her blue jeans hugged the curves of her perfect derriere. Why, oh why, couldn’t he lust after a normal woman, someone with as much depth as the people he admired in life? But no, he had to be as shallow as the next man and want the one woman in town with the least depth of character.
Audrey’s voice rang in his memory. Everybody underestimates her.
He tried to soften his stance. Hard to do when he desired a woman he didn’t respect. Cripes, he wished she would squat to weed instead of bending over.
She straightened, noticed him watching her and pointed to the pile beside her. “See? Only weeds.”
“That’s great.”
“Before I leave today, will you put your wrecked bike into the trunk of my car?”
“Sure, but why?”
“I’m going to take care of it.”
It was useless to him. She could do what she liked with it. “Listen, are you going in to work today?”
“No. Your mom and Aiden are both there. I have today off because I’ll be working on Saturday.”
“Good.” He hated to ask, didn’t want Monica anywhere near this task, but had no choice. He needed her two good arms. “We have to leave the farm, to help some locals.”
“What kind of help?”
“Feeding their families. I need you to come with me.”
“You mean as part of my sentence?”
Heaven forbid she should give of herself unless someone forced her to. “Yeah, as part of your community service. I have to pack and deliver food, but I can’t do it with this bum arm.”
“Okay, show me what to do.”
“Let’s fill this first.” He pulled from behind him an ancient child’s wagon.
“That looks old.”
“I guess it is,” he answered with a shrug. All he cared about was that the thing was useful. “I found it in the shed.”
She grasped his arm. “That’s a Radio Flyer.”
“So?”
“So, it’s a vintage children’s wagon. I love vintage.”
She did? He would have never guessed she’d like old stuff. “Never mind that. We need to harvest some of the spring vegetables today.”
“There are vegetables ready this early? Which ones?”
“Spring onions. Garlic scapes. Asparagus. Broccoli rabe. A little watercress.”
“I lo-o-ove asparagus. I could eat it year-round.”
The way she said lo-o-ove made him crazy, horny. Angry at his knee-jerk response, he reined himself in. He wasn’t a randy teenager, for God’s sake.
“It’s amazing in risotto. There’s this recipe I use—”
“You cook?”
She reacted to his surprise with a snooty lift of her chin. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’ve just never thought of you as being, I don’t know, domestic?”
Judging by the defiance in her expression, he’d offended her. “Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies.”
Noah just managed to bite his tongue before blurting cook for me. He liked food, but couldn’t bring himself to spend enough time in the kitchen to make really great, tasty stuff. Healthy, yes. Gourmet? No.
“It brings me joy,” she continued. “So to whom are you taking these veggies?”
He stared at her. To whom? Who used that kind of grammar anymore?
“Will they know what to do with garlic scapes?” she asked.
“Do you?”
“Yes. In fact, may I buy some from you? There aren’t any in the shops yet.”
“I can’t sell them. I’m a nonprofit.”
“Hmmm.” She set a finger, with its pink nail, against her chin. “How can we get around that? I’d really like some for dinner tonight. Can I make a donation to a charity in your name or something?”
“Yeah. We can work out something like that. You can make a donation to the food bank in Denver.”
She smiled and his world became a brighter, ever-expanding thing. “Great! I’ll take some asparagus, too. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Will the people you’re taking these to know how to use scapes? They’re kind of a new trend. Most people just use straight garlic.”
He shrugged. “You can ask when we get there.”
She smiled...slyly, he thought. “You’re going to let me come inside when you deliver the groceries? You’re not going to make me sit in the truck?”
He’d wanted to do just that, but he couldn’t carry in the produce on his own. How had she known?
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I invite you in?”
“Because you don’t want to harm your holier-than-thou reputation by being seen with an airhead like me?”
She’d skewered him, her assessment so dead-on it left him speechless.
She waved a hand. “Never mind. Let’s move on. What should I pick?”
He pointed to one row. “Let’s start with the green onions. You pull up about half of this row. I’ll go cut down a row of asparagus.”
When the wagon was full, Noah led the way to the barn. “These are the boxes I fill.” He pointed to a bunch of plastic crates stacked neatly against one wall.
She started to fill one, but he stopped her. “Let’s take them to the truck. If you fill them first, you won’t be able to lift them.”
“Oh, Noah, give me a break. I can lift a crate full of these veggies. Potatoes, turnips, maybe not. Green onions and garlic scapes? Can do.”
Together, they filled the crates, fitting vegetables in for minimum bruising. When they were done, Monica bent at the knees, put her arms around the first one and stood. Noah watched as she carried it to the back of the truck, impressed despite his misgivings.
“How are you so strong?”
“I work out four times a week. I never let anything get in the way. Workouts have been my lifesaver.”
He followed her back to the barn. “Lifesaver?”
“After Billy died, I needed something to do to work through the grief.” She mentioned her grief matter-of-factly, without self-pity. Cool.
Funny, he’d never really considered how much she would grieve for Billy. He’d thought she’d go out shopping and that would be that. Man, he could be an idiot sometimes.
“When things got really bad...” She paused to pick up a full crate.
Things had gotten bad for her. He’d never given her much thought at that time outside of the standard expressions of compassion, but she’d lost her husband, for God’s sake.
He had spent his adult life avoiding contact with her and didn’t really know who she was, outside of someone who would drink and drive. Who would knock him off his bike. And ruin his bike. And break his arm. And prevent him from getting his work done. There was all of that that was still wrong with her.
“Gabe Jordan taught me how to lift weights.” She returned to what she’d been saying. “And how to set up a good running program.”
Gabe. Billy’s best friend. For a while after Billy’s death, the town had speculated that something might be forming between Gabe and Monica. Next thing they heard, Gabe was marrying the new woman in town, Callie MacKintosh.
Subdued because he had indeed underestimated her, he said, “Let’s fill a couple more and head out.”
Before they left, she returned the tools she’d been using to the shed, as he’d taught her. He had to maintain his tools meticulously since he didn’t have money to replace any that weren’t cared for properly. Nice to see she was paying attention to him.
“Should I take my own car?”
He was tempted to say yes to give his libido a rest, but the thought of the two of them driving separate vehicles to the same places went so far against the grain with his need to conserve, that he couldn’t let it happen, not even if it meant spending time with her in the too-tight cab of his ancient truck.
“We have to come back here to pick scapes and asparagus for you anyway, so ride along in the truck with me.”
She slipped off the big old rubber boots she was still borrowing from him and into the baby blue suede loafers she’d been wearing when she got here this morning.
“Where is your bike?” She joined him at the truck. “The one I wrecked?”
“In the back stall of the barn.”
“I’ll put it in my trunk now so I don’t forget it.”
Curious. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to try to get it fixed.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
As if she knew anything about bikes. She helped him retrieve it from the barn anyway, along with the parts that had been knocked off, and then she loaded it into her car trunk.
It was a mess. He didn’t expect to see it again.
They drove for a couple of miles in silence, mileage underscored by the constant rolling hum of tires on pavement. He wracked his brain for something to say to this woman he barely knew even though they’d grown up in the same town, had attended the same schools, had witnessed the same births, deaths and marriages. How could a couple of people who’d shared so much also have shared so little? They were neither friends nor strangers.
What did he expect? That’s what came of living in the same town but avoiding each other—of him avoiding her, that is. He didn’t know what had been going on in her head all of those years. And he was becoming curious.
CHAPTER THREE
“DON’T YOU EVER TALK?” Monica’s question cut through the tension in the cab.
“Huh?”
“Why are you so quiet? Don’t you believe in casual conversation?”
He bristled. He talked all the time to people with whom he was comfortable. He was not comfortable with Monica. Not by a long shot.
He thought of all of the times in high school when he’d wanted more from her—not more attention, but any attention. She hadn’t even noticed him. Now she wanted more from him? In his book, his respect had to be earned.