18. Taylor
CHAPTER 18
TAYLOR
“ I ’m meeting with the petting zoo guy today,” Kane said. “Anything in particular you think I should say to him?”
“The most important thing is to clear the dates, but get a list of the animals he can bring,” Taylor said. “And maybe we want to know what ages he thinks his attraction is most appropriate for as well.”
Kane nodded. “No worries,” he said. “I’m on it.”
Taylor stepped forward and touched his arm briefly. She had been allowing herself more and more of these little touches lately, giving in to the desire to be near Kane even though she knew it would be smarter to resist. Things were going well between them right now, but he would be leaving as soon as the farmers market was over — though he hadn’t said so, she was sure of it. With the house officially sold to her and amends made to the Chesterfields, there would be nothing left to hold him here.
She didn’t want to linger with those unpleasant thoughts, so she pushed the idea away. “I want you to know I’m proud of you,” she said. “I know it’s not easy for you to meet with people. I would have been willing to do it for you, if you had asked me to.”
Kane grumbled a little, but she thought she saw him smile. He was proud of how far he had come during his time in Miller Creek too, she thought. He was glad to be taking these meetings himself instead of depending on Taylor to do it for him. Even if he couldn’t admit it yet, he had been lonely in the world he’d created for himself, and it must be a relief to know that he was able to reach out to people and that he wouldn’t be met with hostility.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Kane said.
She nodded, not wanting to make him uncomfortable by forcing him to talk about his feelings. It was more than enough that he was facing these things. “All right,” she said. “Good luck today. I’ll be home before you tonight, so we can talk then about how it went.”
Kane nodded. “I’ll look forward to that.”
Taylor hesitated a moment before drawing away from him. She would be late for work, but it seemed less important lately than it had in the past. She didn’t know how many of these moments with Kane she had left, and every one of them was so exciting. She never felt more alive than she did when she was with him, which made it hard to walk away. Being in his presence was like a constant inhale, and somehow, it was never enough.
Eventually, though, it was time to breathe out. She forced herself to turn away, to walk out the door. The one good thing about walking away from Kane was that he wasn’t the one walking away from her. In the end, though, she was sure that he would be.
“How many stalls do you think we need to build, anyway?” Kane asked.
“As many as possible!” Taylor grinned. “A lot of people are building their own, but the more we have available, the more space we can offer up to other people — and the more people we’ll be able to get involved in the project. Hey, do you think we should have a dunk tank?”
Kane stared at her. “A dunk tank ?”
“Yeah, you know what a dunk tank is, right?”
“I know what it is,” Kane said. “Are you suggesting I sit up on a platform and let everyone in Miller Creek chuck balls at me to dunk me into a pool of water?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking of you specifically,” Taylor said with a laugh.
“It probably should be me, though,” Kane said. “That’s how we’d make the most money. I bet there are tons of people in this town who would love a shot at me.”
“Well, maybe this would be a good harmless way to give them a chance,” Taylor teased, surprised to find that after all this time, they were actually laughing about this. “Maybe once everyone in town has dunked you, they’ll be ready to let go of the past. What do you think?”
Kane shook his head. He was smiling. “I guess I think it’s as good a plan as any,” he said, reaching over with his paintbrush and daubing a bit of blue paint on the shoulder of Taylor’s shirt.
“Hey!” she protested, laughing. “What was that?”
“If we’re dunking me, you can get some paint on that old shirt,” he said. “What’s that shirt from, anyway?”
“I’m surprised you don’t remember.” She tugged down the front hem so that he could read it. “Sophomore year homecoming, remember? The theme was A Night in the Stars .”
“That’s right. All the decorations were outer-space themed,” he recalled. “I didn’t go to that dance.”
“Yeah, that sounds right. Did you ever go to any dances?”
“Nope.” He resumed painting his booth, but Taylor had been distracted from hers. She put the paintbrush she’d been holding down and turned to face him.
“Why didn’t you go?” she asked. “I mean, I knew that about you. I guess all our friends did. But why?”
“School dances seemed kind of lame to me at the time,” Kane said.
“Well, we all thought that, but we went anyway, to goof around and have fun with each other,” she told him. “Bradley was always pretty outspoken about how much he didn’t like them, but by the end of the night, he’d be out there on the floor with Maddie in his arms, and I know he was having a good time.”
“Sure,” Kane said. “He had someone he wanted to dance with. What was I going to do at a school dance?”
“You could have brought a date,” Taylor said. “Tons of girls in our class had crushes on you back then, you know.”
“But I didn’t want any of them,” Kane said.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was fixated on his painting. But Taylor felt a shiver of curious pleasure at his words.
She’d had such a crush on him when they were young. She had admitted as much to him. And when she had admitted it, it had led to him kissing her, which had led to a great deal more. Just the hint that they might start talking about those old feelings again was enough to make her feel hot.
What if they had been like Bradley and Maddie — bold enough to talk about their feelings when they were younger? What if they’d done things like go to high school dances together, unafraid to admit that they craved each other’s company? What if they had been that kind of couple?
Would they be married now, the way Bradley and Maddie were? That was hard to envision.
Would they have burned out their love affair, the way high school sweethearts so often did, so that there would be nothing between them now but a few warm memories?
Was it possible that Kane would have been with her rather than on the Chesterfield farm on that fateful night? Might the fire have been averted by the simple fact that teenage lovers craved each other’s company?
No, that was far too much speculation. There was simply no way to know what would have happened between them if they had talked about their feelings back then. Taylor couldn’t even be sure that they had felt the same things as one another. Really, it couldn’t have happened any other way than it had.
“You’re saying this whole thing is being put on by Kane McCormick ?”
Taylor smiled as she undid her patient’s blood pressure cuff. “I know it’s hard to believe, Mrs. Lipton,” she said. “But he’s back now, and he wants to do what he can to make things right.”
“Well, I won’t say old Jeff Chesterfield couldn’t do with the help — though I’m surprised he accepted it,” Mrs. Lipton said. “He’s usually so stubborn.”
“Well, he’s still awfully stubborn. But he’s also smart enough to know a good idea when he hears one. And Kane does owe him amends, after everything that happened,” Taylor said. “Will you come to the farmers market? It would mean the world to me to see you there.”
“You know how fond I am of you, Taylor, and ordinarily I would say yes. But I don’t know if I want to be caught up in all that old gossip,” Mrs. Lipton said. “Especially with Jason so recently dead and all — it seems a disgrace to the man’s memory. I would have thought you might see it that way too. You were as close to Jason as anyone. Don’t you think it would hurt him to see you hobnobbing around town with his son?”
Taylor pressed her lips together. Hobnobbing around town was such a silly expression, and ordinarily she would have laughed, but she understood what Mrs. Lipton was getting at, and the meaning behind the words wasn’t that silly at all. She was saying that she perceived Taylor and Kane to be a pair — a duo, certainly, if not a couple.
And Taylor couldn’t pretend she didn’t enjoy being seen that way. She loved having her name linked to Kane’s. She loved speaking of him in this proprietary way, as if there was something real and permanent between the two of them — something that wouldn’t just wash away when he went back home. Right now, talking to Mrs. Lipton, she could almost let herself believe that was the case.
It was beautiful and painful at the same time. Taylor had never known that anything could feel quite like that. She didn’t know whether she was glad to be discovering it or not.
The only thing she knew for sure was that with each passing day she seemed to fall deeper and deeper into the well of her feelings for Kane. The eventuality of him leaving felt more and more like the worst thing that could happen — and yet, it was inevitable. It lurked in her path, waiting to come for her and break her heart. It should have made it impossible to enjoy the little moments in the meantime, moments like painting booths with him and talking to Mrs. Lipton about the connection the two of them shared. But instead, it seemed to make those moments that much sweeter.
“I think you should come to the market,” she told Mrs. Lipton. “Don’t think of it as something to do with Kane. Think of it as supporting the Chesterfields. That’s what we’re really trying to do here. It’s all about making sure they’ll be able to keep their farm. No one wants them to lose it.”
“No,” Mrs. Lipton agreed. “We don’t want that. And you really think this event of yours is going to make a difference?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Taylor admitted. “All I know is that I have to try. I couldn’t allow myself to sit back and do nothing at all — and I can see that Kane feels the same way.”
“You’ve always been a good girl,” Mrs. Lipton said with a smile. “All right, sweetheart, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you,” Taylor said. “The doctor will be in to see you in just a moment.”
She left the exam room with a smile on her face. Conversations like that one were becoming more and more frequent as they prepared for the big day, and she hoped she was interpreting it correctly by thinking that it boded very well. It looked as if the farmers market was destined to be a success.