Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
S pecial Agent Crenshaw’s interest in Cold War espionage was a sideline to his actual job at the FBI, which was to investigate bank fraud. The FBI allowed Crenshaw to pursue his passion for Cold War history, provided he used no government time or resources. Crenshaw was testifying in a criminal court case all next week, so their meeting to start piecing together clues about Svetlana’s demise would have to wait until the following weekend.
It gave Wyatt plenty of time to prepare for his looming debate with Mindy Bannerman, his political opponent from Cape Canaveral. Wyatt’s experience in agriculture was light-years ahead of Mindy’s, but any statewide political issue was fair game for the debate, so Wyatt took a week’s leave of absence from his job to study. He arrived at the grove every morning to spend the day with Jenny, who had gladly volunteered to be his study partner. She found a list of the top twenty concerns of Floridians and had checked out a stack of library books to help him cram.
It felt like he was back in college, except in college he’d never been infatuated with a study partner. He spent almost as much time flirting with Jenny as he did studying. They’d spend twenty minutes reviewing zoning laws, then they’d flop onto the sofa for an epic session of kissing. Twenty minutes on school funding, then they’d waste time giving each other foot rubs. In the evenings they cooked together in the farmhouse kitchen, dined by candlelight, then curled up to watch old movies.
This afternoon’s topic was highway construction. Jenny had spread a blanket down near the river and he lay with his head in her lap while she read aloud. A quiet joy filled him as he listened to her read about the tensile strength of concrete. On this last cool afternoon of spring, as he gazed up at the slow dance of clouds overhead, there was nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.
And in those long, lazy spring days, he fell in love with her all over again.
“Why do you care about this so much?” he asked one evening as they studied a proposed bill about irrigation law. The porch swing creaked as she leaned forward to toss the pamphlet on the stack of study books.
“I want you to win,” she said in her sunniest voice. Sometimes Jenny’s ridiculous optimism was charming, but he didn’t have much of a shot at winning this election. His opponent now had three million dollars in her campaign war-chest, while he’d raised a paltry sixty thousand. She’d won endorsements from the tourism, construction, real estate, and aerospace industries. The number of people employed in those industries dwarfed the number of people who earned a living from ag, but everyone got a vote, which meant the race was likely to be an embarrassing landslide.
He gently rocked the porch swing, an arm around Jenny as he trailed his fingers through her hair. “Winning means I’d have to move to Tallahassee,” he said softly. “And that would spell the end for you and me.”
Jenny would never live in a big city like Tallahassee. There were no orange groves or cattle ranches, no endless pastures as far as the eye could see. Her smile faded, replaced with a wistfulness that was hard to look at because he was to blame.
He stood to watch the blazing sunset. The gathering of clouds on the horizon was purple, amber, and violet. It was a typical Florida sunset, where the combination of heat, humidity, and fading light created these nightly spectacles.
He leaned against a column as Jenny hugged him from behind, propping her chin on his shoulder to watch the sun melt into the horizon. “I wish you could be happy here,” she said, her voice quiet. “You’re all wings, and I’m all roots.”
He turned to press a kiss into her palm. There was no need for him to add anything else because they both knew it was true.
Jenny savored every moment of helping Wyatt prepare for his debate. Raising oranges was a solitary task, but getting Wyatt prepped for the debate was a satisfying joint effort. By the end of the week they’d worked their way through a stack of books about Florida’s economy and headed back to the public library to check out more. A late-afternoon downpour started shortly after they arrived. Rather than venturing through the rain, they retreated to the top floor of the library to study while waiting it out.
Nobody was up here, and it was quiet except for the thud of rain pelting the roof like a cascade of pennies. They claimed a shabby sofa tucked in the far corner and stacked their books on the nearby table. Wyatt stretched an arm along the back of the sofa and she hopped up beside him, a book about beach erosion at the ready.
She flipped it open. “So! Tell me the three strategies to manage coastal erosion,” she prompted. This one ought to be easy because she’d read him an article from the newspaper on the topic only last night.
Wyatt kissed the side of her jaw. “Retreat, accommodation, and protection,” he murmured, then his lips trailed behind the shell of her ear, nibbling.
“Very good,” she teased. “Do you have any proposals regarding . . .” She glanced down at the page because what he was doing with his lips sent shivers throughout her entire body and she had to clear her throat. “Do you have any proposals regarding government programs to protect the coastline?”
He gave a perfectly crafted response involving seawalls and restoration efforts. A shiver raced through her as his fingers traced through her hair and she scooted to the far side of the sofa to grab another book. He clearly didn’t need help mastering coastal erosion, and maybe rural education would be a properly sober topic that was both important and likely to come up at the debate.
Wyatt adjusted his position on the far end of the sofa and pulled her feet onto his lap. She’d already kicked off her boots so he could rub her stocking feet, and he casually gave her a foot massage while covering everything from school tax rates to elder care.
They remained in the library even after the rain trickled to a halt. Everything was going swimmingly until he brought up Hemingway. “When is he going to do something with his life?” Wyatt asked. “He’s been fired from every job he’s ever had.”
“I haven’t fired him,” she defended.
“It will happen eventually,” Wyatt warned. “He’s over-educated and under-employed. You’ve got a blind spot where he’s concerned.”
She pulled her feet away. “Why do you dislike him so much? Hemingway has my back and will never turn on me.”
“I don’t trust him. What’s a college professor doing hanging out on an orange grove?”
Someone as ambitious as Wyatt probably couldn’t understand. Wyatt’s competitive instincts couldn’t resist looking for the next mountain to climb or dragon to slay.
“Hemingway is happy here,” she said simply. “He loves literature, but being a college professor is about raising grant money and speaking at conferences. He wasn’t a good fit.”
“He got fired from the coast guard.”
She nudged him with her toe. “Would you want to serve in the Icelandic Coast Guard?”
She had him on that one and he grinned, conceding defeat by scooping up her feet to continue her foot massage. They had just launched into a discussion of highway construction when an electronic tapping on the library’s intercom startled her.
“Patrons, the library will be closing in ten minutes. Please bring any items you wish to check out to the circulation desk at this time.”
She met Wyatt’s gaze as he gave her feet a final rub. “Let’s go,” he said, although she suspected he was as sorry to leave as she.
The air outside was warm and sticky from the rain. Wyatt opened the trunk of his car to dump the books inside. It was six o’clock and she was hungry. The Brickhouse was just across the street.
“Do you want to get something to eat?” she asked after he closed the trunk. “There isn’t a line at the Brickhouse yet.”
“Sorry,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got a, um . . . I’ve got an event.”
“An event?” The way he stumbled over the words was odd. “What kind of event?”
“Just a thing,” Wyatt said, not meeting her eyes as he unlocked the passenger door for her.
She moved in front of the door, preventing him from opening it. “What kind of ‘thing’?”
“It’s a fundraiser,” he said, a flush gathering on his cheeks. “Kent McAllister is hosting it out at his ranch. I haven’t had much luck raising money yet, and there might still be time to buy a little advertising.”
She brightened. “Don’t be embarrassed, I think it’s wonderful. Can I come?”
Wyatt gazed off into the distance. A long pause stretched between them, broken by laughter from some teenagers throwing frisbees on the town square. There was only one reason Jenny could think of to explain why he wouldn’t want her there.
“Wyatt? I’d like to come to the fundraiser, if that’s okay with you.”
More silence. Tension gathering around his mouth signaled his discomfort. It would be easy to pretend she didn’t care and go home to have a beer with Hemingway, but she did care and this did hurt. She crossed her arms and waited.
“My parents are going to be there,” he finally said.
It was surprising that he’d admitted it, but at least it was out in the open now. “And they wouldn’t want you to be seen with a leper like me.”
“Jenny, don’t be that way. The race for the commissioner’s office has been the one thing to give my mother a glimpse of daylight since Lauren died. The one thing . Don’t ask me to take that away from her.”
“And my showing up at the fundraiser will do that?”
He sighed with a look of resignation. “Yes, Jenny, it will. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
Okay. It wasn’t like Jenny didn’t have two years of experience feeling like a pariah in this town. Donna Rossiter had more cause than anyone to despise the Summerlins, but was it going to last forever?
“Does she know we’re seeing each other again?”
“No.”
It was like a punch to the chest. These last weeks of her relationship with Wyatt had been fresh and new and exhilarating. It was understandable that his mother might disapprove, and it was time to learn how bad the situation was.
She nodded across the street toward the Brickhouse. “Let’s go get something to eat and we can talk about it.”
“I don’t have time,” Wyatt said.
She reached for his hand, drawing him toward the row of outdoor cafés and shops. “Then let’s go to the ice cream parlor to get a soda for the ride to the grove.”
He withdrew his hand and refused to budge. She turned to face him. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“I’m not embarrassed?—”
She cut him off. “Then why can’t we walk down the street holding hands?”
“It’s a small town, Jenny.”
And word would leak back to his mother. No wonder he wanted to hide out on the top floor of the library where nobody ever went. She stepped forward, keeping her voice low because this conversation was mortifying and there were people around. “I never did anything bad to your mother, and I’m tired of hiding from the world over what Jack did.”
Wyatt’s voice was tense. “Let’s do this after the election, okay? Our dating again is going to be a tough nut for her to swallow.”
The words stung, all the more painful because they were true. Jack’s crime was a millstone that would forever drag her down in some people’s eyes, including Wyatt’s mother.
Wyatt walked around the car and opened the passenger door from the inside. “If you want me to drive you back to the grove, we need to leave now.”
She fumed as she slid into the seat. Wyatt’s jaw was clenched as he silently began driving her home. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and spoke in a quiet tone.
“My grandfather always said ‘don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.’ He was right. I’m finished doing penance for what Jack did. I’ve moved on. I have a good life ahead of me. Sometimes I still come across a picture or memento that reminds me of the good times with Jack and the wound rips open all over again. It cuts especially deep because my defenses were down. That’s okay. I pause, I grieve . . . and then life goes on.”
“Try saying that to a woman who’s lost her only daughter.”
She didn’t have anything to say to Donna Rossiter, a woman whose grief now smothered the people around her. Jenny couldn’t begin to imagine what Donna had endured, but she was finished trying.
It was a long, sullen, and silent drive home.