Chapter 2
Isquinted at the woman who was standing outside the Malones’ farmhouse, yelling at the top of her lungs. What in the devil was she hollering about? Was she having some kind of emergency?
Did she need help?
At the thought, I pulled to the side of the road, slowing my pickup to turn into her driveway.
I knew the house, of course, and not just because I’d driven past it every day since arriving back in Green Valley. I’d gone to the same school as Noah Malone, and I used to say hello to his momma when I bicycled past the house as a boy. But this woman was new to me.
She gestured at me, making a waving motion with her palm as though telling me to keep driving. Maybe she didn’t need help after all. Only I was too caught up in gazing at her to drive by right away.
She was extremely pretty, with long dark hair and olive skin. She was wearing a shirt with only one sleeve, and a very short skirt. Instead of the cowboy boots I was used to seeing around here, she had on boots that went all the way past her knees, almost up to the hem of her skirt. Her thighs were on display. Accentuated, even. And they were such fine-looking thighs, it was no hardship to let my eyes drop to them.
No way was the woman from around here. I’d never seen her or her thighs before. A stunning woman like that, I’d be sure to remember. And if I didn’t know her, that meant she didn’t know who I was, either. She might not recoil at the mere mention of my last name. That realization alone made me want to stop.
An image flashed through my mind of having those delectable thighs wrapped around me, though it wasn’t at all like me to have sexual fantasies about strangers. I’d seen plenty of thighs before, but hers were exceptionally shapely.
The woman put her fists on her hips. Now I was closer, I could see she was glaring at me. Though it had to be said, the expression on her face didn’t dim her beauty any. In fact, the closer I got, the more beautiful I realized she was. Her face was perfectly heart shaped, and she had the cutest upturned nose I’d ever seen. But it was the way she tossed her hair back from her face that was most attractive of all. From just that gesture, I could tell she was no wallflower.
When she hollered again, I was finally close enough to make out what she was saying over the racket of my engine.
“Don’t you dare stop, Deliverance!” she yelled. Her tone was so caustic, it burned my eardrums like acid. “Just keep on driving!”
Deliverance?
Did she just call me Deliverance? What in the devil?
Deliverance was the name of an old movie about some big-city hikers who go rafting down a river in Georgia and are set upon by some hillbilly villains with very few teeth and features that imply inbreeding. No need to wonder which of the characters she was comparing me to.
Forget my sexual fantasies. The woman was a judgmental bigot, and that was not at all sexy. Could she be any more offensive?
I gaped at her in shock for a moment longer before coming to my senses and putting my foot back on the accelerator. As pretty as she was, there was clearly a lot wrong with the woman, and I wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out exactly why she was pitching a fit. She didn’t want me to stop, and now I knew how abrasive she was, I had no wish to meet her.
My pickup coughed a couple of times, then reluctantly sped up, passing the woman by. In the rearview, I saw her holler again, but whatever she yelled was drowned out by my engine’s clanking.
“Deliverance,” I muttered to myself in disgust. “That woman’s cheese has slipped right off her cracker.”
The rest of the way home, I thought about how rude she was. Annoyingly, my thoughts kept straying to her thighs as well. But when I pulled up to the ramshackle farmhouse I’d inherited from my daddy, I decided to push her right out of my head.
Picking up the cupcakes I’d bought from the bakery, I went into the old house. The door hinges made a rusty creak, and my shoes clomped over the once-lustrous floorboards, long since dulled and scarred by years of my daddy’s dropped cigarette butts.
“Gemma!” I called. “I have cake.”
No answer. The house was eerily silent, my niece’s bedroom door closed.
With the box of cupcakes in hand, I rapped on her door. “Gemma?”
Still no answer.
“May I come in?” As uncomfortable as I was at the idea of opening her door uninvited, I needed to know she was in there. The alternative was that she may have run off. And that thought halted my hesitation. “I’m coming in,” I called loudly, then pushed the door open.
Gemma was sitting on her bed, propped up against her pillows, so at least she hadn’t run away. She was fifteen years old and had an ultra-short haircut, her momma’s blue eyes, and a nose piercing I still thought she was too young to wear.
She was staring at her phone. A glimpse of plastic in her ears told me why she hadn’t answered my knock. She was wearing earbuds, most likely listening to that awful rock music she liked.
When she saw me, her expression darkened. Reaching up, she pulled one of the earbuds out. “What?” she demanded.
Safe to say, my niece wasn’t in danger of starting a fan club for me anytime soon.
Before she’d arrived, I’d struggled with the idea of looking after her when I knew nothing whatsoever about parenting. I hadn’t seen her in several years, we barely knew each other, and I’d been worried I’d do everything wrong.
But now she was here, I didn’t have to worry about that anymore, because I knew I was doing everything wrong. Mostly because she told me I was, every day.
“I have cupcakes.” I showed her the box. “You want some?”
A flicker of interest crossed her face, and I silently cheered. Maybe I’d finally done something that she wouldn’t call annoying or embarrassing.
But I must have made the mistake of letting my hope show, because her expression instantly closed back down.
“I’m not hungry.” Her tone was curt.
“I got three different flavors. And if you come into the kitchen to eat, I’ll even fix you a cherry cola to go with the cake.”
Her lip curled. “I said no.”
“You’re so unwilling to share a kitchen with me that you won’t do it, even for cake?”
The look she gave me was pure disdain. “You’re keeping me here against my will, which makes you my kidnapper. And no, I don’t feel like eating cupcakes and drinking cherry cola with my kidnapper. That’s sick.” Her glower went back to her phone.
“You can’t keep ignoring me, Gem.”
“Oh yeah? Watch me.” She lifted the earbud, clearly intending to reinsert it and shut me back out.
I sighed, wishing for the thousandth time that Gemma had arrived with some kind of technical documentation to explain how she worked. I had no data. Nothing about her made logical sense. Without an instruction manual, how was I supposed to figure her out?
“I’ll eat all the cake myself if you don’t come out,” I warned.
The earbud hovered over her ear. “Go ahead.”
“When are you going to talk to me?” Frustration made my tone rougher than I meant it to be.
“When you let me go home.”
“You know I can’t do that.” I made an effort to gentle my voice. “And you won’t be here forever, so why not make the best of it in the meantime?”
She screwed up her nose. “Because I hate this horrible, stinking, ugly house, and I hate this boring town. All my friends are hundreds of miles away, and all the cake in the world won’t make being here any better!”
“Not even if the cake is delicious? With thick frosting?” I drew back the lid of the box to show her the treats inside.
“Go away!”
I silently counted to three, then made my tone as sweet as I could manage. “How can I make this better for you, Gem?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to be some kind of math genius, and you can’t figure it out? The only way you could make it better is if you let me go back to Nashville.”
Without waiting for me to answer, she shoved the earbud back into her ear and her gaze went pointedly back to her phone. Presumably, she could no longer hear me.
With a sigh, I shut her door and took the cakes into the kitchen, setting the box on the counter. I’d barely put it down when my phone rang. The number that flashed up told me it was the facility where my sister was staying. It could be Ruth calling, though she usually called Gemma first. Or perhaps it was Ruth’s doctor. Seeing as I was Ruth’s next of kin, her doctor gave me regular updates. And of course, my phone rang when bills needed to be paid.
“Hello?” I said, answering the call.
“Cy, it’s me.” The flat monotone of my sister’s voice made my chest contract, but I made sure my reply was cheerful.
“Hey, Ruth. How are you? Are you doing okay?”
My sister hesitated, as though she wasn’t sure whether to brush off my question with a platitude, or whether to be honest. After a moment she said, “It’s not easy. Every day is a struggle.”
I leaned heavily against the counter, wishing there was something I could do or say to make things easier for her. “Last time I spoke to your doctor, she said you’re doing great.” I tried to sound encouraging.
“Cy, I need to talk to you about Gemma.”
Shit. I’d asked Gemma not to complain to her mother about being here, seeing as Ruth didn’t need any added stress. But maybe she’d ignored my request.
“Don’t worry about Gemma,” I said. “She’s taking some time to settle in, but she’ll grow to love it here. By the time you’re feeling better, she’ll most likely be so happy, she won’t want to leave.”
“That’s the thing. I might be here for a long time, and I thought Gemma should go to school.”
“School? In Green Valley?” The idea triggered a rush of dread. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Well, it’d be better than falling behind. And at least she’s not a Baxter. She’s got that going for her.”
That was true. Gemma’s last name wasn’t Baxter. Her father—Ruth’s ex—was a good-for-nothing asshole, but he’d given his daughter his surname. And if the other kids didn’t know she was a member of one of the most notorious families in Green Valley, maybe Gemma would be spared the bullying Ruth and I had gone through.
“Okay,” I said on an exhale of breath. “I’ll see about getting her enrolled. And if anyone shit-talks her, they’ll need to deal with me.”
“Thanks, Cy. We’re lucky to have you looking out for us.” Maybe it was wishful thinking, but her voice seemed to get a little brighter.
“It’s good to be finally getting to know my niece,” I said. “And she’ll be okay here for as long as you need. You just concentrate on working things out so you can start feeling better.”
“I still can’t understand why you’re back in that house.”
My gaze went to the big window over the kitchen sink, where I could see past the barn to the woods. “It’s not so bad here now,” I said. I meant that it wasn’t so bad now that our daddy was dead, but I knew she’d get what I was saying without having to spell it out.
“There are too many awful memories there.” Ruth’s voice held something like a shudder.
“Not all our memories are bad. Remember how we used to catch fish? And how we’d skim stones, only I always won?”
“I remember that time I did eight jumps, and your best was only six.” There was definitely a trace of amusement in her voice now. It wasn’t just wishful thinking.
“You made that up. If I didn’t see the throw, it doesn’t count.”
“Eight jumps, Cy!”
It was an ancient, good-natured argument, as well-worn as the stones we’d skimmed across the surface of the river. But it made me grin to myself. Not so much because of what she was saying, but because I was so glad to hear a spark of the old, feisty Ruth, instead of the flat, emotionless version of my sister I’d been speaking to for the last few weeks.
“We’ll have a rematch,” I promised. “You’ll get to prove it. Or more likely, I’ll get to prove it never happened.”
“I love you, Cy,” Ruth said. “And thank you.”
“No need to thank me.”
“Yes, there is. Thank you for everything. For being there for me and Gemma, and for not giving up on me.”
“Give up on you? Of course not! Never.” I made a pfft sound to emphasize how ridiculous the idea was. “And you never have to thank me, Ruthie.” I walked toward the closed door of Ruth’s old bedroom where Gemma was staying. “You want to speak to Gem now?” I asked, already sure she would.
“Yes, please.”
I rapped on the closed door of Gemma’s room again before remembering about her earbuds. When I opened the door, Gemma yanked her earbud out of her ear with an angry “what now” expression.
“Your momma’s on the line. She wants to say hi.”
Gemma’s expression changed at once, her face lighting up. She couldn’t wait for her momma to feel better so the two of them could go home.
As I handed her my phone, I noticed Gemma had pinned a poster over the hole my daddy had once punched in the bedroom wall. It was a band poster. Three young people dressed all in black, with makeup, piercings, and tattoos to match. One glance told me how wince-inducing their music would likely be, but I was just glad Gemma had covered the hole.
Come to think of it, I should have covered it myself.
Walking back into the living room, I vowed to start making the house nicer for my niece. And to find a way to bridge the gulf between Gemma and me.
Somehow.