Chapter 15
“Another delicious dinner,” Mags said, as she finished the last mouthful of pot roast. “You’re an excellent cook.”
I put my knife and fork together on my own empty plate, pleased by her compliment. “Would you like some more?”
“Thanks, but I couldn’t squeeze in another mouthful.” She leaned back in the dining chair, one hand on her stomach.
“Gemma?” I asked.
“I’m full too. It was nice, Uncle Cy.”
My niece seemed happy again tonight. Maybe the talk we’d had this morning had helped, or perhaps she was cheerful because her first day at school had gone well. Most likely it was both those things, plus the fact that Mags was here, the three of us enjoying another dinner together, and those two got along like they’d been separated at birth. Whatever the reason, I was just glad to see her smiling.
“Do you have anything else you need to organize for school?” I asked her.
“I have some books to order.”
“Do you need help?” I asked. She shook her head, and I added, “Your momma’s going to call soon.”
Gemma cast a quick sideways look at Mags. “I’ll take the call in my bedroom again, okay?”
“Sure.”
After Gemma had disappeared to talk to her mother and shut her bedroom door behind her, Mags motioned to the corner of the living room where the stack of boxes used to be. I’d spent a good part of the day emptying them out, but she hadn’t remarked on the change until now.
“The house looks bigger,” she said.
I nodded. “It’s about time I got started on the renovations.”
She lowered her voice, pushing her empty plate away. “Do you mind if I ask about your sister?”
“I don’t mind. But let’s go outside. There’s a place to sit out back.” I didn’t want Gemma to overhear me talk about her mother. “We could take some wine out with us,” I suggested. “You could have a small glass and still be fine to drive.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick with iced tea.”
I got her a fresh glass of tea, then poured myself a glass of Shiraz. As she watched me pour it, she said, “It’s funny you drink wine. You seem like you’d be a beer guy.”
“I got a taste for red wine while I was in Paris.”
She shot me a squinty look. “Paris, Texas?”
I replied by silently lifting my eyebrows.
Laughing, she shook her head. “Just when I think you’re done surprising me.” Then she headed out the back door, Zeppelin at her heels.
We took a seat on the outdoor chairs I’d had sent from Boston and had finally set out on the back porch. It looked out to the small yard and large barn. The sun had just gone down, and the stars would soon be coming out, though we’d need to turn the porch light off if we wanted to see them.
The night was warm, and the crickets were singing. Magdalena was wearing her hair in a ponytail, so I could admire her long neck. She wore smart black pants and a patterned blouse. Even after a long day in the bakery, she looked like she could be in a magazine.
Rock star or not, her boyfriend definitely didn’t deserve her. No matter how famous, rich, or talented he might be, she was too good for him.
“My sister’s name is Ruth,” I said, watching Zeppelin sniffing around the grass near the barn. “We were real close growing up. She was only sixteen when our momma died. I was seventeen.”
I mentioned my momma’s death deliberately, knowing all too well what they said in town about my involvement. Mags had most likely heard the rumors about me, but to my surprise, her gaze stayed level.
“It must have been hard on both of you.” Her tone was sympathetic.
I paused a moment longer, waiting for her to ask about the rumors. It wasn’t a comfortable subject, but if she came out and asked me...well, maybe I’d tell her the things I’d only been able to tell my therapist.
Only she didn’t. She just sipped her iced tea, her lovely brown eyes on mine.
“Our momma was a good woman,” I said. “But our daddy was a mean old bastard, and our eldest brother used to be in and out of prison, until he finally earned himself a life sentence. We had another brother who got himself shot one night, breaking into a farmhouse. He died when I was six.”
“Jeepers.” She sat back, her composure gone. “I’m sorry.”
“So you can see what our family was like. Why the Baxters have such a bad name.”
She nodded wordlessly.
“I moved to Boston a few months after our momma died and took Ruth with me. It was rough trying to survive on a small income, but we were both happy to have left this place.”
“I bet.”
“Ruth fell pregnant not long after we left Green Valley. She married her boyfriend and went to Memphis, where his family were. And I had no idea he was abusive. Not until recently.” I tightened my jaw, wishing I’d known better than to let my sister move so far away. “Most of her life, Ruth’s been afraid of the men who should have been protecting her. No wonder she’s struggling now.”
“That’s awful.” Mags’s expression was full of compassion.
I nodded, then sipped my wine, savoring the taste for a moment before I swallowed and continued.
“After splitting with her husband, Ruth raised Gemma in Nashville. I was still in Boston, so I didn’t see either of them as often as I should have. Then, about a year and a half ago, our daddy died. Killed in a bar fight at the Dragon, so he died the way he lived. Drunk and violent.” Zeppelin nosed up to me, and I petted his head but kept talking.
“Ruth has struggled with depression, but now she’s getting some help. That’s why Gemma’s staying with me. I didn’t want her to hear us talking about it because she’s sensitive about her mother being in a mental health facility. But I’m proud of Ruth for taking that step.” I blew out a breath, glad to have gotten my family history out into the open. “And now you know why people in town cross the street and spit when they hear the Baxter name.”
She was frowning. “It’s not fair for people to label you because of what your father and brothers used to do.”
I shrugged, because of course that wasn’t the whole story. But it was more than enough for one night. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful.”
“Okay.” She lifted a leg onto her chair, dropping her knee to the side and tucking her foot under her thigh. It was a loose-limbed position I wouldn’t even attempt, but she made it look natural. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked.
She was so limber, all I could think about were sexual positions. The entire Kama Sutra ran through my head. At least, the positions I could remember from my curious browsing through the book many years ago.
Did Mags have any idea how fucking sexy she was?
“Cy?” she asked.
I blinked. “Ah. How was work today?”
“Busy.” Zeppelin moved next to her, and she stroked his ears. “And I’m developing a serious banana cake addiction. I’ll have to take home a suitcase filled with cake when I leave.”
The reminder she’d be leaving soon ripped all Kama Sutra thoughts from my mind.
“What will you do when you go back to New York?” I asked.
She bit her lip, looking uncertain. “I’m not sure. I like fashion. And I’ve realized that I really like food.”
“Find a fashion store that sells food.”
She grimaced. “At my age, I should know what I want to do with my life. Carla always knew she wanted to be a software developer. And Eric worked hard for years playing music and writing songs. Now he’s a rock star, and I still haven’t figured the career thing out.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. Plenty of people have no idea what they want to do. And you have lots of time to try different things.”
“I like helping people.” She let out a laugh, her nose wrinkled. “Ugh, that sounds corny!”
“It sounds nice.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m performing life-saving surgery. I’m just serving food. But I like talking to customers.”
“You brighten their day,” I said. “They like you, and you give them good things to eat. That helps them.”
She gave me a smile that was half disbelieving, half pleased. “Maybe.” Then her smile fell away and she grew serious. “What about your job?”
“Growing mushrooms? This is the first time I’ve tried it, and I’m still learning. But so far, I like it a lot.”
She studied me silently for a moment, then looked over at the barn. “You offered to show me your mushrooms. Does your offer still stand?” There was no trace of humor left in her tone.
“Of course. Wait here a minute while I get the keys to the barn.” I went back in to grab them off the table by the door, then shut Zeppelin inside the house to keep him out of trouble, and led her over to the barn. Once there, I unlocked the big padlocks meant to deter any of my daddy’s old customers who wanted to take a look inside to see whether any of his illegal crop still remained. Then I slid back the door, flicked on the overhead lights, and we stepped inside.
The hum of the humidity and temperature controller unit suddenly seemed loud. Despite its hard work, a pleasantly musty aroma of damp earth and fungi hung heavily in the air.
I’d partitioned the big barn into separate growing areas by hanging heavy plastic from the ceiling. Then I’d set up racks over my daddy’s old marijuana beds and filled them with rows of grow bags, each bag filled with straw and mycelium, the thread-like roots of the mushrooms. In this part of the shed, the bags were filled with golden oyster mushrooms. The mushrooms exploded out of the bags in large, colorful colony structures, like a golden alien forest. They had lighter-colored stems that opened into vivid yellow caps.
“Whoa,” whispered Mags, walking down the rows of mushrooms. Then, louder, she asked, “What are they?”
I slid the door shut behind us to keep the temperature and humidity steady. “Golden oyster mushrooms in here.” Pulling aside the plastic curtain, I motioned to the area on the other side. “Enoki mushrooms through there.”
She glanced to where the long, spindly white enoki mushrooms were growing, then turned back to the more spectacular golden oysters. “Mushrooms for eating?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, you can put them in your food?”
She clearly hadn’t seen these varieties of mushrooms before. But of course, she didn’t cook. And she was probably used to the more common types: button, portobello, and maybe shiitake.
“That’s what they’re for,” I said. “Golden oysters are slightly nutty, while enoki have a little crunch and are sweeter.”
“The color is amazing! I had no idea there were mushrooms this bright.”
“I’ve started growing pink oysters as well. But the golden oysters are ready to harvest.”
Reaching out, she ran her fingers lightly over the caps of a cluster of mushrooms. “They’re beautiful. Straight out of Alice in Wonderland. There should be a colorful caterpillar sitting on top of them, smoking a hookah.”
The image she’d painted was clear in my mind. She was right. Now I’d think of it whenever I looked at them.
“They always spread out from the bag in a regular pattern,” I said. “It’s rhythmic. Like music.” And because she’d come up with the caterpillar image, I expanded the analogy. “If they had a sound, I think it might be honky-tonk.”
She laughed. “Musical mushrooms. That’s very poetic.”
I grinned back at her, pleased by her reaction. Though we’d seemed so different at first, we understood each other pretty well now. As though we clicked. I liked the way she thought, and it felt natural to say what I was thinking.
Some strands of her hair had come loose from her ponytail, and as she bent to smell a cluster of mushrooms, one strand fell forward. I wanted to brush it back, to run my fingers over the curve of her cheek with the same reverence she’d had when she touched the mushrooms. She was like music, too. Her face had a harmony I couldn’t stop admiring.
“May I taste them?” she asked.
“Tomorrow night, I’ll cook some as a side dish.” I watched her face, wondering if she’d object to my assumption that she’d come to dinner again tomorrow.
She was busy gazing at the rows of bags. “This is what you grow,” she said. “Mushrooms for eating.”
“Just like I told you.” I gave her a quizzical look, surprised by the way she was repeating it. “Did you not believe me?”
“I didn’t think you grew legal mushrooms. I thought they’d be magic ones.”
“I told you they weren’t the illegal kind.”
But my chest had tightened. It was obvious why she hadn’t believed me. I’d never be able to shake the Baxter name.
“I’ve heard gossip about you,” confirmed Mags. Then her brow creased as though she could read the heartache that gave me. “But fuck those people. They’re wrong about you. And they don’t get to label you.”
I blinked, surprised by her sudden fierceness. “I’d rather not have sexual relations with them,” I said. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Her smile was slow, one side of her lips hitching higher. Its warmth loosened my chest.
“There are a lot of mushrooms here.” She walked a little further down the row. “Who do you sell them to?”
“I’ve spoken to the owners of a few restaurants in Knoxville, and some of them placed orders. I need to drive back to talk to some more.”
She turned to face me. “Why restrict yourself the restaurants in Knoxville? According to Joy and Amber, there are some nice places to eat in Green Valley.”
I hesitated. But as reluctant as I was to keep talking about my reputation, I didn’t want to lie. “You’ve heard what they say. Folks in Green Valley wouldn’t buy anything from me. Nothing legal, anyway.”
“There are a few nasty gossips, but most people are open-minded.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Problem is, they’ve only heard one side of things. If you let them get to know you, they’ll realize how wrong the rumors are, and how unfair they’ve been.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like the prejudice, but I understand it. All the generations of Baxters have been bad, as far back as anyone can remember. And once people have a firm idea about something, it’s hard to change that.”
“That’s true.” She bit her lip. “It’s not even close to the same, but I’ve had a little experience of that with my family.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She waved a hand. “It’s nothing compared to what you’ve had to deal with.” Tightening her lips, she walked along the row of mushrooms, examining them as she went. I got the impression she didn’t want me to press her on her comment. And when she reached the end of the row, she turned and said, “It’s humid in here.”
“Let’s go back to the porch,” I suggested.
“How long have you been growing mushrooms?” she asked, walking back toward me.
“Not long. It took me a while to repurpose the barn. I’m about to do my first big harvest.” I waited for her to reach me, then we strolled toward the door together.
“What were you doing for money before this?” she asked.
“When I lived in Boston, I worked in venture capital.”
She stopped abruptly and stared at me with such a surprised look, I figured maybe she didn’t know what venture capital was.
“I was employed by an investment firm,” I explained. “My job was selecting start-up businesses to invest in.”
“So you were in charge of a pile of money, and got to pick who to give it to?” Her eyebrows were creeping up. “How much money?”
“The fund invested close to a billion dollars.”
“What the hell?” Taking a step backward, she held up both hands. “Now wait just one minute. You’re seriously telling me that your job in Boston was choosing how to spend a billion dollars?”
I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended or amused by how incredulous she was. “I chose how to invest the money, not spend it,” I said. “But, yes. Essentially.”
“How did you get a job like that?” she demanded.
“It’s about calculating risk. Running the numbers. And I like math.”
“You like math.” Shaking her head, she drew her hands dramatically down the sides of her face. “A mathematician with an impressive corporate job. Next you’re going to tell me your real name is actually Charles, and your closet is full of three-piece suits.”
“My real name is Cy. And what part of all this is hard to believe?” I decided to be amused rather than offended. She had to be exaggerating her surprise, but I liked how impressed she seemed. It was good for my ego.
“It’s not that it’s hard to believe, it’s that I had everything so wrong. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“But I thought you were a criminal!” She lifted both palms as though to stop me before I could protest. “And it wasn’t only because of the rumors about you.”
I frowned. “What else would make you think that?”
“You said you were growing mushrooms in your father’s padlocked marijuana shed, you drive an ancient pickup, your beard could house an entire family of mice...and you were wearing flannel!” Her voice rose as though she was indignant. Like I’d mounted a deliberate campaign to trick her.
“I am growing mushrooms in my daddy’s marijuana shed,” I pointed out, running a defensive hand down my beard. “And I decided I may as well drive his old pickup around until it dies, seeing as the gravel driveway was damaging my paint job. My own car is in storage.”
“Oh my God!” She huffed. “I can’t believe this! You used to be a corporate whizz investing a billion dollars, and now you’re a respectable business owner growing beautiful mushrooms. I was worried about kissing another bad boy, and it turns out you’re good. And I’m the one paying off drug dealers and not going to the police when I know it’s what a sensible, law-abiding person would do.”
I took in what she was saying, and suddenly I wanted to laugh. “When you put it like that, I can see how you’re a bad influence.”
She gave me a level stare. “Very funny.”
Walking toward the door, I pretended to scratch my beard so I could hide my smile. “Come on,” I said. “You look hot.” Her cheeks were tinged with pink. Though I had to admit, I liked them that way. She looked even prettier with red cheeks.
“It’s the humidity. And the shock of realizing I’m sucha bad role model.”
“I’ll get you a glass of water.” Sliding the door shut behind us, I secured the heavy padlocks.
“Thanks,” she said. “But I should get home.”
“What about the drug dealer who’s threatening you? I still think you should stay here. Take my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine at Carla’s place.”
“Is there anything I can say to get you to be less stubborn about that?”
“I’m not stubborn,” she said. “I’m just not staying.” Then she gave a stubborn lift of her chin as she shot me a stubborn look.
“Sure, you’re not stubborn,” I muttered, giving a frustrated shake of my head.
Truth was, I’d want her to stay even if she wasn’t being threatened. I liked talking to her, and I especially liked how she made me smile. When she was around, my chest felt light.
There was only one thing I didn’t like about her. One thing I hated. And that was that she had a boyfriend who was clearly an undeserving asshole. All my life, I’d seen men treat women badly. It made me sick to my stomach to know there was nothing I could do about it.
We stopped back inside so she could say goodbye to Gemma and collect Zeppelin. Then I walked her out to her car, keeping my hands in my pockets to avoid the temptation of wanting to touch her.
As we reached her car, she said, “Listen, I’m still struggling with the details. You had a corporate job in Boston, but you decided to ditch it and move back to the childhood home you hated, and now you grow mushrooms.” She gave me a perplexed frown. “I’ve never been a math person, and I can’t get it to add up.”
I stopped beside her driver’s door, my hands still in my pockets. “You said you wanted a change from your old job, and it was a little like that for me, too. When my daddy died and I inherited his house, I couldn’t let it sit here collecting taxes. Figured I may as well take a break from Boston so I could renovate and sell it. But I found myself staying longer than I expected. The barn was just sitting there, and there’s something about watching things grow that feels good.” I shrugged. “It wasn’t my original plan, but it seemed to work.”
I purposely left out the long months after I arrived that I’d spent doing nothing at all. Logically, I knew depression was an illness and nothing to be ashamed of. But I couldn’t help feeling like I’d let myself down. As much as I hated my father’s toxic voice, it still whispered inside me, saying depression was something real men didn’t suffer from. Though I could be proud of Ruth for how she was dealing with it, I was harder on myself.
Mags drew her eyebrows together, looking contrite. “I should have said it ages ago, but I’m sorry I called you Deliverance. It was mean. I was awful to you.”
“I said some things too,” I admitted.
She grinned, her apology dissolving into humor. “Hansel and Gretel? That was hilarious. Trying not to laugh almost killed me.”
I smiled back at her as she opened her car door and got in. I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted to kiss her again. It just about killed me that I couldn’t.