Loe raamatut: «A Bride, A Barn, And A Baby»

Chapter One

May 2017

“I know I should’ve called first,” Lucy Campbell said when Zane Phillips opened his front door, “but I come bearing gifts.”

Standing in the doorway, looking cranky, his big frame taking up a lot of space, Zane silently eyed her offerings.

“I brought The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire and Say Anything... and a few others.” She handed the DVDs to him one by one as she read off each title. He frowned as he looked at them, and then he held up the one on top.

“This is a problem,” he said, looking at the movie as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “I’m not in the mood to say anything.”

“That’s why I brought over a selection.” Lucy reached into his personal space and tapped the DVD case. “If you’re not in the mood for that movie, you can choose another one.”

He shook his head. “No. Luce, you’re not understanding me. I’m not in the mood for talking. Period. I don’t feel like company tonight.”

“I understand you better than you think I do. Hence the movies.” And the reason she hadn’t called before showing up. “You don’t have to talk. All you have to do is watch. And eat Chinese food.”

She held up a brown paper sack.

“Are you going to let me in? The kung pao beef is getting cold.”

Storm clouds were rolling in and the fragrance of rain hung in the humid air.

“You brought kung pao?” His tone was lighter.

She nodded. “And General Tso’s chicken, fried rice and egg rolls.”

She’d known it wouldn’t be easy getting past his front door. That was why she’d brought the food. She thrust the large brown sack at him, and he almost dropped the stack of movies. He shifted the DVDs into one hand and accepted the bag. Pushing past him, Lucy stepped onto the beige carpet into the living room of Zane’s Bridgemont Farms house and squinted into the dim light. The curtains were drawn. The only light on was the one in the kitchen. It cast enough of a golden glow to illuminate the mess in the front room. An empty pizza box, spent beer cans, a couple pairs of socks, some wadded-up jeans and a pair of mud-caked boots lying askew on the carpet. It all looked as if he had left it where he had dropped it, amid the stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of things he’d been sorting.

“Sorry about the mess,” he mumbled as he grabbed up the jeans and socks and kicked the boots into a corner. A guy’s way of cleaning. Her brother Ethan had similar tactics before Chelsea came into his life. Now, thanks to his future wife, Ethan was not only in love, but his house was also spotless.

“I’m still trying to figure out what to do with Mom’s things. I’ve been bringing over a few boxes at a time. There’s still so much stuff in her house—er, your family’s house.”

“You know there’s no hurry to move her things out,” Lucy said. “We don’t have renters. You can take as long as you need. You don’t have to bring everything over here to sort it if you don’t have room for it. Just leave it at the house.”

“Bossy.” He scowled. “I’ve got a system. It’s working fine.”

For decades, his mom, Dorothy, had rented the small bungalow on the lower edge of the Campbells’ property. Zane and his brother, Ian, had grown up there with their mother, who’d stayed in the house long after her boys had moved out and moved on with their lives. Lucy thought she and her brothers had made it clear that Zane could take all the time he needed to get Dorothy’s things in order before he turned over the keys. That was how people treated each other in Celebration—they compromised and met each other halfway, especially in the wake of a family crisis. And Dorothy Phillips’s surrender to an aggressive form of lymphoma that had ended her life nearly as fast as the disease had appeared hadn’t been just a family crisis—it was a loss felt by the entire town. Many friends and neighbors, including Lucy, had reached out and offered to help Zane with the move out, but true to his lone-wolf ways, Zane had politely turned down the gestures of goodwill in favor of going it alone. He said he needed time to think, time to figure out what to do with the remnants of his mother’s life. Everyone had respected his wishes and left him alone. Well, everyone except for Lucy. She knew him well enough to understand that sometimes Zane’s pride kept him from asking for or accepting help. Sometimes Zane needed to be shown that his way wasn’t always the best way. Tonight was a case in point.

“Why don’t you take your system into the kitchen and get us some plates?” Lucy said. “I’ll get the first DVD queued up and ready to play.”

“The first one? You’re not planning on watching all of them, are you?”

“Of course we are, that’s why I brought them.”

“You’ll be here all night.”

Lucy smiled and cocked a brow in the most suggestive way possible.

He shook his head. “Don’t start with me, Campbell.” He handed her the movies and grabbed a trio of beer cans off the coffee table to clear a spot for the sack of food. She watched him disappear around the corner into the kitchen, where he rattled around for a few minutes. It sounded like he was tidying up in there, too.

Lucy turned on a table lamp. In the light’s golden glow, she could see that the place wasn’t dirty as much as it was cluttered boxes of Dorothy’s things. What with juggling the funeral arrangements, moving his mom’s possessions to his house and his job as general manager of Bridgemont Farms, his living room looked rougher around the edges than usual. Then again, it didn’t take much to make such a small house look messy.

A stack of boxes lined the far wall. Several small piles consisting of various household appliances and articles of clothing, shoes and accessories sat waiting on the floor. A couple of garbage bags sagged in the corner, probably filled with items that hadn’t made the cut.

Ian had come back to Celebration for the funeral. He’d done what he could to help clear out the house while he was here, but Zane had mentioned that sifting through more than a quarter century’s worth of their mother’s life had proved too arduous a task in the days immediately after the funeral. They hadn’t even made a dent before Ian had had to leave and get back to his job in Colorado. That left Zane to finish the job and tie up all the loose ends.

As Lucy picked up the empty pizza box and started to put it in one of the garbage bags, she spied Dorothy’s sketchbook in the trash. She set aside the box and took out the book, running her hand over its tattered and faded no-frills cover before she leafed through the pages of hand-drawn fashion illustrations.

Lucy’s heart clenched. In her mind’s eye she could see Dorothy sitting on the house’s back porch at the patio table with a cigarette and a cup of coffee, drawing in this book. Lucy used to love to watch her. Dorothy had patiently answered Lucy’s never-ending stream of little-girl questions as the woman’s deft hands brought to life the magical vignettes. After Dorothy had made Lucy’s prom dress, Lucy had always thought of her as her very own fairy godmother.

Why would Zane throw this away? Lucy started to call to him in the kitchen, but it dawned on her that if he’d tossed such a personal item, it had to mean that in this moment it was too painful for him to keep it. She turned a few more pages, marveling at the delicate lines and brilliant color choices, at the fabric swatches Dorothy had pinned to the pages. It might be too painful for him to hang on to the sketchbook right now, but she was sure that someday, he would be sorry he’d thrown it away.

She’d slipped the book into her purse and had resumed her mission of tidying up the living room when Zane returned with a bottle of bourbon and two crystal highball glasses that looked out of place in his rugged bachelor digs. He balanced a ceramic cereal bowl full of ice atop the glasses. The makeshift ice bucket looked much more Zane-indigenous than the crystal barware.

“Those are fancy,” she said, indicating the glasses.

“They were my mom’s.”

Even more than being her fairy godmother, Dorothy had been like a second mom to Lucy after her own mother passed when Lucy was just fourteen. Being here for Zane—looking in on him and making sure he ate something more than take-out pizza—was the least she could do to honor Dorothy’s memory. Zane was big and strong and stoic. He wouldn’t let on that he was hurting over his mom’s passing, even though undoubtedly he was. That was why Lucy hadn’t listened to him when he’d said he wasn’t in the mood for company. That was why she’d shown up uninvited and pushed her way into his house.

“This wasn’t hers.” The ice clinked in the cereal bowl as he set it down on the table.

“Clearly. That ice bucket has Zane Phillips written all over it.”

“Do you like bourbon? It’s all I have right now. Bourbon or water. Or bourbon and water.”

“Whatever you have is fine,” she said. Zane picked up the bottle and poured them each about two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid and she accepted the glass.

“I didn’t know you were a bourbon drinker.”

She wasn’t. She didn’t drink much and the strong taste of the liquor wasn’t her favorite, but tonight it would do.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

This time his right brow arched. A challenge. He didn’t quite smile, but his eyes lingered on hers long enough to be suggestive. He made a harrumphing noise that seemed as if he was considering possibilities, or, at the very least, sizing her up. The thought of him thinking of her like that was thrilling and frightening, and she loved it.

Flirting with Zane was like a wild roller-coaster ride that twisted her every which way. Sometimes it made her feel as if she was about to tumble out of herself, or shoot straight off the edge of the universe. But when the car that was his attention finally delivered her to the station with a buzzing rush, she was always well aware she’d never been in any real danger of falling. Scratch that—she’d fallen a long time ago, but with Zane she knew she was never at risk of getting hurt. Because he didn’t think of her like that.

“Want some ice?” he asked.

“Straight up is fine.”

He touched his glass to hers. She followed his lead and tossed back the shot. It burned her throat as it went down. She fought the urge to cough. Finally, the fire settled into a gentle warmth that bloomed in her chest and then in her belly.

“Another?” Zane asked.

She nodded, even though she knew she needed to pace herself. She had no illusions of trying to hold her own with Zane, who had been drinking a bit too much since Dorothy died.

After he refilled her glass, she spooned three ice cubes into the bourbon. With ice, he wouldn’t expect her to throw it back in one gulp again. Of course, she could’ve just told him she wanted to sip it straight up. For that matter, she could’ve just told him she’d had enough. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. But she didn’t want to make an issue out of it. Honestly, since Zane had been so closed-off lately, she wanted a little liquid courage—just enough to take the edge off and lubricate the hinges—so that she could open up and draw him out. Icing the bourbon would make it a sipping drink, a prop she could nurse for hours.

Obviously, Zane had no need for a prop. He tossed back another shot the same way he had the first one and went to pour one more.

“Whoa there, Bucky.” She put her hand on his. “We don’t have to polish off the entire bottle in the first five minutes. Why don’t we eat something?”

“All I’ve done the past two weeks is eat,” he said as he finished pouring himself a third drink. “People brought over so much food, I had to start freezing it.”

“Ahh, which explains the pizza box,” she said. “Makes sense. People bring food, you order pizza.”

The right side of his mouth quirked. “Smart-ass.”

Lucy shrugged.

The ladies of Celebration had seized the opportunity to cook for Zane. He was the most deliciously eligible bachelor in town. Every woman in town, young and old, loved Zane. Dorothy’s passing, as sad as it was, was an excuse for them to bring him food and flirt. Lucy wondered if any of them had offered more personal means of comfort. Then she blinked away the thought. But not before pondering the possibility of him accepting said comfort.

No!

“I can only eat so much of Mrs. Radley’s tuna-noodle surprise.”

That’s better. Let’s talk about Mrs. Radley. She’d attended enough church potlucks and picnics to understand what he meant. Mrs. Radley’s tuna-noodle surprise was infamous. The older the woman got, the more suspicious the congregation grew about the surprise mixed in with the tuna and noodles. Popular speculation wondered if she inadvertently used her cat’s food in place of canned tuna. Only the bravest souls dared to try to figure it out.

“Did you actually eat it?”

“Of course. I appreciate her going to the trouble to make it for me.”

Lucy winced. “And what was the verdict? Tuna for humans or fur babies?”

Zane thought about it for a moment as he added a few ice cubes to his drink, like Lucy had. “Hard to tell.”

Lucy made a gagging sound and Zane laughed. Maybe it was the bourbon that was lifting his mood, but she preferred to think it was her company.

“Chinese food sounds really good, Luce. Thanks for bringing it over.”

The ice cubes clinked as he swirled his glass. He took a sip. As he watched her over the rim, she sensed something else in his demeanor shift. It made her senses tingle.

“I’m glad it sounds good. I know you’ve been showered with food gifts lately. I mean, I helped organize the deliveries.”

Ugh. Stop talking. There’s nothing wrong with a little silence.

She clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t let it slip that she’d rescued Dorothy’s sketchbook from the trash and ask him why he’d thrown it away. Or babble more inane thoughts about food gifts, like how when people died everyone wanted to feel useful. Help usually came in the form of neighbors dusting off recipes, firing up stoves and cooking way more food than anyone could reasonably consume.

Then after the funeral, life went on. People went back to the day-to-day grind and left the survivors hungry for more than a casserole, leaving them to make emotional decisions that resulted in tossing out beloved belongings that were too painful to look at now.

Tonight was all about showing Zane he wasn’t alone. That he could lean on her. That she would keep him from making mistakes he’d regret later.

Really it sounded a lot more altruistic than it was because there was no place on earth she’d rather be right now than drinking bourbon, eating Chinese takeout and watching ’80s movies with him.

And thank God she hadn’t said that aloud, because it was definitely the bourbon talking.

Sort of.

Bourbon with a healthy chaser of truth.

“I’ll get those plates.” He set his drink on the coffee table and disappeared into the kitchen again. While he was gone, she moved several books about horse training and some industry-related magazines off the sofa, making room for them to sit.

Next, she pressed Play on the DVR remote. The opening scene of Say Anything... appeared on the screen. They didn’t have to watch it now, but at least it would be background noise to fill any awkward silence so that she didn’t feel the need to go on and on about everything that popped into her mind.

“If you don’t want to keep these boxes here, I have room in the storage room in the barn,” she said.

Earlier this year, Lucy had turned a dream into a reality when she’d converted the old abandoned barn on the property she’d inherited from her parents into a wedding venue called the Campbell Wedding Barn. During the first phase of renovations, she’d had the builder add on a good-sized, air-conditioned storage room.

“That way you can take it a box at a time and figure out what you want to do with everything.”

He returned with the plates. “Thanks. But I’m good.”

“Of course,” Lucy said. “Zane, you’re doing a great job. I know your mom is looking down on you from up there, appreciating all your hard work.”

He frowned. “It is what it is. It has to be done. So I’m doing it.”

“Be sure and let me know if you need any help sorting things out,” Lucy said. “You know I’m here for you.”

A small smile lifted the corners of Zane’s mouth. He lifted his glass to her again. “Yes, you are. If I didn’t say so before, I appreciate it.”

“I know you do.”

She thought about pointing out that sometimes she knew what he needed better than he knew himself, but she kept that bit to herself. Instead, she occupied herself taking the food out of the bag and opening the various containers. Better to show him than tell him. Her heartbeat kicked up a little bit. Yes, definitely better to show him.

* * *

Zane watched Lucy put her empty plate on the coffee table, kick off her flip-flops and pull her knees up to her chest. She looked small sitting there like that on his couch, with her long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and her face virtually free of makeup. Since her attention was focused on the movie, Zane had free rein to watch her. It was a good thing, too, because tonight he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He loved her smile and her laugh and the way her eyes got big when the movie surprised her, even though she’d probably seen it dozens of times.

His reaction to her baffled him.

This was Lucy. Lucy. He had to be out of his damn mind to be looking at her like she was anything else than a little sister. Ethan Campbell’s little sister. Ethan Campbell, his friend—a guy who was more like a brother to him than his own brother.

Lucy threw back her head and laughed at something in the movie that Zane hadn’t heard. All that registered with him was the music of her laugh; it surrounded him, lifted him up, made him feel as if everything just might be okay. All he could see was the delicate curve of her neck and the way her upper lip was slightly fuller than her bottom lip. How had he never noticed that before?

Despite all his screwups, he must’ve done something right to have someone as good and pure as Lucy in his life.

“You doing all right?” She’d caught him watching her. He could see that her eyes were slightly misty from laughing.

“Fine,” he said, even though he was feeling a weird kind of off-kilter right now.

He took a fortifying sip of his bourbon. The ice had melted and watered it down.

“Do you like the movie?” she asked.

“Not really.” He smiled to make it clear that he was yanking her chain.

She shifted so that she was facing him, her tanned legs tucked underneath her. “We can switch to another one if you want.”

He waved her off. “You’re enjoying it enough for both of us. So no worries.”

He took another sip and she mirrored him, picking up her glass and raising it to her lips. She closed her eyes as she drank. He had the ridiculous urge to reach out and run a thumb over her cheek to see if her skin was as smooth and soft as it looked. He didn’t know because he’d never touched her like that.

This is Lucy, man. Be cool.

The world really was upside down if he was suddenly wanting to touch Lucy Campbell in ways that were decidedly unbrotherly, but he had to be honest with himself—that was exactly what he wanted to do. Even if he hadn’t realized it until now. Since she’d been back in Celebration, it had never been so clear to him that Lucy was a grown woman who was decidedly not his sister.

He picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. As he started to set it down, he realized Lucy was holding out hers even though most of the original pour was still in it.

“Are you going to be okay to drive home later?” he asked as he filled her glass.

She shrugged. “We have a lot of movies to watch. And if I’m not, I can just spend the night here.” She patted the sofa.

“Or I can call you a cab,” he added quickly, as much to chase away the thought of her spending the night. “People might talk if they see your car parked here overnight.”

She laughed. “Let them talk. I didn’t realize you were so worried about your reputation.”

She held his gaze as she reached over to set her glass on the table and missed the surface by a fraction of an inch. Bourbon sloshed over the edge and the ting of crystal hitting the wooden edge of the coffee table sounded just before the glass fell. She caught it a split second before it hit the carpet. Good reflexes. She must not be that drunk.

In an instant she was sitting up straight, both feet on the ground, simultaneously blotting the spilled liquor with the white paper napkins that came with the takeout and examining the glass for signs of damage.

“Oh, my God. Zane, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. I’m such a klutz.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His hand touched hers as he commandeered the napkins—not so much because he was worried that there might be a stain, but because he didn’t want her to feel bad. “It won’t hurt the carpet. The bourbon will probably be an improvement.”

He laughed.

“No.” She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. “This is your mom’s good crystal. I would’ve never forgiven myself if I’d broken it.”

He stopped blotting. “It’s just a glass. It’s nothing special.”

“Of course it’s special. It’s beautiful. And it was hers.”

He shook his head. “I gave her the set for Christmas a few years ago, but she never even used them. I just took them out of their original box when I was in the kitchen.”

Lucy blinked. “But they’re so pretty. I can’t believe she didn’t love them.”

“She did. Or at least she said she did. But she never used them because she said she was afraid something would happen to them.”

“Yeah, someone like me would break them.”

Zane waved her off. “Said she was saving them for a special occasion. Or, I don’t know, something ridiculous like that. She was never particularly comfortable with nice things. God knew her louse of an ex-husband didn’t even help with child support, much less spoil her with personal gifts.”

Yeah, that was the poor excuse of a man Zane and his brother, Ian, were loath to call father. He preferred to not even think about the jackass who maintained that Dorothy had gotten pregnant with Zane on purpose. That she’d trapped him. He was so busy carrying around the chip on his shoulder, he seemed to think he was exempt from supporting his family. Never mind he’d gotten her pregnant again after they’d been married for a couple of years. It was always her fault.

After he’d divorced Dorothy, he’d married again and had kids. Zane didn’t know his half brothers. There were three of them and they weren’t too much younger than him and Ian. He could do the math. He knew what that meant—that while his father was away, he was probably with his other family.

The real kicker was that Nathaniel Phillips had had the audacity to show up at Dorothy’s funeral. After the service, Zane had confronted him, asking him what kind of business he thought he had showing his face. Ian and Ethan Campbell had flanked him like two wingmen. Ethan had herded Zane away, while Ian had asked Nathaniel to leave. And he did. He’d slithered away just as silently as he’d appeared.

Zane sipped his bourbon, needing to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth.

“My mom scrimped and saved and worked her ass off. Thanks to her, we never went hungry. We were always clean and clothed and we always had a roof over our heads. Our clothes were always from the thrift shop and the meals she cooked were nourishing, but never anything fancy. Although, if the Redbird Diner had pie left over at the end of her shift, she’d bring it home to us. I didn’t even realize how poor we were until I was a lot older.”

When Dorothy discovered she was pregnant and she and Nathaniel had gotten married, they’d moved in with her parents at the family’s ranch on Old Wickham Road. A couple of years later, she’d inherited the land after her folks passed. When Nathaniel divorced her, they’d sold the ranch. Nathaniel got half.

His mom had lost her family home—his and Ian’s legacy—and after paying attorneys’ fees and relocating her sons, she had to struggle to make ends meet.

Nathaniel never paid a lick of child support. Dorothy had always claimed it would cost more to take him back to court than she’d get. But Zane suspected the real reason was that she didn’t want to deal with the hurt of having to acknowledge that her husband had chosen his new family over them.

Out of sight, out of mind. Or at least she could pretend it was that way.

Zane’s earliest and happiest memories were of working the Old Wickham Road Ranch alongside his granddad. Someday, he’d love to buy back the ranch. It wasn’t for sale right now, and even if it was, he didn’t have the money, since he’d used almost every penny he had to help his mom pay for her medical expenses.

Someday... But he knew that someday might never come. Dorothy’s death was proof of that.

“She was a good woman, Zane. She was like a second mother to me after my mom died. Did you know she taught me how to sew? She was so good at it. Remember how excited she was when the traveling production of Guys and Dolls bought that dress she’d designed?”

Zane nodded.

“They offered her that wardrobe position with the show,” he said. “She should’ve taken it and gotten out of here. Ian and I were out of the house. She could’ve traveled all over the country. I don’t understand why she didn’t do it.”

Zane shrugged. “I wanted her to do it. I think everyone in this town wanted her to. But she said she was too old to become a nomad and gallivant.”

He slanted Lucy a glance. “Gallivant. Her word.”

He and Lucy laughed, but then they fell silent.

His mom had been a good, strong woman. Salt of the earth. You could rely on her like you could count on the sun to rise in the morning. But for all of her strengths, she didn’t take chances. She’d worked her way up from waitress to manager of the Redbird Diner in downtown Celebration and she did clothing alterations and freelance sewing jobs in her spare time for anyone who was willing to hire her. That didn’t leave a lot of extra time for fun.