Connor walked through his dark office, realizing he hadn’t spent any time on this side of town for days. Between Joe setting up equipment and building inspectors telling him all that needed to be done on the warehouses to get them functional, he’d been too busy to write his online paper or spend a few hours writing his stories for weeks.
He tried not to be disappointed that no one in town had mentioned the absence of the online paper. He had to admit he loved all that was going on in the district. It might just be baby steps, but Connor felt like his town was learning to walk, growing, coming alive.
Yet, with all the excitement, when he tumbled into bed every night after midnight, he still couldn’t sleep for thinking of Jillian. They’d had lunch every day, talking about the quilts and the happenings in the district and Gram’s recovery and Joe’s success.
They’d eaten at almost every place in town, and she didn’t seem to mind that he put his arm around her waist when they walked out. They were a couple, something he hadn’t been a part of in years, and he didn’t care if everyone knew it.
Connor and Jillian talked about everything but them. Both ignored the future, as if by doing so, it might never come.
He loved talking other things over with her. Planning what they needed to do next. Dreaming about what the district might look like in a year and how the new factories and stores might bring in enough money to improve the town, and the schools, and the library.
But neither of them ever brought up the question of what would be next with them, or even if there could ever be a them.
He wanted to run away with her. Live out of suitcases. Go where the wind blew them. See the world with her.
He didn’t want to think of what the days would be like without her. How dark his world would be once she was gone.
But with each passing day, there was less time. The county museum was clearing space for the quilt display. When it was finished, she’d be driving out of his life.
He couldn’t hold her back. She’d never lied to him. From the beginning, she’d said she’d leave. She’d told him how she followed her father’s logs, hoping to find pieces of him, or at least a reason why her mother disappeared and he never settled down.
The fire chief, Bob Stevenson, still called her Little Lady, and she’d started calling him Big Chief. They had spent an hour one morning talking about the rodeo thirty years ago. Bob had been a bit younger than her father but he’d never missed a Pioneer Days Rodeo in his life.
The chief had been a volunteer fireman the night her father had been hurt. He described every detail he could remember about wrapping the wound. How it looked. How her father never cried out or said a cussword. He just stood there taking the pain, turning it inward.
Jillian had asked questions, but Stevenson didn’t remember any other people around or anything her father said. “We didn’t have an ambulance then, so I’m guessing one of his buddies or maybe one of the rodeo organizers took him somewhere to get sewn up. I never saw him after that night, but I remember being surprised when one of the oil field workers told me James had gone back to work that following Monday.”
She’d thanked him, then Connor, for helping her find this one thread that linked to her father, but Connor had the feeling it wasn’t enough for her to stay longer.
Reality finally rolled over him like a boulder. He could not leave Laurel Springs. No matter how much his heart wanted to. If Jillian left, she’d leave without him.
So they played a game. Not talking of the ending. Acting like nothing was about to change.
He lived for the good-night kisses when, if only for a moment, she was his and the world stood still.
As he walked across the street, he looked up and saw her staring out at him from the shop’s window. For a moment, before she realized he saw her, he read the heartbreak in her face and knew it was time for the pretending to end. They needed to talk.
He forced a smile and stepped into the shop. “Did you have a good morning?” he asked, almost managing to pull off cheeriness.
She moved out from behind the counter. Both were very much aware that the quilters were in the back, probably listening. “I finished a few more of the quilt stories and talked to the county museum. The curator told me I could start moving them over anytime I was ready. I thought I’d do a few at a time. Setting each one up before bringing more in.”
Connor took a deep breath. “Wait until Gram says she’s ready. I promised I’d bring her in for a few hours next week. If you show her what you’ve done, she’ll see how grand this display is going to be.”
Jillian nodded her understanding. It was Gram’s decision.
He lowered his voice. “I just stopped by to say I can’t go to lunch today. Meeting a crew across the creek. If trucks are going to be moving in over there, the roads should measure up.”
Jillian’s lip came out in a teasing pout. It took all his control not to pull her close and kiss her.
“How about dinner tonight?”
She laughed. “Let me guess? Your house. Two old people. Two teenagers.”
“No. Just you and me. Joe told us to get lost for a while, that he was cooking tonight.”
“Can he cook?”
“Who cares?” Connor laughed. “If not, they can eat one of the dozen frozen casseroles people have delivered. If Gram doesn’t recover soon, I may have to buy another fridge. As for tonight, they’ll manage while we’re getting lost.”
“I’d like that.” Her fingers found his and she whispered, “I miss the feel of your hand.”
He smiled down at her. “I miss the feel of you.” He wasn’t a man who knew how to flirt, and she probably knew it. But he wasn’t sure if she knew just how much he meant what he said.
A few minutes later, when he walked away from the shop, he knew he’d spend the day working his way back to her. There might be budget meetings and contracts to sign and people who wanted to talk to him, but at the end of the day, Jillian would be waiting.
It was almost seven by the time he made it back to Main. The closed sign was on the A Stitch in Time window, but the office lights were still on. Connor let himself in and moved silently through the shop.
He found Jillian at her laptop in the cluttered little office. “Evening,” he said as he moved into her line of sight.
She smiled. “Evening.”
He didn’t miss the tear she brushed away. “You all right?”
“Yes. I was just reading over all the quilt stories. Happy ones, sad ones. They all weave together to showcase the life of a town.”
He moved to her side. “I figured they would, but I never believed they’d be so rich. This is just a poor town in the middle of Texas. No famous people live here. Nothing ever happened that the world will remember Laurel Springs for.”
“But the quilts tell a rich story.”
He smiled and repeated, “‘But the quilts tell a rich story.’” He took her hand. “Come with me. I’ve got one more story to tell you before it gets dark.”
She followed him out of the store. For once silence rested between them. They had a few hours and neither seemed to want to waste a moment.
He drove outside of town until the buildings of Laurel Springs disappeared. The sun was almost touching the horizon when he turned off onto a gravel road. The first hint of spring showed in wild sunflowers growing near the fence.
“See that line of trees?” He pointed to a windbreak that seemed to run a quarter mile. “My great-granddad planted them when he came here in 1900. Gram told me once that folks used to say he was wild as the West Texas wind. Sunnie must have inherited those genes.”
Connor pulled up to a house built low to the earth with a wide porch running its length. “The first Larady built this house. My grandpa and gram lived here after he died. My father and mother were living here when I was born, then moved to town to run the paper.”
He parked the car in front of the place and they climbed out. A windmill behind the house clanked a steady beat as the last bit of sun flickered off the blades.
“My great-grandmother planted those roses in 1904 and they still climb the east side of the house to the roof every year.”
Jillian moved close. “What are you trying to tell me, Connor?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing he was taking as big a gamble as his great-grandfather ever had. “I know you’re a drifter, Jillian James. I know you travel light and have all your life. But I’ve got roots. Deep roots. I have to stay were my family has been planted.”
He looked into her stormy-day eyes and knew the answer before he could even get out the question he’d come here to ask. She didn’t need to say anything. He didn’t need to ask her to stay. He knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t.
“I understand,” she finally said.
Then she came to him as she had so many times before, easily into his arms as if she belonged there, even though they both knew she never would.
Neither said much as they watched the last light of day melt into the earth. The land, the air, even the sky was silent tonight. The whole world was waiting, holding its breath, waiting for an answer that would never come.
He drove her back to the bed-and-breakfast.
She didn’t mention dinner and he didn’t think about it until he’d already parked at the side door where his car was camouflaged by honeysuckle bushes that were now showing bits of green while still prickly with winter.
He told himself he’d kiss her one more time, and then somehow, he’d find the strength to walk away. Tomorrow they’d go back to being friends.
It was good plan, the only logical answer, until she whispered, “Come up with me.”
Without a word, he took her hand and led her upstairs to her tiny third-floor room in a big empty house.
In the silence, he made love to her. For the first time. For the last time. Forever.