CHAPTER SEVEN
For the second night in a row, Harper was restless. When not even an evening of mindless drinking and dancing or picking up a sexy cowboy for a one-night motel fling sounded good, she considered taking her temperature to see if she was sick. She paced around the cabin a few times and finally pulled an old gray sweatshirt over her head and went outside. She didn’t even slow down at the porch but kept walking, following the trail by moonlight to a little cove in the bend of the lake where she couldn’t even see the cabins.
She went right to a big flat rock jutting out at the shore. It was one of Granny Annie’s favorite places to take the girls fishing in the summer. Sometimes they’d talk, but most of the time they just enjoyed the quiet. If they were lucky, they’d take home a whole string of fish to fry. The memories calmed her—right up until the tiny hairs on the back of her neck started to prickle and Wyatt walked out of the shadows. He sat down beside her and covered her hand with his. Peace surrounded her like a warm blanket on a cold Texas night.
“The guys are having a Die Hard marathon tonight in one of the cabins. I couldn’t sit still and watch the third one, so I told them I was going for a walk,” he explained. “I figured you’d be out dancin’ the leather off your boots.”
“I might have learned my lesson with that business last week,” she answered. Suddenly, the sweatshirt was too warm despite the chilly night breeze coming off the water. Not one of the men that she’d used to get Wyatt Simpson off her mind had ever caused the kind of heat waves he did simply by touching her hand. “What do you do when you’re not fishin’?”
“Get my stuff ready for another fishin’ trip. What about you? What did you do before you came here?” He gently squeezed her hand. “They say you never forget your first love. I think they might be right.”
“Is that a pickup line?”
“Nope.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I have not been a saint, believe me. But no one ever quite measured up to the feelings that I had with you. I don’t know where you are in your life right now, but I just wanted you to know that.”
“Thank you,” she muttered.
She’d been flattered by the best of smooth-talking men, but none of their lines had ever made her heart skip a couple of beats. “I guess I could say, ‘Back atcha,’ but a lot of water has run under that bridge since we were kids. I’m not even sure there’s a bridge anymore.”
“Ever hear that old song called ‘One Wing in the Fire’?” He smiled again. “It comes to mind when I think of us. Maybe we are angels with no halos and one wing in the fire.”
“Honey, nobody ever called me an angel,” she laughed. “I think maybe ‘Strawberry Wine’ applies to us more. Heard it?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “And I agree with you. We did find love growing wild on the banks of the lake, didn’t we?”
Her heart twisted up like a pretzel the way it always did when she let herself go back to that place. She pulled her hand free. One bittersweet young love had brought such pain into her life—the kind that nothing, not alcohol, wanton sex, or even friendship could erase, and she’d tried all three.
“We did.” She finally nodded. “It was a sweet summer, Wyatt.”
“Would you go to dinner with me sometime?” he blurted out.
“You think it’s wise for us to go down that path?”
“Won’t know unless we give it a try.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and brushed a sweet kiss across her cheek. “I’m still every bit as attracted to you as I was then. I’d like to see what happens if we give things a go as adults.”
She couldn’t go there. Not after giving away their child. Not after the guilt trips and certainly not at this time of year—around her daughter’s birthday.
“Friday night. Dinner and maybe a walk on the edge of the lake?” he pressed.
“I can’t, Wyatt. I just can’t.”
“Okay, then. How about just sitting on your porch and watching the lightning bugs? We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to,” he asked.
“The lightning bugs are pretty.” She should run from him, not cave in, but she wanted to be near him and hear his voice. Her chest tightened like it had a decade ago when she’d thought she’d never see him again. Talk about life being complicated.
“Then it’s a date. I’ll be here with a bag of barbecue chips and a six-pack of root beer. Those are still your favorites, right?”
“Yes, they are,” she answered. He remembered—after all these years he remembered her favorite snacks.
“I should be going. Can I walk you back to your cabin?” he asked.
“I think I’ll just sit here a little longer,” she said.
“See you tomorrow at breakfast, then.” He hugged her to his side but didn’t kiss her again.
Tawny pulled a chair up to the table in the café where Harper and Zed were already seated on Sunday afternoon. “Either of y’all ever hear Granny Annie’s voice in your head?”
“All the time.” Zed nodded. “And I talk to her, too. Tell her everything that I can remember before I go to bed at night. Makes me feel good. Like she’s still here. Why are you askin’?”
“What’s happenin’ in here?” Brook asked as she popped inside the door. “Flora sent me for takeout cups of iced tea.”
“We were talkin’ about whether any of us hear Granny Annie’s voice in our heads,” Harper answered.
Dana came in through the kitchen. “Back door was open, so I didn’t walk all the way around to the front. I heard Granny’s voice all the time before she died. If I was going to mess up, she’d be there telling me what to do. I love it when it happens,” Dana answered.
“Harper, did you ever hear Dad’s voice after he died?” Tawny asked.
She shook her head. “I did at the funeral, though.”
“Really?” Tawny asked.
“I came in late, sat on the back pew of the church, and left. I didn’t walk past the casket,” Harper said softly. “I was also at your high school graduation.”
“Got any regrets about not letting anyone know about that?” Zed asked.
“Not a single one,” Harper answered. “I visit his grave when I’m in the area. Sometimes if I have the money, I bring flowers.”
Zed laid a hand on her arm. “That’s a good thing that you do, child.”
“You ever wish Granny Annie had a grave?” Tawny’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of Harper being that close and no one had even acknowledged her presence. She would have felt so alone—much like Tawny did when her mother turned her back on her.
“I’d like to visit her, but then again, if I go to the lake and sit on that big rock—well, that’s as good as a grave,” Zed said with a nod. “I take her ashes with me some nights just so she’ll be close to me.”
“What are they in, Uncle Zed?” Harper asked.
“A little wooden box that looks a lot like a cigar box. I keep them on my dresser and that way she’s not far from me,” he answered.
Brook carried two big cups of tea across the floor. “I hear her voice in my head, too. I was wishin’ I was old enough to date that sexy boy at school the other day, and Granny Annie popped into my head and said, ‘That boy ain’t nothin’ but trouble.’ And I wanted to argue with her, but the bell rang.” She backed out of the café, and the door slammed behind her.
“I wish Granny would’ve given me that warnin’,” Tawny said.
“Why?” Harper asked.
“Long story I’m not sure I want to tell.”
“Well, then let’s make Harper tell us the story about what happened down at the lake last night.” Zed’s old eyes glittered in amusement.
Tawny jerked her head around to stare at her sister. “You went to the lake and didn’t even invite us?”
“I damn sure didn’t want you or Dana to be there with me,” Harper said. “I wanted peace and quiet, not another argument with y’all.”
“Maybe we should be visitin’ about that boy that you talked to about his problems, Miz Tawny?” Zed grinned.
“It wasn’t nothin’,” Tawny protested, but the way they were all staring said that they didn’t believe her. “Okay, okay, it was something, but it wasn’t anything between us. He just needed a stranger to talk to, and I was there.” She went on to tell them what had happened with Tony Richman and exactly what she’d told him.
“Good advice,” Dana said with a nod.
Tawny could hardly believe that her oldest sister had said something nice about her. She wanted to ask her to repeat it so that she’d know for a fact she’d heard right, but before she could say a word, Zed spoke up.
“Now it’s your turn.” Zed turned to Harper.
“I went to the big rock that was Granny’s favorite spot. While I was there, Wyatt came by. He asked me out and I turned him down,” she said bluntly.
“There was something between you and Wyatt way back when y’all were teenagers. Why wouldn’t you go out with him now?” Tawny asked.
“I’m not ready to rekindle that fire. I may not ever be,” Harper said. “Besides, this is my life, not yours.”
“It was all your fault that Mother wouldn’t let me come visit anymore.” Tawny sighed loudly. “She told me that Granny Annie was too old to put up with me and that Dana was grown and had a job so she couldn’t come.”
“Hey, don’t blame me for what Mother decided.” Harper’s tone went cold.
Zed’s expression turned from happy to sad in an instant. “It broke your granny Annie’s heart when you girls couldn’t come back. She looked forward to that month all year and planned for it like a little girl does for her birthday party.”
Harper pushed her chair back and carried her tea glass to the kitchen. “If it’s okay with you, Uncle Zed, I’m going to my cabin for a short nap.” Her voice cracked.
“Sure thing. Sleep as long as you can,” Zed said. “Don’t set an alarm. If you aren’t awake, Tawny can help out. We won’t have much of a supper rush anyway, since everyone has checked out of their cabins.”
“Thank you.” Harper escaped, but Tawny saw her wipe her cheeks as she hurried to her cabin.
After the café was cleaned up that evening, Zed went to his little efficiency apartment in the back of the store. He poured himself a glass of elderberry wine from the last bottle he and Annie had made the year before, and then he put a DVD of the first season of The Golden Girls into the player. He sat down in his recliner, picked up the remote, and laid his hand on the arm of the matching chair right beside his.
“We had us a good day, Annie. Didn’t have a spoonful of dressin’ left after the lunch rush and only had one piece of pumpkin pie. I brought it home and put it in the refrigerator. I’ll have it for a night snack like you would. I’m watchin’ Blanche tonight because she reminds me of you. Full of sass and spunk, but she won’t never be as pretty as you. So don’t go gettin’ jealous. The girls weren’t as hateful to each other tonight. It’s like pullin’ hen’s teeth to get them to be civil. But I think we’re makin’ progress.”
He pushed a button on the remote and chuckled at Dorothy and Sophia’s argument. “Kids and their mamas. I wonder what it was that set Retha off after that summer. I bet Harper went home and told her that she’d rather live with you.
“You don’t think so?” He patted the arm of the chair. “It’s not all water under the bridge, to my mind. Harper and Wyatt are talkin’ to each other. I think they got a little chemistry back up between them. They’d make a good pair, don’t you think? I know. I know. I shouldn’t put the cart before the horse, but they would and you know it. I wish you was sittin’ in this chair for real. God, I miss you so much.”
He turned down the volume and looked up at the ceiling. “I hear you loud and clear. I promise I won’t interfere—well, not too much, anyway. Sometimes folks need a little push. But I’ll go at it easy like, I promise. But I got to admit that it’s good to have them all home again where they belong. Poor little things. One who never had any support from her daddy, and the other two with a raw deal on their mama. But I’ll fix it so you can rest easy, Annie, I promise.”
At nine thirty he got up out of his chair, groaned as he straightened his back, and got the pie from the little dorm-size refrigerator, though he’d never have called it that. “A bite for me and one for you,” he said as he went back to the recliner.
At exactly ten o’clock he went to the bathroom, had his shower, and then curled up in the bed on his side, hugging a pillow to his chest. “Good night, Annie. Don’t get too far from them gates now, girl. I’ll be on up there in a little while and I want yours to be the first face I see when I get there. It’s goin’ to be just downright glorious to be in a place where my skin isn’t black and yours ain’t white. We’ll be the same.”
His thoughts went to the time when he and Annie and Seamus were just little kids, taking their fishing poles to the river. Seamus’s folks had a cotton farm in those days. Annie’s mama and daddy ran a little grocery store. Zed’s daddy was a handyman around the area and his mama was the cook at the school. Then the area got dug out and flooded for the lake, and Annie’s daddy hired Zed’s daddy and mama both to work for him full-time.
Looking back, he knew that he’d fallen in love with Joanna—or Annie, as everyone already called her—when they were too young to even go to school. But in those days a man of color could get himself strung up for even looking at a blonde girl like Annie. So they’d all played together, and when they graduated from high school, she’d married Seamus. And Zed had gone straight into the army.
Seamus Clancy was his friend right up until the day he died. Zed missed him like a limb.
But Zedekiah Williamson had never stopped loving Annie.