“Nora, I can’t answer those questions about myself,” Tom said.
“I can answer four or five of them,” Maxie said. “The orchard is important—my second priority after family, who is Tom. I bake and work out walking the orchard and I think canning, baking, cooking and cleaning this big house qualify as much as exercise. I was a working mother and grandmother and hope to be a working great-grandmother. I’m on Facebook—”
“You’re on Facebook?” Tom asked, shocked.
“A little thing for me and my friends…to share pictures and news…”
Nora was fascinated. “And the famous person you’d have dinner with?”
She looked at the ceiling for an answer. Finally she said, “Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
Nora was fascinated. “And what do you want to know?”
Maxie smiled. “It will have to be a long dinner…”
“Aw, jeez,” Tom said. “I think it’s time to harvest apples.”
“Maxie, I have some news,” Nora said just as she stood to leave. “I have a car! One with car seats so I can drive myself around for errands and to work. It’s going on my list of the three things I’m most grateful for.”
“That’s such good news,” Maxie said. “So—dinner on Friday? With the little girls?”
“Maxie, I think Darla will probably come up on Friday… .” Tom said.
“Oh. Well, then, how about Wednesday? Can you run home and get them? Take off a couple of hours early—you always come early and stay late. Go home, change, bring the little ones. I’ll make a big pot of…” She looked at Tom. “What should I make? Spaghetti? Chicken soup? Meat loaf and mashed potatoes? We don’t want steak or roast for little mouths, little teeth.”
“I vote for any one of those,” Nora said. “That would be so much fun. I’ll bring Fay’s booster chair. Thank you, Maxie!”
Chapter Ten
Hank Cooper had a top-of-the-line toy hauler, perfect for a bachelor sportsman. He had parked on the RV slab behind Luke’s cabins, hooked up, then lowered the rear hatch so he could remove his motorcycle, wave runner and Rhino. Once the toys were out and the hatch put up, the roomy living room furniture was pulled down from the ceiling and out from the walls. He also had a full kitchen, large bathroom and master bedroom. He never had to pack as he’d lived in this RV for a couple of years—his closets and drawers were full. The kitchen was appointed—he didn’t always go to a lot of trouble, but he cooked for himself more than he went out.
His next order of business was erecting a small shelter from pipe and plastic tarp under which he could park the vehicles.
Then he pulled out an awning and set up some of his outdoor furniture. His refrigerator was still stocked—food, beer, sodas. There was a satellite dish on top that he could extend into the trees for decent TV reception and internet connection.
And he reclined on his outdoor lounge in the midst of the forest with the sound of the rushing river nearby. Those people who rented the cabins didn’t know what they were missing. He had helped Luke around the cabin compound in the morning, then with a beer at his side and laptop perched on his knees, he did a little surfing.
First he checked Devlon Petroleum to see if they were in trouble. The stock had gone up since yesterday and there were no EPA investigations or crew mishaps and while there was a part of him relieved by this, he had no regrets about quitting. There had been a couple of minor spills that hadn’t made big news, a couple of injuries that could’ve been avoided if safety measures had been followed. His last standoff with his chief pilot was when he refused to fly to drilling platforms in the Gulf during a hurricane watch that was soon to turn into a hurricane warning. If they’d been asking him to fly out there to pick up rig workers and bring them in, he would have done it. But they wanted to take more men out there even though the weather was taking a bad turn. His chief pilot was only following orders when he said, “You take this flight or take a walk.”
Coop had walked.
This was probably his own damn fault. When he’d left the Army after six years in a helicopter, he had taken on high-risk jobs. After a couple of years as a mercenary in a Black Hawk in countries without their own armies, he moved on to flying between offshore oil rigs and land and found that could sometimes be as questionable. But the money had drawn him. At the time he’d merely asked himself what the difference was between flying a Black Hawk in Iraq or Mozambique, getting fired on, and flying off Costa Rica or in the Gulf of Mexico back and forth between the continent and drilling platforms.
Then he’d experienced his first major spill and it all hit him pretty hard. The carnage was horrible. Coop hadn’t paid that much attention to seagulls, pelicans and fish until he’d seen them covered with oil. Hadn’t worried about where he was going to get his fish until he’d seen all the fishing boats moored and unable to work. That’s when he started to notice things, like a half-assed effort at cleanup, like regulations shaved too close to the bone, high fuel prices so the consumer could pay for their mistakes and company suits and stockholders wouldn’t take a hit.
He’d worked for a total of four oil companies. He left each one for what he considered irresponsible drilling and transporting. He’d look around for yet one more, but he needed a change. A break. And, although it made him feel a little guilty, the same companies he disapproved of had paid him well and given him stock bonuses. He had a healthy bank account; it would afford him some time to think about what to do next. If he thought it would make those oil companies more responsible, he’d have refused the money. Instead, he made donations to nonprofit organizations dedicated to cleanups and animal rescue.
Enough. He flipped over to his email. There was one from Ben Bailey, the guy who was supposed to meet him in Virgin River. He was up to his eyeballs in mess; his septic system had died, but it had gotten real sick first. He was trying to get everything taken care of so he could make at least a fast trip to the mountains, maybe at least aim at a deer if not shoot one. It was only a five-hour drive from his place in Oregon.
Coop shot back an email. Come when you can. I’ll be here awhile. I’m between jobs. Again. If you don’t get down here, I’ll come up. Never have seen this little business of yours.
“Ah, the infamous Coop,” a voice said.
He looked over the top of his laptop. The guy was a little taller than Luke, but the resemblance was unmistakable. He winced before he said, “Does it have to be infamous?”
“Your reputation, like my brother’s, precedes you.” He stuck out a hand. “Colin Riordan. Same DNA as Luke, and roughly same locale. We’re neighbors. How you doing?”
He slapped the laptop lid closed. “Doing a little relaxing. It just doesn’t get any better than this.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how he lucked into this,” Colin said, hands on his hips, looking around. “He and our brother Sean came up here hunting, found this compound all broken down with the elderly owner bedridden and dying. He stayed dying for years. But Sean and Luke put together a deal that would take care of the guy. Eventually Luke came up here and put on a restoration show—fixed everything up. I thought he’d flip it, sell, but he stayed on.”
“Shelby,” Coop said.
“Isn’t she something? I have definitely lucked out in the sister-in-law department. Have two more winners—Aiden and Sean both married up, as my mother says.”
“How many of you are there?” Coop said, standing to face Colin.
“Five Riordan sons. Luke says you flew for the Army.”
“For a few years. And if I have it straight, you flew Black Hawks, too.”
“I did,” Colin said. “Until a freak accident retired me. We were in an exercise at Ft. Hood and a civilian plane out of control took me down.” He shook his head. “All that damn war and then it was some poor bastard with a heart attack that damn near killed me. But, I ended up here for my recovery and found Jillian, a very interesting little farmer. We’re
not married, but we’ve been together over a year. And there’s no end in sight.”
“Does this place just spew pretty girls?”
Colin laughed. “Wouldn’t you wonder?”
“Beer, Colin?” Coop asked.
“No, thanks—but I’d like to see your digs, if you don’t mind. Luke was telling me about this setup… You haul your gear and still have a house.”
“It’s a good little operation,” he said. “Come in, look around. Plenty big for me, plenty of storage and a moving garage.”
Colin stepped inside, looked right toward the kitchen and a set of stairs toward the master bedroom and bath and left into a spacious living room. “Push these chairs back against the window, fold the tabletop against the wall, raise that long sofa bed to the ceiling and the entire back wall opens—it lowers into a ramp so I can drive in the toys. The wave runner is on wheels—I push it up the ramp.”
Colin took it all in and laughed. “How’d I live this long without knowing about a contraption like this?”
“I originally bought it for camping, but when I took my last job in Corpus Christi, I just rented a space and lived in it. That wasn’t exactly a radical move for me—I lived on my boat for a few months, and it wasn’t a big boat… . But I do have a long history of not staying in one place for long.”
“Or with one job? Luke mentioned something about your difference of opinion with the way the suits run things.”
“Yeah, that,” Coop said with a laugh. “Luke thinks I turned into a tree hugger. I’m not, I don’t think. Just hate rape and pillage.”
Colin laughed. “Well, I think I am a tree hugger… I only shoot animals if they’re about to eat me. And Jilly? She won’t even use pesticides on her vegetables. I wanna see the rest of this place.” He pointed to the stairs. “What’s up there?”
“That’s the part of the trailer that sits over the truck bed,” Coop told him. “Bedroom and bath. Go ahead.”
Colin took the steps and looked into a large bathroom that contained a shower and then a bedroom with a queen-size bed and a long wall of drawers and closets. There was a nice flat screen on the wall opposite the bed. “I might have to get me one of these,” Colin said.
“Have a lot of toys, do you?”
“Not yet,” Colin said with a grin. “Let’s fire up that Rhino of yours and I’ll take you on a tour of the forest. We might even end up at Jilly’s farm—really something to see.”
* * *
After all the employees had left the orchard on Wednesday afternoon, once the equipment was secured and the gate closed, Tom headed for the house. As he neared, he saw a little girl sitting on the back step, a large picture book in her lap, carefully turning the pages. Even if he hadn’t known Nora and her children would be joining them for dinner, he would definitely know this was her daughter. She had the same peachy complexion that would eventually freckle. Her brown hair was a lighter shade, but when she looked up at him he recognized those big brown eyes with the golden flecks.
This would be Berry. Nora had talked about her often enough.
Tom sat on the top step next to her. He pulled off the boots he’d worked in that day—they smelled of manure and Maxie didn’t allow them under her dinner table in that condition. Berry scooted away a bit. Shy. Nora had said Berry was very shy. He glanced over at the page that had her attention and asked, “What animal is that?”
She didn’t even favor him with a look, but she said, “Cow.”
“Do you know what a cow says?”
“Moo,” she said in a very, very quiet voice.
He chuckled. Berry was wearing a cute little lavender outfit, pants and a long-sleeved shirt with flowers on it, tennis shoes over her lace-trimmed socks. He had expected a ragamuffin in old, used, tattered clothes, not nice stuff like this. “If the cow was that quiet, the farmer would never be able to find her. What’s next?” he asked.
She turned the page. “Guck,” she said softly.
He laughed. “Or duck, depending on your preference. And what does the duck say?”
“Guack,” she whispered.
“You’re very smart. What’s next?”
She turned the page and said, “Fog.”
“And the frog says?”
“Burbbet.”
“I have a pond full of frogs. Do you like frogs?”
She nodded.
“If you come a tiny bit closer to me so I can see the page, I can read it to you,” he offered. She merely turned the page.
But she said, “Kitty. Mow.”
“Brilliant,” he said. And he moved a bit closer. He read, “‘This is a kitten and it says meow. The kitten likes to play with a ball of string or yarn.’” He put a little feeling into his meow and she glanced up at him with a shy smile. He wondered if Nora had been like this as a little girl, shy and sweet. She wasn’t shy and sweet now, but she was definitely fun at times. And he couldn’t deny she was nice enough. But she stood up for herself. She was proud. Too proud. She had bravado. He got the sense she was faking that, but he liked it. In fact, if she had to summon it and it wasn’t natural, he liked it even more.
Berry turned the page and he read, “‘This is a puppy and he says…’”
She looked up at him and said, “Woof. Woof.”
“And do puppies like kittens and frogs?” he asked her. And she nodded. “I thought so,” he said. “I have a puppy,” he said.
“Gook,” she proudly informed him.
He laughed. Ah, so the d’s were g’s. “Yes, Duke. Not exactly a puppy. More of a gog.”
“Don’t mispronounce,” came Nora’s voice from behind him. “I know it’s tempting, and fun, but really…”
They both turned, looked at her and smiled.
“She seems very smart for two,” he said. “Is she?”
“She’s almost three, and she is. I need to work with her more, but there’s the time thing. We need to do letters, numbers and colors. We have worked on some, but just a few. Preschool, though a necessity so I can work, is also a gift. They’re so focused.” She gave a nod. “That’s Berry’s favorite book. Her grandpa gave it to her.”
“Papa,” Berry corrected.
Tom smiled before he could stop himself. “She likes him, I guess.”
“It hasn’t been quick. He’s been to visit twice and she will finally let him read to her a little bit, as long as he doesn’t get too close.”
“Then I scored,” Tom said. “I read three pages on our first date.”
Nora smiled. “If you want a shower before dinner, there’s time.”
He made a mock gesture of sniffing his own armpit and raising questioning eyes to her.
“Cripes,” she said. “Maxie said you’d want a shower. I wasn’t passing judgment.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll be down in a few.” And he left Berry and went in stocking feet into the house.
There at the table, propped up in her booster seat with a few crackers in front of her, was Fay. For some reason he couldn’t quite explain to himself, he was greatly relieved to see that the little sister looked like Nora as well—soft, light brown hair, peachy skin, golden-brown eyes. But this little one was not shy; she squealed and laughed when he walked into the kitchen and hurled a fistful of scrunched-up crackers at him. Her teeth were brand-new and in weird, adorable shapes and lengths. Happiness and confidence just rolled off her.
Maxie laughed at the scattered cracker crumbs, completely unperturbed. In fact, if Tom had to guess, his grandmother preferred baby mess to boots and expensive sweaters and no appetite.
“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” he said.
While standing under the spray, he was thinking they were cute. And although Berry seemed a little withdrawn and not easy around strangers, the family as a whole was happy. But hell, Darla was happy. Very happy! Happiest when talking about trips and clothes and money, but wh
at was wrong with that?
Nothing at all. Nothing.
He pulled on a sweatshirt with clean jeans. He had put on boots when Darla joined them for dinner, but tonight he just slipped into his Uggs slippers, soft and warm. They were a little on the old-man-ish side, but he’d had a long, strenuous day. He’d hauled trucks full of apple crates and cases of cider. He was tired. And he was starving.
When he descended to the kitchen he found Maxie and Nora at the table, laughing over something. Berry was seated on the other side of Nora, propped up on a bunch of couch pillows covered with a towel so spaghetti sauce wouldn’t stain them.
“There you are,” Nora said, leaping to her feet. “Are you ready to eat or do you want a little time to unwind first? Want a beer or soda or something?”
He glanced at Berry, stuck out his belly and rubbed it. “Me want food!” he said, making her laugh. And he thought, What the hell was that? I don’t know anything about kids! Why was I playing to the kid? But she was still grinning at him and it made him feel something inside, like a glow.
“Good,” Maxie said, joining Nora at the kitchen counter. They had salads prepared in individual bowls, dressed and ready to go. There was a loaf of garlic bread that went on the table, aluminum foil opened. Maxie was rinsing the noodles while Nora was stirring the sauce.
Nora put the salads on the table, in front of each place. “Berry, eat a couple of bites so you get your nutrients,” Nora said.
“Does she have any idea what nutrients are?” Tom asked.
“Absolutely none, I’m sure. But Berry will have a couple of bites and even if she didn’t, she’d get the rest of dinner. I don’t punish with food. We try to be grateful for good food and blessings.” Then she smiled and added, “Greens are a little iffy, but I guarantee a good performance on the noodles and sauce!”
“Tom liked that best, too,” Maxie said.
“When I was a girl there was big trouble over things like vegetables. My mother started giving me a plate of weird vegetables and if I wouldn’t eat them all, I went without the rest of the dinner. I had to earn things like meatloaf by eating a lot of Brussels sprouts. I’m not a picky eater now, but I’m not sure that process had anything to do with it. I’m not going to do that.” And Nora tended to the bowls of spaghetti for her girls while Maxie dished for the adults. “Warning, this could be a little messy,” Nora said. And she made Tom trade chairs so he wasn’t sitting next to one of her kids.