Paula dropped her hands from her hips. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll see you this afternoon.’ Skirting the pile of discarded weeds, she added, ‘I’m sure there’s a trash bag somewhere, so you can clean up when you’re done.’
Fortunately, she turned to exit the garden, so she missed the roll of my eyes. Then I looked at the magnitude of growth in the garden and realized I was going to have to see about starting a compost pile somewhere.
I worked until midmorning, then took a break, stretching my back and flexing my fingers. I was definitely going to need better clippers and – I examined a new blister on my thumb – new gloves, too. After grabbing a drink from the kitchen and leaving Gigi with a bowl of water on the porch, I figured the best place to look for that kind of thing was in the garage. I headed there via the back yard, and entered through the door underneath the stairs to Clara and Addie’s apartment.
It took me a minute to find the light switch. Growing up in Manhattan, I didn’t have a lot of familiarity with family garages, so I wasn’t sure where to start looking for gardening tools. This one was packed with stuff. Maybe not the accumulated detritus of the full two hundred years of Bluestone Hill’s existence, but definitely the past thirty or so.
I poked around two lawn mowers – one gas-powered, and one push mower, as seen in fifties movies – and came up with a trowel, another hand spade and a not-quite-half-rusted pair of gardening clippers. No wonder the hedges were in such bad shape.
And then I found a real treasure. A bicycle. It looked about the same vintage as the push mower, but the tyres (incredibly) still had air, and it seemed in pretty good shape. It made me ridiculously happy. Not because I loved to ride bikes, or had fond childhood memories of learning, but because I was no longer trapped. I might not be able to go far, but I could certainly go farther than on foot. And that meant I could go to town.
It was sort of sad that I was already looking forward to a trip to Maddox Landing like it was a trip to Paris.
Chapter 15
A sign in front of a historic train depot said MADDOX LANDING VISITORS’ CENTRE, and I gratefully turned my bicycle – almost as old as the train station – into the parking lot. Riding the stationary bike in physical therapy wasn’t quite the same thing as pedalling two miles down a narrow country road. For one thing, in therapy I hadn’t had a dog riding in a basket attached to the handlebars.
Gigi was strapped in – the harness a bit makeshift, but secure – and was having a great time. My backside, on the other hand, was not. I hadn’t accounted for the jarring of potholes, or the stress of riding on the grass shoulder when a car came barrelling down the road. There was also the problem of lack of padding, both in the bike’s seat and my own. My butt hurt almost as much as my leg.
The train station, just off the state highway, was so quaint it was almost kitschy, especially compared with the rural dilapidation I’d glimpsed on my bike ride – more trailers and old houses, cars on blocks, mechanical parts littering yards like redneck lawn statuary. In town, however, the only thing that differentiated an old house from a new one was vinyl siding versus wood, and the commercial buildings all conformed to a sort of redbrick, small-town, Main Street charm.
The train-depot-slash-visitors’-centre was a narrow building, with platforms on both sides where once, I imagined, people had waited for the train to take them to civilization. I unfastened Gigi’s harness from the basket, clipped her to her leash and left the bike propped up against the depot platform, figuring that if anyone stole it, at least I’d have an excuse to call for a ride. This time I’d made sure my phone was charged and ready. Just in case.
The window in the door looked suspiciously dark, and sure enough, when I pulled the handle, it didn’t move. Only then did I read the sign that said OPEN TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY, 9–5.
I stared at the words with a sort of fatalistic frustration, then glanced down at my dog. ‘It figures. I guess visitors are only welcome every other day?’
Gigi sneezed her opinion. While she checked the canine messaging system on the ground, I investigated the notices posted on the glassed-in corkboard beside the door. Some were ads for local businesses and nearby attractions (like Old Cahawba), but most were postings for upcoming events, like the County High School graduation, to be held in the school auditorium on Saturday, and the impending Catfish Festival.
My excuse for coming to town was that I needed some tofu or soy milk to convince Clara I was getting enough protein. But I also wanted to find out more about my family, about the Davises and about Maddox Landing. Visiting Cahawba had helped, but now I needed some perspective newer than the eighteen hundreds.
So I found the lack of welcome at the visitors’ centre inauspicious, and I tried to form a plan as I returned to the bicycle and tucked Gigi into her basket. My best bet – for my grocery-shopping cover story, and for getting more information on the town – would be downtown. There were only two blocks of it, so surely some opportunity would present itself.
I hadn’t gone far, walking my bike along the shoulder, when a shiny red pickup slowed next to me. The truck looked familiar, and I definitely recognized the guy driving – his comfortably confident slouch behind the wheel, the way the curve of his easy smile made an answering one fight to turn up the corners of my own mouth. Even today, when I was hot and tired, and the ring of Rhys’s words echoed in my head. Charm is overrated.
‘Hey, Sylvie,’ said Shawn Maddox. He’d rolled down the passenger window and leaned across the seat as he drove, one hand on the steering wheel. ‘Don’t tell me you rode that piece of crap all the way from Bluestone Hill.’
Even with the wink in his voice, it was kind of an annoying question. ‘Of course not,’ I said dryly. ‘Gigi pedalled part of the way.’
The dog barked at her name, and Shawn laughed. ‘You should have called me. I said I’d show you the town.’
‘I don’t need to see the whole town,’ I answered, unbending a little. ‘Just the grocery store. Maybe a gardening store, if you’ve got one.’
The truck crept along, keeping pace with me, tyres crunching on the asphalt. ‘We’ve got a hardware store, if that will work, and I can run you by the Piggly Wiggly.’
I stopped to face him incredulously, the bike leaning against my hip. ‘The Piggly Wiggly? You’re making that up.’
The pickup stopped as well, causing the even bigger truck behind him to pull around with an angry rev of the engine.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘To tease the Yankee.’ I pushed my hair back from my face. I’d twisted it into a loose bun that wasn’t standing up to the heat or my exertion, and long strands clung damply to my forehead and neck. The AC from the truck wafted through the window, enticing me as much as – more than, really – Shawn’s flirtation.
He put a hand on his chest as if I’d wounded him. ‘I wouldn’t tease you. You’re kin.’
I rolled my eyes. That word was dated enough when Paula said it. From someone my age, it sounded like he should be in a movie. One with a lot of banjos in it. Taking the handlebars again, I resumed walking. ‘Everyone is kin down here.’
Another car, travelling in the opposite direction, honked at Shawn as he crept the truck along. He gave a friendly wave, proving my point. Then back to me: ‘Throw that old bike in the back and hop in. I’ll run you to the store, then treat you to a piece of pie at the Daisy Café.’
Good grief, people down here loved their dessert. ‘I have Gigi with me. They might not let us in.’
‘We’ll work it out,’ Shawn cajoled, as another truck pulled around him, blowing the horn. ‘Come on. Best pie in the county.’
I sighed. It wasn’t the pie that sold me but the fact that I might wander around all day looking for this Piggly Wiggly place. And really, an air-conditioned ride trumped worry of what Rhys would think. After all, I’d been aware of the pitfalls of charm before he had said anything. I could enjoy Shawn’s company at face value. I was a big girl.
‘OK,’
I said, pretending he’d worn me down.
With a grin, Shawn pulled onto the shoulder, while I unfastened Gigi and took her from the basket. With one hand full, and the heavy bike leaning against my hip, I was trying to figure out what to deal with first when I heard Shawn’s door slam. He reached around me to steady the bike, putting me in the circle of his arms. The action sent a pinprick rush of surprise over my already heated skin, and it melted together into something ridiculously tempting.
‘The kickstand is your friend,’ he said in my ear, humour keeping that comment from being too insufferable.
I turned my head, getting a delicious close-up view of his blue eyes and the dimple beside his mouth. But even as I stood there, snuggly trapped between him and the bicycle, the warmth of him seeping into my bones and making even my aches disappear, I couldn’t help feeling there was something calculated about the clinch. It was another movie moment, only this time accompanied by harps and violins.
Another car honked at it drove by, and someone yelled out the window, ‘Hey, Shawn! Way to go!’ It reinforced the feeling that I was being presumed about, and I was grateful for the excuse to duck primly out from under his arm.
He didn’t seem to think anything of my retreat, and lifted the cycle with impressive ease. ‘Hop in while I stow this, and we’ll get going.’
I delayed just a moment, watching the play of his muscles under his T-shirt as he very carefully set the rust-spotted and dented bike in the bed of the truck, preserving his paint job. A little caustically, I wondered what he would have done if, as he’d suggested, I had just ‘thrown’ the bike in the back.
Setting Gigi on the seat first, I climbed into the cab, which was a trick, considering how high it was off the ground. Shawn got behind the wheel and gave Gigi – who sat in my lap with her front paws on the dashboard, tongue hanging with a grin – a wordless look before he put the pickup into gear. ‘What are we after at the store?’
‘We’re after tofu. Or soy milk.’
He laughed, easing onto the road without looking for traffic. ‘Now you’re pulling my leg. Teasing the good ol’ boy.’
‘Not this time,’ I said, struggling again against his charm. I noticed his accent got thicker when he talked about being a country guy. ‘I know Clara’s just taking good care of me, but if I have to eat another egg, I’m going to hatch chicks.’
He chuckled, and turned onto a side street. ‘Well, no promises. We’re thorough carnivores here.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’ I stared out the window at the faded awnings over the Main Street stores, the crumbling brick patched with greying mortar. And the sad thing was, this town was in much better repair than half the ones we’d driven through on our way from the airport.
‘When Maddox Point is finished, it’ll be different,’ said Shawn. ‘More people shopping in town means a better selection in the stores.’
‘Maddox Point is your dad’s development, right?’ Addie and the girls had mentioned this at dinner the other night. I was just confirming it to lead into more questions.
‘Yep.’ He pulled up to a windowed storefront. The Piggly Wiggly. After all that, he’d only driven me a couple of blocks.
‘Can I leave Gigi with you while I run in?’ I asked.
‘Sure thing.’ He said it in the same tone that he might say, ‘Sure, I’ll hold your purse in the middle of this crowded store.’ But he reached for Gigi all the same, taking her carefully into his hands. ‘I’ll take good care of the little munchkin.’
Since she looked OK with this plan – confident, no doubt, that he was another would-be worshipper – I left them in the truck – windows rolled down, of course – and headed inside.
One look at the small, dimly lit store and I almost gave up without trying. As it happened, though, they did have a package of tofu and a carton of soy milk – the nonrefrigerated kind, with the shelf life of tinned goods – but they wanted New York prices for them. No wonder both were covered in a layer of dust.
I also picked up a jar of peanut butter, trying not to think about trans fats, and checked out. When I emerged, blinking in the sunshine, I saw that Shawn was now standing by his truck, using my dog to pick up women.
OK, maybe not. But as Shawn held Gigi like a football in one arm, an older woman wearing a smart pantsuit cooed and scratched the dog’s ears. She had to be about my mother’s age. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t some cougar-type flirtation going on.
Or maybe I imagined the vibe, because neither looked disappointed at the interruption. The woman held out her hand as Shawn started to introduce me. ‘I know who this is,’ she said warmly. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come back home to Bluestone Hill, Sylvie.’
I shook her hand automatically, though I was flummoxed as to why she was greeting me like I was returning gentry. I mean, I got the Davis thing, but ‘back home’?
‘I’m just here for a few weeks,’ I explained politely, correcting any false impression I was there to stay, a second-generation prodigal returned to the nest.
‘Oh, I know.’ She glanced at my leg – hidden by my jeans – and her mouth turned down in a sympathetic frown. ‘The accident. I’m glad to see you’re getting around all right, though.’
It made sense that if the Teen Town Council had discussed the details of my visit, the adults would, too. But it was still disconcerting, and a little annoying.
Shawn smoothly filled in the blanks in the introduction, almost as if he could tell I was struggling for something nice to say. ‘Sylvie, this is Ms Brewster. She’s on the real town council.’
She waved a demurring hand. ‘Shawn and the kids have done so much for Maddox Landing. One of the biggest problems in these small towns is that the youngsters are only marking time until they can run off to the big city. No investment in the future of their home. But Shawn has really motivated our little group into a force to be reckoned with when it comes to getting things done for the good of the town.’
‘Aw shucks, Miz Brewster.’ He ducked his head, and scuffed his toe on the pavement, playing up the good ol’ boy thing with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You make me blush.’
Seriously? Even with the laughter behind the act, it was an eye-roll-worthy performance. I realized he was putting off the compliment – sort of – with that bit of soft soap, but ‘Miz’ Brewster seemed utterly taken, and giggled. Giggled. ‘Honestly, Shawn. You’re such a card.’
A card? Was that fifties-sitcom speak for ‘full of it’?
Still chuckling indulgently at Shawn’s country schoolboy shtick, Ms Brewster turned to me – I quickly wiped the disbelief off my face – and indicated my plastic bag. ‘Did you find what you needed, sweetie?’
‘More or less.’ Rather less than more, but there didn’t seem much point in complaining.
With a sigh, she looked at the storefront. Faded poster-board signs taped to the inside of the windows advertised specials on Christmas cookies. They ought to have been dirt cheap, since it was the first of June.
‘We’re hoping to bring in a new grocery chain. It would be good to get a few nice items without having to drive into Selma.’
‘I’m sure it would,’ I said tactfully. For speciality foods, you’d be out of luck unless Velveeta was your idea of a gourmet cheese.
‘Maybe when the new development gets going. Right, Shawn?’
He nodded. ‘That’s what Dad is hoping, Ms Brewster.’
Hearing this premise two times, and so close together, gave it the ring of a party platform. Dr Young had said yesterday that the Maddoxes were politicians from way back. Maybe it was his observation, as much as Rhys’s comment, that had me viewing Shawn’s flattering attentions more cynically today.
Ms Brewster smiled brightly, first at me, then at Shawn, then back at me. ‘So. Are we going to see you two at the Catfish Festival?’
Shawn grinned back, looking completely at his ease with an elbow propped on the shiny red hood of his truck, still holding my dog. ‘You know I wouldn’t miss it.’
/> Her eyes twinkled knowingly. ‘And are you going to bring our famous ballerina guest with you?’
‘I’ll try and convince her,’ he said, sliding his gaze towards me, as if judging my reaction to this sledge-hammer matchmaking.
‘Excellent!’ She beamed at us, seeming oblivious to the knit of my brows. ‘I’ll see y’all there!’
I stared after her as she headed down the cracked sidewalk in her sensible pumps. What was that about? I seriously doubted Shawn needed help getting his own dates.
Sort of proving my point, he smoothly gave Gigi over with one hand and opened the truck door for me with the other. ‘Ready for some lunch?’
‘I’m not really that hungry,’ I said, unsure of how I felt about being seen with him if everyone was going to assume we were an item.
He hooked his arm over the top of the door. ‘Just some chocolate pie, then.’
‘Clara will be expecting me.’ Which wasn’t quite true either. She would be, eventually, but not necessarily for lunch.
‘I’ll call her.’ Tilting his head, he turned on the Tom Sawyer charm. ‘You don’t really have a choice. I have your bike hostage.’
Pursing my lips, I swung my grocery bag onto the seat so I could climb in with Gigi. ‘Some good old country boy you are.’
‘I’m smarter than I look,’ he said with a wink.
The Daisy Café was on Main Street – one street over from the Piggly Wiggly. There were a couple of tables outside, under an appropriate yellow-and-white striped awning, but Shawn handed me Gigi’s carrier bag – which I’d brought in case I needed it – and said, ‘Go ahead. No one will notice.’
I arched my brows. ‘No one will notice the airholes in my tote bag?’ She was used to going everywhere with me, and the bag did look like a large and not entirely unfashionable purse. But I had a feeling – more than a hunch by this point – that a Maddox and a Davis out together wasn’t going to fly under the radar.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he assured me, with the blithe tone of someone who’s used to getting away with everything. Again, not really much of a leap to see that happening.