condolences,” he offered softly.
“It happened a long time ago,” she replied evenly, glancing at him. “I was fourteen.”
“Eons ago, obviously,” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood. She ducked her head.
“Thirteen years.”
That would make her twenty-seven, he calculated, a good age. He remembered it well. Had it only been eight years ago? At the time it had seemed that thirty would never come and his father would live forever. Yet, Comstock Aldrich had died of pancreatic cancer only nine months ago, leaving Tyler to fill his gargantuan shoes at Aldrich & Associates. After only ten months in the job, Tyler felt old and burdened, while Charlotte Jefford seemed refreshingly young and…serene.
He blinked at that, realizing just how much that calm serenity appealed to him. It fairly radiated from her pores.
“What about you?” she asked.
He studiously did not look at her. “Oh, I’m thirty-five, an executive, nothing you’d find interesting, I’m sure. You mentioned brothers. Older or younger?”
A slight pause made him wonder if she knew that he’d purposefully been less than forthcoming. “Older. Holt’s thirty-six, and Ryan’s thirty-four. Holt was working in the city when our folks passed, and Ryan was in college, so naturally I came here.”
“The city?”
“Oklahoma City.”
“Ah. And these brothers of yours, what do they do?”
“Well, Holt is a driller, like our daddy was. The price of oil these days keeps him pretty busy. He’s got a little ranch east of town, too. I can’t help worrying some, because that’s how Daddy died.” She looked down at her busy hands, adding softly, “He fell from a derrick.” An instant later, she seemed to throw off the melancholy memory. “But everything’s more modern now, safer, or so Holt says.”
“I see.”
“Ryan,” she went on, warming to her subject, “he’s the assistant principal at the high school. He teaches history, too, and coaches just about every sport they offer. Football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, even track.” She gave Tyler a look, saying, “In a small town, you have to do it all.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.
“One of each. She’s older. He’s younger.” And they hate my guts, Tyler thought, surprised by a stab of regret.
“Children?”
He shook his head. “Never married.”
“Oh. Me, neither.” She shrugged. “You know how it is in a small town, slim pickings.”
He actually didn’t know, and he didn’t care to know. What he did care about surprised him. Put plainly, he wanted her to like him. He wanted her to like him for himself, not for social status or wealth or any of the other reasons for which everyone else liked him, because he could give them things, because his last name happened to be Aldrich.
For the first time in his life, it mattered what someone thought of him, someone who didn’t know the Aldrich family, someone without the least claim to influence or wealth, someone willing to invite him, a stranger, to dinner. Someone who would take him at face value.
It mattered, even if he couldn’t figure out why.
Charlotte saw her guest to the kitchen door, which opened on the same side of the building as the drive-through, and pointed across the way to his room. After thanking her profusely for the meal, he walked toward his car. Looking in that direction through the screen, she recognized her brother Holt’s late-model, double-cab pickup truck as it turned into the motel lot. The truck swung to the left and stopped nose-in at the end of the building next to the pastor’s sedan.
“You’re late,” she called as he stepped down from the cab, his gaze aimed at the man now dropping down behind the driver’s wheel of that expensive sports car. Still wearing his work clothes, greasy denim jeans and jacket over a simple gray undershirt, Holt had at least traded his grimy steel-toed boots for his round-toed, everyday cowboy pair.
Tall and lean, Holt took a great deal after their grandfather in appearance, though with different coloring. A lock of his thick, somewhat shaggy, sandy-brown hair fell over one vibrant green eye, and he impatiently shoved it back with a large, calloused, capable hand as bronzed by the sun as his face was. His long legs and big, booted feet ate up the ground as he strode toward her.
“Who’s that?” he asked, pulling wide the screen door and following her into the kitchen.
“Name’s Tyler Aldrich,” she answered. “I’m pretty sure he’s one of the Aldrich grocery store family.”
Holt lifted an eyebrow. “What gives you that idea?”
“Just a hunch.”
She liked to shop at an Aldrich store and had often driven as far as fifty miles to do so. More than once she’d seen the large photograph of an older man identified as Comstock Aldrich affixed to a wall over the motto, From Our Family To Yours. She couldn’t remember enough about that man’s face to say whether or not Tyler resembled him in any way, but she’d seen the way Tyler had reacted when she’d plopped that loaf of bread on the table.
Normally, with a guest in attendance, she made hot bread or at least served the sliced variety stacked on a pretty saucer. Tonight she’d left that bread in its wrapper just to see what he would do. He’d stared as if he’d thought the thing might pop up, point a floury finger and identify him.
“Supposing he is who you think he is, what’s he doing here?” Holt asked, going to the refrigerator to take out the plate of leftovers she’d stowed there earlier. “You reckon he’s going to open a store hereabouts? That’d be cool.”
Charlotte frowned. She hadn’t thought of that possibility. After all, he’d said he was stranded, and she had no reason to doubt him. Except that just then he drove by in that flashy car of his. Apparently he had some gas. She turned to look at her brother, who carried the food to the microwave and set the timer.
“An Aldrich store might be very welcome,” she said, “unless you’re Stu Booker.”
Stu had taken over the local grocery from his father, Teddy, who sat at the domino table in the front room with Hap at that very moment.
Holt turned to lean against the counter. “I see what you mean. Another grocery would put Booker’s out of business.” The microwave dinged, and Holt reached inside to remove the plate, asking, “Still got that carrot cake, I see.”
“Yes,” Charlotte muttered, “but you’ll have to eat it in here. Grover’s playing dominoes tonight.”
Nodding, Holt took a fork from the drawer and strolled into the other room and toward the lobby, his big boots clumping on the bare floor. “I’ll be back, then. Thanks, sis.”
“Welcome,” she answered automatically, her mind on other matters.
Should
