dropped the bacon, gave his son a little smile and picked up his newspaper.
Bryce stood in the middle of a stand of live oak trees and looked at the front of the weathered clapboard house he’d just toured. Turning to the real estate agent he’d hired, he said, “I can’t believe how many times I’ve driven this road, Lisa, seen this driveway, but never really knew what was back here behind all these trees.”
“I’m not surprised,” the agent said. “You can’t see the structure from the road.” She consulted notes in her portfolio. “The house was built in 1953 by a Canadian man, Clive Harbin. It’s only had two owners, Clive and his son, who inherited the place and used it as a winter residence since sometime in the ‘80s. The son, whose name is Wyatt, has been unable to make the trip for the last three years, and the house has remained unoccupied all that time. I guess that’s why Wyatt’s kids convinced him to sell.”
Bryce noted the missing shingles, crumbling bricks on the chimney. “It needs work,” he said. “Gutters need to be replaced. The whole house needs painting, inside and out.” Even as he listed the home’s problems, his hands itched to get to work on it. An hour ago, when he’d cleared the narrow, rutted drive and had his first view of the house, he’d fallen in love with its clean, traditional lines. Now he was trying to keep his enthusiasm at a reasonable level so he wouldn’t make a mistake with an offer.
A classic cottage farmhouse, the Realtor had called it. Steep second-story roof, a pair of gabled windows, an inviting porch that extended along the front and wrapped around one side. The inside floor plan met his needs exactly. A big living room with a stone fireplace, nice-size dining room, a kitchen that needed updating but was plenty big enough for a small table and chairs. A master bedroom downstairs with a small bonus room he could use as an office, and two small bedrooms upstairs.
“Let’s walk around back,” the agent suggested. “It says on my specs that the property extends three hundred yards into the wooded area.”
As they made their way around the side of the house, Bryce noted the well and water softener, and a patch of green grass that probably indicated the septic system. The rest of the yard was mostly weeds and overgrown shrubs. “How much total acreage?” he asked when they looked beyond the border of the backyard to a forest of pine, oak and magnolia trees.
“Four-and-a-half acres,” Lisa said, looking down at her shoes. “I’m not going into the woods with you in these new heels, but you go ahead.”
Bryce walked into the thick forest and returned after a few minutes. His mind buzzed with plans. He’d need to hire a backhoe operator to clear the wild shrubs and scrub trees, buy a decent chainsaw and weed eater….
“So what do you think?” she asked. “When you gave me your wish list, I immediately thought of this place.”
“It’s the best of the three we’ve seen,” he said.
“And its location on Fox Hollow Road makes it easily accessible to town.”
And the Campano’s house, Bryce thought. As he was following the agent to this property, he’d passed the home where he’d spent so many happy days growing up. When he’d glanced at the house, his heart had lurched in his chest. For most of his formative years, Bryce had felt as comfortable in the Campano home as he had in his own house. Maybe even more so. He and Ricky and Rosalie had been like siblings, Enzo and Claudia, like second parents.
He’d noticed too, the cars parked at Claudia Campano’s roadside stand. Not surprising that on a beautiful Sunday afternoon folks would be stopping for fresh produce. He hadn’t seen Rosalie. Bryce made up his mind to stop at the stand on his way back down Fox Hollow Road and say hello to Mrs. Campano.
“What do you want to do?” the agent said, breaking into his thoughts. “I’d love to draw up a contract on this house.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “I think it would be perfect for our town’s new football coach.”
“I’ll need to arrange inspections first,” he said. “Check for termites. Check the roof, plumbing and electrical.”
“Of course. But we can make the contract contingent on the inspections coming in satisfactorily.” She tapped a pen on the top of her portfolio. “You don’t want to lose this place by not having your name on the dotted line.”
He smiled. “How many offers have you had on this property since it was listed last year?” he said.
She shrugged. “Admittedly it’s been a slow market.”
Bryce was going to own this house. He felt it in the jangle of excited nerves in the pit of his stomach. “It’s listed at ninety thousand?”
“That’s right.”
“Write up an offer at twenty percent under that price. We’ll see what happens.”
She held out her hand. “Meet me in my office in a half hour. I’ll get the paperwork started.”
Rosalie joined her son and her mother at the produce stand midafternoon on Sunday. “When are your friends picking you up to go to the park?” she asked Danny.
He checked his watch. “They should be here any minute. I need to get my gear. Are you staying to help Grandma?”
“Yes. You go on.”
“Thanks.” He pointed to an insufficient number of small baskets of tomatoes sitting in a bin. “You need to restock. I was just getting ready to do that.”
“Sure. Looks like it’s been a good day.”
He agreed, said goodbye to Claudia and jogged away just as a Honda Civic pulled into the drive and followed him toward the house. Rosalie waved to Danny’s friend at the wheel. She took a stack of miniature bushel baskets from under the bin and started to fill them with tomatoes from a large crate. Her attention was diverted when a black pickup with sparkling chrome accessories braked in front of the stand. She immediately noticed a front bumper license plate in black and gold that said Texas Tech University, and a moment later, Bryce Benton got out of the driver’s seat.
He started to walk to Rosalie but stopped when Claudia hooted so loud a customer spilled a bag of peaches. “Bryce Benton! Oh, my stars. Get over here.”
Bryce strode around the back of the stand and gave Claudia a hug. When she finally let him loose, she placed the flat of her hand over her heart and stared up into his face. “You have gotten even better looking, if that’s possible.”
Rosalie hurried to the front to help the customer retrieve her peaches. As she worked, she couldn’t help thinking that her mother’s reaction to seeing Bryce was amazing, and not in a good way. For a time, both women, and Rosalie’s father as well, had nurtured bad feelings against Bryce every bit as strong as the ones Rosalie still seemed to cling to.
Numb with grief at the sudden, tragic death of their son, Rosalie’s parents had sought comfort in the only way they knew how—by blaming the young man whose show-off antics had resulted in the accident which took the life of his best friend. Looking back, Rosalie realized that the anger and bitterness against Bryce, rightly or wrongly, had probably been the glue that had held the Campano family together through the weeks and months of mourning.
And then Danny came along and their lives progressed according to a new purpose and pace. Rosalie continued to cry every night for her
