she was annoyingly younger.
Damn it, Kent!
She didn’t feel like apologizing now. Already she knew how this would go. He would be oh, so offended that she would jump to such an unflattering conclusion about him and a woman he worked with, whether she’d answered the phone or not. He’d try to convince Loran that he was the wronged party, and, when that didn’t work, he’d tell her that Celia didn’t mean a thing, that it had just “happened.”
And Loran would show him that she was Maddie Kimball’s daughter after all. She would tell him to get the hell out of her house.
Her house.
She wondered suddenly if having had a father would have made a difference, whether she would have been better at maintaining meaningful relationships with men if someone like Andrew Kessler had been in her life, someone who would have carried her when she wanted to be carried and let her walk on her own when she didn’t.
Of course it would have, she thought immediately. How could it not? Even if she’d had a bad father, she would have been better able to tell the gold from the dross—and before the wrong person answered the phone.
She gave a wavering sigh and put the cell phone into her coat pocket, wiping furtively at the tears she suddenly realized were sliding down her cheek.
“Do you smoke?”
“What?” she said, startled. The man she’d seen in the house stood a short distance away from her.
“I asked you if you smoke.”
“No,” she said shortly.
“I was going to offer you a cigarette. I carry a pack around in case one of the guests needs one. You’d be surprised how often that comes up. Quitting tobacco just doesn’t take sometimes, especially if there’s a bump in the road. I’ve got this great aunt—Nelda, her name is. She thinks she’s quit dipping snuff. And she’s just fine as long as the sun shines on her back door. But you let the least little thing go wrong and she’s right back at it.” He paused long enough to make her glance at him. “So how about this instead?” he asked.
He stepped forward and held out a peppermint candy wrapped in cellophane, the kind that pizza restaurants gave out to customers, ostensibly to keep them happy and coming back to buy pizza again.
She stared at it as if she’d never seen one before.
“Go on,” he said. “You need it.”
“I don’t need it,” she said, getting to her feet. It put them at eye level, but she still felt at a disadvantage.
“You might feel better.”
“No, I won’t—and who are you?”
“The name is Meyer,” he said.
“As in Oscar?”
He smiled. He was older than she’d first thought, and he had dimples.
“Now, you know what? I may not look it, but I’ve been out of the hills enough times to actually get what you just said. That was pretty good, too—only I’m Meyer with an e, not an a. So…you don’t want the peppermint.”
“I don’t want the peppermint,” she said, feeling close to tears again.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to put it in my coat pocket. If you change your mind, I’ll give it to you. I’m just about always around here someplace—except when I’m to home.”
“And where is that?” she asked in spite of herself, even knowing that the quaint colloquialism was likely affected just for her benefit. “‘To home’?”
“It’s up there. See?” He pointed off into the distance—toward a hillside with a winding road going up it. “See where the sun is shining on that silver roof? That’s my place—except when I’m letting people rent it. I’ll show it to you sometime, if you want. Don’t worry. I don’t have any etchings,” he added in a whisper.
She smiled slightly without wanting to. “Well, that’s…good to know.”
“Got a couple of deer heads, though. They’re kind of scary if you’re not used to them. You do understand that nothing helps when you’re feeling down and misplaced like a good piece of peppermint.”
“You’ve felt down and misplaced enough to know, I take it.”
“Damn straight,” he said. “I’ve pretty much made a career of it.”
“And what career was that?”
“The United States Army. I’m telling you, if you don’t let the little things make you feel better, you’ll have a hell of a time getting through the big things.”
“If you think—”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. What I know is you look like you’re running on empty—and when that happens, a little hit of sugar can help. I used to carry these all the time when I was deployed—my aunt Nelda would send them to me, whether she could afford to or not. They’d help when you were so tired you thought you weren’t going to make it, and if your mouth was full of sand. I used to give them to the kids sometimes—they were scared of us, and maybe it helped. I don’t know. I liked to think even if they hated the taste of them, they could still appreciate the effort.”
She glanced at him, not certain if he meant some foreign child or if he meant her.
“All right,” she said impulsively. He was trying to be kind when he didn’t have to.
“All right what?”
“All right, give me the peppermint. Please,” she added, letting him make her work for it.
He smiled slightly and handed it over. She unwrapped it carefully and popped it into her mouth. It was rather good, actually. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten this kind of candy.
He stood quietly, with his hands in his pockets. She glanced at him, but she was afraid she was going to cry again.
“Okay, then. I’m just going to go do what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said. “You ought to sit out here for a while. Give that peppermint a chance to work. Admire the view. You ought to enjoy nature every chance you get—that’s what it’s there for—especially when you’re going through a rough patch. Everything’s going to be all right,” he added in a quieter voice, as if his impertinence might offend her if he said it too loudly. “You’ll see.”
She tried to take offense at his unwelcome reassurances, but he didn’t give her the chance. He turned and walked away toward the woods beyond the gazebo.
“Hey!” she called after him. “Oscar!”
He looked around.
“Thanks.”
He gave her a thumbs-up and walked on.
She sat down on the steps again. She was a grown-up, independent woman. She had a high-paying job
