“I’d say appalled was closer to the truth, right?” That came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended.
“Just surprised. Because I remember hearing you swear that Deer Run had seen the last of you.” Those full lips might have trembled for an instant on the words.
“We talk a lot of nonsense when we’re seventeen, right?” Things like I love you. I’ll always love you. He shrugged. “It was time I dealt with the property I own here. Had a few vacation days coming, so I figured I’d clear things up.”
“I see.” She glanced away, as if at a loss for something else to say.
He could remember when it seemed they’d never run out of things to say to each other. They’d walk around town in the summer twilight, sharing secrets and dreams as if they were two parts of a whole.
Meredith seemed to regain her poise after the momentary lapse. “I guess this visit won’t be much of a vacation from work for you. What are you doing now?”
He raised an eyebrow, wondering how she’d react. “Police. Detective Zachary Randal, Pittsburgh P.D., believe it or not. I imagine most people in Deer Run expected me to end up on the other side of the bars.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” A faint flush touched her cheekbones, denying the words.
“Come on, Meredith.” He put his hand on the gate, dangerously close to hers. “We both know what this town thinks of me.”
“Deer Run has changed,” she protested.
He took an obvious look down the street at the same lineup of century-old Victorian houses and small shops. A few cars were parked in front of the grocery store, an Amish horse and buggy was hitched at the side of the hardware store. The village snoozed under the shelter of the mountain ridge that seemed to cut it off from the rest of the world.
“Really? Looks the same to me.” He raised an eyebrow and had the satisfaction of seeing a spark of anger in those brown eyes.
“You shouldn’t judge what you don’t know.” Her chin came up, reminding him of the sensitive good girl who’d still had the courage to date the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
The front door of the house rattled, and a high, sweet voice called out, “Meredith? Come inside, please. I need you.”
The door closed again. Apparently Margo King had her daughter so well trained that she didn’t need to call twice.
Meredith half turned away from the gate. “I’m sorry. I have to go in.”
“Yeah. Right.” Bitterness welled up, raw in his throat. “I see one thing hasn’t changed at all.”
Before she could answer he turned and walked away, his fists clenching as he tried to stamp down feelings he’d been sure had died a long time ago.
* * *
ANGER WAS MEREDITH’S only shield against pain, and she clung to it as she hurried into the house. If all Zach had to offer her was bitterness, so be it. He might at least have given her a chance to explain.
The thought drew her up sharply. What was there to explain? She’d said she loved him, but she hadn’t had the courage to go against her family, her mother’s imagined social status or the opinion of Deer Run to prove it. Zach knew that as well as she did. Their love was long since dead and buried, and it might have the decency to stay in its grave.
“What on earth were you doing, talking to that boy? Standing there at the front gate where everyone in town could see you—Meredith King, you should have better sense.” Her mother waited in the entryway, shaking with anger from the top of her carefully tinted hair to the tips of her neat leather loafers. “I can’t imagine how he has the nerve to show his face in Deer Run again. What’s he doing here, anyway?”
Meredith sucked in a deep breath and prayed for calm. “I’m not sure, Mother. I believe he has some business to take care of.” She kept walking, heading for the kitchen. “I’d better put the goat’s milk in the fridge.”
It was too much to hope that her mother wouldn’t follow her. “What kind of business? If he’s come back here to moon after you again, he might as well go back where he came from.”
“Don’t be silly.” That came out too sharply. “You know all that was over a long time ago.”
“You shouldn’t have talked to him at all.” Her mother sank onto a kitchen chair, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “It gives me one of my headaches just to think about Zach Randal, right at my front gate, looking like some kind of a hoodlum.”
Zach had looked a bit rough around the edges, hadn’t he? That had always been part of the allure, Meredith supposed. It was classic, a good girl like Meredith King falling hard for the boy who was bad to the bone, or so people said. And Zach, with his disdain for small-town attitudes, had seemed to enjoy shocking the denizens of Deer Run. If he wasn’t cutting school, he was sauntering in late. And he’d been quick with his fists at the slightest opportunity.
“I understand he’s a police officer now,” she said, opening the refrigerator door to shield her face while hoping to head off some of the inevitable speculation.
“I suppose he told you so, and you believed him. Just like you always did.” Her mother’s voice went up an octave, and she stopped massaging her temples to clutch at her chest—never a good sign. “You believed him no matter what we said, causing your poor father so much grief.”
Tears spurted from her mother’s soft brown eyes, and her words came in little gasps. She was working herself into a state of hysteria, and if Meredith didn’t intercede, she’d end up with a frantic call to the doctor, insisting she was having a heart attack.
“Now, Mother, that’s all in the past. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. Zach is only here for a few days, and then he’ll be gone and we’ll never see him again.” Her heart seemed to lodge a protest at that, but she kept going. “I’m sorry his return upset you, but it doesn’t need to. Why don’t you come upstairs and have a nice rest before supper?”
Still soothing, Meredith led her mother gently to the stairs. They’d played this scene so often she knew it by heart. First it had been Daddy doing the soothing and comforting, and now it was Meredith’s job.
Keeping her voice calm, her touch gentle, she guided her mother up to her bedroom, pulled the shades, tucked her under the coverlet. Experience had taught her that it was useless to try and reason with her mother—she was no more amenable to reason than the average two-year-old. And too much emotion led inevitably to the racing heartbeat that frightened her mother as much as it did Meredith.
According to the doctors, her mother’s atrial fibrillation was not nearly bad enough or frequent enough to require anything other than the mild medication she was on. Their assurances had never comforted her mother.
Finally, after repeated promises that Margo would never be subjected to the sight of Zach Randal again, Meredith was able to get away. An easy promise to make, wasn’t it? It was hardly likely that Zach would care to confront Margo King after what she had done to him.
Meredith had barely reached the kitchen when she heard a tapping on the back door. Through the window she spotted Rachel, who’d probably cut across the
