living in the cabin now that she owned the place.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
“Everybody has a name, Mr. McCaffrey.” She was looking at Myrtle Ann’s goats as if she’d never seen farm animals up close.
Again, he waited. Finally, he decided to try another tack. “Have you had a chance to get acquainted with your own private piece of paradise?”
“I’m trying not to rush it.”
She was teasing him. He had to look closely, but it showed in the softening of her mouth and the gentling of her expression.
A rooster crowed from the roof of a Studebaker nearly covered with vines. When the woman glanced at her watch, Joe felt compelled to explain. “That’s Louie. His internal clock’s a little off.”
This time she smiled. “That sounds like my old college roommate. She’s sleeping inside, still on Paris time. I take it you’re also responsible for mending the fences and stacking that wood?”
He couldn’t bring himself to ask her to consider letting him continue. To beg. A man had his pride. So instead, he went down the remaining steps and asked, “What are your plans?”
The question brought Lila up short. It occurred to her that she probably should have asked for some identification. Joe McCaffrey didn’t look untrustworthy, and it was obvious that he was trying to keep a respectable distance between them. Extremely polite, he wore battered work boots and blue jeans faded nearly white at the major stress points: knees, seat and fly. His T-shirt was gray, his cropped hair the color of freshly ground coffee beans. There were three lines across his forehead and two more framing his upper lip. The lower half of his face was shiny, as if he’d shaved before coming over. He’d taken some trouble with his appearance before meeting her. That said something about him. She wasn’t sure what.
How did people do this? How did they make assessments, judgments and decisions without the universe’s input?
Lila had come to Virginia to learn.
“My plans?” she asked, wondering how long it had been since he’d asked the question.
“What are you going to do with the place now that it’s yours?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Myrtle Ann Canfield was a generous woman.”
“Yes, she was,” Joe said quietly.
They stared at each other. He was the first to shift awkwardly, drawing away.
One of the goats butted a post. The chickens clucked nearby and the rooster crowed again in the distance. Lila felt overwhelmed. “I’m a city girl.”
“Not anymore.”
She pondered that. From here she could see much of her property. There was a stand of pines to the west and a cabin near a pond, and a rowboat was tied to a dock. The grass had been mowed around the cabin just as it had been around the main house. Despite the recent improvements, orderliness began and ended there. She’d envisioned a gentleman’s farm with painted white barns and fields of grain swaying in the breeze and perhaps a small garden where vegetables grew in neat rows and hills where fruit trees stood watch like guards of the property. Instead, The Meadows was overgrown and unkempt, animals roamed freely and a rooster crowed long past dawn. She wasn’t quite sure what part Joe McCaffrey played in all of this. He seemed standoffish and emotionally wounded. But who wasn’t?
“I have no idea how to care for these animals.”
“It isn’t difficult.”
“Would you show me?” she asked.
A muscle worked in his cheek. “Before I clear out, you mean?”
“Clear out?”
He gestured to the cabin. “I’ve been living there almost two years now.”
She stored the information. This inheritance may have been a godsend, but it hadn’t come without responsibilities. The trip had exhausted her, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next. She tried to go to that place she used to go where white energy radiated and the universe was orderly and systematic and she simply knew. When she’d lost her intuitive abilities and they’d declared her a fraud, the late-night television moguls had joked that there was a hole in her cosmos.
Maybe there was.
“I need help.”
“Do you need a doctor?” Joe asked.
Feeling herself blushing, she wondered how long she’d zoned out this time. “Not that kind of help.” Goodness, she was going to scare him away. Suddenly she was terrified she already had. “I was referring to the animals and all the rest.”
He studied her, causing her to remember she hadn’t combed her hair. She only hoped he could see past her bare feet and dishevelment.
“I would appreciate it if you would consider continuing whatever arrangement you had with Myrtle Ann.” When he said nothing, she prodded, “Would you?”
“You aren’t asking me to leave?”
“You don’t want to leave?”
She held her breath.
He held her gaze.
For the first time she noticed that his eyes were brown. All three lines in his forehead were engaged in his scowl.
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he said, “I’ll stay.” And then, more quietly, “For now.”
Relief rained down on her. Before she started laughing uncontrollably, she turned toward the door, but changed her mind. Instead of going inside, she eased around the corner of the house and back onto the side porch where she could watch him walk away.
“Mr. McCaffrey?” she called after some time had passed.
Turning, he faced her, feet apart, hands on his hips.
“Since I can’t restore order to the universe, I’m going to restore it to The Meadows. This was once a working farm. I think it needs to be again. Do you think Myrtle Ann would mind?”
“She left it to you, didn’t she?”
“I hope that hasn’t caused problems for you.”
“Believe me, it was no skin off my nose.”
She stared at him, and Joe found it unnerving. The breeze fluttered the hem of her skirt and lifted her hair away from her face. She looked like someone from one of the old legends that abounded in the valley. He was pretty sure she was smiling.
“I’m very glad to be here,” she said, “And I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She slipped soundlessly out of sight around the corner of the house before he thought to mention that he still didn’t know her name. By then it was too late. He should have told her about the rumors. It was too late for that, too. Besides, it was only a matter of time before
