transport well, not even in an SUV. Since her work required regular travel, this was the best solution. She ran her fingers lightly over the little boy’s brown hair. It was soft and silky and baby-fine, unlike the thick mass of hair his father had.
She blew out a breath. The office of Mallard’s Grocery hadn’t been the right place to tell James about Zeke. She knew that. So why did she feel so guilty about her silence? She’d come here to tell him about his son, to introduce them, and she would do it. But not when she was on the verge of being arrested for stealing a carton of milk and a box of generic cookies.
Mara took the items from her bag, put the milk in the small fridge inside the oversize bureau and tossed the cookies on top.
“Thanks for sticking around until I got back. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Are you kidding me? If today and tomorrow are the last days I have with Zeke, I’m going to pack as much of his sweet baby face as I can into them. Are you sure you don’t need me to stay? My contract with the school district in Tulsa doesn’t start for another two months—”
Mara held up her hand. “And you’re going to spend two of those weeks helping your sister plan her wedding, and after the wedding, you’re taking your father on that trip to Ireland he’s always wanted. Zeke and I will be fine.” She couldn’t ignore the little spike of fear that hit her belly, though.
She’d hired Cheryl to be Zeke’s nanny when he was three weeks old. Cheryl had traveled with them all over the United States, but earlier this year her father had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Cheryl wanted to be closer to her family, and Mara couldn’t blame her, especially with a wedding coming up and a parent whose health was in decline. She might not have the close familial ties her nanny had, but Mara could empathize.
Part of her hope for this trip was that she would be able to repair those ties with her own family. That, and tell James he had a son. She also planned to tell him she could raise Zeke on her own so he could continue with his postcard-perfect, fairy-tale life as the heir apparent to the Slippery Rock Sheriff’s Department and forget he’d ever been so reckless as to have an affair with her.
“But you’ll send me pictures, right?” Cheryl’s hazel eyes clouded with tears, and her voice cracked. Mara wrapped her arms around the woman who was her only friend.
“Are you kidding? Who else is going to understand just how cute the little monster is when he’s destroying his dinner like Godzilla destroyed Tokyo?”
“Okay. Okay then.” Cheryl pulled back, grabbed a tissue from the box on the bureau and dabbed at her eyes. “I swore I wasn’t going to get choked up. This isn’t forever. The contract is only for a year, and then, who knows? Dad will be settled by then. He might not need as much attention.”
“Sure,” Mara said, pushing more confidence into her voice than she felt. She had no doubt that she and Cheryl would stay in touch, but she was very doubtful this sabbatical would last only for the length of the school year. Cheryl’s father wouldn’t get better, and her sister would begin having children. Unlike Mara, normal people weren’t made to live out of suitcases in a series of boring hotel rooms. “Until you come back, I’ll text and email more pictures than you ever wanted to see. You’ll have to block my numbers to stop the flow of toddler silliness.”
Cheryl dabbed at her eyes again, but she seemed to have regained her equilibrium. “I’m going to collect those takeout menus the manager promised when we checked in.” She closed the door, and Mara was alone with her son.
She sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. She could do this. She’d taken all the parenting courses, enrolled herself in therapy to deal finally with the baggage from her childhood. She was now in the same town with her baby’s father, and she was ready to tell him that he could have a place in his child’s life or not. Either way, she and Zeke would be just fine. Simple enough conversation.
Zeke made a small noise, and his little fingers began their usual scrape-scrape-scrape down the mesh sides of the playpen. His favorite stuffed toy, an ugly black-and-brown lemur, was wedged under his hip, but he wrestled it free and began talking in mumbles to it.
She was stronger now than she had ever been. She could do this.
* * *
“BUT WHY ISN’T she staying at the orchard?” James called himself ten kinds of fool for asking Collin the question, but he couldn’t resist.
He’d stopped by his house to change out of his uniform, but somehow the old jeans and gray T-shirt weren’t any more comfortable than the layers of stiff, starched cotton, body armor and gun belt he wore to work every day. The fact that Collin, Mara’s brother and one of his best friends, looked incredibly relaxed in a pair of cargo shorts and a similar T-shirt only made him more uncomfortable. He, Collin and Levi were sitting at their usual Wednesday night booth in The Slippery Slope, the waterfront bar. It still felt odd not to see Adam across the booth, but he was in the hospital recovering from the injuries he sustained in the tornado. The doctors weren’t certain he would walk again.
“She says it’ll make things easier with the odd hours she’s keeping working on the security system at Mallard’s,” Collin said. “And to be honest, I don’t need the distraction of my sister underfoot. I’ve got enough to do with the new plantings.”
Tyler Orchard had been hit hard by the tornado. Collin had lost about half of their apple trees and several peach and pear trees, too. Still, when family members visited Slippery Rock, they didn’t stay at a B and B.
“The orchard is all of a ten-minute drive to town,” James said. “Don’t you think that’s odd?”
James hadn’t seen Mara since Tuesday morning—apparently she’d had no more run-ins with the wonky security doors at the grocery store—but he couldn’t get her out of his head. He’d worked with one of the construction crews this afternoon, putting up the new roof of the farmers’ market just down the street, and he could have sworn he saw her standing on the corner. Of course, when he took a closer look, he’d seen Mrs. Bailey, the Methodist minister’s wife. Mrs. Bailey was short, had iron-gray hair and carried a pocketbook from 1959. No sane man would mix her up with the tall, thin Mara Tyler carrying a canvas tote bag.
“What’s with the third degree over where Mara chooses to stay while she’s on a business trip?” Levi asked, coming to the table with a tray of beers and a bucket of peanuts.
James sat back as if he hadn’t just been interrogating one of his best friends about said best friend’s sister, while the best friend was unaware that James had been having an affair with that same sister. “No third degree, just curiosity,” he said, hoping neither Levi nor Collin would push the issue.
“Look, you have the black-and-white sitcom version of the perfect family. Having family stay with you is normal. The Tylers have never been anyone’s version of normal,” Collin said, but his words didn’t hold their usual rancor. Since he’d fallen for Levi’s sister, Savannah, Collin’s anger at his parents seemed to have dissipated. “If Mara says it’s easier to stay in town, I’m fine with that. If she decides to come to the orchard, we have plenty of room.”
“She hasn’t even been to the orchard yet?” Not going to see her family was weirder than weird. Who came home for work and didn’t immediately check in with the family? Sure, she’d been only a sporadic visitor, but he knew Mara loved her grandmother and her siblings. None of this made sense.
Collin, who emanated that happy-in-love countenance usually seen only
