A Place to Call Home (Harlequin Heartwarming) (6 page)

CHAPTER NINE

A
N
AWKWARD
SILENCE
stretched out as the rumble of Grandpa Murphy’s truck faded in the distance. Brandon wasn’t the only suspicious one in the group.

Penelope’s feet felt heavy and the optimism snuffed out inside her as she crossed the dewy ground to the men.

“That’s your grandpa?” someone asked.

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, he is.” She thought about all the times her mother had compressed her lips and shaken her head when the subject of Penelope’s grandfather had come up. Penelope, until this moment, had always thought it was because her mom was ashamed of her South Georgia roots.

Some of the men standing in the semicircle facing her shuffled their feet and stared at the ground. One of them suddenly straightened, removed his baseball cap and wiped at his face in the early morning mugginess.

“Well, I reckon I’d better get on out of y’all’s way,” he said. “Just came by to wish you well on that pole barn. Got a heap of my own work to get to.”

Penelope saw Brandon’s and Uncle Jake’s surprise and realized the man was making excuses he hadn’t felt the need to make earlier.

She forced a polite smile. “Thank you so much. I appreciate you coming by this morning. It means a lot to me.”

The man replaced his cap, tipped it at her and strode off to his truck. A moment of silence stretched thin, followed by another defector making the walk to his truck.

When the third man started to speak, Brandon interrupted him.

“Jarvis, I know you don’t have a bit of lost love for Murphy, but you were saying not five minutes ago how you were here to help. Now, I think you should hear Penelope out at least, give her that courtesy.”

Penelope caught her breath at Brandon’s defense of her. Her wonderment grew when Uncle Jake spoke up.

“Out of everybody standin’ here, I reckon I got done as dirty by Richard Murphy as any of us, ’cept maybe Ryan and his grandma. Pardon me, Miss Penelope, if I don’t mince my words about your kinfolk, but the truth’s the truth. The rat stole my land, this land we’re standin’ on right here. And he did even worse to Ryan’s grandma than just run her out of the house she’d lived in for sixty years or more.” Uncle Jake paused, stared at Penelope.

Again, she was so shocked at the vitriol her grandfather could engender that she was rendered speechless.

Uncle Jake pushed on. “But a girl has to be loyal to her family. If she’s not, well, then, she won’t be loyal to anybody. Now I say—” he tapped his finger on the bib of his overalls “—this stops here. We don’t take out our anger on a man’s children or his children’s children, not unless they’re picking a fight with us. Miss Penelope, you can settle this once and for all. Why’d you come here?”

“I just wanted...dirt and a house. It seemed like a good opportunity.”

“And it is,” Uncle Jake declared. “Ain’t no better place on earth than Brazelton County to call home. Now, time’s a-wasting, and I got to go feed the hogs this evening. Brandon, what do you need me to do?”

The other men seemed mollified by Uncle Jake’s pronouncement and his offer to help. As talk once again dissolved into the nuts and bolts of the job before them, a yellow school bus jounced up the driveway.

Penelope felt a touch on her arm. She glanced away from the boys now bursting off the bus and saw Brandon smiling. “We’ll get it done,” he promised.

* * *

T
EN
HOURS
LATER
, twilight gathering and the heat of the day cooling off, Penelope offered a tired farewell wave to Uncle Jake and Jarvis and the other farmers who’d come to help. The schoolboys had left hours ago.

Now only Brandon remained. But where was he? She glanced up at the shiny metal roof on her new barn, amazed at how much work they’d accomplished in a day’s time. The pole barn had, with all the labor available, been almost a shazam-now-you-see-it feat.

Sure, the doors still weren’t hung, the water supply and electricity weren’t hooked up, and the inside shelves she’d planned weren’t installed, but it was shelter. A place to work. A place to make her dreams come true.

She walked around the corner of the house to see Brandon, shirtless, standing at an outside spigot, water rushing into his open hands. He didn’t hear her at first as he splashed the water on his face, arms and chest.

The twilight revealed his well-built body, not an ounce of spare fat anywhere. She didn’t see the gym-sculpted, steroid-assisted six-pack. No, this was the real thing, the result of hours of physical labor, form beautifully following function.

An urge to sculpt such a body overtook Penelope. The urge to recreate those planes and angles with her hands.

The splashing halted abruptly as Brandon caught her staring at him. He quickly tugged his T-shirt back over his head. She pulled herself together and said, “You, um, could have come in the house. I have hot water inside, you know.”

“Well, soap and hot water would be nice.”

“C’mon.” She indicated the house with a jerk of her head and turned to hide her scarlet face. What was the matter with her? She, who’d painted and sculpted using male models, was acting like a schoolgirl. How could this man’s bare chest undo her?

Inside, Theo wound around her ankles only to jerk back from the strange feet that clomped in behind her. “It’s okay, Theo. Everybody’s gone now except Brandon,” she reassured the Siamese, adding a scratch under his chin.

“That cat doesn’t like me one whit.”

“He just doesn’t know you. And men make him nervous. The last man he had any dealings with was the vet who, um, did the snip-snip deal on him.” Penelope straightened. “I have some of that ham Mee-Maw brought. Can I interest you in a sandwich?”

“Oh, man, could you ever.” Brandon grinned. “I’m so hungry I could eat the hole out of a doughnut. But—” he looked down at himself, his T-shirt dusty and damp “—I’m not fit for the dinner table, I’m afraid.”

“Neither am I. I’ve got some extra large
T-shirts that I keep for...” She trailed off, not wanting to share how she used men’s T-shirts for pajamas. “Why don’t you grab a shower, and I’ll get us something to eat?”

“Nope. Ladies first. You shower, and then I’ll take you up on the hot water and the sandwich. I’ll wait.”

* * *

H
EARING
THE
SHOWER
water drum relentlessly down the hall unsettled Brandon. All he could think about was Penelope.

He prowled around the small living room for anything to distract him.

And there was plenty. Penelope had settled in and unpacked some of those boxes. Black-and-white photos of a rocky coast—maybe the Pacific—dominated one wall. Big sea lions sunning on rocks, and huge fir trees in the distance. Others captured a beach swathed in fog and mist, some with a definite but unidentifiable silhouette of a human figure in them.

The prints all bore “Langston” and a number on them. Brandon was impressed by their quality.

Other photos, these more candid and more like what he would take, graced the mantelpiece. In these, a woman with Penelope’s dark hair and smile, a man who had Penelope’s eyes. A younger man, slightly older than Penelope in the photos, had the cocky, self-confident look of an older brother.

In every photo, Penelope’s smile looked forced, as though she was pretending to be at ease.

The one thing he didn’t see was very much resemblance to Richard Murphy.

The water stopped running in the bathroom. Penelope would be out any second.

Brandon steeled himself. He could not afford to be distracted by a woman who possessed, at least temporarily, his uncle’s land.

Maybe you’re afraid she’ll get too close and you’ll lose the will to fight her for this land if it comes down to that.

Brandon shook off the thought. He could—and would—do anything it took to get this land back and see Murphy get handed the justice he deserved. But he had to keep his focus; who knew how much he could really trust Penelope? He’d seen her loyalty to Murphy.

So focus. She might be using you, the same way you’re using her.

Behind him, he heard Penelope clear her throat. He turned around and completely lost all his good intentions. Her curly hair was still damp from the shower, and some sort of flowery shampoo wafted in his direction. He wanted to sweep her in his arms and kiss her senseless.

“All yours,” she said, and Brandon wished it were that simple.

He did the only thing he thought would help: ran for the coldest shower imaginable. But her scent clung to the T-shirt she’d laid out for him, the towels she put out for him to use, the very steam that hung in the air.

“Get a grip!” he ordered himself as he dried off and pulled the T-shirt over his head.

In the kitchen, he found Penelope piling a mountain of ham, lettuce and tomatoes on a sandwich.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“Yeah. I do. That looks good.”

“Can’t take credit for it. It’s all Mee-Maw. Those tomatoes are from her garden. When I was in New York, I would have killed for tomatoes like that in October.”

Brandon shrugged and filched a piece of ham off the sandwich. She swatted at his hand but missed. “Welcome to South Georgia. Sometimes, if the weather’s warm, you can wind up with tomatoes at Christmas. Sometimes the first hard frost comes before Halloween. This is a warm year.”

“The weather’s nice, that’s for sure.” She finished the sandwiches and set them on the dinette table. “Now you can eat. No nibbling.”

“I’d like to see some rain. It’s awfully dry, and if we have another dry winter, we’re going to be that much more in the hole next spring.”

Her chuckle was a warm little burble. “Farmers and the weather. You’re never satisfied, are you?”

“Oh, we could be. If we could get rain on a subscription service, delivered just when we need it, that’d be great.”

“A plus for sculpting is that it’s not usually weather-dependent.”

“So, how is the sculpture? Have you been able to get any buyers?” The hope that she hadn’t, that she was still desperate for money, felt unnatural to him. It wasn’t like him to wish another person ill.

She tensed, and for an instant he saw the girl in the photos. Brandon put up his hands. “None of my business, I know.”

Penelope dropped the sandwich on her plate. She bit her lip and didn’t meet his eyes for a moment. “No, it’s not that. Only I’ve had no luck yet. It’s hard to sell an idea that’s not tailored to a business. This one—
Love at Infinity
—I came up with for the home office of an online dating firm. That’s how it works. A corporation decides it needs some culture, I do some interviews with the big dogs, and then I come up with an idea that will sum up their mission or corporate message.”

“But you’re trying. It will happen.” Now Brandon did feel like a heel, hoping for the exact opposite. Why couldn’t she just pick up and move somewhere else so he could sincerely root for her?

“I’m getting hits on my website every day. So sure, yeah, it will happen.”

Was she trying to convince him or herself? Brandon had to admit she wasn’t hugely successful either way.

“So what if someone wanted you to do something different? Would you?”

“Sure. Of course. I’d put this one on the back burner.”

They ate in silence for a few moments before Brandon switched the subject. “Those pictures in the living room? You took them? They’re good.”

“Yeah. That’s Oregon, near where Lewis and Clark saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I’d like to pretend that’s how they saw it.”

“It must be strange, to be so far from home.”

She considered his comment and then shook her head. “No. I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. My brother, Trent, now he’s the family’s pride and joy.”

Penelope’s voice was absent of any malice or envy, just bemusement. She added, “They always want to know, ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’ He’s the one who followed them into real estate. I grew up in Portland, but about ten years ago, my parents moved to Bend—you probably never heard of it.”

“So you’re the artsy one?”

She sighed. “Yeah. Definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer, that’s me. I’m twenty-eight, but my parents still treat me as though I’m their baby. My mom kept saying this commission was too good to be true.” She grimaced. “What about you? Brothers? Sisters?”

“One kid brother.” Brandon didn’t feel like volunteering the story of his life. Come to think of it, he’d never had to tell any girl that he’d dated much about himself. They’d known. Life in a small town meant never having to talk about painful things if you didn’t want to, because people already knew your secrets. So if Penelope wanted to know more, she could ask her dear old granddad.

But she didn’t let up. “So how about your parents? Do your mom and dad still live around here?”

“Uh, no.” The referral to his long-absent father stung. Had Murphy already filled her in on Brandon’s dad deserting his mom with two little kids? He got up and took his plate to the sink. “My mom passed away a couple of years ago. Say, why’d your mom move so far away? I mean, she was from Georgia, right?”

A long silence told him that Penelope wanted to talk about that about as much as he wanted to talk about his family. “My dad was from there. My mom moved away from Georgia when my grandmother divorced Grandpa Murphy. Mom and Dad met in college and moved back to Oregon to be near his family.”

“So you were never around your grandfather that much? In Georgia, I mean.”

“No, not much. My mom and Grandpa Murphy never got along that well, especially after my grandmother divorced him.”

Score one for the mom’s smarts.
Behind him, he heard Penelope’s chair scrape on the floor as she pushed it back. Still, he jumped when she brushed against him as she joined him at the sink.

“I want to thank you,” she said. “For today. You and your uncle both. I know you don’t have much use for my grandfather. But, Brandon, he’s not...he’s not like you think he is.”

She stopped short, shook her head. Brandon looked at her to see a droplet of water inch down her throat from one of the ringlets of her hair. He ached to reach over and capture it with a fingertip. But he’d be touching Richard Murphy’s granddaughter, and he just couldn’t do that.