Roses (71 page)

Betty, with her uncanny sense of timing, arrived to show him out. Lucy remained glued to the spot until she heard the front
door close and Betty return. “Well, well, well!” Betty said.

Lucy smiled softly. “I’d say so,” she said.

M
ATT STOOD A MOMENT BY
the Range Rover, taking in his surroundings. He was parked before a sprawling white clapboard farmhouse bordered on both
sides and beyond by fields of burgeoning cotton. A couple of mechanical cotton pickers were lined up along a service road,
and in the distance a lone figure—a man, not Rachel—worked on a stretch of irrigation pipe, but otherwise there was no other
sight or sound of human activity to break the snoozing quiet of the early Sunday afternoon. No pickups or other vehicles were
about. He’d expected to find Rachel’s BMW parked in the yard, confirming that he’d come to the right place. The peace increased
his apprehension. Against such a tranquil backdrop, how could he bear the shattering news that Rachel wanted nothing more
to do with him?

He’d been ready to refuel the plane and go to her the minute he landed back in Howbutker and heard the great news, but his
grandfather had admonished him to wait. “Give her space, son—time to deal with the issues she still has to work out.”

He had agreed, though he’d worried that every day that passed might give Rachel—the woman he loved now more than ever—greater
reason to tell him to go to hell. It had occurred to him that there might be something going on between her and the classmate
she’d gone to help. Carrie had described him as an old A and M buddy—a cotton farmer like herself—when he’d called to get
her address. “Married?” he couldn’t resist asking, and she’d said archly, “Well, now, that’s for me to know and you to find
out, big boy.”

He heard a clump, clump, clump in answer to his ring, and his heart fell a fraction when a boyishly handsome man opened the
door, as tall as himself and big enough, even on crutches with his leg in a hip cast, to make him think twice about muscling
his way in. “Afternoon. What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Excuse the interruption. I’m looking for a friend of mine—Rachel Toliver.”

“That so?” he said. “And who might you be?”

“Matt Warwick.”

“Ah, so.” He held him in an appraising gaze for a few seconds, then shouted over his shoulder, “
Honey!
”

Matt’s heart sank lower until a pretty blonde appeared with two small children trailing behind and a third on the way, judging
from the bulge of her apron over her dress. “We’ve got company asking for Rachel.”

The young woman smiled. “Well, get out of the way, Luke, so we can let him in. Kids, go wash your hands and get ready to eat.
Hi,” she said to Matt, “I’m Leslie, and this big lug is my husband, Luke Riley. You must be Matt Warwick. Come on in. Rachel’s
been expecting you.”

“She has?” Matt said in astonishment.

Her husband had apparently held off his grin until then. It broke across his face, big and sappy, as he stuck out his hand.
“Now, honey, I don’t think you were supposed to tell him that,” he said with a wink at Matt. “Howdy, Matt.”

“Well, knowing Rachel, she might not get the point across. You’re just in time for Sunday dinner, Matt. I hope you like fried
chicken.”

His head whirling, his heart about to race out of him, Matt said he was crazy about fried chicken and followed Leslie, Luke
thumping behind him, into a large kitchen sparkling with sunshine and redolent with the aroma of the chicken sizzling on the
stove. Rachel glanced up from her task of setting the table, the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. “Hello, Rachel,” he
said.

She nodded, color mounting in her cheeks. “Matt.”

In the silence, Leslie glanced from one to the other and said, “Just a thought, but maybe you guys would like to take a walk
before we sit down. The chicken won’t be ready for a while.”

“A good idea,” Rachel said. She removed her apron from over an elegant sleeveless sheath and without a word led Matt out,
Luke giving him the thumbs-up behind her back.

They walked without speaking down a path to a white-fenced paddock, Matt conscious of the smooth length of her brown arm and
the way a couple of tendrils of her hair, swept on top of her head, curled alluringly at her neckline. He guessed she and
Leslie must have attended church services earlier, and he wondered how anybody sitting a pew behind her had been able to concentrate
on the sermon. At the fence, he set his foot on the bottom rail and draped his arms over the top, his attention on a fine
chestnut stallion munching grass. “I understand you were expecting me,” he said.

“I knew Carrie couldn’t keep a secret.”

“Did you want her to?”

“I was counting on her loose lips.”

He let out a silent breath of relief. “Granddad said your lawyer called Amos with your decision to drop the lawsuit even before
you heard the tape. You never intended to go through with it, did you?”

The chestnut discovered them and whinnied, the greeting obviously for Rachel. She stuck her hand through the railing and twiddled
her fingers, and he sauntered over. “My intent was to convince your grandfather and Amos that I would.”

“Why didn’t you go through with it? You had us, Rachel.”

“Somerset had already caused too much pain. And what would I want with a paper-making plant?”

“To exact vengeance, maybe?”

She shook her head. “Not my style.”

His eyes watered. Was there ever such a woman? “Well, I’m very grateful to you.”

“Is that why you came—to thank me?”

“Among other reasons.” They were talking side to side, like men do when they are discussing the weather or other innocuous
subjects.

“Such as?” She stroked the white markings on the stallion’s forehead.

“Well, for starters, Amos sent you something from Mary that she asked him to hold for you on the day she died. She told him
that he’d know the best time to give them to you.”

“Them?”

“Her pearls.”

She stopped her stroking. “Oh,” she said, and out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement of a hard swallow down her
throat and the rapid flutter of her lashes. “I’d say the timing is perfect. What else?”

“I thought you’d like to know Granddad’s plans for Somerset.”

He detected a loss of breath. “Tell me,” she said, placing both hands on the railing. By the time he’d finished explaining,
she’d brought one of them to the neck of her dress. “How… thoughtful and sensitive of him,” she said in a voice of quiet awe.
“I’m so pleased. Aunt Mary would be, too.”

“I also came to ask what
your
plans are,” he said, dropping his arms from the paddock fence, his vocal cords losing a little power. “I suppose you’ll…
stake out another Somerset somewhere and grow cotton and acorn squash.”

They were addressing one another side to side again. “Oh, I’ll stay in some aspect of the agricultural business,” she said,
“but cotton and acorn squash have lost their savor for me.”

“You’ll grow other crops, you mean.”

“No. I mean I have no desire to farm anymore—not on anybody else’s land.”

“Buy your own.”

“It wouldn’t be the same thing.”

He took his arms from the fence and turned to face her. “I don’t understand, Rachel. I thought farming was your passion, your
calling in life—all you ever wanted to do. Do you mean to give it up?”

The horse whinnied, annoyed at being ignored, and she gave him her hand to nuzzle. “Did you ever hear of a baseball player
named Billy Seton?” she asked.

Matt nodded, puzzled. “He played first base for the New York Yankees in the early seventies.”

She gave the stallion a final pat and walked over to a hydrant to rinse her hands. “He was from my hometown. When they traded
him, he left the game. He’s coaching it now. He discovered that his passion for playing baseball and his dream of playing
for the New York Yankees were one and the same—inextricably interwoven—and when one part was missing, the other didn’t work.
Once the Yankees let him go, he had no desire to play for another team. Now do you understand?”

He did—completely. The blood rushed to his ears. He whipped out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “In other words, farming
any land but a Toliver’s gives you no cause to be a farmer at all.”

“I couldn’t have stated it better myself.”

He watched her dry her hands, resisting the desire to take her face between his hands and kiss her eyes, her mouth, her throat,
to draw her deep into himself and hold her there forevermore. The horse had followed them and tossed his head over the fence.
What are you waiting for, boy?

“Well, in that case,” he said, forcing his voice steady, “you might be interested in my proposition.”

She handed him his handkerchief. “Try me.”

“I’m looking for a partner to help me run a stretch of land along the Sabine. You might say it’s Toliver land. I believe you
once said you had a vested interest in it, as a matter of fact.”

“I know nothing about growing trees.”

“Well, actually, it’s not much different from cultivating acorn squash or cotton plants. You put a little seedling into the
ground and watch it grow.”

Her eyes were growing moist. She reached again for his handkerchief. “I suppose that’s not too far afield from what I’m accustomed
to. May I have some time to think about it?”

He looked at his watch. “Sure. That chicken’s not ready yet.”

She smiled. “Aren’t you taking a chance on me as a partner?”

“Not at all,” he said, drawing her into his arms, where she belonged.

“Why not?” she asked, lifting her face.

“Don’t you remember? I always bet on what I believe is a sure thing.”