“I guess so.” Her approval gave him a kick of triumph, the pride of being a kid with his first gold star—hell, his first trophy! When was the last time he made someone feel good about herself, paid attention long enough to want to make someone feel good?
But her expression suggested sadness, and failure swamped him.
“We used to be closer.” Tilly paused to chew a fingernail, and James suppressed his revulsion. “Truth is, I’ve distanced myself. Widowhood’s streamlined me. What you see today is the leaner, meaner Tilly.”
Shit, he didn’t see that one coming. “I assumed you were divorced.”
“I wish. God, no, I didn’t mean that. You’re not…are you?”
“No. Never married.” Thankfully, one mistake he hadn’t made. But Tilly, a widow? Had he become so self-absorbed that he no longer recognized the emotion he understood better than any other: grief?
“How long?” He tried to make eye contact, but she was focused on another fingernail. She wasn’t going to chew that one, too, was she? Couldn’t she see the speck of dirt down by her cuticle? Anxiety curdled inside him, waiting to contaminate his thoughts. James shifted and silently counted six cows in the field opposite.
“Three years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. The bottom may have fallen out of my world, but I have two passions, motherhood and gardening, and I get to indulge in both.” Her voice was overly bright. “Hey, who needs Prozac when you can get down and dirty in the soil?”
God Almighty, how could she say that? James shot up and jabbed his hands into his hair. The chain that anchored his rocker to all the other rocking chairs clanked, and Tilly stared at him. He should try and explain, but he couldn’t. His mouth was dry, and words wouldn’t form. All he could hear was his father’s voice, slurred with Jack Daniel’s and his Irish heritage: You fucking eejit, James. This, this was why he stayed away from women, why he’d expelled desire from his life. It was too hard, too fucking hard.
Isaac waved and James tried to walk toward him in a straight line, but the impulse was too strong. He had to step on every other dandelion, otherwise he’d die, die from the cancer breeding in the soil. Tilly was watching; he could feel her eyes on him. Don’t do it, she’ll think you’re crazy. But he could smell disease and death waiting in the soil, ready to pounce. Fuck, he must look like a kid zigzagging through a game of don’t-step-on-the-cracks.
The panic eased, shifted like a rusted-up gear moving again. James’s pulse slowed to its normal beat, but nothing mattered beyond his failure. Once again, he had succumbed to the compulsion. And what of Tilly? He glanced over his shoulder. Was she embarrassed, shocked, or scared to be out in public with a freak?
* * *
Did she miss something? One minute they were talking, the next James shot up and began weaving toward the hitching post in the most bizarre manner, like a child playing a game of don’t-step-on-the-cracks. But that wasn’t nearly as weird as him glancing at her and then turning away before she had time to respond. Embarrassed. He was embarrassed, which made her want to run after him, arms wide-open for a big hug. And that might be a little kooky for both of them, so best not. It was sad, however, that he had such a low opinion of her. She may be strung out on her own needs, but the day she became judgmental, someone should bonk her on the head.
What had he said on the phone about “one of my more annoying habits”? Was this goofy walk another one? Some kind of tic, like his twitching hands? Maybe he had a muscular problem. Okay, so now she was flat-out intrigued.
Tilly pushed up from the rocking chair and followed James quietly.
“Hey, James.” Isaac rushed toward him. “Why’re you walking funny?”
Excellent question, Angel Bug. Wouldn’t mind hearing the answer myself. Tilly stopped and made a big deal out of scratching a no-see-um bite.
“It’s a habit I have, one I can’t stop,” James said. “Does that make sense?”
Bingo.
“Sure. My best friend says that when he gets into trouble at school.”
“What habits does your friend have?”
“He jumps up and down. It helps with his sensory integration. If he bounces out his wiggles—” Isaac demonstrated, and Tilly smiled “—he feels less buzzy. Do you feel less buzzy when you walk funny?”
“For a moment. Then I feel worse. More buzzy.”
Fascinating. Buzzy sounded more mental than muscular. So James had some psychological thingy, like sensory integration, that caused him to act a little doolally? Sweat trickled down her armpits, but she didn’t dare move.
“If it makes you feel worse, why do it?” Isaac said to James.
The answer slammed into her: he doesn’t have a choice. Man, she knew how that felt, to be stuck going through the motions, trapped in a life you were never supposed to live. Behaving as a widow, when every instinct screamed that you were still a wife.
James took two folded tissues from his pocket, arranged one and then the other over his hand and bent down to pick something. “I do it because I have to step on every other dandelion.”
“Why?”
“My brain tells me I have to.” James handed Isaac the flower.
“Can’t you tell your brain you don’t want to?” Isaac chewed on the inside of his cheek, the same way he did when working through an advanced math problem.
James tossed back his hair, twice, and laughed. Some women would likely find him attractive. Rowena would label him a sexy beast. The stunning eyes helped, the kilowatt grin, that deep, warm laugh. But it was also the way he spoke—carefully, as if he’d given life a great deal of thought. Or maybe, like Tilly, he’d seen too much of it.
“Do you ever get hiccups?” James asked Isaac.
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Allllll the time. Especially after eating little carrots. Yum.”
“Yum indeed. Little carrots are my favorite snack. Fortunately they don’t give me hiccups, which is good, because I get terrible hiccups. But mine are silent. No one can hear them except me.” James paused, and Isaac nodded. James still hadn’t hinted that he was aware of Tilly, but she sensed he was talking to her, too. “You see, I have a hiccup in my brain. My brain hiccups out the same thought, again and again. Let’s say you get this idea, to step on a dandelion. You do it and then skip off to the hay bale. The original thought, to step on the dandelion, has gone. But if I have the same idea, my brain repeats the message—step on the dandelion, step on the dandelion,” James said in a booming, theatrical voice, and Isaac giggled. “There’s a technical name for my hiccups, but the easiest explanation is that my thoughts get stuck.”
My thoughts get stuck. Tilly nodded slowly. A phrase that makes sense.
“You mean like getting stuck on the idea of my mom doing your garden?”
“Exactly.”
Isaac sucked in his breath. “How do you get unstuck?”
Good question. Do I have an out clause if I end up working for this chap? Of course, going to England the next day made that whole scenario pretty unlikely. James seemed to be on a mission to start pronto and she couldn’t commit to anything before the school year started.
“How do you get rid of your hiccups?” James asked.
“My mom drops an ice cube down my back.” Isaac gave an exaggerated shiver. “Yuck.”
“Well, if your mother can help me create a garden—” James tugged off his sunglasses and gazed at Tilly “—that will be my ice cube.”
“Cool,” Isaac