“Meredith was thirty-one. We were planning to have kids,” he said, more to himself than to her. “She was an investment broker and wanted to build a clientele so she could work from home and be able to stay with the babies.”
An investment broker. And Caroline had never finished high school.
“You sure don’t expect to lose a spouse in your early thirties.” The words sounded inane to her, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“Here we go, folks. Sorry this took so long.” The young man who’d taken their order appeared at their booth, carrying two plates of salmon and steamed vegetables. Caroline sat back, napkin on her lap as he placed the food before her. Other than that night in Frankfort, she’d never eaten anywhere fancier than the diner in Grainville. And was scared to death that she’d forget some of the rules of etiquette she’d learned on the Internet so she could educate her son. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for practice with proper forks and bread plates on a farm like hers. She and Randy had never even owned a set of matching silverware.
She was, however, thankful to have had the interruption before John could ask the next obvious question—about her and Randy’s plans for a family. She had a feeling John assumed she had no family, since she’d told him, in December, that she lived alone.
And to have a child old enough to leave home, she’d’ve had to be pregnant at sixteen.
John was quiet while he ate, other than to inquire politely about the suitability of her food. And to make sure she had everything she needed. Caroline felt relieved; not only was she spared the worry of where conversation might lead, but the food was so much more luxurious than anything she’d ever tasted before that she was completely engrossed in enjoying it.
She looked longingly at the desert menu as it was presented, but declined. She was stuffed.
“Shall we go?” He laid a couple of twenties on the table and stood, then gestured for her to pass in front of him. And suddenly, Caroline wanted to stay. At least in the restaurant there were other people around, the possibility of interruption.
BACK IN THE CAR she waited for him to say whatever he’d taken her to dinner to say. Obviously something about the baby. And she steeled herself to listen with an open mind. The child growing in her body was half his. It was a point she couldn’t argue.
“This is a lovely car,” she ventured when it appeared that they might be making the hour-long trip back to Shelter Valley in complete silence.
“Thanks.”
“What kind is it?”
“A Cadillac.”
That would explain why she’d never been in anything like it. The plush leather seats were contoured and adjustable in a variety of ways. And she didn’t even try to decipher what all the buttons and lights and controls on the dash were for. But if she wasn’t mistaken, that screen above the radio was one of those computerized map things she’d read about on a pop-up on the Internet last winter.
If she wasn’t so afraid of looking like a fool, she might’ve asked him about it.
He kept up his end of the conversation after that, mostly telling her about life in Arizona. He talked about the summer heat. And the wildlife. Scorpions and black widow spiders. She didn’t need to be afraid of scorpions, he said. While they were ugly, only the really small kind was lethal enough to make you sick—and then, only if you were already vulnerable. With all the others, their sting hurt and could cause temporary numbness in the affected limb, but there was no lasting damage.
“Don’t worry,” she assured him, with a slight smile in the darkness. “You can’t live on a farm and be afraid of spiders. I learned to use a fly swatter long before I learned to read and write.”
He grinned over at her, then quickly returned his attention to the highway. “I’ll bet you’re pretty good with a rifle, too, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm.” When she had to be.
“I’ve never fired one.”
As far as she knew, he was the first man she’d ever met who’d never fired a gun.
“We had a bear on our property once,” she told him, more to direct the conversation away from things he might bring up than because she really wanted to share her past with him. She never knew if what she said would make her seem too strange to someone like him.
“Randy was in town getting seed and the bear came right up to the barn. I saw him out there getting close to my henhouse and I didn’t even think.” Without egg money she’d have had no groceries. “I just grabbed the gun and marched outside—as if that black bear was going to see me as some kind of threat and head back the way he’d come.”
She’d been young then. And still sure that life had happily-ever-after in store for her.
“What did you do?” His eyes were wide, revealed by the light from the dash as he stole another glance.
“When I realized he wasn’t nearly as impressed by me as I’d expected him to be, I did the only thing I could do, cocked the gun and brought it to my shoulder.”
“You shot a bear?”
For a second there, hearing the incredulity in his voice, she wished she had.
“No, I aimed for the ground by his feet. And then on either side of him.”
“You scared him off.”
Well, yes, but… “It was stupid, really. He could just as easily have gotten angry and attacked.”
John shook his head, grinning, one hand on the wheel and the other resting casually over the armrest next to him. “Is there anything you’re afraid of, woman?” Somehow the admiration hadn’t disappeared from his tone.
Which was why she just shrugged and looked out into the night. She couldn’t bear to tell him that right now—with him, in Shelter Valley, at Montford—there was very little that didn’t scare her.
“HERE’S THE THING,” John said when he pulled up in front of her house.
Hand on the door handle, thankful that she’d made it through the evening without whatever horrible conversation she imagined he wanted, Caroline turned, every muscle tense and waiting.
“I loved my wife.”
She nodded. That much was obvious.
“Too much, probably.”
She turned away from the door handle, facing the car’s interior. “How can you love someone too much?”
He’d shut off the engine, leaving them in darkness except for the light coming from the streetlamp half a block away and the dim glow from the front window of Mrs. Howard’s house.
“I can’t love anyone else.”
Ironically, with those words, Caroline relaxed. “You’re trying to warn me not to get any crazy ideas.”
His head cocked slightly to the side, John shrugged. “It wasn’t so much a warning as an explanation. I don’t want you to think it’s you….”
“John.” She almost laid her hand on his arm, and restrained herself just in time. Grainville familiarities might not be recognized here. “You have nothing to worry about from me. I meant it when I said I wanted nothing from you. Nothing. I married once, for a lifetime. And found out that fate had other ideas in mind. There was nothing I could do—it was out of my hands. I can’t go through that again.”
“You warning me off?” he asked, with a wry grin.
“Just explaining.”
Leaning back against the corner of the door, he was quiet for a moment. “I’m not afraid of the commitment,” he said. “Not afraid of loving again. I just can’t get beyond her.”
“Have