Chapter One
Haley
If Satan wore a housecoat and a bad perm from the eighties, then he’d look exactly like my mother-in-law. As soon as I think the unkind thought, I immediately feel a stab of guilt.
Just a few months ago, we buried Ben together. He was her son and my husband. Granted, he was a terrible husband and a lousy father. But none of that matters in the eyes of Edna or the whole of Courage County. Everyone just sees the war hero who died trying to save a young girl from drowning in a flash flood.
“All I’m saying is that I’d never let another man touch my gutters, even if my Todd were gone,” Edna continues her rant as I pull into the driveway next to my tiny farmhouse. She’s spent the past hour-long drive bitching at me.
Not for the first time, I want to tell this woman to butt out of my business. But one glance at Levi, the sleeping thirteen-month-old in the backseat has me clamping my lips together. My son has already lost so much. I’m not about to rip his grandmother away from him, no matter how unkind to me she might be.
I gather the little bundle in my arms as Edna changes her tirade to talk about how hard she worked raising her son. She tells me about how she managed to care for her new baby while being the secretary for the local church and keeping a hot meal on the table for her husband every evening.
Ben was a late-in-life baby. His parents are now in their mid-seventies and Edna definitely acts every bit her age.
I juggle Levi, the diaper bag, and my purse. Then I gaze up the tall ladder where my late husband’s best friend, Dean Taylor is cleaning out my gutters.
According to Edna, this should be my task. Never mind the fact that I’m seven months pregnant with Ben’s second child. A beautiful son that I haven’t even picked a name for yet.
I shade my eyes, ignoring Edna’s continued critiquing of the many ways that I’m failing at motherhood and life in general.
“Thank you, Dean,” I call out the words softly.
He must have already been here for a couple of hours because the lawn is mowed and neatly edged. He comes by every two weeks and does little things around the farm for me.
I know it’s guilt that he wasn’t with Ben, wasn’t there to save him. I’ve told him a million times he doesn’t have to do these things for me. Each time, he shrugs and continues doing them anyway. At this point, I just say thank you and accept his help. It’s not as if I don’t need it.
Dean pauses in his work to glance at me. His brown gaze rakes over me, filling me with warmth. Something about the way he looks at me always makes me feel transparent, like there’s nothing I can hide from him. Then he gives me the briefest of nods before he goes back to his task.
I should go around the back and check on the chickens. But something tells me that given the darkening sky, Dean has already shut them safely up in their coop and taken the time to put my Shetland pony in the tiny lean-to that I call a barn.
So instead, I go inside my hundred-year-old farmhouse that’s in desperate need of a few basic repairs. Kicking my shoes off, I pad barefoot into my kitchen. The worn hardwood is cold and soothing against my swollen, aching feet.
I’m lucky that as a bank teller, my job doesn’t require too much physical activity. Still, being on my feet for eight hours a day does take its toll.
“I would never talk that way to a man that wasn’t my husband,” Edna chastises as she follows me.
Frowning, I put my sleepy little boy in his playpen in the kitchen. It’s getting harder to bend over with this pregnancy.
“I didn’t realize that thanking Dean is the equivalent to propositioning him. Bless you for correcting the error of my ways.” I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice as I straighten to my full height, ignoring the familiar muscle twinge in my lower back.
“You mind as well have. What’s the town going to think about Dean always being over here? I’ll tell you what they’ll think. They’ll think there’s some…” She lowers her voice, “hanky-panky going on.”
The summer breeze stirs the kitchen curtains and reminds me that the window is open. Dean can probably hear every word of our conversation.
Marching over to it, I lean out to yell, “Dean, do you want to have sex with me on my kitchen table?”
“I’ll be right in,” he yells back without missing a beat. This is what I’ve always loved about him. We share the same sense of humor. It used to drive Ben nuts. I suspect Edna had his sense of humor surgically removed when he was about five.
I turn to Edna who’s gaping at me and her look fills me with a sense of satisfaction. Now that was a proposition.
I put my hands on my thick hips that have gotten even wider since starting the third trimester. “Dean isn’t interested in me that way and even if he were, I have a son to raise and another one on the way. So, that’s what you can tell anyone you hear talking around town.”
Edna makes an outraged noise as she takes a seat at my kitchen table. The one with a wobbly leg that Ben always insisted he’d get around to fixing. There were so many things I wanted him to fix, not the least of which were his man-whoring ways. It’s why I sent him divorce papers three weeks before the flash flood. I’m guessing that since Edna and Dean still talk to me, he hadn’t told anyone yet.
Levi wakes from his nap and his little baby antics keep Edna entertained for most of the meal. I’m grateful for the reprieve from the constant barbs.
But as soon as the food is gone, she’s right back to her usual charming self as she critiques my parenting decisions, my culinary skills, and even the choice of the blouse I’m wearing today.
I’m pretty sure that God’s gift to daughters-in-law everywhere is wine. Too bad I’m pregnant and can’t imbibe.
Finally, there’s a knock on the door, and I call for Dean to come in. He’s probably looking for the garden shears to trim my rose bushes. He takes such gentle care of them that I can’t help but wonder if he’s that gentle in other areas. Namely, the bedroom.
I lick my suddenly dry lips as soon as Dean is in the kitchen. “I think the shears are in the laundry room.”
He pulls off his Stetson, plopping it on the empty shelf of my antique hutch. “I’ll get to the roses tomorrow. There’s a gully washer forecasted for tonight and I thought I might drive Mrs. Edna home before that creek overflows and becomes impassable.” He pauses and tips his head toward her. “If that’s alright, ma’am.”
Edna’s face splits into a delighted smile. It’s a look that in the three years of being her daughter-in-law she’s never once sent me. “That would be lovely, Mr. Taylor.”
While her back is turned and she’s gathering things, I mouth the word “thanks” to Dean who just gives me a nod.
I met Dean when I was an eighteen-year-old girl waitressing at a little bar in New Jersey. He came into that place every night for two weeks and spent hours ordering drinks that he didn’t touch. In between patrons, we’d talk and laugh.
I’d been certain that he would ask me out. But I finally gave up on the idea right around the time that Ben tagged along with Dean one night.
Ben was charming and flirty. He asked me out in front of Dean, and I waited for him to object. When he didn’t, I accepted the date.
It wasn’t long after that I fell in love with Ben. I was an eighteen-year-old who’d spent her life ignored by her rich parents. The thought of having someone who wanted me and showered me with attention was intoxicating.
When Dean leaves with Edna, I breathe a sigh of relief. There’s only one thing I want to do to relieve my stress on nights like tonight: bake.
After giving Levi a bath and reading him a bedtime story, I lay him down in his crib. He’s sleepy but not asleep.
I couldn’t have asked for a better little baby. He’s quiet and content most of the time, almost as if he knows I struggle to put one foot in front of the other each day.
I take the baby monitor with me in the kitchen and listen to his soft babble as I gather the ingredients for no-bake cookies. I’d rather bake gooey chocolate chip ones but since bending is difficult, I decide to skip the oven. At least, for tonight.
By the time Levi is quiet and the cookies are stowed in the fridge, thunder has begun to rumble. Lightning streaks across the sky and I move to close the open kitchen window.
A weather alert plays from the country station, informing me that a line of severe thunderstorms is headed directly toward Courage County.
There’s a knock on my door and I hurry to it, finding Dean on my front porch. His blue gaze locks with mine and something electric dances in the air between us. Something that has nothing to do with the storm raging outside.
He clears his throat. “I left my hat.”
Of course he did. He’s not here to see me again. So, why am I feeling a wave of disappointment?
I step back and gesture for him to follow me into the house. Inside the kitchen, I rinse the dishes I just used. “I still have a plate of leftovers if you’re interested. You have time. The creek shouldn’t flood for a while yet.”
“Actually, I’m just here to take you up on the kitchen table offer,” Dean says.