A Place to Call Home (Harlequin Heartwarming) (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Y
OU
’
RE
UP
to something.”

Uncle Jake’s statement stopped Brandon in his tracks as he was coming out of his uncle’s toolshed. He looked down at the stakes and twine he held. His guilt made them feel poker-hot in his hands.

“No. I’m just helping out a neighbor,” Brandon said.

Uncle Jake narrowed his eyes and, with the hand not holding a bucket, shifted his cap. It was a move Brandon knew well, a gesture that signaled Uncle Jake’s keen mind was in full gear, calculating angles and motives. When Brandon had been in high school, that cap-shifting move meant Brandon was about to get busted, whether it was for sneaking out to join his buddies at the river or for a less-than-stellar grade he hadn’t told his mother about.

This time was no exception. “Hmm. That there is my surveying twine and my line level. And my stakes. Looks like you’re all set to help someone stake out a foundation.”

“A cement slab for a pole barn, actually.”

Uncle Jake got that “ah-ha” glint in his eyes. “Penelope Langston’s barn? You gonna help her with that after all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind if I ask why you’re all het up to help her? A mighty quick change of heart, just saying.”

“I could say that’s how you and Mama raised me.” Brandon fidgeted with the spool of twine in hope that his hedged words would distract his uncle.

It didn’t happen.

“Right. You all of a sudden remembering your raisings, and all that. Way I see it, it’s got to be one of two things.” Uncle Jake set the bucket by his feet and propped himself against a nearby fence post. “Either she’s prettier than you’ve let on, or else you’re making some other kind of move on her. ’Cause the Brandon I know doesn’t forgive and forget and build pole barns.”

“I guess I should have asked, Uncle Jake, if you minded me helping her, but you should know, it’s not—”

“Mind? Son, that land is gone. It’s not ours anymore. Not one smidge of it. I knew that the day I realized I couldn’t find that paid receipt for my taxes. My mistake. My carelessness played right into Murphy’s and Melton’s hands. They tried it on a bunch of us, and the ones who’d kept their receipts—well, they’ve still got their land, now don’t they?”

“But Uncle Jake, if it hadn’t have been for Murphy, you would—”

“Uh-huh, you are up to some scheming. I didn’t think you had gotten rid of all that vinegar you were spewing.”

Brandon shifted his hold on the twine, stakes and the level. He looked down at them and leaned the stakes against the shed. What would he accomplish by helping Penelope? “I started thinking. She’s got money troubles. She won’t be able to hold on to the land that much longer, and we’ll be able to buy it. Plus, Becca MacIntosh is still working on proving the original sale wasn’t legal, so it may revert back to you without a penny being swapped. And, worse comes to worst, there’s the possibility of that adverse possession Sean was talking about. One way or another, we’ll get it back, Uncle Jake. Why shouldn’t I go ahead and start improving the land? We can always use another barn.”

Uncle Jake’s face creased in a frown. “Brandon, that most certainly is
not
the way your mama and I raised you. Your mama would be spinning in her grave like a chicken on a spit if she could hear you. You know how bad it hurt me to lose that land.”

“Which is why I’m trying to get it back.”

“And there’s that girl, ain’t hurt so much as a fly, and you’re scheming to cheat her out of the land same as Murphy cheated me out of it. I tell you, that land is cursed, Brandon. You’d do well to leave it alone.” Uncle Jake shook his head and looked off into the distance.

After a moment of silence that Brandon couldn’t figure out how to fill, his uncle snatched up the bucket and brushed past him. “I expect, though, as hardheaded as you are, you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when this comes back to bite you.”

* * *

A
T
THE
SOUND
of a vehicle coming along the driveway, Penelope looked up from the hole she was digging with her handheld spade to see a familiar dust-covered truck and knew Brandon was at the wheel. She tensed. What could he want now?

She rose to her feet. If he was here to malign her grandfather, he could hit the road.

Brandon had just slid one booted foot out of his truck door and onto her driveway when she rounded the front of his truck.

“Back to insult my family some more? Or are you still insisting I should give this land to you?”

He paused, one hand on the open window. Then he reached behind him and pulled out a bundle of stakes and a ball of twine.

“Oh, that’s rich,” she said, recognizing the items for what they were. “You’re already acting like it’s your land!”

“Whoa.” Brandon eased around the truck door and slammed it shut. “Can’t you even give a guy a chance to apologize?”

“Apologize?” Penelope didn’t bother to keep her suspicion out of her voice.

“Yeah. Okay, so I got a little hot under the collar. I’m not usually like that. It’s just this land.” Brandon clamped his mouth shut. He started again. “Anyway, it’s like Uncle Jake pointed out a few minutes ago. It’s his fault, ultimately. He was the one who couldn’t produce the receipt that proved he’d paid the taxes. My uncle’s never been much for paperwork, and this time it cost him. So about how I acted—to, er, make it up to you, I thought I’d help you out with your barn.”

“You what?” Her hold on the spade loosened and she dropped it.

“The pole barn. The one that you asked me to help you with?”

To cover her confusion, she knelt to retrieve the spade. “Why?” Penelope asked.

“Like I said. I want to make it up to you. The way I reacted.”

She straightened, realizing how tall he was when she only came to mid-chest. It was a very broad, very well built chest, which stretched the cotton knit T-shirt tight. “Look, it was stupid and more than a little insensitive of me to ask you for help. I appreciate the gesture, but I’ll figure something out.”

“What are you doing over there? Planting flowers? It’s late in the year for flowers. I know it’s still hot now, but fall’s first hard frost won’t be too much longer.”

She followed his gaze to her garden plot. “No. Winter vegetables. I’m going to build a cold frame to go over them.”

“Not much of a garden if you’re doing it with that thing.” Brandon glanced dismissively at the spade in her hand. “Why don’t you let me bring my uncle’s tractor over here and I’ll break you up a proper garden spot, one big enough to do you some good?”

“This is enough for me. It’s called square-foot gardening.”

“Humph. This I’ve got to see.” Brandon took long strides over to the plot, with its grids laid out in string. “Two winter squash plants? That bit of spinach? You must have the appetite of a bird.”

“No, see, you use the space over and over. Once a square has produced all it will, you pull that plant up and plant something else.”

“I still think you’d be better off with a bigger garden.”

“This is actually a much better, more intensive use of the land. It’s kinder to the environment, doesn’t require as much fertilizer. And you do it all organically.”

“Right.” The corners of Brandon’s mouth twitched. “Well, if you change your mind, we’ve got enough time to break you a bigger spot for, say, turnip or mustard greens.”

“Turnips. Those are the things with the purple roots? Or am I thinking of rutabagas?”

“No, you’re right, turnips are purple. But you eat the tops, too.”

“Oh. Like spinach?”

“Yeah, only cooked. Turnips are too peppery to eat raw in a salad.”

Standing here with him, talking about gardens and vegetables, she’d found herself getting lost in his easy, open grin and pulled herself up short. Her grandfather’s warning rang in her ears.

What if he was here to buy the land? She’d agreed to it, but now Grandpa Murphy had asked her to at least talk to these solid-waste guys. Truth be told, she’d rather sell to Brandon, if he wouldn’t put ludicrous strings on the way she spent her money.

“Here I am. Ready to help you get the barn site prepped for a concrete slab. Or if you’re really tight on funds, you can keep a dirt floor in it for the time being, have the concrete poured later.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just tell me where you want the barn. I’ll lay it out and then I’ll get the FFA members to help me put it up.”

“FFA members?”

“Uh, Future Farmers of America? Well, that’s what they used to be called, but now I don’t think the initials really stand for anything. Anyway, it’s a high school agricultural class and a club, and they get extra credit for projects like this. I’m one of the community advisors, so I can get the ag teacher to lend us some young strong backs.”

Penelope shook her head. “What’s in it for you?”

Brandon reacted as though he’d been slapped. “Nothing.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you, but you have to admit it’s perplexing. One day you’re here, saying you’ll do anything to see my grandfather in jail and that this land is really yours, and the next day you’re here offering to help me build a barn?”

“Your
grandfather,
” Brandon said between gritted teeth, “is a thief and an extortionist and his ethics leave a lot to be desired. If you want my help, you’d best not remind me why I don’t have this land to begin with.”

“Fine. Surely there are other people around here who know how to build a pole barn. And maybe my being Richard Murphy’s granddaughter won’t matter so much to them.” Penelope folded her arms across her chest.

She could admit to herself—but only to herself—that she was being childish. But Brandon’s high-handedness irritated her.

He shrugged but his eyes belied his indifference. “Suits me. But I wouldn’t bank on finding anybody in this town who feels warm and fuzzy toward anyone related to Richard Murphy. He stepped on a lot of people on his way up, and he can take a lot of his buddies with him on his way down. Plus, I’m the one who can help you get that cheap labor you were after. But it’s up to you. If I were really as bad as you’re thinking, I wouldn’t lift a finger. I’d just wait for the foreclosure sale. Or for you to get even more desperate.”

Her anger melted away. She
was
being childish. He’d offered to help, and she was only reminding him of all the reasons he’d be better off not helping her.

“I’m sorry. You’re not catching me at my best today. Can we start over?” She stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m your new neighbor, Penelope Langston, and I’d like to invite you to a barn raising. That’s right, isn’t it? A barn raising?”

Brandon’s tense expression dissolved into amusement and he clasped her hand in his. “I guess. We don’t worry too much around here about how we say things.”

He didn’t let go of her hand, just held it snugly in his and gave it a squeeze. When he did release her fingers, she missed the comfort that squeeze had given her.

“Did you mean what you said the other day? That I could use the land and the irrigation pond?” Brandon asked.

For a moment, suspicion niggled at her. But she had offered and, even if her grandfather would explode—it was juvenile to say no. The man was offering to help her with her studio, which in turn would help her generate revenue.

“Of course. I’m not using it. I’ll certainly rent it to you. I do, however, object to things like tobacco being planted on it.”

Brandon threw his head back in a belly laugh. “You’d negotiate a stickup guy out of his gun, wouldn’t you? You just don’t give up. Relax. I don’t grow tobacco or any other thing you could find objectionable. It’s not even the right time of year for that. You don’t know beans about farming, do you?”

“A country girl I’m not. It would, um, be pushing it to insist you use organic principles?”

“Yeah. It would. But if you can figure out a way to make that pay, I’m all for it.”

Penelope bit back her speech about pay it now or pay it later and committed herself to finding information on the evils of pesticides and chemical fertilizers so she could educate him instead. “Okay, then. What’s next?”

“What’s next is we pick out a spot for your barn. I talk to the FFA instructor for you, and I figure out a list of materials we’ll need to build this. And then you really get to see a barn raising.”

“Oh, I’ll help. I’m stronger than I look,” Penelope said.

Brandon nodded. “I remember that tae-kwon-whatever-it-was on the highway. You nearly had me on the ground. You bet you’ll invest sweat equity in this project. You’ll discover muscles you never knew you had.”

Her eyes fell on his biceps, bunched up under the cotton of his T-shirt. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to see him break a sweat himself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

B
RANDON
STOOD
by the tarp-covered stack of materials for Penelope’s pole barn and wished he didn’t feel so conflicted.

If he played his cards right, he could give this land back to Uncle Jake tied up in a bow. For now, with the rental agreement he’d worked out with Penelope, he and Uncle Jake had the right to treat the land like it was theirs again.

So why did he feel as though he was a conniving jerk?

It
was
his land—well, Uncle Jake’s. And Murphy had stolen it. He’d most likely roped Penelope into buying it, and while Brandon hated that Penelope would be a loser in all this, she
would,
ultimately, lose.

Brandon wasn’t cheating Penelope out of anything, because the land hadn’t ever been Murphy’s to sell. If she hadn’t come to Georgia with her high-priced lawyers bidding up the auction price, that land would have been back in the Wilkes’s hands.

But no, she had. And because of that... Brandon looked out over the property and saw the ugly, hateful fence running through the middle of it, like a surgeon’s scar. It didn’t need to be there. It shouldn’t have ever been put there. And if Brandon had anything to do with it, it was coming down.

The ends justified the means, right? And that’s why he was here doing something supremely stupid, putting something fairly permanent on land designed for growing things. A barn? On prime cropland? And for a sculpture she didn’t even have a buyer for?

The day of the barn raising had dawned crisp and clear, blue skies dotted with the white clouds only early October in Georgia could give you. No more aluminum-gray skies obscured with haze from the summer heat. Autumn in Georgia—if you could call eighty degrees fall weather—had arrived.

So had Penelope. She bounced from the house toward the barn site, looking more like the girl he’d first met than the suspicious specimen he’d recently been tangling with.

“Where are they? I thought they’d be here by now!”

“Relax,” he told her. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

“You really think we can get this done today?”

“The big part of it, hopefully. I’ll have to come back with some friends of mine and put the roof on. It’s too much of a liability to put schoolkids up that high.”

Before she could ask the next question he knew was coming, a beat-up truck, more body filler and primer than paint on its fenders, pulled up beside Brandon’s. His heart sank.

“Aw, no. What’s Uncle Jake doing here?”

“Your uncle?”

“Yeah. Hold on. I hope those hogs of his aren’t out again.”

Uncle Jake’s easy steps out of the truck and around to the back of it signaled no urgency, though. He reached over and fished for something. Brandon couldn’t tell what it was.

“Uncle Jake?” Brandon called. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t find my hammer, blast it. No, wait, there she is.” Uncle Jake stuck the hammer in his belt loop with a satisfied pat. “A man can’t show up at a barn raising without his best hammer.”

“You’re here to help?”

“You betcha. I told Geraldine she was in charge of the hogs and not to be lettin’ ’em pull any Houdini tricks until I could get back. Fat lot of good that’ll do.”

He looked past Brandon, raised a hand in a wave and started walking toward Penelope. “How-do. Jake Wilkes. I’m this ’un’s uncle, practically raised him, so if he gets fresh with you, you tell me about it. I’ll put a kink in his tail, for sure.”

Another truck pulled up, this one in better shape. Out clambered Ryan MacIntosh, along with Becca and Mee-Maw. Before they could even shout a hello, Brandon saw more trucks making the turn into the driveway.

He felt his small amount of control of the day slipping away. “Uncle Jake, you didn’t...”

“Oh, I told a few people. Neighborly thing to do, wasn’t it? Since you are being so neighborly.” Uncle Jake raised his eyebrows, daring Brandon to challenge him. “Besides, we haven’t had a proper barn raisin’ since I was...hmm—” he winked at Penelope “—still young enough to cut the muster.”

Brandon tried to squelch the groan working its way out of him. No telling what Uncle Jake had told everyone to get them to pitch in. He’d probably said that Brandon had a new girlfriend who was in dire need of rescuing. This many people, along with a full crew of FFA students, would be a circus.

And that was the least of his objections. This was his plan, but he didn’t feel right about dragging his uncle into it. Or anybody else, for that matter.

Penelope, however, showed nothing short of delight. She clapped her hands and shouted, “Wait! I’ve got to get my camera! I want to get a picture of this for my website!”

He rolled his eyes. Just the sort of thing he should have expected.

But Uncle Jake nodded approvingly and shooed her on toward the house. “Yes sirree, gotta save this day for posterity. One day your grandkids’ll be looking at it and you can say, ‘This is where it all started.’”

In the hubbub of greetings, Brandon whispered to his uncle, “What are you up to?”

“Up to?” Uncle Jake inspected the head of his hammer. “What makes you think I’m up to anything?
Maybe
I’m just here to make sure
you
aren’t up to anything. Don’t sell your soul, Brandon. Nothing’s worth that. If you’re doing this for the wrong reasons, you just pack up and go on home to that dinky apartment of yours.”

Brandon forced himself not to squirm as he looked his uncle in the eye and lied. “You said it yourself, Uncle Jake. It was nobody’s fault but ours that we couldn’t produce that receipt. I’m just being neighborly.”

“Same here, same here.”

“But, are you, um, sure you’re up to it?”

“Course I’m up to it. Fit as a fiddle. That doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, telling me to watch out for my ol’ ticker. What’s those pills he gives me for if they don’t fix me up?”

Becca and Mee-Maw came bearing big covered casserole dishes, with Ryan trailing behind, a mountain of something covered in tinfoil in his hands.

“What is all this?” Brandon asked as he jogged ahead of the women to get the door.

“Thank you kindly, Brandon,” Mee-Maw said as she negotiated the porch steps—new from the look of them, to match the equally new back stoop added on in the week or so since Brandon had agreed to arrange the construction of the pole barn. “Phew, when is it gonna get any cooler?” Mee-Maw asked. “This is just a little something to tide us over, so you menfolk won’t have to stop for dinner.”

“A little something? Mee-Maw, that—”

He was interrupted by Penelope, who’d stepped to the back door with her camera. “Oh! For me? A housewarming?”

“A barn raisin’. This here is some squash I put up this summer, and Becca there has some butter beans. Ryan’s got the ham I baked last night after it cooled off.”

“Come in, come in!” Penelope moved aside to allow the women to pass by her. “Thank you so much! Kitchen’s right in here. Put it in the fridge. Let me get that for you...”

Brandon exchanged a wry look with Ryan. “Did Uncle Jake rope you into this?”

“I think this was something Mee-Maw and Uncle Jake worked out.” Ryan shrugged. “Hey, I just show up where Becca and Mee-Maw tell me. Works out better that way, I’ve found. Besides, no way you’re going to get that barn raised in a day with just kids. And it’s supposed to start raining tomorrow.” He moved across the threshold to be relieved of his tin-foil-covered mountain of ham.

Brandon cast a backward glance off the back porch at the sky and steadily rising sun. If they didn’t get to work, they wouldn’t get anything accomplished.

Ryan must have thought the same thing. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yup. Let’s hit it.”

Brandon loped down the porch steps, Ryan behind him, and headed toward the men knotted around the materials. “I sure appreciate you guys coming out to give us a hand.”

A rumble of tires on gravel and someone’s hiss of disgust made him stop. Brandon turned to see another pickup trundle up the driveway.

It was the last person he wanted to see.

Richard Murphy.

* * *

P
ENELOPE
STOPPED
in the midst of getting-to-know-you conversation with Mrs. MacIntosh—Mee-Maw, she said to call her—and Becca. Voices loud with anger filtered through the bungalow’s walls.

Mee-Maw peered with her through the window over the kitchen sink and compressed her lips. “Murphy,” she muttered.

Penelope took a half step back at the old woman’s vehemence. She recalled what Brandon had warned her about reaction to her grandfather. At the time she’d thought he was exaggerating.

“I’d better get out there and pull Ryan back.” Becca started for the door. “No telling what he’ll do. Doesn’t Murphy have any better sense—”

“No. Let me.” Penelope walked to the door. “I don’t know what you think my grandfather has done to you. But he is my grandfather, and he’s always welcome here.”

Becca started to speak, but Mee-Maw held up a hand. “She’s right, Becca. This is her house, and we have insulted her hospitality. Penelope, I do apologize. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen him...since...” Again her eyes clouded over. “We’ll get Ryan to run us on home.”

“No. Why does it have to be this way?” Penelope protested. “Why is it that the man I know and love can create such a violent reaction? He’s not the monster you think he is.”

Mee-Maw treated her to intense scrutiny. Apparently, by the harrumphing noise she made in her throat, she was satisfied with what she saw. “Can’t help who you’re kin to, I reckon, but you’d best get out there. Brandon and Ryan are looking for all the world like they’re gonna bodily remove him.”

Penelope nodded, sucked in another lungful of air and pushed open the back door.

“...not welcome here! Why don’t you go back to the posse of high-dollar defense lawyers you’ve got working for you and see if you can wiggle out of that federal indictment?” Brandon was saying.

“You and MacIntosh here put such store by family, well, this is my family’s land. I’m welcome any ol’ time I choose to come.”

“Grandpa.”

The crowd of onlookers switched its focus to Penelope.

“Penny-girl. You tell that boy to back off!”

She hated the skewering looks from the men who’d come to help her almost as much as she hated the position her grandfather had put her in.

Penelope wondered how her mother might handle this situation and came up at a loss. Marlene Murphy Langston had always been closemouthed about her Georgia roots and her dad, as though she were somehow ashamed of them.

Right now, with her grandfather and Brandon standing toe-to-toe, insight would have been supremely useful.

She closed her hand over her grandfather’s meaty arm and led him closer to his truck.

“Grandpa, you’re, um, not the most popular guy at the party here, are you?” she said lightly.

“Maybe you’re not hanging around the best quality of people, Penny. I told you to stay away from Brandon Wilkes and Ryan MacIntosh, and you got both of ’em here.”

“They’re helping me build a pole barn.”

“I’m a trifle disappointed in you, Penny-girl. Why are you accepting charity from the likes of them? They’re using you, Penny, using you to get to me.”

“Grandpa Murphy, I can’t build this barn on my own. And they’re helping. You might as well know—I’ve told Brandon he can use the land in exchange for helping me with the barn.”

She steeled herself for an explosion. His expression darkened and his eyes grew cold and hard.

But then her grandfather relaxed. He nodded in a thoughtful way. “You’re just doing what you have to do, hmm?”

Before she could answer, he seemed to have made up his mind. “Well, I’m in the way here. You go ahead, let them help you. If it had been three months ago, I would have had a crew that could have thrown up that pole barn in a day’s time. But I lost all that. I lost all of it because of those two men standing right there.” He jutted his chin toward Brandon and Ryan. “So I guess it’s fitting they help you. Sort of makes up for me not being able to. Just... Penny-girl, don’t forget. You can’t trust him. Don’t get sweet on that big lug of a deputy, you hear?”

He bent and planted a big kiss on her cheek, squeezed her in a hug.

“Well, I’ll be on my way, now, Penny-girl!” he said in a voice that rang out over the open field. “Let me know when they’re all done, and I’ll come back.”

He slammed the truck door shut behind him, started the engine and backed out. In his wake, he left Penelope feeling as though she hadn’t stood up for her grandfather...and Brandon glaring at her with deep suspicion.