At Bluebonnet Lake (Texas Crossroads Book #1): A Novel (19 page)

Instead of pulling out one of the stools, Sally leaned on the counter and watched as Roy moved with brisk efficiency, removing a fancy bowl from the refrigerator, placing what smelled like freshly baked rolls on a small platter, pouring two glasses of sweet tea. “I hope you like the food,” he said as he pulled out Sally’s chair for her.

She did. Though Roy admitted that he’d bought the rolls and
merely heated them, the salad was his own creation. It might be chicken salad, but it was unlike any Sally had ever eaten. In addition to succulent chunks of chicken, the salad boasted tricolor pasta, corn, black beans, and a spicy dressing whose ingredients Sally could not identify.

“This is delicious,” she told Roy after she’d savored several bites. “What’s in the dressing?”

He shook his head as he buttered a roll. “Carmen may give out her recipes, but I’m not that foolish. I want you to have a reason to come back.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “All you have to do is ask.” And there was nothing Sally wanted more than to have him ask. This was just lunch, she reminded herself, and yet it felt like so much more than a simple meal shared by two friends. The gleam in Roy’s eyes made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world, the one he’d been waiting for. What a wonderful feeling!

Sally wondered what her eyes were revealing. She hadn’t thought she was waiting for anyone. If someone had asked, she would have told them that, yes, there were times when she was lonely, but she hadn’t expected the hole in her heart to be filled until she and Larry were reunited in heaven. That’s what she would have said two weeks ago. She would have told anyone who asked that part of the reason she was coming to Rainbow’s End was to relive happy memories. She had had no expectations of creating new ones with a man like Roy. Now . . .

Sally smiled at him, unsure what to say but wanting him to know that she hadn’t been joking earlier when she’d told him he was special. Since she’d met Roy, her life had been different. She was different, she amended. She was happier. For the first time in ten years, she looked forward to each day, and it wasn’t simply because Kate was with her. Kate was part of her happiness, but so was this man.

It was true that Sally had been apprehensive about coming
here today. She had thought it would be awkward, being in another woman’s house. She had expected to feel like a stranger, almost an interloper. Instead, she felt at home.

There was nothing familiar here, no reminders of Larry or her beloved granddaughter. At best, she should feel like a visitor. But though Sally couldn’t explain it, she could picture herself spending the rest of her life in this house with this man.

What would Kate think of that?

K
ate frowned as yet another serve went out of bounds. “I might as well give up. I just seem to be getting worse.” She picked up another ball and tossed it over her head, this time failing to hit it.

“That’s because you’re not concentrating,” Greg said as he walked to the net and handed her the first ball. “Tennis is like any sport. You need to give it your full attention. My guess is you’re thinking about that new account.”

“Partly.” Kate nodded as Greg tipped his head toward the bench, silently suggesting they take a break. There was no question that she’d been distracted by the Aunt Ivy’s account. She had even considered canceling tennis to give herself more time to work, but she hadn’t.

Though at first Kate had rationalized her decision by reminding herself that exercise often triggered creativity, that was only an excuse. The truth was, she wanted to spend time with Greg. It was probably foolish. While she should have been focused on work, her mind had drifted back to the bluebonnet festival and the kiss they had shared.

Kate sank onto the bench and accepted the bottle of water
Greg offered. Though they hadn’t been out long, she was still unaccustomed to the warmth of the Texas sun.

“I got an email from Gillian—she was my best friend in high school—saying she’d just received the invitation to our reunion and wondered if I planned to be there. They’re planning a formal dinner-dance exactly ten years after our graduation day.” Kate wasn’t certain why she was giving Greg all those details. He didn’t need them.

He took a swig of water before he spoke. “Are you planning to go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

That was the problem. Kate wasn’t sure. “I don’t know,” she said for the second time. “I have mixed feelings about high school.”

Greg nodded as if he understood.

“I imagine my school was like most,” Kate said. “We had a caste system. I wasn’t on the bottom rung, but the fact that I was what the teachers called a high achiever meant that I wasn’t accepted into many groups. Gillian had the same problem, because even in grade school, it was obvious that she was a talented musician. Fortunately, we had each other.”

“And I’m guessing she won’t attend the reunion unless you do.”

“Exactly.” Greg did understand. “The thing is, I’m not sure why I’d be going. It’s not like I’ve spent the last ten years wondering what happened to my classmates.”

When Greg said nothing, Kate raised an eyebrow. “Did you attend your reunion?” He shook his head. “Why not?”

Greg’s laugh betrayed bitterness. “Because unlike you, I was on the bottom rung. At Orchard Slope High, if you had a Y chromosome and couldn’t play sports, you were nothing. I wasn’t an academic success, either. My grades were average, because
I didn’t care about who fought in the Peloponnesian wars or why Shakespeare wrote both comedies and tragedies. My only interest was computers. Fortunately, my SATs and the software I’d developed convinced Stanford to take a chance on me.”

And he’d been wildly successful. Kate did some quick arithmetic. By the time of his reunion, Greg was already a multimillionaire. “Didn’t you want to show everyone how successful you were?”

He shook his head. “Why? I’m still the same Greg Vange who couldn’t score a touchdown or hit a baseball. That’ll never change.”

Kate’s heart ached for the man whose childhood wounds had yet to heal. She wished there were something she could do to help him, and just then Greg shook his head as if he’d read her thoughts.

“So tell me about your peanut butter company. That’s got to be a happier topic than my high school years. What have you done so far?”

“I’ve looked at past campaigns. From what I’ve seen, it’s no wonder sales are stagnant.” Kate took another swig of water. “The product is good.” Heather had overnighted her a box with every size jar of Aunt Ivy’s peanut butter, and Kate had sampled one. “The problem is that the ads are twenty years out-of-date. Not just the ads but the labels too. They need to revamp everything.”

“And you’re not coming up with any ideas.”

That was dangerously close to the truth. “I have some, but nothing that will work. It’s all organic peanut butter, so I thought about using the initials AOPB the way that TV chef did with extra virgin olive oil.”

Greg’s expression told Kate he did not watch TV cooking shows and made her wonder whether he cooked at all. She suspected he was like many single men and relied on takeout
and frozen entrees. Peanut butter was probably not a staple in Greg’s pantry.

“Using the initials isn’t a bad idea,” she continued, “but it’s not enough. I need a visual.” The TV chef wasn’t promoting any specific brand of olive oil, so the acronym worked. Kate, on the other hand, was supposed to convince consumers that the only brand of peanut butter they wanted on their shelves was Aunt Ivy’s. She could include Aunt Ivy’s initials along with the acronym, but AIAOPB was simply too long to work as a slogan.

“What do the ads look like now?”

Kate wrinkled her nose, remembering. “It’s a woman—the original Aunt Ivy—holding a jar of peanut butter.” As Greg raised an eyebrow, she chuckled. “Did I say twenty years out-of-date? More than that. The labels remind me of something from the fifties or sixties, and the ads are almost as bad.”

“I thought retro was good. Look at all the people buying vinyl records, even though digital sounds better.”

When Kate wrinkled her nose again, Greg tugged her to her feet. “Let’s walk. You need some exercise, and it doesn’t seem that tennis is your game today.” As they headed down the rutted road, he said, “So tell me why retro is bad.”

That moment, Kate couldn’t think of anything to say about retro. She could, however, tell him why holding hands was good. His was larger than hers, firmer and stronger, and the touch of his palm on hers made Kate want to soar at the same time that she felt grounded. Sally had once told her everyone needed roots and wings. At the time, Kate hadn’t understood. Now she did. Walking hand in hand with Greg, she felt as if she had both. She was connected to a man who aroused deeper feelings than she’d ever experienced. Greg made her laugh; his past made her want to cry; most of all, he made her feel alive. But they were talking about peanut butter, not the way Kate felt when she was with him.

“The problem is that retro’s only a small part of the marketplace.” Though her thoughts were skittering in a dozen directions, fantasizing about Greg’s hand cupping her face again, his lips capturing hers, somehow Kate’s voice sounded normal. “I need something with mass appeal. I want hundreds of thousands of people to believe that Aunt Ivy’s is not just the best peanut butter available but the only one they’d consider eating or feeding to their kids.”

“That’s a pretty tall order.”

Kate nodded. Perhaps it was the fact that so much was wrong with Aunt Ivy’s that made her feel almost paralyzed. Normally when she started on a new project, the problem wasn’t a lack of ideas but a glut of them. She was accustomed to keeping a pad and pencil with her at all times so she could jot down ideas as they popped into her brain. Today nothing was popping.

“I wish I could help.”

Greg quickened the pace so that they were practically jogging.

“That’s not helping,” Kate said as her ankle turned on a rough patch of road. “Tell me, what’s the first thing you think about when you hear the words peanut butter?”

“Allergies.”

It wasn’t funny, and yet Kate laughed. “I don’t think that’ll be part of my ad.”

Greg threaded his fingers through hers and slowed their pace to a walk. “If we’re playing the word association game, what’s your answer?”

“Sonograms.”

As she’d expected, Greg’s eyebrows rose. “Sonograms?”

“Yep. One of my co-workers was pregnant last year, and she shared a lot of stories with us. When she had her first sonogram, she declared that the baby looked like a peanut and started calling it that.”

Greg’s astonishment turned to curiosity. “Did you see the sonogram? Did the baby look like a peanut?”

“Yes and yes. And for the next six months, all of us called Brittany’s baby Peanut. It turned out to be a girl that Brittany and her husband named Penelope.” Kate smiled at the thought of the sweet baby she’d held in her arms only a few days before she’d left for Texas. “No one’s supposed to call her Peanut, but . . .”

“You do.”

Kate nodded. “And that’s another idea I can’t use to sell Aunt Ivy’s. I’m back to ground zero.”

“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.” Greg glanced at his watch. “Meanwhile, it’s about time to get back to your grandmother.”

“Not today.” Kate looked at her own watch, surprised at how much time had passed. It seemed as if it had been no more than ten minutes since she’d arrived at the tennis court. “Sally’s having lunch with Roy. She said she might not be back until three or four.”

For a second, Greg was silent, though his green eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “You don’t sound too pleased by that.” He squeezed her hand, as if to take any possible sting from the words.

Kate hadn’t realized that her feelings were so apparent, but she should have realized that if anyone would see below the surface, it would be Greg. Though he might believe he lacked interpersonal skills, Kate had seen no evidence of that. To the contrary, he appeared more than normally sensitive to others’ feelings. Perhaps that was the result of his childhood. It was clear he’d been an outsider. Maybe that had given him the ability to empathize.

“I’m happy that Sally has friends,” Kate said, hoping she didn’t sound defensive.

“Are you, or are you worried about sharing her attention?”

If anyone else had asked that, Kate would have fired off an immediate denial. But the way Greg was studying her, she knew he’d see behind it. “You think I’m jealous?” she asked. “If anyone deserves happiness, it’s Sally.”

He nodded slowly. “I agree. The question is whether you do, deep in your heart. My guess is that the reason you’re distracted isn’t the reunion or the peanut butter company. It’s your grandmother.”

Kate nodded slowly, thinking about how worried she’d been this morning when Sally had seemed out of breath. That had triggered all kinds of unhappy thoughts of how different Kate’s life would be without her grandmother. Sally wasn’t simply her only family; she was Kate’s rock, the person she knew would support her with her unconditional love. Kate didn’t want to think of that ending.

“You’re right that I’m worried about Sally,” she admitted. “It’s complicated. There’s her health, and now there’s Roy.” Kate hoped Greg would understand. “Sally’s been the one stable part of my life. I don’t want that to change.” And it would if Sally’s health deteriorated or her friendship with Roy developed into something more serious.

The nightmare came again, but this time was different. As always, Greg stood on the edge of the precipice. The fear was there, as intense as ever, mingled with the knowledge of what would happen. As always, he felt powerless, but tonight he resolved that he would not fall. Somehow, some way, he would remain on the mountain. And somehow, some way, he would find his way back to sea level.

Start small
, he told himself, and so he curled his toes inside his boots in a desperate attempt to keep from tumbling over the cliff. Even as he did it, he knew how futile the effort was. It
wasn’t gravity that would send him over the edge. It was that deadly push.

“Jump! Jump!” The voice came from behind him as it always did. “Jump!” He wouldn’t turn to see his tormentor. He couldn’t without losing his precarious balance. Greg knew that, just as he knew that he had to do something. And then he felt it, a presence directly behind him. For a second, he could not breathe. Never before had he felt his killer’s presence. Never before had he smelled that sweet perfume. A woman’s perfume. Mentally shaking himself, Greg inhaled a deep cleansing breath at the realization that whoever was behind him, it was not the killer. The killer was a man; he knew that as surely as he knew his own name. But why was a woman so close that he could smell her fragrance? Couldn’t she see the danger?

With every fiber of his being, Greg wanted to turn, to warn her not to come any closer, but he couldn’t. Any movement would be his death sentence and hers too, for somehow he knew that she would try to catch him and in doing so would tumble over the cliff with him.

She was closer now, close enough that he could feel her breath.
Go back!
he shouted, but no sound came out. Instead he heard her whisper, “Don’t jump,” as she wrapped her arms around his waist. For a second he felt nothing but relief. He was safe. She was safe. They were safe. And then it happened. Though the woman clung to his back, somehow he felt the shove. An instant later, he was catapulted off the edge, dragging the woman with him, and in that instant, he knew who she was. Kate.

Greg wakened, his heart pounding with terror, his mouth so dry he could hardly swallow. It was only a dream, he told himself. It meant nothing, and yet he didn’t believe that. Dreams meant something. He simply did not know how to decode this one.

He’d always suspected that the nightmares were harbingers of danger of some sort, although not necessarily physical danger.
While he was in California working on a new release of the software, the dangers Greg had faced had been the inability to find a solution to a bug or creating a clumsy design that took too much processing power and slowed his clients’ systems to unacceptable levels. Those were no longer his worries.