Summer on Kendall Farm (14 page)

Finishing her shopping, she paid the cashier and went to her car. Just as she was about to back out a truck pulled into the space next to hers. Kelly stopped. She hopped out of the car with a huge smile and greeted Emmett Cruz.

“Emmett, great to see you.”

“Hello, Ms. Ashton. How are you?”

Kelly shook his hand. “I’m fine. It’s so good to see you.”

Emmett at one point had been a trainer at the Kendall when she was a little girl, before he went to work for the Rinkhards. Kelly had been back two years, but between her running the Kendall and Emmett at the Rinkhard place, they saw little of each other.

“I’ve been meaning to stop by,” Emmett said. “I hear you’re doing great things over at the Kendall.”

“It’s going well.”

“And I hear one of the Kendalls is back.”

Technically true, she thought. “Jason, the wild one.”

“Turned up in the middle of the night with a boy.”

“I guess horses aren’t the only ones you listen to,” Kelly joked.

“This is Windsor Heights. Even a toothache will be talked about.”

Kelly wondered if she should broach the subject of Jace’s whereabouts. Maybe Emmett had heard something.

“He’s no longer at the Kendall,” Kelly said.

“Yep, heard that, too. Word is you threw him out.”

“Does word say why?”

“Nope. Is it true?”

Kelly nodded. “He went behind my back and hired a lawyer to try to get ownership of the Kendall.”

Trey whistled. “Guess that’s a good enough reason.”

“I don’t know where he went. He and Ari, that’s the boy’s name, left in Drew and Mira’s borrowed truck and I haven’t heard anything about them since. I owe him a final check and he left two horses with me.”

“I’ve seen the truck about town, but don’t know where he’s staying. Have you tried the motel out on the highway?”

“I haven’t gone looking for him.” Kelly’s first trip to try to find Jace was today. She’d driven through town hoping to spot the truck, but so far her efforts were a bust.

“Well, if I see him, I’ll be sure to tell him you’re looking for him.”

“No.” Kelly spoke too quickly and too loudly. “I mean, I’m not looking for him. I figured he’d contact me sooner or later.” Then she added, “About the horses.”

Trey was nodding his head.

“What about you? I hear the Rinkhards are planning to sell.”

“They are. Not sure when it’ll happen though, or what’ll happen to me when it does.”

“I know. Trey Demerest brought his horses to board at the Kendall two days ago. In fact, we talked about you.”

“Me, why?”

“Trey Demerest recommended you as a groom and I know your work. If you’re interested in a new job, you have one at the Kendall. Any idea when the Rinkhards are going to let you know their plans?”

He shook his head.

“Well, come by the Kendall. We’ll be waiting for you.”

* * *

J
ACE
LOOKED
DOWN
at Ari’s head resting on his chest. The boy had fallen asleep on him every night as he sat on the worn sofa in the motel room not five miles from the Kendall. Since they’d left the farm, Ari clung to him. He’d done that in Colombia, but since meeting Kelly he hadn’t felt the need.

Ari was unhappy. Jace knew how he felt. Jace must have glanced at the phone a hundred times since he’d driven away from the Kendall. He wanted to call Kelly. He wanted to hear the sound of her voice, smell her hair, hear her laugh and find out how she was doing.

He wanted to be able to explain to Ari why they were no longer at the farm. He wanted to tell him he could go and see Kelly. He wanted to make things right. But he couldn’t. He’d done everything he could to push her away. Now there was no going back.

There was one thing Jace wouldn’t do. He would not contest the Kendall’s sale. Kelly had put her life into its restoration. She hadn’t walked the floors or seen the inside of the building until two years ago, but the place was hers. She’d made it hers when she sat on the fence as a child and watched the horses exercising. Taking it away from her now would be the same as killing her. He understood that.

The day of the open house she was more alive than he’d ever seen her. She loved what she was doing. He and Ari would have to go someplace else. Their lives would begin anew, but not with the Kendall as their destination. It had been a stop along the trail, but they would settle someplace else.

Tomorrow Jace would begin to make plans for where they could go. Maybe he’d look up Sheldon in North Carolina. See if his brother had mellowed in the ensuing years. If he hadn’t, they’d move on, but they wouldn’t be wanderers. Jace peered down at Ari. His breathing was soft and steady. He pulled the blanket up and over his son and kissed his head. It was just the two of them, as it probably should be. Ari would begin school come September. They needed a place by then. A place far away from the Kendall and from Kelly.

Two days passed, but Jace hadn’t been able to find the right moment to talk to Kelly. To let her know his decision to not contest the sale of the Kendall, and that he and Ari were leaving Windsor Heights. He wanted to do all of that face-to-face, and yet whenever he was free, she was busy. He took that as a sign that he was doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt to be away from Kelly.

* * *

F
OR
THE
NEXT
couple of days, Kelly worked nonstop. She knew it was too much and so after she returned several phone calls to schedule future events at the Kendall, she went to the barn. There were saddles, tack, harnesses, horse blankets, even names placed on the stable doors for each of the horses. The animals were quiet, but curious. Every horse looked over the open part of its stall door, checking her out. They wanted to know her smell, her attitude. Was she a friendly human or not? They seemed as if they wanted to know if she had treats for them or if she would walk from entrance to exit and ignore their presence.

Horse sense wasn’t just a cliche to Kelly. They were smart beasts, strong, loyal and intelligent. She went from one to the other providing carrot sticks and rubbing their noses. Stopping at a stall with the name tag of Stout’s Honor written on the placard, she hugged the horse’s face and took in the rich, pungent smell.

“So you’re a race horse?” she said.

“Yep, I’m a race horse.”

Kelly jumped. The sun was behind the man in the doorway, but she’d recognize Emmett’s voice anywhere.

“Emmett,” she called, already walking toward him.

He caught her in a bear hug and let loose a hearty chuckle. She felt like a kid again.

“I know you’ve been busy,” he said, releasing her. “But I hope to see more of you now that I’ll be here.”

“You bet you will.”

Kelly hugged him again, before standing back and looking at him. “Emmett, I am so glad you’re here.”

Emmett had to be in his sixties, but he looked twenty years younger. His face had few lines, some around his eyes and the parenthesis markings that framed his mouth.

“Where am I staying?” he asked, using the no-nonsense tone that was his trademark.

“You know where you’re staying. And I moved any female trappings.” Those were Emmett’s words for anything related to women. He’d been married once, had a daughter who was now living in Seattle. After his wife died, he said he could finally remove all the pink and lavender from his life. But Kelly remembered he always had a purple scarf in his pocket at races. A tribute to his late wife.

Arm in arm they strolled through the barn. Emmett already knew the horses, so they didn’t give him the same perusal they’d given her.

She opened the door to the cabin and laid the keys in a dish just inside.

“You’re perfectly capable of making your own meals, but if you want, breakfast is at seven, lunch at noon and dinner at six. There’s hot coffee, cold water in bottles and soft drinks all day. You’re always welcome at the main house even if it’s outside of those hours.”

Emmett nodded.

Kelly turned to go, then recalled something. She turned back. “We have a day when we allow the public to tour the place.”

“For a fee?”

“For a fee.”

“Good,” he approved. “I heard about your first try at that. Susan Johnson came to see me before she went back to Kentucky. Told me you’d done the house proud and made it better, in fact.”

Kelly thought of the woman who’d known her father.

“It’s open every week on Tuesday. There will be those who want to see the horses. Would you like to handle that or should I hire someone?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Emmett said.

Kelly was glad it was a job she could delegate to someone else.

“Has Jace not been back?” he asked.

Kelly looked at the floor. “No. He hasn’t been back.”

Kelly stared at Emmett for a long moment. This was a small town. Emmett must have heard something. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”

Emmett shook his head. “The rumor mill hadn’t coughed him up yet, but it won’t be long. As you said, he’s got the kid, and someone is bound to see him. You want me to tell Jace you asked when I find out?”

Kelly’s head snapped up. She did, but she couldn’t say that. “I want to thank him. Having the other horses here will help a lot with the finances and with bringing the Kendall back to where it was.”

“Is that all?”

The way he asked the question said he knew there was something between her and Jace. It wasn’t exactly true.

But it wasn’t false, either.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

S
HELDON
KNOCKED
OFF
for the day. Going back to his bungalow, he took a long, hot shower and dressed in clean shorts and a shirt. It was wash day, so he gathered his clothing, stuffed it in a canvas bag and headed to the Laundromat. Not far from the marina was a place where the sailboat owners could wash towels and the various items that proved sea duty was a dirty business. Christian fell in step with him as he headed toward it. The marina was in the opposite direction of where he lived.

“Hi,” he said. The boy was carrying a book.

“Where are your friends?” Sheldon asked.

He knew he went to camp each weekday and that he often played with some of the kids farther up the beach.

“My best friend went away last night to visit his father. His parents are divorced.” He said it with an authority beyond his years.

“He’s not your only friend. Where are the others?”

“Most are playing video games. They say it’s too hot to do anything but swim and play games.”

“Swimming is good. Why aren’t you doing that?”

“Too many grown-ups in the pool.” Christian frowned.

“What have you got there?” Sheldon referred to the book in the boy’s hand.

Christian, never breaking stride, held it out so Sheldon could read the cover. “
Chet, the Cowboy,”
Sheldon said out loud.

“They make us read at least a book every two weeks at camp.”

Sheldon nodded. He was impressed and thought that was a good idea. “What else do you do at camp?”

“Most of it is fun. We go to a park and play baseball and basketball. We swim, watch movies. I take a class on how to use my camera.”

“That does sound like fun. Where’s the camera?”

Christian pulled a small digital camera from his back pocket and held it up for Sheldon to see.

“Have you learned how to use it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “All you have to do is look through here.” He indicated the viewfinder. “And press this button.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“There is, but I haven’t learned it yet.”

“So you’re reading and taking pictures?”

“I have to bring the pictures to camp. I take the camera and they use the card inside to get the pictures off. Can I take one of you?”

Sheldon grinned. “Sure,” he said.

Christian was already moving the camera up to look at the small screen. Sheldon stood still. He was considerably taller than his photographer. Changing his mind, he sat on the ground and crossed his long legs, and looked straight at the camera.

Christian snapped a picture. Then he moved several steps and took another. Again, several more steps, this time to the side, and snapped a photo.

“Enough,” Sheldon announced, getting to his feet. “I’m not that interesting. What about the marina. The boats there are beautiful and would be good subjects for you.”

“I already took a lot of those,” he said.

The two began walking again. “Have you taken some of your friends?”

“Yeah,” he said as if he’d exhausted all the subjects he knew. “My grandma, too.”

“What about buildings? There are some cool houses around here. There are the stores in town. You could choose one subject and take a lot of that type. Do a study of it.”

“What do you mean?” Christian frowned up at him, screwing his face into a peculiar mask.

“Well, you could choose windows and take pictures of the windows in a lot of places, stores, houses, boats, cars. Or you could choose doors, roofs, cars...”

“Cars,” he stopped Sheldon. “I like cars.”

“There are some terrific ones around here. But,” he cautioned, “if you see the owner, be sure to ask permission first.”

“I will.”

They reached the Laundromat. Sheldon held the door and his small charge went inside. While the dryers produced heat, it was still cooler inside than out. Sheldon went directly to the washers. He was familiar with this place, coming once a week to clean his clothes. Once he put the clothes in the machine, he lifted Christian onto it and the two of them sat and waited for the clothes to be washed.

“You wanna know what else we do at camp?” Christian asked.

“I’d love to.” Sheldon smiled. He hadn’t had much interaction with children in his past and he found he loved hearing about the world through the eyes of this nine-year-old. Everything was wonderful and new. It was like he discovered the world every time he turned a corner.

“We were playing a game one day when it was raining and we couldn’t go to the park.”

“So what did you do?”

“We talked about places.”

“What places?”

“A lot of them. Our counselor is from way up north in Canada and he told us about where he was born and what they grow and eat there. Then he asked us what we knew about where we lived.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t know a lot.” He twisted around and looked at Sheldon. “I told them about the beach and that there were a lot of fish in the ocean. That there were sea shells in the sand and sometimes we collected them and made things. I told him there were a lot of boats in the water and that you cleaned the bottoms.”

“You told them about me?”

“Was that all right?” Immediately, Christian was defensive.

“Yes, that was all right.” He reassured him.

“I told them that the boats couldn’t go very fast if you didn’t take care of them.”

Sheldon smiled. That wasn’t exactly the truth, but for a nine-year-old to distill it to that level was fine.

“Tell me about where you’re from,” Christian asked.

Sheldon thought about that. Could he really say he was from somewhere? Maryland felt like a lifetime ago.

“I could tell you the history of Maryland, but that would be boring.”

Christian laughed. “Tell me about where you lived before you came here.” He looked up at Sheldon as if he was ready to hang on every word.

“Before coming here I’d lived in a lot of places. But I’m from Maryland. I lived on a farm there. We called it the Kendall.”

“It was named after you?” Christian sat up straighter as he asked the question, impressed that someone could have a farm with his name on it.

“Not after me. I come from a long line of Kendalls. The farm was named by one of those long-ago relatives.”

“I’ve never seen a farm. I mean never been on one. We drove by farms when I came to live with my grandma. But I don’t really remember any names of them.”

“It wasn’t a farm that grew anything except grass.”

“Grass?” Again he screwed his face into a frown.

“It was a horse farm.”

“Horses!” This caused a huge smile to replace the frown. “How do you farm horses?”

“We bred them, meaning we raised the horses from the time they were born. We boarded them, let them live in a long stable.”

“Did you get to ride them?”

“Every day,” Sheldon clarified. “Horses have to be exercised so they don’t get fat and have problems with their legs.”

“Like I have to go to gym in school.”

“Exactly.” Sheldon smiled at his comprehension.

“Who’s exercising the horses now?”

Sheldon frowned. “I had to sell the horses before I left.”

Christian thought about that for a while. Then he perked up and looked Sheldon directly in the face. “I suppose you couldn’t leave them alone. Someone would need to give them food and water and exercise them.”

“Exactly,” Sheldon said. At that moment the washer finished its cycle.

* * *

S
HELDON
LISTENED
TO
their footsteps as he and Audrey walked from the theater later that night. They’d gone to the movies. He’d taken her on a date. He hadn’t been out with another woman since Laura died.

“Christian told me you told him about your farm in Maryland.”

“He mentioned his camp project. I gave him some information to share.”

“That was nice of you. He’s been talking about horses since you mentioned them. He asked me to take him to the library so he could get some books.”

Sheldon smiled.

“You’re a good influence on him.”

“Thank you,” Sheldon said. “I wasn’t a good influence on my own brother.”

“Life gives us second chances,” Audrey said.

“Is that written on a card in your classroom?” he asked.

“It is,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“I have a letter from Jason,” he said.

Audrey stopped on the street and faced him. She seemed too surprised to speak. “Why didn’t you tell me? You said it like you were asking to pass the butter, when contacting him has plagued you for months.”

“I haven’t opened it.”

“Why not?”

“Fear.” He paused for a long time. “I don’t know what’s in it. He doesn’t know me now, doesn’t know where I’ve been and what I’ve gone through. The letter could tell me to never contact him again.”

“It could,” she agreed. “But you’ll never know what it says if you don’t open it.”

“I realize that.”

“How did he find you?” Audrey asked.

“I sent a letter to the Kendall as you suggested. I never expected to get a response from Jason.” Sheldon thought he might get a reply from the owner of the farm, but seeing Jason’s handwriting and the return address on the envelope, it nearly burned his hand. “I assume he lives at the Kendall. He must be doing well if he could return to the Kendall and support the farm.”

“Don’t jump to any conclusions. You only know that Jason used the address.”

“How many people are you aware of who would allow you to use their address if you didn’t live there?”

She nodded, understanding his point. “But when you left, you said the place was run-down.”

“It was, but someone bought it. A woman. I have no idea what it looks like now.”

“It could have been sold to your brother,” she suggested.

“Which means he’d have to have enough money to purchase it.”

“That’s beside the point, isn’t it. You’re not interested in his finances. You want to contact him for different reasons.”

Sheldon looked away. She was right. He did want to contact his brother to try to make amends.

“I don’t think I can just apologize and our past antagonism will up and disappear. There’s a lifetime of bad blood between us, which I caused.”

Audrey took his arm. Her fingers moved down until she reached his hand, which she caught and held. “Nothing is ever that absolute. Even if you don’t make amends with your brother, you’ll be better for trying. It’s up to you. If attempting to explain your actions because not doing it is holding your stomach in knots, then they will never go away until you do something about it.”

Sheldon pulled her arm through his and the two continued walking. Instead of him taking her to her porch, he passed it and continued to the bungalow where he’d lived for the past eight months.

The place was only three rooms and a bath. Sheldon kept it neat, he didn’t have much. He swept daily, cleaned his dishes and made his bed.

“Have a seat,” he said when she came inside. “I have iced tea or I can make coffee or there’s bottled water.” Sheldon didn’t have any alcohol. He’d given it up for a lot of good reasons. “What can I get you?”

“Iced tea would be good,” she said.

Sheldon poured two glasses of tea and set them on the small table in the kitchen. While Audrey drank hers, he retrieved the envelope with Jason’s name on it. Both of them looked at the letter. Audrey said nothing. The only sound in the room was their breathing. Outside, Sheldon heard the marina water lapping against the pier and the gentle bobbing of boats as they rose and fell with the ever shifting bay.

Sheldon slid his finger under the flap and opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper. He pulled it out and read it, then passed it to Audrey who read it, too.

Sheldon moved to the window and looked out on the marina.

I’m back. I live at the Kendall. Why are you looking for me?

One line, three sentences. That was all he said. The words gave him no indication of anything about Jason.

“He doesn’t say much,” Audrey said.

“That’s the way it was with us. If we weren’t arguing, we weren’t saying anything at all.”

“Are you going to answer his question?” Audrey asked.

“I don’t know. I wrote the note to the Kendall, but to be truthful I thought it was a waste of time. I didn’t expect an answer. When the reply came, I thought Jason would say something other than he was living at the farm.”

“I know you need to think on this and you need to make a decision,” Audrey said. “I have to check on Christian.”

Sheldon knew she had a sitter and a promised return time. “I’ll walk you home.” Sheldon escorted her to her house in silence. His mind was on Jason and the glory days of his past. It hurt to think of them now. Not because of his circumstances, but because he wished he’d been the man he was today back then.

Outside Audrey’s door, she said, “Have you thought of returning? Looking your brother in the face and telling him how you feel?”

Sheldon stared at her. “I’ve thought of it,” he said. Then he said good-night and turned to walk back.

He knew the decision he needed to make. He had to confront Jason and work out whatever was necessary, if Jason would even allow it. If he didn’t, Sheldon would accept that.

But it was a task that had to be done.

* * *

T
HE
DAY
BEFORE
the first wedding ever to be held at the Kendall was filled with activity. Kelly didn’t have time to think of her feelings much. She was too busy directing the preparations—the placement of tables and chairs, making sure everything was in order. Kelly had been lucky enough to find a hotel selling its old tables, chairs and parquet dance flooring. She could handle parties up to three hundred, which is what the ballroom would hold. The wedding consultant arrived and with the small army of temps Kelly had on hand, they transformed the ballroom into a reception hall. All the tables and chairs were covered in white. The chairs had huge bows on their backs. The color scheme for the napkins was blush and hot pink. Tomorrow the florist would deliver the centerpieces and bouquets for the wedding party.