Part 2
Owen caught the other end before Grant could drag the table across the tailgate.
“You two rehearse this?”
“Thirty-two years of marriage. We don’t need to rehearse.”
By the time the tables were delivered, Owen’s absence from the supper would have required an explanation. He went home, washed, and found a dark shirt that hadn’t been near a grease gun. Ranger watched from the bedroom doorway.
“You’re staying here.”
The shepherd lowered himself to the floor with deliberate care.
“Water’s full. You’ve eaten. The porch is open.”
Ranger closed his eyes before Owen finished.
The community hall smelled of coffee and hot food when he returned. Volunteers had hung small lights along the rafters, and somebody’s children had arranged branches and seed heads in jars. Boots squeaked on the floor. Near the kitchen, three people were debating where another table could possibly fit.
Owen made the mistake of looking toward the exit.
Beth intercepted him with a pan of biscuits. “Take these through, please.”
“Does this job have an end?”
“The kitchen does. Through that door.”
He delivered the pan and came back to find Grant talking to the feed-store owner. Two men from the local veterans group were already disputing a card game played the previous winter. Women from the veterinary clinic worked the raffle table. Owen knew almost every voice in the room.
Then Tess came in beside her mother, carrying a bowl in each hand.
Her dress was deep blue. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders. Neither detail ought to have mattered to a man who had known her most of her life.
Owen looked down at the empty coffee cup he’d picked up.
When he looked again, Tess had rescued a slipping stack of plates, greeted an elderly couple, and been stopped beside the cider by Daniel Foster. Daniel was a paramedic, thirty-one, calm in a crisis. Owen had once watched him handle an injured ranch hand with a competence that made everyone else useful instead of frightened.
There was nothing objectionable about the man.
Owen went to get coffee.
After supper, Adrian Walsh asked Tess to dance. They’d known each other in college; Adrian worked several hours east now and was home visiting family. Tess laughed at something he said as they joined the other couples.
Owen listened to a discussion of calf prices. He contributed a sensible answer, then discovered he hadn’t heard the next question.
Later, Tess sat with Ben Sutton. Ben’s family owned the place she’d discussed at the orchard. He was a good hand, broad-shouldered and quiet, the kind of man who returned borrowed tools cleaner than he’d received them. When Owen’s tow strap had been damaged helping him out of a muddy lane, Ben had brought over a replacement without being asked.
Owen’s coffee had gone cold.
“Did the girl steal your truck?” Ruth Dempsey asked beside him.
He turned. Ruth kept horses outside Larchmere and had been widowed for almost nine years. She’d known him as a boy, which made his military history entirely useless as a defense against her.
“What girl?”
“Oh, don’t insult both of us.” She sipped her cider. “You’ve looked over there every time Tess changed chairs.”
“I know other people in that direction.”
“Remarkable how they all fit behind her.”
Owen set down his cup. Ruth’s smile deepened.
“I ought to head back.”
“To what? Your dog’s at my place.”
He stared at her.
“I stopped for him after you left. He came willingly. I thought somebody in your household deserved a social evening.”
“You brought him to an empty house.”
“He likes my porch. It’s less argumentative.”
Owen asked about her gelding’s sore foot. She permitted the change of subject, though she looked too satisfied with herself.
He helped Grant carry empty dishes, spoke with a neighbor about fence posts, and listened to one of the veterans describe his grandson’s disastrous effort to organize a garage. All the while he remained inconveniently aware of Tess.
Along the far wall, local craftspeople had set out pottery, leather goods, small wooden boxes, and jewelry. Tess stopped beside the jewelry table while Beth talked to a friend.
Owen saw her lift a ring.
The stone was a pale, honey-colored sapphire in an uncomplicated setting. He’d seen enough locally dug stones to recognize the color, though he knew nothing about judging jewelry. Tess slipped it on, turned her hand beneath the lights, and smiled at the woman behind the display.
Then she took it off and returned it to its little slot.
Someone asked Owen to move a chair. He did, and when he glanced back Tess had joined her mother.
Outside, the cold caught at his damp shirt collar. He drove to Ruth’s with the window partly open. Ranger climbed into the back seat, turned around twice, and settled with a contented breath.
“Good company?” Owen asked.
The dog looked past him through the windshield.
“Don’t answer all at once.”
The truck carried them through darkness broken by ranch lights and the occasional approaching car. Owen left the radio off.
An old memory returned: Tess reporting poultry movements over a radio as though the outcome of a war depended on them. He smiled, then caught himself remembering her hand under the hall lights, the sapphire briefly resting on it.
She had clients now. A payroll deadline. A life she’d made and chosen. Daniel, Adrian, and Ben had no trouble seeing the woman sitting in front of them.
Owen tightened his grip on the wheel.
Fourteen years. Grant’s daughter. A child he had once been trusted to look after.
He parked beside the barn and stayed behind the wheel after switching off the engine. Ranger waited without complaint. Across the yard, the porch light made a small yellow patch around the door.
Eventually Owen opened the truck. He let the dog out, checked the barn, and went inside without turning on the television.
He woke the next morning wondering whether Tess would be at Eldren.
For several days, his work supplied plenty of reasons not to find out. He fixed loose roofing on the equipment shed, replaced a set of gate hinges, and put the new hydraulic hose to use. Once, Tess drove past while he was unloading mineral tubs. Another time he saw her with Grant at the tractor, her arms folded as her father pointed into the machinery.
Owen kept driving.
Near the end of the week, he was on a ladder fastening flashing when Ranger stood and looked toward the road. Tess was walking along the shoulder with a canvas tote, a paper sack, and a folder pressed under one arm.
Owen finished the screw before climbing down.
“Where’s your pickup?”
“Tire’s at the repair shop behind the feed store.”
“You going all the way into town?”
“Vernon’s. His back’s acting up.” She lifted the sack. “Lunch, with a side of bills he’d rather not discuss.”
“Thought if he waited long enough, they might get discouraged?”
“That appears to be the plan.”
Owen put the drill down. “Give me a minute. I’ll come…”
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