It was a happy house, Layla thought as she heard the boy’s laughs and shouts through the windows. Even Ann had found some happiness here.
“Do you know what’s wrong with Fox?” Jo kept her voice quiet as she and Layla worked side by side.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me?”
Layla glanced around. Fox had gone out again. He wasn’t able to settle, she thought. Just wasn’t able to settle quite yet. “He told me about Carly. Something happened to remind him and upset him, so he told me.”
Saying nothing, Jo nodded and continued to prepare her vegetables. “He loved her very much.”
“Yes. I know.”
“It’s good that you do, that you understand that. It’s good that he told you, that he could tell you. She made him happy, then she broke his heart. If she’d lived, she’d have broken his heart in a different way.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Jo looked at her. “She would never, never have seen him, not the whole of him, not everything he is. She would never have accepted the whole of him. Can you?”
Before Layla could answer, Fox shoved in the kitchen door with his nephew clinging like a monkey to his back. “Somebody get this thing off me!”
More bodies pressed into the kitchen, more drinks were poured. Hands grabbed at the finger food spread on platters on the sturdy kitchen table. Into the noise, Sage walked, holding the hand of a pretty brunette with clear hazel eyes who could only be Paula.
“I’ll have some of that.” Sage picked up the wine bottle and poured a large glass. “Paula won’t.” Sage let out a breathless, giddy laugh. “We’re having a baby.”
She was still laughing as she turned to Paula, as Paula touched her face. They kissed in the old farmhouse kitchen while shouts of congratulations rang around them.
“We’re having a baby,” Sage said again, then turned to Fox. “Good job.” And threw herself into his arms. “Mom.” She swung from Fox to her mother, to her father, her siblings while Fox stood, a dazed expression on his face.
What Layla saw was Paula stepping through the excitement. As she had with Sage, Paula touched Fox’s face. “Thank you.” And she pressed her cheek to his. “Thank you, Fox.”
What Layla saw was the light come back into his eyes. She saw the sadness drop away, and the joy leap into its place. Her own eyes went damp as she watched him kiss Paula, and wrap his arm around his sister so that the three of them stood for a moment as a unit.
Then Jo moved into her vision, stopped in front of her. She kissed Layla on the forehead, on one cheek, the other, then lightly on the lips. “You’ve just answered my question.”
THE WEEKEND SLID INTO THE WORKWEEK, AND still the Hollow stayed quiet. Rain dogged the sky, keeping the temperatures lower than most hoped for in April. But farmers tilled their fields, and bulbs burst into bloom. Pink cups covered the tulip magnolia behind Fox’s offices, and spears that would open into tulips of butter yellow and scarlet waved in the easy breeze. Along High Street, the Bradford pears gleamed with bud and bloom. Windows gleamed as well as merchants and homeowners scrubbed away the winter dull. When the rains passed, the town Fox loved shone like a jewel beneath the mountains.
He’d wanted a sunny day for it. Taking advantage of it, he pulled Layla up from her desk. “We’re going out.”
“I was just-”
“You can just when we get back. I checked the calendar, and we’re clear. Do you see that out there? The strange, unfamiliar light? It’s called the sun. Let’s go get us a little.”
He solved the matter by pulling her to the door, outside, then locking up himself.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Sex and baseball. The young man’s fancies of spring.”
The ends of her hair danced in the breeze as she narrowed her eyes at him. “We’re not having sex and/or playing baseball at noon on a Wednesday.”
“Then I guess I have to settle for a walk. We’ll be able to do some real gardening in a couple more weeks.”
“You garden?”
“You can take the boy off the farm. I do some containers for the front of the office. I’d plant and Mrs. H would kibitz.”
“I’m sure I can kibitz.”
“Counting on it. You girls could put in a nice little vegetable and herb patch in back of your house, some flower beds street side.”
“Could we?”
He took her hand, swung it lightly as they walked. “Don’t like to get your hands dirty?”
“I might. I don’t have any real gardening experience. My mother puttered around a little, and I had a couple of houseplants in my apartment.”
“You’d be good at it. Color, shapes, tones, textures. You like doing what you’re good at.” He turned off the sidewalk toward the building that had housed the gift shop. Its display window was empty now. Depressingly so.
“It looks forlorn,” Layla decided.
“Yeah, it does. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.”
Her eyes widened when he pulled out keys and unlocked the front door. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you possibilities.” He stepped in, flipped on the lights.
Like many of the businesses on Main, it had been a home first. The entrance was wide, the old wood floors clean and bare. On the side, a stairway curved up with its sturdy banister smooth from the slide of generations of hands. Straight back an open doorway led to three more rooms, stacked side by side. The middle one held the back entrance, and its tidy covered porch that opened to its narrow strip of yard where a lilac waited to bloom.
“You would hardly know it was ever here.” Layla brushed her fingertips over the stair rail. “The gift shop. Nothing left of it but some shelves, some marks on the wall where things were hung.”
“I like empty buildings, for their potential. This one has plenty. Solid foundation, good plumbing-both that and the electric are up to code-location, light, conscientious landlord. Roomy, too. The gift shop used the second floor for storage and office space. Probably a good plan. If you have customers going up and down steps, you’re just asking one to trip and sue you.”
“So speaks the lawyer.”
“It needs the nail holes plugged, fresh paint. The wood-work’s nice.” He skimmed a hand over some trim. “Original. Somebody made this a couple hundred years ago. Adds character, respects the history. What do you think of it?”
“The woodwork? It’s gorgeous.”
“The whole place.”
“Well.” She wandered, walking slowly as people did in empty buildings. “It’s bright, spacious, well kept, with just enough creaky in the floors to add to that character you spoke of.”
“You could do a lot with this place.”
She swung back to him. “I could?”
“The rent’s reasonable. The location’s prime. Plenty of space. Enough to curtain off an area in the back for a couple of dressing rooms. You’d need shelves, displays, racks, I guess, to hang clothes.” As he looked around, he hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “I happen to know a couple of guys very handy with tools.”
“You’re suggesting I open a shop here?”
“Doing what you’re good at. There’s nothing like that in town. Nothing like it for miles. You could make something here, Layla.”
“Fox, that’s just… out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because I…” Let me count the ways, she thought. “I could never afford it, even if-”
“That’s why they have business loans.”
“I haven’t given any serious thought to opening my own place in, well, in years, really. I don’t know where I’d begin even if I was sure I wanted to open my own place. For God’s sake, Fox, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow much less a month from now. Six months from now.”
“But what do you want today?” He moved toward her. “I know what I want. I want you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy here, with me. Jim Hawkins will rent it to you, and you won’t have any trouble getting a start-up loan. I talked to Joe at the bank-”