What Should Have Been

Tomorrow she needed to remember to ask Lavender if she wanted to dry the petals for potpourri. Taught by her mother, Lavender was gaining a following for her experimentation of unusual scents. Devan had forgotten to ask her this evening due to a last-minute phone call from Pamela Regan demanding yet another change for the Chamber banquet on Saturday. Pamela didn’t bring up Mead, the episode in the woods, anything, but Devan didn’t doubt she knew and was continuing to harvest information on her and any additional meetings with her son better than any U.S. intelligence agency.

Oh, Regans, get out of my head!

As though to mock that thought, a shadow separated itself from the woods and sprang across the fence. Devan’s breath locked in her throat. But just as she was about to dash back inside and bolt the door, she recognized the intruder’s stride, the breadth of his shoulders and the way he hunkered into the upturned collar of his jacket.

“I wondered if I could will you outside,” he said once he got near enough where a murmur could be heard. “I was watching you through the window.”

For how long? She didn’t want to think about it. Thank goodness her hands were full, though, to keep her from exposing her self-consciousness and touching her messy ponytail. This evening she’d been so drained she hadn’t combed it out before dinner as she usually did.

“Mead…you shouldn’t be here.”

“Your neighbor went by when you put Blakeley to bed. Her dog picked up my scent and growled. She got so scared she didn’t bother turning her flashlight beam on me, she just rushed the rest of the way down the alley.” He sounded amused.

“Don’t you realize if she had spotted you, you would seem like the stalker she suggested?” Weak-kneed, she lowered herself onto the flat bench against the garage wall.

“It’s turning out to be my favorite time of day to walk. Could be more of that training I can’t remember.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it beats being stared at.”

That was anything but reassuring. Devan had the option to either think of his life as a commando, or wonder if rumor was right that his injuries had left him a walking time bomb.

“Don’t brood over it,” he added when she failed to reply. “You’re upset enough. What’s wrong?”

She made a small negative movement with her head. “Nothing worth repeating. A small family thing.”

Mead sat on the knee-high patio wall between pots of chrysanthemums. “You’re a slightly built woman, Devan. Resilient, no doubt, but finely made. And I don’t need a memory to recognize that you have a lot on your plate. My returning here seems to have added to that.”

“This is your home. You have a right to be here.”

He looked away. Despite the soft light, his profile was stone-hard and grim. “I don’t know about that. I’m not sure I want to stay. Being here is like being in a virtual joke, except that everyone but me knows the punch line—and it is me.”

“Oh, Mead.”

He shrugged again. “It’s appealing in a way, the idea of leaving. At least whoever I met would be as clueless about me as I am about them.”

“Your mother would be devastated.” In truth, Devan didn’t entirely believe that, but it was a way to avoid acknowledging how her own insides were plummeting and she feared the rest of her would cave in on the resulting emptiness.

Mead responded with a low sound of scorn. “Come on, Devan, one thing I recognize about Pamela is that she’s a survivor. I have a feeling the only reason she had me was to give my father an heir.”

“Now you sound like a soldier.”

“As in cold-blooded?”

“Pragmatic.”

“Was I that way before?”

She was the wrong person to ask. “I didn’t see you every day, so I can’t judge fairly. You’re five years older than me, too, and that put you way ahead in school.”

“My mother made sure the yearbooks in my room are open to strategic pages.” He rested his elbows on his knees to allow him to be closer. “I looked for you in them, but couldn’t find you.”

“I started Mount Vance High the year you left for college.”

“So when did we meet?”

“Rather, when did you finally notice me?”

His gaze caressed her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Devan. I figure I noticed from the moment you hit puberty.”

“Not with the likes of Megan Maples, Darcie Tracy, Carly Ferris and others competing for your attention.”

An involuntary chuckle burst from his lips and Mead self-consciously rubbed his jaw. “My mother put sticky notes by Megan’s and Darcy’s names. She wrote that Megan is the daughter of the bank president, and the bank remains independently owned and has three branches in neighboring communities, while by Darcy’s name there’s just one word—oil. Oh, and she also noted they were both single.”

Devan wasn’t surprised at Pamela’s not-so-subtle assistance in helping Mead with his memory. Pedigree was all-important to her, as it was to many Southerners. “Who are your people?” and “What church do you attend?” were common and acceptable icebreakers when welcoming a newcomer to a community that continued to embrace old Southern traditions.

“What she left out is that they’re accomplished women,” she replied. “Meg owns the most successful real estate firm in the county. Darcie happens to be an attorney in her father’s oil company.”

“Why do you suppose she left out Carly?” Mead asked.

“Carly’s fortune is inherited and she recently buried her second husband. Stunning though she is, you may be too young for her tastes.”

This time Mead threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Well, I can’t begin to think of what we’d talk about now.”

Too aware of Pamela’s determination, Devan could only smile. “It was good to see you laugh anyway.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject away from you.”

In an attempt to keep things light, she quipped, “Ah, but we were discussing your long list of conquests.”

He didn’t even smile this time. “Was I a skirt-chasing SOB, Devan? Is that why you kept me at arm’s length, as you apparently did…and are trying to do again?”

She didn’t use such expressions, even on people who clearly deserved them, and it was painful to hear he worried he could be one of those. “You were never that. You could seem aloof, but that’s because you never wasted time suffering fools, and when a girl failed to get a proposal out of you, they sometimes stroked their injured pride by announcing that you were emotionally cold and that ending the relationship was their idea. You remained a gentleman, graciously never contradicting them.”

His chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “Talk about being gracious…you really did understand me, didn’t you? Is that what I felt when we met again? It was like nothing else I’ve experienced since waking in that hospital bed.”

Devan had to put down her glass for fear of him seeing how his comment left her hands shaking. The one holding the rose she rested in her lap. “Mead, a lot of people understood you, you just haven’t been exposed to them yet. You didn’t lack for friends or attention.”

“My father’s fortune could explain that.”

No one except the most naive could deny that possibility for some, but Devan couldn’t let him miss something important. “You loved life, and that enhanced your natural charisma. You were always seeking something, eager for experience. At least, that was my impression,” she quickly concluded, suddenly embarrassed. What nerve she’d had accusing Lavender of gushing the other day. With her motor mouth, she would yet expose that she hadn’t just watched him from afar, she’d studied him with rapt fascination every chance she’d had.