Swept Away

Did you see the way Sam kept looking at you?

Shut up, she said to…whoever. The spook squatting in her brain, she supposed. Except the spook cut right back in with some annoying observation about how Sam was like some innocuous-looking Mexican dish—wasn’t until you’d taken several bites before you realized your hair was on fire.

Of course, this is not a problem if you like spicy food.

“Lee? Are you okay?”

“Yes, Dad,” she said with a bright smile, because whatever this craziness was, talking it over with her father wasn’t gonna happen. Actually, up until this little trip, it had been years since she and Dad had talked about much at all. Not because they didn’t love each other, but because they did. At some point several years ago, after what Carly assumed was a mutual revelation that they came from different planets, and that they’d both grown weary of every conversation degenerating into an argument within five minutes, she’d simply stopped bringing up touchy subjects. Which mostly involved her vocation (he tolerated it, but had clearly hoped it was a phase and that eventually she’d come to her senses and pursue a “real” career), her lifestyle (enough said), and her love life (about which, for everybody’s sake, her father knew far less than he thought).

Fortunately her mother had been more inclined to take Carly’s side—the natural outcome, Carly supposed, of Dena Spyropoulos Stewart’s having been brought up in a strict Greek-American family with a father who exerted an iron-fisted control over his wife and children. And since Lane was totally besotted with his wife, he usually lost the battles with his hardheaded daughter. Without her mother to run interference, however, Carly frankly hadn’t been as inclined to seek out her dad’s company. Realizing you simply weren’t the child your father always thought he’d have had tended to have that effect on a person. In fact, part of her problem with Sam—aside from the farmer with the six kids business, which was a deal-breaker in any case—was how much he reminded her of Dad. All those notes and lists brought back way too many memories, most of which involved her father expecting her to do things one way and Carly’s determination to do exactly the opposite.

So it had been easier, especially after Mom’s death, to simply stay out of each other’s way rather than enduring visits that neither of them really enjoyed very much. Not something she was proud of, but there it was.

And only the threat of either, if not both, of them disintegrating into pajama-clad blobs spending their days watching game shows and infomercials had spurred her—in a moment of pure insanity—into suggesting they take this trip. Especially considering the odds of their killing each other within the first forty-eight hours. What they’d discovered instead was that, somewhere along the line, they’d both mellowed. Not that they now shared a brain or anything, but at least enough to enjoy each other’s company.

Especially during those long, lovely periods that people referred to as “companionable silence.”

The countryside in this part of Oklahoma tended to be hilly, nestled up against the Ozarks the way it was, and Sam’s farm was no exception. The spread wasn’t particularly large, her father said, fifty acres or so—but Sam was determined to wring every drop out of the land he could. Dad explained that the larger fields were devoted to wheat, alfalfa, and corn, with a large vegetable garden that yielded not only plenty of produce to feed the family, but enough left over to sell at a local farmer’s market as well. Then there were the fruit trees—three kinds of apple, not to mention pear and cherry—the chickens, the cows, the two pairs of hogs that produced several litters a year…and plenty of pork in the freezer, he added.

Carly shuddered, which got a chuckle. “That is what farming’s all about, you know.”

“Yes, I do. It’s just all a little too hands-on for me.”

“You loved it as a kid.”

“Gram and Gramps had a dairy farm. They milked the cows, they didn’t eat them.”

“No, they ate somebody else’s. And where do you think those fried chicken suppers came from? KFC?”

“Dash my idyllic childhood memories, why dontcha?”

Her father laughed, a good sound. The sound of someone on the mend, she decided.

They’d come to a fallow field smothered in late season grasses and wildflowers. A lone oak alongside another farmer’s post-and-rail fence, its side scarred from a long-ago lightning strike, beckoned them to rest a while. Carly’s knee was more than ready to take the tree up on its offer. They lowered themselves onto a patch of cool dirt, both taking long drinks from their water bottles. At a comfortable distance, a pair of cows munched, their ears flicking, tails swishing. One of them disinterestedly looked in their direction.

“Your mother would have loved it here,” Dad said. “The mountains, the trees…she used to say there was nothing finer than the smell of country air.”

“If you like earthy.”

“You’re too young to be so cynical,” her father said mildly, twisting the cap back on his water, and she thought, Young, hell. I feel as old as these hills.

And very nearly as worn down.

But truth be told, some of her best childhood memories had come from summers spent on her grandparents’ farm. Except that was then and this was now, and that little girl had up and taken off some time ago.

Leaving in her place a cynical, lame woman destined to become a dried-up old prune of a dance teacher with dyed black hair and too much eye makeup who still wore gauzy, filmy things in an attempt to fool herself that she was still young and lovely.

There was a heartening thought.

“I’m glad you suggested this,” Dad said.

“The walk was your idea, remember?”

“Not the walk. The trip.”

Drawing up her legs to lean her forearms on her knees, Carly angled her head at her father. “Even though I drove the truck into a ditch?”

“Especially because you drove the truck into a ditch.”

“You know, you might be more ready for that home than you think.”

Dad laughed. “What I mean is, this gives us an excuse to stay put for a few days. Absorb some of what we’re seeing. Get to know the people who live here.”

Oh, yeah, a definite selling point. Carly turned around to stare at the cows. They stared back. Sort of. “I suppose,” she said, mainly because she didn’t want to argue.

“Guess we’re both at a sort of crossroads, aren’t we?”

Since that sounded a heck of a lot better than dead end, she said, “Yeah. Guess so.”

Her father took another swallow of his water. “You got any idea yet what you’re going to do when we go back?”

A logical question from a man who’d—logically—expect his thirtysomething daughter to, you know, have a plan? Since she no longer had a job? Never mind that it now struck her, like the proverbial bolt of lightning, that she’d apparently suggested this trip in order to avoid thinking about The Future. And now here The Future was, planted in front of her like a used car salesman, refusing to go away until she at least sounded as though she’d made a decision.

But she’d gotten real good at faking out her dad over the years. Goading him was one thing. Worrying him was something else, she thought as a surprisingly cool breeze sent a shiver over her skin. Dad had no idea how much about her life she’d chosen not to let him find out. A situation she had no intention of changing.

“I thought I’d see about teaching at the company school.” Actually she hadn’t, not yet, but it sounded good. “And you know Emily offered me a job.”

“That’s in Chicago, right?”

“Right outside. Lake Charles.”

“Gets damn cold up there.”

“Oh, and like Cincinnati’s so tropical?”

“I’m just saying.”

Saying what was the question. But, as she was so good at doing, she turned the tables on him. “What about you? Planning on going out for canasta champion at the Senior Citizen center?”

Lane blew out a half laugh, then shifted to lean against the tree trunk. It seemed strange, seeing her father so relaxed. Not bad, just strange. “Actually bumping along on all these back roads the past month must’ve jostled something loose in my brain, because I’m thinking of starting up some sort of consulting business. Something I could do from home, mostly, by computer.”

Well, hell—this was the first positive thing to come out of her dad’s mouth since Mom’s death. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“That’s a terrific idea, Dad.”

“Seriously?”