Anne Winston - Dedicated To Deirdre

“Hello...Mrs. Patten, I believe?”

The voice was the same, deep and slightly rough, with a lazy drawl to the words that made a woman’s toes curl. She’d noticed that the night of the office Christmas party in Baltimore, Maryland, three years ago even though she’d been so upset with her husband she could barely see straight.

Slowly she got to her feet, keeping her hands on her son’s shoulders in front of her. “Hello.”

He extended a large, tanned hand. “Ronan Sullivan. We’ve met before.”

She flushed, a nod her only acknowledgment as she reached out to shake his hand. “Deirdre is my first name, but my friends call me Dee. This is Lee and my other son, in the cart, is Tommy.” She barely touched his fingers before drawing back quickly. His hand was warm and firm, and the brief moment when her hand was in his produced an unsettling instant of awareness that she forced herself to ignore. “Thank you for your quick thinking. Lee could have been badly hurt.”

“You’re welcome. No problem.” He grazed his knuckles across the top of Lee’s closely shaved head of black fuzz. “I saw it coming, so I was ready for a quick rescue.”

“Ah, well, thank you again.” She cast a glance at her cart to make sure Tommy hadn’t strayed from his seat in the front. A store employee had come running and was restacking the boxes.

“You’re welcome again.” He hesitated for a bare instant. “Is your husband still with Bethlehem Steel?”

“Yes,” she said, though why he would mention her husband after the last time they’d met was beyond her. She’d hoped that perhaps he’d forgotten some of the more humiliating details of that evening.

“Long commute from out here. Do you live in the area?”

She hesitated, then decided there was no reason to keep her situation a secret. Sooner or later she had to begin to tell people. “I’m divorced now. I have a farm halfway between Butler and Frizzelburg.”

His eyes warmed, though he didn’t smile. “My grandparents had a farm down in Virginia. Do you work it?”

She shook her head. “I lease most of the land to the man who has the place next to ours. I have a small business that keeps me pretty busy.”

“What do you do?”

She twisted her fingers together, then caught herself and flattened her palms against her sides. “It’s nothing, really. I design and make a line of doll clothes.”

“Hmm.”

She couldn’t tell what that meant, but she felt defensiveness rising around her like a growing field of corn. “It allows me to make enough to live on and still be home with the boys.”

“That’s important.”

“It is to me.” She glanced over at Tommy, who was showing signs of restlessness, a prelude, she knew, to a leap from the cart. “Well, I must be going. It was nice to see you again.” A blatant lie. Seeing Ronan Sullivan stirred up all kinds of memories of her old life, memories she was determined to forget.

“Before you go,” he said. “Would you know of anyone with a place to rent in the area? I’m looking for—”

“Mom!” Lee clutched at her hand. “Maybe he’s the one! Ask him.”

“No.” She loved her sons but there were times when she thought seriously of locking them away for a day or ten. “I’m sure Mr.—”

“Ronan,” he reminded her.

“Ronan,” she repeated dutifully, “wouldn’t be interested in the apartment.”

“What apartment?” He was looking at her for an answer, eyes the color of tigereye topaz suddenly alive with interest

“It’s nothing great,” she said quickly. “I’m looking for a tenant to rent the apartment over the stable. It’s very small and extremely rustic. I’m sure it wouldn’t suit you.”

“You never know. Would you mind if I looked at it?”

Yes, I mind! But she felt trapped by the little voice inside—a little voice that sounded strangely like her mother’s—that reminded her that it would be rude to refuse.

Really, there was no reason for her to worry. She’d envisioned renting to a woman, but why should a man be any different? A civilized man. He’s not Nelson, she told herself firmly. One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole barrel. Making up her mind, she said, “All right,” before she could think too much more about it. “But don’t expect too much. It’s primitive.”

He nodded. “I’d still like to look at it. Is tomorrow convenient?”

Tomorrow! “Tomorrow would be fine. Around eleven?” Maybe he would be working; she could always say evenings didn’t suit, just stall until—

“Eleven it is.”

Driving home through the quiet Butler County countryside a few minutes later, she was a mass of churning anxiety inside. Why was she letting him look at the apartment? She didn’t want a man hanging around her home, good apples in the barrel or not. She didn’t want to talk with a man, didn’t want to look at a man, didn’t even want to think about one. She had a few exceptions—her brothers, her friend Frannie’s husband, but she had grown up with Jack so he didn’t really count...but other than that, she deliberately avoided even making eye contact with the opposite sex. The thought of so much as a casual date left a very bad taste in her mouth.

She’d planned to fix up the apartment, rent it to a career woman who wouldn’t be home much. Still, maybe a male tenant wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She wouldn’t have to see much of him, would hardly know he was there.

Without warning, the memory of his big hand taking hers returned. The man felt like a big heater, radiating warmth. And she hadn’t been warm in a very long time.

It was perfect, Ronan thought as his white pickup truck crested the hill on the rutted lane that led to Deirdre Patten’s place. A perfect place to write. Not a reporter or a determined fan in sight, and none likely to find him easily.

And to make it even better, he had his research right under his nose. Fields on his right, forest on his left. The fields sloped gently down to a wide, flat valley through which a little stream meandered. A stone farmhouse—an old stone farmhouse, from the look of it—was surrounded by a neat square of yard, and across the gravel driveway, an equally ancient barn loomed. Beside the barn was what looked like a chicken house, a pig sty and finally a smaller, and much newer, stable painted a traditional barn red with white crossbars. Green fields, interspersed with stands of tall trees and fencerows overgrown with climbing vines, spread out in every direction.

It looked like a picture on a postcard titled, “America, Circa 1950.” And it was right off the highway, though no one would ever guess it was there.

Taking his foot off the brake, he let the truck coast down the lane, trying in vain to avoid the worst ruts. He’d probably have to have the wheels aligned every couple of months if he stayed here.

Halfway down the lane, he slammed on the brakes abruptly. The wheels skidded in the loose stone, then caught and held as he pumped the pedal. What the hell—?

Dead smack in the middle of the lane were the two little Patten boys, Lee of the cereal box slide and his little brother—had Deirdre said his name was Tommy? They were hunched over something on the ground, something that made a heck of a lot of dust. One had a handful of leaves he was cautiously stuffing into whatever it was. They were so absorbed in what they were doing that neither one of them even heard the truck.

He considered blowing the horn, but he didn’t want to scare the little fellas, so he opened his door and swung out of the truck, intending to call to them to move out of the road.

That’s when he saw the flames.

“Hey!” That wasn’t dust; it was fire! He didn’t have much experience with kids, but he knew nobody in their right mind would allow boys this small to mess around with fire.