She smiled ruefully. “Hey, Wendell. Just finishing for the day?”
Wendell nodded. “Long one. How about you? What brings you to White Pines?”
Ginny was dressed nicely, but she looked uncomfortable. “I had a meeting.”
Wendell glanced up at the house as it dawned on him. “A meeting.”
“Yes. Candace Lancaster just signed my parents’ agency to list White Pines.” Even as she shielded her eyes from the late sun, he saw the flicker of remorse. “I wanted to tell you the other night, but I never thought we’d get the listing. It just seemed pointless.”
Wendell’s mind rolled back to the dinner they’d shared on his porch, like old times. To the moment in the kitchen. And the next day, when she’d returned to help build the fence with Julia. “It seemed pointless to you?”
Ginny put the car in park and got out. “Please let me explain. Candace called the agency for an interview, but it didn’t go well. At all. I started to tell you that night at your place, but then you shared how upset the sale of White Pines made you. I didn’t want to upset you even more, especially since I never thought we’d land it.”
“Were you going to tell me now that you landed it?”
Her expression twisted. “Yes! Right after I told my parents. You have to understand, this is big news for them. Their agency has been floundering, and my dad had the heart attack. If we’re successful selling this place, it will change everything for them.”The conflict in her voice was genuine, but he was too caught off guard.
“It’s okay, Ginny. I get it.” There was no point in making her feel bad. But he didn’t want to hear anymore.
Ginny wouldn’t let it go. “Someone would’ve sold it, Wendell. This is so hard for me, knowing what this place means to you. But it means something so different for my family.”
“I said I get it.” It came out harsher than he’d meant, and he instantly regretted it. There was the familiar flash of hurt in her eyes. Just like all those years ago. Wendell stepped toward her. “Ginny, wait. I’m sorry.”
But she was already getting back in the car. “That makes two of us.” Before he could say anything else, she put the car in drive and was gone.
Wendell spun around to the barn. There was a bucket by the door filled with the tape he’d used to mark the fields, and he grabbed it now and slung it at the barn. It hit the wall with a crack and spun away to the ground, spilling its contents across the driveway. He glanced up at the house. Agreeing to stay on at White Pines had been the worst decision.
The dark mood stayed with him back at home, and when he turned his lights out late that night, he knew sleep would not come. He had been wrong to accept the job offer from Candace. Despite the bonus. He’d have been better off cutting his losses and taking a position on a contractor’s crew or in the hardware store to tide him over until he found a position like managing White Pines. Only he knew the truth: there was nothing else like it. But this was worse. Worse than leaving or letting go, worse than giving up the sanctuary-like peace of the estate and his work among the wild fields and animals. He’d have been better off working thecounter at a fast-food joint; the constant din, smells, and influx of demanding customers sure to trigger his PTSD from Afghanistan. It was a terrifying thought for a man who fought every day to buffer himself from such episodes. But even that would have been better than systematically dismantling the place that had saved him.
At some point he fell into a fitful slumber, and for the first time in a long while, he was with Wesley. Not the Wesley who haunted him, from their last year together, serving in the Guard. But Wesley as a child. They were running, across the upper yard behind the farmhouse, where the horse was now living. Their mother’s garden was in its full glory beside the red shed, a tangle of tomato vine tinged with robust orbs of fruit. Tidy rows of frilly-leafed red lettuce. Trellises covered in green beans. Wesley was chasing him in some kind of game, and Wendell could feel his sturdy legs pumping beneath him, his heart pounding in his ears. His little brother was lithe and fast, and despite Wendell’s age and height advantage, running was Wesley’s claim to childhood neighborhood fame, not his. As Wendell rounded the corner of the garden and sprinted across the open yard, he could hear Wesley catching up. He ran faster, his legs straining. But then he stumbled, catching the toe of his sneaker in a divot in the grass, and he almost fell. He was done for. Wesley would surely have him now. But just as he turned, prepared to be face-to-face, Wesley closing the gap, his little brother was not there. The sound of his breath behind Wendell had faded, the pounding of heels in the grass distant. Wendell slowed to a walk and spun around. Wesley had fallen back, drifting as if a tide were pulling him away. He was running, arms pumping, but drifting backward. “Hey!” Wendell called out. “Where are you going?” But Wesley did not answer. He ran faster, despite his reverse direction, and then he tired, slowed, and simply stood. Wendell watchedhelplessly as his brother receded into the distance, a vision above the fields. Before he disappeared, he lifted one hand. Wendell screamed his name.
He was upright, his chest pounding. It had been a dream, he realized now, catching his breath. Wendell looked around the room, disoriented. A lazy breeze stirred the curtains; the night outside his window had gone quiet. He fell back against his pillow. There was a sound outside, a scratch across the porch floorboards. Wendell was wide awake, but his limbs would not work to let him cross the floor to his window to look. It was probably nothing. What followed was a low moan, unlike the first sound. It reminded him of his dream, but he was awake now; it didn’t make sense. When he heard it again, this time he got up.
The porch light flickered when he turned it on. Through the window, he saw a small figure curled up in one of the rocking chairs. He unlocked the door and tugged it open. A child in striped yellow pajamas was tucked into the chair, her knees pulled to her chest, thumb jammed in her bow-shaped mouth. It was Pippa. Wendell tiptoed outside and stood over her, watching her little chest rise and fall. The child was fast asleep. He looked left and right, across the porch. There was no sign of Julia.
Not wanting to disturb her, he knelt. How long had she been out here? He placed his palm against her back; to his relief she was warm, not chilled, despite the cool temperature. Wendell had never spent much time around children, especially small ones. They made him nervous. But something about Pippa’s sweet, sleepy expression got to him. A tendril of blond hair had fallen across her eyes, and he gently tucked it back behind her ear. It was so soft. At the touch of his fingertip, her eyelids began to flutter. Slowly, she turned her head in his direction. For a start, Wendell feared he’d scared her. But Pippa just stared back at him sleepily.
“Come on, Pip,” he said. “Let’s get you inside.”
Without warning, she lifted both arms and draped them around his neck. She was light as a feather, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, okay.” Gently, he carried her inside.
But Pippa didn’t stir again. Almost immediately, she tucked her chin against his neck, her breath warm and heavy. He had barely made it into the living room with her in his arms when he felt her body grew heavy. She was already sound asleep.
Slowly, Wendell carried her to the kitchen and lifted the phone with his free hand. Without meaning to, he turned, and his nose brushed the back of her hair. He recognized the smell instantly. The scent of baby shampoo that his mother used on him and Wesley when they were small and took baths together. Wendell closed his eyes and dialed Candace.
As he waited for them to come, he sat with Pippa on his lap on the couch. The weight of her against his chest, and the smell of the baby shampoo, and something else—the sweet smell of a child—filled his senses. By the time Candace’s car rolled into the driveway, Wendell was sound asleep with Pippa still tucked against him. Upon hearing the slam of a car door, he started.
Pippa was sitting up in his lap, watching him intently. “Can I see Raddy?”
Wendell met Candace at the door, Julia in tow. Julia blew right past him. “She rode here all by herself?”
“She’s in the living room,” he said, but the screen door had already slapped shut behind her.
Candace remained on the porch. She looked completely out of character in a blue bathrobe and tennis shoes. “I don’t understand. What is she doing here?”
It was what he wanted to ask of her. Both girls coming the other night together was one thing. But Pippa venturing here alonein the dark was entirely different. “Did something happen at the house?” he asked.
Candace looked offended. “Of course not. They were sound asleep in their beds.”
