Long Shot

Chapter 10

Five hours on the road, and Leith’s eyelids felt coated in lead and sandpaper. He entered the lake valley just as the sun lifted itself above the eastern horizon and painted the hills that hid Gleann from the rest of the world.

He’d spent almost three nights down in Connecticut. Two full days of walking around the Carriage’s new estate with Rory, taking measurements and soil samples, sketching, and tossing ideas back and forth with her, then back to his motel at night to fire up the computer design programs he hadn’t used in months. This job was everything he’d wanted and more. Dream landscape with incredible topsoil, dream client who wanted to give him his freedom, new dream location. The adrenaline rising out of the potential—out of what could possibly signal his future—pumped through his system.

Early yesterday evening, when he’d started a new computer file outlining what kind of equipment he’d need to transport down from Gleann and in what order, and then had made lists of potential plants and supplies, he thought of Jen and her mosaic of windows always open on her laptop.

He’d expected to hear from her while he was gone. Hell, he’d expected to get a phone call an hour after he’d left her at that mausoleum of a house, once she saw what he’d been purposely forgetting. He could almost hear the questions, the concern, the disbelief. But the call never came.

Maybe she’d just gone in, grabbed the photo albums she wanted and then left. Ha! This was Jen, and he highly doubted that. She’d probably inventoried the whole place and had drawn up a schematic and schedule over what needed to be done to get the place cleaned out and sold. And that was okay, he told himself. He knew what he’d opened himself up to, and he’d deal with it when he got back. Maybe, he thought with a twinge, it was exactly what he needed.

Or maybe he could just leave the house shut tight and continue to pay Chris to take care of the yard.

The day of Da’s memorial, after Leith had illegally spread his ashes in various spots around Gleann and the valley, he’d locked up his childhood home and hadn’t opened it since. The following month Chris had come around to tell Leith the yard was beginning to look like shit, so Leith had sucked up the grief and drove down to the house, waving off Chris’s offer to help. At first he’d only meant to mow and clean up the overgrowth, but as soon as he started working, he roped off new flowerbeds and dug out the old vegetable garden. He’d stopped when it got too dark to see, and only then did he step back, hand on the shovel, and felt Da all around him.

That work—the kind of work they used to do together, before the pain had got to be too much for all that bending and Da had taken to sitting on the front porch and ordering his son around the yard—had kept Leith tethered to the warm memories of his father without drowning in them. Which was what would happen should he go inside that house again. It was easy to not feel sorrow when his body didn’t stop moving. It was helpful in keeping the sadness and loss at bay when he could step back and see the immediate fruits of his efforts—the kind of results Da would have loved.

Why was it necessary to go back into that house anyway? Why risk getting mowed down by an absence when he could stay outside and bask in the good memories? So he’d kept the door locked and had remained satisfied in his ability to keep his grief and acceptance at bay.

That is, until Jen had wanted to go inside, and he was reminded of all that he’d shut away. All that he’d never addressed. He’d sat there in his truck in the driveway, and it seemed like the house was ready to burst at its seams from all that he’d shoved inside and let fester over the past three years. No one could see those ghosts but him.

Except now Jen knew they existed. Now she would know that leaving Gleann was a lot more difficult than he’d been letting on, but that staying would be even worse.

He slowed his truck as Route 6 narrowed through the dramatic cut into the mountains, sheer, jagged cliffs rising three stories on both sides. The road curved here like a roller coaster, and when it spit him out into sloping, open land overlooking the valley lake, he knew he was five miles from Gleann. But something felt off. The sky was cloudless, the sun near blinding, and yet the valley looked dull, the water matte when it should have sparkled. To the east, where Gleann’s rooftops and lone stone church steeple poked between the trees, it looked like an extremely localized storm had focused on the town. Then he realized: That was no storm. It was a fire.

Pedal to the floor, he prayed his truck would stay on all four wheels as he sped around the curves toward the thick plumes of black smoke rising from what he guessed to be Hemmertex. The glass walls of the headquarters were obscured; he couldn’t see if that was indeed where the fire was centralized.

He drove until he could physically drive no more. Half the town of Gleann had filled up both lanes of Route 6, people clustered together in tight, murmuring groups, making no room to let him through. The other half of the town was lined up along the shoulder and against Loughlin’s cattle fence, staring across the fields and into the fairgrounds . . . where the barn serving as storage for the Highland Games was little more than a charred skeleton, its rib bones pointing angrily toward the sky.

“Shhhhit,” Leith said, throwing the truck in park and shutting it off. He got out, leaving the thing blocking the right lane. No one was going anywhere for quite a while. He pushed through the crowd, for once no one paying him any mind. He found an open spot on the fence and stared at the destruction.

Fire trucks from the larger community of Westbury, across the lake, had circled the blackened barn. All the water from putting out the fire had turned the fairgrounds into a mud pit, and violent tire tracks cross-hatched the grass. The air stung Leith’s lungs. Around him people coughed and held handkerchiefs and their shirtsleeves over their noses and mouths, but no one went home. Why would they? This was the most exciting thing to happen in Gleann in a hell of a long time, and misery and speculation would be conversation fodder for decades to come.

Though ninety percent of the stuff in that barn had seen its best days years ago, and the other ten percent was cheesy crap and as far from the Highland Games Da had described from back home, it was still Gleann’s, and they’d need it. Jen would need it to do what she’d come here to do.

As though his thinking of Jen had called her into the collective consciousness, he heard two women whispering behind him.

“Do you think she burned it down on purpose?” the first woman said.

“Maybe. Vera told Annabelle who told my Jack that she wants to change everything. And I mean everything.”

The first woman made a sound of disgust. “Don’t know why Sue brought her in. We could’ve just taken over, had it ourselves, the way we like it.”

Leith almost laughed. Jen burn down a barn? And yeah, the town probably could all gather in the middle of the destroyed fairgrounds and play some pipes and stuff, but the Scottish Society would pull support, no one who lived outside Gleann’s borders would attend, and then they’d be just a bunch of people standing around doing watered-down events that once upon a time had actually meant something. Jen wanted something bigger and better and she would work her ass off for that. To her, burning down a barn would be an insult to her prowess. To her, it would be taking the easy way out.

Where was she anyway? The fire was out and the firemen were picking through the smoking wreckage, but no one was dissipating. He had to say, despite his belief she had nothing to do with it, it would definitely look bad for her if she were the only person not here.

He rounded on the gossiping women. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Jen’s here to help.” He got the reaction he was looking for: fish mouths and huge, shocked eyes.

“But . . . but, look at her,” the first woman said, nudging her chin to the south, “sitting down over there, on her computer and phone, not even caring what’s going on.”

“And she’s not even doing anything to stop that trashy sister from coming between Owen and Melissa . . .”

That’s when Leith turned away. Let them say dumb, meaningless things.

There was a shift in the crowd, and then he saw her.

Jen had plopped down in the grass on the very edge of the gapers, her back to a fence post—and also the burned scene—her laptop open over her crossed legs, her phone pressed between ear and shoulder. Talking and typing simultaneously. In her pajamas and mismatched flip-flops. Her hair wound messily around a rubber band, and her glasses framed dark smudges underneath her makeup-less eyes.

He recognized the two lines between the dark arch of her eyebrows; he’d seen them in the barn that no longer existed, when she’d switched into severe work mode and nothing else existed but the task at hand.

Goddamn it. He’d missed her.

He’d felt it as he’d pulled away from Da’s house three days ago, that sickly twist in his stomach as he’d glanced into the rearview mirror and saw her standing in his driveway. He’d sensed something nagging at him as he’d driven south in search of his new life. Something that told him maybe he’d just driven away from a pretty big part of himself that had nothing to do with Da’s house or his business or Mildred’s properties.

He wasn’t supposed to miss her. Not after only a few days. He’d already gone through that need and separation once before, a long time ago, and with Jen both were especially potent. He wasn’t doing that again. Nope.

Yet as he sifted through the people he’d known all his life, drawing closer and closer to where she sat, all he could imagine was kicking aside that laptop and phone, dragging her up by the shoulders, pinning her to that leaning fence post, and kissing the hell out of her. Then, after he caught his breath, he’d apologize for driving off the way he had, and kiss her all over again.

He stopped just beyond her flip-flops. The townspeople had given her a wide berth, though he saw Mayor Sue lingering nearby, the bright orange of today’s Syracuse gear proclaiming her presence.

Jen was typing furiously while saying “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” into the phone. He just stood there watching, wondering what exactly she was doing.

“Oh, that’s great to hear. Thanks so much. I’d say I owe you, but it seems like we’re even now.” Then she laughed, said good-bye, and dropped the phone from her ear.

He cleared his throat. It took her a moment to look up, but when she did, something inside his chest did this uncomfortable flip because those facial lines of concentration and problem solving disappeared. Just vanished.

“Hey!” She saved whatever it was she was working on, shut the laptop, and scrambled to her feet. “When did you get back?”

He gestured down the hill, over the heads of the crowd, to where his truck was parked jauntily in the road. “Just pulled in now.”

“Silly me. Should’ve heard that thing coming. I’ve been a bit busy.”

He threw a look of regret at the barn. “Hate to say it, but you look way too pleased. The people are talking.”

She grinned, but he got the feeling she was reining in her true pleasure. As she leaned closer, he saw how sleepy she was, even underneath the projected alertness. “Because everything’s taken care of,” she whispered.

“See, now even I’m starting to see you with matches and a crazed smile.”

“No, no.” She waved the hand that still held her phone. “I mean that I’ve fixed things. Hemmertex landowners have agreed to let us rent their land, and I’ve called in a few favors. New tents, new tables, new signage, they’re all on their way.” She wiggled the phone, then playfully hit him in the shoulder with it. “And you make fun of me for having it on me all the time. This thing is going to save the games, you know. I need to go tell Sue.”

Jen walked off, leaving him in a sort of wondrous daze. He watched her gesture excitedly to Sue, who just looked squinty-eyed back at the woman who was telling her that she had it all under control, that everything would be all right. Sue merely nodded. Jen never faltered.

He wanted to walk right over to those two women who’d bashed and speculated about Jen and set them straight, tell them all about what Jen had just done. How she’d probably been dragged from her bed before the sun—a hysterical phone call from Sue, most likely—and had been working her ass off for hours to fix it all for the benefit of people she barely knew and who didn’t appreciate it.

Except that Jen would probably hate that. She’d want her actions to speak louder than any of his words could possibly do. She’d want to prove herself. So he just stepped back and watched.

Watched as Jen turned away from explaining to Sue, and finally let her frustration show at still not being able to get a positive reaction from the mayor. Only Leith could see Jen’s face, the tightening of her lips, the pained squint of those jewel eyes. Only Leith saw her hold a hand to her stomach as though she might be sick.

As Jen bent over to gather her computer and purse from where it sat in the grass, the movement of bright orange caught his eye. Mayor Sue was on the move, weaving in and out of her people like a chieftain after a particularly intense and bloody battle. She was rubbing the backs of some people, patting children on the head, and clasping hands with others. Nothing too unusual for the woman who loved Gleann perhaps most of all, except for the fact that he could read Jen’s name on Sue’s lips. And when the mayor gestured to Jen, there was satisfaction on her face. A little bit of surprise. Perhaps even . . . pride. Sue was many things, but inauthentic wasn’t one of them. She was just slightly prickly and sometimes difficult to please.

He considered pointing out to Jen that it seemed she had impressed Sue, but then Sue turned around and the moment was gone. He knew Jen would never believe it had happened.

“So, what now?” he asked as Jen straightened.

She jammed fingers into her hair, unknowingly snagging some of it free from the rubber band and making it even messier. There were a few sun-damage freckles sprinkled on her shoulders; he didn’t know if they’d appeared in the past ten years or if they’d always been there and he’d just never noticed.

“Now?” She glanced sheepishly at her pajamas and flip-flops. “Coffee. And likely clothes.”

“What about sleep? Your eyes are closing.”

She looked at him as though he’d suggested giving the State of the Union in clown makeup and a feather boa. “But that’s what the coffee is for.”

When she started to eye him in a serious way, he knew her quick-firing brain had switched from thinking about the smoking barn to how they’d parted three days ago. He knew this because her expression softened with exactly the kind of pity he’d wanted to avoid.

“Well”—he took off his Red Sox baseball cap, scrubbed through his hair, and then repositioned the cap—“I’ve been driving since midnight so I’m gonna hit the sack.”

“Okay.” The pity disappeared, which shocked him. She’d always been good at picking up hints, but not necessarily as good at heeding them if they didn’t fit into the direction she wanted to go. “Talk to you later?”

He knew what she meant by “talking,” and he still nodded, because he’d knowingly thrown wide open the door into his mind and allowed her to take a good long look inside.

Now that Sue had made the rounds with her reassurances, the flashing lights on the fire trucks had been turned off, and the big hoses were spraying down the last of the barn ash, the townspeople started to dissipate. He wouldn’t have to mow anyone down to get his truck back to 740 Maple.

Jen called his name when he was halfway to his truck. He turned around. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for the albums. They helped. A lot. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get all this done this morning if I hadn’t seen them.”

Her smile was so warm that it melted a bit of his fear over having let her inside the house.

“Good to hear it,” he said, and finally escaped to the safety of his truck.