Long Shot

Chapter 4

The look on Jen’s face was absolutely priceless as she sat in his passenger seat and hugged that gigantic green bag to her chest. She looked like she’d been lured into a stranger’s windowless van with the promise of candy. Leith threw back his head and laughed.

“Relax,” he said. “You can wait here. I’ll just be a minute.”

But it took him a few moments to actually pull the door handle and swing his legs out, because he’d been sitting next to her for about 3.6 seconds, and he didn’t want to move away quite yet.

Shower. Yep. That’s what he needed to wash away the surreality of this whole situation.

He left her there in his truck, with those bright green eyes he’d almost forgotten about impossibly wide, and her mouth slack and open, ready to . . . say something. He’d probably get it when he returned to the truck; Jen had never been one to back down from saying anything she wanted to say.

He jogged into Mildred’s house and took the stairs two at a time, stripping off his grimy shirt as he went. He kicked his boots and socks and jeans into a pile in the hallway, and ducked into the cramped bathroom that looked like a bushel of peaches had exploded inside it. The shower curtain was frilly and dusty, but the water that hit his chest was refreshingly, wonderfully cold on such a hot, strange day.

Jen Haverhurst was outside. Sitting in his truck.

Jesus.

Watching her walk toward him on the driveway, the way her legs moved under that dress . . . He’d never seen her wear high heels before. When they’d been together it’d been all shorts and flip-flops and sneakers. She’d smelled of sunscreen and sweet girl sweat after a long day waiting tables. Whenever they made out or had sex, the ChapStick on her lips would transfer to his, and he would spend half the night lying in his bed, rolling his lips together to bring back the flavor.

Today—even though he’d glimpsed her half-naked through the window last night—she looked exactly as he’d expected, and yet entirely different. Better.

But the truth was, he had no idea what sort of person she’d become. Likewise, she couldn’t claim to know him anymore, either.

How much had he changed, when it came down to it? How much could he have been allowed to change, given the fences that had been erected around his life in this valley? The thought threatened to level him as he pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans, and shoved his feet back into his mud-caked boots.

The second he opened the truck cab door, she started in on him, just as he’d predicted. “You live here? Right next to the house I’m renting? How the hell did that happen?”

He slid behind the wheel, averting his face so she couldn’t see his shit-eating grin. Then he turned to her and shrugged. “Fate is weird.”

She tucked a glossy piece of dark hair behind her ear and stared back at him with that wide-eyed look of hers. “Is that what this is? Fate?”

He had one hand on the wheel. The other, holding the truck key, froze halfway to the ignition. It was just a split second—a flicker of a fly’s wings—but there it was. That. That shuddering, overpowering, nameless thing that had overcome him one night a thousand summers ago. That thing about her that had flipped his brain from, “Hey, I can’t wait to tell my best friend Jen about that,” to “Wow, Jen is amazing and gorgeous and you want to be a lot more than just her friend.”

With a hard, sharp shake of his head, he cranked the key and the truck rumbled to life. He said, as he backed out of the driveway so he wouldn’t have to look at her, “I don’t know what this is.”

Jen settled deeper into the seat. “I thought I heard someone pull in here last night.”

“Yeah, I was out of town until late.” And then I saw you, half-naked. God help me, I can’t get it out of my mind. Change the subject. “So how much do you remember about the games?”

“Oh, gosh,” she said to the window as she watched the rounded hills and thick trees of Gleann pass by. “Bits and pieces. Nothing about the organization or anything, nothing that I need to know now, of course. But I remember the pipes and drums, that sound echoing everywhere. I remember the pretend sword fights and sneaking beers with you after sophomore year. I remember people in lawn chairs watching little girls in tartan dancing on a stage. But most of all I remember sitting at your dad’s feet watching the heavy athletics. He explained all the events to me. I wish I remembered all the details.”

Leith nodded and found it difficult for the tightness in his chest.

“I’m scared to ask, but . . . your dad?”

He cleared his throat. “Died. Three years ago. The old guy held on five years more than they gave him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He was so glad he was driving so he wouldn’t have to see her face. Wouldn’t have to witness what would surely be the kind of pity that made him want to gouge out his own eyes.

“I’ve gone through all the stages,” he told the road with a practiced and perfected shrug. “Anger, denial, all that jazz.”

The truth was, if Gleann reminded Leith of Jen, Gleann was Da. The fact that Da wasn’t here anymore gave Leith perhaps the biggest reason to get the hell out, but it also packed him with some pretty terrifying guilt for up and leaving a place that had embraced him so completely. A place that Da had chosen to love as much as his homeland.

“Okay,” Jen said. “That’s good. He was such an amazing man. I remember that everyone loved him.”

He blew out a breath and turned into the fairgrounds, which were nothing more than a large, undulating field butting up against Loughlin’s cattle pasture. A row of barns, also owned by Loughlin—because what in Gleann didn’t the old farmer own?—lined the back side of the grounds, and it was there that Leith aimed his truck, gritting his teeth at every hole in the field his big white baby found.

“How have the games changed since I’ve been here?” Jen asked in such a sunny manner he knew she was trying to turn the tide of the conversation away from his father. For some reason it made him feel worse, so he flashed her a smile and draped one forearm over the top of the wheel.

“Couldn’t really tell you,” he said over the rattle of the truck. “Haven’t been in a couple of years. I mean, I heard stuff, but I don’t compete anymore.”

“Aha,” she said in a way that told him she already knew that. “Why not?”

“No time, once my business took off. Summer is the busy season.” He parked by the largest barn, which the city rented from Loughlin to store everything for the games.

“You look like you work out, like you could still throw.”

He turned to her sharply and her gaze skittered away from his arms.

“Maybe,” he said with an amused quirk to his mouth, not indicating which statement he was addressing.

She blushed, and at first he didn’t recognize it, since it was so unusual for her. “Aimee said you won the overall three years in a row while I was at college.”

His eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, to the expanse of field spreading within that small rectangle. He could still hear everything Jen had described in her memories, but underneath that, even stronger in his senses, came the sound of the laughter and ball-busting between competitors, his longtime throwing buddies. He could still feel the power and exhilaration as his muscles worked and threw the various heavy implements. And if he turned his head just so, he could still see Da, sitting on the edge of the athletic field border, Jen at his ankles.

“I did,” he said, then he parked and got out of the truck.

Jen slid out after a second or two, having to use the running board to step down. “Let me ask you, did you ever throw at the bigger games across the state?”

“For a couple of years. Much tougher competition, took me away from work too much. The AD’s a good friend of mine.”

“AD?”

“Athletic Director. Handles all the heavy events at each games.”

“Ah.” She hoisted that giant purse higher up on her shoulder and turned in a circle, her lips together, assessing.

Not for the first time, he saw what she was seeing: an oddly shaped patch of semiflat land, riddled with holes and dirt patches and weeds, dotted with outbuildings that maybe at one time might have been handsome stables for 4-H livestock shows or other events that might have drawn crowds from all over New England. Now they tilted to one side or another, their wood walls weathered, creeping vines covering any sort of character.

He pointed to the biggest barn. “This is where they keep all the stuff for the games. The tents and tables, the big castle and stuff.”

She turned to him, eyebrow lifted. “I’m sorry. Castle?”

He wiped at the corner of his mouth and glanced away. “Eight or nine years ago DeeDee made this huge fake castle. It looked like a kid’s art project. I think it was supposed to give authenticity or something.”

Jen looked horrified, covering her mouth with a hand, then recovered quickly. “Did the attendees like it?”

“Maybe the first year.”

“And then?”

“Then it turned into a cartoon, and the non-local attendees all but ran across state.”

“See? You did know how it’s changed.”

“Maybe a bit.”

She dug into her bag, her whole arm disappearing, and pulled out a small key ring. “Let’s go take a look.”

After it was unlocked, he lugged open the barn door on dry and screeching rails. She set down her expensive-looking purse right there in the dirt and edged deeper into the barn. Leith followed, popping open a stubborn crate or moving the bigger ones when she couldn’t do it herself and asked for his help.

She was talking to herself, as he’d spied her doing last night through the kitchen window. She was utterly absorbed, her hands moving like she was conversing with a colleague. There was something endearing about it, but something also equally frustrating, because she wasn’t back in some office in New York. She was in a barn. In Gleann. With him. And though he wasn’t expecting a laughfest or the immediate comfort they’d had ten years ago, he didn’t think he’d be on her pay-no-mind list.

She was perusing the back corner when she made a sound of surprise.

“What is it?” he called.

“Come take a look.”

He wove around disorganized piles of, well, crap to join her in the corner. There, tucked between some crates, was a dirty blanket, filthy pillow, a red baseball cap with a partially unraveled potato chip logo, and an empty pack of cigarettes.

“Homeless person?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe.” The valley did have a few.

She wandered back to her purse and pulled out a slim, light laptop, plopping it down on a nearby crate. He liked the way she curled her hair behind her ear and tilted her head so it wouldn’t hang in her face. He liked how the movement exposed her neck. He even liked her animated expressions as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

Singularly focused, that was Jen. And right now, her focus wasn’t anywhere near him. Not that he’d expected it to be.

He leaned his back against the barn door and turned his head to look out at the field again. That ragged expanse of grass and gravel cupped many of his memories in its dips and rises, but perhaps none as strong as Jen’s last night in Gleann. It had been a cloudy, hot night, and they’d spread a blanket right there in the center, where no house or town lights reached. Just them.

“Can I come say goodbye before I leave tomorrow?”

Her words struck his back as he stomped across the fairgrounds, the Cadillac parked crookedly on the other side of the gate.

“Don’t bother,” he shouted into the darkness. “Sounds like you’re taking care of that tonight.”

Maybe that’s why he’d never been able to give his heart away to anyone else over the past ten years: because it was still here where Jen had smacked it down, and every time someone walked or drove across the field, they ground it deeper into the dirt.

Since he’d steered her through the fairground gates, she hadn’t even looked in the direction of that scene. Not even a single glance. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Once upon a time he’d been the one to start everything, and look how they’d ended up. Besides, did it even matter anymore?

Leaving the laptop as though she’d heard his thoughts, she walked past him out of the barn. She stood staring out at the empty fairgrounds for what seemed like an hour. His heart picked up its rhythm. He couldn’t see her face and he was dying to see her reaction, to watch the memories come back to her, but he didn’t want to seem obvious.

When she turned around with her brow wrinkled, her breath hitched as though she was preparing to say something. He pushed away from the door, expectant.

Instead, she circled around him, heading in the opposite direction of that fateful patch of grass. She peered around the corner of the barn, to where a narrow drive shot past the splintered, angled posts of Loughlin’s cattle pasture and emptied into the vast, empty parking lot surrounding the vacant Hemmertex building.

She turned back around, her eyes as brilliant as the grass. “What do you know about the Hemmertex land over there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does Loughlin own that, too?”

He looked over at Loughlin’s rotting fences and decaying properties. “No, he sold that parcel. I know the company who owns it now; it’s not Hemmertex.”

“You do?”

“Um, yeah.” He cringed. “Don’t be influenced by what you see now, but I did all that landscaping.”

Her eyes popped wide and he caught a faint smile as she turned back around to survey the work he’d done—and that had since gone to weed and overgrowth—years and years ago. Sweeping lawns surrounded the building. The CEO had once thrown company picnics there. Leith had constructed a small amphitheater near the cafeteria door, where on some Fridays there had been musicians. Chris had played his fiddle there once or twice.

“I’m good,” he felt the need to add. “Better than corporate, better than that. Go take a look at some of the huge homes up in the hills, if you want.”

He told himself that the slow, sly smile she threw him over her shoulder had no heat in it. None whatsoever.

“I believe you,” she said. “Can you get me contact info for the Hemmertex landowners?”

He’d have to dig out his computer from storage. “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

As she turned back around, her appearance—the shoulders-back confidence, the stunning, mature beauty—sent a blast of such powerful desire through him, he actually took a step back.

“Because I want to move the games over there,” she said.

Leith hissed through his teeth and shook his head. “Gleann doesn’t do so well with change.”

She shrugged in a manner that said she was used to getting her way. “They’re going to have to, if they don’t want to lose this.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive. Change is good. Change is the answer.”

A hundred different confrontations sprouted in his mind. He pictured Jen holding one of those fake swords DeeDee loved so much and standing in the center of Gleann fighting off angry townspeople, Mayor Sue wielding a pitchfork.

She advanced toward him predatorily. “Are you expensive?”

He coughed. “Excuse me?”

“Landscaping. Maintenance.”

He ran a palm down his scruff and eyed the land in the distance, where his carefully selected shrubs and native grasses now resembled an old trailer park off I-93. “I used to charge a pretty penny. Back when I could.”

“Give me a ballpark figure. For cleaning all that up back there.”

He lowered his chin, trapped her eyes with his. “You want to hire me?”

There it was again. That glint of something more on her face. That hint that beneath her professional facade, there was an actual woman who remembered what had happened between them, and who, quite possibly, was still affected by it.

“Maybe.” Her eyebrow twitched. “If the price is right.”

He rattled off a number. She haggled it down, of course. He’d already started low and he didn’t care. Chris could do most of the work while he was running around scouting new locations, and he could pitch in when he felt the need to get on top of a mower or wave around a Weedwacker. It was income. Then he could pay Chris, who needed it far more than Leith did.

Jen gave him a blazing smile that had him picturing her in her underwear and glasses again. That made him back away, because what she was getting out of this situation was entirely different from what he was, and he hated how uneven it felt. Again. He was never balanced around her.

He ambled back to the barn. “So we done here?”

“I wasn’t aware there was a ‘we,’” she said, “but yes.”

Of course there wasn’t a “we.” He did not look over at the center of the field.

Tapping on her computer, she went right back to work, her fingers blurry, her delicious bottom lip caught between her teeth. The sight of her drew him forward until he looked over her shoulder at the screen.

The open document was titled “Changes.” Other programs made a patchwork of the screen—spreadsheets and graphs and a website or two. She moved between them with lightning speed. Then, suddenly, she snapped the laptop shut, shoved it into her purse, and straightened. She jumped when she finally realized how close Leith had gotten. She swallowed, glanced down his body and back up to find his eyes again. Selfishly, he was more than a little happy he’d managed to disarm her. Or maybe it was he who was unarmed and defenseless, because the urge to push her against the crates and kiss her suddenly overtook him.

“Um.” She held her purse strap in a death grip. “I have to head over to Town Hall now.”

“Meeting with Mayor Sue?” He still didn’t move, even though he blocked the door.

“I refuse to call her that. That woman made my life miserable five summers running. It’s bad enough she’s my boss again.”

“Miserable? Really?” He didn’t remember that, didn’t remember Jen ever being affected by criticism or bad air. It was strange for him to hear, when he thought he’d known her so well.

Jen blew a piece of hair off her forehead. “She’s predisposed to hate anything I do. I’m always running uphill with her. I’m surprised she let me do this.”

“Let you? They’re not paying you?”

“No. I took vacation.”

Dumbfounded, Leith cocked his head and planted his hands on his hips. The girl had worked at least two jobs every summer she’d been here. She’d checked her bank balance nearly every day. All she’d ever talked about was being someone, being a success. Work, work, work. What else didn’t he know about her? What else had he gotten wrong?

“So why are you doing this?” he asked, voice soft. “Really. This doesn’t . . . seem like you.”

Her facial features tensed. “You can’t say that.”

He had to look away because the urge to want to know her was building and building, and he wasn’t sure if he should let it. “You’re absolutely right.”

She cleared her throat but said nothing.

“So.” He stepped closer, even though there was scant space left for him to erase. A little cloud of dust rose between them where he’d scuffed the dirt with his boot. She had to tilt her head back to look at him, and he tried not to remember that this was exactly how she’d looked with her back against the Stone Pub wall the night of their first kiss. “Is this who you are now? Is this what you do? Save small town festivals?”

“No.” She licked her lips, and the way she stared into his eyes had him feeling eighteen all over again. “Just this one.”