Wild in the Field

Five

Nothing had gone well for the entire week, and as far as Camille was concerned, it was all Pete’s fault. He’d rattled her. It was one thing for her high school crush-the heroic icon of her whole darn childhood-to turn into a living, breathing man who seemed to be attracted to her. But entirely another thing for her to respond to him.

Obviously there was nothing serious between them-and couldn’t be. It was just a matter of shaking off this constant rattled feeling. So she’d withdrawn. Specifically, she tried holing up in the cottage the way she had those first weeks, but that no longer seemed to work. The darn dog took all kinds of time and care. And the lavender simply had to be tended. And then, Pete’s boys kept showing up to help her.

Camille was all for denial and cowardice and hiding out, but dagnabbit, a woman couldn’t even be a neurotic hermit in peace around here.

She hiked the driveway between the main house and her sister’s Herb Haven business. Clouds had started building before noon, and now they were chasing across the sky, tumbling over each other, bringing a storm in their shadows. Since she’d been chased out of the lavender field because of the inclement weather, she figured she might as well use the time to suck it up and seek out her sister.

She hoped to find Violet alone, but when she poked her head in the Herb Haven, she spotted at least three bodies wandering around-that is, three human bodies, not counting the half-dozen cats.

She shied from the sound of strangers’ voices. She’d have shied from the cats, too, except that two of the long-haired Persians tangled around her legs before she could escape back outside. Trying to walk to the greenhouses was an exercise in getting tripped and sabotaged. Finally, she hunched down to pet them, snarling behind her, “Dammit, Killer. You’re a dog. Isn’t it a mandate that you’re supposed to chase cats? What good are you?”

She didn’t have to look back to know the shepherd was as close behind her as bad breath. Killer was still snarling at every opportunity-including at her-but this last week, he’d taken up following her everywhere. She couldn’t go to the bathroom, couldn’t go to dinner, couldn’t close the door on her bedroom without him. Just like now, he sat patiently, tongue lolling, less than two feet away from the disgusting sight of her petting the two long-haired nuisance cats.

The damn dog was just like having a second conscience. Couldn’t escape him for love or money.

Finally the cats seemed sated. She stood up, slugged her hands in her jeans pockets, and wandered around the first greenhouse. Her parents had built this one. It wasn’t as high-tech as Vi’s new greenhouse, but it still had touches of their mother in here-Margaux’s sacred pruning shears, her tidy potting sink and counter, the old French apron she used to wear.

Camille swallowed hard. Margaux was a wildly flamboyant flower lover, like Violet. And like Daisy. Cam was the only misfit of the daughters, the only one who’d wanted a high-stress city job, the one who’d never loved romantic lace and doodads. But when she was in here, sometimes she imagined the faint hint of her mother’s perfume, lavender and jasmine, the warm scents hiding in all the musky, humid greenery.

Of course, that was foolishness. The greenhouse smelled like dirt and fertilizer, nothing more fanciful than that. She didn’t miss her mother. She was long a grown woman, for God’s sake. She was just…ticked off. Because she’d postponed talking to Violet as long as she possibly could-not because she cared about what her sister was going to do with the lavender, but because she’d promised Pete.

And darn it, she definitely didn’t want to think about Pete.

So she poked and prodded, sniffed flowers, tested soil, read labels, snooped. By the time she heard Violet’s exuberant, “Hey, you!” she’d explored one greenhouse stem to stern and was halfway through the new one.

“Cam! You’re out and about. Still with the mutt, I see.” Violet sidestepped Killer, who growled and snarled for a second, but Vi had stopped being impressed by the dog’s shenanigans. She barely spared him a patient look before surging forward. Today she was wearing one of her floppy straw hats, a peasant blouse and a gypsy skirt printed with every color and some that probably didn’t exist. “You could have found me in the store if you needed me.”

“You had customers. And I wasn’t in any hurry.”

“You mean, you’re still avoiding talking to anyone. Have you been to town yet? Even once?” Vi glanced at her face and said hastily, “Never mind, never mind. I’m so glad you’re here. Did you see my peonies? My St. John’s Wort? How about this one? You know what this is?”

She pointed to a silver-leaved plant, flowering now with deep, deep blue petals and bright yellow stamens. Camille figured she’d better cater to her. “No, what is it?”

“Nightshade. There are different kinds of wild nightshade. This silver-leafed one is poisonous, but it’s also a wonderful, healing herb. People shouldn’t be afraid of it. I mean potatoes and tomatoes are cousins of nightshade, and we all love those. And over here, Cam. Do you know what this one is?”

Camille had barely settled down to study the nightshade before Vi was dancing off, all excited now, fluttering from plant to plant like a butterfly. “Are you looking?” Violet demanded.

“Yes. Sheesh.” Truth to tell, most things in the greenhouses were gorgeous, but the plant Violet motioned to now was uglier than a weed. The leaves were coarse and stiff and fuzzy.

“It’s called a button bush. Reminds me of lavender.”

“Are you kidding? Lavender’s beautiful. This looks something you’d spray to kill.”

“Well, I know it’s not much to look at. But you can’t pamper lavender and you can’t pamper this either. Lavender’s going to grow where it’s going to grow. It’s like a Scot. You can’t tell it anything. This button bush’ll grow, but only if you create kind of the same marshy, hostile environment where it grows naturally.”

“And you’d do that why?” Camille asked wryly.

“Because it’s so pretty in dried bouquets. And that’s a lot of why people want herbs. Some for medicine or healing. Some like flowers. Some want them for spices. But some just like to dry them, and these buttons really add something cute in a bouquet.”

“Okay.” Camille interrupted before her sis could go on another endless tangent. “I looked around. Everything you’re doing is cool, Vi. It’s interesting. But you actually think there’s a chance of selling all this stuff? The greenhouses are jammed full.”

“Yeah, they are, aren’t they…” Vi connected nozzles. Started sprays. Pinched a brown leaf here and there. Kept on the move. “I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t really added up stuff in the ledgers for a while. There hasn’t been time. But I had money from the divorce.”

“I knew the creep gave you a decent settlement, but I guess I thought you’d want to sock it away, for savings. Security.”

“Maybe I should have saved some. But after the divorce, I just needed to make something instead of destroy something, you know? Build something instead of splitting it apart. And when I got into breeding these plants, learning how to propagate them, watching all the new babies emerge like a surprise…it was so wonderful.”

“It is wonderful, Vi.” Camille hadn’t had to be tactful-or tried to be tactful-in months now. If she could have ripped any hint of softness from her character, she would have. But somehow she sensed there was something going on with her sister that she didn’t understand, so she tried to tread more carefully. “But, all the new breeds of lavender you started out there…did you realize how much you were planting?”

“Well. Sort of.”

“Vi, you’re going to have enough lavender to stock the East Coast. You can’t possibly sell even a portion of it just in your Herb Haven. You must have researched other markets? For the oil? And florists? And-?”

“I will, I will, Cam.” Her sister rushed closer to snuggle her in a fast, warm hug, then drew back with a beaming smile. “Don’t worry about the silly old lavender. Who cares? I’ll figure out all that marketing stuff. I just want you to get rested and get well. And you are feeling better, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine. I was always fine,” Camille said impatiently.

Violet, when you never expected it, could suddenly turn heartless. “So, since you’re so fine, that’s that. We’re going out to dinner tonight. In White Hills.”

Panic slicked up Camille’s pulse, slippery as a snake and twice as icky. “No, I-”

“Come on, Cam. We’ll have a girls’ night out. Don’t you remember how many times you and me and Daisy would do that, go into town, shop or have dinner on any excuse-and how much fun we always had? Come on! We can go pig out on something decadent. Eat chocolate. Drink wine. And how about a movie?”

“NO. I mean it! No!” She spun around and hustled for the greenhouse door, Killer hurtling right after her.

Violet sighed. “Cam. I love you, sis. But you either do this with me, or I’m going to have to get tough.”

“Don’t you call mother!”

“Hey. I’m not that low. But I am warning you-”

Camille kept on going. Vi had threatened to tell on her before, but she hadn’t. Violet wouldn’t easily worry Mom or Dad any more than she would. Both of them would tattletale a problem with Daisy, but with Daisy still living in France for now, Camille felt safe from her interference, too. Besides, she’d get off the farm. When she got around to it. Some time. Eventually.

A blustery storm came and went, making Cam pace like a caged mouse. The instant the rain stopped, she took off with clippers for the lavender field, with Killer hugging her shadow.

Determinedly, she began pruning and clipping, pruning and clipping. The sky occasionally dripped, and the gloomy light seemed infused with a gray-damp chill. But, it was easier to work in cool than heat, even though some of the injuries from the attack came back to haunt her. Her ribs ached sharply if she clipped too fast; her ankle tried to give out if she pushed too hard-and God knows, she’d been pushing herself to the point of blisters.

Still, especially this afternoon, the work was exactly what she needed. Each lavender bush needed to be framed into a ball shape, but every single cut affected every single other cut. The work took just enough concentration that she didn’t have spare time to think or brood.

When she suddenly heard the sound of a truck engine charging down the farm road behind her, she immediately stood up. It was a white pickup, the newer kind of truck style with a back seat and back doors, and yes, of course she recognized it. But where she’d become used to seeing the two younger MacDougals, her heartbeat thumped like a fretful puppy’s tail at the sight of Pete.

Although he pulled up and braked, he took his time before climbing out. For a moment he just sat there, his arm resting in the open window, looking terrific in an open-throated shirt, his face freshly shaved, his hair brushed. Something in his eyes made her think of un-banked fires and unfinished kisses, and worried her heartbeat all over again.

Still, it was his boys who exploded out of the truck. Par for the course, they looked like refugees from a rascal camp, hair all over the place, tripping as they galloped toward her in pants that sagged below their shoes.

They both yelled, “Hey, Camille!” as if they were delighted to see her, when the damn boys knew perfectly well she’d been churlish and rude to both of them. She frowned as they sprinted toward her, noting that Killer opened his eyes but didn’t waste any energy barking or snarling for either of them.

“You gotta come with us!” Sean reached her first, panting since he’d run the lavender rows at a breakneck pace.

“Yeah, we’re going to dinner and a movie. But we only get to go if you come.”

“Whoa,” Camille said firmly, thinking that she was going to strangle her sister and not look back. She’d trusted Vi. Sure, sisters threatened each other-that’s what sisters did-but damnation, she’d never thought Violet would sink so low as to sic an outsider on her. Telling Daisy or mom on her would have been loathsome. But sheesh. Tattletaling to Pete was low-down mean.

“It’s a school night,” Simon explained. “Which means that we usually never get to do anything. Much less go to a movie. Much less go out to dinner and not have to do dishes. And Gramps is going to play euchre with his friends, so he doesn’t need us at home.”

“Well, that’s nice. But you don’t need me to come with you.”

“Dad says we do. Dad says, if we can get you to go, then fine. Otherwise we have to go back home and do dishes and homework. Come on, Camille.”

“Yeah, come on. The future of our world rests with you. You want us to have to go home and wash dishes? I mean, is that fair?”

She wasn’t just going to kill her sister. She was going to feed her sister to red ants. On a hot day. After Violet had been slathered with honey.

Camille pushed at her hair. “Look, guys. I feel your pain. I think dishes are a fate worse than death, too. But I’m not going anywhere. You don’t need me. I’ve been working outside. My hands are dirty. I’ve been in these jeans all day. I-”

“Like, so?” Sean said in confusion.

To a woman she wouldn’t have to explain. “So I can’t go out in public like this.”

“That’s dumb,” Simon informed her. “We like how you look. You look like one of us.

She wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose. She realized the boys meant a compliment. The boys often meant a compliment when they were insulting her, so there was no point in being offended. “Look, Sean. Simon. I know you’re trying to do something nice-”

“We are not! Nobody’s trying to do anything nice! We’re just trying to get out of chores and housework! Cripes, Camille. It’s a free movie, what’s the big deal?”

Sean sighed, then offered the ultimate sacrifice. “We won’t have any farting or burping contests. In fact, we’ll do our best not to act normal at all.” Then he noticed the dog. “Hey, Darby’s looking really good.”

“He’s been answering to the name Killer for several days now.”

“Whatever. Look, you could think of the movie like our chance to thank you for saving Darby’s life. Isn’t that a good reason? And you like McDonald’s, don’t you? You don’t do that tofu thing like your sister?”

“Oh, man.” She could feel her resolve slip a notch. She hadn’t considered the one gigantic benefit to leaving home-the chance to escape yet another healthful, herb-laden, vegetable-chocked, leafy dinner. She imagined a French fry. Heaped with salt and ketchup. Then sighed. “Damn. But no. And I really mean no. See, my sister cooks. So I can’t just take off when she’s already gone to the trouble of making dinner-”

“Oh, she said it was okay. In fact, she called Dad. That was how we knew you could go. She told Dad she was gonna have a makeup party. Or a makeover party. Whatever. Like that. Something for women. And we knew you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that crud, would you, Camille?”

Again, Camille wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose. She didn’t give a damn about her appearance. That was the truth. The total truth. But it was starting to grate-just a wee bit-that the boys seemed so sure she didn’t care if she were the ugliest female troll to ever walk under a bridge.

She opened her mouth to answer them, yet somehow at that instant met Pete’s eyes. From the distance across the field, it wasn’t as if she could really see him, but she felt him looking at her. Felt the flush of warmth from his looking at her…and the flush of memories from the last time she’d ended up in his arms.

“Come on, Cam, come on, come on-”

“All right.” Their nagging was so relentless that she couldn’t think, couldn’t keep it together enough to hold firm. And then suddenly the boys were whooping around her, pulling her arms, and then she was boosted into the back of the truck with the pair of them. Killer promptly started a holy howling.

Pete swore, stopped the truck, got out, and lifted the dog into the back of the truck. Camille, openmouthed, watched the dog submit to being carried and then riding in the truck bed as if this were the best thing that had happened to him in a week of Sundays. Pete drove to her backyard and dropped Killer off in the fenced-in area. The dog started the holy howling thing again.

“Quit it. I’m bringing her back in a couple hours,” Pete promised the dog.

“I hate to hear him cry. We could have brought him,” Sean said.

“To dinner?”

“He could have had a hamburger.”

“And then been stuck in the truck for two hours while we watched a movie?”

Sean, having lost that argument, charged into another one. He’d pinned down the horse he wanted. It was a Morgan. Morgans could work or race or do whatever they wanted. Morgans were beautiful. And perfect for the family.

Camille listened to Sean’s nagging and Pete’s quiet, persistent answers, which saved her having to make any conversation. But she was as aware of Pete as if they were alone. His eyes kept meeting hers in the rearview mirror.

He seemed to be communicating something with his eyes, but she didn’t know what. Why had he wanted her to come with him and the boys? And sure, Violet must have called him-otherwise how would he have come up with this harebrained scheme to get her off the farm? But why would he want a woman as goofy and misplaced as she was these days around his two sons?

Naturally, she figured sex was part of the equation. After that last set of kisses, she’d have to be in a coma not to recognize the hormones running amok between them. But it was one thing for her to have a lust attack-she was already bonkers, for heaven’s sake. Pete had no motivation in the universe to sleep with a woman who’d turned mean as a rattlesnake and was neurotic besides.

The problem was so confusing that she gave up and sat back. In spite of herself, she almost started to relax. She even started to feel…silly…how stubbornly she’d hermited herself on the farm. No, she didn’t want to be about people. She didn’t need or want people in her life. Ever again.

But the drive into town was as familiar as her own heartbeat. She’d forgotten how the narrow road twisted around hills, curved into valleys. They passed Firefly Hollow-where every teenager in the county made out. And after that came old man Swisher’s pond-there were lots of ponds in the area, but Swisher’s had a big old cotton tree with a limb just perfect for swinging into the water.

Pete muttered a swearword when he got jammed up behind a ponytailed farmer on a tractor-making Camille smile. The farmer was slogging along around fifteen miles an hour and showed no inclination to either budge or get off the road-but then this was Vermont. All the hippies who’d paused here in the ’60s never left. Likewise, all the homesteaders who’d come here three hundred years ago-like her family, like Pete’s-were just as cussedly independent as their ancestors.

They passed red barns and fences, a hillside that had gotten away from a farmer and was already being taken over by red clover and buttercups. Patches of elms and big old sugar maples shaded parts of the road, and then the landscape suddenly burst into sunshine. Off to the left was the tip of a silvery lake; to the right, a red covered bridge, and then there was one last turn into White Hills.

Her heart unexpectedly lightened. It was going to be fine, she thought. She felt Pete’s gaze in the rearview mirror-still talking with Sean about Morgan horses-but checking on her. Or checking in with her.

“You okay?” he mouthed.

As if it was his business. “I think you should get Sean a horse,” she said. His son immediately whooped triumphantly, thrilled to have a new ally, and Pete gave her a look that clearly condemned her as a traitor-but it distracted him again.

She didn’t want him looking at her. Didn’t want to feel that coil of warmth curl up in her belly when he smiled at her, looked at her, tried to connect with her.

The town rushed up to grab her attention then, besides. White Hills was named because of the streaks of marble and limestone that looked stark white against the emerald-green countryside. Century-old trees shaded the town. Everything looked exactly as she remembered-the tall, skinny brick houses with green shutters, the white fences smothered in ivy, the cobblestone streets. At the highest point in town was a white frame church with a sharp white steeple-how corny could you get? Yet Camille had always loved that darn church, loved that stereotypical white steeple, loved the cobblestone streets.

Comforting memories of childhood wrapped her in a feeling of safety. Unlike everywhere else, White Hills had never wanted to grow. Apparently they’d been grudgingly forced to add a McDonald’s and a Wal-Mart, but the Wal-Mart was banished from sight, and the fast-food places were allowed on Main Street only if their architecture disguised their nefarious purpose.

“Okay, we’ve only got twenty minutes before the movie, so we’re just going to do a fast carry-out, all right with everyone? And no one’s getting anything that’s good for them, so don’t even try begging me for vegetables and salads.” Pete pulled in, and minutes later doled out the goodies.

Camille, elbowed between the teenagers, guarded her French fries and ketchup with her life, and wolfed down a burger the way she hadn’t eaten in months. It was the town. It was all the childhood memories of running down Main Street, owning the world, arguing with her sisters over ice cream, shopping for Christmas and toys and prom dresses, getting kissed by Billy Webster in front of Carcutter’s Books, getting her dad’s truck stuck in the snow and remembering how she’d been afraid he’d be mad-but he hadn’t been. Everything had seemed possible when she was a kid. Nothing could really harm her. She not only owned the world; she grew up believing she could change the world-even if she had thrown up outside Ruby’s Hair Salon when she was fourteen and was positive she’d never live it down.

“You’re kidding, right?” Simon said. “You hurled? Right on the street?”

“At rush hour, where everyone in town saw me. I was determined to never show my face for the rest of my life, but a couple days later my mom yanked me out of bed and locked me out of the house and told me to go on to school. My mom was okay with some dramatics. But after a while, enough was enough.”

The kids lapped up stories as long as they were either humiliating or gruesome. More surprising to Camille was hearing herself talking at all. Pete parked a couple blocks from the movie theater, which was the closest parking space he could find. So for that short walk, she had the chance to inhale Main Street close up.

Some things had changed, some not. The post office was still located in the General Store, where you could still buy a hoe, a wedding ring and dry powders for headaches-true one-stop shopping. Old Man Riverstern still worked in the window of his silversmithing shop. Adirondack chairs clustered in the porch’s shade of the Marble Bridge Café. Most of the lineup had the usual suspects-drugstore, clothing stores, a barber with a red-striped pole. But these days, Camille could see that you could now get your nails done and your behind tattooed…right after you bought food for your horse and ducks at Lamb’s Feed Store.

“Damn,” Pete muttered. “Don’t tell me that’s a smile.”

“All right. I admit it. Getting away for a couple hours was a good idea.” She cocked her head at him. “But I still feel guilty my sister conned you into dragging me along to a family outing.”

“You call going to a movie with two teenagers a family outing? The movie’s a comedy. Which means they’re going to make rude sounds and laugh themselves half-sick through the entire flick. This is not a treat. This was just a chance to have someone to share the torture.”

She heard the strangest sound come out of her mouth. A horse’s bray? A baby’s chortle. A strangled gasp? Actually, it just seemed to be a plain old laugh. Rusty and husky, but definitely a laugh.

And Pete promptly rewarded her by brushing a kiss on her forehead-she swore he did!-but no one else seemed to see it, and the next instant he was pushing her inside ahead of him and ordering her to get popcorn for four, heaped with butter, get the deal with the double drinks. The boys didn’t help her. What teenagers ever volunteered to help? So she got the order, but popcorn spit out of her arms as she tried to juggle it all-helped by both Sean and Simon stealing handfuls and throwing it in the air to catch it.

“And you thought I asked you because of something to do with your sister.” Pete came through with the tickets, and grabbed one armload, but when he caught a stranger looking at them, he used his free hand to motion to her. “Those are her children, not mine.”

“Hey.”

Inside the dark theater, the previews were already running. It wasn’t packed-not on a midweek night-but the comedy cast was big-name popular, especially with teenage boys judging from the bulk of the audience. The boys, without asking or needing permission, charged down to the front row.

“I can’t sit that close to the front,” Pete admitted quietly.

“Neither can I. I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t take the crook in the neck either.”

“So just pick your choice of seat and I’ll follow behind you.”

It was fine, she told herself again. It was embarrassing, how weird she’d become, how nervous she’d been about being in public again. She chose seats up high, where no one was blocking their view. A fat, dripping cola sat between them; their hands were filled with popcorn. Pete’s shoulder brushed hers and she could smell the soap he used, his skin, feel the nearness of him like a voltage charge in her pulse. But it was okay.

She was so sure.

And it was. For ten minutes. Maybe even fifteen.

There was no single moment when that changed. Nothing specific to mark the instant when everything started going wrong. The comedy was the usual-an urban slapstick, a pair of cops without a brain between them, tripping over criminals and apologizing, arresting the innocent, that whole yadda yadda. Almost everyone in the audience got caught in some outright belly laughs. So did she.

Or she thought she was laughing. It was just…she suddenly realized how dark the theater was. Pitch-dark. And one of the movie scenes started out on a quiet suburban street, with rain glistening on trees and making diamonds of the streetlights.

Just like that night.

Exactly like that night when she’d been walking home in her high heels with Robert. Her feet ached and she’d had too much wine but she was still laughing, laughing, high on marriage and Robert and life and her job and herself.

Camille blinked, willing herself to concentrate on the movie, only suddenly the darkness wasn’t friendly but whispering with a thousand menacing shadows. Evil. How could anyone know where it was coming from? She’d seen the three young men walking toward them quite clearly, but it didn’t mean anything. They were on a city street; lots of people walked around at all hours. But that night, of course, it did mean something. She saw a glimpse of ugliness in the one boy’s eyes-she saw, and in that instant realized that she was trapped in a living nightmare. It happened so fast it was all too late, all too late, all too late. Her pulse slammed with panic; her whole body flushed in a cold sweat.

“Cam? Camille, what’s wrong?”

She sensed Pete turning toward her, heard his immediate calming whisper, but the memories were firing at her like machine guns. She summoned the most normal voice she could. “Nothing, Pete. I just need to get up for a minute.”

Actually, she needed to get completely out of there. Now. Yesterday. Sooner than yesterday. She crawled over Pete and bolted toward the stairs. She couldn’t catch her breath, as if all the air were trapped in her lungs. She heard her heart hammering desperately in her ears, tasted the sick nausea of fear, felt a choking sensation in her throat. She tripped, almost fell on the last stair, and then hurtled on, down the aisle, then into the sudden harsh artificial light, down that hall, then through the heavy metal doors and finally out, out, into the fresh night air.

Only then did she realize that Pete was right behind her.