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  By the time she arrived at the farm hours later, she had placed the letters in her purse and the memories back in the dark, hurtful place in her heart where they had lain for thirteen years. The kids came running out as she drove up. Joseph was last, one hand stuffing a hotdog into his mouth.

  A wave of guilt surged through Mercedes. She hadn’t remembered to leave a lunch for them, and though both Wayne and Darrel were perfectly capable of fixing everyone something to eat, it wasn’t like her to be so careless.

  I’m back now, she thought. That’s all that matters. This too was a lie. She’d returned, but she wasn’t the same. Something had changed within her.

  “Momma, we’ve been waiting for you!” Scott yelled as she climbed from the truck. “We want to go to the river. Can we? Can we? Daddy wanted to wait for you.”

  “He was worried that the truck broke down.” Darrel’s gaze wandered over the length of the truck.

  “Did it?” Joseph asked, crumbs dropping from his mouth.

  “No, it was fine.” How long had she sat on the side of the road? “It’s a long drive, that’s all.” She slammed the truck door shut.

  “I hate going to see Grandpa,” Scott added. “It’s boring to drive that long.”

  “Well, he missed you.” Mercedes pulled her purse over her shoulder.

  “He’s a grouch.” Scott folded his arms, his mouth in a thin line.

  “He’s old, that’s all,” Darrel said.

  Joseph nodded emphatically. “So can we go to the river? Darrel will watch us if you and Dad don’t want to go.”

  “What about your foot?”

  “It’s perfect. See?” Joseph hopped up and down on his injured foot to prove his words.

  Wayne emerged from the house, but he didn’t come down to the truck. He stood on the porch, watching her. Mercedes knew she had to give him an explanation. “Go get your suits on, and I’ll go with you in a while.”

  “Our suits are on,” Scott protested.

  “Then go wait out back for me. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Awwww,” Joseph and Scott began, but their cries faded as Wayne walked toward them, his face unsmiling.

  “Come on,” Darrel urged. Tugging on his brothers’ shirts, he headed around the house. “I’ll race you!”

  Mercedes’ eyes followed Wayne. His steps slowed and stopped several feet away. No kiss, Mercedes thought. No hug.

  “I would have gone with you,” he said. “Or the boys could have.”

  Her hand gripped the strap on her purse. “I needed to talk to my father without the boys.” She didn’t say without him as well, but the implication was clear.

  “Why?”

  Mercedes stared into his face, every line and furrow as familiar—no, more familiar than her own. The bright hair looked suddenly out of place on his head, as though he was trying to be something he was not. For her.

  Her eyes dropped to the gravel beneath her feet. They’d discussed putting in a driveway of concrete up next to the house and maybe even building a garage. There just never seemed to be enough money or time.

  “Mercedes.” His voice pleaded for her attention.

  She lifted her eyes. “Brandon told me he sent letters after he left. I never got them. I thought it was just a part of his . . . trying to get Darrel. I had to know.”

  “And did he?”

  She nodded. A burning rose behind her eyes, but she held them open, willing the tears away.

  “I would have gone with you,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “It wouldn’t have hurt at all if you’d told me. Then I’d know it didn’t mean anything.”

  “I had to know.”

  “It makes a difference?”

  She hesitated. “Of course not.” How could she tell him she’d been living a lie?

  Wayne smiled, but no joy reflected in the blue of his eyes. “You’re an incredible woman, Mercedes, and any man would be out of his mind not to want you. So I guess I’m not surprised he wanted you back. But what he wanted then doesn’t really matter now—unless it means something to you.”

  “It doesn’t.” Even to her own ears, her words sounded false.

  Wayne let his gaze drop to the ground. “I always knew that—” He stopped and shook his head. “The boys are waiting.” Turning, he strode away.

  She hurried to catch up with him, her hand grasping at his sleeve. “You always knew what? That I didn’t love you enough? That I’m a self-centered idiot? Wayne, please.” Please what? She didn’t know.

  He turned and gazed at her steadily. “I always knew there would come a time when you’d have to choose.”

  She felt stung by the words. “I did choose. In the barn that day.”

  “Did you?” One quirk of his gray-streaked eyebrows emphasized his question. “Mercedes, you drove eight hours today, a drive you hate to make, to visit your father, a man you never like to see alone. To me, that says a lot.”

  Mercedes felt the energy drain from her. He was right. Her decision in the barn that day had been made because she’d seen no other choice. The adult in her knew that she had used Wayne, which wasn’t right, even though it had been exactly what he’d wanted. No, not exactly what he’d wanted. He’d wanted her to love him as she’d promised on their wedding day. But if she were to admit the truth, a part of her had been in limbo for thirteen years. Waiting. Waiting.

  Oh, dear God, she prayed, staring at Wayne but not seeing him. I don’t deserve Wayne. I never have. She felt smaller than a grain of wheat, as insignificant as the kernels of corn the animals chewed up in their feed. All these years she’d been doing so well, and now she realized she’d been pretending. She’d grown so good at it that she’d even fooled herself.

  So what did that mean for her future? Panic spread through her chest, reaching to the tips of her fingers and toes, very like the fear she’d felt the first time Darrel fell out of the oak tree by the river and lay unconscious. At first she’d thought he’d broken his neck, but in the end it had only been his arm.

  Wayne made a sound in the back of his throat, calling her back from the panic. She focused on his face. His fingers brushed her cheeks with gentleness, the way the wind caressed her when she stood near Lucy’s grave. “I love you, Mercedes. Don’t forget that. I love you with everything I am and all that I will ever be. I need you. The boys need you. We have a good life. But it has to be the life you want. I want you to be happy.”

  His thumb ran over her lip. She could feel the roughness of his skin, and she felt a desire to kiss it, to fall into his arms and be safe. She didn’t do any of those things.

  Still smiling sadly, Wayne dropped his hand and walked away. She stared after him, not knowing what she would do but so very, very afraid.

  Chapter 19

  Diary of Mercedes Walker Johnson

  October 18, 1995

  Wayne talks to the baby in my tummy. He is, well, adorable—if you can call a rough, full-grown man adorable. I’m beginning to feel excited to see my child where before I wondered only what would happen to us. I hope the baby doesn’t look too much like Brandon. That would be hard. I’ve almost stopped dreaming about him, and when I do dream, I wake up and I’m in Wayne’s arms, protected and loved. I never felt this way before, not even when I was with Brandon. I’m safe. Maybe I’d have felt that way with Brandon if he’d loved me enough to marry me, but I can’t think that way. Wayne and this baby are my life right now. No, wrong again. They are my life for all the time I have left here on this earth. I promised, and I will keep that promise. Wayne loves me so much that I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.

  The baby blanket is three-fourths finished. I’ve taken care with every single stitch, and it is a thing of beauty. My best work. Only another two months, and my baby will be here. Will Brandon feel anything that day? No, and I don’t care. He gave up any right he had to our child when he left.

  Wayne went around to the back of the house where the boys waite
d, trying not to drag his feet over the grass they’d worked so hard on in the past years to rid of alfalfa, which sometimes sent roots eight feet deep and was almost impossible to kill. He was like the alfalfa. His roots were sunk deep in Mercedes and in this farm where he’d given nearly a lifetime of work, love, and devotion. And in the boys, of course.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Ain’t Momma coming?” Scott asked.

  “Maybe later. She had a long drive.”

  Joseph looked hopefully toward the house. “She could bring a picnic.”

  At the rate he was eating, he would probably grow as tall as Darrel by the end of summer, which wasn’t saying much, of course, but Wayne hoped Darrel wouldn’t mind. Wayne had no personal experience to draw on, because he’d never had siblings, but he figured it might bother Darrel at least a bit.

  “Let’s race!” Scott said. The boys ran ahead, beating Wayne to the river by several yards.

  He came to a stop on the bank as the two younger boys scurried up the big oak, as sure-footed as little squirrels. Darrel hung back with him, glancing over his shoulder as though expecting to see Mercedes coming at any moment. Wayne brought a hand to his heart, kneading the hurt there. What would happen to his family?

  He hadn’t much luck in the family department. His father dead in an accident with the farm equipment before Wayne really knew him, his mother dying when he was in high school, leaving him to finish up the last two years of school living with an aunt, now also long dead. His first wife and son. Mercedes and the children were his only family now.

  But what about the future?

  He couldn’t believe this was happening. He knew Mercedes, and he knew the time they’d passed together. That was real. Even if all these years she’d been holding a part of herself back from him, they’d still been happy. But did she see that? The fear inside grew worse, the fear that had tightened his chest from the day he’d first seen Brandon on the deck with Mercedes. The time had come. He’d always known it would.

  If he were any kind of man, he’d have to tell her that he’d known about the letters.

  “Go get in the truck,” he told Jed.

  “I don’t want to go nowhere.”

  “You’re going. There’s a few places I want you to see.”

  “What’s this about?”

  Wayne’s anger raged through him, but he struggled to hold it in. “I came home and found my pregnant wife crying on the floor as she cleaned up a plate of food you’d thrown there. This can’t continue. I won’t let it. You can’t stay here anymore.”

  “This is my farm,” Jed sneered. “You can’t kick me out.”

  “It hasn’t been your farm since you drank away all your interest in it. You know that as well as I do.”

  “The old lady won’t kick me out.”

  Wayne snorted. “She thinks you killed her daughter. The only reason she hasn’t kicked you out already is because I asked her not to. But I can see it’s not going to work. I promised Mercedes I’d make her happy, and that means you’re out of here. Come on.” He put a hand on the old man’s arm and half dragged him to the door. “We’ll come back for your things later.”

  “Mercedes!” Jed shouted. “Your husband’s hurting me!”

  “She’s not here. This is between you and me.” Wayne had picked Mercedes up from the floor, helped her pack a bag, and taken her to stay with her grandmother for a few days while he dealt with her father.

  Jed sagged, putting his weight against Wayne’s hand. “I’m sick. I can’t work.”

  “We’ll find a place. You don’t deserve it, but you’re Mercedes’ father, and I’ll take care of you.”

  “You’d better. After all, if it wasn’t for me, she never woulda married you.” He was walking again, and Wayne was able to get him out of the house and halfway to the truck.

  “What do you mean? You haven’t had a good thing to say about our marriage. You told me the other day that I only did it for the farm.”

  “Well, you did it for that, too. Of course Mercedes is a fine-looking woman.”

  “I love Mercedes. That’s the reason I married her. And why you’re leaving. It’s too much stress with the baby coming.” Wayne opened the passenger door and hefted Jed inside.

  Jed slapped his hands away. “If I’d given her his letters, she wouldn’t have married you. You have me to thank for that.”

  Wayne froze. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that doctor wrote her. Wanted to marry her.”

  Wayne shook his head. “We’ve been married more’n three months now. It’s too late. It’d never work between them. Mercedes wouldn’t leave.”

  “Maybe not. But I got those letters before you got married, and you’d better be good to me or I can show ’em to her any time.”

  “Where are they?” Wayne demanded.

  “I ain’t saying.” Jed folded his arms and pressed his lips tightly together.

  “Stay here.” Wayne slammed the door and stomped to the house. Frantically he searched Jed’s room. Was the old man telling the truth? He could tell Mercedes was beginning to love him. She already trusted him. But if those letters existed—could that kill their future? Didn’t he have the obligation to tell her? Or was it better to burn them?

  He searched every place he could think of, including under the mattress, before sitting back on his heels in frustration. “Are you quite done?” Jed asked from the doorway, a smirk on his weathered face. “You ain’t gonna find them.”

  “They don’t exist, do they?” Wayne stumbled to his feet. “This was all just another one of your tricks.”

  “You’re so stupid that if they did exist, you’d probably show them to her.”

  “You’re lying. One more lie.”

  Jed gave him a disgusted look. “When you’re finished with this, I’ll be in the truck.”

  So Jed was lying, trying to use an imaginary letter as blackmail. Or was there something to the claim?

  Wayne thought of Mercedes and how broken she’d been after Brandon left, how worried he’d been that she might lose so much weight that she’d die herself. She was a different person now. Different because of his love and care. Her confidence was returning.

  “He had his chance,” Wayne muttered. If that doctor had cared about her, he would have taken Mercedes with him in the first place. Or he would have come to see her. He wouldn’t have sent a letter, not when he’d known Mercedes was living with a controlling, abusive father.

  The tenseness eased from his muscles. This was all another of Jed’s manipulations. There was no letter. If there had been, the doctor would have had the guts to show up by now. That’s what Wayne would have done in his place. He shut his eyes in relief, unwilling to imagine how such a visit now would affect Mercedes’ budding self-esteem. No, the man was out of their lives. He had to be, for Mercedes’ sake.

  Wayne drove Jed to Rock Springs and signed him up at the first assisted-living facility they found. Two days later Jed was completely moved out, and Mercedes came home to a house that for the first time was truly a home.

  “You don’t even have to go see him, if you don’t want to,” he told her. “But if you do, I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want to.” And they didn’t—until after the baby came and changed them both.

  He should have told her about the possibility of the letters. If she’d made her decision then, to stay or leave, they wouldn’t be facing such turmoil now. Of course, that might also mean he wouldn’t have had these years with her and the boys. The thought was unbearable.

  “Daddy, watch me!” Scott was on the tree branch, holding onto the rope. When Wayne looked up, he jumped outward, hooking his toes over the bottom knot. “Yaaaaaaaaaa!” he screamed. After only one arc, he let go of the rope and splashed into the water. Wayne peered into the water to be sure he was all right.

  “He’s getting to be a good swimmer,” Darrel said.

  “Yep, you all are.”

  “D
ad?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s wrong with Momma? She’s acting strange.” His eyebrows scrunched together, making his thin face look older. Then, as though realizing his comment needed an explanation, he added, “Well, I mean she’s kinda acting like she did when Lucy died. She’s working on that quilt all the time, and she stares funny, like sometimes she sees right through me. Does it have something to do with that doctor? He came here yesterday, and they were fighting. I didn’t hear what they said, but he made her cry.”

  Wayne had forgotten how sensitive children were to the emotions surrounding them. Every day they brought him surprises—it was one of the things he loved best about being a father—but he too had been wrapped up in the events and hadn’t noticed how closely Darrel watched them. For a moment Wayne was tempted to tell him the truth. Darrel was his best friend after Mercedes, and it’d be a relief to get it all out. Except it wasn’t exactly his decision to make, nor perhaps in Darrel’s best interest. If Brandon proceeded with his plan, Darrel would have to know soon enough. For now he’d better choose his words carefully.

  “Your momma is dealing with a few things right now. Sometimes it takes a little time to work things out. But she loves you boys—that isn’t a part of the problem.”

  “I don’t like seeing her this way. I wish she could have another baby.”

  Wayne had to smile at Darrel’s simple solution. After Lucy died, Mercedes had tried to have a baby to dull the ache, but as time passed, she’d told him she’d accepted God’s will.

  Above them, Joseph, hands on the rope, was jumping from the branch, howling like an Indian. His feet missed the knot at the end, and he slipped from the rope and into the water before he took advantage of the full ride.

  Wayne knuckled his chest. “Don’t worry about your mom. She’ll be all right. Now why don’t you go and show your brothers how that’s done?”

  “They are pretty bad at it.” With a grin, Darrel shot toward the tree.

  Wayne watched them play, feeling suddenly old and worn. So many regrets, and yet, he’d do it all again for them and for Mercedes. He sat down on the grassy bank and took off his shoes, letting his toes press into a bare patch of packed earth.