Dress Me in Wildflowers (22 page)

“I am.” Regret stabbed her at the thought of how it would feel to leave this place behind. “It’s just that the little touches and at least one small operating business inside the building will make it more attractive to buyers.”

Janie stared at her from across the room. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Bringing this place back, giving people hope?”

That last part flustered Farrin. There was no greater purpose here than a good investment. Right?

“It’s good business sense, that’s all.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” Why did she feel as if Janie could see things in her she couldn’t even identify herself?

“Okay. It sounds like a great idea.”

After telling Janie about the quilts the homemakers were making, the plans for the gift shop and nailing down the specifics of the photographs she wanted for each of the rooms, Farrin retreated downstairs away from Janie’s probing glare. She sank into one of the dining room chairs but didn’t even look down at the sketches spread in front of her. Instead, she stared out the window and silently cursed Janie’s accuracy.

She was enjoying the work on the inn. The ideas for ways to make it profitable and benefit the community at the same time excited her more than her work on the Oscar dresses. She still enjoyed the latter, but it was the new and exciting that really got her energized.

She lifted her feet into the seat of the chair when she imagined she felt that ivy curling around her ankles, rooting her more firmly to this building, this town, these people.

****

“So, who’s the hunk who has you going back to Tennessee every chance you get, and why don’t you just bring him up here?” Justine asked as she plopped herself down in the chair across from Farrin’s desk.

“There is no hunk.”

“Uh huh. I bet you’re having hot, steamy, farmer sex.”

Farrin tossed her pen down and stared at Justine. “What is it with you and the farmer fantasies?”

“Hey, never met a farmer. But I have a very active imagination. What else would be taking you on these secret jaunts?”

“They’re not secret.”

“Who else knows where you’re going besides me?”

Farrin didn’t answer. She glanced at her watch, then started shoving work into her tote.

“Seriously, what are you doing?”

“I’m catching up with old friends.”

“Okay, I bought that the first two trips, but here we are at trip three.”

“What, there’s a limit on how many times I can visit friends?”

“No. But you’re so quiet about it.”

“It’s called a private life.”

Justine threw up her hands. “Fine, be that way.”

The elevator at the end of the main room opened and in walked none other than Katrina Wellington. She strolled across the room, glancing at gowns in various stages of construction.

Justine jumped to her feet to play guard dog, but it was too late. Katrina’s long and determined stride propelled her right into Farrin’s office. “You, my dear, are a hard person to catch.”

“I’m very busy.”

“I’ve noticed. So, what is this about you buying some old decrepit building in the backwoods of Tennessee?”

How? Farrin kept her shock to herself. She ignored the look of surprise and questioning on Justine’s face.

“An investment.”

“An investment? From what I hear, the people in this speck of a town don’t have any money to invest.”

“Last time I checked, I was the one with the business degree.”

“Snappy. So, I’ve hit a sore spot.”

“How do you stand yourself?” Justine asked with a very unbecoming snarl.

Katrina didn’t even acknowledge Justine but kept watching Farrin.

“Why are you here?” Farrin asked.

“To get the scoop, of course. Audiences are always interested in a good rags-to-riches story.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Well, I can run it without your input, though it would be ever so much better if you’d agree to be interviewed. Maybe we could take a walk down memory lane, that little dirt road leading back to the trailer you called home as a girl.”

“I’m sure you’re going to do whatever you please, but you’ll do it without me.” Farrin sat down and picked up her pencil. She sat back, ignoring Katrina’s presence, and flipped through her sketchpad while trying to prevent her heart from breaking her ribs. Someone had called Katrina, someone in Oak Valley. Why the hell had she gone back? Why had she forgotten what those people had done to her before?

“You know how to reach me if you change your mind. But I should have plenty of willing sources even if you don’t. I’m sure a little cash would be welcome in Oak Valley.” Katrina turned and retraced her steps across the main room, pausing to finger a nearly complete wedding gown.

“Don’t touch anything,” Farrin said, not caring that she was adding fuel to Katrina’s determination to lay her life bare for all the world to see.

When Katrina stepped into the elevator and the doors closed, Justine rounded on Farrin. “You are going to sue her skinny ass, right?”

“For what?”

“Libel.”

“You can’t sue for libel if it’s true.”

“Even—”

“Everything.” Farrin tossed the sketchpad down and pressed her fingers against the throbbing in her temples. “It’s all true. I grew up poor white trash, and I bought a 19th century inn once owned by my grandparents to prevent the city from dozing it down. I’m fixing it up so it’ll get a better selling price.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing?”

“Yes. I do have a couple of friends there, and I have been visiting them, but I’ve mainly been working on the inn.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That’s a different part of me there. I wanted to keep my two lives separate.”

“You think someone would hold how you grew up against you?”

“Maybe. Do you think the First Lady would have allowed her daughter’s dress to be designed by me if she knew I grew up in a drafty trailer with no phone and eating out-of-date food when the money ran low at the end of the month?”

Justine started to say something, probably an automatic rebuttal, but then thought better of it. Her gaze traveled to the clock on the wall. “You’d better hurry or you’ll miss your flight.”

“I’m not going.”

“If you don’t, she wins.”

“You’re a psychologist now?” Farrin couldn’t help the snippy tone in her voice. She wanted to scream at the world for letting the past invade even the totally separate life she’d made for herself.

“I don’t need a doctorate to know that if you avoid the situation, she’ll make more of it.”

“So, I’m supposed to go down there knowing that someone sold me out.”

“And they’re probably not expecting to see you again. Imagine how it will burn them up when you stride into town proud and successful and daring them to take you on.”

Farrin sat for a few seconds, absorbing the words. “I have to admit I like that image.”

“Yeah, paybacks are hell.”

Farrin stood and rounded her desk. “That they are.” She strode toward the elevator.

“Hey, Farrin.”

She stopped and turned at the serious tone in Justine’s voice. “Yes?”

“It doesn’t bother me at all. Makes you human like the rest of us.”

Farrin thought about those words all the way to the airport and then once she was in the air. She’d like to be able to embrace her past and not be bothered by it, by what people thought about it when they found out. When they found out everything. She was a strong woman, but was she that strong?

****

The cold wind slapped against Farrin as she hurried toward the inn, but even so the new sign hanging above the door stopped her. Her heart lifted at the sight, the curling ivy around the edges and the script proclaiming the rejuvenation of the Ivy Springs Inn.

But even the newly minted sign and the building’s facelift didn’t keep her outside in the chapping wind for long. She rushed in the front door on a frigid gust and stood shivering in the hallway for several seconds before pulling off her coat and gloves. She rubbed her numbed hands together as she stepped into the new gift shop. In two weeks’ time, Janie had transformed the small sitting room.

“We’ve already had people in here Christmas shopping,” Janie said from the doorway leading into the dining room at the opposite end of the gift shop. “They did a story in the paper about the opening.”

“It looks great.” She ran her hand across delicate lace doilies and homemade rag dolls. “There’s a lot more merchandise than I thought there would be.”

“Once the story ran, craftsmen literally came out of the hills. I had to put some of the bigger items like the garden ornaments and one homemade cradle out in the hallway.”

Farrin came to the end of the room where a collection of Janie’s photographs occupied easels in one corner. “They’re beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

Farrin scanned the shots of fields of wildflowers, the stunning pink display of rhododendron at Catawba Park, morning mist on the surface of the Holston River.

“You’re very talented.”

When Janie didn’t say anything, Farrin turned to look at her. Fatigue had darkened circles under her eyes, and her complexion was a few shades paler than two weeks ago. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I . . . I’m sorry if I upset you that night in my apartment.”

Farrin turned fully toward Janie. “I’m not going to lie to you. What you did prom night hurt me, it hurt a lot. That and all the other times you made snide remarks. I hated you, imagined all kinds of ways to get back at you and make you suffer. I held onto those feelings for a long time, and they surfaced again when I came back. But it was hard to hold a grudge when I saw you with your kids, how well you’ve been raising them, how you’ve changed even though I didn’t want to believe it. Then, when I found out you were sick, it was impossible to hate you anymore. No matter how many times I’d wanted you to suffer, I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone.”

“I don’t want pity.”

“And I’m not giving you any. I’m more angry than anything, not at you but at fate.”

“Yeah, I’m intimately acquainted with that feeling.” Janie wandered into the room and rearranged some of the candies and cookies. “Tammie brought these by to test out the market. I don’t think she likes me very much either.”

“You could have said anything to her in high school and she wouldn’t have cared, but she was my best friend and she took offense at everything that was said to and about me. And she has a remarkable ability to hold a grudge.”

“So, she wasn’t too happy about you hiring me.”

“She say that?”

“She didn’t have to. But I don’t blame her. I admire her for standing up for her friends like that. I can’t imagine Brittany or Amber doing that for me.”

“Then they weren’t really your friends, and you don’t need them.”

Janie tried to smile. “Good thing since we don’t talk anymore.”

Now that she thought of it, Farrin hadn’t seen Janie hanging out with anyone who might be called a friend. Just her and the children.

Janie took a deep breath and blinked as if she were holding back tears. “I really am sorry about everything I ever said or did to you. If I could go back and erase it all, I would. I honestly don’t remember how I started being that way. I was just so unhappy, and I guess I took it out on whoever was handy.”

“I don’t know what I would have done in your situation, so how about we just leave it in the past. It’s done, you’ve apologized, let’s move forward.”

“That seems too easy.”

“It’s not easy at all. I’ve had to swallow a lot the past couple of weeks as I’ve thought about this. I finally came to the conclusion that nothing good was going to come of me holding on to all those old, ugly feelings. And I’ve discovered some people can change.”

“Thank goodness.”

“But then others don’t. You said they did a story on the inn and the gift shop. Have you talked to any other reporters?”

“No. From what I hear, my name in the
Herald
was enough to nearly give my dad a coronary.”

“Dear old dad not happy you’re allied with the enemy?”

“He doesn’t like being made to look a fool, and he’s very angry that word got out about what happened at the bank.”

“Seems he ought to be worried more about his relationship with his daughter and his grandchildren.”

“That was never his biggest concern.”

Farrin heard the deep hurt in Janie’s words, those of an unloved little girl.

The front door opened with another blast of cold air, and Faye and Opal hurried inside. “Good gravy, it’s cold out there,” Faye said. “It’s only November and I’m ready for spring already.”

Farrin stepped into the hallway and took the quilts from the women’s arms so they could take off their coats. “If these are for me, you all are quick.”

“Honey, you should see the girls. We’re so excited about this, we’re meeting every day at the Extension office to quilt. I think the guys down at the fire department are getting visions of new pumper trucks for Christmas. We’re fast, but not that fast.”