Lacy (The Doves of Primrose) (4 page)

Kyle was trying to separate her hair from his face and neck with his other hand when she
heard a footsteps not too far from her head. His squirming and their touching body parts were making Lacy involuntarily respond. Her stomach swooped. She tried to brace herself with her hands and roll away but his grip was too tight.

“
Oh my God! Are you guys okay?”

Kyle spit hair from his mouth. “I may have broken my back,
but other than that I think so.”  There was a definite strain to his voice. He secured Lacy by the shoulders and pushed her up.  The sunshine had turned his eyes to a pretty crystal blue but she glared into them anyway.

“Well, I’m sorry that you were crushed by my overwhelming bulk, but it was
your
bright idea.” She tried to roll away again, but he deepened his gaze and tightened his arms a moment before releasing her. The sudden slack surprised her and she thumped on her side beside him.

“Did I say it was your fault?” He coughed as he moved to his feet and offered her his hand.  “I was standing in the wrong spot. I shouldn’t have been directly beneath you.”

Lacy sat up, her cheeks flaming red. She ignored his hand, bumping it with her shoulder as she stood. She brushed grass and debris from her skirt and shook out her hair. “Thanks for all your help.” Even though the sarcasm edged her voice, she was grateful he had been there to catch her. Her grip had been slipping and Emmylou, bless her heart, wasn’t strong enough to pull her back on the branch and they both would have ended up hurt.

“I never could resist a damsel in distress.”

Kyle’s grin disappeared when her blazing eyes bore through him. She held her glare until she was certain he knew why he was getting it. If he was half as smart as he thought he was the memories of their last day together should be rushing through his mind about now. He swallowed and looked away and Lacy finally blinked.

Lacy stalked to the house with Emmylou on her heels
. She resisted the urge to slam the door behind them, but only because she knew the glass would shatter and she couldn’t afford to replace it. She hadn’t received the money from the… whoever she was supposed to get the money from. Maybe that was Lauren. Crap, she better be figuring it out. She had only heard the number when they contacted her about using her house in the movie; she had neglected to get the details.

“What the hell was that all about, Lacy?”
Emmylou demanded as soon as they reached the counter.

Lacy threw herself in the desk chair and crossed her arms. “What? He was acting like a jackass.”

“He saved
your
ass from breaking every bone in your body. We both know I couldn’t have helped you no matter how fast I got up there.” She smirked and lifted her brow. “Stop avoiding the question. You’ve been on the warpath since he strolled in here.”

Lacy spun slowly in her chair
, not able to answer the question her friend’s face was asking.

Emmylou
stepped to the chair and stopped it with both hands, staring hard at Lacy.

“Lacy Marie Weston
-“

“Campbell.”

“Whatever,” Emmylou countered. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.”
She tried to hold her friend’s inquisitive gaze. “I just don’t like him. He’s a stuck-up movie star.”

“Mm-hmm.”
Emmylou’s lips puckered. “He seems the same to me. Nicer, actually.” She pushed away from the chair and leaned against the counter.

“Don’t you have to get back to the store?”
Lacy asked, desperate for the inquisition to end.

Emmylou snorted. “No. Lindy’s covering for me.”

“Oh.” Lacy thought that was strange. Emmylou never left the store unless it was an emergency, which was nothing less than death. She was unsure if it was because Lacy had asked her to help or something else. She had been acting strange all day. Even Scarlett had said so.

“Well, did you have any lunch?” Lacy’s stomach growled
in answer and they both laughed.

“No. We better feed you after that ordeal.”
Emmylou’s pulled Lacy out of the chair and put her arm around her shoulders, steering walking her towards the kitchen. “And you can tell me why you hate Kyle McClintock so much. Or why you still have a thing for him.”

“I do not have a thing for him! I
may
have had a momentary lapse in good judgment eight years ago.”

“Momentary?” Emmylou tipped her forehead down to Lacy’s.

“Hey, I have great judgment.” The words were out before Lacy remembered her current divorce to a man who ran off, and their rocky marriage before that, plus all the stunts she had pulled in her youth that should’ve landed her in jail, not to mention the line of impetuous women from which she descended.

“Okay, well
, it’s better than my mother’s.” Lacy opened the fridge and pulled out trays while Emmylou sat on the stool.

“You’re probably right.”
Emmylou bit off a piece of sandwich and wiped the mayo from the corner of her mouth with her finger then licked it off. “Where is your mother, anyway? Shouldn’t she be here for all of this?”

Lacy pulled the plastic wrap from the vegetable plate, thankful she had avoided the subject of Kyle. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her secret from her best friends.  Especially since the subject was going to be living with her for a while.

“She’s in Arizona last I heard. She doesn’t call much and her emails only come when the combination of Wi-Fi and her memory occurs. Which is almost never.” Lacy munched a carrot stick. “She’d just cause more trouble than be of help anyway. I’d be cleaning up her messes on top of scaring birds out of trees.”

A mental picture of what she must have looked like dangling from that tree branch popped into Lacy’s head and she started to laugh. Emmylou joined in until they were both gasping for breath and
wiping tears from their eyes.

Lacy had done some pretty absurd things in her life but that was one of her more ridiculous disasters. It was nice that Kyle had been the one to literally break her fall. She kind of hoped his back
was
injured. It was a small justice for the hurt and humiliation he had caused her.

Chapter 4

Kyle stretched with his hands on his lower back, trying to dispel some of the ache. He watched the two women stomp into the house and knew better than to follow, although he didn’t understand the sheer hatred Lacy was shooting at him. He couldn’t think of anything that would piss her off enough for that kind of behavior, except their past history. And, if anything, he should be mad at her for the way it ended. Leaving him the way she did was harsh.

It was her unpredictable nature that attracted him in the first place, so he shouldn’t be surprised. She was a wild child and he was required to be as straight as
a billy goat’s pecker in green grass. When she blew into his life that day in Dandy’s Soda Shop it was the first breath of life he’d taken in six years.

Not that he hadn’t noticed her before.
He had. She always seemed to be where the action was, his eye drawn in her direction so many times he should have developed whiplash. But he had a reputation to maintain; it was only girls his mother approved of and Darla Weston’s daughter was not on that list. Under different circumstances he would have defied every rule and crossed every boundary to have Lacy and eventually she proved too tempting to avoid.

He found her in the shop
, trying on sunglasses too large for her petite face and sucking on a strawberry malt. He knew he had to have her or at the very least be next to her, to talk to her and hear that heavenly voice.

Kyle could still recall every sparkle in her chocolate eyes, ev
ery tuck of her wild hair, the challenge in her stance and when her slender fingers settled on his arm, his heart shot through his chest and directly into her hands.

The power of that memory and the layers of others still sin
ging through his mind made his hands shake. Being here at the bed and breakfast had brought back all those feelings and more.  He automatically lifted his head to the window that he used to climb into - it felt like yesterday.  He was eighteen again and in love with a girl who set his world on fire. She was everything to him. He had never told her that. He didn’t think Lacy would have understood his feelings. To her, what they had was casual. She had said as much to him that last day by the pond. He had planned to tell her he loved her and explain his plans for the future, their future, but she had called what they had “a last fling of the summer.”

Reeling from her statement, he
had gone to his truck and when he came back with a blanket she was gone. She snipped all the strings to his heart and skipped away the first chance she had. He left the next day for Texas on his rodeo scholarship, as planned, and his life went in a completely different direction. Now he was back home and he was mad as an old wet hen. He hadn’t been when he first arrived. He had tried to have some fun with Lacy, hell, he had even saved her damn neck from that tree. But the forgotten past had surfaced with a sting.

“Hey there.”

Kyle shifted his head to the voice and found he was sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch. “Oh, hi, Lauren.” He blinked, trying to regain his senses. “Did you need something?”

The look on her face made him aware of his tone.

“Sorry, do you want to sit? These chairs are really comfortable.” He motioned to the chair beside him.

“No, thanks.”
  She looked from the chair to her clothes and patted her hair with her free hand, pulling some kind of small twig from it and flicking it away like a slimy worm. She had to hate it here; her skin had practically peeled off when he told her where they would be going for the film. Then she had surprised him by doing her research on the place. Turns out there really was some great history here. He had spent his entire life thinking it was something the people in town had made up for some excitement.

He looked at Lauren’s snug skirt wrapped around her skinny legs
, considering the likelihood of her sitting in it. Everything about the woman was uptight. He often wondered if she went home every night and refolded the clothes in her drawers and vacuumed the curtains for entertainment.  She never mentioned dating or friends. Not that they were on a friendly level. She was his assistant and seemed to like her distance. Which was just fine by him, he didn’t like anyone getting too close. That was how private information leaked out. He had enough of that spread on the covers of magazines and all over the internet already.

Lauren poked the screen of her
iPad before looking at him again. “Marcus would like to meet with you and the cameramen in the barn in ten minutes.”

“Okay. I’m sure you don’t have to attend that one. I’ll let you know if there’s anything important you
might have missed.” Even though her rigid exterior didn’t show it, he was positive she was jumping for joy on the inside. Now she could retreat to the safe, clean indoors.

“Thank you, Mr. McClintock.” She nodded her perfectly
coiffed head.

“Lauren, I’ve asked you to call me Kyle. We’ve worked t
ogether for almost three years. I think it’s time.”

A strange flash danced across her green eyes.

“That’s okay. I like things the way they are.” She turned and went into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.

He shook his head. Women were an anomaly no man would ev
er figure out.

The meeting in the barn turned into a
four-and-a-half-hour tour of the grounds and a detailed outline of every scene and every set. They went from the barn to the pond as Marcus described every angle to encompass the swaying of the trees, the rustle of the tall grasses. He discussed lighting to draw out the shadows and make it appear ominous to the hero’s predicament.

Kyle believed
Marcus would have to be a genius to get that accomplished. This part of the country was just about the most beautiful he had ever seen. Contrasts were the language of the land tucked against the river that fed into Sunset Pond with rising hills a mile in the distance. It was a large pond with deep, cool water and a cove of cottonwoods. An oasis in a sea of prairie.

The blend of yellows and greens sweeping over the prairie
was vibrant this time of year and the cottonwoods with their glossy green leaves rustling in the wind were like wise old friends standing sentinel to the pond and the old dock.

Kyle had to stop when they reached the dock
as Marcus droned on about the atmosphere for the pivotal betrayal and shootout scene to be shot in this spot. He remembered Lacy as a feisty teenager lying on the cotton blanket with her ankles crossed, shaking her head after he invited her to join him in the water. He stared at the mossy shoreline dotted with the sun filtering through the leaves and the rays glinting off the water. The wisp of wind brought the echo of Lacy’s laugh.

His breath hitched in his chest. He had thought it would be fun coming back to this place
. It was time to come home, and before now he had vague memories of all the time he spent with Lacy. It was a time of discovery for him, she was his first everything. He had written it off as first love and first heartbreak. Everyone went through it. Now he didn’t know what he was feeling, but it wasn’t fun.

“Kyle!”

Marcus’s voice cut through his memory fog. He pulled his gaze from the ground. “Yeah?”

“Well?”
Marcus’s brown eyes were wide with impatience behind his square, black glasses.

“Yeah, that sounds great.” Kyle s
miled to help assure his cover.

“Okay.”
Marcus brushed his hair from his forehead and continued flinging his arms around while giving instructions. The assortment of crew members were nodding and taking notes.  Marcus moved along the grooved path through the trees and underbrush as they all trotted behind him, Kyle bringing up the rear.

Kyle shook his head at his sentimentality. It had been too many years away from home that was making him deviate from reality. He had submerged himself in the past and lost
perspective.  It was the past. His youth, the time when everyone rebels. The first crazy thing he had ever done was be with Lacy. His parents had made sure to keep him on a tethered leash and Lacy was completely outside his realm of normalcy. Lacy was the forbidden fruit beckoning to him. He had to take a bite and once he did it was pure heaven. For three months, at least.

Come on
, Kyle. You’re being a sap. Get a grip on yourself.
He slapped himself for good measure and instantly felt better. Man, he had really gone off the deep end. His step was lighter now and he actually began paying attention to what Marcus was saying.

**********

Lacy changed into something a little less grass-stained and went downstairs to check on the progress of dinner. Scarlett had gone to town to get more groceries, so it was Mrs. Walters, the widow woman from down the road, alone in the kitchen talking to the chicken as she dressed it.

Lacy wasn’t sure why everyone called her
a widow woman like she was ninety and just waiting for Jesus to come for her at any time. Lacy guessed she couldn’t be more than her early sixties and was as energetic as a spring cub. But for as long as Lacy could remember, Mrs. Walters had been a widow living alone in a nice brick home a mile from the B&B.

She came whenever Lacy had more than a few guests and on Sundays for the
after-church lunch crowd. It was wonderful to have the extra help and even more wonderful that she didn’t want payment for her service. Mrs. Walters had married into the wealthiest family in town and when her husband died he left her set for the rest of her life. Lacy didn’t know who her deceased husband was --he had died when she was just a toddler-- but everyone said he was a good-for-nothing and that Mrs. Walters had probably offed him herself.  Lacy didn’t care, she had entertained the idea of murdering her own counterfeit husband, so she could relate. She liked Widow Walters. The woman was a character and an amazing cook.

“That sm
ells wonderful, Mrs. Walters.”

Mrs. Walters smacked the trussed chicken into the pan with two others and rubbed a stick of butter over it. “Thank you, da
rling.” She cooed to the chickens, wishing them well and telling them how delicious they were going to be. Lacy didn’t find any of this odd anymore.

“What else are we serving tonight
, and can I be of any help?” Lacy reached for the bowl in front of her but her hand was snatched up and pulled closer for inspection.

“Oh, honey. What happened here?” The rough skin of Mrs. Walters’ hands caressed Lacy’s as she clucked her tongue and studied whatever was there.

“I don’t know. What?”

Mrs. Walters turned Lacy’s hand sideways
, showing her the gash and dried blood smeared down to her wrist.

“Oh.” How had Lacy not noticed that before? Now that she had, it stung. Mrs. Walters released her and she walked to the sink to clean it off. That only made it hurt worse. “It must’ve been from the tree.” The cool water splashed over her cut taking the blood with it.

“You got bit by a tree?” Mrs. Walters asked as she brought her a clean towel. Lacy laughed and wrapped it around her hand.

“Something
like that.”
Damn, it really stung now.
“I had to remove some doves from the tree but little did I know they would be so much trouble.” She pressed on the wound, hoping to dispel the hurt.

“Remove doves?” The other woman leaned against the cou
nter. “These people really are crazy, aren’t they?”

Lacy snickered.
“Yeah.”

“I swear I saw one of ’em
come straight out of the wall earlier. Thought she might’ve been one of them ghosts we have here.” She pushed her glasses up and straightened her hair.

“Hmm.”
  Lacy didn’t know what Mrs. Walters was talking about, but then this was the woman who conversed with the food while she cooked it. Lacy didn’t believe in the ghost stories that were attached to The Dove House. She had never seen one or even thought she saw one, but when your great-great-granddaddy was murdered by a gunslinger over a card game, his home and all descendants were then fair game for wild stories.

“You better go and take care of that hand, missy. I’ve got it handled in here and Scarle
tt should be back any minute.”

A metallic crashing filled the kitchen
, making them both jump. One of the lids to the pans on the stove plummeted to the wood floor.

“Whoopsie daisy.”
Mrs. Walters stooped to pick up the lid up. “I wonder how that happened?  The water’s not boiling.” She replaced the lid and gave it another glance over. 

A strange sensation fluttered over Lacy’s skin. “Okay. I’ll be back in a few minutes to help you.”

Lacy left the kitchen and walked through the dining area to check the table settings, and when she reached the expansive entry to make her way to the stairs, goose bumps jumped across her flesh. She stopped in mid-step, placing a hand to her queasy belly. The hair lifted on her neck as though a cold wind had passed through the house. She glanced around, beginning to feel like an idiot. One comment from a nutty old lady and Lacy was reduced to a child in a haunted house.