The Girl Who Chased the Moon (11 page)

But he ended up facing the consequences anyway. Fate has a way of biting you in the ass like that. He thought he’d moved on, first with Holly, then by throwing himself into the family business. But then Julia came back to town and he realized for the first time that he hadn’t moved on at all.

He’d just been waiting.

Waiting for her to come back and forgive him.

“I didn’t know you knew where I lived,” he said as he walked up the steps toward her.

“Apparently, I didn’t. Someone told me once that you owned that big house on Gatliff Street. I assumed you lived there. But Stella told me that’s where you and Holly lived when you were together, and that you’d moved here after the divorce.”

“Holly and I still own that house jointly, actually.” He stopped on the porch and stood in front of her. “When she moved to Raleigh, we agreed to rent it out and split the income.”

“Why didn’t you just keep living there?”

“It was too big. My family gave it to us as a wedding gift. Five bedrooms. It was a big hint for grandchildren.”

“Oh,” Julia said awkwardly.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not. I’ve come to terms with it.”

She gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. Then, changing the subject, she thrust the cake box at him. “I brought you a hummingbird cake,” she said. “I made it last night.”

He set down his briefcase and took the box from her, stunned. “You actually baked me a cake?”

“Don’t get all emotional on me. I have to tell you something. A couple of things, actually. I’ll save the big thing for later.”

Later. That was curious. And encouraging. He couldn’t help it. Later meant there would be time in between. Time to be with her. “And the cake is to soften me up?”

“The cake is because I know you like it.”

He gestured toward the door. “Come in,” he said, suddenly excited by the thought of her being in his house. It was almost as if, by having her step over the threshold, something significant would be accomplished. She would be closer to him. He would be closer to her forgiveness.

But she shook her head. “I can’t. I ran out of gas coming over here.”

“Ah. That’s why I saw your truck parked a couple of blocks away.”

She nodded. “I was just waiting for you to come home to give you this and to tell you something, then I have to walk to the gas station.”

“I can take you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said dismissively. She didn’t want anything from him. Yet he wanted so much from her. “I do bake cakes because of you. Well, I
started
baking cakes because of you. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

He wasn’t expecting that. He rocked back slightly on his heels.

She stuffed her hands deep into her jeans pockets, making her shoulders hunch a little. “It was what you told me about how you always sensed when your mother baked cakes. I loved that story. I started baking when I was away at school. That’s a whole story unto itself. The point is, at a time in my life when there were a lot of bad things happening, you gave me something good. Something to hold on to. I’m opening my own bakery when I move back to Baltimore. And it all started with you.”

He felt incredibly humbled. She was being too generous. “I didn’t give you anything but a hard time. How can you possibly appreciate that?”

“I’ve learned to hold on to the good parts.”

He didn’t know what to say. He struggled for a few moments before saying, “And that’s not even the big thing?”

She smiled. “No.”

On the one hand, he really wanted to know. On the other, he wanted to make this last. As curious as he was, he would live with the anticipation forever if it meant being able to be with her like this.

He shifted the cake box and opened it. He loved hummingbird cake. It was all he could do not to dig his hand through it like a shovel right now. His mother had tried to hide cakes from him when he was small, but he always found them. He couldn’t help it. At that age, he hadn’t yet developed the willpower to resist. He’d inherited his sweet sense from his grandfather. It was the reason he felt so close to him, closer than to anyone else in his family. His grandfather had been the one who taught him how to turn it off, after one too many stomachaches. And he’d also been the one who’d told Sawyer that not everyone could see what he saw, so be careful who he told. Sawyer normally left it off now, unless he was distracted or tired, then he would unwittingly see the silver glitter undulating out of house windows, or the sparkle trailing out of a child’s lunch box. The only time he consciously switched it on was when Julia baked on Thursday nights. She was hidden from him, but he could see her do this. She was so good at it, the smell so beautiful. And he’d inspired it. He was overwhelmed.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever told about my sweet sense,” he said. He’d never even told his ex-wife.

“I hate to break this to you, but your secret is out.”

He closed the lid to the box before temptation got the better of him. He shook his head. “Uh-uh. That’s not going to work anymore. You can be as hard and sarcastic as you want, but we both know you really have a soft spot for me. You just admitted it.”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it.”

“Come on,” he said, feeling as light as high cotton. “I’ll take you to your truck. I think I even have some gas in a canister in my garage.”

“No, I …”

But he had already grabbed his briefcase and was walking down the steps.

By the time he had the cake and his briefcase in the backseat of the car and the gas canister full of gas in the trunk, she was in the driveway, looking uncomfortable and ridiculously lovely.

He opened the passenger side door for her, and she sighed and got in.

When Sawyer got behind the wheel and started the car, she busied herself by playing with his navigation system. He just smiled when she programmed his GPS to take them to Frank’s Toilet World on the highway.

Instead of Toilet World, in a matter of minutes, he was at her truck. They both got out and he put the gas from the canister into her tank. She thanked him, but before she could get in, he said impulsively, “Have dinner with me tonight.”

She shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Come on. You have six months left here. Live a little.”

She snorted. “Are you seriously asking me to have a fling with you?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, feigning shock. “I said dinner. It was your lascivious mind that went to the bedroom.”

She smiled, and he was glad. This was much better than the bristle she’d given him since coming back. Without thinking, he lifted his hand to her hair, petting it, then threading his fingers through it so that he could see the pink streak. He’d often wondered why she kept it. It had to have something to do with her pink hair when she was a teenager. Was it her way of remembering? Or maybe it was her reminder to never go back.

When he met her eyes, he was stunned to see that they were huge. They darted once to his lips.

She thought he was going to kiss her.

And she wasn’t running away
.

Suddenly his blood was pumping thickly, increasing in a steady rhythm until it was roaring in his ears. And he leaned down and put his lips to hers.

Touching her, kissing her, was everything he remembered. There was such chemistry between them. Christ, he could almost feel it, the break in her exterior. She’d just let him in. It was that effortless. He remembered from the football field, how willingly she had given herself to him, how it had felt like this. And he remembered thinking at the time,
This girl must be in love with me
.

He lifted his lips from hers, startled.

“I have to go,” she said quickly, not meeting his eyes, obviously embarrassed. “Thank you for the gas.” She wrenched open the door to her truck and jumped in.

He was still standing on the sidewalk long after she drove away.

What just happened here?
he thought.

What in the hell just happened?

Chapter 11

L
ong ago and mostly forgotten, the land surrounding Mullaby was once farmland, hog land. In those hard-scrabble days of North Carolina, when cattle refused to thrive, swine farming was a boon to the state. Like the citizens of many small towns in the area, the people of Mullaby took great pride in the slow, meticulous pit-cooking of pork, and it soon became an important part of defining who they were. It was at first a Sunday tradition, then a symbol of community, and eventually an art form, the art of old North Carolina, an art born out of work so hard it could fell a hearty man.

But as the years passed, the small farms and the once-prosperous hog-trade trails that stretched into Tennessee gradually disappeared. Up cropped neighborhoods and shopping centers, and then the interstate came, taking away people who remembered and bringing in people who didn’t. Eventually the origin and the reasons fell away from the bone, and all that was left was a collective unconscious, a tradition without a memory, a dream every person in the town of Mullaby had on the same date every year.

In the early hours of the morning on the day of the Mullaby Barbecue Festival, a fog would settle low in the air, sneaking into windows and into nighttime visions.
You’ll forget when you wake
, it would whisper,
but know this now and be proud
.

This is your history
.

STELLA HAD been gone for hours before Julia finally left the house. Stella considered the festival her day of debauchery. She started early and wouldn’t be home until the next day. Sometimes Julia worried about her. She couldn’t help it. She’d gotten to know Stella well in the past year and a half. Julia had never seen anyone
try so hard
to be happy with what she had. The Stella that Julia knew now was very different from the Stella she’d known in high school. Back then, Stella had been conspicuously showy, just like Dulcie Shelby. They’d been as thick as thieves. She’d driven a shiny black BMW bought specifically to match her shiny black hair. And Julia remembered hearing about how Stella’s decorator mother, who lived in Raleigh while Stella lived in Mullaby with her father, had designed Stella’s bedroom to look like a movie theater, complete with her own private movie screen and a popcorn machine. It had even been featured in some design magazine. To be honest, when Julia came back, she’d been surprised to find Stella still living here. Julia had always imagined those rich girls from school going on to live exotic lives. They’d had everything, every opportunity. When you had that much, why would you squander it? How could you accept anything less?

Stella’s problem, it turned out, was falling for the wrong guy. A tale as old as time. Her ex-husband had done a number on her by cheating and spending his way through her trust fund. The experience had turned Stella into a funny, self-deprecating woman who worked in a flower shop, lived in a house she could barely afford, and drank wine out of a box. Sometimes Julia wondered if Stella wanted it all back, if she would trade all she’d learned to be that envied girl again.

Julia had never asked. Their pasts were touchy subjects, which was why Julia hadn’t told her about Sawyer and the kiss, even though she really wanted to. And the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to tell something that personal to Stella meant that they weren’t as close as Stella thought they were. It made her sad, though she couldn’t figure out why. Julia didn’t want to get close to anyone here. Her real life was back in Baltimore.

It was noon when Julia finally walked over to Vance’s house to take Emily to the Mullaby Barbecue Festival. She knocked on the door and heard Emily race down the staircase with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Julia was instantly suspicious.

Emily ran outside, and Vance followed shortly.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Emily asked her grandfather, almost hopping from one foot to the other.

“I’m sure,” Vance said. “You two have fun.”

Julia and Vance watched as Emily ran down the front porch steps. “I’ll have her back before dark,” Julia told Vance. “And we’ll bring you some festival treats.”

“That’s right nice of you, Julia. She seems awfully excited, doesn’t she?” Vance said as Emily disappeared under the trees.

“Yes,” Julia said thoughtfully. “She does.”

“Getting excited about barbecue. She’s a lot like me.” He paused, then seemed to reconsider. “I mean, there’s not a lot about me I’d want her to favor, but …”

Julia put her hand on his arm. “She
is
a lot like you, Vance. And that’s a good thing.”

When Julia met her on the sidewalk, Emily asked, “Why won’t he come? He loves barbecue.”

“Vance tries to stay away from crowds,” Julia said as they walked toward downtown.

“I guess I’ve gotten so used to it that I forget sometimes.”

“You’re fitting in more than you think, then. So, how are the two of you getting along?”

Emily shrugged, distracted. “Okay, I guess. Better.”

“That’s good.”

Once they reached Main Street, Julia could tell that Emily was a little taken aback. First-timers usually were. Most people assumed that because Mullaby was small, the festival would be small, as well. But the Mullaby Barbecue Festival was actually the largest barbecue festival in the Southeast, and it attracted people from all over the country. The street was closed to cars, and white tents stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance, the top of a Ferris wheel could be seen. The smell was intense and delicious, like being in an oven.

As they wove their way through the crowded street, they passed numerous barbecue tents, the focus of the festival, after all. Inside the tents, the barbecue sandwiches were made in an assembly line. Sauce, no sauce? Coleslaw on your sandwich? Want hush puppies in a cup with that? The sandwiches could be seen in the hands of every other person on the street, half-wrapped in foil. There were also tents selling pork rinds and boiled corn on the cob, chicken on a stick and brats, fried pickles and fried candy bars, and, of course, funnel cakes. Craft tents dotted the area, too.

“I didn’t know it would be this big,” Emily said, her head swinging around, trying to take it all in. “How do you find anyone in all of this?”

“Looking for someone in particular?” Julia asked.

Emily hesitated. “No. Not really.”

But to test her theory, Julia purposely led Emily to the main stage. There were several stages staggered around the festival where bands were playing—folk and bluegrass mostly—but the main stage was right in the middle of Main Street. Crowds had to break around it like water.

There was a group of people, most of them Coffeys, clustered at the bottom of the stage steps, the men in hats and the women in crisp belted dresses. Win was wearing a straw boater hat, which would have looked ridiculous on anyone else his age. Sure enough, Emily’s eyes went right to him. And he seemed to know exactly when it happened, because he looked up and saw her. Neither of them moved toward the other, but their intense awareness was almost palpable.

“Why is Win … why are
the Coffeys
so dressed up?” Emily asked. “I mean, more than usual.”

“Because this festival belongs to them. Their family created it as an annual event about sixty years ago. It’s their baby. In a little while, they’ll do all their grandstanding on that stage, then they’ll judge some barbecue and pie contests.”

Win’s father looked over to his son, then followed his stare. He immediately called Win over to him, at the same time Julia ushered Emily away.

She and Emily had a good time for the next few hours. They ate way too much and bought commemorative T-shirts that read
I WENT HOG WILD AT THE MULLABY BARBECUE FESTIVAL
. It was a splurge Julia could hardly afford—she allotted herself very little spending money because she wanted as much as possible to go toward the restaurant’s mortgage—but it was worth it.

Julia hadn’t been to the festival in years. Her restaurant had a tent here, somewhere. She didn’t have anything to do with it. Her managers had set it all up. She remembered how her father had loved the festival. And there had been a time when Julia had loved to come with him. She thought the event had lost its appeal for her, but she liked seeing it through Emily’s eyes. For the first time in a long time, she realized she actually missed something about this place.

Tired and sweaty and happy, they finally reached the amusement park rides at the other end of the street. It was getting late, so their plan was to go on a few rides, get snow cones for themselves and treats for Vance, then go home.

But that’s when Sawyer appeared, in khakis and a polo, winding his way toward them. Julia would have quickly steered Emily away and lost him if Emily hadn’t seen him first and said, “There’s Sawyer!” as if he were a rare and colorful bird they had to stand still to watch.

No one could deny that he
was
a sight to behold. But the muscles in her shoulders bunched and tightened as he approached. She’d been purposely avoiding him since last Tuesday, trying to devise a plan. She didn’t know what to do without her animosity toward him. It had been her constant companion for years, and now that he’d broken through that, now that she’d made the decision to tell him about what had really happened all those years ago, she felt too vulnerable. She was walking a high wire without a net, and that kiss proved just how easily she could fall.

As he walked toward them, he gave Julia a look so hot she was almost embarrassed. Contrary to this look, however, the first words out of his mouth were, “I hope you’re happy. My navigation system has been trying to take me to Frank’s Toilet World all week.”

Emily laughed, and Julia said, “Sorry.”

“I get the feeling you
like
pointing me in the wrong direction.” Before she could respond, he turned to Emily and said, “Are you having a good time?”

“We’ve had a great day,” Emily said.

“We won’t be staying much longer,” Julia added. “We were about to take in a few rides, then go home.”

He chose to interpret that as an invitation rather than a brush-off. Sawyer never had been good with rejection. It happened so rarely to him. “Great, then I’ll join you.”

“We don’t want to keep you,” Julia said. “Surely you’re here with someone.”

“I came alone, if that’s what you’re asking. I met up with Stella earlier, but then her entourage got too big. Stella is like a comet collecting space debris as she passes.”

That made Emily laugh again, but Julia, more curious than she wanted to be ever since Sawyer had told her he’d once slept with Stella, asked seriously, “You didn’t want to be a part of Stella’s comet tail?”

“I was suddenly distracted by another heavenly body,” he said, meeting her eyes.

Emily cleared her throat. “I’m sure you two want to be alone. Why don’t you go on a ride together? I’d like to walk around by myself for a while, anyway.”

Julia tore her eyes off Sawyer. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Em,” she said, and actually put a hand on her shoulder, trying to keep her there.

“Why not?” Emily asked.

“Yes, Julia,” Sawyer said, smiling. “Why not?

“Because I told your grandfather I’d keep an eye on you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But …”

“Julia,” Emily said reasonably, “I’m seventeen, not four.”

Julia knew she wasn’t going to win this one. “Meet me by the bandstand in one hour. One hour.”

Emily kissed Julia’s cheek. It was an unexpected gesture from her, a sweet, daughterly thing to do. “Thanks.”

“One hour,” Julia called after her as she watched the crowd swallow Emily. She had an overwhelming urge to drag her back, to protect her from everything that had hurt her so much as a teenager.

She finally turned back to Sawyer, who had his brows raised.

“She’s been looking for an excuse to get away from me. Win Coffey has been eyeing her all afternoon. And I’ve seen her watching him.”

“It was inevitable,” Sawyer said. “Those two were going to have magnets attached to each other no matter what. The lure of the forbidden.”

“I don’t want her to get hurt. She’s been through so much already.”

“You really care about her, don’t you? Nothing has happened yet. And Win is a pretty good kid. But if he does hurt her, he’ll have me to contend with. Now,” he said, leaning in slightly, putting his face close to hers, “let’s talk about last Tuesday.”

“I have a better idea,” she said. “Let’s go in the fun house, instead.”

Sawyer looked confused. She couldn’t blame him. “That’s a better idea?”

“It’s the fun house. Who doesn’t love the fun house?” she said as she walked over to the small structure. It sounded ridiculous, even to her. But talking about last Tuesday was too far ahead of her plans. He wanted her. She’d known that since she came back. But there was the little matter of telling him about their daughter first. That was going to change every-thing.

Sawyer followed her and bought their tickets. When they entered, the undulating floor threw her off balance and she fell back against him. He took her hand and pulled her across the room. Many kids chose to stay in that room and ride the wooden waves, so when Julia and Sawyer tripped into the hall of mirrors, they were the only ones there.