Texas Wedding. Kathleen O'Brien

Don’t ever bring that boy into my house again.”

      Harrison made a sharp move forward, but Trent threw out his arm. He’d seen the Archer temper all too often in the old days. Back then, he’d been too young, too intimidated by the Archer acres, to know what he should do about it.

      But he knew now.

      “Hey,” he said. “Easy.”

      The older man’s chest pushed against Trent’s forearm, as if he might put up a fight. His breath came harsh and heavy. They stood that way about ten seconds, with Harrison clearly struggling for composure.

      Finally he eased back an inch or two. He transferred his glare to Trent. “I need to talk to you, son,” he said. “Outside.”

      Trent didn’t much like the autocratic tone, but he very much liked the idea of getting the agitated man away from Peggy. He nodded and followed Harrison through the door and onto the front porch.

      “Bitch,” Harrison muttered as the door shut behind him. Trent ignored it, but he placed himself between the older man and the entry, just in case.

      “You said you wanted to talk to me?”

      Harrison took one last deep breath, and ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. It’s just that even after all these years, she can still get my goat. She’s stuck in the past, Trent. Damn it, I loved Paul, too, but I have to get on with my life, don’t I? And she hates me for it.”

      “Maybe she just hates having your new life thrown in her face.”

      Harrison’s fleshy cheeks reddened. “Thrown in her face? Look, I didn’t choose to come here. She called me. She said she needed help. And look what it turned out to be! The damn television set!”

      Trent didn’t bother to try to make Harrison understand how important television could be to someone as lonely as Peggy. Empathy wasn’t the man’s strong suit.

      “Well, I’m here now, so you’re off the hook. Take Sean to the game and forget about it.”

      “It’s ridiculous, anyhow.” Harrison glanced toward the house with distaste. “Why the hell didn’t she just hire someone to fix it? God knows the allowance I give her is big enough.”

      Trent’s jaw was so tight he could hardly get words out. “I think she likes the company. Half the time when I come over, she tells me to forget the repairs. She just wants to sit and talk.”

      Harrison laughed. “What? You think she just likes to hang out with you? Don’t kid yourself, son. She’s using you. She knows you’ve got a guilty conscience, so she plays on it.”

      Trent had heard enough. “You know, I think it’s time for you to go.”

      To his surprise, the edict didn’t seem to inflame the older man’s tinderbox temper. Instead, Harrison’s face softened, as if swept by a sudden and rare compassion. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      “Poor kid.” Harrison rested his meaty hand gently on Trent’s shoulder. “I know you think you can make it up to her. But you can’t. It’s too big, what happened.”

      Trent shrugged. “Maybe. I come because I like to. That’s all.”

      “Okay.” Harrison nodded, but he chewed on the inside of his cheek as if something troubled him. “Still…you need to watch your step, son. Because I promise you this. Deep down inside where nobody sees, that woman hates you.”

      

      THOUGH MONDAY was only Eli Breslin’s first day, by midafternoon Susannah was guardedly pleased with his performance. During the lunch break, when Zander and Susannah had gone over business in the foreman’s office, even the older man had grudgingly admitted that, so far, the boy took instruction meekly and worked hard.

      Maybe too hard. Mid-May in Central Texas could be cool, but summer was sneaking in early this year, and temperatures were already hitting eighty.

      When Susannah drove the flatbed out to see how the tree thinning was coming along, she caught a glimpse of Eli, leaning against the bright yellow shaking machine, dirty and sweaty and shirtless. He held a plastic water bottle above his head and was letting its contents pour over his upturned face and run glistening down his sunburned chest.

      For the first time, Susannah could sort of see why Nikki had fallen for him. He did have that hunky blond surfer boy thing going on big-time.

      And that had always been Nikki’s type.

      Susannah, on the other hand, had always been fatally drawn to the black-haired, blue-eyed dangerous devil thing. So when this sweaty young sexpot smiled wetly over at her, the only thing she felt was mild anxiety. He was so fair-skinned…would that mean he was susceptible to heatstroke?

      A sudden pang pierced just under her ribs. She wished that things could have been different. If only she and Nikki could have been normal sisters. If only they could have laughed about boys, shared secrets, conspired to hide mischief from their parents. Instead, because their mother and father had died when Susannah was fifteen, and Nikki only a toddler, Susannah had been forced into the role of surrogate mother.

      How Nikki had hated it, all these years. She had no idea that Susannah had hated it, too. But she did—she hated the injustice of it. They’d both been cheated of their parents. But they’d also been cheated of each other. Even after Nikki passed through adolescence, they would probably never have the tight friendship that real sisters should have.

      Susannah squeezed her eyes, as if she could squeeze away the self-pity. She didn’t have time to lament tragedies that had happened so long ago. She couldn’t change the past. All she could hope was that maybe she could keep the present and future from capsizing, too.

      Suddenly, Zander was at Susannah’s elbow, wiping a dirty rag across his own sweaty face. “Little brat broke the shaking machine.”

      “What?”

      Susannah looked again toward Eli and realized belatedly that the machine should not have been silent and still. It should have been roaring and grumbling away, moving among the trees, grabbing trunks with its tail-like pincers, and jostling dime-sized peaches from branches like a blush-colored rain.

      She sniffed, and finally she smelled it—the stench of steam and burning rubber wafting through the orchard, a dark undercurrent below the sweetness of the fruit-littered ground.

      Eli seemed to think she was staring at him, because he smiled again, carving dimples into his cheeks. He pointed the empty water bottle toward the shaking machine, then used it to draw an imaginary line across his throat.

      The message was clear. The machine was dead. And Eli thought it was mildly amusing.

      Well, he could afford to consider this a little gift from the go-home-early gods, but Susannah wanted to cuss. It could take days to get it repaired. And now that every fruit grower in central Texas was in the throes of thinning season, where would she be able to borrow another one in the meantime?

      “I knew it was too good to be true,” Zander muttered. “I knew all this perfect employee crap was just an act.”

      “It’s not Eli’s fault.” Somehow Susannah kept her voice cool. “It broke on you last year, too, Zander. It’s just old. We need a new one.”

      “We can’t afford a new one.”

      She slapped her work gloves into the palm of her hand, trying to hold back the retort that sprang to her lips. Of course she knew they couldn’t afford one. If they hadn’t been in dire straits, did Zander think she would have sold herself into a year of matrimonial bondage?

      “Maybe,” she said, “Chase will loan us his.”

      “Yes. You should ask Trent about it ASAP.” Zander frowned. “Where is he, anyhow? Haven’t seen him around all weekend.”