Defending Hearts (2 page)

“Pretty dog,” he said, remembering she wasn’t the chatty type and it might be up to him to carry conversations.

“Thanks. Her name’s Cocoa.”

Alex smiled. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Yeah, it’s not the most original name for a chocolate Lab, but she came with it and she seems to like it. Right, Cocoa?” The dog put up her paw and he watched Gretchen give her a high five. “She also likes high fives. A lot. She knows the basics, like
sit
or
down
.
Stay
is a little iffy. She has no idea what
get off the couch
or
no dogs on the bed
means, but if you’re looking for somebody to celebrate with a high five, Cocoa’s your girl.”

“Who doesn’t love a high five, right?” he asked the dog, who trotted back to him so they could slap palm to paw.

“Do you need help carrying things in?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have much. I figured I’d say hello first and meet your grandmother. I’m sure we’ve met before, but it’s been a long time.”

“She’s waiting inside.”

Alex followed her around the house to the back door, which opened into the kitchen. He hadn’t been away from New England so long that he’d forgotten that front doors were for company and political door knockers. After she’d kicked off her boots, she led him into the living room, where her grandmother was sitting in an old glider rocker. She set her knitting aside just in time for the big Lab to hop up in her lap. It took Cocoa a few seconds to wedge herself into a comfortable position, and he heard Gretchen sigh before she reintroduced them to each other.

“Sit for a few minutes,” her grandmother said. “Let’s chat.”

He perched on the edge of the sofa. “Thank you for letting me rent a room in your home, Mrs. Walker.”

“Call me Ida. Or Gram. Do you like scalloped potatoes?”

“Um.” He tried to keep up. “Yes, ma’am. Ida. Gram. Yes, I like scalloped potatoes.”

“I’m going back to work,” Gretchen said. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“You’ll need to write the Internet password down for him,” Ida told her before looking back to him. “Speaking of the Internet, you don’t have any weird proclivities, do you?”

“Gram!” Gretchen stopped walking and turned back, holding her hands up in a
what are you doing?
gesture.

“If he’s going to live under the same roof as my granddaughter, I have a right to know.”

“No, you don’t,” Gretchen said in a low voice.

“I guess I’d wonder what your definition of weird is,” Alex said at the same time.

“Don’t answer that, Gram.”

Because they were technically his new landlords, the question could be totally illegal as far as he knew. But he wasn’t particularly outraged by the turn in the conversation. “I’ve never received any complaints about weirdness with regard to my proclivities.”

“Good.” Ida gave him an approving look. “You can never be too careful.”

“That’s so true.” He turned his gaze back to her granddaughter. “So tell me, Gretchen, do
you
have any weird proclivities?”

“I am not discussing my proclivities with you.”

“If I’m going to live under the same roof with you, don’t I have a right to know?”

She shook her head, but he could see her struggling not to smile. “You have a right to know the dishwasher hasn’t worked for almost a year and a half and where the extra toilet paper’s kept. My proclivities, weird or not, are off-limits.”

If not for the fact that her grandmother was watching them, Alex might have been tempted to poke at her a little more and try to get a reaction. He’d seen her during Eagles Fest, mostly from a distance, and he knew she had an infectious, musical laugh that seemed at odds with her stern exterior. When she was with Kelly McDonnell and their friend Jen Cooper, the high school guidance counselor, Gretchen
had no problem letting her sense of humor show through. He could see glimpses of it now, and he wanted to draw it out.

But she escaped into the kitchen before he could say more, and a minute later he heard the kitchen door close with a thump. Alex turned his attention back to Ida, who was rubbing between a sleeping Cocoa’s ears.

He would be in Stewart Mills for a while, so he had plenty of time to get under Gretchen Walker’s skin and make her
laugh.

G
retchen went to the detached garage because it was the closest thing she had to whatever the female equivalent of a man cave was. It had actually served as a man cave when her grandfather was alive, though it grew to be a lot more when his eleven-year-old granddaughter had become his constant shadow.

She usually raised the overhead door to let a little of the outside come in, but the rollers needed some maintenance and it was starting to stick three-quarters of the way up. Rather than wrestle with it, she went through the side door and flipped on the overhead light.

Breathing in the scent of old wood and grease, she perched on the tall wooden stool in front of the workbench. The carburetor from the old pain-in-the-ass lawn mower sat on an oil-soaked bed of cardboard, waiting to be rebuilt, but
she didn’t pick it up. She just looked around at the tools hanging from pegboard lining the walls, and the boxes and bins of garage debris her grandfather had accumulated over his lifetime on the Walker farm.

This was where she’d learned everything that mattered in her life. She’d learned the concepts of family and home. Stability and routine. Gramps had taught her to face problems head-on and that the only way to get things done was to suck it up and do them. And he’d taught her that, with determination and a little elbow grease, anything that was broken could be fixed.

He hadn’t been the kind of man who showed emotion. Love and kissing boo-boos and wiping her very rare tears had come from Gram, but Gretchen had felt how much Gramps loved her. It showed in the hours he’d spent teaching her how to use a grinding wheel and tend to a cow with mastitis and prepare Gram’s gardens for planting. With a steady hand and pride in his eyes, he’d quietly raised Gretchen to love the farm and be as capable a caretaker of it as he was.

And that’s why she’d do whatever she had to for the Walker farm, including letting a man she barely knew live in the house. An insanely attractive man with short dark hair, who smelled good and looked at her with light brown eyes warm with intelligence and humor.

Gretchen pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She thought about texting Kelly or Jen, but she had an old flip-style phone and having to push the number keys multiple times just to make one word was frustrating. Instead she flipped it open and hit Jen’s assigned speed-dial number.

Jen Cooper was the guidance counselor at the high school and, though school wouldn’t start for a few more weeks, Gretchen knew she’d be in her office. Kelly, being on the police force, had a more erratic schedule and was less likely to be available this time of day.

Jen answered on the third ring. “Hey, Gretchen. What’s up?”

“You busy?”

“Nope. I’m eating a yogurt, wondering how the pile of crap on my desk is so tall when the kids aren’t even here yet.”

“Did Kelly tell you Alex Murphy was coming today?”

“Oh, that’s right! How’s that going?”

“Right off the bat, Gram asked him if he has any weird proclivities.”

There were a few seconds when it sounded like Jen might be choking on her yogurt. “That sounds like Gram. It probably would have been better to ask him that
before
he moved in, though.”

“It didn’t come up in our emails.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Jen’s annoyed sigh made her sigh. “Does he have any weird proclivities?”

“Do you really think he would have told Gram if he did?”

“That’s disappointing.”

Gretchen laughed. “He didn’t say he didn’t have any, actually. Just that he hasn’t received any complaints.”

“
Really?
And it’s only the first day. This could be interesting.”

“I didn’t call you to talk about Alex’s proclivities, weird or not.”

“Then you shouldn’t have opened with them.”

“I was opening with Gram’s outrageousness. You’re not going to believe what she suggested I do before he got here.”

“Let me guess,” Jen said. “You should do up your hair and maybe put on a little lip gloss.”

“Lip gloss? She wanted me to slap on her Cherry Hot Pants lipstick.”

“That’s . . . disturbing. The name of that shade, I mean.”

“That’s more disturbing than her trying to hook me up with our new . . . I guess
tenant
isn’t the right word. Boarder? That sounds old-fashioned.”

Jen chuckled. “Right now picturing Gram in Cherry Hot Pants red is more disturbing than almost anything.”

She should have called Kelly instead. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw her in makeup. If the stuff has an expiration date, it was probably in the nineties.”

“Okay, in all seriousness, you need to shut Gram down right away,” Jen said. “It’ll be hard enough having a man you barely know living in your house. Your grandmother trying to play matchmaker will make things awkward for everybody. Especially if she’s opening with fetish questions. How the hell did that come up in conversation, anyway?”

“She reminded me to give him the Wi-Fi password,” Gretchen told her. “Which apparently reminded
her
that she was concerned about what he might look at on the Internet.”

“Hopefully taking pictures and working on his story—or book or whatever it is—will keep him out of the house for most of the hours Gram’s awake. Since she doesn’t have Facebook, her ability to do damage is limited to face-to-face time.” Jen paused. “She doesn’t have Facebook, right?”

“Not as far as I know. None of her friends do, so I’ve managed to convince her it’s nothing she’d want, but a friend of a friend got an account to see pictures of her grandkid, so it’s probably only a matter of time.”

“Luckily you’re her only shot for grandkids, and you live in the same house, so she doesn’t need social media for that.”

“Yeah.”
Luckily
was one word for it.
Challenging
was perhaps a better one. Finding a guy who loved her enough to want to move into an old farmhouse with her and her grandmother wasn’t easy. Especially since she rarely strayed far from the farm.

“We should get together soon,” Jen said. “I don’t think the three of us have had a chance to sit down and relax since Eagles Fest.”

That sounded like a great idea to Gretchen. And she’d probably be ready to get out of the house—and away from the weirdness of a man living with them—before too long. “If you see Kelly, try to set up a day for lunch or something.”

“I’ll let you know. In the meantime, try to peek over Alex’s shoulder now and then when he’s on the Internet. We need better gossip in this town.”

“Funny.”

After she ended the call, Gretchen got off the stool and grabbed the key to the ancient ATV off the hook over the bench. It was time to head out and check the field she’d given over to pumpkins a few years back, and the four-wheeler would be faster than the tractor.

As the number of businesses who wanted to buy Walker pumpkins to resell to their customers had grown, so had the amount of land Gretchen allotted to the planting, and now it was substantial. Checking for powdery mildew and pests
would keep her busy until it was time for afternoon chores and dinner.

Busy was good. The busier she was, the less time she had to think about Alex Murphy.

—

A
lex set the last of his bags on the worn hardwood floor and used his foot to close the door behind him. So this bedroom would be his world for the near future. He’d stayed in worse. Much worse.

The furnishings were definitely more about function than décor, which he didn’t mind at all. The full-sized mattress was firm and framed by a brass rail headboard and footboard, and there was a nightstand with a lamp next to it. A solid maple dresser stood next to the open closet, and there was a comfortable-looking armchair next to the window.

During their email exchanges prior to his arrival, Gretchen had asked if he needed a desk or anything else for working, but he’d told her not to bother. He didn’t want to put her out, plus he’d trained himself years before not to tie his process to any particular work conditions. Sometimes he was in a hotel room with a desk and sometimes he was in a nylon tent with a laptop balanced on his knees. He could work under almost any conditions and this bedroom, plain and old-fashioned as it may be, was certainly no hardship.

Unpacking took him about twenty minutes, and he plugged his laptop in to charge. Later he’d start closely reviewing the photos he’d taken during Eagles Fest and decide which he’d like to include in his new work. Then he’d have to see about
obtaining permission from the subjects to use them in a commercial project.

He also needed to get in touch with Coach McDonnell about Saturday. Tryouts for the football team would start at nine and he wanted to be there to capture the emotion of the morning. When the citizens reluctantly voted to cut the budget for the team at the town meeting in the spring, it was a hard blow to the boys. Playing football kept some out of trouble and gave others a reason to keep their grades up, especially when things were hard at home due to the economic downturn.

Things had looked bleak until Kelly McDonnell, Jen Cooper and Gretchen Walker got together and made the Eagles Fest fund-raiser happen. With the help of some grants and donations, they’d announced in July that Eagles football had been saved, and Alex knew their return to the field on Saturday would be even more exciting than usual. He intended to be there with his camera, with Coach’s permission.

Alex walked to the window to check out the view. His room was at the back of the house and looked out toward the barn. He could barely make out a garage to the left and a rutted dirt road that passed between the two buildings and disappeared through a break in a line of trees. He assumed it led to fields, though he wasn’t sure.

The view was considerably improved when Gretchen stepped out of the garage’s side door and headed for the barn. She had a long stride and he admired the way she looked so natural and confident in her environment.

His hand itched for his camera, but he didn’t give in to
the urge to pull it out of his bag. It was bad enough he was watching her from the window. Taking photographs would cross a personal line of ethics that was sometimes blurry and a moving target, but was always there.

He allowed himself to watch her for a few more seconds, admiring the way the sun lit up the highlights in her hair. In normal lighting, it was solidly dark, though not black. But when the sun hit the thick braid just right, subtle red undertones shone through and drew his eye. He wanted to unravel her braid and run his fingers through the strands just to watch the light play with the colors.

Gretchen disappeared on the far side of the barn and then, a few moments later, emerged again on a four-wheeler that had seen better days. Sitting on the machine, with her long legs drawn up so her feet rested on the running boards, pulled the worn denim of her jeans across her thighs in a way that drew his eye in a way that was far more personal than professional.

Before he stared long enough to tip over into creeper territory, Alex turned away from the window and went downstairs. With all the travel he’d done—which included staying in bed-and-breakfasts or sometimes with host families—he didn’t have a lot of trouble making himself feel at home wherever he was. But for people like Ida and Gretchen, who weren’t accustomed to having a boarder, it could feel awkward. The less time he spent holed up in his room, the faster they’d come to feel comfortable around him.

Gretchen’s grandmother was at the computer when he walked into the living room. It was an older model perched on a big corner desk, and Ida was writing in a notebook in front of the monitor.

When he stepped on a floorboard that squeaked under his weight, she turned and gave him a smile. “How’s your room?”

“It’s perfect. And that’s a beautiful quilt on the bed. Did you make it?”

“As tempting as it is to lie and take the credit, I never had the patience for quilting. All those tiny stitches. I enjoy knitting, though. Did you get on the Internet okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Every month when she pays the bill, Gretchen makes that same growly frustrated noise my husband made when he thought something was frivolous, but I need good Internet for my business.”

Alex moved a couple of magazines out of the armchair near the desk so he could sit in it. If he sat on the couch, she wouldn’t be able to resume what she was doing while still continuing their conversation unless she turned her back to him. “Do you mind if I ask what your business is?”

“I knit matching sweaters, hats and mittens for little girls and those fancy dolls from the different time periods in history. Jen—you know Jen Cooper, right? She helped set me up a little shop on a website that lets you sell handmade stuff. People tell me what size the child wears and her favorite color, and I knit a set for her and a matching one for the doll. I don’t make a lot of money, but I’d be knitting anyway and this way I feel useful in my own little way.”

Alex smiled, making a mental note to photograph Ida knitting and posing with her creations. Her business would fit right into a story about weathering rough times. “I’m sure Gretchen would say you’re useful in countless ways.”

“She’s a good girl. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

He suspected, in this case, it wasn’t simply a common
platitude. While he hadn’t seen a lot of the farm, he’d seen enough to know it would be a lot for Ida to have taken care of on her own after her husband passed away. Even without an expectation of the property providing a sustainable income for her, it would have been too much.

“I happened to glance out the window on my way down and saw her on a four-wheeler,” he said. “She works all day out there?”

Ida nodded. “She’s probably on her way to check on the pumpkins.”

“Pumpkins?”

“If you go shopping this fall and the stores are selling pumpkins, there’s a good chance Gretchen grew them. She’s always looking for ways to make the land earn money, and the pumpkins were even more successful than she’d hoped.”

Alex couldn’t miss the pride in her voice. “I can’t wait to see them.”

He’d been looking forward to delving into the emotional story of a town overcoming financial adversity, so it looked like he’d picked the right place to stay. Gretchen and her grandmother were perfect examples of Yankee resilience and ingenuity. The fact that he wouldn’t mind getting to know Gretchen a little better was just icing on the cake.