Her Heart's Desire (Sunflower Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Is something...wrong?” Lia asked Craig as he
soaped up his hands.

“Wrong?” He shook his head. “No. Why?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say Lucas was
mad.”

“He’s wearing his military poker face,” Megan
said. “Not good.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a bowl.
“He’s deadly serious about something.”

“I can hear you,” Lucas called out.

“We had a difference of opinion,” Craig said.
He dried his hands before making his way to the table. “Thanks for
lunch, Megan.”

When they were finally seated, Lia poured
lemonade in glasses and passed them around. “The silence is
deafening. What’s the disagreement about?”

She pinned a stare on her brother, who then
looked outside as though interested in the hummingbirds diving and
darting around the feeders. Megan cast a glance at each of them,
planted her elbow on the edge of the table, and rested her chin on
her palm. A grin full of excited anticipation lit her face, like
she’d just won a ticket to a ringside seat at a fashion runway
show.

“Good lunch,” Lucas said between bites of his
sandwich.

“Awkward,” Megan replied in a sing-song
tone.

Lia frowned. Something was going on between
Craig and Lucas. They had no right to be mad at each other. This
was her time. She planned to seize the moment, hoist a conquering
flag, confronting both men about their plot to ruin her social life
in front of a witness. But as much as she wanted to battle with
them, their silence brought uneasiness prickling up her spine, one
she couldn’t ignore. Adding fuel to an existing fire could result
in a blaze they could all regret. In the many years of their
friendship, the two men had few falling-outs. They had a way of
balancing each other. Funny and serious. Loud and quiet. She had
come to count on them as a team. That realization surprised her. No
matter what the problem eating at them, she wouldn’t kick them when
they were down.

Megan, obviously bored with the silence,
turned the conversation lively with stories of dorm life. Craig and
Lucas chimed in, but neither spoke directly to the other. Lia
rolled her eyes. Did they really think they were fooling
anyone?

“Thanks for the hospitality. I’ve got to get
back.” Craig rose from the table and put his plate in the sink.

“I’m going to catch a ride home with Craig,”
Lia told Megan and Lucas. “Zoë’s coming by in a bit.”

Megan walked them to the door. Lucas remained
at the table.

“Remember, I’m here to help,” Lia said,
hugging Megan tightly. “I love your wonderful memories of my
mother.”

Lia rode in silence with Craig to the farm.
When they arrived, she hugged him before getting out of the car. “I
wish you’d tell me what’s going on. It’s weird and unsettling, you
and Lucas not speaking. I can’t remember the last time you two had
a problem...wait, I do. It was over a girl when you were in
college.” Lia paused. “Is it a girl now? Did you and Lucas meet
someone new at Rockets?” She really didn’t want to know the answer.
It would break her heart if Lucas had a serious interest in someone
else.

“Yes, it’s about a woman.”

Lia flinched.

“But not in that way. I’ve got to go. We’ll
talk about it later.”

They’re fighting over a woman? Who?

Worry began a slow shred of her
self-confidence. Prickling sensation returned, moving up and down
her spine like someone playing scales on a piano. She shuddered at
the eerie vibrations. “Okay. Text me when you’ve made it to St.
Louis. Even a younger sister can worry.”

Lia entered the house. In need of a
distraction from niggling apprehension, she donned bib overalls,
the perfect stereotypical garb for a Kansas farmer, and went
outside. Jack ran circles around her as she walked to the barn.
“Dog, you make me dizzy.”

A late afternoon breeze fluffed her hair. An
orange sun in a cloudless sky hovered above the treetops. The days
were growing shorter. She gazed over the green horizon—miles of
corn and soybeans, a postcard of almost anywhere in the state of
Kansas. The thought of leaving the beauty surrounding her produced
an ache in her heart. Zoë didn’t understand that even she would
miss the land if she moved to the city. But some lessons were best
learned from personal experience.

Inside the barn, Lia turned on the bright
shop lights and surveyed the scene. An old croquet set she and her
friends had used back in their junior high days, sawhorses, a long
worn workbench lined the wall, rusted dog crates, and other junk
too rusted or broken to discern the purpose they’d served when new.
From the horse tack hanging from posts to the scattered hay on the
floor, this place would make the perfect setting for a country
music video.

She made her way to the very back of the barn
and pulled open the door to the storage room. A light popped on.
The room resembled a small warehouse, walls lined with shelves and
racks in the center of the room. Her task until Zoë arrived would
take her through each remaining box to create a complete inventory
of what remained from her mother’s secret shopping stash.

Awhile later, Lia pushed her hair behind her
ears and surveyed her progress. Now only one wall displayed boxes.
Cool air rippled along her back like a ghost running its hand from
her neck to her butt. She shivered and scanned the room,
half-expecting to find her mother sitting on the crate near the
door.

“Momma, I miss you,” she whispered, folding
her arms over her chest. “Missing you so much. What do I do about
Lucas? What will happen to me if I lose the farm?”

The rumble of a vehicle coming up the road
drew Lia’s attention. She stepped out of the room and peered
through a window of the barn. A cloud of dust confirmed her
suspicion. Someone traveled on the road to her house. Zoë?

A moment later, outside the barn, an engine
died.

“Lia!”

“Back here.”

Jingling keys allowed her to track Zoë’s
progress to the rear of the barn.

“How’s it going?” Zoë asked. She shielded her
eyes and squinted. “Wow! Not a whole lot left.”

Lia nodded. She moved a package from the
center rack to the last open space on the shelf against the wall.
When all the shelves were empty and the packages shipped off to new
destinations, would she be forced to go, too? Uncertainty rubbed
her nerves the way a new boot rubbed a blister on the back of her
heel.

“It’s pretty bare compared to when I started.
I made an inventory of the remaining items for sale and those
pieces I’m going to keep. The problem is the Lenox china. There’s a
place setting for eight. I have Mother’s set of Lenox Autumn in the
house, so I’m not sure what her plans were for the Lowell
Dinnerware. Maybe she intended it as a wedding present. I guess, I
should check with Craig to see if he’s interested in it...for that
someday event. But I imagine his bride will prefer to pick out her
own china.”

“I would,” Zoë agreed.

“Over there”—Lia pointed—“are enough packages
of seeds to plant a kitchen garden for everyone in the county. Mr.
Turner said he’d take those off my hands.”

“I can’t fathom what made your mom, the
mother-of-no-clutter, transform into a secret shopaholic.”

“I’ve continued my search for clues. A diary.
A journal. Notes stuffed in a drawer. All I found was a pocket
folder with receipts. It makes me sad. I feel so guilty, as if
somehow this is my fault.” Her chest tightened. Guilt hit her
hard.

“You’ve got to let it go. We’ve talked about
this. Your mom wanted you to be a success. She was proud of your
teaching and artwork. She chose your dad and life on the farm.”

“Still…I believe she began this secret
obsession after I left for college. The sales receipts indicate
that.”

“I’m a parrot. I’ll say it again. You have to
let it go. As your mom always said, C'est la vie. It’s advice
that’s served us all very well. Consider it the best gift she ever
gave you.”

“Maybe.” Lia shrugged. “Help me move these
boxes to the cleared workbench. I’ve sold this stack.”

Zoë picked up the biggest box, square and
awkward, her arms barely able to hold the sides. When she tried to
adjust it in her grasp, it toppled and hit the floor sending up a
cloud of dust. She coughed and swatted to clear the air of dancing
particles.

“You okay?” Lia chuckled at Zoë’s sheepish
grin.

“Sorry. I hope whatever’s in here didn’t
break.”

Lia flipped open her steno pad and ran her
finger down the page. “Nope. No worries. That’s box 53. A blue and
white sundress, matching blue sandals, and a big floppy white hat.
The box is mostly filled with those air-filled packing pockets to
protect the hat.”

“The box isn’t damaged, so that’s good.” Zoë
resumed her trek toward the door and managed to get the box there
without dropping it again.

Lia placed two small boxes in the Jeep. “I’ll
admit I’m worried. What if there’s not enough money, even if I sell
all
the boxes, to keep me completely in the black all the
way through spring? I’ve been working on Plan B. Emailing with a
gallery in KC that sold a couple of my paintings last year. They’ve
looked at my entire portfolio. They want to give me a showing. I’m
taking a dozen paintings to them tomorrow.”

“How many paintings do you have
completed?”

“Between what I have here and in my studio in
KC, a catalog of forty. That’s every last unsold piece. A few of
the paintings are almost fifteen years old.”

“You kept the work you did in high
school?”

“Absolutely. Someday when I’m famous, I think
people will be most interested in my earliest work.” She grinned,
wishing she really had that much faith about her painting
future.

“I like you’re confidence. It helps to stare
uncertainty in the face. Unflinching tenacity is what it will take,
especially if you truly mean to stay on the farm. So you want me to
play Pony Express and mail these packages for you?” Zoë teased.

“You found me out. Now to keep with the
western theme, you and I are having leftovers from the potluck
while you explain to me what happened yesterday.”

Lia did a double take at Zoë’s bashful
smile.

She wondered when Zoë would get around to
talking about Karl. Did she know about the private conversation he
had with Lucas that had Karl shaking his head like a bobblehead
doll? Afterward, Karl had politely, but determinedly, insisted on
leaving.

Gentleman Jack bounded to the barn door. He
loped in the grass alongside Lia and Zoë as gravel crunched under
their feet on the fifty-yard walk to the house. Inside, no evidence
remained of the houseful of guests from the cookout.

“Does Craig help you clean when he comes
home?” Zoë asked, running a finger along the edge of a bookshelf.
She raised a spotless finger.

“What are you? The white-glove brigade?” Like
her mother, who always had a clean house, Lia had stayed up late to
tidy the place after the party. “Don’t tell anyone. He’ll only deny
it, but he cleaned the downstairs hall bathroom, scrubbed the floor
and all. He also cleaned his room. I don’t go in there. I keep the
door closed when he’s gone. He’s responsible for it.”

“Mister Suit remembers his roots. Maybe the
big city hasn’t changed him as much as I’d thought.”

“Maybe. Set the table. I’ll reheat some
food.”

Zoë pulled blue and white Currier and Ives
plates from the cabinet, utensils from the drawer, and two napkins
from the holder. “So about yesterday. How interested are you in
Karl?” she asked, placing the table settings on the breakfast
counter.

“Will you pull the potato salad from the
fridge?”

Closing the short distance, Zoë did as she
requested. “Now, tell me. What about Karl?”

“I don’t know.” Lia stood by the stove and
placed slices of ham into a frying pan. “I’ll tell you more after
my date next Saturday.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Ask Karl out?”

“We always celebrate birthdays together. I’m
feeling like a third wheel.”

“That would mean you’d be on the date with me
and him, and that’s
not
going to happen. I apologize. I
should have talked to you about changing things up. However, if I’d
told you what I had planned before I did it, I might have lost my
nerve.” It took all the bravado she could muster to ask a man
out.

“I have to admit, that’s pretty audacious for
you. So, how would you feel if someone else was interested in him?
Like really, truly interested.”

Lia didn’t need to ponder the question, but
she wasn’t yet ready to share the full truth. “Well, since I
haven’t kissed him yet, I don’t have anything to compare him
to.”

Zoë grinned. “And whom might you be comparing
him to?”

Lia turned away from her friend as heat
flooded her cheeks.

“Lia Britton, you’re holding out on me.’

“No. I’m. Not.”

Zoë moved in close. Lia tried to turn away,
but Zoë was nose-to-nose with her, staring her straight in the
eye.

“You, like Lucas, never tell a lie. What
gives?”

Lia turned back to the stove. “I can’t stop
thinking about kissing Lucas,” she whispered. When she turned back
to Zoë’s widening grin, she wasn’t sure which bothered her more,
the smugness spread across Zoë’s face or the unraveling of the
façade she’d guarded for so many years. Her pulse raced.

Would Lucas reject her again?

Chapter 9

The next day, Lia backed the truck and U-Haul
trailer from the barn to the driveway at the house. After opening
the rear doors of the enclosed trailer, she rolled up the garage
door. Donning leather work gloves, she dragged out a wooden rack
designed to hold paintings upright while being transported. She
broke a sweat wrestling the rack into place in the back of the
trailer. Clearly, she needed a part-time job stacking hay. Working
out regularly would make the loading process easier. Wouldn’t Craig
love to know a well-appointed gym and a personal trainer were
things she missed about her life in the city? She’d never hear the
end of it.