Your Dream and Mine (18 page)

T
he auctioneer was working out of the back of his pickup truck. A custom-made topper provided him with an office on wheels. Thomasina gleaned from the logo on the side of the truck that he was a local man. She got up front, close enough she could hear the auctioneer shuffling through papers as he read the terms of sale preliminary to the auction of the land.

Thomasina was aware of Trace moving through the crowd looking for her even as the auctioneer began his singsong spiel. She kept her head down, her muffler lapped over her face and her number in her pocket. The bidding peppered along at a lively pace. One by one, the early bidders dropped out until only Trace and Jeb Liddle remained. The price climbed toward top dollar for prime farm ground. Trace had the bid. The silence stretched. Thomasina looked to see Jeb make a downward turn of his hand. He was done. The moment had come. Breath caught, she reached into her pocket and held up her number.

The auctioneer’s hold on the gavel relaxed. His watery gaze shifted to the back of the crowd. “Two-forty-two
down here in front,” he said as if in answer to a question Thomasina had not heard.

Two-forty-two was her number, not her bid. Those closest turned their heads, scrutinizing her with frank curiosity. She stamped her feet to get the circulation going again. Her heart lurched as she looked to see Trace making a path through the milling crowd, headed her way.

His gaze burned like a cutting torch. “What are you doing?”

“It’s your bid.” Her voice came as if from outside her.

“I thought we agreed…”

“I changed my mind.”

“You can’t.”

“But I have.”

A muscle quivered in Trace’s burnished cheek as he turned to the auctioneer. “Could we have five minutes, please?”

“It’s a lot of money, Trace. Take fifteen and I’ll get a cup of coffee,” replied the auctioneer in a friendly manner.

Thomasina started as Trace’s hand closed on her arm. “Where do you want to talk?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“The house or the barn?”

Caught between curious strangers and Trace’s grip, she shook free of his hand, pivoted and headed across open field toward the trees.

Trace followed. He bettered her stride, grinding into the snow, snapping the undergrowth beneath it. The cold crisp silence accentuated the sound of their trashing feet and labored breathing. They stopped beneath the shelter of trees along the creek.

“You want to tell me what this game of cat and mouse is all about?” Trace spoke first, his sharp quick words vaporizing in chilly puffs.

“I told you. I changed my mind.”

“Back to Plan A?”

She tipped her chin. “It’s my service for God.”

“Service, Pearl-style?” he said. “If God asks for coffee, you don’t give Him tea!”

“Oh, so now you’re the expert on God.”

“No. Far from it,” he said. “If I was, I wouldn’t be thinking about tying you to a rock and throwing you in the creek now, would I? I’ve been phoning you, watching, worrying all morning. What’s got into you, anyway? Last night everything was fine.”

“It may have been
fine
for you. It
wasn’t fine
for me,” she said.

“So what’s the problem?”

“I drove out last night and poked through the sale stuff, thinking you’d come out to the barn,” she told him, eyes riveted to his face. “But you didn’t. I guess you were otherwise…”

“You left your doughnuts.”

“…occupied.”

“Are these yours, too?” Trace pulled her red mittens from his coat pocket, his reaction nominal.

“Keep them,” she retorted, beyond anger now.

He just looked at her. “I’m not a mind reader. What gives?”

Her feet were frozen. Her hands. Her heart. “Deidre!” she said, wanting it over with.

“What about her?”

“Oh, good grief! Give me some credit!” Thomasina ground out. “I saw her van. I saw the lights go out. I went home and called and she answered the phone.”

“That was you?” Trace stopped short as the pieces fell into place. “You don’t think…” The color drained from his face as he saw exactly what she thought. A white ridge
appeared along his upper lip. “Deidre wasn’t alone. Ricky was with her, and half a dozen other kids. They were setting up for the sale today.”

“In your bedroom?”

“That’s right,” he said, his eyes never wavering. “Didn’t you see the concession line?”

She hadn’t. Tremors traveled her spine. Was he telling the truth? Or was he so smooth, he could look her right in the eye and say what he knew he had to say to keep his ambition of owning the farm from slipping from his grasp? She didn’t know him anymore. Feared she never had. She turned away.

“Wait a second. We’re not finished.” Trace blocked her path. “We’re about to take a really big step here. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d like to think you trust me.”

His words splintered Thomasina’s armor. The shards threatened to sever the frayed hope that bound her to him even yet. “You’d be a fool to lie,” she conceded.

“Because it’s easy to check?” His mouth hardened. “That’s not the point.”

“I’m sorry,” she yielded. “I guess I was wrong.”

“You guess? God help us Tommy, if you don’t know.”

The tightness in her chest rose to her throat. How easily he shifted the blame. Anger flaring again, she defended herself saying, “You realize, don’t you, that from the day I arrived in Liberty Flats people have talked about you and Deidre? People at the store. The lady who sold me the curtains. Will Chambers, patting you on the back when you told him you had a date with her. ‘Way to go, old buddy, old chum.’ He’s your best friend. He ought to know.”

“You’re listening to the wrong people.”

“Maybe that’s because you don’t talk about it.”

“It’s in the past, Tommy,” he said. “What is there to say?”

“I’d think that would be apparent to you!”

“You think I’ve got something going with Deidre?” He put it into words. “I don’t. That’s the end of it.”

Thomasina wanted to believe him. More than anything. But he made it so difficult when he wouldn’t concede she at least had justification to wonder. Frustrated, she cried, “If you’d only try to see it through my eyes!”

“I do see. You’re afraid to trust”

Something stood up inside and said that if she was, it wasn’t without cause. But she weighed her need to justify the whys and wherefores against the ever-growing evidence of her error. “I’ll try,” she said finally, struggling with herself.

“For your sake, I hope you do.”

That sounded like a reprieve. But when Thomasina lifted her eyes, Trace was starting back through the trees. She waited for some indication he expected her to follow. But he walked away without looking back.

She waited a moment longer, then started after him. Her lungs felt as if they would collapse. It wasn’t the cold air or the pace he’d set It was the crushing weight of being crowded back into herself.

Trace stopped within twenty yards of the crowd and waited. “So are we in this together, or aren’t we?”

“I guess,” she said.

“You guess,” he said in the same frigid tone. “You’re doing a lot of that lately.”

“You can do the bidding.”

“You made the last one, remember?” he said. “Be kind of silly to up it, now wouldn’t it?”

The shrinking child put her finger on his words as key to his outburst She’d rocked the boat on his plan, and cost him a few extra dollars. It was the farm he wanted. Maybe she was wrong about Deidre. Maybe land was his mistress.
Like cigarettes to old Milt. And maybe she was the world’s biggest fool, standing at his side, watching his face set in stone as the gavel came down and the farm became theirs.

What had filled Thomasina with such high expectations was cold ashes. She slipped away as soon as she could. Her car was half a mile down the road. She was shivering uncontrollably by the time she reached it. Trace pulled up in his truck and rolled down the window.

“Get a lawyer, Thomasina,” he said, his face as cold as the ice on her windshield. “Have him draw up a sample contract. I’ll do the same, and we’ll negotiate until we get it worked out to both of our satisfaction.”

“Is that really necessary?” she said, hurt by his hard demeanor.

“Just do it.”

Thomasina went home and called Nathan. She explained about having purchased the land in partnership with Trace. Nathan was appalled at her having thought for a moment the contract was unnecessary.

“Don’t sign anything. We’ll be on the next plane,” he promised.

The paperwork concerning the farm was mind-boggling. Thomasina couldn’t have waded through it alone. Besides being in his element as her financial adviser, Nathan was a buffer between herself and Trace as they met with Milt and Mary and bankers and lawyers and a farm manager.

The final contract to be signed dealt with the terms by which they were to share the farm. It was broken down into four phases. Phase one had to do with the vacation cabins. Trace would build them within the year. Phase two involved preparing the grounds themselves for outdoor recreation. Phase three was to purchase equipment and take
over the farming of the land. Only then would Trace design and build a lodge for dining for the children’s camp.

Nathan read the finished contract over thoroughly and assured Thomasina that she was being treated fairly, and that the projected date of ground-breaking for the lodge, three years distant, was reasonable. “It will give you time to finish school and be equal to the challenge of running a children’s camp.”

Thomasina made a dinner party of Thanksgiving, as Flo and Nathan were to return home the next day. She invited Antoinette’s family, including her father, Dan Orbis. Ricky and his mother and Milt and Mary also agreed to come. The children helped Thomasina make table decorations. She enjoyed cutting out paper pumpkins, turkeys and pilgrims. It soothed her sore heart to hear them giggle and quibble over coloring in the lines.

Antoinette came early Thursday morning and helped prepare the meal. Ricky’s mom and Antoinette’s father struck up a friendship. The children adopted Flo as “Auntie Flo” and Mary as “Gram” while Will and Ricky and Nathan and Milt argued football in front of the television for the better part of the afternoon. It was crowded and noisy and salve to her wounds, and yet at odd moments, Thomasina fought tears for the void that went unfilled.

A week later, Thomasina met Trace at her lawyer’s office to sign the agreed-upon contract. She met his gaze as he passed the pen and papers across the table. Emotionless. Her heart quaked for fear she was signing away all her options. But it was too late for cold feet. Thomasina stiffened her spine and scrawled her name beneath his.

Trace walked with her to the parking garage. He surprised her by offering to move out of the farmhouse if she wanted to move in.

“Why would I?” she asked.

“You’re paying rent,” he said. “I’m not.”

“That bothers you?”

“I’m trying to be fair,” he said.

Yielding a little she asked, “Where would you go if I did?”

“I kept the rental house on Church Street.”

“I appreciate your offering,” she said of the unexpected olive branch. “But I’m happy where I am.”

“I wasn’t asking about your happiness,” he replied. “We’re in business together. All things should be equal.”

His clipped words quenched her wave of tenderness. “Tell you what let’s do, then. You stay where you are, and I’ll move into your rental house. I’ll pay you half rent and you can pay me half rent on the farmhouse and we’ll just make it as confusing as possible.”

He glowered at her. She glowered right back.

“So you’re staying where you are?” he said stiffly.

“For the present. Yes.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll rent out the Church Street house and give you half the rent toward your rent.”

His insistence made it harder to hold on to her anger. But anger was all the armor she had to blunt the pain, selfdoubt and her weakness for him. “Thanks,” she said. “But I’m doing all right.”

“I noticed,” he said, and walked off without a goodbye.

Thomasina thought that was the end of it until she got a check from him a week later. There was no note attached, just the word
rent
on the memo line of the check. Intending to return it, she stuck it to her refrigerator with a magnet until she could buy some stamps.

In mid-December, the family who had bought Trace’s house notified him that they planned to move in. He had
long since cleared everything out of his half of the house. But he had thus far been paying them rent to store his tools in the carriage house until he could finish making a shop in the barn out at the farm. It took him the better part of a weekend to move all of his lumber and tools. While doing so, he found Thomasina’s dollhouse. It was as green as the day he’d carried it off the porch. He was thinking about leaving it on the back porch when she trekked out to the shop.

“Hello, Trace. How’s the moving going?”

“I’m wrapping it up,” he said. “How have you been?”

“All right, thanks,” she said, lashes coming down, color rising. She shifted her feet, reaching into her pocket, “I got your check.”

He tried not to let his gaze linger on the sweet curve of her mouth. “Everything in order?”

“Yes and no. I appreciate the gesture. But I don’t feel right accepting it.”

“You’re entitled,” he said.

“You’re sure?”

“Cash it,” he said. He meant to be decisive; instead, he sounded terse.

She sighed and was turning away when something in the direction of his workbench caught her eye. Trace looked, too. It was the picture on the Peg Board. The one he had taken of her the day of the air show. Rain-soaked, shining with laughter.

Thomasina reached as if to retrieve it, then stopped herself. She glanced at him, the memory of that day in her eyes. She was so lovely, he forgot until she backed away what it was that had driven them apart.

“Still running are you, Tommy?” he said before he could stop himself.

Her flush deepened. Her eyes dulled. She turned and left, closing the door behind her.

Trace grabbed her picture off the Peg Board. But she was so blessed uncomplicated in Kodachrome, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. He flung it in the glove box of his truck instead, where it couldn’t reach out and give his heart a twist.