Page 41 of Grounded (May Hollow Trilogy #1)

Annie sat on the polyester couch, her legs comfortably stretched across it, a sketch pad in her lap.

With the pictures, she was working on another drawing.

There were a few details she wanted to get right.

The work relaxed her. It was as if all her troubles floated away while she created, making something out of nothing and then changing it after it was formed.

The more she practiced, the better she would be, she thought, studying her work from the mantel where she perched it for viewing a few feet away.

She heard a car in the driveway. When she got to the back door, Jake was stepping onto the porch.

“It’s you,” she said through the screen door.

“It is me,” he teased. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No one, I heard a car …” Her voice fell away. Why did she feel like an adolescent all of a sudden?

“Can I come in?” he asked, his eyes wide in question.

“Oh, sure, I wasn’t thinking,” Annie said, pushing the screen door open.

“Have you had supper?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t even thought about it.”

“Why don’t we run up to Lexington and eat? Call Lindy and see if she wants to go with us. There’s a new Italian place on the south side that’s doing farm-to-table. One of the guys here in town told me about it last week.”

“Sure, but Lindy is holed up working on a case. I talked to her earlier today.”

“Then we’ll go by ourselves.”

“I need to change.” Annie started to go, but Jake gently held her arm.

“You look great now.”

Annie had a vision of Camille in her designer clothing, clean and starched, bright whites and dark blacks. Annie looked down at her T-shirt and pointed to the coffee stain.

“Okay. But nothing fancy.”

She cut him a sharp look. “Do I ever get fancy?” He grinned, and she heard him mumbling something as she dashed to the stairs.

In her closet she pulled out a recently purchased red blouse with a V-neckline.

It was a good color for her and was by far the most updated and fashionable item she owned.

She put on the cross necklace, then took it off again.

A pair of jeans, a squirt of perfume, a quick brush through her shoulder-length hair, powder for her nose, and a coat of lip gloss for her lips, and she was ready.

She was at the top of the stairs, but hesitated and went back for the cross necklace. It belonged with this outfit.

“Wow,” Jake said. There was genuine admiration in his eyes. His eyes froze when his appraising look saw the necklace.

“Annie, isn’t that …?”

“It’s the one you gave me when I turned sixteen. I found it in my jewelry box the night we had Camille over.”

“I noticed it.”

“I don’t know why I left it here all these years.”

“I can’t believe you still have it,” Jake said, opening the car door for her.

When they were both inside the car, Annie asked, “When is Camille coming back?”

“Sunday or Monday. She has stuff at work tomorrow.”

Annie watched the pastureland roll by, fighting the urge to tell Jake the truth. For a brief moment, she played with the idea, but in the end, she decided it was not her secret to tell.

“Annie, you’ve always been honest with me. What do you think about Camille?”

The direct question startled her. She needed to walk very carefully through this minefield, yet also be honest.

“I think she is beautiful and obviously very smart. I can see why you were attracted to her, especially if she has such a great family,” Annie said. “But if you choose to follow your farm dreams, she will have a big adjustment to make.”

Should she say more? His brow creased and he stared at the road ahead. He did ask for it.

“I know it’s not any of my business, but I hope you decide to come back. I think it’s exactly what we need around here.”

“We?” he said, the tension draining from his face like water out of a clawfoot tub.

“I mean, the community.”

“Sounds like you consider yourself part of it now.”

“I am. Something’s changed for me these last few weeks. I think I’ll come back home much more often. I’ve read a couple of the books you dropped off for me about sustainable agriculture. It all makes so much sense.”

He looked at her sharply. “You’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid,” he said, grinning.

Annie shrugged her shoulders. “I think it’s in the water around here,” she said.

“In that case, I need to get Camille off that bottled stuff. Remember this?” he said, turning up the radio volume.

It was a song by Genesis, a band Jake had turned her onto when they were teenagers, along with a string of other classic rock performers.

Annie knew the song well, and for the next few minutes, Jake played drums on the dashboard and steering wheel while Annie accompanied him on air guitar.

They both sang to the top of their lungs before collapsing in laughter by the end of the song.

“Okay, see if you can read my notes on how to get to the restaurant.” He laid his open hand on the seat and Annie saw words written on the inside of it.

“You wrote the directions on your palm?”

“Sure,” Jake said. “It’s my palm pilot. See if you can make it out. I think we turn right up here at Brannon’s Road.”

Annie picked up his hand, aware of its size compared to her own, and its warmth. Pushing back his relaxed fingers, she tried to make out the words. “It’s a little smudged, but I think it says, right at Brannon’s Road, left into first lot, first building on right?”

“Yep, sounds right,” he said.

The restaurant was cozy and surprisingly Italian for a place in the suburbs of a Southern town. Annie scooted into a leather booth and relaxed in the dim lighting. The waiter handed a menu to Annie and then Jake and left after taking the drink order.

Each item on the menu listed the farm name where the meat or product originated. Long Shadow Pork, Rolling Hills Eggplant, Turtle Hollow Herbs, Sweetbriar Beef. Each name made the menu listing more enticing.

“Do you know any of these folks?” Annie asked.

Jake looked up from the menu and smiled. “Oh yeah,” he said. “The guy at Long Shadow Farm is a partner in the processing plant over in Rutherford. I’ve been talking to him a lot lately. I also know the folks at Sweetbriar.”

When they placed an order the waiter was sure they would love, Jake said, “Any news from Jeb Harris on the identity of your mystery renter?”

“I’m not sure he thinks there’s anything wrong. He’ll run the plates just to make Grandma feel good about it, but it sounded like they have other priorities. Did you know Joe saw her dumping something into the creek two mornings at dawn?”

“Yeah, he told me. Even if she’s not dumping something poisonous into the creek, I need to get those cows out of there. Their runoff is not good for the creek.”

The waiter brought their salads and a loaf of warm bread with a slab of butter on a small white plate. She felt her stomach growl and realized she was hungry.

“How’s Joe taking the changes,” Annie asked.

“He’s fine,” Jake said. “He’s done a good job these last few years after we sold off the dairy herd and went partners with him on Angus. He does a lot of the right stuff already and when we talk about the things I want to change, he’s open.”

“It has to be a little hard to make changes after all these years of doing things a certain way.”

“Yeah, but Joe is different. He remembers the way his grandfather ran his farm and how the new stuff is really like the old ways, so he’s cool with it.”

Annie took a bite of bread, a slab of butter melting on the warm crust. “This is amazing,” she said.

“It’s real butter. We’ll have to make it sometime. Just need some fresh cream.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave in a couple of weeks,” Annie said. “I feel like there is so much I’ve left undone.”

“You’re leaving in two weeks?” Jake asked, his butter knife suspended in midair.

“I just heard. I actually thought it might be Monday, so I was relieved to have more time,” Annie said.

“I thought you had all summer,” Jake said, putting down the knife to concentrate on her words.

“I did too, but my boss worked hard to get me hired back, which is what I wanted in the beginning, but now I wish I had more time,” Annie said, feeling her own appetite diminish.

“That’s too bad,” Jake said.

“It will be different this time,” Annie said.

“I’ll be coming home a lot more. I needed this grounding.

It was unexpected, and unwanted, but it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me.

” She paused. “But I’m sorry I can’t finish out the plans for the summer, mainly seeing Grandma through the rest of her recovery. ”

The waiter removed their salad plates and set down pasta alla carbonara for Jake and pasta primavera for Annie.

“They make the pasta here,” Jake said. “I wanted you to see this to catch a vision of what Bill’s Diner could be like.”

“Is Bill going Italian?” Annie asked.

“Not Italian, but we’re talking about changing it into a farm-to-table breakfast and lunch spot.

It would be a great way to showcase the local foods.

We just need to recruit a chef who has the same vision.

” He turned his fork until he had several strands of pasta wrapped around it, then lifted it to his mouth.

Annie dropped her fork and sat back against the leather. “Does Bill have a say in this?” she asked, feeling heat rush to her face.

Jake frowned and then slowly, he began to grin.

“What?” Annie said, feeling the anger dissipate as fast as it boiled up.

“I forgot to tell you that detail. It was his idea to sell.”

“Why?

“Viola,” he said.

“The Alzheimer’s,” Annie said, understanding now.

“He approached me when he heard I was plugged into the local food stuff. He wants it to stay a restaurant. It’s been the heartbeat of town for so long. We’d all like to keep it going, just in another form.”

Annie was quiet a moment, trying to discern her emotions. Another change among so many.

Jake put his fork down and leaned in. “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

Annie sighed. “It’s not that. It just makes me sad to think about Bill’s Diner not being around anymore. I guess I’m feeling nostalgic now that I’m back. I want things to be how they were when I was young.”

“You’re still young, Annie. And if Bill wants to sell, at least we can make something good come out of it.”

“Sometimes I feel a hundred years old,” she said. “But you’re right, it sounds like a good solution.”

They talked the rest of the way through dinner, catching up on old friends and talking about the books he gave her to read. On the way home, there was finally a quiet moment and Annie let her mind drift.

“Sometimes I wonder,” she said aloud.

“About what?” Jake asked.

“What it would be like if I didn’t go back to New York,” Annie said, running her fingers through her hair. “I have no idea how I would make a living.”

“Do you have debt?” he asked, sounding like the banker he was.

“None. And I have savings, but that won’t last forever.”

“How much of a living would you need? You have a place to live. You can grow your own food.”

“True, but I would need some kind of car, and enough to help with utilities, taxes, insurance, all that. But I see your point. It wouldn’t have to be a lot, especially compared to what I’m used to in New York.”

“Annie, you could do this. You would have no trouble finding some kind of work around here,” Jake said, his voice growing passionate.

“I have been happier here, more at peace in the past weeks than I’ve been in years. But I’m afraid …” She wanted to tell him more, that the memories of what might have been would be too much, that she couldn’t bear to live near him and Camille if they ended up living here as a married couple.

“What are you afraid of?” Jake asked.

Annie searched for the words, but knew she could not tell him the truth.

“What, Annie May?” It was what he used to call her all the time, but that was before tenth grade, before things had changed between them.

“Of the unknown,” she said, and that was truth enough.