Dandelion Wishes (11 page)

Agnes and Rose exchanged glances.

If Emma hadn’t been horrified, she might have laughed.

“How were we to know a few of them were growing marijuana up there?” Granny Rose poked her mashed potatoes with her fork. “They didn’t cause any trouble. I don’t think anyone here would have found out about their side business except someone—who is no longer a resident here—tried to sell several pounds of their crop to an undercover policeman in Santa Rosa.”

“But what about Larry? How did he get elected if he broke the law?”

Agnes spun her wineglass slowly on the table. “Larry denied any involvement and we believed him. After all, he and Delilah were busy making a lot of sweaters.”

“But—”

“Emma, it was the seventies,” Granny Rose argued gently. “And you know what Larry’s like. He’s so interested in inner peace he can’t remember to water his lawn. How could he grow anything?”

Will had implied something entirely different than the story her grandmother and friends recounted. Emma sighed, grateful he’d had it wrong. “So you three weren’t growing marijuana? Or smoking doobies?”

Indignant protests erupted like the fits and starts of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful.

When the trio was done claiming they’d never so much as inhaled, Emma sank back into her chair. “And it was only that one year?”

They all fervently assured her that it had been.

“Who told you this? It’s not a part of our history we’re proud of.” Granny Rose leaned forward, a frown wrinkling her delicate brow. “I don’t need to ask. It was Will, wasn’t it?”

Mildred and Agnes exchanged glances that indicated this wasn’t the first time today Rose had spoken Will’s name in the same way she’d curse invading gophers in her vegetable garden.

“Is that who you want to put your faith in?” Granny Rose demanded of her friends. “A man who’s willing to besmirch our town’s good name? A man who would imply to my granddaughter that we grew cannabis?”

“But what about the good things Will and his friends want to do?” Mildred put forth timidly. “They want to reopen the medical clinic and the volunteer fire station.”

“That man has filled everyone’s head with nonsense.” Granny picked up a chicken leg and shook it at them collectively. “Do you know how many small towns in America thrive even though they’re located more than twenty minutes from the nearest emergency services?”

Emma took in the two other women’s blank faces and answered for them all. “No.”

“Me, either. But it’s a lot, trust me. I’m sure there are towns in a similar situation as Harmony Valley.” Rose moved the chicken leg closer as if readying to take a bite, and then lowered it again. “It’s a choice we make. If you choose a home off the beaten path, you won’t have all the services you would in the city.”

Agnes frowned, her petite features moving uncharacteristically downward. “We’re getting to an age, Rose, where we need those services.”

Granny Rose shook her head. “We’re getting to an age, Agnes, when we’ll die. I’d rather turn up my toes here at home. But if you prefer, follow your daughter to the city.”

“If this winery initiative doesn’t pass, I will,” Agnes retorted.

Emma wanted to side with her grandmother, but for the good of the residents she held dear, it was increasingly clear that elements of Will’s proposal made sense.

Which was a shame, since nothing else she felt about him did.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I
FEEL
LUCKY
,” Mildred said to Will and Tracy as she wheeled her walker into the church’s multipurpose room in Cloverdale. Mildred scoped out a table and settled her short, plump frame into a folding chair, releasing her walker to one side. “Let’s boogie.”

“Let’s boogie,” Tracy repeated. Then she laughed.

The smile on Will’s face probably looked goofy. He didn’t care. He couldn’t believe the change in Tracy after only two days in Harmony Valley. She’d chattered with Mildred the entire ride. Her smile hadn’t faded since she’d climbed into his truck. Not once. She had to stay and work at the winery.

Sure, she wasn’t stringing together complex sentences, but her speech was smoother and she was laughing more. It was a gift. One Will wasn’t going to question after the day he’d had. The frustrations of getting the winery off the ground, Emma’s meddling, his father’s unsolicited advice—none of it mattered if Tracy’s condition improved. He needed to broach the topic of working for him again before Emma spoke to her.

Tracy helped Mildred scoot her chair closer to the table. “Next time. I’ll drive. To bingo.”

Will’s smile dimmed, but only a little. “When the doctor clears you.”

His comment earned him a scowl from Tracy.

“I used to drive here,” Mildred said. “I could bring us next week. I have my license.”

Will gave Mildred’s thick glasses a double take. “I thought you weren’t supposed to drive.” Emma had a better chance of obtaining his permission to transport Tracy to bingo than Mildred did. And Emma’s chance currently stood at zero.

“Agnes told you that, didn’t she? She thinks I can’t see the road. My vision is fine. Let me tell you, I used to time myself driving the loop on Parish Hill. I know that road like the back of my hand. My best time was under five minutes.”

“A record that will have to stand.” He drew Tracy aside. “I want to ask you something.”

She beamed expectantly at him, the way she used to when they were kids, as if he was her hero and could do no wrong.

And he knew. He knew as soon as the words
I want you to stay here and work for the winery
left his mouth, that smile of hers would disappear. He could hear Emma telling him, “I told you so.” And she was right. Tracy didn’t want to stay in Harmony Valley and if he tried to force her to... Well, the words Tracy would use to describe him wouldn’t be pretty.

“What?”

He couldn’t ask her. At least not yet. He’d suggest a job to her when the winery was approved. By then she may have realized that she was blossoming in Harmony Valley. “I’m a tyrannical idiot.”

She laughed. “Yes. You are.” She claimed a folding chair next to Mildred and fanned her cheeks with a bingo card.

Will stood like a dolt, unable to take his eyes off his happy sister. He didn’t think he could stand not knowing what the future held for her.

“Luck needs a boost. First, you’ve got to blow off all the bad juju, like this.” Mildred demonstrated by blowing across the face of one of her cards as if it was a birthday cake loaded with candles. “Then you place it front and center on the table.”

For Mildred, bingo was all about the ritual. In the six weeks he’d been taking her to bingo, she wore the same lucky shirt—a faded black Justin Bieber T-shirt one of her granddaughters had given her with the wise Canadian philosopher’s advice:
Never Say Never.
She always made Will take the back road into town so she could hold her breath as they drove over the old Russian River bridge. She’d buy an evening’s worth of cards with two tens—never a twenty. And she always sat in the middle of a table on the right-hand side of the room.

With another laugh that lifted Will’s spirits, Tracy did as Mildred instructed. “Now what?”

“Now we use all our lucky charms.” Mildred waved over one of the hostesses and gave her a white plastic travel mug with her husband’s picture on it, requesting a coffee. Then she withdrew a plastic container from her backpack-size purse. From it she took out her good luck charms—a hot pink rabbit’s foot, a three-inch-high wooden tiki, a black polished marble-size stone and a five-dollar poker chip from the old Sands hotel in Las Vegas.

“I need. Lucky charms.” Tracy grinned.

“You collect them as you age, dear, like sunspots and ex-husbands.” Mildred picked up the pink rabbit’s foot. “Until then, you can borrow this.”

Grinning again, Will took a seat on the other side of Mildred, leaving a chair open between them. That seat was usually occupied by a retired school bus driver named Earl, who had a thing for peanut-butter cookies and Mildred, although his COPD sometimes kept him at home. He checked his cell phone for text and email messages.

The noise in the church hall became more raucous as seats filled up at the folding tables. But one voice rose above the others. A voice belonging to someone with dark hair, an Indian-print blue skirt and the ability to increase his blood pressure.

“Tracy, can I sit next to you?” Emma’s smile was bright and hopeful.

Will stood, prepared to escort Emma out the door, or at least to another table. All his sister had to do was say the word.

Tracy glanced up at Emma. Will couldn’t see his sister’s face, but he could see Emma’s clearly, watched as her smile lost its grip.

“No, no.” Tracy’s tone was firm with just a hint of standoffishness. Then she patted the chair next to her at the end of the table. “Rose.”

“Of course I’ll sit with you, Tracy.” Rose appeared behind Emma in a dark skirt and muff-like braids over each ear. “And Emma will sit on the other side of Mildred.” Rose paused, a hand on the back of her chair. She took one look at Will before advising Emma, “Scoot as far away from the computer nerd as you can and tell me if he tries anything.”

Emma’s cheeks bloomed a soft rose that matched the color of her lips.

Add lechery to the list of sins Rose had assigned him.

“Granny, please stop.” Emma reached for the chair on the other side of Mildred.

At the last moment, Will remembered he didn’t want Emma at their table and gripped a section of the chair back. His fingers brushed against Emma’s cold ones. He quelled the impulse to shift his hand over hers, to warm her fingers beneath his own.

Emma snatched her hand away, cradling it against her stomach as if his touch burned.

“I’m saving this seat for Mildred’s friend Earl.” His voice sounded too gruff, too intimate. The tone of a lover.

Unwisely, Will waited for their eyes to meet, waited to see again the longing in her gaze and know it was him she wanted. Him.

Emma didn’t look at Will. Instead, she glanced around, a slightly desperate tremble to her lips, as if her vague smile was her last and only defense against the tension between them.

Most people had already taken their seats, but there were one or two chairs available at the tables in the back. It was better for Will’s sanity if Emma sat as far away from him as possible.

“It’s okay.” Mildred glanced up at Will. “I don’t think Earl is coming tonight. He would have arrived on the senior-center bus, and those people came in five minutes ago.”

Emma’s gaze caught on Will’s hand, still on her chair, before she accepted Mildred’s invitation. “Thanks. I’ll move if Earl shows up.” She took the metal chair and pulled it out until Will’s hand dropped away.

Will sat at the end of the table next to Emma. Why couldn’t he just ignore her and let the attraction he felt for her fade?

Because Emma wasn’t easy to ignore. She was bright and colorful and wounded, hurt by the loss of Tracy’s friendship and burdened with panic attacks, the source of which he had yet to uncover. A result of the car accident?

And yet, as much as he knew Emma was hurting, and that he was the cause of some of that pain, he couldn’t let his guard down. He could feel compassion, but he couldn’t let himself forgive. The fear of losing Tracy—and the memory of his grief when his mother died—was too debilitating.

“It’s nice of Tracy to sit and visit with Rose tonight. I’ll have plenty of time to visit with Tracy later.” Emma spoke hopefully, somehow managing to put a semiconfident smile on her face despite the death-grip clasp of her hands in her lap.

Will leaned back so he could see Tracy. She was demonstrating Mildred’s lucky card-blowing technique to Rose.

“So much. Luck,” she said. “Big winners. All of us.”

“Even Emma?” Rose asked with wide, innocent eyes.

A few days ago, Will would have applauded when Tracy didn’t answer.

Tonight, he was aware of how much Tracy’s silence hurt Emma.

Everyone wanted him to give Emma a second chance. The more he listened to her side, the more he put himself in her strappy shoes, the more he realized there were two sides to every story, two sides to every hurt, two sides to forgiveness.

Maybe his father was right. Maybe Will was only making the situation between the two friends worse. Maybe he should try harder to forgive.

For Tracy.

* * *

“F
IRST
GAME
OF
the night, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get things rolling.” The emcee of the event was a soft-spoken minister who morphed into a corny cross between a comedian and a game-show host when he picked up a microphone. “
B
twelve.
B
twelve. That’s
B
as in
butterfly,
twelve. Butterflies may look harmless, but they have been known to swarm like bees, which would send any pacemaker into overdrive.”

Emma didn’t have
B
twelve. She felt like she didn’t have a lot of things—hope for a damaged friendship, confidence in her talent, common sense enough to know that pursuing these unexpected feelings toward Will would be disastrous. She arranged her bingo chips in neat little stacks.

Will put his arm across the back of her chair and leaned in close. He did that a lot, as if he wanted to close the distance between them so only she heard what he said. He probably had no idea of the effect he had on her—how the woodsy hint of his aftershave drew her closer, how the varying intensity of his eyes, from electric to soft baby blue, enthralled her. “Are you okay? I’d offer to drive Rose home so you could leave, but I doubt she’d accept a ride from me.”

“I’m here to play bingo.” Emma tried to feel happy just being in the same room as Tracy, but with Will in her space it was hard to think of anything but him.

“Do you hear Tracy talking? Her speech has been better this evening than it’s been in weeks.” His fingers touched the thin cotton over her shoulder blade.

Emma held herself very still. “Maybe my visit this morning helped her.”

Will surprised her by not arguing the point. “Tracy’s passed another milestone. We should all be celebrating.” He sounded upbeat, but his words had the opposite effect on Emma. Despite wishing Tracy well, she wanted to share those milestones with her friend.

“She looks wonderful,” Emma said. “And so happy.” Maybe Will was right. Maybe Tracy was better off without her. “You haven’t talked to her about working for you, have you?”

He removed his arm from the back of her chair.

“
G
fifty-eight.
G
fifty-eight. That’s
G
as in George, fifty-eight. We’ve got three Georges here tonight and one has a birthday.” The minister led the room in song.

When the singing ended, Emma turned, scooting her bottom to the farthest edge of her seat, giving her breathing room. “Well?”

His eyes were a flat, cold blue as he shrugged. “I’ve floated the idea past her. She rejected it, but she could get used to it. No sense forcing the issue until we get our property rezoned.”

“I’ve been thinking about you—”
Don’t say that!
She rushed on. “Your winery and Harmony Valley. You’re right. The town needs emergency services.”

The stare he gave her was probing, assessing, skeptical.

She tamped down her annoyance. “I might be able to make things easier for you. With Granny Rose.”

His expression didn’t change.

“And in return, you could...perhaps...” Emma plunged on “...not make a fuss when I ask Tracy to go shopping with me.”

“Only if I drive.” Will blinked, as if surprised at his own answer.

Hope burst inside Emma, expanding her chest with the air she hadn’t realized she’d been denying herself. “Really? You don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind if you ask because she’s going to say no,” he grumbled.

“Thank you!” Before Emma realized what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed Will’s cheek. It was warm and lightly stubbled. She fell back in her chair, heat spreading in places it had no right to.

He rubbed his cheek. “Emma...” The way he said her name—slowly and with wonder—caused a flutter in her stomach.

A flutter that died when he turned away from her without another word.

“
G
fifty-three.
G
fifty-three. That’s
G
rhymes with
C
for
cat,
fifty-three. Did you know that cats have a sixty-note vocal range? But they probably still couldn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in tune.”

The patter of polite laughter filled the room, but Emma barely heard.

There were fools, and there were people who did foolish things.

At that moment, she couldn’t decide which she was.