The Lullaby Sky (26 page)

“Yes!” Sophie pumped her fist in the air.

“Y’all have fun.” Hannah adjusted her wide-brimmed fishing hat and began watching all three bobbers.

What’s the difference?
She asked herself as Sophie ran along beside Travis, each of them throwing stones into the river.
He’s taking over a spot in my life just like Marty did, and I’m comfortable with him. Would things change with Travis if we got into a serious relationship? And what did he mean this morning when he said for me to figure it out? I do love him. I’ve always loved him.

But,
that niggling voice inside her head said,
there is a difference in loving someone and being in love with someone. You love Aunt Birdie and Darcy and even Cal, but you are not in love with them. Travis wants you to go to the next level someday in the future and be in love with him. He’s left bread crumbs. Follow them if you want to see where it leads. Kick them off to the side if you don’t want to trust him with your heart. Simple as that and up to you.

She shook her head to get rid of the voice, but it came back in the form of her mother’s soft southern drawl.

“Need some help managing these poles?”

She frowned. Although she couldn’t control the inner voice and it often sounded like her mother, this was the first time it was that loud or clear or that it brought a presence with it.

Her first thought was that Travis and Sophie had managed to sneak upon her, but then she glanced over that way and her mother was sitting right there, almost touching her.

“Mama?” She blinked half a dozen times in rapid succession.

“Surprise!”

She threw the rod on the sand and hugged her mother in a fierce embrace. “How did you get here?”

“Darcy and Cal picked me up in Dallas. I decided to stay two weeks instead of one.” Patsy hugged her daughter and held on for a long time before she finally pushed back and really looked at her from head to toe. “You look good, my child. There’s life in your eyes again. And I think you’ve put on a few pounds. They look good on you.”

“There’s life in my heart, Mama. And Aunt Birdie and Miss Rosie have been popping in and out with food ever since that day in court.” Hannah hugged her mother again. “I’m so glad you are here. How’s Granny?” Hannah picked up the fishing rod but kept a hand on her mother’s knee.

“She’s doing great and said I needed a break, that she would be fine in the new assisted-care center. She actually thinks she’s on vacation, too,” Patsy said.

“I wish you could stay longer,” Hannah said.

“Me, too, but not this time,” Patsy told her.

“I’ll take what I can get, but if she’s happy there, then that means you can come back more often, right?”

“Or you can come to Virginia anytime and bring Sophie to see her. I was thinking maybe Thanksgiving would be a good time. Sophie will have a week out of school and our house has extra bedrooms, so bring whatever friends want to tag along with you,” Patsy said.

“Freedom.” Hannah sighed. “It’s a beautiful thing, Mama.”

“Yes, it is!” Patsy agreed as she reached for Travis’s fishing rod and quickly reeled in a five-pound catfish. Together, she and Hannah removed the hook and put the fish on a bed of ice in the cooler Travis had brought along for that purpose.

“Supper in the making,” Patsy said. “I haven’t been fishing since I moved away from here.” She baited the empty hook and tossed it back out into the water. “If we catch enough, Travis can clean them and we’ll have fish and fried potatoes for supper tonight.”

“Hey,” Darcy yelled as she and Cal made their way down the steep bank and to the river. “Did we surprise her, Patsy?”

“Yes, you did. How did you keep this a secret?” Hannah asked.

“Cal and I had to stay away from you or we would have told for sure. Did you tell your mama about Arabella yet?”

“Give me that spare fishing rod and I’ll hold it for you,” Cal said. “Where’s Travis and Sophie?”

“Look down the river and you can see two tiny dots right at the bend. They’re on their way back now, I think, but they’ve been throwing rocks in the river to scare the fish this way,” Hannah said.

“It must be working.” Patsy slipped the lid off the cooler and pointed. “Supper.”

“I love your fried fish,” Darcy said. “Got an extra rod and reel? I’ll help.”

“Arabella?” Patsy asked.

“It’s a long story, which I’ll tell you over a big fish fry tonight,” Hannah said.

“Granny!” Sophie squealed when she was close enough to recognize the woman sitting beside Hannah. She churned up the dust behind her as she left Travis behind. When she was close enough, she made a dive and landed in Patsy’s arms.

Cal grabbed the fishing rod that hit the ground and settled in between Hannah and Darcy. Sophie kept squealing the whole time that she planted kisses on her grandmother.

“Mama, Granny is here!” she finally said. “Is she still staying at our house? I want her to meet Lullaby and see my new pretty room and did Mama tell you that our house has a name? It’s Lullaby Sky now and we get company and sometimes they have a little girl like Laurel and she can play with me. Oh, Granny, I love you!” Sophie settled into her grandmother’s lap.

“Not as much as I love you,” Patsy teased. “You scared up a fish and I caught it on your rod and reel. Think me and you should take a walk up the river again and see if we can make another one swim down here?”

“Yes, yes!” Sophie clapped her hands. “And I can show you the big old tree that just fell over. Now we can use it for a bench to sit on when we get tired. Only I didn’t get tired. I found more rocks and threw them in the river while Uncle Travis talked on the phone.”

Travis slipped in between Cal and Hannah, his bare knee touching hers. “Surprised?” he asked.

She nudged him on the shoulder. “You rat. You knew, didn’t you?”

“I did, and I don’t ever want to know another secret that I’m not allowed to tell you about.” He grinned. “It wasn’t easy. I didn’t like keeping things from you.”

Patsy stood up and took Sophie’s hand in hers. Hannah could see a few more gray hairs around her mother’s temples, but she still did not look sixty. Patsy’s brown eyes sparkled when Sophie tugged at her hand to get her moving.

“Y’all have fun and send a lot of fish this way,” Travis said. “Did she really surprise you?”

“She really did. And you are all forgiven for keeping the secret, because I’m so glad to see her,” Hannah answered.

Her line tightened, and she reeled it in a bit. The end of the rod bent forward and started to slip from her hands. Travis quickly moved behind her, one leg on each side of hers, and closed his big hands over hers. “Give him some slack and then reel him in a little at a time. It’s either a big fish or a rotten old gar.”

“It had better be a fish or the rest of you are going hungry. I haven’t had Mama’s fried fish in years, and I’ll eat that five-pounder all by myself,” Hannah said as she reeled in the line, just like Travis said.

It wasn’t easy to think about a fish, no matter what kind or how big, with Travis’s bare skin against hers, his hands covering hers, and his warm breath on her neck. She wanted to throw the rod and reel out in the river and flip around and kiss him right there.

“That reminds me of fishing for blue marlin,” Cal said.

“Only a marlin would be mounted, and this one is supper.” Hannah could see the tip of the fish’s head, and it was a catfish, a nice big one that would feed the whole family. She couldn’t let it get away.

Finally, she and Travis together brought the fifteen-pound specimen to shore. It was too big to fit in the cooler, so Travis and Cal immediately set about cleaning both fish, filleting them and putting the pieces on ice while Darcy and Hannah manned the poles again.

“Hey, y’all.” Liz gingerly made her way down the pathway. “I figured I’d find you right here, and I see that Patsy made it all right.”

“You knew, too?” Hannah yelled back over her shoulder.

“We all did. I see you have an extra pole there. I’ll use it if the guys are going to clean fish on the banks,” Liz said.

“You sure you feel like fishing?” Darcy asked.

“If I catch something bigger than the palm of my hand, there are two strong men who can haul it in for me. What’s Patsy and Sophie doing?” Liz pointed upstream.

“They are throwing rocks in the river to scare the fish down this way so we can catch them. It’s working,” Travis answered.

“Looks like it.” Liz grinned. “So Arabella left this morning?”

“She did, and I’m glad for her visit. It made me face the fact that it wasn’t my fault that Marty treated me like he did. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was rich as Midas or had the manners of a queen,” Hannah said.

“Well, halle-damn-lujah!” Darcy exclaimed. “We’ve been telling you that for years. Why couldn’t you listen to us?”

“Because, darlin’s, you all love me. Arabella and I were not friends, at least not at first, and, well, crap, I can’t explain it. But it brought more closure than anything else. I hope you can get to this point, Liz.”

“My Arabella will come along someday,” Liz said. “Right now I’m just glad for sunshine on my face, the promise of a fish fry for supper, to see you happy and Darcy getting her wildest dreams fulfilled. And I’m real glad that I get to go back to work after the Fourth. I’m about to go stark raving stir-crazy.”

“Do we need to quilt some more?” Darcy asked.

“No, but I do intend to spend lots of time at Hannah’s while Patsy is there, so get ready for it. You have to share her,” Liz said.

“You are all welcome anytime.” She looked back over her shoulder and caught Travis staring at her.

He would move out that very day since there were no shelter guests, and the house would be empty without his presence. Her full heart suddenly had a hole in it. She didn’t want him to go, and right now was the time to say so. “Travis, you don’t have to move in and out all the time.”

“Thank you. I’ve got stuff spread out everywhere, and I hate to move.” He used the tip of one finger to push his glasses up on his nose. “Besides, this is going to be a very busy week for me and Cal. We’ll be working from sunup to sundown. Some of our hired hands are only available this week. Family vacations and all. So I won’t interfere with your visit.”

“Mama will pout if you don’t interfere some of the time.” Hannah smiled.

“I’m planning on doing my fair share of getting in the way,” Darcy declared. “I’m staying at Aunt Birdie’s this week. I’ll commute. It’s not fair for y’all to get to be together every day and me to be left out. Save the good stuff for when I get there.”

“I feel like we’re back in high school,” Cal said.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could hit a ‘Delete’ button and get a redo?” Liz said wistfully.

Hannah considered what Liz had said and decided that she didn’t want a redo. It was all the experiences, tough as they were at the time, that brought her to this day and made her appreciate her place in the universe. Her friends had proven that they could help her through anything. Her mother was there, and she had Sophie. Life was pretty damned good.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
IX

A
falling star. Make a wish,” Travis said from the shadows.

“We both saw it, so we each get a wish.” Hannah smiled up at him as he padded across the wooden porch in his bare feet and sat down beside her. She handed him her glass of tea, and he took a long drink before handing it back.

Patsy had been dragged into Sophie’s room to read her a bedtime story. Liz had gone home after supper to Aunt Birdie’s place, and Darcy was down at the hangar with Cal.

“Remember that song about a falling star by Jim Reeves? I think Aunt Birdie still has it over there on vinyl,” he said.

“The title was ‘A Fallen Star.’”

He stood to his feet and held out his hand. “Yes, it was. Dance with me, Hannah.”

She put her hand in his. “Where’s the music?”

He started to hum the tune to the old country song as he guided her hands around his neck and looped his around her waist. The words played through her mind as they moved over the green grass in their bare feet.

The world disappeared, and they were the only two people on Earth. Hannah wished that the song could go on forever and that she never had to leave the warm feeling that she had in Travis’s arms.

“I got my wish,” he drawled. “I’ve wanted to dance with you for months.”

“I got mine earlier, so I’m saving my fallen star for later.”

“Want to share?” he asked.

“Maybe later. Right now I just want to dance one more time with you out here.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He began to hum another old country tune, “I’d Love to Lay You Down.”

She pushed back and looked up into his eyes. “I know that song from Aunt Birdie’s old vinyls, too.”

“I’ll hum, then, and you fill in the words. It’s the way I feel about you. Do you remember all the lyrics?”

“I do,” she said softly as she fought back the tears. Not once when Marty danced with her at those fancy parties had she felt the way she did right then with the soft grass under her feet.

It would be so easy not only to love Travis but to fall in love with him.

Hannah arose early on Thursday morning to a quiet house. The week had gone by in a flash, but then, the whole month had done the same thing. Could it have really only been a short time ago that she was petrified in that courtroom? And after June was finished and July began, would she stop counting the weeks, the days, and the hours since that day?

She tiptoed down to the kitchen and found a note propped up on a box with ten doughnuts left out of the original dozen that let her know that Travis had filled his coffee thermos and the machine was ready to turn on for the second pot of the morning. Evidently he’d made a run to the convenience store that morning before he headed off to the hangar to get to work on Cal’s new place. Things were coming along so well that Cal was hoping to get moved into his loft apartment by July Fourth.

Every other word out of Darcy’s mouth was
Cal
, or else something about the new apartment. Hannah didn’t need a road map to know that the bed in the loft was what Darcy was most interested in.

She raised the lid to the doughnut box and removed one, eating it standing up while the coffee dripped into the pot. She licked her fingers and reached for a second one.

“Good morning. We finally get a minute alone?” Patsy ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it up into a ponytail on the top of her head. “Anything planned for this day, or do we get to stay home and visit?”

Hannah ran water over her fingers and dried them on a paper towel and then poured two cups of coffee and carried them to the table. “We’re having everyone over for hamburgers and hot dogs tonight. Travis and Cal are grilling, but it will be a late supper, because they’re working until at least six thirty. The only plan I have is to walk down there and see how the new business and apartment are shaping up. You got something you want to do?”

“I do.” Patsy nodded. “Did you get up early and go buy these?”

“Travis did,” Hannah answered.

“He’s a good man. Don’t ever make the mistake of judging him by Marty’s standard.”

“I won’t,” Hannah said. “What do you want to do today?” Hannah set the box on the table and removed a third one.

“I have about six old friends who have planned a get-together in Gainesville. We are going to meet there at two o’clock, take in the antique stores downtown, and then have supper and go back to the closest one’s house for coffee and dessert. I need to borrow your car and I may be late getting home.”

“No problem with you taking my car, but we can talk right now, right? I don’t feel like I’ve had nearly enough one-on-one time with you,” Hannah said.

“We can talk. You never did get around to telling me about this Arabella person. I heard all about Jodie and Elaine but not the last one.” Patsy fished out a doughnut and dipped it into her coffee.

Hannah started at the beginning and tried to tell Patsy about the emotional roller coaster as well as the order of the events of that evening and the next morning. “It felt like much longer, Mama. And yet, by the time she left, I’d made a friend from what I thought was an enemy. My heart is broken because Sophie will have a sister and never know her.”

Patsy reached across the table to lay a hand on Hannah’s arm. “It’s best that way. Fate brought you and Arabella together. One never knows how it might bring Sophie and her half sister together. Maybe another one of Marty’s women will shoot the son of a bitch, and then the way will be open for Sophie and her sister before they are adults.”

“Mama!” Hannah chided.

“One can only hope. Now, let’s talk about Travis. Y’all looked like you belonged together out there dancing under the stars. But don’t get in a hurry about anything. Follow your heart, but go slow.”

“You saw us?” Hannah blushed.

“I looked out the window and it was a beautiful sight.” Patsy smiled.

“I could fall in love with him. He’s so good to Sophie and me both,” Hannah said honestly.

“But what happens when you are in his arms—sparks or just a nice comfortable feeling?”

“Fire. Pure, white-hot blazes like I never ever felt with Marty,” she said.

“Then it’s worthwhile. I thought he was the one for you in high school.”

“You never said anything.” Hannah frowned.

“My mother refused to let me date or marry the love of my life. I married your father and she loved him. He was a good man and a wonderful father, but the spark that I felt with the other boy was never there. I promised myself I would never interfere in your love life, much to my dismay for the last few years. I thought I would die when I found out that Marty was abusing you.” Patsy paused and then went on. “I saw my daughter go from a slightly shy woman with a big heart to one who would hardly lift up her head.”

“He had a pretty good hold on me with Sophie,” Hannah said.

“I know that, and it’s the only reason he’s still breathing. I want to see you happy, and I have no doubt that Travis can make you happy. But for his sake as well as yours, you need to be whole again before you make a major life-changing decision about anything.”

Hannah laid her hand over her mother’s. “I agree with you, Mama.”

“Good, now let’s go outside and watch the grass grow while we drink our coffee. It’s a beautiful morning. When Sophie crawls out of bed, we’ll go take a look at the hangar.” Patsy squeezed her hand and swallowed. “I have a confession before we go.”

“Which is?” Hannah asked.

“Travis helped me keep tabs on you, so I’ve known how he feels about you, and my advice is still the same.” Patsy picked up her cup and headed outside.

“So y’all have been talking behind my back?” Hannah didn’t know whether to be angry or love both of them even more for caring so much about her.

“We have, darlin’.”

“Well, all I can say is that I’m just glad for the progress I’ve made and for the friends and family who’ve gotten me to this point.”

“Me, too, Hannah.”

July Fourth sneaked up on Hannah. She’d gotten so used to having her mother with her that she hadn’t given herself time to think about the day that Patsy would go back to Virginia. So that Monday morning when Sophie bounced on her bed and woke her up just after sunrise, she finally had to face the fact that today was Patsy’s last full day in Texas.

“Oh, no!” She buried her face in her pillow.

“What is oh, no, Mama?” Sophie asked in a worried voice.

“Your granny goes home tomorrow.”

“Oh, no!” Sophie fell face forward into the extra pillow. “Say it ain’t so, Mama.”

“It is, Sophie, but she wants us to come to her house for Thanksgiving, or if not then, maybe Christmas. You’ve never been to Virginia, so what do you think?”

“Would it take a long time to get there?”

Hannah cut her eyes over at Sophie, but all she could see was a mop of curly black hair covering her face. “Only a few hours, because we would probably fly in an airplane.”

“Nooooo!” Sophie sat up so fast that her little eyes took a moment to adjust. “We can’t get in an airplane. It might take us to Father and he’ll be mad at us.”

Hannah quickly popped up and drew Sophie into her lap. “Not Father’s airplane. That’s gone. This would be a big airplane like what your granny came on. They go all different places.”

Sophie’s dark-brown eyes locked with Hannah’s. “Promise.”

“I promise, and you’ll get to see your great-grandmother. That’s Granny’s mama.”

It had been six years since Hannah had been out of the state of Texas. She and her mother used to go to Virginia every year during Christmas break and for a week during the summer. After Hannah graduated from high school and got a job in the admissions office at the hospital, she and Liz rented the apartment in Gainesville. Hannah’s father died, and her mother moved to Virginia. She still went to see her mother and grandmother at Christmas until Marty came into her world and life changed drastically.

My life in a nutshell,
she thought as she rocked back and forth with Sophie in her lap as if she was still a tiny baby.

“Granny has a mama!” Sophie gasped. “How old is she? Did she ever see a dinosaur?”

Hannah stiffened her lip to keep from laughing. “You’ll have to ask her sometime when we go to Virginia, or better yet, when Granny gets home, maybe she could take her computer to the place where your great-granny lives and you could talk to her on the Internet. I bet she’d like that. But today we have the parade and the fireworks this evening and the Crossing festival. Maybe we should get dressed and go make breakfast so you don’t miss riding on the church float.”

It took two leaps for Sophie to leave her mother’s lap and land on the floor. “I’ll wake Granny up. I want to wave right at her when I’m on the float, so she’ll need her coffee to get awake.”

Hannah stretched, rolling her neck from side to side. The weatherman had said it would be a sunny, hot holiday, which was exactly what Independence Day should be. Sophie would be ecstatic over the small carnival set up in the lot beside the convenience store. There were several kiddie rides along with ponies and a few vendors just waiting to take money to win a stuffed animal or a rubber duck.