The Farmhouse Read online

  She didn’t realize it until the boys begged to sleep over at their friends’ houses and Maggie told them, “In this family, we don’t invite ourselves to stay with other people.”

  But they had an invitation. With Miss Becky and with Miss Fern.

  More than her feelings of desperation, a rage began to churn inside Gretchen. Rage over her father’s uselessness. Rage over a lifetime of him controlling their every move only to vanish into thin air.

  Both Maggie and Gretchen had tried calling him a dozen more times to no avail. They were stuck, and it felt miserable.

  Gretchen prodded Briar into the modest gift shop as she pulled her phone from her pocket and tried something else. A different number.

  It rang only once. As always.

  “Engel residence,” came the terse greeting.

  “Mamaw Engel?” Gretchen spoke low.

  “Yes? Who’s calling?”

  As though the woman had dozens of grandchildren.

  “It’s Gretchen, Mamaw.”

  A pause. And then, “Hello, Gretchen. Is everything all right?”

  “No, actually. We—” she stopped in the middle of her sentence as her eyes took hold of a familiar figure entering through the front doors.

  “What’s the matter, Gretchen?” The woman’s cold voice was neither reassuring nor helpful, and Gretchen realized, in that moment, why Maggie hadn’t called her mother-in-law. Why she refused to seek refuge there or maybe anywhere.

  It was an adult moment. For Gretchen. A moment when the presence of a veritable stranger suddenly felt more comforting than the voice of her own grandmother.

  Without another word, in honor of her mother’s pride and in hopes that the answer lay just before her eyes, Gretchen simply hung up the phone.

  The eighteen-year-old scooped Briar into her arms and turned on her heel in time to face the gentleman who, with as lost an expression on his face as ever, was inquiring about toothpaste and a toothbrush, among other toiletries.

  Gretchen stepped up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and with the boldness of a girl with a plan, threw her shoulders back as well as she could with a preschooler on her hip.

  At last, she cleared her voice in time for him to turn around and frown down at her. Unfaltering, Gretchen spoke. “Mr. Houston?”

  Chapter 11 — Rhett

  “Are you getting a room here? Can my mom stay with you for the night? We’re cramped as can be.”

  Rhett thanked the hotelier for the toiletries and smirked at the young woman standing proudly before him. A little freckle-faced child clung to the familiar girl for dear life as they awaited his response.

  “Gretchen, right?” he asked, smiling to hide his confusion.

  “That’s right, Mr. Houston. We met at the diner. Sorry for being... rude earlier. It’s been a weird day. Anyway, I guess you’re staying here, too?”

  He wasn’t sure where to take the conversation with this changed teenager. Her fast progression from bubblegum-snapping-waitress-with-an-attitude to desperate big sister was a lot to take in.

  And anyway, Maggie had declined his invitation of a drink—understandably. But to share his room with her?

  “Why?” he asked earnestly, gesturing they seek a more private corner of the foyer.

  Gretchen followed until they were in the kitchen, which was open to guests, apparently. The Hickory Grove Inn wasn’t around when Rhett was a kid. Well, it was around, but it wasn’t a bed-and-breakfast back then. It was just short of a haunted mansion, really.

  He liked it. Character flowed freely through the un-renovated front hall. Heavy furniture and drapery that might have boasted years of dust now shone with polish. The chair rail and sconces all suggested a charm that was missing from the modern age.

  Even in the kitchen, quaintness wasn’t sacrificed for utility, what with the potbellied cast iron stove beneath which rested a matching antique stove. Rhett felt the pull of the 1700s here in the middle of America. The heartland.

  Maggie’s daughter blew a strand of hair from her eyes and shifted the little girl’s weight on her hip. The latter whined before burying her strawberry-blonde head into Gretchen’s shoulder.

  “We have two rooms, but it’s too crowded. My room only has a twin bed, actually, and since you know each other—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rhett held his hands up and backed into a butcher-block kitchen island. “Gretchen, I knew your mom. I mean, yes, I know her, but we haven’t talked much lately. I just saw her earlier, and she seemed a little too preoccupied for a reunion.” Especially an intimate one.

  He considered asking about the water leak but thought better of it. The teenager’s face was already twisting into panic.

  “Mr. Houston, I thought you were like best friends? ‘Rhett Houston.’” She flashed air quotes in gentle sarcasm. “Yeah, my mom and Becky talk about you all the time.”

  The point was a bullet to his gut, though he didn’t quite know why. He scratched his neck then fiddled with the package of his overnight essentials.

  “Say, listen. What about your dad? I mean—Travis, right? Is he out of town, or—?” Rhett was asking more for the benefit of figuring out what to do about his truck rather than whether it would even be appropriate to so much as take a step inside Maggie’s guest room.

  “He’s a—” Her reply came with force but she stopped just as feverishly, glancing down at her sister and blinking. “He’s not here. And we aren’t expecting him to show up.”

  The little one writhed in Gretchen’s arms and pointed wildly toward the front door. “Pizza! Sissy, Pizza!”

  Rhett’s stomach lurched in hunger despite his big lunch—he was always hungry.

  Gretchen allowed the girl to plop down on her own two feet, and they both began to head toward the teenaged delivery boy who stood askance in the front hall. “Come on, Mr. Rhett. You can carry it up.”

  And just like that, Rhett Houston was home.

  Chapter 12 — Maggie

  “Um.” It was all she could muster at the sight of the three of them and two large pizzas dwarfed by Rhett’s towering frame. “Hi?”

  “Mom, we found him checking in. He doesn’t even have an overnight bag. Wasn’t expecting to stay in town, but guess what?”

  “What?” Maggie answered, eyeballing him as she grabbed Briar’s hand and awkwardly ushered them into the room. The only thing that comforted her was that Rhett seemed equally uncomfortable.

  Gretchen wasn’t usually a bubbly girl, and her rambling revealed that her nerves were on fire. Much like Maggie’s.

  “Mom, he dropped his truck at the garage and Daddy never took it in to work on. In fact, Daddy closed the shop earlier today.” Gretchen laced her slender arms across her chest and threw her weight back onto one hip. “And, I have an idea.”

  “No, no,” Rhett inserted, passing the pizzas over to Maggie. “I’m sorry Gretchen, but that won’t work.”

  “What?” Maggie asked, curious.

  “Mom, you can stay with Mr. Rhett to give us more space. At least for tonight. It would make this situation a little more comfortable.” Gretchen waved her hand behind her at the boys, squeezed together on what was beginning to look less like a twin bed and more like a narrow shelf with a mattress on top.

  “We have a second room, Gretchen,” Maggie answered, laughing as lightly as she could. “We’re fine.” Turning to face Rhett, she said, “I’m so sorry. Gretchen is just trying to help. But really, we’re fine. Two rooms are more than enough. Briar is tiny, and—”

  “You’re welcome to stay with me,” he replied, meeting her gaze.

  Maggie felt a lump form in her throat. She thought of her husband. She thought of her children. She thought back to high school and the moments she and Rhett shared during passing periods and inside of a class hour.

  The glances.

  The warmth.

  The friendship.

  “Well,” Maggie began. Ky and Dakota hadn’t even reached for a piece of pizza yet. The
y were staring hard at Rhett. Too hard. “No,” she went on, “but thank you. It’s a nice offer. And, it was a nice idea, Gretch. But we’ll be just fine.”

  Ky and Dakota relaxed. Gretchen shrugged her shoulders, her mouth setting in a line. Briar was about to pull a whole box of pizza off the edge of the bed.

  Rhett, for his part, smiled kindly. “You’d think they’d have more than a twin bed and a television set in here,” he commented, glancing over his shoulder at the door. “I’d better go make sure they didn’t give me the broom closet...”

  Laughter erupted from Maggie, and the children gawked in surprise. She couldn’t help it. A full-blown belly laugh overtook her, racking her body until tears—both happy and sad—spilled from her eyes in rapid succession.

  A couple faint chuckles cut through her bizarre outbreak, and Rhett spoke up.

  “Tell you what, everyone, why don’t I take your mom to help me see about my own lodgings while you all dig into the pizza. Sound good?”

  Maggie smiled gratefully and told the children she was going to go with Mr. Rhett and would be back in a bit.

  Just before she left the room, Dakota hollered out behind her. “Mama, who is that guy?”

  Gretchen replied before Maggie could even open her mouth. “One of Mom’s old friends. He’s cool, okay?”

  RHETT’S ROOM WAS IDENTICAL to the one initially assigned to her and the boys.

  A pretty twin bed protruded from a narrow wall. An old-fashioned tube TV sat soberly on an antique dresser in the corner. One chair—wooden—posed on the far side of the bed, facing into the room, away from the window.

  Maggie strode over and stood, pulling the lace curtain back and staring out. The Inn had a view down toward the Little Flock Cemetery. The one where her mother was buried.

  She wondered, as she often did, if her father was still alive. Who he was. Where he went.

  “I guess it was fate,” Maggie snorted, turning to watch Rhett set a few things on the pedestal sink. A plastic toothbrush in its packaging. A white, mini tube of paste.

  “What was fate? Us bumping into each other? I’d say Hickory Grove is small enough that it didn’t even matter that I was trying to get ahold of you. We still wound up at the same place.” He shot her a knowing look, and something welled deep inside Maggie. He seemed... different.

  In high school, Maggie would have laughed at Rhett’s attempts to change the conversation. She’d welcome them. Thankful he knew her. He understood her. He could take her mind off anything and piece it back together happily elsewhere.

  And the next day, she’d beeline straight back into Travis’s scrawny teenager arms, running her hand up his sleeve, laying claim to what—at the time—was the hottest ticket in town.

  At seventeen-years-old, Travis Engel was the first student at Hickory Grove High School to get a tattoo. Maggie helped him tend to it, since his mother was utterly opposed to the idea.

  It was the Engel family crest (something tribal and exotic, which never quite made sense since Engel was an Anglo-Saxon surname) along with Travis’s father’s initials and birthdate. Like Maggie, Travis had never known his own father. He’d left town before Travis was ever born. Though neither one knew their dads, the differences between the two fatherless teenagers were many. Especially the circumstances of their fathers’ absences. Or so she’d always assumed.

  Maggie’s mother had never made one mention of the man who’d sired her twins. She didn’t take his name, and she kept the secret close to her chest. Of course, the twins never got a chance to nag her for details. And Marguerite refused to discuss the subject.

  Travis’s mother wept over the man who had left her pregnant and took off, burning out of Hickory Grove like a hunted deer.

  Rhett knew all this. He’d known it since high school. And so when Maggie asked about her destiny, he knew quite well what she meant.

  “Rhett,” she answered, sighing deeply. “Why did I marry him?”

  “He was... dangerous,” Rhett answered, passing her at the window to ease into the chair behind. “Everyone thought so. He had that huge truck. And that scaredy-cat mother. And dumb tattoo. No one told him no. Not even you.”

  She turned and sat neatly on the bed, facing Rhett. “I guess not. I guess I never had to, anyway.”

  Silence took the place of small talk until Maggie couldn’t bear it anymore. She felt Rhett’s gaze on her, and looked up to meet it. Fine lines crowded around his pale green eyes. His sandy-colored hair had darkened a little, but he still kept a neat crew cut. And, notably, he still took care of his body. She wondered if his high school football days had turned into intramural evenings at Louisville Community College.

  Maggie wrapped an arm around her mom-ish, middle-aged midsection. “I’m so happy to see you, Rhett. I’m sorry I hung up earlier, but I guess you can see what a mess I’m in.”

  “Maggie,” Rhett answered plainly. “What happened with the house?”

  Again, she sighed, rubbing the back of her neck and rolling her head around in a stretch. “Ugh. I don’t know. I need to find out. Travis did all the bills. He handled everything. I guess he wasn’t paying the mortgage, and I never knew about it. I know we paid it a couple months ago though, because I was at the bank for something... signing something, and it came up. But, I guess—well the lady on the phone told me we’ve missed six payments. She said the bank had already looked to sell. I don’t know how they could do that. But the notice was only for a foreclosure. It’s all so confusing, and I am so out of touch with everything. I don’t know where to begin.” Her face fell into her hands and she hunched over her knees.

  Rhett stood and moved to her, bending down to wrap her in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Maggie stood and hugged him back—hard. “I’m stupid,” she whispered back.

  “You’re not stupid. You were... caught up,” he answered, joining her on the bed.

  “Look at what I’ve done to my family,” she gestured around herself. “My kids. Staying in a motel?”

  “Hey, now. It’s a bed-and-breakfast. I’m staying here, too, you know,” he joked. She didn’t laugh. “Maggie, if this is the worst that happens in your life, you’re going to be fine. I can help. Let me, please. I don’t have much going on. You can stay in one of my rentals in the city.”

  She shook her head. “We can’t leave Hickory Grove. Thank you, but the kids go to school here. My clients are here. My life is here.”

  “What are you going to do if he comes back? When he comes back?”

  Maggie bit down on her lower lip. “I’m not afraid of Travis. He would never hurt us, Rhett.” Her eyebrows fell together in a deep frown. “And he is their father.”

  Suddenly, Rhett stood. “Listen, I don’t want to get in the middle. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Maggie answered, panicked. “No, I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous. It’s over between Travis and me. That’s clear. I just have to figure out what happens next.”

  The divorce paperwork popped into her mind, and now she wondered just how in the heck she’d ever get a divorce from someone on the lam. Her stomach growled, and her head throbbed.

  “You can’t stay here for long. At least consider finding another place. Or fighting the bank. Maybe you can stay in your house after all?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t want to be there. I mean, I’m not afraid of Travis, but what if he comes back? I can’t face him. I don’t know what I would do. I guess I’m—”

  “Afraid of yourself?”

  It was a heavy suggestion. And it wasn’t all of the truth. But Maggie supposed little had really changed in all those years since Rhett had been gone.

  He still knew her.

  “THERE YOU ARE.” GRETCHEN was storming down the hallway just as her mother and Rhett appeared from his room at the opposite end of the hall.

  “Is everything okay, Gretch?” Maggie asked, her stomach lurching. They didn’t need one more thing to worry about.


  Maggie felt Rhett hang back by half a stride.

  “Gretchen, what is it?” Maggie pressed. Her oldest daughter’s expression wasn’t one of panic, but a certain alarm colored the girl’s cheeks.

  The teenager replied simply, “Mom, I found something.”

  Chapter 13 — Gretchen

  Everyone had crammed into the pizza room. Their mom stood next to the bed near Gretchen, who held the papers taut in her hands.

  She continued reading. “... on behalf of the executor or executors of the estate of Marguerite Lorna Devereux,” Gretchen went on until her mother held up her hand.

  “Let me see it,” Maggie demanded, urgent. Even Ky, Dakota, and Briar were rapt with attention. An important document was one thing.

  A surprise letter in the mail about their recently departed—albeit cranky and even a little scary—aunt was quite another.

  Maggie’s eyes flashed up at Gretchen. “This was just lying in the stack of pages?”

  Mr. Rhett cleared his voice behind them. “I should go...”

  “No, it’s fine. Maybe you can help me understand it,” Gretchen’s mother darted a glance to him, but he stayed firmly in his position near the door, hands shoved into pockets.

  “Gretchen, was this just sitting in the pile?” Maggie asked again.

  “Yeah. Kind of. Well, it was in an envelope. Addressed to you.”

  “Was the envelope open?”

  Gretchen blushed slightly. “Well, no, it was sealed. No one had opened it. Sorry, Mom, but—”

  Maggie held up her hand, “No, no. That’s totally fine. But I don’t understand. It was just sitting there, unopened?”

  “Lots of mail is sitting in here. I found electric bills. A membership termination notice for the gym.”

  Gretchen studied her mother. Her neck was growing splotchy and red. She slowly let herself down onto the bed, the letter in hand. “Travis opens the mail. It’s what he does every night. He brings the mail in and says he’s going to handle bills. Every night.” Maggie’s eyes tore from the page and searched her children, all who were nodding.