A Silence in the Heart (Holmes Crossing Book 4) Page 9

  When Tracy had moved to Edmonton after high school to take her vet tech course on Dr. Harvey's encouragement, Velma must have considered her "mothering" duties done, and she'd left Holmes Crossing, returning only periodically.

  A year after she'd started school, Tracy met Art at a party thrown by friends of Danielle's parents on one of her trips back. Art and his parents had just bought into a business in Holmes Crossing. Tracy was enchanted by his charm and his attention.

  They'd started dating, making plans, talking long distance. Art came to Edmonton, and they went out. As soon as she graduated, Dr. Harvey offered her a job, and she'd snapped it up, anxious to be back in Holmes Crossing and closer to Art.

  When Danielle had opted to come back to work in Holmes Crossing as well after university, Tracy thought her life had reached a measure of fullness that was her due after years of sorrow and want.

  The only sour note was the mothers: Art's and her own.

  Her mother came to visit sporadically, stopping in unexpectedly and usually when it was most inconvenient. Usually unkempt and drunk. Usually broke and usually asking for money. Tracy had tried to be firm, but each time her mother came, Tracy nurtured a faint hope that this time things would be different. This time the good mother would be the one on her doorstep.

  It never was.

  Art's mother wouldn't stop by at all. In fact, for the most part, Janice Vermeer preferred to act as if Tracy was invisible. She made no secret of her dislike of Tracy. Oh, she would be very polite in front of Art, but the real Janice showed when Art was gone.

  Then came the fateful day when Velma had come to Janice and Lance's hardware store. She had mouthed off at Janice and made loud, disparaging comments about the selection. Of course, she was rude. Of course, she'd been drinking.

  Then, after insulting Art and swearing at his parents when they complained, she had left the store. Janice let Tracy know, in no uncertain terms, that Tracy and her mother would never have a place in Art's family. Shortly after that, Art stopped calling. When Tracy found out he had taken Misty Bredo out, she knew it was over.

  And whenever Velma came to town, Tracy would hear again Janice's voice telling Tracy she wasn't good enough for her son.

  Tracy dragged her hands over her face, pressing her fingers into her skin as if to hold herself together. She didn't want her mother in her life anymore. She had done enough damage. Tracy had her own plans. Her own life to live.

  She pushed herself away from the desk, restlessness edging her movements. She wanted to run. To leave.

  Which wasn't going to happen. In five minutes, she and David were heading to the Devlins' purebred Angus farm to give blackleg boosters to their steers and heifers. After that, they had to head up to Tiger Lily to preg test some horses. Which meant they would be spending most of the morning together.

  And when she stepped out of Dr. Harvey's office, David was there, filling the hallway with his presence. His eyes held hers, a puzzled frown wrinkling his forehead.

  "So that was your mother?"

  Tracy's gaze skittered over his. "Yes, that was Mom."

  He laughed lightly, a humorless sound. "I thought she was dead."

  "Sorry. She's not." She gave him a careful smile. "Sorry if I misled you."

  He said nothing, and Tracy wished it didn't matter so much.

  The quiet drive up to the Devlins' farm only added to her discomfort. But she kept her eyes on the fields flashing past the window. Normally she loved heading out into the country. And now, with the harvest underway, it was always interesting, but today she couldn't stop the tension gripping her. The silence in the truck seemed to intensify with each mile. This was not the time in her and David's relationship, such as it was, for confidences about her mother.

  When they got to the Devlins', the steers and heifers were already penned up, separated from their bawling mothers, which meant they could start right away.

  "Thanks for coming out," Mamie Devlin yelled above the non-stop noise of the cattle. "We usually do this ourselves, but . . ." She patted her bulging stomach and nodded her head toward her husband, Justin, who was climbing awkwardly over the corral fence, his arm in a sling.

  "Glad to help," David called out. "How many head?"

  "One hundred and twenty."

  An all-morning job, thought Tracy, setting out the vials and syringes on a makeshift table Mamie had sitting by the headgate.

  The noise made conversation impossible, a small blessing. The silence on the drive up here had been difficult enough to endure.

  As Tracy watched Marnie and Justin work their cows, she envied their ease with each other. The lack of shouting and barely discernible hand motions easily showed their rapport with each other and with their animals. And when she caught David watching them, a wistful smile on his face, she wondered if he felt the same.

  In spite of the noise of the concerned cows, the rhythm of the work and the steady movement of animals all soothed Tracy's jangled nerves. And the occasional smile David sent her way was like a gentle benediction that gave her hope that she was forgiven.

  When the gate clanged shut for the last time, the last heifer ran to freedom and the once-irate cows herded their young away from the yard into the bare pasture beyond the corrals. The only sign of their presence was a slowly settling cloud of dust.

  "That went well," Justin said, checking the gate. "Thanks so much for coming."

  "No problem." David stripped off his gloves and threw them in the box holding the empty vials. "When do you figure on weaning and shipping them?"

  Justin waggled one shoulder. "I'm waiting for the price to head up a bit before we do that."

  "Just send the bill in the mail," Mamie said. She rubbed her stomach and glanced at Justin. "And, well, we were wondering if we could pay half of the bill now and half in a couple of months?" Mamie asked.

  "That should be okay," David said. "Tracy can make a note of it in your file."

  Their thanks were effusive, and as David and Tracy left the yard, they stood in the driveway, waving them off like expected company.

  "Jobs like that are always nice," David said as he pulled out of the driveway onto the gravel road. "Though I did feel bad for them."

  "That's how Dr. Harvey got into the medicine-discounting business," Tracy said, clicking her seatbelt shut, thankful for the ordinariness of shop talk. "Unfortunately he usually cut the deals for the hard-nosed businessmen, the ones who could afford to pay full price and had enough moxie to ask."

  "I'm tempted to give this couple a break," David said, tapping his fingers on his steering wheel. "Though where does that stop?"

  "One advantage of owning your own business," Tracy said. "You make that call."

  David threw her a cautious smile. "What would you do?"

  She was encouraged by the smile. And by his request for advice. "Not charge interest on the unpaid balance for a month. But that's all. It's not like you're raking in the bucks."

  "And you would know, Miss Bookkeeper?"

  His light banter soothed her previous nervousness. "I would know."

  He slowed for a corner, and Tracy sat up, craning her head. Her future acreage lay down the road in the other direction.

  "See something?"

  "It's just . . ." She faltered, her innate caution holding her back. But she had held back enough, she realized. "My future new place is just half a mile down this road." Tracy's heart gave a little skip as she pointed out the row of spruce and poplar trees that had once formed the shelterbelt for the old farmstead.

  David bent over to see better and then turned and drove toward it.

  The driveway was narrow, edged by overgrown aspen and pine trees, giving the lane a secluded and secretive look. A creek burbled along the edge of the property, dancing over the rocks to join the Freeman River and from there, the Athabasca. Tracy leaned forward as they turned into the yard.

  A wooden granary, gray and weather-beaten, tilted toward the old hip-roof barn that held traces of o
nce-red paint. Willows bristled around its foundations, like the whiskers of an old, unkempt man. But in spite of age and time, the barn still stood. Solid and unbent.

  "This place has potential," David said, putting the truck in Park.

  "Potential to make me broke and crazy, according to Danielle." Tracy got out of the truck and looked around, glad that David had turned the truck off. She closed her eyes and listened. The creek burbled and sang, joined by the tick tick of the truck engine cooling off, the soft sigh of a light breeze waving the dry grass.

  She waded through the tangled grass to the small square of concrete, all that was left of the old house. A few hardy peony bushes hugged the foundation, their leaves still green in spite of the frosts.

  "What happened here?" David asked, easily catching up to her, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his blue jeans.

  "A tragic story, apparently. The husband had been logging in the bush, gone for long hours in the winter. The wife was home with a passel of kids. I heard that she had overloaded the woodstove and a chimney fire started up. She barely got out with the kids. The family went broke, and Stinson bought the place." She glanced around the remains of the house, a sad smile edging her lips. "Some say she burned the house down on purpose because she was so depressed."

  "What do you say?"

  "I say it doesn't matter. I'm putting my house right here, and I'll make new stories. Better ones." Tracy stepped inside the foundation as if claiming ownership right then and there. She hugged herself, unable to stop the smile that tugged at her lips and sang through her heart. Her own place. "I'm going to have windows on every wall so I can see the sunrise, feel the warmth of the sun in the middle of the day, and see the sunset in the evening."

  David followed her, and Tracy watched. Watched how his shoulders shifted with each step. How the breeze toyed with the hair that hung over his forehead.

  And where did he fit in her dream world?

  "Come and have a look at the barn." She turned and left the foundation, heading toward the barn. When she reached the heavy wooden door, David was right behind her. She grabbed the handle and tugged, but the door didn't give.

  David stepped in to help, and when he pulled, the door gave reluctantly with a painful screech of metal on metal. "You'll need to oil that."

  "I need to do a lot of things, I'm sure." Tracy stepped into the musty interior of the barn, her feet tapping lightly on the dusty wooden floor. "Over there is a stall I could use for a milk cow. Another plan from another time. But behind us"—she half turned, pointing to a pen—"a place for chickens. Less maintenance than a cow, and I'll probably be able to keep up with their production. I could stable some horses. There are great riding trails along the river." She glanced back at David, but his hooded gaze was on her, not the wooden partition she was pointing out.

  She lowered her hand, her eyes snared and caught by his. In the faint gloom of the barn, his strong features were shadowed, mysterious, and beguiling.

  He took a slow step nearer, his hands still in his pockets. "So this is your future."

  "With prayers and hard work, I hope it's a future that's better than my past." The words slipped out and, once spoken, hung between them. The barest hint of what had come before.

  "A past that includes your mother?"

  "Yes, my mother." Tracy turned to him, digging for the right words to explain why she had misled him.

  "I'm guessing it's been some time since you've heard from her?"

  "Three years. I thought she had disappeared from my life."

  "Where is she now?"

  "Freeman." Tracy hugged herself, still unable to reconcile her mother's return.

  "Why did you let me think she wasn't around?"

  Why wouldn't he leave this alone? Tracy shrugged his question away. Countered with, "She just moved here and she wants me to come and visit."

  "Are you going to?" He took the evasion.

  "Well, for once, I'm glad that my car is on the fritz. I have no way of getting there."

  David covered her hand with his. "I'm going to Freeman on Sunday. If you want, I could give you a ride."

  Tracy felt pushed into places she didn't want to go. "I'm not sure I want to."

  "Why not?"

  A sigh sifted past her lips. "It's . . . complicated. My life with her was nothing but disappointment."

  David tipped his head to one side, as if to look at her from another angle. "But yet you sound sad."

  She swallowed down that very sadness, wishing he would just leave it be.

  "Please, don't read more into my tone of voice than is there." She didn't mean to sound sharp, but she didn't like the idea that David thought her mother's silence in her life had made her upset. "Anyway, if I wait, she'll probably disappear. She always has."

  "Then wouldn't it be even more important to connect with her while she was close by? What if you regret not going?"

  Tracy held his sincere gaze, listening to his words but hearing beneath them a gentle reprimand and expectation. And at the same time, she realized that he couldn't know. Couldn't understand her life.

  "Why do you care?" she asked.

  "Because for some reason I have been struggling to understand, you matter to me."

  "I'm hard to understand?" His statement was like a back-handed compliment.

  "You are. You hold back and you don't say much, yet when I see you with Kent, I see a glimpse of a woman who can care deeply but is afraid of something. I wish you weren't afraid," he said.

  His quiet words had snared her, stole coherent thought.

  "I don't want to be," she whispered, the words drawn out of her, past her fragile defenses.

  David smiled and then cupped his hand around her chin, lowered his head to hers, and gently kissed her.

  A deep inexpressible yearning flared up at the touch of his lips on hers. He pressed his lips to her cheek and then her forehead as he drew her close.

  "I've wanted to do this for a while," he whispered, his hand tangling in her hair. "I'm not great with words."

  "You don't have to talk." She slipped her arms around him, holding him close, feeling surprisingly safe and protected in the haven his arms created.

  He gently fingered her hair back from her eyes. He smiled down at her. "I'm sorry if I sounded like I was lecturing you about your mother. I just . . ." He paused, his eyes following the track of his finger. "It's just that I can't stop thinking about my own life. About my brother and my own mother."

  "I thought your mother was dead."

  "She is, and that's the problem. She and my brother fought constantly. Neither would give in. One day they had a huge fight, and he took off. Left home. He didn't talk to her for months. When she died unexpectedly, they never had a chance to reconcile. He's been sorry ever since." He smiled carefully down on her. "Family is so important. Mothers are so important. I'm just thinking of you. I'll come with you, if you want."

  She didn't want. For all his talk of reconciliation, she knew for a fact she wanted to keep her mother and David as far apart as she could. But this much she could do for him. In spite of her misgivings, she wanted to gain his approval.

  "I'll go with you on Sunday." She didn't know if it would change anything, but for David's sake, she knew she had to try.

  His smile showed her she had done the right thing. And now it was time to move away from her past.

  "So that's the barn," she said, taking a step away from him. "We don't have time to see much else . . ."

  His thumb lightly caressed her cheek. "We can save that for another day."

  The faint promise of those words sang between them. "I suppose we should be going."

  He didn't touch her again, but he didn't have to. As they walked back to the truck, she was aware of his every move.

  The drive back to the clinic was so quiet, Tracy wondered if that moment of closeness had never happened. But when David parked the truck in the lot behind the clinic, his smile reminded her.

  The bac
k door of the clinic burst open, and Crystal ran out, waving at him to come inside.

  "We've got an emergency," she called as they got out of the truck. "Dog run over. I need you stat."

  Crystal and David ran back into the clinic, and while they got ready, Tracy returned to the front desk and a distraught owner.

  David's kiss was pushed to the back of her mind.

  But not forgotten.

  Chapter 8

  Tracy shivered as she slipped the key into the door of the vet clinic. This walking to work was growing old and tired. It was bad enough during the week, but somehow it was worse on Saturdays when all she had to do was come to check up on and feed the animals. This meant she had to walk for half an hour to do fifteen minutes of work. Sooner or later, she'd need to break down and buy a car. At least David had a vehicle. Tonight he was picking her up and taking her to a movie.

  The thought of another date with David put a smile on her face. She dared let herself make a few plans. Dream a few extra dreams. Cautious dreams, but dreams nonetheless.

  She hung up her coat, rolled up her shirtsleeves, and walked down the hallway, whistling a tuneless song, stopping when she saw the kennel-room door ajar. She heard a sudden scrambling inside.

  She pushed the door wide just as Kent got the back door open.

  "Kent. It's okay. It's me. Tracy." She pitched her voice low and quiet, quelling the urge to run across the room and grab him. Hold him tight.

  The morning light angled into the room, casting the boy's face in shadows as he turned slowly to her.

  "You're not mad?"

  "Of course not, sport." She stayed where she was, recognizing too well his ready-to-run stance. "How did you get in?"

  He ducked his head again, fidgeting with the hem of his T-shirt. "I . . . I . . . came in yesterday. Then I hided."