Finding You Page 4

  Vanackern Media had its headquarters in New York City, and she was still one of their employees. Of course they would keep track of her now that she was on the edges of the limelight. But Cozie could feel her stomach flip-flop at the thought of more Vanackern scrutiny, more Vanackern expectations. “It was just overnight. My publisher had lined up a couple of interviews. It was fun; a little nuts, but fun.”

  Thad smiled indulgently, as if no one knew her better. “The reluctant celebrity.”

  As if on cue, a few strands of her hair loosened from her barrette and dropped into her face. She tucked them behind her ear, more aware of her tenant’s eyes on her than Thad Vanackern’s. Did he know about her book? “I wouldn’t call myself a celebrity.”

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t.” An unmistakable tension had crept into his voice. He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I admire what you’ve managed to accomplish, Cozie. We all do.”

  She tried to ignore his patronizing tone. “I appreciate that.”

  “Well. I just stopped by to remind you of our annual fall get-together tomorrow evening at the Woodstock Inn. You will be attending, won’t you? Frances said she hadn’t heard from you.”

  Frances was his wife, a Woodstock native who, ages ago, had nearly married a Hawthorne—Cozie’s father. Knowing Thad’s personal request for her presence was more like an order from on high, Cozie forced a polite smile. She avoided looking at Daniel Forrest. This wasn’t the lunatic mountainwoman side of her he was seeing. “Thanks for the reminder. I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t respond to your invitation because you’d hoped we’d just forget about you. No such luck, Cozie. You will come?”

  Refusal was impossible, and they both knew it. But she gave him an irreverent grin, if only to relieve her own tension—and maybe to salvage her pride with her new tenant looking on. “What’s on the menu?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve been on the road on and off for months. I just got back last night from my last trip. About all that appeals to me is canned tomato soup by the woodstove.”

  Thad surprised her with a modest laugh; he was never certain how to react to her. “We’re not having canned soup, I can tell you that. I believe Frances requested roast native Vermont turkey.”

  “I guess that beats tomato soup.”

  “You, Cornelia Hawthorne, are your father’s daughter.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  He sighed. “An observation. Frances will be delighted to know you’re coming. So will Julia. She’s in town, you know. She’s had quite a time the past month or so. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it.”

  Julia Vanackern was always having “quite a time,” usually involving men. “It’ll be nice to see her. Thanks for stopping by.”

  “Always a pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.” He acknowledged Daniel with a slight nod, his manners as smooth as ever. “Mr. Forrest, good to meet you.”

  In ten seconds, he was out the door.

  Cozie contained her irritation with her new tenant until she saw Thad back outside on the sidewalk. Then she flung herself around at Daniel Forrest. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking totally unembarrassed and unapologetic. “Anything wrong with a Massachusetts turkey?” he asked.

  “I’m sure there isn’t.” She quickly talked herself out of giving him a lecture on manners. There was something about the deliberateness of his stance, about the calculating expression in his gray eyes, that told her this was a man from whom she’d be smart to keep her distance. “Look, I’ve got work to do. Things have piled up while I was away.”

  “Okay. Need an escort tomorrow night?”

  He said it so casually Cozie almost missed what he was asking. “So swiping my parking space and insinuating yourself into a private conversation haven’t exhausted your nerve. No, Mr. Forrest, I do not need an escort tomorrow night.”

  He grinned. “Now I can see the resemblance between you and your aunt Ethel.”

  “Mr. Forrest—”

  “Daniel. Vanackerns don’t mind you gallivanting all over the countryside promoting your book?”

  “My hours are flexible. I have a competent staff. I have vacation time. I negotiated for what I needed. Now, is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Lots.” His cocky grin faded, replaced by a seriousness—a weightiness—that she wouldn’t have expected from so relentlessly controlled a man. “But I’d best get back to my wood. Don’t forget to tell your brother I was looking for him.”

  “I won’t.”

  He was into the center hall entry.

  Cozie licked her lips, not wanting her relationship with her first-ever tenant to remain on such shaky ground. “I hope…well, if you need anything else, just let me know.”

  He looked around at her. “Oh, I will.”

  She waited until she saw him back his truck out of her parking space before walking across the hall to see Aunt Ethel. “Did Sal O’Connor leave me any information on my tenant?”

  “Folder’s on your desk. She said he paid his security deposit and first month’s rent in cash, which she deposited in her account; she wrote you a check. I’ve got it in the safe.”

  “Cash?”

  “That’s right,” Aunt Ethel said. “Cash.”

  Cozie shrugged. “Maybe Texans prefer cash.”

  Daniel figured pissing Cozie Hawthorne off hadn’t been one of his smarter moves, but who could resist? She was your basic uptight Yankee. Somebody needed to jerk her chain once in a while. From what he’d seen so far of pretty little Woodstock, there weren’t too many candidates for that particular job.

  And going to that Vanackern dinner tomorrow night could be useful—unless he had his business in Vermont wrapped up by then. In which case he’d fill up his gas tank and head on home to Texas.

  He drove past the sawmill to the narrow, unmarked dirt road on the left. It took him through a stand of birches and slender, young trees whose leaves all seemed to have turned a golden yellow. After a half-mile, the road curved upward and the woods gave way to rolling fields of apple trees, dozens of them, overgrown and unkempt. Even his untrained eye could see the orchard was in rough shape. To restore it, many of the trees would need to be uprooted altogether, new ones planted in their place. He thought of his own long-neglected ranch outside Houston; he hoped to plant fruit trees, he didn’t know what kind. J.D. said he was crazy, but the land had become Daniel’s refuge—though not from anything in particular. Until his helicopter went down, his life was pretty much what he wanted it to be.

  The view of the hills of southern Vermont around him was so stunning that he lifted his foot off the gas and rolled down his window. He thought he could smell apples on the breeze even as he imagined his landlady and her brother’s ancestors coming to this place more than two hundred years ago, carving out an existence in the thin, rocky soil and sometimes brutal climate. They must have been hardy folks.

  He continued around another curve, coming to a small red clapboard farmhouse tucked into the hillside overlooking the far end of the old orchard. Its roof was sagging, it needed paint, its landscaping probably hadn’t been updated in a hundred years. A huge butternut tree dripped yellow-tinted leaves in the beaten-down front yard. In a side yard, a vegetable garden was being readied for winter, a pitchfork embedded in a pile of mulch. At the end of the short dirt driveway were the skeletal remains of a rusted Land Rover, its engine hanging from the thick branch of a pine.

  Seth Hawthorne’s truck was nowhere in sight.

  Daniel pulled over to the edge of the dirt road, alongside the front yard, and turned off his engine, debating whether to search the place while he had the chance. Maybe he’d find something that would help explain what his landlady’s little brother had been up to in Texas last month.

  But as he climbed out, the front door of the farmhouse opened. A woman with a half-bushel basket propped on one shapely hip stepped out onto the cracked slab of concrete and rock th
at served as a landing. She pulled the door shut with her free hand, turned, spotted Daniel coming around the front of his truck, and gasped. She had straight, silken blond hair that hung to just below her shoulders, and her eyes were huge and blue and staring at him as if she knew for sure he was a mass murderer. She was one very attractive woman.

  “Hello,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Daniel Forrest. I just moved in down the road. I’m looking for Seth Hawthorne.”

  “Oh.” She looked less scared, brushing back a few strands of hair with her free hand. “You’re Cozie’s new tenant?”

  He acknowledged that he was.

  “Well, we’re neighbors, I guess. I’m Julia Vanackern. My family has a place up the road.”

  Daniel manufactured a charming smile. So this was the woman who had changed her mind about going aboard his doomed helicopter—after she’d argued with Seth Hawthorne. Yet here she was, coming out of his house. “Nice to meet you, Julia. I just ran into your father in town. I need to pay Seth for some wood…”

  “He’s not here.”

  As Daniel moved closer, he could see her features were delicate, perfectly proportioned. She wore heavy black stirrups and an oversized white winter sweater that made her look even smaller than she was, made her eyes seem even bluer, a dark sapphire. He’d learned, before he’d headed north, she had no real career. She’d tried various jobs, most abandoned for one grand adventure or another—like checking out a burning oil tanker.

  “He’s working up at your place?” Daniel asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what he’s up to. I’m just here to pick apples. He said I could anytime. The trees aren’t in the best shape, but the fruit’s good for pies and sauce.” She smiled, self-deprecating in an appealing way, and Daniel could see how Seth Hawthorne could have fallen for her. “I’m thinking about trying apple butter this year.”

  “Sounds like fun. I won’t keep you.”

  As he started back to his truck, he heard her inhale, and she said, “You’re from Texas?”

  He turned warily. “That’s right.”

  She licked her lips; he hadn’t realized until now she had on no makeup. “I—I was in Texas a few weeks ago. The Houston area.”

  “That’s where I’m from,” he said without elaborating.

  “My parents and I were there for a broadcasting awards ceremony. I was nearly killed in a helicopter crash.”

  A hell of an exaggeration so far as Daniel was concerned.

  She shot him an embarrassed look, as if guessing what he was thinking. “Actually, I wasn’t even on board. Well. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

  She left it at that and headed across the dirt road with her basket for apples. Daniel couldn’t think of a subtle way to bring up her relationship with Seth Hawthorne. He had time, he reminded himself—but he’d never been a patient man.

  “I hope you like Vermont,” Julia Vanackern said.

  “Thanks. So far Vermont’s just fine.”

  He retreated to his truck, glancing in his rearview mirror as he drove back down toward Hawthorne Orchard Road. Rich, beautiful Julia Vanackern dropped her bushel basket under a gnarled old apple tree where the Tin Man himself might have rusted. In the golden sunlight, she reached up high above her head and plucked an apple.

  So why, if he gave her permission to pick apples, had Seth Hawthorne tried to kill her?

  “Because he didn’t try to kill her, you idiot.”

  Okay. But he had followed her to Texas. They’d argued. The helicopter on which she was scheduled to ride had gone down, damned near killing the two men aboard. They were facts no one could dispute—unless the man J.D. had seen arguing with Julia Vanackern wasn’t Seth Hawthorne. Could Daniel be chasing the wrong man?

  As he negotiated a downward curve on the narrow dirt road, he decided that Julia Vanackern wasn’t in any immediate danger from Seth. He could, theoretically, have sabotaged Daniel’s helicopter in a mindless fit of anger and in the meantime pulled himself together and put the incident behind him.

  As, perhaps, Daniel should.

  But he thought of J.D., his shattered leg and possibly shattered future, of the damaged reputation to their company, and he knew that whatever it cost, he had to know the truth.

  Two hours at her desk convinced Cozie the Citizen had survived her absence. All was well. She could go home and harvest the pumpkins, mulch the roses, pick apples, make more cider, put up the storm windows, confront the snakes in the cellar. Sneak up on the bat upstairs in the end bedroom. There was plenty to do.

  But when she got home and she and Zep started inside together, she felt on edge, unfocused, off her routines. Before leaving her office, her agent had called from New York with another national syndication offer. It was a good one. “Think of it,” he’d said, “as writing for dozens of small-town newspapers instead of just one. Come on, Cozie, what do you owe the Vanackerns?”

  Saving her family’s newspaper, her family’s land. Perhaps even saving her family. But more to the point, what did she owe her family history? She and Aunt Ethel were the last Hawthornes at the Citizen.

  She’d promised to get back to him next week.

  Now, on her unheated back porch, she stared at the shelves of empty canning jars, jumper cables, baskets of onions and winter squash, rows of green and half-ripened tomatoes Seth had picked while she was away. Jackets, overshirts, and rain gear hung on a Shaker-type pegboard next to the door, under them a jumble of boots in various sizes and states of disrepair, a kind for every season. One of these days she would have to get in here and clean everything out.

  She half expected to find her father in the back room, smoking a pipe and peeling potatoes, keeping a fire going in the old cast-iron cookstove. But the stove was cold, and she was alone in the creaky, narrow, two-hundred-year-old house. She lit a fire and put the copper kettle on for tea.

  While the water was coming to a boil on the woodstove, she went down a short hall into the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it needed work. The wide pineboard floor was bowed, the countertops were scarred, the old-fashioned appliances were charming but inefficient, and the cabinets no longer hung straight—if they ever had. Since the house was so narrow, she could sit at the long pine table and watch the birds at the feeders in the front yard and look out the window above the sink directly across the room and see the fields out back.

  She got out a mug and tea bag and returned to the back room. Zep had curled up next to the woodstove, but Cozie couldn’t get herself to relax and, finally, abandoned her tea. She had to be outside, unconfined.

  Zep stirred, following her, and she headed past the toolshed and a flowering crab, down to the garden. The scents of mint and thyme and lemon balm mingled together, easing some of her franticness. Dry, once-purple oregano blossoms brushed against her legs. Everything looked so wild and overgrown. Even the perennial herbs needed some care. She yanked a giant pigweed from the middle of the chives and threw it over the rail fence.

  The few broccoli and tomato plants her mother had planted in the spring, the row of peas, the beans, had all succumbed to weeds, neglect, frost. There was nothing to put away for winter. Her father’s reluctant sale of the paper to the Vanackerns before his death had kept her mother going for a while, but finances had continued to tighten. She would have had to sell the house and land within the year. Ever eager to buy the Hawthorne land, the Vanackerns would have stepped in, perhaps permitting Emily Hawthorne to keep her house and a few surrounding acres. But the success of Cozie’s book had allowed her to intervene. Now her mother had the money to travel, to live the kind of life she wanted to live, and the Hawthorne place remained in Hawthorne hands.

  The wind picked up, penetrating her cotton sweater. She hadn’t bothered adding a jacket. Zep thrashed through the maze of herbs, weeds, and wilted vegetable plants. “Hey, boy,” Cozie said. “I should throw a rock at you, you know. Pop never allowed dogs in the garden.”

  But there was lit
tle to protect from a dog. Together they walked through the pumpkin patch, where dozens of pumpkins ripened in the autumn sun. Most were on the scrawny side, but a few would make respectable jack-o’-lanterns, and there were sugar pumpkins for soup and pies.

  At the far end of the garden, wild grapes tangled on the rail fence and filled the air with their pungent smell. Her mother claimed wild grapes made the best jelly, although she seldom got around to making any before they rotted on the vine. Her father had considered them glorified weeds.

  Cozie climbed over the waist-high fence and headed back along the garden, then up a sloping field behind the toolshed, through tall, yellowing grass to a trio of gnarled apple trees Johnny Appleseed himself might have planted. Knobby, misshapen fruit hung from their overladen branches. They needed pruning, spraying, care. The main orchards on the northern end of the property, across from Seth’s place, were in similar condition. Her father and brother had started to restore them, but in the two years since Duncan Hawthorne’s death, the orchard restoration had gone the way of most of Seth’s plans.

  Facing the back of the house, down the hill, Cozie could see glimpses of Hawthorne Brook across the road at an angle to her left, through the bright-leafed trees. Behind her to the right were more fields and woods. Seth had planted Christmas trees in one of the fields. So far, he’d managed to keep them trimmed and fertilized.

  She plucked an old-fashioned Baldwin and bit into its tart, dry fruit as she swung up onto a low branch of the apple tree and leaned against its rough, old bark. A cardinal swooped among the trees and the crows wheeled overhead, and after a while her thoughts quieted, her muscles relaxed.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the wind and smelled the grass and the trees and all the outdoor smells of a Vermont autumn. She let her mind drift. Suddenly she could see her father gathering dropped apples for making sauce and cider. He was wearing his red-and-black checked wool shirt and had calluses and tiny cuts on his hands that would heal slowly because of the blood thinners he was on. She could smell the applesauce he would make at lunch and leave on the kitchen table for when she and Meg and Seth came home from school.