from Tyler Orchard. He knew that was fanciful thinking, and he wasn’t a fanciful guy. He was straightforward. Conscientious. Responsible.
He’d spent nearly all his life trying to live up to the legacy his father established; the one time he’d stepped outside the boundaries, he’d nearly ruined his entire life. Put the local school in financial jeopardy. Stepping outside the bounds wasn’t worth it. He should have remembered that before he’d started meeting Mara on the sly years ago.
Maybe, with Mara back in town, he would finally learn that lesson.
“AND THAT—” MARA pointed to the tilted neon sign that read The Slippery Slope “—is the town bar where everyone goes on Friday nights. Of course, it’s only Thursday so no big crowds tonight.” One of the green Ps was burned out, along with the word The on the sign, just as it had been when Mara was a teen. Some things never changed. The thought was comforting, especially considering the amount of change she was bringing to Slippery Rock.
“There’s a church on either side of it and one across the street, too.” Cheryl laughed. “God, small towns are great.”
“If the beer doesn’t save you, the brimstone sermons might,” Mara agreed. It was Cheryl’s last night in Slippery Rock, and Mara had convinced her to come out and really see the town. She used an online service to find a local babysitter for Zeke, a teenage girl who didn’t seem to associate the Mara Tyler she was working for with Tyler Orchard outside town.
Mara and Cheryl had dinner at the Rock Café overlooking Slippery Rock Marina, and had been walking around for the past few minutes while Mara pointed out the local landmarks. They weren’t due back at the B and B for another hour.
“If you want to see real small town, you have to go inside the Slope. Mahogany everything, a jukebox from the 1970s that still has mostly old stuff on it and enough neon to light up downtown.”
Cheryl grinned. “I’ll buy the first round, and if I go for a second, remind me I’m driving to Tulsa at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning.”
“I make no promises,” Mara said, holding up her hand.
The bar was mostly empty when they walked in. A few old-timers sat at the tables scattered around the dance floor. No one noticed Mara and Cheryl as they entered. Mara went straight to the bar.
“Do you still have the best apple shandy in southern Missouri?” she asked the older man behind the bar.
Merle flipped the dishrag he always carried over his shoulder as a grin split his face. “Did you get kicked out the one time you tried to con some salesman passing through to buy for you? Never tried that one again, did ya?”
“I’m a fast learner, and now that I’m legal, I’ll have the shandy.” Merle came around the bar quickly and wrapped his arms around Mara’s waist, squeezing her tight. He’d been one of her grandfather’s best friends, and although he readily allowed her and the guys in back in the old days, he’d never served them. Not even the shandy, which was more apple juice or cider than beer.
“Me, too,” Cheryl added, hopping onto a stool at the bar.
“I’ll make it two,” he said. “I hadn’t heard you were back in town.”
That was surprising. Mara had figured CarlaAnn and her gossiping cronies would have spread the news of Mara’s near arrest all over town by now.
“I’m here for work,” Mara said.
“Come to think of it, some civic-minded soul might have mentioned you and a package of stolen cookies?” Merle winked at her as he slid the drinks across the bar. Mara shook her head. She would bet money CarlaAnn or another of her ilk were spreading the news.
“It was a misunderstanding. I’m actually working on Mallard’s security system.”
Merle shrugged and went back to work. Mara took a good look around. A few of the neon signs had changed, but the juke was the same, and the polished dance floor still gleamed in the dim light. Juanita roamed among the tables, waiting on her customers.
“This place is exactly what I thought it would be,” Cheryl said as she turned in her seat. She sipped from the frosty glass. “And the drink is better.”
“He won’t tell anyone his secret, and I’ve never had a better one. Not in any of the überhip clubs, not in the dive joints and not in any of those bottled options you find at grocery stores.”
The jukebox turned on and a wailing, twangy tune warbled through the bar’s speakers.
“You’re not really leaving at the crack of dawn, are you?” Mara asked.
“By ten, that way I’m home by early afternoon. No rush-hour traffic.” Cheryl didn’t like driving in heavy traffic. She’d gotten around as Zeke’s nanny because Mara usually chose to stay in downtown areas where everything was in walking distance.
“You’ll call when you get in?” Mara asked.
Cheryl nodded. “And you’ll call when...well, when the little man does anything of consequence? Or not of consequence?”
“Yes.” Mara would not get maudlin. Cheryl leaving was a good thing. She would love her job with the school district, the wedding planning and the trip with her father. Mara was a grown woman with a good job who could easily hire another nanny for her child if she needed to. Hiring someone as good as Cheryl, that was the problem. Of course, there was the other option. The staying-in-Slippery-Rock option.
She wanted... God, it didn’t matter what she wanted. It mattered that Zeke was well cared for, and she was equipped to do that caring, even after her job took her to another strange hotel in a distant town. A town that didn’t have a decent apple shandy, or a bar that might have been caught in a time warp.
She slid a few bills across the bar but didn’t finish her drink.
Staying in Slippery Rock wasn’t really an option, it was a pipe dream. A second thought, and this wasn’t the time for second thoughts. She’d given in to enough of them over the past two years. She’d nearly called James a dozen times early in her pregnancy, and again after Zeke was born. But telling the man he was a father over the phone seemed wrong, and she had known she wasn’t strong enough to do it in person. Even after her therapist assured her she should face this last demon, she’d told herself that she was too busy, that Zeke was too little, that “later” would have to do.
Cheryl’s voice cut through her thoughts. “You’re going to be okay, you know. You and Zeke, you and your family.”
“I know.”
“Don’t run, not now.”
Cheryl knew almost everything about Mara’s past. She knew about the pranks and graduation night; she knew about the neglect that marked Mara’s first few years of life. She knew everything except who the father of Mara’s baby was, but she had probably guessed it was someone from Slippery Rock.
Mara took a deep breath. “I’m not going to run. I ran from here once before, but I’m not going to run this time.” Mara took one more sip of her drink. “I just want to.” Because not telling James would be so much simpler than telling him.
James with the perfect family history, the perfect job and the ability almost always to do the right thing might never understand why she’d walked away from him. Why she had needed finally to confront those first few years of her life, and why she needed to do that without him in her life.
“Are you ready to leave?” she asked Cheryl. “We haven’t been to the marina yet, but you’ll see most of it from the street.”
Cheryl nodded, and as they started for the door, she left Mara with her thoughts, seeming to understand that she needed to think.
Samson and Maddie Tyler