Autumn Leaves Read online

  She sighed. “Look, I’ll tell you all about it.” It was her turn to pause. “I promise I will. But I really am starved, and those really were the best shrimp nachos I’ve ever had.”

  She reached to open the front door, and he stopped her. “I’m driving.” He pointed her toward the back door, and they headed in that direction. He gave Stan a pointed look. “We’ll be back.”

  They stepped out the back door. “Oh what a pretty shade of turquoise on that bike,” she exclaimed. “What a pity it’s broken.”

  “Won’t be for long.” He opened the truck door and helped the tiny woman inside.

  “This the pretty girlfriend?” Mr. Than called from his lawn chair.

  Nana beamed. “Who is this nice fellow, Nathaniel?”

  Nate made the introductions.

  “Child bride, I’d say,” the older man said as he tasted another potato chip.

  “Would you mind keeping an eye on the bike?” Nate called. “I’ll be back to fix it in a while.”

  “Enjoy the lovely lady,” Mr. Than called. “I’ll see your girlie bike isn’t bothered.”

  “He’s very nice,” Nana said as they pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Yes, he is. Nana,” Nate said gently but firmly, “why are you here? And exactly when did you hire me before?”

  She talked all around that question but didn’t answer it throughout the drive and then lunch. Finally when she’d sipped the last of her iced tea and eaten the final bite of those shrimp nachos she continued to rave about, his grandmother paused and stilled her fluttering hands with those pink polished nails.

  “So as to why I’m here.” She leaned in and glanced around as if to be certain no one else was listening. “I need you to come home.”

  “I am home,” he said. “I’ve lived in Galveston for more than three years. This is home.”

  “Psssht.” Those hands swept across the space between them as if to clear the air of the words he’d just spoken. “Sugar Pine is your home. Now before you think to argue, you ought to know that your grandfather needs you.”

  His heart lurched. “Is there something wrong with Grandpa?”

  Her expression softened as she reached for the tea glass and swirled the ice around. “His health is fine. He’ll probably outlive us all. But he misses you.” She met his gaze with a determined look. “And so do I. His birthday’s coming up, you know.”

  He did. “Next month. He’ll be eighty, won’t he?”

  “That’s right, and I thought it would be a nice gift to have his favorite grandson there to help him celebrate.”

  “I’m his only grandson, but of course I’ll be there.” Nate shrugged and then his temper sparked just a little. “You don’t have to hire me to go to my own grandfather’s birthday.”

  “Oh honey, I know that.” Nana reached across the table to rest her hands atop his. “But I don’t want you there for just a day or two. The gift I want to give to your grandfather is time with you. He loves to talk about the time the two of you did this or that. Why, if I had a nickel for every story I heard that starts off with ‘So Nate and I,’ well, I’d be a rich woman.”

  Nana was a rich woman, but that was beside the point. Bonnie Sue had only been his official grandmother for a short time, but she had the grandmotherly good sense of a woman who’d spent a lifetime with him.

  She was also smart enough to know he didn’t have enough margin in his budget to take much time off without pay. Still, he’d manage without her help for a week, maybe ten days.

  Not that he’d tell her that right now. That kind of news would have to wait a little. Until he knew how to say it where she’d actually hear it.

  Nate let out a long breath. “All right,” he said slowly. “Yes.”

  She clapped and waved for the waitress. “I knew you would. In fact, I was so sure that you’d say yes that I’ve had your bunkhouse redone. You’re going to love it.”

  The bunkhouse was a shotgun home his grandfather had hauled onto the property ages ago. Originally meant to house Nate’s parents on their visits to Texas, it quickly became his mama’s home—and his—when she and his dad broke up.

  “I’m sure I will.” He thought of the little house and hoped she hadn’t changed things too much.

  “Well, it’s settled, then. Now I really ought to go. I’ve got book club tonight, and Sessa is hosting. That means I’ll need to bake a pie or two just in case. She never did learn how, you know.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He followed the pint-sized dynamo into the sunshine and helped her into his truck.

  He’d gotten her all the way back to Stan’s and was standing beside the open window of her Cadillac when he realized they hadn’t discussed any concrete plans for Grandpa’s birthday. “So, do you want me to come down the day before? Maybe stay a few days after?”

  Nana shook her head. “Oh no. I thought it would be great fun for you to surprise him at his birthday party on the big day.”

  “I’m not jumping out of his birthday cake, Nana,” he said with a grin. “But I won’t judge if you do.”

  “Oh, you’re a hoot,” she said. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it—you, that is! I think it would be best if you head on over to Sessa’s place the day of the party, and then you all can ride over together and surprise him. After that, we’ll put you in the bunkhouse for the month, and you two can just have a grand time.”

  “For the month?” He shook his head. “Nana, I—”

  “Yes,” she said firmly, “you can. Remember, I hired you.”

  “I won’t let you do that.”

  His grandmother shook her head. “I already have. Now if you don’t believe me, you go on in there and ask your boss. By the way, why in the world does he speak so loud? Goodness, you’d think we were all deaf.”

  The Cadillac roared to life, and she shifted into reverse. Nate took a step back as she blew him a kiss.

  “I’ll see you on his birthday,” he said. “But I can’t stay for a month.”

  Nana just grinned and waved as the window went up. He wouldn’t stay but a few days. A week or maybe part of two. But this was not the time to argue that point.

  Once he’d seen her safely pull onto the busy street and disappear at the next turn, Nate went back inside.

  “Nice lady, that one,” Sully said. Stan just stared at him.

  “Something wrong?” he asked Stan.

  “Nope. Just wondering what it’s like to have someone pay me to go on vacation. You think your granny would want to hire me, too?”

  “Funny,” he said as he brushed past Stan. Then it hit him. Nana had never responded to his second question. Nate turned around to face Stan. “Exactly when did my grandmother hire me before?”

  Stan placed his hand over his heart as if he were wounded. “You know I cannot confirm or deny who any of my clients are, not even to my operatives.”

  “Since when do we follow that rule around here?” Nate asked as Sully’s thick gray brows rose.

  “Since that lady paid me very well to follow it.” He nodded toward the back of the office. “Now while you’re out there fixing that girl’s bike, why don’t you tell Than his radio is too loud?”

  “Too loud?” Sully shook his head and went back to his crossword puzzle.

  Nate was almost to the door when Stan called him back. “Look, you’re a good kid. Best employee I’ve ever had.” Sully snorted, and Stan paused just long enough to give him a nasty look. “And long as you need a job, you’ve got one here with the idiot and me.”

  Again Sully snorted but this time, he added a grin and a slight nod.

  “Thanks,” Nate said. “I appreciate that.”

  “Your granny, she’s a smart lady. If I were you, I’d do what she says.”

  Nate had several responses in mind. Instead, he merely nodded and made his escape. Mending the broken pieces of a stranger’s bicycle was simple compared to contemplating a return, even for a week or two, to the last place he wanted to spend time.
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  Chapter Three

  Late on the same afternoon Skye had run over the cute surfer, she looked up when someone entered the store. And recognized the woman the minute she walked inside. Heart slamming against her chest, she murmured some lame excuse and hurried into the storeroom to escape.

  She didn’t dare pretend to be unpacking the stock, not when her fingers shook too much to hold fragile items like those awful frogs made from fake shells or the tiny sailing ships built into little glass bottles. Instead, she pressed past the boxes to wedge herself into the corner where the little three-legged stool sat.

  Instead of reaching beneath the stool for the latest novel in the Thorn in My Heart series, which is what she did when she hid back here during break time, she sat very still and prayed her daughter’s great-grandmother would go away. Ever since she’d settled here, she’d known there was a possibility she could run into people who would recognize her as Pansie’s mother. So far it hadn’t happened.

  Until now.

  The curtain that separated the shop from the stock room rustled, and Skye ducked her head. “Honey, if you’re trying to hide, you’re doing a poor job of it.”

  Bonnie Sue.

  Slowly Skye lifted her head.

  Pansie’s great-grandmother looked as beautiful as ever, a pink rose in a room full of cardboard boxes. “Should I call you Autumn or Skye? Which do you prefer?”

  Unease shivered through her. Bonnie Sue had only known her as Skye. Where had she come up with Autumn? She pretended calm she didn’t feel and managed to stand, only because sitting was causing her neck muscles to cramp. “Everyone here calls me Autumn.”

  “Then Autumn it is.” She smiled. “I came to take you to a late lunch. I know a place that serves the best shrimp nachos.”

  “I’m sorry. See, my shift doesn’t end until four, and then there’s all of these boxes that need to be unpacked an inventoried for this weekend’s Surf Safari, so really, I can’t.”

  “Really, you can.” Myrna came into view behind Bonnie Sue. Instead of a scowl, she was smiling. “Good news, Autumn. You got the rest of the day off, thanks to this lady here.”

  Her heart sank. “No, please. Don’t fire me. I . . .”

  She bit her lip to hold back the rest of the statement. Ever since she’d found regular employment, a portion of her salary had gone into a fund for Pansie’s college. Losing time meant losing money for her daughter, and she just couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that.

  “You’re not fired,” Myrna grumbled, as her standard demeanor returned. “Though as quiet as you talk, I ought to fire you just for refusing to speak at a decent volume.”

  “I try to remember, Myrna, but—”

  “This lady here has offered to pay your salary for the rest of the day. It’s a slow day, and I’d rather not have you on the payroll, so off you go.”

  “But there’s all this to do.” She waved a shaky hand over the boxes marked for the surfing competition.

  “I was already going to be paying you overtime to work all day Saturday. This’ll help me recoup my expense if the surfers decide not to spend money at our booth.”

  Bonnie Sue upped her smile. “Well see there? Everything’s working out just fine. Now, Autumn, why don’t you get your purse, and let’s go have some girl talk.” She nodded toward the front of the store. “I’m just going to pay for my purchases, and then we can be off.”

  Myrna waited until Bonnie Sue disappeared behind the curtains, and then she turned to grin at Skye. “I don’t know who she is, but she’s welcome in my store any time. She just spent a fortune and paid me for your hours. That makes her my kind of people.”

  Skye tried and failed to match Myrna’s smile. “Yes,” she said, upping her volume so her boss could hear her. “I guess you could say she’s my people too.”

  Her kind? Maybe not. But her people? Thanks to the child they all shared, Bonnie Sue and her daughter Sessa were definitely Skye’s people.

  People she had successfully avoided for four years.

  “Autumn,” Myrna called as she returned to the cash register. “You’re not off the clock yet. Come help bag this stuff up and take it to the lady’s car.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she pressed the palms of her shaking hands against the front of her shorts. God listens. The man’s shirt—the answer to her whispered prayer—came to mind again.

  “If You’re listening,” she muttered as she left the stock room, “then what in the world am I supposed to do about her?”

  All she got in response was one word: Listen.

  Ten minutes later, Skye had wrapped Bonnie Sue’s fragile purchases and bagged everything else. The job of filling her trunk with the items took a few more minutes, but partly because Skye moved extra slow and took extra care not to be clumsy under the older woman’s watchful eyes.

  Finally, Bonnie Sue closed the trunk and invited her to climb inside. “I hope you like seafood. I know this great place where they serve the best . . .” She shook her head. “I already said that, didn’t I?”

  She had, but Autumn had learned not to point out that sort of thing from her time spent with the elderly foster care couple in Georgetown. Both of them had had the bad habit of repeating everything, although neither would own up to it. It was only after they drove off and left the house one day while Skye was at school and never returned that she suspected something was actually wrong.

  By the time the authorities found the missing car, the couple was two states away, and their ability to foster kids was taken away. So was Skye, to another foster home. And then another.

  “Honey, did you hear me?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, startled. “I didn’t.”

  Bonnie Sue must have been pretty as a young woman, because she was a striking older lady. Of all the reasons she could be called beautiful, her smile topped the list.

  “I know you must be worried that I’d come all the way down here just to force you to spend some time with me. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.”

  She held up her hand as if to silence any protests Skye might make. Not that she could have managed one.

  “Let’s get situated at the restaurant, and I’ll tell you all about it. See, I think I’ve got something you want, and I know you’ve got something I want.”

  Pansie, she almost said. But silence, her one true friend besides books, won out.

  A few minutes later, Bonnie Sue whipped the Cadillac into a parking space in front of one of those seafood dives that only the locals know about. She’d stopped in a few times since she’d come to live in the city, but most times her budget wouldn’t allow it.

  “I think you’ll love this place, Skye.”

  “Actually,” she managed as she found her voice, “I’ve had the shrimp nachos here a couple of times. They’re very good.”

  Bonnie Sue held the door open for her, and for a moment the scent of seafood frying mixed with the smell of Chanel No. 5. Skye smiled. Her favorite foster mom had worn Chanel No. 5. At the time it had seemed the height of sophistication. It still did.

  “Hey, Autumn,” someone called, and she looked to her left to see the bartender, her landlord’s daughter Sandy. An unfortunate name for a child born on the island, or BOI as they said here in Galveston, but one that was easily remembered.

  “I didn’t know you worked here,” Autumn called.

  Sandy shrugged. “A girl’s gotta make a living.” She turned her attention to Bonnie Sue, who was now striding toward a table next to the window. “Who’s she? Wasn’t she in here earlier?”

  Skye paused. There really was no good way to answer that question without saying more than she wanted. “Someone I used to know.”

  “Interesting,” Sandy said. “Go sit down and I’ll grab some menus.”

  Skye slid into the booth across from Bonnie Sue.

  “Who was that?” Bonnie Sue asked

  “Someone I know from my neighborhood.”

  “Well, she seems n
ice. Oh look, here she comes.”

  After Sandy had brought two glasses of iced tea and taken their orders, she left them alone. Or rather, she didn’t return to the table. However, Skye couldn’t help but notice that Sandy seemed to be studying Bonnie Sue.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” Bonnie Sue said. “If I had a choice in the matter, I would leave you to your privacy and let Pansie grow up with the little contact you seem to want.” She paused, her expression unreadable. “Maybe less, actually. See, we love that girl, and I want what’s best for her.”

  Skye nodded. That’s what she wanted, too, although she could have never said so with Bonnie Sue watching so intently.

  “Good, then we are agreed that what’s best for Pansie comes first.”

  “Yes.” Her throat was thick with emotion. She reached for her glass of tea and sipped it.

  “All right,” Bonnie Sue said sweetly. “First I have something for you.” She opened her pink leather satchel and pulled out a thick envelope. She slid it across the table. “Open it.”

  Skye pulled out the stack of papers, and her heart slammed against her chest when she saw the childish letters spelling out the word Pansie. A soft, “Oh,” escaped her lips as she traced the letters. Then she gave the rest of the drawing her attention.

  In the center of the page appeared to be three very tall stick figures, all in pink. Two had an interesting short hairstyle while the third wore an unmistakable ponytail. A very tiny version of the other three rounded out the artwork, which also included green scribbles beneath their oversized feet and several brown blobs in the background.

  “Those would be her Grandpa Dalton’s Arabian horses,” Bonnie Sue supplied. “Any guesses who the people are?”

  “I assume the tiny one is Pansie.” At Bonnie Sue’s nod, Skye returned to studying the picture.

  “I’ll save you the time of guessing. Those two are Sessa and me. Apparently she and I look a lot alike to a four-year-old.” She reached across the table to point at the figure wearing the ponytail. “And that is her mama. You’ll notice as you look through the stack there that she draws her mama a lot, and she’s always wearing a ponytail.”