Honey's Grace Page 4

  “And yet you came here anyway?” he said, his head tipped quizzically to one side. “Even though you didn’t know what sort of reception you might get, you baked me a pie and you made your way here determined to say thank you. It looks like you’re rather brave yourself, Honey Goodman.”

  “Thank you,” she said and felt suddenly a little shy.

  With his dark hair, bright blue eyes, and his handsome, clean-shaven face, Honey was beginning to find Marshall a little breathtaking.

  “You’ve changed a little bit since the schoolroom, Honey, but I’d still know you anywhere. I think it must be that springy blonde hair of yours.”

  “And the instantly recognizable lack of height.” She smiled at him, glad that he was an easy conversationalist in a moment where she had felt a little out of her depth.

  “It’s true, you’re not tall.” He chuckled again. “But I guess you didn’t recognize me until one of the kicking cowboys did.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Honey said honestly, shaking her head and feeling the blonde and springy curls bouncing about her shoulders. “I thought there was something familiar about you when you first came into the barn, but you’re right, I didn’t truly recognize you. You have changed a lot, but I suppose young men do. One moment they’re boys—thin, annoying, pale faced. The next moment, they’re twice your height and broad shouldered; instant men, I suppose.”

  “But still annoying?” he said and narrowed his eyes.

  “Only time will tell,” Honey said, remembering that the two of them used to be sworn enemies—it wouldn’t do to capitulate too soon.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he said and laughed. “So, what do you do with yourself these days?”

  “I work throughout the week, Marshall, in my daddy’s warehouse.”

  “And business is good?” he asked in a tone which suggested that he hoped it was; she couldn’t believe him to be gathering information for his father.

  “Yes, we are always busy, which is what I like best about it.”

  “And you do like it? Working for your father, I mean?”

  “I love working there, Marshall. A lot of the time, I manage the warehouse alone. I began to learn the ropes when we were still in the schoolroom, so I know it inside out and back to front now. My daddy is pleased, it means he has somebody to hand the business down to one day.”

  “A comfort for him, I imagine.”

  “Yes. And what about you? What did you study at university?”

  “I studied the law,” he said, and his tone became suddenly dull and flat.

  “How wonderful!” Honey said enthusiastically; what a treat to go to university.

  “I liked being at university. I liked the freedom of it, I suppose,” he said and looked suddenly a little disappointed to be home. She wanted to ask him why but had the greatest sense in that moment that it was none of her business. “But I’m back now, ready to get on with life, all that sort of thing.” It seemed to Honey that his spark had gone.

  “So, you will be working in the law now, will you? As an attorney, I suppose?” Honey said cautiously.

  “Yes, I suppose I will,” he said, speaking through a sigh. “Ah, tea is here.” He said, visibly brightening as the maid who had so many dealings already with Honey appeared carrying a tray.

  “It all looks lovely,” Honey said, smiling up at the maid. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Goodman,” the maid said, looking pleased that Honey had somehow made her way in to see the man she had been so determined to see in the first place.

  “Yes, thank you, Nell,” Marshall said before turning to smile at Honey. “Well, shall we?” he asked, reaching for the teapot.

  Chapter 7

  Marshall had been smiling ever since Honey Goodman had finally left the Thornhill house in the late afternoon. He knew he’d spent a lonely week indoors, but he knew also that simple loneliness didn’t account for his pleasure in seeing her again.

  Honey looked just as he remembered her, although clearly a woman now. But her pretty face was all that was the same as before, for there was now not a shred of animosity between them. Had it been the dreadful incident after the barn dance which had dissolved their childish quarrels, or had they already been dissolved by the passage of time? He couldn’t be sure, but Marshall thought he would have returned home from university and liked Honey Goodman regardless. And for her part, there seemed to be no sign of the determined dislike of him that had always existed.

  Marshall hobbled down to the kitchen. He’d been thinking about Honey and wanted to continue to do so as he ate a piece of the pie that she had made for him. While he didn’t have a sweet tooth, Marshall knew there would be some secret pleasure in eating something she had made especially for him. Perhaps, it would be made more pleasurable still by the realization that nobody had ever done something like that for him before.

  Sure, he had a houseful of servants at his beck and call if he chose, and the cook his father had employed for many years was second-to-none. But this was personal, and he didn’t care if the apples were sour and the pastry dry, it would still be a pleasure to eat.

  So, to discover that the servants had been ordered to dispose of the pie was a great disappointment. Not only that, it made him angry—and so he went in search of his mother to find out why she had ordered such a thing.

  Tessa Thornhill, beautiful in a rather obvious and overdone way, was laying languidly on a chaise-lounge in her room reading a novel.

  “Oh, Marshall, what do you want? I’m busy,” she said, displaying the same level of disinterest she had employed for as long as he could remember.

  Where his father did nothing but interfere in his life, his mother did nothing at all. His life was a mystery to her, and one she didn’t care to investigate. Marshall wondered, as he looked at her, just when her neglect had ceased to bother him, for it surely had.

  “Why did you tell Nell to throw away the apple pie that Honey Goodman made for me?”

  “It was for the best,” she said, raising up on one elbow and sighing as the novel flopped shut. “You have to be careful accepting food from that house is all.”

  “What?” Marshall snorted incredulously. “Surely, you don’t think Honey Goodman came up here today with a poisoned pie! Mother, that is ridiculous.”

  “I didn’t think it was poisoned, you silly boy. I just know that they don’t have staff.”

  “So what? Nobody in these parts have staff but us. What difference does it make to the pie?”

  “I am thinking of the conditions it was made under.” She grimaced dramatically, making Marshall angrier still.

  “What? But I have been in Mr. and Mrs. Goodman’s home and it was lovely. Mother, you really are insulting.”

  “Lovely? When you have been raised here?” She looked non-plussed.

  Tessa Thornhill had been born a spoiled brat and remained that way her whole life. Her father had been a wealthy man with the most tenuous link to the Governor— one he had boasted about to anyone who would listen. And then along came Kirby Thornhill, fresh from the ego-shattering experience of being rejected by Trinity Pruitt, who went on to marry Dillon Goodman. What better way for an arrogant young man to restore his confidence than to marry a beautiful, well-bred, spoiled young woman. However, while Kirby Thornhill’s confidence had been restored, he quickly realized that he had married in haste. Tessa had proved to be capricious, spoiled, and childish throughout her adult life. Motherhood had been a terrible inconvenience and marriage simply a bore.

  She was content enough, however, in spending her husband’s wealth and parading about the town wearing the very best garments that money could buy. Superiority was Tessa Thornhill’s very reason for existence so, in her own way, she was rather happy.

  “Lovely, yes,” he said and fell suddenly spiteful towards her. “Not to mention warm and welcoming, which is obviously something that I’m not entirely used to.”

  “Oh, Marshall, I do wish you wouldn’t feel sorry for
yourself.”

  “Indeed,” he said and shook his head bitterly. “What was I thinking? Imagine expecting a little warmth from one’s own mother.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about the pie, I thought I was doing the right thing. And if nothing else, at least it stops your father creating a fuss and upsetting everybody, doesn’t it?”

  “Since when did you care what your husband thought about anything, Mother?”

  “I care about the consequences, Marshall— all the shouting, the storming about. My nerves are jangled so easily, and I just cannot bear such things.” She flopped back down onto the chaise-lounge and lazily began to flick through the book again until she found her place.

  It was all beginning to make sense now; the removal of the pie had nothing to do with him nor even the Goodmans’ kitchen, but rather the smooth running of Tessa Thornhill’s life. In the end, that was all that mattered to her and he knew it. She didn’t want a fuss; she didn’t want a storm created over a pie when she could simply throw it away and forget all about it.

  Marshall knew that there was little point in telling his mother that the pie had meant something to him. She would simply have laughed at the idea of fruit pie having some value in the world. But now he had lived elsewhere, spent time with other people, he knew that this was not normal; other people’s mothers did not behave like this.

  Any other mother would have been trying to pry information out of him, to find out whether he liked this girl who had baked him a pie so carefully. Any other mother would want to poke around, would want to share in his life in some way. But that was not Tessa Thornhill’s style and Marshall was not going to waste any time mourning the loss of a mother he’d never truly had.

  Without another word, he walked out of her room and closed the door behind him. He doubted that she had even seen him leave, knowing that she would already be engrossed in whatever tawdry little novel was her current favorite.

  The truth was that his father’s over involvement in his world was no more welcome than his mother’s dismissive nature. In fact, Kirby Thornhill’s strident demands were undoubtedly going to have a much more negative bearing on Marshall’s life than anything his mother would do, or not do, as the case may be.

  Everything in Marshall’s life had been chosen for him by his father, even the university he attended and the course of study he undertook. Nonetheless, Marshall would always be grateful for those few years away, for it had taught him much more than simply the laws of the land.

  It taught him how to be his own man and how to pursue his own wants in the world. The friends he had made there, while fleeting, had been inspiring. Every one of them seemed to have their own plans, their own designs for how their lives should be. Marshall had, of course, done a good job of hiding the fact that he was simply a puppet dangling from the strings that his father had always held so tightly to, and perhaps even some of his inspiring friends, as free as they had seemed, were just doing the same.

  However, it had opened his mind, not to mention his heart, to the extent that Marshall knew that a life spent in the law was the very last thing he wanted. He knew what his father wanted; Kirby Thornhill, failing in his own attempts to worm his way into local government, wanted to do everything in his power to see that his son made his way there. He wanted somebody to finally represent the Thornhill family, as if he needed official recognition of their status.

  Marshall despised their status, as much as many of the people in town did. It embarrassed him, if he was honest, and he had long since wished that his father was a much simpler man, one who did not need all the trappings of a wealthy life and the grudging adoration of those around him. Perhaps if his father had been a farmer, or a merchant like Dillon Goodman, Marshall’s life might have been simpler; certainly, it would have been a warmer existence with friends and places to go.

  But the son of the local bigwig was not a welcome addition to any group of children, and their status was not so great that the family were regular visitors anywhere of greater note. He had never understood his father’s clamor for local government when it seemed that the men of politics had very little time for him.

  Kirby Thornhill was wealthy, but not as wealthy as them. Kirby Thornhill was educated but had never been driven as they were to make their way in political circles. He had simply assumed that he would be accepted with open arms and it was a pomposity that had never truly left him.

  The very thought of living such a life to suit his father made Marshall feel lower than he had ever done in his life. He made his way to his own room and flopped down on the bed, trying to conjure up a picture of the tiny, beautiful Honey Goodman to cheer him. However, he was now already suffering the blues and there seemed to be nothing, not even a pretty girl, that could get him out of it.

  Honey had been so brave to march up to that house to thank him, especially when she had likely known that she would be treated ungraciously by his father and disdainfully by his mother. Thank heaven she hadn’t encountered Tessa during her visit.

  But more than that, Honey Goodman hadn’t been at all sure that Marshall would be pleased to see her. Not only had the events of the previous week been painful and shocking, but they hardly had a history of friendship between them to rely on. It hadn’t stopped her though; she’d done the right thing. And if a tiny little woman like Honey Goodman could be brave, could stand up to his father on his own doorstep, then surely, he could do the same.

  With grim determination, Marshall decided there and then that he would never, ever practice law in Oregon. It wasn’t what he wanted to do; it had never been what he wanted to do. No, Marshall knew what he wanted in this life and he was going to follow his dream no matter what. His father could crow and create, bellow and shout all he wanted. It wasn’t going to make a difference this time. Marshall was his own man and Marshall was going to decide exactly what happened next.

  Chapter 8

  Some days later, Honey was working in the warehouse, contentedly stacking some of their new stock on the shelves by the counter. It was a range of new cooking pans made from copper and she was hoping they would fly right out of there. She’d heard that they were popular elsewhere and had persuaded her daddy to buy more of them than he wanted to. Honey had been certain they would turn a good profit and quickly too; now, as she set them artistically out on display, she realized she felt a little less sure of herself.

  It was always the way when Honey made changes in the warehouse. She knew, however, that her confidence would come rolling back the very moment she sold her first copper pan. It always did.

  “They look nice,” came a startling voice from behind her. “Although, I’m not much of a cook.”

  She turned to see Marshall Thornhill standing there smiling at her. She returned his smile and it seemed to propel him further into the store. Slowly, however, as his twisted knee still looked very painful.

  “New stock,” she said with a flourish. “I persuaded my daddy to buy a great big crate of them, so now I’m just hoping they’ll sell.”

  “I reckon they will,” he said and leaned heavily against the counter, taking the weight off his bad knee. “Not that I know much about pans, you understand, it’s just that you seem to be a woman who knows her business.”

  “Thank you,” she said and was made a little flustered by the sudden and unexpected praise. “How’s the knee?”

  “Getting better, I think. Jimmy drove me down in the old wagon.” He looked over his shoulder to where the stable lad sat waiting for him outside. “I hope you don’t mind me appearing like this. It’s a nice day and I wanted to get out of the house.”

  “Of course, I don’t mind,” Honey said truthfully. “I’m glad you’re here—it’s nice to see you.” Realizing that she had been a little too honest, Honey felt flustered again. “Would you like to sit down for a minute? There’s a chair behind the counter and it’ll take the weight off that knee for a minute.”

  “No, I’m strangely comfortable here leaning like this.” H
e chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “So, how’d you like that pie I baked for you?” she asked, flailing about for something to say. “Not too dry, I hope? I don’t mind if you think it was. I don’t bake so often.”

  “And I sure do appreciate you going to that trouble,” he said and looked a little chagrined. Was her pie really so bad? “And I don’t want to go lying to you, so I won’t. I’m afraid my mother tossed the pie out. I never even got to taste it, Honey.” He looked down for a moment. “I’m real sorry about that. I went looking for it and it wasn’t there.”

  “Don’t you go worrying about that,” Honey said brightly.

  The truth was that she felt a little hurt by his mother’s actions. She didn’t know Tessa Thornhill personally, but she’d heard enough tales about the woman to be sure she was the disdainful type. It shouldn’t have surprised her to know she’d tossed the pie out as if it were rotten trash, and yet it had. It had made Honey feel a little less than acceptable, and she sure didn’t like such feelings.

  “My mother isn’t an easy person to get along with, not even for me. I really am sorry she did that. If I’d known she was going to, I would never have let her. I really was looking forward to it.” He paused for a moment as if wondering if he ought to go on. “I guess I liked the idea that it was you who had baked it for me especially.” He seemed suddenly wrong-footed, as if he expected the worst to come from such an admission.

  Honey, on the other hand, felt suddenly on top of the world. His tentative words had wiped away the disdain of his mother in a heartbeat. He had liked that she had baked him a pie and that, in that very moment, was all that mattered to Honey.

  What was wrong with her? After years of never quite finding the right man, was she really going to start falling for the son of her father’s worst enemy? Trust Honey to make her own life complicated.

  But complicated or not, Honey didn’t care. She liked him, this man she had known most of her life without knowing him at all. This new friendship between old enemies not only felt good, it felt exciting too.