Charlotte's Homecoming. Janice Kay Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ shook his head. “We can have it another time. I stopped on impulse.” Following another impulse, he grabbed a different jar of jam. “I prefer blueberry.”

      Charlotte Russell smiled at him, and he was jolted down to the soles of his feet. “My first chance to use the cash register.”

      This woman was a mass of contradictions. That smile, a little sassy but essentially sweet, didn’t go with the ice-cold anger she’d used to deal with Rory, the wife beater. If he hadn’t been intrigued before, she had him now.

      Almost at random, Gray asked, “Do you know how?”

      “I’m an expert. I worked at Tastee’s while I was in high school.”

      Like everyone in West Fork, he drove up to the outside window of Tastee’s for a burger and fries now and again, or went in for an ice-cream cone. Now amused, he said, “You wore that striped top and the stupid little white hat?”

      She rolled her eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I hated that hat. Still, it was a job. Faith,” she told him, “picked strawberries summers. I wouldn’t have been caught dead doing that.”

      He took out his wallet and paid for the jam, then nodded toward the bright outline of the door. “Walk me out?”

      “Why not.” She came around the counter, and he saw that below a filmy white, short-sleeved blouse, she wore an aqua-colored, airy, linen skirt that flowed over her hips and thighs and stopped midcalf. Below that, flip-flops bared red-painted toenails. Seeing his gaze, she waved vaguely at her clothes and said, “I flew up here this morning. Haven’t had time to change into jeans.”

      “From where?”

      “San Francisco.”

      “Are you younger, or older?”

      The blue eyes flared. “You can’t tell?”

      He stopped just outside and faced her. “Tell what?”

      “We’re twins.” She was trying to wipe all expression out of her voice but didn’t quite succeed. “Identical twins.”

      “Are you?” Assessing her again, Gray automatically put aside the pang he felt whenever he heard the word twin. “I knew right away that you weren’t Faith.”

      “Gee. Black hair? Earrings?” She tugged mockingly at one lobe.

      He shrugged. “Rory couldn’t.”

      “That’s because he’s too self-centered to look very hard at anyone but himself.”

      Gray suppressed a smile. “You’re thinner.”

      She glanced down at herself. “I guess so. Faith has some muscle tone—she works hard here. I’m just bony. Despite the chocolate-mint ice cream.”

      He let that pass. “What’s inside affects how we look. You and Faith aren’t that much alike, are you?”

      Charlotte stared at him, her eyes curiously vulnerable. He had the sense that he’d stunned her.

      “No. We could … pass for each other, when we were younger, but inside …” She sighed. “Faith has a gift for serenity that I don’t.”

      “You seem … stronger,” he chose to say, instead of telling her she had a fire her sister lacked.

      But she was shaking her head before he finished. “No. She was here for Mom and Dad, she withstood an awful marriage, she’s fighting to save the farm—and, so far, winning. Me, I had a job and a condo and no one else to worry about. In comparison to me, Faith is an Amazon.”

      He picked the most important three words out of this speech. “No one else?”

      She flushed, and he smiled. Good, he thought.

      Then he wondered at her choice of verb tense. Had implied that she no longer had a job, or perhaps the condo. Or both.

      “How long do you plan to be here?” he asked.

      “I don’t know. Depends how quick Dad recovers, how much of a nuisance Rory turns out to be.”

      Gray frowned. “Has Faith called the police or tried to get a protection order?”

      Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t think so. We’ll talk about it.” She eyed him. “Is this traffic thing something I should know about?”

      “Depends how involved you get with the farm. I’m just worrying about your customers pulling out right onto the highway, especially on this curve here. Somebody misjudges distance or speed, and we’ll have multiple fatalities.”

      “What do you suggest?” she shot back. “We sell the farm? You know a housing development will replace it. Then you’ll have that traffic to contend with.”

      “Developers,” he pointed out, “are required to mitigate traffic problems. Maybe pay for a left-turn lane, and to add one to give cars pulling out room to accelerate.”

      “We can’t afford anything like that.” She stared him down. “Why don’t you go to the state and ask for a lower speed limit, or a center lane?”

      “Because that would take years, expensive studies and bureaucratic obstacles beyond either of our imaginations. Meantime, people are going to die.”

      “You don’t want us running a retail business right off the highway.”

      “I’m not happy about it.” Or about alienating her before he’d even had a chance to ask her to dinner. “I’ve got a couple of ideas, though.”

      She gave her head a quick shake. “You’ll want to talk to Faith, then. With Dad so woozy, she’s the decision-maker. I’m here to be a minion.”

      His mouth quirked. “A minion?”

      “Yeah, you know. A helper. A floor-mopper, cashier. I suspect she’ll have me making jam and driving the tractor before I know it. A nurse, too, I suppose, when Dad comes home.” She made a face at that. “Although Faith would be much better at nursing than I would.”

      “Because of her gift for serenity.”

      “And my impatience with my fellow human beings.”

      “What do you do for a living?” he asked.

      “Design software.” She pressed her lips together, opened them as if to say something else, then decided not to.

      A solitary occupation. He wondered what kind of software she designed. Word processing? Financial? Something arcane that made computers run faster or repelled viruses? Games?

      Probably not games.

      He glanced over his shoulder and saw that a van was pulling in. A family would shortly be spilling out of it.

      “Nice to meet you, Charlotte Russell,” he said with a nod. “I’ll see you again soon.”

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