Chapter Eleven
February 13th. 2009© 2005 Kimberly J. Fish
An Emerald Marks the Spot
Chapter Eleven
Kali moved a box of fresh-packed goat cheese into cold storage. Shivering as the temperatures froze her bare arms, she didn’t grumble. She’d been cold all morning. If it wasn’t for worrying about what her sister might mix into the cheese cultures, she’d have stayed under the bed covers and avoided Provence Farms entirely. Too many memories.
”Hey girl,” Lacy called out as she stepped over a sack of packaging logos. “I’m a little surprised to see you here today.”
Kali exaggerated a glance at her watch. “It is almost lunch. Most employees have been on the clock for several hours.”
“I’ve been networking at the local farmer’s market, so I’ve been earning my measly salary, thank you very much.” Lacy leaned against a stainless steel work table. “But I thought you might have taken the day off, you know, to recover from the wild adventure yesterday.”
“It wasn’t that wild.”
Lacy sighed. “Marguerite called this morning. She had an earful to say about your rude behavior to her sister and how you trashed the house looking for some meaningless trinket.”
“Marguerite and Olivia are drama queens. Nothing was trashed.”
“And did you find the ring?”
A thousand conflicting emotions twirled through Kali’s soul. Brad’s face seemed etched into each one. Kali would never have believed her heart could come back to life with so little prompting, but apparently dramatic instability was an across the board family characteristic. “The ring was in the keepsake box.”
Lacy covered her open mouth with her hand. “Oh my word. Did you cry after seeing it? I’d have bawled like a baby. I can’t wait to see two hundred thousand dollars worth of emeralds. Where is the ring?”
Kai turned away. Picking up empty boxes she stacked them into a corner.
“Kali, you didn’t. You gave him the ring?”
Unable to form dry words, Kali just nodded.
“And he took it? Brad’s gone back home?”
Kali wondered why, if she’d done the right thing, she felt so sick. “Lacy, we knew that’s what he was going to do. His mother is ill. She wanted to wear the family ring until she died. And then he’s going to sell it. End of story.”
“If you think that’s the end, then you don’t know anything about love.” Lacy followed Kali into the milking room. “There was something real between the two of you, something rare that had survived for ten stinking years. I can’t believe you’re going to throw that away because of a family ring.”
Kali turned despite her Converse sneakers sticking to the concrete floor. “I didn’t leave him the first time, Lacy and I didn’t leave him last night. He’s the one who drove off into the starlight. Not me. So go give your little speech to someone who cares.”
Lacy stopped Kali. “I am, you goose. Don’t you have a brain cell working? Go after him. Tell him the emeralds don’t matter since you gave the ring back. Tell him what you really want. Tell him you want to start over.”
”I can’t do that, Lacy. Do you know how pathetic I would look?” Kali wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed against the tight pressure building in her lungs. “If he wants me, he can come back to me.”
“Not withstanding his dying mother, of course.”
Kali felt tiny compared to breast cancer. “Yeah.”
Lacy stood next to Kali placing her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “If Brad walked in here right now and said he’d made a mistake, that he wanted another chance, would you give it to him. Would you say ‘yes’ a second time?”
Kali saw a lonely, cheese-filled future with ornery goats for company. “I don’t know. We had something wonderful once, but we were too young to appreciate it. Maybe now would be different. I just don’t know.”
“Okay, big sis, take it from me. Guys like Brad who work hard, take care of their mothers, sacrifice their personal happiness and drive nice trucks don’t come around a dime a dozen. You need to hurry into town and see if he’s left. If he hasn’t, it might not be too late to let him know once he gets his personal life organized you’d like a chance to know him again. This time as mature, albeit desperate, adults.”
“That’s probably not a good idea, Lacy. I mean, I think,”
“Don’t think,” Lacy said lifting the splattered apron from Kali’s shoulders. “You legal types have a tendency to over-analyze. Just go with your instincts. Try flying by the seat of your pants. Or ratty old shorts, in this case.”
“Lacy!”
Lacy put her hands on Kali’s back steering her toward the red door. “You have fifteen miles to get your nerves under control. And if he’s not there, then you haven’t lost anything but a lunch break. Now go, before you talk yourself out of happiness.”
“But how am I going to find him?”
“If he’s still looking like the man I saw walking into Loretta’s diner this morning, then all you have to do is follow the trail of regret.”
Kali was pushed into the driver’s seat of the farm van without an opportunity to protest. When she found herself bumping over the rutted drive leading to the distant highway, she wondered if she’d lost her mind last night, along with her heart. Rolling down the window, she let the warm breeze wash away the cobwebs clinging to her logic. What did she really know about Brad? What did they have in common? How in the world could they knit their disjointed lives together when they lived so far apart?
As she dodged Ralph the turtle crawling over the lane toward the pond, she decided the differences didn’t matter. She’d loved Brad once. For the sake of what had been, she’d willingly explore the future.
Pulling sunglasses out of her purse, Kali almost didn’t see the black truck parked at the highway entrance to Provence Farms. But she couldn’t miss the familiar looking man walking down the lane toward her.
To be continued. . .