Wild in the Field

She couldn’t remember the last time she brushed her hair or changed clothes.

Eventually this had to stop. She realized that in an intellectual way, but emotionally, there only seemed one thing inside of her. All she wanted was to sit all day and seep with the rage, steep with it, sleep with it. Fester it. Ache with it. My God. It had been bad enough to lose Robert. Bad enough to wake up in a hospital bed with a face so battered she couldn’t recognize herself, bruises and breaks that made her cry to touch, lips too swollen to talk…and that was before she’d been told Robert was dead.

Initially, the grief had ripped through her like a cyclone that wouldn’t quit. It just wrenched and tore and never let up. But then came the trial. She’d been so positive that the trial would at least bring her the relief and satisfaction of justice. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the dark street, heard her laughing with Robert, complaining about walking in high heels from the party on the balmy fall night, and then there they were. The bastards, the drug-high bastards. There was no reason for them to start punching her, playing her, scaring her. They’d have given them all their money in a blink. But it wasn’t money they wanted. Robert—he’d tried to protect her, tried to get in front of her. That’s why they were meaner to him. Why he ended up dead.

All three of them had looked clean-cut and young in court—because they were. They had cried their eyes out, which had impressed the judge, too. They’d come from good families, had no records, weren’t even drug users—they just made one mistake, thought they’d experiment one time, and foolishly bought some mixed cocktail that caused psychotic behavior. It was a tragic accident, their attorney claimed. The boys weren’t hardened criminals, nothing like that. And the judge had given them the most lenient sentences possible.

That’s when the rage was born. Camille remembered the day in court, feeling the slow, huge, hot well of disbelief. A few years in jail and they’d be out. Easy for them. They hadn’t lost their soul mate. They hadn’t lost anything but a few years, where she’d lost everything. Her life had been completely, irreversibly, hopelessly destroyed.

She stared blankly at the cracks in the stucco ceiling, hearing the drizzle of rain. Inside of her there was nothing but a hollow howl. It wasn’t getting any better. She couldn’t seem to think past the red-sick haze of rage. She’d tried curling up for days. She’d tried not eating. She’d tried hurling things and breaking things. She’d tried silence. She’d tried—and was still trying—drinking.

No matter what she tried, though, she couldn’t seem to make it pass. She couldn’t go under, around, through it. The rage was just there.

At some point, she got up and finished the shot of Kahlúa.

And at some point after that, she jerked out of the rocker and chased fast for the bathroom. The Kahlúa was as worthless as all the other darn liquors. It refused to stay down.

By the time she finished hurling, she was extra mean. She stood in the bathroom doorway, sweat beading on her brow, weakness aching in every muscle in her damn body. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to lift a dust ball. Her throat felt as it had been knifed open and her stomach as if she’d swallowed hot steel wool.

With her luck, she was going to end up the first wanna-be alcoholic in history with an allergy to alcohol. Either that, or Kahlúa had joined the long list of liquors her body seemed to reject.

Thinking that possibly she could nap—and maybe even sleep this time—she turned toward the bedroom…just as she heard another knock on the door.

“Aw, come on, Violet. I’ll come up to the house for dinner. But right now, just leave me alone.”

“It’s not Violet. It’s me. Your neighbor. Pete MacDougal.”

A charge volted through her pulse as if she’d touched a volatile electric cord. Pete didn’t have to identify himself for her to recognize his voice. There was a time that voice would have comforted her. Pete’s clipped tenor was part of her childhood, as familiar as the rail fence and the tree house in the big maple and the toboggan hill between the MacDougals and Campbells.

She’d never played with Pete because he was older, Violet’s age. But she’d toddled after him for years with puppy eyes. When he was around, he’d lift her over the fence so she wouldn’t have to walk around, and he’d pulled her sled back up the hill, and he’d let her invade the sacred tree house when all the other kids said she was still a baby.

Pete was not just her childhood hero; he’d been an extra zesty spice to her blood because the four year age difference made him forbidden. Further, he was ultracool, with his biker shoulders and thick dark hair and smoky eyes. He was the oldest of three brothers, where she was the youngest of three sisters, which she’d always felt gave them a key connection. What that connection was, she’d never pinned down exactly. She’d just wanted to have something in common with Pete MacDougal. Coming from three-children families and living in Vermont had seemed enough to be critical bonding factors when she was a kid.

Those memories were all sweet and a little embarrassing and definitely fun—but not now. Right now, she didn’t want to see anyone she’d once cared about, and Pete’s voice, specifically, hurt like a sting. He had one of those full-of-life, uniquely male voices—full of sex and testosterone and energy and virility.

It wasn’t Robert’s voice. In fact, it was nothing at all like Robert’s sweet voice. But that bolt of vibrant masculine tenor reminded her of everything she’d lost. And because she felt stung, she stung back.

“Go the hell away.”

He knocked again, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Could you just open the door for a minute?”

“NO.”

He knocked again.

What did it take? A sledgehammer? “Damn it, Pete. I don’t want visitors. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t want help. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone. GO AWAY.”

When he knocked the fourth time, she yanked open the door from sheer exasperation. If the only way to get rid of him was to punch him in the nose, then she was about to slug him good—and never mind that he was almost a foot taller than her.

Instantly she noticed that foot-taller. Noticed his black-and-white wool shirt, his oak height, the hint of wet mahogany in his damp hair, that his good-looking sharp-boned face still had smoky, sexy eyes. She also noticed that he wedged a size-thirteen boot in the door before she could slam it on him again.

In that same blast of a second, he looked her over, too—but he didn’t make out as if he noticed that she was in days-old clothes, her hair unkempt, her face paler than a mime’s. He didn’t make out as if he noticed anything personal about her at all. He just said, “I have to tell you something about your sister.”

“So tell me and get out.”

“Hey, I’m trying.” He didn’t force his way in, just kept that big boot wedged in the doorway. He leaned his shoulder in the jamb, which insured he had a view of the inside. But if he saw the piles of boxes and packing debris in the dreary light, he made no comment. “It’s Violet. I don’t know what on earth’s wrong with your sister. But something sure is.”

“I’ve seen her very day. She’s perfectly fine.”

“Ditsy as always,” Pete concurred. “But after she came home after the divorce, she started playing in the greenhouse. By last spring, she’d added another greenhouse and opened her herb business. Then last spring, she laid off Filbert Green—you know, the man your dad hired after he retired, to take care of the land—”

“What’s any of this to you, Pete?” Rain hissed in the yard, splashed off the eaves. The chill was starting to seep in the cottage, but he didn’t seem to care. He seemed intent on just blocking her doorway for an indefinite period of time.

“It’s nothing to me. But it is to you. Have you looked around the farm since you got home?”

“No. Why would I? I’ve got nothing to do with the farm. Violet can do whatever she wants to.” The darn man never moved his eyes, never showed the slightest reaction, but she kept having the sense he was taking in everything about her.

“Camille—you remember how your mother always grew a patch of lavender? You Campbell women always loved the stuff—”

“For heaven’s sake, Pete. Get to the point.”

“Your sister’s been breeding all kinds of lavender.”

“So what?”

He sighed, rubbed his chin. “You want me to get to the point, but it isn’t that easy. She’s gone hog-wild in the greenhouses. Take a look out your window, walk around, you’ll see. She has to have better than twenty acres of lavender planted.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Camille announced.

He didn’t argue with her. He just said, “I think the Herb Haven store is doing okay for her. Pulls in more kooks and New Agers than I can believe. But even if she didn’t have her hands full with the retail and the greenhouses, Violet doesn’t know about land, never did, never cared. And that’s fine, but it’s one thing to let a field go wild, and another to let twenty acres of lavender get out of control—and I’m talking completely out of control. She’s in trouble, Camille.”

“My sister is not in trouble with anything,” Camille told him firmly.

“Okay. I didn’t come to argue. In fact, I told you everything I came to say.” He not only stepped back, but closed the door for her, firmly and quietly. She heard the thud of his boot step on the porch, then nothing as he strode toward his white pickup.

She watched him from the grimy window—even though she didn’t mean to look. Neither Pete MacDougal nor his opinions were any of her business. God knew what that visit was all about, but it didn’t matter.

Violet wasn’t in trouble. Cam had seen her every damn day. Vi was dressing like a model for a gypsy catalog with all the sweeping scarves and flowing blond hair and all—but Violet had always been a girly-girl. She never had a tomboy bone in her body, probably came out of the womb asking Mom for a credit card and directions to the mall. The point being, she might be going a little overboard with the froufrou thing, but Violet was still Violet.

Camille stood in the doorway a moment longer, and then with a sinking feeling of defeat and exhaustion, padded toward the bedroom.

When it came down to it, even if Violet were in trouble—which she wasn’t—Camille likely couldn’t muster enough energy to help her anyway. Right now she couldn’t even help herself. For a brief moment, Pete had sparked something vibrant and unexpected…but that was just a fluke.

There was just nothing in her anymore. Nothing.

It was still raining four days later. The theory about April showers bringing May flowers was all well and good, but these April rains were bleakly chill and relentless—which was why Camille spent two hours hiking outside. The weather suited her mood perfectly.

She didn’t care what Pete MacDougal had told her—in any way. She hadn’t given him another thought—in any way.

The fresh rain stung her cheeks, but still she tromped the fields until her legs ached and she was cold and damp from the inside out. By the time she clomped into her sister’s kitchen, it was just after six. In the back hall, she shed field boots, her father’s thrown-out barn jacket and an old cap. They had given her little protection against the weather. Her dark hair was straggling-wet at the edges, her jeans hemmed with ice-cold mud, and she couldn’t stop shivering.

Naturally, her sister caught her before she had time to run some hot water on her hands.

“Sheesh, Camille. You’re going to catch your death. Come in and get yourself warm, you goose.” Violet had always been a bully. She hustled her into the kitchen, where warm yellow light pooled on the old glass cabinets and potbellied stove and round oak table. Pots simmered on the stove. Counters were crowded with dishes. Smells choked the air.

Dinner was going to be another petrifying meal, Camille sensed.

It was. She pried open lids and covers. The main course appeared to be cod stuffed with spinach. The salad looked to be a bunch of pungent herbs that smelled as if they could not only get a body’s system moving—but moving permanently. The drink was some herbal concoction in a pitcher. Violet hadn’t served normal food since Camille could remember.

“We’re going to start with some Fish Soup Normandy tonight. We’ve got to build you up, Cam. You’re not just skinnier than a rail, those jeans are about to fall off. For Pete’s sake, I’m not sure you could find your butt with a magnifying glass. I’m not sure you even have one anymore.”

Camille cut to more important issues. “What’s in the Normandy soup?”

“Oh, this and that. Celery, onions, carrot, lemon. Herbs and seasonings. And fish heads, of course—”

Camille muttered a swearword. The bad one. Violet just smiled as she scurried around the kitchen. Tonight she was wearing a paisley blouse of some flowing material, her pale blond hair braided with a scarf. “I’ve been working up a storm in the greenhouses. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s going to be warm in just a couple more weeks….” She glanced up and said carefully, “I saw you out walking.”

Camille scooped up silverware and plates to set the table.

“That’s the first I’ve seen you come out of the cottage—except for coming up here for meals, obviously. You were starting to scare me, Cam.”

“Nothing to be scared about.” She took a breath. “And I’m not going to mooch off you forever. I know I’m not bringing in any money. I don’t want to be a burden. I just—”

“You’re no burden and you’re not mooching, you dimwit. The farm’s yours no different than it’s mine and Daisy’s. You can live here forever, if you want. In fact, there’s tons of space here at the house, you know that—”

“No.” There was no way she could stay here. Her Campbell ancestors had sailed here from Scotland, homesteaded here, put down the first layer of brick and stone. Although generations had added on, it remained a sturdy, serious house with white trim and a shake roof. Inside, the plank floors were polished to a shine. There was still a cane rocker and rag rug by the kitchen potbellied stove. Violet had added the chintz upholstery, the frilly curtains, the Live Well-Love Much-Laugh Often type of homey slogans. Cats nested on most surfaces. The kitchen that had been blue and white, was now red and white, with pots of herbs clustered in the sink window.

And just like when they were growing up, Violet was still incessantly chattering. “Mom and Dad called…”

Camille immediately tensed.

“But I told them you were doing fine.”

There. She relaxed again.

“But then Daisy called. I told her the same thing, that you were doing fine. But you know Daisy. She started talking in that new French accent of hers, bristled up, and said if you don’t call her within the next few days, she’s flying home. I think she actually might, Cam. She needs to hear from you herself.”

“Well, she’s not going to.” Violet might boss her around at times, but she was pretty much a live-and-let-live kind of sister. Daisy was a nightmare. “Just keep telling her I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

Camille stuck a fork in the cod, pushed it around her plate. “Behind the barn, all those acres on the east slope, where everything used to freeze out for Dad…what are you doing there, Vi? With all that lavender?”

Violet brightened. “Camille! You asked me a question! You realize, this is the first conversation you’ve actually offered since you got home. I knew you were starting to get better. Pete said—”

“Pete? You mean Pete MacDougal? Why is he in this conversation?”

“Nothing! No reason! None at all!”

Camille made an impatient motion. Something was wrong with her. Every time she’d turned around for the past four days, there was Pete, invading her thoughts, her mind, her sleep. Naturally, she’d been denying it, but lying to herself was getting tougher. And why bother? When a woman was nuts, one more screw loose hardly made any difference. “So forget Pete. I wasn’t trying to ask you about Pete—I was only trying to ask why you planted so much lavender. What are you planning to do with it all.”

“Oh. Well. You know mom always grew that little patch. The original lavender strain came from France—”

“I know Mom’s history, for Pete’s sake. But she grew a few plants in a flower garden. Your stash of lavender is about to take over the state of Vermont.”

Her sister chuckled. “It wasn’t supposed to get that big. It was just…I always loved it. The scent of lavender. The color, the texture, the look of it, everything. And right after the divorce, well, Simpson wanted the house to live with the bimbo. And I wanted nothing to do with him, so—”

“Vi. I know. And my offer to strangle Simpson still stands. The point is, you wanted to start completely fresh, so you moved and came home….”

“Yeah. But when I moved here, there was really nothing specific for me to do, you know? The house was as empty as a museum, with Mom and Dad doing the retirement thing in Florida now. And for a while, the quiet was nice. I didn’t have to actually find work right away, since I got a decent settlement out of the divorce, but I still had to find something to do with my time. So I just started messing with seeds and roots and strains of things.”

Violet could take five hours to tell a five minute story, so Camille interrupted again. “I know. You started your Herb Haven.” The store was a claustrophobic’s nightmare, gobsmacked from rafters to cellar with herbs hanging upside down and herbs hanging right side up, baskets and candles and cooking herbs and medicine herbs—chokes of stuff all over the place. She didn’t want to hear about it. “But you’re growing acres more lavender than you could ever sell in the store, Vi.”

“I guess.” Violet smiled brightly. Then spooned a mound of an unidentifiable gourmet concoction on Camille’s plate. “It just sort of…exploded. I started with Mom’s original French lavender, mixed it with some strains Daisy sent me, then added some of my own. It was kind of like creating a kaleidoscope. A flower kaleidoscope. The strengths of one kind with the color of another with the texture of another. It was so much fun! Only I guess it’s gotten a little out of hand.”

“A little? Are you calling twenty acres ‘a little’?”

“I never thought it would grow,” Violet said defensively. “I mean, yes, I planted it. But I put it on that rocky east slope, not really thinking it had a chance of growing, but just to have something to do with it. I mean, that spot of land wasn’t going to be used for anything because it was generally so hopeless. And the thing was, I had all these experiments in the greenhouse and they’d exploded on me. I had to have a place to put them. But I forgot….”

When her sister stopped to chew, Camille said impatiently, “You forgot what?”

“I forgot about the nature of lavender. It looks fragile and frail—but it’s actually a very tough plant. In fact, it won’t thrive at all if you pamper it. It has to have sun, of course, but otherwise it’s happiest if you just leave it completely alone. So that dry, rocky spot actually ended up perfect for it—”

“Violet. The point is—it’s everywhere.”

“Oh, well. I guess. How do you like the potato salad?”

“Pardon?”

Violet motioned. “The potato salad—it’s got dried lavender buds in it. I found the recipe from a really old French cookbook.”

“The salad’s fine.” Camille’s attention was diverted. “I don’t want you cooking for me. Taking care of me like this.” She added more clearly, “I hate it.”

“I cook anyway. I like cooking. It’s no trouble.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, I’m not your problem. I’m no one’s problem.” She yanked her hair back, said lowly, fiercely, “I can’t work yet, Violet. I will. It’s driving me crazy, living off you, not pulling my share, but—”

“Oh shut up. How many times do I have to say it? The land belongs to all of us. You know how Mom and Dad set it up. Dad’s still positive that one of us will want to farm if he just waits long enough.” Violet added, “And Dad’s always asking how you are. If you’re talking about Robert yet—”

“Don’t.” Camille heard the sharp slap in her tone, but couldn’t help it. She wasn’t talking about Robert.

“Okay, okay, take it easy.” Violet fluttered to her feet, pivoted around with another dish from the counter. God knew, it was probably more fish. “You need some money?”

“No.”

“Spending money. Everyone needs spending money—”

“I don’t need or want anything!” She jerked to her feet at the sound of a truck engine. Someone was coming, pulling into the driveway. She all but ran to the hall for the ragged barn jacket and cap.

“Camille, come on, you don’t have to run away—”

“I’m not running away. I just…” She was just having trouble breathing. Gusts of air felt trapped in her lungs, yet her heart was galloping at racetrack speeds. She didn’t want to be mean to Violet. She didn’t want to be mean to anyone. She just wanted to be left alone—where all that rotten moodiness wouldn’t hurt anybody. Where she didn’t have to work so hard to be nice, to be normal. She shoved her feet into the damp field boots and yanked at the back door—only to realize that someone was pulling the same door from the other side.

She almost barreled straight into an oak-straight, oak-hard chest. “Whoa, Cam. Easy.”

Even without jerking her head up, she recognized Pete MacDougal’s gentling tenor, somehow recognized the grip of his big hands steadying her shoulders.

For the briefest millisecond she just wanted to fold into his arms—big, warm, strong arms. She didn’t want to fight. She just wanted to be lifted, carried, swallowed up somewhere the anger couldn’t get her. But that millisecond was fleeting, of course. It was a crazy impulse, anyway.

Even a moment with Pete hit her the way it had the first time, days ago. He was a slam of strong, vital male. A reminder of what she’d lost, what she’d never have again.

She said nothing, just felt the panic squeeze tighter around her heart, and bolted past him and out the door.

He called something.

She ignored him. She ignored everything, just hurtled cross-field toward the cottage. Away from Violet. Away from Pete. Away from life.

The way she wanted it.

Three

Pete ambled out of his home office, rolling his shoulders to stretch the kinks out, and glanced at the kitchen clock. He thought it was around two. Instead, hell, it was almost three.

The boys were due home from school, and this last week in April, the kids had picked up spring fever with a vengeance. Pete knew exactly how the afternoon was going to go. The instant Sean walked in, he was going to start up with his wheedling-whine campaign to get a horse. There wasn’t an animal born that boy didn’t want to raise—preferably in the house. Simon was going to start in with the earsplitting music, which would get the eldest MacDougal complaining, and Ian was already having a poor-me kind of day. Laundry hadn’t been done in a week, and when boys were of an age to have wet dreams, Pete had discovered that you’d best not wait too long to change the sheets and linens. And no one had bothered with the dishes since last night, either.

The more Pete analyzed the situation, the more he realized the obvious. If he didn’t run away now, the opportunity threatened to disappear. Swiftly he yanked a jacket off the hook and escaped.

Aw, man. When his lungs hauled in that first breath of fresh air, it felt like diamonds for his soul. For days it had been rainy and blustery cold, but now, finally there was some payoff. A balmy, spring breeze brushed his skin; the sun felt soft and liquid-warm. Green was bursting everywhere. Violets and trillium were coming up in the woods, daffodils budding by the fences.

He didn’t realize he was hiking toward the west fence—and the border between the MacDougals and the Campbells—until he saw her. Actually, he couldn’t make out exactly who was standing by that godawful lavender mess on the Campbells’ east twenty acres. But someone was. A waif.