Should she reveal her suspicions to him? What proof did she have yet other than the writings of a lonely, brokenhearted man? Besides, this thing with Zach was too new. The way they had parted this morning showed just how fragile things were. Introducing something of this magnitude was sure to create problems.
By the time she’d parked and was headed up the walkway, Savannah knew she would wait until she had more fodder for her suspicions. She shushed the voice inside her head that told her she didn’t completely trust him.
Zach watched Savannah approach and tried to gauge her mood. The way he’d walked out on her this morning hadn’t exactly been his finest hour. Getting her car serviced and detailed had been in part an apology for stomping out the door like a six-year-old brat. He’d also done it simply because it was in his nature to take care of her. He had missed ten years of that, and if she’d let him, he wanted to make up for it.
The next few minutes might well tell him how his plans were going to go.
She looked good. Maybe a little tired but still so damn beautiful his teeth hurt. He’d done a lot of thinking over the last few hours and hoped like hell that the direction he planned to take would work. Glancing around at his handiwork, he suddenly wondered just how it could. This had to be the lamest way to win a woman’s affection since cavemen stopped clubbing their women over the heads and started wooing them instead.
“Hi,” Zach said.
Her smile was bright, if a little wary, and Zach took that as a good sign.
“Hi yourself.” She gestured at the sack at his feet. “Whatcha got there?”
“A little bribe.”
She sat down in the rocker next to him and peeked into the bag. Laughing, she shook her head. “You’re the only man I know who would try to bribe a woman with purple hull peas.”
Something tightened in his chest as he heard the familiar beautiful sound. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sound of her laughter until she’d come back home. “I remembered how you used to like them. I helped Mrs. Lyman out today … she gave me some fresh vegetables from her garden.”
Astonishment widened her eyes. “Sour Lyman?”
Zach snorted. “I’d forgotten that was her nickname in school. Were you in her science class?”
“Thankfully no. She retired the year before I could take her class. I remember seeing her in school. She always seemed angry about something.”
He couldn’t deny that. Delores Lyman had been one of the most reviled teachers in school, seeming to go out of her way to make her students hate her. Zach had taken her class, and despite his working his ass off studying, she’d still almost flunked him. He had thought then and still believed that a lot of her attitude had to do with loneliness. She had no family and few friends. Since he’d come home, he’d made a point of dropping in on her at least once a week to make sure she was okay. And though the elderly woman acted as if it was a huge imposition for him to visit, she always had lemonade and cookies for him. On his lunch break today, he had fixed her leaky faucet. In return, she had offered him fresh peas, okra, squash, and tomatoes.
“The wine’s a nice touch.” She took the glass of wine he offered her and sipped appreciatively. “Red wine, soft music in the background, and purple hull peas. Chief Tanner, you sure do know the way to a girl’s heart.”
He hoped to hell that was true. “You don’t have to cook them if you don’t want to. I just thought it’d be nice to sit out here in the early evening breeze, sip wine, and shell peas.”
“I haven’t shelled peas since I left home.”
She pulled a handful of pea pods from the sack and took the empty bowl he handed her. For a while, the only sounds were Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor, chirping crickets, and the plop of raw peas falling into bowls. His muscles loosened with each second that passed. Maybe this wasn’t the most sophisticated way to win a woman’s affection, but Savannah had always been different. The tension that had been on her face had eased, replaced by a relaxed serenity.
She broke the silence at last. “How did everything go with Henson and Dayton today?