Clarissa climbed from her convertible and walked toward the front door. She rang the doorbell, hoping maybe no one was home.
Paige opened the door. “Oh.”
“Hi.”
A dog barked somewhere nearby, the kind of happy yip that suggested a game of fetch or tug-of-war. Female laughter mixed with the sound. “Good boy, Dusty.” It was Dawn’s voice, coming from the backyard from the sound of it.
“We never really talked like we should have.” Clarissa looked Paige full in the face. “You, for instance, never told me the reason your parents were in Texas.”
Paige shrugged. “It never came up, really.”
“It also never came up that Milton Parrish and my grandfather had given me one year to turn a profit in the Shoal Creek store. If I passed that test, then I would be allowed to pursue the dream I’d had all along. I could open a Parrish Apothecary in the Lancaster Building in Nashville. It also never came up that my fourth stepmother has been planning to take the building for herself—in spite of the fact that it’s my grandmother’s memories that live there. The drain of your salary at my store was helping to make that possible.”
Paige’s face softened just a little. “That explains a lot. If I’d only known . . . well, I don’t know what I would have done differently. Fact was, I needed the job, whether you wanted me there or not.”
“Yeah, if I had known, maybe . . . well, I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter much now. I want you to know I was wrong—dead wrong. I never meant for it to go that far.” She took a deep breath and continued. “You know what I’ve discovered?”
“What?”
“I hate retail.”
“You may have just discovered that, but I’ve known it about you all along.”
Clarissa smiled. “I guess I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes.” She took a deep breath. Now came the hard part, the part where Paige was likely to send her packing. “I’m here to ask you to take your job back.”
“You want me to work with you again? After all that’s happened?”
“Not for long. I’m applying to grad schools. Research has always been what I’ve wanted to do. I thought that changed when I got a chance to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps, but you know what, it didn’t. Just because I loved my grandmother more than anyone else in the world doesn’t mean I was meant to walk the same path she walked.”
“I guess not.”
“Yeah, well, all that to say, I’ll only be working there long enough to teach you how to do all the paper work and for you to hire a replacement for me. I went to see Gary Powell and told him everything.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“There are all sorts of hearings and legal wrangling in my future. We’ll likely settle with Ms. Feldhouse, but as for what’ll happen now with Mrs. Vaerge? Who knows? I’ll likely eventually have my license suspended—at least for a while.”
“You don’t know!” Paige shouted, and Clarissa nearly jumped. “I was at the hospital yesterday and Ora is improving enough to talk and respond. And she never took any of the pills you’d given her. Whatever might have been done wrong”—Paige put her hand on Clarissa’s shoulder and looked her directly in the eye—“Clarissa, you did not cause her heart attack.”
“What?” Clarissa stared back into Paige’s eyes, unable to believe the sincerity she saw there. Could this really be true?
“Are you . . . sure?” The dam of emotions that she’d held so tightly through all of this—all of her life for that matter—burst. Deep, guttural sobs sounded, and she knew they were coming from her, but she couldn’t stop them.
“I’m sure. I called Gary Powell when we realized what had happened, or rather what had not happened.”
Clarissa leaned her forehead against the brick façade of the house and fought with all that was in her to regain control. Part of her wanted to feel as happy as Paige looked, but the greater part found little comfort in the news. Sure, she wasn’t to blame for the heart attack, but that offered only cold comfort. It wasn’t the error itself after all, but the way she’d lost sight of everything that mattered.
“I’m glad she’s better,” she said. “I’ll have to swing by.” She blinked hard. “You know the worst part of it? I tried to honor my grandmother, and instead I’ve shamed my whole family.” She forced herself to straighten her shoulders. “But my grandfather and I have decided to take the Lancaster Building and open a nonprofit. My grandmother was a big proponent of women’s education, so it will be something that provides educational opportunities for women who wouldn’t have them otherwise.”
“Sounds like that is something she’d be proud of, then.”
“Yeah, so . . . anyway. About that job?”
“What would your grandfather think about your offer?”
“I’ve already talked to him. He’s all for it. So is Milton Parrish.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Sure.” Clarissa turned to leave but knew she could not go until she’d said it all. “One more thing you need to know. The investigator . . . that was all me. Tony gave me the guy’s name, but he didn’t hire him and he wasn’t using you. You made him really happy—until you broke his heart, that is.”
“I did not break his heart. His heart was never in it.”
“Believe me, I know Tony better than anyone else in this world. When I say you broke his heart, that’s exactly what I mean.”
When she drove away, she could see Paige still standing at the door, tears glinting in her eyes.
Paige sat on her mother’s bench, Clarissa’s words turning over and over in her head. Her old job back. What was she supposed to do with that?
In truth, she really didn’t have a lot of other choices, but for some reason she hadn’t been able to say yes right away. She needed a day or two to mull it over. Maybe it was pride. Actually, there was no maybe about it, it was pride pure and simple.
She thought of Clarissa’s breakdown when she found out that she wasn’t responsible for Ora’s heart attack. How the guilt must have haunted her for the last few days.
What she couldn’t bring herself to think about were Clarissa’s words about Tony. Broke his heart. Right. She couldn’t allow herself to believe something that would only get her hurt. Again. Besides, he himself had admitted that he originally came to Shoal Creek with the hidden motive of assessing her as a threat to Clarissa. What kind of person would do that?
She reached down and scratched Dusty’s left ear. “Yeah, Dusty, what kind of person would do that?” He looked up at her with his soulful brown eyes, and in that moment she knew the answer.
A person who loved his niece and wanted to protect her.
Hadn’t she been just as quick to judge—more so, even—when she found out about the investigator? At least Tony had given her the benefit of the doubt long enough to apparently change his mind.
Maybe Clarissa was just trying to be nice. Tony couldn’t possibly have a broken heart over her. Could he? And what could she do about it now, anyway? He’d never want to talk to her again, and she certainly didn’t want to call him and have him slam the phone down in her ear. What kind of person would set herself up for that?
“Come on, Dusty, let’s go inside.”
They walked across the lawn and a thought began to buzz through her mind, like a fly that would not go away no matter how hard you swatted at it. Was that what Clarissa had expected when she’d come here today?
Likely, she’d expected Paige to slam the door in her face. If she was willing to drive this far, expecting rejection, couldn’t Paige at least pick up the phone?
She wasn’t sure of the answer.