“Oh.” Both boys turned their attention back to Hope and waited for her to answer.
“Well,” she began, deciding to wing it, “when I was a lot younger, I had to have an operation. When it was over, I couldn’t have children.”
Adam’s eyes got big. “You had an operation? Where?”
Hope stood and placed her hand on her abdomen. “Right here.”
“Does it hurt?” he wanted to know.
“Not anymore.”
Adam walked toward her, keeping his gaze pinned to her abdomen as if he could see beneath her shirt. “Do you got a scar?”
“Yep.”
“Wow!” He looked up and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. He needed it cut again. “Can I see?”
Hope raised her hand and combed his hair from his forehead. The hot sun heated his scalp, and Hope felt the warmth of it beneath her palm and travel to her heart. Adam didn’t flinch or move away and she smiled down at him. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, man.”
Dylan’s truck pulled off the highway onto Timberline Road, and Hope dusted the dirt from her knees. She wondered how much longer her heart would react when she saw him. She walked to the porch and picked up her tea, purposely turning her back on him. She didn’t want to see him and know he was looking at her and feeling nothing. Someday it wouldn’t matter and she wouldn’t feel anything for him, either. Just as she felt nothing for her ex-husband, but it would take time, and that someday was not today.
“Bye,” the boys said in unison and tossed their rubber gloves on the ground.
“Wait, guys. You forgot your money,” she called after them as she glanced over her shoulder.
“Later,” Wally yelled, and the two of them barely waited until the truck had passed before they tore out of her yard and headed for the Aberdeens‘.
Hope had a sneaky suspicion that she’d been had. That they’d looked her right in the eyes and lied their little buns off. She suspected Dylan wouldn’t be pleased, and she fully expected him to say something about it. Something along the lines of “I told you to stay away from my son,” like he thought she would pump Adam for information for a story.
Hope went back to work in the flower bed beneath the front window and waited for him. She waited no more than ten minutes until he strolled up her drive and into the yard. Except for his service belt, he still wore his sheriff’s uniform, complete with mirrored sunglasses.
She stood and held out one hand as if to stop him. “Before you yell at me, I asked Adam to make sure it was okay with you before I hired him to pull weeds. He and Wally left to call you, and when they came back, Adam told me that you’d said he could work in my yard.” She took off her gloves and held them in one hand. “And in case you’re wondering if I tried to wheedle Adam for information about you and Juliette, I didn’t. Frankly, I don’t care what you think.” The last was an absolute lie, but she figured it would be true enough someday.
Dylan shifted his weight to one foot and looked at her through his sunglasses. “Are you through?”
“I think that’s about it.”
“I came over here to ask if Deputy Mullins called you today.”
“Someone did, yes.”
“So you know that we think Myron has left town.”
“Yes. I know that’s what you think.”
He raised one brow. “You don’t think so?”
“I know he hasn’t. He’s been calling me.”
“What does he say?”
“Nothing. He just breathes heavy.”
A frown curved his lips, and with two fingers he pushed the brim of his hat up his forehead. “You recognized his breathing?”
“He’s done this before. Unless there is another phone breather in town, it’s Myron.”