“It was really neat.” This from Zeke. “We like Christmas songs the best.”
“Me, too.”
Still flustered and flattered by the idea of having a solo, Kim joined them. “Hi, Uncle Mac. I guess you met Miss Davis.”
“Yeah.” There wasn’t much more to say. He still thought she looked too young to be a teacher. Not the teenager he’d taken her for, he realized. But that creamy, flawless skin and that tidy little frame were deceiving. And very attractive.
“Your niece is very talented.” In a natural movement, Nell wrapped an arm around Kim’s shoulders. “She has a wonderful voice and a quick understanding of what the music means. I’m delighted to have her.”
“We like her, too,” Mac said as Kim flushed.
Zack shifted from foot to foot. They weren’t supposed to be talking about dumb old Kim. “Maybe you could come visit us sometime, Miss Davis,” he piped up. “We live in the big brown house out on Mountain View Road.”
“That’d be nice.” But Nell noted that Zack’s father didn’t second the invitation, or look particularly pleased by it. “And you guys are welcome to be our audience anytime. You work on that solo, Kim.”
“I will, Miss Davis. Thanks.”
“Nice to have met you, Mr. Taylor.” As he mumbled a response, Nell hopped back onstage to gather her sheet music.
It was too bad, she thought, that the father lacked the outgoing charm and friendliness of his sons.
Chapter 2
It didn’t get much better than a drive in the country on a balmy fall afternoon. Nell remembered how she used to spend a free Saturday in New York. A little shopping—she supposed if she missed anything about Manhattan, it was the shopping—maybe a walk in the park. Never a jog. Nell didn’t believe in running if walking would get you to the same place.
And driving, well, that was even better. She hadn’t realized what a pleasure it was to not only own a car but be able to zip it along winding country roads with the windows open and the radio blaring.
The leaves were beginning to turn now as September hit its stride. Blushes of color competed with the green. On one particular road that she turned down out of impulse, the big trees arched over the asphalt, a spectacular canopy that let light flicker and flit through as the road followed the snaking trail of a rushing creek.
It wasn’t until she glanced up at a road sign that she realized she was on Mountain View.
The big brown house, she remembered Zack had said. There weren’t a lot of houses here, two miles outside of town, but she caught glimpses of some through the shading trees. Brown ones, white ones, blue ones—some close to the creek bed, others high atop narrow, pitted lanes that served as driveways.
A lovely place to live, she thought. And to raise children. However taciturn and stiff Mac Taylor might have been, he’d done a wonderful job with his sons.
She already knew he’d done the job alone. It hadn’t taken long for Nell to understand the rhythm of small towns. A comment here, a casual question there, and she’d had what amounted to a full biography of the Taylor men.
Mac had lived in Washington, DC, since his family moved out of town when he was a young teenager. Six years ago, twin infants in tow, he’d moved back. His older sister had gone to a local college, married a town boy and settled in Taylor’s Grove years before. It was she, the consensus was, who had urged him to come back and raise his children there when his wife took off.
Left the poor little infants high and dry, Mrs. Hollis had told Nell over the bread rack at the general store. Run off with barely a word, and hadn’t said a peep since. And young Macauley Taylor had been mother and father both to his twins ever since.
Maybe, Nell thought cynically, just maybe, if he’d actually talked to his wife now and again, she’d have stayed with him.
Not fair, she thought. There was no decent excuse she could think of for a mother deserting her infant children, then not contacting them for six years. Whatever kind of husband Mac Taylor had been, the children deserved better.
She thought of them now, those impish mirror images. She’d always been fond of children, and the Taylor twins were a double dose of enjoyment. She’d gotten quite a kick out of having them in the audience once or twice a week during rehearsals. Zeke had even shown her his very first spelling test—with its big silver star. If he hadn’t missed just one word, he’d told her, he’d have gotten a gold one.
Nor had she missed the shy looks Zack sent her, or the quick smiles before he flushed and lowered his eyes. It was very sweet to be responsible for his first case of puppy love.
She sighed with pleasure as the car burst out from under the canopy of trees and into the light. Here were the mountains that gave the road its name, streaking suddenly into the vivid blue sky. The road curved and snaked, but they were always there, dark, distant and dramatic.
The land rose on either side of the road, in rolling hills and rocky outcroppings. She slowed when she spotted a house on the crest of a hill. Brown. Probably cedar, she thought, with a stone foundation and what seemed like acres of sparkling glass. There was a deck stretched across the second story, and there were trees that shaded and sheltered. A tire swing hung from one.
She wondered if this was indeed the Taylor house. She hoped her new little friends lived in such a solid, well-planned home. Then she passed the mailbox planted at the side of the road just at the edge of the long lane.
M. Taylor and Sons.
It made her smile. Pleased, she punched the gas pedal and was baffled when the car bucked and stuttered.
