Page 33 of Butterfly Sisters
“I didn’t mean to ruin anything,” Leigh said, “but truthfully, Meredith is prickly about everything when this could’ve all been avoided.”
“It’s just never easy,” Mama said in surrender. “Let me have some time, okay? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Okay.” Leigh let her mother go, wishing she could turn back time a few minutes and take her comment back. Their problems wouldn’t change, but the night would’ve ended very differently.
ELEVEN
“The butterfly book isn’t here anywhere,” Leigh said to Colton, who’d reluctantly stayed after their little blowup when she’d asked him to. Her hands trembling with anxiety and frustration, she closed the bottom drawer of Nan’s art stand in her studio.
When Meredith had stormed out and Mama had retreated to the porch to cool off, Leigh resumed looking for the book, and she and Colton had turned the house upside down. It was as if it had vanished, just like Nan. She needed something to console her in all this, but it seemed like even that was a struggle.
“Wanna get outta here?” Colton suddenly asked, as if reading her distress.
She righted herself and faced him. “And go where?”
“My house. I need to change my soaking jeans, but it might also be nice to get away for a second.”
Elvis, who’d curled up on a wadded tarp in the corner of the room, stood up and walked over to Colton, whining as if he’d understood.
“What if Meredith comes back?” Leigh asked.
“We won’t be gone long. But if she does come back soon, she certainly won’t be in any mood to talk with you and your mom—you know how she is. She’ll need at least twenty-four hours to come around.”
“You know her better than I do,” Leigh said, the whole idea baffling. She’d lived with her sister her whole childhood and barely knew her. They were like two ships passing in the night. “All right,” she relented. Maybe shifting her attention to something outside the family would recharge her.
Colton nodded toward the hallway. “Go on,” he told the dog. “Lead the way and we’ll head home.”
Elvis’s tail wagged furiously and he started walking while spinning in circles of excitement, directing them to the kitchen. Colton tossed Leigh the keys. “Can you let Elvis into the truck? I’ll go out to the porch to tell your mama we’re leaving.”
“Okay. Tell her to text me if she needs me.” She patted her leg. “Come on, Elvis. Your daddy wants us to get into the truck.”
Leigh and the dog went outside, Elvis running around by her feet as she opened the heavy door to the old Ford. Elvis jumped in, sitting on the passenger side of the bench seat with his chest out and his ears on alert. Leigh went around and slipped the keys into the ignition, starting the engine, the truck revving to life with a growl. Elvis kept one eye on the door, waiting for his master.
“He’s coming,” she assured the dog, scooting over to leave the driver’s seat open for Colton.
Elvis seemed content with that and settled down, curling up beside her on the tattered bench seat. She stroked his fur until she saw Colton in the sideview mirror, jogging over.
“All good,” he said, climbing in. He could always keep everyone from losing their minds. He put the truck in drive and headed out to the dirt road, going west.
The clean, earthy air pushed its way inside through the open windows of the truck, the aromatic scent of vegetation unavoidable as they bumped along the gravel path away from Nan’s cabin. The setting sun offered up snippets of pink and blaze orange through the canopy of trees. If she closed her eyes, it would take Leigh right back to the days of her youth when she and Colton would take long drives in his jeep with no destination. The drivewasthe destination.
How had she kept herself from this for so many years? It was such a departure from the fluorescent lighting and durable slate-gray indoor-outdoor carpeting of her office. She’d been so busy ensuring the success of her future that she’d completely neglected her past.
Colton looked over at her and smiled a few times, as if he could read her mind.
They finally turned off the dirt road onto a tire-track drive that wound its way through an endless expanse of empty fields.
“You can’t see it now,” Colton said, “but under all that dirt there are cotton seeds, and after I finish plowing the rest, the whole farm will be full of white flowers in a matter of weeks.”
“That’s amazing,” she said, looking out at the vast fields and imagining the rows of blooms.
He maneuvered around a turn that took them past a huge free-standing garage toward a massive, yet charming, brand-new farmhouse. It had a historic-inspired look to it with white clapboard and twin stone chimneys on either side of the tin roof, but it was clear by the colossal sleek windows and double-front door under an oversized porch with whirring paddle fans and lantern lights nestled stylishly beneath the overhang that it was a new construction.
“This is your house?” she asked.
He pulled the truck to a stop and got out. “Yep.”
“Something tells me that Jax Wrigley didn’t live here…” she said, after Colton had opened her door. She stepped down onto the aggregate circular drive, the truck out of place against its backdrop.
