by Liz Flaherty
But she couldn’t tell him that. This was still Peacock, Tennessee, where the women were barely out of hoop skirts and saying, “Well, I never,” like they did in old movies set anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
And she was still Grace Elliot, ordinary-looking woman of secrets. Only now, she didn’t know all the secrets, didn’t even know who she really was. The worst part was that she was scared witless, spitless, and that other little word that rhymed, to find out.
Why didn’t he say something?
“How’s it coming?” she asked finally, flipping her hand in the direction of his notebook. If he says okay, I’m going to have to pull off the road and hurt him.
“Okay.”
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. There probably wasn’t much point in getting arrested just for the sake of avenging irritation.
He closed the notebook with a frustrated sigh. “He doesn’t seem to be doing what I want him to,” he said. “He’s got this secret swooping around over his head and his reactions are all screwy. I want him to face up to the secret, get mad and get over it. He wants to lie under the bed and suck his thumb.”
Geezy Pete, she’d wanted conversation, not dime-store psychology. Why did he bother talking at all? Grace glared at her passenger.
“If Steven knew you were driving his truck eighty miles an hour, he’d be lying on his own operating table,” he commented.
She lightened her foot on the accelerator, pushed the cruise control button, and said tightly, “Maybe your hero realizes that exposing secrets seldom yields positive results, that it might hurt other people, and that anger is a generally nonproductive emotion.”
“Hot damn,” he said admiringly. “How’d you get so much pomposity into one skinny little body? Not to mention all those big words. Mrs. Gallagher would be mightily impressed. Are we going to stop for lunch? My belly is screaming that its throat’s been cut.”
“I’m not pompous,” she said as well as she could through clenched teeth.
“Not usually,” he agreed cheerfully, “but that speech certainly was. There’s a place. The parking lot’s full of eighteen-wheelers. I’ve always heard if the truckers eat there, the food’s good.”
She turned into the parking lot of the Mountain View Stop-A-While and brought the pickup to a stop. They didn’t speak again until they faced each other across the table of a booth.
“The thing is,” Dillon said, “the hero’s always been this straight-up kind of guy. I mean, he has his layers like we all do, but he doesn’t usually hide from things.”
“Doesn’t he? Isn’t he hiding from what the plane crash did to him?” Although Dillon had sworn Heart of the Hero wasn’t autobiographical, she’d recognized Steven, Dillon and Faith in the cast of characters. The likenesses weren’t overt, but they were there. There’d been another woman too, a gorgeous blonde Grace didn’t recognize. In the story, her name was Amy, and she died horribly in a plane crash. The hero’s heart died with her.
“No,” he answered, far too quickly. “He’s dealt with it and put it away. He knows it cost him something irreplaceable from his insides and he lives with it. This secret, though, this little bit of knowledge that he doesn’t even fully understand, is chewing him up something awful.”
The booths were narrow. It was nice for Grace, because she could actually reach the table without sitting on the edge of her seat, but Dillon was squeezed into his side. Under the table, his knees surrounded hers.
She indulged in just a moment of bliss because they were both wearing shorts. The sensations created by his legs rubbing against hers went snaking up the insides of her thighs, leaving her feeling edgy and yearning.
Sometimes edgy and yearning weren’t bad things.
“Grace,” he said, “what difference does it make who your mother was?”
She believed this was referred to as “cutting to the chase.” She could have done without it.
“It makes a difference in who I am,” she said, folding her paper napkin into neat little pleats. “It’s taken me all these years to accept my own limitations and work within them. If I’m not who I thought I was, it changes everything.”
“How? You’re still Gracie Elliot of Magpie fame. Steven’s still your brother, Faith your sister, Promise your best friend. Jonah’s still going to sneak real sugar for his coffee. I’m still going to give you hell if you sit on windowsills to wash windows.”
The napkin began to tear, and she wadded it into a tight little ball. “Don’t you understand? I’ve always known what I looked like compared to Faith, how intelligent I was compared to Steven, what my accomplishments were compared to everyone else in the world. But I thought the best parts of me—just like Faith’s gorgeousness and Steven’s shocking smartness—came from Mama.”
“They probably did.” He reached for her hand and pried the little finger loose from its grip on the balled napkin. “See this?” He waggled the finger. “You’ve got more compassion in this bony little thing than most people have in their entire bodies. Your flowers are the prettiest, most artistically arranged ones on Lawyers Row, where you’re up against people who garden for a living.” His gaze rose to her bronze-tipped curls. “You cut your hair to make someone else feel better.”
She shrugged. “My hair is less trouble this way.”
“It probably is,” he agreed, “but you didn’t know it would when you sat in Carol’s chair. For all you knew, you could have ended up with an Albert Einstein cut.”
“Anybody would have—”
“No, anybody would not. Steven wouldn’t because it wouldn’t occur to him. But your mama would have, and she passed that on to you.”
“I think she loved me as much as she did Steven and Faith,” she said slowly, picking up her cup and pondering its contents.
“I know she did. I still remember her saying, ‘Read to me, baby. I feel better when I hear your voice.’ You gave her something just as special as anything her other kids did.”
She wanted to believe him, but Robert Elliot had still been her father. Wouldn’t his genetic influence override Mama’s environmental effect?
“Then there’s your father.”
How had he known what she was thinking? “What about him?” she asked crisply, putting down her coffee and picking up the napkin.
“You all got things from him too. Steven looks like him, and he fights having the same temper every day of his life. Faith has his chameleon quality in that she can adapt herself to the company she’s keeping. The nice thing about Faith is that she only inherited the good part of that trait, not the untrustworthy asshole part.”
“And what did I inherit?” She unfurled the napkin, flattening it with a firm hand, and began to pleat it again.
“The attic.” Dillon smiled his thanks at the waitress who brought them their lunch and dug into his immediately. “See, I told you. This is good.”
Grace gave her plate a cursory glance. “Uh-huh. What do you mean, the attic?”
“We know there was good in your father. Otherwise, your mother wouldn’t have married him. Steven and Faith can even remember some fun times with him. But something made him hide himself in an attic so no one could find the real him.”
“I’ll make you sorry if you tell, girl.”
Grace almost flinched from the memory of Robert’s words. She didn’t want to talk about him, even with Dillon. She said, “How much do you think I’ll have to pay to furnish those rooms?”
Dillon followed her as she flitted among the furniture that was being auctioned. Some pieces, she dismissed. “There’s a difference between antique and flat out sorely used. Don’t they expect people to know that?”
A light came into her eyes when she saw the items she ended up buying, and she bid with narrow-eyed, single-minded determination.
He stood at a marble-topped washstand. “Didn’t your mother have one of these in her room?”
Grace nodded, her lips tightening. “It wasn’t as nice as this one, but
she loved it. I did too.”
The auctioneer approached the piece. “Bid on it,” Dillon urged. “It’s not the same one, but it would be yours.”
She shook her head. “I’m here for business reasons, and I’ve spent all I can afford right now.”
He saw the wanting in her face and realized it was the first time he’d ever known of her to covet a thing. Her wants were always non-tangible, and usually for the good of someone besides herself.
When he was fairly certain the bid being cast was the last one, he raised his arm and bought the washstand.
“What did you think you were doing?” she demanded when they were in the truck.
He was driving—he wasn’t chancing her lead foot with the back of the truck chockfull of furniture—and he frowned at her. “When?”
“When you bought the washstand.” She rummaged in her purse, pulling out her checkbook. “I told you I’d spent all I was prepared to spend.”
“I was just waving at the woman across the way. She had boobs. And you can put that checkbook right back in your purse or I’m going to stop this truck and let you out. Maybe walking back to Peacock will clear your head enough to give you a little sense.”
It was an empty threat, and they both knew it, but she stopped digging for a pen. “Why?” she asked.
“It’s a gift,” he shouted. “Nothing more, nothing less. From me to you because I like you, because you are important to me and because you liked the goddamn thing. I don’t want your money and I don’t want to be paid back in any other way. I want you to enjoy the whatever-you-called-it as a present, not consider it an unpaid debt.”
God, he loved yelling at her, loved the speculative gleam that came into her eyes as she constructed an answer in her mind. He relished the sound of her throaty voice when she shouted back and the way her face animated with the argument.
That face he’d once considered ordinary. What a fool he’d been.
Negotiating the mountain road, he couldn’t watch her face, could only flick glances her way to see the emotions play across her features. He girded himself for the fight sure to come.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’ll treasure it.”
Deflated but not the least bit disappointed by her reaction, Dillon thought maybe he’d received a gift as well as given one. When she’d tucked the checkbook back into her purse and set the bag on the floor, he reached for her hand and held it.
“Why is the phone blinking?” she asked suddenly.
Steven’s cell phone hung haphazardly on the truck’s dash. Dillon handed it to her. “Someone must have called while we were at the auction. If you push that button, it’ll return the call.”
“What if it’s for Steven?”
“Then you can give the caller the number at the house.”
“Oh.” She reddened. “I probably should’ve been able to figure that out on my own.”
A moment later, though, Dillon knew the call hadn’t been for Steven. All color, including the appealing blush, had drained from Grace’s face. When she’d disconnected the phone, she swallowed hard a couple of times before she spoke.
“It’s Maxie,” she said. “We need to go to the hospital.”
Chapter 19
“It’s her heart. Steven’s with her, so she’s got the best care there is. Her doctor’s on vacation, but she asked for Steven and me. I hope that’s okay with you.” Jake Sawyer tucked Grace’s hand through his arm and started down the hallway toward the lounge in the intensive care unit of Peacock’s small hospital.
Grace struggled to speak. “But I haven’t… I should have been home… Is she going to be all right?”
Jake hesitated, and she saw him exchange glances with Dillon before answering. “I don’t know, Grace. Steven’s doing all he can. We’d like to move her to Holston Valley or even to Knoxville, but she’s not stable enough.”
“Where’s Jonah?” Dillon asked.
“He and Promise are in the lounge. He’s doing all right. He was aware of Maxie’s condition and has already produced paperwork the hospital needs in case certain events come to pass. Those are precautions, nothing else,” he added.
In the lounge, Grace sat beside Jonah and took his gnarled hand in hers. “Are you okay?”
He sighed before offering her a bittersweet smile. “Sure.” He jerked a thumb in Promise’s direction. “This one needs to go home.”
“Now that you’re here,” Promise said, her voice sounding stronger than she appeared, “I will lie down on that couch over there, but I’m not going home. That’s final.”
When she rose, Dillon scooped her neatly into his side and walked with her to the couch across the lounge. “I’m not helping you,” he said when she scowled at him. “I need the strength because I rode with Grace in Steven’s truck this morning. It just took everything out of me.”
“That would do it,” she said, laughing as she sank to the seat. “I’ll take a little nap to appease Her Royal Bossiness over there, but you wake me if anything changes, all right?”
“Promise, Promise,” he said. “Be right back.”
He returned in a few minutes with a blanket and pillow tucked under one arm. He balanced a tray with four mugs on it in the other hand. “Gracie, you want to give me a hand here?”
When they were settled, with Promise dozing under the blanket, Jonah spoke quietly. “Your father—he was different in those days. He was a hard man even then, but not like he got after your mother died.”
Grace started to rise, but Dillon stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Isn’t it time to come out of the attic?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
She glared at him, but her attention was drawn by Faith’s disheveled entry into the waiting room. Her hair was windblown and she’d chewed off her lipstick. A streak of dirt crossed the front of her pink tee shirt. She’d never been lovelier.
“I was helping clean the church,” she explained. “Deac came and told me after Jonah called him.”
“You called the minister?” Grace looked at Jonah in alarm.
“Maxie asked me to. He’s in there with her.”
Suddenly, the situation was worse, and Grace swallowed panic. People didn’t summon men of God unless they were dying, did they? “I need to see Maxie,” she said.
“You can’t right now.” Dillon took her hand and held it firmly. “Jonah, you were saying?”
“Your father was different then,” Jonah repeated. “He was fair and generous. He put in more free hours building the new Methodist church than dang near anyone and never took a minute’s credit for doing it. Robert was a ladies’ man from the get-go, though—no lady ever opened a door for herself or had to get her hands dirty when he was around—and that didn’t change. He had a way of treating a woman, smiling at her, that made her feel special. I’ve seen them just stop in their tracks to look back at him even if they were with other men. Women loved that he was loyal to his wife even while he was finding satisfaction elsewhere, and he took advantage of that. He always loved your mama, but after Faith was born, she couldn’t perform the physical part of marriage anymore. Her heart wouldn’t stand for it.”
“She was still his wife,” Grace said tightly. “He had Steven and Faith to consider too.”
“Mama knew,” Faith said, a faraway expression in her green eyes. “She told me once that when a man’s needs weren’t met at home, it was acceptable for him to seek satisfaction elsewhere. She didn’t seem to think it was wrong, but I remember her plucking at the quilt on her bed when she talked about it.”
“Maxie came that year to help your mother. Her own kids were with their father most of the time. She didn’t get many acting jobs anymore, so she came and helped out. She stayed in the guesthouse.” Jonah sipped his coffee. “I met her then. She was like the walking wounded. Her marriage was a mess. No means of support. Kids she wasn’t close to. Taking care of Debbie gave her a reason for living. Robert made her realize she was still attractive, desirable.” He hesitated. “She
loved him, I think, though she never meant to.”
“So did Mama,” Grace said, “and see how he repaid her for it.”
“Maxie loved your mama too. She’d have died rather than hurt her.”
Grace’s stomach roiled with anger. “Excuse me, Jonah, but I don’t think you sleep with the husbands of women you don’t want to hurt.”
“Grace,” Faith said, “shut up and listen.”
“No.” Grace pulled free from Dillon’s restraining hand and got to her feet, walking to where tall windows framed the hospital’s small courtyard. “I don’t want to hear any more.” She looked back at Faith. “If it matters to you where I came from, you can listen.”
She left the lounge, moving blindly through the hospital corridor toward the main entrance. If she could just get away, none of this would be real. Maxie wouldn’t be lying in the minuscule intensive care unit of Peacock Hospital, Jonah wouldn’t be wearing pain as thick as pancake makeup on his face, and Faith wouldn’t be standing there with a hurt expression that seemed to burn a raw place in Grace’s back.
She would just go home, that’s what she’d do. It was only about a mile from the hospital to Lawyers Row. She’d stop at the cemetery on the way and say hello to Mama. That would help her cope. It always did. The stark grave was the attic she ran to when the rest of life’s avenues seemed closed.
Maybe she’d cook chicken and noodles for dinner. Maxie loved chicken and noodles. She always sneaked back into the kitchen after everyone else had gone to bed and appropriated the leftovers. Grace had caught her at it one night this summer, and they’d sat at the kitchen table with the pan of noodles, tumblers of wine and two forks.
Maxie had talked about Debbie, about the times she’d shared with her. Fear for Promise had brought Grace to wakefulness that night, and Maxie’s gentle reminiscences about friendship had given her the ease with which to fall back to sleep.
Friendship. Maxie had been Mama’s friend, yet she’d slept with her husband. She’d had a child with him, for God’s sake.
Jonah said Robert was different in those days, and she could tell by his pictures that he had been. But he’d been mean the entire length of her memory. Had her birth been the catalyst that made him that way? She tried to remember the chronology of his expressions in the pictures from the attic. When had his eyes gotten cold and his lips thin even when he smiled?
