by Jodi Thomas
Gabe finished his coffee, rinsed the pot, and turned out the lights. He left two dollars on the counter and locked the door as he walked out. He really wanted to see Elizabeth, but he wasn’t sure he could take much of Martha Q. The woman had seen him naked, and now her eyebrows wiggled up and down every time she looked in his direction. Since she was old enough to be his mother, he wasn’t sure if she was flirting or stroking out.
Gabe left his car in front of the diner and walked the dried-up creek bed to the bed-and-breakfast. He let himself in the back door. He didn’t plan on walking into another knitting party.
In the dark dining room, he heard women’s voices and was glad he’d followed his instincts. The parlor was full.
Martha Q, who always talked like half the people in the room were hard of hearing, was leading a meeting of a half dozen women. “Now, Dallas,” she said to a woman frowning. “It’s really very simple. We’re forming the Follow Your Dreams Club. One of my dreams is to help others this year, and I’m starting with this group whether you like it or not. We’ll all meet once a week and think of things that make us happy and dreams we all have. We’ll do fun things and we’ll eat foods that make us smile. So get with the program and smile.”
“I don’t have any dreams beyond staying alive.” Dallas continued to frown. “And I am happy. I don’t know where you got the idea I’m not. If someone suggested to you that I don’t have dreams or I’m not downright brimming with joy, just give me their name and I’ll go pound a little happiness into their skull.”
Martha Q hit the woman on the top of her arm, making the bottom of both their underarms jiggle from shoulder to wrist. “You are not happy. You haven’t been happy since your husband died, leaving you with no one to torture, and your misery disease is catching. Look at your daughter. She hasn’t said a kind word to anyone in years. If she didn’t have that job at the post office, she’d just sit in your living room by the window and we’d have to water her once a week.”
Dallas blustered, “You think you’re the town saint come to save us. Half the women in town still hate you for what they think you did with their husbands, brothers, and fathers. You haven’t had a thought about anyone else but yourself in forty years. You’re such a clown that if your husband hadn’t left you money for this place you’d be wearing a red nose and blowing up balloons on street corners so you could twist them into weenie dogs to make money.”
Gabe swore he heard Liz giggle. He knew she must be in the room even if he couldn’t see her. He wasn’t about to break up the happy meeting.
Dallas turned her wrath on his cute little lawyer. “Why is she here? To make us all feel bad? She’s smart, and downright adorable.” Dallas poked her daughter in the side with an elbow. “Take a few lessons, Ronelle. I told you to go to college. Even if you’d taken a few correspondence courses, you’d have moved up the ladder a bit. You don’t have the family money of a Matheson, but you can still get a few pointers. Half the men in town would marry Liz tomorrow if she gave them a smile.”
Martha Q pointed one manicured finger. “She’s here because she’s my lawyer and I asked her. You don’t know, Dallas, how unhappy Liz is. You just don’t know. The dating pool’s so low in this town she’s having to go out with men she springs from jail. I know that for a fact.”
“Like I believe that,” Dallas snapped. “Give me one real reason to have her here.”
Liz stood and tried to join in. “Because I brought the pie, and everyone knows pie makes you happy. In fact, while you ladies are ironing out the rules to this club, I’ll go slice it up.” She ran from the room like a rabbit at a pit bull convention.
Gabe snagged her as she hit the kitchen door and pushed her inside, laughing. “Hello, trouble,” he whispered. “Causing problems again, I see.”
She wrapped her arms around him and touched her nose to his. “I hoped you’d come. Save me, Gabriel. I’ve tumbled into the Bitches and Broomstick Inn. Martha Q meant well. She invited all the women she thought needed help. The fact that they don’t seem to want it never crossed her mind.”
“I don’t care about them. What makes you happy?” he whispered.
“Having you hold me,” she answered, combing back his hair with her fingers. “When I’m with you there’s no pressure to be anyone but just me. So tell me, are you only seeing me because I bailed you out of jail?”
“You didn’t bail me out. I was never charged, remember? And we’re not dating. Near as I can tell we’ve never had a date.”
“I know. I like it that way. From my experience, dating is overrated.”
He kissed her lightly. “Any chance you’ll leave this party and run away with me?”
She pushed him away. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll make up some excuse and meet you back at the office. Right now I have to serve pie before a fight breaks out. From what I’ve learned tonight, Martha Q and Dallas were once friends. Probably the only friend either of them ever had.”
“I can see why. Did Martha Q sleep with her husband?”
Elizabeth raised her eyes to heaven and shook her head. “If you remembered Dallas’s man, you’d never ask that question.”
Gabe helped her cut the pie into six slices and place it on plates. She delivered it along with hot tea for everyone. When she returned for her slice and tea, he’d vanished along with the last of the pie.
She found him ten minutes later waiting outside her office door.
“How’d you get away?” he asked as he stroked his hand along her back while she unlocked the door.
She looked at him, her eyes full of laughter. “I acted like I got a call, stepped out in the hallway so they could still hear, and said, ‘Of course, Sheriff, I’ll be right there. No, Sheriff, I won’t tell anyone.’ Then I grabbed my purse and said I had to leave. No one asked me a single question.”
They didn’t turn the lights on as they crossed to the couch. The curtains were open. Frost in the air made the streetlights look like fuzzy stars. As they wrapped themselves in each other, he kissed her hello and then they did something they’d never done.
They talked.
A FEW MILES AWAY AT THE MALL, DENVER DOWNED HIS second plate of fried bread balls covered in powdered sugar. The food court was small, but it was busy tonight. Every predriving teen seemed to be there along with a dozen mall walkers in jogging suits. Denver didn’t see a single person carrying a shopping bag. In a strange way, it reminded him of the airport shopping where hundreds of people wander around stores, but no one buys.
He wasn’t paying as much attention to the people as usual. His mind was full of Claire. Three days and no call. He hadn’t expected her to phone Monday after they parted, or really Tuesday. It would take time to set something up. She had her art and her little girl. But today, Wednesday, he’d been sure she would call to at least make plans. They needed a night, or maybe a weekend together. Once they were too exhausted to do anything but talk, maybe he would learn enough about her to know if this feeling he had was really love.
This had to be the strangest almost-affair he’d ever been involved in. His usual mode of operation was to be friendly, pay a few compliments, let the woman know he was interested, then wait for her to make a move. The minute she did, he knew where the relationship was heading. Bed. It might take a half hour or a week, but he’d be waking up with her beside him.
Claire was different. He wasn’t sure she even liked him. She liked his touch, but if he asked her how she felt about him, she’d be as likely to say Drop dead as to whisper an endearment. She hadn’t given him her number. If she didn’t call, he’d have little chance of running into her. He couldn’t see himself hanging out at the school waiting for her to drop her daughter off, and as far as he knew she never left the house otherwise.
Two women dressed as red bowling balls stood in front of his table.
“Look, Pat, it’s Gabe’s guest, Denver Sims.”
Aunt Fat just giggled. She had that kind of delightful laugh that made anyone who hear
d it smile.
Denver stood and almost cracked his lip smiling. “Evening, ladies. Great running into you two. Is the rest of the family here?”
“No, just us. Hank drove us in so we could go to our Walk a Hundred Miles class, and Claire is picking us up.”
“How’s the walking doing?”
“Great. We’re at the six-mile point and it’s still February.”
“Sit down and share my donut holes.” Denver had no plans of leaving the ladies’ side until they were picked up. “Can I get you a drink?”
Aunt Pat looked at Aunt Fat. “We’ve made it around three times. That’s almost a half mile. We have to pace ourselves.”
Aunt Fat nodded.
Denver ordered their drinks and another order of fried bread with powdered sugar and then tried to keep up with the conversation while his mind ticked off the minutes until Claire was due to pick them up. He even insisted on walking them outside, where they said she’d be waiting.
Her Dodge Caravan was there. Parked close to the door in a red zone, he noticed. Wouldn’t want the walkers to have to walk all the way to the parking lot, he thought.
After he helped them into the van, he circled to Claire’s window. While the aunts chattered and thanked him, he whispered to Claire. “Where? When?”
She didn’t look at him. She simply whispered back, “I can’t. I’m working.”
He smiled at the aunts and waved, but to Claire he added, “I’ll wait.” His fingers brushed the side of her arm lightly.
She rolled her window up and drove away without looking directly at him. Every action was that of a stranger, not the woman who’d cried in his arms as tenderly as a child and kissed him with a passion that made his blood boil.
He went in search of something stronger than cocoa to drink. He found it at Buffalo’s Bar, and sometime after midnight when he stumbled out far too drunk to drive, he found Gabe’s car parked across the street in front of the diner, the door unlocked.
GABE AND ELIZABETH TALKED UNTIL THE EVENING AGED and holding one another replaced all other communications. Neither seemed to want to hurry what was developing between them. He wished he could tell her he was new at this game and maybe she’d explain to him why, after talking about all her wild times, she just wanted to be held. He knew she was attracted to him; the way she kissed couldn’t have been faked. He was attracted to her also, but for now, this was enough, maybe even more than he had a right to ask for. Somehow he knew that what they shared meant more to her than anything had in a long while.
When he kissed her one last time and walked back to his car, it had started snowing but thoughts of her kept him warm.
The moment he opened his car door, reality slammed back. Gabe had his Glock out and his elbow locked ready to fire before he realized the growl he’d heard was a snore and the animal in his backseat was Denver.
Gabe hit his friend hard in the back of his head. “I almost shot you . . . again.”
Denver leaned forward and swore. “Go ahead. I feel like I’ve been double-dipped in death already.” With that, he threw up in the Rover.
The car wash was frozen, so Gabe drove home with the windows down. Denver swore several times that his ears were freezing off. Gabe half wished he’d circled by and traded for Denver’s little rented Mustang, but he didn’t want to drive the car on these roads. The last thing either of them wanted was to be stuck in a ditch tonight.
Denver was sober enough to clean up his own mess by the time they made it back to the farmhouse. The water hose was frozen, so he had to haul water from the house.
When he came back in, empty bucket and sponge in hand, he stopped in front of Gabe. “Say something. Don’t just look at me.” His words were still slurred.
“All right. Don’t throw up in my car again.”
Denver walked off into the kitchen talking to himself, saying all the names he thought Gabe should call him.
Gabe turned back to his drawings and began to work. He smiled. He didn’t care about what Denver had done. Life was good right now. Maybe he should join Martha Q’s Happy Club.
Chapter 40
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 21, 2008
WRIGHT FUNERAL HOME
TYLER SAT DOWN AT HIS DESK. IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT and this was the first chance he’d had to write his e-mail.
Sorry I’m so late tonight, Kate. The weather’s turning ugly even as I type. Forecasting another three inches by morning. If there’s wind that means we’ll be dealing with three-foot drifts at the cemetery, and I have two funerals complete with gravesides tomorrow. The only good news I see is Mrs. Biggs won’t be out in it. She’s agreed to stay here at the home tomorrow and help Stella McNabb out with all the viewings. Not only two funerals tomorrow, but I’ve a body to get ready. The family hasn’t decided on a time for the funeral but I don’t do them on Sunday, so if they can’t be ready by Saturday, the earliest will be Monday.
You remember Hank, the fire chief here? He put an announcement on the front page of the paper asking everyone to check on their neighbors. Four days below freezing might leave some folks in trouble.
This winter seems colder than most for me. Maybe I’m just missing you.
I’m longing for a pretty day. I’ve got two sites I’d like to investigate where an old settlement might have been. If I can find an earlier ranch in the area, years before Harmon Ely’s trading post, I’ll change the written history of Harmony. I’m guessing sheep herders came around 1830, forty years before Harmony. I have no idea what wiped them out long before the cattle drives started passing through here, but if I can find their settlement, I might find a clue.
Stay warm,
Ty
He clicked Send, realizing he was rattling on about something no one in the world cared about but him. Even if he did find something, it would end up no more than a paragraph in a history book. His e-mail to Kate would probably put her to sleep, if she read it.
Tyler closed his laptop, telling himself that if he just knew she was out there reading her e-mail, that would be enough for him. If she’d just answer once.
When they’d first started, everything had been light and casual. No personal questions. He’d been careful not to say anything about his work. He’d learned the hard way from a half dozen blind dates that telling a woman you’re a funeral director eliminates the second date.
But over the months, as the notes got more and more personal, he realized they were both hiding. Lying simply by omitting facts. When chance finally brought them face to face, she’d seen him at his worst. He’d thought she’d forgive and meet him as they’d planned at the same place where they’d first met more than two years ago.
But she hadn’t shown up. He’d learned all about her, but he hadn’t been brave enough to go find her. If she’d wanted to meet him, nothing would have stopped her.
If she wanted to answer his e-mail, she would. Until then, he’d keep writing because it was all he had left of a woman he’d met on a rainy night once and thought there was a chance for love.
He stood and walked out of his study and along the hallway to the stairs leading up to his apartment. Little Lady followed, offering Tyler little comfort while he was lost in his memories. He wasn’t strong enough to give up on the dream or weak enough to let it die. Until his e-mails came back, he’d write every night and hope.
Chapter 41
FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 22, 2008
HARMONY FIRE STATION
HANK MATHESON FELT LIKE HIS BONES WERE FROZEN. He’d been out in the storm since before dawn. By nine he’d pulled Tyler’s Cadillac loaded down with grieving family and a dozen other cars attending the funeral out of the ditch.
After noon, people might wise up enough to stay off the streets, but right now everyone seemed to want to get out and test the ice. The snowstorm coming off the Rockies had been predicted for days, but no one paid any attention to it but him.
His own mother had insisted on flying to Dallas yesterday to at
tend an art show featuring some of her pots. She’d taken Saralynn out of school to go with her, since Claire promised she’d attend also. But Claire backed out, claiming far too much work to do. To keep from disappointing Saralynn, who’d told everyone since she got her first set of paints at Christmas that she planned to be an artist like her mother and grandmother, Claire and his mother agreed to hire a nurse to go along. The nurse was just out of school and excited to fly on a chartered plane and stay overnight at a grand hotel.
Only the one-night trip was now stretching into two, and it might go four or five before Harmony’s best pilot could get his little plane up. Joyce refused to fly commercial, partly because she hated being around so many strangers and partly because the hassle of it was hard on Saralynn. Hank called them twice a day. Saralynn and the nurse were having a ball ordering room service and movies. His mother was among her kind and seemed to be enjoying long meals with friends in the business.
Hank took a few minutes and checked in on the aunts and Claire at the ranch. The aunts were fine. Claire was painting madly, as she often did. With none of the Matheson women needing him, Hank decided to stay at the station. The bad news: a bunk for a bed. The good news: He was across the street from the sheriff’s office. He and Alex would manage to eat every meal together no matter how long the day.
When he stepped into the station, he smiled at the warmth and frowned at someone sitting in his office. The last thing he needed was company dropping by for a visit.
“May I—” he started as the man turned his head toward Hank. It was the kid from Reagan’s party. Brandon was his name, Hank thought. “Biggs, right?”
“You said drop by if I wanted to help.” Brandon smiled. “My work let us all off today and I figured since I already got my layers on, I might come offer.”
