by Sharon Sala
“You can leave Rabbit in Mr. Dixon’s barn,” Edward Lee offered. “Then when you come home, you can ride him back here. When you don’t need him no more, just lay the reins across the saddle and turn him loose. He’ll come home.”
Wyatt’s smile widened. “Rabbit?”
Edward Lee nodded. “’Cause he runs like one.”
Glory’s small laugh broke the peace of the glade, and both men turned, each wearing a different expression as they gazed at the woman before them. Edward Lee’s was one of devotion. Wyatt’s was one of pure want.
Glory saw neither. All she knew was that two people who meant something to her seemed at ease with each other. It gave her joy in this day of distress.
“I can’t thank you enough for your kindness, Edward Lee. Tell your mother I said hello,” she said.
He nodded, and then turned and walked away, moving with unnatural grace for one with so crippled a mind.
“Can you ride?” Glory asked, eyeing the saddle and remembering her dress, and wondering how she was going to accomplish this feat with any amount of dignity.
Wyatt grinned, then lifted her off her feet and set her sideways in the saddle, leaving her legs to dangle off to one side.
“That’s almost an insult, honey. I’m a Tennessee boy, born and bred, remember.”
And with one smooth motion, he swung up on the horse, settling just behind the saddle on which Glory was perched, and slipped his long legs into the stirrups.
Glory shivered as Wyatt’s breath moved across her cheek, and his arms fenced her close against his chest.
“Glory?”
“What?”
“Why did he call you Morning Glory?”
A sharp pain pierced and then settled around the region of her heart. She took a deep breath, knowing that it was something to which she must become accustomed.
“It was J.C.’s nickname for me…and they were Daddy’s favorite flowers. They grow—” her breath caught on another pain as she amended “—grew, on trellises on both sides of our front porch. That’s how I got my name. Daddy said when I was born my eyes were as blue as the morning glory.”
Impulsively, Wyatt hugged her, and feathered a kiss near her eyebrow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would cause you pain.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filling with unshed tears. “It wasn’t so bad,” she said quietly. “In fact, it almost felt good to remember.”
Wyatt watched her mouth forming around the words, and wanted to bend just a little bit closer and taste that pearly sheen of lip gloss painted on her mouth. But he couldn’t…and he didn’t…and the urge slowly passed. The horse moved sideways beneath them, ready for a command. He gripped the reins firmly, and settled Glory a little bit closer to his chest.
“Can you hold on?” he asked.
“As long as you’re behind me,” she warned, trying to find an easy way to sit without sliding too far backward or forward.
As long as I’m behind you. The words hung in Wyatt’s mind, fostering another set of hopes that he didn’t dare acknowledge. What if I never left you, little Morning Glory? How would you feel about that? Even more to the point, how do I feel? Are you what I was looking for when I started on this journey last fall…or am I just kidding myself, looking for easy answers to the emptiness inside myself?
He shrugged off the thoughts, unwilling to pursue them while she was this up close and personal. He had to be careful. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin another woman’s life as he’d ruined his and Shirley’s. If he ever took a woman again, it would be forever. Wyatt Hatfield didn’t make the same mistake twice.
The trip up the overgrown road was much easier on a horse, and done in the bright light of day. As they passed through the woods, Wyatt wondered how on earth they’d managed to get through it the other night without tearing their clothing to shreds.
For an old horse, Rabbit pranced, as if aware of his fine appearance and the precious cargo that he carried. In spite of the seriousness of the day, Glory smiled more than once at what they saw as they rode.
Once her hand suddenly clutched at Wyatt’s thigh and then she pointed into the trees. He followed the direction of her finger, and saw the disappearing tail of a tiny red fox. And then a few minutes later, she pointed upward, watching as a hawk rode the air currents high above their heads.
“This is a fine place to live,” Wyatt said.
The words gave solace to Glory’s pain. It was a sentiment she’d heard her father offer more than once.
Wyatt felt some of the tension slipping out of her body, and she almost relaxed against him as they rode. Almost…until her homesite came into view, and the scent of something having been burned replaced the fresh mountain air.
Death seemed to hover above the spot where her house once stood. As they passed the ruins on their way to the barn to get his car, Wyatt noticed she turned away. In spite of the unusual activity taking place there, she was unable to look at the place she’d once lived.
Men hard at work paused at the sight of the pair’s arrival on horseback. When they realized who it was, to a man, they took off their hats, standing with eyes down, sharing her sorrow and her loss.
Glory’s breath caught on a sob.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Wyatt said softly.
Tears were thick in her voice as she answered. “Oh, God, Wyatt Hatfield. So am I. So am I.”
A short time later, as they passed the boundary sign on the north edge of town, Wyatt began easing up on the gas.
It wouldn’t do to get a ticket for speeding on the way to a funeral, but he’d been lost in thought.
While Glory had been unwilling to look at the men on her property, Wyatt had looked long and hard. Satisfied that Lane was right in the middle of what was being done, he’d left with an easy conscience. Whatever was found there today, whatever conclusion they came to, it would be fair, or Lane Monday would know the reason why.
“Are you all right?” Wyatt asked.
She nodded, her eyes wide and fixed upon the road before them. And then she asked, “Do you remember the turnoff to the cemetery we took to pick out grave sites yesterday?”
“I remember.”
“I thought graveside services were appropriate for Daddy and J.C., considering their…uh…their condition.” And then she hesitated, suddenly unsure of the decision she’d made yesterday. “Don’t you?”
“I think whatever you decided is right. They were your family. Remember?”
She sighed and covered her face with her hands. Her voice was shaky, her fingers trembling as she let them drop in her lap.
“Oh, God, just let me get through this with my dignity.”
“To hell with dignity, Glory. Grief is healthy. It’s what you hold back that will eat you alive. Believe me, I’m the ultimate stiff upper lip, and look what a mess I’ve made of my life.”
“I don’t see it as such a mess,” she offered.
He grimaced. “Yeah, right! I got married to a perfectly good woman, and then gave my heart…and attention…to the military instead of her. It took me years to figure out why.”
She listened quietly, afraid to speak for fear he’d stop the confidences he’d suddenly begun to share.
“The military didn’t demand anything from me except loyalty and a strong back. What my wife wanted from me was something I didn’t know how to share.”
And that was…
Wyatt answered her thought before he realized it had just been a thought.
“Me. I was too big and strong and tough to let someone see inside my soul. I suppose I thought it wasn’t manly.” A corner of his mouth turned up in a wry, self-effacing grin. “I think that idiot notion came from having too many older brothers. They used to beat the hell out of me just to see how long it would take me to bleed, and then laugh. But let anyone else try the same stunt, and they’d take them apart.” He shrugged as the cemetery gates came into view. “Brotherly love is a strange, strange thing. It does
n’t always lay the best of groundwork for making a good husband out of a strong man.”
Glory shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t that you were the wrong kind of man. I think it was the wrong time for you to have married. Maybe if you’d waited…” She shrugged, and then unbuckled her seat belt as he pulled to a stop.
For you?
The thought came and went so quickly that Wyatt almost didn’t know it had been there. But the feeling it left behind was enough to keep him close at her side as they circled tombstones, walking across the close-clipped grass toward a tent in the distance.
When they were almost there, Glory paused in midstep and stared. Wyatt followed her gaze. Realizing that she’d spotted the single casket bearing what was left of both men, he reached down and clasped her hand in his.
Her chin lifted, her eyes glittering in the midmorning sunlight as she looked up at Wyatt. A slight breeze teased the thick, dark hair above his forehead, scattering it with the temerity of an unabashed flirt. His dark eyes were filled with concern, his strong, handsome features solemn in the face of what she was about to endure. The scar on his cheek was a vivid reminder of what he’d endured, and as Glory saw, she remembered, and took hope from the fact that he’d survived…. So, then, could she.
Glory made it through the service with composure that would have made her father proud. Not once did she give way to the angry shrieks of denial that threatened to boil over. The only signs of her pain were the tears, constant and silent, that fell from her eyes and down her cheeks as the minister spoke.
It was afterward, when the people who’d come to pay their respects started to file past the chairs in which she and Wyatt were sitting, that she realized she wasn’t as alone in this world as she’d thought.
The first woman who came was elderly. Her voice shook more than her hands, but her intention was plain as she paused at Glory’s chair, resting her weight on the cane in one hand, while she laid a small picture in Glory’s lap.
“I’m eighty-nine years old,” she said. “I been burned out once and flooded out twice in my lifetime. In all them times, I never lost no family, and in that I reckon I was lucky. But I remembered the thing that I missed most of all that I’d lost, and it was my pictures. We talked about it at church last night. We’ve all knowed your family long before you was born, girl. The ones of us who had these, have decided to give ’em you.”
Glory stared at the picture, dumbfounded. It was an old black-and-white print of a young dark-haired woman with a baby on her hip.
“It’s your granny,” the old woman said. “And that there’s your daddy, when he was just a young’un. I don’t remember how I come by it, but me and Faith Dixon are near the same age.”
Glory ran her finger lightly across the surface, absorbing the joy caught on their faces. Her voice was shaking when she looked up.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispered.
“No need…no need,” the old woman said. “Just don’t you ever be so scairt that you go and hide in no woods alone again. That plumb near broke my heart. We won’t hurt you, girl. You’re one of us.”
And one after the other, people filed past, giving their condolences for her loss, along with another piece of her family to treasure. A girl from her high-school class gave her an annual of their senior year of school.
The man who owned the feed store had two photographs of J.C., taken years ago at a livestock show.
The newspaperman had old photos on file of the year her father had bagged a twelve-point buck.
And so they came, people and pictures of times she’d forgotten, and places to which she’d forgotten they’d been. And when they were gone, Glory sat in silence, clutching the mementos to her breast, unable to speak.
“They’ve made a dinner for you and your man at the church,” the minister said, as he started to take his leave. “I know it’s hard, Miss Dixon, but letting them help you grieve will help you, as well.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered, then turned her face to Wyatt’s shoulder and wept.
“Just give us a bit,” Wyatt said. “We’ll be along.”
The minister nodded. “That’s fine. Real fine. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
And finally, except for the casket waiting to be lowered, they were alone.
“Oh, Wyatt. I knew that people thought a lot of Daddy and J.C., but I didn’t think they liked me.”
Her pain broke his heart. “Cry, Glory. Cry it all out, and then let it go.” With that, he pulled her a little bit closer to his chest and held her as she mourned for all that she’d lost…and rejoiced for what she had gained.
Food was everywhere inside the tiny cabin. On the small cabinet space, overflowing in the refrigerator, stacked two deep in aluminum foil dishes on the table and waiting to be eaten.
It had been impossible to refuse the kindness of the ladies who’d prepared the meal, because when it was over, as was the custom of the country, the bereaved family had always to take home the leftover food.
Insisting that she could never use it up, Glory succumbed to their admonition that she had company to feed. They’d declared that, at the very least, she shouldn’t have to cook for others in her time of grief.
Wyatt had been fully prepared to make several trips through the woods with the leftovers, because he had no intention of getting on Rabbit while trying to hold on to Glory and a handful of pies.
But when they drove into the yard, expecting Rabbit to be the next ride, they saw that while they were gone, someone had cleared the old road between their houses.
Thankful for the unexpected reprieve, Wyatt turned Rabbit loose as Edward Lee had instructed, and he and Glory drove up to Granny Dixon’s cabin in comfort. It wasn’t until later, when Lane was helping them unload the food from the car, that they learned one of Glory’s neighbors had taken his tractor and front-end loader and done in two hours what would have taken a road crew two days to accomplish.
Glory disappeared into her room to change, and Lane dug happily through the covered dishes, eating his fill of the homemade food as he filled Wyatt in on all that had occurred while they were gone.
“She was right, you know,” Lane said, as he took a second helping of scalloped potatoes. “Every gas jet in that house was opened wide. And one of the controls on the kitchen stove had been broken off. Short of turning off the gas at the propane tank, there would have been no way to stop its escape.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I’m not surprised.”
Lane grinned. “That Conway fellow isn’t much of a cop. He wanted to suggest that Glory had turned them all on herself after the fire was over, just to back up her story. The fire marshal almost laughed in his face, and then asked him to try and turn one of the valves himself. Old Conway nearly busted a gut trying to break the knob loose.”
“Did it happen?” Wyatt asked.
“Hell, no,” Lane muttered, and scooped a piece of cherry pie on his fork. “The fire fused them in place. You couldn’t budge one with a blowtorch.”
“So, the official conclusion is in,” Wyatt muttered. “Arson that resulted in two innocent deaths. The bottom line is, whoever did it is guilty of murder.”
“Thank God,” Glory said.
Both men turned at the sound of her voice. “At least now they have to believe me.”
Lane grinned again. “Yes, ma’am, they do at that. Not that I didn’t believe you myself…but hard proof is always good to have.”
“So, where do I go from here?” she asked.
“Nowhere, unless I’m with you,” Wyatt said. “Because if you’re right about that, then you’re right about why. Until they catch the man who’s trying to hurt you, you will have twenty-four-hour protection.”
Glory looked startled. What do I do with two men the size of small horses in Granny’s little cabin?
Wyatt laughed aloud, startling Lane and making Glory flush. She’d forgotten his ability to read her thoughts.<
br />
“Well,” she said, daring Wyatt to answer.
Lane wondered if he looked as lost as he felt. “I know when I’ve missed something, but the honest to God truth is, I never saw it go by. What’s going on?”
Glory frowned, and pointed at Wyatt. “Ask him. He’s Mr. Know-it-all.”
Wyatt grinned even wider. “Maybe you could bed one down in your daddy’s barn, and the other outside with the pup.”
She raised an eyebrow, refusing to be baited by his words or his wit. “One of these days, you’re going to eavesdrop on something you won’t have an answer for,” she said. Then she sat down beside Lane and began shuffling through the stack of pictures she’d left on the table.
The cryptic statement hit home as the smile slid off Wyatt’s face. He knew she was right. Right in the middle of a new set of worries, Glory suddenly changed the subject.
“Lane, would you like to see my pictures?”
“Yes, ma’am, I would be honored.”
Food and the future were forgotten as Glory led both men through her past, and as she talked, she absently caressed the pictures because it was all she had left to touch.
But while Glory was learning to heal, Carter Foster was festering into one big sore. His first choice for hit man was languishing in the state penitentiary. His second had moved to another state. He’d gone through the past seven years of his legal practice, trying without success to find a name to go with the game. It wasn’t until he started on the files of his first year that he remembered Bo Marker.
It had been Carter’s first big win in court. He’d successfully defended a man he knew was guilty as sin. Remembering the photographs he’d seen of Marker’s victim, he was certain that this might be his man. Surely a man who was capable of killing a man with his fists was equal to pulling a trigger. He read through the file, making notes of the address and phone number he’d had at the time. He was certain that he’d have to do a little detective work on the side to find Marker, but it would all be worth it in the end.
He wrote quickly, returning the file as soon as he was through. Time was of the essence. The longer Glory Dixon remained alive, the shorter his own days of freedom. He’d lived in hell with Betty Jo long enough, and her death had, after all, been an accident. He deserved a break. Then he winced and ran his finger along his neck, loosening his collar and his tie. Just not the kind Betty Jo had gotten.
