The Homeplace

by Janet Dailey

  The muscles that had tensed in anticipation of some shocking news relaxed and Cathie laughed in relief. "You didn't just come right out and ask him that, did you?"

  A suitably injured expression appeared on the dark-haired girl's face. "I'm not totally lacking in tact, Cathie. Besides—" an impish grin spread over her face "—he had a little boy with him who kept calling him father. I just reasoned it out that where there was a daddy and a little boy, there had to be a mommy."

  "That wouldn't necessarily follow. He could be divorced or a widower." Now why had she said that, Cathie wondered to herself.

  "Wouldn't that be wonderful if he was eligible!" Andy clasped her hands together in glee. "Not that it would bother Connie if he was married or not. She's terribly unscrupulous when it comes to good-looking men, and Rob Douglas was one handsome male! Which reminds me, you'll probably meet him yourself. He's enrolling his boy in school here. Naturally I mentioned that my roommate, meaning you, was a teacher and also the granddaughter of the former owners of his farm."

  "What grade is his boy in?" A terrible feeling of dread encompassed her as Cathie wondered if she could be objective about a pupil being the son of the man whom she already resented for buying the family farm.

  A frown creased Andy's forehead. "I don't think he said. I remember telling him that you taught the fourth grade, but I can't recall that he made any comment, and I'm such a lousy judge of ages I couldn't tell you whether the boy was seven or eleven. I imagine you'll find out soon enough." She shrugged, not attaching any major importance to the subject. "What's on your agenda for this evening? Are you and Clay going somewhere?"

  "I have choir practice at the church. Clay's meeting me afterward, but just for coffee, nothing special."

  "That sounds more exciting than my plans for this evening. I'm going to wash my hair, rinse out a few sweaters and watch the late show. You don't realize how lucky you are, Cathie," the other girl accused, wallowing unashamedly in self-pity. "First of all, you have a steady guy, which is a major achievement in itself, and secondly, he's one terrific feller. If I were you, I'd have him walking to that altar so fast that he wouldn't know what had happened. And I sure wouldn't let him anywhere near Connie. She goes after anything in pants. Don't you ever get jealous when she flirts with Clay right in front of you? I almost want to scratch her eyes out for you."

  "Jealousy just isn't a part of my nature, I guess." Cathie lifted her shoulders expressively. "Either that or it's just that I trust Clay."

  A thoughtful gleam glittered as Andy eyed the blonde busily setting the small dinette table. "Why haven't you two set your wedding date yet?"

  "No particular reason." Jade-green eyes raised their gaze to meet the pair of curious brown ones. "We've been looking for a house and have more or less postponed setting a date until we find one."

  "Doesn't Clay object? I mean, does he really want to wait?"

  The question caught Cathie off guard. Had Clay ever voiced an opinion in the matter? She couldn't recall that he had. He had simply always agreed to whatever she suggested. Andy was waiting for an answer.

  "It was just something we mutually agreed on," Cathie replied calmly, not letting the sudden flickering of doubt be revealed.

  "Don't you love him?" At the startled expression on Cathie's face, Andy hurried on with a further explanation. "I always imagined that when you love someone, really love them, it just sweeps you away in a tide of passion. Yet you sound so coldly practical about it sometimes, unless you…." A shy flush of color filled Andy's cheeks as she hesitated before completing her sentence. "Unless you and Clay… I mean, a lot of engaged couples don't wait for the actual ceremony. I know it's none of my business, but I just wondered if you were 'saving yourself,' so to speak, for your wedding night."

  "Andy, you are priceless!" Cathie couldn't keep the bubbling sound of amusement out of her voice. "Saving yourself! What a beautifully old-fashioned expression! But I guess that's exactly what I have been doing. For me, it's always been Clay. I knew I was going to marry him when I was in the eighth grade, and he's such a perfect gentleman, that I don't think it would occur to him to suggest anything different except to wait until we're married. We were both raised with what many people would consider old-fashioned morals. And as for getting swept off my feet by a man on a white horse—" a grin teased the corners of her mouth "—I could never picture Clay that way. I would always remember that Hallowe'en costume he wore one year when we were children. It was a cowboy suit and he had his two front teeth missing. It's not an image that fits well with a knight in shining armor."

  "It would 'tarnish' it," Andy declared, laughing at her own pun. "Not that I would know since I never had a childhood sweetheart or a girlhood sweetheart or any sweetheart for that matter. The plain fact is I talk too much and no matter what I do I can't seem to keep my mouth shut. And you know how men are. They prefer listeners so they can talk about themselves."

  "Listening isn't so hard to learn."

  "As long as the person doing the talking is saying something interesting." Andy headed for the hallway, but paused in its doorway. "I've always had this fantasy that some day the right guy would come along and kiss me just to shut me up. And his kisses would be so terrific that they would rob me of all speech. That's silly, isn't it?" she sighed, "but I was just born romantic. Which is probably why you're going to marry your comfortable and ever-present Clay and why I don't have a date for Saturday night!"

  Andy's thought-provoking comments remained even after she had gone into her own small bedroom to change out of her white uniform. With dinner in the oven and the timer set, Cathie filled the bathtub and let the bubbly, scented water soak away the day's tensions while her mind kept wandering back to Andy's conversation. There had been the underlying impression that Andy thought Cathie was settling for second best, which was absurd, because she loved Clay. Admittedly there wasn't the white-hot, searing flame of passion between them that Andy placed so much importance on, but Cathie considered that an overrated commodity. It wasn't nearly as important as respect and friendship and undemanding affection.

  From some unbidden corner of her mind came the thought that it would be nice to feel all of those and an unquenchable desire, too. With a sharp shake of her head, Cathie dismissed it.

  "Fairy-tale stuff," she murmured to the openmouthed ceramic fish on the bathroom wall. Fictional accounts of love had never borne any resemblance to reality in Cathie's sphere of knowledge.

  Although she had been positive that she would marry Clay, that hadn't stopped her from dating other men when she was in high school and college. Therefore she had more than her experience with Clay to draw on. Kissing had always been a pleasant experience and some men had more finesse than others, but there had never been any throbbing, heat-filled kisses to carry her off to any dizzy heights of desire. Any accounts of such happenings Cathie had always marked off as poetic licence.

  Besides, what did it matter to her if Andy didn't find her relationship with Clay particularly romantic, Cathie thought as she briskly rubbed herself dry with the big bath towel. She was very contented with Clay. From a distant part of her mind, she heard Andy's voice mocking her, "Like a cow chewing its cud?"

  Cathie gave herself a mental shake. It was foolish to be suddenly questioning her decision to marry Clay or her own views about love and what it meant. They were beliefs she had held for years and simply because they differed from those of someone else that was not a reason for her to doubt their validity.

  Slipping the black sweater vest that matched the yellow and black plaid slacks over her white blouse, Cathie removed the confining hairband from her head. The oven timer would be buzzing any minute now, so she postponed putting on her makeup until after the meal, pausing only long enough to run a brush through her hair.

  Andy was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, painstakingly attempting to roll her short hair around pink plastic rollers.

  "Why is it—" Andy groaned at the sight of Cathie
"—that if brunettes are supposed to have thick, full-bodied hair, I have this thin, fine stuff and you, a blonde, have the thick gorgeous hair?" Her shoulders slumped as a lock of hair slipped out of her grasp. "I have to use a ton of this setting gel to persuade this darn hair to look at a roller!"

  A statuesque girl appeared in the doorway, her cool gray eyes surveying the scene with superiority. "Have you ever considered a perm, Andrea?" Long hair that was an unusual combination of brown streaked with blond was swung over her shoulder in a graceful gesture as Connie Murchison entered the room.

  "And end up with the frizzies! Not on your life!" Andy declared.

  "Hello, Connie," Cathie greeted her second roommate. "Dinner will be ready shortly. How was your day?"

  Connie tightened the sash on her ivory, floor-length silk robe before reclining her lanky form on the cinnamon couch. On cue the robe flicked open from the knee down to reveal her shapely legs and the lacy edge of her slip. "It had its moments," she smiled mysteriously.

  "Cathie, you're psychic!" Andy exclaimed suddenly. "Do you remember when you said that just because Mr. Douglas had a little boy it didn't mean he was married? Well, you were right. Connie was just telling me that his wife died last fall. Isn't that tragic? I imagine that's why he moved out here, to get away from all the familiar things and start a new life."

  "It didn't appear to me that his wife's death had left him all that choked up," Connie observed, lighting a cigarette and exhaling the smoke so that it drifted like a cloud in front of her face and hid the knowing gleam in her pale gray eyes.

  "How would you know whether a man was in mourning or not," the dark-haired girl demanded. "Just because he wasn't wearing a black armband or grieving visibly over his loss it doesn't mean he didn't care about her dying."

  "I just can't visualize a man who, according to you is supposed to feel this intense loss for his 'beloved' wife accepting an invitation to a party," Connie replied calmly.

  "A party!" Andy gasped in horror, bringing an amused smile to Cathie's face. Poor romantic Andy, she thought, was no match for Connie who launched her siege of an eligible male with the precision and expertise of an army general. "You haven't invited him to a party already! Why, you only met him today!" Andy finished.

  "I wasn't about to let someone else snatch him up." A dark eyebrow lifted in mock surprise as if such an action would be traitorous to her nature, which it would. "As I told Rob, it's a small party and it will serve to get him acquainted with the local people."

  "I think you're disgusting!" Andy declared, never one to hide her feelings.

  "Why?" Connie shrugged. "He's a man who knows the score. I didn't suggest anything that he didn't want me to."

  "Andy told me he was quite handsome." A spurt of cold anger drove Cathie to take part in the conversation.

  A secret smile played around the corners of Connie's mouth. "I assure you, whatever he is, he isn't a farmer. And if he ever had a little black book of telephone numbers, I'm positive it was filled."

  "Why did he come out here, then? Why did he buy the farm?" Cathie demanded, unconscious that her hands were clenched tightly at her side.

  "Really, Cathie!" A husky laugh sounded from the couch. "I haven't got to the point yet where Rob has confided everything to me. I know he has a very healthy bank balance. Maybe it's like Andy said. He's tired of being a playboy and wants to turn over a new leaf."

  "Playboys aren't married men," Andy corrected sarcastically.

  "You're such a naive child." Connie flashed the girl on the floor a saccharine-sweet smile.

  The humming buzz of the oven timer acted as a deterrent to further conversation among the trio. Cathie pivoted around sharply to respond to it as Andie hopped to her feet to help.

  "I don't think I'm going to like this Mr. Rob Douglas," Cathie muttered. Connie's description had left a bad taste in her mouth for the new owner of the Carlsen farm.

  "You haven't even met the man." Andy turned a questioning look on her. "You aren't going to let Connie's assessment of him influence you? I thought he was a very charming and friendly man, but I certainly didn't get the lady-killing impression that she did."

  Cathie paused in front of the oven door, a potholder in each hand, and glanced over her shoulder at Andy. "I'm not taking sides for or against the man," she said, forcing her temper to recede. "He means absolutely nothing to me and isn't likely to either."

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  Chapter Three

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Mr. Graham, the principal, brought Cathie's new pupil to her classroom. Judging by the sullen expression on the boy's face, Tad Douglas was not any happier with the situation than Cathie was, although she was determined to make the best of it and not let her resentment of his father color her relationship with his son. In a silent admission to herself Cathie realized that it might prove difficult.

  Tad Douglas had all the earmarks of a young boy who had been spoiled, his every whim indulged by a doting parent. His hazel eyes seemed to possess only two expressions; one was sullen and the other defiant. The impression he created with the rest of the class wasn't very good either. His sandy-brown hair was longer than that of the other members. His precisely creased slacks and crisply starched shirt didn't bear any resemblance to the casual shirts and denim jeans of the other boys. Cathie noticed the uneasy fidgeting in their seats as she introduced Tad to the rest of the class.

  Charlie Smith didn't help. From his coveted back-row seat, she heard him snickering. "Tad, ain't that name short for tadpole?"

  The boy sitting across the aisle whispered back, "Tad is a frog!" More giggles followed from behind hand-covered mouths.

  The invisible shell around Tad grew harder. His superior standoffish attitude during the rest of the school day did little to help him make friends. In Cathie's brief tenure as an elementary teacher she had learned there was no way that she could make his incorporation into the class any easier. It was up to Tad and the rest of the class, and neither was eager to take the first step.

  While Cathie felt sorry for the newcomer's isolation imposed partly by the rest of the class, she was angered by his apathy. Not once during the entire day did he smile or show any interest in the lessons or the activities. Tad was the last one to leave the room during recess periods and the last one to return when they were over. He wasn't allowing any opportunity for anyone to make an overture of friendliness. There was something in his childish version of arrogance that said it had nothing to do with shyness. Tad Douglas simply did not want to make friends.

  When class was dismissed at the end of the day, Tad made a project of slowly stacking his books while the rest of the students made their usual mad dash for the door. The room was cleared by the time Tad was done and ready to put on his own coat. Cathie felt compelled to show some interest in his welfare.

  "Will your father be meeting you?" she inquired, forcing a smile to appear on her face.

  "No," Tad shrugged, slipping his arms into the tailored overcoat. "He doesn't want to be bothered with me."

  Cathie's ire at his unknown father increased, but she concealed it with the utmost difficulty. "I thought since it was your first day at school he might," she said calmly. "Do you know which school bus to take to get home?"

  "Yes."

  A glumly resigned look flitted across his face to tug at Cathie's heartstrings. If it hadn't been for the fact that walking with him to the school bus would have further alienated him from the rest of the class, Cathie would have done it. As it was she could only nod and add a cheerful, "See you tomorrow, Tad," a statement that earned her another sullen glance.

  April and May were two very long months, especially for Tad Douglas and Cathie Carlsen. He proved to be a conscientious, intelligent student, his homework always turned in on time and usually always correct, but he never took part in any discussions or showed a desire to do so. Except on rainy, days, the recess periods were held outside, with Tad remaining apart from the rest of the class unless there w
ere organized games.

  More than once Cathie had heard the chanting, "Tad is a frog! Tad is a frog!" and wondered at the unknowing cruelty, of children.

  Tad still lingered an extra few minutes at the end of the day. Cathie was never sure if he did it to avoid the ridicule of the children or if he attached importance to their brief exchanges.

  One day she had asked him how he liked his new home. His small shoulders had made their habitual shrug beneath his expensive cotton shirt. "It's all right."

  The lack of enthusiasm in his reply had caused her to add, "When I was a little girl about your age, I used to spend all my summers and most of my holidays on the very farm where you live."

  She had expected some gleam of interest, but Tad had merely cast her a blank look and asked, "Why?" as if the farm was the last place in the world anyone would want to be.

  "My grandparents lived there. I liked visiting them," Cathie continued determinedly, "and because there were so many fun places to play."

  He had given her another look that plainly said she was out of her mind as he ended their conversation with, "I have to catch the bus."

  Outside school, Cathie had only seen Tad once. That had been after a Sunday church service. She had changed out of her choir robe and was walking to the car park to meet Clay. Dressed in a blue suit and a striped tie, Tad was leaning against the fender of a shiny El Dorado. A toe of one polished shoe was digging furrows in the gravel.

  He looked up at the sound of her approach. "Good morning, Miss Carlsen," Tad had greeted her politely.

  "Good morning, Tad," Cathie returned. "I didn't know you attended this church." Her seat in the choir didn't give her much of a view of the congregation, so it didn't surprise her that she hadn't seen him.

  "It was my father's idea," he said, indicating that the thought was definitely not his. "I did see you in the choir, though."

  "Next time I'll look for you," Cathie smiled, glancing around her. "Where's your father?"