by Jodi Thomas
Tyler laughed. “Right. It’s all my fault. Your family being so grounded and all.”
Hank shrugged. With his mother a potter who rarely remembered what month it was much less what day, his sister an artist who only painted pictures of men suffering horrible deaths, and his other sister married to a graphic artist who wanted to name their children after superheroes, Hank had no room to talk about daydreams. At the Matheson place creativity must seep through the soil. It was no wonder Saralynn was off the charts with talent. “Forget my family,” Hank said. “You look like you fell off the hearse and the family car ran over you.”
Tyler touched the dark bruise on his face. “You should see the one on my hip.”
Hank laughed. “No thanks. I can miss that showing.”
Both men laughed, knowing the girl was no longer listening to them. They settled into their routine of talking frankly with one another over coffee.
“How’s her legs?” Tyler said, pointing with his head toward Saralynn.
“This new doctor seems to know what he’s doing. Another few weeks the braces come off, and maybe this time they’ll stay off. The guy who looks after Jeremiah Truman’s recovery is living out on his place. He said he’d come over every afternoon and check on her once the therapy starts.”
Tyler nodded. He’d met Foster and Cindy Garrison. He seemed like a nice man, and his wife, Cindy, was as gentle and kind as they come. Some folks in town claimed that old Jeremiah wouldn’t have made it through his last spell if Foster hadn’t been there.
Hank studied the dark bruise on the funeral director’s forehead. “I heard about your accident from Alex. Got attacked by a flashlight, right?”
“Right.” Tyler sighed, owning his own stupidity. “But the bruises don’t hurt near as much as having to eat my own cooking. It doesn’t look like Willamina’s coming back. Her sister called me yesterday and told me she got a postcard from Saint Thomas. Apparently seventy-two is not too old to go native. Said she’d been skinny-dipping in the ocean.”
“I don’t even want to think about seeing that.”
Tyler agreed. “I don’t understand it. The woman spent forty years watching TV in my kitchen, never smiling or even talking to me, and then she takes off without even saying good-bye.”
“What do you think set her off?”
“I have no idea,” Tyler lied. He’d figured it out from something the sister had said about two women around the place being one too many. The old cook must have thought Kate was there to stay the day she slept on his bed. “I’ll manage, though.”
“You don’t want her to come back?”
Tyler shook his head. “To tell the truth, I don’t think she liked me all that much. Mom said I used to pester her when I was a boy and she first came to work for the family. I don’t think she ever forgave me. When I first took over I used to make a list of what I wanted for dinner every night. The only thing I could always depend on was that nothing on that list would be served.”
“So you’ll get along without her?”
“I’ve already hired Three Sweeping Maids to come once a week and clean the place. In two hours they do more cleaning than she did all week. I eat breakfast out, make a sandwich for lunch, and have frozen food for supper. Who knows, I might even lose a little weight now that she’s gone. To Willamina the four food groups all started with S. Sugar, starch, salt, and shortening.”
Hank leaned back as the waitress slapped their plates on the table. “As long as Kate doesn’t show up too often and cook like she did last week, you’ll probably be healthier without Willamina. That meal Saturday night at the inn was great.”
“Yeah.” Tyler acted interested in his breakfast. He didn’t want to talk, or think, about Kate. When he hadn’t e-mailed Sunday night after his trip to the hospital, he had a headache all day Monday and didn’t even go down to his office. This morning, when he finally checked, she hadn’t written. Their friendship seemed like a dance, one step forward two steps back.
The realization that she meant a great deal more to him than he meant to her settled in around his heart like cold blood. He might as well be living in Saralynn’s fairy cave for all the reality he saw. Kate was a friend, and to wish for more would only lead him to more hurt.
“I heard the woman you found out back in the cemetery is still in the hospital.” Hank broke into Tyler’s thoughts. “They say she was pretty sick. Running a fever, getting dehydrated. You know, Tyler, she might have died if you hadn’t gone out to check on her Sunday night.”
Tyler looked up. “Really?”
“For real. The doc told Alex that the girl thought she could just crawl in the back of her car and sleep till the fever broke, but she’d been there almost a week and was only getting worse. With it below freezing last weekend, she could have frozen, or come down with pneumonia. She’s lucky you came along.”
Tyler didn’t know what to say. He’d thought he’d done everything wrong that night. Frightened her. Shone the light in her face. Bullied her. Now to find out that something he’d done might actually have been good made him feel better. “I might drop by and see her if she’s still in the hospital. I need to say I’m sorry for frightening her.”
“That’d be nice,” Hank said. “I don’t think she has any family around these parts.”
“Sir Knight?” Saralynn lifted her head from her work of art.
“Yes, dear,” Tyler answered in his most courtly fashion.
“You can have my picture if you like. I made it of the lady you helped.”
Tyler looked down at a giant holding a fairy with bright green wings. “Thank you. But isn’t she a little small in the picture?” He remembered her falling on him and she was no small woman.
Saralynn shook her head. “She’s a fairy in disguise. They do that sometimes just so they can walk among us and we won’t step on them by accident. Don’t ever let her eat okra or she’ll go back to her real size.”
Tyler held the picture up as if it were a great work of art. In truth, it was rather amazing. “Do you like okra, Princess?”
“No,” she answered as she put her drawing pencils in their case. “I never eat the stuff.”
Before either man could comment, she looked at her uncle Hank and said, “It’s time to take me to school.”
Hank frowned. “You didn’t eat your eggs and biscuit.”
She split the biscuit in half, gulped down a forkful of eggs while she added honey to the biscuit, then wrapped it in her napkin. “I’ll eat it later.”
Hank carried Saralynn out while Tyler ordered a cup of coffee and a roll for dessert. He wondered why the breakfast specials never came with dessert. It seemed a good idea.
While he waited, he stared at the drawing. He decided he’d frame this one and put it in his office. Someday when she was a great artist like her mother and grandmother, he’d get her to sign it, but for right now, he needed to look at it and remember that people are not always what they seem.
Some are short-stout giants and others are fairies in disguise.
Chapter 15
POST OFFICE
THE LETTER DIDN’T SHOW UP IN THE STACK UNTIL SHE’D almost finished sorting. Ronelle set it aside, knowing she had a delivery to make. Yesterday she’d been too frightened to go out and was relieved there had been no mail for Marty Winslow. But today, she told herself, she was ready to face him. Somehow he didn’t seem so frightening knowing that he worked with numbers. Her mother had never mentioned that serial killers were usually great at math.
Numbers were like the words in her crossword puzzles. They couldn’t hurt her or embarrass her. Numbers and words populated a safe world.
At a quarter till noon, she put on her official coat and the wool cap her father used to wear when he walked a route. She’d found his old mail pouch and decided to wear it strapped over her coat even though she had only one letter to deliver. Ronelle now thought she looked very official. As she moved past the main office, Mr. Donavan smiled at her. “You making
your delivery?”
She nodded and fought to get the first word out. It was always the hardest. “I can take the mail for the fire station too, if you want.”
Donavan looked surprised. “All right.”
He watched her leave. She didn’t know if he was more surprised that she’d offered to do extra work, or that she’d talked to him. She did talk to the man now and then when she had to. He’d probably be very surprised to know that she said more words to him than she did anyone else most days.
The wind blew out of the north, brushing against her cheeks like tiny icicles.
Today she’d stop by Marty Winslow’s place first, then the fire station, then the diner. She’d have the Tuesday special of meat loaf and mashed potatoes.
She liked the diner on Tuesdays. It was never quite as busy thanks to all the business club luncheons. If she went home for lunch, her mother always welcomed her by saying she’d have to fix her own lunch; after all, this wasn’t a quick-order place. When Ronelle usually left after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Dallas would yell from the living room something like, “You better not have left a mess for me to clean up.”
The letter to Winslow wasn’t special delivery, but she knocked anyway.
“Come in.” His bark didn’t sound any friendlier than the first time.
She pushed the door open and walked into what she thought of as his cave. “Mail,” she said simply.
He raised his open hand and waited for her to cross the room. His dark eyes studied her as before. “What’s your name?” he asked as he studied her.
“Ronelle Logan,” she managed as she tried to keep her hand from shaking.
He frowned at her for a moment, then said, “Thank you for bringing it in. Jerry usually leaves it in the box by the road.”
She got the picture. It couldn’t be easy on snowy days to go down the ramp and get letters.
He barked a laugh. “Maybe it’s because I usually tell him to shut up and get out when he brings it in.” His gaze locked on hers. “I’m guessing you feel the same way about him.”
It was a statement, not a question. He’d read her mind, she thought.
When she turned to leave, he said, so low she wasn’t sure he wasn’t talking more to himself than to her, “I’m not going to blow my brains out, you know, despite what your mother said Saturday. If I were prone to suicide, I would have done it two years ago.”
She looked back at him, realizing he must have heard every word her mother said. As always, she wanted to apologize for Dallas. As always, she didn’t.
To her surprise, he smiled. “I asked around. That was your mom, right?”
She nodded.
“I guess we all have our cross to bear. Most of my days are too dark to even be aware of people like her. I probably wouldn’t have noticed her if you hadn’t been near her. I saw you the moment you walked in. You did a good job of ignoring me and everyone else.”
“I . . .” Backing up, she tried to think of something to say. “I didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t ignoring you, just the world.”
“I understand.”
She was almost to the door when the motorcycle thug came barreling in. “I got the table and chairs”—he froze when he spotted Ronelle—“you ordered,” he finished.
She backed as far away as the little corridor space would allow. If the tattooed youth hadn’t been blocking the door, she would have run for her life.
“Border, this is the mailwoman, Ronelle Logan.” Marty rolled toward them. “Ronelle, this is Border Biggs. He lives next door with his older brother, Brandon. I couldn’t ask for better neighbors.”
She had no idea what to say. The big kid obviously didn’t either. He gave her a confused look like he thought she might be a bug he needed to squash.
Marty laughed and touched the arm of her coat sleeve. With gentle pressure, he moved her to the side. “Get out of the way, Border. You’re frightening the lady.”
Border frowned. “Hell, Marty, did it ever occur to you that she might be frightening me?” He wiggled the chair he carried along the corridor, allowing her enough room to go around him. “In those clothes I didn’t even know she was a woman. I thought she was just a short mailman.”
When Ronelle made it to the sidewalk, something made her turn and look back. Marty had pulled one of the drapes aside and was watching her. He looked as if he were sorry to see her go.
Absently, she brushed her sleeve, still feeling the warmth of his touch.
She walked to the fire station and delivered their mail to Hank Matheson, the fire chief. Most women in town thought Hank was the best-looking man around. Folks said his heart had always belonged to the sheriff, Alex McAllen, who had stolen it when she was a kid. Ronelle had never talked to either one of them, but she considered them the guardians of the town.
“Thanks,” Hank, said turning back to his work.
“You’re welcome,” she managed in just above a whisper.
Hank glanced up and touched the end of the letter to his forehead in a kind of salute.
She turned away and smiled, thinking maybe next week she’d ask Donavan if she could deliver the block all the way to the diner.
Chapter 16
DALLAS, TEXAS
DENVER SIMS HAD TAKEN A FLIGHT LAST SUNDAY OUT of DFW three hours after Claire Matheson left his room at the Hyatt. He thought of her every spare minute as he moved from flight to flight doing his job. Three days later he found himself back in Dallas for one night. He couldn’t stand the thought of staying at the Hyatt without her, so he booked a room farther from the airport.
After a shower and clean clothes, he checked her schedule and was surprised to find she was due to be in Fort Worth lecturing at the university on trends in today’s art world. He rarely called her because she was always surrounded with family or friends. Probably would be tonight as well, but he rented a car and drove out to the lecture site in hopes of at least seeing her on stage.
When he got to the lecture hall it was already packed. Denver pulled his Stetson low and watched the crowd. She’d told him once that she sometimes traveled to the Dallas area for talks or meetings with potential buyers, but only rarely did she spend the night. If she wasn’t planning to meet him, she usually drove home.
Denver didn’t like the thought of her driving half the night, but he couldn’t say much. Claire wasn’t the kind of woman to take suggestions, much less orders.
When Claire and four others walked on stage, the audience settled. Each member of the panel said a few words, and then the questioning began. Denver stood in the shadows and watched her. He paid little attention to what was being said while his eyes drank her in like a man dying of thirst; his ears didn’t work at all. He memorized everything about her but couldn’t quote one word she said. Every time she stood, he slowly undressed her in his mind.
Tonight she wore a wine-red pantsuit almost the color of her hair. To the world she must have looked very proper, almost distant, untouchable, but he saw far more. He knew the way she felt beneath the very proper suit. Warm, almost as if she had a slight fever, and soft in all the right places.
The talk ended, and people filed by to ask questions or to gush over how much they liked her work. The room was almost empty when he saw her recognize him in the back. Her back straightened slightly and he didn’t miss the anger flaring in her eyes a second before she turned away.
When he moved to shake her hand, she didn’t greet him, but only whispered, “Why are you here?”
“I thought I’d walk you to your car,” he answered as he gripped her hand hard, not allowing her to move away. “I’ll be waiting just outside the door.”
She shook her head, but he only smiled. He knew Claire. She’d argue with him and herself, but she’d step right into his arms.
He walked outside and waited just beyond the steps. The night was chilly, not cold, but he barely noticed.
Ten minutes later she walked out alone. Tall and beautiful. When she didn’
t move, he took the steps two at a time until he was almost within reach. Then, slowly, as if he thought she might bolt if he moved too fast, he raised his hand and waited.
“Come on, darlin’. I’ll walk you to your car.”
She didn’t take his hand, but she walked down the stairs and along the sidewalk toward the parking lot. The sidewalk was shadowed by evergreens on either side and silent in the evening air. Somewhere deep in the campus a clock tower chimed the hour.
Halfway to the parking lot, he suddenly circled her waist and pulled her into the darkness.
She didn’t make a sound, but she tried to wiggle away from him and when her hands shoved at his chest they were balled into fists as if she were about to fight.
Cupping the back of her head, he brought her lips to his and kissed her hard. Like he knew she would, she slowly melted against him and her mouth opened.
His hand moved along her body, petting her gently as her arms circled around his neck and drew him closer. When he broke the kiss, he felt her warm breath against his throat.
“Do we have to go through this every time, Claire? Can’t you just come to me?”
“I . . . I . . .” she whispered, brushing her mouth against his.
Denver forgot the question and kissed her again. This time with tenderness, silently showing her the love he felt but couldn’t say.
A couple walked by; their giggles brought him back to his senses. He couldn’t make love to her here. Breaking away from her, he took her hand and walked her to a bench.
“I can’t stay the night.”
He didn’t ask why. He could guess. Claire had a daughter to take care of, family responsibilities, and a hundred other reasons. He didn’t care which one pulled her away from him this time . . . every time.
“I’ve missed you, darlin’,” he whispered as he pulled her against his side.
