Heart Stealers
Page 31
“Not particularly. When that date to cease operations came and they realized I hadn’t closed down, they took measures to enforce their orders. But they had to find me first.”
She shook her head. Daniel Delligatti or Taumaturgio, he certainly had nerve. “And after that you still have a job?”
“Yeah. They had me in Washington for a couple weeks for debriefings that ended up being mostly telling me how many rules I’d broken how many ways, they put an official reprimand in my file, and they encouraged me to consider my future during this leave. But I’ve got a job to go back to.”
From what she’d read between the lines earlier, a job that would mean unscheduled departures to dangerous spots for unknown amounts of time. His life wasn’t his own.
“How does Matthew fit into this?”
“Whatever I do, Matthew will be part of it. As for specifics...” He spread his long fingers flat on the table. “During the four months of this leave, I intend to be around as much as you’ll let me, and let my son know he has a father who loves him.”
She didn’t know which part of that to respond to first, so she focused on the most practical part.
“Four months? You’re staying here four months?”
She had a sudden vision of Daniel Delligatti sitting at her kitchen table day in and day out for four months, and her trying to ignore him with about as much success as ignoring the proverbial elephant in the living room.
She’d go nuts.
“Yeah.”
For a second she was unclear if he’d answered her spoken question or agreed with her unspoken assessment. She would go nuts.
“What would you do in Far Hills for four months?”
His hesitation was more telling than any words. He’d go nuts sitting at her table day in and day out. After all, up until a couple months ago, he had been living two, three or who knew how many lives.
“I can take care of Matthew on the days you work.”
“Daniel, you haven’t considered the practicalities of this. You’re not comfortable with Matthew and –”
“That’s going to change.”
“– I have child-care arrangements. Besides, I work three days a week, so you’d still have four days a week to fill even if you took care of Matthew every minute I worked. I know the rates at the motel aren’t on a par with the Ritz, but even so, four months of staying there and eating out, and –”
“I’ll find a place.”
“Daniel –”
“I’m staying, Kendra.”
When she saw that stubborn expression on her son’s face she expected a true battle. And this time it was backed by the brawn and experience of one very determined adult male.
“You should think this through. Decide what you want to do –”
“I know what I want to do. I want to see this ranch you talked so much about during Aretha. I want to see Far Hills.”
“You can’t leap into this –”
“C’mon. You seem to be out of questions, so let’s –”
“I’m not out of questions. I have plenty of questions. I just think –”
“Fine. Ask them while you show me around.”
* * *
But she didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t get much of a tour.
Instead, he learned lessons.
These first lessons in being a father were coming fast and furious, and in unexpected ways.
The tour of Far Hills he’d prodded her into giving him would be abbreviated, she’d said, because she needed to pick up Matthew at Marti’s.
That was one lesson: A parent’s chauffeur duty wasn’t only the stuff of stand-up comedians’ one-liners.
He’d offered to drive his car.
Lesson number two: No car seat, no kid in the car.
His first purchase would be a car seat – and he’d install it carefully after hearing the statistics Kendra spouted about the dangers of car seats incorrectly installed. She’d done a story on it, she told him, for the network.
She’d been so immersed in the topic that he hadn’t gotten much more than general directions for getting around the ranch and a few identifiers – “That’s Ridge House, where Ellyn and her kids live.” “Turn left here to go in the back way to the barn.” – as they drove to the main house, what Kendra called the home ranch.
Home. That’s what she’d called it in those hours during Aretha when she’d thought he – or Paulo – didn’t understand. But he had understood. And he’d recognized that she’d reserved the word for the ranch, never the places she’d lived with her mother.
Seeing it now, he couldn’t imagine anywhere more different from where he’d spent most of the past five years. Far Hills and Santa Estella both had mountains, but that was the only connection.
These mountains, unlike the lush peaks of Santa Estella so covered by vegetation that they were hard to see, stood out in stark relief, seeming unintimidated by a sky that could overwhelm the senses. Leading up to the peaks were folds of earth bleached by the dry autumn until they resembled immovable sand dunes.
Ahead, a line of trees allowed glimpses of buildings. They turned and drove parallel to the trees. A scattering of sheds backed along a pasture, then a corrugated metal structure, followed by an old building – well maintained but the record of its repairs shown in varied states of the wood. A series of corrals connected it to a newer, bigger barn. If he hadn’t already guessed, this confirmed that Far Hills Ranch was no small operation.
The road passed through a loose ring of trees, and he saw the house.
He gave a soft whistle. “So that’s where you stayed when you were here as a kid?”
Two full stories, with windows peeking out of the eaves of the third floor, and with substantial wings to either side of the central core – bigger than the public hospital on Santa Estella and considerably better tended.
The house was painted fresh white with sharp black shutters. Deep blue awnings shaded first-floor windows. The sweep of lawn, the plantings clustered around the house, the patches of fall flowers and even the big trees shading the whole thing showed signs they’d received more water than the arid areas along the road but not as much as they would have liked.
“Yeah. That’s where we stayed,” Kendra said shortly. “There’s another thing to remember about child seats from those stories...” And she was back onto that track.
They pulled beyond the house to a fenced side yard with children’s playground equipment inside it and a trio of women standing outside it. As Kendra braked to a stop, he wondered if her detailed monologue on child seats was totally for his education or to avoid talking about the ranch around them – the place she’d talked about with such open longing during the hurricane.
To occupy his hands he scooped up a handful of fallen leaves as he got out of the passenger side. They crumbled like potato chips, leaving him with nothing but crumbs to wipe off on his jeans.
Arriving brought his third lesson.
Other parents were a lot more interested in a “new” father than kids were, including his own. Of course, Matthew didn’t know Daniel was his father.
And Kendra showed no inclination to tell him.
Daniel hadn’t questioned that yesterday. He didn’t have time to consider it now, either, not with three women staring at him with the half-abashed air and sudden silence of people who’d been discussing the person who’d just shown up.
One was Kendra’s aunt, Marti Susland. He’d half remembered that from Kendra’s confidings during Aretha; he’d confirmed it yesterday by getting the man at the gas station to gossip. The youngest of these three women, the one with the wounded eyes, had answered the door at Kendra’s yesterday. The third woman had run the meeting at the church last night.
Beyond them, he saw two grade-school aged kids leading horses into the stable, followed by the man who’d volunteered to throw Daniel out yesterday.
Luke, that’s what Kendra had called him. And that’s what Matthew had called Daniel.
Kendra had said they were friends, she and this Luke. Was that feeling mutual?
Daniel waited for Kendra to introduce him to the three women, but she focused on Matthew, who in turn appeared intent on filling a bucket held by the dark-haired girl who’d been sleeping when Luke carried her out yesterday, Marti Susland’s daughter.
“I understand you’re Daniel Delligatti,” said the woman from the meeting, stepping forward. He shook her extended hand, work-worn but neat. “I’m Fran Sinclair. Glad to see you signed up for duty at the babysitting co-op. We need some men.”
Eyes wide, Kendra turned at Fran Sinclair’s words, but didn’t have a chance to comment before the woman addressed him again.
“Sorry I’ve got to run off now, but stop by the co-op any time if you’ve got questions.”
“Thank you, Fran.”
With a general wave, she walked off to a dusty, mid-sized car with a full decade under its hood.
Hardly noticing her friend’s departure, Marti gave him a chillingly neutral up-and-down survey, then announced, “Kendra, I need to talk to you. Inside.”
“Marti –”
“Go ahead, Kendra,” he told her. “I’ll watch Matthew.”
Kendra opened her mouth as if to protest his ability to do that, then shot a look at the third woman, yesterday’s door-opener, who responded with a nod.
Kendra pivoted and followed her aunt toward the house.
When the door closed behind them, he turned back, and found the woman watching him. She smiled, genuine and warm.
“Hi, Daniel. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself yesterday. I’m Ellyn Sinclair. I’m Kendra’s nearest neighbor.”
The other people from yesterday had not been much more than blurs. But he recognized this curly-haired woman from last night at the church. She’d been the one to shepherd Marti and the woman he now knew as Fran Sinclair out of the room, leaving him alone with Kendra.
He also recognized an ally when he met one.
“Hi, Ellyn. Nice to meet you. Kendra pointed out where you live – Ridge House, right? And you have a couple kids.” He tipped his head toward the barn, with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.
“Right. Meg and Ben are mine. The charmer with Matthew is Emily Susland. Marti adopted her nearly three years ago, right after a hurricane hit Santa Estella and killed her parents.”
From her pointed tone, she clearly knew that he knew about Santa Estella and that particular hurricane.
“A lot of lives were changed by Aretha.” His words were neutral, but a flicker in her eyes indicated she knew how they applied to Kendra and him. “Orphanages there had more kids than they could handle. Still do. Emily’s lucky.”
“Yes, she is. Marti has a great deal of love to give. She’s very protective of those she loves.”
He’d already seen that.
“So, did you grow up coming here for summers, too, Ellyn?”
“Not exactly. I grew up in town, but Marti let me come out here whenever I could get away, so I spent a lot of time with all of them.” She hesitated, as if there might be more to her answer, then added a little stiffly. “We moved in about a year and a half ago.”
He watched Matthew level off the top of the filled sand bucket. “I envy you that year and half.”
She rested her fingertips on his arm in a fleeting gesture of sympathy. “There are lots more memories to come, believe me. And there is a bright side – you missed a lot of dirty diapers.”
She grinned, and he smiled back.
“Thanks for pointing out the bright side. But I’d have traded all those dirty diapers for the chance to have been around.”
“Sometimes being around isn’t all that counts.” Her gaze wasn’t judgmental, yet definitely assessing. “I’d known Kendra since we were kids, and I’d lived here almost a year before she started opening up. Even though I was certain from the start that she needed a friend.”
A friend? That wasn’t what he had in mind. It sure as hell wasn’t what his body had in mind.
He glanced at his companion, and she immediately gave him a nod, as if encouraging a tentative student. Maybe Ellyn didn’t mean friend literally. Maybe she had in mind that wall of Kendra’s.
“Sometimes she just needs persuading. And you –” Other than a glint in her eyes, her face was solemn “– look to me like a persuasive man.”
* * *
Marti stopped inside the door to the mudroom.
“Kendra, is he bothering you? Because if he is –”
“I called him, Marti. Asked him to come out to talk.”
“Are you sure...?”
“I’m not sure of anything except that as long as he wants to be a father to Matthew, I’m not going to be the one who stops it.”
“But –”
Kendra held up a hand. “I know, I know. The chances that he’ll actually stick around and be a real father to Matthew are next to none, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see he doesn’t hurt Matthew.”
She sounded grim even to her own ears. She tried to lighten her tone as she continued.
“But I have to give him some chance. I don’t know how I would explain it to Matthew when he’s older if I didn’t. Besides,” Kendra admitted, “I’m not sure you, me and Luke combined could keep him away from Matthew right now.”
“I suppose that’s the way you have to approach it,” Marti started rather doubtfully, “but –”
“Don’t worry, Marti. I know better than most how much it hurts to have a father who’s there one day and disappears the next. I’m not going to let Matthew count on Daniel just to have him disappear.”
“I know you won’t, Kendra. But I’m worried about you.”
“Me?”
“About your getting hurt by this man. Again.”
“Don’t worry, Marti. I know what to expect now. If I’d had half a brain operating during that insanity on Santa Estella, I’d have known what to expect then, too. I did know. But now the lesson’s ingrained even deeper. He’ll realize that soon.”
“So he has indicated he’s not here solely to see Matthew.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kendra said firmly. “There’s no danger of my falling for his lies again. Not even if we got caught in the middle of another hurricane. Besides –” She tried for a rueful grin. “– to borrow from Eliza Doolittle, hurricanes hardly ever happen in Wyoming, so I should be safe.”
At last Marti’s frown lightened.
“You’re saying he wants to pick things up between the two of you, and you’ve told him no, but he hasn’t listened so far?”
“I’m saying none of that matters.”
Marti appeared uncharacteristically willing to accept that judgment. Although Kendra had the uneasy impression that the gears in her aunt’s mind were whirring overtime as they headed out.
Ben and Meg had arrived after putting away their horses in the barn and were pushing Matthew and Emily in the safety swings, to the vocal delight of the younger kids. Ellyn and Luke stood by the barn, probably talking about Meg’s and Ben’s progress as riders.
That left Daniel alone, resting his forearms on the top rail of the side-yard fence, looking in.
He appeared unaware of anything except the playing, laughing quartet of children. The lines at the corners of his mouth dug deeper, his shoulders weighed down.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said slowly. “It’s right.”
Puzzled, she looked from him to the children and back. “They’re awfully noisy,” she ventured.
“Noisy, yes. But that’s not awful.”
Four kids playing. Healthy, happy, well-fed children playing. No concern for where their next meal might come from. No danger of their critical medical supplies being redirected to line someone’s pocket.
&nb
sp; So different from the desperate want she’d seen among the children in Santa Estella. The only time she’d heard those children laugh and get excited was when they told or listened to tales of Taumaturgio. Generations would surely hear those tales of Taumaturgio on Santa Estella.
But only Daniel Delligatti carried the memories of Taumaturgio.
Kendra’s view of the children screeching with unrestrained laughter seemed to shift, as if she were seeing them through his eyes and, to a small extent, also seeing those other children through his eyes, those children of Santa Estella.
Unexpected tears burned at her eyes.
An impulse to put her arms around him, to stroke her hands over his strong back, propelled her a step forward.
No!
She gripped the top rail of the fence, appalled.
Not three minutes ago she’d told Marti how the lessons learned about this man on Santa Estella and in the years since were deeply ingrained. Then, one sympathetic exchange with him – good heavens, she didn’t even know if her suppositions were close to the mark – and she would throw her arms around him?
Maybe she needed to be more careful around him. Much more careful.
And maybe she better keep an eye on the weather forecast for hurricanes venturing into Wyoming.
* * *
“Now, Matthew, you stay put,” Kendra ordered once she had him encased in his bib and safely in his high chair.
“ ‘Unch!” he ordered.
“Please?”
“Pease.”
“That’s a good boy. I’ll get it right away.” Over her shoulder, she added to Daniel, “Keep an eye on him, will you? He’s taken to thinking he gets to decide when and how to uh, dismount.” She touched the faint remnants of a scratch beside Matthew’s left eyebrow. “Sometimes the degree of difficulty gets away from him.”
“Sure.” Daniel took a seat beside the high chair.
As she sliced a pear and added cottage cheese, she thought of how closely Daniel had listened and watched as she’d put Matthew in his car seat. Nearly as closely as he watched him now, as Matthew played with his toy wooden car.
“Would you like to help?” she asked on impulse.
Another impulse. But at least this one didn’t involve physical contact.