Rance glanced toward the spot and frowned.
“Would you rather we work someplace else?” Maggie hoped the expression wasn’t for her. Rance had asked Tess over to help; he hadn’t actually included Maggie.
“That’s fine. I was just thinking.” Rance’s frown deepened as he scanned the row of bushes.
Maggie gathered up the equipment they’d unloaded.
Rance rubbed his chin as he studied the row of shrubs. Then he looked up, eyeing the bags of fertilizer. “I can’t help you with the heavy stuff.” He shrugged apologetically. “Still not cleared for heavy lifting.”
“Don’t give it no nevah mind, sugah,” Tess announced in a syrupy-sweet phony drawl. “We didn’t bring nothin’ we couldn’t carry our little ol’ selves.”
Maggie grimaced and shook her head slowly. She trudged up the slight embankment and across the yard to the azaleas, grateful to be as far away from Tess’s dramatics as possible. Rance picked up a rake and hoe and followed. Tess brought up the rear with a box of hand tools.
“Rance, honey, can you run us a hose over here?” Tess asked as she deposited the box at the middle of the row of azaleas.
Maggie was close enough to notice that Rance’s bruises had faded to the point of being barely visible. She probably wouldn’t have seen them at all if she didn’t know they were there. And she was too close to keep her heart from beating wildly.
Rance nodded and looked thoughtfully toward the back of the house. “I guess I can connect some hoses to the old water line.”
“Would you mind?” Tess fluttered her eyelashes.
Maggie thought she would toss her cookies, and told Tess so as soon as Rance was out of earshot. “What are you doing simpering like Blanche Du Bois?” she hissed. “And why did you send Rance off? We won’t need water for hours.”
“Tell me about what happened the other night,” Tess demanded as she glanced toward Rance’s retreating figure. “He’ll only be out of earshot a few minutes.”
“He’ll be sick if you spill any more of that saccharine southern-belle talk on him.” Maggie tugged on her gardening gloves. “Let’s get started.”
“We will. What about it?”
“It’s simple. Rance and I both got carried away.” Maggie yanked at an enormous dandelion. “It isn’t a big deal.”
“Details, sister. Details.”
Maggie sighed and gave the G-rated version of the story, including the two trips downstairs. The love scene she omitted.
It occurred to Rance about the time he reached the pump house that Tess and Maggie were probably in no hurry to use any water. He wondered if Maggie was trying to tell him that his attentions weren’t welcome. Considering what had happened the week before, he really wouldn’t blame her.
But then, Maggie hadn’t sent him on the wild-goose chase; Tess had. Maybe Maggie wasn’t angry.
He tinkered with the pump as long as he could, then made a final check of the water pipe. It was rusted, but it would work for now. He looped a coil of hose, hung it over his shoulder and stepped outside.
The two women had made a surprising amount of progress, he noticed as he came out of the dark pump house and into the bright afternoon. He stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the light. He hadn’t noticed before that Tess was wearing dark sunglasses to protect her eyes from the bright sun. The look was just right for Maggie’s sophisticated older sister. But what interested him more was the Huckleberry Finn straw hat that Maggie wore. No sunglasses for her; she looked perfect in her country hat and yellow work gloves.
Rance made plenty of noise as he came up the hill, just to make sure he didn’t catch them talking about him. He was pretty sure that Tess would send him off, because she wanted to talk with Maggie, so he gave her a chance to finish.
They’d already used the weed trimmer to hack down the tallest weeds around the shrubs. Now both Maggie and Tess sat cross-legged on the ground, attacking the soil with trowels and cultivating tools.
Rance shrugged the coil of hose off his shoulder and let it fall to the ground beside them, then showed them the pressure nozzle. “Just turn it on when you’re ready,” he said, and prepared to leave.
Tess nudged her sister, and Maggie shot her a dirty look. “Ask him,” she urged in a stage whisper.
Maggie flashed her anger. “You want to see it so bad, ask.”
“Ask me what?”
Both women turned guiltily to face him. Tess had the grace to look embarrassed, and Maggie colored from the roots of her hair to the vee of her buttercup gold work shirt. She looked at Rance apologetically, wiping a strand of damp, red hair away from her cheek and leaving a smudge of dirt behind.
“My darling sister wants to get a look at your cellar. She doesn’t understand why we both went exploring the other night.”
“Hell, neither do I.” Rance laughed. “There’s nothing down there except dust and spiders.”
“I can withstand a few bugs,” Tess said, gracefully pushing herself to her feet. She peeled off her gloves, then looked down at her muddy jeans. “I don’t think a little more dirt will make much difference. Let’s go.”
“Has she always been such a steamroller?” Rance asked, watching Maggie scramble to her feet and peel out of her own set of bright yellow gloves.
“From the day I was born,” Maggie answered dryly.
“Not from birth?”
“She’s three years older than I. For the first three years, she didn’t have anybody to push around.”
“Don’t rub it in about my advanced age, little sister.” Tess put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
There was nothing else to do but humor her.
A sense of foreboding assailed Maggie as soon as she stepped off the bottom step and onto the cold cellar floor. The musty, decayed smell was as strong as ever, and she noticed cobwebs hanging thickly everywhere. How had she missed them before? She shivered in the unnatural chill as she dodged a particularly thick bunch of cobwebs.
Maggie shuddered. “Ugh! Just like a horror movie.”
Something skittered across the floor and into a dark corner, doing nothing to calm her already nervous state. It was probably a field mouse, Maggie tried to convince herself. Or a rat. Or the ghost of the long dead.
It was cool downstairs, but not cool enough to account for the dense layer of gooseflesh that had formed on Maggie’s bare arms. Enough goose bumps for two large geese, not to mention one medium-size woman. She rubbed her hands against her arms to warm them.
Rance was the last one down, and he pulled on the light as he passed the cord. Why hadn’t she thought of that? The bare forty-watt bulb did little to illuminate the cavelike room, but it was better than nothing.
Maggie took a moment to orient herself, then pointed toward the east side of the house. Dirty windows, high on the walls, blocked more light than they let in.
Another unidentified animal scuttled through the shadows. “Is it just me, or does this place give anybody else the creeps?” Tess asked, her voice more timid than Maggie remembered ever hearing it. Tess looked warily around.
Maggie started to agree with Tess’s pronouncement, but her sister interrupted her. “Okay, end of subject. I didn’t think it was going to look like a mausoleum.” She shuddered. “I’m going upstairs where it’s warm.” She turned and clattered loudly up the stairs.
But it wasn’t the end of the subject. It would have been if Maggie hadn’t heard the voice, she realized as Tess fled. And Tess’s comment about the mausoleum didn’t help. Tombs? Corpses? Disembodied voices? Maggie shuddered and looked at Rance. Even in the dim light, she could see that his handsome face was marred by a frown.
Maggie shivered. “Do you feel a draft? It shouldn’t be this cold in July. Even down here.” She tried to convince herself that Rance’s proximity had made her tingle, and she resisted the urge to follow Tess.
A shadow crossed over one of the windows. Then the other grew dark, returning the space to near sepulchral gloom. A
sharp rapping sound startled Maggie, and she jumped.
Rance chuckled as Rusty barked a greeting, and Maggie sighed with relief. It had only been Tess’s and Rusty’s shadows blocking off the light. Maggie smiled sheepishly and waved.
“Rance, I’m going back upstairs.” Cowardly it might be, but Maggie couldn’t think of one good reason to stay in that dark, creepy cellar for another minute.
No!
There it was again. The voice. Maggie backed toward the stairs. Even in the daytime, the place was spooky.
“Rance?”
The cinder block was cold and gritty to the touch, Rance realized as he ran his hand lightly along the wall. Damn it, he thought. “That wall shouldn’t be there,” he murmured.
“Rance!” Maggie’s tone sounded urgent.
He swung around to look at her. Maggie’s fair complexion seemed even paler than usual, and she chafed her arms.
“I’m going upstairs,” she told him, not trying to hide her panicky look. Her turquoise eyes were shadowed and gray now. “Come on. That wall’s been there forever. It isn’t going anywhere.”
“Okay. I’ll be right up.” Rance turned back to the wall. That was just it. That wall hadn’t always been there. There was something wrong down here, and he knew it. He had played down here in this cellar on many a rainy day as a child, and he remembered it well. He was certain the place had been bigger. But then, he was a grown man now, a large man. Maybe the room just looked smaller to his adult eyes. He looked around again. No. It had changed.
Rance took one more long look around before he left, and shook his head. “I guess we can go up,” he muttered.
Please!
“Maggie?” A chill, like the touch of cold, clammy fingers, crawled down Rance’s spine, and he shivered.
He was alone in the cellar. As he hurried up the stairs, he could have sworn he heard a disappointed sigh.
Maggie collected the straw hat from where she’d left it on the swing. Even on the well-shaded porch, it was far warmer than the tomblike cellar. She stood in the shade for a moment longer, collecting herself, then hurried down the front steps, jamming the hat on her head as she went.
Rusty greeted her at the bottom of the porch with a wag of her tail and a joyful bark. Maggie stopped to fondle the dog’s head and laughed as Rusty jumped up and bestowed on her a wet doggy kiss. It was just what she needed to rid herself of the creepy feeling the dank cellar had imprinted on her mind. “How are you, Rusty girl? And how are your babies?” The pups would be about two weeks old now, soon big enough to come out to play.
Rusty answered with a short bark and raced away toward her burrow under the front porch.
The fleeting respite from the creepy feeling ended when a hand clamped down on her shoulder. The shivery feeling returned with a vengeance.
“I guess we’d better see what Tess is up to.” Rance’s rich baritone voice filled Maggie’s ear. His breath warmed her and sent cold shivers through her at the same time. She would have pneumonia by the end of the day, if she couldn’t stop her blood from running hot and cold.
“You...you...” Maggie’s tongue tripped over her surprised response.
“Startled you?”
There he went again, finishing her sentences, not that Maggie minded. It was pleasant having another person know what she was thinking. Especially since that person was Rance.
“I didn’t mean to.” Rance’s strong hand on Maggie’s shoulder urged her to move forward.
Enjoying the tingling sensation she always got when Rance touched her, Maggie followed him to look for Tess.
They found Tess on her hands and knees, wiping at the dirty glass of one of the basement windows. She shielded her eyes with one hand as she peered inside.
“What do you see?” Maggie asked as she and Rance came up behind her.
Tess gasped and scooted away from the window. She sat up on her haunches and clutched at her chest. “God, you scared the life out of me! Don’t sneak up on a person like that!”
Maggie chuckled. It served Tess right for starting the whole thing in the first place. If she hadn’t insisted on going down to look at the cellar, they wouldn’t both be spooked now. “Fine. Next time I’ll call ahead.”
“Go ahead and laugh,” Tess muttered. “You’ve probably scared me out of ten years of life.”
“Gosh, I’m getting younger than you by the minute,” Maggie said teasingly.
Tess made a very unbecoming face and turned toward Rance. “Maybe if you cleaned those windows, it wouldn’t be so creepy down there.”
“A couple of hundred-watt light bulbs wouldn’t hurt, either,” Maggie commented, knowing almost before she finished that it wasn’t likely that more light would silence the voice.
The sound of a vehicle coming up the dirt drive distracted Rance, and he went to investigate.
Joe’s old pickup, the one he used for dirty work and fishing, drew to a halt, and Buddy leaped from the passenger side. “Look what I found in the woods down by that pool,” he shouted, displaying a lumpy brown object.
“That’s nice,” Rance said without really looking. He turned to Joe. “How were they biting?”
“Damn good.” Joe reached into the bed of the truck and opened an old foam cooler and pulled out a good-size string of fish. “I reckon there’s some good come out of that old logjam. I found me a new fishin’ hole.”
Buddy hefted his discovery in his hand, and something about the motion triggered a memory from a dark corner of Rance’s mind. A memory that had taken shape the day they located the car. A vague memory that was becoming more vivid by the moment.
Maggie and Tess appeared from around the corner. “I thought I heard you, Buddy. How many did you catch?” Maggie circled her arm around Buddy’s waist and squeezed.
Rance envied Buddy the hug as he answered, “I got five.”
Tess eyed the string of fish her father was still displaying. “Not bad, Bud.”
Buddy’s face fell. “Grampa got six, though.” Then he brightened again. “But look what I found.” He again held up the object he’d displayed earlier.
It seemed smaller somehow, to Rance’s adult eyes.
“It looks like a rock or something, but Grampa says it’s made of fired clay.” Buddy’s eager eyes looked up into his mother’s. “Do you think it’s an ancient Indian bowl or something?”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know, son. Let me see.” She took the encrusted object from Buddy and turned it over in her hands.
“I don’t think it’s Indian pottery, Bud,” Maggie finally said, after looking at it carefully. “At least not like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Maybe I’ve discovered a new kind,” the boy suggested hopefully.
“I don’t think so, Buddy,” Tess told him gently. “But it’s real neat, anyway. Maybe you can clean it up and use it for a paperweight.”
“Maybe,” Buddy echoed dejectedly.
Rance knew he should say something, but what? It wasn’t as if he were sure. And if he was, it would change everything.
Drawing a deep breath, Rance waved to Joe as he drove away, then turned his attention to Buddy’s find. Though he tried to be nonchalant, his heart pounded. “Can I see that?”
“Sure.” Maggie tossed it over.
Rance’s heart lurched as it came flying toward him. He caught it. It felt familiar, as he’d known it would, and he didn’t have to look to know what it was. He knew every inch of it by heart. Chilly fingers played against his spine again as he remembered.
“Wait!”
She stopped.
Rance spun around and ran back toward the house. He stopped in the doorway and turned back. “Don’t go yet. I have something for you.”
He hurried inside to his bedroom, skidding on the throw rug on the slippery tile floor. Rance righted himself and charged on. He threw open the lid of his toy box and dug out a small wrapped package. He lifted it carefully and smoothed the bright Sunday-comics wrapping and then raced back to
his waiting mother.
“Don’t you remember what tomorrow is?” Rance shouted as he raced out to the car.
Mama sat in the driver’s seat, the door still open. She looked puzzled. “No. What’s special about tomorrow?”
“It’s Mother’s Day!” Rance yelled gleefully as he skidded to a halt in front of the open car door.
He held the package out to his mother and explained shyly, “I made this for you in school. It’s for Mother’s Day.”
“Oh. Rancito, I had forgotten.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “And you made this for me?”
Mama undid the colorful newspaper wrapping and looked at the lumpy clay object.
“Do you like it, Mama? It’s an ashtray.” Rance admired his handiwork proudly.
“Oh, yes. It’s the most beautiful ashtray I’ve ever seen. Thank you, son. Thank you. ” Mama leaned out of the car and enfolded him in a long embrace.
“If you like it so much, Mama, then why are you crying?”
“I’m crying because I like it. And I love you. ” She ruf fled Rance’s hair and kissed him on the forehead.
Rance wriggled out of his mother’s grasp and stepped back. At the advanced age of nine, he was too old for all this mushy stuff. “You’re welcome, ” he said gruffly for lack of anything else.
“Oh, you’re getting so big, ” Mama said, her voice wobbly. “You be a good little man for your grandfather.”
“I will.” Rance stepped back so that his mother could close the door.
“I love my ashtray, ” she called over the sound of the starting engine. Rance watched her place his gift beside her on the seat. Then she eased the car toward the road.
“Bye, Mama. See you in a week, ” Rance called as the car pulled away. He watched as the car reached the main road and sped off. He had never noticed before, he realized as the car disappeared from sight, that his mama’s license plate spelled ROSIE H.
“I know what this is,” Rance said quietly.
Chapter 11
“How do you know what it is?” Maggie asked, grabbing back the thing she’d just relinquished.
Montoya's Heart Page 14
