As Rance watched Rusty go, he hugged his knees to his chest and sighed. The tree trunk behind his back wasn’t comfortable, but it was something familiar and old. Old, but not replete with the haunting memories the house contained. He’d played in this orchard as a child, swiped green peaches to lob at squirrels, savored the succulent flesh of the sweet, ripe fruit, so juicy that rivers of nectar ran down his chin. Now, even that was gone.
He felt completely alone, lonelier than he’d ever been before. He couldn’t help wondering whether it would have been better never to have come back here and never to have known what really happened. Already he knew the answer to that. If he hadn’t come here to look into his yesterdays, he would never have met Maggie.
He remembered back to that hectic first day he’d met her. The day he’d threatened that gaggle of kids over some stupid firecrackers. Now that he looked back on it, Tess had introduced herself and told him Maggie was her sister, she hadn’t even mentioned Maggie’s first name. He learned that from Mrs. Larson at the library.
They were some pair.
But one thing Rance Hightower Montoya was certain of: Margaret Rose Popwell Callahan was the key to his tomorrows. If only he could be sure that she felt the same way.
Black was not her best color. Maggie stared at her reflection in the mirror and frowned, creating lines in her pale complexion, which was already dulled by the somber color she wore. She looked like the living dead.
She had never known Rose Hightower and she barely knew her son. Well, maybe in the biblical sense, Maggie reminded herself irritably. So why was she worrying so much about appearances? She brushed a piece of lint off the front of the simple black dress and shrugged.
It was a funeral, after all. Not a date. And considering that she hadn’t seen or heard from Rance in the three days since they found Rose’s grave, Maggie probably wasn’t obligated to attend the funeral at all. But she would go. For Rance, she told herself. No, she finally had to admit, I’m going for me.
Maggie brushed another layer of blusher onto her pale cheeks and saw little improvement. She shook her head slowly and smiled weakly. “Let’s face it, Callahan. People are going to mistake you for the dearly departed.”
“Did you say something, Mom?” Buddy poked his head into the room. He looked stiff and uncomfortable in his starched white shirt and black tie. And so grown-up.
“No, sweetie. Just thinking out loud.”
“Me and Jen are ready whenever you are.”
“Jen and I,” Maggie corrected automatically. She picked up her purse and met Buddy at the bedroom door, reaching out and ruffling his hair as she came.
“Mo-om!” Buddy protested as he backed out of her reach. “I just got it right.”
Maggie laughed. “Sorry, kiddo.” She resisted the urge to do it again. It felt good to laugh, she realized as she finger-combed her son’s hair back into some semblance of order. She hadn’t laughed in days. Not since before she and Rance found the grave.
Not since Rance left her and didn’t return.
She sobered again as she and Buddy joined Jennifer in the tiny living room. “You know, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Funerals are not great places for kids, and—” Maggie couldn’t finish. The only previous funeral experience her son and daughter had was their father’s. Would they be able to separate the two events?
Buddy seemed to be reading her mind. “It’s okay, Mom. After Dad’s, this one will be a piece of cake.” Buddy tried to smile, but the smile faded quickly.
Maggie squeezed her two children to her in a fierce hug. “I’m so lucky to have such grown-up kids. I love you,” she finished, her voice cracking.
“I love you, too,” two young voices, one male and one female, chimed in unison.
Then Buddy squirmed free. “Do you think we could get this over with?”
Maggie released her children reluctantly and dabbed at an eye with the back of her hand. “Yes, I think we have to.” She pasted a smile on her face and opened the door.
“It was such a beautiful service. Especially when you consider that Father Roberts had never met your mama and all,” cooed Prudy Meeks. “It was a nice touch to have Reverend Carterette speak as well.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I never knew your mama, Mr. Montoya,” explained Eula Larson, “but it was such a shame she died so young.” Mrs. Larson pressed a yellow-squash casserole into Rance’s hands and hurried to a knot of people standing by the mantel..
Although most were trying not to look obvious about it, everybody who’d arrived had made a point of examining the fieldstone fireplace. Some had quietly edged over and quickly moved away. Others, like Eula Larson, headed right to it and stared.
Rance had done the same thing that first time back in the house after Drake Headly admitted what had happened. He had run his fingers over the rocky knob that had caused the life to seep out of Rose Montoya Hightower.
“Let me take that out into the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry. What?” Rance gathered his meandering thoughts and focused on Tess Hampton, standing beside him.
“I’ll take the casserole into the kitchen. Can I get you something?”
“No.” Rance shook his head slowly and tugged at his tie. It was much too tight, and way too hot. He managed what he hoped would pass for a smile. “Not unless you can get some of these folks to clear out.”
Tess smiled apologetically.
Lucy Carterette joined them. “Vultures,” she muttered. “Half of these people never knew your mother and don’t know you. They’re only here to get a look at you and the haunted house.”
“It isn’t haunted anymore,” Rance commented sadly, more to himself than to Lucy. He had forced himself to come back after two nights away, and had lain awake all last night, listening for her voice.
“I guess not,” Lucy agreed. “If you believe in those things, then Rose’s spirit is finally at rest.”
“Soul, Lucy,” Bobby Carterette corrected. He extended his hand to Rance. When Rance grasped it, he pumped it heartily. “How you holding up?”
“All right, I guess. She hadn’t been a part of my life for thirty years, but I always had some hope. Now, that’s gone. This was just a ceremony to put an end to it once and for all.” Now, just maybe, he could go on. Rance looked around for Maggie, but she wasn’t there. He’d seen her at the service, but not since. Maybe she wouldn’t come. After all, he’d been avoiding her for days, and she surely knew it. Who would blame her, after the way he’d behaved?
Rance remembered Bobby Carterette standing nearby. “Where’s your dad? I want to thank him for saying such nice things about Mama.”
“Right here, son.” Old Bob came up behind them. “It wasn’t hard to say nice things about Rose. She may not have been a member of my congregation, but I knew her well enough. Better than young Roberts anyway.” He offered his hand to Rance.
“Well, thank you all the same.” Rance gripped Old Bob’s hand and held it. “I appreciate it.” He appreciated the fatherly hug the old man gave him more.
As the Carterette family moved off, he scanned the throng of well-wishers. He still couldn’t find Maggie. Had she decided not to come?
After his disappearing act of the past few days, he couldn’t blame her for making herself scarce. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed. He had been avoiding her. Not because they’d made love and he was now done with her—he’d meant every minute of that awful, wonderful night—but because he’d needed time to digest everything that he’d discovered in the past few days.
He loved her.
“You were always a dreamy little child,” a quavering voice remarked from somewhere near Rance’s elbow.
He looked down into the wizened face of Ruby Scarborough. She had been his second-grade teacher at Mattison Consolidated, or so she told him.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Scarborough. I was thinking of something else.”
Mrs. Scarborough chuckled. “Just like when you were mine. A
lways had your eyes out the window instead of on your work.”
“Yes, ma’am. I did learn to concentrate later on.”
“I’ve no doubt you did. Come tell me all about what you’ve been up to in the last thirty years.”
Rance glanced futilely across the room for help, but there was none. He followed Mrs. Scarborough to the chairs and sat down beside her.
Maggie had decided to spare the kids the ordeal at Rance’s house and had taken them home. They’d been through it twice with Chet, once at the base chapel in Virginia and once here at home. Maggie figured they were even. She had to pick up the baked ham she’d prepared and sliced that morning. She’d intended it to be a quick trip home and then over to Hightower’s Haven, but she had been forced to change clothes.
She wondered if subconsciously she hadn’t almost dropped the ham on purpose. She wasn’t usually that clumsy, yet she had let the ham slide right off the platter and onto her dress. Only quick thinking and good reflexes had allowed her to save it from falling to the floor, but her heroics had been at the expense of her outfit. She had ruined her black dress in the process of saving the ham by clutching it to her chest.
There had been nothing she could do about the big grease stain except take off the dress and hope it would come clean in the wash. Now she stared into a closet full of brightly colored clothes and wondered what to choose. No matter what she picked, it would be wrong. So, she reasoned, if she was going to provide fodder for the local gossips, she might as well go all the way. Maggie selected a warm apricot shirtwaist dress and pulled it over her head. “There,” she said as she buttoned it up. “Let them talk.”
She slipped out of the black pumps and into a pair of strappy tan sandals and headed back to the kitchen. She caller. out some last-minute instructions to the kids, grabbed the plastic-wrapped ham and hurried to the minivan.
It took just a minute to drive the half mile to Rance’s. At least half an hour, or so it seemed, to get from her parking spot partway down the crepe-myrtle-shaded lane. Maggie hurried up the steps and inside.
Poor Rance. He was trapped in a corner with Ruby Scarborough. Maggie had to smile. She hadn’t had the dubious pleasure of having Mrs. Scarborough as second-grade teacher, having moved to Mattison when she was older, but her youngest brother, Jack, had. He’d often complained about how possessive his old teacher was whenever they would cross paths. Rance must have been one of her pupils.
Maggie stepped into the room and greeted several acquaintances, all the while edging toward the kitchen. She would just drop off the ham and go back to rescue him. If she could.
She found Lucy, Tess and her mother busily working in the kitchen. Lucy looked up and motioned for Maggie to set her platter down.
“We’re setting up a buffet in the formal dining room. Maybe once we’ve fed all these...people, we can run ’em off.”
“I’m sure Rance would appreciate it. He’s in the living room, being held hostage by old Mrs. Scarborough.” Maggie looked over the abundance of love offerings. “What do you need me to do?”
“Not again. I pulled Ruby off him once already,” Daisy joked. “Just start carrying stuff into the dining room. Just as soon as it’s all laid out, we’ll call ’em in.”
It took just a few minutes to set up the buffet. After Maggie put the final stack of paper plates on the table, she hurried off to rescue Rance.
Mrs. Scarborough meant well, Rance was certain, but he would rather have been anywhere else but where he was at this particular moment. Being trapped under a tractor was looking more and more like a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Rance stuck his finger behind his tight shirt collar and tugged at it again. He had an unreasonable craving for a cigarette, and he hadn’t touched the things in ages.
Rance had grown accustomed to the heat in the old house, but with all the extra bodies blocking the breeze and radiating their own 98.6 degrees, the temperature had risen fast. The ceiling fan made a valiant effort, but it wasn’t enough.
A glimmer of hope sprang to Rance’s mind. Maybe they’re all as overheated as I am. Once they get too hot, they’ll leave. He looked around the crowd for signs that it was thinning, but saw not the tiniest indication of a reduction in the size of the throng. He still didn’t see Maggie.
But he did see, he noticed with dismay, that someone else had just come in. His disappointment turned to curiosity when he realized that it was Sheriff Potts. He was wearing his uniform, so it must mean business.
“There you go wool-gathering again,” Mrs. Scarborough’s thready voice complained.
Rance tried to look apologetic, but he was afraid he was more irritable than anything. He noticed that Potts was beckoning to him. Gratified for the excuse, he turned back to the elderly lady at his elbow. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Scarborough, but Sheriff Potts is trying to get my attention.” He tried not to show his relief.
The woman looked up as the sheriff approached, clutching his hat in his hand.
“I’m sorry, Miz Ruby,” Potts apologized in a courtly manner. “I need to have a word with Montoya here. Won’t you please excuse us?” Potts, already the owner of a standard-issue southern accent, was slathering it on as thick as honey. “It is official business.”
Rance murmured something and got to his feet—not too quickly, he hoped. He followed the sheriff to a relatively quiet corner of the room.
“I thought you could use some rescuing,”.Potts drawled as soon as he and Rance were out of hearing distance.
Rance nodded gratefully and waited for Potts to tell him what he’d come to say.
“Miss Oxendine from the rest home called me this mornin’. She told me that Headly was admitted to Pittsville Community Hospital. They don’t expect him to make it through the day. I don’t know if you were dead set on seeing him tried for his part in your mama’s death, but it don’t look like you’re goin’ to get the chance.”
Rance sucked in a deep breath, a cleansing breath. A freeing breath. He looked toward the fireplace, and then he looked back at Potts. It didn’t matter anymore. He had all the answers; he was free.
“I don’t guess there was any point prosecuting the old man, anyway. From what he told me, it sounded like an accident.” Rance shut his eyes and shuddered. “The guilt he’s carried for the last thirty years was punishment enough. Let it go.”
Rance had made his peace with Headly that day in the solarium, and that was what mattered most. To Headly and to Ranee.
Potts slapped him on the back. “I’m glad you said that. That’s just what I figured to do. The coroner’s report pretty much backs up what Headly said. A blow to the back of the head. And I can’t for the life of me see Drake Headly sneaking up behind her and whopping her.” A crackle from the police radio on his hip punctuated the sentence. “I reckon I’ll have to go out to the car to hear this. There’s too much noise in here.”
“Sure. Go on,” Rance said as he watched the sheriff go. A flash of color caught his eye, and he turned quickly to see what it was.
It was Maggie, wearing a brightly colored pinkish orange dress. She had finally come.
There was something comfortable and familiar about working in Rance’s huge old kitchen, Maggie realized as she swished out another loaned dish and handed it to Rance to dry. Not just because she had worked in the kitchen before, but because she felt she belonged here.
As Lucy had predicted, once the assembled “mourners” had been fed, they dispersed quickly enough. Once their hunger and curiosity had been satisfied, they were willing enough to go. They had drifted off in twos and threes. Soon all that were left were the Carterette and Popwell contingents.
Maggie smiled. Even they had made their excuses after helping with the bulk of the cleanup and had tactfully left Maggie alone with Rance.
Rance chuckled, and Maggie looked up into his dark, dark eyes. She was curious to see what had evoked laughter so soon after his mother’s funeral and after the news that Drake Headly had passed quietly away at Pittsville Community
Hospital.
He looked so much more relaxed than he had earlier, more like himself. He had removed the tie that had obviously been bothering him all afternoon and had undone several buttons of his shirt, and now Maggie could see the dark swatch of hair that covered his chest. With laughter crinkling his eyes and his shirtsleeves rolled up to show off his powerful, tanned forearms, he looked as if he had been anywhere but to a funeral.
“They weren’t exactly subtle, were they?” Rance commented as he looked into Maggie’s eyes.
“About what?”
Rance laughed, aloud this time, his rich baritone laughter sending warm thrills through her. “Leaving you and me alone. You realize they’ve been matchmaking.”
Heat burned Maggie’s cheeks, and she knew without looking that her face was scarlet. Tess had been pushing her toward Rance since the Fourth of July, but she’d hoped it hadn’t been so blatantly obvious. And it wasn’t the first time people had discreetly left them together, she realized, remembering the night of the storm, when they’d been left to tend to the dishes.
He’d kissed her then, made love to her, and later they had discovered Rose’s grave. And they’d made love again. “Do you mind?” Maggie finally managed.
“No,” Rance whispered huskily. He cleared his throat. “Let’s finish up here, then we need to talk.”
Maggie wasn’t certain quite how to take Rance’s remark. But she wasn’t going to waste time wondering about it. “Okay,” she said. Then she gave her decidedly divided attention to the rest of the dishes, so that she could offer it, undivided, to him later.
The lengthening shadows and the setting sun painted Hightower’s Haven with dappled light teased by the cooling evening breeze. From the distance, in this magical light, it was hard to imagine all that the stately old house had seen in the past thirty years. It looked much the same as it must have in 1882, when Horace Hightower nailed the first loblolly-pine board in place.
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