Lost & Found Love (6 page)

“You know, the day I met her at the farm, she was running down the hill from Hope’s grave as if the hounds of hell were behind her.”

Jenny wasn’t ready to bend. “Perhaps she saw you and was trying to get away.”

“No. I did dismiss it to begin with as just due to her concern over being caught trespassing, but it was more than that.”

“So she’s got a guilt complex. Maybe she should have.”

“Jenny, it’s more than that. I’ve seen guilt. This was fear. I think your sister’s childhood might make yours look like a walk in the park, and we know how bad yours was.”

Jenny, who was ever practical, shook her head. “I think you’re reading things into it that are simply not there. She’s managed to graduate from college. She had to have some support from home.”

Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to do a little digging and see what I can find out about her.”

“Well, I, for one, am going to get what sleep this baby will allow me.”

* * * *

Joe stood at the door to shake hands with everyone as they filed out following Sunday service. He was anxious, for once, to get home. He thought he’d heard Tabby return early yesterday evening, but her house had remained dark. For now, he’d have to be patient and hide his anxiety with a smile.

Betty Gatewood, one of the most stiff-necked of his parishioners, pumped his hand.

“That was a wonderful sermon, Pastor Joe. What a wonderful illustration using the children from vacation Bible school. I guess we’ve all had to learn a little more about helping each other over the past year, haven’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a grin, thinking back to the truce he and the Presbyterian minister managed to forge between two congregations that had battled for decades. He noticed as the congregation filed out that Tyler hung back, even making some excuse to Jake and Holly about walking home. After everyone else cleared the sanctuary, Joe looked at his young parishioner. “Something on your mind, Tyler?”

The boy shuffled his feet and blushed. “I-I was wondering if you’d seen M-Miss MacVie?”

Joe shook his head. “Not since last evening when I left her with y’all. Did you have a nice cookout?”

The boy dug his hands into his pants pockets. “Well now, that’s the thing, Pastor Joe. Miss MacVie didn’t stay. She left right after she got there. Evan said she wasn’t feeling well, but all the adults looked nervous and wouldn’t look at me, like they do when they’re lying to you. Doc was actin’ funny all evening, too, like she was pi—I mean mad at someone.” Tyler shifted again. “I walked to church this morning so I could knock on her door to see if she was okay, but no one answered. All I saw was the cat.”

Joe squeezed Tyler’s shoulder comfortingly even though another frisson of unease went down his spine. “I’ll check on her when I get everything wrapped up here. Will that suit you?”

Tyler grinned. “Sure. Thanks, Pastor.”

The boy dashed down the steps and ran along the sidewalk. Joe shut the door and headed back to his office. The church treasurer and secretary had totaled the offering and were preparing the deposit. They acknowledged him with a smile as he waved to them before entering his office and shutting the door. Joe looked out the window toward the back of his house and Tabitha’s. Nothing stirred in the thick heat of early September, but he saw the window on the third floor was open to whatever breeze there might be.

Was she working in her studio and hadn’t heard the boy? He’d like to think that, but he couldn’t get his mind off the fact something made her flee Evan and Jenny’s house last night. Thinking of the slam of the screen door he’d heard, Joe realized it must have been Tabby. But she hadn’t been working. There hadn’t been a light on in the house all evening. Unease changed to worry, and he couldn’t explain even to himself why this woman had touched him more than any other.

He tossed his coat and tie over the veranda railing near her back door and rolled back the sleeves on his dress shirt before unbuttoning the collar. He had already banged on the door, but the only thing stirring was the cat. The black feline took one look at him with her golden eyes and disappeared into the bushes around the front of the house. He shook his head. It was downright spooky how much that cat’s eyes looked like Tabby’s.

Joe waited a few minutes more and knocked again. When there was still no response, he swallowed and pushed open the unlocked door, knowing he might well destroy any headway he’d made with her on a personal level by intruding on her privacy now. The kitchen was dark and cool.

“Tabby?” he called. He tried again at the bottom of the stairs, pausing for a moment as he went over things in his mind. Her bicycle was on the porch, and her car was in the drive. He supposed it was possible she’d gone for a walk, but deep in his gut, he didn’t think that was the case. After taking the stairs two at a time, he checked the second floor where he found what was obviously her room from the personal touches: a skirt tossed over a chair back, a brush, and hair bands scattered on a vanity. The bed was neat as a pin, like it hadn’t been slept in.

He ran up to the third floor and slowly pushed open the door of the studio. He hadn’t felt quite this much trepidation since he’d served as a medic in the military. There’d been plenty of times they’d had to enter situations where they had no idea what they might find on the opposite side of a door.

The studio was a mess. A handful of canvases were ripped, their frames broken, and her easel lay on its side. However, the painting of him she had started was carefully propped on the window seat, above the huddled, sleeping form of Tabitha MacVie. She was still dressed in what she’d left the house in last night. Hair that had once been neatly braided now cascaded in tangled strands around a face almost deathly pale in comparison.

“Tabby!” he whispered urgently, rushing over to her side. Calling on his past military training, he put his fingers to the side of her neck. Her pulse was normal. Breathing appeared fine. He felt her forehead only to find it cool to the touch. Relief coursed through him. It appeared she was doing nothing more than sleeping. “Come on, darling,” he coaxed, barely wondering at how easily the endearment slipped off his tongue. “Wake up.”

Her lids fluttered. “Joseph?” her voice was hoarse and her eyes unfocused. “You sound worried. You shouldn’t worry about me. You should always be joyful.”

His gaze skittered around the room again. “What happened, Tabby? Are you all right? Did… Did someone break in? Did anyone bother you?”

At his words she finally struggled to sit up and focus. As her eyes took in the canvases, they widened, panic reflected in them until she assessed what was actually destroyed. “Oh thank God,” she whispered. “It’s only those. Not the ones that matter.”

A trio of canvases lay torn and splintered, and they didn’t matter? Joe looked around again. He spied the one he’d seen yesterday, the one he’d commented looked like Dante’s vision of hell. Its frame was broken and the canvas slashed. Yes, it was a dark painting, but it was brilliant—
and
it didn’t matter?

He looked into her pale face, into tawny eyes that burned so brightly, and gently stroked the hair from her face. “Tabby, shall I call Doc?”

She shook her head, then did something that shook him to the core. Her hand covered his where it rested against her cheek and she closed her eyes, as if she were trying to absorb his touch into her skin. For a moment, he would swear she purred like a cat. “No. No. I’m fine, Joseph.”

“The police? Jake can get an investigation rolling. We don’t normally have a lot of crime around here.”

“No. There’s no need.”

Confused, he looked around the mess in the studio. Had she done this? But she’d talked almost as if it were a surprise. If she did do it, wouldn’t she know what was destroyed? And why would she destroy her own work? He swallowed, sensing he hovered on sensitive ground. He helped her to her feet, his hands on her arms to steady her as she swayed. His brow furrowed.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he asked quietly, sure she hadn’t had supper or anything since then.

“I don’t know. What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday, Tabby.”

“Oh. Good.”

He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her so she wouldn’t see the shock on his face. She didn’t know what day it was? As his hands stroked her back, he rested his cheek against the side of her head. “I think we should call Doc.”

She shook her head again. “I—I don’t want to see her, Joseph. Not Jenny. It will hurt her.”

He continued to hold her and rub her back. It felt right. “Why will it hurt her, Tabby?” he probed gently.

“It hurt her to see me last night. It makes her remember things that hurt her. I get that.”

His eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. She wasn’t making sense. “Did you already know Evan and Jenny?”

She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “No. I knew of Jenny, but she didn’t know about me. She’s—she’s my sister, Joseph, but she didn’t know. She doesn’t want to know.”

A sob shook her, and his arms tightened. “Ah, Tabby,” he murmured and rocked her. He didn’t probe, didn’t ask questions. He had figured out long ago that silence often elicited more information. But in this, Tabby surprised him once again because she volunteered nothing else. Instead, her arms crept around his waist, and he wondered again at how right it felt to hold her. Her body curved into his as if it had been made to do exactly that. He leaned his cheek against her silky hair. He wanted to do so much more than simply comfort her that it scared him. He’d managed to stay clear of getting entangled into any kind of relationship, and a relationship with this woman wouldn’t be easy or simple.

“You’re so peaceful, Joseph,” Tabby whispered. “I heard it in your voice the first night here. But you sounded lonely too. You don’t seem that way now. You must have found what you were looking for.”

His fingers stroked through her dark hair and tilted her face to his. “You heard all that in my voice?”

She withdrew from him and grimaced. “Don’t mind me. I’m tired, I guess.” She looked around the studio. “Don’t worry about this. I was exorcising some demons I guess you might say.”

Whatever the moment, he realized it was gone. He turned her loose, shoved his hands into his pockets, and swallowed. “Those must be some pretty powerful demons. I’ll help you clean up, then why don’t you get a shower and a change of clothes? I’ll go down to your kitchen and cook some brunch—that is if you don’t mind sharing a meal with me?”

Tabby glanced around the studio. “I—I can do that.” She glanced back at him, and Joseph nearly took a step back at the loneliness he saw in the depths of her gaze. “Would you—do you have time—I mean I know it’s Sunday, and you’ve probably got another service later, but could you sit for me again? Just for an hour?”

“Sure.” When he saw the relief in her expression, he knew he would do almost anything to keep that haunted look off her face. Together they began to straighten the mess. Joseph noticed she was careful to avoid showing him any of her other paintings, but big deal. Some people were superstitious about that kind of thing.

“Would you sing to me again?” she asked as she set her jar of brushes back on the table next to her now upright easel.

“Yes,” he replied in a voice suddenly gone husky.
All day and all night, if need be.

They parted ways on the second floor, Tabby to her room and Joe to the back stairs leading into the kitchen. A few minutes later, Joe glanced around the airy room as he finished the scrambled cheese and tofu he’d sautéed with mushrooms and basil.

It had taken no more than a quick glance in her refrigerator to figure out she didn’t eat meat…. And he had tried to tempt her with burgers on the grill. Way to go, Taylor. For a man who truly appreciated the finer points of a good cheeseburger, this could be a problem. Tabby leaned against the counter nearby, watching him cook.

They took their plates to the kitchen table, the occasional tinkle of utensils against dishes the only sound.

“Where is your cat? I never see her when you’re around.”

Tabby shrugged. “Here and there,” she said vaguely. “Probably perched in a tree. Katie Scarlett is an observer of the world. She was dropped at the shelter. I think she’d been abused.”

“You named your cat after Scarlett O’Hara?” Joe asked with a chuckle.

Tabby grinned. “I had an old tom I picked up off the streets. He had one eye and a rather rakish air about him, so I named him Rhett.” She shrugged. “It seemed to fit.”

“Shadow might be as fitting for her, as invisible as she always seems to be.”

Tabby smiled slightly. “Katie is a creature of the night.”

“Like her mistress?” Joe asked, arching a thick brow. “I see you burning a lot of midnight oil.”

Tabby shifted, suddenly seeming a little ill at ease. Joe was sorry for that. “I paint when the mood strikes me.” She jumped up and put their plates into the sink. “Speaking of which, you promised to sit…and sing.”

He followed her upstairs, his gaze locked appreciatively on the gentle sway of her hips beneath the filmy mid-calf length skirt she had on. Her hair hung loose, still damp from her shower, falling sleek and straight to just below her waist. Such long hair was rare these days. Most women chopped it off short. Joe gulped, wondering what it would feel like spread out over him.

When they reached the studio, she casually replaced her painting of him on the easel before she picked up a portion of canvas frame they must have missed. When she caught him watching her, she blushed.

“I’m sorry you saw this. I would have eventually stripped them and painted over them.”

“Tabby, the one I saw was very, very good,” he commented.

She paused and looked at him steadily. “They would never be for sale. They were personal. Call them therapy if you like. It helps me work out things, you know? And this,” she threw out, swinging her elegant hand in an arc to encompass the ruined pictures, “was simply the final part of that therapy.”

He could see the subject was closed. He had yet to gain her trust, but he got that. “Where do you want me?”