Somewhere Along the Way (11 page)

Martha Q smiled and collected her belongings, left a ten-dollar tip, and walked out of the diner without even glancing at Hank.

She stopped to admire one of her signs outside the grocery store after stocking up on her weekly intake of chocolate and diet meals. When she pulled into the drive at the bed-and-breakfast, Tyler Wright was waiting for her.

“Am I dead?” she asked, thinking of all the times the kind middle-aged man had helped her bury first her parents, then three of her husbands.

He smiled, that polite smile that hinted he might have heard the question a few thousand times before. “No, Miss Martha Q, you look very much alive to me.”

“Well, if I’m not dead, you must have come to call, and I’d better tell you, Tyler Wright, I’m too old for you and even if I was willing to take a chance on you, I wouldn’t. You see, I kind of like being a widow. It’s easier to spell than
divorcée
and I don’t have to share the bathroom or the remote with anyone.”

His grin was real. “I’m here to ask a favor. I’d never come to call, Miss Martha, ’cause you and I both know I’d never have a chance.”

She took the compliment with a nod and said, “Name your favor. I’ll help any way I can.”

An hour later Stella McNabb brought a rail-thin woman to Martha’s door. Tyler had told Martha all about Mrs. Biggs. When she’d helped out in the small kitchen at the funeral home, she’d been unbelievable. Stella had brought a roast for the six family members who were supposed to attend the funeral. When they counted close to thirty at the funeral, Stella fretted and Mrs. Biggs went to work. She cut up the roast, threw in vegetables, and made the best stew even Stella McNabb, a retired homemaking teacher, had ever tasted. While the family went to the graveside service, Mrs. Biggs made cornbread and chocolate pies. Tyler and Stella decided right then that the woman would be perfect to work at Winter’s Inn Bed-and-Breakfast.

Martha Q lived by a grab-bag set of rules for life, some legal, some not, but one she always favored was never to take advantage of a man or woman while they were down. She wouldn’t do so now.

“Mrs. Biggs,” she began. “I’m honored that you’d consider staying with me.”

The woman, maybe ten years older than her, offered a hand that seemed only bone and skin. “Mr. Wright tells me you’re in need of a cook for the breakfast part of this bed-and-breakfast.”

“I am,” Martha Q lied. “When the crowd hits this place I know I couldn’t do it all. I have two girls who come in to clean once a week, but there’s still a hundred things to do. If you’ll do the breakfast cooking every morning, I’ll provide you the bed part and we’ll call it even.”

Mrs. Biggs nodded once. “Sounds more than fair.”

“Good. I’ll get you settled in, then show you the kitchen. You can start tomorrow practicing on recipes until the crowd comes.” Martha walked her through to the room nearest the kitchen. “I’m looking for something special folks will remember having for breakfast. Something that will bring them back to Winter’s Inn.”

Mrs. Biggs set her suitcase down on a stand in a cozy room with a small seating area tucked away inside a big bay window.

The fat cat looked up at the two ladies as if they were trying to sublet his room.

“Hope you don’t mind a cat. I call him Mr. Dolittle, but I should have named him Mr. Do-nothing. He thinks he owns the place.”

Mrs. Biggs’s smile didn’t reach her sad eyes. “We’ll get along fine as long as he stays off the kitchen counters.”

Martha Q laughed. “He wouldn’t make the effort to jump that high. Mr. Dolittle doesn’t even chase mice, much less that varmint out back that keeps getting into my trash. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big and I’m about to declare war.”

When Mrs. Biggs told her the dog pound had cages for trapping animals, Martha Q took it on as a mission. While two girls cleaned the house, a yard man kept the lawn clear of leaves, and Mrs. Biggs took over the kitchen, Martha Q tried to stay out of trouble.

Martha Q had believed all her life that trouble found large-busted women easier than it did the A and B cups of the world. She’d been a B cup by the eighth grade. By the tenth grade she’d discovered boys and learned quickly what they liked.

Now with nothing to do at home, she feared trouble couldn’t be far away. If she’d been a few years older, she might have tried the senior citizens’ center. She had a feeling she could be engaged by dark in a place like that. If she were ten years younger, she’d head straight for Buffalo’s Bar. Afternoon drinkers were always talky, often lonely, and either rich or unemployed. But the last time she’d wandered into a bar, some kid wanted to buy her a drink because she reminded him of his mother. Martha Q slapped him and walked out, deciding her drinking days were over.

Martha Q drove out to the pound and picked up the biggest cage they had, then drove the town square looking for trouble.

All she found was a sign in the used bookstore saying, SPECIAL ON PALM READINGS TODAY . . . TWO HANDS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.

Martha Q drove past and circled back home. She asked the yard man to unload the cage. He was one of those disagreeable men who always looked like he was about to break into a swearing contest with God.

As always, when she told him what to do, he complained and said it wasn’t part of his job. Then she’d say maybe he didn’t want to get paid and he’d give her one of his
Drop dead, lady
looks and do the job.

Martha Q knew a great many people who disliked her, a few who hated her, but Lloyd Franklin, the yard man, was the only one who looked like he might be willing to murder her for a tip.

She’d fire him, but then she’d have to go to the trouble of finding another, who would hate her in no time and she’d be right back where she was now. So, she watched Lloyd carry the cage to the backyard, put it next to the tool and garden shed, and walk away without even glancing back.

Climbing the stairs, she decided to take a nap. Worrying about the yard man killing her had worn her out.

How much trouble could she get into by staying an extra hour in bed? She giggled, refusing to answer her own question. Husband number four hadn’t liked her habit of napping at all. He complained once too often about supper being late, and she gave up napping and him at the same time.

The third morning Mrs. Biggs made what Martha Q had been searching for . . . the perfect breakfast. Walnut-apple pancakes layered with a thin caramel middle that recreated heaven with the first bite. Perfection was served next to fresh bananas and strawberries brushed with cinnamon honey.

Martha Q was so pleased she invited Tyler Wright and her lawyer to breakfast the next morning, and they agreed she’d found heaven on a plate. The next day Tyler invited his friend Hank Matheson and he brought along his love, Sheriff Alexandra McAllen. When Liz found out her brother was having breakfast at the Winter’s Inn, she asked if she could come too, and the table was suddenly full.

Martha Q had never had so many friends at her meal. She fussed over them all while Mrs. Biggs insisted on staying in the kitchen so she could be cleaned up and ready to go to the cemetery by nine.

A week later bookings began to come in. State inspectors that Alex had recommended staying at the B&B. A visiting fireman from Oklahoma giving a program for the fire department. Relatives staying over after a funeral for the reading of the will.

Between guests, Mrs. Biggs continued trying new dishes, and Martha Q soon found even her jogging suits were growing tighter. She decided to walk after she checked the trap every morning, but the street would never do. Too many people would see her without her makeup.

So Martha Q had the yard man build her steps down into the dried-up creek bed behind her house. She could walk there, out of the wind and alone.

While she walked, she thought of how good it felt to help people and decided she was getting so good at it, she should teach a class.

THURSDAY
JANUARY 31, 2008
WRIGHT FUNERAL HOME

The sun decided to come out here today. Hope it did wherever you are. I remember two years ago when we used to e-mail over our dinner every night that you said you liked sunny days.

Since that spring and all the grass fires, folks in town figured out how much I like old maps. I’m not sure how the word got out, but now every time someone finds an old map in their attic, they bring it to me. I thank them all, but most are worthless. A few are very interesting. I got one the other day that was hand drawn in the time before there were many settlers here. It was drawn on the back of a receipt for a hundred head of sheep to be delivered to an early ranch. Some of the ranchers would be surprised to learn that sheep were here long before cattle.

Oh, I almost forgot, Martha Q, the widow who runs Winter’s Inn caught a little border collie in a trap today. She couldn’t stand the thought of turning it in at the animal shelter, so she asked me to find it a home. The dog is half starved, but I think must have been someone’s special pet once upon a time. She’s really quite polite. She’s sleeping on a throw in the corner of my study right now. I’ll find her a home tomorrow.

Well, my Kate, I’ve probably bored you enough for tonight. I wish I could write exciting letters, but truth is I’m just a regular man who spends most of his time working.

Tomorrow it’ll be February. The time when we have our worst weather some years. I planted a magnolia out at the cemetery just because you said you loved them. It’s sheltered from the wind and wrapped for winter, but I don’t know if it’ll be alive come spring. Hope so. As it grows I’ll think of you.

Until tomorrow,
Ty

TYLER CLICKED SEND AND WONDERED IF HE SHOULD TRY to find Major Katherine Cummings. He knew she worked for the government and she traveled all over. She’d even come to Harmony during the grass fires.

If he asked Alex, she could probably find Kate. He could hire a private eye or check into one of those websites that claims to be able to find anyone.

But he wanted
her
to contact
him
. She’d been the one to walk away. She was the one who never showed up where they’d agreed to meet if either stopped e-mailing. He remembered what she’d written one night, because they hadn’t exchanged names or locations. She’d said that if anything happened and they lost contact, both of them should go where they’d met one stormy night. Quartz Mountain Lodge. The first Monday of the month. She’d even added,
Order me a glass of wine because I’ll be there.

Monday he’d make the drive to southwest Oklahoma one more time and wait again.

He couldn’t search her down. He wanted her to come back . . . to him.

FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 1, 2008
HARMONY TOWN SQUARE

GABE STOOD BETWEEN THE STORM DRAIN AND THE WINDOW of the county sheriff’s offices. The moonless night made him invisible in the shadows of the building. He listened, picking up information as always. Only tonight, for the first time he wasn’t collecting information for a story he might write . . . this time it was personal.

Three homes and one apartment had been broken into this week. All four were occupied by Smiths. What he’d dreaded for five years seemed to be happening. Someone was looking for him, and they weren’t wasting time being discreet about the hunt. They were breaking in fast, tracking mud through the place, and leaving without taking anything.

He took little comfort that whoever was searching didn’t know his real name. If his office somehow was on their list, they’d find nothing to connect G. L. Smith to Gabe Leary and the farm. Gabe had been very careful never to mix his pen name with his real life. He didn’t even bring envelopes home with the Smith address on them, and he paid for the office in cash.