The Hopechest Bride (14 page)

“Yes, I'd say he was, and is, most definitely a hero. What does his brother say?”

“Josh?” Emily bent her head, played with the strings on the hood of her jacket, winding them around her fingers. “He…Josh says it's all right. He understands. He's proud of his brother.”

“As well he should be. Is that all?”

Emily wet her suddenly dry lips. “I don't think I want to talk anymore, Doctor. Is that all right?”

“Is it?” Martha asked in return, and Emily smiled, shook her head. “No? I didn't think so. I've been told that Toby was in love with you, but that you considered him just a good friend. Your good friend, Josh's brother. You and Josh. You share Toby now, don't you?”

“Share him? No, Doctor, I don't think so. Josh can forgive me—has forgiven me—for Toby's death. I've even begun to forgive myself. But Toby loved me, and that means that Josh can't.” She looked at Martha
as she wiped tears from her cheeks with the cuff of her jacket. “Is that fair? We both loved Toby, but does that mean we have to give up any chance of our own happiness?”

Martha sat back in her chair, looking contemplative. Obviously she hadn't known all the answers. “You and Josh…you've had more than a single dinner together, haven't you?”

Emily gave a short bark of laughter. “Oh, you could say that, Doctor. You could say that we've had a whole lot more than a single dinner together. And now Josh is gone, saying there's no future for us because of Toby. I wish he'd never come here. I wish we'd never met.”

“Josh has issues of his own, doesn't he?”

“Issues?” Emily dragged her hands through her hair. “Is that what they call taking a woman to bed and then telling her there's no future for them? Issues? Used to be, we just called men like that lousy no-good bastards.”

“Yes, or vulnerable souls with things to work out, pain still to be worked through, and time needed for healing before the future can possibly be thought of in any really coherent way. Does he love you?”

Emily pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket, blew her nose. “I don't know.”

“Do you love him?”

“Love him? How could I love him? He left, didn't he?”

“Yes, he did leave, but for what reason? To protect himself, or to protect you?”

“How does leaving me protect me? I talked to him, and he listened. I thought he understood. In this whole mess, he was the one person I could really talk to. There was this…this
bonding.
From the moment we met.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and looked at Martha. “It was like I'd met the other half of me, Doctor. Even as I hated him, I knew I needed him. And he felt it, too, he had to have felt it. So how could he walk away? How could he leave me?”

Martha closed her eyes a moment, collected her own thoughts. “Emily, you sometimes leave this rather lively household and go off on your own, don't you? To think. You need that time, cherish that time, and that very aloneness feeds you, strengthens you, helps you. Perhaps Josh also needs some alone time right now, some time to think, be by himself, work things through inside his head and heart. You'd understand that, wouldn't you?”

“Yes,” Emily said slowly, nodding her head. “I'd understand that. Josh has been traveling the rodeo circuit for a lot of years. You've got a lot of alone time doing something like that, and except for Toby, I don't think he's the kind that needs to be surrounded by others all the time.”

“So if he's upset and confused, he wouldn't immediately call two dozen of his closest friends, to talk about it?”

Emily's eyes softened, and she actually smiled.
“No. I wouldn't either. It's something else we have in common, I suppose.”

“Something besides Toby, you mean.”

“Yeah,” Emily whispered, turning her head, looking out toward the horizon.

“You know, Emily, I'm a therapist. I'm not a fortune teller. So I can't tell you if Josh will ever come back, because I don't know that. But you do. Deep in your heart and mind, you know. I'd like us to talk some more, Emily, about your family, about Patsy, about Silas Pike…and about Toby. I think you know you need to talk more about everything that happened. We all need time to heal, Emily. You do, Josh does. Maybe the timing wasn't quite right for Josh to come into your life, but someday it will be. You'd want to be ready for that, wouldn't you?”

“And if he doesn't ever come back?”

“You'll want to be ready for that, too, my dear.”

“Yes,” Emily said, sighing, but lifting her chin, feeling some of her old fight oozing back through her body. “Yes, I do, Doctor. I need to find
me
again, before I can be any good to anyone else.”

T
he days were creeping up on Thanksgiving, and the Hacienda de Alegria had begun to swell with children and grandchildren come to celebrate the holiday.

Emily's cousin Liza had flown in with her baby, her husband staying behind and not due in until the day before the holiday. That gave Liza plenty of time to devote to the care and feeding and not always diplomatic prodding of Emily, who just couldn't seem to feel the same ease in telling personal secrets she and Liza had shared since childhood.

“Liza keeps asking me about Josh, and I keep changing the subject,” Emily confided to Dr. Wilkes, who she now called Martha, as they'd spoken every
day for the past week and had become friends. “Why am I doing that? I've never had secrets from Liza.”

“What secret are you keeping from her now?” Martha asked, picking up her teacup as she and Emily sat together in the living room, just before bedtime, the large house quiet at last.

“That I'm talking to you about him, for one,” Emily said around a mouthful of peanut butter cookie. “Umm, these are better than good. Inez has outdone herself. She's always baking all my favorites. I think I've gained five pounds this week.”

Martha smiled. “Don't tell anyone I said so, but I think that's the plan,” she told her, reaching for a cookie of her own. “Not
my
plan, because I could easily do without another five pounds myself. But I think I'm either going to have to develop a lot more willpower, or you're going to have to gain at least another five pounds so Inez backs off.”

Emily grinned. “It's a conspiracy, is it? I thought so. And not that I'm complaining. All my clothes were getting too big for me, and I had to put another notch in my belt. I just had no appetite. Lately, however, I think I could eat anything that isn't nailed down. Why is that?”

“You're happier? More at peace with yourself? I should be walking around here, patting myself on my own back, for my brilliance?”

Now Emily laughed out loud. “No wonder you and Mom get along so well. You're as bad as she is. But seriously, Martha—I
am
feeling better. I'm sleeping
more soundly, I've got an appetite, I'm not hiding in my room with the house full of family. Can it really be this easy? Talking to you, listening to myself as I talk to you—it really works?”

“That's what they told me in shrink school,” Martha joked, then sobered. “You're a strong spirit, Emily, and you'd already gone a long way toward healing yourself. I just helped put on a few of the missing touches. So, tell me about Josh. Have you found anything else about him on the Internet?”

Emily popped the last of the cookie into her mouth, dusted her fingers together to get rid of any crumbs. “I already told you he took the overall in Phoenix. He didn't do quite as well two nights ago, in San Antonio, but he did win the calf-roping outright, and piled up a lot of points toward the national title. Which he's won twice, if I didn't tell you that before.”

“You did,” Martha answered, smiling. “Twice, as a matter of fact. So where is he now?”

Emily frowned. “I don't know. The rodeo moved on to Oklahoma, for an indoor show, but he isn't listed for any of the events.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So I don't know where he is.”

“Could he be coming here?”

Emily picked up another cookie, turned it back to front as if examining it for an answer. “I don't know, Doctor and Soothsayer. Could he?”

“Let me check my tea leaves,” Martha said, lifting the empty cup and peering into it. “Darn, no tea
leaves. I guess I'm going to have to wing this one, huh? Do I think he's coming here? Better question—do I think you're
ready
for him to come here? And the answer to that is, yes, I do. And, before you ask again, if Josh Atkins is half the man you tell me he is, I expect to be meeting him one day soon.”

“Not that I need him to be complete,” Emily said, her chin tilted up defiantly.

“Absolutely not.”

“And not just because we went to bed together.”

“Not since the old days of shotgun weddings,” Martha agreed, smiling. “Although maybe you shouldn't try asking Joe about that one.”

“And not just because I love him,” Emily ended, sighing. “Oh, Martha, I do love him. I barely know him, but I love him. Unbelievably, I actually think I love him enough to let him go, which probably makes me certifiable, huh?”

Martha picked up the plate and held it out to Emily, grinning. “Don't think too much, my dear. Here, have another cookie. It'll be one less that I eat.”

 

Josh drove through the night after leaving San Antonio, finally pulling over into a rest area when he felt his eyelids beginning to droop, sleeping a few hours in the cab of his truck, then getting back on the road again.

He'd left his horses and trailer with friends in the rodeo, knowing they'd be taken care of, and headed north with just his truck, his saddle and the jumble
of clothes he stored in the cab. He traveled as he always had: alone, unencumbered.

And for the first time in his life, he felt lonely.

Another long drive, another few hours in a roadside motel, and by late the second day he'd arrived in Keyhole.

Toby's rent had been paid until the end of the year, and Josh still hadn't had the guts to go through his brother's personal effects, sort them, pack them away, so he headed straight for the apartment, planning to do just that.

Do that, and a few other things.

He pulled the key from his pocket and let himself into the apartment, his nose wrinkling as he smelled spoiled fruit, soon locating a bowl of nearly disintegrating apples on the kitchen counter.

Still wearing his Stetson and jacket, Josh opened all the windows, then rummaged through cabinets until he found a supply of plastic garbage bags. He tossed in the apples and what probably was once a banana, all the contents of the refrigerator and the kitchen trash can, then took the bags down to the Dumpster in the parking lot, disposing of it all.

Toby had kept his apartment neat, orderly, so it wasn't as if he'd walked into a mess. He had, however, walked in on a lot of memories Toby had spread through the rooms: photographs on every table, his sports equipment stacked in a corner of the living room, a framed magazine cover that showed Josh after he'd won his first national championship.

Josh stood in the middle of the room. Where did he go with everything? What did he do with it all? How did he get through this without breaking down, losing it?

“First, I eat,” he said out loud, and headed to his truck, driving to the Mi-T-Fine Café where Emily had been employed, where she and Toby had met.

He sat in the last booth, his back to the wall, barely tasting the hamburger and fries he'd ordered, watching as people came and went, living their lives.

Toby's people. These were the men and women and children Toby had sworn to protect and serve. Nice people. Nice town. No one would think violence could ever come here, but it had. It had come, and it had gone, and life was moving on.

Josh's next stop was the local grocery store, where he loaded up on some lunch meat, bread, milk, a dozen eggs and an angel food cake, just because it appealed to him. Then it was back to the apartment, where he unloaded the food and his duffel bag, planning to crash on the couch rather than sleep in his brother's bed.

He sat on that couch as the night grew dark, not bothering to turn on any lights, but just sitting there, his hands on his knees, remembering. Toby with his two front teeth missing. Toby riding his first horse. Toby in a rented tux, taking Mary Sue Potenski to the prom. Toby in his sheriff's uniform, a pistol strapped to his leg, his smile so wide and proud it had made Josh's heart ache.

And the other memories. Toby crying for his mommy, who was never coming back. Toby small and scared and climbing into bed with him when their dad came home, roaring drunk. Toby hungry, and with nothing in the house to eat. Toby bravely smiling, saying it was all right if Santa forgot them this year. Toby holding his hand, walking beside him, depending on him, believing in him.

“Oh, God. Toby. Toby…” Josh said, leaning forward, dropping his head into his hands as, at last, after keeping all his emotions inside, locked up, hidden away, he cried for his brother.

 

Rebecca came up beside Martha, standing with her as the two women watched the kickball game in progress in the small gymnasium.

“Who's winning?” she asked, nodding her head toward the action.

“Tatania, mostly,” Martha said, pride in her voice. “Oh, she hasn't scored, but she's out there. She's playing. She's interacting with the other kids. I consider that a victory all by itself.”

“And we take our victories where we can find them, don't we?” Rebecca said, smiling. “Are the two of you going to town again this afternoon?”

“Yes, we are. Tatania has an appointment with the judge, thanks to all the red tape Joe was able to cut for us. She's going to tell him whether or not she wants to come live with me. Forever and ever, as Tatania says. Not that this will all happen overnight,
of course, even with Joe's recommendations.” She turned to Rebecca. “Although I have bought a house.”

“You have? Oh, Martha, that's wonderful!” Rebecca said, hugging her friend. “Where?”

“Just outside Prosperino, in a lovely new development of single homes. It's not quite complete, so Tatania can pick the color of the carpet for her room, the colors for her bathroom, and there's an attached office, with zoning allowing professional businesses. There are already two doctors in the development, and I understand there are quite a few software designers working out of their homes.”

“Are you talking east of the city? Because I think I know the area you mean. Those are huge homes, Martha. Huge and lovely.”

Martha grinned. “It is big, I agree, but I have a feeling we'll be able to fill the rooms over the years. Tatania's told me she wants a big family. Besides, there's a community pool, and horseback riding trails, a lovely pocket park, and good schools close by. I think the judge will be impressed,” she ended, sighing happily.

“I think the judge will ask you if he can move in, too,” Rebecca said. “Seems you and Tatania will have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.”

“I can't begin to articulate how much, Rebecca,” Martha said, then clapped and called out encouragement as Tatania gave the ball a good kick and scored
a point. “Meredith tells me we'll have about forty for Thanksgiving dinner. Can you believe that?”

“Yes, I can. Small crowd. It seems some of us won't make it back home until Christmas this year,” Rebecca told her, grinning. “This is our first big Thanksgiving in a long time, as we didn't really have family gatherings when Mom was gone. Just society parties Patsy enjoyed and we all hated. But that's all over now, and we're back to big, noisy get-togethers and Drake and Rand fighting over drumsticks. I can't wait!”

“Rebecca?”

Both women turned to see Blake Fallon's secretary, Holly Lamb, approaching them, her pretty face looking troubled.

“What is it, Holly?” Rebecca asked, and Martha quickly recognized the concern in her voice.

“It's the kittens, Rebecca,” Holly told her, her eyes moist, as if she was fighting back tears. “You know how the children were so excited that Boots was having kittens? They all wanted to name them, see them as soon as they were born?”

“Yes, I know that. Boots should be giving birth any day now. So what's wrong?”

“They're dead, Rebecca. Boots had six kittens this morning, out in the barn, and they're all dead.”

“Oh, God. None of the children saw, did they?”

Holly shook her head. “No, we took care of it. But isn't that strange, Rebecca, that all of them would be born dead? And you know we've been finding dead
mice in the barn, and sometimes just lying around on the ground, as if they just lay down and died. It doesn't make sense, does it?”

Martha looked to Rebecca, waited for her answer.

“No, Holly, it doesn't make sense. I've been assured there are no poisons in the barn, or anywhere else at Hopechest, for that matter. Have you told Blake?”

“Yes, and he said not to say anything, at least not to anyone except you and a few others. But he's definitely going to start some sort of investigation.”

Martha stepped forward a pace. “What about the children? Are any of the children sick?”

Rebecca shook her head. “No, not really. More than our usual run of colds, runny noses, but we did have a lot of damp, rainy weather this month. Oh, and Billy George has pneumonia. He was admitted to the hospital this morning, and he's going to be fine. Why? Surely you don't see a connection between some dead mice and kittens, and the children?”

“No, I suppose not,” Martha said. “Sorry, Rebecca, it's just this new and highly sensitive mother-mode I've seemed to have developed since meeting Tatania. Don't pay me any attention at all—although I'm glad to hear that Blake is taking this seriously enough to start an investigation.”

 

Josh stood in front of the stone marker, looking down at the inscription placed there and paid for by Toby's fellow officers, at their insistence. Toby's
name, dates of birth and death were there, and one more thing, the words “A hero fallen in the line of duty. Always to be remembered.”

Always to be remembered.
That was nice. Josh put down the bouquet of flowers he'd brought, placing them beside others that still looked fresh. Toby was being remembered.

There was a small American flag stuck into the ground beside the gray granite stone, a flag that would probably be replaced once a year, donated by the women's auxiliary of some civic group or another.

Josh raised his head, looked out across the small cemetery. Neat. Orderly. Graves marching in curved rows, trees and benches scattered about, many of the graves marked with fresh flowers.