The Way Home (10 page)

“I know.”

She’d had plenty of practice at concealing her feelings, at presenting a blank facade — to deflect her father’s rage, to make herself invisible to her stepfather, to keep her mother from worrying. Now she called on every bit of that ability and forced a smile.

“It was only a kiss, Ty. I may not be as ancient as you,” she said teasingly, “but I’m old enough to know that a kiss doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Ty looked surprised and then relief crept into his expression. His eyes searched her face and Meg kept her smile firmly in place. After a moment, she sensed some of the tension going out of him.

“Am I acting like a pompous ass?” he asked her.

“Only a teeny bit.” But her smile took any sting out of her agreement.

“I should have known you were too sensible to blow things out of proportion.”

“Just call me Sensible Meg.” The ache in her chest went too deep for tears.

“You’re a sweet kid, Meg.” Ty’s smile was warm with affection.

“Thanks.”

She kept her smile pinned firmly in place as he started the roadster and pulled onto the road. Staring out at the fields,

Meg wondered numbly how it was possible to feel her heart bleeding inside and still be able to smile and talk as if nothing were wrong.

It had been stupid to believe that one kiss could change her life; could suddenly make a future with Ty possible. She had his friendship for this summer and that was all she was ever going to have. It was enough.

She’d make it enough.

As unlikely as a friendship between himself and Meg Harper seemed to be, Ty had to admit that, aside from Jack, he’d never known anyone with whom he was so at ease. The summer days that had stretched before him in an endless ribbon of boredom were going by faster than he’d have believed possible.

He saw Meg two or three times a week. They met at the theater every Saturday and went to Barnett’s for an ice cream soda afterward. A few times he’d coaxed her into letting him buy lunch at Rosie’s, but they were more likely to picnic somewhere outside of town, though never again at his grandparents’ farm.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d kissed Meg there. They’d put that behind them and he never thought about it, never thought about how good she’d felt in his arms, how nicely her slender body had fit against his; never remembered the softness of her mouth or the innocent eagerness of her response. And if, on rare occasions, the memory did creep up on him, he promptly shoved it to the back of his mind and forgot about it again. Almost.

Meg was a good listener but she was much more than that. She might have spent her life in Regret, Iowa, but she’d read just about everything she could lay her hands on and her view of the world extended well beyond the boundaries of the small town. Ty sometimes found himself challenged to hold up his end of the conversation when it came to the situation in the world at large.

She also knew how to make him laugh, sometimes even at himself.

As the days drifted by, he found himself thinking less about the end of summer than he did about when he was next going to be seeing Meg.

“Where are you off to, Meg?”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Meg hesitated. She looked longingly at the front door, wishing she could pretend she hadn’t heard her mother and just leave. Knowing she wouldn’t do any such thing. She turned and went into the parlor.

“Hello, Mama.”

Ruth straightened away from the quilting frame, her thin face tightening in a brief grimace of pain as her back protested the hours she’d spent hunched over the quilt. Her faded blue eyes skimmed over her daughter, taking in the crisp white crocheted collar and cuffs that Meg had made to update last year’s navy print dress, making it look almost like new.

“You’re going out?”

“Yes, Mama. I’m going to the fair, remember? I asked you if you’d mind.”

“I’d forgotten it was today. You’ve been going out a lot this summer,” she commented. She rubbed absently at the ache in her lower back and Meg was instantly guilt-stricken.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I know I haven’t been helping you with your quilting as much as I should have. I’ll work on Mrs. Smith’s quilt all day tomorrow, I promise.” She pressed a kiss against the top of her mother’s head.

“A girl your age ought to have some fun,” Ruth said, smiling up at her daughter. “You never did make friends easily.”

“I always liked books more than people,” Meg said lightly, thinking of how lonely she’d felt, watching other little girls playing with their friends. Being George Harper’s daughter had set her apart, made the other children look at her with either contempt or pity, reflecting the opinions of their parents.

“You always did have your nose stuck in a book,” Ruth said, her smile reminiscent. “It’s good to see you having fun.” But the smile quickly faded, the lines of tension settling back around her mouth and eyes. “Heaven knows there’s little enough when you grow up.”

Meg looked at her mother’s prematurely gray hair, the worn lines of her face, and tried to imagine her ever having fun. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother laugh. Even her smiles were tight and close, holding little real joy.

“Why don’t you come with us, Mama?” she asked impulsively. “The quilting can wait a few hours. You hardly ever get out of this house.”

“Oh, I couldn’t, Meg. There’s just too much to do, what with the kitchen floor to mop and supper to fix, not to mention Mrs. Smith’s quilt needs finishing. But it’s sweet of you to ask,” she added perfunctorily. She smoothed her hand over the quilt. “Is the McKendrick boy taking you to the fair?”

“Yes.” Meg didn’t add anything to the flat response, knowing her mother wouldn’t approve.

“You know no good can come of it.”

“We’re friends, Mama. I can’t see the harm in that.” Meg gave her a coaxing smile but the worried frown didn’t ease. “I know you think I’m going to get hurt, but that’s just not going to happen.”

“Your stepfather’s bound to find out,” Ruth reminded her. “Someone’s bound to tell him. He won’t like it.”

Meg’s spine stiffened as a wave of resentment washed through her. “I don’t see that it’s any of his concern,” she said, her voice sharper than she’d intended. If Harlan Davis hadn’t been cordially disliked by most folks, someone would have told him about her friendship with Ty long before this.

“He won’t like it,” Ruth said again. Her fingers pleated the soft, faded pink cotton of her housedress. “I wish you’d stop seeing the McKendrick boy, Meg. Maybe Harlan wouldn’t find out at all then.”

“I don’t care.jf he does find out,” Meg said impatiently. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Ty is a fine, upstanding citizen. His parents are respected in this town. I’d think Harlan would be pleased enough to see me making friends with somebody from the Hill.”

“Don’t you ever let him hear you call him by his given name, Margaret. It’s disrespectful.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Meg had to force the apology out. Before the argument could continue, there was a knock on the door.

“That must be Ty.”

Meg had been so absorbed in the conversation with her mother that she hadn’t even heard the roadster pull up. Usually she met Ty at Barnett’s. On the one or two occasions that he’d insisted on picking her up at home, she’d made it a point to be outside waiting for him. Now she hesitated, caught between answering the door and the need to reassure her mother.

“You’d better go let him in,” Ruth said.

The door had been left open in a futile attempt to catch a breeze that might help cool the stuffy little house. As Meg approached the door and saw Ty’s tall figure standing on the other side of the screen, she felt her heart give the same little bump it did every time she saw him. He was so tall and handsome and when he smiled, she felt something warm uncurl deep in her stomach.

“Hello, Ty.”

“Hello, Meg. You look swell,” he said, giving her an admiring but depressingly brotherly once-over as she opened the screen door. “Ready to go?”

“Yes. Just let me get my purse.” She hesitated a moment and then stepped back, opening the door wider to invite him into the house. “Would you like to wait inside while I get it?”

“Sure.” He stepped inside and the little hallway seemed to shrink with his presence.

Once he’d come in, there was no way to avoid introducing him to her mother, since the parlor opened directly off the hallway and Ruth was plainly visible. Meg made the minimum of introductions and then fled to her room to grab her small clutch bag from the bed. Habit made her pause long enough to make sure that she had a clean handkerchief and a comb as well as her precious compact. And then she hurried back out to the front of the house.

“I’m ready,” she announced breathlessly.

“That’s fine.” Ty had been perched uneasily on the edge of the old horsehair sofa, and he rose, looking grateful to see the end of what had probably been an awkward conversation. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Davis. I’ll take good care of Meg.”

“Yes,” Ruth said, her fingers plucking restlessly at her skirt, her eyes as distracted as her voice.

“Good-bye, Mama. Don’t work too long on that quilt. I’ll help you finish it tomorrow.” Meg brushed a quick kiss over her mother’s cheek and then turned and hurried out of the room, out of the house before guilt could overwhelm her and make her tell Ty that she couldn’t go to the fair, after all.

She felt a strange kind of relief once she was settled in Ty’s car and he’d backed the roadster around to head out the drive, rutted by summer rains. She’d work extra hard tomorrow, quilt twice as fast to make up for today. Even as she made the guilty promise to herself, she knew it wasn’t the quilting that had her mother so worried.

But she couldn’t promise to stop seeing iy. Not when so little time remained before the end of summer, before he’d be leaving Regret and going to California. Besides, she didn’t really care whether Harlan Davis approved of her friendship with Ty or not, she thought resentfully.

As if thinking about the man had conjured him, his car was slowing to turn into the short lane just as Ty steered the Chrysler out onto the road. Meg had a quick glimpse of her stepfather’s round face and pale eyes as they passed him.

“Wasn’t that your stepfather?” Ty asked.

“Yes.” Meg heard the flatness of her response but was helpless to put more life into it.

“You don’t sound particularly fond of him,” Ty said after a moment.

She wasn’t going to say anything, of course. She’d grown up knowing that it was wrong to air dirty linen in public. Family problems stayed in the family, no matter what.

“He’s a small man,” she said at last, half surprised to hear the words.

“You don’t like him because he’s short?” Ty threw her an incredulous look.

“No. I mean small in other ways.” She stroked her fingers over the smooth surface of her purse, keeping her eyes on the movement, half wishing she hadn’t said anything, even as she struggled with the need to put words to the way she felt about her stepfather.

“He’s little inside. He pinches pennies, not because times are hard and he
needs
to pinch them but because he
likes
to pinch them. He likes making my mother come to him for every nickel she needs to buy food or clothes. And he likes telling people how good he was to marry George Harper’s widow and take on his two orphaned girls.” Unconsciously her voice took on a tight, nasal edge that echoed Harlan Davis’s tones.

“I think he only married Mama so he could tell people how good he was,” she said bitterly.

“I can’t say I’ve ever had much contact with the man,” Ty said, obviously groping for words. “The hotel seems to do all right.”

“Oh, he’s a good businessman.” Meg shrugged, wishing she’d just said something noncommittal when Ty asked about her stepfather. “Let’s not talk about him anymore. It’s too nice a day to waste on talking about Harlan Davis.”

Ty didn’t argue and Meg determinedly forced all thoughts of her mean-spirited stepfather from her mind. She was going to enjoy today, no matter what.

Ty hadn’t been to a fair just to have fun in at least ten years. Usually, when he was at a fair, he was giving earth-bound fairgoers a quick, dizzying trip into the air. He had neither the time nor the desire to wander the fairgrounds, eating hot dogs and drinking sticky, sweet lemonade.

But somehow, with Meg’s enthusiasm as an example, it was impossible to do anything less than have a good time. From the moment they parked the car in the field next to the fair, she’d been bubbling over with eagerness. She wanted to see everything, from the two-headed lady to the snake charmer. It didn’t matter how obvious the ruse, how old the trick, she drank it in. Just when Ty would think she was actually fooled by something, their eyes would meet and he’d see the laughter in hers. But seeing through the facade to the slightly tawdry reality didn’t seem to spoil her enjoyment in the least.

He didn’t think he’d ever known anyone who took so much pleasure from life. Little things pleased Meg as much as big; silly things as much as spectacular. She simply enjoyed it all.

They rode the Ferris wheel and Ty enjoyed her delight at the spectacular view from the top. He felt a momentary pang when he thought about how much more spectacular the view was from an airplane. It reminded him of how much he missed flying. But he’d be back to it soon, he reminded himself as the Ferris wheel began to turn again, lowering them toward the ground. It wouldn’t be long before his parents’s liner docked in New York. They might spend a day or two in the city but then they’d take the train home and he’d be free to leave his hometown, leg in perfect working order again and conscience clear.