The Way Home (19 page)

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

“You’re not causing me trouble.”

He said it so firmly that it was almost possible to believe him. Almost.

“I think you should go back to bed,” he said briskly, as if the question of him going to see her mother was settled.

And perhaps it was, Meg admitted, feeling the wobble in her knees. The fact was, she doubted she could walk down the stairs without help, let alone make it home. And the possibility of seeing Harlan Davis was enough to make her feel cold and clammy, as if someone had just run skeletal hands across her gravestone.

So she let Ty ease the robe from her shoulders and help her back into bed, and she took the headache powder he insisted on giving her. Meg lay back against the pillows and watched Ty walk out the door, feeling weak tears spring to her eyes.

She wondered what her mother would think when Ty showed up. What had Ruth thought when Meg disappeared the night before? Had she worried? Or had she just been grateful that there’d be no more trouble? Would Harlan have turned his rage on his wife? What if he was there when Ty arrived?

Ty will take care of it,
she thought, feeling the pounding in her head ease as the medication took effect. She didn’t believe there was anything that he couldn’t deal with.

Ty knocked on the door and then waited. Though the rain had stopped sometime before dawn, the air was still cold and damp, making him wish he’d worn a heavier jacket. He turned away from the blank door to frown at the neat front yard. The tidy flower beds held the tattered remnants of summer color, tired and brown now with the change of seasons.

He heard footsteps inside and turned toward the door. He’d debated all the way over here just what he should say to Ruth Davis when she answered the door, and he was no closer to knowing now than he had been when he left. The door opened with a squeal of hinges and he was looking at Meg’s mother through the fly-specked screen.

“Mrs. Davis?”

Her eyes widened when she saw him, her already pale complexion going a shade whiter. Ty had met her only the one time when he’d picked up Meg, but he’d seen her in town a few times over the years. It struck him suddenly that he couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t looked old and worn, ground down by life. Yet she could not be much more than forty, hardly old by anyone’s standards.

“Could I talk to you?” he asked when she didn’t seem willing to speak.

“I doubt we’ve much to say to one another.”

She began to shut the door.

“Meg asked me to come,” Ty said quickly.

That brought her head up and she eyed him uneasily through the screen. “When?”

“This morning. She came to me last night, Mrs. Davis.”

There was a moment when he thought she might shut the door in his face anyway, but she seemed to change her mind, reaching to pull open the screen instead.

“Best you come inside,” she offered.

“Thank you.”

If he’d expected the little house to be warmer than the outdoors, he was disappointed. If anything, it seemed colder but that could have been his imagination.

Ruth tugged her heavy gray sweater closer about her shoulders and nodded her head toward the parlor, which was dominated by her quilting frame, just as it had been the last time, though the quilt stretched in it was a different one from the one he’d seen before. This one was flowers of some kind, done in bubble-gum pink and Nile green. It provided the only spot of color in the drab room.

“How is Meg?” she asked as soon as Ty had seated himself on the uncomfortable horsehair sofa. She sat down at the quilting frame and picked up her needle.

“She’ll be all right,” he said, hoping he was telling the truth. “She was worried about you.”

“Me?” Ruth glanced up from her quilting, her faded blue eyes surprised, the surprise quickly fading as she shook her head. “Meg always was a worrier. Patsy, now, she never worried about a thing. She always figured she’d turn a corner and everything would work itself out. But Meg was always worrying about things, trying to take care of other people.”

“Seems to me she’s the one who needs someone to take care of her,” Ty said. “After last night.”

Ruth’s eyes shot to his face and then back to her quilting. The needle rocked in and out of the fabric automatically, but Ty didn’t think she was paying much attention to what she was doing.

“I can understand Meg being upset,” she said slowly, seeming to pick her words. “Her stepfather was real upset and maybe he shouldn’t have slapped her like he did, but there was no real cause for her to run off — “

“Slapped her?” Ty’s incredulous question interrupted her. “Slapped her? Mrs. Davis, Meg has a split lip, a black eye, and more bruises than I can count.”

“Harlan lost his temper. Maybe he was a bit rougher than he should — “

“Meg told me everything that happened.”

The flat interruption stopped her cold. Though she didn’t look at him, Ty saw her flush and then pale and her fingers suddenly began to tremble around her needle.

“I told her he’d be upset,” she whispered, seeming to speak more to herself than to him. “I tried to tell her he’d be angry.”

“I don’t think anger justifies what your husband tried to do, Mrs. Davis.”

“He just lost his temper,” she said, shooting him a pleading look. “He’s not a bad man.” Seeing Ty’s incredulous expression, she flushed again and looked away. “What happened last night — it won’t happen again.”

“Damn right it won’t,” Ty snapped. He stood up, offering no apology for his language. His expression held more than a trace of contempt when he looked at her. “Because Meg isn’t going to be in a position where it
could
happen. She’s not coming back here.”

“Where’s she going to stay?” Ruth rose to face him. “Who’s going to take care of her? You?” Seeing that Ty had no answer, it was her turn to look contemptuous. “I wouldn’t go casting any stones too quickly, Tyler McKendrick. You think I don’t care about my girl, but I’ve done what I had to to make sure that she had a roof over her head and food on the table.”

“There’s more to taking care of a child than feeding her.”

“You can say that because you’ve never gone hungry, never had to wonder whether or not you’d be able to scrape up enough pennies to buy food to fill your children’s bellies or enough to pay the rent so’s there’d be a roof over their heads come winter. Don’t you judge me until you’ve stood in my shoes.”

Ty looked at her, seeing a trace of the spirited girl she might once have been. For the first time he noticed a resemblance to Meg, in the thrust of her jaw, in the passion in her eyes. But it was gone the next moment as Ruth looked away, her shoulders slumping inside the shapeless sweater.

“I told Meg no good would come of her seeing you. The McKendricks live on the Hill, I said. And she’d always be George Harper’s youngest. You were only here for the summer and then you’d be going on with your life, leaving her behind. I knew she’d end up hurt.”

“I’m not the one who hurt her last night.”

“Aren’t you?”

The simple question silenced him as nothing else could have done. He stared at her for a moment, seeing himself through her eyes and not liking what he saw.

“She’s not coming back here,” he said finally, turning to leave.

“Good enough.” Ruth followed him to the door. “See that you take care of her.”

“I will.” Ty ducked his head in farewell, feeling an odd respect for her. As far as he was concerned, she’d made the wrong choices in her life and Meg had suffered for them. But he was willing to concede that perhaps the choices had seemed right to her at the time.

He got into the roadster and backed it around to head out the driveway. The sky to the north was thick and dark with clouds, hinting at another storm on the way, but Ty paid them no attention. He had one more stop to make before going home.

The Davis Hotel was a square, three-story brick building situated in the middle of town. It was completely without any pretensions to architectural greatness. It looked like exactly what it was: a plain hotel that had seen better days in a small midwestem town that had also seen better days.

Ty had been inside the hotel only a few times, generally when an out-of-town relative visited and chose the marginal luxury of the hotel over staying at his parents’. From what he could recall, the lobby hadn’t changed since the last time his great-uncle Millard had stayed there, which had been at least fifteen years ago. The same carpet covered the floor, the floral pattern more faded than he remembered. Overhead was the same crystal chandelier, gleaming like a diamond in a shabby velvet case.

But Ty wasn’t particularly interested in the subtle evidence that the Davis Hotel, like the rest of the country, had fallen on hard times. His attention was on the small man standing behind the front desk, his head bent over a ledger.

At the sound of the bell over the door, Harlan Davis looked up, his professional smile fading when he saw Ty. His face twisted in a look of such hate that Ty paused, momentarily thrown off balance. But only momentarily. He continued toward the desk with long strides, taking some satisfaction in seeing the hatred fade, to be replaced by a look of alarm.

“Mr. McKendrick.” Harlan’s greeting was an automatic courtesy.

“I want to talk to you about Meg,” Ty said, skipping the courtesies. As far as he was concerned, the fact that he hadn’t punched Harlan on sight was stretching his manners to the limit.

At the mention of Meg’s name, Harlan’s spine stiffened, his caution fading as his face twisted in a look that mingled anger and frustration.

“I should have known the little slut would go straight to you,” he said with a sneer. “Her lover. I told her I wouldn’t have her ruining my good name in this town and I meant it. You tell her to get — “

His sentence was choked off midword as Ty reached across the desk and caught him by the front of his shirt, dragging him halfway across the gleaming mahogany surface.

“If you say one more word, the only thing I’m going to be telling Meg is the news of your untimely death.”

“You can’t — “ Whatever Ty couldn’t do was lost as he twisted his hand deeper into Harlan’s shirt, causing the collar to tighten alarmingly.

“I can do anything I want, Davis.” His voice was low and hard, audible only to Davis. “If you’re so concerned about your good name, I’d suggest you consider the fact that I know exactly what you are and what you tried to do to Meg.”

Davis’s eyes bulged, whether out of fear or lack of air, Ty didn’t know. Nor did he care. Strangling Davis offered only marginal satisfaction. What he really wanted was to plunge his fist into the other man’s face, to feel the bones in his nose crunch under the impact, to inflict on him a small portion of the hurt he’d given Meg.

“What do you think it will do to your precious reputation in this town if people find out you tried to rape your own stepdaughter?”

Davis paled, his skin nearly as white as the ledger that lay open between them. “She’s lying.” He gasped. “I didn’t touch her. No matter how much she flaunted herself, I didn’t — “

Ty twisted his hand until Davis’s collar dug viciously deep. Rage made him light-headed. He saw Davis through a red haze, could almost feel the pleasure to be gained from choking the life out of him. Davis batted feebly at his wrists, his pasty complexion taking on a purple hue.

Ty was oblivious to the half-dozen people who stood in the lobby, watching the scene with shocked gazes. His fingers tightened momentarily and Davis began to make wheezing noises as his air was cut off. Just before the other man blacked out, Ty eased his grip, allowing him to draw a deep, gulping breath of air. He watched Davis coldly until he saw reason replace the blind terror that had filled his eyes, then he leaned down until only inches separated their faces. Feeling the fingers on his shirtfront tighten, Davis squeaked with alarm.

“I’m not going to kill you now, Davis.” Ty’s voice was low and hard. “I just wanted to be sure I had your attention. Now, I want you to listen to me carefully. If you ever lay another hand on Meg, I’ll kill you. In fact, if you so much as look at her, I’ll break you in half.”

Ty released his hold and Davis dropped to the floor like a sack of badly packed flour. Davis lifted his hands to his throat, patting nervously at his creased collar as he eased back, out of Ty’s reach.

“You can’t threaten me,” he blustered, his voice hoarse and quavery.

“I just did. And I’d suggest you take my words to heart.

You’re a small man, Davis. All the way to the core. And if you take me on, you’re going to bite off a lot more than you can chew.” He leaned forward and Davis backed hastily away. Ty grinned, enjoying the other man’s fear. “Stay away from Meg.”

He turned and walked away without waiting for a response, feeling better than he had all morning.

CHAPTER 9

Jack was playing solitaire at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. He laid the nine of spades on the ten of hearts before setting the deck down and pushing his chair back. If the doorbell had awakened Meg, Ty was likely to have his skin. He glanced up the stairs as he entered the hall, but there was no sign of her. He opened the door.