Authors: Dallas Schulze
The Way Home (59 page)
“This ain’t their doing, Harlan.” Ruth stood straight, oblivious to the wind that blew the skirt of her dress back against her thin body. “What you’ve done is wrong. And I was wrong to turn a blind eye. Lord knows I’ve regretted not stopping you every day of my life. But I’m stopping you now.”
“You stay out of this. I’ll deal with you later.” Harlan started toward Ty and Meg, and Ty tensed, ready to thrust Meg away from him, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
“You’ll deal with me now,” Ruth said.
Something in her tone made Ty’s glance flick to her. What he saw nearly shocked the breath from him. Ruth had taken her hand from her pocket and in it, steady as could be, was a pistol, pointed directly at her husband. Ty heard Meg gasp as she turned her head toward her mother.
Harlan stopped in his tracks, shock flickering over his pale features, followed an instant later by disbelief and then contempt. “You won’t pull that trigger. You don’t have the courage.” He bent to pick up a good-size branch that had fallen from one of the trees that shaded the farmhouse.
“Harlan. I’m warning you.” Ruth’s voice was as steady as her hand, but he didn’t seem to hear her. Lifting the branch, he started toward the young couple.
Ty didn’t know whether he believed Ruth would pull the trigger or not, but he thrust Meg behind him and braced for Harlan’s attack.
“I’ll teach you.” Harlan lifted the branch, planning to bring it down like a club. But the movement was never completed.
The sound of the shot was nearly lost in a faraway roll of thunder. A neat round hole appeared in Harlan’s forehead and his pale eyes looked startled. For an instant he was frozen, the branch still poised to strike. Then the weight of it toppled him over onto his back.
In the silence that followed, Ruth’s voice seemed loud.
“He never would listen to me,” she said plaintively.
The hours that followed were chaotic. Jack arrived within minutes of the shooting and was understandably surprised to find a body lying in the front yard. Ruth was huddled on the front porch, the gray sweater pulled tight around her thin body as she rocked herself softly back and forth. Meg sat beside her, a robe dragged on over her ruined dress, her face white and shocked. Ty had called Ben Marlon and then found a tarp to throw over the body.
By the time the sheriff got there, it had begun to rain, a slow steady patter just right for settling in new seedlings and watering the thirsty soil. There were questions to be asked, answers to be given. Ty had called Patsy and she arrived in a taxi — damn the cost.
She hesitated a moment when she saw Jack, but then her eyes flickered past him to her mother and sister. She went to them, putting her arm around her mother, rocking her as if she were a child.
Everyone knew Harlan Davis had been getting crazy as a peach orchard boar, and Ben saw no reason to doubt the story that Ty and Meg gave. Ruth said almost nothing, answering only when spoken to, seeming to stare inward at some picture only she could see. There’d be a formal hearing, of course, but Ben didn’t doubt that the verdict would come back as self-defense.
The body was loaded into the back of the neighbor’s pickup and hauled off to town, and Jack discreetly kicked plenty of dirt over the bloody stain on the ground. The rain would soon wash away any remaining traces of the violence that had occurred there.
Hunching his shoulders against the dampness, Jack went inside. Patsy and her mother were sitting at the kitchen table. Patsy glanced up as he entered and then looked away again. Ty leaned on the edge of the sink, his arms around Meg’s waist, pulling her back against him. Jack didn’t think he’d let her get more than a foot away from him in the past two hours. From the look on Ty’s face, Jack suspected his friend had finally figured out what had been obvious for months — that he was in love with his wife.
“I should be getting home.” Ruth said, stirring herself out of the stupor that had gripped her.
“You can’t go back to that house,” Meg protested immediately. “You can stay here with us.”
“I don’t want to be a bother,” Ruth said, shaking her head.
“You wouldn’t be a bother, would she, Ty?”
“You’re welcome to stay with us, Mrs. Davis.” There was no doubting the sincerity in Ty’s invitation, and Ruth wavered for a moment.
“Come stay with me, Mama.” Patsy’s offer was quiet. “Eldin’s away from home so much of the time. I’d welcome the company.”
Ruth looked at her elder daughter, her eyes searching. “You don’t have to offer me a place to stay, Patsy,” she whispered.
“I know that. I want you to stay with me. Please, Mama.”
Jack didn’t know exactly what had happened between the two of them, but he knew he was witnessing the start of healing of an old wound.
“I — I’d like that,” Ruth said softly. Her hand trembled slightly as she reached out to touch her daughter’s arm. “I’d like that very much.”
“I can drive you home, if you’d like,” Jack said, not giving himself time to think.
He felt Ty watching him, but his attention was on Patsy. Her eyes came up to meet his. In them, he saw the memory of what had happened the last time he’d driven her home. Then she blinked and looked away, nodding slowly.
“Thank you. That would be very kind of you.” The formal tone pinched something in Jack’s chest, like a forerunner of greater pain yet to come.
The farewells were subdued, though the three women hugged with a fervor that said more than words could have. Ruth and Patsy climbed into the back of the Packard, and Jack shut the door on them before sliding behind the wheel. No one had much to say during the drive. Jack glanced in the rearview mirror from time to time, half hoping to catch Patsy’s eye, but she seemed engrossed in the view out the side window, leaving him with only a glimpse of her profile.
When they arrived at the Baker home, Jack followed the two women inside. This might not be the best time, but he had to talk to Patsy, even if only for a moment. Since she didn’t try to persuade him to leave, he assumed she felt the same.
He waited in the living room while Patsy settled her mother in bed and tried not to wonder if it was the bed they’d shared a few days ago. Listening to the rain outside, it hit him that he hated the smell of lavender and furniture wax. Restrained, confining smells.
Though his back was to the door, he knew the minute she walked in. He spoke without turning.
“How is she?”
“Tired. I’m not sure she really knows what’s happened.” She sounded tired and he turned to look at her, his eyes hungry as he took in every detail of her, from the soft cap of curls that framed her face to the soft flare of her hips beneath the print dress.
“I drove by a time or two this past week, but there was a car parked in front of the house.”
“Eldin was home for a few days. He’s gone off to Illinois now.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke but stared at the polished top of an end table instead.
“I’m going back to California next week.”
The words fell into a pool of silence. He waited for her to say something, though he couldn’t have said just what. He wanted her to beg him not to go or to ask to go with him. To tell him that she couldn’t live without him. The silence stretched.
“You’re not going to leave him, are you?” he said softly, the words like knives in his gut.
She shook he head slowly and her eyes finally lifted to meet his. “I can’t. He’s a good man. A kind man. And he loves me.”
“I love you, dammit!”
“I know. But you don’t need me.” Her mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “You’ll do fine without me, just the way you have these past few years. One of these days, you may even fall in love again. I hope you will.” Her voice caught, as if the words hurt. “But Eldin won’t,” she continued more strongly. “I love you, Jack. But I love him, too. And he’s my husband.” Jack wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her how wrong she was. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her until she admitted she couldn’t go on without him. But he saw the look in her eyes and knew that she was hurting every bit as much as he was.
“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” he said, looking away from her.
“Yes.”
The pain in her voice was almost his undoing. Every instinct screamed at him to take her with him, by force if necessary. But he knew he’d only destroy what was left of their love. She’d go with him if he insisted. But she’d hate him in the end.
“Take care of yourself,” he muttered. His shoulder brushed against hers as he walked past her and he hesitated for a moment, not sure he had the strength to walk out. His head turned and he saw the plea in her eyes, begging him to be strong because she had no more strength to give.
Without another word, he walked out onto the porch, closing the neat white door quietly behind him, closing in the smells of lavender and furniture polish. He stood there for a moment and then slowly walked down the porch steps and out into the rain.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ty asked for at least the twentieth time.
“I’m fine,” Meg assured him, just as she had ever other time. Her jaw ached where her stepfather had slapped her. And she knew there’d be other bruises, but none of them mattered. Nothing mattered except that the most incredible miracle had come out of the day’s tragedy. Ty loved her.
“Tell me again,” she asked, snuggling beneath his arm.
“I love you,” he obliged.
“I love you, too.” The words had been locked inside her heart for so long. It felt wonderful to be able to say them out loud.
Meg sighed and looked out at the garden. The rain had stopped and she’d already gone out to check on her tomato seedlings, patted the bare earth around them. It might have been silly, but she’d felt better being out among the growing things, as if the new life around her could block out the terror she’d experienced.
“I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out,” Ty said, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head.
“I’ve heard that men can be a little slow-witted about those things,” she said, amazed that she felt secure enough to tease him.
“Well, I certainly was.” Ty turned her in his arms so that she stood facing him. The look he gave her was so full of love that Meg felt tears bum in her eyes. “It was just so much a part of me that I didn’t even realize what it was.
You
are so much a part of me. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“I’m going to make sure it doesn’t,” he said fiercely, wrapping his arms around her and catching her close.
Meg held on to him, feeling as if she’d just been given her heart’s desire, which she had. All these months she’d dreamed of hearing him say he loved her. For a moment it didn’t seem possible that she could be so happy, that so many of her dreams had come true.
“Look.” Ty’s voice was hushed and Meg turned in his arms to look in the direction he’d pointed. There, arching over the far end of the field of young com, was a perfect rainbow, sparkling like a band of jewels in the late-afternoon sunshine.
“Do you suppose there’s a pot of gold at the end of it?” Ty asked softly.
“Could be.” But it didn’t really matter. She had everything she could ever want right there.
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