Home by Morning (16 page)

Emmaline straightened. “You know damn well that I want them! I just can’t—Tanner, you know better than anyone. You’re the one who found me wandering down the street in Parkridge that night, looking for a doctor after Lambert broke my cheekbone. As much as I hated him, when he left us I didn’t know what to do.”

He held up a hand. “I know, I know, don’t get your hackles up. I’m sorry I put it that way. I know you love them.” Leaning forward, he put his elbows on his knees and looked into her face. “But it didn’t have to be this way. You could have come with me and I’d have taken care of both you and the boys.”

Yes, she could have accepted his offer. He was young—about ten years younger than she was—and kind, modest and reserved in his ways. A good man. Even nice-looking. His sandy hair and smoke-colored eyes reminded her of a patient draft horse. But it hadn’t mattered. Nothing would have changed her mind.

“Oh, Tanner, we’ve already talked about this. You did more than enough taking the kids. I don’t know what would have happened to Joshua and Wade without your help. But Lambert cheated you out of a lot of money on that phony cattle scheme of his. I didn’t think it would be fair to load you down with his wife too.” Absently, she studied one of the bare beams overhead. “Anyway, I didn’t want to answer to no one after him.”

He straightened his long frame and slung one arm over the back of the chair. “I don’t have to tell you I wish I’d never met that son of a bitch. He took every dime I had saved, and I was young and dumb enough to let him talk it out of me. But I figure it worked out because I was there when I was needed.”

Dropping her gaze, she looked at his mild eyes. “He’s in Powell Springs, you know.”

“So I heard. If not for Josh and Wade, I’d go after him and beat the shit out of him for everything he did to all of us. He’s not such a tough guy, for all that he likes people to think he is.”

She heard the bitter edge in his voice and felt a cold shrinking inside. “But you won’t, will you? Then he’d find ’em for sure. I don’t think he knows where they are now.”

“Stop worrying. I said if
not
for the boys. They need to be raised right, and he’s not the one to do it.”

She relaxed her spine again and let out a breath. “I wish he’d just leave. I don’t worry for myself so much, but the kids…”

“I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere soon. He’s digging graves these days for the undertaker, and he brags about how much money he’s making at it.”

Em shuddered. “God, that would be just like him, that lousy snake. He came up here, but—”

Instantly, Tanner tensed like a startled bobcat. “
Here
? He found you?”

“Yeah, but I showed him the working end of my shotgun and sent him skedaddling. You’re right—when it comes down to it, Lambert is really just a yellow-dog coward. I blew off the tree limb over his head, and he took to running.”

He started laughing. “I wish I could have seen that.”

She went on to describe the rest of Lambert’s visit, and the threats he’d hurled from the safety of the blackberry hedge. Tanner laughed. “I guess he might come back, but Lambert never had any truck with the law, at least not willingly. Anyway, I let him know that Whit Gannon is an acquaintance of mine.” She didn’t tell him that she’d shivered in the darkness for hours after Lambert had gone, trying to regain her composure and courage.

“You be careful of him, just the same. There’s no telling what he might do.” Tanner’s expression sobered a bit. “You’ve got a lot of spunk, Emmaline.”

She waved him off. “Oh, hell, I just do what I need to in order to get by. But this sure isn’t the life I thought I’d be living twenty years ago.” She looked down at the tabletop again, unable to bear the charity she saw in Tanner’s face. If she took it to heart, it would chip away at the fragile wall she’d built around her soul.

Silence fell between them and over the cabin. Outside, a scrub jay, probably the last of the season, let out a harsh squawk in the thinning afternoon light.

Em cleared her throat. “Listen, Tanner, I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done for my boys all this time. I…well, I don’t expect any visitors this late in the afternoon, so if you’d like…” She let her voice trail off and she tipped her head toward the bed, scented with cheap rosewater. It was the first time she’d made the suggestion to him.

He lurched upright in his chair as if stung by a bare electric wire. Color filled his face. “Oh, Jesus, no, ma’am! I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate—Em, I couldn’t do that to you—” He stuttered and stumbled over his words, until she put a hand on his arm.

“It’s okay. I only want to thank you.” She sighed slightly. “It’s all I’ve got to offer.”

Briefly, he covered her hand with his before pulling away. “I’m not worth that much.”

She studied him for a moment. “You’re worth a whole lot more.”

Jessica and Cole did not speak during the short ride back to her office. Their silence was broken only by the Ford’s chugging engine and the creaking complaint of its joints. The single wiper flapped spasmodically over the glass as a spritz of rain dotted the truck’s windshield. On the western horizon, a bright band of the day’s last sunlight defied the heavy gray sky before full darkness fell.

Cole’s gut twisted with feelings of guilt and, vaguely, dishonor. Aside from his failure to enlist in the army, dishonor was an alien iniquity to him. Shaw Braddock would not tolerate any behavior in his sons, other than typical boyish pranks, that would disgrace him or the family name.

This, though—maybe the old man wouldn’t see this as shame. But Cole did: he’d told Amy a lie, a big one. He hadn’t meant to, but he had, and he didn’t know how to undo it.

On top of that, mingled with the guilt, was the fact that she had every reason to believe that he would propose and marry her. But he hadn’t been able to find the right moment.

Now fate or God was getting even with him by giving Amy influenza. She was just a sweet, innocent bystander to his fickle heart.

Jessica slumped in the seat next to him as they pulled up in front of the office. Setting the brake, he asked, “Have you got something more to eat than that sandwich Granny Mae gave you?”

She looked down at the small bundle still clutched in her hand. “No. Maybe. Actually, I don’t know.”

He considered her in the lowering dusk. “Do you have coffee in there?”

“Yes, and Horace keeps bringing me fresh cream.”

“Come on, then.” He jumped out of the truck. “I might not know much about cooking, but no broncobuster worth his salt can’t make coffee.”

She sighed. “Cole, what’s the point? We have nothing left to say to each other.”

He peered into her tired face. He disagreed, but this wasn’t the time to say so. There were so many things to be said. “Look, Jess, there’s not much I can do right now to help with anything, and I’m just no good at feeling so useless. I’d consider it a favor if you’d let me help you.”

Briefly, she closed her eyes, hesitating. “All right.” She stepped out of the truck, not waiting for him to help her, and walked across the sidewalk to her office. She fumbled in her pockets for the key, but Cole pulled his out first.

“I’ve got it.” He turned the knob and opened the door for her. Once inside, he locked the door again.

“The cream and coffee are upstairs.” Jess flipped on the overhead light. Its incandescent bulb cast harsh shadows on her face, making her look even more tired. Climbing the steps to her apartment, she didn’t bother to see if Cole was behind her. It was obvious that she expected him to follow her. Though her skirts carried the hospital smells they’d just left, he detected the faint fragrance that he’d always associated with her—one of dark wood and spice.

It was nothing like vanilla.

In the little apartment kitchen, he took charge. “You have a seat,” he said, directing her to a chair at the table. He stoked the fire in the stove, and soon the damp autumn chill fled to the corners of the room. “Where’s the coffee?”

She dropped into a chair and gestured in the general direction of the kitchen. “In the hoosier, top right cupboard.”

Cole found the coffee, ground the beans, and soon the room was filled with its rich redolence as it perked. Without help, he also located the cups, cream, and spoons. He searched for something to go with the coffee—Granny Mae was right, they had to eat. The best he found was a loaf of bread and a square of butter on a saucer. Jessica hadn’t been wrong about her lack of food.

But then as Amy had often reminded him, Jess had never had much talent in the kitchen.

He’d never cared.

Although the bread looked more like scraps by the time he’d butchered it, he was glad for the distraction. But he could feel Jessica’s eyes on his back as he puttered.

“Eat your sandwich,” he said over his shoulder. “The coffee’s about ready.”

Satisfied to see her nibbling on the chicken, he balanced the cups, coffee pot, and other stuff to carry to the table. He’d never had much talent in the kitchen, either.

“Sorry about the bread,” he muttered, putting it down.

Jessica looked at the uneven hunks he’d sawed off the loaf, then smiled. “It would probably look the same if I’d done it.” Mae’s sandwich tasted good, but she ate mechanically, simply because she knew she had to.

He poured coffee for both of them. Then he sat down in the chair across from her and splashed a drip of cream into his coffee. “How long before you know…how will we…”

“How will we know if Amy is going to live?” Jessica’s interpretation of his stumbling question sounded blunt and clinical, even to her own ears.

He sighed. “Yeah.”

“I wish I knew. Some people who ought to die seem to hang on through sheer will or what I can only call luck. Others I expect to improve don’t survive. Some people who’ve been exposed again and again seem to have immunity, but I’ve had cases from outlying farms that have had no visitors.” She put down the sandwich and rubbed her temples. “Talk about feeling useless—that doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

Cole nudged her foot under the table with his boot. “I’ve never seen a useless person work as hard as you.”

“It’s not difficult to look busy when you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“So you’re not really busy?”

“Of course I am. But I’m scared too.”

“You? Jess, I don’t think you’ve ever really been afraid of anything in your life.” He said it not as a compliment, but as a statement of fact.

“What on earth makes you say that?”

“You’ve tackled jobs that would have knocked some men flat on their backs. And you’ve succeeded.”

“Obviously, you haven’t listened to some of the things I’ve told you.”

He stared into his cup. “Trust me, I heard all of it.”

Suddenly a pocket of pitch exploded in the wood stove, sounding as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room. Jessica flinched.

Cole laughed, startling her even more. “Hey, remember that Halloween night we snuck up to the Leonards’ house? You weren’t scared that night.”

She grinned then, the cloud of doom hanging over her suddenly lightened. “I haven’t thought about that in years! You had those firecrackers left over from the Fourth of July. And I was so scared!”

His own grin showed off the dimples that she’d always found endlessly fascinating and attractive. “Amy heard us plotting and made us take her along or she was going to squeal to your dad. We made her the lookout, but she was so nervous and jumpy, I thought she’d get us caught before we even started.”

Jess stirred her coffee. “Yes, she never had the heart for adventure, and I think she was all of ten or eleven at the time. When you climbed the trellis and got to the top of the Leonards’ roof, even I was sweating. I could see the whole family through the window, holding some kind of prayer meeting in the parlor. Then you dropped those firecrackers down their chimney—”

By this time, they were both laughing, the kind of desperate, happy, hysterical laughter that sometimes overtakes people in their darkest moments. Tears streamed down Jessica’s face.

“
Blam, blam, bang-bang-bang—
” Cole imitated.

“Oh, I wish you could have seen them. You missed it all, up there on the roof. They jumped in every direction, knocking over chairs, prayer books flying. Old man Leonard grabbed his shotgun and actually pointed it at the fireplace! Poor Dolly dove under their dining room table with the kids.”

They laughed until they exhausted their wind, then drew breath and began whooping again. Cole slapped the tabletop a few times, howling until he’d emptied his lungs. By this time, she had a cramp in her side. Someone watching would think they’d taken leave of their senses.

His face red with the exertion, Cole said, “He was probably expecting the devil to leap out of the flames into their parlor, armed with a pitchfork. But then I got hung up in that rotting rose trellis of theirs while I was trying to climb down. The whole thing gave way. That was when he came outside. He practically yanked the front door off the hinges.”

With mock seriousness, Jess said, “I was sure my heart stopped then. At least there was no moon that night, or he would have spotted you, lying there in the flower bed. And Amy, she was hiding in their privet hedge, wringing her hands and crying.” She dissolved into high-pitched giggles again.