One From The Heart (12 page)

“No,” Hannah said. It didn’t sound crazy at all. “It sounds like he loved her.”

His arm tightened around her. “Yeah. That’s one thing they can say about my old man. He loved Kit Crowe.”

“What was he like, your father?” Hannah asked impulsively. She had always had a certain curiosity about fathers—probably because she hadn’t known her own.

“Oh, he was a loner. Didn’t need anybody or anything, he told me, until my mother got ahold of him. He said he didn’t know what loneliness meant, didn’t know he was drowning in it until he met her. He said she bound him to her with chains as light as gossamer, and he would have died rather than break a single one. Can you imagine a rough old cowboy saying something like ‘light as gossamer’?”

“It’s … nice that you and your dad can talk to each other like that.”

“Well, it only took us twenty years or so to get to that point. We didn’t talk much at all for a long time. I blamed him for my mother’s dying. Not for any reason; he was just handy. I told you I was glad to get to New Mexico, but I wasn’t. I blamed him for taking me off when I wanted to stay here with Libby. I was a handful when we got to Chimayo. I didn’t want to be there, and I took it out on everybody.” He suddenly laughed. “I got my butt kicked for it, too. One of the local boys, Mac McDade, performed what you might call an attitude adjustment on me out behind the corrals one Saturday morning. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“You’re a godparent for his children,” Hannah remembered, shivering a bit.

“Right. You’re cold. Let’s go, Miss Hannah. I ought to have more sense than to keep you out here in the rain while I run on about nothing.”

But it wasn’t just from the cold that she shivered. It was from being close to him and from caring about him and from having him make that crazy announcement they were both now avoiding.

“Which way?” she said, trying to put all that aside.

He pointed with the flashlight, and she hesitated long enough to hear
Swan Lake
one more time. Some women had their Taj Mahals, and some, equally beloved, had their musical waterwheels.

“Ernie, thank you for showing me that,” she said after they’d gone a short way.

“You’re welcome, Hannah,” he answered, his voice quiet. Too quiet. Again.

The distance from Mim’s to his father’s house wasn’t far, even in the rain. Truthfully, Hannah hated for their walk to end, but suddenly the house loomed before them, a small, low-pitched ranch house with a screened-in porch all across the front. The house was painted red and made of vertical instead of horizontal planks, with narrow wood strips covering the cracks between the planks. Hannah left the shelter of Ernie’s raincoat, and the screen door squeaked loudly as he opened it for her. She waited by the inner door while he located a key that had been hidden on one of the porch rafters. The wind shifted, blowing the rain onto the porch, and he brought her close to him again while he unlocked the door. He hesitated then, and she had the distinct impression he was about to take her in his arms. Not trusting her ability to cope with that, she pushed the door open and stepped inside, waiting until Ernie felt along the inside wall for the switch and flipped the lamps on.

The interior was actually just one great big room, which blended from kitchen-dining area to living area to a bed. The floors were wood and the walls were paneled in pine. There was little in the way of decoration: no pictures, a few braided rugs scattered about. Small lamps warmed the pine paneling, giving the room a cozy, comfortable feel in spite of its austerity. Hannah glanced at the bed at the far end of the room. It was made up with a Hudson Bay blanket and no spread, the pillowcases starched and ironed—by Mim, who kept the house ready, she supposed—and embroidered in what she would guess from this distance was more of Mim’s cross-stitching. She took off her rain-wet cowboy hat, but kept her jacket on while Ernie worked at the small, ornate wood stove that stood in the middle of the place. He glanced at her from time to time, but she wouldn’t hold his gaze. She was afraid to do that, afraid she’d let him see the turmoil and longing she was having a devil of a time trying to hide.

He had the fire going quickly, and she came closer to get warm. Her hair was damp, and she raked her fingers through it over the heat from the stove.

“I guess you’ll want to tell your dad how things are going,” Ernie said as he took off his raincoat. “The phone’s right there behind you. When was the last time you talked to him? He might know something by now.”

Hannah didn’t answer him. The last time she had talked to her father had been to notify him of her mother’s death three years ago. She had felt she owed him that courtesy, but she hadn’t bothered him since, and she hadn’t called him about Petey, as Ernie clearly assumed.

“Hannah?”

“I can’t remember his telephone number,” she said truthfully enough, and she was careful not to look at him.

“I know the number—”

“Why don’t you call him?” she interrupted as he tried to give it to her.

Ernie laughed. “Jake Browne’s not interested in anything I’ve got to say, and there’s no way in hell he’d stand and talk to me about Libby.”

Me, either
, Hannah thought, panicked now because Ernie was dialing.

“Here you go,” he said, holding out the receiver. “Hannah?” he said when she didn’t take it.

“Ernie, I—”

“Hannah, take the phone!”

He shoved the receiver at her in time for her to hear her father answer. She shoved it back at him.

“I can’t,” she said, trying to get away, but he’d caught her arm.

“What do you mean you
can’t?
” She could hear her father still on the line.

“I just can’t!” she cried, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. My God, was she going to stand here at her age and cry over the heartbreak caused by flagrant parental waywardness just the way Petey had?

“Hannah,” Ernie said, still holding on to her. He listened to the receiver for a moment, then slammed it down. “Why didn’t you talk to him?” There was enough annoyance in his voice to make her defensive.

“Listen, that call was your idea, not mine …”

“Why didn’t you talk to him!” he yelled at her, clearly wanting to come right to the point, as usual.

“Because I never know what to call him!” she yelled back, jerking her arm free. She did
not
want to explain this, and she knew he’d try to make her do just that if she stayed. She was going to cry after all, and she didn’t want him to see her do it. She headed for the door with no plan other than to get out. But he caught up with her before she could open it, holding it closed over her head.

“Hannah, this is nuts! What do you mean, you never know what to call him? He’s your old man, for God’s sake!”

“No, Ernie! He’s not!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“D
ON’T CRY
.”

“I’m not crying!”

“Yeah, well, what the hell do you call it?”

“What I call it is none of your business!”

“Come here—come here!”

She kept trying to bat his hands away to keep him from touching her, but he caught both her hands in his.

“Hannah, you are going to drive me crazy, you know that!”

She looked up at him. He had such a frown.

Ernie
, she thought. She didn’t want him to frown; he’d had enough worry with Browne women. She gave in to a sudden, insane impulse to wrap her arms around him, to take the comfort he wanted to give her, if only for a second. She needed him, and at that moment, she didn’t care if he knew it. She hugged him tightly, her eyes closed, the tears squeezing out the corners and spilling down her cheeks. But she couldn’t be this close to him, either. She stiffened and tried to move away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go, keeping her close and making her put her head on his shoulder, holding her for what seemed a wonderfully long time.

“Hannah, I’m sorry,” he whispered against her ear. “I didn’t mean to do that to you. I didn’t mean to make you tell me like that. A house has got to fall on me sometimes. I thought you were just being hardheaded—like Libby.”

“It doesn’t matter.”
God, I’m as bad as Petey
.

“Yeah, it does matter. Can I ask you a question?” he said, trying to see her face.

But she was more comfortable hiding from him. “No,” she said, her voice muffled in his shirt. “Yes,” she amended tiredly. She was behaving like an idiot; she could spare him a question.

“Why do you think Jake’s not your father? People talk, Hannah. If it’s true, I never heard anything about it. And Mim—she’d know if anybody would—she’s never said that.”

Hannah sighed and moved out of his arms, wiping at her eyes with her fingertips. “I don’t know what else it could be. How else could he live with that you-take-this-kid-and-ril-take-that-one divorce he and my mother had? He never tried to see me. He never wrote to me. He never in my life sent me a birthday or a Christmas present. He never even sent me a card. When I was little, I used to tell people he was dead so that I wouldn’t have to explain it.”

“You said you moved around a lot. Maybe he didn’t know where you were.”

She smiled at his attempt to make her feel better. “He’s a man with a lot of money, Ernie. And from what I know about Jake Browne, he would have found me if he’d wanted to.”

He reached out to put his arms around her again, and she let him do it, let him hug her tightly the way he wanted to.

“Hannah, Hannah, I hate to see you so sad.”

“I’m all right. Honestly. I don’t dwell on it. I can’t do anything about the past. I guess it’s just—seeing Petey. It makes me remember, you know? I had my mother, at least. I don’t think she’s got either parent. So,” she said, getting out of his arms again while she still could. “Is there anything hot to drink around here, do you think? Coffee? Tea?”

“I think you ought to talk to Mim,” Ernie said, ignoring her attempt to change the subject.

“I don’t want to talk to Mim. I told you, it doesn’t matter. I’m a grown woman. Whatever I’d find out, it’s too late.”

“Hannah—”

“Ernie, just this once, do you think you could butt out!”

“Probably not,” he said matter-of-factly. He gave her his old mischievous smile. “But I can get you some coffee.” He opened a cupboard over the stove and got down a red Luzianne coffee can.

“Good,” she said, forcing herself to smile in return. “You make better coffee than I do.”

“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” he teased gently, and it made her want to cry again. He kept glancing at her while he filled the coffee pot. “Hannah, I want to tell you why I left last night.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said tiredly.

“Yeah, I know that, but I want you to listen to me anyway.”

She looked up at him. The room had grown warm, and she removed her jacket and hung it on the back of a straight chair near the stove. An old upright piano stood against one wall, and she went to look at it, admiring the heavy carving on the sides and front panel. It had been polished until it shone in the warm lamplight. Mim did indeed keep the house ready.

“My mother’s,” he said. “Do you play?” He was watching her. She could feel it, feel his eyes lingering on her face and breasts. It made her knees weak.

“No. I never lived in one place long enough to have a piano.”

“Hannah—”

“Ernie, I really don’t want to talk about last night. It—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he finished for her. “Yeah, you told me that before, too. Well, it matters to me.”

“I don’t want to get into this! What I want is for you to just … go. I have a lot of thinking to do. If Elizabeth doesn’t show up, I have to decide what I’m going to do about Petey.”

“Why are you in such a damn big hurry to put me out in the rain!”

“Ernie, I’m serious!”

“I’m serious, too. I don’t want to leave, and I meant what I said to you earlier I think I’m in love with you.”

“Don’t make this any worse than it already is!” she cried. “Please—”

“Hannah, I just want you to know, that’s all.” He set the coffee pot on the stove and sat down on the edge of the kitchen table to take the weight off his still tender knee. She couldn’t keep from looking at him, at his fine hands, long-fingered and rough-textured and gentle, and his sad eyes, and that new haircut that made him so damned handsome!

“I … care about you, Hannah,” he said after what seemed a long time. “It scares me to death.”

She looked into his beautiful eyes again. He still didn’t understand the differences between Hannah and Libby Browne. “I’m not like Elizabeth,” she said in spite of herself.

“No,” he said quietly. “But you’re not unlike her, either.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Hannah, that I don’t want to be another Rick Archer.”

“What has Rick got to do with anything!”

He stared at her for a moment before he answered. The rain pelted the roof, and the room began to fill with the aroma of coffee.

“You and Rick were … going around together. You let him walk out of your life, Hannah. No regrets, nothing …”