Welcome to Harmony (13 page)

He broke the kiss as she slid away. Neither of them looked at the other.

Hank started his pickup. She closed his door with a slam. He didn’t trust himself to look at her until he’d backed out and thrown the truck into gear.

He wasn’t surprised to see her standing, legs wide apart, fists on her gun belt and glaring at him like she hated his guts. She deserved better than to be kissed in a roadside park crime scene. “Smooth,” he mumbled, “really smooth.” He could have at least said something. Women need words; men only need women.

After he’d used every swear word he could think of, it dawned on him that she’d kissed him with the same hunger he’d kissed her.

By the time he pulled up to the ranch house, Hank was smiling. Apparently neither one of them had a romantic bone in their bodies. A roadside park with a body forty feet away wasn’t exactly a romantic spot. There had been no words of love, or even caring. They reminded him of wild mustangs mating. If they ever did make it to bed, their pillow talk would probably be cuss words whispered to each other.

He shook his head. He didn’t care. She’d kissed him back; that was all that mattered. They might never sit down to a candlelight dinner, or go to a movie, or waltz in the moonlight, but the next time they touched, she wouldn’t be wearing that damn vest and they wouldn’t be in a public place.

When he walked in the kitchen, Saralynn and his mother were sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen.

“Everything all right, son?” his mother asked.

“Everything is fine,” he answered as he crossed to the sink and washed his hands.

“Perfect,” he grumbled beneath his breath, “but way too public.” He could still taste Alexandra’s lips on his mouth.

THERE WAS A CHAIN OF COMMAND IN MATTERS OF DEATH, and Tyler Wright knew he was at the bottom. When people killed themselves or died under unusual circumstances, he was always the last one to get the body. Tyler had a staff of five. Two men who did the embalming and helped with funerals. One bookkeeper, one secretary, and one night host who worked after hours when needed. The Wright Funeral Home had a standing rule that whenever a body was resting in state, the night host, or Tyler himself, was there if the family wanted to come in, no matter the hour.

In all his years he’d never had to open the doors after ten P.M. more than a dozen times. Once a son drove in at two A.M. insisting on seeing his father before he was buried at dawn, and a few times widows wanted to sit up all night with their mate. But for the most part, the host worked a few days a week from five to nine P.M.

Since the beginning, the host had always been a man, usually a retired member of the staff. But for the past eight years the host had been Stella McNabb, a retired home economics teacher who knew everyone in town and, more important, remembered each of their names. Those she hadn’t taught, she’d made home visits to when their children were in school. The U.S. census takers could have saved themselves days by just visiting Stella. She was sixty-three and pleasantly fluffy, and she cried with the mourners at every viewing. The perfect host for a funeral home.

Tyler liked Stella. He’d hired her on the spot when she’d answered his ad. The fact that she’d been the only one who answered might have been a factor, but Tyler liked to believe he’d hired her because she was the opposite of him. He’d start a sentence with something like, “You know that family that lives out by . . .” and Stella would give him the names, ages, and sometimes ailments of everyone who lived under the roof before he finished his sentence.

Tyler swiveled in his chair and looked out his office window. He’d called Stella an hour ago to come in and sit with a family tonight. The old teacher was never late.

Sure enough, Bob McNabb pulled up as Tyler watched. The weekend farmer let his wife out and drove away. He’d drive over to the fire station and spend his time, then be back for her at nine. Tyler often wondered why he didn’t just drive the five miles home and come back, but then farm folks thought of coming to town as an event and made the most of every trip.

Stella was carrying a big plastic container. Cookies, probably. The woman could turn sugar, white flour, and shortening into heaven.

Tyler sucked in his stomach. He’d lost ten pounds the past three weeks, but avoiding Stella’s cooking wouldn’t be easy.

He stood and walked out to the lobby.

Stella had set the cookie tin down and was working on the knot of her head scarf. “Evening, Tyler,” she said in her sweet way.

“Evening, Mrs. McNabb.” He might be more than twenty years out of high school, but he would never be comfortable calling her anything else. “Glad you could come in. The Trudeaus are having a family visitation at six. You think you can handle them all? There could be forty or fifty coming.”

She smiled. “I can handle them. There’s not a one of them I’d hesitate to thump on the ear if he got out of line.”

Tyler grinned. He wouldn’t have put it past her. “I’ve got work to do in the office tonight. I’ll check in a few times.” He’d already been out to the house to deliver a funeral wreath for the Trudeaus’ door. The place looked like a bus terminal that had never been cleaned. Chairs and trash everywhere. It made sense to use the funeral parlor to welcome folks who wanted to pay their respects.

Stella finally got her scarf off, but her hair looked worse than if the wind had blown it. “I always felt so sorry for Mary Trudeau. By the time she stopped nursing kids, she was taking care of Martin. I’ll say one thing for him, though. He fought that cancer.” She patted her hair, trying to make it look like it did when she’d had it backcombed and sprayed several days ago.

She moved down the hall to where it widened into an area with coffee and bottled water. She set the cookies out on a plate and stored her container with a dozen others beneath the counter. “I’d better make the coffee early tonight. I may need some myself to stay awake. I’ve been having this dream over and over last night, and I swear I found no rest even if I was asleep. It’s a vision, really, about a terrible storm coming. Last night, I saw a coffin coming out of the storm and we all know what that means.”

“What?” Tyler asked as he finally broke down and picked up one cookie. Peanut butter, his least favorite. He’d eat only two.

Stella frowned. “When you see a coffin, it means someone’s going to die.”

He almost choked on the cookie fighting down a laugh. Finally he managed to say, “I’ve found that very true.”

She didn’t notice his distress. “My Bob don’t believe in my visions, but I’ve traced my family tree and I’ve got Gypsy blood. It may not make sense even to me, but there’s something to be said for dreams.”

Tyler nodded without having any idea what she meant. He was always dreaming some version of a dream in which he woke up late and ran to the cemetery to do a graveside service and somehow he couldn’t find the grave or, when he did, all the people were waiting and he noticed, too late, that he’d run into the crowd naked.

Wonder how Stella would interpret that dream? She’d probably think he was on drugs, or worse, that he was some kind of sleepwalking exhibitionist.

He said good-bye and rushed back to his office. He wanted to jot down notes and search the Internet before he e-mailed Kate tonight. They could talk about the meaning of dreams. That would be something new and fun.

Willamina, his housekeeper, had brought his supper on a tray and left it in the office. Pork chops with gravy, cheesy potatoes with gravy, and sweet corn with butter melting on top. He covered the meal and left it by the door while he ate two diet meal bars. He knew one was a meal, but he always had another for dessert.

It was seven thirty when Kate’s first e-mail came through.
Evening, Ty, how was your day?

He smiled. No one had ever called him Ty.
Evening, Katherine.
He was guessing Kate would be short for Katherine. If she could shorten his, he could lengthen hers.
My day’s perfect now I can talk to you.
He’d been thinking about saying that for two weeks.
I had a dream last night that you were walking out of a storm toward me.

Do you believe in dreams?
she came back before he had time to pat himself on the back for being such an interesting person.

Do you?
He didn’t want to commit before she did.

As always, she didn’t hesitate to tell him what she thought.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re not more dream than real.

I wonder the same thing.
He thought for a moment and added,
Sometimes I wonder if you’re not the only real thing in my life, my hazel-eyed dinner partner.

She wrote that she was laughing, and he swore he could almost hear her.

They talked of crazy dreams they’d had over the years. Tyler hated to end the evening, but he had to check on the Trudeau family.

Until tomorrow night,
he typed.

Dream of me tonight,
she answered back.

I’ll do that.
He signed off, leaned back in his chair, and smiled. When he talked to Kate, he wasn’t the overweight undertaker, he was someone special. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what she looked like, then realized it didn’t matter. She was beautiful to him.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

SHERIFF ALEXANDRA MCALLEN WALKED THROUGH THE OLD mission-style home on her family ranch. The place was covered in dust and smelled faintly of decay. Even though her brothers had fought leaving and her father had hated to move from the ranch, their mother had relocated the family to town years ago.

Both of the boys came back as soon as they could drive. First Warren, and now Noah. It was as if they belonged to the land, more than the land belonged to them. Their father helped Warren get started, but after his oldest son was shot, Adam McAllen lost all interest in a ranch that had been in his family for generations.

Alex walked through the empty rooms, remembering how her mother had never liked living out here alone where she couldn’t see a sign of civilization in any direction. Living on the ranch had been just one more thing her parents had argued about. Her mother had always claimed the land was worthless. Adam McAllen used this home only as his base camp between rodeos. He wasn’t there enough to keep the place as a working ranch. Finally he’d given in, and the family moved to town. The fighting eased, but the scars were still there. They’d married young, then spent years having kids and fighting. Now, Alex thought, Dad lived in Amarillo and rarely returned and Mom lived bitter.

Alex looked at the blank wall that had once held a dozen family pictures. Almost all her memories of her father were the same. He’d come home after being gone on the rodeo circuit for months. There would be hugs and presents all around, and then that night she’d hear the arguments after her mother and father thought the kids were asleep.

Adam McAllen seemed to come home less and less. He must have lost at least one argument, though, because her mother never moved back to the ranch. At some point, Alex started calling her father Adam. When he did come back, he stayed on the ranch until the place got too dirty to use even for a night.

“Alex!” Noah yelled from the front entry. “You in here?”

Her kid brother’s voice had changed, lowered, and for a second she thought it was her big brother yelling. Alex swallowed hard and answered, “I’m in the den, Noah.”

He rushed in. “Thanks for coming. I want to show you the horses I’m getting today. The first of a future herd I’ll have running over this ranch. Michael says, as long as he and Maria are still living on the place, he’ll watch over them if something happens and I can’t get out. He and Maria planted a garden out back of the foreman’s house, so I guess that means they’re planning on staying.” Noah finally took a breath. “What you doing in the house?”

She ran her hand over the fireplace mantel. “I was just looking around.”

“I know you remember this place a lot better than I do.”

She smiled. “You were little when we left. Warren was fifteen. He threw a fit, cussing like I’d never seen, and I cried so hard I made myself sick. Mom said you joined in yelling with the pack. She claimed we all sounded like coyotes and she thought of just leaving us here.”