Welcome to Harmony (27 page)

Tyler had signed up to have each new quarter issued sent to him so he could give it to her. Last Christmas he’d given Saralynn a map of the United States with a spot for each quarter. She’d been delighted. She was a smart little four-year-old, and he wanted to tell Katherine all about her.

The sheriff’s car pulled into the first slot in the funeral home parking lot. Alex McAllen and a highway patrolman got out. Tyler waited in the wind as they neared.

“Afternoon, Sheriff,” Tyler smiled. “Trooper.” Tyler thought his name was Davis. They’d talked a dozen times over the years. Or tried to, Tyler remembered with a frown. Davis wasn’t a man who seemed to like small talk, unless it was about himself. There were very few people Tyler met that he didn’t like, and this man was one. Strange, how he’d remember that name and not the names of hundreds of nice people he came across.

Alex didn’t smile like she usually did as she climbed the steps to him. “We were wondering, Mr. Wright, if you might come down to the station and answer a few questions.”

Tyler smiled. “I’d be happy to, Sheriff, just let me tell—”

Davis stepped forward and tugged his handcuffs off his belt. “You’re going with us right now, Wright.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Alex snapped.

Davis looked like he might argue, then stepped back.

Tyler’s first thought was that this trooper didn’t like Alex. Maybe because she was a woman, maybe because she outranked him. Tyler had no idea how it worked, but the man obviously wasn’t a gentleman if Alex felt she had to order him around.

The next thought slammed like a shovel between his eyes. Davis was arresting him. Handcuffs! He’d never had handcuffs on in his life. His parents would not only roll over, but climb out of their graves in anger at the disgrace of their only child being handcuffed and dragged off the steps of Wright Funeral Home.

“I don’t understand.” Tyler focused on Alex, wishing he could see her eyes through the dark glasses she wore.

“We just need you to answer a few questions, Tyler. It’s nothing, really.” She touched her hand inside his elbow. “Please come with us.”

He’d seen enough cop shows to know it was
not
nothing. “Do I need an attorney?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, “but I’ll call one if you’d be more comfortable. There is nothing wrong or unusual about having an attorney with you.”

“What is this all about?” Tyler’s only crime for his entire life had been speeding. For a second it crossed his mind that maybe talking about sleeping with nothing on might be some kind of Internet crime. If he were arrested for that, it would be even more embarrassing then speeding down the back roads.

He looked back at the house, then toward his car, not knowing what to do. Hide. Run. Go with them. The sheriff tugged off her glasses as if she understood.

Alex’s eyes softened as if she saw his fear and didn’t want to shame an innocent man. He felt overwhelmingly grateful to her for that.

She tugged his arm gently with her hand. “We just want to see what you know about the fires, Tyler. We need your help. Please, come with us.”

“Oh.” He calmed. He could handle help. He was good at helping. “Then I’ll do all I can, Sheriff.” He took a breath, wondering: If he’d almost panicked as an innocent man, what would he do if he were ever charged with a crime he’d actually committed? He’d die of a heart attack on the steps. His only chance of living a long life was to follow every law. That did it, he reasoned. His speeding days were over.

Davis frowned when Alex opened the front door of her cruiser and waved Tyler in.

Tyler had sat in police cars many times. Once in a while families took a long time between the funeral and the procession to the cemetery. When he’d been a boy he’d often gone with his dad and loved asking all kind of questions about what everything did in the car. But today, he just sat next to Alex for the two-block drive to the station and wondered why Trooper Davis was so upset.

This would definitely
not
be on his list of subjects to talk about with Katherine tonight.

REAGAN AND UNCLE JEREMIAH TOOK NOAH’S PICKUP BACK after school Tuesday. The old guy had it running like new. Jeremiah might move slowly, but he knew his way around an engine. He’d also let her help, explaining every step even if she didn’t understand most of what he’d said.

She wanted just to park the pickup in front of the McAllen house and leave, but Jeremiah told her to go in and hand over the keys while he drove to the parts store for oil.

Walking up to the door, she tried to remember exactly why she was mad at Noah. Not because he got hurt. Not because he’d asked her to give him a hug. He probably didn’t even remember the night of the accident and how she’d curled up next to him and slept until the nurse had tugged her away about midnight and told her to go home.

Reagan really couldn’t be mad at him for hugging the cheerleaders; after all, he was hurt and tied to a bed. If anything, they took advantage of him. However, he could have protested a little harder.

It was the sheriff who answered the door, and for a moment Reagan tensed. Then she remembered that Alex McAllen was Noah’s big sister and had already been nice to her several times.

Alex invited her in. Reagan had sat in the truck a few times when Noah had driven by his house to pick things up, but she’d never gone inside. The first thing that surprised her was that everything had an order about it. The house was one of the smaller old homes in what she was sure had once been the nicest part of town. Noah said that his mother bought it with a small inheritance from her grandmother, and his dad paid the bills.

Reagan couldn’t help but think he’d done a fine job of keeping his family in style even if he didn’t live with them. The place had that maid-twice-a-week look she’d seen a few times. Only problem was she was the maid when she’d seen houses like this, or rather one of her foster mothers had been. Her mom-of-the-month would bring a few of her foster kids along to help out. Reagan had never minded the work. It was easy and she could pretend that she lived in a house where the plants were all real and nothing was broken.

“Noah’s in his room,” Alex said. “First door on the right up the stairs. I’ll bring you two some root beers before I leave. Try to cheer him up, Rea. He’s been down for two days.”

“Is he hurt bad?” Maybe she’d missed something at the hospital.

“No, just his ribs, and they’ll heal. He was lucky.”

Reagan climbed the stairs. The first door was open, a big airy room with floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall. Noah sat on the side of his bed picking at a scab across his elbow. He wore a pair of cutoffs that showed off hairy legs. A bandage circled his chest and another covered the top half of one arm, but the rest of him looked lean and tanned, but not as thin as she thought he might have been.

“Don’t do that,” she scolded. “It’ll leave a scar.”

“What’d you care? In rodeo no one minds a few scars.” He glared at her. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

“Two days,” she corrected as she dropped her backpack.

“And I brought you something.”

“What?” Curiosity overtook anger.

“Homework,” she said, and he groaned.

Laughing, she moved to his side. She couldn’t resist patting his unruly hair, which looked like it hadn’t been combed or washed since he danced with the bull.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. It was the first time she’d ever said those two words and meant them.

He didn’t pretend they were talking about the homework. “So am I, even though I still don’t know what I did to make you so mad. Probably nothing,” he reasoned. “I’ve always heard redheads are like that, firing up for no reason. It’s probably something I’ll have to get used to if you decide to hang around.”

“It had nothing to do with my red hair, you idiot.”

He frowned and shook his head slowly. “See what I mean?”

“It wasn’t my hair. It was something you did, I just can’t think of what it was exactly.”

“Well, when you think of it and get all mad again, warn me that temper of yours is coming, would you, Rea? I’m injured, you know; I might need a little more time than usual to get out of range.”

She giggled and fought the urge to hit him.

The sheriff came into the room and handed Reagan two drinks and then ordered Noah back into his bed. “Mom says you’re to stay in bed until tomorrow morning.”

“I’m all right, Alex. I swear. I can’t stand all this resting. It’s driving me nuts.”

Reagan saw the pain in his movements as he followed his sister’s orders even as he protested.

“Now stay there.” The sheriff pointed her finger at him.

“I have to get back to my office and talk to someone. I don’t have time to nurse you and referee for Mom and Dad, so don’t call me like it’s some kind of great emergency again.” She pulled a chair from the desk and put it beside the bed. “Your friend can stay ten minutes, no more.” Alex looked at Reagan. “He needs rest.”

Reagan nodded. “Ten minutes.”

Alex left, and they listened to her bounding down the stairs and out the door. Whatever or whoever was in her office, she couldn’t wait to get back to it.

“Where does it hurt?” Reagan asked.

“Everywhere,” he admitted. “And if that’s not bad enough, my mom and dad have been taking turns yelling at me. My mom tells me what I’m not going to do, and my dad tells me how I’m going to do it next time. They’re downstairs in the kitchen now having coffee and talking about me. If you hear yelling, run. I called Alex and begged her to drop by just to check on them. Once in a while when it gets quiet like this, I worry that one of them has finally choked the other into silence.”

Reagan laughed. “It couldn’t be that bad.”

“You don’t know. They’re both hardheaded and stubborn. Mom thinks she knows all about raising kids and takes every injury we get personally. Dad just thinks he knows everything, period.”

“But they both love you.”

Noah shrugged. “I guess, but lying around the house is more of a pain than being bruised.” He settled his arm over a pillow and studied her. “We friends again, Rea?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “But I’m not here to listen to you complain. If you climb on those bulls, you got to figure sometime one of them is going to stomp on you. I’ve calculated that with no more brains than you have, you won’t suffer much damage to the head, and the rest will probably heal. But if you’re going to complain, stop riding bulls.”

“Thanks for coming just to cheer me up.” Noah rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “You’re not thinking of going into nursing, are you? A fellow could die real easy with your bedside manner.”

She giggled. “Anytime, and no, I’m not thinking of going that direction, but with you for a friend I’d probably get lots of practice in. Want to hear what’s happening at school?”

“Sure.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “And don’t leave out any conversations you heard about me.”

She told him everything she could think of that had happened in the two days of school he’d missed. When she got to what the cafeteria was serving, she noticed his long slow breaths and knew he was asleep.

She glanced at the door and saw the tall, thin man who’d saved Noah from the bull standing in the doorway. Part of her felt like she was looking at Noah thirty years from now. Same blue eyes, same unruly hair, same long frame.

“You’re my son’s friend,” the stranger said in a low voice that rumbled like faraway thunder. “The one he calls Rea.”

Reagan nodded.

“You want me to try to talk him out of riding?” he asked.

It was a strange but honest question, and she answered directly. “No.”

“Why not?” He leaned against the frame of the door as if he had all the time in the world to talk to her.

“He loves it. It’s in his blood. It’s all he thinks about. Maybe it’s not fair to shatter a dream, even one that knocks him around now and then.”

“So, Rea.” He said her name slowly like Noah did when he was talking and thinking at the same time. “What should I do? His mother wants me to tell him rodeoing is finished.”

Reagan stood. “Teach him to ride. All he’s ever had was a weeklong camp last summer in San Angelo. You could teach him more. I know you probably think he’ll stop if you don’t show much interest, but he’ll never stop. He wants to go all the way to the top.”

Adam McAllen looked at her a moment, then nodded. “I’ll give it a try, kid, but you got to promise me you’ll be there for him when he falls. No matter what I teach him, if he rides, he’ll tumble.”

She had the feeling they were making a pact. “I’ll try.”

He straightened. “That’s all any of us can do. Try. Sometimes I think it’s not the winning or the losing, or even the right and wrong of things, it’s the trying that makes us keep on living and hoping.”

She heard the toot of Uncle Jeremiah’s horn. “I have to go; my uncle is back.”

“Tell Truman that Adam McAllen said thanks. He’ll know what I mean.”

“All right.” She ran down the stairs. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“You do that,” he said from the landing.

When she climbed in beside Jeremiah, she told him what Adam McAllen had said.