Welcome to Harmony (9 page)

“All my life.” He held the old walking stick up as if on guard. “Plan on arresting me, too?”

“No. It’d just be a waste of time. Your aunt would recruit another mule to haul her loot. I might as well wait until I catch you all red-handed.”

She swung her stick in challenge. He blocked. She swung again, and the fight was on. They moved into the shadows of the trees where the air was still and cold. Something seemed different here. As if they’d stepped out of the real world and into the Sherwood Forest of their childhood dreams.

The aroma of freshly watered soil circled around them. She wondered if Hank felt it, too, but she didn’t ask for fear of breaking the spell.

When he raised his hands in surrender, she laughed, remembering how it had always been Hank who let her win when they were children and never her brother Warren.

She looked at him, wondering if he, too, was remembering how the three of them had played in the trees as children. But Hank’s eyes were smiling. They were two outlaws now. Old man Truman had chased them off so many times, he’d learned their names.

When they set the sticks in the bed of the cart, he grinned. “Thanks for the memory, Little John.”

“You’re welcome, Robin,” she returned. “But next time, I want to be Sundance and you can be Butch.” She rubbed the mud off her boot on the dried grass. “We go for the gold on a train.”

He touched two fingers to his hat. “You bet.”

They climbed into the cart and drove back to the farmhouse. By the time they’d said good-bye to Jeremiah and were in her car, they were no longer outlaws—just two responsible people doing their jobs.

TYLER WRIGHT LEFT A NOTE FOR WILLAMINA AND DROVE out before dawn. He wanted to get to Oklahoma City and back before two. That was when he liked to send his first e-mail to Kate, his hazel-eyed pen pal. She usually didn’t answer until close to five, but it didn’t matter; he got a kick out of waiting, checking, anticipating.

When she did e-mail back it had been the same answer for four days. Yes, she’d have dinner with him. He’d fill his plate and stare at the screen while he ate.

He took the back roads so he could speed, knowing that on the way back, he’d stay on the main highway out of respect for dear Miss Beverly. She’d dropped by his office about a month after her husband died and made plans for her own funeral. She had little left besides her Social Security, but she wanted to pay for her funeral so no one would be out anything.

Tyler doubted that her brother, Jeremiah, had any money. He was land rich and money poor, like most folks around. Beverly had said she didn’t want to bother anyone. She’d cried when she told him that her husband had borrowed money from almost everyone in town and never offered to pay any of it back. Her husband had thought of it as a game, but she’d been ashamed for years. Ashamed enough to change back to her maiden name after forty years of marriage. She’d paid for her funeral, then given Tyler a slip of paper with all the people in town she owed. She asked him to keep it until Jeremiah died and then ask whoever handled the family farm if they’d pay each one back with her half from the sale of the land.

Frowning, Tyler doubted the slip of paper would hold up in any court. Jeremiah wouldn’t sell any of the land, not even to pay his brother-in-law’s debts, and now that he’d outlived Beverly, he owned all the land.

As Tyler drove, the sun was coming up. He was forty years younger than old Jeremiah, but in a way they were the same. When they died, so did the family line. When Tyler had been younger, he’d always thought there was plenty of time ahead in which to have children. He had a business to run and his hobby to keep him busy. He was too young to marry in his twenties, not ready in his thirties, and now in his forties he could not think of a single woman he would want to date. Or, to be fair, who would want to date him.

Tyler would never sell the funeral home, not for any amount of money. If he did, he’d have no home, no roots. But he had thought he’d have a wife and children living with him by now.

Three years ago he’d had a blind date with someone’s cousin who was visiting Harmony after her divorce. They’d gone out a few times for dinner and managed to keep a conversation going, but when he’d reached for her hand, she’d pulled back. When he walked her to the door, she explained that she couldn’t stand the thought of touching a hand that had touched dead people all day.

He hadn’t bothered to explain the thousand things about his job that didn’t involve touching dead people.

Tyler smiled suddenly. Tonight, when he visited with Kate, he’d ask her what she thought of blind dates. Everything they talked about was interesting. They’d discussed a dozen topics, and she’d never hesitated to tell him her opinion. She loved Mexican food, hated lines at the grocery store, loved her country, hated subways in every town in the world, fought against gun control, and had campaigned for women’s rights since she could walk.

He had a feeling Kate was a woman no one would ever talk into anything, but no discussion would ever be dull. He even liked the little codes she had for her favorite swear words.

A little after ten, Tyler picked up Beverly Truman’s body, then drove three blocks and pulled around the drive-through at Sonic for a foot-long chili-cheese dog and tater tots, and headed back to Harmony. He’d be home in time to send his e-mail.

“ARE YOU SURE YOUR UNCLE TOLD YOU TO SPEND ALL THIS money?” Noah asked for the third time.

“All I need, he said.” They’d already stopped by the flower shop and were now searching through racks at the Lady Bug for a dress for Miss Beverly. Reagan took her mission as seriously as if it were life or death. Jeremiah trusted her, and she’d decided she would not let him down.

Noah pulled out T-shirts that said things like BORN TO BE WILD and TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER. “How about buying something like this, Rea?” he asked, holding it up to her as if trying to guess her size.

Reagan closed her eyes and repeated her orders from her new uncle. “Flowers for the casket, a dress for her, and clothes for me.” She shoved the T-shirt away. “Nothing else. I can’t waste money.”

Noah scratched his head. “I don’t see anything in this place that looks like dead old lady clothes.” He picked up a sundress with tiny pink flamingos on it.

The sales clerk hovering around them must have heard him. “You’re looking for a dress for someone who’s passed on?”

He nodded and explained everything to this woman Reagan had never seen before. Then to Reagan’s surprise, the lady told them to go to the funeral home. The woman was missing a sale, but was still trying to help them out.

So they drove over to the funeral home, where they found boxed clothes for the dead.

Reagan dug through the boxes while Noah wandered around. “This is great,” she said. “I never dreamed they had this kind of thing. Every one of these looks like Miss Beverly. She’s probably been buying her clothes here for years.”

Noah leaned out from behind an open coffin. “You mean your grandmother?”

“Yes,” she said without meeting his eyes. “I didn’t really know her.” She tried to think of something that wasn’t a lie. “The people where she lived just called her Miss Beverly, so I guess that’s the way I think of her.”

Reagan picked out a pretty blue dress with a white lace collar. She handed it to the woman, who’d followed them from the front desk, who smiled and promised Miss Beverly would be ready for viewing in a few hours. She was so nice Reagan almost wanted to stay around and visit. Almost.

Noah stopped at the Burger Barrel and bought Reagan lunch. She saved half for Jeremiah’s old dog. It was time they made friends.

Then Noah drove her to the mall. The center of the mall had two cookie places, a deserted hot dog stand, and a McDonald’s with a huge sign that read: LIMITED MENU. The only mall rats were a dozen walkers over eighty.

“How does this place stay in business?” Reagan whispered.

Noah grinned. “You should see it on a slow day.”

They went shopping for her clothes. Noah took the work seriously, making fun of half the things she tried on, wiggling his eyebrows when he thought something was wrong, and smiling with all his teeth showing when she tried on western clothes.

In the end, she bought three pairs of jeans, six shirts, one dress, and a cowboy hat she thought looked ridiculous. He promised her it looked cute, and she almost believed him.

“Now you got the hat,” he said as they walked out of the store, “you got to come watch me ride this weekend.”

“All right. If you’ll come to the funeral.”

He stopped on the steps and faced her. “Of course I’ll come. We’re friends, Rea. That’s what friends do for each other.”

She wondered if he could tell that all this friends stuff was new to her. “I’ve never been to a funeral,” she admitted. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“Rea, I don’t think anyone really knows what to do at a funeral. I usually just keep my eyes looking down and hug everyone who wants to hug me. Some folks think they have to do that to all the family left behind to suffer the loss.”

“You’ve had family die?”

“Sure, my big brother, Warren, three years ago. I cried all the way through the funeral. I couldn’t tell you one thing anyone said.”

“How’d he die?”

“He was killed on duty. He was a highway patrolman on his way to becoming a Texas Ranger. A man ran a roadblock and when Warren caught up to him, the guy shot him in the face when he walked up to the car. Strange thing was, the man was only wanted for outstanding speeding tickets. Warren wouldn’t have even taken him in that night. He killed my brother for nothing.”

“That’s really sad.”

He straightened as if pushing sadness aside. “You want to hug me?” he asked with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“No,” she answered and smiled back.

“Times like this are like muddy water, Rea, you just got to keep moving through it until you get to the other side.”

SHE HAD NO IDEA HOW TRUE HIS WORDS WERE, BUT SHE thought of them several times over the next two days. People brought food to the house and hugged her. They went to the funeral home and everyone there hugged her. Jeremiah had a graveside service and it looked like half the town came and most of them hugged her.

Reagan was all hugged out by the time she got home. Jeremiah must have felt the same, for he went back to his room without a word or a bite to eat and she didn’t see him again the rest of the evening.

She went to her room and closed the door.
My room
, Reagan thought. Beverly would never be back to claim it. She could paint the walls or move things around. But she decided, for right now anyway, she’d leave it the same. In a funny way, Reagan thought Miss Beverly would smile if she knew Reagan was sleeping there.

Jeremiah was cooking breakfast in his work clothes when she came downstairs the next morning. All the flowers folks had brought to the house were gone, along with the cards and cakes. He must have thought it was time to get back to normal.

She silently agreed, having no idea what normal was, but it had to be better than the mud of funeral days.

ALEXANDRA MCALLEN LEANED AGAINST HER PATROL CAR and wiped the sweat from her throat. The morning was warm and her bulletproof vest always made it seem hotter. She’d been standing in the sun for a half hour trying to solve the latest crime in Harmony.