A Gift from the Past (2 page)

He could tell she didn't like the idea of him coming home with her by the way her shoulders stiffened and her strides grew faster.

He didn't try to speak to her again. There would come a time later when they would have to talk, when the past and the future would have to be laid to rest. But now was not the time. He knew he'd shocked her by his unexpected presence and she needed time to adjust. He needed time to adjust, as well.

He'd thought he would breeze into Mayfield, take care of his unfinished business, then walk away without a backward glance. He hadn't expected to feel a tug of crazy, mixed-up emotions when he saw her again.

When they hit the sidewalk outside City Hall, she continued to walk several paces in front of him, as if she didn't want anyone who might see them to know they were together.

He looked around as they headed down Main Street, again noting the changes that had taken
place in the small town since he'd left. Stores he remembered were gone, replaced either by empty storefronts or new shops.

“It's funny, somehow everything looks smaller than I thought it was,” he observed. He pointed down the road to where in the distance were the remains of an old, two-story home. “I see Hazel Benton's house burned.”

“Yeah, a couple of years ago. Faulty wiring.” She frowned, as if irritated that he'd forced her into talking.

“Remember when we were kids we all thought old Hazel was a witch and the rumor was that at night she wandered the streets of Mayfield looking for little children she could snatch and have for breakfast the next morning?”

“I remember,” she said. A ghost of a smile curved her lips. It wasn't a real smile, but it was the closest thing he'd seen.

He suddenly wished for one of her smiles, the sound of her laughter. God, he'd always loved the sound of her laughter.

There had been a lot of laughter in the first two years of their marriage when they'd been too young, and perhaps too stupid to realize how life could take away all laughter if you allowed it.

Six years ago, he'd been a small-town boy in a small-town world married to the love of his life. In an instant of tragedy it had all been ripped apart.
But he wasn't here to pick over the carrion of what had once been.

As Sarge's house came into view, surprise swept through him at the unkempt condition. The lawn that had always been well-manicured now desperately needed a mowing, and the house itself begged for a new coat of paint. A piece of guttering dangled precariously from one corner of the roof.

“Looks like Sarge has let things go a little bit,” he observed, quickening his footsteps once again to fall in beside her.

“You've been away a long time. Things have changed. Sarge has changed.” Her voice held an edge sharp enough to slice steel.

Apparently some things hadn't changed…like the fact that she was still filled with a bitterness and rancor where he was concerned. When he told her he'd come back here for a divorce, he wondered if that would simply deepen her bitterness or finally set her free?

J
oshua followed Claire up onto the front porch; he and Claire had spent many evenings on the swing that had once hung there. It had been on the swing that he had asked her to marry him. They'd been barely eighteen years old and she'd been three months pregnant.

As he followed her through the front door, the house greeted him with familiar smells… The scent of old wood and lemon polish, of sun-washed curtains and the faint odor of the menthol rub Sarge had always used on his bad shoulder.

He and Claire had spent the five years of their marriage here, beneath this roof. They'd been too young to afford their own place and Joshua had no real family of his own. From the time he'd been
fifteen and had begun dating Claire, Claire and Sarge had become his family.

He tried to hide his surprise as Wilma Iverson, the next-door neighbor, came into the living room from the kitchen. Her faded blue eyes registered her own surprise at the sight of him. “Land's sakes, if it isn't Joshua McCane.”

“Hello, Mrs. Iverson,” he replied.

She snorted. “Ah, today it's Mrs. Iverson, but I still remember when you were nothing more than a snot-nosed kid and called me the battle-ax behind my back.”

“Why, I don't remember any such thing,” Joshua laughed in protest.

“Where's Sarge?” Claire asked.

Wilma nodded her head toward the hallway. “In his room, pouting.”

Joshua saw the tension that tugged at Claire's delicate features. “What happened?” she asked.

“I caught him with a bag of candy and I took it away from him. I told him I wasn't going to be a party to him killing himself.”

Joshua listened to all this with interest, wondering what Wilma was doing here and why she would take candy away from a grown man. An edge of disquiet surged up inside him.

“Sarge!” Claire yelled down the hallway. “Come on out. There's somebody here to see you.”

“If it's that creature from next door, I'm not
coming out,” Sarge's voice rang out, the strength in the tone soothing Joshua's momentary alarm. Claire winced and offered a look of apology at Wilma.

“It's not me. I'm leaving, you old coot,” she yelled down the hallway. She smiled at Claire and Joshua, then headed toward the door. “Let me know if you need me again, dear. You know where to find me.”

As she went out the front door, Joshua heard a bump, a resounding curse, then a strange whirring noise. He looked down the hallway, shock rocking him as he saw the frail, white-haired man in a motorized wheelchair making his way slowly down the hall.

Sarge. He appeared to have aged fifty years in the last five. He stopped short of the living room and turned his head from side to side. “Claire?”

It was at that moment Joshua realized that Sarge was not only thin and frail, but blind, as well. He shot a quick glance at Claire, wanting to know what had happened to the vital, strong man Joshua had loved like a father. But of course, she couldn't answer his unspoken questions. Not here…not now.

“Hello, Sarge,” Joshua said.

The old man's face lit with obvious pleasure and he gasped in surprise. “Well, I'll be damned. Come closer, Joshua boy, so I can smell the rascal and know it's really you.”

Joshua laughed and walked over to Sarge's chair, then leaned down and gave the old man a hug, his heart aching as he felt Sarge's thinness. He didn't miss the fact that Sarge's arms didn't raise to return the hug.

“Ah, don't smell no rascal, only smell fancy cologne and grown-up man.”

Joshua laughed again. “There's a little rascal left,” he replied.

“Cookie, put some coffee on, me and the boy got some catching up to do. Joshua, wheel me into the kitchen. They got me this damned fool chair with a motor, but it just makes me run into things at a faster speed.”

Joshua set the tin box they'd dug up on the coffee table, then moved behind the chair and pushed Sarge toward the kitchen. Claire walked in front of him and he knew by the straight set of her shoulders that she didn't intend to be a welcoming hostess.

The kitchen was just as Joshua remembered it, a large airy space with floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the east. Many a morning he and Sarge had drunk coffee while morning light filtered in through the windows.

There was no chair in the place at the table where Sarge had always sat, and it was here that Joshua pushed him up against the table.

Joshua took the chair across from Sarge as Claire busied herself making a pot of coffee. Sam
uel Cook, ‘Sarge' as he had been known for as long as Joshua could remember, had been a robust, strong man who had looked and acted half his age when Joshua had left Mayfield.

Regret swept through him as he gazed at what Sarge had become. He wasn't sure what had put the old man in the wheelchair and stolen his sight, but he felt he never should have stayed away for so long.

“You still making a killing with those games of yours?” Sarge asked.

“Yeah, business is booming and the games are doing better than I ever dreamed.” Joshua's gaze slid to Claire, who had her back to them. Her long hair rippled down to the center of her back, sparked by the sunshine dancing in through the windows.

“Who'd have thought it, that a grown man could spend his time playing games and make a fortune.” Sarge shook his head. “In my day, kids didn't have Play Stations and Nintendos to pass the time.”

“It's a different generation, Sarge,” Joshua replied. It was still hard for Joshua to believe that he'd managed to parlay the fantasy stories he'd made up to sustain himself through a tough childhood into a financial empire of sorts.

Just a month earlier,
Business
magazine had done an article on him and his company. The article had been entitled, “Joshua McCane: The Man
Behind the Magic,” and had chronicled his meteoric career from his first little company, begun in a rented space above a health-food store four years ago.

DreamQuest Games now had its own building on twenty-five beautiful acres in California. Joshua employed two hundred men and women who worked at producing and marketing the fantasy games both children and young adults had embraced.

He glanced at Claire, surprised to see her staring at him. As their gazes met, she quickly looked away and grabbed the sugar bowl and creamer for the table.

“Mind if I wash up? My hands are dirty.” Without waiting for her reply, he stood and walked over to the sink.

Claire moved aside, but not before he smelled the floral scent of her perfume.

The scent had a touch of honeysuckle to it. Instantly he remembered those summer nights when he and Claire had made out on the porch swing with the sweet scent of the nearby honeysuckle wafting in the air.

“When did you get into town?” Sarge asked, as Joshua turned on the faucet and shoved those memories aside.

“Late last night. I ran into Claire this morning out by the old Dragon Tree.” He finished washing his hands and turned off the water.

“Were you out there digging for the ten thousand bucks, too?” Sarge asked.

Joshua took the hand towel Claire proffered and dried his hands. Her gaze was cool, disinterested, but as she took the towel back from him he noticed that her hand trembled slightly. So, she wasn't as unaffected by his presence as she wanted him to believe.

He sat back down at the table. “I was drinking a cup of coffee this morning at the diner and reading the paper. I saw the clues for the treasure hunt, and you know I've never been able to resist a puzzle.”

“I guess Cookie didn't find the treasure, otherwise she wouldn't be pouting now,” Sarge said.

“I'm not pouting,” Claire stated as she poured three cups of coffee. “I'm just listening.” She set one of the cups of coffee in front of Sarge. “Twelve o'clock,” she murmured. “And no, I didn't find the money. All we found was an old tin box.”

“With a photo inside,” Joshua added. “An old photo of a couple who look exactly like Claire and me.” He took a mug of coffee from her, surprised that as their fingers touched he felt a responding surge of heat sweep up his arm.

She jerked her hand back as if she felt it too and the scowl on her beautiful features deepened.

“Well, that's strange,” Sarge exclaimed. “You say the people in it look like you and Claire?”

“They could be our twins,” Joshua replied. The photo in the old tin box wasn't the only thing strange around here, he thought.

He wanted to know what had caused Sarge's blindness and his descent into a wheelchair. How long had Sarge been sick, and had Claire been dealing with it all on her own? He wanted to know when things had gotten so obviously bad.

What he found stranger than anything was that the woman he'd finally come here to divorce still had the ability to fill him with a white-hot desire and a deep yearning for something he couldn't identify.

 

“How long are you staying?” Sarge asked as he carefully brought his cup to his lips to sip the fresh brew.

“I'm not sure.” Joshua leaned back in the chair, his gaze once again falling on Claire.

He's leaving as soon as he finishes his cup of coffee, Claire wanted to say. He's getting back on whatever plane or train or bus brought him here, and he's never coming back again.

He smiled at her, as if he read her thoughts, then directed his attention back to Sarge. “I don't have any definite schedule. I just decided I needed a little time away from work. You know what they say about all work and no play.”

“Damned right,” Sarge exclaimed. “Making
money is nice, but there's other things important in life, too. You'll stay here,” Sarge added firmly.

“Oh, I don't…” Joshua began.

“I'm sure Joshua will be more comfortable at the Red Inn,” Claire interjected quickly. She assumed he was at the Red Inn since it was the only motel in town.

“Nonsense,” Sarge replied. “I've been trying to get both the Health Department and the Building Codes people to shut that place down for years. It's not fit for a skunk. You're family, Joshua. You'll stay here and that's final. Now, tell me all about this business of yours and about all the loony people in California. I hear tell the women sun-bathe stark-naked there.”

Claire didn't want to listen to Joshua extol the luxurious lifestyle he'd built for himself, nor did she like the way his very presence stirred not only memories of what had once been, but also an edge of physical awareness that was distinctly uncomfortable.

She excused herself from the table and left the kitchen. She wandered back into the living room, drawn to the tin box Joshua had left on the coffee table. She sat on the sofa and pulled the box onto her lap.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened it and picked up the picture. Immediately, a strange electrical surge washed up her arm. It wasn't un
pleasant, just warm and disconcerting. She'd felt it when she'd first taken the picture from Joshua.

She dismissed the sensation, telling herself she was out of sorts, highly on edge and that's why she thought she felt something strange.

Again she studied the features of the two people in the photo. There was no question about it. They shared more than a passing resemblance to her and Joshua. It was as if she and Joshua had sat for the photo in one of those vacation photo places where you could dress up in historical outfits.

But they had never had a photo like this taken and there seemed to be no explanation as to why Sarah and Daniel Walker looked exactly like Claire and Joshua McCane.

The couple in the picture wasn't smiling, nor did there seem to be any hint of intimacy between them. He stared straight ahead, one of his hands resting not on her shoulder, but rather on the top of the chair where she sat.

She thought she detected a weary sadness about them, especially radiating from Sarah's eyes. Who were these people and why had they buried a photo of themselves in the middle of nowhere?

She placed the photo back in the box, disturbed by it more than she cared to admit.

“Sarge would like you to take him back to his room for a nap.”

She started at the sound of Joshua's voice coming from the kitchen doorway. Fighting against a
burst of weariness that had become as familiar as the color of her own eyes in the mirror, she rose from the sofa.

“He usually gets quite tired at this time of the day,” she said unnecessarily.

He stepped out of the doorway and into the living room. “I'll just wait here. We need to talk.”

“It usually takes me a while to get him settled in.” She hoped he'd get the hint, that he'd realize they had nothing to talk about, that she had nothing to discuss with him.

“I'll wait.” He sank onto the sofa where she had been seated only moments before, looking for all the world as if he had a right to be there.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to get Sarge into bed and settled comfortably. As always, seeing him so thin and helpless against the sheets nearly broke what was left of her heart.

Sarge was all the family she'd ever had. He'd raised her since she was eight, when her parents had been killed in a car accident. She loved him as fiercely as she'd ever loved anyone in her life. “You rest easy,” she said softly, then left his bedroom.

When she returned to the living room, Joshua was still seated on the sofa. He rose when she entered the room. “You want to tell me what's going on around here? What happened to Sarge?”

She raised a finger to her lips and indicated he should follow her out the front door. When they
were both on the porch, she turned to him. Maybe if she answered his questions he would go away.

“Three years ago, Sarge began to complain about his eyesight, but you know how he's always been about going to doctors.”

“Yeah, wild horses couldn't drag him.” He leaned a hip against the porch railing and for the first time she noticed the small differences time had wrought in him. He'd been recklessly handsome at eighteen, dangerously attractive at twenty.