The Comforts of Home (5 page)

WITH HIS Kate silent beside him. He had the feeling she was holding herself together with army starch and wil power. In al the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her like this. Sometimes he saw the major in her, sometimes the strong woman who’d made it alone in the world al her adult life, but never this.

He went straight to the funeral home and led her through the side entrance. They took the elevator up to his rooms above the business without anyone seeing them. The warm apartment was bigger than most homes in town. A blending of ancient furnishings with modern updating of carpets and tapestries, it seemed to welcome them in like an old friend in a new dress. He left her to freshen up while he went down to ask Wil amina, his housekeeper, to fix a light lunch for two.

Instinct told him Kate wouldn’t want to see anyone.

The old housekeeper acted like she didn’t hear when he made his request. He should have known by now that her hearing never returned until after
The Bold and the
Beautiful
was over. Tyler went into the kitchen and warmed up a can of soup while he made two ham sandwiches. He had no idea if Kate would eat them, but food had always been comforting in his life.

When he returned to his apartment, he expected to find her in his large living room, or maybe on the tiny back balcony he loved in winter because it was sheltered on three sides from the wind but stil caught the morning sun.

When she’d visited a few times she’d said she liked both the areas. She’d even suggested he have real plants around. He didn’t have the heart to tel her that he worked with flowers al day and real y preferred not to see them at night.

He set the tray down on the coffee table, but Kate wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He walked through the apartment that had once been big enough to house a family. The guest bathroom door was open, but she wasn’t there or in the tiny kitchen area he’d never used. Final y, he wandered down to his bedroom, guessing that she’d left.

From his front door she could walk anywhere in town within minutes. Maybe she’d been embarrassed at letting him see her near tears and she’d decided to walk over to the inn alone.

Tyler thought he might as wel get dressed in his business suit and go downstairs to work. Kate would cal him later, or he’d drop by the inn to see if she wanted to go to dinner. If she needed space, he would give her that.

When he reached his bedroom door, he froze.

The lights were off in his room, the curtains drawn, but he saw her on the bed. She’d removed her coat and shoes.

She lay curled up around one of his pil ows almost like a child. The border col ie he cal ed Little Lady rested at her feet. Both looked sound asleep.

“Kate?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer.

He had no idea what to do. After watching her for a few minutes, he knew he had to do something, but he’d never had a woman crawl into his bed. His entire experience with women, other than casual dating, consisted of three short-lived romances in col ege involving lots of petting with none ending in bed and one one-night stand with a woman he met at a party. That ended in bed, leaving only regrets at dawn.

Only this wasn’t a fling. This was Kate. His Kate. The woman he’d been friends with for years. The only woman who’d ever truly mattered to him. Here she was, broken by something she couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about. He wanted to know al about what had happened. He wanted to make it better for her. But she hadn’t told him. Hadn’t even talked to him.

Tyler frowned, then realized what she
had
done. She’d come home to him. Broken or hurt or sad didn’t matter.

She’d come home to him.

He walked back through the apartment to the door that led to a smal corridor that held the stairs and the elevator.

The door between his apartment and the corridor hadn’t been closed in years. Hinges creaked as he pushed it across the carpet. He closed it, then shoved the bolt. No one from below could now reach the apartment.

By the time he’d backtracked to his bedroom, he’d removed his jacket. He slipped off his shoes and lifted the throw from one of the chairs by the windows. Without a sound, he climbed into bed beside Kate, pul ed her back gently against his heart, and slowed his breathing to match hers.

He was surprised how smal she seemed in his arms . .

. and how right she felt.

Tyler held her for over an hour before he heard the low chime in the living area tel ing him someone had just entered the front door downstairs. Everyone who worked for him came in the side or the back. When the front door opened, sending a chime to al the nonpublic areas of the building, they knew it was business. This was Wednesday, a workday, and Tyler never missed work.

As careful y as he could, he slipped from her side.

Pul ing the blanket over her shoulders, he leaned and kissed her cheek. Then, silently, he pul ed on his suit jacket and looped a tie around his neck. The dog waited for him at the door. Little Lady always responded to the chime. The dog must think of herself as the official greeter.

“I’m hurrying,” he said as he opened the door and stepped into the corridor. By the time they reached the first floor, Tyler had tied his tie and looked respectable and sober. Just as a funeral director should look.

But inside, he couldn’t stop smiling.

He went through al the motions of visiting with the children of Ida Louise Hudson. Yes, they wanted their mother’s body moved from a nursing home in California to Harmony to be buried. No, they couldn’t stay for a graveside, but would he have a smal service just in case someone came? After al , she’d been born and married in Harmony. Someone might remember her. Yes, a simple spray of flowers and could he take care of having her death recorded on the headstone beside their father and would he mail a copy of the death certificate, along with the bil , to each?

In less than an hour al the plans were made and Tyler walked Ida Louise’s children, al in their fifties he guessed, to the front steps. They each walked to their individual cars without hugging or a single tear fal ing and drove off. He had a feeling that Ida’s family had just shattered. The Hudson children would never get together again.

When he walked back in, Calvin, one of two embalmers who worked mostly in the basement, was waiting for him.

Tyler sighed. “You guessed right about this one,” he said. “When they cal ed, I thought they might stay at least the night. One came in from Dal as, you know, another from Arkansas. Both long drives to make twice in one day. But they only want us to take care of it.”

Calvin shrugged. “That’s what we do, Mr. Wright.” Calvin might be ten years older than Tyler, but he’d cal ed his boss Mr. since the day Tyler’s father died.

Tyler smiled. “We do. Don’t have the grave dug until we know what flight she’l be coming in on. As soon as she’s back home, I’l phone the minister. Maybe we can schedule the graveside at dawn tomorrow. It’l be cold, but I think she might like that.”

“Which minister?”

“I asked the family that and you know what they said?” Calvin shook his head.

“They said it didn’t matter,” Tyler answered. “I thought I’d cal that young Methodist pastor out on North Road. He could use the money, and he’l do a nice job even if it’l only be you and me standing beside him.”

Calvin agreed with his choice. “I noticed a car parked at the back gate of the cemetery last night. You want me to cal the sheriff and have her check it out?” Tyler waved the idea aside. Drunks looking for a quiet place to sleep it off sometimes thought the cemetery would be a quiet spot. “I’l check it when I lock up tonight. Don’t worry about it.”

Calvin turned and headed toward the back. Since they saw each other several times a day, he and Tyler had long ago given up bothering with hel o or good-bye.

Tyler was suddenly in a hurry to be upstairs. He took the stairs this time, not wanting to be away from Kate a moment longer than necessary.

He felt something was wrong the moment he turned the corner in his hal way and noticed his bedroom light was on.

The pil ows had been replaced. The throw tossed back in the chair by the window.

Kate had gone.

At first he didn’t see the business card lying on the bed, and then he had a hard time focusing enough to read.

Three words al owed him to breathe.
Dinner at Inn?

He ran his thumb over the writing, wishing she’d signed it, or, better yet, addressed it to
dear one
. She’d cal ed him that once . . . only once.

THE APPLE ORCHARD ALWAYS FASCINATED

REAGAN TRUMAN in the winter months. Her uncle Jeremiah told her once that his father had started it back before the first World War. Now, a hundred years later, half the apple jel y in town and most of the apple pies came from Truman apples. But it wasn’t the fruit or the trees that drew Reagan. The shadows pul ed her near like long fingers. In the summer al grew green and beautiful, but when the weather turned cold the bare branches crossed over one another like a framed wonderland in blacks and grays, and she had to come close.

Some people might love the spring, some the summer or even the fal , but for Reagan her heart beat strongest in winter. She loved the raging storms and the silent snow.

She loved her land as if she’d been born to it.

The orchard bordered Lone Oak Road on one side and the Matheson Ranch on the other. As shadows lengthened she walked and enjoyed her time alone. Somehow, Reagan felt she belonged here in this unfinished world with its beginnings and endings mixing together without forming a complete canopy. Her whole life seemed like that. Starts and stops forming like ribs around a body lean of meat.

Smiling, she remembered how her uncle always said she needed to grow roots. At sixteen she’d had nothing, been nothing but a runaway with no place to run to. Now, at twenty, Reagan felt like her very blood pumped through this land . . . her land. She’d poured her sweat into it along with her love. She’d even risked her life fighting a prairie fire to save this farm. It was as much a part of her as she was of it.

She felt like her adopted uncle did—she’d never sel , never.

After a deep breath, she turned, knowing it was time to get back to the house. Uncle Jeremiah was probably already in the kitchen. He liked to watch her cook, though he’d grown so thin she wasn’t sure he ever ate more than a few bites. His mind was stil sharp, but his body was failing him. Reagan did al she could, taking over the running of the farm and the maintenance of his established orchard and her new one. Hank Matheson, the rancher next door, often told her she was doing too much. But how much was too much to give an old man who’d taken her in as his own when no one else in the world wanted her?

She’d hired a couple who were both nurses and moved them in upstairs. Foster took care of Uncle Jeremiah, doing al the things her uncle wouldn’t al ow her to help with, and Cindy, Foster’s wife, monitored the old man’s medicines.

To Reagan’s surprise, her uncle didn’t seem to mind having them around. After a few days, he even stopped tel ing Foster that being a nurse wasn’t a good job for a man.

As she walked toward the little golf cart–sized truck she used on the trails between the fruit trees, Reagan was mental y planning dinner when her cel phone rang.

She slid behind the wheel and flipped the phone open.

“Hi, Rea,” came Noah’s familiar voice. “You asleep yet?”

She laughed. “It’s not even dark, Preacher, what time zone are you in and how much have you been drinking?”

“I’m in North Carolina, I think. I didn’t win any money the last ride.” She heard his long exhale of breath. “The rodeos aren’t much fun when you don’t make the eight seconds.” She didn’t miss that he hadn’t answered the second question. More and more when Noah cal ed from the road, she had a feeling he wasn’t sober. Maybe he only got homesick when he drank. Maybe he needed the whiskey to give him enough courage to talk about going on.

Somewhere the boy she’d met in high school had lost his big dreams, and in so doing he’d lost himself.

His easy laugh came over the phone. “What are you up to, Rea? No. Let me guess. Sitting in the yard with your uncle waiting for the sunset, or maybe walking in that forest you cal an orchard. One of these days you’l fal over a tree root and we won’t find your bones until spring.”