Finding Home (9 page)

Like a deer alert to every nuance in the forest, every shift in wind, Pho
ebe was struck with the metamorphosis in Gage. It hadn’t occurred to her that he actually might be good and kind without prodding, or display a tenderness, which he did in the manner he lifted Willie-Boy. She’d judged him on calluses, purse strings, bone and sinew. Now she had a different aspect of him to explore--different and confusing.

Maydean scrambled down from the truck bed.
“What made him change his mind?”

“
Goodness begets goodness,” said Phoebe, giving the only answer that arose out of her confused thoughts. “Get back here, Maydean. Tote that suitcase.”

“
Meanness begets meanness,” Maydean huffed.

“
I’m going to save you from yourself, Maydean. After you go to sleep tonight I’m goin’ to pluck out every dern one of your eye lashes. Save you from the sin of flutterin’ them at every man and boy you meet.”

~~~~

Phoebe soothed Willie-Boy,
fed him aspirin and tea, and unpacked—for the last time, she hoped, if she had any say in it. It looked as if she might.

The kitchen needed straightening; she went to do it. Gage had pushed aside dishes and had ledgers spread out.
“Can’t do my book work in the living room with the TV blaring,” he volunteered.

“
I can run those girls outside till full dark if you want me to,” Phoebe said, keeping her tone neutral.

He shook his head.
“Not necessary.”

The way he was looking at her, talking to her, made the rippling start up again. Phoebe rippled all over. She felt it in her legs, her stomach. It felt good. There was a subtle change in the climate between them. While she did the dishes, swept th
e floor and rinsed out the dishcloths she tried to fathom the nature of the change. Now and again, out of the corner of her eye she caught him tracking her. The rippling got more intense.

She was finished in the kitchen, but she didn
’t want to leave the room. She made two glasses of iced tea, put one before Gage, and sat at the opposite end of the table. The sun sent a few stray fingers of gold through the window. In the dancing rays, Phoebe’s hair seemed to take on a life of its own, not unattractive.

“
You change,” Gage observed.

The rippling had got up to her throat and made it dry. She took a sip of tea.
“I seem the same all the time to me.”

“
When you’re not leading with your chin and barking orders, you look nice.”

Coy blushing wasn
’t in Phoebe’s nature. When she got mad her face got red, but pure-out blushing, a warmth that spread from bosom to forehead was a new experience. She suffered it now. No one in the whole world had ever said she looked nice. She couldn’t cope with it. “The first time I laid eyes on you, I thought to myself you had a good straight nose and...and...tidily cut hair.”

Gage smiled.
“I had just come from the barber shop. But looks don’t count for everything.”

Phoebe was electrified.
“You think that, too?”

“
I know from experience.”

“
Me, too, brains is where it’s at. Brains and a strong back. I got both.”

“
Brains, a strong back and maybe a bit of cunning, you mean.”

His sarcasm was light, but there all the same. Things were going too well to bite on it. Phoebe took another sip of tea. All sorts of ideas were racing through her head. Ideas like how she might do her hair to keep it from being so flyaway, ideas like maybe stuffing her bra with toilet paper to get a better shape. She discounted the last as a waste of a necessary item, but held her head up high so her neck might be in his full view.
Gage took out a pocket knife and began to sharpen a pencil.

His fingers were thick, strong and nimble. Phoebe imagined his hands on her, but couldn
’t figure a placement that pleased her that wasn’t unseemly. “I got to bunk down somewhere else tonight,” she advanced.

He looked up. A glaze, heightened by an inner chaos, lay on his dark eyes.
“I’m not taking you into my bed. That’s not what I was leading up to, not why I said you could stay.”

Indignant, Phoebe
’s flashing eyes ignited. “I never had such an evil thought!” Well, maybe her mind was skittering up to it in a roundabout way—sideways. “Willie-Boy has got to sleep spread-eagled. There ain’t room in that bed for him and me and Maydean. I was aimin’ to ask if I could bunk in one of them other rooms or on the sofa.”

“
Suit yourself,” he said dryly, sounding as if he didn’t believe her protests.

“
I aim to.” Phoebe could feel herself getting all fired up. The good rippling sensation shrank to the size of a pea. The skittering in her brain came to dead stop. Abruptly, Gage stood up.

“
I’m going out.”

Phoebe wanted to ask where
so bad she had to clench her jaws to keep the question from flying out. Going to drink? To get a woman? He was fair stirred up. She could sense it.

“
I’ll see to Dorie,” she said with a dragging heart. She listened for his truck motor. When the sound faded she moved about the house with the quiet sobriety of a person attending a wake. She seldom allowed herself to feel down-spirited for long. If it got to be a habit, that’s where a body stayed. Down. But she couldn’t seem to pull herself up.

Halfheartedly she inspected the rooms along the side hall. In addition to the room she shared with Willie-Boy and Maydean, were Do
rie’s room, two large hall closets bracketing the bathroom, two more fine-sized bedrooms, packed rat like with all sorts of furniture and debris. Last was Gage’s room. Phoebe put her hand on the doorknob.

It wouldn
’t hurt to have just a quick peek. Most likely his bedding needed changing, clothes hung. Men were notorious about keeping up. She looked in.

The huge bed was the focus of the room
and neatly made with several pillows leaning upright against the leather headboard. Probably special-made, Phoebe thought, to accommodate his huge frame. Why, she wouldn’t take up hardly a speck of room in that big old bed. That is, if it came to sharing—not that she would, but
if.

An air conditioner framed in a window hummed on low. Phoebe stood in front of it reveling in the cooling air. Lor! The man liked his luxury. She opened the closet. The faint smell of scent and man rushed at her. She ran her hand along hangers. Not a single garment belonged to a woman. He
’d cleared out all evidence of Velma except gossip. Somehow, it didn’t seem fitting. There wasn’t even a photograph on the dresser or on the walls. She pulled out a dresser drawer. Socks and underwear. No bobby pins, no half-used lipstick tubes, no nail polish. She searched into the depths of the drawer and found a small flat box.

Phoebe opened it
, backed up and sat on the edge of the bed. There were baby pictures of Dorie, a lock of hair clumsily tied with pink ribbon, two baby teeth wrapped in tissue. Gage’s love of Dorie must’ve caused him to attend to these small items. But hate or an emotion as strong, had erased Velma Morgan with meticulous care.

Why, years and years after Grandma Hawley had died they were still finding her things lying about, a knitting needle in a chair cushion, her long hairpins and wire combs on the dresser, a lace collar in the bottom of the ironing baske
t. Each finding had caused a remembrance, a memory portrait. Phoebe looked around the room. It was sterile of woman. The man wanted no remembrance. To Phoebe’s way of thinking, that wasn’t healthy, not for Gage and not for Dorie. She spent another few minutes on the riddle of Gage Morgan, then roused herself to clear off a bed in one of the spare rooms.

Later, long after the house was quiet, Phoebe heard the back screened door slam, Gage thumping down the hall. She turned over and went to sleep.

Phoebe was awake
and dressed before anyone else in the house stirred. She counted herself as reasonable as the next person, but this morning she felt hostile. She’d worked it out. Gage Morgan had allowed her to stay in his house with a grudging spirit. After which he’d taken himself off to drink or lollydab with a woman. Phoebe couldn’t decide which was the worst offense to her nature: whiskey or loose women or the man who indulged in either.

The facts stuck out for themselves. She
’d lain awake half the night worrying about him, wondering who he was with and suffering stabs of jealousy. No doubt a single stab was enough to turn her soul black with sin. Gage Morgan ought pay for darkening her soul. He sure should. Atop that, here she was out of the kindness of her heart making a drudge of herself for a man who didn’t care whether she lived or died.

While brewing coffee, Phoebe rattled pots, slammed cupboards and banged the wooden back door open to allow in the fresh morning breeze. She crept down the hall and listened. No one had awakened
, especially the person on whom she wished to vent her spleen. He was no doubt lying in his big old bed, snoring away. Her hostility thickened.

Taking the mop out of the pantry she shoved it across the floor. At the
comer of Gage’s bedroom, she became more vigorous, shoving the mop so hard to and fro that the handle bumped and scraped his wall. For good measure she thumped his bedroom door two hard licks. She heard him snort and growl, heard his feet slap the floor.

Phoebe girded herself for battle.

His door opened. He stood there buttoning his pants, his chest bare, his hair awry, his beard stubble dark and his bloodshot eyes narrowed to slits.

“
What in hell is going on?”

Oh, but he had leftover sin written all over him. Phoebe fixed him with a cold condemning eye.
“I was just gettin’ the damp mopping outta the way afore the kids got up.” She sugarcoated every angry word.

“
At five-thirty in the damned morning?”

“
I got to be at the crab house by eight. Just wanted to make sure I earn my keep here, afore I go. Like as not if I didn’t, soon’s I got back you’d be threatenin’ to throw us out again. I can’t worry about that while I’m out makin’ the money I owe you.” She didn’t mean for it to, but her gaze seemed of its own accord to latch onto the spread of dark hair on his chest. Her eyes followed as it thinned and trailed down into his pants.

He muttered a low oath.
“You’re another one. Damn it to hell.”

“
Another one what?”

“
Nag.”

Phoebe turned pale.
“You like callin’ people names, don’t you?”

“
I got a good name for anybody who wakes me up as rudely as you just did.”

“
Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were still abed. How could I? Your door was closed. I can’t see through doors.”

“
I’ll tell you what I see. You woke me up on purpose. I can see that.”

“
Don’t know how you can see anything with them whiskey-coated eyes,” scoffed Phoebe, nit-picking as far as she dared.

“
I can see all right. I can see your chin coming at me. Keep it coming,” he jeered. “Pretty soon you’ll stab me to death. Maybe then I’ll get my sleep out.”

“
Won’t,” she returned petulantly. “I ain’t of a mind to bleed whiskey all over a floor I just mopped.”

“
Listen here, woman,” Gage ground out, “if I want to have a drink, I’ll have it. You keep your long nose out of my business.”

It was wrong, of c
ourse, to enjoy quarreling. However, Phoebe did feel...satisfied. Yes, she did, wonderfully satisfied. She drew her chin back and sniffed. “Get back in bed if you want to. Stay there and be vile-tempered all day for all I care. I got breakfast to cook.”

“
This is the thanks I get for opening my home to a bunch of road ticks,” he aimed at her departing back. “If I had any sense I’d let you take your bumper and be gone.”

Phoebe felt her heart stop. On no account did she want him worrying on that notion and laying waste to the rest of her life.
“I got my pride,” she shot over her shoulder. “I ain’t touchin’ that bumper till I got you paid off. I told you, Hawleys don’t take charity.”

~~~~

“Hawleys don’t take charity,” Gage mimicked dourly, stalking into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. The mirror over the sink returned his image. He made a fierce face. Hawley pride. Phoebe made it sound like something packaged in red, white and blue. The skinny stick! She was driving him batty. She almost made him feel like he ought to apologize for going out and having a few beers. It was the stupidest idea he’d had in weeks.

The second stupidest.
The first was thinking it would do no harm to let Phoebe Hawley in the door. He should’ve known she’d make a general nuisance of herself.

To his way of thinking a woman ought to just go about her home
making business and leave a man do what he had to do. The problem as he saw it was that this was his home and Phoebe Hawley was going about homemaking duties when she had no right to them. He’d clear up on that point, pronto.

In the kitchen Phoebe poured coffee and while it cooled watched the dawn coming, rising bright and many-colored above the horizon. As if brushing a blank canvas, pink rays slanted across
the yard painting the old coop silver and crept onto the porch with nary a shadow. Phoebe filled in the picture with Erlene feeding chickens, Ma hoeing the garden and Pa rocking to and fro on the porch, Willie-Boy on his lap.

Now she understood why Ma sometimes got riled at Pa over the silliest of things. A body had to have a go at what was unimportant, because she couldn
’t always speak of innermost feelings. Maybe a body never could talk secrets to a man. Phoebe didn’t like the idea of secrets. When she got herself a man—and she meant to have the one that owned this house—she aimed only to serve up truth.

On the other hand, as testy as he got, if she were to mention she planned to spend the rest of her life with him, sleep in his bed, bear his children, he
’d probably faint dead away. Men, and she included Gage among them, didn’t like to be defeated with love. It was better to let a man think he was coming up on the idea by himself. Whether he toppled slow or fast didn’t make no never mind. She’d just help out with a hint now and again.

She ran a forefinger down her nose. It wasn
’t long. It was a good nose. Whiskey sure distorted a man’s vision.

As if she
’d willed it, the man of her heart and impressive calluses, came into the kitchen. He was unshaven, dressed for the welding shed and cutting grim looks at her. With good cheer and a steady hand, she poured his coffee.

“
Even if you
are
a grouch of a mornin’, I like it here,” she said, watching to see how her first hint went over.

“
I don’t want to hear it.”

Phoebe went from rapture to rancor.
“Drink affect your ears like it does your eyes?”

“
My personal life is none of your affair. Don’t try making it so. And don’t get to liking it here too much. The backside of you is what I’d like to see.”

“
My backside?” Her light-colored brows shot up. “I thought you liked women that run to fat.”

Gage sat there, staring at her, eyes glinty, face pinched.
“I can’t stand much more of this. Or you.”

“
I was makin’ a joke.” She turned slightly, giving him the view and opportunity to change his opinion about her nose.

“
You’re witty all right,” he said, still watching her, noting a soft smile had transformed her clever face. It highlighted a fine-boned slenderness. “I’m laughing so hard my ribs hurt.”

He blew on his coffee and took a tentative sip.

“Liquor sure turns you into a sour man of a mornin’. Makes you blind, too.” Hints aside, that was one truth in the open between them. And because she wanted another, she had to ask, “Did you get yourself a woman last night?”

Gage choked. Phoebe pounded him on his back. Pound
ed and measured the width of it. Heat seemed to radiate through her skin. “You all right, now?” The backs of his ears were turning pink as newborn flesh.

“
Oh, I’m just fine.” Abruptly he moved away from her, heading out the back door.

“
Say! Don’t you want breakfast...? Guess you don’t,” she muttered as he disappeared behind the pile of old tires.

She stirred grits into boiling water and wondered about his ears going pink. Some men were shy about women, being all talk and no actual
activity.” Gage must be that way. With a man like that, a woman had a lot of leeway.

~~~~

“You look nice
and spritely,” Phoebe
said to Dorie when the child took her place at the table.

“
Maydean helped me get the tangles out. You sure my mother can see me all the way from heaven?”

“
Like as not she can,” Phoebe allowed. “I won’t know for sure until I get there myself.” She put a platter of eggs and buttered grits on the table.

“
You aiming to traipse off to heaven real soon?” Maydean asked snidely.

“
You know the trouble with you, Maydean? You’re all mouth. Shut up and use it to eat.”

Willie-Boy was at the table, too, feeling better but popping out all over in blisters.
“What am I gonna do all day while you’re at work, Phoebe?”

“
Watch TV and color. You be nice and Dorie might give you a page outta her colorin’ book.”

“
I’ll give him two pages if he doesn’t try to follow me and Maydean around like he did yesterday.”

“
Follow you around where? Besides crabbin’?”

“
Around the junkyard, we tried to play teenagers and he kept butting in.”

Phoebe slanted a look at Dorie.
“How do you play teenagers?”

“
I get to be sixteen and Maydean plays eighteen. When somebody comes to buy something from Daddy, we put our hands on our hips and look like this.” Dorie fluttered her lashes and thrust out her lower lip.

Phoebe glanced hard at Maydean.
“Is that right?”

Maydean shrugged.
“It’s just a game.”

“
Well, today, you just better play dead, ‘cause that’s what you’re gonna be if I hear tell of this game again.”

“
It was fun,” said Dorie. “We pretended we put on makeup and everything.”

“
Maydean can’t play teenager today. She has to iron.”

“
I hate ironin’. It’s too hot.”

Phoebe gave her sister a warning glance.
“You iron up our Sunday clothes and a dress for Dorie, too. In case she wants to go with us come Sunday. That’s my final word.”

“
I don’t know where I can find an iron and ironin’ board.”

“
I’ll show you,” offered Dorie. “I like going to Sunday school. My daddy used to take me.”

“
Used to? He don’t anymore?”

“
After mother died, he said God did him in. He won’t go anymore.”

God did him in! For shame, Phoebe thought. It was Velma Morgan who did all the doing, but she couldn
’t say that to the dead woman’s daughter. Another cross to bear.

On the other hand, it was nice to know that Gage had a Christian streak in him. Looking at him, she never would
’ve guessed it. Looking at him... She recalled him standing on the threshold of his bedroom. She felt an enchanting quickening of her pulse. It made her feel good all over.

As the sun
’s morning warmth fingered the junkyard, Phoebe gave out last-minute instructions to Maydean before she left for the crab house, mostly dire warnings and threats. But she satisfied herself that Maydean would keep a close eye on Willie-Boy and Dorie. “If y’all need a snack afore I get home, finish off that gumbo.”

Once she was outside, Phoebe walked backward a few steps, keeping the house, the ragtag fence
and unkempt yard in view. Her heart swelled. Lor, but it was wonderful to have a place to call her own—almost.

“
Watch out!”

A hand reached out
to grab her arm before she tumbled backward over an old piece of iron bedstead. Then the hand released her as if it’d touched fire.

“
I thought you went to the weldin’ shed,” Phoebe accused.

“
I did, but I had to open the gate. Damn! Why am I explaining to you?”

“
Maybe you like explainin’,” she threw at him with a puritanical glare. “Maybe you ought to go finish your coffee. Maybe your mind is still muddled from liquor. Maybe you ought to clear out this front area afore a body comes along and breaks a leg and sues the pants off you.” She rubbed her arm where he’d grasped her.