Just Down the Road (41 page)

She gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, then talked about Autumn’s baby all the way back to Harmony. She wanted to know every detail of what had happened.

While he unloaded her luggage from the car, she rushed in to see newborn Brandy Lee. Ronny was staying with Autumn, helping out for a few days. She was a fair cook but didn’t have Autumn’s natural talent. The women had formed a circle by the time Tyler entered the kitchen. He swore there were times all three were talking at once.

The baby looked like a bald, little tiny old man wrapped in pink. As far as Tyler could tell, when she wasn’t sleeping, she was either eating or pooping. The girls got all excited about putting clothes on her, only to watch her spit up on them. It seemed an endless cycle. After two days of watching, Tyler thought he’d figured out why his parents had only one kid. It wasn’t near as much fun as he’d thought it would be.

What was fun, though, was watching how people acted. Normal rational adults would have hourlong conversations with a three-day-old and not manage to say one real word. Calvin, who worked in the basement, was the worst about jabbering on to the baby, but then he talked to all the bodies during the embalming too.

Half of one of Kate’s suitcases was full of outfits. She must have shopped in every airport store on her way home.

After Kate fed the baby and changed her diaper, she finally said a proper hello to Tyler. While Autumn and the baby slept, he and Kate made sandwiches and took them upstairs. He thought about how young men dream of passion
and adventure, but at his age, the true pleasures came with quiet times. With talks. With walks. With sharing.

They sat facing each other at a little table Kate had put by the windows. While they talked he told her of the panic he’d felt at the hospital and what he’d done to save the young doctor. She didn’t seem to want to talk about where she’d been, but as always, she asked about everyone in town as if some great change might have happened in the month she was gone. Tyler liked telling her each event in order, realizing he’d kept a mental journal of all she’d missed.

Finally, when she reached for his hand, he said what he’d been waiting all afternoon to ask. “Are you really and finally back?” He needed to hear the words.

“I’m home, Ty. No more trips, no more army. I’m right where I want to be, with you. If you’ll have me.”

He was surprised she didn’t sound sure of herself. “Of course, dear. There would be no me inside without you. I’d just be a walking shell of a man.” He’d wanted to say those words to her all month. “I look forward to thousands of dinners right here talking and the movies we’ll watch, and the walks we’ll take.”

“It’s not going to be as quiet around here as it once was, not with the baby.”

“That is true.” Though he couldn’t hear the baby when upstairs, he could hear her cry when in his office.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“No, I love it. We’ll make a great set of grandparents. Once Brandy Lee learns how to say something, that is. I’ve already decided I’ll read to her every day no matter how busy we are. I think it would be nice to give Autumn a break. Now and then we could take her for a stroll or maybe keep her while Autumn has a date with Willie Davis, if he ever gets up the nerve to ask her.”

“Autumn might want to get her own place one day.”

“I’ve thought of that. Willie Davis was a great help to her during labor. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t keep coming around. But if Autumn moved out with him, she’d
still come to work, and bring the baby, of course.” He smiled. “And, if they marry, we might help them find their first house. Neither has any parents to depend on.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, Ty?”

“I like to think I’ve thought of everything except maybe how to get you to marry me, but I’ve decided not to push, Kate. I’ll give you all the time you want to settle in.”

She looked down for a minute, then said, “You don’t have to figure out a way to talk me into anything, Ty. I’d like to be married as soon as possible. We can do it fast. Tomorrow if you’re not busy, or a month from now with a big church service.”

Tyler couldn’t form words. He’d been asking her for months, and now here she was saying yes, even pushing it.

“What’s wrong?” He could see it in her eyes. Something had happened. She wasn’t the same. “Did something happen on this last mission … something horrible … some illness?” She had gone into some other country. There could be a disease she’d caught. She could have been shot and her clothes were hiding a wound. “Please, Kate, don’t tell me you’re dying.”

She smiled. “No. I had a complete physical three days ago as part of the mustering-out requirements. Everything is fine, but something did happen, Ty, and it happened right here before I left.”

Tyler fought to remember the last few days they’d been together. He could think of nothing. They’d been happy. They’d been together. He could think of nothing he’d said or done. If anything the time had been extra sweet as they counted down the hours before she’d have to leave.

Kate took a deep breath and announced, “The doctor said I’m in great shape for a woman in her forties who’s going through her first pregnancy.”

“But how?”

She laughed. “I was told years ago I’d never have children, and for most of my life it wasn’t an issue I had to worry about. Only the last few months with you, it seems I was exposed to the possibility quite often. I like to think it
happened just before dawn that last morning we were together. That memory is very dear to me.”

Tyler felt light-headed and sweaty. He could see dark spots before his eyes, and he thought he might throw up at any moment. He moved to the couch and lay down until the world stopped spinning.

When he finally rose to one elbow, he looked at Kate and smiled. “I’m sorry, dear, I thought you said you were pregnant.”

“I am. We’ll both be forty-six when we become parents. It’ll be exciting.”

He grinned at her, thinking she didn’t look a day over forty. “It’ll be exhausting. We’d better go to bed now, Kate. We’re going to need all the rest we can get.”

F
RIDAY NIGHT

O
CTOBER
28

T
INCH TOOK
A
DDISON’S HAND AND LED HER ONTO THE
dance floor. They’d been on their date for two hours and all he could think of was getting her home.

He waved at Beau in the cage. The kid was getting better every week, and tonight he seemed at his best.

“Just relax, Doc, and let me lead,” Tinch whispered in her ear. He’d heard once that some folks considered slow dancing to country music as foreplay, and he planned it to be just that tonight.

She’d been worrying about him and bossing him around for two weeks, and now it was his turn. Tonight he’d planned the entire evening. Dinner, dancing, a moonlight drive out in the canyons where they could hear coyotes howl, then home.

If he was lucky, she’d be moving out of the bed-and-breakfast and in with him by the weekend.

“Tinch,” she whispered. “Should we check on Jamie?”

“He’s fine. My cousin raised five boys; she can handle him for one night. The only danger he’s in is from over-eating.”

She relaxed a bit and he moved his hand lower on her hip.

“I love touching you,” he whispered against her throat. “I missed out on a great deal of touching you since I was shot, and I plan to make up the time as soon as possible.”

He could feel her melting in his arms, and he couldn’t help remembering the first time they’d danced and she’d warned him not to get too close.

Later tonight he knew he’d hold her when she was wild and lost in passion, but right now he just wanted to feel her in his arms. He’d never known such an addiction as Addison, and he didn’t plan on looking for the cure.

“Big and his date are here,” she whispered. “And look, Reagan and Noah just walked in.”

“I don’t really care,” he whispered as he smiled and waved at the couples. “Right now, Addison, all I see is you.”

He watched her smile that deep kind of smile women have when they’re totally happy. She’d been out at his place every day since he came home from the hospital. She’d even tried cooking a few meals.

“I’ve stopped fading,” she whispered as she kissed him.

When he finally broke the kiss, he looked straight into her eyes. “This is no affair, Addie. No one-night stand. No fling before you go back to what you think is the real world.”

“I know.” She smiled. “I took the opening to be the new doctor on staff at the hospital.”

He hugged her a little tighter. “I could get used to you being around.”

He saw the fire in her stormy-day eyes. “I’m not sure I could ever get used to you, Tinch, but I’d like to try.”

As he twirled her around the floor, he thought of how his heart had expanded and opened up to loving. When he saw Howard Smithers’s wife, he’d have to thank her for starting the bar fight last month. If he hadn’t jumped in, he never would have met Addison and learned there is always room for more loving.

J
ANUARY
2006

A
SLIVER OF A CRESCENT MOON ROSE OVER THE FARMHOUSE
Stella and Bob McNabb leased five miles outside Harmony, Texas. Stella sat up in bed as if she’d heard a cannon.

Bob tugged off his headphones, flipped on the reading light, and waited. He hadn’t been asleep, but Stella always
insisted they go to bed together, so most nights he plugged in to a ball game on the radio and listened while she wiggled herself to sleep.

“I’ve had a vision,” she announced. “A terrible vision, all black smoke and fire.”

In the forty years they’d been married, she’d had a hundred visions and as far as he knew none of them had come true. “Now, Stella, just because you play the fortune-teller at the 4-H fair once a year doesn’t make you psychic. The vision’s probably tied to the three enchiladas you had for supper.”

She glared at him, and he couldn’t help but think she was one woman who definitely looked better with makeup on. Lots of makeup.

“But I saw it, Bob. Some strange kind of storm’s coming. A big one. The kind of storm that shatters lives.”

He patted her hand. “Don’t you worry about a storm. We could use the rain.”

She turned away from him and wiggled back down into the covers. “I got Gypsy blood in me on my mother’s side and I know things. We better get ready, ’cause trouble’s coming.”

“All right, hon, I’ll stay awake and worry. You go back to sleep.” He put on his headphones and stared out the open window at the cloudless sky, knowing nothing much ever happened in Harmony, Texas. Odds were, nothing ever would.