Kentucky Heat (35 page)

Read Kentucky Heat Online

Authors: Fern Michaels

BOOK: Kentucky Heat
2.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“It's so strange, Smitty. Earlier I was thinking about how my life parallels Maud's in so many ways. The last years of her life she was in constant pain. She drank much too much but it was the only thing that helped ease that terrible pain she lived with. Jess was such a wonderful man. He doted on her. Waited on her hand and foot. When she died, he wanted to die with her. She always said he was her white knight. I don't see Hatch doing that for me. I just don't.”
“Well, I think you're wrong.”
Nealy told her about the doctor in Thailand. “I'm going to look into it. If he can help me, I'll do it. There. Here. I don't care. Otherwise, Smitty, I don't want to live like this.”
“That's pretty goddamn selfish, Nealy,” Smitty blustered. “You were never one to think about yourself. Hell, most of the time you looked like shit. Did you care? No, you did not. Jeans, shirt, boots, no makeup, a haircut that looked like it was done with a lawn mower. That was you. All of a sudden you care? Hellooooo!”
“Shut up, Smitty! I'm sorry I let you come here.”
“I'm sorry I came, too. So there, Nealy Clay.”
“Oh, Smitty, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.”
“I know you didn't. I didn't either,” Smitty said as she gathered a sobbing Nealy into her arms. “It's not the end of the world, Nealy. You're alive. The horses miss you, especially Flyby. No one can do anything with him. Shufly is pretty cranky, too. All the noise, the barn building, all the people, and then your absence. Life is going to go on, Nealy. Choose to be a part of it. For all of us.”
“You've been such a good friend to me all these years, Smitty.”
“And you've been a good friend to me. You need to call Nick. He had to get back to work and said to call him when you were ready for visitors.”
“I will, Smitty. I promise.”
“I have to get back to the farm. Nealy, it looks wonderful. You'd never know anything happened. All the burned grass was taken up and sod put down. The barns sparkle. It just looks wonderful. Make it a happy homecoming, kiddo.”
“Thanks for coming, Smitty. Give Gabby a hug for me.”
“I will not. You can do that yourself when you get home tomorrow.”
“I'll scare her out of her wits. She's just a baby.”
“It'll never happen,” Smitty said over her shoulder.
She didn't cry until she was in her car. She had to warn them. Especially Hatch.
 
 
Nealy sat up in bed, the lamp turned low at her side. She made no move to hide her face when Emmie and the others walked into the room. “It's okay to cry,” she said. “I'd join you, but I'm all cried out. Just do me a favor and don't try to cheer me up. Don't tell me I'm alive, and it doesn't matter. It does matter. Now, come here, all of you and give me a big hug. I missed you. Talk to me about the farm, about the horses and the front porch.”
They babbled. They even found themselves laughing. “I'm getting kind of tired now,” Nealy said an hour later. “I still have to visit with Hatch. I'll be home tomorrow, and we can talk more then. I'm looking forward to sitting on the front porch.”
They hugged her, their eyes wet, their bodies trembling. And then they left quietly because it was what she wanted.
Nealy steeled herself for what was coming next. She wished she had the courage to turn off the lamp.
Fool
, her mind shrieked.
Just do it and get it over with
. The knock, while soft, sounded like thunder to Nealy's ears. She struggled to take a deep breath. “Come in,” she called.
He stared at her from the foot of the bed.
“You need to say something, Hatch,” Nealy said.
“I know, but I don't know the words. I think you're expecting me to say one thing while I want to say something else. I'm trying to find the words. I guess you being a woman, you want to know if you look ugly. I really don't know what ugly is, Nealy. To me, everyone is beautiful. I know what an ugly heart is. I know what an ugly attitude is, but I don't look at someone and think they're ugly or they're this or they're that. I'm probably not saying this right. I think I'm trying to tell you it doesn't matter.”
“It matters, Hatch. I can't . . . I won't . . . I'm not me anymore. I don't know if I can ever be me again. Maybe I can try. I want to try. I don't want you to be noble and feel like you have to marry me. We had our time in the sun. I will always be grateful for that time, for your love, for all you did for my children. Make no mistake, I love you with all my heart, but I will not saddle you with me in this condition no matter what you say or how you say it.”
“Nealy . . .”
“No, Hatch. If you love me, you'll let me go.”
“How can I do that? You became a part of my life. We said we were going to grow old together. We promised to love each other forever and ever. I can't let that go. Don't ask me to do that, Nealy. Please don't.”
“You have to, Hatch. I have nothing left to give you. I'm drained, physically and mentally. I have long years of operations ahead of me. Long years of pain and anger. I can't foist that on you. I won't do that to you. Now, what I want you to do is turn around and leave. I want you to . . . I want you to go back to Santa Fe. I don't want you to wait for me. I want you to . . . to . . . do . . . whatever you have to do to . . . to get past this. I don't want to cry because tears are salty. It's not good for me. Just say good-bye and . . . leave. No, no, no, don't come any closer. Please, Hatch, don't make this harder on me. Please go. Go! If you don't go, I'll . . . I'll call the nurse. Just tell me good-bye.”
“No. I don't like good-byes.”
“Damn you, say good-bye.”
“No!” Hatch roared as he yanked open the door.
“I hate you,” Nealy roared in return.
“Well, I love you, Nealy Clay,” Hatch said, storming out of the room.
“Liar! No one could love me looking like this.”
When there was no response to her outburst, Nealy buried her head in the pillow and wept.
17
Nealy could feel her insides start to shake as she made her way down the steps. She wished she hadn't agreed to the family visit. Somehow or other, Smitty, Ruby, and Emmie had convinced her to agree to a family meeting. Fanny Thornton representing the Thornton family, and Maggie Coleman Tanaka, representing the Colemans, were coming to visit. Her brothers were coming, too.
She wished there was someplace where she could hide so no one would ever find her. Such a silly thought. She looked around at the leaves on the trees that were slowly starting to turn. A new season would appear shortly, and then it would get cold. She wasn't looking forward to winter any more than she looked forward to anything else these days.
Would they stare at her? Of course they would. She would just have to grit her teeth, straighten her shoulders, and hope for the best.
She sat down on the top step and wrapped her arms around her knees. The sun was just about to creep over the horizon. Another new day. She waited.
Rhy and Pyne were the first to arrive. She bolted from the steps to throw herself into their arms the moment they got out of the car. She could feel them both trembling.
This is harder on them than it is on me
, she thought. “Don't be afraid to look at me,” she whispered.
“Nealy, Nealy why wouldn't you let us come sooner? You preach all this stuff about family and then when it's time for family stuff you run away and hide. We started out twice to come here and both times we turned around and went back home because we knew you didn't want us here. We respected your wishes. We only wanted to help.”
“I wasn't ready, Rhy. I'm not ready now, either. But I knew it wasn't fair to you and I know you want to help. Unfortunately, there's nothing anyone can do. I no longer believe in miracles. Come up on the porch. I like having coffee out here early in the morning.”
“Coffee sounds good, Nealy,” Pyne said, linking his arm with hers.
Nealy turned around suddenly, and said, “Take a good look. What do you think?”
They didn't gasp, they didn't shrink from her, and they didn't say anything. Their eyes did fill up, though. They reached for her and hugged her tight.
“Sit down, and I'll have Matilda bring us some coffee. Would you like some sweet rolls or maybe some toast?”
“Coffee's fine, Nealy,” Rhy said.
The minute the screen door closed behind Nealy, Pyne was off his chair, his closed fist smashing into one of the white columns on the porch. His back arched and his head jolted backward with the pain ricocheting up his arm.
“We should have come sooner even though she said she didn't want us here. Who was here for her besides Emmie?” Rhy asked.
“Smitty and Ruby. I'm sure Nick traveled back and forth. Women are better at this kind of thing. I want to say something to her, but I don't know what I should say. ‘Hey, maybe someday they can fix your face.' I don't think so. I guess the best thing to do is pretend you don't see it and that isn't exactly right or fair either.”
“You boys talking about me?” Nealy asked, slamming the screen door behind her.
“Yeah. We were saying we don't know how to act. We don't know what to say. We wanted to come here many times, Nealy, but you said no. We talked it over and decided to respect your wishes. Why did you relent? What can we do for you?”
“Just be my brothers. No one wanted to be around me when I first came home. All I wanted to do was hide and stay in the dark. Life goes on, I know that. I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances. I'm glad you came.”
“We're glad, too. Is there anything we can do?”
“No, not really. We can take a stroll down Memory Lane. Now with all this time on my hands, I'm going to really get going on trying to find the rest of Mama's family. I let all that slide because . . . life got in the way. How are those violets doing that we planted on Mama's grave?”
“Nealy, you wouldn't believe how they multiplied. It's like a blue carpet. We keep them trimmed back and when it's dry we take turns watering. That was a good idea you had. The big picture you had blown up is hanging over the mantel. It would be nice if you could come up to the farm to see it.”
“Maybe in the spring. Fanny and Maggie are coming in this morning. It was so weird the way that happened. I had just called you asking you to come for a visit and then the phone rang and it was Fanny Thornton. Reed is her married name now. Anyway, she said Maggie had called her and said they should come to visit me. She wanted to know if it was all right. I said yes. They're going to be here for a few hours. They mean well.”
“Family, Nealy. Family will never turn against you,” Pyne said.
“Yes, Pyne, they will. Ours did. I understand the circumstances now.”
“You made it right. That's all that matters now,” Rhy said. “Oh, I hear a car.”
“Guess our family is here,” Nealy said, getting up from the rocker. She tucked her shirt into her jeans, jammed her hands in her pockets and waited.
They didn't gasp or shrink from her either. They held out their arms, and it was Nealy who burst into tears. Tactfully, Rhy and Pyne got up and went into the house.
“Shhh, it's all right, Nealy. Sit down, honey, here between Maggie and me. No, no, don't turn away. Please, don't do that. Is there anything we can do, anything at all?”
Nealy shook her head. “I'm sorry. I do this all the time. I don't want to hide, but I don't have much courage. The truth is, I hide out because people have a hard time dealing with what I look like these days.”
“People or you, Nealy? Fanny and I don't have a problem. It didn't look like your brothers had a problem. We all wanted to come sooner, but we respected your wishes,” Maggie said. “We're family, Nealy.”
Nealy dabbed at her eyes. “I just wish there was something you could do.” She waved her hands in the air. “It is what it is. I'll try to do better. I want us all to get to know one another better. I want Gabby to get to know her cousins. I just need more time.”
“We have all the time in the world. The airplane and the telephone are such marvelous inventions. You pick up the phone and you can talk to someone almost instantly. You can laugh or cry, moan or groan to the person on the other end of the phone,” Maggie said. “This is where my husband, wise man that he is, would say, when you get handed lemons, make lemonade. Yes, I know, easier said than done.”
“We're all just hours away by plane, Nealy,” Fanny said.
Nealy relaxed and leaned back into the softness of the rocker. “Tell me about your families. Tell me things I don't know.”
“Go ahead, Maggie, you go first,” Fanny said.
“I'll try to give you the short version because we would be here forever with the long version. My grandfather, your father, Seth Coleman, was a ring-tailed son of a bitch! He hated my mother because she delivered two girls before she delivered a boy. That boy, Riley, was killed in the war. Then my father died of leukemia. The old man blamed my mother for both deaths. God alone knows where my sister Susan is. She's a concert pianist and a bit of a free spirit. We don't hear from her for years, then suddenly she pops up. She had a disastrous marriage and a child who died quite young. I don't think she ever got over that.
“I was a deeply troubled teenager and managed to have a baby at the age of fourteen. Mom raised Sawyer. Seth hated her, too. He hated all women. He thought only men were good enough in the business world. He was absolutely ruthless. Then I married and had Cole, got divorced and married Rand Nelson. He died. I moved to Hawaii and married Henry Tanaka.
“My father, Moss, was a womanizer, but he always came back to Mam. When he died of leukemia, Mam grieved, but she hadn't loved him for a long time. Years later, she married Thad Kingsley, my father's best friend. It was such a happy marriage. Thad, even after all these years, still grieves for Mam. He dodders a bit now, but we all look out for him.
“You remember how Josh Coleman drove you out of the house. Well Seth did the same thing to my aunt Amelia. Like I said, he hated women. We've had our highs and our lows, but we managed to stay a family. Fanny's family helped us out many times, and we help her side when we can. Just the way you helped us. That's the short version.” Maggie smiled across at Nealy and reached for her hand. “Someday, when you really have nothing to do, I'll fill you in on the nitty-gritty stuff that went on in our family. In telling you this, Nealy, it's to let you know we pull together and weather whatever is thrown at us.”
“I guess it's my turn,” Fanny Thornton spoke up. “Sallie Coleman was Seth's sister and your aunt. She was a saloon singer and a woman of the evening. A prospector left her, as she put it, his poke, and she ended up being the richest woman in the West. She literally built Las Vegas. She educated herself, married her teacher, and gave birth to two sons. I married both of them. Ash, my first husband, was just like Maggie's father. In fact, Ash knew Moss Coleman, and that's how Maggie and I found each other. I divorced Ash because he couldn't keep his pants on, and then I married his brother, who was a psycho if there ever was one. On his deathbed, Ash killed his brother to protect me from him. If you wrote the story of our lives in a book, no one would believe it.
“Ash and I had four children. Birch and Sage, the twins, Billie, named after Maggie's mother, and Sunny. Sunny has multiple sclerosis. She has two children but because of her health, Sage, my son, is raising them, making sure they know Sunny is their mother. It's a sad but doable situation. Sage and Birch run the casinos and Billie has her own family business.
“I married Marcus Reed, and we live very quietly enjoying our golden years.
“Ruby was my father-in-law's daughter. Born on the wrong side of the blanket so to speak. Ash denounced her when she first made her appearance, but I wouldn't allow that. I love Ruby. Ruby is real and as good as they come. Ash came to find that out, and he finally came around and acknowledged her as his sister. Ruby was so happy that day. She's done so much for all of us. You know the story of Metaxas replanting my mountain. Sage lives there with his wife, Iris, their children, and Sunny's children. The mountain is a wonderful place to raise children. There, now, that's my short version. But as Maggie said, sometime when you really have nothing to do, I'll tell you all the Thornton nitty-gritty stuff of our lives.”
Nealy smiled. “Life isn't easy, is it?”
“Sometimes it is damn hard. Mam always said you have to pull up your socks and keep going, no matter what,” Maggie said.
“You never give up, Nealy. Someone, somewhere, will be able to help you. I just know it.”
Nealy nodded. “Neither one of you had an easy life, right? I can see it in your faces. And yet you weathered it all. How did you do it? I fell apart. I'm still unraveling like a loose strand of yarn.”
“Think about the alternative. The here and now is always the best way. When there are people who love you and depend on you, how can you give or do less than your best?”
“Point taken.” Nealy smiled. “Would you like a tour of the farm?”
“We would,” Maggie said. “Later, I'd like to go for a ride if that's possible.”
“We can do that, too. Let me call my brothers and we can check things out.”
 
 
The call, when it came, was the night before Halloween. Nealy laughed, her voice edged with hysteria. “Do you see the irony, Smitty? Halloween! I need you to help me pack. Cole Tanner is on his way here to pick me up. He's personally going to hand-deliver me to the famous Dr. Vinh.”
Smitty stared at Nealy, a mixture of emotions on her face. “You're going to Thailand? I don't believe what I'm hearing. Thailand is on the other side of the world. For how long?” she asked breathlessly.
“For as long as it takes. I have to give it a shot, Smitty. I have to try. Please don't try to talk me out of it.”
“I won't, Nealy. I understand. You have to do what you have to do. For some reason I didn't think . . . I thought you would opt to have your operations done here. What about all the paperwork?”
“Cole took care of everything. I'm good to go. We leave tomorrow night. He said he'll grab a few hours' sleep and we'll leave. If . . . if it doesn't work out, I'll be back. Well, either way, I'll be back.”
Smitty pulled clothes off hangers willy-nilly. “I think it's warm over there. Maybe it isn't warm. Do they have a winter? Oh, who cares,” she mumbled as she shook out garments and folded them haphazardly, only to shake them a second time and refold them. “Are you going to tell Hatch?”
“No. Nick will tell him even if I swear him to secrecy. If I talk to him, I might waver. I can't take the chance of that happening. You must have noticed he doesn't call anymore.”
Smitty screwed her face into a grimace. “I noticed. I also notice you stop whatever you're doing every time the phone rings. Admit it, you want him to call.”

Other books

Tell A Thousand Lies by Atreya, Rasana
Finding Her Fantasy by Trista Ann Michaels
Pure Lust Vol. 4 by M. S. Parker
The Toxic Children by Tessa Maurer
Sinclair Justice by Colleen Shannon
Médicis Daughter by Sophie Perinot
Wishful Thinking by Elle Jefferson
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Nickeled-And-Dimed to Death by Denise Swanson
And the World Changed by Muneeza Shamsie