Lone Tree (38 page)

She contacted old friends but saw little of them,
not ready yet to enter relationships, any kind. She learned Jason was again
engaged and hoped fate would be kinder this time and no one in either family
would become ill.

Outside her apartment was a graveled courtyard with
a wrought-iron bench beneath a magnolia tree. As she arrived home on a windy
evening, apartment key ready in her hand, a familiar voice hailed her. She
froze, then turned and saw Miles rising from the bench. Quickly, her gaze
searched the yard.

“I’m alone.” He waited where he was, not pushing.
But he was pushing simply by being there. “May I come in? It’s cold out here.”

As she stared at the big man, who appeared
uncharacteristically meek, she examined her emotions. Surprise, wariness, even
affection. But surprisingly no anger. She was glad to note that the bitterness
was behind her.

She gave him a brief nod, unlocked the door, waited
for him and then followed him inside.

“How long did it take you to find me?” she asked,
getting out of her coat.

In the middle of the small room he turned to face
her. “Got your address some time back. Had to work up the courage to come
visit.”

Surprised with that last sentence, she hung her coat
up and took his. She started a pot of coffee. “Does Reed know you’re here?”

“Nope. He would’ve wanted to come with me, but this
was something you and I need to work through on our own.”

The truth of that statement coursed through her,
leaving her feeling limp. And grateful. Maybe there was hope for her and her
grandfather. She swallowed, looked at the pink-tiled countertop and tried to
sort through her thoughts.

“You wanted so much to slug me that last night,” he
said, voice bland. “You might want to know that Reed did it for you.”

She looked up and met his gaze. “Good.”

His eyes lit briefly with amusement, then once again
he sobered. “When he found out the next morning you were gone, he blew. Thought
I’d lose him, too. He came close to quitting. If he’d known then that you
wouldn’t be returning, I believe he would’ve quit. But he bided his time,
waiting for you, and stayed on.”

She took cups out of the cabinet, placed them
precisely on either side of the coffee maker. Miles’s talk of Reed seemed to
bring the man she loved with all her being into the room, yet made his absence
feel even more raw. She worked at fighting both emotions.

“I need to tell you I’m sorry, Lainie.”

Her hands stilled. “So am I.” Her voice sounded
small.

“Took me a long time to say that. Better than
twenty-five years. I couldn’t stop your mother, but I could’ve come after her
once I found out where she was. She might’ve come back home if I’d asked her
to, but I kept thinking she’d return by herself. She had so little choice—on
her own like that, a baby to take care of. But she was made of stronger stuff
than I gave her credit for. You’re strong enough to make it on your own, too, I
know. But I still want you to come back home. Please.”

Home
, he’d said. But Lone Tree wasn’t
her home. The thought stabbed her.

The coffee was ready. She filled the mugs and put
them on the table. She wished she had something sweet to offer him but didn’t
even have a bag of cookies. When he took a chair at the table, his size dwarfed
the small dinette. She poured milk into each cup directly from the carton then
sat opposite him.

When she didn’t speak, he went on. “I was wrong and
I admit it. But think about this, Lainie. As far as your mother knew, I didn’t
have the slightest idea where she was, but she always knew exactly where I was.
That was the choice she made.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“When you were born, I came so close, but...” He
sighed heavily, then lurched to his feet and walked to the window to stare
outside. “Instead I let stupid pride rule me and watched you grow up from a
distance. By the time your mother got sick, it was too late. I couldn’t undo
anything, couldn’t change anything. Found out I had no control after all.
None.”

Restlessly, he turned and walked to the end table
where Lainie had placed a framed portrait of Walter and Elizabeth and herself.
“Seemed he was good to her, good for her. Like they had a good marriage.” He
sounded hopeful.

“Yes. They did.”

He looked back at her. “I was worse than
flabbergasted when you showed up last year. And suspicious.” She made no
response, but he made a dismissive gesture with his hand as if she had. “Well,
think about it. No way could that have been coincidence. Seemed like now that
your mother was dead, you planned on claiming the inheritance she hadn’t wanted.
I was going to give you all the rope you needed to hang yourself. But...”

He stopped and shook his head, as if at his own
reasoning. “But ever since you were born, Lone Tree was going to be yours
anyway.”

Lainie had been looking at her hands in her lap. At
his words, her head snapped up. “No. How could I...” She shook her head. “No,
Miles.”

“You told me what you’d do if I ever gave you
anything.”

She winced. “My words and my responsibility—but I am
my mother’s child, and my grandfather’s.”

He laughed. “You got that right, Lainie Sue.”

“The ranch should go to Reed. You know that. He
loves it as much as you do and will do justice by it. If you leave it to me,
I’ll just give it to him, so why put me in the middle?”

“Because that’s where you are.” His voice held
finality.

But again she shook her head, exhibiting, she
supposed, the same sense of finality.

He said, hope still in his voice, yet something else
signaling the defeat he must fear, “Come back with me, Lainie.”

“I can’t.”

“Reed had nothing to do with what happened. Don’t
hold that against him.”

“I don’t.” She sighed, then looked at the window,
the door, the walls, as if she might find the words she needed on them. He
waited patiently, and she was grateful he didn’t attempt to railroad her. Finally,
she said, “Look around you. This is where I live. Not just in this apartment,
but the area, the state, this part of the country. I tried to uproot myself,
but I never really felt at home on the ranch. Then, leaving the way I did...”
She paused fractionally, aware of his flinch, then went on. “I realized there’s
no going back. Like you said, we can’t undo what’s done. And, Miles, you didn’t
do that all by yourself. I set it up, started it rolling. But now I’m finally
back where I belong.”

“What about Reed?”

Lowering her gaze, she wrapped her hands around her
coffee mug. “If I can get over him, he can get over me.”

“Not that easy,” he said quietly. “For either one of
you.”

She didn’t look up.

“He’s changed, Lainie. I see it because I did it,
too, after I lost your grandmother. He still does the same thorough job, but
he’s lost the joy of life, of work. All the ranch hands notice. I can tell by
the way they act around him.”

Unbidden, pictures flashed into her mind: Reed in
the red truck, astride Irish, walking up to her at the Cooper house with both
hope and uncertainty in his eyes.

Miles returned and sat at the table. “I don’t miss
the irony here. I tried as hard as I could to break up an affair between your
mother and a no-account loser, and I couldn’t do it. But I managed, without
even trying, to break up the relationship between you and a man I couldn’t love
more even if he were my own son.”

He reached, took her hand. “I have even less control
over you than her,” he said softly, and she gave him a slow nod. He went on,
“If you won’t come back home, then that’s the way it is. But we’re okay. You
and me, we’re okay.”

Again she nodded, and then she squeezed his hand,
not trusting her voice enough to speak.

“Then I’ll have to settle for that,” he said.

Lainie cooked a meatloaf for dinner—covered with
gravy instead of tomato sauce, the way Miles liked it. He slept on the sofa
bed. The next day she arranged for time off from work to drive him to SFO. As
they stood on the curb outside the terminal, she felt a sweet mixture of
sadness and affection for the old man she’d at one time wanted to hit.

“The only other time I called you by your rightful
title, it wasn’t with love,” she said with moist eyes. Then she hugged him, her
arms around him as tight as she could make them. “But I did learn to love you,
Grandfather. And I’m so glad I had the chance to do that.”

He said nothing, but his answering hug was just as
long and just as tight.

Healing was slow. Lainie merely accepted the
dragging time. She felt incapable of emotion, as if she’d left that part of
herself in Texas.

She kept busy, reading a book a week, volunteering
at charity centers. She bought another exercise tape. Deciding she needed a
change, she stopped highlighting her hair. Once the last of the blond was cut
off, she wasn’t pleased with the new look but gave it time. She got a raise at
work and her rent went up the same month. She realized a net increase of five
dollars and was grateful she wasn’t five bucks in the hole instead.

The company held its employee picnic in June, and
she signed up for the softball game. When she looked for something to wear, she
realized her western shirt with the glaring colors was missing. She’d left
Sacramento in such a blurred hurry, she’d probably left it there. A minor loss,
yet her eyes still burned. Shrugging it off, she donned a blue cotton pullover
and old jeans. One thing she didn’t miss was boots. Her beat-up sneakers felt
like comfortable friends.

The game had barely started when she concluded that
riding a horse was safer than playing softball. Instead of rounding second
base, she tripped over it and scraped her shin bloody. She played shortstop and
in self-defense caught a line drive hit straight at her. It knocked her off her
feet, taking the breath out of her, and she landed hard on her rump. Her next
time at bat she hit into a double play and collided with the first baseman. She
got the worst of it, and he clearly felt so bad about it that he spent the rest
of the day trying to make it up to her.

At the end of the game, she spied him again on his
way over. She smiled, forestalling another apology. “Hey, don’t worry about it.
I was an accident waiting to happen every time I got out on the field. It
wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. I’ve decided to forgive you for letting me
knock you on your can.” He had a nice smile. “Been wondering where you’re from.
Got to be somewhere in the south.”

With an inward twinge she jerked her gaze away, then
made herself look back. “Actually, I was born right here in California. But I
spent a year in Texas. Guess I picked up a little of the accent.”

“I’d call it a lot, not a little. But I like it
enough to want to hear more. Will you go out to dinner with me?”

“Oh. Uh...”

He grinned. “It’s the least you can do after running
into me so hard that you fell down.”

Would she ever be free of Texas and capable of
starting a new life?

At her silence, he glanced down at his ragged jeans
and well-worn sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. “Hey, I don’t mean like
this. I don’t look half-bad when I get dressed up.”

“It’s not...uh, I mean...” She forced herself to
stop and start over. “What I mean is, I can’t. I’m just getting over someone,
and, well, thank you anyway.” She didn’t know what he saw in her eyes, but
sympathy formed in his. She managed a smile, easing the awkwardness by a
fraction. Then when she turned away she forced herself not to run to her car.
That night she cried herself to sleep.

The first Monday in August the phone rang at 7:00
a.m. and had her rushing out of the shower. She grabbed it on the fourth ring,
thinking something must be wrong at work. The oversized towel she’d wrapped
around herself didn’t protect the carpet as beaded water dripped onto it.

“Miss Lainie Johnson, please.” She caught the accent—pure
Texas—but didn’t recognize the man’s voice. She identified herself, caught her
reflection in the mirrored closet doors and the frown lines that furrowed her
brow.

“This is Stuart Malcolm, Lainie,” said the precisely
correct voice, and she realized why she hadn’t recognized it. A strain she’d
not heard before distorted the lawyer’s speech. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Numbness started in her gut. She sat on the bed,
unmindful of the dampness seeping into the bedding.

“Rosalie found Miles yesterday morning. She’d
thought he was just sleeping later than usual, but...he...well.” She heard him
clear his throat. “He died in his sleep,” he blurted out, the words rushing
together. “Stroke. Massive. He didn’t suffer, Lainie. Too quick. Doc Talbot says
he just went to sleep and never woke up.”

Her gaze found the envelope propped next to her
purse with his name on it, the birthday card she was going to mail today. He
hadn’t made seventy-seven. He’d missed it by five days.

Stuart’s voice droned on. He seemed to want
something from her, but she couldn’t break out of her stupor. She’d lost
everyone. No one was left with whom she could share this loss, and she felt
lonelier than ever before in her life. When she broke into loud racking sobs,
she hung up. In the midst of the tears she thanked God over and over again for
Miles’s trip to California last year. She and her grandfather had found each
other, and they’d made peace.