When Love Finds a Home (13 page)

As soon as she left, Rona
collapsed against the back of the chair. That had been close. She wondered
again if Anna could have seen or heard something. She went to stand in the same
spot where Anna was and slowly stepped back. Anna would have had a clear view
of the desk long before she reached the end of the hallway. Shaken, Rona went
back to the desk and tried to remember how much time had passed between her
replacing the keys under the desk and Anna speaking. She couldn't be certain of
the exact amount, but it couldn't have been but a few seconds. There was a strong
possibility Anna saw her putting the keys back.

Rona sat staring at the
computer screen. If she saw her, why hadn't she said anything?
I
would
have seen her,
she reassured herself as she turned in the chair and looked
at the doorway.
If she had been standing there, I would have seen her.

Several minutes later, she was
busy typing when the door opened and Anna came in with a man who looked like
one of those wooden caricatures of a cowboy. He was tall and thin. His face was
craggy and sun-baked. Work-roughened hands with arthritic knuckles swollen to
twice their normal size cradled a professionally blocked, black Stetson.
Beneath the unbuttoned sheepskin jacket, Rona could see the front of a white
Western dress shirt and a silver medallion bolo tie. Black jeans encased legs
bowed from years of being on horseback. An expensive pair of calfskin boots
polished to a brilliant luster completed his outfit. His steel-blue eyes held
her attention. It was hard to look away from them. She found herself thinking
about something her father had once said about God being able to see directly
into one's soul.

"Mr. Tanner, this is Rona
Kirby. She's going to be helping us out for a while."

He stepped forward and
extended his hand. "Mornin', ma'am. I'm Ethan Tanner."

Rona shook his hand, surprised
by the gentleness of his voice. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Tanner. Would
you like a cup of coffee? There's a fresh pot."

He smiled and nodded. "I
surely would, but that crackpot of a doctor my daughter insists I see has cut
me back to one cup a day. Since I gave my word, I'll have to pass, but I thank
you kindly for the offer."

"My office is this
way," Anna said, gesturing.

Mr. Tanner nodded. "It
was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kirby. If you're ever in Midland, look us up
and we'll throw another steak on the grill."

His offer sounded so genuine
that she found herself smiling and agreeing to do so.

Chapter Fourteen

Anna's meeting with Tanner
lasted over two hours. Anna walked him out. As soon as they left the office,
Rona raced down the hall to Anna's office. The room was sparsely furnished with
gray modular furniture. A quick search of the desk drawers and overhead bins
revealed nothing of value. She tried the file cabinets but found them locked.
Disappointed, she rushed back down the hall to Neal's office but found his door
locked as well. She trotted back to Sharon's desk and grabbed the keys. The
first one she tried didn't work; the second one did. His desk wasn't locked,
but the only thing she found was seventy-five cents in change. She ignored it
and quickly left his office.

By the time Anna returned,
Rona was busy typing.

"How did it go?" she
asked as Anna came in.

"Good. He liked the
proposals I showed him." She sat in the side chair. "He has invited
us all up for his annual Easter barbecue. If the investments I set up for him
do well, he could send other clients our way."

Rona nodded. "Sounds like
a productive morning."

"How are you doing?"
Anna asked.

"Okay. I know I'm
slow."

Anna rubbed a finger over her
eyebrow. Rona had come to recognize the gesture as one she made when she was
thinking. "This is only the first week in February. How long do you think
it will take you?"

Rona counted the number of
entries she had completed in the last two and a half hours and did some quick
calculations. Each entry was taking a little more than a minute. "I can
probably finish inputting the addresses in about six or seven hours."

Anna nodded. "Good. I'm
hoping to have them in the mail by the end of the week."

Rona swallowed her
disappointment. Anna had said the job would be for a couple of weeks. It looked
like she might have to move faster than she had anticipated.

"Did you notice the sun
is shining?" Anna asked.

Rona turned to look out the
window. "The snow won't last long now."

"It's already starting to
turn slushy." She stood. "I need to do a couple of more things before
I'm ready to leave. If you get hungry, there are some chips and things in the
cabinets above the microwave. Just help yourself."

"I'm fine, thanks."

As Anna walked away, Rona
thought about the money in the petty cash box. If she finished the mail-out
before the end of the week, she probably wouldn't have a chance to grab the
money without Sharon being around. She might be able to take it now and it
wouldn't be noticed until after she was gone, but with no way of knowing how
often Sharon opened the box she was afraid to take the chance. Her salary for a
week's work would be much more that the pittance in the petty cash fund. She
wasn't going to do anything to risk losing the salary. If she was able to grab
the cash on the way out, great, and if not, she'd have to live without it.

She pushed away the thoughts
of the money and turned her attention to the mailing list. By the time Anna was
finally ready to
leave, several more
names and addresses had been inserted into the database.

Anna helped her log off the
computer before handing her an envelope.

"What's this?" Rona
asked. She noticed that Anna was once more wearing her tennis shoes.

"It's your pay for the
morning. If I pay you today, you'll start with a clean slate on Monday and be
able to work a full forty hours."

Rona took the envelope and
experienced a strange sense of pride and confusion. Unable to comprehend her
feelings she folded the envelope and slipped it into her pocket unopened.
"Thanks," she muttered.

"I hope you don't mind,
but I paid you in cash. Since you only worked five hours, I didn't withhold
anything." Before Rona could respond, Anna waved her toward the door.
"Let's go home. I'm hungry."

As they left, Anna was careful
to lock the office door as well as the door at the front entrance.

The drastic increase in the
temperature from earlier that morning surprised Rona. "It must be in the
forties already," she said as they made their way to the car. The snow was
quickly disappearing.

Anna handed Rona the keys.
"I think I'd still rather wait until a lot more of it has melted before I
try driving."

Rona took the keys.

"Do you mind if we stop
by the grocery store?" Anna asked as she fastened her seatbelt. "I
noticed we were low on a few things."

"No. I don't mind,"
Rona said as she cranked the car and eased it out of the parking lot. Her back
ached from sitting all day. She was accustomed to being on her feet most of the
time.

Anna gave her directions to
the store she wanted to go to, then reached over and switched on the radio.

Rona's breath caught as music
flooded through the car's interior and brought with it a rush of painful
memories. She struggled to close her ears and block the burning riffs of the
lead guitar, but it was persistent and continued until it found a weak seam and
little by little plucked away her defenses. Slowly the rhythm took over her
body, causing her fingers and feet to move in time. She could almost feel the
cold ivory piano keys kiss her fingertips, first as individual notes and then
stretching her hands to encompass whole chords. She was powerless to stop the
chords from reinserting themselves into her muscle memory. Her fingers began to
move in unison with those notes and chords pouring from the radio. Unbidden
lyrics crowded together at the back of her throat begging to be set free. The
vague smell of stale beer and cigarettes intertwined with the music to send her
spiraling back to those glorious nights. She squinted her eyes against the
searing stage lights, as her heart pounded in time with the thumping rock bass line.
Her blood pulsed in time with the gyrations of hot, sweaty dancers. The plywood
stage shook in time to Eric's booming bass drum. Zac's bass guitar plucked at
her heart. Lenny's lead guitar made her body hum like tightly drawn wires, and
afterward when they were at last alone at home, there were Mary's hands and
hungry kisses to release that tension and send her spiraling into another
dimension of pleasure. Abrupt silence snatched the dream away and sent it
swirling into a cesspool of disappointment and heartache.

Anna's hand was on her
shoulder. Her mouth was moving. It took Rona a moment to clear the memory of
the music from her head.

"What's wrong?" Anna
said.

Rona looked around her.
Somehow, even while daydreaming, she had driven them to the grocery store
parking lot. This couldn't be right. The images of the band and Mary had been
so real. Where had they gone? She sniffed, searching for the stale beer and
cigarette smell that had been so prominent only a moment ago. All she could
detect now was the vague scent of lavender.

"Are you all right?"

Rona nodded. "I'm just
tired." She threw the car door open and
let the cold air clear the dying strains of music from her mind. Those
days were gone and could never be recaptured. Mary was dead. Zac, Lenny and
Eric had moved on with their lives. It was time she did the same. She had a
temporary job and, come Monday, she would start looking for a full-time position.
Music no longer meant anything to her.

Anna grabbed a grocery cart
from the long chain lined up outside the door.

As the made their way down the
aisle, Rona ignored the lyrics that popped into her head to accompany the
rhythmic clunk of the wheels on the grocery cart. There were only a handful of
shoppers in the store, so they were able to move quickly through the aisles.

"Do you like
seafood?" Anna asked as she studied the selections of fresh fish.

"Yeah, as long as it's
fresh. I can't stand canned tuna. Even as a kid, I wouldn't eat it. For some
reason, I always associated it with cat food."

"Don't put that thought
in my head," Anna said as she wrinkled her nose. "I like tuna
casserole. When I was a teenager, my father would leave the house whenever I'd make
it." She ordered some shrimp and a large salmon filet. "I love
grilled salmon." She placed the items in the cart. "We need milk and
eggs," she stated, turning the cart toward the back of the store.
Afterward as they made their way to the checkout counter, Anna stopped and
picked up a bag of cookies. "Do you think I should get these for the
kids?"

"No," Rona answered
seriously. "Tammy only lets them eat Oreos."

"Oh." Anna replaced
the bag and reached for the Oreos. "Why only these?"

Rona hid her smile by walking
away.

"I think I was just
conned," Anna said as she began to unload the groceries at the checkout.
"Why am I getting the feeling that it's you who likes Oreos?"

Rona gave an exaggerated shrug
and tried to look innocent.

"That's what I
thought." She stopped abruptly.

"What's wrong?"

"I forgot to get a red
onion."

"I'll get it," Rona
said and raced off". By the time she returned, the rest of the groceries
were bagged and the cashier was waiting for her.

As they were leaving the
store, they passed a young man sweeping the sidewalk. Rona watched him as the
swish,
swish, swish
of the broom produced a perfect counterpoint to the cart's
clunking wheels. She stepped off the sidewalk and almost fell. Feeling silly,
she rushed to catch up with Anna.

"I'll hold the eggs and
bread," Anna said as they put the last of the bags into the trunk of her
car. She turned to Rona. "You seem tired. Would you like for me to
drive?"

Rona shook her head. "I'm
fine," she reassured her, grabbing the empty cart and pushing it over to a
holding stall. The cold wind made her rush back. She squirmed under Anna's
watchful gaze as she cranked the car and drove out of the parking lot. When she
was safely on the road, Anna reached into the grocery bag containing the eggs
and removed something.

"Here, I thought you
might like these."

Rona glanced over to see a
small individual-sized package of Oreos and was surprised by the strong
emotions that raced through her. She realized Anna must have gotten them from
the display shelf at the checkout counter while she was going after the onion.

"I really did forget the
onion," she said as if reading Rona's thoughts. "Shall I open these
for you?"

Rona could only nod.

"I've never eaten many
store-bought cookies."

Rona made a face before
repeating the phrase. "Store-bought cookies?"