The Way Home (15 page)

She pushed the front door shut with a soft thud and turned to walk into the living room. She knew what was going to happen. This time she couldn’t count on her mother to interfere, just as she’d never counted on her to interfere when her father got out his belt.

She felt completely numb. Whatever physical pain Harlan Davis inflicted couldn’t possibly compare to the ache she already felt. Bruises and belt marks eventually faded. But the ache in her heart — that was something she’d carry with her for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER 7

Saying good-bye to Meg had been harder than Ty had expected. He kept seeing her face, the pain she’d tried to hide. He’d told himself that a friendship wouldn’t do any harm, that Meg wouldn’t get hurt. But she had and it was his fault. And he’d have to live with that knowledge for a long time to come.

He’d done his best to ignore the feelings he saw in her eyes. He’d convinced himself that friendship was all Meg felt, that she didn’t want any more from him than that. But he’d been lying to himself. What was worse: He’d known she was getting in too deep, and he hadn’t done anything to stop it.

All the truisms about water under the bridge and not crying over spilled milk didn’t serve to soothe his aching conscience. He’d made the wrong decision, and because of it, someone he liked had ended up hurt. It did no good to tell himself that Meg was young enough to recover quickly from a bruised heart. Whatever she felt for him — or thought she felt — was real to her, and the pain was just as real.

The fact that it had begun raining not long after he left Meg did nothing to improve Ty’s mood. He’d put the top up on the roadster when he got home, darkness making the job twice as hard as it normally would have been. It had been foolish to leave the top down as long as he had — common sense said it should have been put up days ago, when it became obvious that summer was over. Only he hadn’t wanted to admit that undeniable fact.

The rain started out as a light shower, steadily increasing as the night wore on until somewhere near midnight, it became a downpour. Ty hadn’t bothered going to bed, knowing that sleep would be impossible. The noise of the rain beating against the windows would have made it so even if his guilty conscience hadn’t already done the job.

He tried to read, settling into his father’s big leather chair next to the radiator and picking up an issue of
The Saturday Evening Post
from the stack that had accumulated over the summer. But he couldn’t concentrate on the printed words. He couldn’t get the image of Meg’s big blue eyes out of his mind. Or forget the way her mouth had softened under his, her slim body warm in his arms.

“Dammit!” Ty shot to his feet, tossing the magazine aside. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

He strode restlessly to the front window, twitching aside the curtains to stare out into the rain-drenched darkness. How long before his parents came home? A week ago he’d been half hoping they’d decide to extend their stay in New York for a few days. Now he could hardly contain his impatience. Maybe once he left Regret, he’d be able to stop thinking about Meg and get on with his plans for the future. Plans that did not include a girl with hair the color of sun-ripened wheat and eyes as blue as a summer sky.

If she were older … Or he hadn’t already planned things out … But she wasn’t and he had and that’s all there was to it. She’d get over whatever infatuation she might have felt for him, and he’d eventually stop feeling lower than a snake’s belly and get on with his life.

He’d learned one thing for certain: The next broken bone he suffered was going to have to heal without benefit of Iowa sunshine.

Ty started to turn away from the window when something caught his eye. A half-glimpsed movement, a pale shape in the blackness outside. Ty narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the rain and darkness. There it was again, a little clearer this time, closer. Was that someone standing next to the low hedge that separated the McKendricks‘ property from the Vanderbilts‘?

The figure, hardly more than a lighter shadow in the darkness, moved again, edging closer to the house and then stopping. Ty felt a shiver run up his spine as all the childhood tales of banshees and ghosts flashed through his mind.

“Idiot,” he muttered. If there was anyone out there at all, they were probably lost — maybe their car had stalled and they were seeking shelter from the rain. They’d probably seen the light in the window.

He let the curtain fall and walked to the front door, pulling it open and flipping on the front light. The moment he stepped out onto the porch, cold, damp air cut through his shirt. He hadn’t realized how the temperature had dropped, another sign that summer was well and truly over.

“Hello?” He peered out into the darkness, seeing the figure more clearly now. A woman, he thought. “Do you need help?”

There was no answer unless he counted the fact that she swayed slightly and took a hesitant step forward. A gust of wind blew rain in under the overhang of the porch roof, making Ty shiver.

“Do you need help?” he asked again, thoughts of ghosts drifting through his mind, despite his best efforts to put them from him. There was something a little eerie about the slim, silent figure standing on the lawn at midnight.

“Ty.” His name was barely audible over the sound of the rain. Ty felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Meg. She’d been so much on his mind that, for a moment, he thought she might be a hallucination brought on by a guilty conscience.

“Meg?” He heard the disbelief in his own voice as he stepped off the porch. What on earth would she be doing here at this hour of the night?

He was wearing only heavy socks, which were soaked through the moment he stepped onto the wet grass. But he didn’t notice the discomfort. Nor did he pay any attention to the cold rain that found its way through his shirt and slid icy fingers under his collar.

“Meg?” he asked again, still not completely certain she was real.

Again there was no response. She didn’t even lift her head when he stopped in front of her. She had no umbrella, nothing to shield her from the weather. Unless he counted the faded rose-colored sweater that looked several sizes too big.

“Meg?” A convulsive shiver ran through her, but she didn’t lift her head or speak.

“What’s wrong?” He stretched one hand toward her, needing to touch her to confirm the reality of her. His fingers brushed her shoulder and she shied back like a frightened animal, her fingers twisting deeper into the wet wool of the sweater. He caught a glimpse of her face as she jerked back from him. They were just beyond the pale glow from the porch, but he didn’t need light to see the fear in her eyes. It radiated from her. He let his hand drop, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, trying to make his voice low and soothing. She was silent so long, he thought she wasn’t going to respond.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she said just when he’d given up hope of getting an answer. Her voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear it over the gurgle of water that ran through the rain gutter overhead.

She didn ‘t know where else to go? What the hell did that mean?

“Come inside.”

He stretched his hand out to her, moving slowly, trying not to startle her. She didn’t shy away this time but neither did she respond. He wasn’t sure she’d even heard him.

“Come inside,” he said again, more firmly this time. He took hold of her elbow, feeling her jerk at the light touch. But he didn’t release her. “It’s cold and wet out here. We can talk inside.” Fear was a hard, cold lump in his gut, but his voice was soft and soothing, coaxing her to trust him.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “But I didn’t know where else to go. I tried to think of somewhere but I couldn’t.” Her voice was dazed, as if she were talking to herself. She seemed unaware of the icy rain that plastered her hair to her head and soaked through her clothes.

But Ty was not so oblivious. Rain dripped off his hair and soaked his shirt so that the soft flannel clung to his shoulders and back. He’d only been outside a few minutes and he was thoroughly chilled. God alone knew how long Meg had been out in the rain, but she had to be chilled to the bone.

“You have to come inside now,” he told her. When she made no move to obey either his voice or the urging of his fingers on her elbow, Ty’s patience snapped.

Taking a quick step toward her, he bent and slid one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and swept her into his arms. She cried out, a harsh, wordless sound of fear, and her body jerked in a quick, convulsive attempt to escape, but Ty had no intention of letting her go. His arms tightened around her, controlling her struggles effortlessly as he turned toward the house.

Whatever had happened, she was so lost in the terror of it that the fear lapped out to encompass him. The thought that Meg was afraid of him was as sharp as a knife in his chest. But as he reached the top of the steps, she suddenly went limp in his hold, her slender body collapsing against him as she turned her face into his damp shirt. Ty’s arms at once tightened and gentled around her, and he felt something hard and painful twist in his chest.

He maneuvered his burden into the house, kicking the door shut behind him. He felt Meg’s body jerk in response to the thud of door meeting the frame and murmured soothingly, his arms cradling her in wordless reassurance.

The warmth inside the house contrasted sharply with the cold outside. Ty felt a shiver work its way up his spine. He carried her into the kitchen, which was the warmest room in the house. The first thing to do was to get her warm and dry, and then he could work on finding out what had happened to bring her to him in the middle of the night.

He hooked his foot around the leg of a chair and pulled it out from the table, scooting it close to the warmth of the stove. The smell of coffee lingered in the room from the pot he’d made earlier. It was probably black as sin by now, but he could heat it up and get some of it down Meg.

Meg’s fingers clung to his shirt when he tried to set her down, and Ty felt his heart contract painfully.

“It’s all right, honey,” he said, unaware of the endearment. “Let me go so I can get some towels and get you dried off.”

Her face still buried in his chest, she shook her head, her slender fingers knotted in his shirt as if clinging to a lifeline. For a moment Ty considered just sitting down with her in his lap, but he was nearly as wet as she was.

“Come on, Meg,” he coaxed. “I’m cold and you must be nearly frozen to the bone. We’re both going to catch our death of colds. I won’t go far.”

Whether it was the promise to stay close or the comment that he was cold, too, Ty didn’t know, but Meg’s fingers slowly relaxed their panicked grip, and she allowed him to set her on the chair.

“I’m going to get some towels,” he said. “You stay right here.”

She kept her head bent, her dripping wet hair falling forward to conceal her face, but she nodded slowly to indicate her understanding. Ty hesitated a moment longer, reluctant to leave her alone, wanting to demand explanations. But the goose bumps that rose on his skin reminded him that explanations had to wait.

He took the stairs three at a time, snatching an armful of towels from the linen closet and a wool bathrobe from his bedroom before hurrying back downstairs. He didn’t realize how worried he’d been that Meg might have disappeared back out into the rain until he stepped into the kitchen and saw her sitting just where he’d left her.

She was shivering convulsively, her slender body shaking with cold. Thinking it couldn’t do any harm to start warming her from the inside out, Ty turned the heat on under the aluminum percolator. Though the room was warm, he lit the oven and left the door open. At this point, he didn’t think there was such a thing as too much heat.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” he said briskly. “There’s a stack of towels so you can dry off and then wrap up in the robe. I’m going to go change into dry clothes and then we’ll get some hot coffee down you and get you warmed up. Okay?”

There was no response from her. She sat there, her head bowed, water dripping from her clothing to puddle on the floor. Rain had taken the warm gold from her hair. It clung to her skull in dull brown strands and fell around her face, so that all Ty could see was the top of her head and the curtain of wet hair.

“Meg?” The only response was the convulsive shiver that shook her shoulders.

What the hell had happened?
Ty swallowed down the fear that threatened to choke him and sank back on his heels in front of her chair. She didn’t react to his nearness, unless he counted the shivers that trembled over her.

“What’s wrong, Meg?” he asked softly. “What happened?”

But the only response was that her fingers tightened their hold on the faded sweater, her knuckles showing white under her skin.

Moving slowly, Ty reached out and slid his hand under the curtain of wet hair that concealed her face. She started and pulled her head back, trying to avoid the light touch, but he caught her arm, holding her still with gentle but implacable fingers.

“Let me see,” he said quietly, cupping his fingers under her chin. Though she remained stiff under his touch, she stopped trying to pull away, letting him tilt her face up and brush the strands of wet hair back. Though he’d been half expecting what he saw, Ty sucked in a sharp breath when he saw her face.