The Way Home (32 page)

The moment was broken — if there’d really been a moment to break. Ty’s arms relaxed around Meg, his eyes leaving her face as he lowered her to the floor. Her knees felt just a little weak but she refused to cling to his arm. It was time she grew accustomed to standing on her own two feet.

“People think actresses are shallow, you know,” Millie was saying. “Because we cry so easily.” She dabbed at her heavily made-up eyes with a scrap of linen. “But the truth is that we feel things more deeply than other people. Sensibilities, you know. I’m just loaded with them. All great actresses have tons of sensibilities. I’m real sensitive to atmosphere, too,” she continued.

“Oh, really?” Meg was incapable of a more profound response, and neither Jack nor Ty seemed interested in filling in the gap. But it didn’t matter. Millie didn’t need much encouragement.

“Oh, yes. I can always tell what people are feeling. I just sense things. Like a sponge, you know.”

“Yes, I can imagine,” Jack said.

Despite the ache in her chest, Meg had to bite her lip to hold back a smile at his dry tone.

“Sensibilities,” Millie said, nodding wisely and setting her red curls bobbing. “You either got ‘em or you don’t.”

“That’s very true,” Meg agreed, carefiil to keep her expression solemn.

Millie beamed. “I knew we were going to get along famously. Soon as I saw you two, I just knew you were the folks who’d rent this cute little bungalow. You see what I mean about sensing things? I mean, how else would I have known you were going to be the ones?”

No one seemed to have an answer to that. After a moment’s silence, which Millie seemed to take to mean they were all stumped by the profundity of her question, she beamed impartially on the three of them and took her leave.

“Don’t want to be late for my audition, you know. I’ve got a feeling this could be my big break.”

“I wouldn’t bet the farm on it,” Jack muttered as the door closed behind her.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think she’s rather impressive in an odd way,” Ty said thoughtfully.

“With the emphasis on
odd,”
Jack agreed.

The three of them looked at each other and grinned, and for a moment, all the tension was gone.

“I’ll get your things out of the car,” Jack said to Meg.

After he was gone, Meg turned slowly, admiring her new home. It wasn’t large or fancy but it was clean and bright and it was hers, at least for a little while. She wasn’t going to think about the future, about annulments and of a life without Ty. Those things could be dealt with in their own time.

“You like it?” Ty had been watching her slow inspection.

“Yes.”

“Think it’s worth thirty-five a month?” he asked teasingly, reminding her of her concern about the cost.

“It still seems like an awful lot of money, but it’s a wonderful place.”
And would be even more wonderful if they were really starting a life together.

“Where do you want this?” Jack asked as he shouldered open the door and carried in a big suitcase that Meg recognized as having been her father’s.

“The bedroom’s through there,” she said.

Jack bent and grabbed one of Ty’s suitcases on his way to the bedroom. Meg opened her mouth to protest but her glance collided with her husband’s and she said nothing. There was no reason for Jack to know that she and Ty weren’t sharing a bed. The situation was humiliating enough without other people knowing about it. Since Ty picked up the other suitcase and followed Jack into the bedroom, she assumed he felt the same.

She wandered into the small kitchen and opened the refrigerator, marveling that the coil that sat on top of it like a hat was to take the place of having ice delivered. What a convenience that would be. It was empty now, of course. She’d have to find out about buying food — where the nearest store was, how she could get there. She was a better than average cook. She might not be a wife in every sense of the word, but Ty would certainly never go hungry. It was nice to think that she’d be able to do something for him.

Meg was making a mental list of the things she’d need to start preparing meals when someone knocked on the front door. Thinking it was Millie, with some new tidbit of personal information she wanted to reveal, Meg started toward the door. She’d barely made it out of the kitchen before the knocking came again, louder this time, and a masculine voice came through the door.

“No sense trying to hide, Tyler McKendrick. We know you’re in there.”

Meg stopped short, one hand coming up to rest on the base of her throat, her pulse suddenly beating much too quickly. Her first thought was that it must be the police. That even from two thousand miles away, Harlan Davis had found a way to set the law on them. Her eyes flew to Ty and Jack, who had just walked out of the bedroom.

“I suppose I have you to thank for this,” Ty said, throwing Jack a disgusted look.

“I might have happened to mention your address to one or two people,” Jack admitted with a shrug.

Neither of them seemed concerned and Meg dared to draw a shallow breath. As if sensing her anxiety, Ty gave her a quick, reassuring smile as he opened the door. The room filled with people in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Not just people, but large, masculine people — dozens of them, or so it seemed. They were all laughing and talking at once, and it took her a minute or two to sort them out and realize that there were only six of them.

“Jack here just happened to mention that you were back in town. Not only back but that you’d gone and got yourself married and were moving into a new place and that you hadn’t bothered to tell any of your friends about it.” The man who was speaking was tall and lanky, with a lean, serious-looking face and a head of thick, dark-brown curls. His voice had a long, Texas drawl to it.

“Jack seems to have been busy,” Ty said, giving Jack a mock annoyed look.

“Some folks would think that you bein‘ back in town and not tellin‘ us and all meant that you wanted some privacy,” the man continued. “But we discussed the matter and decided you were just bein‘ polite, not wanting to bother your friends with a housewarming.”

“So, naturally, you decided to come over and warm my house whether I like it or not,” Ty said, grinning.

“That’s about it. Besides, none of us could sleep last night just wondering what kind of a girl had managed to throw a rope around your neck. We figured she’d have to be something pretty special.”

“I’ll let you decide that yourself.” Ty turned to where Meg stood with her back pressed against a wall and held out his hand. “Come and meet these apes who call themselves friends of mine. They’re not as bad as they look. Most of them are even housebroke.”

Meg came forward hesitantly, taking Ty’s hand and feeling his fingers close reassuringly strong over hers. She caught only about half of the introductions. They were all pilots Ty had worked with at one time or another. The Texan was Joe Long, a name that was more than appropriate, considering his size. His hand swallowed hers but his smile was open and friendly. There was Billy Lawrence, who had white-blond hair and pale eyes and a smile that revealed slightly buck teeth. Then there were two brothers who looked so much alike that Meg could only remember that one was Clive and one was Clint and she hadn’t the faintest idea which was which.

The final introduction was Max Sinclair, the youngest of the bunch, not more than two or three years older than Meg herself. He had a shock of blazing red hair and blue eyes that smiled at her with such shy admiration that Meg found herself blushing as she shook his hand.

“Very pleased to meet you, Mrs. McKendrick,” he said.

“Please, call me Meg. All of you,” she added, encompassing the others in her smile. “I don’t think I’d know who you were talking to if you called Mrs. McKendrick.”

“We’d all be honored,” Joe said. He seemed to be the spokesman for the small group. “I figured any gal Ty married would be right pretty, but I shoulda known he’d find himself an out-and-out beauty. And a smile like an angel. You’re a lucky dog, Ty.”

Meg blushed to the roots of her hair, barely hearing Ty’s agreement. Of course he’d agreed. What else could he do? He could hardly tell these men the truth about his marriage. It was starting to occur to her that this whole situation was much more complex than she’d imagined. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d be meeting Ty’s friends and that they’d naturally assume that their marriage was a real one. It was going to make it that much harder to untangle their lives when the time came. But it was much too late to worry about that now. For now she could only play the role of Ty’s wife and try not to forget that it was only a temporary part.

The weeks that followed were some of the happiest that Meg had ever known. It wasn’t long before Ty was working on a more or less steady basis — some of it stunts for the movies, some more mundane trips carrying passengers or small cargo. But Meg didn’t have a chance to be lonely. She wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but the bungalow seemed to become a kind of unofficial clubhouse for temporarily grounded pilots. Most evenings two or three of them dropped by to play cards or listen to the radio
— Amos and Andy
was a prime favorite.

At first, she’d assumed it was friendship for Ty that brought them. But on the rare occasions when he was gone in the evening, she still had plenty of company. Jack, of course — she noticed that he made it a point to be there when Ty couldn’t be. But Max Sinclair was there almost as often, along with Joe and Billy Lawrence and half a dozen others who’d dropped by to introduce themselves the first week they were in the bungalow.

When she thought about it, Meg assumed that her cooking was a good part of the attraction. Pilots, she came to realize, were generally broke. They spent money faster than they made it, on everything from the pair of ivory-handled Colts that had earned Joe the sobriquet of “Tex” to the shiny new Lincoln on which Max had spent most of a year’s earnings.

They were like no one else she’d ever encountered. Fun loving, freewheeling, prone to practical jokes and taking wild chances. All of them loved flying with a passion that bordered on obsession, leaving them just a little awkward when they weren’t in the air, like birds that didn’t know quite what to do with themselves on the ground.

She was a little surprised that she was so comfortable around them since she’d never thought of herself as someone who made friends easily. But it occurred to her that she’d always liked children, and that, in many ways, it was like having a houseful of overgrown boys most of the time.

What she didn’t realize was that it wasn’t her cooking that brought them. It was the feeling of home she created. For some of them, it was a chance to glimpse the home they’d left behind months or years before. For others, it was a look at a warmth they’d never known. But for all of them, Meg McKendrick provided something solid and comforting in the crazy spin that was the life they’d chosen to lead.

Meg could have been completely happy if only her marriage had been everything she’d once dreamed.

Ty was pleased to see Meg settle so easily into her new life. Life in southern California was quite a change for a girl raised in rural Iowa. But Meg seemed to take to the sunshine and the more casual atmosphere like a duck to water. She seemed happy, and there’d been too little of that in her life. He’d never had any doubt about how his friends would take to her, but he hadn’t been as sure about her liking them. But within a matter of a couple of weeks, she’d become a combination mascot and den mother.

He was glad to see her so happy. Really he was. But he’d have been more glad if he’d been able to go to sleep at night without thinking of her in the wide bed that took up more than its fair share of the small bedroom. Or if he hadn’t been able to imagine just how she’d look while she was bathing in the claw-footed tub that dominated the bathroom.

Ty would sit on the sofa and listen to the water run, picturing her pinning her hair up on top of her head. Then she’d turn the water off and his mouth would go dry as he imagined the plain white terry robe sliding from her shoulders to pool on the blue linoleum. She’d be stepping into the water now, sinking down so that it lapped around her bare shoulders, maybe closing her eyes with pleasure …

His own eyes would close as hunger dug sharp claws into his gut, threatening to overwhelm his determination to give her time and space to heal. Only an insensitive lout would make demands before she was ready. Unfortunately, he was beginning to wonder just how long his self-control would hold out. Living in the same house with her day after day, seeing her all sleepy-eyed and tousled in the morning, watching her laugh with his friends, Ty found himself wanting her more and more.

Cold showers and stem mental lectures did little more than sharpen his temper. He took to spending more time at the airfield, taking on jobs that would keep him away from home overnight, trusting to Jack to keep an eye on her. Lord knew, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself anymore.

Early in November, the rainy season arrived with an unseasonable cloudburst that put a halt to most flying for three days. Deprived of their usual occupation, half a dozen pilots descended on the McKendrick bungalow every afternoon and evening. The faces changed from time to time as someone left and someone else arrived, but there were rarely fewer than three large, restless men parked on the sofa or at the table, playing poker or talking or staring gloomily out at the rain that was keeping them grounded.