The Way Home (40 page)

He’d married Meg to keep her away from her stepfather. He’d been motivated by guilt as much as anything else. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that it was his friendship with Meg that had triggered Davis’s twisted rage. He’d married her to protect her and, at the same time, to assuage the guilt. He’d even, God help him, felt vaguely noble for doing it. Like the hero in one of the movies Meg so loved, he’d done the right thing, putting her needs before his own. And he’d slyly patted himself on the back for doing it.

He’d brought her to California — land of dreams — installed her in a cozy bungalow, and then gone about his life, living much as he had before the crash that had resulted in his trip home last summer, only now he had a wife at home to see to his comforts, a wife who had every reason to feel grateful to him for saving her from a terrible situation.

Ty shifted uneasily on the chair, but he couldn’t escape his thoughts. It struck him suddenly that he hadn’t spent as much time as he might have wondering how Meg felt about the abrupt change in her circumstances. He’d decided that marrying him was her only way out and he’d given her little chance to disagree.

Once married, they’d never really talked about the future. Again, he’d simply assumed they both had the same idea. Now he suddenly wondered if Meg might have had very different plans for their marriage. What if she’d been hoping to get an annulment once she turned eighteen and would be legally beyond Harlan Davis’s reach? It hadn’t even occurred to him to ask Meg how she felt about making their marriage real in every sense of the word. He’d set out to seduce her, setting the stage very carefully and succeeding in his intent. What if she hadn’t protested because she thought she owed him her virginity as a kind of payment for keeping her out of Harlan Davis’s clutches?

The thought was so repulsive that Ty shot to his feet. Oblivious to the soft thud of his book as it fell to the rug beside the bed, he strode to the window. Brushing aside the curtain, he stared out into the moon-washed chaparral that covered the hillside behind the bungalow court.

As he thought back over the past couple of months, he felt relief edge out self-recrimination. He might deserve to feel guilty about some aspects of his marriage, but not about that. It wasn’t obligation or duty that made Meg melt in his arms. Not that first night nor any of the nights since. Her response was too warm and passionate, her hunger too real.

“Ty?”

He spun from the window, crossing quickly to the bed. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

“What time is it?” Meg’s voice was soft and thick with sleep.

“Nearly ten o’clock,” he said, glancing at the clock beside the bed. He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached up to brush her hair back from her face with gentle fingers. When it began to grow dark, he’d lit the small brass lamp that sat on top of the dresser. It now provided enough light for him to read the dismay in her expression.

“So late?”

“You needed the rest. How do you feel?”

“Silly. 1 don’t know why I fainted like that.”

“The doctor says you’re run down and that you need to eat more. He says you’re too thin.”

“I guess I haven’t been eating like I should,” she said. With a guilty look, she pressed her hand against her stomach, as if apologizing to the child she carried. “I haven’t had much appetite since …”

“Since Max died,” Ty finished for her.

“I keep seeing the crash,” she admitted after a moment’s silence.

“It’s tough to forget something like that. But making yourself sick won’t bring Max back.”

“I know that.” Her sigh quivered on the edge of tears.

But that didn’t change how she felt, Ty thought, finishing the sentence for her. She’d seen a friend die and it was going to take time to put it behind her.

“Do you think you could eat some soup?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I guess.”

“You guess?” Ty repeated, raising his brows in mock offense. “I slave over a hot stove and all you can offer me is ‘I guess’? I don’t cook for just anyone, you know.”

The teasing had the desired effect. Meg smiled up at him. “In that case, I’d love some soup. But I really don’t need to be pampered like this, you know.”

“Let me decide that.” Unable to resist, Ty leaned down to brush a soft kiss across her mouth. There was more color in her cheeks than there had been earlier, but she still looked more fragile than he liked.

But not for long, he thought as he stood up from the bed. He was going to make sure that she got the care she needed. His jaw was set as he left the bedroom. It was time — and past — that he took care of his family the way he should have from the start.

“I just saw Joe.” Jack’s voice preceded him as he walked around the nose of the red Curtiss.

“Yeah?” Ty didn’t look up but simply continued with the task of polishing the fuselage.

“He says you sold him your plane.” Jack stopped a few feet away and pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes on his friend.

“You’ve been out of town this past week,” Ty said by way of answer.

“If I’d been out of town a year, I wouldn’t expect to come back and find out that you’re quitting flying and moving back to Iowa.” Jack’s tone was casual but Ty could feel the intensity of his look, sense the questions he wasn’t asking.

“It’s time I settled down,” he said, concentrating on rubbing out a minute spot that marred the bright red paint.

“How’s Meg?” Jack asked. Meg’s fainting spell had happened the day before he’d left for Seattle.

“She’s doing all right.” Satisfied that the paint gleamed as brightly as it ever would, Ty threw down the rag he’d been using and turned to look at his best friend. “The doctor said she’ll be fine but she needs rest and no worry.”

“And you think she’ll get those things in Iowa?” Jack asked, his tone noncommittal.

“I don’t know. But I know she’s not getting them now.” Now that he was no longer working on the plane, Ty was aware of the chill inside the hangar. He lifted a worn brown leather jacket from the bench where he’d tossed it and shrugged into it. Jack hadn’t said anything but Ty felt the pressure of his concern. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“She’s scared to death every time I go up,” he said, staring at the three-year-old calendar that hung, forlorn and yellowing, on the wall above the bench. “She never says anything but I can see it in her eyes. She thinks I’m not going to come back.”

“Like Max,” Jack said softly, his green eyes dark with the memory of the crash.

“Yeah. She thinks the same thing’s going to happen to me.” Without taking his hands from his pockets, he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I can’t tell her it won’t. How many pilots do we know who aren’t around anymore?”

It was a rhetorical question, and Jack didn’t try to come up with an answer. They both knew the number was depressingly high.

“You can get killed crossing a street,” Jack said instead.

“Yeah, but you’ve got to cross the street anyway. I don’t have to fly.”

“Don’t you?” Jack asked quietly. “Can you really give it up, Ty?”

Ty had asked himself the same question a hundred times this past week, and he always came up with the same answer. He gave it to Jack now.

“I have to.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s not just Meg. It’s me. I’ve got a son on the way, Jack. I want to be around to see him grow up. Giving up flying won’t guarantee that, but it increases my odds a hell of a lot.”

There was a moment of silence and then Jack spoke. “So, what are you going to do when you get to Iowa? Make your mother a happy woman and go into politics?” The change of topic told Ty that Jack understood his decision and that he wouldn’t try to talk him out of it.

“Not likely.” Ty grinned wryly, thinking that if there was anything his mother could hate more than flying, it was what he was about to do. “I’m going to try and get my grandfather’s farm going again.”

“Farming?” Jack raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Haven’t you heard we’re in the midst of a depression? Farmers pouring milk on the ground because it’s too expensive to ship it — that sort of thing? Ring any bells?”

Ty grinned at his expression, feeling a measure of Jack’s incredulity. The truth was, he thought he was more than half crazy himself. “At least I’ll be able to feed my family,” he said, shrugging.

He glanced at the Curtiss and his smile slipped a notch. Since making the decision to move back to Iowa, he hadn’t let himself think too much about what he’d be giving up. What was it Meg had said all those years ago? That flying was the closest thing she’d ever known to heaven?

“I’m getting tired of flying anyway,” Ty said abruptly.

It was a measure of Jack’s friendship that he managed to look as if he believed the blatant lie; as if he didn’t know that selling the plane had tom out a piece of Ty’s heart.

“I guess everybody has to settle down sooner or later” was all Jack said.

“Yeah.”

They were silent for a long moment. Ty drew in a deep breath, savoring the familiar scents of grease and rubber, the indefinable combination of smells that filled the hangar. God, he was going to miss this, he admitted with stark honesty. Not just the flying itself but the other pilots, the camaraderie, working with Jack.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about going home for a little while,” Jack said slowly. “All this sunshine is starting to get old.”

“I can imagine,” Ty said with a pointed look out one of the dirty windows at the rain that fell outside. “What the hell would you do in Iowa in February?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe I need a break. I could lend you a hand getting the farm into shape. Maybe look up a few old friends.”

“Like Patsy Harper?” Ty asked shrewdly.

Jack gave him a startled look. “What makes you think of her?”

“Only a fool could have missed the tension between the two of you. What goes on?”

“We dated for a while,” Jack said slowly.

“You’ve dated a lot of girls.”

“Not like Patsy.” The simple statement revealed more than he might have liked.

“She’s married, Jack.” There was no condemnation in Ty’s words, just a quiet warning.

“I know.” Jack shrugged. “I’m just thinking of having a little vacation, that’s all.”

“Iowa in February is certainly one of the vacation hot spots,” Ty said with heavy irony. But he didn’t argue any further. Jack was old enough to make his own decisions.

The silence stretched until Ty forced himself to admit that he was just trying to put off leaving.

“You can still change your mind,” Jack said, reading his mind with the ease of a long time friend.

“No.” Ty shook his head. “I’m not going to change my mind. This is the right decision for Meg and the baby. And for me.” He shrugged, his mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I guess I’ve finally figured out that you can’t have everything. I think I’m going to like being a father. I’m willing to do what I can to make sure I’m around long enough to find out.”

Ty looked at the Curtiss, now polished to within an inch of its life. Joe would take good care of the plane. He had other responsibilities now. A wife, a new baby. And a farm. Life certainly did take some interesting twists.

“I could use a drink,” he said abruptly. Turning away from the plane, he walked away without a backward glance.

CHAPTER 18

Snow flurries greeted Ty and Meg’s return to Iowa, but the weather was no colder than Helen McKendrick’s welcome. If Meg had harbored any hopes that the news about the baby would have softened her mother-in-law’s feelings toward her, she realized immediately how foolish they had been. It would take more than the news that she was to be a grandmother to soften the older woman’s implacable dislike.

“You may use Tyler’s old room,” she said with little enthusiasm.

“Thank you,” Meg whispered, thinking she’d rather sleep in a toolshed than accept her mother-in-law’s reluctant hospitality. But, of course, that wasn’t an option. Until the farmhouse could be made habitable, this would be her home and she’d just have to make the best of it. “It’s very kind of you to allow us to stay here,” she said, forcing a smile.

“When Tyler told us he was coming home, naturally we couldn’t have him staying anywhere else. This is
his
home,” Helen said, the delicate emphasis making it clear that, while it might be Ty’s home, it would certainly never be his wife’s.

If she hadn’t been so tired, Meg could almost have admired the skill with which she’d just been put in her place. But she
was
tired. The train trip had left her shaking with exhaustion and far from ready to deal with her mother-in-law. There hadn’t been room in the taxi for all of their things, so Ty and his father had gone back to the station for the remaining luggage, leaving Meg alone with the other woman.

“It’s very kind of you,” Meg repeated, unable to come up with another response. “We’ll try not to be any trouble.”

“Tyler
would certainly never cause trouble,” Helen responded with that same careful emphasis that implied that the same could not be said of Meg. If she’d been hoping that she could provoke her daughter-in-law into defending herself, she was disappointed.