The Way Home (54 page)

Jack turned away from her and jammed his fingers through his hair, aware that now it was
his
hand that was not quite steady. Damn, but how did she do this to him? It had been five years and he had every reason to hate her. Why didn’t he?

“It’s a nice house,” he said, filling the awkward silence.

“Thank you.” There was a pause and then: “Why are you here, Jack?”

“Damned if I know,” he admitted with a half laugh. He turned back to her with a shaky laugh. “If I had any sense, I’d have stayed away. I’d have never come within a mile of you.” The bitter humor in his voice made Patsy flush. She dropped her eyes to her hands, which were linked together in front of her, the knuckles showing white with the force of her grip.

“I know you have every right to hate me,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t blame you, if you did.”

“Couldn’t you?”

A beam of sunlight had found its way through the filmy curtains and then gotten itself tangled in her hair, picking out the gold highlights in the soft brown curls. Hardly aware of his actions, Jack reached up to touch his fingertips to that sunlit area.

“Jack.” It was a warning but he ignored it, responding instead to the ache in her voice, an ache that matched the one in his gut.

His fingers threaded through her hair, finding her sensitive nape, feeling her shiver at the touch.

“Jack, please.”

He didn’t know whether Patsy was pleading with him to let her go or to continue what he’d begun. He doubted she knew. His eyes holding hers, he drew her closer. Her hands came up against his chest but she didn’t push him away. Jack lowered his head until his mouth hovered a whisper away from hers.

This was crazy. It was wrong.
But it had been five years since anything had felt so right.

He felt the shudder that ran through her as his mouth touched hers. Five years, he thought. Five years and she still tasted of sunshine and mint. And then he stopped thinking at all but only felt. Felt the half-forgotten fire race through his veins, felt the familiar pressure of her body against his as she melted into his embrace.

It was so right. Nothing had ever been like this.

His mouth slanted over hers, deepening the kiss. Patsy’s fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in the world at that moment, just as she was the only thing in his. He kissed her with the hunger of a man long denied, with a need only she had ever been able to fulfill.

It was heaven. It was homecoming. It was completion after all these long years. And then Patsy tore her mouth from his, her hands suddenly pushing frantically against his chest.

“No. No. No.” She repeated the single word in a breathless rush as she jerked away from him.

Their eyes met and Jack saw a wild tangle of emotion in hers. She looked as if she were being torn apart inside. She looked just the way he felt. Jack reached out in automatic response to her pain but, with a moan of denial, Patsy turned and ran from the room. From him.

He stood in the middle of the tidy little living room, listening to the sound of a door slam somewhere in the back of the house. The room still smelled of wax and lavender, but it seemed as if the sun must have gone behind a cloud, because it was suddenly dark and gloomy.

Moving slowly, like a man recovering from an illness, Jack left the house, stepping out into bright spring sunshine, with not a cloud in sight. He shouldn’t have come here, he thought as he started the car. He’d known better, known that nothing but trouble could come of him seeing Patsy. Looking over his shoulder, Jack backed the car out onto the road. It had been a mistake to open old wounds. But as he looked at the plain white house, he knew he’d be back.

CHAPTER 23

Ty and Meg had been living on the farm for three weeks when his parents came for Sunday dinner after church. It had been Meg’s suggestion. Though she could have gone to her grave without ever seeing Helen McKendrick again, she had developed an affection for her father-in-law. And even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want Ty to lose touch with his family because of her.

The visit was a modest success. Ty had never told her what he’d said to his mother the night he’d made the decision to move out to the farm immediately, but whatever it was, it must have made an impression on her. While Helen was far from warm, she did seem to be striving for something approaching cordiality. She didn’t go so far as to compliment Meg on the meal, but she did mention that the fried chicken was quite pleasant — this was said with a thin smile that made Meg think the words caused a physical pain.

But she’d made the effort and that was more than Meg had expected her to do. All in all, the afternoon was not
unpleasant,
and that was all Meg could have hoped for. She thought perhaps her feelings were shared by the others, because there seemed to be a general feeling of relief when the older couple prepared to leave.

Ty and his father had already gone outside and were standing on the porch talking. The women had been delayed by the necessity of Meg fetching her mother-in-law’s sweater from the bedroom. But when Meg returned to the entryway, Helen was in the living room. Reluctantly, Meg followed her.

The living room, like the rest of the house, was sparsely furnished. So far, the one permanent item was a sofa, upholstered in an undistinguished blue fabric. It had been given to them by Ty’s mother, with the admonition that it had belonged to his maternal great-aunt Eulalie, who’d died quite young, and that they were to take care of this family heirloom. It was Meg’s theory that the discomfort of sitting on the sofa might have contributed to Aunt Eulalie’s early demise, but she hadn’t said as much.

She draped Helen’s sweater over her arm and waited to hear some complaint about the positioning of the sofa or that the bare surroundings hardly did it justice. But the older woman walked past the sofa and stopped at the quilting frame that sat near one of the windows where it caught plenty of light. The quilt was stretched between narrow boards that were laid across the backs of four chairs, and Meg had covered it with a sheet to protect it from sun and dust.

Meg winced when Ty’s mother flipped back the sheet. She’d finished the top only last week, an overall pattern of blue and white pieced baskets filled with appliqued flowers in a variety of warm pastels. She’d been happy with her efforts, but she had no doubt that her mother-in-law would soon point out the error of her ways.

“I’ve just started the quilting,” Meg said, hating the apologetic sound of the words and yet unable to hold them back.

“
You
made this?” Helen turned to look at her, making the question sound accusing.

“Yes.”

Helen turned to look at the quilt again, bending close as if searching for a flaw. She was frowning when she straightened up. “The workmanship is … quite fine,” she said. She sounded so disgruntled that Meg bit the inside of her lip to hold back a smile.

“Thank you.” She hesitated a moment, debating her next words. But if they were ever to achieve any kind of decent relationship, it was going to be up to her to find a middle ground. “I could make you a quilt, if you’d like,” she offered.

Helen’s face tightened and her mouth pursed as if she’d just tasted something unpleasant. Meg held her breath, waiting for the curt rejection she’d laid herself open to. Helen’s eyes flickered to the exquisitely worked quilt and she frowned.

“That would be kind of you,” she said slowly. “Perhaps we could discuss patterns and colors at a later date.”

Meg was so stunned by her acquiescence that it took her a moment to find her voice. “I — I’d be happy to,” she stammered uncertainly.

“Of course, quilting is such a
useful
kind of hobby,” Helen said. She flicked the sheet back over the quilt before turning to take her coat from Meg. “I never learned. My mother thought most needlework better left to the lower classes, except for perhaps a little tatting or embroidery.” Having carefully reestablished their relative positions in society, she swept past, leaving Meg to follow, as befitted her lowly background.

A few minutes later, Ty and Meg stood on the porch, watching as his parents’ sturdy Ford bumped down the lane to the gravel road that would take them back to Regret.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Ty said. He dropped his arm around Meg’s shoulders and hugged her against his side. “I think she’ll come around.”

“I hope so.” Meg stared at the dust that hung in the air, even after the car was out of sight.

“She didn’t say anything to you, did she?” Ty asked, frowning down at her.

“No.” Meg was warmed, as always, by his concern. “She was very pleasant.” She decided to ignore her mother-in-law’s parting remarks about needlework.

“Good. Maybe she’s figured out that if she says anything to upset you, she won’t be welcome here again.”

“Ty! She’s your mother!”

“And you’re my wife,” he said calmly. “She’s got to learn to accept that.”

Meg leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling the impact of his words echo inside her.
You’re my wife,
he’d said, as if that were a given, something that would always be. After all these months, it still surprised her to hear him refer to her as his wife, to realize that she wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow and find this was all a dream. She closed her eyes against the quick sting of tears and wondered if it was possible to be too happy.

A few days after Ty’s parents came to visit, Meg ran out of thread in the midst of a row of quilting. It was midaftemoon and she had plenty of time before she needed to start dinner for Ty and Jack, so she slipped on a clean dress, dabbed a bit of powder on her nose, and drove into Regret.

Meg parked the car down the street from Lewison’s General Store and walked along the sidewalk, enjoying the sunshine on her face, the feeling of well-being that was still new to her. She saw one or two people she knew and exchanged greetings with them, wondering if she looked any different to them now that she was Meg McKendrick and not just drunken George Harper’s younger girl.

She certainly felt different, though it had nothing to do with bearing the McKendrick name, despite her mother-in-law’s insistence on the importance of that. It had to do with being married to Ty, knowing she could make him a good wife, having a place in the world worth holding on to.

After the bright sunlight outside, it took Meg’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the pleasantly dim interior of Lewison’s. She’d come here so many times for her mother — to buy thread or a packet of needles or perhaps a bolt of muslin for backing quilts.

“Afternoon, Meg.” Bill Fenton’s thin face creased in a smile when he saw her. “What can I help you with?”

“I just need a spool of thread, Mr. Fenton. I think I can find that myself.” Meg returned his smile and moved toward the side of the store where the fabric and sewing notions were kept. Behind her, she heard him return to the task he’d been doing when she entered the store.

She couldn’t help but think of how things had changed. A year ago, when she’d come in the store, she’d been invisible until it came time to pay for whatever she purchased. The few bits and pieces she bought for her mother were not enough to make her a valuable customer. Now, as Mrs. Tyler McKendrick, she was worthy of a smile and an offer of assistance.

Of course, maybe Mr. Fenton had more reason than most to appreciate the power of a name. He’d bought the store from oid man Lewison before the Great War and changed the name to Fenton’s Emporium. But the only place the name change registered was on the sign out front. Lewison’s it had been for nearly forty years; Lewison’s it stayed in the townspeople’s minds. After a year or two, he’d taken the sign down and restored the old name to the front of the wooden building. The Fenton’s Emporium sign had been nailed to the side of Bill Fenton’s bam and was carefully repainted whenever it showed signs of wear. It had been there so long that most folks hardly realized it was there. But occasionally someone would take notice of it and shake their head over the peculiarities of others.

The old story was running through Meg’s mind as she stepped past a neatly stacked pyramid of canned peas and nearly bumped into another customer.

“Excuse me,” the other woman muttered. Without lifting her head, she moved to walk around Meg.

“Mama?”

At the sound of her voice, Ruth’s head jerked up, her faced blue eyes startled. “Meg? I didn’t realize it was you.”

“Well, it is,” Meg said, smiling. “How are you, Mama?” She could already see the answer. Meg wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her mother was even thinner than she had been. There were new hollows in her cheeks and under her eyes.

“I’m fine,” Ruth said, smiling. “How are you?”

“Just fine.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Ruth said.

“No. It’s been a few weeks.”

There was an awkward silence while both considered the circumstances of their last meeting, when Ty had punched Ruth’s husband. As if remembering what Harlan had said to incite Ty’s violent reaction, Ruth flushed a little, her eyes dropping away from Meg’s.

“I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about what Harlan said — about you losing the baby and all. He didn’t mean anything by it. He was just — “