Ed tenderly played with strands of her wheat-straw hair. Every once in a while, he sensed the sleeping woman stir. Was she trying to assure herself that he was still there? “Maggie, Maggie,” he moaned. He knew she still possessed vestiges of fear that he would yet run from her intimacy. He guessed she had every right to wonder.
But he knew running was no longer possible. He had worked hard not to run. He’d learned much about himself and his natural tendencies to escape when faced with risking too much of himself. He’d already risked more than ever before.
If nothing else, working the twelve steps taught him about his weaknesses while at the same time providing him with a foundation upon which to hope. And with Maggie, there was lots of room for hope.
Ed smiled. Christmas was coming. It was about time to drive to Des Moines.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Twenty-four hours later, at three in the morning, Maggie heard loud pounding at her porch door. She wasn’t asleep. Nearly consumed by worry, she hurriedly put on a robe and raced down the stairs and through the kitchen.
Dread laced her heart like a myriad of heavy manacles. Ed had not come home since he’d left for Des Moines that afternoon. He’d seemed nervous before leaving and had been very vague about why he had to go into the city. And then he hadn’t returned.
The strained, blank look on the deputy sheriff’s face through the storm door glass confirmed her fears. Something terrible had happened.
Maggie shuttered her eyes briefly, seeking strength. Breathing shallowly, she reluctantly opened the door.
The deputy removed his hat and stepped into the porch. “Sorry to have to tell you, Maggie,” he began, “but your hired man’s pickup was found in the ditch off of Highway 47. Looks like the vehicle went out of control on the dusting of snow we had early last evening.”
Maggie’s body stilled from shaking. “Is he…” She gagged. “Is he alive?”
“Don’t rightly know, ma’am.” The officer shifted his considerable weight from foot to foot. He was trying to focus on something just above her without being obvious. “We can’t find him,” he said at last.
“What?” Digging her fingernails into her shoulders, Maggie squeezed with all her might trying to hold on, trying to concentrate on what the deputy was saying. Nothing made sense.
“We can’t find him anywhere. Tracks lead away from the accident and then disappear. Somebody must have picked him up.”
“Then he’s okay,” Maggie reasoned. “Or maybe someone took him to the hospital.”
The deputy shrugged his shoulders. “He hasn’t been at any of the area hospitals. We checked. I’m sure he’s actually not feeling much of anything right now.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked. All her senses went on alert, knowing this story was only going to get worse.
Scowling, the officer said, “Maggie, there were lots of empty and broken beer and whiskey bottles in the cab. The interior stinks to high heaven.”
“Oh, my God.” Maggie felt herself falling and would have sunk to the floor if the deputy had not reached out to grab her.
Had someone placed a large anvil on her chest? Her teeth chattered. Thoughts whirled about her brain without coherency. She allowed herself to be led to the kitchen table.
Maggie slouched over the table an hour later with her head resting on her arms. She was alone. Completely alone. There were no more tears to cry. That reservoir had been drained.
She remembered the deputy sheriff handing her the keys to the pickup before he left. It would be towed to the farm in the morning. That was all that was left of Ed Harrington. That, and memories.
“He won’t come back,” she murmured to the kitchen walls, which no longer held any comfort. Somehow she’d scared him away again. Worse than that, she’d chased him back into the bottle.
What had she done? Things had seemed so right between them. How long had he been planning his escape? They had just made such satisfying love the night before. Did he know then? Or was it a spur of the moment thing? She shuddered. Ed Harrington was not a spur of the moment kind of guy. How could he have given up on them after all they had been through?
Maggie raised her head, rubbed her eyes and stared at her hands wishing they could turn back time. What should she have done differently? Had she been too determined, too driven, too strong? Did he want to get back to Chicago, to his old life? Why was he running from her?
Well, he’d better just keep on running. She rose and kicked the chair across the room. She wouldn’t let the louse back in the door if he came back all contrite and begging. He’d betrayed her. He’d betrayed himself. He’d betrayed the children. Good God, how was she going to tell them?
Maggie started making a pot of coffee. She was up; there was no going back to bed now. As she filled the coffee pot from the spigot, a horrific realization overtook her mind like a tidal wave. Ed had been driving dead drunk. He could have run into an innocent couple and killed them—just like her parents had been killed. Ed Harrington was no better than the drunken animal who had mercilessly murdered her own parents.
She jerked a hand toward the spigot; she didn’t know how long the coffee pot had been overflowing.
Why had she been such a stupid fool?
“I wish I never knew him!” Johnny cried for the tenth time that morning. Then he stumbled off the kitchen chair and raced out the door toward the stable. The slamming of the door added one more exclamation point to the air.
Maggie had told her children without holding anything back. She believed they deserved to know the truth. The sooner each of them was able to forget the rugged horse trainer, the better off they’d all be.
Her heart had shriveled over the last several hours. Maggie sat at the table staring into a cold cup of coffee.
Not surprisingly, Johnny took the news of Ed’s desertion hardest. He had wanted a dad real bad. Ed had seemed like the right man for him, but that was when the trainer was sober.
Perhaps more like the teenager she was, Carolyn seemed more aloof about the whole thing. She’d held back the tears, but was unable to hide her disappointment and anger. Maggie shook her head sadly—her daughter had tried to explain everything away like some kind of fairy godmother. When would her teenager learn that fantasies were just that, fantasies.
Glancing warily at her daughter still sitting across from her, Maggie felt Carolyn’s fury. Maybe with Johnny outside, the girl was going to let her feelings out. Then Maggie realized that Carolyn wasn’t angry at Ed; she was furious with her mother. Maggie braced herself.
“Are you sure the two of you didn’t have a fight or something?” Carolyn accused.
“How many times do I have to tell you? No, we didn’t. He just left. I can’t tell you why. He never told me.”
“It doesn’t make sense that he would just up and disappear. He loves you, Mom. He loves us.” Carolyn moved her shaking hands under the table. “I know he does.”
“Maybe there was too much love for him,” Maggie ventured softly. “Some men can’t stand to be loved.”
“Well, I don’t think Ed Harrington was some men,” Carolyn claimed. “You must have done something to send him away.”
Maggie lowered her head slowly, shaking it back and forth. She had no clue what else to say or do.
“Or,” her daughter’s eyes grew huge, “maybe somebody beat him up again and hid his body. Maybe somebody tried to finish him off this time. But you don’t care anymore. Do you?
Maggie’s eyes narrowed watching the backside of her daughter disappear rapidly up the stairs. Maggie clenched her fingers. It had never occurred to her that Ed might again be the victim of foul play. She’d simply assumed he’d run away from her.
Why had it taken her daughter to raise that possibility? Why hadn’t the deputy mentioned that? Could Carolyn be right? An icy chill spread through her bones. She didn’t know what to think or feel. She’d been so angry, felt so abandoned, she had merely accepted the obvious, that Ed Harrington did not love her enough. Could
there be truth in her daughter’s words?
Chewing on a fingernail, Maggie tried not to panic. If Ed was in trouble, he would eventually call. She wouldn’t know where to begin looking for him. And if he’d gotten drunk and driven into the ditch, she didn’t want to see him again anyway. About all she could do was wait and take care of the horses.
She still had the farm. The stable was viable, at least for a while. Cassie would race the horses, if need be. Maybe she should contact Clint; he would know how to find a missing person. She desperately needed to talk with somebody, but she didn’t want to tie up the phone or leave the house.
Unable to force herself away from the table, Maggie didn’t know which was worse: believing that Ed had fallen off the wagon, or that someone had threatened his life. Rubbing swollen eyes, repressing a scream building deep within her lungs, she knew with certain agony the answer to that question.
The phone rang. Maggie glared at the noisy intruder debating whether to answer or not. There was a world out there. She didn’t want to have to deal with that world. She wanted to roll into a ball and stay hidden from sight and sound.
Reluctantly, she picked up the receiver. “Hello.” She hardly identified the squeaky voice as her own.
“Maggie, is that you?”
Maggie slumped against the kitchen counter. “Yeah, Flo, it’s me. Guess you heard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s over. That’s the way it is. Sometimes you just lose.”
“Are you sure he’s not coming back?”
“If he knows what’s good for him he won’t.”
The ensuing silence gnawed at Maggie. What was her friend not saying?
“Okay, Flo. Spit it out. What’s really on your mind?”
“I just think you need to know the first song I heard this morning.”
Maggie groaned. Why did she have to have loony friends? Maybe they thought she was just as loony. “Well, what was it? You’re not going to be able to go on with your day without telling me.”
“Tammy was singing Stand by Your Man.”
Maggie closed her eyes and counted to three. “Then I guess you better go find a man and stand by him.”
“Maggie!”
“Why don’t we talk later, Flo? I’m tired and I’m grumpy. Thanks for calling. Love you.”
“Love you, Maggie. Take care of yourself.”
Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she hung up her phone. Stand by your man, indeed. Kick your man’s ass down the road would have been a better tune.
It was noon. Still no word. She congratulated herself for surviving that long. Maggie pulled her windbreaker tighter to ward off the early winter chill as she stepped of the porch and walked across the driveway. Ed’s pickup had been towed into her yard earlier that morning. From a distance, Mabel looked the same as always: worn, but reliable. Up close she told an entirely different story.
The deputy was right. Maggie could hardly breathe when she stuck her head in the cab. The stench was beyond words.
For a couple hours after her daughter’s tirade, Maggie had held onto the shred of hope that maybe Carolyn was right. Maybe Ed had not left voluntarily. But once Maggie saw the wreckage of liquor bottles in the pickup, there was no doubt left in her mind.
Ed Harrington preferred the comfort of drink to any comfort she could provide. There were no more tears. She just wished she could let him know she thought he was the most despicable creature that ever stepped on the face of the earth. He was just damn lucky he hadn’t killed anyone in his hurry to get away from her this time.
She stood by the truck trying to decide if it was best to clean the stuff up now or wait. The easiest thing to do would be to drop a match in the gas tank and watch it burn. Putting a match in the cab might be just as efficient.
Concentrating on what to do, Maggie did not at first hear a car coming down the driveway. When she did, she looked up quickly, only to want to run and hide. It was her brother. He would no doubt gloat and have a grand time at her expense.
“Hi, sis,” Brad said, getting out of the car. “I came as soon as Flo told me what was happening. How are you? How are the kids?”
Maggie scrunched her mouth. She hadn’t expected those questions. “The kids? Johnny is mad as hell at Ed. Carolyn is just as mad at me. She thinks I chased him off. Or that somebody beat him over the head again.”
Brad nodded. “How do you know they didn’t? I understand he hasn’t been located yet.”
“Just get a whiff of this cab,” Maggie replied, opening the pickup door.
Brad stuck his head in and pulled it back quickly. “Whew. I’ve been in breweries that don’t smell that ripe.”
“So, you see? He fell off the wagon big time. Success must scare the guy. And he could’ve killed anybody on that road that night.” Maggie placed a hand on her brow. “Just like Mom and Dad were killed.”
Brad looked curiously at his sister. “Maggie, I think you may be mixing a lot of different things up here. Ed didn’t kill our parents. As far as I know, no one was hurt the other night.”
“But that doesn’t excuse him.”
“No it doesn’t. Not if he was driving drunk.”
“Of course he was driving drunk. Look at all of these broken bottles.”
“You don’t know much about drinking, and apparently neither does the sheriff’s department.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the first place, I doubt there is a human being alive who could consume this much booze and not be comatose. Secondly, a heavy drinker, particularly an alcoholic, is not going to smash these bottles like this. A time might come when a guy could almost kill for a swallow. And one of those bottles might not have been completely drained. Or he might be able to pour just a little water into a whiskey bottle and still get a taste.”
Maggie tried to think through a heavy mind-fog. What did her brother mean? He certainly had more experience with alcohol that she did.
“So what are you saying?” She heard a trace of hope in her own question.
“I’m saying all of this evidence is a set up. Why, I don’t know. What happened to Harrington, I don’t know. But this truck cab is to make you and the authorities believe that Harrington was driving drunk. I doubt very much that he was.”
Maggie slumped to sit on the running board of the pickup. Looking up at her brother, she said, “So you agree with Carolyn? That somebody got to Ed. That he might be hurt.” Her hand flew to her throat. “Or worse.”
Brad stooped down on his haunches. “It’s too early to jump to conclusions. But I expect Ed’s in trouble.”
Maggie held her head in her hands. “This is too much. Why didn’t I trust him? Why is it Carolyn and now you?
“I know it’s hard for you to believe that I am actually on your side, but I am.” Brad coughed and pulled the zipper of his jacket up to keep out the wind. “You have a difficult time accepting that I no longer harbor ill will toward you, Maggie. My issue was always much more with dad than with you. I haven’t told you, but part of the reason I know this is I’m in therapy. I’ve been working hard on my shit.”
Maggie’s mouth fell open. “Really?” she squeaked.
“Really.” He blinked. “You might wonder a little bit about why you don’t trust more easily. Dad always set you up as the perfect kid. But he wasn’t doing you any favors—not really. You wound up having to stay on the farm to measure up, while I got to run off to college. On the surface I was the loser, but I’m less certain anymore.”
“But this is where I’ve always wanted to be,” Maggie protested.
“But whose idea was that? You were brainwashed from day one to inherit the land, to protect the family legacy. Since Mom and Dad were killed, Maggie, you’ve been obsessed with this land. At first I wanted you to sell because I was so angry with Dad that I didn’t want a trace of him left. Then, since Mason died and since some of my own head work, I’ve wanted you to sell because I thought it was unhealthy for
you to stay. But Harrington changed my mind about that.”
“He did?” Maggie struggled to concentrate. She’d never known her brother was capable of caring about her.
“Yeah, with him, certainly more than with Mason, you’ve been able to share a dream where the land serves you rather than always the other way around.” Brad smirked. “Harrington is the only person with whom I’ve seen you willing to share equally. Maybe it’s the first time you’ve encountered a man who is man enough for you.” Brad glanced toward the barn. “I’ve probably said more than you wanted to hear. I’m sorry, but I think you needed to hear it.”
Maggie sighed deeply. “Don’t be sorry. You’re right in more ways than you may know.” She paused a long time before continuing. “In ways I didn’t want to face, I guess. This farm has been a mixed blessing for me. I did resent you running off without a care in the world, leaving me to cope with family expectations. I blamed you and held our parents faultless. Maybe I’ve had too much pride in what this place means.”
Maggie struggled to her feet. “I need to be alone for awhile. Why don’t you go on into the house? Please don’t leave.”
“I won’t. You can count on that.”
Approaching the barn, Maggie felt warmed by the now familiar smells of horse and leather. She walked to Midnight Dancer’s stall. The mare stuck her head over the stall door, encouraging Maggie’s touch.
Maggie smiled through her tears. “You’ll always be here, won’t you Dancer?” The horse’s ears twitched forward.
“Why is it so hard to admit when you’ve been wrong?” Maggie stared at Dancer’s soft eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t really know about that.”
Running her fingers up and down Dancer’s neck, Maggie tried to name and confront her own demons. All these years she’d seen Brad as the bad boy. And he had been a hellion in many ways, yet she’d been guilty of so much tunnel vision and so much pride. How often had she puffed up her chest when her dad listed her successes to egg on her brother? And had she ever really treated Mason as an equal? It’d always been her family’s land. Her land.
Heat Wave (Riders Up) Page 27