A Love to Call Her Own

by Marilyn Pappano

  The rest of her, though, was dragging her feet. She was good for all kinds of emergencies. Car trouble, pipes breaking in the middle of the night, rides to doctors’ appointments, heartbreak, unexpected babysitting—she’d handled all that and more. Being there and helping out were her biggest talents, after her mouthwatering cooking and baking. Her family had called her little mama, an endearment she’d been happy with while waiting to become a mother for real.

  But comforting a friend who’d just lost her husband hit a little too close to home. Though six years had passed since Mike’s death in Iraq, though all her closest friends had lost their husbands to combat, the memories this new death raised…

  Grimly, she pushed back the thought. Patricia needed her. End of discussion.

  Traffic was light through town and virtually nonexistent once she turned onto her street. She pulled into the driveway, then hurried into the house. Her dog, Norton, was waiting in the kitchen, wagging his tail hard enough to sound like a bass drum. Though she wanted to get to Patricia’s quickly, one thing couldn’t wait; otherwise, Norton would flood the kitchen.

  She gave him a scratch, then let him out the back door into the unfenced yard. He wasn’t the brightest dog in the world, but he did understand that home was where the special stuff was: food, treats, doggy bed, and the yellow rubber ducky he loved dearly. He would never run away and leave the duck behind.

  After changing clothes, Lucy let Norton in again, gave him a couple of home-baked treats, then grabbed the bread she’d baked the night before—banana nut and cranberry—and a tub of cream cheese. “You be good,” she told him. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll come back to check on you. Don’t disappoint me.”

  The animal gave her a look that suggested she might as well be speaking Vulcan, then slid into a boneless heap, head on his paws to watch her go. She locked the door and set off across the yard, halfway to its perimeter, when her next-door neighbor called her name.

  “Hey, Luce! You’re taking food to someone who isn’t me?”

  Joe Cadore sat on his deck, feet propped on the railing, a fitness magazine in his lap and a bottle of water in his hand. His blond hair needed a trim—always—and his jaw looked as if he’d forgotten to shave that morning, turning his usual boy-next-door good looks into breath-catching isn’t he hot? sex appeal. Luckily, she was immune to it. With an appetite befitting a physically active guy, no kitchen skills, and no wife or significant other, he had a great appreciation for the goodies that came from her kitchen, thus the basis of their friendship.

  Reversing direction, she moved a few feet closer to him. “I’m taking it to Patricia’s. Did you hear? Her husband—” Her voice wobbled, and she took a breath.

  Bless his heart, Joe didn’t need to hear more to understand. Concern furrowed his forehead, and he dropped his feet with a thud, rising from his chair. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry. George was a good guy.” After a moment, his voice softer, he asked, “You okay?”

  His concern was sweet and eased the tightness around her heart just a little. “Yeah. Just…a lot of memories.”

  “Do you want me to come along?”

  The constriction eased a bit more. What kind of guy volunteered to wade into a situation that was sure to involve an overload of women, emotion, tears, and grief? Then she answered her own question: a good friend. She’d been blessed with so many of them. She hoped Patricia had a bunch, too, because she was going to need them in the months ahead.

  “I appreciate the offer, but…let me see how she’s doing first.” She started across the yard again, then glanced back. “By the way, there are two more loaves of bread on my kitchen counter for you if Norton doesn’t get to them first.” Joe had a key to her house so he could do favors like letting the dog out if she ran late, and she had one to his house so she could…Well, just because. He didn’t have any pets, not even any plants, and had never asked her to do anything for him.

  “I’ll share a piece with him.” His broad grin was dazzling. “I knew you loved me. Thanks, Luce.”

  She crossed the grass into Patricia’s backyard, then circled the house. Under normal circumstances, she would have gone to the back door and knocked, holding up her goodies to entice Patricia into letting her in. There wouldn’t be any normal circumstances for her friend for a long while.

  The only cars in the driveway were a government vehicle and a small red one she wasn’t familiar with. Though there were other CNOs—casualty notification officers—Lucy hoped Patricia had gotten Loretta Baxter. LoLo was so very good at her job.

  Lucy climbed the steps to the gracious porch with its wicker furniture and potted flowers that contrasted perfectly against the red and white stripes of the American flag rippling in the breeze. Thinking she should do something with her own porch, she turned back to the door when it opened and blinked in surprise. “Jessy! I didn’t know you knew Patricia.”

  “I don’t. I didn’t. I do now.” Jessy grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, closed the door, and swept her down the hall to the kitchen, where she put the bread and cream cheese on the counter. Of all their margarita sisters, Lucy would have thought Jessy the least likely to comfort in a tragedy. Not that Jessy wasn’t sympathetic and generous. It was just that she doled those things out in her own way, which was usually brash and blunt.

  In a few terse sentences, Jessy explained how she’d wound up at the Sanderson house. “Damn, can you believe it?” she muttered.

  “Of course I can. It proves what I have always suspected of you. You may be snarky and flippant on the outside, but on the inside, you’re warm, soft, and gooey just like the rest of us.” Knowing Jessy would resist, Lucy wrapped her arms around her and planted a messy kiss on her cheek. “You’re a good woman, Jessy Lawrence.”

  Sputtering, Jessy wriggled away. “And you’re insane. Cover for me while I make my getaway.”

  They approached the living room together, both stopping a few feet out of sight. Jessy eyed the front door as if gauging how quickly she could reach it and be gone, then turned her assessing gaze on Lucy, whispering, “Are you sure you can handle this?”

  “It’s got to be easier than the first time around.”

  “I don’t know about that. If things get quiet for one minute, all I can think about…”

  Is Aaron. Practically like it was yesterday. Lucy knew how that went. Witnessing other people’s pain brought a new edge to hers.

  “We all think about our husbands more at times like this. But we have years of scars over the wounds in our hearts. No matter how much we love them, no matter how much we miss them, we don’t hurt the way Patricia does because her wound is so fresh.” Lucy blinked away a sheen of tears. “Has anyone contacted her children?”

  Jessy snorted. “I called her son. He wasn’t jumping in his car to drive over here anytime soon.”

  “I knew there was some problem there.” That had been apparent more in the things Patricia didn’t say than the things she did.

  “Yeah, there’s a problem, like he doesn’t give a shi—” Jessy shrugged. “Damn, I’ve got to get going. I’ve let my gooey side show for way too long. I need some red meat, some wild dancing, and a handsome cowboy or two to buy me a drink—” Again, she cut herself off, grimacing. Bumping against Lucy’s arm, she went into the living room and to Patricia, sitting on the couch near LoLo.

  Lucy smiled. Every woman could use some red meat, wild dancing, and handsome cowboys from time to time, but Jessy was no more likely to go out and indulge than Lucy was. She talked big, but the margarita club knew she hadn’t looked twice at an available man since Aaron’s death. Every person’s grief had its own schedule. When the time was right for Jessy to consider romance again, she would, and like Carly and Therese, she would be incredibly happy the second time around.

  Lucy could envision all her friends getting a second chance, but it was harder to put herself into that position. They were all smart, pretty, and talented at everything they tried. Most of them held
interesting jobs or had interesting hobbies, while Lucy was a secretary whose only interest outside work was making tantalizing foods that put way too many pounds on her. She’d gone from average to fat, made worse by the fact that she was only two inches over five feet. In this shape, she wasn’t exactly dating material, and that was okay. Better to stay single the rest of her life than to risk a second time with what Patricia was going through.

  With a deep breath to fortify herself, Lucy walked into the living room. Upon seeing her, Patricia promptly burst into tears, sank into her arms, and sobbed as if her heart were broken. Sadly, Lucy knew, it was.

  * * *

  By the time Dalton turned off the computer and headed upstairs, the house was silent. His parents had gone out to the RV as soon as Dad saw the ten o’clock headlines, despite Dalton’s offer of a bedroom, and Oz dragged up the steps soon after. Normally, Dalton would have been asleep an hour ago, but restlessness had kept him awake. He’d thought catching up on his paperwork would settle him—it usually bored him comatose—but it hadn’t. His body was tired, but his mind wasn’t surrendering yet.

  Avoiding the creaky places on the stairs and in the second-floor hallway, he got ready for bed, shut off the light, and nudged Oz from the middle of the bed. If Mom didn’t like dogs in the house, she really didn’t like them on the beds, but she hadn’t said anything. Maybe she’d finally begun to think of this house as their former home. More likely, David had warned her again not to fuss.

  Moonlight came through the curtains, bright enough to cast deep shadows, to glint off the silver frame on the dresser. Every week he dusted the frame, but he never looked at the picture it held. He didn’t need a photograph to remind him of that moment immediately after he and Sandra had gotten married in Las Vegas, when they’d both been happy and hopeful, with no worries other than how quickly they could get back to the hotel to celebrate. Life had had such potential that day. He’d never imagined just how damn wrong it could go.

  He stared at the frame until his eyes got gritty, then he rolled onto his other side, where there were only shadows. As he resettled, he realized the tension that usually gripped him when he thought about Sandra wasn’t there. It still hurt. It still made him angry, but not so much as before. Was he finally putting it behind him? Was there some potential for a normal life for him again?

  He had this suspicion that of course the potential was there. He just had to be smart enough to recognize it and willing enough to accept it. He’d dug himself into such a bleak hole after Sandra died. He’d lost touch with all his friends, did his best to keep her family at arm’s length and to avoid any but short, superficial visits with his own family. He’d forgotten how to live, how to be sociable or, hell, be just plain civil.

  He’d felt like shit and acted like it so long that he was sick of it.

  Behind him Oz began to snore, low rattling sounds. Dalton hadn’t wanted a dog until the mutt showed up and showed him he did. Oz had been starved, lost, or more likely, dumped by an idiot owner who assumed all country people wanted everyone else’s throwaways. He’d had an awfully tough time of life, but he hadn’t dwelled on it. Once he’d made himself at home here, he’d forgotten the rough times and focused on appreciating the good life.

  There wasn’t one thing special or unique about the miseries in Dalton’s life, and he had a lot to be thankful for. He was healthy. He was making a go of the ranch he’d loved for as long as he could remember. His parents were alive and happy, and Noah was exactly where he should be in his life, with no major mistakes hanging over him and all those possibilities ahead. Dalton was feeling the need, just kind of simmering but there all the same, to get himself to exactly where he should be in his life.

  And part of it had to do with the pretty little redhead he’d met two months ago who wouldn’t get out of his head.

  That March Saturday hadn’t been his proudest moment. Dalton, who’d never once hooked up casually, had done just that with the redhead, and in a cemetery, no less. A few words, a trip to a bar, too much to drink, crossing the parking lot to the shabbiest motel in the county, then sneaking out while she was asleep and pretending not to know her the next time he saw her.

  She was the first woman—the only woman—he’d been with since Sandra. She’d given him a few hours of passion, of feeling something besides sorrow, and he’d thanked her by treating her exactly the way Dillon would have. For the first time in his life, he’d acted like Dillon’s twin and not in a good way.

  But Jessy Lawrence, like her red hair implied, was stubborn. She was always there in the back of his mind: pretty, emotionally worn like him, dealing with her own sorrows. Images of her that March day, so sharp and alive, echoes of her Southern drawl that had lured him from his bleak life for an afternoon. Every time he went into town, any flash of red hair made his gut tighten. He’d even gone to the bank where she worked just to see her, only to find some scrawny guy at her desk. Had she been promoted? Transferred? Had she moved away?

  Would he ever see her again?

  Maybe. There was that need, buzzing down deep in his gut, whispering to him that life could get better. That he didn’t have to settle for barely surviving. That he could get to where he was supposed to be.

  If he was smart enough to recognize the chance, and willing enough to take it.

  * * *

  With three arthroscopies behind him, Ben left the hospital for the clinic across the street, jogging the four flights of stairs to his floor. He got a quick look at the patients in reception, a fair number of their faces familiar to him, then ducked through a door into the treatment area and into his office. He so rarely spent time there that it was the last place anyone trying to find him would look.

  He hadn’t slept well the night before. He’d ignored a number of calls from Lucy Hart, presumably another friend of Patricia’s, and he’d had to tell his sisters, Brianne and Sara, about George. Like him, they’d been bemused. I’m sorry Colonel Sanderson died, Brianne had said. I’m sorry when any of our troops die. But he wasn’t our father. He wasn’t even our stepfather. We never knew him.

  Sara had been blunter. Like we’re supposed to care about her loss?

  Ben hadn’t been able to force himself to offer their dad’s usual advice: She’s your mother. Naturally you love her. She divorced me, not you kids.

  But Patricia had, in effect, divorced them. She hadn’t raised them, hadn’t been there for them, hadn’t even bothered to let them know she was back in Oklahoma. Their love for her had fled the state not long after she had.

  He opened an energy bar and ate a chunk of it before scanning his schedule for the day. It was busy, as always, and no matter how much time was allotted to each patient, he always found himself needing more. Sawing off femur heads, hammering in titanium appliances, and screwing pieces of a joint back together were the easy part of his practice. Remembering to take time to really listen was something he struggled with. The clinic was chaos from the moment the first patient walked in until the last one left, and it was seriously tempting to give in to the urge to go go go. Especially when something was on his mind that he didn’t want there.

  The ring of his cell brought that particular something right back to the forefront. Every time it had rung since Jessy Lawrence’s first call, he’d flinched. Considering he paid for the damn phone and the damn service, the flinching had gotten really annoying really fast.

  Lucy Hart. Again. Scowling, he answered curtly. “Hello.”

  “Oh, hi. Hey. I wasn’t really expecting…” A deep exhalation. The accent wasn’t Southern, like Jessy’s, or the voice husky. This could be any woman from anywhere. “I’m Lucy Hart in Tallgrass. I’m a friend of your mom’s. Is this—this is Ben, right?”

  He could lie, but that would only get him off the hook for the moment. Apparently, Patricia’s friends were persistent, so he’d still have to deal with the matter. Though he’d thought he’d done that yesterday. “Yes.”

  “Look, Ben, I know you’re busy, a
nd your relationship with your mom hasn’t been good for a while, and you’re thinking you hardly knew her husband and certainly aren’t mourning him.” Another long breath. “But we all make mistakes. I’m guessing your mom’s were pretty significant. But she’s in a really bad place right now, and it would mean the world to her to see you and your sisters. You know, when you lose someone you love, it makes you think a whole lot about the other people you love, especially the ones you’re disconnected from. Please, Ben, she really needs someone here.”

  She should have thought about that before she ran out on us. You screw people over, you can’t expect them to be there for you when you need them.

  “What about her brother and sister?” He sounded cold and didn’t care. None of what had gone wrong between him and Patricia had been his fault. None of what was going on now was his concern.

  “They’ll be here for the funeral.”

  “When will that be?” He wasn’t interested. Just the sort of questions people asked.

  “We don’t know. George’s body will be shipped back to the States and—and prepared, then he’ll be escorted to wherever she chooses to bury him. It can take a few days or up to a week and a half. It just depends.”

  Lucy’s voice quavered, turning thin and reedy, and damn it, he had a soft spot for quavery voices. He’d yet to see the patient or family member who didn’t need reassurance before heading in to the OR. Unlike the listening, that always came easily to him: a pat on the arm, a moment’s conversation, a promise that he would take care of them, the comfort of a familiar face.

  Days alone, waiting for her husband’s body to come home. Ben couldn’t imagine Patricia holding up that long without someone to lean on. Lucky for her, she had Lucy Hart and Jessy Lawrence, and surely the Army had some sort of support system in place. But not him. He had patients and surgeries and a life of his own.