A Hero to Come Home To

by Marilyn Pappano

  But she’d slept well last night, and today was sunny and warm, and she felt energetic. Who knew? She might even clean out the cabinets and closets when she was done or organize the mess of her desk or even find something to do in the yard.

  After she finished putting away the groceries, including two cartons of her favorite Braum’s ice cream—an excellent reason in and of itself for staying in Oklahoma—she ate the fast-food lunch she’d picked up on the way home, then started prepping the living room.

  Despite its heft, the couch slid away from the wall easily. The end table, a hand-me-down from Jeff’s grandmother, was easy, too. She reminded herself to switch it to the other end when she put it back, so she could keep her promise to Lisa.

  With everything in—or out of—place, she pried open the first can of paint and stirred it. It looked like the richest, most luxurious chocolate before it was poured into molds to set, and it flowed over the dingy white with each stroke.

  The hunter green was gorgeous, too, peaceful and serene, and the burnt orange warmed the room with a pop of color.

  Done, she sprawled in the chair across the room, slumped down, stared at the three rectangles of beautiful change and wondered, just as she had at the paint counter, how she was supposed to decide. She liked all three. Compared to the bland white, she might even love them.

  The ring of the cell phone drew her gaze to it. The people who called often had personalized ring tones—the margarita club’s was “Margaritaville,” of course—but this was the standard ring for not-family, not-close-friends. Still gazing at the wall, she picked it up and absently murmured, “Hello.”

  “Hey. Uh, it’s Dane. Is this, uh, a bad time?”

  Pleasure coursed through her with a flare of heat, her lips curving into a smile as she sat straighter in the chair. “Depends on what you want to do. It’s not the best weather for sunbathing or building snowmen. It’s too early for planting flowers, too late for breakfast, and you’ve missed trick-or-treating by five months.”

  He chuckled. “Let me be more specific. Is this a bad time to talk?”

  “No. I’m just contemplating my wall, so it’s a very good time to talk.”

  “Have you chosen a color yet?”

  “Nope. I like all three of them. It’s a shame I can’t paint the room in stripes.”

  “Actually, you could. You just have to—”

  “No, no,” she interrupted. “You’re going to say something about rulers and tape and straight lines, aren’t you? And I don’t do straight lines. I don’t even hang a picture unless it’s the only thing on the whole wall. That’s how bad my idea of ‘straight’ is.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then in a low voice, Dane said, “Wow. You’re really flawed, aren’t you? Your IQ is below one-eighty, you’re indecisive, and you’re linearly challenged.”

  “And I eat chocolate for breakfast,” she added as she turned sideways in the chair, swinging her legs over the arm.

  “Yeah, but who doesn’t?”

  “I have two nephews whose mother is a postharvest biologist. They’re four and five, and they’ve never had cake or ice cream or a Hershey’s Kiss. Their idea of dessert is yogurt with a few berries stirred in.”

  “That’s just sad.”

  “Yeah. For most of my family, food is fuel, nothing more. My sister-in-law Lisa and I are the only ones who savor it like gifts from God, and I’m the only one who shows it.” Lisa was a perfect size four, while Carly was…well, not.

  There was a sound in the background, the distant blare of a horn, followed immediately by the chiming of a car when the door was opened with the key in the ignition. “Are you out and about?”

  “Yeah. I had to pick up some uniforms at the cleaners.”

  Carly thought of the stiffly starched uniforms hanging in the guest room. Their bedroom closet was so small that only half their clothes fit, so Jeff had volunteered to move his across the hall. “I’m only doing this,” he’d teased, “to keep your clothes from squashing my uniforms.”

  They were still there—every uniform item he hadn’t taken to the desert with him, including the dress blue uniform he’d worn at their wedding. Dress shoes polished to a high sheen and scruffy but broken-in boots lined the floor beneath the garments. She thought from time to time about doing something with them, but it always seemed too final an action to take.

  “Is that a no, or are you thinking about it?”

  Dane’s voice in her ear startled her back to the moment. Whatever he’d asked had sailed past her, blocked by thoughts of Jeff. Giving herself a mental shake, she said, “I’m sorry. I missed that. Can you ask again?”

  “Yeah, sure.” There was a chagrined sound to his voice. “I was just wondering if you’d like to, um, do something.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. It didn’t matter what or when or where. The simple truth was yes, she would like to spend more time with Dane.

  Jeff understood that. Didn’t he?

  “Do you want to meet somewhere?”

  She thought back to safety advice she’d been given in college—never meet a guy for the first time alone, never go off without telling someone where and with whom, make sure he wasn’t a psycho stalker before letting him know where she lived—then looked at the colors on the wall and said, “Why don’t you come by? The address is Four-eighteen East Cimarron.”

  “Four one eight,” he murmured, and she could easily imagine him typing the numbers into a GPS. Jeff had used his all the time. No having to learn his way around town when the GPS would guide him to the door.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  She said good-bye and clicked off the phone, then stared at the vibrant colors on the wall. That was how she would decide: Let Dane do it when he got here. She would be happy with any of the three shades, so it wouldn’t hurt to let someone else pick.

  When he got here. Dane was coming over. It had been so long since she’d waited for a man to come to pick her up. She’d met Jeff her freshman year in college and, except for one semester, they’d been together since. The idea that a man was on his way over to see her seemed almost impossible. The feelings it invoked were vaguely familiar, long gone but not forgotten. They included anticipation, nervousness, a little guilt, and—

  Dane was coming over!

  Jumping to her feet, she rushed to the bedroom. Sure, the T-shirt and crop pants she’d thrown on this morning were fine for running errands, but there were lots of things she looked better in hanging in the closet. She’d stripped to her underwear before realizing the blinds were open, twisted them closed, then yanked open the closet door.

  Within minutes, she was dressed in khaki trousers and a rusty-colored shirt with chunky shoes that added a few inches to her height, with a suede band holding back her hair. She started to pick up the perfume bottle for a spritz, then put it back. Not Jeff’s favorite fragrance. Not today.

  A little twinge of regret sliced through her.

  When the doorbell rang, she left the bathroom, then hesitated, remembering that old advice in college. Quickly, feeling overly cautious but obligated, as well as just plain foolish, she scribbled a note on the bedside table: Out with Dane Clark. Just in case.

  Then she went to open the door.

  He stood on the porch, hands in his jacket pockets. His jeans were faded, worn through one knee, and his T-shirt fit snugly across his chest. The jacket was brown leather, scuffed and battered. He looked handsome. Just a little hesitant. A whole lot solid. Strong. Someone a woman could lean on.

  “Come on in.” She stepped back and gestured to the cramped room. “Take a seat if you can get to one.”

  Instead he stopped in the middle of the room to study the experiment on the wall. She closed the door and stood beside him, near enough to smell his cologne. It was light, simple, no smoky complex fragrances. Just clean. She liked it.

  Moving next to the wall, she did a game-show hostess flourish. “What do you think?”

  His
dark gaze moved from one color to the next, finally landing on her. “You look good.”

  Self-consciously she fingered the last of the wooden buttons that kept her shirt secured. It had been so long since a man had given her a simple compliment. Likely the last had come from Jeff before his final deployment. “Thank you. But I meant the colors.”

  “The color looks great on you.”

  He said it with such seriousness that she couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks. It’s one of my favorites. Now…what’s your vote? Color number one?” She gestured to the chocolate, waited a minute, then did the same with colors number two and three.

  “Why am I picking? I don’t live here.”

  “Remember, I’m flawed. I can’t make a decision.”

  He snorted as he stepped back to the door and turned on the overhead lights before looking at the colors again. “I narrowed it down from a thousand to three for you.”

  “And I like all three.” And she wanted someone else’s opinion. She wasn’t indecisive, not really. She was just tired of making every decision by herself. At home, everything had had to pass muster with her parents. In college, it had been her roommate, and after college, she and Jeff had made every major choice together. “So which one gets two thumbs-up?”

  “I should warn you I’m a Longhorns fan.”

  Her nose wrinkled automatically. “That’s the big game OU has in Texas, isn’t it?” At his nod, she rolled her eyes. “When we eventually got pregnant, Jeff wanted to do the nursery in black and gold in honor of the University of Colorado. Football nuts.”

  After glancing around, Dane picked up a photograph sitting on the shelves beside the TV. It was Jeff, mugging for the camera with a couple of buddies, all of them wearing desert camouflage and dark shades in deference to the bright sun. His hands rested on his thighs, fingers spread wide, his wedding band glinting.

  It hurt her heart that he would never pose for another picture, never laugh or make her laugh.

  Dane didn’t comment, but carefully set the frame back on the shelf before turning away from it.

  “So…” Carly went to stand near him again, shoving her hands into her hip pockets and rocking back on her heels. “Which of these colors is associated with the Longhorns? I can see that the brown might reference something that comes out of a cow, but I’d rather not think about that if it’s going to cover my walls. And the green, I guess, could stand for the grass they eat. But that last one…are longhorns orange?”

  He gave her a scowl with no heat. “No, but their school colors are burnt orange and cream. The walls that color, the cream trim …”

  “Ooh, it’ll be like a giant pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I like that.” If she’d given herself enough time, she was pretty sure she would have chosen that color, too. It was nice that he’d agreed, even if his reason had been as lame as Jeff’s for wanting a black-and-gold nursery.

  “Thanks for your help, Dane. Now…” The question that really mattered. “What do you want to do today?”

  Dalton didn’t usually need much excuse for being grouchy, but he had one today. He was having company tomorrow: his mom and dad were stopping by in their RV on their way north. His mother had called this morning, giving him a shopping list for the meals she intended to cook while they were there and informing him that she wanted to sleep in a real bed and use a real bathroom. Her way of saying Clean the house at least a little.

  He’d sent Noah to do the shopping, and he’d started the cleaning. It wasn’t that he was a slob. He just had better things to do, like the ranch work that he, his dad, and Dillon used to do together. The cows and the horses didn’t care whether he vacuumed or dusted, but they sure got upset if he didn’t take care of them.

  The house was big, built mostly from trees harvested off the north acreage and with stone quarried on the property. Too big for one person, though here he was. Downstairs was a living room, dining room, kitchen, and utility room, all oversized, with four bedroom upstairs. His parents had had their own, of course, and so had Noah. Dalton and Dillon had shared the biggest room—twins were expected to share a lot—and the fourth had been for guests. When he was a kid, there had been a lot of visits from aunts, uncles, and cousins.

  Now, besides Noah, the only people who’d come for a visit in years had been Sandra’s folks, when they’d buried her, and his. It had been one of those odd summer-in-January days that Oklahoma was famous for: eighty-five degrees, only a light breeze blowing across the prairies. The sky had been clear blue, fat clouds drifting slowly to the east. A perfect day for saddling up the horses and riding the trail that snaked along the north edge of the ranch.

  Too beautiful a day for a funeral. Even the grayest, dreariest day was too good for that.

  Abruptly the vacuum cut off, and he looked around in time to hear Noah’s swearing as he untangled the cord from his feet. He carried the grocery bags into the kitchen, then picked up the cord when he returned. “Well, my part’s done. I think I’m gonna go outside and check on the horses.”

  When he plugged the vacuum in again, Dalton switched it off. “Clean sheets for Mom and Dad’s bedroom,” he said with a nod toward the laundry basket at the foot of the stairs.

  “Aw, man…I don’t even make my own bed.”

  “I’ve noticed.” Dalton switched the machine on again to block out anything else Noah might say. He didn’t make his own bed, either. Not much point when he was getting right back in it in eighteen hours. It had driven Sandra nuts, so they’d reached a compromise of sorts. Whoever got up last had to make the bed. Since his day always started earlier than hers, that meant she’d always had to make it.

  Scowling, he pushed the vacuum across the living room carpet with more force than necessary. He’d already dusted, cleaned both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and loaded the dishwasher. The counters and kitchen table still needed scrubbing, but other than that and a load of laundry, the house would be clean to his standards. Not his mom’s and certainly not Sandra’s, but it would do.

  Oh, and the wooden box. It would have to go back above the fireplace. But that could wait.

  By the time Noah clumped down the stairs again, Dalton had finished the living room and was wrapping the cord around the vacuum. Noah took a look around, then hesitantly said, “What about the flag? You know Mom and Dad will expect to see it. And the pictures.”

  His father had made a display box for the flag that had covered Sandra’s coffin, a photograph of her in uniform and the ribbons she’d earned during her Army career. He’d been meticulous with the craftsmanship, creating a beautiful piece with Sandra’s name and the dates of her birth and death engraved in the rich cherry. It was respectful, an honor, a gift from his father’s heart that Dalton could hardly bear to look at. Even so, he’d left it on the mantel where his father had placed it for more than a year before moving it, along with all the other photographs, to the guest room closet.

  “I’ll get them later.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Tomorrow morning.” Any time that wasn’t now.

  “Don’t forget,” Noah warned, then he raised both hands defensively. “I’m just saying.”

  “I won’t forget,” Dalton said sharply.

  Noah had that look about him, the one that meant he wanted to say something that Dalton didn’t want to hear. Dalton set his shoulders, waiting, and Noah opened his mouth, then exhaled, shook his head and went into the kitchen.

  Dalton followed him. “Go ahead. Spit it out before you get all sour from keeping it in.”

  “Like you?” The words burst out as Noah set a can of diced tomatoes on the counter so hard it probably dented the surface, then turned to face him. “You know Mom and Dad worry about you. When they see you like this…When’s the last time you got your hair cut or shaved or put on clothes that don’t look like they spent a week in the cow pen? Hell, when’s the last time you talked to someone without taking his head off? No one expects you to smile and be happy like nothing happened
, but at least quit acting like they buried you with Sandra.”

  Blood turning to ice, Dalton stared at his brother. The list of subjects that were off-limits in this house was so simple even Noah could remember them: Dillon and Sandra. If the restrictions chafed him so much, he could consider the dorm at Stillwater his home from now on and stay the hell away from Tallgrass.

  The silence dragged out until Noah shifted his weight awkwardly. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Mouth clamped shut, he picked up the can along with an armful of others and went to the pantry. Before he finished putting the cans away, Dalton left the room and the house. He didn’t bother feeling his pockets for the keys he’d left in their usual spot on the counter, didn’t turn toward the pasture to catch and saddle one of the horses. He just walked, across the grass that was trying to green up, past the barn, through the gate and across the field.

  The temperature fell as he walked from the front moving in that the weather guys had predicted. By ten o’clock tonight, it would be in the low thirties, and tomorrow morning, they were saying, would bring an inch or so of snow. Dalton didn’t go back for a jacket, though. His anger at Noah was enough to keep him warm.

  But it wasn’t Noah he was mad at, he finally admitted. Noah was a kid, not even twenty yet, and he said what he felt needed to be said. It could be worse. He could have been like Dillon, telling people what he thought they wanted to hear, making promises he never intended to keep, never putting himself out for anyone other than himself.

  It would be easier to live with a dozen Noahs than just one Dillon.

  Finally, deep in the woods, Dalton slumped down on a boulder not five feet from the bank of a sluggish creek. His dad had called this his thinking spot. He must have been about eight when he discovered it, and he’d come here so often in the years since that he swore the sandstone had worn away in the shape of his butt.

  He propped his feet on the top edge of the rock, his boot heels leaving marks on the soft surface, and he let his head hang down, his eyes close.

  Noah was just a kid. How did he know Dalton felt like he’d died with Sandra? Nothing had been the same for him since. He’d kept his distance from his family and neighbors, had given up his friends, had done only what was necessary to keep the ranch running, and for a long time he’d considered giving that up, too. He didn’t need much—didn’t want much. A little place with no memories where he could waste away. Sandra’s life insurance would have provided that for the rest of his life and still have money left over.