by Shirley Jump
“Almost two years. But Geoff was gone long before that.”
“Gone?”
“Emotionally, physically, take your pick.” Allie toed at a dandelion, then smushed the yellow head into the ground. “I wasn’t what he wanted.”
She didn’t elaborate. What kind of man would divorce Allie Dean? She was smart, witty, sexy as hell, and one of those honest, forthright people who didn’t take anything from anyone.
He wanted to ask Allie what she’d meant, but his priority right now was rolling across the wide brick patio, the dog’s leash dangling from her thin, pale wrist. When he knew Katie was okay, and well on the path to sobriety and recovery, then could he think about his own life.
For now, he had Allie, the gardens, and the waning sunlight.
“Anyway,” Allie said, clearly done with the subject of her divorce, “my ex, once a Hollywood lawyer, owns a company that trains animals for a living. They do both the Hollywood kind and he has a partner who runs a division training Helping Hands dogs. When I called him about Katie, he had a dog sent out here from his partner’s place.”
“Thank you,” Duncan said, watching his sister’s face light up with delight as she took a stick and threw it across the yard, laughing as the dog snagged it, jogged it back, and waited while she did it again. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing.” She waved off the idea of money. “It’s a gift. For Katie.”
“And a hell of a lot better one than the jam the ladies from the Presbyterian church keep sending to the house.”
She laughed. “They’ve got good intentions but terrible cooking skills.”
“You’re personally acquainted with the baked goods of the ladies of the Presbyterian church?”
Allie paled, then let out a little laugh. Duncan’s radar picked up on the nervous gestures. Once again, the feeling that Allie wasn’t who she seemed nagged at him. He glanced at her face, and something within him said he knew her.
Crazy thought. But yet…
She seemed familiar somehow. How could that be?
“I tried the cookies at the dance,” she said with a grimace. “The Ten Commandments ones were the worst.”
“I think that’s their eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not want sugar,” Duncan said, brushing off his doubts. A couple bites of those cookies would warn anyone off the church ladies’ recipes.
Duncan looked over at the dog and then at his sister. She’d stopped her wheelchair beside the fountain. Long ago, the stone decoration had gone silent, moss now covering the urn in the concrete girl’s hand. Ranger sat three feet away from Katie, as still as the statue, watching and waiting for his name to be called.
Of all things. A dog.
When he and Katie had been little, how many times had they begged their father for a pet? A dog, a cat, hell, a lizard or a fish? And always, the answer had been no.
Too much mess. Too much work. Too much distraction. From their grades. Their chores. But most of all, from their perfect house, their perfect clothes, their perfect image.
The decades-old rage boiled again inside of Duncan’s chest but he pushed it down, quieting that beast. His father was dead and his sister had already paid the price for that too-tight leash.
“Look at this dog, Duncan. He totally loves me.” Katie now had Ranger half on her lap and had buried her face in his neck, laughing and petting him.
Clearly, Katie was going to spoil that dog rotten and make him no good for helping at anything. But he was already helping her be happy. For Duncan, that was miracle enough.
Duncan gestured toward the stone bench that fronted the lilacs. They took a seat, Allie turning her face up to greet the sun, a contented smile on her face.
He hated to interrupt the moment, but he’d put off asking her long enough. “I wanted to ask you something. A favor of sorts.”
“Sure.”
“I want to do a piece for WTMT-TV about the movie. And I’d like to interview you.”
“Interview?” The contented smile disappeared, replaced by something closer to panic. “On television?”
“Sure. I thought all Hollywood-types loved free PR.”
“We do. Just, ah, closer to shooting and the ad that’s going to run tomorrow in the Tempest Weekly. That way, I can time it with the search for extras.” Her face quirked up into something approaching a smile again. “Wouldn’t want a bunch of wannabe Johnny Depps flooding me with resumes.”
“Yeah.” That nagging feeling of familiarity returned, edged around her smile. Duncan brushed it off. He’d spent too much time dwelling on his own problems, rather than having a life.
Still…
She reminded him of someone, that was all. Someone he’d known in high school. The easy way she had with Katie, with him, putting them at ease.
Once again, Duncan shook off the feeling.
For a moment, the two of them watched Katie, circling the yard, Ranger at her side, the girl and her dog falling into an easy pattern already. Beside him, Duncan could sense a question on Allie’s lips, in the tension around her mouth, the reservation in her manner, holding back just as Katie restrained the dog with the leash. “Go ahead, ask.”
“Ask what?”
“You’re curious about something, so ask the question. Ask me, ask Katie. We have nothing to hide.” His gaze swept over the gardens, the dying plants that had once been tended so meticulously by a payrolled staff. Landscapers paid to keep the roses, the trees, and most of all, keep their silence. “Not anymore.”
She glanced at him sharply, then returned her attention to the ground at her feet. “Okay. Where is everything?”
“In the house you mean. The furniture? The dishes?”
She nodded.
“I sold it all. To pay for Katie, for the hospital bills, the follow-up care.”
“But I thought—” She caught her words, redoubled on the sentence. “I heard around town…”
“That the Henrys were wealthy. The Rockefellers of Indiana. Well, what you see isn’t always what you get. In an old house, the wallpaper covers a lot of sins. And in this house, everything was a cover.”
“For what?” she asked, her voice soft, not just curious, but caring.
“My father was…” He paused, searching for the right word. “An illusionist.”
Katie had made it to the far side of the yard and was now bent over in her chair to pick a few daisies that managed to make their way through the weeds and built-up detritus from past seasons. Stubborn, hopeful plants returning to poke up their yellow heads and wave hello.
“And you and Katie were part of the magic show,” Allie said, her voice so full of understanding, Duncan swiveled his head toward hers, sure then that he did know her. The words struck a chord of memory and this time, he heard it, caught it before it slipped away.
“Grace,” he said, and smiled at the memory, a quiet moment shared before school, after a particularly awful morning with his father, one of the worst fights. But every day, he had a thirty-minute oasis, ostensibly to study his math.
“What?” Allie asked.
“There was this girl in my high school. I called her Grace, nicknamed her really. She was the only one I could talk to.” He chuckled. “Supposedly, I was there to learn Trig, but Grace was more listening ear than tutor.”
Beside him, Allie had gone still, her arms around herself, as if she’d caught a sudden chill. “But weren’t you Mr. Popular? I mean, that’s what I heard.”
He let out a gust. “All part of the magic show. I was the football team captain. But I hated it. Hated football, hated sports, in fact. I did it because that’s what a Henry does.” He did a rah-rah fist, imitating his father. “A Henry doesn’t just make the team, a Henry becomes captain, scores the winning touchdown, makes the town shine, by God. And because if I didn’t, my father made my life a living hell.”
She didn’t say anything, just watched him with those wide, understanding green eyes, her hand on his, a comfort unlike any he had had befor
e. Duncan, the one who had been reliable, the rock for Katie to stand on, who had only relied on one other person before in his life, now found himself opening the door inside his heart, allowing the summer breeze, the soft squeak of the wheelchair, and the happy sound of Katie’s laughter to open a wall he’d long ago cemented shut.
“My father expected everything to be perfect. His house. His land. His clothes. His children. And when we weren’t…” His gaze went to the house, to the one thing in the house he hadn’t sold off, taken down, removed from the walls, that one piece of wood that reminded him, haunted his memories, hung there, a reminder of where he’d come from and where he refused to go again. “He had ways of reminding us what failure cost.”
“Dunk, I’m going to put these in some water,” Katie called, then waved her brother back down when he rose. “I can do it.” She wheeled past him, smiling, daises across her lap, dog trotting along with her, as she negotiated up the ramp and into the kitchen.
“That paddle over the door,” Allie said, her voice a whisper. “He beat you. Both of you.”
Duncan swallowed, bile thick in his throat. “Only me. I never let him touch Katie.”
“You…you…” Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God, Duncan.”
“That’s why I let her…” His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes, dropped his head into his hands, letting that weight of guilt sit on his shoulders, needing to share the burden with someone. “Let her have that party. My father had always been so hard on her. Maybe she reminded him of our mother, who died when we were both little. Maybe it was because Katie hardly ever did a thing he told her, I don’t know. He never touched her, I made sure of that, but my father was a bastard in so many other ways. Katie got away with as much as she could, living off and on in that house with my aunt, but she kept coming back home.”
“Why would she come back?”
Duncan’s smile cracked across his face, painful, short. “She wouldn’t leave me.”
“And you won’t leave her.”
“I can’t. It’s—” But before he could get the words out, before that gorilla could leave his shoulders, the backdoor opened with a squeak and his sister’s face, bright, happy, excited, for the first time in years, met his.
“I have an idea, Duncan Henry,” Katie said. “And you are not allowed to say no.”
He cleared his throat, wiped the emotion off his face and got to his feet. “That could be dangerous. Last time you had an idea, I ended up giving a lot of money to the nice folks at Home Shopping Network.”
“Hey, I was bored. And Tootie kept tooting her little horn. I was just joining the festivities.” Katie sat back in her chair, looking very pleased with herself. In her lap, she had exchanged the flowers for the cordless phone. “I want the two of you to go out together. Alone.”
“No can do, Katie-bird. Can’t leave you by yourself, you know that.”
She rolled up to them. “Too bad. I already took care of it. Called the visiting nurses and got myself a little RN care for the evening. Made a reservation at Margie’s for their best booth.” At that she grinned because they all knew there was no best booth at the diner. “Because I knew you wouldn’t go too far away, you big worrywart.” She gave Duncan a good-natured slug, but he could see she, too, wanted him nearby. There’d been major strides made today, but she still needed him.
Two steps forward, one step back. Katie had yet to leave the security of house, because she didn’t want anyone to see her like this. But she’d come this far, and he dared to hope for more.
“You have a half hour until the nurse gets here. Enough time for you to change into something respectable.”
“I am respectable.” He opened his arms, indicating his suit.
“Oh, please. You wore that for half the women in southern Indiana today. Wear something just for Allie. And for God’s sake, make it a color other than blue.”
Allie arched a brow, and Duncan grinned. “Inside joke,” he said. He took a step toward the house, then turned back to his sister. “Are you really going to be okay?”
“Eventually, yes,” Katie said. “Someday, Duncan, you have to quit worrying about me and let me start doing it for myself.” She gave him a little shove. “Now go. Because if Allie can do all this for me, imagine what she can do for you.”
Duncan glanced at the dog, at his sister’s flushed with excitement face, then at the woman who had both opened his world and his heart, and for the first time in five years, he looked forward to his future.
Chapter 15
Dinner at Margie’s diner was about the best entertainment people could buy in a town like Tempest. At five o’clock, the senior citizen rush started—all those wheelchairs and walkers jostling one another out of the way in a metal-on-metal race to get their meal ordered before the 15-percent off special ended at six.
Around Allie and Duncan’s booth, a rousing game of one-upmanship had sprung up among the men from the Miller’s Merry Manor. “I had the gout so bad, they ’bout had to amputate my toe,” Joe Swanson grumbled, lifting his booted foot, ready to whip out a little show-and-tell.
Petey Simpson waved a hand in dismissal. “That’s nuthin’. I’m crippled as a three-legged dog with this damned arthritis. I had to have Doris open the pickles, for God’s sake.”
“That’s when you know it’s time to hang it up and call game over,” Harry Lincoln grumbled, crossing his arms over his plaid flannel shirt. Always the pessimist, Harry had more frown lines than crow’s-feet. Allie bit her lip to keep from laughing. The three men hadn’t changed at all in the years she’d been gone. They hadn’t even moved from their favorite table. They still lingered there now, even though the clock said it had long gone past seven. “It’s damned embarrassin’ when a man can’t turn a jar.”
Duncan glanced at Allie and grinned. “Now there’s something to look forward to.”
She laughed. “Some things never change.”
“Around here,” Duncan replied as he slipped his menu back into the chrome holder, “nothing ever changes.”
“Oh, some things do.” Allie looked at her hands, splayed across the table, her fingers no longer the thick sausage-like appendages of her youth. “I’m sure,” she added.
“You know, ever since I met you, I’ve had the weirdest feeling, like I should know you.”
Don’t let him put the pieces together. Not yet. Not before…
Before what? What did she want?
A little more than a week ago, she’d been standing in front of the Welcome to Tempest sign, chucking rocks at it, venting years of frustration, disappointment, and hurt, with half those rocks aimed at the Duncan Henry who had broken her heart.
Now she sat in Margie’s diner, having dinner with him, her heart becoming more entangled by the second, the pain of those high school years seeming a century away. Her job, her reason for being here, seeming even farther.
Especially whenever she looked at the six-foot-two hunk and her mind brought back the image of kissing him. The memory of touching him. How it felt whenever he touched her.
“Why would you say you know me?” The laugh that escaped her did not betray the riot in her gut.
Because if he found out now, and he rejected her again, as he had on prom night—
That worry alone was a sign she was too involved, caring too much.
“You look familiar somehow.” He shook his head, then sat back, putting some distance between them. A long breath of relief escaped Allie. “Must be your long-lost twin or something because I’ve never been to L.A. and you’ve never been here.”
She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice to echo the lie.
“I bet being here in Tempest is a big shock, huh? Compared to California.”
“You have no idea.” Heat climbed her throat, flushing in her cheeks. The booth closed in, as if it had become a giant microscope. Time to turn the subject around, to get herself back on the solid, secure footing she knew. “Haven’t you been outside of Tempest
?”
“When I graduated high school, I wanted out of this place, never to return again and all that. I went to college on the east coast for two years then came back to finish my degree at Ball State.”
Allie bit back the questions that raced to her mind. The whys, whats, and hows. Duncan had been destined for big things, as the chosen son of the town’s wealthiest family. What had made him return?
And even more, buck the plan his father had laid out for him, as surely and evenly as railroad tracks?
At the next table, Joe Swanson got to his feet, plopping his worn, multicolored fly-decorated fishing cap on his head. “Well, boys, time for me to get on home. Gotta soak my foot.”
“Did you try the Epsom salts, like I told you?” Harry wagged a finger at Joe. “I tell you, it cured my athlete’s foot.”
“I thought you were supposed to use that Vapor Rub stuff on athlete’s foot,” Petey put in, rubbing at his beard. “Not Epsom salts.”
Harry scowled. “I know my home remedies. And I know no vapor’s going to take care of that problem.”
The men continued to bicker, touting one OTC option after another. The waitress came and deposited Allie and Duncan’s dinners on the table, the meatloaf and mashed potatoes special for Duncan, a chicken Caesar salad for Allie.
“Why did you come back to Tempest?” she asked.
“My family needed me.” He didn’t elaborate, busy making inroads in his mashed potatoes. He scooped up a bite, and the dark brown gravy immediately swirled into the space.
Katie. The unspoken word, the pieces of the puzzle she could fill in herself, especially after their earlier conversation. Even she could do the math and figure that out.
“What about you?” Duncan asked. “Any siblings?”
“A younger sister. That’s all.” Allie chuckled. “We fought most of our lives, like two tigers wanting the same gazelle.”
A grin of understanding curved across Duncan’s face. “And who won?”
“Oh, always Carlene. She was the smarter, prettier one.”