He had never seemed farther away, and Kate struggled to bring everything under control, to fight her way through this. When she finally was able to speak, she looked up at him, her voice breaking with unhappiness. "I love you, Tanner. You may not believe that right now, but I do. And if you want me back, I'll be back."
There was a long pause; then he spoke, the harshness gone from his voice. "Why are you doing this, Kate?"
"Because," she whispered unevenly, "I want us to have a life together. I want us to be a family."
He dropped his hand and turned, staring at her across the semidark room; then he exhaled roughly and rubbed at his eyes. When he raised his head, some of the tension had left his face. He met her gaze, his voice quiet when he asked, "How long will you be gone?"
The rush of relief made her weak, and she started to tremble. "I don't know." She took a steadying breath, the effort making her chest hurt; then she spoke again, her voice soft and beseeching. "Just know that I am coming back. But I've got to get rid of all the other garbage before we can go forward. You know that, don't you?"
He stared at her for a long time, then turned and stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I know that."
Kate watched him, not sure what to say, what to do. But when the silence stretched out, she realized there really wasn't anything more to say. Giving him one last glance, she turned toward the stairs, suddenly so drained that she could barely move. She was partway up the stairs when Tanner spoke. "Kate."
She stopped and looked back, and he turned from the window. He stared at her, a somber expression in his eyes. There was a strained pause; then he spoke, his voice gruff. "No trips downstairs tonight, all right?" The corner of his mouth lifted a little. "If you keep it up, Burt's going to start expecting regular visits at two in the morning."
Kate had to fight back another wave of tears. It made her heart ache, knowing he'd been aware of her middle-of-the-night rambles. It meant that he'd been sleepless, too. She managed a small smile in return, not sure how she was going to get through the next few minutes. "I don't think I'll have to worry about that tonight." She gazed at him, wanting so much to touch him, but she forced another smile instead. "Good night."
He tipped his head. "Good night."
Kate was just about to close her bedroom door when she heard the screen door onto the veranda squeak open; then she heard his footsteps on the board floor. She closed her eyes and wrestled with a dozen emotions, then shut her door. She was going to have to make do with the fact that he could have let her go up to bed without saying anything at all. But he hadn't. And she had to believe that one small gesture meant something.
* * *
Kate awoke very early the next morning. The room was darkened and the door closed, and for one disjointed instant she thought she was in Tanner's room. Then she realized where she was. Except she hadn't remembered pulling the blind the night before, and she distinctly remembered lying down on top of her quilt. Not wanting to think about Tanner or the fact that he might have been in her room sometime during the night, she thought about getting up and slipping downstairs to watch the sunrise, but she closed her eyes instead. She was just too tired, too miserable, to face anything.
The next time she awoke it was nearly eleven o'clock, and she came out of bed in such a rush that she had to grab the bedpost and wait for her head to clear. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the quilt, and her stomach dropped away to nothing. It wasn't her quilt that had covered her. It was Tanner's. Gathering it up, she closed her eyes and hugged it against her, knowing that if she started crying, she would never stop. He had come. In the night and silently – but he had still come, and that gave her one small ray of hope.
Everyone was in the kitchen when she went downstairs, and Burt glared at her. "Well, where have you been? We're going to be leaving in a few hours, and you're lollygagging around."
For the first time in days Kate experienced a genuine flicker of humor, but before she had a chance to respond, Tanner interjected, his tone abrupt, "She hasn't had a day off since she got here. I think we can spare her a few hours."
His response had a devastating effect on her, and she felt dangerously close to tears. The fact that he'd come to her defense over such a little thing meant the world to her – Lord, she wanted to hang on to it just as she had the quilt – but somehow she had to get things back on track, or everyone would end up feeling miserable.
She had to dig for it, but she finally managed to come up with a smile. "Nice to see you this morning, too, Burt. Tanner must have fed you porridge for breakfast."
Burt snorted. "Porridge? I've tasted better wallpaper paste."
It wasn't much, but it was enough to ease the tension, and Kate took the rest of the day hour by hour, knowing that if she let herself think beyond that she would be a mess. She held it all together really well until they loaded Burt in the Bronco and she had to help the boys up to say goodbye. Scotty was first, and Kate saw him push his green dinosaur into Burt's hand, then he gave the old man a hug. The glimmer of tears in Burt's eyes was more than Kate could handle, and her throat started to close up. But when Mark climbed up and hugged the old man, and the tears slipped down his cheeks, Kate's own vision blurred. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Somehow she had to get through the next fifteen minutes.
It was her turn, and she nearly lost it when he put his frail arms around her. "Take care," she whispered brokenly. Then she looked across the cab at Tanner, knowing this was goodbye to him, as well, remembering something Burt had said to her once. "Keep a light in the window."
His face like granite, he stared at her, then abruptly looked away and nodded. She wanted to say so much more to him – that she would be back, that she wanted him to take them on a trail ride in the mountains, that she wanted to plant tulips along the east side of the house in the fall. But it was too late for that. So she gave Burt another hug, then closed the door – hanging on, hanging on until they pulled out of the yard. She stood at the gate, unable to hold back the tears any longer, watching the truck turn onto the main road. Then she turned and went into the house, wishing she could have found some way to make him understand what she'd been trying to say.
She entered the kitchen, overcome with the nearly irrational urge to throw something on the floor. Then an idea hit her – like a flash of light, and she turned, prepared to go after them, knowing she would never catch them. Dragging her hair back off her face with both hands, she tried to stop crying, tried to think; then she made a beeline for the phone.
Her hands shaking so much she could barely press the buttons, she entered the numbers for the cellular phone in the Bronco. It rang twice; then his voice came across the distance. "Tanner."
She wiped her face on her sleeve, struggling for just a small piece of composure. "I just wanted you to know," she said, her voice thick with tears and misery and hope, "that I've always hated this awful gray linoleum."
There was an electric pause, then he answered, his voice gruff. "Is that so?"
Relief rushing through her, she wiped her face again. "Yes, and it's going to be the first thing to go when I get back." Not expecting him to answer, not even wanting him to, she gripped the receiver and tried to will away the ache. "Take care, love," she whispered, then hung up the phone.
The next morning Cyrus drove her to Pincher Creek, where she and the boys caught the first bus heading west. It was July 20, the hottest day of the summer, and Kate had never felt so cold in her life.
* * *
Five weeks. Thirty-five days. And they were some of the longest days Kate had ever lived through. Fear, uncertainty, loneliness, self-doubt, mental exhaustion and, toward the end, morning sickness. It was something she never wanted to go through again. But she survived it.
She had left the boys with her parents, then gone on to confront their father alone. She had been terrified, knowing what was ahead of her, but she was met with one piece of good news: her lawyer had pus
hed the divorce through, and it would be final at the end of September. The bad news was that Roger was threatening legal action over the boys and was getting nasty about it.
It was one night a little over three weeks after she'd left the Circle S – a night when everything piled in on her, and she felt as if she had her back to the wall, the night she'd come within an inch of calling Tanner – that inspiration struck. The thought of acting on it scared her to death, but the alternatives were even worse, so she had no choice but to follow through.
Roger had his own plumbing business – a very successful and profitable plumbing business – and Kate knew he gave discounts to customers who paid cash – cash that she strongly suspected was never included on his income tax returns. She also knew that he kept records of those cash transactions in the safe behind his credenza. If she could get her hands on those, they would be her ticket out of a very nasty mess.
She'd never once expected her keys to still open the shop. But they had. What had changed was the combination on the safe, and she'd nearly panicked. But the old combination had been the day, month and year he'd incorporated the business. So in a darkened office at three in the morning she had gone through all the dates that had been significant to him – the safe opened on the day, month and year the chamber of commerce had named him businessman of the year.
Once the safe was open, she'd taken the papers out of the thick file folder, replacing them with old invoices, and reset the lock. Then she reset the burglary alarm, locked the door and drove away. She made it two blocks before she started to shake, and she hadn't stopped shaking for two hours after. But for the first time she felt totally empowered, and she knew, knew, that she had secured control. She had photocopies made of all the records she'd taken, sent the originals to herself at the Circle S, gave a set to her lawyer, and she kept a second set with her.
And when she walked into his lawyer's posh office, it felt so good, knowing she had the upper hand.
Roger tried to bully her, to intimidate her – and his lawyer tried to threaten her with frightening legal action. Her response was to push the bundle of copies across the conference table to Roger; then she smiled and told them exactly what she wanted. She would retain full custody of the boys, Roger could have limited visitation privileges providing the boys wanted to see him, and she wanted education trust funds set up for each of them, which she would administer. He could have the house, his business and any other assets. She didn't want than. And she didn't want child support. But if he ever tried to intimidate her again, or if he ever made any more threats concerning the boys, she would send the file where it would do the most damage. And then he wouldn't be seeing anyone for a very long time. Roger had looked as if he'd been poleaxed.
She met with Roger and the two attorneys one more time after that, the day she was to sign the necessary papers for the transfer of ownership and guardianship of the boys' trust fund. Roger tried to bully her again, saying he could have her charged with breaking and entering. Her lawyer pointed out that since she was still listed as a shareholder, that would be pretty foolish. Kate's response was to take the shop keys off her key ring and lay them on the table in front of her. Roger got the message. He withdrew his threat, Kate signed her shares of the business over to him and he got his keys and signed documents.
She spent the last week with her parents, making arrangements to ship the few things of the boys' that she was taking with her, and it was there that she went to the doctor and had her pregnancy confirmed. Due date: the first part of April. For some reason the night of her appointment was when everything caught up to her – the stress, the worry, the awful anxiety – and she went to bed at seven and slept for twenty hours straight. It was as if knowing that she had that tiny being growing inside her was a signal for her body to simply shut down.
She borrowed her mother's car for the return trip. She couldn't handle another bus ride, and she needed to make the transition from one life to another with just her and the boys. She would get the car back to her mother somehow. She just wasn't up to worrying about it at the moment.
It was a long trip – a long, tiring trip. And after nearly two days with nothing to do but think and drive and referee fights, Kate's nerves had worn thin. And they got worse the farther south she went.
When they drove through Bolton, she got such an anxiety attack that she started to tremble, and when she reached the turnoff for the gravel road, she had to stop until she quit shaking. It seemed to take forever, that last seven miles, and with each mile her heart beat a little harder and the butterflies got a little bigger. It wasn't until she pulled up to the house and parked by the gate that she realized there wasn't another vehicle in sight.
Not wanting anyone to know she was back until she saw Tanner, she unloaded the car, then parked it in the garage beside the Bronco. She was halfway between the garage and the house when the boys came flying out.
"Mom! Mom! Come see! You've got to come see."
Without giving her a chance even to think, they started dragging her up the walk. Scotty pulled at her hand, urging her to hurry. "Are you ever going to be surprised, Mom. Boy, are you ever."
"Don't tell," ordered his brother. "It'll spoil it if you tell."
They dragged her through the kitchen and up the stairs, and, not sure what to expect, she went along with them. She reached the top of the stairs and stopped dead in her tracks.
The gray linoleum was gone. In the hallway. In the bathroom. In the boys' bedroom. There was only beautiful bare wood – freshly stripped and sanded. Her room had been started, but not completed, and the fourth bedroom, the one full of old furniture, hadn't been touched. But the rest – ah, God, the rest. It was enough to leave her reeling. She sat down in the hall, so many emotions cartwheeling through her that she couldn't tell one from the other. The gray linoleum was gone. She tipped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, giving way to overwhelming relief.
"Why are you crying, Mom? Don't you like it?"
Kate opened her eyes and looked at her sons' worried faces, and she laughed through her tears. "I love it."
Mark answered. "Me too."
Wiping her eyes with the side of her hand, Kate gazed at him, knowing she was going to have to make some explanations. She knew they understood about the divorce, and she'd told them that they were coming back here to live – that this was going to be their home – but she wasn't sure if they understood what that meant exactly. Now seemed like the right time to make those explanations. She lifted Scotty onto her lap, then drew Mark up against her. "There are going to be some changes now that we're back," she said, her voice soft. "You guys understand that, don't you?"
Mark looked at her, his gaze open and direct. "You mean like you and Tanner getting married?"
An hour ago Kate wouldn't have been sure how to answer that, but sitting here on the bare wooden floor, she had no doubts at all. "Yes, but not for a while. Not until your dad's and my divorce is final."
They both accepted it as if it was old news, and Scotty, who was obviously bored with all this, started picking at a scab. Amusement flickered, and Kate caught his hand. Screwing up her courage, she forged on. "That means that I'm going to be sleeping in Tanner's room from now on."
Scotty looked at her and frowned. "You mean like on TV?"
Kate prayed that Burt had been censoring the program content when they'd watched TV together. "Yes, like that."
He made a face. "Yuck." He scrambled off her lap. "I got to go to the bathroom."
Kate wanted to smile, but she glanced down at Mark. "Is that okay with you?"
He gave her a confused look. "If Scotty goes to the bathroom?"
She did smile then. "No. If I sleep with Tanner."
He gave her a skeptical look. "I don't have to sleep with anyone, do I?"
Kate laughed and ruffled his hair. "No, not until you want to. Then we'll talk." She got to her feet. "Let's get things put away, okay?"
* * *
Kate
hadn't known one compact car could hold so much, so by the time they got everything put away, it was well after six. She made the boys some supper, sent them up for a bath, then let them watch some TV in Burt's room. Scott crashed almost immediately, but she let Mark stay up until eight, then carried Scott up. She had a bath herself, trying to will away the butterflies that kept springing to life. She was just so damned nervous.
It occurred to her that he might be in Calgary with Burt, but she didn't even want to consider it. He had to come home tonight. He just had to. She paced from room to room, the butterflies getting bigger, anxiety making her restless, every minute longer than the last. She didn't turn on any lights, partly because she didn't want Cyrus walking up to to see what was going on, and partly because she knew she couldn't stand the brightness. She finally made herself sit at the kitchen table and watch the light fade from the western sky, nervous tension building in her. It felt as if she'd been waiting a lifetime for him to walk in that door. A lifetime.
It was nine when she heard a vehicle drive in, and she went absolutely still, listening for some sound from outside. She heard the gate creak, and she closed her eyes, her heart suddenly clamoring in her chest. Then she waited for the back door to open, and it struck her what it must have been like for him night after night, coming home to an empty, dark house. There was the sound of him removing his boots, and she stood up, compelled by the frenzy inside her, immobilized by anxiety, her pulse so labored that she could feel it all the way down to her fingertips. She waited, waited, her gaze riveted on the door; then a dark shape appeared, and the light flashed on.
He went absolutely still when he saw her. Not a trace of anything on his face. He just stood there, staring at her. Then he clenched his jaw and bent his head, gouging at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, his face twisting with emotion.
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