Papa stood, taking his time about fastening on his gun belt. He took the cup from Kate then leaned over to kiss her cheek. "See you around noon, Katie-girl."
As Kate watched Luke and Papa drive away, she felt more concerned and confused than ever. In fact, some of her concern was for herself. She had to keep a level, unemotional head in order to deal with this whole situation, and she didn't seem to be doing that.
It was hard enough to view Papa's problem objectively, but her incomprehensible feelings about Luke were complicating matters.
Maybe she was reacting too strongly to her childhood loss. Maybe she could be Luke's friend now. As an adult, she'd learned that caring about someone didn't mean diving in head over heels and drowning in emotions. She certainly didn't have that sort of insane relationship with Spencer. They were compatible, shared the same interests, had the same goals and were almost always in agreement. That was a sensible kind of relationship.
She dropped the curtains and headed upstairs to get dressed.
Too bad she hadn't brought the mint green silk dress for tonight. She always got compliments when she wore that.
She stopped with her hand on her closet door, horror washing over her as she realized what she'd just thought.
Who did she think she would be dressing up for?
Not Luke.
Certainly not Luke.
She'd wear her cutoffs. The kitchen would be hot from all that cooking, and cutoffs would be practical.
Maybe she couldn't be his friend after all.
Papa's possible mental lapses in talking to Mama began to seem less significant in view of her own mental lapses since she arrived here yesterday.
Maybe there was something in the town air that made people crazy. She certainly hadn't been herself since she arrived yesterday.
Chapter Six
"So, Sheriff, what's your future son-in-law like?" Luke asked casually as he steered his car away from Sheriff's house...from Katie who, without makeup and wearing an old robe, looked heart-breakingly like the Katie he'd known all those years ago. He'd wanted to grab her, pull her into his arms and hold her so tightly he'd never lose her again.
Except, of course, he didn't have her to lose again.
When Sheriff didn't answer immediately, Luke stole a quick glance away from the road to study the older man's face. Sheriff was frowning slightly and looking very contemplative. Neither expression was usual for him.
"You do know about Katie's engagement, don't you?" Luke asked as the thought occurred to him that perhaps Katie hadn't told her father just as she hadn't told him until late last night.
Sheriff nodded slowly even as he contradicted that nod with his words. "I wouldn't go so far as to call it an engagement. She doesn't even have a ring."
Luke knew he shouldn't feel so relieved over that small detail. "People don't have to have a ring to be engaged," he pointed out.
What difference did it make to him if Katie was engaged? He'd wrestled with that question most of the night and had concluded somewhere around two o'clock that morning that he was being possessive of something he didn't own. Anyway, all he wanted from Katie was her friendship. It didn't matter if she was married. He would probably like any guy Katie picked out. They could all be friends.
If that conclusion didn't seem to be exactly on-target, it was only because he'd drunk too much tea at Sheriff's house last night, been unable to sleep, and felt lousy today. Things got all skewed when he was tired. Maybe he ought to try to work in a short nap before going to Sheriff's house for dinner.
Sheriff grunted. "Katie wouldn't really get married without her mama's wedding dress, and that's still stored in the attic. She's here because she needs to think through some things. What's that expression you young people use? Get her head on straight. Did you see that red car run that stop sign up there?"
"Sure did. Think we ought to go after him and give him a ticket?"
"Nah. There wasn't anybody else around. He didn't hurt anything. Probably running late. You got time to help me with those forms this morning? I might as well tell you, Pete used to do the paper work for both of us."
Luke laughed. "You mean, Pete was supposed to do the paperwork for both of you."
Sheriff grinned. "Something like that. Once we get this new computer system, we'll get things in order."
Sheriff seemed determined about the computer thing. He probably should have done it years ago. The new equipment was going to look odd on the top of that fifty-year old solid wood desk in Sheriff's office. Luke wasn't even sure they had the necessary wiring to support a computer system. The building itself was at least fifty years old, maybe older.
He pulled into the parking lot behind the jail.
As he and Sheriff got out of the car, it dawned on Luke that Sheriff had successfully diverted the conversation away from Katie's engagement.
Deliberately?
He suspected so. Sheriff hadn't seemed too thrilled with the prospect of his new son-in-law. Maybe Sheriff was having as much trouble dealing with Katie's being grown up as Luke was.
He leaned on his open car door and looked down the alley on both sides at the backs of the stone, brick and frame buildings. It was Saturday and a couple of places were closed, but most had cars parked behind.
Luke took a deep breath of the clean air, scented with that early morning fragrance that belonged only to Briar Creek. He was home. Life was good.
Katie's engagement was good. That news would surely put an end to all those wild thoughts and desires he'd been having about her.
Katie would marry that Spencer person and he, Luke, would find someone to focus his desires on. Maybe he'd even get remarried one day. He and his wife could play cards with Katie and her husband on Saturday nights. Dallas wasn't that far away. They'd all be the best of friends. Their kids would go to each others' birthday parties.
He slammed the car door behind him and wished with all his might that he could believe that crock, that he could be happy for his friend's impending marriage, convince her to forgive him for his childhood lapse and resume their friendship. Most of all he wished he could stop thinking of her as a woman, stop lusting after her. That seemed almost sacrilegious. She was Katie, his friend and Sheriff's daughter.
Well, if he couldn't stop doing it, he could at least learn to ignore those thoughts.
***
Kate spent the morning cleaning house. A couple of years ago she had tried to get Papa to let her pay a bonded service in Tyler to drive over and do weekly cleaning, but Papa insisted he'd managed just fine for twenty-six years, including her messy childhood. Now that he only had himself to pick up after, he sure didn't need help.
His concession was to hire a local woman to come in on a monthly basis and clean. But it had obviously been at least three and a half weeks since her last visit, judging from the amount of dust.
With the main floor finished, she marched upstairs. She had about an hour before Papa was due home and they were scheduled to start cooking his bizarre meal.
She finished her room and the two guest rooms then paused at the open door to Papa's room. She hadn't been in there more than a dozen times in her life. He'd never forbidden her to enter, never kept the door closed except at night, but she'd always valued his privacy as much as he'd valued hers. Now she hesitated to go in even to clean. From the doorway she could see that the bed was made and the room was tidy. Whatever chaos had reigned in the rest of the house when she was growing up, Papa's room had always been tidy.
It hadn't changed much. He still had the same blue recliner, faded and getting a little threadbare. The walnut dresser and chest of drawers he and Mama had found at a used furniture store and refinished still had the doilies Mama had crocheted to protect their surfaces.
When she was a child, the spread on the four-poster bed had been pale blue with a lace overlay and curtains to match. It had only been about five years ago that she'd talked Papa into getting rid of the tattered lace curtains and spread. She'd ex
pected him to choose something masculine or at least in a solid color. Instead, he'd selected a print of lilacs and leaves with the comment that Mama would have liked it.
Or had he said, Mama likes it? When had his delusion begun?
She'd never noticed before, but he'd always talked so much about Mama, she hadn't paid close attention. There hadn't been any reason to pay close attention. She'd always considered Papa invulnerable, the unchanging center of her life.
Leo rubbed against her leg then strolled into the room and leaped gracefully onto the lilac-print bed spread.
"Leo!" she chastised. "Come here!"
Papa never complained about Leo getting on the furniture, so it was probably all right. Nevertheless, she went in to retrieve the cat.
Leo tilted his head up and back then down again, arched his back slightly, raised and lowered his tail...as if he were being stroked by an invisible hand. It was one of his favorite tricks. Kate assumed it meant he wanted to be petted.
She sat down on the bed and began to stroke him. Leo often seemed to have more than his fair share of static electricity, and her hand tingled for an instant as it passed over his fur. "You're a good cat, Leo. I miss you when I'm in Dallas. Did you know that? How would you and Papa like to come to Dallas to live?"
As she spoke the words, she realized she'd been considering that option in the back of her mind for some time. Papa's delusions, the holes in his socks and the realization of the enormity of keeping up this big old house had brought it to the front. Surely Papa was close to being ready to retire especially now that he had someone competent to pass the sheriff's job to.
Maybe she could convince him to move into her condo after she and Spencer found a larger one. Hers was on the third floor of the building, but there was an elevator. If he didn't like it, they could sell it and find him another one on the ground floor, maybe in the same complex as Spencer's. That would be better. She could be close in case he needed her.
A breeze billowed the curtains that matched the spread.
A mockingbird whistled a liquid trill of notes.
A locust whirred its raspy song.
Peace wrapped invisible arms around Kate.
Sitting in Papa's room made her feel the way Leo must feel as she stroked his soft fur, like purring.
On the nightstand beside the bed sat the familiar picture of Mama and Papa at their wedding. She picked it up to dust off the glass, but it wasn't dusty. Papa must look at it regularly.
His hair was dark and thick in the picture, his face unlined, his smile wide.
Mama was beautiful. Even in the black and white print, her hair seemed to have a red cast to it. It had been, Papa said, darker than Kate's, and curly rather than wavy. Her dress was beautiful, too. Mama's mother and Aunt Viola had spent weeks making the dress so it was perfect. It was a simple design with a scoop neckline and long sleeves, the ivory satin nipped in at the waist then falling sleekly to the floor.
Papa wanted her to get married in that dress, but it wouldn't fit with Spencer's and her plans. It was too formal.
And somehow it just didn't feel right.
She set the picture back down and studied it. That dress was for a fairytale wedding, like Mama and Papa had, two people with stars in their eyes. But she was having a practical, down-to-earth wedding. Those stars had a way of exploding in your face, and fairytales happened only in story books she was too old to read. Even Mama and Papa's fairytale had ended unhappily with Mama's death.
Would things have been different if Mama had lived? Would Mama and Papa still have stars in their eyes?
Would she have grown up believing in fairy tales and happy-ever-after?
Probably not. Such notions were outmoded, a thing of the past. The divorce rate verified that romantic love was a temporary state of mind. Even Mama and Papa's stars might have turned to dust with the pressures of everyday living.
Mutual respect, mutual interests, mutual goals, those were the things that made for a successful partnership in today's society.
She checked her watch, surprised to find she'd been sitting there for half an hour. She ought to go down and peel onions or do something productive.
The curtain billowed in the breeze again, and the cool scent of lilacs drifted to Kate's nostrils, wrapping around her. The fragrance made her feel as if she could almost touch her mother. Probably because Papa had so often mentioned how much Mama liked that scent, how he'd planted the lilac tree for her.
Or maybe she actually remembered something of her mother. Maybe on a subconscious level she could recall the smell of lilacs while being cradled in soft arms, her crying comforted, her pain soothed, surrounded by love, secure in the knowledge it would always be that way.
Just so the breeze seemed to caress her now, brushing along her cheek with a pleasant tingle, inviting her to relax, to remember being a trusting child, to remember...
Her fifth birthday party when she'd been shocked to see that she'd blown out all but one candle which meant her wish couldn't come true, but Luke had clapped so hard so close to the candle that it went out, and then he'd sworn she blew them all out and her wish would come true.
Her first day of school when Bart Greene, two years older, had pushed her off the merry-go-round and taken her spot and Luke had descended on the older boy in a fury, snatched him off the ride and bloodied his nose.
Playing dolls with Luke. He'd never complained, though he had insisted that half a day spent playing house should end with half a day spent playing cowboys and arresting and hanging the dolls.
The phone rang, jolting Kate out of the nostalgic trance she'd somehow fallen into.
She snatched up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Katie, could you come get me? Luke had to go out on a call. I know it's nearly one, and I should have phoned you sooner, but I kept thinking Luke would get back here any time."
"Sure, Papa. I'll be right there."
"Are you okay, Katie-girl? You sound kind of out of breath?"
Kate rubbed a hand across her eyes in an effort to clear away the wispy remnants of fog that still clung. "I'm fine. I just dozed off. I'll see you in a few minutes."
She hung up the phone and stood, tentatively drawing in a deep breath. The scent of lilacs was gone. Had that fragrance, so familiar from her childhood, caused her to relax so completely she'd fallen asleep and dreamed? It had seemed to have that effect last night, but today had been more like a hypnotic trance.
She snatched up her dusting cloth and started to leave, then remembered the reason she'd come in.
Leo was doing his stroked-by-the-invisible-hand routine again. She picked him up under one arm and strode from the room, closing the door behind her. Visits to the past were futile and a waste of time. There was only one way to move and that was forward, into the future.
Papa and maybe even Luke were trying to recapture a part of that past with the dinner tonight. Both were doomed to disappointment as well as some really awful food.
When she went to her car, she noticed that the tires on Papa's blue Oldsmobile looked fine. He'd apparently imagined a low tire, too.
She sighed. She should have checked herself. Then she wouldn't have had to see Luke this morning.
***
"Get the chicken started first," Papa advised. "It takes longest to cook. I marked the recipe page with a rubber band."
Tea towel tied around her waist, Kate approached the vintage cookbook as if it might attack her. A rubber band, a paper clip, a letter opener, a twist tie from a plastic bag, and a used envelope protruded from its pages. Tentatively she flipped it open to the rubber band. "Coq au vin," she read. "Six slices of bacon, diced." So far, so good. Dicing bacon couldn't be all that hard.
"Don't dice them until they're cooked," Papa advised. "Mama says it works better that way."
"Right." She ignored the present tense verb. She could only deal with one crisis at a time. "Two-thirds cup chopped scallions."
"Clifford's didn't have scallions. Mama says
green onions will work."
"Right." Mama's ghost was obviously an experienced cook. But then, she supposed ghosts had lots of time to perfect things like that. They didn't have to go to an office or shop for groceries. And they could just whip up any old recipe since they didn't have to worry about gaining weight or having a heart attack from high cholesterol.
A high-pitched giggle escaped Katie's lips, and she realized she was on the edge of hysteria. Or maybe she'd fallen over the edge.
"You okay, Katie-girl?" Papa asked solicitously.
"I'm fine." One crisis at a time, she reminded herself. Get this food ruined and move on to Papa's mental condition.
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