Tabby stopped along the road and took several pictures of Stoner’s house from different angles. She would plug the camera into his computer, and he could pick the angle he liked before she did her preliminary sketches. This time when Peterson answered the door, Tabby smiled at him. She was dressed in a long silky skirt, a silk camisole, and a matching jacket. Her hair fell in its usual loose braid down the length of her back.
“Good afternoon, Miss MacVie. The senator is in his study if you wish to follow me. I’ll announce you.”
“Very proper of you, Peterson,” Tabby muttered in a mock English accent.
He peered over his shoulder with an arched brow. “Quite so, miss.”
Tabby laughed. “That’s impressive. You’ve put me in my place.”
Peterson paused before he rapped on the door. The barest hint of a smile played about his lips. “Apparently not, miss.” At Stoner’s muffled response, Peterson opened the door. “Miss MacVie to see you, Senator.” He turned and stared at her. “He’s been a bear today. Careful.”
“I heard that, Peterson.” Stoner was seated at his desk, but his chair was turned sideways, and he was gazing morosely out the window. Without greeting, he demanded, “Have you ever gone hunting, Tabby?”
She set her things down cautiously and eased into the smooth leather chair across from his desk. “I’m a vegetarian, Stoner. Since I don’t eat meat, I choose not to hunt it either.”
He turned and examined her as if she were some strange new species. “A vegetarian? Is it a religious thing or a fad?”
“I’d say neither. Call it having too many unique foods served to me that I could either eat or be beaten until I ‘chose’ to eat. I’ve had everything from bear to snapping turtle with some stuff in between that could well have been road kill for all I know. Now I simply choose to eat other things. I will eat cheese. I’m not that strict.”
Stoner sighed. “It was never the kill that drew me to hunting. I enjoy going out with a pack of hounds—on foot, on horseback, it doesn’t matter to me—watching them work and hearing their voices when they find. I miss it, and my sentence has hardly even begun.”
“You can still enjoy walking around on your farm, can’t you?”
His mouth twisted and he glared out the window. “Yes. Like a dog on a leash. I set foot off the property, and an alert gets sent to the sheriff’s office.”
He looked so petulant, so lost. Tabby searched her backpack for her camera. “I took some pictures of the house, so you can pick what angle you’d like it painted from. Wanna see?”
He glared at her. “Trying to cheer me up when I’m busy wallowing in self-pity?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
The stiff set of his shoulders relaxed, and his gray eyes suddenly twinkled. “Maybe.”
He looked at the pictures, picked an angle, and they haggled over the price and the timeframe. Tabby glared at him. “You drive a hard bargain, Stoner. You must have been tough in negotiations in Washington.”
“I was.”
“Why did you quit?”
“My mistakes were about to catch up with me. It was easier to leave with my reputation still intact.”
Tabby studied him a moment. He fascinated her in a totally different way than Joseph did. They were light and dark with personalities to match. “I want to sketch you.”
He laughed. “You could hang it next to my senate portrait and entitle them ‘Oh How the Mighty are Fallen.’”
“I want to sketch you doing your wood working.”
“It won’t reveal some nobler side to me, Tabby,” he stated quietly and coolly. “I’m not a nice man.”
“Neither are you a monster. I’ve seen those.”
He arched a dark brow at her. “I suspect you have.”
“Before you ran for office, you were an attorney, weren’t you?”
“I studied law. I keep up with it, but I couldn’t practice even if I wanted to now. The bar frowns on felonious attorneys. You need Evan if you want a legal opinion.”
“Maybe later. I-I just need a sounding board right now. And someone with a legal background would definitely be a plus.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I’m listening.”
Tabby outlined what she had seen of Melodie that first day along with what she gathered from the little girl’s file. He listened and shook his head. “It’s not enough to bring charges, but it might be enough to have social services launch an investigation. Is this child Mike Matthews’s daughter?”
Tabby slowly nodded her head.
Stoner grimaced. “He’s a member of the school board, honey. Did you know that?”
She glared at him. “It doesn’t matter. I know this is happening, Stoner.”
Tabby stared at him helplessly, wariness warring with an overwhelming need. He was a practical man, a realist. She saw the steadiness in his eyes, the world-weary expression, then gave him her trust. She stepped around the desk and turned her back to him.
Shrugging out of her jacket, she said, “Lift up my shirt and look.” She heard his soft hiss as he did. “I hid that my whole life,” she spat as she spun around to glare at him, “from numerous investigations. No one ever saw because I hid it and wouldn’t let them look. I did exactly what I’m sure Melodie is doing.”
He stared at her intently, his eyes narrowed. “There is a vast difference between fact and belief.”
Tabby paced restlessly to the window. “I am an artist, trained to look at things with a critical eye, trained to translate what I see onto paper or canvas. Because of that critical eye, I see details many people might miss.”
“Just like you noticed the changes in Jenny that even she, as a physician, hadn’t yet picked up on.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and swallowed. “I will have Melodie in class again Thursday.”
Stoner leaned back in his chair, but when he spoke, his voice urged her on. “Then see if you can get her to go to the nurse with you and show you both. Be her advocate, Tabby, like no one was for you.”
She sighed and nodded. “I will. Thanks. I needed someone to say it to me.” She grinned at him. “You’re good for me.”
He picked her jacket up off the floor and handed it to her. “Damn it all. You have managed to shake me out of my dark mood when I was so thoroughly involved in feeling sorry for myself. I think I’m going to work in my shop. You ready to sketch now?”
Tabby smiled, thankful for the easy acceptance he gave her. “Sure.”
They walked out the back of the house, Tabby still marveling at its size and rich appointments. Inside the workshop, she sat on a stool in the corner and sketched him working, the way his hair fell across his forehead, how his brows drew together in concentration over narrowed eyes and his hawkish nose. She drew his hands in various poses, fascinated by the contrast between their size and the elegance of their movements. He moved like an artist and concentrated as intensely at his work as she did at her own. When she had enough sketches, she closed her pad and simply watched him.
He straightened after a while and rubbed his back. With a grin he asked, “How’s your love life?”
Tabby picked at the corner of her notebook with her index finger. “Wrong question.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
Tabby looked away from his too sharp gaze. “That’s a little hard to do when he’s left town.”
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me.” Tabby looked back at Stoner, drawing her brows. “On vacation,” she whispered, “and he didn’t say anything to me.” Her chin wobbled for a minute, so she bit her lip to stop it. Stoner came over and rubbed her shoulder.
“That’s not all. Did you know the town has a Facebook page where people gossip?”
Stoner sighed. “Yes. I was one of its favorite whipping boys earlier this year.”
“Well, I am now. There’s even a post calling for me to be dismissed from my job.”
“I�
��m sorry, honey.”
Catherine poked her head inside. Stoner smiled at her. She seemed startled and came all the way inside. “Peterson said Tabby was sketching you.”
“She finished. I was just asking her about her love life and offering some sympathy. Tabby’s the latest target of the town’s Facebook gossip. Plus, she and the preacher have hit a rough patch.”
Catherine’s brows arched. “Pastor Joe?”
Tabby blushed and nodded. “We had a fight. He asked me to marry him, and…”
“You didn’t exactly say yes, but you didn’t say no,” Catherine finished for her.
Tabby blinked in surprise. “How—how did you know?”
Catherine looked at Stoner. “I did the same thing to this one. As I recall, we didn’t speak for a couple of months.”
Stoner laughed. “I had forgotten that. Just how did you make that up to me?”
When Catherine’s face flushed, Tabby pushed at Stoner’s arm. “Stop that. And quit thinking what you’re thinking.”
He jerked back and stared at her. “You can read my mind?”
Tabby gathered her sketchpad and pencils. “Anyone could read your mind. It’s time for me to go home. Thanks, Stoner. Nice to see you again, Mrs. Richardson.”
Chapter 9
Tabby nearly missed the ringing of her phone that night. She was in her studio working on Joe’s painting, so it wasn’t until the third ring that it sank in. She sprinted down the steps and snatched the phone off the nightstand in her bedroom.
“Hello?” She was slightly breathless.
“Tabby. It’s Joe.”
She cradled the phone close to her ear with both hands, trying to still their trembling and the tears that rushed to her eyes. “Wh-where are you?”
“A friend’s cabin in Tennessee, not far from where I grew up. I’m sorry I left without telling you. It was wrong.”
Tabby swallowed and blurted, “Oh Joseph! You hurt me… And I miss you so much.”
He sighed. “I’ll be back Sunday afternoon. We need to talk, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. Some things need to be said face to face.”
Tabby’s hands shook. Was he going to break it off completely? He sounded so restrained and serious. “Joe?” she whispered. “Are we talking to work something out? Or are we talking to end things?”
There was a short silence on the other end of the line. “I guess that depends on you, Tabby. I promised myself I would quit rushing you, quit rushing us. You have to know you can trust me.”
She sank onto the bed, so relieved she felt lightheaded. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she raised one hand to scrub them away.
“I do know that. Deep down. I do know I can trust you. I’m so sorry for the way I acted,” she choked out. She tried to keep the sob silent, but it ended in a soft hiccup.
“Shh, Tabby.” Even through the phone connection, his voice soothed her. “We both acted with our hormones instead of our hearts and our heads. You’re right about one thing, darling. You realized it even before me. My congregation does have certain expectations, and I have to lead them by my own example. So far, I haven’t set a good one.”
Tabby swallowed. “Does that mean you’re sorry you made love to me?” She couldn’t prevent the pain that stabbed through her.
There was a brief silence. “No. Never that, Tabby. It was beautiful. You’re beautiful. But as much as I didn’t want to accept it, I do have constraints on my behavior. I do have a higher standard I have to live up to. When I make love to you again, it must be within a committed relationship.”
Marriage. Somehow the idea wasn’t nearly as frightening as it had been a few days ago. “I’m willing to see if we can work out a compromise,” she murmured.
“That’s all I can ask. We’ll talk Sunday when I get back.”
“Okay. I’d like that. I truly would. Good night, Joseph.” Tabby set the phone back in its stand and nibbled on her bottom lip. She realized she would compromise almost anything to have him in her life, and suddenly that scared her even more. Was that what her mother had done? But there was no comparing Joe to Tommy MacVie, so she had to quit doing it.
She returned to her studio and shook off her melancholy. She had only a few finishing touches to add to her painting of Joseph. He was dressed in a simple white dress shirt, his head thrown slightly back with eyes lifted heavenward as he sang, and his hands spread palm up at waist level. She had painted the light so that it seemed to come from him. His halo. She smiled as she finished the painting and left it on the easel to dry.
Tabby yawned, took her sketches of Stoner out, and examined them. As she studied his hands, she noticed how long his little fingers appeared in her drawings and wondered if it was just habit, kind of like an El Greco—not that she was comparing herself to the famous artist. She looked at her own pinkies and shook her head. Tabby yawned once more, setting the sketches and her sketchbook aside on the window seat. It was late, and she was exhausted. She wanted to be alert tomorrow to see if she could make any more headway with Melodie.
* * * *
Tabby knew at once when the little girl entered her room the next day that something else had happened. She wore a turtleneck even though the temperature was well into the seventies, and most other little girls still wore T-shirts. No pants again either. Once again, it was a long skirt. Tabby remembered how hard it was to wear pants when her legs were bruised. Skirts weren’t nearly as painful. Most telling of all was the way the little girl appeared to have withdrawn from everyone around her.
Melodie wouldn’t even look at Tabby when she sat down next to her. “We’re working with crayons today, Melodie,” Tabby prompted. “Free drawing for the first ten minutes. You may use whatever colors you like and draw whatever you wish.”
Melodie picked up a black crayon and drew a witch. “My mama says you’re a witch, but I don’t think so. I know you’re here to help me.” It was a whisper of sound.
Tabby touched the little girl’s hand, feeling the way she flinched ever so slightly.
“I want to help you, Melodie,” Tabby said quietly, “but you must help too. I was like you, but I wouldn’t tell anyone or show anyone who hurt me.”
“I’ve told you,” the little girl said simply and looked at her with trusting blue eyes.
Tabby stared at her speechlessly. Melodie didn’t understand that simply mentioning her mother in conversation wasn’t an indictment of her parent. Tabby couldn’t bring herself to tell her otherwise because she feared if she pressed the girl anymore, she would deny everything. Tabby had been down that road too. She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, you have, honey. I’ll do something. I promise.”
She wasn’t optimistic that approaching her principal would work, but what choice did she have? That was the chain of command. After the buses left that afternoon, Tabby returned to the office, requested Melodie Matthews’s permanent file, and asked for a few minutes of Mr. Underwood’s time. The principal regarded her with borderline hostility as she related what she suspected, and what she’d found in the little girl’s file.
“Is that all, Miss MacVie?”
Tabby swallowed, smelling defeat. “She told me.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She told me her mother is always telling her not to do things.”
“And you see that as something out of the ordinary?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Did she show you any evidence?” His tone grew colder.
“No. I asked her to let me take her to the nurse, but she refused.” Defeat curled around her heart. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had done wrong in this man’s eyes, but it was clearly something. Surely arriving early that one day in her cycling pants didn’t warrant his coldness? Perhaps he was reading and believing the trash posted on Facebook.
Dennis Underwood tapped the file with his pen. “I’ll look into it. Your job is to report it to your administrator. You’ve done your job
, Miss MacVie. I’ll handle it from here.”
She was dismissed, and she had no idea if he would even do anything. As she left school, she remembered Melodie’s trusting blue eyes. I’ve told you. Then Stoner’s words—don’t cry, take action. Instead of going home, she drove to Jenny’s house. It was time to bring her sister into this.
Tabby was in luck. Not only was Jenny at home, but so was Evan. They welcomed her with hugs and kisses. Evan eyed her curiously. “Mother says you’ve made a friend.” He glanced at Jenny. “We can’t say we approve of your choice.”
Tabby plucked at her skirt. “If you’re referring to Stoner, he kind of rescued me when I was being harassed on my bike.”
“He was off the farm without his ankle bracelet?” Evan inquired sharply.
Tabby laughed. “No. He calls it his leash. And yes, Evan, he had it on. By the time he reached as far as he could go, the teenagers were long gone, but I’d dumped myself at the end of the driveway and flattened my tire. He helped me take my bike to the house to change it.”
“But you’ve been back since then, according to Catherine. She was here this morning,” Jenny explained. “She speaks highly of you and you’re effect on Stoner.”
Evan grimaced. “I certainly hope you haven’t bonded. That would be a dark and twisted place to be.”
Tabby frowned. “You shouldn’t say that, Evan. He’s kind to me, and he’s funny. He makes me laugh.”
Evan gaped. “Are we talking about the same man I know as my father?”
Tabby tilted her head. “Maybe not. The man I know is sad a lot of the time, except when he’s working in his shop.”
“Mother mentioned he was building furniture,” Evan tossed off casually. “I suppose it passes the time.”
Tabby’s eyes glowed. “It’s more than furniture, Evan. It’s art. He’s doing the most beautiful inlay work on an occasional table. You should see it.”
Jenny glanced at her husband and back at Tabby. “I rather doubt that will happen any time soon.”
Lost & Found Love Page 13