style="font-size:15px;"> Neither of which was consistently true, but close enough. His headache was down to a dull, background pressure, and for the past couple of days he’d been…sensing things. Usually it was something on the news or in the daily paper that triggered a reaction.
Now all he had to do was figure out what the reaction meant—waiting, not pushing too hard. No point in confusing himself with a lot of psychobabble.
Then, too, he didn’t want Ellen going out of her way to do him any more favors. He already owed her too much. Once his brain came back on line and he was able to pick up his life again, he would be on his way. The first thing he intended to do was to find some way to repay her. Maybe he could find her a couple of good men and pay them under the table. Or maybe he could set up some kind of a fund for Pete. Whatever he did would have to be done tactfully, possibly even secretly. For a lady who was living from day to day, she had more than her share of pride.
Maybe he could arrange to buy a couple of her horses, although where he would keep them, not to mention what use he had for them, remained to be seen.
As did far too much else.
Storm was going over an old newspaper he’d found in the kindling basket a day or so later when Ellen came inside from her morning chores, cheeks glowing and her hair slipping free of the scarf she’d used to tie it back. She was either upset or angry. He recognized that militant march.
“Where’s Pete?” he asked, rising from the only man-size chair in the room.
“School. This is Monday, in case you’ve lost track.”
“I thought that was a bus I heard early this morning.”
“He hates having to ride it. He’s been begging me all year to let him ride his bike to school, but now…”
Right. Now the argument was settled. Probably for the best, as the highway was no place for an eight-year-old on a bike. “Any chance of getting him another one?” He knew the answer before she spoke. She’d admitted to being unable to pay higher wages to attract good help. She was good at disguising it, but the signs of near poverty were everywhere. Beans, macaroni and bologna sandwiches weren’t exactly his idea of gourmet fare.
“Maybe for Christmas. I worried about letting him ride it even as far as Joey’s, but then, it’s not like we’re on a major highway.”
“Not all the dangers are out on the interstate.”
“Oh, I know, you think I’m being overprotective, but—” She gestured helplessly, visible anger seeping away as she crossed the room to hang up her heavy wool shirt. “I hate to deny him anything he really wants when he’s already lost so much. And yes, you don’t have to say it—I know he has to grow up. It’s just that he’s all I have. You know how it is.” Shrugging, she gestured, palms out, with her calloused hands.
When he didn’t reply, she looked at him and bit her lip. “Sorry. I guess you don’t.”
“No problem.” And then, “Yeah, big problem. Look, I can’t even offer to pay room and board, much less—”
“Hush! I owe you more than I can ever repay. Pete would’ve— He told me how he froze, watching that awful thing roaring down at him, with no place to hide even if he’d had time. If anything had happened to him, I don’t know what I’d have done.”
She turned away, arms hugging her chest as she stared out through the window at the red barn that was in far better shape than the house. He waited, not saying anything because he didn’t know what to say. Hell, maybe he had saved the kid’s neck, but it hadn’t involved any heroics. There hadn’t been time for heroics. Truth was, he’d come close to drowning them both in that flooded drainage ditch before Pete had managed to wiggle out from under him.
“How long has it been?” he asked, curious now about more than his own identity.
“How long?” She turned away from the window, arms still wrapped around the bosom she disguised whenever she went out to the barn by wearing a man’s shirt. He’d noticed that about her—guessed the reason for it. “If you mean how long have you been here, I’ve lost track. Let’s see, the storm hit last…was it Tuesday or Wednesday?”
“No, I meant how long since your husband…”
“Died? You can say it. I’m not fragile.”
She was far more fragile than she cared to admit, but he didn’t think she’d like knowing he’d picked up on her vulnerability. A man would have to be blind not to. Blank he might be; blind he was not. “How long have you and Pete lived here alone?”
“Jake died just over two years ago. He was sick for a while before that, and we stayed here as long as we could. The visiting nurse taught me—” Breaking off, she took a deep breath and turned to stare out the window at the high clouds building up out over the Gulf of Mexico.
She’d nursed him at home. It had to have been hellish for her, knowing that the end was inevitable. Somehow, though, he wasn’t surprised. “Pete was in the first grade when Jake died,” she said, picking up the threads of her story as if determined to lay out all the facts and then move on. “We’d moved here from Laredo. Before that we lived in Dallas. And before that, we were in the army. At least, Jake was. See, we’d been looking for just the right place because Jake’s ambition was to breed quarter horses, and we both wanted a place away from town, but close to a good school.”
He waited for her to go on, had a feeling she needed to talk. As far as he knew, no one had even come by to see how she’d fared in the tornado, which meant either she hadn’t had time to make friends or she’d managed to tick off all her neighbors. She didn’t strike him as antisocial, so too busy for much of a social life was his best guess.
Her next words corroborated it. “At first I didn’t much like it, with no close neighbors. I mean, I’ve always had people around. I grew up with lots of friends, and then, in the army, of course, there were the other wives.” She bit her lip and he found himself staring at the way her teeth dented the soft, pink flesh. “But once we settled in there wasn’t time to think about anything but getting the barn in shape—that was our first priority, then we were going to tackle the house.”
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