tenderness.
“I’ll bet I know where Abigail went first when she got to heaven.” His voice softened into something that sounded both sad and amused.
“I don’t understand.”
“She told me that the first thing she wanted to do when she got to heaven was to go to the information booth and ask all the questions she’d been saving up. Why God made wood ticks, for example.”
Catherine felt a bubble of laughter well in her chest. “That sounds just like Gram. Did the two of you talk about those things a lot?”
He paused before answering, as if carefully considering his choice of words. “Your grandmother introduced me to God. Most of our conversations were either about faith or the house. Those were her favorite topics.”
“I see.” She was taken aback by the admission. Gram and Mr. Tanner had shared a very personal and meaningful experience, then. This employee-employer relationship ran much deeper than she’d first assumed.
It shouldn’t have surprised her, really, knowing Gram. She ran everything in her life through the filter of God. What would He think? Want? Encourage? That’s how she lived her life. Gram never cared what other people thought. If God was good with something, that was all she wanted.
“Abigail also told me that you recently quit your job,” he added casually.
“She did?” Catherine didn’t know quite what to make of the fact that Gram had told him about her life.
He smiled again, wistful this time. “We spent a lot of time drinking coffee at her kitchen table. I would remind her we needed to be working, but she would insist that civilized people took regular breaks.” He chuckled a little. “She made me very civilized.”
That, Catherine knew, was exactly how Gram functioned. She should have been the one spending these last days with Gram, not some stranger. It was her own fault. She was the one who’d put off coming home.
“If only I’d come home a few days earlier! I was almost ready to leave the Cities when Emma called. I was able to pull on clothes, throw already-packed suitcases into my car and be on the road in less than thirty minutes.”
“So you’d been planning to come to Pleasant anyway?”
It was what she’d always done whenever she needed to recharge. She’d already stored her personal belongings in a storage space and arranged for a Realtor to begin showing her house once she vacated it. There was nothing to stop her from leaving the city for as long as she wanted.
“Yes.” She’d assumed there would be a time when she and Gram could curl up in massive wingback chairs, sip peppermint tea and discuss the twists and turns her life had taken, as they had done so many times over the years. Then Gram would pray for her. That was what Catherine found herself most hungry for right now. She closed her eyes and sighed.
Will studied Catherine Stanhope intently. He hadn’t expected her to be so beautiful.
Abigail had warned him that her granddaughter was easy on the eyes. He just hadn’t known how easy. Will immediately chastised himself for being so crass at a time like this, but he knew if Abigail were here she would have been tickled by his surprise. “See? I told you!” she would have chortled gleefully.
But she was gone and her granddaughter felt frail and fragile against his side as they walked slowly to his pickup truck. Her long honey-gold hair tumbled over his arm in a glistening wave and her profile, when he glanced at her, seemed carved from porcelain, smooth and pale. Long black lashes fanned over her cheeks and tears hung from them like dew.
He felt as if he’d been punched in the belly with a battering ram at the idea of losing Abigail. What flood of emotions must this woman be feeling?
Although he knew better, Will had somehow assumed that Abigail would be around forever; that her indomitable spirit would allow her to survive no matter what. They’d had dinner together just two nights before her death. While Will made ribs on the grill, Abigail had whipped up a batch of her special slaw. They’d finished with coffee and huge slices of coconut cake and watched the sun go down together. And now she was gone. He couldn’t get his head around it, at least not yet.
He’d been proud to say, “I work for Abigail Stanhope.” Present tense, he thought. That wasn’t right anymore. He’d worked for Abigail. Past tense.
If only there were something he could do for Abigail’s granddaughter to ease her pain, Will thought helplessly. The only thing he knew to do was to show her that Abigail’s wishes for the house were being carried out even after her death. Perhaps that would be a comfort to her, but now was not the time.
“This is your vehicle?” Catherine asked, forcing him to study the beat-up club-cab truck he used for construction jobs. It never occurred to him to back his sporty Camaro out of the garage anymore. Pleasant was a pickup truck kind of place and he liked it that way.
“Sorry.” He saw her distressed expression and, feeling a flicker of annoyance, opened the door and began to brush nails, paint-chip samples and bits of molding off the front seat. “I didn’t realize I’d be having a guest on the way home.” The only other person he’d ever apologized to for the state of his truck was his sister-in-law, Sheila. “I am a groundskeeper and carpenter, you know.”
“I’m sorry. That sounded snippy. I’ve been around too many people who think of cars as status symbols. Gram would have scolded me roundly for that.”
She looked embarrassed. Will appreciated that. Snobbish women like his sister-in-law turned him off. He didn’t want Catherine to be one of those because he was drawn to her, even under these difficult circumstances.
He helped her into the cab, pulled out the seat belt for her and then circled to the driver’s side of the truck. For some reason he felt as if his life had just become terribly complicated.
Chapter Two
Catherine didn’t speak as they drove through town but reclined against the seat back, vacantly watching buildings go by. Stanley’s Meat Market, Wilders’ drugstore with its original soda fountain and the Stop-In gas station. The doors were open on several of the rooms at the Flatley motel, being aired out for the next guests.
They pulled up to the front gate of the Stanhope mansion, an impressive three-story structure with wide porches, ornate gingerbread trim and white lace curtains blowing in the windows. There were cars everywhere, parked down both sides of the street and in neighboring driveways. More cars, it seemed to Will, than there were in the entire town of Pleasant. Abigail had been a well-loved woman.
The geraniums in the huge metal vases that flanked the stairway and the front door were a vibrant red. The variegated hostas Abigail loved so much marched, lush and beautiful, around the foundation of the house. Will had stripped and repainted every baluster with care and was pleased with the results. The porch railing looked brand-new. Abigail had loved it…. Will fought back the emotion swelling in his chest. At least she’d had the opportunity to enjoy it before she died.
As he helped Catherine out of the car, she looked at him again, with those sad gray-green eyes. When she grabbed his forearm to steady herself, Will felt an unexpected frisson of energy make its way up his arm. Was he feeling electricity between them?
You’re just plain stupid if that’s what you think.
