Even the Nights are Better. Margot Dalton

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СКАЧАТЬ faltered, still struggling to compose herself. “Anyway, he and Ken came in for breakfast and I thought he looked awfully tired. I wanted him to go up to bed and catch a few hours’ sleep but he just scoffed at the whole idea, said no man worth his salt sleeps in the middle of the day. He had to get back out and see to getting the early calves branded. And then all of a sudden…” Her voice broke and she began to sob quietly at the other end.

      “All of a sudden what?” Carolyn prompted. There was an increasingly familiar and ghastly feeling to this event. She was beginning to have a panicky sense of déjà vu, as if she’d lived through the same dreadful moment at some time in the past.

      “He was putting on his hat, walking out the door and then he just…just kind of sagged, would have fallen if Ken hadn’t been right behind him and caught him. We…we helped him upstairs and into bed but he’s…oh, Carolyn, he’s all gray and sweating, and he seems to be in such pain, he can hardly recognize any of us….”

      Gray and sweating…in such pain…

      An image flashed unbidden into Carolyn’s mind—her tall sturdy husband Frank two years ago just after his massive coronary. Fear stirred and churned at the core of her, choking her, leaving her breathless with terror.

      Not J.T.! she screamed soundlessly. Not him, too! I can’t bear to lose any more of the people I love, I just can’t bear it, oh God, please don’t let it be….

      “Is somebody with you, Cynthia?” she asked. “Everybody’s here. I mean, Tyler and Ruth and Lynn, and Lettie Mae and Virginia, and Ken, and we’ve called Cal in Wolverton, and Dr. Purdy….”

      “Oh, good,” Carolyn said. Nate Purdy had been caring for all of them for more than three decades. Now, just the thought of him ministering to J.T. brought her comfort.

      “Is there anything else I should do, Carolyn?” Cynthia asked in a low voice, still sounding helplessly childlike, completely out of character. “Anybody else I should call, or anything?”

      “Not now, dear,” Carolyn said gently. “Sit down, put your feet up and get Lettie Mae to make you a cup of her cinnamon tea. I’ll be over right away.”

      “Oh, thank you,” Cynthia whispered, with such relief in her voice that Carolyn knew she had to get over there without delay.

      She hung up the phone and grabbed a sweater from a hook by the door, flung it over her shoulders, took her car keys from the countertop and ran out to the garage.

      “OKAY,VERN,” Martin A very said cheerfully, riffling briskly through a stack of papers. “I think that finishes it. The transfer of title’s in order, the taxes are all paid up to date, and your man owns his property outright, once he signs this last release of funds.”

      Vernon Trent smiled at his old friend, who paused to answer the telephone and deal with the caller, a solicitor for a local charity.

      “When did you start answering your own telephone?” Vern asked, chuckling at Martin’s glowering expression. “Can’t you poor underpaid lawyers afford secretarial help these days?”

      “Very funny, Vern,” Martin grumbled, running a hand through his thick graying hair. “Actually, my secretary called in sick this morning, so I’m doing double duty.”

      “Billie Jo?” Vernon asked in surprise. “I saw her at Zack’s last night, and she looked healthy enough then. Bursting with health, you might say.”

      Both men were silent for a moment, thinking about the beauteous Billie Jo, with her gorgeous body, her mane of strawberry-blond hair and sexy pouting red lips.

      “Yeah,” Martin said dryly. “And that’s not all she’s bursting with, old friend. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that she’s not alone this morning.”

      “You think Bubba’s visiting the sickbed?”

      “I’d bet on it,” Martin repeated.

      “God, he’s a fool, isn’t he?” Vernon commented absently.

      “Maybe we old bachelors just don’t understand, Vern. Or maybe we’ll be the same if we start to suffer through a midlife crisis. We’ll be whining and sniffing around girls thirty years younger than us, buying bad toupees and silver Camaros….”

      Vernon threw back his head and laughed at this skillful thrust. “Maybe you, Martin,” he said. “Not me, that’s for sure. I’m nowhere near that dumb.”

      “Speaking of being dumb,” Martin said cheerfully, “I was talking to young Ben Waldheim and his wife the other day. They said they made you another offer on your house, and you won’t sell.”

      Vernon shifted awkwardly in the padded chair. “That’s true,” he admitted.

      “How come, Vern? Why’re you hanging on to that drafty old barn? Why not let the kids have it? They want to renovate it, got all kinds of plans.”

      Vernon shrugged. “I don’t have time to move and find another place and all that,” he said defensively. “Besides,” he added with a grin, “that’s my ancestral home you’re talking about, Martin.”

      “Bull,” Martin said calmly. “Your ancestral home was a little suite above the drugstore. Your daddy didn’t even buy that house till you were fifteen.”

      “That’s right,” Vernon said with a small faraway smile. “You know, I can still remember the day he took my mama over there and gave her the keys. She looked like he’d given her Buckingham Palace.”

      “Well, that it ain’t,” Martin said. “Those days were thirty years ago, Vern. The old place is falling down around your ears. You don’t have any interest in fixing it up, so why not let it go?”

      Vernon frowned stubbornly, thinking about the big stone house he’d inherited from his parents. Martin was right, it was falling into disrepair, growing rickety, faded and musty, and he was getting to hate it more with every passing year. But still, he panicked at the thought of moving out and getting a little apartment. That would be admitting that this was his whole future and he was never going to have a wife or a family….

      “You could move into my building,” Martin said, as if reading his thoughts. “It’s a real nice little complex, adults only, with a recreation center and a pool and everything. Real sophisticated for Crystal Creek.”

      “I know, Martin. I’ve seen it, remember? It’s just that apartment living doesn’t appeal to me all that much, for some reason. I’d rather just keep living where I am and work real hard so I don’t have to go home much, than move into an apartment.”

      “Then build yourself a new house. Dammit, man, you’ve got lots of money. Get yourself out of that lonely old place.”

      “A new house wouldn’t be any less lonely, Martin,” Vernon said quietly.

      Something in Vern’s voice made Martin hesitate, then glance down awkwardly at the pile of papers on his desk as if searching for a way to change the subject.

      “Well, that’s it,” he repeated at last with false heartiness. “You can tell Scott the deal’s through.”

      Vernon looked over at the dapper lawyer and mayor of Crystal СКАЧАТЬ