The Way Home (20 page)

“Mrs. Vanderbilt.” Jack smiled as if nothing pleased him more than to find the town’s biggest busybody standing on the doorstep. “You look younger every time I see you.”

“You’re such a flatterer, Jack Swanson.” Edwina giggled, a girlish sound that contrasted oddly with her solid, matronly frame.

“Just telling the truth,” he protested, wondering if it was possible that she’d aged ten years in the five since he’d last seen her. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, actually, I wondered if there was something I could do for you,” she said.

“For me?”

“Well, for you or Tyler, perhaps. I just happened to be looking out my front window and saw him leave a few minutes ago. He looked rather grim. And of course, I recognized your mother’s car so I knew you must be here. Is there anything wrong?” She craned her neck in what she fondly believed was a subtle fashion, trying to see past Jack into the hallway.

“Not a thing, Mrs. V. But it’s neighborly of you to be concerned.”
Nosy old bat.

“Well, I did tell his mother that I’d keep an eye on Tyler, make sure he was all right.”

“And I know Ty appreciates that.”
About as much as he’d appreciate another broken leg.

“You’re sure nothing is wrong?” she asked, edging a little closer. Jack shifted subtly, blocking the doorway. Edwina was notorious for walking into her friends’ houses uninvited.

“Nothing’s wrong.”
Except the fact that you’re still standing on the doorstep.

“It just seems odd, Ty leaving you here while he goes out.” She edged closer still, tilting her head in an effort to see around him.

“He ran out to get some coffee,” Jack improvised quickly, knowing that if he didn’t provide an explanation she was likely to keep prying, hoping to find some juicy tidbit with which to bum up the party-line wires. And God knew, there were plenty of juicy tidbits lying around right now.

“Well, that silly boy. I told him if he needed anything at all, he should just let me know.” She pursed her lips and shook her head, setting several of her chins into motion. “I could have loaned him some coffee.”

“I’m sure Ty didn’t want to bother you.” Jack hoped his smile didn’t look as strained as it was starting to feel.
What was it going to take to get rid of her?

“Well, if you’re sure there’s nothing wrong.”

“Everything’s fine, Mrs. V. But I’ll tell Ty you were concerned. I know he’ll want to thank you.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just run home then,” she said reluctantly.

“You do that, Mrs. V.”

She lingered a moment longer, casting an almost wistful look over his shoulder, like a cat being forced to abandon a hole where it knew a mouse was hiding. Jack had heard of people having a nose for news, and he was starting to believe it. If the
New York Sun
knew about Mrs. Vanderbilt, they’d recruit her onto their staff at once. And he’d pay her train fare, if it would serve to get her off the porch any faster.

Only when she was safely on her own side of the hedge did he shut the door. As he turned away, a small sound brought his head up and he saw Meg standing at the top of the stairs. With her slight figure wrapped in a robe that was miles too big for her and a pair of heavy socks trailing off the ends of her toes, she looked like a waif out of a Mary Pickford film.

“Hello, Meg.”

“H-hello.” The word came out hesitantly and she made no move to come downstairs, hovering at the top of the staircase like a small animal reluctant to get too far from safety.

“Ty called and asked me to come over and stay with you while he went to see your mother.” Jack offered the explanation to reassure her. “He said you’d had a little trouble at home last night.”

“A little trouble” hardly began to describe what Ty had said, but it would suffice.

“He didn’t have to do that,” she said. “I would have been all right alone.”

“Well, Ty didn’t agree. He tends to be a little over-protective of people he cares about.” Jack gave her a coaxing smile. “I make a mean cup of hot chocolate, if you feel up to it.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s famous in three states.”

“Three?” That drew a half smile and she eased a little closer to the top stair.

“Well, maybe only two and a half,” he conceded. “I don’t make it for just anybody, you know.”

Meg hesitated a moment longer, uncertain about leaving the safety of the dimly lit hallway. But ever since Ty left, she’d been lying in bed, the events of the night before playing over and over in her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her stepfather’s face, twisted with rage and a terrible lust. The image of him bending over her, the feel of his hands on her — those things were burned into her mind, refusing to leave her in peace.

“My grandmother always believed that hot chocolate is good for what ails you,” Jack commented, smiling up at her.

Meg knew it would take considerably more than a cup of warm milk and chocolate to soothe her ills, but she suddenly didn’t want to be alone anymore. She started down the stairs, taking them one at a time as the bulky socks threatened to trip her.

Jack was glad that Meg was concentrating on her footing as she came down the stairs. If she’d been looking at him, she would surely have seen his appalled expression when she got close enough for him to really see her face.

Ty had told him the basics, that her stepfather had been angry because she’d been out with him, that he’d blacked her eye, left bruises on her face and arms. But Ty’s description hadn’t prepared him for the actual sight of Meg’s bruised face or for the careful way she walked, which told of other hurts. It made him want to find Harlan Davis and string him from the nearest tree.

Meg reached the bottom of the stairs and looked at him uncertainly. “I look awful,” she murmured, lifting her hand to touch the swelling around her eye.

“I’ve seen worse,” he told her. Privately he thought she looked as if she’d been on the losing end of a bout with Max Schmelling, but he’d have cut his tongue out before he said anything to add to the uncertainty in those soft blue eyes. “You should have seen Ty the time he fell out of my father’s prize apple tree. Now
there
was someone who looked awful.”

“You’ve known Ty a long time, haven’t you?”

“All my life.” Jack followed her as she moved toward the kitchen, shuffling slightly to keep from tripping on the socks.

“Have you been friends always?”

“Pretty near.” He pulled a chair out for her and saw her settled. “Of course, there was the time when we were eight and he lost my best shooter.”

“A cap gun?”

“A marble.” Jack shook his head, his expression reminiscent. “I never found another one half so good and I didn’t speak to Ty for a week after he lost it. And when we were fourteen, we fought over Clara Anne Oglethorpe.”

“Was she very pretty?” Meg asked, her tone wistful.

“Not particularly. But her mother made the best apple pie in the state, and Clara Anne always brought an extra slice of it to school in her lunch bucket. She’d share it with whoever she ate lunch with.”

“You fought over her because of a piece of pie?” Meg asked, looking incredulous.

“Her mother won prizes with it at every state fair,” Jack protested, as if that explained everything.

Meg’s laugh was uncertain and it didn’t last long, but it
was
a laugh. Jack couldn’t remember when he’d last been quite so pleased with himself.

At first Meg had worried about what Ty might have told his friend. If he’d told Jack everything … But there was nothing in the way Jack looked at her to indicate that he knew anything more than what the visible bruises would tell him. Sitting in the warm kitchen, watching him heat milk for his famous-in-two-and-a-half-states hot chocolate, Meg was surprised to realize that she felt as comfortable with him as if she’d known him for years.

“Do you cook anything besides hot chocolate?” she asked.

“A few things. When you do a lot of traveling, the way Ty and I have these last few years, you get pretty sick of eating in restaurants.”

“Does Ty cook?” She couldn’t quite imagine Ty puttering around the kitchen.

“Not exactly.” Jack poured steaming milk into a thick mug and stirred it briskly before setting it down in front of her. “Ty won’t starve to death, if left to his own devices. He does okay as long as he can slap something between a couple slices of bread. The height of his culinary skill is putting mustard on the bread first. I won’t say he’s dangerous in the kitchen, but if you value your stomach, I don’t recommend eating anything he’s cooked.”

Meg smiled, finding the idea that Ty was less than skilled in the kitchen oddly endearing.

“Tell me what happened when Ty fell out of the apple tree,” she asked him.

It was the first time in Jack’s memory that he’d been in the company of a pretty girl and done nothing but talk about another man. He told her about some of their childhood adventures, pleased with himself whenever he drew a smile from her. When she smiled, she reminded him of her sister, a thought he pushed away as soon as it occurred to him. He’d done a pretty good job of not thinking about Patsy Harper for almost five years. He wasn’t going to break the habit now.

“Telling tales out of school?” Ty’s voice came from the doorway, startling the two people seated at the kitchen table. Jack had been telling Meg about the time Ty put his pet frog in the teacher’s desk and they hadn’t heard the door open.

“In school, actually,” Jack said. “I was just explaining why Miss Jones taught only one year before retiring to marry a distant cousin.”

“I suppose you didn’t bother to mention just whose idea the frog was, did you?” Ty asked, casting him a mock threatening look as he hung his coat on a peg near the back door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack protested innocently. “I was a model student.”

“Model hellraiser, you mean. How are you, Meg?”

“I’m fine,” she said, unaware of the absurdity of that claim coupled with her battered features. “My mother?”

“She’s just fine. She was worried about you but now that she knows you’re safe, she’s fine.”

Ty walked to the stove, brushing his hand lightly over the top of Meg’s head in a quick, reassuring touch. The casual gesture made Jack’s brows climb.

“You’re sure she’s all right?” Meg asked, still anxious. “I’m positive.” Ty poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it to the table. Meg was turning her empty mug around with quick nervous gestures. Ty reached out to take one of her hands in his, and Jack’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Meg.”

“I know. Thank you for checking on her, Ty. I’m sorry to be so much trouble but I was so worried. He was so angry,” she whispered, her eyes dark with memory.

“You can stop worrying,” he told her firmly. “About your mother
and
about your stepfather. I went to see him.”

“You shouldn’t have!” Meg’s shocked protest drowned out Jack’s murmur of approval. Not that it would have mattered if it hadn’t, he thought. The two of them had quite plainly forgotten all about his existence.

“I couldn’t just let him get away with what he did to you.”

“You shouldn’t have talked to him.”

“All I did was tell him he’d have me to answer to if he ever tried to hurt you again.”

“Now he’ll be angry with you,” she said, obviously distressed.

“I can live with that.”

Jack said nothing, watching the two of them, his eyes alert and curious. Did Ty know Meg was in love with him? he wondered. Seeing the gentleness in his friend’s touch, the tenderness in his face as he soothed her fear, perhaps it was more to the point to question whether Ty had yet realized the strength of his own feelings toward Meg.

“How is she?” Jack asked as Ty entered the kitchen.

He’d been upstairs, making sure that Meg followed orders and went back to bed after taking another of his mother’s sleeping pills.

“Asleep,” Ty answered. He dumped out his cold coffee and refilled it from the pot. He cradled the cup in one hand, rubbing the other over the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension in his muscles. “If I’d known it would upset her so much to know that I’d talked to Davis, I wouldn’t have told her.”

“She’s worried about you.”

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?” Ty’s mouth twisted with bitter humor. “He beats her to a pulp and she’s worried that he’ll be angry with me.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you fed Davis his teeth?” Jack gave him a hopeful look but Ty shook his head.

“I wish. I’d have wrung his neck if I hadn’t thought that it might cause her more problems.” He pulled out a chair and sank into it, more tired than he could ever remember being in his life.

“Has this happened before?”

“I don’t think so. Not like this, anyway.”

“What kind of a bastard is Davis, that he could hurt her that way?”

Ty stared at the cup in his hand, thinking that Jack only knew the half of what Davis had done. He hadn’t even told him the worst of it.