Читать книгу Safe At Home - Carolyn McSparren - Страница 8

PETE JACOBI WAS HALFWAY through his morning shower before he remembered the woman asleep on the sofa. He must be in a bad way if he’d forgotten even for an instant the sight of those great legs sticking out from under his baggy old shirt. Very sexy. Much sexier than if she’d been naked.

Well, maybe not. Might be interesting to compare. He grinned at his reflection and arched an eyebrow at himself. Yeah.

Once she stopped looking like a drowned possum she’d turned into a good-looking woman. But too thin. Still, she either had gumption—or no brains at all.

He dressed as quietly at he could and opened the bedroom door. He half expected her to be up and gone. He hoped she wasn’t. It would be nice if she stayed long enough for a cup of coffee and for him to check out his perceptions about her from last night. He wanted to see whether those big dark eyes were as stunning as he remembered.

From his door he saw one very shapely leg and bare foot sticking out from under a pile of quilts on the couch, and a cloud of long, heavy black hair spread over the other end of the quilt and falling almost to the floor. Somewhere between the two, the owner of hair and leg slept on.

Her right hand lay draped over the arm of the couch. The hand was thin and almost too fine-boned. Her nails were short and unvarnished, but well kept. He realized with a pang that he hadn’t noticed whether she wore a wedding ring or not, and suddenly hoped that she didn’t.

Pete shook his head, surprised at himself for his interest in her. He tiptoed past the couch and opened the door to the back room silently, then slipped through.

The lioness lay on her right side with her bandaged shoulder up. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth gaped. Her tongue lolled from the corner of her mouth.

For a panicky moment he was afraid she wasn’t breathing, then he saw the slow rise and fall of her rib cage.

“Morning, son,” said a voice behind him. “Gave her another shot for pain. She has been sleeping the sleep of the innocent and pure of heart for some time. Where’s your lady friend?”

“Doing the same, although she might not be so pure and innocent if she’s driving country roads alone at two in the morning.”

Mace Jacobi grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “What’s that old song about preferring the sadder but wiser girl? Especially one as good-looking as that.”

“Too scrawny. I didn’t know there was a New-some daughter.”

“There isn’t. Irene Newsome lost her only child more than a year ago. He was something fairly high up in the Fish and Wildlife. Supposedly shot by a poacher. Had a wife and a couple of kids. That’s probably his widow you’ve got on your couch.” Mace slapped a couple of white-wrapped packages on the steel table, looked at them over his bifocals and began to unwrap them. “I haven’t had time to feed the girls yet.”

“No problem. I’ll do it.” Pete hooked a bale of alfalfa and carried it toward the elephant enclosure. The girls waited impatiently, trunks swinging, their beady black eyes expectant. “What are you doing, Dad?” he asked on his way by.

“I started thawing a couple of deer-neck roasts last night. Thought I’d carve ’em up for Tala’s baby over there. She’s going to be mighty hungry when she wakes up.”

“If she wakes up.”

Mace peered at him over his glasses. “Oh, she’ll wake up, all right. You did a good job. Every bit as good as I was at your age.”

Pete broke the wires on the alfalfa and tossed fat green flakes through the bars for his girls. “Good morning, girls,” he said with affection. They looked down their trunks at him. Once again he was aware of how differently they responded to Mace. They were much warmer toward his father. Pete seemed to have lost his “trunkside manner.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep so long,” came a soft voice from behind him. Amazingly, his girls raised their heads in unison and lifted their trunks toward the voice. They never greeted him like that.

He’d long since realized that elephants were a whole lot more perceptive than human beings. The girls were aware of his fondness for them, but no matter how well he fed, scrubbed, pampered and babied them, they still treated him with a kind of offhand exasperation. Maybe they sensed his unhappiness—his guilt over past mistakes. Maybe one day they’d decide he’d made the grade and grant him their complete trust and affection.

“You were exhausted, m’dear,” said Mace without looking up from the meat cleaver in his hands. “As soon as I get this done, we’ll go over to my trailer and I’ll make us all a good hot breakfast. The coffee’s already on.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I’ve already—”

“Nonsense,” Mace rumbled. “My pancakes are legendary.” He peered over his glasses at her. “You could use some honey and maple syrup.”

Tala went to the lioness’s cage and hunkered down. “How is she?” she whispered.

“As well as can be expected,” Pete answered. “Dad doped her up again for the pain.”

She put her left hand against the wire mesh and caressed the lioness gently. “Sweet Baby,” she said. The lioness rumbled softly.

She wore no wedding ring. Pete was surprised at the relief he felt. Then as he leaned forward he saw that she wore a gold chain around her neck. Two gold bands, one larger and wider than the other, hung on the chain. Her wedding ring? Her dead husband’s? He sighed.

Not that he was looking for a relationship. Not after Val. His heart lurched at the memory of Val, and his never-ending guilt.

Her fingers toyed gently with the pelt on the lioness’s head. Pete took a deep breath at the thought of those fingers curling in the heavy mat of hair on his chest. He set his jaw, furious with himself that he’d allowed even that momentary distraction.

After a moment, Tala stood up easily and gracefully, something not many women could do from that kind of position.

Pete realized he was staring. No, glaring was more like it. She was too thin, all right, but definitely stood out in the right places. She’d plaited her dark hair into a single braid that hung down her back almost to her waist. The overhead light cut shadows under her strong cheekbones. Showed the circles under her eyes as well, unfortunately.

She smiled at him tentatively. “I folded the bed-clothes and the shirt and put them on the foot of your bed,” she said.

He rumbled something at her. He couldn’t tear his gaze from her eyes. He’d never seen eyes that dark or that wide on a human being. They tilted at the corners, and even without makeup her lashes swept her cheeks.

“Last night you said you’d introduce me,” she said and walked over to him. She moved like a dancer. Maybe she’d been a dancer at one time. Could be that was the reason she was so thin.

“Sure.” Why did he always sound so abrupt when he spoke to her? “Sophie is on the right, the one in back is Sweetiepie, and the big one is Belle.”

“She’s the one that patted my head with her trunk last night and nearly scared me witless,” Tala said, smiling over his shoulder.

He gaped at her. “She touched you?”

“Through the bars. Very gently. I knew you had elephants, of course, but I didn’t know how many, and I hadn’t seen them before. I was half-asleep in that old kitchen chair pushed right up against them. I didn’t realize it was their cage.”

He bristled. “They’re not caged. Not any longer.”

“I loved it.” She leaned against the bars. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Should have seen them when they got here,” he said. “Skin and bones.”

Mace looked up over the tops of his glasses. “The bars are to keep them from investigating—actually I mean destroying—this room. Elephants are endlessly curious. Unfortunately, they are also incredibly destructive while they’re about it.”

“But last night, Belle touched me so gently.”

“She wasn’t interested in seeing the inside of your brain,” Pete said. “But if she decided to see the inside of that cabinet over there—” he pointed toward the drug cabinet “—she would just as carefully knock it over and stomp it until the doors popped off to check out what’s inside.”

“Oh.” Tala glanced at the girls, who were keeping one eye on her while they bundled hay into their mouths. “Would you do that?” she asked Sophie.

As if in answer, Sophie dipped her head and curled her trunk.

Tala laughed.

Pete jumped. Her laugh was low, but it seemed to glitter in the chill air. Suddenly he felt as though he’d happily stick on a false nose and do pratfalls over floppy clown shoes if he could hear her laugh again. Too long without a woman, he decided, that was all it was. Too much Mace, too many elephants, not enough human companionship.

A low growl came from the lioness’s enclosure. Tala looked at her quickly. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake the baby.”

Suddenly she was all mouse again, anxious and subdued.

“The scent of meat woke her, not you. Ah, m’dear,” Mace said over his shoulder, “might we be ready for a bite of breakfast?” He smiled over at Tala. “I’d say you’ve been christened Baby.” The lioness stared at him with narrow, yellow eyes.

“Watch it, Mace,” Pete said. “A hungry cat is a dangerous cat. Your dictum, remember? First time I went to work at the zoo.”

“This particular baby, however, is missing both her front claws and her top left incisor,” Mace said. “She could still kill me, but she’d have to work at it.”

“What?” Tala asked. She looked from the older man to the younger. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“No reason to,” Pete told her. “Didn’t make much difference last night. But it means she’s been somebody’s pet—inasmuch as a lion can ever be a pet.”

“But people will still try,” Mace said, neatly arranging bits of meat and bone in a steel bucket. The lioness rumbled in anticipation.

“Surely they know better,” Tala said. “I mean, look at the size of her, and you say she’s still young.”

Pete shrugged. “They watch a National Geographic special or an episode of Nova and see a bunch of cute lion cubs playing around on-screen and they think how great it would be to have something like that. So they pick up the phone and order one.”

“Order one? Like a pizza?”

“Not quite that simple, but even now that the government has cracked down on importing exotic animals, there are plenty of places where you can buy a lion cub born in the States and have it brought to you, if you’ve got the money, that is.”

“But it’s illegal to own exotic animals, isn’t it?” she said. “In Tennessee, I mean.”

“Sure is,” Pete agreed, forking another flake of hay toward Belle. “Some people think they’re above the law. Of course, in some places lions are used to police marijuana patches and other illegal operations. Scarier than dogs.”

“My word,” she exclaimed. “You mean she might have been guarding something up by the Hollow? What about the deer? How could you keep her from roaming to hunt?”

“Maybe you couldn’t. Maybe she got out and her owner shot her when he couldn’t get her back.”

“I can’t believe that. I grew up in the Hollow, and I wander all over it in the summertime. There’s not enough flat land to grow a decent crop of collard greens, much less marijuana.”

“All the easier to hide the plants in, m’dear,” Mace said. “You’d be surprised what some people will get up to in the name of money. Still, I wouldn’t think anyone would have declawed her or defanged her for use as a guard. More likely she was a pet that got too big and was dumped too far from home to find her way back.”

“And then shot?”

“Possibly by someone who thought she was a cougar,” Pete said. “She’s the right color.”

“But they’re protected,” Tala said. “And terribly rare. My husband was a warden and spent a good deal of time in the woods, but even he’d never seen one. I certainly haven’t. As we said, Tennessee has awfully strict laws about exotic and protected animals. People were surprised you were able to get permission to bring in your elephants.”

“You should have seen the hoops I had to jump through,” Pete said. “And the girls aren’t going to eat the neighbor’s poodle—or the neighbor’s kid, come to that.”

“No. But they might stomp him, mightn’t they?” Tala asked.

“Highly unlikely. I only take female Indian elephants. They can be a nuisance and certainly get cranky sometimes, but now that they can move around the place freely, they enjoy life—possibly for the first time since they stopped nursing on their mothers. And I’ve gone to great pains with the twelve-foot fences to ensure they don’t go rampaging through the soybean fields around here.”

Mace held the steel bucket out to Pete. “Here. Feed the lioness.”

Pete felt Tala’s breath on his shoulder as he turned away from her and walked over to the lioness’s enclosure. The cat raised her body on her right paw and tried to stand. She made a deep trilling sound in the back of her throat, then let out a full-throated roar that shook the steel walls.

“Hold on,” Pete said. He set the bucket down in front of the door to the enclosure, opened it a few inches and used the end of his pitchfork to shove the bucket inside. Then he quickly closed and locked the door.

The cat instantly swiped at the bucket with her muzzle and knocked it over so that its contents spilled on the concrete in front of her blanket. She collapsed in front of it and began to eat noisily.

Pete stood and felt Tala’s hand on his arm. Her fingers felt warm and gentle.

“She’s hungry. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s a good sign.”

“What happens now?” Tala asked.

“Damned if I know. We could be in big trouble just having her here. I need to call the Fish and Wildlife people. Find out what they want to do with her. You know anybody over there I could talk to?”

“I guess so. But please, don’t call yet. I know they’ll drag her off. Maybe they’ll shoot her!” Tala’s dark eyes were enormous.

“Look, she obviously belongs to somebody. Illegally, but maybe somebody’s looking for her.”

“The same somebody who’s already tried to shoot her! The one who bought that cute little cub a couple of years ago. You can’t abandon her.”

Maybe he’d been wrong about her being a wimp, Pete thought. Plenty of fight in her now.

“I can’t risk the sanctuary either.” He gestured toward the girls, who were watching the interchange avidly, as though they understood every word.

“She needs sanctuary, too. Just because she’s not an elephant…”

“I am not licensed as a big-cat sanctuary.”

“Somebody must be.”

He took a deep breath. “Dammit, I can’t take on new problems. I have my hands full with three elephants. Do you have any idea how much it costs to feed even one cat that big?”

“How much?” Tala asked.

“What?”

“How much does it cost to feed a big cat?”

Pete glanced over at his father, who had leaned his rear end against the end of the examining table, crossed his ankles, and was regarding them as though they were playing mixed doubles at Wimbledon. “Dad?”

“Nebraska Zoo Food charges ten bucks per ten-pound feed. Normally she should have one a day, but skinny as she is, and with her wound, I’d say two a day plus extra vitamins would be more like it.”

“That’s a dollar a pound, two thousand dollars a ton. Plus shipping and handling?” She looked at Mace.

Mace shook his head. “No tax either. Animal food is not taxable.”

“I know that. We used to raise pigs.” She turned back to Pete. “You haven’t told me how much the surgery and drugs and things are going to cost.”

Pete had already decided not to charge for his services. But he needed to convince her that keeping the lioness was not an option. “At least a thousand dollars,” he said, and stared Mace down as though daring the other man to contradict him. “Even if we were to keep her until she’s well, we’d have to construct a decent enclosure for her. And she’s got to be kept clean, medicated. It’s a hell of a job.”

“We…I…have an account at the co-op in town. They have heavy-duty construction fencing and steel posts.”

“Somebody’d still have to build it. And that would mean letting them know we’ve got a lion on our hands. Besides, that doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with her in the long run.”

“Don’t you know any sanctuaries for big cats?” Tala asked, desperation in her voice.

Pete’s annoyance evaporated. “Yeah. There’s a network of sanctuaries across the country. We’re all familiar with each other, whether we have elephants or big cats, or apes—whatever needs rescuing.”

“Then please keep her till you can find her a decent home!”

“You realize you’re asking me to break the law and costing me a bunch of money I need for the girls.”

“I can’t do anything about the law except to say that if anything happens I promise to take all the blame and get my mother-in-law to go to bat for you as well. She’s on the county council. As to the money—I’ve got a little saved up, and we can charge the stuff at the co-op, and maybe we can make some arrangement for me to work off the rest. I can pour cement and dig postholes.” She looked around the room. “You could use some help. I’m a hard worker, and I’m quick with figures.”

“If I need any help, which I don’t,” Pete said, “and can’t afford if I did, I’d want a man capable of shoveling elephant dung, not—”

“A skinny half-pint woman?” Tala asked. “Look, I’ve been digging and shoveling all my life. I can drive a tractor and use a front-loader with the best of them. I may be skinny, but I’m tough.” She shoved her sleeve up and made a fist at him.

He had to admit her arms were sinewy.

“I was born and raised on a dirt farm,” she continued. “Work doesn’t scare me. Besides that, I can type eighty words a minute, I can keep books, I can scrub floors, and I know how to use a computer.”

“Whoa!” Pete said.

“Honey,” Mace said gently from behind her back, “where were you coming from last night when you found Baby over there?”

“From work. I work the four-to-midnight shift as the assistant manager of the Food Farm.”

“Uh-huh. So you’re already commuting to town for an eight-hour day—or night. And Bryson’s Hollow is farmland, so you’re probably working a farm, at least part of the year. If you’re Irene Newsome’s daughter-in-law, I know you’re also a mother, without a husband to take up the slack. You plan to sleep sometime in the next century?”

Tala’s face flushed dark brick red. “We let the whole farm go fallow, so I’m not working the land. It never was much good for crops anyway—too hilly. Even Mr. and Mrs. Bryson gave up and moved to Florida a few years ago, although I don’t think they can bring themselves to sell the land their family settled in the 1700s. I can work a second job easy. I don’t need much sleep so long as I can spend the weekend with my kids—that’s not negotiable.”

“During the week?”

“They’re staying in town with their grandmother and great-grandmother.”

“Your kids aren’t with you?” Pete asked. He heard the disapproval in his voice. From the way her head snapped around and her chin went up, he knew she’d heard it, too.

“My boy is eight, makes honor roll, and already plays Pop Warner football in the fall and baseball in the spring. And my daughter is thirteen and into cheerleading and gymnastics. I can’t get them to all their practices and games and still work every night.” She shrugged. “Besides, Rachel hates the country, especially since…” She took a deep breath. “Her daddy died.”

“Still…”

“That’s the way it works out best for us, Dr. Jacobi.”

“I’m sure it is the best possible solution for the moment,” Mace said, darting an annoyed glance at his son. “But nobody can work all the time. A young woman should not be driving home by herself in a sleet storm after one o’clock in the morning. How much do they pay you at that Farm place?”

“Eight dollars an hour,” Tala whispered.

Pete closed his eyes. Not much. He wondered why she wasn’t getting some sort of pension from her husband’s death. At least she should have social security for the kids, food stamps, maybe ADC. She ought to be able to keep her children at home. But not if she had to leave them alone from before four in the afternoon until two in the morning.

“Fine. Then you come to work for us, and we’ll match your salary plus ten percent,” Mace said.

Pete gaped at him. “Mace, the money we’ve got is for the next elephant. We can’t afford—”

“Oh, yes, we can. I can, that is. Actually, m’dear, you’re cheap at the price. We expect you to get out enough fund-raising letters on that computer to more than pay your way.”

“Wait a minute, Dad. We can barely afford health insurance for ourselves, much less for an entire family.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Tala smiled at him. “We still have Adam’s insurance. The kids are covered until they’re eighteen, and I’m covered until I go on Medicare.”

Mace walked over and took both her hands. “You would make an old man very happy indeed if you’d take our job and quit working until all hours of the morning. I promise you the hours here will give you much more time for after-school activities with your children.”

Inwardly, Pete groaned. He did not need or want anyone underfoot, certainly not this woman who gave him urges he’d been quashing. He didn’t have time for urges.

Suddenly, all three elephants lifted their trunks and trumpeted. Everyone jumped. Tala looked up at them and laughed that glorious glittery laugh once more. “They know, don’t they?” she said to Mace.

“Of course, m’dear, they know everything.” Mace dropped his arm across Tala’s shoulders. “And obviously they approve. Now, it’s time for my world-famous pancakes. We have to put some meat on those bones. Coming, Pete?”

Pete watched as Mace helped Tala on with her parka and ushered her out into the frigid, but blessedly sunny, morning. Instantly, the girls swung away from their bars and walked purposefully toward the door to their enclosure that led out to the pastures beyond. They were going outside to meet Tala at close quarters.

He closed his eyes. What he felt was envy. She had a quality that endeared her to animals and people alike. Mace was no pushover, yet here he was simpering away like Maurice Chevalier.

And here Pete was once more—odd man out, even when it came to his very own elephants.

“Blast it, they’ll scare her half to death,” he swore and trotted out the door.

“AH, GLORIOUS MORNING,” Mace Jacobi said, linking Tala’s arm through his. “The roads should be completely dry in another hour.”

Tala started to reply, then noticed that the girls had silently meandered up behind her. How could they be so huge yet move so quietly?

She turned and caught her breath. Without bars, and in direct sunlight, she realized how monumental they were. She shaded her eyes with her hands, stared up at them and gulped. Mace patted her arm.

“Just checking you out, m’dear,” he said, and walked on. “They’ve already said they approve.”

Tala squared her shoulders and followed him, expecting any moment to feel the thud of a trunk on the top of her head. When they reached the steps of Mace’s trailer, however, she turned to see that the girls hadn’t moved, but were swaying back and forth in unison like overweight chorus girls. She smiled and waved at them, then followed Mace inside.

“Let me take your coat,” he said. “And how do you like your coffee?”

“Black, please.”

“You should have cream and sugar, but we’ll make up for that. The pancake batter is already in the refrigerator. I simply have to pour and flip. Please sit down. It’s cramped, I know, but I don’t normally have company, certainly not so beautiful nor so early.”

How could anyone be afraid of this man? Tala thought. He was as courtly as a knight, unlike his grumpy son. Her breath quickened as the face of that son rose up unbidden behind her eyes. He was nearly as big as the elephants, and a good deal scarier. “I don’t think Dr. Jacobi wants me here,” she said as she reached for the cup of steaming coffee Mace handed to her.

“I am Dr. Jacobi, and I do want you here. Besides, don’t let Pete fool you. We can well afford it. We desperately need the help. I’m not making that up.”

Suddenly he sounded formidable indeed. This must be the man who terrified vet students. “I don’t want to cause trouble,” she said in a small voice.

“Nonsense! You are just what my stubborn son needs. He’s turning into a hermit, and an ill-tempered one at that. Been too long since he had to deal with human beings. Animals don’t talk back, although the girls give a very close approximation when they’re pissed.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Human beings, I mean.”

He glanced at her. “Long story, and not mine to tell. Ask him when you know him a little better.”

The door opened at that moment, and the object of their conversation ducked to avoid smacking his head on the lintel. Suddenly the trailer seemed tiny.

Tala squeezed into her corner. Adam hadn’t been but a couple of inches taller than she, and slightly built, although muscular. She’d always felt comfortable with him, with his even temperament. The children took after him physically—slight, well-coordinated and athletic. Temperamentally they were more like Tala’s Cherokee grandmother, especially Rachel, who was anything but calm.

This man looked as though he could wrestle one of those elephants to the ground if he had to. And he seemed to have the nasty temperament of her granddaddy’s Jersey bull. What was his problem, for heaven’s sake?

She moved over even more to give him as much room as she could, and held her body as tight as possible. She heard the sizzle of pancake batter hitting hot fat and smelled the luscious aroma of pancakes—with something else. “Do you add vanilla?” she asked Mace.

“Ah, the girl has a good nose.”

“Not an asset around here,” Pete said. “There are times when the odors of wet hay, wet elephant and wet elephant droppings can peel paint.”

He was obviously trying to discourage her. “No worse than chickens,” she said. “Or pigs. And piles probably not much larger than a full-grown cow’s. I’ve cleaned up after all of those. And then, of course, there are babies. After two kids’ worth of dirty diapers, bad smells don’t bother me much.”

“That, m’dear, is something about which my son knows nothing whatsoever,” Mace said as he flipped the first saucer-size pancake expertly onto a plate.

Tala glanced at Pete. For some reason his father’s remark seemed to annoy him a lot more than it should have. Was this another bone of contention between them? Pete hadn’t made Mace a grandfather?

“Here you go, m’dear,” Mace said, and sat a short stack of steaming pancakes in front of her, followed in quick succession by a small collection of jugs and jars, and a butter dish. “Maple syrup, plain syrup, honey, blackberry syrup. Take your pick.” He beamed at her.

“This is too much. Dr. Jacobi, wouldn’t you like to take this one?”

“That’s about a quarter of what Pete puts away. His are coming up, and mine thereafter. The only problem with pancakes is that they require baby-sitting.”

Tala stopped in midpour. “Oh, God, can I use your phone?”

“Of course.” Mace looked puzzled. Pete stood and pressed his big body against the far wall so that she could squeeze through.

“Phone’s in my bedroom,” Mace said. “It’s set on intercom at the moment. Just punch one of the buttons. You’ll get a dial tone.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll keep your pancakes hot for you.”

Mace’s bedroom was as spartan as a monk’s cell and spotlessly clean. She picked up the telephone and punched a button, then dialed. The phone was answered on the first ring. “Irene?” she asked.

“Good Lord, Tala! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been calling your house since seven this morning. Ten more minutes and I was going to send Sheriff Craig to find out if you’d gone over the side of a cliff in the ice.”

“I’m so sorry, Irene. I meant to check in earlier.”

“Your phone out of order? I swear, Tala, Vertie and I have been frantic what with the sleet and all.”

“And the children?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell them I couldn’t reach you. They’ve had enough to worry about. The school finally decided to operate today. Two flakes, and they usually slam the doors. Wasn’t a bit like that when I was growing up. We went to school rain, sleet or snow.”

Tala relaxed. At least Rachel and Cody weren’t worried about her. Since Adam’s death, Rachel acted as though she never gave her mother a thought, but Cody worried constantly. Maybe Rachel worried as well, but she’d never let Tala know.

In the background she heard, “Has Miss Tala deigned to call at last? Give me that phone!”

A moment later Tala grinned at Vertie’s tone. “Why on earth do you think God gave us the telephone if not to keep in touch with our loved ones?”

“I’ve already apologized to Irene,” Tala said.

“Won’t do. My daughter-in-law forgives folks too easily. Apologize to me this instant, or I will drive myself out there personally and snatch you bald-headed, young lady.”

“Yes’m. I apologize.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You drove off into the sleet at midnight and disappeared off the face of the earth. Is your phone dead? Did you have an accident?”

“No. I’m fine. I meant to come by this morning and have breakfast with all of you, but I slept a whole lot later than I planned. I’ll come by this afternoon on my way to work and tell you about it. If that’s all right,” she added.

“All right? It’s an order.”

After the usual pleasantries and a good deal of fending off questions, Tala hung up the phone. She was so lucky to have in-laws she adored and who adored her.

She felt her eyes well with tears. If not for Irene and Vertie, she’d never have survived Adam’s death. Couldn’t survive now, for that matter. But she had to aim for independence. As Tala had told the Jacobis, she was not afraid of hard work. And she was definitely not the type to turn into a white-gloved young matron drinking tea and eating sugar cookies.

Not that Vertie ever wore white gloves. Her grand-mother-in-law was more likely to be found in jeans, cowboy boots and a Stetson driving that Jeep of hers down the side of a mountain. Irene and Vertie were as different as could be, but somehow mother-in-law and daughter-in-law managed to scrape along in relative harmony in that big old Newsome mansion. Probably because Vertie spent most of her time traveling the world.

Tala had no intention of becoming the third-generation Newsome widow in that house. Not if she had to clerk at the Food Farm until she died.

Or spend the next twenty years shoveling elephant dung.