From This Day Forward Page 13

  “You’ve acquired a new talent,” she said as she sat down.

  “Survival,” he said. “One learns to survive.”

  And then, if he’d meant anything deeper than the words implied, he hid it well as he occupied himself with the mechanics of eating.

  Ginnie sat silently, trying not to watch Neil and unable not to. It was Christmas morning, they were involved in a drama that few people could even imagine, and yet they sat across the table from each other like any couple, on any morning. The only thing that would make this ritual more routine would be for Neil to pick up the folded newspaper lying on the edge of the table and hide himself behind it as he finished his coffee. He didn’t do that.

  “It looks as though you have a feast prepared and waiting in the refrigerator, Ginnie.”

  Her attention jerked back to the present. She had forgotten all about today’s plans.

  “Do you need to get ready for company, or finish dinner, or...” He hesitated. “Do you want me to disappear for a while?”

  “No, I—no. Dinner isn’t until this evening, and it isn’t here. I do need to take the food I have prepared out to Cassie and Frank’s sometime this afternoon, though, and I should call Cassie and tell her that I won’t be there for dinner.”

  She started to rise to go to the telephone but remembered its wet-weather vacation. “I don’t suppose the phone’s dried out enough to be working yet, has it?”

  “No. I tried it earlier. I checked on the repair crew when I called the sheriff this morning, but it’s anybody’s guess when they’ll get here. Ice took a whole section of line down south of town. They’ll have to finish up there before they can even look at your problem.”

  “It will probably cure itself before then,” she said, attempting lightness. “Sunshine always helps.” She sobered. “Has there been any word?”

  “No.” Neil frowned and peered at her over the edge of his coffee cup. “What do you mean, let them know that you won’t be there?”

  “Well, it’s just that, with things the way they are, I...”

  “It’s Christmas Day, Ginnie.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It is.”

  “And from the looks of the contents of your refrigerator, you’ve put a great deal of planning into this dinner.”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “Then go. If something happens, I can get in touch with you.”

  “And leave-you here?” she asked. “Alone?” She shook her head. “Oh, no. I’ll go, but only if you come with me.”

  “Ginnie, be reasonable.”

  “I am being reasonable. If I were at your home, would you leave me to wait alone?”

  “These are your friends. Do I even know them?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “Neil, it’s Christmas Day. No one needs to be alone on Christmas Day.” She reached for his hand where it rested on the table, but stopped before she touched him as one clear, whimpering thought made itself heard.

  Todd is alone on Christmas Day.

  She picked up the plates, almost angrily, carried them to the counter and set them down beside the sink.

  “Leave those for now?” Neil asked softly.

  “But, I—” She turned to him and found a whimsical smile softening features that had become too stern, too harsh.

  “It’s beautiful outside, Ginnie. The puppy needs to go back out. Besides, I want to explore that enormous old backyard of yours in the daylight.”

  And Ginnie did something she had never done before. She left dirty dishes waiting in her kitchen.

  “All right,” she said, drawn irresistibly to his smile. “Let’s get our coats.”

  Outside, a winter wonderland awaited them, unbroken white except for tiny twiglike prints that covered the mound of snow that was her birdbath, and miniature craters and scratches showing where seed had fallen from the feeders.

  They paused on the back steps. She was reluctant to mar the purity of the snow. “It looks almost giftwrapped,” Ginnie said reverently.

  The collie, however, was not hesitant. He plunged off the step into a drift and whimpered his shock.

  Neil laughed and bent to retrieve him. “Watch out, little fellow. You’re going to have to learn what you can and can’t do.”

  He lifted the pup and placed him farther over, where the drift was not so high, where the snow only scraped the puppy’s belly.

  “Have you named him yet?”

  “No. I’ve been waiting for a name to attach to him, but the one that keeps recurring is Charlie.”

  “Funny. That’s what I was thinking. He reminds me so much of Charlie when he was a pup. I really miss that old dog. Even at the last, when he was almost completely helpless, I kept remembering him as he had been when he was young.” He straightened and brushed his wet hands on his thighs. “Well, something will come to you.”

  “Yes.” She blinked back unexpected moisture. Dogs couldn’t live forever. Charlie had been old when she and Neil married. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  She stepped off the porch into the snow. The first step was the hardest, she realized. She shook her head. Good grief. She was only thinking about walking in the snow.

  Ginnie strode to the birdbath, making plowing tracks as she went. She’d intended only to brush the accumulation of snow from the top of it, but she turned and looked back toward the house where Neil teased the pup. Without stopping to think, she scraped up a handful of snow, packed it and sent it sailing toward his broad back.

  “What!” he yelped, and then turned in her direction. A diabolic grin lit his face. “You want to play rough, do you?”

  He scooped up a double handful, packing it as he advanced on her.

  “No, Neil. Wait a minute,” she said, laughing, backing away from him.

  Splat! The snowball hit her squarely on the left shoulder.

  “You rat,” she cried. But she had just as good an aim as he. Besides, he was much closer now.

  His midsection received her second snowball. She ducked. His second only grazed the top of her head. Then she was laughing and running, and he was chasing her. She circled the birdbath once, twice, and started back toward the safety of the house. She almost made it, but Neil caught her with a flying tackle to her ankles just before she reached the back steps.

  Ginnie went down with a whoosh and rolled over, still laughing, scooping snow as she turned, and flinging it at him. And then the three of them were on the ground together: she, Neil and the puppy. Neil caught her arms in one hand, holding them above her head, laughing and threatening her with a handful of snow. She kicked out playfully, and he trapped her leg with his.

  And suddenly there was no more laughter.

  Ginnie’s breath caught and refused to move. The sound of her heartbeat was the only sound she heard. Neil’s breath, visible in the chill, hung suspended between them, as did time.

  The blare of a car horn, a long, drawn-out, demanding summons from the front of the house cut through their isolation. Concern, fear almost, replaced the desire in Neil’s eyes.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Neil released her and scampered to his feet, holding his hand out to her. “It’s my telephone. It’s wired to the horn.”

  She waved his hand away. “Go on. Hurry and answer it. I’ll follow you.”

  For a second, he looked as though he would insist on helping her, but the horn blared again, and he turned, running toward the sound.

  Ginnie pushed herself up off the ground and gathered the puppy to her. Not running; no, for she very much feared she didn’t want to hear the news this telephone call would bring, she followed Neil’s footsteps through the snow.

  He had yanked open the driver’s-side door and now perched half in, half out of the car as he held the receiver of the console-mounted mobile phone to his ear, frowning. Ginnie stopped at the front of the car. Wet, now, cold, and apprehensive, she stood there hesitantly. Neil looked up just as she shivered, and he motioned for her to go into the house.


  Feeling very much the coward for leaving him, she did so, anyway. She went through the motions of drying the puppy, removing her wet boots, changing into dry jeans and socks, and still Neil remained outside. She glanced out once. He continued to hold the receiver and appeared to be deep in conversation with someone.

  He entered the kitchen just as she finished filling the sink with hot, sudsy water, and had begun stacking dishes in it. She’d required more activity than merely piling dirty dishes in a dishwasher and pushing a button.

  “Where’s your broom?” he asked.

  “In the pantry.” Ginnie nodded toward the pantry door. “Why?

  Neil opened the pantry and dragged out the broom. “I’m going to see if knocking the snow off that connection will help your telephone.”

  She followed him onto the back porch, lifting first one sock-clad foot, then the other, away from the cold of the wood as she watched him batting at the snow that covered the telephone junction box.

  “Neil, what is it?”

  “Go on back in the house, Ginnie. It’s too cold for you to be out here without any shoes on.”

  “And it’s too cold for you to be out here in wet clothes playing telephone lineman. What’s going on?”

  Neil sighed. He reversed the broom and swept the last of the snow from the connection. Only then did he join her on the porch. “Come on,” he said, and abruptly ushered her into the house.

  “Rumor. Rumor is what it is, Ginnie. Just rumor.”

  “Do they know where he is?”

  Neil shook his head, breathing deeply. “Everyone seems to know where Todd is. Only it’s always in a different place. He’s been reported as far west as Russellville, as far east as Memphis, and as far north as Searcy.”

  “So no one really knows.”

  “No.”

  Ginnie took the broom from him. “Go change into some dry clothes,” she said. “I’ll listen for your car horn.”

  “And for anything else?”

  She nodded. “And for anything else.”

  “All right” But before he left the room, Neil reached behind him and threw the lock on the door.

  Chapter 9

  Early that afternoon, while Neil had the puppy outside, Ginnie again tried the telephone. Neil’s efforts and several hours of bright sunshine had repaired the problem, as she had known they would. She dialed Cassie’s number.

  “Thank goodness,” Cassie said, laughing. “I was beginning to get worried. I’ve been trying to call you off and on since early this morning. The phone just kept ringing and ringing and ringing. Did you get the telephone-company repair crew out there today?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ginnie asked.

  “Well, never mind. It’s too nice a day to get into that discussion again. Listen. Father McIntyre is going to be able to come to dinner, after all.”

  “Great,” Ginnie said.

  “Well, maybe not so great,” Cassie corrected. “He has to leave early. What I was trying to call you about was to ask you if you’d mind coming out late this afternoon instead of waiting until tonight. Say, three? Maybe three-thirty?”

  “Of course, except—” Ginnie glanced out the window, toward Neil.

  “Except what, Ginnie?”

  “Can you make room for one more person?”

  “Of course,” Cassie said. “Don’t tell me you have—be still my heart—a date?”

  “Not exactly. Neil is here.”

  “Neil?” Cassie asked. “Oops. Me and my blasted big mouth. Neil? Your ex?”

  “Yes.”

  After a moment of silence, Cassie asked suspiciously, “Does this have anything to do with that telephone call you got last night? Are you all right, Ginnie?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes. It’s—look, Neil’s coming back toward the house now. I can’t really go into it, but there’s a problem with Todd —”

  “His son?”

  “Yes. I promise I’ll explain, but I need to bring Neil with me. Is that okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay, you idiot,” she chided gently.

  “Thanks, Cassie.”

  “Oh, and by the way,” Cassie added, “come casual. You don’t want to have to trek up to the house in fancy clothes. There’s no way you can get up the driveway in your car.”

  Neil, surprisingly, did not object to using her car or to letting her drive. She gave him Cassie’s telephone number so that he could leave word where they could be reached, and he helped her carry the food to her car.

  “It’s practical,” he said later, when they were almost at their destination, “but why on earth did you buy a four-wheel drive?”

  “Because it is practical,” Ginnie told him as she turned the serviceable vehicle off the highway and onto an unpaved road. “Because with it, I can do things like this, or even go off the road. I love these mountains, and this vehicle just helps me to see more of them.”

  The roads really weren’t as bad as she’d expected. There had been a little thawing during the day, but, so far, not enough to turn the roads into the almost impassable mud they would be later. However, she didn’t attempt Cassie’s driveway—not because she thought the Bronco couldn’t make it, but because the top of it was blocked by an enormous snowman.

  Ginnie laughed and parked the car at the base of the hill. “I hope they’ve got pictures of that,” she said as she reached for a bag of food. “Are you ready to climb the hill?”

  Neil glanced around at the snow-shrouded pines and at the road that ended with this driveway. “They believed in getting away from it all, didn’t they?” he asked as he reached for the other bag.

  “Just another pair of transplanted city folks,” she said and then stopped abruptly. She’d been about to compare Cassie and Frank’s need for solitude with their own earlier quest.

  She’d already told Neil that Frank taught English at the college, that Cassie had interrupted her own teaching career to raise their sons, that they’d been in the area for less than two years and that they attended the same church as she did. There seemed nothing else to say. They trudged up the hill in silence, concentrating on the icy path.

  Inside the gaily decorated house, chaos reigned, audible even from the front steps. Cassie opened the door for them and, rather than unload the bags into her arms, they carried them into the kitchen before divesting themselves of their coats. There could have been an awkward silence as Ginnie introduced Neil to Cassie, but Frank walked into the kitchen, followed by Father McIntyre, and the moment passed in only slightly stilted first words.

  From the den came the muted sounds of a televised football game and the excited voices of three boys.

  Frank laughed. “I hope you’re a football fan,” he said to Neil. “We need another adult to even things up in there.”

  “I am,” Neil admitted, laughing, but he looked questioningly at Ginnie. She smiled at him, nodded and took his coat.

  Cassie remained quiet while they put away the coats, even while they unloaded the food from the bags and placed it in the refrigerator, in the oven or on the counter to wait for a last-minute warm-up in the microwave. When the telephone rang and Ginnie jumped, Cassie shot her a sharp look before answering it. She spoke briefly before going into the den, with Ginnie following. Neil, already looking toward the kitchen, waited, Ginnie knew, to be summoned.

  However, it was not to him that Cassie spoke.

  “Father McIntyre, the parish secretary is on the phone. Would you like to take the call in our room?”

  “Yes, thank you, Cassandra. Please excuse me,” he said to the others.

  Neil eased back into his chair, and Ginnie returned quickly to the kitchen.

  “All right,” Cassie said when she joined her there. “What did you think the call was about? And don’t tell me nothing, because I saw the look on your face and on Neil’s.”

  Ginnie sagged against the cabinet. “You don’t know about Todd,” she said.

  “No. What about Todd?”

  “It all happened
before you came to Pleasant Gap.”

  How could she start to explain something that had no explanation? By cutting through to the heart of it immediately, Ginnie decided.

  “Todd has been in a private sanitarium for over two years. He’s under court commitment, although they have allowed private care. The last time he came to Pleasant Gap, he promised to... He promised to hurt me. Last night, he escaped.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Cassie leaned back against the feast-laden counter, watching her friend, listening but not questioning except with her eyes.

  “We believe he’s on his way to Pleasant Gap.”

  “Then that call last night...?”

  “Was from Todd.”

  “Oh, Ginnie, why didn’t you say something then? You—you could have come here. You could have stayed with us.”

  “No. I didn’t want to believe him at first. I—it wasn’t confirmed until midnight, and by then Neil was on his way here.”

  “But surely they’ve...” Cassie paused. “No, they haven’t found him yet, have they?”

  Ginnie shook her head.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know what we can do, Cassie. Except wait.”

  “I’m so sorry. But at least you have Neil with you. It’s not as though you’re waiting this out alone. But what a rotten thing to happen on Christmas.”

  “What a rotten thing to happen any time,” Ginnie said. “Now, can we talk about something else, like what secret ingredient you put in your fantastic corn-bread dressing or my recipe for Gran’s sweet potatoes, please?”

  “Sure.” Cassie smiled tentatively. “But since I already know the recipe for my dressing, let’s start with your grandmother’s sweet potatoes.”

  Several minutes later, when silence filled the house, Ginnie looked up in surprise. The three men walked into the kitchen.

  “I didn’t think this house could smell any better than it did earlier,” Frank said, “but I’ve been wrong about other things, too. Is there going to be time for us to go outside for a while, before dinner?”

  “I think so,” Cassie said. “But don’t be too long. Remember Father McIntyre’s appointment tonight.”