Loe raamatut: «Cathryn»

CHAPTER ONE

TUCKER LANG wasn’t the sort of guy good girls cared to be seen with. Not if they valued their reputations. Good girls went out with clean-cut, law-abiding guys, the ones who stayed in school and went to church and had plans for the future.

Being with Tucker Lang was another matter, however—as long as no one found out—and by the time he left Harmony at the age of twenty-one, not many girls remained who hadn’t joined him for a walk on the wild side. Tucker was trouble, all right, and nothing was more alluring than trouble.

Tucker even looked like trouble, from his long black hair to his scuffed biker’s boots, which he wore both winter and summer and even to the beach. He also favored shark-tooth jewelry, black leather jackets, and sleeveless T-shirts, to display his sinewy musculature.

The vehicles he drove, both of which he’d rebuilt himself, looked like trouble, too. The first was a big, loud Harley-Davidson; the other, a Trans-Am with flames painted on the sides. Auto repair was, in fact, his trade while he lived on Harmony, one he’d stumbled into simply because it happened to be the family business. His great-uncle Walter, who’d brought him to the island from the Bronx when he was thirteen, operated the island’s only garage, Lang’s Auto Repair.

To the distress of Walter and his wife, Winnie, trouble ran deeper than just appearances with Tuck, right from the get-go. He set off stink bombs in school, encouraged his classmates to smoke and swear, and pilfered candy and magazines anywhere he found them for sale.

Another reason the Langs turned gray so fast, beyond the fact that they were both sixty when they took Tucker in, was that he seemed perpetually involved in dangerous activities, usually on a dare. One day, for instance, he dived off Little Harbor Bridge—nothing unusual for island kids, except that in Tucker’s case his hands were tied behind his back. He once camped out all night in Morgan’s Hollow, where if the ghosts didn’t get you, the deer ticks would. But the incident that made Tuck an irrevocable Harmony legend was his getting struck by lightning, a gigantic bolt that passed right through him, yet left him totally unharmed.

Tucker was combative, too, a trait that became more prominent as he grew older and began hanging out in bars. He wasn’t the largest or strongest guy on the island, but he was arguably the toughest, and he never backed down from a fight.

In addition to all this, Tucker drank hard, swam nude, danced dirty and spent more than his fair share of nights in jail paying for his sins, the sum of which, alas, only added to his appeal and, in turn, the sullying of even more female reputations.

Not mine, though, thought Cathryn McGrath a bit smugly as she drove across Harmony on a slushy, colorless Valentine’s Day. She was on her way to attend the afternoon visitation at D’Autell’s Funeral Home where Walter Lang was laid out. Cathryn’s virtue had remained intact—although, to be honest, Tucker had never tested it.

For one thing, she’d been off-limits. She’d gone steady with Dylan from the age of fifteen until they were married four years later, and Tucker had respected that. Also, her parents and the Langs were neighbors. They did what good neighbors do—traded news and recipes and tools, and lent each other help whenever it was needed. For some odd reason, that bond seemed to affect Tuck’s attitude toward Cathryn. That, and his being four years older. When he wasn’t ignoring her, which he often did, he unfailingly treated her like a kid sister, someone meant to be endured and occasionally protected, but not seduced.

But even if he had hit on her, she was positive nothing would’ve come of it, because, quite frankly, the appeal of Tucker Lang, bad boy extraordinaire, was lost on her. Although other girls had swooned over his dark eyes and rugged unshaven jaw, Cathryn had much preferred Dylan’s blond and blue-eyed all-American looks. In fact, Tucker’s aggressive demeanor had sometimes scared her, and his behavior had positively turned her off.

She didn’t find Tucker Lang exciting or irresistible, the way other girls did. Cathryn’s idea of irresistible took the form of respect, loyalty, industriousness and being family-oriented, all of which Dylan possessed in spades. Rather, she considered Tucker confused, immature and pitiable, and the girls who allowed him to use them were fools.

Slowing her van for the stop sign at Four Corners, a central marker on the fifteen-square-mile island, Cathryn’s rambling remembrances also came to a stop, and she realized with some annoyance that she’d spent an unwarranted amount of time thinking about Tucker Lang today. She hadn’t seen the man in nearly fifteen years, and before that they hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies. He probably didn’t even remember her. Yet, from the moment she’d heard about his uncle’s death and realized he’d probably be home for the funeral, he’d been drifting through her thoughts like a low-grade obsession. Probably because, despite all his shortcomings, I liked the guy, she thought with a slow smile. We were oil and water, but we always got along.

Cathryn set her van in motion again and soon arrived at D’Autell’s, located near the cemetery rather than within the touristy harbor district, which the Chamber of Commerce seemed to appreciate.

There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, Cathryn noticed as she shut off the engine. Most people probably intended to pay their respects during the evening visiting hours. She sighed in dismay as she gathered up her purse. It would be easier to leave quickly and unnoticed if there was a crowd, and she definitely wanted to leave quickly. She was eager to get home and continue decorating the dining room.

Because it was Valentine’s Day, she’d planned a special dinner—beef stroganoff, Dylan’s and the kids’ favorite, with a heart-shaped raspberry-chocolate cake for dessert. Actually, she wasn’t aiming to make this Valentine celebration special; she was aiming to make it perfect. She already knew what Dylan intended to give her, and only perfection on her part would do.

She’d found the gift by accident last week. Normally she didn’t go into Dylan’s business files, but a supplier had phoned with a question about an order, Dylan had been out and she’d figured the information must be somewhere in the drawer.

It was. So were the diamond earrings. Not rhinestone, not cubic zirconia. Diamond, the real McCoy. The sales slip was in the bag, as well, and when Cathryn saw the bottom line, she’d suffered serious heart palpitations. Dylan’s landscaping business was doing well—but eight hundred dollars for earrings? Was he out of his mind?

But then she’d found the card, also hidden under the files, its verse so romantic and intimate it had brought tears to her eyes. And at that moment she’d decided that being impractical once in a while was perfectly forgivable in a man. In fact, it was perfectly…perfect.

She’d kept the discovery a secret, even from her best friends, Julia and Lauren, but it had been difficult. Heavens, diamond earrings! Usually Dylan’s Valentine gifts ran to flowers or chocolates. Was he finally going to say, yes, he’d like to have another child? Was this his way of making up for the disagreements they’d had whenever she’d broached the subject? God, she hoped so.

When Bethany, their youngest, had entered first grade in September, Cathryn had thought she might get herself an outside job. Dylan had thought the time was right, too. But after considering several positions and becoming mysteriously anxious and depressed, she’d come to the conclusion that she was just a natural-born, stay-at-home mom, a one-hundred-percent throwback to another era. Trying to be otherwise was fighting against type.

Her family and home were the core of her life, and unlike a lot of women she knew, she loved taking care of them. She loved everything domestic and was never happier than when she was cooking or sewing, gardening or helping with homework. And having a toddler underfoot just seemed like an integral part of the picture.

Smiling, Cathryn recalled that there was one more reason having another child would be fun. Last summer she’d jokingly proposed to Lauren and Julia that they all have babies at about the same time. That way, she’d said, they could share prenatal joys and woes, and later help each other with child-rearing. She’d seen the arrangement as great fun and a wonderful way to broaden their already deep, lifelong friendship. Her friends, however, had predictably considered the idea absurd. At the time, Julia had been content simply being a newlywed, and Lauren hadn’t even been dating anyone.

Well, Lauren’s baby was due in August, and, to no one’s surprise, Julia had recently announced that she was two months along. Now it was Cathryn’s turn, and she had a strong hunch that was the message behind Dylan’s extravagant gift. He’d just needed a little time to get used to the idea.

Cathryn suddenly felt the urge to skip the wake and hurry home. Unfortunately, though, some things couldn’t be sloughed off. Paying final respects to an old neighbor was one of them.

She angled the rearview mirror toward her, fluffed her long sandy bangs—and squeaked in horror. She was still wearing her Valentine earrings, the dangling hearts that looked exactly like candy. One said, Kiss Me, the other, Be Mine. Not quite right for a wake. After removing them and tossing them on the dash, she fingered off a tiny smudge of pink lipstick from the corner of her mouth and tried not to think about how much heavier Tucker was going to find her. Each of her three pregnancies had left her with ten extra pounds, then a couple more. Sly devils, had slipped in all on their own. Ah, well. There was nothing she could do about it right now. With a resigned sigh, she opened the door and stepped out into the slush.

Inside the foyer, Cathryn signed the guest book and took a bolstering breath before walking into the viewing room. It was overly warm and smelled of carnations and dusty velvet. Serene harp music, meant to create a celestial ambience, drifted from speakers poorly hidden behind the coffin. To Cathryn’s chagrin, her attention zoomed straight to Tucker. Not to poor Walter, the reason she was here. Tucker. He was sitting in the first chair in a short receiving line of relatives, talking quietly to the elderly woman on his right, Walter’s sister-in-law Sarah from Barney’s Cove Road.

Oh, Lord. He looks like a Mafia hit man, Cathryn thought. It was the maroon shirt that did it. With a white or otherwise pale shirt, Tucker’s charcoal sports jacket and fitted black pants might almost pass for normal. But that shirt, all that head-to-toe darkness, distinctly marked him as an underworld figure. Maybe not the underworld, but an underworld nonetheless.

Cathryn’s first glance also registered that he’d grown a beard, a feature that in her opinion added absolutely nothing to his appeal. Moreover, in disregard of current fashion, he still wore his hair long.

Cathryn changed her mind. Tuck didn’t look like a hit man; he looked like an aging rock star.

He was neither, of course.

She remembered her father once remarking that Tucker, being unusually charismatic and street-smart, had the potential to become somebody really special someday, a top-flight salesman, for instance, or a politician—if he got the right breaks. But with bad breaks, getting involved with the wrong people, for instance, he could turn into a bum, a hood or even a criminal. He was walking a precarious fence rail, her father had theorized. Tuck’s life could fall either way.

Like most people grafted to Harmony’s grapevine, Cathryn knew that Tucker had drifted through several trades before settling into the one that currently occupied him—stock-car racing. According to Walter, it was an occupation that provided Tuck with a good living and the opportunity to travel, so Cathryn surmised he’d “fallen” well. Not that she condoned his racing. She knew how much the old widower had worried about his great-nephew’s safety, but at least Tucker wasn’t living out of a shopping cart or doing time in San Quentin.

As for his personal life, Winnie and Walter had long ago given up on his ever getting married or settling down. They’d gone to their graves believing he’d be a skirt-chaser forever. And they were probably right.

Cathryn’s curious perusal, which couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, was cut short when Tucker turned to see who’d just entered. Quickly, she shifted her attention to the casket.

After saying a short, silent prayer and wishing Walter well in the hereafter, Cathryn made her way over to the family. Tucker got to his feet, one knee cracking.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she began with automatic formality, gripping Tucker’s hand while staring at the small garnet stud in his left ear.

“Thank you. It’s kind of you to…” His polite response trailed off, and suddenly his dark eyes took on a rich gleam, their outer edges creasing as he broke into an unabashed smile that erased her earlier cynicism about his looks. “Shortcake?” he exclaimed, loudly enough to elicit chuckles from several people.

Heat climbed up Cathryn’s neck. Not that she disliked the nickname Tuck had pinned on her when she was young. The character Fonzie on the old TV sitcom Happy Days used to call Joannie Cunningham “Shortcake,” and that was clearly an expression of brotherly fondness.

“Hi, Tucker,” she said, dropping the formality. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

“Not remember you? How long did we live next door to each other?”

“Eight years,” Cathryn answered and then winced, realizing the question had been rhetorical. “You’re looking well,” she said. And he was. Trim, fit, tanned.

“So are you,” he replied, and before she could refute him, added, “Married life agrees with you, I guess.” It seemed more a question than a statement.

Tucker had disapproved of her becoming engaged while still in high school. In fact, he’d called her crazy for agreeing to marry the only guy she’d ever dated.

“Yes. I’m very happy,” Cathryn replied.

He lifted his broad shoulders in a concessionary shrug. “You were right.”

“Uh-huh,” she hummed slowly and with just enough needling for him to hear her unspoken “And you were wrong.”

He asked, “Where are you living these days?”

“West Shore Road.” When his brow furrowed, she explained, “It’s new since you left.” Although she was brimming with questions, she was beginning to feel self-conscious. Standing in the condolence line at a wake was not the proper place for such a conversation. “Maybe we should catch up later, Tuck?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Again, I’m really sorry about your uncle. He’ll be missed.”

Tucker nodded and let her move on to his great-aunt Sarah. Cathryn extended her sympathy, then told Sarah in an undertone, “I brought my coffee urn and warming trays.”

The elderly woman’s plump face crinkled with a smile. “Oh, wonderful. Thank you for remembering.” With a rustle of black crepe, Sarah turned to Tucker. “Cathryn’s lending us some buffet things for tomorrow’s brunch. Do you think you could move them from her car to yours?”

Tucker flicked a brief smile at Cathryn. “Sure,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready to leave.”

She nodded, made her way down the line quickly, then hurried to the back row of chairs. About a dozen people, all friends and neighbors, sat ahead of her conversing quietly, and some not so quietly. Walter had lived a long, full life and would’ve been the first to say there was no need to overmourn his passing.

The minutes ticked by slowly. When Cathryn checked her watch and found that a respectable amount of time had elapsed, she began to button her coat. Simultaneously, Tucker left his seat and headed in her direction. They said nothing until they were outside, under the portico at the front entrance.

“I thought you’d never leave,” he grumbled, reaching inside his jacket. “I’ve been dying for a smoke.”

“You haven’t quit yet?” Cathryn exclaimed incredulously as he struck a match and lit up. He didn’t bother replying, just took in a lungful of smoke. Watching him, Cathryn felt the urge to cough on his behalf.

He tossed the extinguished match toward the receptacle by the door. “You still ready to chew my head off?” He squinted at her, looking fierce, and for a moment Cathryn found herself holding her breath. But then his mouth tipped up at one corner, deepening a groove that on a less masculine face might be considered a dimple.

“You bet. You shouldn’t smoke, Tucker. It’s a terrible habit. It’ll take years off your life. And anyway, it’s so passé. Nobody finds it attractive anymore.”

He angled a glance at her that was full of devilishness, even as he drawled in exasperation, “You always were a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, please, no praise.”

He laughed and made a sweeping gesture toward the parking lot with the hand that held the cigarette. “Which one’s yours?”

“The blue van.”

“Figures.” He touched her shoulder and urged her forward. Although she wore several layers of winter clothing, she still felt the tingling warmth of his fingers. “So…how’ve you been?” he asked, as they tramped through the translucent slush, which only yesterday had been pristine snow.

“Great. How about you?”

“Oh, can’t complain.”

Cathryn noticed he was wearing black leather boots. Not quite the atrocities he wore as a teenager, but in the same general family of footwear.

“And Dylan?” he asked.

Cathryn beamed. “He’s just great.”

They arrived at her van and she slid open the door. “He runs his own landscaping business.”

“Oh, that’s right. He went off to some sort of agricultural college, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Four years of letter-writing and carrying on a long-distance romance, but somehow she and Dylan had endured. “When he graduated, he worked for another landscaper, but after a few years he ventured out on his own. It was shaky at first. We had a mortgage and a toddler and another baby on the way.”

“You have two kids?”

Cathryn reached into the van, batted away a basketball, pulled forward the box containing her thirty-five-cup coffee urn and deposited it in Tucker’s arms. “No. Three.”

“Three!” The box slipped a little.

“Yes.” Cathryn lifted two warming trays. “Where to?”

Pointing with the cigarette clenched between his teeth, Tucker indicated a black sedan, a rental, across the lot. They mushed on.

“Anyway,” she resumed, “before long, business picked up and Dylan hasn’t looked back since.”

“Doing well, I take it?” Tucker’s shapely winged brows lowered just enough to remind Cathryn that his disapproval had included more than just her early engagement. For reasons beyond her comprehension, he’d never seemed to care for Dylan, either. In fact, one afternoon just before leaving the island, having spotted her and Dylan on her porch, Tucker had crossed the lawn between their houses and stomped up the wooden steps in his trademark boots. “You be good to her,” he’d warned Dylan in a deceptively soft voice. “Or I’ll come back and break your kneecaps.” A joke, but oddly no one had laughed, least of all Dylan.

“Yes. He’s very busy,” Cathryn replied. “Very much in demand. Even today, only February, he’s consulting with a client about a spring project. Gone are the days when we had the winter months to ourselves.”

Tucker unlocked the trunk of his car and laid the box inside. Cathryn fit in the warming trays. When he began to lower the lid, she cried, “Wait. There’s more.” And they slopped across the parking lot once again.

As she handed him a large chafing dish, he growled, “Jeez, what do you do, Shortcake, run a restaurant?”

“No, I just—” she shrugged “—have things like this. Families often do, you know.”

Tucker grunted, and they headed back toward his car. “So, tell me about your kids.”

As usual, a request to talk about her children set off an internal geyser of love and pride. “Well, my oldest is named Justin. He’s eleven and into sports, big time. Cory is eight. He’s my scholar, quiet, always reading. And Bethany, who’s six, is my little shadow. She loves to bake and sew and do all the things I enjoy. Incidentally, she’s the reason I couldn’t attend Winnie’s funeral. I was in the hospital giving birth to her.”

“That right?” They’d reached his car. He tossed his cigarette, deposited the chafing dish, and after closing the trunk, turned his full attention on Cathryn. “Who do they take after?” he asked, bracing his foot on the bumper and leaning on his thigh.

“Justin clearly looks like Dylan, but the two younger kids are a blend. Each has features from both of us. Beth, for instance, has my hazel eyes and Dylan’s blond hair. Cory has Dylan’s smile, but my build.” She added “unfortunately” to herself.

“I bet they’re great kids.”

“They are, if I do say so myself.” Cathryn began to grow uneasy under Tucker’s close regard. While she spoke, he gazed straight at her, his eyes unwavering. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone, especially a man, had listened to her so interestedly or watched her so intently, and for a moment she thought she understood something of Tucker Lang’s fabled appeal. “So, what about you, Tuck?” she asked, hoping to deflect his attention.

“Me?”

“Yes. What’ve you been up to?”

He dropped his foot, straightened to his full six-foot height and shifted his attention to the fog swirling over the meadow across the road. “Oh, just the same old same old.”

She had no idea what that meant. “I heard you’ve taken up car racing…?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded rhythmically for several seconds as if that might take the place of further conversation.

“So, where are you living?”

He shuffled his feet and added a few more inches to the distance between them. “Alabama.”

“Really? I’ve never been to Alabama. I haven’t been anywhere, really. Except Florida. We went to Disney World with the kids two years ago. Best vacation we ever took.” Only vacation we ever took. “Ever been to Disney?”

Tucker pulled out his cigarettes again, stared at them a moment and then repocketed them. “Uh…no.”

She swallowed. “Anyone special in your life these days?”

He didn’t actually answer, just made a face as if to say, “Are you kidding?”

Cathryn knew a stone wall when she was hitting one, especially when that stone wall was so familiar. Tucker hadn’t liked personal questions when he was a boy either, particularly when they involved his life in New York. A couple of times she’d heard him lie about it, but mostly he’d just clammed up, holding the truth, and all the pain that went with it, tight inside him. Until one day when she was ten and couldn’t take it anymore and admitted to him that she knew his background, knew his mother was a hooker and a drug addict. She’d overheard her parents talking. And if he wanted to discuss it or cry or go for a fast walk like she did when she was angry, that was okay with her. She only wanted to help, and she wouldn’t tell anyone about it, honest. Tucker, being Tucker, hadn’t cried. But he had talked. A little. And he had walked. A lot. Damn fast, too.

What did he have bottled up inside him now? she wondered. Anything? Nothing? And whose business was it, anyway?

Even as Cathryn was still musing, Tucker glanced over his shoulder toward the funeral home and said, “Well, I’d better get back inside before someone sends out a search party.”

“Oh. Of course.” She clutched her purse in two hands and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “It was good seeing you again, Tuck.”

His grin returned, all confidence and male sass. “I know.”

Cathryn laughed. Some things never changed, and she was just as glad they didn’t.

TUCKER STOOD under the portico of the funeral home, puffing on a cigarette and feeling a sense of loss after Cathryn drove away. Not that he wanted to continue their conversation, especially considering the direction it had taken. Rather, his sense of loss rose solely from himself. Cathryn’s role had simply been to remind him of it, of the life he’d made a religion of avoiding until now. Married life. The life of a husband and parent, home-owner and mower of lawns, coach to Little Leaguers and reader of bedtime stories—the life of a responsible adult. “And look where that’s landed you,” he muttered in self-disgust.

Clamping his cigarette between his teeth, he brushed aside his jacket, unsnapped the leather pouch at his waist and lifted his cellular phone. He’d pressed in half of Jenny’s number before remembering she was out of range. Way out of range. Cursing around his cigarette, he returned the phone to its case and paced the portico like a caged bear.

He wished there was someone he could call. Normally, he disliked sharing his problems. After fending for himself most of his life, he was accustomed to handling crises on his own. But right about now, it might be nice to bounce ideas off another person.

He considered the guys he hung around with and dismissed them as quickly as they came to mind. How could he admit to the yahoos he called friends that at the ripe old age of thirty-five he’d gotten a woman pregnant? They’d never let him live it down and they’d certainly be no help. Jenny didn’t want to marry him. What was the problem, man? To them, the problem would be if she did want to get married.

A car swashed into the parking lot and a moment later an elderly couple got out. Strangers to Tuck, they nodded, lips pressed in sorrowful regret, as they walked by him, taking careful little steps, and entered the building. He sighed. Ah, yes—Walter. Automatically his lips pressed in matching regret. This wasn’t the time to be thinking of Jenny or impending fatherhood. It was time to mourn the generous man who, together with his patient wife, had rescued his sorry-ass life and changed him from a punk into…less of a punk. And for that, Tucker was truly sad. He wished he could’ve turned out better more quickly for them. He wished he hadn’t caused them so much trouble—all those calls from the principal and Charlie Slocum, Harmony’s now-retired chief of police. He wished he had finished high school here, not in some far-off GED program, so they could’ve watched him receive his diploma. He wished Walter had seen him race at least once, even if he was just on the stock-car circuit. He wished he’d bought Winnie a clothes dryer before she caught pneumonia from hanging out laundry. He wished…he wished Jenny would change her mind and marry him.

And with that his thoughts went over to the other side again. A barrel-deep moan rose from his chest. He’d been embroiled in this emotional tug-of-war for days, caught between his sadness over his uncle’s death and his angst over his love life. Pulled in two directions, he was doing neither justice.