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wide-eyed VISTA volunteer in love for the first time.
At least, she could reach the coffeepot and the telephone. She did both, touching the memory dial
buttons that would connect her with her three younger children, none of whom answered their phones.
Fatalistically, she tried Joe's number, receiving the expected message: "Hey, I'm not here and don't know
when I'll be back. You can leave a message if you like, but no guarantees on when I'll return your call.
Have a good one."
She really wished at least some of them would get cell phones.
Ellis Ann was home, but on her way out the door to play bridge. Linda was in Europe. David Miles was
a part of the past. Rags had other friends, but most of them had jobs and husbands or significant others
to fill their time. A few were still doing the bleachers thing with their teenage children. She pushed back a
stab of longing for those days in her own life, when the house was never empty, never silent, never too
clean.
She laid the cordless receiver in her lap and reached for her cup. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to phone Tell. It
wasn't as though their parting six weeks ago had been angry. Regretful, maybe, but not angry. Their
farewell kiss at the airport had drawn whistles from onlookers.
That was when she realized she didn't know his phone number.
The thought gave her pause. How could she have even considered having a relationship with a man who
hadn't taken the trouble to give her his unlisted number?
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The floor was dry in patches and she was twenty minutes into feeling good and sorry for herself when
the knock came at the back door. Startled, she dribbled coffee down the front of her sweatshirt and
stared at the door for a moment before yelling, "You can open the door, but don't come in." It was
probably the UPS man with the things she'd ordered for Marley's Christmas. She'd tell him to leave them
on the porch.
But no brown uniform filled her expectant gaze.
"You shouldn't tell people to come in when you don't know who they are," said Tell.
"I didn't tell you to come in. I said you could open the door." Oh, Lord, he looked even more wonderful
than he had that first night at the airport in Pensacola. Freedom must be better for him than it was for her.
"What are you doing here?"
"You didn't leave me your phone number and Mama wouldn't give it to me."
Oh. He wasn't the only one with an unlisted number.
"You could have asked the kids," she said.
"No, I couldn't. We've never done that, never made them pass messages. I didn't see any reason to start
now. Besides, they never answer their phones."
She lifted the receiver from her lap. "I know," she said ruefully. "Have you heard from Joe?"
"A couple of times. He's doing better, he says. May I come in?"
"No. The floor's not dry yet." She met his eyes and felt her own begin to burn. "I got the results of the
compatibility tests. I don't match at all. Neither do the twins."
Oh, the relief of getting those words out to the one person who understood how much they hurt. She'd
been so hopeful her kidneys would match Joe's.
"Ben or Abby, either," he said, his voice curiously without expression. He leaned against the doorframe,
his arms crossed over his chest.
Defeat settled into her soul, too deep even for tears. "So we have to wait for someone to die who
matches him."
"No."
The meaning of his answer was immediately obvious. "Tell, you can't. What about your heart?" She
heard the panic in her voice and didn't care.
She came to her feet as she spoke, the receiver dropping to the floor, and moved toward Tell at a run.
Her bare feet hit one of the still-wet spots and she skidded. When he grabbed for her, they both went
down.
He gained purchase with the heels of his tennis shoes and scooted to where he could lean his back
against the wall, hauling her with him. "You should know by now," he drawled, settling in with her held
firmly in his arms, "that there are easier ways than this to sweep me off my feet."
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"Tell, you can't," she repeated, rubbing her hip where it had hit the floor.
He pushed her hand aside to massage the sore place. "Yes, I can. The match was nearly perfect."
"But you could-" She stopped, unable to finish the thought. She tried to concentrate on the warmth of his
hand on her hip, on the way his other hand rested lazily between her breasts, but couldn't. All she could
think was-
"I could die," he said quietly. "Anybody can die having surgery. They even tell you that when you're
having a hangnail removed, but chances are real good that I won't. Joyce gave me a clean bill of health,
then sent me to my cardiologist so he could do the same thing."
"You're sure?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die." He grinned down into her face.
"That's a real comforting way of putting it." But she smiled back, cheered in spite of herself.
"But that's not why I'm here," he said briskly. "He's still refusing the surgery, so we haven't won that
battle yet anyway."
"So why are you here?" she asked.
"To take pictures. Joe has an assignment on the colors of autumn. He's in New England, and since he
can't be two places at once and Micah can't take time away from school right now, he asked me to shoot
the Midwest." Still holding her, he leaned over to pick up the manila envelope he'd dropped when he
lunged to catch her. "He developed these."
She pulled the pictures out of the envelope. The top one was an image of herself on the beach with her
arms in the air. "Oh." She started to push them back in. "I don't like looking at myself."
"Then don't." He stopped the movement of her hands. "Pretend they're someone else and tell me what
you think."
"All right, but let's get up first. I've spent entirely too much time on this floor today."
While she sat at the table and looked at pictures, he roamed the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard
doors and drawers, peering into the side-by-side refrigerator, and leaning over the sink to stare out at the
sycamore and cottonwood and willow trees in the side yard. He stopped mid-circuit to look with
consternation at the philodendron that completely covered a tabletop and hung over the sides in
jungle-like profusion.
"If you're hungry," she said absently, looking through the pictures for the second time, "there's some
vegetable soup."
"Okay."
She was still looking when a bowl of soup and a glass of sweet tea appeared before her. She looked up,
meeting the blue gaze across from her. For a moment, she was tempted to tease, to shrug off the
photographs as nothing, but the expectancy in his eyes stopped her. She didn't know why, but this was
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important.
"They're wonderful," she said. "Pictures of me are always flat and one-dimensional-you know that-but
you've made me look the way I wish I really did. No one but Joe's ever done that."
"When he came back from developing them, he damn near threw them at me. He was that pissed." Tell's
gaze had gone far away, but pleasure laced his voice. "'Why didn't I ever know you could do this?' he
said. 'How could you have wasted it all these years?'"
"What did you tell him?" She laid down her spoon and sat erect.
"That there were choices to be made and I wasn't unhappy with what I'd chosen. I could have done far
worse things with my life than help raise four smart-ass kids."
"But you didn't choose it," she said. "Your father expected you to run the business and I did, too. Even
though I hated what I thought it did to us, I'd have gone into cardiac arrest or something if you'd
suggested you do something else for a living. How could we possibly have a perfect family otherwise?
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