Mr. Right Next Door Read online

  He went into the kitchen and dug up a couple of aspirin, slugging them back with a cold glass of milk. His stomach rebelled, but after much grumbling settled down to digest the much-needed analgesic. He heard Radley come in. No doubt the rascal had just been waiting for his mother to leave. Radley’s boots clumped on the hardwood floor.

  “Mother gone?”

  “You know perfectly well that she is.”

  He didn’t deny it. “You okay?”

  “Your mother’s been sinking her claws in me for twenty-five long years. I’ve never died of it before.”

  “You’ve never had such a hangover before.”

  Morgan sent a confirming look over his shoulder. “And won’t have again.”

  “Famous last words.”

  “Naw, I’m too old for that nonsense. Don’t know what got into me last night.”

  “No? I’d say that was pretty obvious.”

  Morgan turned another look across his shoulder. “Growing up on me, are you?”

  Radley shrugged and answered glumly, “Has to happen sometime.”

  “Better late than never, is that it?” Morgan chuckled. “Don’t let your mother get to you. You just hang in. You’ll come through fine.”

  Radley rubbed a finger along his nose. “I wasn’t really thinking of Mother. I was thinking more of Grandpa—and you.”

  That had Morgan actually turning around to face his son. “How so, Rad?”

  Radley was clearly uncomfortable, but he tried to put his feelings into words. “It’s just that—I don’t know. Thursday, Grandpa seemed...smaller than he used to be. I mean, it’s like he wasn’t quite all here, you know? And it seemed to me that you kept wandering off on your own, too, like...well, like me and Grandpa weren’t quite enough for you anymore.”

  “Oh, Rad, no. Son, if I gave you the impression—”

  “Hey, I’m not feeling sorry for myself, and I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying that for the first time, I felt like the one who was wholly and completely with it. You know?”

  Morgan’s mouth quirked, but he successfully forestalled an actual grin. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  Rad nodded, as if that acknowledgment of a common experience was everything to him. “Okay, so can I ask you something, just between us men?”

  “Ask away.”

  “What happened with Denise? Was Mother awful to her?”

  Morgan carefully shook his head. “Your mother ignored her.”

  “So is it okay with you guys, then?”

  Morgan opened his mouth to make light of it and say that all was fine, but the grown-up Rad deserved better. He ran a hand over his head. At least his hair no longer hurt, he thought ruefully and sighed. “I don’t know, Rad. Denise is...well, she’s...wounded.” He put a hand to the back of his neck. “It’s complicated. She had a son, too, but he died unexpectedly, and she can’t seem to get over it. Not that I blame her, you understand. I can only imagine what it would have done to me—what it would still do to me—to lose you like that.”

  “What about the boy’s dad?” Radley wanted to know.

  “He wasn’t part of their lives. He didn’t want kids, so when Denise came up pregnant, he left her.”

  “What a jerk!”

  Privately Morgan agreed. Publicly he believed in not judging. “The thing is, she just can’t seem to get past it.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Radley asked, obviously not so grown-up that he didn’t expect Dad to come up with all the answers.

  Morgan closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.”

  “Huh.” It was clearly an unfamiliar concept to Radley but an acceptable one. “Bummer,” he said. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  “Bummer,” Morgan echoed faintly. Yeah, that about summed it up. Sometimes life was just a bummer.

  Chapter Eight

  Denise left Chuck’s office and strode down the corridor toward her own, her composure in place, her expression bland, despite the fact that she felt like shouting in celebration. Jenkins will be handling all new negotiations. From now on everything has to be run by her. She smiled. Jenkins. Not Dennis, not even Denise, but Jenkins. She was an official member of the Good Old Boys club. She had, finally, passed muster. And Chuck hadn’t even made the usual sexist jokes at her expense. He’d asked briefly about her holiday and cracked that Morgan would never again play racquetball in this town because no one with any sense wanted his brains beat out by a hotdog player. Then, as the meeting was breaking up, Chuck had calmly, offhandedly announced that some executive realignment was in order. Henceforth, Jenkins would be titled Director of Contract Development and all contract goals were to be set and/or approved by her office, to which end she would be allowed to hire not one and not two but three assistants. To her surprise her peers had applauded her to a man.

  She felt exultant in a. way that she hadn’t in... She stopped to consider. The last time she’d felt like this was when she’d been admitted to the school of business Master’s program. So long ago. So very long ago. Wondering why that was, she continued down the hall and turned the corner.

  “Betty, we have work to do,” she announced, suddenly bursting at the seams to tell someone. Betty stood up, one hand covering the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver, worry wrinkling her normally smooth forehead.

  “It’s a Radley Holt, Ms. Jenkins. He says there’s an emergency.”

  Denise literally staggered to a halt, her heart dropping. Had something happened to Morgan? A picture of Jeremy’s small, broken body flashed before her mind’s eye, and then it was Morgan whom she saw lying lifeless and bloody. Her knees buckled. She saved herself only by lunging toward the desk and grabbing at the phone. And yet, in that instant in which she lifted the telephone receiver to her ear she experienced one of those rare moments of clarity that comes with revelation.

  Once before she had experienced such an epiphany. It had occurred in that moment after the doctor had told her that she was pregnant and the back of her head had hit the wall behind her chair. In that moment of shock she had suddenly understood that the child she had not known existed only a moment before was the most important thing in her life. Just as she knew now that Morgan Holt was far dearer, far more important and much closer to the center of her heart than she had ever suspected. She could not bear to lose him. He wasn’t even hers, and she could not bear the thought of losing him. She gripped the phone with every ounce of physical strength that she possessed.

  “Rad?”

  “Denise! It’s Gran’pa Ben! They came for Dad, and he went up to the cabin with them. He was crying! I haven’t. ever seen him so upset. I think he needs us—you. Will you come?”

  Relief gave way to deep, sorrowful concern. Ben needed Morgan, and Morgan needed her. That could mean only one thing. She pushed the thought of death away and concentrated on the most immediate concern. “Where are you?”

  “Downstairs in the lobby.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  She set the receiver in its cradle. Betty had gone into her office to get her purse. She held it out to Denise with a blatant look of compassion. “Is there anything I can do?”

  It rocked Denise to feel the gentle waves of concern and sympathy emanating from the secretary from whom she had maintained such personal distance. She found herself gripping not only her purse but Betty’s hand. “Thanks. Just batten down the hatches and tell anyone who needs to know that I’ve been called away by a personal emergency.”

  “I hope it isn’t too bad,” Betty said.

  Denise smiled wanly. “Me, too.” Then she pushed away from the desk and strode rapidly toward the elevators.

  Radley was pacing the floor in front of the security desk. His eyes rounded when he spotted her coming toward him. She felt his mild shock at the sight of her “work persona.” She knew that her appearance said “All business” and “All woman” at the same time. Because of today’s meeting she had carefully selected the b
lack heels and stockings, the short, slender, red skirt and the fitted, collarless, winter-white jacket that closed all the way to the neck with big black buttons. Her accessories included a black handbag, a watch with a black leather band and black pearls for her earlobes. She knew that her tone was almost amused despite her worry when she asked, “Should we take time for me to change, do you think?”

  He shook his head. “We may be too late already.”

  He took her arm and turned, leading her in swift strides toward the door. “It’s that bad, then?”

  The gaze he turned to her was bleak. “I think Ben’s dying.”

  “I was afraid of that.” She briefly closed her eyes. Could she do this? She wouldn’t be much use to Morgan if she fell apart. Morgan. Ben was his father. He was the one entitled to fall apart, and Rad had said that he was crying. She lifted her chin and mentally squared her shoulders. She would not let him down. Suddenly the most important thing in her world was being there for Morgan. She quickened her stride.

  Radley was driving Morgan’s truck. He explained as she climbed up into the cab that a neighbor of Ben’s had come for Morgan, and that he, Radley, had promised to follow as soon as he’d called for an ambulance and his Aunt Delia. Morgan had asked him to call Denise as well. He had decided on his own to ask her to go with him. She reached across the cab and squeezed his hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “I just thought you could be there for Dad,” he said, his voice breaking.

  Denise nodded understandingly and buckled her seat belt.

  It was a harrowing trip. Radley’s driving at times frightened her, and yet every moment was filled with the greater worry that they wouldn’t get to the cabin in time. Gray clouds hovered overhead, adding the threat of rain to a deepening sense of desperation. The drive seemed to take forever. By the time they reached the rutted trail that led up to the cabin, Denise’s nails had poked deep creases into her palms, and her teeth had worried the inside edge of her lower lip until it was bloody.

  They pulled up in the yard to find that an ambulance had been backed in to the very edge of the rickety porch, but the attendants were standing beside it, arms folded or hands in their pockets, heads together in quiet conversation as if uncertain what they should be doing at the moment. An old pickup truck, its once-red paint faded to a dusty pink, mottled with the gray of bare metal and the orange of rust, was parked at an angle on the steep hillside, a basketball-size rock guarding one rear wheel. A grizzled gentleman in overalls, coat and slouch hat sat on the bumper puffing a pipe. Radley parked his father’s truck next to the ambulance and baled out, going straight to the farmer with the pipe. Denise checked the urge to go right to the house and followed. The old man got up and extended his hand to Radley.

  “Grady, what’s going on?” Radley demanded.

  The old man shook his head and motioned with his pipe. “Amb’lance got here ’bout five minutes ago, but Ben refuses to leave. Says he’s dying at home. Morg’s in there with him now.”

  Denise had turned and was already heading up toward the house, her heels sinking into the soft loam of the hillside. Radley caught up and, with his arm around her waist, helped her manage the last few yards. She hurried across the porch and pushed open the door without bothering to knock, Radley right on her heels.

  A low, raspy chuckle called her toward the far corner of the room. Morgan sat in a dining chair pulled up to the side of the small double bed tucked beneath the open stairway, his back to them. The click of her heels as she hurried across the plank floor did not induce him to turn away from the man on the bed, and as she drew near, she understood why.

  Ben’s face was unnaturally pale, the skin beneath his eyes and around his mouth an oxygen-depleted blue. The gnarled hand that lay between both of Morgan’s was swollen and purplish, a clear indication of severe circulatory problems. His breathing was slow and labored, his eyes closed in exhaustion. He was fully dressed right down to his boots, which, like one shirtsleeve and jeaned leg, were muddy. Apparently he had taken a fall, but whether that had preceded the obvious health problems or vice versa, was not immediately obvious. Denise did not suppose that it mattered.

  She stepped up behind Morgan and laid her hands gently upon his shoulders. He immediately lifted one shoulder and laid his cheek against her fingers in a kind of hug. “Look who’s here, Pop,” he cajoled softly, and Ben’s blue-tinged eyelids struggled to lift. The eyes revealed were almost colorless and clearly blind. “It’s Radley and Denise,” Morgan supplied. To Denise and Radley he added as lightly as he could, “We’ve been reminiscing.”

  Ben’s mouth curved into a smile. “Rad,” he whispered.

  Radley went down on one knee and laid his hand upon his grandfather’s chest. “I’m here, Gran’pa.”

  “Fun...two us,” Ben managed.

  Radley gulped. “We sure did. We had lots of fun together.”

  “Good...boy,” Ben said, but then he made as if to shake his head and corrected himself. “Man... Good...man. Proud...you.”

  Radley bowed his head, whispering, “I’m proud of you, too, Gran’pa, very proud.”

  Ben sighed, and his hand flexed in Morgan’s. “Love you...son.”

  Denise felt Morgan struggling to make a calm reply. Finally he caught his breath and said, “I love you, too, Pop.”

  “D’ise,” Ben slurred, his eyes closing again.

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat and softly replied, “I’m here, Ben.”

  “Take care...my son.”

  For the life of her, she could do nothing more than nod and choke out the one word, “Yes.”

  Ben sighed again, and for a long moment lay so still that Denise feared the end had come, but then he coughed, just once, and gripped Morgan’s hand tightly. His eyes opened, and he turned his head to look squarely into Morgan’s face. “Tell Delia,” he rasped, “that Ma came to meet me, just like I knew she would.” He turned his head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. He smiled, and his hand left Morgan’s to settle at his side on the bed. Then his eyes closed, and an instant later, he was gone.

  It was as if some of the warmth had left the room, as if the world contained a little more space than it should despite the body lying peacefully upon the faded quilt atop the bed. Denise shook her head, wanting to deny what she could not doubt. She had seen death before. She could never forget the feel of it. Morgan, too, knew that his father had left them. His shoulders began to shake, and he slid off the edge of his chair onto his knees. Slowly he leaned across his father’s body, his hands grasping handfuls of quilt and shirt as he tried to hold his father’s essence with him just one moment longer.

  Radley was the last to perceive that Ben was no longer with them. He stared aghast at his father’s heaving shoulders and struggled up to his feet, crying, “Gran‘pa? Gran’pa!” He backed away, and Denise feared for a moment that he would run, but when she reached out a hand to him, he turned tear-filled eyes to her and said shakily, “He’s with Gran’ma now. That’s what he wanted, and now they’re together again.”

  Denise nodded, her own tears rolling down her cheeks, and gripped his hand tightly. They stood together, watching over Morgan as he grieved, letting the peace of this place and this moment settle over them. After a long while, Morgan raised his head. It took some little time after that for him to pull himself together, but finally he stood and gazed down at the body that seemed to shrink and grow colder with every passing moment. Radley pulled free of Denise’s hand and walked to the door.

  “I think you guys should come in and move him now,” he told the EMTs waiting beside the ambulance. As they prepared to do just that, Denise stepped forward to stand at Morgan’s side and slip an arm around his waist. He didn’t look at her, but his arm came up and draped her shoulders, pulling her tight against him. He rubbed his free hand over his face and cleared his throat.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said huskily.

  She laid her head in the hollow of his shoulde
r and looped her other arm lightly about his torso. “I had to,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to, but I had to.”

  “Yeah, I know just what you mean. Frankly, after everything you’ve been through, I wouldn’t blame you if you stayed away.”

  “It’s because of what I’ve been through that I had to come,” she told him softly.

  He said nothing to that, just stood staring down at his father’s body. After a bit she said, “He looks so at peace.”

  “Yes.” His hand came up and stroked the hair at her temples. “Was it that way with Jeremy? Was he at peace?”

  She had to think about that, and something in her rebelled at the truth, but finally she found the strength to admit that it was the same. “He might have been sleeping,” she said softly. “Except that I knew at first glance that he wasn’t really there. That wasn’t my little boy anymore. He was gone, and nothing I could do would bring him back again.”

  “That’s the difference,” Morgan said, turning so that she stood pressed against his chest. “I wouldn’t bring Pop back even if I could, no matter how much I might want to.”

  She nodded understanding, whispering, “He’s where he wants to be. I believe Radley’s right when he says that Ben , is with your mother now.”

  Morgan lifted his chin and laid it atop her head. “I believe it, too. He wanted us to believe it.”

  She closed her eyes, trying not to say the words that had formed in her mind. This moment was about Morgan, not her. Yet, somehow the words found their own way out. “I wish someone was with Jeremy.”