ever be able to sleep in this room again, not unless she completely renovated it and bought all new furniture. Everything in the large, airy room reminded her of her husband. The smell of his spicy cologne still lingered on the bed linen. His clothes filled the left side of the closet. Their wedding photograph sat like a sentinel on the nightstand.
If only she could cry. Dear Lord in heaven, she silently pleaded, let me cry. But she was beyond crying, the pain too severe, yet tempered by the blessed numbness that cocooned her.
A shudder racked her body. Ricky gazed up at her with his big, black Boston terrier eyes, as if questioning her. She scratched his ears and whispered, “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”
Seeing that his mistress was paying attention to Ricky, Fred waddled across the room, hopped up onto the bed and parked his fat little bulldog body alongside Ricky. “Oh, so you’re jealous, huh?” Susan rubbed the other dog’s ears, then heard a soft, subtle purring. Resting at the foot of the bed, Lucy, a red tabby, and Ethel, a white longhair, mewed for their share of attention.
A sigh of relief escaped Susan’s lips. Relief that something remained normal and unchanged in her life. Her animals were now, as they had been all her life, a source of companionship and comfort. She loved animals and they her. She supposed that was another legacy from Aunt Alice—the old-maid great-aunt who had taken her in and raised her after her mother’s death. She’d been six when she’d come to live with Aunt Alice in this big, old Victorian house filled with priceless antiques, several spoiled cats and one feisty Boston terrier pup, Ricky’s grandmother. Susan had grown up around animals, so her job at the animal shelter was a natural career choice.
In the darkest, loneliest hours of her life, her animals were at her side. Loving her. Supporting her. Comforting her. She lifted both dogs onto her lap and hugged them tenderly. A lone tear escaped from her eye and trickled down her cheek. Then another followed. Her lungs swelled. Her chest ached. She gasped for air. Her shoulders trembled. And then the tears began in earnest. Filling her eyes. Flooding her face. Moistening her chin and neck.
Susan didn’t know how long she cried, whether it was minutes or hours. No one invaded her privacy, not even when she cried aloud as sobs racked her body.
She knew that Tallie and Sheila and Donna were taking turns guarding her bedroom door against all intruders. She was a lucky woman to have such good friends. She and Tallie and Sheila had been best buddies since childhood and then Donna had joined their inner circle several years ago.
Susan lifted her head from her hands when she heard a soft rapping on the door. “Yes?”
“It’s us,” Sheila said. “Tallie and Donna and me. May we come in?”
“Of course.” Susan wiped the moisture from her face and scooted to the edge of the bed.
Her three best friends entered the room and quickly made a semicircle around her. She offered them a tremulous smile.
“Just about everybody’s gone,” Tallie said.
“Hank and Caleb and Peyton are still here, of course,” Sheila said.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you tonight?” Tallie asked.
“No, really. I’ll be all right.” She glanced back at the big bed on which she sat. “I won’t sleep in here. I slept upstairs last night, in Aunt Alice’s old room. Being in her room comforted me. It made me feel close to her.”
“I’d like to stay.” Donna sat down beside Susan. “I can run home and pack a few things and stay with you for as long as you need me. Believe me, I know how difficult these next few months are going to be for you.”
Susan grabbed Donna’s hand and squeezed tightly. “I know you understand better than anyone. But—”
“I insist. Unlike Sheila and Tallie, I don’t have a husband and children at home.”
“Thank you.” Susan nodded. “It would be nice to have someone here for a few days. Just until—” Susan choked on the tears in her throat. “Just until I—” The dam burst again, releasing a torrent of tears.
Donna took Susan in her arms, stroking and comforting, while Sheila and Tallie hovered nearby. The three women tried valiantly not to cry, but within minutes they, too, were weeping.
“I’ll stay until you get back,” Hank told Donna Fields.
“Thanks. I really don’t think she should be alone.” Donna patted Hank on the shoulder. “She’s going to need all of her friends and Lowell’s friends to see her through this.”
Hank opened the door to Donna’s Corvette and waited until she backed out of the driveway before he returned inside the house. Before they left, his sister and sister-in-law had cleared away the tables, packed the food in the refrigerator and freezer, loaded the dishwasher and vacuumed the floors.
A hushed stillness enveloped the house, a big ginger-bread-trimmed Victorian that had been built outside of town more than ninety years ago by Susan’s great-grandparents. Their youngest daughter, Alice Williams, had inherited the place, and Miss Alice, as everyone in Crooked Oak had called her, had become the local eccentric. The old-maid schoolteacher with a hundred cats.
But actually, there had been only five cats, and Miss Alice, though a unique personality, hadn’t been wealthy enough to qualify for eccentric status. He had liked and admired Miss Alice, and because he’d been an excellent student, she had taken a special interest in him. She had been the first teacher who’d made him realize that he was intelligent and that by using that intelligence, he could escape the poverty of his life in Crooked Oak, Tennessee.
“Would you care for some coffee?” Susan asked.
Hank turned abruptly to face her. He hadn’t realized she was standing there, in the hallway. He’d thought she was still barricaded in her bedroom.
“No, thanks,” he replied.
“What about some tea? I’m going to fix myself some herbal tea.”
“I don’t like hot tea.”
“Oh. All right then.”
Damn! He suddenly realized that Susan felt as awkward as he did. The two of them alone here in her house. The house she had shared with Lowell for two years.
But they had to face facts. Lowell was dead. God, how that admission hurt him. He could not imagine a world without Lowell Redman. But no matter how much they wanted things to be different—and they both did—neither of them could undo what had happened. Not what had happened two days ago when Lowell had been ambushed by Carl Bates. And not what had happened in a doctor’s office four weeks ago when Susan had been artificially inseminated.
“We need to talk,” he said as he followed her into the kitchen.
“Yes, I suppose we do.” She filled the teakettle with water and placed it on the stove.
“I’ve been asked to take over Lowell’s job until next year’s election.”
Biting her bottom lip, Susan removed a china teacup and saucer from the cupboard, then opened a canister and retrieved a tea bag. “Are you going to accept the offer?” Her hand quivered ever so slightly as she placed the tea bag in the cup.
“Yes.” Why wouldn’t she turn around and face him? Would it be that big a problem for her to have him back in Crooked Oak for the next year? “I think I owe it to Lowell to bring in Carl Bates and see that he goes to trial. And I think Lowell would want me around to look after you while you’re pregnant.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. The teakettle whistled. As she lifted the china cup and saucer from the table, her shoulders shook and her hand trembled. The cup and saucer crashed onto the hardwood floor.
“Susan?” Hank rushed over to her, stopping her as she knelt to pick up the pieces of broken china. “Leave it. I’ll clean it up.”
She