Heroes In Uniform (147 page)

She arrived to hear Ben offering, “You could stay for dinner.”

It caught her by surprise – and it shouldn’t have. Words to second the invitation and contradictory words to undermine it rose to her lips, causing a gridlock that left her mute.

“Thanks, Ben, but I’m having dinner tonight at the home ranch with Marti and Emily.”

“Sometimes, we have pizza on Fridays.”

She had to admire her son’s ability to double-dip – both offering an invitation and lobbying for a treat.

“I’m going to Kendra and Daniel’s Friday.”

“Okay, then tomorrow night. We can play catch and – ”

Finally Ellyn’s mouth started working. “Ben, you and Meg are going to the after-school program tomorrow because I work late.”

“I forgot. But Grif could still come to dinner.”

“I won’t have time to cook a special dinner for a guest.”

“Regular dinner would be okay, wouldn’t it, Grif? She makes real good macaroni and cheese. Better even than the box.”

“The kids like macaroni and cheese,” she said, feeling defensive. Here she’d been telling Grif they were fine, and Ben made it sound as if they were destitute.

“So do I,” Grif said. “But I don’t want to make more work for you, so how about if I take you out to dinner tomorrow.”

“Yeah!”

“No,” Ellyn said – not as loudly as her son’s agreement but firmly. “We are
not
going to take advantage of Grif’s generosity by letting him take us to dinner twice in one week.”

“But
Mo-oom
...”

“I could bring fried chicken and you could provide the macaroni and cheese, and even a vegetable,” Grif bargained.

“Grif, I don’t – ” But then Ellyn saw that her son had caught sight of the mattress pad, strung up to dry across the tops of the two partially opened doors used to mask the washer and dryer. And the look on his face was so glum she nearly made the whole situation worse by wrapping him in her arms and cuddling him. “Is six-thirty too early to eat for you?”

He looked from her to Ben, then followed the direction of Ben’s gaze to the mattress pad. “I’ll come around six. In case you need any help.”

“That’s not neces – ”But he wasn’t listening to her protests. Did he ever? “Ben, didn’t you say you had math homework? Better get to it.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Okay. See ya, Grif.”

“Good night, Ben.”

For a moment Ellyn thought he was going to say something. Instead he simply brushed his fingers across the back of her hand. She supposed this was compassion, too. But she didn’t mind accepting this. All he said was, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

Ellyn had poured the macaroni into the boiling water when she heard a vehicle pull up beside the house the next morning. A glance out the window revealed one of the battered ranch pickups. She’d gotten the impression Luke had given up on her dryer, but if he was willing to take another crack at it, she wouldn’t say no.

She was putting cheese across the top layer of macaroni so all she’d have to do was add milk and put it in the oven when she got home when it struck her that Luke had never come inside. Maybe it was another hand, but the regular hands usually checked in to say hello and let her know they’d be around. She went out to check.

She recognized a pungent smell as soon as she stepped out the back door. The back of the truck bed was half loaded with used straw and manure from the barn where Luke sheltered any horses that were about to give birth, ailing or otherwise needing to be kept under supervision. The other half of the load was already piled beside the rectangle of earth where she’d grown vegetables and herbs last summer.

The compost made great fertilizer for the garden, but as aroma therapy it left something to be desired.

Movement from the corner of her eye made her turn. Grif had just driven a shovel into the firmed earth of last year’s garden, where a segment was already turned over. He’d taken his shirt off, revealing to her an angle of a muscled back and a slice of a rib cage narrowing to his waist.

She was staring.

That realization jerked her out of her reverie, and she strode toward him.

“What are you doing?”

“Digging.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“To turn the soil over.”

“Grif, if you don’t stop answering like Ben at his most frustrating, I’m going to give you a good whack on the behind.”

He stopped and leaned on the shovel like a caricature of a farmer. “A whack on the behind? You never hit Ben.”

Now why on earth had she said that? And why did she keep getting an image of that very part of his anatomy as he’d bent over the laundry basket?

“No, but you’re even more frustrating than he is. And don’t you dare tell him I said that, because he’ll do his best to catch up!”

He grinned.

“So?” she prompted.

“So?” he parried.

“Grif!”

“All right, all right. Marti says you put in a garden last year and you’ve ordered seeds for this year. She’s already dug the compost into hers, and so has Kendra.”

“I’ll get to it, too. But I’ve been – ”

“Busy. I know. And I know you’d get to it when you could. But Marti says it’s best to let the ground sit after you’ve put the compost in, so you’d be late planting.”

“Grif, I don’t need your – ”

“Help. Yeah, I know that, too. But it makes sense. You’re short on time. I’ve got time on my hands, and I need to keep in training, so...”

“Somehow I don’t think digging horse manure into a garden is part of the Army’s fitness program.”

“It would be if they thought of it.”

She suppressed a smile, and made her voice as stern as she could. “Grif, I told you that I don’t need your help. I can’t deny Ben is ecstatic to have you around, and I’m glad you’re spending time with us during this visit. But I also expect you to respect me on this. If you can’t do that...”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I can’t very well load this back into the pickup and return it to Luke. So I guess I’ll put the rest of it here and leave it for when you can get to it.”

A stinking reminder every time she walked out the door of one more chore she hadn’t accomplished. And he was right about the timing. If she hoped to get a good crop of vegetables – last year’s had come in very handy this past winter – it was important to make the most of Wyoming’s brief, intense growing season.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and frowned. “All right, Griffin, you win this one. But don’t think I’m going to accept any more of this sneaky, underhanded maneuvering to do things for me just because you think I’m some pathetic charity case. Do you understand?”

He met her frown with a direct, intense look. “As long as
you
understand that I don’t think you’re pathetic or a charity case, and never will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Neither looked away.

“I...” Ellyn felt a tightening in her throat, spreading down to her chest, then lower, and lower, where the tightening curled in on itself in a knot of warmth. She turned her head. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She nodded as she started to walk away, then heard the solid sound of the shovel digging into the earth before his voice came from behind her.

“By the way, Ellyn, in the army, sneaky, underhanded maneuvering is called strategy.”

She kept walking so he wouldn’t see her grin.

Getting ready for work required no more than automatic pilot attention. And that left her mind free. Too free.

That summer she was eighteen... That night...

Grif, so tall and straight and serious. So familiar and so foreign. The boy she’d idolized, turned into a man at twenty-one, and her feelings at eighteen too big to contain. Taking every ounce of courage she owned, then going into debt a pound or two for more. The two of them alone in the lingering twilight after a swim. Putting her arms around his neck and her lips against his closed mouth. Telling him with her halting words and her awkward embrace how she felt.

And Grif firmly setting her away from him. His hold on her tight enough to bruise her for several days. The bruise from his words had lasted much, much longer.

“Don’t, Ellyn. I can’t feel that way about you. Do you understand? I can’t – I
won’t
. I’m never going to marry, and you should have a husband who loves you and a houseful of kids. So don’t feel that way – not about me. Do you understand?”

Responding to the absolute certainty in his voice, she’d nodded numbly, feeling a void hollowing out her heart.

A void Dale had set about trying to fill. And gradually, over the next three years, he had. Until she’d loved him, married him, had Meg, then Ben and built what she’d felt was a good life.

During those same years she had happily received what Grif
had
offered. She’d let herself believe it was a permanent friendship, despite what her mother always said.
A woman’s got to keep working all the time for a man to keep giving her anything.

She met her own eyes in the mirror as she put on lipstick.

Enough of this retrospective. Enough
brooding
.

She snatched up her purse, and headed out.

“Grif? I left the back door open, in case you want to get something. There are oatmeal raisin cookies in the cookie jar next to the fridge.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tonight. And, Grif – thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She turned and started away, feeling oddly warm. She turned back. “Oh, Grif? One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget to take a shower before tonight!”

His chuckle followed her into the car and seemed to stay in her head all afternoon.

At The Heart’s Command: Chapter Five

Dinner went together quickly with the kids doing their part – Ben without dragging his feet for once and Meg in absolute silence – and Grif helping.

When they’d all sat down and Ellyn suddenly realized she’d forgotten a serving spoon for the macaroni and cheese, Grif rose before she could get up, laid a restraining hand on her shoulder, and said, “I’ll get it.”

“You don’t know where--.”

“I’ll find it.”

The warmth and weight of his hand through the fabric of the blouse she still wore from work – she simply hadn’t had time to change into her usual disreputable attire – was unexpected enough to draw her breath away. He was back before she’d finished wondering at herself for being so easily…
startled
.

He set the spoon in front of her. “You’ve organized the drawers the same as the other house.”

She frowned. “I hadn’t realized that.”

“Mom, you remember I got baseball practice Saturday?”

“Yes, Ben. Mrs. Hamil will take you and Tommy, then after practice drop you at the library where I’ll be at the history festival. I’m sorry I’ll miss your practice.”

“That’s okay. It’s pretty boring unless you’re a player – at least until we start games. That’s in two weeks, Grif,” Ben added in a hopeful tone.

“Almost three weeks. And that’s provided it’s decent weather. The first weekend in May can still be pretty co – Oh, no!” Ellyn recovered fast, but not fast enough.

“What?” Ben and Meg chorused.

“Nothing it’s nothing. I remembered something. But talking about May in Wyoming, I remember one year when it snowed almost at the end of the month.”

“What did you remember, Ellyn?” Grif pursued.

“Nothing catastrophic. I realized I forgot to drop those tax forms in the mail. As long as I put them in the box when I’m in town Saturday, they’ll be fine.”

“Give them to me, and I’ll drop them in the box tonight. I go by the post office. It makes sense, Ellyn.”

Maybe, but it felt like a rescue. She didn’t like the feeling. She could stand on her own two feet.

She thanked him. Then, not bothering with subtlety, she turned to her children and asked about their days. Meg shrugged in world-weary disinterest. Ben started prattling about how his teacher, Mrs. Hammerschmidt, had dealt with a classmate of his who apparently had encountered some poison plant during recess.

“Ben, what’s this school project Daniel mentioned at the restaurant the other night?” Ellyn asked, reminded by talk of his teacher.

He pushed a stalk of broccoli from one side of his plate to the other. “Nothing.”

“Ben, it can’t be
nothing.
Is it something for school?”

“Yeah, just something for school,” he agreed, before picking up a chicken leg from his plate and biting into it.

“What kind of project is it?” she pursued.

“Aww, Mom, you know – ”

“Eeew, Mom! He’s talking with his mouth full again!” protested Meg.

“Wait until you’ve finished chewing, Ben,” Ellyn instructed. “But then I want to hear about this project.”

But Meg, having broken her silence, apparently decided her brother had held the spotlight long enough, and began talking about a topic covered in her class today – the history of Far Hills and the Suslands.

“Vicki says her mother says her family’s been here nearly as long as the Suslands. And they’ve seen the whole thing, from the start. When the first Susland was so horrible and mean that he got the ranch cursed forever.”

“The Suslands as well as the ranch,” Grif corrected mildly.

Meg gaped. Ellyn supposed her daughter had expected him to object to this account of his family’s perfidy, rather than fleshing it out. But she was not a quitter.

“
And
Vicki’s mother says the Suslands carry tragedy and bad luck in their back pockets, so it follows them everywhere they go. Her mother told Vicki all about it, and she told me – at least what she could remember. People killed each other and got murdered and got horribly sick until they died – ”

“Meg – ” Ellyn started to protest, remembering that Grif’s mother had suffered a long, painful illness before she died, but Meg had already rolled on.

“ – and some went crazy, and
then
they got sick and died. And I told Vicki,
all
the Suslands must be crazy.”

She shot Grif a look of smug triumph.

He met it blandly, then turned to Ellyn, a frown drawing down his brows, but a glint in his gray eyes. “Has my Susland cousin Kendra been foaming at the mouth again?”