First you get mad, then you get even.
Toni had heard that old saying all of her life. But how, she wondered, could she be mad with anyone except herself? Not once during the two weeks that she’d known Lane Monday had he ever misled her, or given her reason to believe he would do anything other than what he’d done, and that was to leave.
As for getting even, they had more or less parted on that note. She’d saved his life. He’d saved hers. He’d sent her a new dining room set to replace the one that he’d broken. Everything was as nearly normal in her life as it had been before he came. Now there was nothing left for Toni to do but get on with the business of living. How to do that without the tender presence of her towering giant would remain to be seen. She didn’t really have a plan. It was going to have to be dealt with one day at a time.
By the time the first letter came, she had numbed herself with a mindless routine of constant, daily work after which, each night, she would fall into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. So when she saw the Florida postmark, and the broad, even strokes on the envelope spelling her name, she wasn’t prepared for the pain that came from reconnecting with him, even if it was long-distance and through the mail.
* * *
“Just let me out at the mailbox,” Toni said as her brother David slowed down to make the turn into the driveway.
“Surely not here?” her sister-in-law Laura asked. “You'll have to carry your groceries up the hill to the house.”
Toni unwound herself from the seat, unloading a niece and nephew from each knee as she exited the car. “It’s just one sack, and I can always use the exercise. Thanks for the lift,” she added, and waved goodbye to the rambunctious crew who had given her a ride home from town.
Thanks to a blown gasket, her pickup would be in the garage for at least another week. She was at the mercy of whichever family member was heading her way and would be willing to take her with them. This morning it had been David and his wife, Laura, as well as all four of their children. The ride had not been monotonous.
She hefted the sack of groceries to her hip and retrieved the handful of mail from the box, absently sorting through the stack before starting toward home.
The serenity of the Tennessee hills should have been balm to an empty heart. Towering pines, thick stands of oak, elm and hickory abounded. Along the road, clumps of brown-eyed Susan and wild white daisies grew, adding a splash of color to the green-and-brown palette that was the setting for her home.
With each step that she took, the dust poofed softly around her shoes, coating the clean white canvas with a dusty red shadow. Her blue jeans were nearly new and swished sharply with each stride. Her white shirt had started out crisp and freshly ironed, but now bore the brunt of a morning in town, and wrestling children from front seat to back during the ride home.
Butterflies danced above the heads of wildflowers, bright, flighty droplets of color that added life and spark to the landscape. But Toni didn’t see all this, and even if she had, she would not have been able to appreciate the almost perfect beauty of the land around her. She was too numbed by a Florida postmark and the implications of the letter’s arrival.
She didn’t know how she got inside the house. It was only after she took the pages out of the envelope that she realized she was in the kitchen and sitting in her daddy’s old chair. Holding her breath against the shock of connection, she began to read.
Dear Toni,
I know that we said it before, but I had to say thank you again. Every day I look at myself in the mirror and realize that I owe my life to you. I hope that you are well. I think of you often and wish you all the happiness in the world. You deserve all that life has to give, and so much more.
I will never forget you.
Lane
She looked up from the letter, staring blindly out the open doorway as the pages crumpled beneath her fingers. Her face was pale, her lips compressed as her nostrils flared in quick anger.
“So you wish me the best, do you, Lane? Thank you so much for the bland sentimentality. A drugstore greeting card couldn’t have said it better!”
Angry with herself for having hoped for something more than a bread-and-butter thank-you note, she wadded the letter and tossed it into the trash.
“That’s what I get for getting my hopes up,” she muttered, refusing to give way to tears. “Why won’t I ever learn?”
She tore into her grocery sack, tossing cans into cabinets and slinging her carton of milk into the refrigerator as she berated herself for the hope that she’d let spring.
“This is it, Toni. Your roll in the hay with a lawman is all you're going to get out of life...and it was more than you expected.”
She laughed to keep from crying, but there was no humor, only bitterness, in the sound.
And because she hurt with the days that continued to pass, she lashed out at those around her until everyone, including Justin, began to give her a wide, careful berth. She rarely answered her phone, and when she did, was short to the point of rudeness, no longer willing to listen endlessly to Laura’s latest tale of the children’s antics. The shopping trips that Judy offered were quickly turned down without explanation. Toni hadn’t retreated from life, but she had taken a serious look into regrouping. Rearranging her attitude had to help her get through the pain. It just had to.
* * *
Lane’s days were long, but his nights were longer, endless, hot summer nights in a cool bed with nothing but a pillow to hold. No sweet sigh in his ear. No soft gasp of breath against his lips as he dreamed of making love to Toni.
He had believed that the letter he’d written thanking her for everything one last time would put a knot in the line connecting him to Toni Hatfield. It should have, but it did not.
Foolishly, he’d watched his own mail for days and then weeks, hoping for a simple return note that might echo his own sentiments. Something—anything—that would bind them together again.
But it hadn’t happened, and he tried to accept that it was all for the best. He didn’t need to prolong something that had no hope of growing. In his mind, he’d already ruined Sharla’s life to the point that it had caused her death. He wasn’t about to risk his sanity and another woman’s life, not even for love.
And then one day he picked up the phone at work and found himself dialing Toni’s number. By the time it rang seven times, he’d regained enough control of himself to disconnect, and thanked his lucky stars that she hadn’t been in the house to answer.
What, he thought, would he have said if she’d answered? He had no idea, but the question wouldn’t go away, and he couldn’t let go of wondering what might have been.
But, he’d done it! It had happened. He’d dialed her number and the world had not come to an end. He’d made an attempt to contact her that hadn’t interrupted the flow of traffic or initiated another impasse between heads of state. For that reason, it made calling the second time that much easier. And that time, when he still did not get an answer, he told himself it was just as well.
Two days later, without considering his reasons, he bought an answering machine and had it sent Federal Express to Chaney, Tennessee, before he could change his mind. By the time the package was on its way to Toni, he’d convinced himself that what he’d done was only for her own good. In this day and time it only stood to reason that she needed to stay in communication with other people. She was a woman alone in a fairly secluded area. Emmit Rice hadn’t been the only bad man in the world.
Convinced that he’d done nothing out of turn, he settled back into a routine and waited. He didn’t realize that what he’d done, he’d done to stay in touch with her. It was, quite literally, a “reach out and touch someone” gesture that would have made the phone companies proud.
* * *
If Toni’s Hereford bull hadn’t gotten out and into old man Warner’s pasture and serviced four of Warner’s purebred Angus cows before it was removed, Toni might have been in a better frame of mind when the delivery van came up her driveway. But she’d already had to apologize to Silas Warner and commiserate with him about the loss of money he might suffer from having calves born of something other than their registered Angus status.
And this morning, for the second time in a week, she’d overslept. Add to that the worn-out, run-down feeling that had dogged her every step for the past few days, and you had a woman who was not in a receptive frame of mind for the deliveryman or the package that he carried to her door.
“Now what?” Toni muttered as she raced to answer the abrupt knocking on her front door.
“Miss Antonette Hatfield?”
She sighed, then slumped against the doorframe at the sight of the uniformed man bearing a small, but suspicious-looking package.
Her fourteen-year-old nephew Harry, who was her brother Arnie’s son, and who lived in Nashville, had taken it upon himself to give the names of every member of his family to a computer company in the hopes of winning some fly-by-night video prize. Harry was already in trouble with his father and two of his uncles because of the stunt. And while Toni had heard of this only through the family grapevine, she wondered if she was about to become victim number three. If this was a free-for-ten-days-or-send-it-back-with-no-charge deal, she was not going to be happy knowing that she was now on some con artist’s mailing list, and Harry would probably be grounded for life.
“Miss Hatfield? You are Antonette Hatfield, aren’t you?”
She peered over his clipboard to the package in his hand, but couldn’t see anything other than a bunch of upside-down labels and codes that she wouldn’t have been able to understand had she seen them upright.
“Yes, I'm Toni Hatfield.”
“Package for you,” he said, and handed her the clipboard. “Sign here, please.”
She did as he asked, and watched the dust in the driveway settle long after he was gone, realizing as she closed the door how suspicious she’d become since nearly losing her life. Emmit Rice may have missed his target when he’d failed in taking her hostage, but he’d taken something precious just the same when he had died. She no longer assumed that she was safe, and trust wasn’t just a word, but a thing to be treasured.
“So, Harry. What wonderful prize have I just won, and how much is it going to cost me to claim it?”
The small smile she’d been wearing as she tore into the wrapping died on her lips with the card that fell on the floor at her feet. Once again, the shock of seeing that broad, dark slash of handwriting bearing her name seemed a mockery in the face of his absence.
“What now?” she muttered, and then stared at the obvious. “An answering machine? What on earth can he be thinking...?”
The card said it all.
Dear Toni,
Just to make sure you are still all right, I tried several times to call you. You kept missing my calls and I realized how isolated you are out there. The instructions for hooking this up are simple. Take care and maybe we will make a connection another time. My address and phone number are enclosed.
Lane
“He tried to call?” She let out a shout of anger, but no one heard. “What, pray tell, could he possibly have to say to me that he hasn’t already said?”
She glared down at the answering machine, still packaged inside its box, then headed for the kitchen, muttering beneath her breath with every step that she took.
“I don’t need to be checked up on, and if I’d wanted one of these...these...things, I would have bought it myself. My God! The nerve of the man! He’s worse than Justin. Next thing I know, he'll be sending me a pager so that he can keep track of my whereabouts!”
She scribbled a scathing retort that she chose not to reread, afraid that if she did, she might relent and be nicer to him than he had a right to expect, then stuck it to the outside of the box. Paper flew and string knotted as she wrapped and taped and cursed all manner of men for their hard heads and small minds.
“When he left, he gave up any right he might have had to worry about me,” she said, walking to the bathroom where she washed her face and yanked a brush and then a comb through her hair. “And why would I want to call him? What on earth would I possibly say?” She snorted and ignored the furious glaze of tears shimmering across her eyes. “Maybe he’s expecting a 'next time you're in the neighborhood come on by' invitation. I suppose he’s ready to have a little more fun.“
Although it was nearly suppertime, and the cows would be coming down the lane anytime now to be fed, Toni hauled herself and her “gift” out to her pickup, thankful that her vehicle was now in good repair, and tore down the driveway in a flurry of drying leaves and red dust. If she hurried, she would just about make it to the post office before it closed for the day.
* * *
Having had one hellish day at work had done nothing for Lane’s peace of mind. Traffic was snarled, the weather was hot and he’d had dreams last night that he couldn’t forget. They had ranged from the first moment he’d opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with a dark-eyed angry woman to seeing her unconscious in Emmit Rice’s arms. During what was supposed to have been a good night of rest, his emotions had run the gamut to the point of exhaustion. He’d gotten up tired, gone to work mad and was now coming home to a lonely, solitary apartment.
But, he reminded himself, it was what he wanted, and then reworded that message within his own mind. No, he didn’t necessarily want it, but it was what he had to do, for her sake as well as his own.
When he saw the Tennessee postmark on the package in his apartment mailbox, he realized that the response he’d been hoping to get wasn’t coming. This one was as unorthodox as the woman who’d sent it. Not only did he get his answering machine back, but the note that came with it set him back on his heels.
I kept the table you sent because you broke mine. After all, fair is fair. But frankly, Mr. Monday, I believe that we've traded about all there is to trade between us. Like lives, a roll in the sack, etc. You get the picture.
Unless you have something more to say to me than what’s already been said, I don’t see the need for further communication. You came and went through my life like the flood that went down Chaney Creek.
We owe each other exactly nothing, which under the circumstances, is probably for the best. I do not need a man who does not need me.
What totally irked Lane was the fact that she’d referred to him as “Mr. Monday,” and the way that she’d signed the note.
Sincerely. She’d signed the damned letter, Sincerely, Toni Hatfield.
He was all but shouting as he dropped the answering machine into a trash can and tossed the note in after it, then pivoted and picked it up again, rereading the last two sentences, trying to make sense out of the ambiguous remark.
“What the hell does she mean...under the circumstances...probably for the best...do not need a man who does not need me? I never said she needed a man. Hellfire! All I did was send her a damned answering machine!”
And then all the anger in him died. He had just answered his own questions. “Under the circumstances” was simple. He was here. She was there. Whatever happened to her from now on was none of his business, and he’d made that point perfectly clear by leaving her. After all, it had been “just for fun” between them. It was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?
As for the “doesn’t need a man who didn’t need her,” she was right. What possible good could he do her? He’d shown her what he needed and wanted by walking out on her after the first time they had made love without so much as a goodbye. And he’d let her go the second time with more of the same. What Toni needed was a man who was able to stand by her, not an emotional cripple like him.
“Ah, God, lady,” he said softly as he folded her letter and put it in a drawer. “I didn’t mean to...”
He couldn’t even finish his own sentence, because Lane himself didn’t know what he’d meant. All he knew was that his days and nights were being haunted by two women. One that he’d killed, the other that he’d left behind.
That night, for the first time in more than five years, he shut himself in his apartment with a fifth of whiskey and drank himself into oblivion, because facing what he had done was an impossible, unbearable task.
The same night, many miles and mountains away, Toni felt pain and knew that it was not all her own. And when morning came, bringing a bright, new day, she could not find it anywhere within herself to care.
That came later, on the morning that she’d overslept for the umpteenth time in as many weeks and then rolled out of bed just in time to throw up. Only after the calm in her belly had resumed did it occur to her to wonder why she’d been sick. And when realization dawned, so did Toni Hatfield’s hope for salvation. She’d lost her man, but if she was right, she would be having his child.
* * *
“No, Justin, I don’t need company just to drive into Knoxville,” she argued, and wished for the hundredth time that she hadn’t bothered to tell him that she was going. She shifted the phone to her other ear as she gauged the time against driving distance. If she hurried, she would just about make her appointment, and the last thing she needed was her eldest brother at her side when she found out for sure that she was about to become an unwed mother.
“Look, I've made the drive a jillion times before and you never cared. What’s the big deal now?”
Justin sighed heavily. “I didn’t mean to imply that you needed help, sis. I was just remembering...” He stopped suddenly. “Never mind. If you want to, you can call before you leave Knoxville. That way, you'll simply be safeguarding yourself. Understand?”
Toni relented. He was right. And she was being too touchy only because she didn’t want or need anyone’s advice about what she’d learn.
“I'm the one who should be saying I'm sorry,” she said. “I appreciate knowing someone is around who cares whether I live or die. It may as well be you. I'll call you before I leave Knoxville. I promise.”
Every breath that Toni took as she drove toward Knoxville was a prayer that what she suspected would be so. And although she could have bought a pregnancy test kit in Chaney, it would not have been wise to do so. The inevitable would be revealed in time. For now, keeping the secret to herself seemed the best possible option.
She didn’t even mind as much as she usually did when the doctor’s nurse asked her to disrobe for her examination. What was a little embarrassment compared to what she could gain?
* * *
“Well, Mrs. Hatfield, I believe congratulations are in order. You are going to be a mother,” Dr. Cross told her a scant fifteen minutes later.
“Miss.” Toni corrected him absently.
Her heart was too full to care that his face had reddened slightly.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and glanced at her chart, noting her age and that this would be her first. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
Toni smiled. “Don’t be sorry,” she said, and clasped her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “This baby is nothing less than an answer to a prayer.”
He smiled. “Is the father going to be in the baby’s life at all?” he asked.
The smile froze on her face. “Not likely,” she said shortly. “But I have seven brothers. If I need a male role model, I have more than enough.”
He laughed. “I'm a member of a rather large family myself. I think I know what you mean. A little can go a long way, right?”
“Right,” Toni echoed, and tried not to think of Lane Monday. Not now. He didn’t belong in this joy, because he hadn’t wanted to belong in her life.
“At first I'll need to see you only on a monthly basis. The closer you come to term, the closer your checkups will be. My nurse will give you a handful of literature. Read it all. Ask me questions next month. If you have any problems, and I do mean any, call me, day or night. Got that?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know what you do for a living, but I want you to get plenty of rest, eat right and give up any strenuous activities. Exercise is good. Overdoing it is not.”
“Since my father’s death, I rent out my farmland, but I still raise cattle,” Toni said. “From time to time, I do lift heavy things. Bales of hay, sacks of feed...that sort of stuff.”
He frowned. “I don’t recommend you push yourself so hard anymore.”
She shrugged. “So I'll hire help.”
“Good girl,” he said. “Ask my nurse to make your next appointment, and I'll see you next month. Okay?”
Toni stood, and then impulsively hugged him just because she could.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said, and grinned when he blushed again.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “I'm just the bearer of the news. Thank the man who made you this happy.”
That, my dear doctor, is impossible. We've burned more than bridges between us.
“Then that would have to be God for answering my prayer.”
The doctor grinned. “You're not going to try and convince me that this was an immaculate conception or anything like that?” he teased.
“Hardly,” Toni responded. I would say it was closer to a careful deception. “See you next month,” she said, trying not to let her elation show as she left.
But it was impossible to ignore her joy. It had lasted all the way home, and she was halfway through her evening meal when the phone rang and she remembered that she hadn’t called Justin to tell him she was leaving Knoxville.
Certain of the caller’s identity, she answered on the second ring and was apologizing before she’d given him a chance to speak.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” she said, her voice light and full of laughter, waiting to hear her brother’s disgusted remark.
Lane forgot what he’d been about to say. He hadn’t expected to hear such happiness from her. He closed his eyes, picturing the expression on her face and trying not to think of who had put such joy in her voice.
“No, Toni, I'm the one who’s sorry,” he said softly. “I overstepped so damned many boundaries with you that it makes me sick. Forgive me, lady. Then maybe I can forgive myself.”
Toni froze, and before she could think, before she could react to the shock of hearing his voice, he hung up the phone.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, feeling behind her for a seat before she fell to the floor instead. “Lane? Lane, is that you?”
There was nothing but a dull buzz and an empty silence, and she heard it clear through to her soul. She hung up the phone, then buried her face in her hands. Fate had to be laughing up its sleeve at this coincidence.
On the day that she’d learned she was pregnant, the father of the child called and expressed regret for everything that had passed between them. If she had needed a sign to let her know she’d made the right decision to keep her news to herself, then she’d just gotten it. In big, loud, clear tones and compliments of the telephone.