Read Online House of Mercy by Erin Healy - Free Book Online Page B

across Cat’s face as one of the lamps outside moved through its wind-tossed arc.
    “Rose is sick?” she asked.
    “No, no. Rose is, well, I don’t know exactly how she is, but it’s time. I need you to take me to the ranch. I need to see her.” Garner didn’t own a car, though he could have afforded whatever private transportation he wanted. He preferred to walk to wherever he needed to go, and when that wasn’t possible, to pay others for their wheels and their company. He never had need to make the hair-raising drive down the mountain alone when there were so many kind souls willing to do it for him. People seemed to find noble purpose in getting a cancer-riddled man to his various medical appointments down in civilization. Cat, especially, was never too busy for such a thing.
    But tonight she didn’t seem to understand Garner’s urgency.
    “Why do you need to see her right now?” she asked.
    “Because something has happened!”
    Cat’s eyebrows rose expectantly. She seemed to want him to explain.
    He said, “My window broke,” and heard the inadequacy of the words. “She needs me. I don’t know exactly why yet, but she needs me now. It might be that she’s finally seen the limitations of her marriage, or that she’s . . .” Overcome by a troubling possibility, Garner’s mind shifted gears. “Heaven help me, if that man filed for a divorce—”
    “If she’s anything like you, I suppose she’d be the one to do it,” Cat said. He saw in her light smile that she meant to calm him, though she knew he hadn’t been the one to torpedo his own marriage.
    “Right. True.”
    “In which case her situation might not be as dire as you think it is.”
    The lightning, the shattering, the force that knocked him off his seat were all quite dire, Garner thought. Indications of something big and devastating. An oak tree uprooted from the earth.
    “Oh my,” Garner murmured.
    “What?” Cat laid a warm hand on his arm.
    “Abel must be dead. I think he died.”
    Cat did not offer him any calming answer to this. He thought he detected her sigh.
    “Do Abel and Rose have children?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “How can you not—I’m sorry. Garner, let’s call the ranch. We can find out the truth right now.”
    “No. No, I wouldn’t know what . . .” Did he have grandchildren? It was an overwhelming thought at the moment, though he’d often wondered. It was better that he focus on the object of his own resentment, Abel. “I don’t know how she’d react. All these years, Cat. I need to see her. Plain and simple. Her husband is gone. I know it in my soul.”
    Instead of making a grab for her coat and keys as Garner expected, she suggested they wait to drive down into the valley until the next day, after the storm blew over.
    “It’s a four-hour drive,” she said.
    “But a man is dead.”
    “We’ll be dead if we attempt those mountain roads in this storm.” She didn’t meet Garner’s eyes. Cat lifted the cup to her lips, and steam snaked out around her cheeks and drifted to the back of her head like the ties of a spooky carnival mask, cloaking her expression.
    Of course driving now was foolishness. What was he thinking? And yet—he sensed something more than practicality at work in Cat’s reticence. It came to him immediately. He strode across the waiting room and placed his hand firmly on Cat’s shoulder.
    “You have nothing to worry over, girl. Rose can’t replace you in my life. I’m a lucky old man. I’ll have two daughters now! She’ll love you as much as I do.”
    When Cat didn’t reply right away, Garner grew uncomfortable. He feared he’d exposed some vulnerable spot in the woman’s soul. Or maybe he’d overstepped his bounds in asking for a favor.
    “But you should finish your tea first,” he said. “Is that my lemongrass blend? Yes, I can smell it. You take your time, girl, and then you’ll know I’m right. Tea fixes everything. Just everything.”
    The doctor