Chad’s chest jerked on a soft, residual sob. “You think?”
“I know it,” Zeke replied. “Be quiet for a second, Chad, and just feel who you are. Not your body, not your voice, not what you see. Just sit here with me in the darkness and feel you.”
Chad relaxed against him and fell quiet for a time.
“The part of you you’re feeling right now will never die,” Zeke whispered. “How could it? Who we are, all our feelings and thoughts, don’t just stop. I think that part of us leaves our bodies and continues to exist. Some people say we go to heaven, where there are pearly gates and streets paved in gold. That sounds kind of hokey to me. I think heaven is right here around us, and we just can’t see it, a beautiful, peaceful parallel existence in the presence of our Creator. Sort of like a two-way mirror, where the people on the other side can watch us, but we can’t see them.”
Chad stiffened. “So you think maybe my dad’s right here?”
“I do. Even if he wasn’t good at showing it, he loved you. Maybe in time, when he knows you’re going to be all right, he’ll drift farther away and only visit when you need him, but for right now, I imagine he’s sticking pretty close. He’ll be there when you hit that home run. Someday when you hold your own son in your arms, he’ll be there, smiling over your shoulder.”
Chad took a shaky breath and sighed. “I wanted to hit a homer and have him take my team for pizza.”
Zeke smiled to himself. Pizza. It seemed like a silly wish on the surface, but when Zeke imagined all the kids in their uniforms, storming the pizza parlor to celebrate, he understood that it wasn’t about the pizza at all. It was about a young boy who’d never had his father pat him on the back and brag about his accomplishments. Chances lost. Chad mourned all the times when he would excel and his dad wouldn’t be there to share the moment with him.
“I’m not your dad,” Zeke said carefully, “and I know I can never begin to take his place, but I’d be honored to take your team out for pizza when you hit that home run.”
Chad stirred to look up at him through the shadows. “That’s what the fathers do.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. A good moment hasn’t presented itself. And right now isn’t a good one, either.”
“You’re in love with my mom, aren’t you?”
Zeke nodded. “Yep, Stetson over boot heels.”
Chad sniffed and wiped his nose. “Are you going to marry her?”
“Not without your permission, I’m not.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s your mother, and you’re the man of the house. I’m old-fashioned about that kind of thing. I need to ask for her hand. Normally a guy asks the woman’s father. But in this case, you have more say than Pete. That’s only fair. The man you choose will end up being your stepfather.” Zeke let that hang there for a second. “Like I said, right now isn’t the time to talk about it. In a few weeks, maybe, when you’re feeling better.”
“Does my mom know you’re going to ask me?”
“Yes.”
“What if I say no?”
Zeke thought about that. “Well, I reckon I’ll wait a spell and ask again. She’s like a bad habit I can’t kick.”
He felt Chad smile against his shirt. “Don’t tell her that. She’ll get pissed.”
Zeke chuckled. “I hear you.”
They sat in the darkness, not speaking, comfortable with the silence. Again, Zeke wasn’t sure how much time passed. The shadows felt heavy with sadness, which was as it should be. For now, the future and what it might hold was only a glimmer neither of them could see very clearly.
Finally, Chad said, “I feel better now. I’m ready to go in.”
“You sure? I was just getting comfortable.”
“I’m sure. I don’t feel as sad now about my dad. It’s good to know maybe he can see me. Thanks for talking to me.”
Zeke patted the boy’s shoulder. “No problem. That’s what friends are for.”
After they reached the ladder, Zeke went down first and then stood at the bottom, watching to make sure Chad didn’t fall. When the kid’s feet touched ground, he kept one hand on a rung as he turned around.
“You can marry my mom if you want,” he said.
Zeke shook his head. “That’s not a decision that you should be making tonight. It’ll keep for a few weeks.”
Chad shrugged. “I won’t change my mind. You were my friend before you started loving my mom. I think I’ll like having you for a dad, and you’ll be a good dad for Rosie, too.”
That was one of the finest compliments Zeke had ever received. “Thank you. I think I’ll like having you for a son, too. No throwing tomatoes, though. Deal?”
“Deal.” Chad started from the barn, and then he suddenly stopped. “I guess you don’t want to go tomorrow.”
Zeke slowed his steps. “To the funeral, you mean?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to or anything. I was just thinking—well, you know—that it might be easier for my mom if you came.”
Zeke nodded. He had a hunch that Natalie wouldn’t be the only one who might need a strong arm to lean on. “You’re probably right. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Does that mean you’ll go with us?”
Zeke nodded again. “Sure. Just in case your mom needs me, I should probably be there.”
The following day passed in a blur for Natalie. She felt as if she were on autopilot. She moved, talked, and did what she had to do, but nothing seemed real. At odd times throughout the afternoon, she imagined her brain was a tangled jumble of electrical wires that had frayed and shorted out, leaving most of her circuits dead. In a distant part of her mind, she worried about Chad and how he would handle the funeral, but not even her concern for him penetrated the numbness that seemed to have overtaken her body. She was grateful for Zeke. He moved through the haze of unreality, big, strong, and solid, his voice a deep rumble that soothed her in a way she couldn’t understand.
The funeral was unremarkable. Grace, impeccably dressed in relentless black, wept into a tiny black hanky edged with lace. When Natalie watched her sobbing, she felt nothing, just an awful emptiness, as if her heart were a blackboard and someone had erased it. Chad was the only one who cried real tears, and even then Natalie felt nothing. It wasn’t necessary because Zeke was there, a rock for Chad to lean on. Zeke seemed to know all the right things to say. Natalie couldn’t string words together to make a complete sentence.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her. It was like being locked in a dark closet with only her head poking out. She could see and hear and respond to questions, but nothing could penetrate to actually touch her.
After the funeral, Zeke drove them home, Natalie on the front passenger seat, Chad, Valerie, and Pop in back. Even the drive didn’t seem real. Natalie turned a section of paper towel in her hands, wondering where it had come from and why she had it. She hadn’t shed a tear all day, had no desire to cry. So why was she wringing a paper towel?
What had it all been about? That was the question that kept circling through her mind. After a simple supper, Natalie went upstairs to give Rosie her bath and put her to bed. It was the strangest thing to go through the motions of normalcy—to feel the warm water on her fingers, to slick soap over her daughter’s soft skin, to run a brush through tangled black curls, to hear herself reading a bedtime story aloud, injecting expression into words that didn’t register on her brain.
When Rosie had drifted off, she went to Chad’s room to check on him because that was what mothers were supposed to do. Her son had fallen asleep reading his Harry Potter book. Natalie leaned against the doorframe, feeling heavy all over.
Valerie came up behind her in the hall. “You okay?” she whispered.
Natalie straightened away from the doorjamb. “I’m fine.” She drew the portal closed so their voices wouldn’t disturb Chad. “You know what I’ve learned from all this?”
Valerie’s suntanned face looked o
ddly pale. “No, what?”
“We’re all just chickens that haven’t gotten their necks wrung yet.”
Valerie did an about-face and hurried back downstairs. Natalie moved toward her room, thinking about distant thunder and cool night breezes. All she wanted was to close her eyes and let her mind go black.
She’d stripped down to her bra and panties when Zeke entered the room. Even in the darkness, she knew it was Zeke by the sound of his boots on the old hardwood floor. She tossed her dress toward the closet, not caring if it got wrinkled or walked on.
“If Valerie sent you up, there’s no reason. I’m fine. I’m not sad or anything.”
He took a step toward her. “I know. That’s part of the problem, isn’t it, that you can’t feel sad?”
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at him. He was a tall silhouette without a face, which made it easier to talk to him. “What’s it all about, Zeke?”
He came to sit beside her. She wanted him to say all the right things to make her feel alive inside again, like he did for Chad. But instead he said nothing. It made her angry. She knew he had the words she needed to hear, and he just wouldn’t give them to her.
“How about a walk?” he asked.
“What?”
He pushed up from the bed and went to her bureau. After rifling through the drawers, he returned and tossed jeans and a top on her lap. “Put them on. You need to get out of here for a while.”
“I don’t feel like walking.”
“I know. That’s why you need to go.”
That made no sense, but her thoughts were so disjointed she couldn’t compose an argument. After she dressed, Zeke hunkered down in front of her and slipped her bare feet into her sneakers. He jerked too hard when he tightened the laces, making the blood rush to her toes, but she couldn’t muster the energy to complain.
After he led her downstairs and outside into the night, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?”
Keeping a hold on her hand, he pulled her along behind him, angling across the yard and up the rutted gravel drive toward the road. When they reached the asphalt, he set a lazy pace, not speaking, not pressing her to share how she felt. A good thing, that, because she felt nothing.
As they walked, she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and breathing in and breathing out. That wasn’t easy. Her feet and her lungs were at almost opposite ends of her body. She became so focused on just moving that she was surprised to hear herself say, “I should feel sad, and I don’t. I loved him once. He was the father of my children. How could I look at him and feel nothing?”
Zeke swung to a stop. In the moonlight, his eyes shimmered like molten silver. “Sweetheart, you’ve been through one hell of a week. You’re exhausted, physically and emotionally. The mind is a fabulous mechanism. When life gets to be too much, it shuts off. The sadness is there, way deep. You’ll begin to feel it when you can deal with it. For now, you’re just riding the wave and going through the motions.”
“You don’t think I’m terrible?”
He hooked an arm around her neck and drew her against him. “God, no. I think you’re wonderful. Don’t beat up on yourself for not feeling sad. Eventually you will, if for no other reason than because Robert was the father of your children. Just give yourself time.”
Natalie made fists on his shirt and leaned her weight against him. “Oh, Zeke, I love you.”
He pressed light kisses on her hair. “I know you do. And you know what else?”
“No, what?”
“I think you need a good, old-fashioned affirmation that you are very much alive.”
She closed her eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. “How do I do that?”
“Let me show you,” he whispered.
The next instant, he swept her up in his arms, carried her across the ditch that ran along the road, and went out into the field. When he set her on her feet, she glanced around them. “We can’t make love here.”
“Why not?”
“It’s someone else’s property.”
“I repeat, why not?”
She giggled even as he slipped an arm around her waist and lowered her into the tall grass. Minutes later, as she crested with him on a wave of sheer sensation, Natalie stared dizzily at the moon, glorying in the fact that she could feel again. Alive. Zeke definitely made her feel gloriously alive.
She could only hope that fate allowed her to have a future with him.
Chapter Nineteen
By Friday night, Natalie felt sufficiently recovered to attend the grand reopening, and exactly as Zeke had predicted, the Blue Parrot was packed. Karaoke buffs swarmed to the club, hoping to win a cash prize for the best performance. Unlike before, when people had come only to have dinner while enjoying live entertainment, these folks stayed, following their meals with rounds of drinks, which generated large margins of profit. Halfway through the evening, Natalie took inventory of the bar stock and feared she might run short before closing time.
Seated at a table near the stage a few minutes later, she tapped her toe to the music as she gazed at the crowded dance floor. “I can’t believe this,” she told Zeke, who sat across from her. “Just look at all the people, and they’re having so much fun.”
He grinned broadly and winked at her. “Still a classy place, too,” he said, giving her sequined red gown a long look. “The first time I ever saw you wearing that dress, I ran so fast the other way, I almost tripped over my own feet.”
Natalie saw the smoldering heat in his gaze and knew it held promises of indescribable pleasure for her later. “Why did you run?”
“I knew you spelled trouble.”
She laughed, feeling wonderfully lighthearted. Business was up, her son had come through the storm and seemed to be dealing with his father’s death, and she was wildly in love with a dreamily handsome cowboy who wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It didn’t get any better than this.
“I’m glad you didn’t run far,” she said, hoping he saw the promise in her eyes as well.
“Me, too. Although I have to warn you, life will never be tame for us.” He jabbed a thumb toward the five tables behind them that members of his family had commandeered. “Mix all of them and the Westfields together, and we’re going to have something going on constantly. Weddings, birthdays, babies being born, kids getting sick or hurt, and marital problems now and again, just to keep things interesting.”
“Whose marital problems?”
A twinkle warmed his eyes. “Theirs, of course. We’ll never have any.”
Natalie laughed. “I hope not. You don’t fight fair.”
He gave her another heated appraisal. “Making up will have its benefits.”
“Stop it. We’re in a public place.”
“Dance with me?”
A moment later, they were on the floor, swirling to a slow love song. Natalie felt as light as air in his arms, and her heart swelled with happiness as she looked into his eyes.
“I spoke to Chad,” he whispered huskily. “We have his blessing. Will you marry me?”
He looked so solemn that she couldn’t resist teasing him just a little. “I’ve already said yes, so the biggest question is when. I’ve always wanted a June wedding.”
He narrowed an eye at her. “Forget June, lady. I’m not scaling that roof all winter. After the first snow, I’ll fall and break my neck.”
Natalie followed the pressure of his hard thigh, taking three gliding steps backward. “Snow will pose a problem, I suppose. A Christmas wedding, then? We could say our vows by the tree. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”
He shook his head. “It snows around Thanksgiving. How about mid-October? That’ll give the kids some time to settle in at school and come to terms with losing their dad. If we leave for a week or so, we can still be back for Halloween so Rosie can hang pumpkin drawings all over the house, and we can carve jack-o’-lanterns together.”
“An au
tumn wedding?” Natalie imagined the falling leaves and the crispness of the air, and suddenly it seemed like the most perfect time of the year for them to begin a life together. “All right. Mid-October. That sounds lovely.”
Zeke lifted a dark eyebrow. “Another question. Where do you want to live? I’m willing to lease my place out or sell it if you’d like to stay at the farm.”
Natalie couldn’t believe he would offer. “With my family?”
“I’m used to a crowded household. I can handle it again.”
She smiled and shook her head. “We’ll be close enough living next door. My family’s crazy, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I like their brand of crazy. It’s your call. I honestly don’t care where I live as long as I’m with you.”
“Your place,” she whispered. “If I want to go over, I can. When they get on my nerves, I can stay at home.”
He nodded. “Do something for me?” he asked huskily. “Sing ‘Forever and for Always’ next.”
Natalie wanted to kiss him. “You’ve got it, cowboy.”
A few minutes later when Natalie returned to the stage, she looked directly at Zeke as she began singing the requested song. When she got to the part about staying right there forever in his arms, he pushed up from his chair and moved slowly toward her. She continued to sing as he scaled the steps and came to stand with her behind the mike. On the last line of the refrain, he harmonized with her, saying that he meant to keep her forever and for always. And then he drew a sparkling diamond ring from his shirt pocket.
Natalie was so stunned that she stopped singing in the middle of a number for the first time in her life. She stared up at him with tears of happiness welling in her eyes, scarcely able to believe that this wonderful, handsome man meant to put a ring on her finger in front of so many people. She was even more incredulous when he dropped to one knee.
“Oh, Zeke, no!” she cried. “Get up. This is crazy.”
“Go, Zeke!” Hank yelled. Jake let go with a shrill whistle, his deep voice resounding in the suddenly quiet room when he said, “I’ve been trying to take him to his knees for years, Natalie. Make him stay there for a while.”