Improbable Solution Read online

  "Oh, Pop," she said as soon as she saw the difficulty he was having, holding the old man while tying his sash. "Can't you cooperate, just this once?" She grabbed the loose sash end and tied him into the robe while Gus held him. "Pop, let's go watch TV, shall we?"

  Her father grunted, and tried to pull free. Sally looked up at Gus, grimacing.

  "Can you hold him just one more minute?"

  "As long as you need," he said, all too conscious that she was still in her wet robe. He felt suddenly guilty for being warm.

  "Take him into the parlor." she said, and gestured vaguely toward the front of the house. "I'll get his tea."

  She disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.

  Gus half-carried, half-shoved the old man into the room where the TV stood. He switched it on, saw that the picture rolled as it had the first time he was here. The old man immediately calmed, offering little resistance as Gus guided him to the shabby overstuffed chair.

  "Pop?" Sally's voice came from behind him as he settled an afghan around the old man's legs. "Here's your tea."

  She handed her father an insulated lidded cup and he immediately began sipping at it. Gus saw rather than heard her sigh, saw her shoulders relax, saw her bottom lip released from her teeth.

  "Thank heaven," she breathed. "Sometimes that calms him, sometimes it doesn't."

  He followed her into the dark hall. "Frank said he has Alzheimer's."

  "And he's getting worse."

  They emerged into the kitchen, bright now with fluorescent light reflected from clean white appliances and pale cream walls. She turned, seemed to see him for the first time. "Oh, my goodness. You're soaked."

  It was the understatement of the century.

  "So are you." He was surprised by a stab of desire when he realized how her wet robe outlined long, lean thighs and high, full breasts. A memorable body, and one that didn't match her bracketed mouth and tired eyes.

  "Let me get you a robe." She scurried past him as if she'd heard his thoughts and was afraid of them. "I'll spin your uniform in the washer and toss it in the dryer. It won't take long."

  Her last words drifted back from the long hallway, and the next sound he heard was her feet on the bare wood of the stairs.

  Gus stood alone in the kitchen, shivering again as the water in his clothing evaporated. Damn! If he'd had any sense, he'd have just dropped the delivery on the front porch and to hell with the blowing rain. He could have been through with Whiterock by now and on the way to Juntura.

  Yeah, and her father could have died of pneumonia, too, you selfish bastard.

  Her feet thudded again on the stairs. Seconds later she was back, and shoving a dark green terry robe at him.

  "Here. Let me have those wet clothes and I'll get them in the dryer."

  He took the robe. "Let me get them dry while you get into dry clothes yourself." He was not being entirely altruistic. Her nipples were hard pebbles under her robe and just the sight of them made his loins tighten. Hell! An extended spell of abstinence was bound to make a man horny. Any woman would have affected him this way. "Point me at the dryer. I'll be fine."

  As if to emphasize his words, a long, violent shiver swept through her.

  "In th-th-there." She pointed to a door in the wall opposite the sink, hesitated in the doorway.

  "Go on," he said. "I'll be fine."

  The door opened into a small laundry, obviously a recent addition to the old house. To his immense appreciation, a couple of thick towels hung on a rack beside the washer. He stripped his soggy clothing off and dumped it into the washer. While the washer spun, he rubbed himself briskly, doing his best to ignore his slight, residual arousal. He'd been without a woman for far too long.

  Since he'd killed his wife.

  Gus was drinking coffee when Sally returned, still cold but at least clothed in dry garments. Pop's green robe brought out a matching shade in his eyes and brightened the fire in his hair. She hadn't realized just how red it was before. Richly scarlet, with highlights of gold and copper, it blazed in the white light from the fluorescent fixture.

  He looked at her over the coffee cup, a question in his eyes.

  "He's completely passive," she said. "I don't know what it is about the TV, but it works better than anything else. Most of the time."

  "What happened this morning?" He seemed almost reluctantly curious.

  She poured herself more coffee, topped off his cup. Sitting across from him, she was reminded of her temporary insanity the last time he'd been here. He's just being neighborly. Don't scare him off again.

  "Last night was bad. He was restless, out of bed at least five times, wandering the house, opening cupboards and closets, apparently looking for something. He was relatively tractable, thank heaven. Sometimes he gets violent and I just can't do a thing with him. So far, though, I've been able to prevent his hurting himself too seriously."

  "Living with his condition must be painful for you. I had a great-aunt who had Alzheimer's. Watching her go downhill just about broke my heart."

  "It does." She shook her head, reminding herself he didn't care about her problems. But she did owe him an explanation. "I hate to give him sedatives unless he gets really violent. Last night he went back to bed each time I found him, so I kept putting it off. But he was up again soon, looking for whatever it was he thought he wanted. Finally, toward morning, he seemed to calm down." She grimaced. "I went to bed."

  Exhausted, she'd slept until well past eight.

  "When I went in to take him to the bathroom, he wasn't there." She heard the quaver in her voice and took a deep, calming breath. "I wasted nearly a half-hour searching the house."

  "You didn't call for help?"

  She shook her head. "I know I should have. I kept telling myself I'd find him soon. He's never..." Another breath, this one catching on the lump in her throat. "I was dialing the phone in the library when I saw him through the window."

  She'd dropped the phone with a surge of relief—relief laced with anger and fear.

  "He'll usually do what I tell him, but not this time. He was dead stubborn about staying in the rose garden."

  "He's too big for you to handle. What if I hadn't come along?"

  "I'd have had to leave him long enough to call for help, I guess." She reached for the coffee carafe, avoiding his eyes. "Thank you for helping."

  Gus found himself wanting to yell at her for her passive acceptance of an impossible situation.

  "What are you going to do when it happens again?"

  Damn it, Loring, what difference does it make to you? You don't care.

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I'd like to find someone who'll live in." Her shrug showed how unlikely she considered that possibility. "I hate to ask any more favors of the neighbors. I already owe them more than I'll ever be able to repay."

  Speaking from personal experience, Gus said, "Sometimes it's pretty stupid to let pride dictate what you do."

  "It's not pride," she snapped, with more life in her voice than he'd yet heard. "People get tired of always giving, when they get nothing in return."

  "That they do." He set his empty cup down and stood. "My clothes should be dry enough to wear by now. I've got to be going." He went into the laundry room, carefully pulling the door closed behind him—slamming it would have been an admission that she'd gotten under his skin. His shoes were still wet, although the washer's spin cycle had taken all the squish out of them. The dryer was still working, but he removed his clothes anyway. They were damp, but not so much he couldn't wear them.

  God preserve him from helpless women. He'd had entirely too many in his life. Grandmother Taylor had been so dependent on his grandfather she was completely helpless after his death. For thirteen years, she'd lived on, a contentious, whining, weak and demanding old woman. Gus's mother, her only surviving child, had done her duty, had all but displaced her children in doing so. Elise Taylor Loring had alienated her husband with her devotion to the old witch, until, after five ye
ars of hell, his father had left.

  Gus had detested his grandmother. He'd come very close to detesting Marilyn for being so much like her, for all he'd loved her. For a while, his emotions had been in total confusion until he acknowledged that he'd made the choice—unconsciously perhaps—and it was his to live with.

  Marilyn had been a good wife. She'd made a comfortable home for him, charmed his business associates, endeared herself to his family. Yes, he'd loved her, even as he found himself resenting her inability to make decisions, her insecurity about being left alone at night. Worst of all, her absolute helplessness in the face of any kind of trouble, from a dripping faucet to a child's ear infection.

  Determined not to follow in his father's footsteps, Gus had done his best to be a devoted, dutiful husband and father, but once in a while it had been too much. He'd sometimes tried to force Marilyn to stand on her own two feet.

  And the last time he had lived to regret it.

  He jerked the laces of his sneaker tighter. After shouldering into his jacket—much clammier than the lightweight shirt or twill pants—he hung the towels carefully back onto their bar.

  In his opinion, Ms. Carruthers should put the old man into a nursing home where he could get full-time care. The next time he escaped her supervision might prove fatal. One thing sure, Gus wouldn't be here to help her out. He was going to give notice as soon as he got in tonight.

  He'd give Frank a week or two to find a replacement, and he'd be on the road again.

  "Are you dry?" she said, when he reentered the kitchen.

  "Dry enough," he growled.

  She was standing by the table, clutching a bowl in white-fingered hands. "It's almost noon. I've got some leftover vegetable soup here..."

  "I've got work to do." He made a beeline for the back door.

  "But it won't take long. I can put it in the microwave."

  "Lady, I've wasted most of the morning picking up your marbles. I've got customers waiting."

  As he stepped out onto the back porch, he noticed the packages he'd delivered. Bending to retrieve the brown-paper-wrapped parcels, he handed them to her. Then he lifted the garments from the hook. "Where do you want these?"

  She dropped the parcels onto the table, almost upsetting her coffee cup.

  "I'll take them."

  He held the plastic-encased garments out of her reach, not wanting to experience again that galvanic shock he'd felt each time she touched him.

  "Just tell me where you want them, Ms. Carruthers," he said, letting impatience show in his voice.

  Silently, she led him along the hall and opened a door. As she flicked on a light, he saw a modern, well-equipped sewing room, an oasis of light and color in this house of gloom and defeat. He hooked the hangers on a portable clothes rack and turned around.

  She was standing directly behind him.

  For one brief, insane moment, he wanted to catch her close, to kiss her.

  INTERVAL

  Glimmer of energy. Whence?

  There...

  Vital, but damped...

  Potential great. Initiate?

  Experience indicates greatest energy surge occurs with synergy...

  How achieve? Method?

  Concatenation? Aggregation?

  Yes!

  Nudge useless Carruthers. Associate new energy source with inept Carruthers...

  Ingenious!

  SIX

  Gus finished the rest of his deliveries in Whiterock a little after one. Although helping Sally Carruthers had put him behind schedule by a couple of hours, he decided to stop for lunch anyway.

  The same crowd was in the same seats at the Bite-A-Wee Cafe, as if they hadn't moved since early morning a week ago. His seat, at the apex of the counter's arc, was empty, waiting for him.

  "Missed ya this mornin'," Georgina said, setting a cup of battery acid before him. "The special's short ribs." She was gone before he could ask if he could get a sandwich to go.

  "Blazers lost." The Old Duffer handed him the sports page.

  Gus took it, feeling he had no choice. He picked up the menu.

  "Don't bother with that," Stocky Man told him. "Georgina's short ribs'll make you think you died and went to heaven."

  Gus buried his face in the paper, trying to pretend a fascination with the Portland Trail Blazers' loss to Phoenix last night.

  The door behind him opened, sending a damp draft down his neck, reminding him that his jacket still held residual moisture from this morning's misadventure. As the newcomer passed behind him, the hair at his nape stood on end. He didn't need to turn around to see the reason, because nearly every voice in the café was raised in greeting.

  "Hey, Sally, how's your pa?"

  "You're late today, Miz Carruthers."

  "Hi, Sal!"

  "I decided to treat myself to lunch, since I never had time for breakfast," she explained to all and sundry, sounding almost guilty. "My father's sleeping now. Sedated."

  Gus kept his face buried in the paper. From the comments around him, he gathered she hadn't done anything so daring as going out for lunch for a long time.

  "This rain oughta green up the park good for the May Fest," someone said, about the time Georgina slapped Gus's salad before him.

  "The May Fest?" Sally's voice sounded as if she'd forgotten there was such a thing.

  "Only six weeks to go." Another voice, this one a deep baritone. "Maybe you can get out to it this year."

  Gus stole a look to the side. She was in the last booth, her back to him, sitting with a big fellow in some kind of uniform. A cop? He looked like it.

  "But I thought..."

  "My Rhoda's Queen of the May this year," a middle-aged woman in a polyester pantsuit said with pride.

  "Better keep an eye on her, what with Ben Kemp being her Consort," someone warned.

  "I don't remember..." Her uncertain voice was drowned out in the general laughter.

  Nearly everyone in the café had something to say about Ben Kemp, who seemed to be the town's bad boy, but a favorite one.

  She lifted a slender hand to smooth back her hair. Gus hadn't noticed before how thick and heavy it was, nor how it gleamed with golden highlights.

  "I really haven't much time, Georgina," she was saying. "Maybe just a sandwich..." She chewed her bottom lip. "Pop's alone..."

  The cop reached across the table and laid a hand on hers.

  "I'll be going out that way anyhow, Sal. I can look in, and if there's a problem, I'll call you."

  "Short ribs today," Georgina said.

  "How can I resist?"

  She smiled up at Georgina, and Gus revised his estimate of her age downward by ten years. Not that it mattered, but he wished she'd smile more often, because it made her both young and lovely.

  His short ribs appeared before him just then. He picked up his fork and began one of the best meals he'd ever eaten. As he ate, he eavesdropped.

  Most was local gossip. Ms. Carruthers occasionally asked questions that showed she knew all the people but was out of touch with what they were doing. How long had she been immured in that big old house with her father, anyhow?

  A middle-aged woman—Rhoda's mother?—departed, holding the door while she visited with a newcomer.

  "Hey, Bernie," the Old Duffer called out as the door swung shut once again, "what's this I hear about Leo Plum goin' back to Reno?"

  A skinny old fellow dressed in grease-stained overalls took a seat at the counter just beyond the Old Duffer. His billed cap read Cowles Implement. Gus thought he remembered him from the garage, which was also a gas station, a tractor sales-and-service agency, an auto parts store—a typical small town business.

  "Shit, yes." Bernie sipped the coffee Georgina set before him. "His old lady decided she has to stay down there with her ma, so Leo gave his notice today."

  "Whatcha gonna do for a pump jockey?"

  "How's Pete Gomez workin' out?"

  "Pete's doin' fine, but he can't run the shop and the gas pumps.
" Bernie looked glum. "Guess I'll have to put an ad in the paper."

  Gus's plate was empty. Although full, he could have kept eating, just for the sensual pleasure of tasting the rich brown gravy, of gnawing the tender meat from the bones. Even the occasional lumps in the real, hand-mashed potatoes had appealed to him, and the steamed carrots had been worthy of a gourmet restaurant anywhere in the country.

  Georgina snatched his plate away with one hand, refilled his cup with the other. "Pie? We got peanut butter cream, blackberry, pecan and lemon meringue."

  "The pecan's to die for." The soft, familiar voice came from behind him.

  Again the hairs at his nape stirred, and he barely stopped himself from spinning around on his stool.

  Georgina looked back at the rear booth. "You didn't clean up your plate, Sally."

  "I did the best I could." Laughter hovered at the edge of her words. "Honest, I did. And I've really got to go. I've already been gone too long."

  She slipped out the door, and Gus felt the room's warmth go with her. When Georgina repeated her question about the pie, he gave her a curt "No, thanks," and dug into his wallet.

  "See ya next week," Georgina called, as he followed Sally out the door.

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  He stood on the sidewalk and tried to decide which way Sally Carruthers had gone. How had she disappeared so quickly?

  What was this strong pull he felt toward her, anyhow? It felt like more than lust. A lot more. Whenever she was near, the world looked brighter, more vital. She made him feel alive in a way he hadn't for more than three years. Yet she didn't flirt, didn't even smile much. It was more her—well, if he was into touchy-feely, he'd call it an aura. But he wasn't, so he didn't have a word for the way he always knew when she was anywhere nearby.

  He'd work the week out, no more. This time next week, he would be far, far away from Whiterock, Oregon.

  * * * *

  For the first time in more than five years, Sally felt glad to be back in Whiterock. Pop's escape this morning had been the worst episode yet. Without the kind of emotional support she'd gotten today at the café, she didn't think she could have faced returning to the house.