The Virgin of Small Plains

Chapter Forty-three

Mitch stepped out of his car onto Abby’s driveway with a birdcage in his hand.

When she saw who he had with him, she yelled for joy and came running. Mitch had already told her about finding J.D. in his father’s yard and they hadn’t even argued about which one of them would get to keep him. “He needs company,” Mitch had admitted. “And Gracie misses him,” Abby had said. “And, besides,” Mitch had added, “it isn’t as if I’ll never get to see him again…is it?”

“It certainly is not,” Abby had agreed with so much passion they had both grinned.

Now, with her running full-speed toward him, just to be on the safe side Mitch put the birdcage with the parrot in it down on the ground and braced himself. Sure enough, she didn’t stop, but threw herself straight at him, nearly knocking him over, so that Mitch had to wrap his arms around her and lift her off her feet and steady his legs so they didn’t both go tumbling to the ground and tear themselves up on the gravel.

And then Mitch found that in order to properly keep their balance he had to find her mouth and kiss it and that she understood the necessity of maintaining balance and so she kissed him back so hard they nearly melded into one body standing right there in her driveway. Mitch felt his desire for her rise, and this time there wasn’t going to be anything stopping it, and no misunderstandings about it, and no bad feelings or secrets afterward, there was only going to be loving Abby forever and ever, just as he was always supposed to do.

“Can you carry J.D., too?” she asked him breathlessly.

“No problem,” he lied, but then they both laughed and she got down and walked, but she grabbed his arm that wasn’t being used to hold the birdcage and she held on to it as if she were never going to let him go, which was just fine with Mitch. It was a damned good thing, he thought as they walked into her house together-with J.D. suddenly starting to squawk until their ears rang and her other bird, inside the house, starting to holler back at him-it was a damned fine thing that he had already started buying property in Small Plains so that his plan of moving back and helping to keep his hometown alive was well on its way to fruition. Granted, he had once thought he was doing it out of revenge, to take over the town his father’s friends thought they owned, but it seemed revenge could turn into something else entirely, something more like hope and love, for a town and a woman…

“And a bird,” he said out loud.

“What?” Abby asked, looking up at him and smiling.

“Nothing.” He kissed her. “You’re going to love my son.”

“I know I will.”

The twinge of pain in her heart when he said that didn’t last but a second before it turned to feelings that Abby recognized as the same ones she’d had as a young girl. Hope and love, that’s what they were. The ache in her heart over her father’s death was a more permanent pain, one that only Mitch could ever really understand, because he had lost his parents, too. Of the two of them, Abby knew she was the “fortunate” one, because she had always had her mother’s love and she’d known her father’s love, as well, before his own acts changed him. Mitch had only had other people’s parents to truly love him.

And he’d also had Rex, Abby thought.

“And me,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She smiled up at him. “And your son will love me.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?”

“I have reason to believe,” she said with confidence, and then Abby ran ahead into her bedroom, pulling Mitch along with her.

Rex crouched beside the grave and laid a dozen white roses in front of the stone.

A new gravestone was on order. Abby was paying for it. She’d insisted, saying she had promised it to Sarah. It would have Sarah’s full name in big bold lettering, along with the dates of her birth and death. But it wouldn’t be ready for several weeks, and Rex couldn’t wait that long to come and say hello and good-bye.

“I guess I loved you, Sarah,” he told her.

Maybe Abby had been right. Maybe he had been stuck ever since Sarah’s death, but now that she was free, he thought maybe he could be, too.

“There’s a lot of cleaning up to do,” he told her.

His knees didn’t like crouching, so he stood up, took off his hat, and held it in his hands while he talked to her one more time. “Abby and Ellen have to clear up their dad’s estate and figure out what to do with the house. They’re hoping to be able to attract a young doctor to town to buy the house and Doc’s practice. Personally, I think they’ll give it away if they have to, just to make sure we have a physician around here.” He smiled a little. “They-Abby and Ellen-have this idea it should be a woman doctor.”

He shifted from one foot to the other.

“I guess you know the judge is dead. And your brother. Your worthless brother, if you don’t mind my saying so. Patrick thinks your brother was…” He stopped. “Oh, never mind. I suspect none of that worries you anymore, so I won’t, either. My mom says you’ve been good to my dad, although I can’t imagine why, so maybe you’ll want to know there won’t be any charges brought against him for covering everything up. Or against any of us, for that matter. The statute of limitations covers up a lot of things, too. And that poor sick girl took care of punishing Tom for what he did to you and other people.”

Rex didn’t like talking about that part of it, so he moved on.

“Mitch and Abby are back together again,” he announced, with pleasure. “I know you may have mixed feelings about that, since you were pretty hot for him, but I think it’s destiny, with them, I really do. Nobody else ever had a chance with either one of them. Oh, and Patrick’s left town, which I hope is as okay with you as it is with me and Abby. She’s convinced now that he tried to kill all of her birds. I guess we’ll never know for sure, but of course I think it sounds exactly like something my brother would do. I think Abby’s mostly embarrassed now that she ever had anything to do with him, but, hell, she was lonely, and it’s not like she could ever let herself fall for anybody but Mitch. Pat was just a poor substitute, because that’s all Abby ever had until Mitch came back.

“Speaking of whom-” Rex laughed. “You know his diabolical scheme to buy up downtown Small Plains? Turns out all he wanted to do was take it away from our fathers. I guess he had some nasty idea of letting the buildings go to hell, but I doubt he’d ever have been able to do it. Now he’s ready to move back and live here and bring the properties back up to lookin’ good. The mayor is thrilled, as you can imagine.”

He remembered something else he wanted to tell her.

“With Patrick gone, that leaves the ranch in a bind, and I’m thinking maybe I should get out of sherriffing and take over for my folks. I wouldn’t mind doing that. Hell, what am I saying, I’d love to do that. The only reason I didn’t do it earlier was because I didn’t want to have to work for my dad and be arguing with him all the time. But if he could trust Patrick to run it, he can sure as hell trust me.”

He revolved his hat in his hands for a moment, thinking.

“We’ll take care of Jeff for you, Sarah. I’m sorry we haven’t all done a better job of it until now. He’s living with my folks, I guess you know. It’s not the best arrangement. He’s too pigheaded and they’re too old. But it won’t last forever that way. I’m pretty sure Mitch intends to take him in, and once he and Abby get married, which they’re sure to do, then Jeff will finally have a home with people who actually give a damn about him. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do with that gun of his dad’s when he ran out of my folks’ house like that, but I shudder to think what could have happened. He was one hurt, angry kid, I’ll tell you, after what he had heard about Tom and Nadine. And what he had heard about you. I think he was heartbroken on your behalf, Sarah. I think he wanted to kill the son of a bitch who had done that to his mother.”

Rex took a deep breath, feeling upset all over again.

When he could talk calmly, he said, “About Jeff. I’ll try to be more patient. Be like an uncle, or something, although I can’t promise I’ll be any good at it. You don’t go from being the sheriff to being the uncle overnight, you know.”

Rex gazed off into the distance, over the flint-topped hills now turning green with summer ripeness. “Well, I guess that’s about it. I don’t know if you ever actually cured anybody. My mom says you did, but I don’t know. And I don’t know if people will continue to come out to see you, now that you’re not such a mystery anymore. But I’ll tell you one thing-even if nobody else ever really got a miracle, I think I’m cured, Sarah, which should be good news.” He grinned down at her gravestone. “God knows you must be sick of me still hanging around you after all these years.”

Out of a still, clear day, the wind suddenly picked up.

It bowed the grass in his direction, unaccountably lifting his spirits and making him think that maybe she hadn’t minded his devotion, after all.