The Sooner the Better
Page 37

“I’ve grown up,” she added softly. “Dad and I write now—a couple of letters a week. His wife is a lovely, gentle woman, and his three sons are beautiful. I know you’d want him to be happy—that’s why I’m telling you this. He is. Happy for the first time in ages. He’s got a wonderful family and he’s made peace with his past. He still believes the war was wrong, but he deeply regrets his involvement with the bombing.”
She waited a few minutes and then brought up the subject she’d come here to talk to her mother about. “I’ve decided to put the house on the market,” she said. “I waited because…well, because it helped me deal with losing you and Jack. I might have continued to live here if Alberto hadn’t come down with strep throat last month. El Mirador doesn’t have a medical clinic, and Dad ended up taking Azucena and the baby into Mérida to see a doctor. By the time they got there, Alberto’s temperature was 106 and he had scarlet fever. He nearly died. The town needs a medical clinic and a trained medical professional. Do you realize what I’m saying, Mom? What I want to do?
“Alberto should have been on antibiotics much earlier, and he would have been if El Mirador had a clinic. Dad and I’ve written to each other about this several times now. I’m going to take the money from my inheritance and the sale of the house and use it to build a clinic in El Mirador. So many people want to help. Gary got Med-X to donate supplies, and even Group Wellness wants to contribute. If you don’t mind, I’m going to name the clinic after someone you never met, someone I’ve told you about. His name was Jack Keller.
“You probably wouldn’t have liked him,” she said, and smiled sadly. “In the beginning I didn’t, either, but I came to love him and in time you would have, too.”
Peace settled over her. An inner peace that told her she’d made the right decision. There was nothing more for her in Louisville. Her father, his wife and her three half brothers, all the family she had in the world, waited for her in a Mexican village on the Yucatán Peninsula. There she would build a lasting memorial to Jack. There she would make a new life for herself the way her father had all those years ago.
“Jack, Jack.” The six-year-old boy raced across the yard, rimed with autumn frost, to join Jack at the fence. They stood together watching a number of llamas graze contentedly in the pasture.
“How’s it going, Andy?”
“Good.” The boy was the spitting image of Jack’s friend and fellow mercenary, Tim Mallory. He leaped onto the bottom rung of the fence and folded his arms over the post. “Hey, you’re walking without your cane!”
“Yup.” His offhand response showed no hint of the massive effort and patience this accomplishment had required. Jack had lived in Texas with Murphy and Letty for nearly a year, using the time to recover his strength and learn to walk all over again. He’d never intended to stay that long, but his physical therapy had been extensive.
Recently Cain and his wife, Linette, had visited him from their cattle ranch in Montana and brought their two daughters with them. Cain’s girls were relatively close in age to Murphy’s boys, and the kids had gotten along famously. Cain had hoped for a Deliverance Company reunion, but Tim and Francine couldn’t get away. Their llama ranch on Vashon Island up in Washington State was thriving, and Tim Mallory had a small but growing herd.
When he could travel comfortably, Jack went to visit Tim and Francine himself. He’d originally planned to stay a couple of days, but found he enjoyed the view off Puget Sound. It reminded him of Mexico and the years he’d spent aboard Scotch on Water and those all-too-brief weeks with Lorraine.
“Mom says one day no one’ll know you used to walk with a cane,” Andy said. He rested his chin on the top of his hands and heaved a deep sigh.
“Hey, there’s Bubba!” the boy said next, pointing toward a llama at the far end of the pasture.
“Bubba?” Jack asked, grinning.
“Dad and him don’t get along very well, but I know he gives Bubba some extra feed every day.”
“Did you ask him why?”
“Yeah.”
“And what did he say?”
Andy shrugged. “That Bubba did him a favor once and he hasn’t forgotten it.”
Jack knew all about that favor. Six years ago, the very night Andrew Mallory was born, two hired assassins had paid a visit to Vashon Island. Their job had been to eliminate Tim and Francine. Unbelievably enough, the timely appearance of the big llama had been a lifesaving intervention.
“What else did your mother say?” Jack asked. “About my walking, I mean.” At one time Francine had been the best physical therapist on the West Coast. She’d been in charge of his rehabilitation from the beginning.
“She said—” Andy paused and let out a slow breath “—it would take longer for your heart to get better. Did your heart get hurt when you fell off the cliff, Uncle Jack?” He turned and regarded Jack quizzically.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s difficult to explain.” Jack didn’t want to talk about Lorraine and, in fact, hadn’t. Not to Murphy or Tim or their wives. But that didn’t mean she was ever far from his thoughts. Although it’d been a year and a half, not a day passed that he didn’t think of her.
Bits of memory came to him at the oddest times, often when he was least prepared to deal with them. He couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her once she’d returned to the States.
Was she happy? Had she told her husband about him? How had Gary Franklin reacted? Had she forgotten him and gone on to have the baby she’d wanted so badly, badly enough to mention to Dr. Berilo’s nurse? The thought of Lorraine with a child wrenched his heart. Only recently had he come to realize how much he wanted children himself. It was seeing his friends with their sons and daughters….
“Is Andy talking your ear off?” Tim joined him at the fence.
“Hardly.” Jack enjoyed the boy’s company and his energetic bursts of conversation.
“Some pretty freakish weather going on around the country,” Tim said, glancing up at the sky, which was a clear bright blue with clusters of high clouds.
“Looks downright perfect to me,” Jack murmured. In fact, he liked Washington and had given some consideration to purchasing a few acres here himself. Somewhere near the water. Early on, in a moment of pain, he’d sold Scotch on Water. He’d done it knowing he’d never be able to sleep on the boat again and not think of Lorraine. Little did he realize then that he wouldn’t be able to sleep anywhere and not think of her.
“The weather here seems fine,” Jack said.
“I’m talking about what happened in Louisville, Kentucky.”
“Louisville?” Lorraine and Gary lived in Louisville.
“You didn’t hear?”
“No.” It required an effort to conceal his interest.
“Tornadoes in the area. They’ve done a lot of damage to the city. The news is full of pictures.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe a storm could cause so much destruction.”
“How many people were killed?”
“Five so far, but they’re sure to discover more bodies in the next day or two.”
“That’s a lot,” Andy inserted.
“It wasn’t just one part of the city, either,” Tim continued. “From what the newscaster said, quite a few neighborhoods were affected. Crazy how one house’ll be leveled to the ground, while the house across the street is untouched.”
That night, Jack stayed up late and watched the news reports for himself. Afterward he couldn’t sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, Lorraine was there, and when he did manage to drop off, his dreams were filled with her. In one, he was searching but couldn’t find her. Her voice grew weaker, more plaintive and urgent. Then he saw her, buried under a huge pile of rubble. No matter how hard he dug, how frantic his attempts, he couldn’t reach her. He awoke in a cold sweat.
By the time dawn swept over the pasture and the nearby water, bringing the bright crisp sunshine of November, Jack had packed his bags and booked a flight out of Sea-Tac for Louisville.
“You’re leaving?” Francine said as she poured him a cup of coffee.
Jack took his first restorative sip and nodded.
“Any particular reason?” Tim asked. He secured the straps of his coveralls and retrieved a mug from the kitchen shelf.
“Yes,” Jack said. He didn’t elaborate. He caught husband and wife exchanging a look.
“Is it important?” Francine asked. She buttered toast and piled it on a platter.
“Yes.” Her questions were a subtle way of telling him it might not be a good idea to take on too much just yet. After all this time, he was still as weak as one of Tim’s newborn llamas. He was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
“Where are you going?” Tim pried. “Kentucky?”
Jack was surprised he’d been that readable. “What if I am?”
Tim and Francine sat next to each other, across the table from him. “Is she there?” Francine asked.
No one outside of Mexico knew about Lorraine—and yet they all seemed to know. Jack couldn’t figure it out.
Both husband and wife waited for his response. “I don’t know where she is now, but I suspect it’s Louisville,” he said grudgingly.
“And you’re going to find out,” Tim announced with finality, as if this would be the romantic conclusion they’d all been expecting.
While Jack hated to shatter their illusions, he thought he’d better do so. “I just want to make sure she’s okay. That she doesn’t need anything.”
“You’ll talk to her, won’t you?”
“No,” he insisted.
“Why not?” Tim asked.
“Because then I’d probably have to talk to her husband.”
That shut the two of them up, Jack noticed. He should have set the record straight a lot sooner.
Jack flew out of Sea-Tac that morning and landed in Louisville four hours later. Luckily the airport hadn’t sustained any damage. It took him forty-five minutes to secure a rental car and locate his hotel. Once he’d checked into his room, he pulled open the nightstand drawer and found a Louisville telephone directory.
“Gary Franklin,” he muttered as he opened the white pages to the Fs and ran his finger down the columns until he came to the listing. Only one G. Franklin. Lorraine had mentioned her husband’s name just once, but it had stayed in Jack’s mind. He’d repeated it often, reminding himself that this was the man who loved her and waited for her at home.
Grabbing a pad and paper, Jack wrote down the address. He’d been serious when he told Tim and Francine that he had no intention of speaking to Lorraine. None. But for his own peace of mind, he needed to know she was unhurt.
Exhausted from the long flight, Jack knew he would’ve been well advised to wait until the following day before venturing into the city’s neighborhoods. But he’d never been a patient man, and the storm had heightened his anxiety.