“I can’t argue with that,” Carol said. She leaned back and relaxed. It was early in the day, but damn it, she could use a nap!
Meredith relaxed in her chair. “Ted didn’t want me to come here today.”
No shit.
“If I’d heard about your fall sooner, I would’ve come right away.” She smiled. “If Ted knew that, he never would’ve mentioned your accident to me.”
Against her best instincts, Carol liked Ted Parsons’s wife. She never would’ve thought that possible. “He and I didn’t get off to the best start,” she admitted. “I imagine he’s happy to see me suffer.”
“Oh, it’s not that,” Meredith said sharply, firing up in her husband’s defense. “Ted can be difficult, I know, and he always thinks his way is the best way because he’s had to fight for what he has. But he would never purposely harm a soul. He doesn’t like seeing you, or anyone else, in pain.”
Carol wasn’t so sure about that.
“I wish he and your niece could get along. He was so upset yesterday after that business over the gas. I don’t think he slept a wink last night.”
Carol didn’t say anything. This woman knew Ted and his faults as well as anyone, she imagined.
Meredith sighed. “He can be difficult, I admit it. It’s— He needs to feel important. It’s the way he grew up, in foster care. He never felt as if he mattered to anyone. He had to fight for everything he got, and to this day he can be downright unpleasant to people who he thinks are belittling him. He’s very protective of me. Always has been, but especially since my heart attack ten years ago.”
Carol sat up a little. “You had a heart attack?”
Meredith waved off Carol’s concern. “Yes, but it’s no big deal.”
“A heart attack most definitely is a big deal.”
“My doctors say I’m fit as a fiddle. I recovered nicely, but Ted has never believed it. I think he’s always watching me, waiting for the next one to hit without warning. As I said, he’s very protective, much more so than is necessary. If he had his way I’d stay inside until things are back to normal. He tried to talk me out of coming here today, though of course he knew he was going to lose that argument.” She laughed a little. “The secret is in spoiling him a little, then he gives in. When I let him know I wasn’t changing my mind, he drove me down. He was coming down anyway, to see someone. Mike somebody, I think?”
“Mike Kilgore?”
“Yes, that’s it. Usually Ted walks into the valley, but he drove today because he won’t let me make the trip on foot.” She laughed. “I could make it down the mountain, but I’m not so sure about making it back up, so he was right about that part.”
Huh. Teddy had a good quality that Carol hadn’t expected. He loved his wife.
“Are you still taking pain medication?” Meredith asked, changing the subject abruptly. “Barb told me you were taking some of her leftover pills.”
“I quit taking them yesterday.”
Meredith nodded. “Good. Next time I come down I’ll bring a bottle of wine, and we’ll break it open after your session.” Her eyes sparkled, and she gave a mischievous grin.
Wine. Oh, that would be better than the pain pills! She wasn’t much of a drinker, so they didn’t have a single bottle in the house, but right about now . . .
She leaned back against the pillows and grinned. “Meredith, I believe you and I are going to be great friends.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
After Ted dropped Meredith at Carol Allen’s house—he knew he was going to regret giving in, but Meredith’s good heart was one of the reasons he loved her—he drove slowly down Myra Road. He wasn’t in a hurry to get where he was going, and the patches of snow gave him a reason to creep along. He dreaded what he had to do. He didn’t have a choice, but still, basically admitting to Kilgore that he’d been a fool wasn’t going to be easy.
Finding the Kilgore house was easy: Mike’s truck with Kilgore Plumbing on the side, the one he’d been driving the day Ted had stopped him on the road, was parked in the driveway.
Ted pulled to the curb, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment, looking around and postponing the inevitable. The Kilgore house was small but neat, a simply designed blue-gray ranch-style with a decent-sized front porch. There were two rocking chairs on that porch, arranged on either side of a small table with a clay pot and a dead plant sitting on it. In better times, that plant would be well tended. There might be cups of coffee or iced tea, maybe a beer or two, sitting on that table. These were not better times.
The dusting of snow on the ground kind of made him homesick for Ohio, though he was glad he was here and not there. There wasn’t enough snow for snowmen, but likely more than a few snowballs would be thrown. The little bit of snow that had fallen was pretty, though. He always looked forward to coming here in the winter, and often hoped to be snowed in.
It snowed plenty in Ohio, but it was never as pretty as it was here, in the mountains and in the valley.
He knew what he had to do, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. Maybe in the past couple of months he’d pushed too hard, at times—in the name of survival, in an effort to make sure he and Meredith made it through this crisis. His frustration had gotten the best of him more than once, but his intentions had always been good.
The road to hell . . . Yeah. Exactly.
Ted took a deep breath and opened the car door. This wasn’t going to get any easier while he sat, so he might as well get it over with. Damn it, not everything he’d done had been wrong! Still, the mistake he’d made—trusting someone like Lawrence—was a doozy.
Mike opened his front door and came out on the porch when Ted was halfway across the yard. The expression on the plumber’s face was one of thinly veiled annoyance, likely because of the altercation with Sela Gordon yesterday. Ted imagined she’d have to commit murder or something like that before any of the valley people would take his side over hers. Mike likely expected him to raise hell and cause trouble—and trouble was exactly what Ted was bringing, just not the way Mike expected.
“Kilgore,” Ted said in way of greeting, as he walked up the porch steps.
“Parsons,” Mike responded.
Ted stopped a couple of feet from the door, planting his feet and steeling his resolve. He didn’t much like the taste of crow. “I have some important information, and I wasn’t sure who to take it to.”
Mike’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “And I won?”
It was tempting to give up here and now, to turn around and walk away. He and Meredith could hole up in their house for a while, if they had to. He didn’t have to participate in the community patrol or in Lawrence’s less-than-legal attempts at forming an alternate organization. Alternate, hell, make that criminal organization. There were lots of folks in the area, and elsewhere, who kept to themselves and focused on one thing: getting by. He could do the same.
But it was too late for that. If Lawrence and his gang of meth heads had their way, no one in Wears Valley would be safe.
Ted sighed and met Mike’s gaze. “We have a problem.”