Stranger At The Crossroads. Gena Dalton

before he spoke.

      “No.”

      They reached the house and went up the two low steps. Jackson held open the door into the screened-in back porch. Darcy walked ahead of him into a large, square kitchen.

      “I’ve got lemonade, Coke, Dr. Pepper, bottled water…”

      Darcy stood still, looking around in amazement. An iron cookstove that burned wood filled a brick-lined corner of the room. A huge worktable was in its center. Old pie safes and cupboards stood in strategic spots. There were no counters, no built-in cabinets at all.

      “This is like walking into a time warp!”

      “No,” Jackson said, throwing the words over his shoulder as he crossed the room, “there’s a refrigerator and a microwave. And a toaster.”

      There were. And stacks of paper plates and cups on one end of the worktable.

      “And I assume no dishwasher, either,” Darcy said lightly.

      He paused at the door of the kitchen, but not to respond to her teasing.

      “Bathroom’s that way,” he said abruptly, gesturing to the right.

      “Thanks. I’m just grateful that you have one.”

      He didn’t pick up on that small effort to be humorous, either.

      “I’ll make a couple of calls while you wash up.”

      His tone said that was all the polite small talk he could take right now. He disappeared into the depths of the house. Darcy heard a door close.

      She followed his path into a narrow hallway, turned right and found the bathroom. It was nearly as fascinating as the kitchen, with its single, columnar sink and huge, claw-footed tub that had also been rigged to serve as a shower.

      As in the kitchen, everything was clean. Only a razor with shaving supplies, a toothbrush on a shelf near the sink and a towel hanging crookedly on a rack testified to the fact that somebody lived there.

      Maybe he was the outdoor kind who hated to be inside under a roof. He probably spent most of his time with his cattle and horses—she had vaguely noticed several nice-looking ones in a pasture and some in a pen nearer the barn.

      Maybe his life contained only the bare necessities because he didn’t care about anything more. Maybe he deliberately worked himself into a stupor outside all day and came inside only to collapse and sleep.

      Exactly the same life as hers.

      She realized that with a shock. Her house might seem homier than his because of the furnishings she’d chosen in happier days, but the way she lived in it was totally debilitating and controlled by hopeless regrets. She’d lived that way for a year and a half.

      Only today, after all that time, had she discovered how refreshing it could be to forget about loss even for a short, short while.

      That sudden thought made her feel disloyal. She wasn’t forgetting about her darling son and her husband. Not at all. She could never forget them.

      Quickly, to distract herself, she washed her hands again, very thoroughly, took a clean towel from a stack on a small table by the window and dried them. She hurried toward the kitchen.

      A door down the hall remained closed. She assumed that was Jackson’s bedroom. The open, arched doorway across from the kitchen gave her a glimpse of the living room.

      She stopped and looked in. It had the same old-fashioned, unused feel as the kitchen. A large stone fireplace was centered on one wall, with several pieces of well-made leather furniture, their cushions shaped by age and much use, facing it. The longest sofa had a pillow propped against one arm and a quilt thrown across the back.

      On the opposite wall, looking as incongruous as the big refrigerator did in the kitchen, an ancient oak table held some very expensive-looking stereo equipment. CDs, their plastic jewel cases catching the sunlight from the windows, were everywhere—in stacks on the table on the floor, on the seat of a chair.

      It was the same as a wall of full bookcases in an acquaintance’s house. Or the tack room of a stranger’s barn. How could anyone resist such a true glimpse into someone else’s personality?

      Darcy walked in and picked up the case on top of the stack in the chair. Muddy Waters. She rifled through the stack quickly, struck by the wide range of choices and the fact that they mixed time and genres as did the furnishings in his house. Delbert McClinton, Jimmie Rodgers, Doug Sahm, David Ball, Howling Wolf, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Bill Monroe. Jerry Garcia’s short-lived band, Old and In The Way.

      Lots of blues. Lots of high, lonesome sound.

      “You find a cold drink?”

      Darcy jumped and dropped an Emmylou Harris, which clattered onto the pile.

      Jackson stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb with one gloved hand. His blue eyes were intent on her, but he didn’t look angry that he’d found her pawing through his things.

      “Not yet,” she said, holding his gaze. “I got distracted looking at your music.”

      He didn’t answer. He just kept looking at her.

      Something about his still regard made her say it.

      “One time I heard an interview with Emmylou Harris and she said her husband asked her why she always chose sad songs to sing.”

      “What reason did she give?”

      “I don’t remember. I just remember thinking that it was true and that I hadn’t noticed it before.”

      “Most songs are sad,” he said. “Did you ever think about that?”

      She shook her head.

      A trace of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He really did have beautiful lips.

      “It’s a fact,” he said.

      “I’ll think about it,” she said.

      Finally, he turned away.

      “If there’s something there you like, bring it along,” he said, over his shoulder. “Might as well get Stranger started out right instead of letting him hear that pap on the radio.”

      That made her smile.

      “Good idea,” she said, as she hastily made three or four selections. “After all, we don’t want him to lose his will to live.”