Fallen Hearts (Casteel 3)

Logan remained constantly at Tony's side, looking more and more as if he, and not Troy, were his younger brother. I was proud of him, proud of the way he conversed with people, and proud of the affection and comfort he was able to give to Tony.

Jillian's two sisters and brother didn't arrive until the morning of the funeral. As soon as they came to Farthy, Tony got up from his chair and took them directly into his office to show them Jillian's will and make it very clear that they weren't going to leave with any inheritance. He took the wind out of their sails of greed, gathering some pleasure from their gloomy faces of disappointment. Afterward, he told me this was something Jillian would have loved to have seen.

"They were always jealous of her," he explained, "especially her two sisters. They were so plain and homely looking it was no wonder they couldn't attract a man. They became so sour and so bitter, Jillian hated to be in their company. They never even informed her they had put her mother into a home until months after they had done it."

The elegant Boston church was packed for the funeral; there were even people standing in the rear by the door. Afterward, the funeral procession of fancy automobiles and high society that inched along the highway to the cemetery reminded me of the parade of people who had come to Logan's and my wedding reception. When I looked back at the way these people greeted one another, the men dressed in expensive suits, the women in costly dresses, bedecked in rich jewels, I couldn't help but compare them to people in the Willies at the burial of their own poor and distraught, their faces cloaked in gloom, as they stood by and watched one of their young 'uns or old ones lowered into the earth.

As poor and as unsophisticated as the people in the Willies were, they felt sorrow for one another in a way that suggested they were all of one family. Perhaps all the hardships, all the struggles tied them so tightly together that it was impossible for them to come to the funeral of one of their neighbors, whether he be young or old, and not feel as though one of their own had passed on.

Afterward, they would return to their own shacks to ponder their own fragile, vulnerable existence. Death had a freer hand in the Willies; there was less resistance. Being poor made them weak. And yet, I thought, how foolish these rich people were to move about with such arrogance. Did they have no feelings, no empathy? Jillian's death should have put in their hearts the same kind of cold fear as was put in the hearts of the people in the Willies to see one of their own, a woman as rich and as protected as Jillian, so easily claimed by death.

I stood by Tony's side and held his arm as they lowered Jillian's coffin into her grave, and I thought about Troy's plea in his final letter to me to give Tony enough comfort for both of us. His hand tightened around mine, but he did not weep openly. I felt him shudder and then we all turned to leave the cemetery.

"Well," he said stiffly, "now she's finally at peace. Her stru le is over."

Neither Logan nor I said anything more. We all got into the limo and Miles drove us back to Farthy. Rye Whiskey had prepared some hot food, but Tony ate little. He left the mourners and went to his suite to sleep and it remained for Logan and me to greet, entertain, and finally say good-bye to people.

One of the mourners who came to pay her respects was a girlfriend of mine from the

Winterhaven School, Amy Luckett, who had been the friendliest to me of all the rich, arrogant, and snotty girls who made my life miserable there. Amy wasn't married. She had been traveling a great deal through Europe and had only recently returned. She promised to come to Farthy in a day or two to visit. I thanked her; she was one of the last to leave.

"Tired?" Logan asked me when we were finally alone

"Yes.'

'Me, too." He put his arm around my shoulders. 'You go up," I said. "I'll be right along."

"Don't be long," he said and left me. I went outside to get a breath of air before going up to our suite. It was that time of the day Granny used to call the gloaming. Darkness had fallen; most of the natural world was preparing to sleep. I looked off at the maze and thought about Troy, wondering where he had gone and what he was thinking at this moment. Somehow, I was sure his thoughts were of me. My thoughts were interrupted when Miles drove the limo up front. Curtis appeared at the front door with two suitcases and Martha Goodman followed him out of the house.

"Oh, Martha," I called, walking over to her. "I had forgotten you were leaving tonight." I took her hand and then we embraced. "Where will you go now?"

"Oh, the employment agency has already offered me another position in Boston. I'll write to let you know where I am and maybe sometime when you are in the city . . ."

"Oh, of course. I'll take you to lunch," I offered. She nodded, smiling,and then her face saddened.

"I knocked on Mr. Tatterton's door to say goodbye, but he never responded. You'll tell him for me, please."

"I will. Take good care of yourself, Martha," I said. We kissed and she started for the car. Then she paused and turned back to me.

"That piano music," she said. "It wasn't in Mrs. Tatterton's imagination and it wasn't in mine, was it?" We stared at each other for a long moment.

"No, Martha," I finally said. "It was real." She nodded and went on to the limo. I watched it drive away and then I went inside to go up to Logan.

It was that night that I learned that a man and a woman sometimes make love out of a need to comfort each other, and not only out of sexual passion and desire. Logan was already in bed when I arrived. I prepared myself for sleep and got into my sheer nightgown. As soon as I got in beside him he put his arm around me and kissed me. I pressed my face against his shoulder and chest and began to weep. It was true I was weeping for Jillian and for Tom and for Troy, and for all the people I had loved and lost, but I think most of all I was weeping for myself, and even for Logan.

I was weeping for that little girl in the Willies, that wide-eyed, blue-eyed girl who had been forced to grow up too quickly, who had been forced to be a mother to her younger brother and sister and who had seen even that hard, often overwhelming life torn apart by the devastating sale of her brothers and sisters to other families. I was weeping for that yet innocent child victimized by the insanely jealous Kitty Dennison and then befriended and seduced by her husband, Cal. I thought that would be all the love and tenderness there could be for me and was so confused as to mourn the loss of it at first. Most of all, I was weepy for Troy, for the love I should have been able to claim as mine forever.

Logan kissed away my tears the way Troy had and I found myself kissing him back. I needed to be loved. I needed to be reassured and to know that I was alive and that I was cherished. Every kiss, every caress, built the foundation of my fortress of faith in the future. I didn't want loneliness and sorrow. I wanted an end to tears. I wanted to feel something other than sadness, and I knew that through the act of lovemaking I could do that.

I could make my body feel alive; I could make it tingle and send thrilling electricity up and down my spine until the very tips of my fingers sang. I wanted Logan to kiss me everywhere, to touch me everywhere. No part of me was to be left out; it was to be a complete surrender of myself to the ecstasy of our lovemaking. My demands excited him and made him more passionate than he had ever been. I knew the intensity of my kisses surprised him, and he was surprised by how hard and how long I held on to him.

But I couldn't control my urgent need. Our lovemaking was so intense that after it ended, neither of us could speak right away.

"Heaven," he finally said, putting his hand on my shoulder, "there is something . ."

"Shh," I told him. "Don't break the spell," I said. I wanted only to turn over and drift into a deep, peaceful sleep. I did. I barely heard him say good night. My eyelids shut and darkness came thundering down like a heavy black curtain falling with the weight of stones to punctuate the end of a

performance.