Over His Head. Carolyn McSparren

been just as furious with him.

      Yet when the police came to tell him she was dead, he’d felt as though his heart had been torn out of his body. He grieved for what they had been to each other, for the love they had shared. The love they might have found again had she lived. A marriage, even a marriage gone bad, must be grieved.

      The children missed her, loved her, but they also hated her for abandoning them. Jason and Angie’s rebellions were a form of acting out the unhappiness they felt. Didn’t make them any easier to endure.

      Nobody expected to be touched by sudden violence. No, not touched—struck, bashed, torn apart. His children had been secure in a stable environment. Then, suddenly, that security was ripped away.

      Tim pulled into the parking lot of the Collierville supermarket, took a parking space, turned off his ignition and simply sat.

      He’d been so certain his goals were Solange’s goals, too. Work long hours to gain a more prestigious position to make more money.

      Looking back, he saw that she needed him then, and not at some future date when he could afford to relax a little.

      But he’d never had the chance to tell her.

      He climbed out of the SUV, went into the grocery, took a cart and wandered through the unfamiliar aisles trying to remember what he said he’d buy for the house. What was the only kind of shampoo Angie would use? What kind of cereal did Eddy want? He should have made a list.

      Tim picked up two dozen eggs. The kids were getting pretty sick of pizza, and he could make a great omelet.

      His basket overflowed with microwave meals.

      He checked his watch at the checkout line. He’d been gone three hours. It was after eleven. But in an unfamiliar house, Angie and Jason might be up and causing God-knows-what havoc.

      He had remembered the extra half-gallon of orange juice for Nancy to replace the one he and Eddy had downed.

      The orange juice gave him an excuse to see Nancy again. Among other things, he wanted to speak to her about those Halliburton people, to find out what he could do to make amends for kicking them out.

      Before yesterday, when he’d literally run into her, he would have sworn he didn’t have any libido left. He’d almost forgotten how soft a woman felt.

      He turned into the driveway of his new house. From the outside, all seemed serene. The inside looked serene, too. Apparently Jason and Angie weren’t even aware that he and Eddy had been gone, that the Sheriff had visited. His note lay untouched on the kitchen counter. He made half a dozen trips to carry in the groceries and found a place for them. He tried to recreate Solange’s system, but this kitchen was gigantic compared to the galley kitchen in their Chicago apartment.

      To get to the pantry, he had to edge between the boxes still to be unpacked. He’d tried to label each one, but after a while, he’d run out of steam, so at the moment he wasn’t certain where the coffeemaker was hidden. He definitely needed caffeine.

      He settled for a glass of milk.

      He’d forgotten to pick up a Saturday newspaper. He’d have to call the subscription desk to arrange service, assuming they delivered this far out in the country. He took his milk into the empty living room—well, empty of everything except the randomly arranged furniture—and sank into the love seat in front of the bow window overlooking the porch.

      He believed in writing To-Do lists, but at the moment his day-planner was buried somewhere among the boxes. He’d have to rely on his memory. Never a good idea, but he didn’t even know where he could find a pen and a piece of scrap paper.

      First, call his rental agent and find out about the Halliburtons. Then call them himself, and see if he could do anything to mend fences.

      Next, check in at Maybree. With only a few weeks until school started, the office staff might be working on Saturday. His first staff meeting was scheduled for eight-thirty Monday morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to seem eager.

      He’d already sent the Maybree secretary a notice asking how he should go about hiring a housekeeper. She’d posted it on the staff bulletin board, but he didn’t know yet if she’d had any queries. He’d check on Monday.

      If the school couldn’t help, then he’d insert the ad he’d already written into the local papers. He wanted someone who knew the area. He also doubted anyone would be willing to make the commute from Memphis five days a week.

      At some point, he’d wake his two older children and get them to help unpack.

      He was reaching for the phone when out the window he saw a big crew cab pickup that had seen better days—much better days, as a matter of fact—roll up across the lane. It was towing a large open-sided stock trailer. Behind it another truck—this one a big professional hauler—pulled up towing a flatbed trailer.

      One man climbed out of each truck. They moved so precisely in unison they seemed to be performing a well-rehearsed dance.

      Each wore a pristine white T-shirt under equally pristine and well-pressed bib overalls. Each wore a broad-brimmed straw Stetson on top and a pair of shiny brown work boots on the bottom. Still in unison they pulled on heavy work gloves.

      They were probably in their early sixties, although they might be anywhere from fifty to eighty. From the way their biceps stretched the cotton fabric of their T-shirts, he suspected they’d be able to handle a herd of buffalo.

      As they turned their brown and craggy faces toward his house, he noticed they both wore perfectly trimmed white beards. Tim laughed. Twins. Tweedledum and Tweedledee grown middle-aged and transplanted from Wonderland to West Tennessee.

      He wondered what they were doing across the street, so he kept watching.

      One walked around to the back of the stock trailer, opened the double doors and stepped back.

      Two immense gray draft horses backed out of the trailer and stood quietly. Both wore heavy work harnesses. Even at this distance Tim could see each harness was shiny with fresh oil.

      The twins each took a horse and attached some sort of pulling apparatus. Then they walked up Nancy’s lawn and disappeared around her house. The horses followed without lead line or direction.

      Tim had never seen horses that big. When he was a kid visiting in the summer, his grandfather had kept a couple of mules to plow his garden, but they looked like miniature donkeys compared to these big guys. The twins must be nearly as tall as he was, but their horses dwarfed them.

      He was considering whether to trail along after them to find out what they were doing, when he heard a clatter from the staircase to the second floor.

      “Daddy! Did you see?” Angie slid on the wood floor and caught herself on the back of the sofa. “Horses!” She raced to stand at his shoulder. “Where’d they go? Can we follow them?”

      “Is your brother up?”

      She grabbed his hand and pulled. “Jason? No way. Come on!”

      He looked at the light in her eyes, a light he hadn’t seen in much too long. Taking her outstretched hand, he let her pull him up from the window seat and followed her gallop at a more sedate pace.

      Before he reached the lane, she was pelting across Nancy’s lawn like an ordinary kid. “Angie, wait up!” he called after her. If she heard him, she didn’t slow down to wait for him. He jogged after her and saw her reach the men and their rigs halfway across Nancy’s back pasture.

      “Hey, young’un,” said one of the men. “Whoa-up, Henry, Herb.” The two horses stopped and stood quietly.

      Angie froze. He saw her mouth gape in awe as she realized for the first time that what she’d thought were ordinary horses were in reality gray giants larger than any she’d ever seen in her life.

      Tim put his hand on her shoulder. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Tim Wainright and this is my daughter, Angie. Sorry to have bothered you,