She shook her head, then realized that the gesture could have more than one meaning. “No. I mean, that wasn’t why I was asking.” It hadn’t been a tactful question, she admitted, but surely, if he hadn’t been fired, there was no need for him to be so cold and curt about it.
He stared at her for one drawn-out moment, then bent to retrieve his bag. It had torn, and part of the contents had spilled out. He scooped up a bulky Swiss Army knife and a bottle of touch-up paint that was the color of his car and dropped them into his pocket.
“I don’t want you to lose your job, Spence.”
He didn’t seem to hear. He picked up a package of light bulbs and put it into what remained of the bag, then dropped a couple of fat green candles on top.
“You’ll break those bulbs,” Sharley warned.
“If they aren’t shattered from the fall already.” He tucked the bag under his arm. “Pardon me if I don’t stay here and listen to the rest of the lecture. I have other things to do.”
The door swung shut behind him. Sharley went back to her car and sat there for a long while, shaking.
For the last few days, school had provided her with some solace — a place to go, something to think of besides her own pain, physical activity to tire her body. But ahead of her lay a long and empty week, a week which should have held the happiest days of her life. If she ventured out, she might run into Spence again at any turn. If she stayed at home, she would have Charlotte’s solicitous care to deal with — and much as she loved her aunt, Sharley didn’t think her sympathy would be a lot of comfort. In either case, the whole town would be watching as she struggled through the hours when she should have been celebrating her wedding rehearsal, or dressing in that beautiful satin and lace gown, or greeting her guests at her reception...
Getting away from it all had never looked so good.
She would not go to the Bahamas, of course. Going alone to the resort where they should have started a new life together wouldn’t be any kind of comfort at all. But there were other places she could go.
She raised her head, as the answer came to her. She would go to the cabin. No one would ever dream of looking for her there.
The only really surprising thing was that it had taken Sharley so long to think of it. But then, the cabin in the woods was Martin’s; Charlotte did no more than tolerate the place. In fact, Sharley thought her aunt probably hadn’t set foot in the cabin for years, and the subjects of hunting, fishing, and camping so thoroughly bored his wife that Martin seldom even mentioned them.
Sharley, on the other hand, had gone with Martin a few times when she was in her teens. She had done her hunting with a pair of binoculars and declined to fish at all. She had loved that isolated spot in the woods, but in the last few years the timing never seemed to have been right for her to go back. Either Sharley was in school, or they were all off to some other place entirely, and somehow the cabin had dropped completely out of her mind.
But there, alone among the pines, she could think. She could cry if she needed to, and she could work things out. And if she was very lucky, she could find peace.
*****
Sharley felt like a world-class liar, but she told no one where she was actually going. When Charlotte offered to help choose which parts of her trousseau to take, Sharley declined with a smile, saying that she didn’t want her aunt to wear herself out. If Charlotte knew her niece was headed for an isolated clearing in the woods — alone — she’d have another stroke. Not telling her was a kindness.
When Libby commented on the fact that she hadn’t packed a swimsuit, Sharley said uncomfortably that she’d buy a new one when she got to the resort. It wasn’t really lying, she told herself. If she ever did get to the resort, she would want a new suit, because the daring little bikini she’d bought with Spence’s enjoyment in mind hardly seemed inviting now.
And when on Friday the weather forecast for the weekend began to look threatening, she explained to Charlotte that she didn’t want to take a chance of missing her connections, and reminded her that the little commuter airline out of Hammond’s Point sometimes didn’t get off the ground at all if it snowed. She would drive the two hours to the hub airport, she announced, stay overnight at a hotel nearby, and leave her car in the long-term parking lot.
Charlotte didn’t utter a word of protest. Perhaps, Sharley thought, she realized how unbearable things had gotten.
But the city limits were no sooner behind her than Sharley started to feel better. It was a three-hour drive up to the cabin, along a winding highway that was beautiful even at this bleak season of the year. She had music to listen to, and she had a comfortably-full basket of snacks that Libby had pressed on her as she said goodbye.
And once she had a chance to sort out her feelings, perhaps it would turn out that her own company wasn’t so bad after all. For the last week, she’d been starting to wonder if the self-pitying child she had become was going to be around forever.
By the time she reached the last little town, it was late afternoon, and the threat of a storm had grown to massive proportions. The sky was low and dark, and clouds rolled and tossed above her. Just as she pulled off the road at the small convenience store, a few raindrops hit the windshield with the force of falling rocks, and she shivered and hurried inside.
The proprietor, a plump little middle-aged woman, eyed Sharley warily. “What brings you up here in this kind of weather, Miss Collins?”
“Well, the natives don’t mind it, do they, Mrs. Harper?”
The woman sniffed. “Depends on which natives you’re talking about. Some of us would rather be in Texas. You aren’t going to stay in that old cabin, are you?”
Sharley shrugged. “Why not? It’s got everything I’ll need. That reminds me, may I use your telephone? This was a last-minute idea, so I haven’t called the caretaker to turn the heat on.”
The proprietor pushed the telephone across the counter.
Sharley fiddled with the buttons and added, “Actually, I forgot to ask Uncle Martin who’s taking care of the place now. Do you know?”
“Still Jake Baxter, I guess. It makes sense, with him living just a mile away. Otherwise somebody would have to go all the way out there from town just to keep an eye on the place.”
There was no answer at the Baxters’ number, and Sharley frowned. She could manage by herself, she supposed, but she wasn’t looking forward to struggling with the connections from the big old heating stove to the propane tank which fueled it. Besides, what about the water? It must have been turned off and the pipes drained for the winter. And who knew what other essential things she might overlook, without help? Was the electricity even turned on?
Maybe this isn’t such a bright idea after all.
Mrs. Harper had one eye on the front window, where raindrops rattled against the glass. “Are you sure you want to go all the way out there?”
Sharley nodded.
Mrs. Harper looked doubtful. “Well, then, you’d better get your supplies gathered up and get back on the road before it gets nasty. You’ve still got fifteen miles to drive, and the weather isn’t going to get any better. I’ll get on the CB radio and find Jake and send him over as quick as I can.”
“Thanks,” Sharley said with heartfelt relief. “You’re a love, Mrs. Harper.”
After she left the town, the road was mostly gravel, and Sharley took it slowly, cautious of the rocks rattling under her car. The wind was coming up, gusting so strongly at times that the car swayed under its force, and sheets of rain interfered with her vision and made it difficult to recognize the route. Her nerves were stretched to the limit by the time she reached the tiny track of a driveway, and she pulled in beside the cabin and sat still for a moment, happy just to be off the road.
She studied the direction of the falling rain and decided to maneuver the car around to the back of the cabin, where she would be a bit more sheltered, in order to unload.
She left everything in the car and went to open the door. Her k
ey turned slowly and hesitantly in the lock, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time, and she braced herself. Just how long had it been since Martin had come up here? Last autumn, Charlotte had been so ill that he hadn’t gone anywhere at all.
The cabin smelled a bit musty, but it was actually warm. Sharley was startled; she held her hands over the big old propane stove before she let herself believe that it was really running.
“Bless you, Mrs. Harper, you efficient soul,” Sharley said aloud. “You’re a miracle worker.” Citizens’ band radio or no, how had she managed to find Jake so quickly?
The big room was dim, and night was ruthlessly closing in by the time Sharley finished unloading her car. It took six trips, and she was regretting buying so much by the time she had finished carrying the boxes in. How much food could one person eat in a week, anyway?
Besides, the cabin was already better supplied than she had expected. “Probably from the last time Martin was here,” she mused, studying the canned goods on the shelves in the tiny kitchenette, which was tucked in the corner of the cabin’s main room. How long did cans keep food safe, anyway?
There was also a generous stack of firewood on the small back porch, where it was dry. That was a blessing. The rain had turned to sleet now, so she wouldn’t have gone out looking for the main woodpile.
She built a fire, and once it was roaring cheerfully she fixed herself a salad and an omelet and ate her meal with her feet propped on the coffee table and her plate balanced in her lap. The food was the first which had tasted good in a week. She thought once about the beef Wellington she should have been eating tonight at the rehearsal dinner, and then firmly put the memory out of her mind.
She was too exhausted to read and too relaxed to get up and look for something to occupy herself. It was enough of a relief not to have to keep her guard up, and to know that she might not even have to see or talk to a single soul for an entire week.
“What a blessing,” she muttered, and congratulated herself on a grand idea. She stared at the flames, almost hypnotized by the flickering light and the gentle hiss of the logs, until the fire died down. Then she put the screen carefully in place and went off to bed.
There were two bedrooms at the back of the cabin, with a tiny, compact bath tucked between them. Sharley chose the little room she had always used. Neither room was large or elegant, and it was comforting to be back in childhood surroundings.
The air in the bedroom was still chilly, for the stove and the fireplace in the main room were the only sources of heat in the cabin. “You could call it crisp, as a matter of fact,” she told herself as she dug a pair of pajamas out of her suitcase. Her teeth were almost chattering, and she left the door open and piled blankets on the bed.
Because she was so cold, sleep was long in coming, and she couldn’t help thinking of how she should have been spending this night. It should have been the last in her old room at the Hudson house. She would probably have been equally restless, looking forward to putting on that elegant satin and lace gown…
She had forgotten all about her gown. It was still at the dressmaker’s, where it had been waiting for her final fitting. Not that it mattered, of course; the bill had been paid long since. And what would she do with it, anyway? Hang it in the attic and make pilgrimages once a year on what would have been her wedding anniversary?
Where had she gone so wrong? Sharley had always considered herself to be a good judge of character; she didn’t have any trouble sizing up a classroom and knowing who the troublemakers were going to be. So why hadn’t she seen Spence’s flaws? It was true that she hadn’t dated him for long — it had seemed so obvious that they knew all they needed to about each other! — but surely in the few short months of their engagement there should have been signs of trouble to come. But she had not seen.
She shifted uneasily, and icy air licked around her body. She settled back into a little lump in the middle of the bed and considered.
She had always known Spence, or at least knew who he was — he was four years older than Sharley, but in a town the size of Hammond’s Point, everyone knew everyone. That was particularly true of Spence, since there was no one in town who didn’t know about his father — John Greenfield, the trusted and respected stockbroker who had turned out to be not so trustworthy or respectable after all. John Greenfield, who as the investigation closed around him and prosecution had become a certainty, had bought a piece of garden hose and taken his car out onto a lonely back road and inhaled carbon monoxide until he had called a halt to everything.
Yes, everyone in Hammond’s Point knew who Spence Greenfield was.
And any woman of sense, Sharley told herself as she turned restlessly under the mound of blankets, would have wondered if there was a taint in the family, as Charlotte had called it.
But no matter how hard she searched her memory, there was nothing. No hint of dishonesty or duplicity. No reason to doubt him.
And that’s how his father managed to pull off his scams for so long, too, Sharley reminded herself. Because he seemed to be so honest and so upstanding and so reliable...
But if Spence was like his father, why had he stayed in Hammond’s Point at all? Why hadn’t he started over in some other place, where his name was not infamous?
It had never occurred to Sharley before to ask that question. She had simply been glad that he had stayed — not for her own sake at first, but because she was happy that Martin had found such a good second-in-command.
She had hardly known Spence until that time. Since he was older, and she had gone out of town to college, there had been few occasions for them to meet. But once he was working for Hudson Products, she saw him regularly — at the office when she went in to see Martin, at the house when he came for dinner or stopped by with paperwork or paychecks to be signed. She found him likeable, and always interesting. But she didn’t really know when she had started noticing him as a man —a very attractive, very handsome, very sexy man — and wishing that he would notice her as a woman, not just as Martin Hudson’s niece. Sometime that autumn, she supposed, though she hadn’t known it herself until early December, on the night of the Hudson Products Christmas party.
Charlotte was not yet fully recuperated from her bout of pneumonia in the fall, but she insisted on making an appearance at the party. Neither Martin nor Sharley thought she was up to it, and so they were not surprised when she grew tired midway through the evening. “It’s a damned shame to drag you away too,” Martin said when he found Sharley on the dance floor to tell her it was time to go home. “But Charlotte’s exhausted, and if she tries to carry on, she’ll be back in the hospital next week.”
Sharley had immediately excused herself to her dance partner. But she had taken just a couple of steps toward the cloakroom when Spence intervened. “Does Mrs. Hudson really need Sharley’s attention, too?” he asked mildly.
Martin seemed startled. “No, I don’t suppose so.”
“Then I’ll see that Sharley gets home safely.”
Sharley turned to him in astonishment. She was perfectly capable of getting herself home, if it came to that; she didn’t have her car, but she had multitudes of friends, and there was a taxi service in Hammond’s Point. Still, it was thoughtful of him to notice, and to go to the trouble. “That’s very kind of you,” she began.
“It’s no trouble. It’s not at all out of my way.”
The dismissive remark stung a bit, and before Sharley stopped to think about it she said tartly, “And if it was a thousand miles?”
He looked down at her for one ages-long moment, and said quietly, “Then I’d happily do it anyway. And not for your uncle’s sake, either.”
There was something in those dark gray eyes — so suddenly sober and serious as he looked down at her, that made Sharley want to gasp for breath. If he put into words what his eyes were saying—
But all he said was, “Will you dance with me?”
And that was how it had started — with a dance, and a look,
and an evening which had been plain as punch suddenly turned to champagne, full of breathless bubbles. By the time the party ended and Spence took her home, Sharley knew that this was what she had been waiting for all autumn.
He had walked her to the front door and unlocked it for her, and handed back her key. But though she put her hand on the knob, she didn’t turn it. Was it only she who had felt the special zest in the air tonight? He had made no move to kiss her, or even to hold her hand as they walked to the house. This might be the only evening she would share with him, and she did not want it to end. But how long could she stand there, hoping?
“May I see you again?” he asked.
Sharley was afraid to let herself think he really meant it. He might have felt he had to say something, just to break the silence, and the words had been ordinary enough.
“I should say you could hardly avoid it, under the circumstances,” she said lightly.
A Singular Honeymoon Page 5