by Lisa Jackson
“Never again,” she vowed, and wondered why that horrid thought scraped the bottom of her soul.
* * *
THE HUGE SUMMER house looked like a tomb. Inside, it was cold and dark. Flooding the house with electric light didn’t add an ounce of warmth. Compared to Nadine’s small cabin, filled with the scents of banked fires, meals once cooked, fresh coffee and Nadine’s perfume, this rambling old summer home came up short. Big and beautiful, it was like every other object in his father’s life: ostentatious and frigid.
Her cabin had been cluttered with shoes left on the back porch, jackets hung on pegs near the door, bicycles propped against the garage and afghans tossed carelessly over the arms of the couch and backs of chairs in the small living room. Cozy. Warm. Lived-in. Loved.
There had been life in that small cabin and, of course, there had been Nadine. He remembered her as she’d answered the door, still damp from the bath, her wet hair curling around her face, her robe allowing him a provocative glimpse of her skin.
“Hell,” he ground out. The walls of the house seemed to close in on him. He considered a drink, but it was still hours before noon. Besides, the last time he’d had a drink he’d ended up at Nadine’s house making love to her.
Spoiling for a fight, he whistled to Leo and walked back to his Jeep. He’d forget her by throwing himself into the problem at hand: what to do with the damned mills.
He didn’t want to think what he was going to do with her.
He drove like a demon, hoping that speed would dull his need of her, hoping to shove all thoughts of her from his mind. He would spend a few hours with the books in his father’s old office, then he’d walk through the sheds and talk to some of the employees, get a real feel for this cog in the operation of the chain of sawmills that were spattered around the state as well as in southern Oregon. He planned on visiting each individual operation, and this was as good a time as any. If he timed it right, the trip would take about two weeks, hardly long enough to get Nadine Warne out of his system, but a damned good start.
She’d made it clear how she felt about him, and he wasn’t going to try and change her mind. He’d never forced himself upon a woman and didn’t intend to start now, no matter how much his body wanted her. Shifting down, he took a corner too fast, eased up on the throttle and managed to round the hairpin curve and keep the Jeep in once piece. “You’ve got it bad, Monroe,” he told his reflection in the rearview mirror. He’d never had to chase a woman down and charm her into his bed. More often than not, he was the one who’d been seduced. No woman had seemed worth the trouble and challenge.
No woman except Nadine.
But she was out of his life.
Forever.
CHAPTER NINE
HAYDEN WAS GONE. His Jeep wasn’t parked in the drive, the old dog had disappeared, an answering machine, its red light already blinking, was hooked up to the telephone in the den and the sleeping bag he’d flung over the bed in the master bedroom was missing. He’d left. Without a word.
Nadine frowned to herself. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? A life without Hayden. She’d told him as much. So why should she feel any sense of depression? She usually wasn’t a person to dwell on her mistakes, but she’d spent the remainder of her weekend thinking about Hayden and all the ramifications of making love to him. She’d kicked herself for not considering all of the problems that might arise before she’d tumbled into bed with him, but what was done was done, and now she had to live with the consequences.
Still, she felt a deep disappointment that he’d left. True, that without him her work would be easier; she could finish cleaning the old house more quickly and she wouldn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of facing him again. Yet she was frustrated. No doubt about it. She’d put a little extra care into choosing her work clothes, fixing her hair and applying her makeup, silent testimony to the fact that she did care about him, if only just a little.
She spent the day finishing her intense cupboard-by-cupboard cleaning of the kitchen, then stripped all the floors. The stain in the foyer where Hayden had kicked over her bucket and some polish had spilled took hours of elbow grease. The telephone had rung several times while she was working, but she’d ignored it, and the answering machine had always clicked on. She hadn’t heard the messages as she’d always been in another part of the house, but as she flung her jacket over her arm and picked up her supplies to leave, the telephone jangled again. This time she was near the den and couldn’t help but overhear the one-sided conversation.
“Hayden?” A female voice asked, and then paused. “You there? It’s me again. Wynona.”
Nadine’s heart seemed to slam through the floor.
“Hayden? If you’re there, pick up,” Wynona commanded. A few tense seconds of silence. “Great.” Another pause followed by a lengthy sigh. “There’s no reason to avoid me. You can’t. You owe me.” Nadine sagged against the wall, and Wynona’s voice turned wheedling. “We’ve been through a lot together, baby. Let’s not fight now. Give me a call. I’ll be home all night, waiting to hear from you.” After a few seconds, she clicked off, and Nadine, unaware that she’d been holding her breath, expelled the air in her lungs in a rush.
So Hayden was still involved with Wynona Galveston. Nadine’s stomach soured at the thought, but she told herself not to jump to conclusions. The call was ambiguous and could mean anything. Besides, it didn’t matter; Nadine had no claim to Hayden’s affections or his attention. Just because they spent one night of lovemaking together… She let out a little strangled sound and then mentally kicked herself. She wasn’t a simpering, love-besotted female, and she had lived long enough to accept that humans were sexual creatures. Her night with Hayden was either an act of rebellion or sexual fantasy, but it had nothing to do with love, so whatever his relationship was with Wynona, it didn’t matter.
She argued with herself during the drive home and tried not to think of the last man she’d cared for. Hadn’t Turner Brooks ignored her affections and fallen in love with his long-ago lover? Hayden would probably do the same and turn back to Wynona.
Yes, but you didn’t sleep with Turner. You didn’t make love with Turner. You didn’t fantasize about living the rest of your life with Tur— “Stop it!” she ground out, switching on the radio and listening to a Garth Brooks recording of love lost.
Furious with herself, she snapped off the radio and pulled into the drive. She was too busy to dwell on Hayden or Wynona or anything but her sons, who, already home, tore out of the house at the sound of her car. They both flung themselves into her arms, and for the first time since hearing Wynona’s voice, she felt better. As long as she had John and Bobby, who needed Hayden Monroe?
“I got an A on my math test!” John crowed. “And Tim, the kid I’m helping, he got a C, his best grade ever.”
“Good for you.” Nadine gave her eldest a squeeze.
“I didn’t have a test,” Bobby chimed in, not to be outdone. “But I made a new friend. His name is Alex and he just moved here from…from…”
“From Florida, you dweeb. His sister’s in my class.”
“I’m not a—”
“Of course you’re not,” she intervened, throwing her older son a warning glare. “And you, John, quit insulting your brother.” Nadine kissed Bobby’s forehead and rumpled John’s blond hair. “Come on, you guys can help me fix dinner.”
“What’re we having?” John asked suspiciously.
“Hot dogs with whatever you want on them.”
“All right!” Bobby shouted, seeming to have forgotten his older brother’s insults.
After dinner, she helped the boys with their homework, then forced them into showering before they fell into bed. She spent the next three hours sewing and gluing studs and beads on a faded denim jacket that was an integral part of her collection. By the time she’d c
leaned the kitchen and read her mail, it was one o’clock in the morning. Her head sank into the pillow and she hoped for exhaustion to claim her. It didn’t. Though she was so tired she ached, she couldn’t sleep. Wynona’s message played and replayed in her mind, and Nadine was left to wonder why she should care so much about Wynona Galveston.
* * *
EACH DAY SHE expected Hayden to return, and each day she was disappointed. On Wednesday she received a letter from her brother, Ben, telling her that he was returning to Gold Creek before Christmas.
Thursday, she met her father downtown for lunch. He lived in a retirement center that was within walking distance to the heart of Gold Creek, but she always drove him to the restaurant. George Powell, at sixty, was no longer strapping. He walked with a cane, courtesy of a slight stroke several years earlier, and his hair was thin and gray. His apartment was small but adequate and he seemed comfortable if not happy.
As he eased his bulk into a worn red vinyl booth of his favorite restaurant, the Buckeye, he looked at his daughter. “Heard you been working for Monroe’s attorney.”
Nadine was flabbergasted. “How’d you hear that?”
“This is a small town, missy. Bad news travels fast.”
“Aunt Velma!”
“So it is true. Keerist A’mighty!” He swiped a big hand over his forehead. “What the hell do ya think you’re doin’, Nadine?”
“Dad, relax.”
The waitress brought them plastic-encased menus, but they ordered without even glancing at the special of the day. “I heard Hayden’s already taken over the house on the lake,” her father said, once they were alone again. “Probably couldn’t wait to get his hands on his old man’s money.”
“You hear a lot,” she said, the muscles in her back tightening defensively.
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
She lifted a shoulder. “It’s true—about him being there. Or at least he was. But I don’t think he’s interested in the money.”
“Everyone’s interested in money. You, me, your ma. Everyone. Hayden ain’t any different, so don’t you be puttin’ him up for sainthood.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said dryly.
“So he’s at the house where you’re working?”
“He was.”
“Keerist!”
“It’s a job, Dad,” she said, though the lie tripped on her tongue. “Nothing more.”
His green eyes, so like hers, sparked with disbelief. He looked about to say something more, thought better of it and played with the cellophane wrapper on a pack of crackers. The waitress brought their lunches—a bowl of soup and a chili burger for her father and a patty-melt with coleslaw for her. She was halfway through her sandwich when he asked, “Heard from your ma lately?”
Nadine’s heart squeezed when she noticed the carefully disguised pain on his face. “Not recently.”
His gray brows lifted a fraction, but he didn’t say a word. They talked about everything and nothing, starting with the weather and ending with a rather heated discussion on how she should raise her boys.
By the time her father had paid the check, a ritual he insisted upon though Nadine paid half the cost of his rent each month, she slipped him the letter from Ben. A smile played upon his features as he read the contents of the letter. “He’ll be back soon.”
“In time for Christmas.”
“Well, that’s something to celebrate.” He tried to hand the letter back to Nadine, but she slid it into the breast pocket of his wool jacket.
“You keep it, Dad,” she insisted.
Outside the restaurant, the weather was cool. A pale sun pierced through the clouds, but the November wind was harsh as it tugged at Nadine’s hair and brought color to her father’s cheeks. Stiffly, her father slid into the front seat of her Chevy. She drove the few blocks to his apartment and stopped. Before he stepped out of the car, he turned to Nadine. “God gave you more than your share of brains, missy. If you use them you’ll know that Hayden Monroe is trouble. Just like his old man.”
“Dad.” She touched him lightly on the arm to restrain him, and her heart was suddenly in her throat. She hated to ask the question preying upon her mind, but had to know the truth. “Hayden told me that his father paid you money. Five thousand dollars. To make sure that I would drop out of his life.” A denial seemed about to form on her father’s lips, so she added, “Hayden saw the check years ago and looked into the company books a few days ago.”
“That son of a bitch!” Her father swore angrily and stared through the windshield to the rambling retirement complex he’d called home for two years.
“Dad?”
George let out an angry sigh. “Garreth paid me back some of the money I invested with him—a small part. I gave him nearly fifty thousand dollars, all our savings and the equity we had in the house at the time, and all I got back was five grand.” He looked down at his feet, suddenly embarrassed. “Your mother called me a fool and she was right. When I finally got the check from Garreth, I handed over the money to her. I figured it was hers. Some of that money went to your education in that boarding school.” He blinked suddenly, and his face seemed to age twenty years. “It broke Donna’s heart, y’know, and broke us up. That investment with the Monroes was the beginning of the end.” He shoved open the car door and eased himself out. “I can’t really blame her, I suppose. Stan Farley has a huge farm in Iowa and he could give her everything she wanted.” He glanced at his daughter as they walked up the cement path to the front door of his studio apartment. “Is she happy?”
Nadine nodded because she couldn’t trust her voice. A searing pain still burned deep in her heart. Donna Powell Farley had found contentment with another man, over three hundred acres and two children who were not much older than her grandchildren. Stan Farley was a stable man, a decent man, a man whose finances were secure.
“Good, good,” George muttered. “She deserves happiness.” Resting a knotty hand on his daughter’s shoulder, he added, “That’s why you should keep your distance from Hayden Monroe. He’s nothing but trouble and he’ll only bring you heartache.”
That much was true, she hated to admit. “So how about you, Dad? Are you happy?”
“Can’t complain,” he said, holding open the glass door for his daughter. “Got everything I need, right here at Rosewood Terrace.”
* * *
EVERY MUSCLE IN Hayden’s body ached from spending five days on the road. He’d logged in fifteen hundred miles and visited seven mills, talking with the employees, watching them at work, noting the condition of the equipment, stores of logs, contracts with logging companies and inventories of raw lumber. His had been a cursory scan at best, each individual sawmill would have to be reevaluated in depth. What he learned by talking to the men was their concerns of losing their jobs as there was less old-growth timber being cut due to dwindling resources, environmental concerns and government restrictions.
Most of the workers had been timber men for generations; their fathers and grandfathers had been part of a working tradition of men who had harvested trees and turned the forests into planed boards. The men knew only one craft.
Hayden climbed out of his Jeep and felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. Bradworth and Thomas Fitzpatrick had been right. People’s lives and livelihoods depended upon him and his decision. How many employees, men and women alike, had shaken his hand and smiled at him and mentioned that they were glad the mills were still in Monroe hands? He’d noticed their worries—the knit brows, the eyes that didn’t smile, the lips that pinched at the corners and he sensed the unasked questions of the workers: Will I be laid off? Will you shut the mills down? Will you sell the machinery off, bit by bit? What will I do if there’s no work? How will I feed my family, pay my bills, send my kids to college?
Leo bounded into the bushes, scar
ing up a winter bird as Hayden trudged to the back porch and wiggled off one shoe with the toe of his other.
He opened the back door and stopped dead in his tracks. The house smelled of oil and wax, and every surface gleamed. The chairs were pushed carefully around the kitchen table where a crystal vase was filled with several kinds of fragrant flowers. Brass fixtures sparkled and the old wood floor shone with a fresh coat of polish.
Nadine. He felt a hard knot tighten his gut as he walked through the place and saw traces of her work—special touches such as the rearranging of pictures on the mantle, a grouping of candles on a table, another vase filled with flowers.
What was she trying to do? She’d been hired to clean, for crying out loud, and now it seemed that she had put her special stamp on the house. Blankets had been folded and tossed over the arm of the old couch in the den. Dry logs and split kindling had been set in each fireplace.
He climbed the steps to the second floor and noticed that each bed was made with clean bedding. In the master bedroom, the king-size bed was freshly made, one window cracked open to let in clear mountain air, dry kindling stacked on polished andirons in the fireplace and a large glass bowl half filled with water and floating blossoms rested on the bureau.
He smiled despite himself. Maybe she’d forgiven him. Then he caught his image in the mirror—his dirty jeans, faded work shirt, sawdust-sprinkled hair and a stupid grin pinned to his face. Because of her. What a damned fool he was! Glowering at his reflection, he turned and walked briskly into the bathroom, intent on cleaning up and forgetting Nadine. Obviously she was through working here. The flowers had to be the last touch; so he didn’t have to worry about her again.
That particular thought was disturbing, though he didn’t stop to analyze why. Eyeing the tub where he’d found her ring, he noted a bowl of colored soap and matching towels placed carefully on the racks. He twisted on the shower spray, stripped and tried to wash the grime and dirt and aches from the last few days from his body. He’d kept himself so busy that he hadn’t had time to think about Nadine and whenever thoughts of her had crept into his mind, he’d stubbornly shoved them into a dark corner.