Nick didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was shaky…his tone tentative. “Well, I guess I’ll go to the church tonight and gather up our things.”
“I can’t believe this,” Brooke whispered, looking dismally up at Hayden City Hall and the buildings beyond. Despite its hatred of her, there was something innocent about the town that Brooke still loved. “Those windows could have been so special.”
“Yeah,” Nick whispered. “A sermon in themselves. But maybe you can’t really do that in windows. Maybe we were just kidding ourselves.”
Brooke gazed off into the distance after Abby Hemphill. Her anger shot bursts of adrenaline through her, giving her an energy that demanded a confrontation. Maybe some people never could be convinced, but they could be confronted. They could be made to think. And they could be forced to see the truth in themselves, no matter how ugly it was.
“So, you want to come back to St. Mary’s with me?” Nick asked.
Slowly Brooke shook her head. “Not yet. There’s something I need to take care of first.”
His eyes were a misty black beneath the light in her car, and she saw him swallow. “Brooke, you aren’t going to leave now, are you?” he asked. “Not yet?”
“No, Nick,” she said. “I’ll see you later tonight. I promise.”
Slowly, he got out of her car. As she drove away, she looked in her rearview mirror. He stood watching her with sad apprehension and dread in his eyes. The tragedy was that she didn’t know how to banish that pain from his heart. All she did know was that, whether it helped matters or not, there were a few things she had to settle with Mrs. Hemphill tonight.
CHAPTER
ABBY HEMPHILL’S HOUSE WAS ON the upper-class side of town, nestled in a neighborhood of bankers, lawyers, and doctors. Brooke pulled into the woman’s driveway and peered through the darkness at the huge Tudor-style house. Much too extravagant for a superintendent’s salary—but everyone in town knew that both Abby and Gerald Hemphill came from old money and that they had brought equal portions of wealth into the marriage.
Abby Hemphill probably hadn’t had to worry about money a day in her life, Brooke thought as she sat in her car, yet she was so concerned about the money Brooke and Nick would have made. Idly, Brooke wondered if the hateful woman had ever known the feeling of accomplishment, of creating something out of your own heart and with your own hands, of seeing a project through, of sharing it with another human being. Abby had probably never in her life known the satisfaction that came from intense involvement and struggle.
In a way, Brooke almost felt sorry for her.
She got out of the car, not knowing what she planned to say to the woman, but trusting that the words would come when she called for them. Hands trembling with the emotions wreaking havoc in her soul, Brooke went up the wide steps to the door and rang the bell. A chorus of chimes rang out with regal authority. She stood still, one hand in the pocket of her jacket, the other clutched around the strap of her purse as she waited for her self-appointed archenemy to answer.
In just a moment the door opened, and Abby Hemphill stood looking at her. Abby’s expression became instantly guarded, as if she braced herself for a physical attack.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mrs. Hemphill,” Brooke said, her tone dangerously calm. “You don’t have to worry. No screaming, no yelling, nothing distasteful. Just one adult to another.”
Abby Hemphill crossed her arms and stroked the column of her throat with her index finger. “I don’t really believe you and I have anything to discuss. My mind certainly won’t be changed.”
“I’m not here to change your mind,” Brooke said, stepping inside despite the fact that she hadn’t been invited. “I just want to try to understand.” She turned around inside the foyer, making it clear that Abby would have to contend with her. Stiffly, Abby closed the door, bolted it, and turned back to Brooke. “I wanted to ask you to explain it to me,” Brooke went on, “this vendetta you have against Nick and me.”
Abby smiled condescendingly and shook her head. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s no vendetta. It’s business.”
“Was it business seven years ago,” Brooke asked, “when I was eighteen and you lied about what you saw Nick and me doing in the art room? Was it business when Hayden High School lost the best art teacher they’ve ever had? Was it business when you spread smut around town about what we were doing when, the truth is, we were working day and night on those windows, knowing that you would do everything in your power to pull the rug out from under us?”
Abby’s pale, pampered skin flushed to a rose color. “Whether you can understand this or not, the church trusts the Finance Committee to oversee how their money is spent. We can’t allow church funds to be misspent as a cover for your little affair.”
Brooke tightened her lips to keep them from trembling. “Why are you so threatened by the idea of Nick and me?”
“Because you brought scandal upon my husband’s school system seven years ago!” Abby shouted. “It took us months to recover from that, and I won’t have it tainting our church!”
“You brought scandal on me!” Brooke returned, the fraying thread of her control snapping. “I still haven’t recovered from it, and it was all lies! All I did was thank him for all he did for me to help me get the scholarship, and then I gave him an innocent hug. I’ve had to pay everyday since.” She paced across the room, groping for the reins of her control. Then she spun around, knowing that she was exposing all her wounds to Abby Hemphill. “Is your life so empty that you have to do cruel, bitter things like this to find reason to get up in the morning?”
Myriad emotions passed like a color wheel over the woman’s face. “Get out!” she said, reaching for the door. “You are not welcome in my house.”
“Of course I’m not,” Brooke said. “Why would you welcome me when you won’t even welcome your own daughter and the grandchild you’ve never seen?”
The woman drew in a deep breath. For the first time since Brooke had known her, Abby Hemphill was speechless.
“That’s right,” Brooke said, her lips trembling. “I saw Sharon, working in a diner to support her child.”
“I told you to get out!” Abby shrieked.
Knowing that she’d said even more than she had come to say, Brooke started through the door. But behind her another door swung open.
“Mother? Is everything all right?”
Brooke turned and saw her sister’s boyfriend—the infamous, mysterious, cheating Bill—standing in an inner doorway with his pregnant wife peering out from behind him.
“Yes,” Mrs. Hemphill said, trying to steady her breath. “Miss Martin was just leaving.” She looked pointedly at Brooke,who stood staring at the man. He met her eyes with incredulous recognition, but rather than the guilt she would have expected, he offered her a cold, amused smile that dared her to expose him.
For a moment it occurred to Brooke that doing just that to his wife and his mother would provide justice for them all.
Run this through that value system of yours, Mrs. Hemphill. Your married, soon-to-be-a-father son is involved with my sister!
For a moment Brooke glared at him, until his grin faltered the slightest degree…until she could see the briefest flash of fear in his eyes. He had miscalculated her silence.
The revelation on the tip of her tongue faded, as clear thinking prevailed. She couldn’t use this ammunition on the Hemphills without destroying Roxy in the process. The last thing she wanted was Mrs. Hemphill blaming her sister. Besides, some gentler voice in her throbbing heart cried out, his wife probably didn’t deserve this family she’d married into, much less the misery the news would inflict upon her. Despite her wish to put Mrs. Hemphill in her place, to repay her vindictiveness with a little of her own, Brooke couldn’t be that cruel.
Slowly she tore her eyes from Bill and turned back to the woman waiting for her to walk through the door. “You know, Mrs. Hemphill, if I were you I’d make sure my own house was
clean before I started trying to clean up the town.”
The second she was through the door, it slammed behind her. Hurrying to her car, Brooke realized she felt no better than before she’d come.
Her car flew with a vengeance—not to St. Mary’s where Nick would be waiting for her—but to her parents’ home, where Roxy probably sat waiting at the smutty beck and call of that man.
The car screeched to a halt in the driveway, and Brooke saw that her parents’ car wasn’t there. Roxy’s light was on, so Brooke went into the house and stormed back to Roxy’s room.
“How could you?” she yelled, before Roxy even knew she was there.
Her sister looked up, confusion distorting her face. “What?”
Brooke’s teeth came together, and she bit out each word. “How could you have an affair with Abby Hemphill’s son?”
Roxy came to her feet. “Brooke, don’t—”
“Mrs. Hemphill’s son! The married son of the town dictator!” Brooke repeated. “Do you know what will happen if it ever gets out? Do you know what that woman will do to you?”
“You don’t—” Roxy started to answer, but Brooke stormed across the room.
“Roxy, are you trying to self-destruct? Is your life so terrible that you’re just trying to ruin it once and for all? Or are you just determined to follow in my own miserable footsteps?”
“Maybe I don’t have a choice, okay?” Roxy cried. “Maybe I’ve never had a choice! Maybe because of you, I’ve had my life mapped out for me!”
“Don’t you dare blame this on me!” Brooke said. “Don’t you dare!”
Roxy threw herself onto the bed and thrust a fist into her pillow as she glared at Brooke. “You don’t know anything about me,” she cried. “So don’t come in here judging me when you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
Brooke looked at her, her green eyes frosty as ice, feeling as if every miserable moment since she and Nick had been caught hugging in the art room seven years before had been compressed and packed into this one. “Why not?” she asked her sister. “You’ve judged me for the last seven years.”
Turning her back on her sister, Brooke ran out of the house.
CHAPTER
TlME IS RUNNING OUT, LORD, Nick prayed as he sat alone in the darkness of his Buick. It’s just a matter of time until Brooke leaves again. I don’t want her to go.
He opened his eyes and looked at the church, dark and dormant under the cover of night. Aloud, he said, “I don’t understand, Lord. I thought these windows were Your doing. I thought all the talent You had given me was about the windows in St. Mary’s.”
He had misread God. That was all there was to it. He had wanted it himself, so he made himself think he was following God’s will.
But now it had all tumbled down. His ma’s artist son had lost another job.
You be what God made you to be, his grandpa had advised him so long ago, sitting at his favorite fishing hole and teaching him how to look busy while taking time to think. And when they chide you about it, you just-a smile and nod and go on about your business. Soon they’ll get tired of you and find somebody else to bother.
He saw headlights pull into the parking lot, and Brooke’s car pulled into the space next to his. She saw his shadow in the car, got out of her own and came to the passenger side. Without a word, she got in next to him.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Thinking. Praying. Stay here with me for a minute,” he said quietly. “Then we’ll go in.”
Brooke laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. He could see that the thoughts raging through her mind were no more tranquil than his.
CHAPTER
TEARS BURNED DOWN ROXY’S FACE as she paced furiously across her room. She heard a car outside and knew that her parents had come home from the grocery store. Peering through her mini-blinds, she surveyed their faces as they got out of the car. Had they heard yet about the latest scandal developing in their family? And if not, how much longer would it be? It would come out eventually. She hadn’t doubted that when the whole thing had started, and Bill had been very careful to remind her how humiliating the consequences could be.
She went to her mirror and tore a tissue out of its box, wiped her eyes carefully. Dabbing a little makeup on her finger, she tried to touch up the red circles under her eyes.
Maybe she should just come right out and tell them. Maybe she should just get the whole thing out in the open and accept whatever came of it. She was so tired of hiding. So tired of all the lies and the sneaking around. So tired of the limits it imposed on her life.
But what would they say? What would they do? Vividly, she remembered the night seven years ago when Mrs. Hemphill had called her father to tell him about his fallen daughter. Roxy hadn’t known, then, what was going on, but she would never forget her father’s storming across the house threatening to kill Nick Mar-cello. Would her dad want to kill Bill too? Or Roxy herself?
His reaction might serve to make the scandal bigger, she thought, starting to cry again. It would just be that much more to deal with.
“Hi, honey.” Her mother’s voice came from her doorway, and Roxy kept her face turned away. “I thought you’d be out somewhere tonight since you don’t have school tomorrow.”
“No, Mom,” Roxy said. “I had some studying to do.”
“Studying?” Her mother stepped into the room. “I’ve never yet met a senior who studied during spring break.”
Roxy shrugged and grabbed one of her books. “Yeah, well. I’m having a little trouble in history.”
Alice Martin sat down on her daughter’s bed. Roxy knew that she wasn’t fooling anyone. Her mother would have to be blind not to see the remnants of tears on her red-rimmed eyes or deaf not to hear the rasp of hoarseness in her voice. “Honey, I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t worry,” Roxy said too brightly. “I’ll pull my grades up. I’m just a borderline B.”
“I’m not worried about your grades,” her mother said. “I’m worried about the way you’ve withdrawn lately. You’ve been crying, haven’t you?”
“No,” Roxy denied, as if the thought was absurd. “Why would I be crying?”
“I don’t know,” her mother said, frowning. She cupped Roxy’s chin and tipped her face up. “But you have. And here you are, holed up in your room again, like you’re afraid to come out…”
Thankfully, the phone rang just as new tears emerged in Roxy’s eyes. Turning from her mother, she snatched it up. “Hello?”
“Hey, Rox. It’s me, Sonny.”
“Hi.” She glanced back at her mother, who waited for her to finish the call so that they could continue their talk. But the prospect terrified her.
“Listen,” Sonny was saying. “I was wondering if you might want to go out for a pizza or something. Now, before you say no, let me remind you—”
“Yes,” Roxy said quickly. “Yes, I’d like that.”
“What?” Sonny asked. “Did you say yes?”
“Yes,” Roxy said again. “When can you be here?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Sonny said. “No, ten.”
“I’ll be ready,” Roxy said.
She hung up the phone and turned back to her mother. “Well, looks like I have a date.”
“Really?” Her mother’s smile inched back over her face. “Who with?”
“Sonny Castori,” she said, rushing to the dresser to finish applying her makeup. “He graduated from Hayden last year.” Deliberately, she neglected to tell her mother that he was Nick’s nephew. All that concerned Roxy now was getting out of the house and away from her mother’s probing questions, at least until the rumors that had reached Brooke somehow reached her parents too.
If the truth didn’t come out of its own accord, Roxy wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold the sordid secrets tightly within herself. And she wasn’t sure how much longer she wanted to try.
Her energy was almost gone, and the humiliation
of having to face Brooke with the truth had already been too much. How much worse could it be for her parents to know, after all?
CHAPTER
THE CHURCH WAS DARK WHEN Brooke and Nick went inside for what was to be their final time. Nick flipped the switch on the wall, casting the place in a dim half-light. Tonight the shadows around them seemed too big to conquer, providing a mystery that couldn’t be unraveled. Together they walked to the center of the large room and looked up at the boarded windows they could have transformed into such enchanting works of art.
“Funny,” Nick said, his soft voice echoing in the room’s emptiness. “Art is supposed to be expression. It’s supposed to be pure and untainted. But what it really comes down to, what really is the bottom line, is the almighty buck.”
Brooke walked across the floor and lightly kicked the drop cloths. “When I accepted this job, money wasn’t an issue,” she said. “I just wanted a chance to prove myself as a stained-glass artist. Make a name for myself.”
Nick brought his hand up and clenched it into a fist. “It could have been so good, Brooke. It could have beenso…beautiful.” His eyes misted over as his voice broke. He turned from her, inhaling a deep breath that made his shoulders rise and fall in weary defeat.
Brooke offered no answers, and he sensed that her own pain kept her reflectively quiet.
Finally they walked back to the workroom to view the progress they had made, the seeds of masterpieces they had planted together. Their work, spread out on the tables and around the room, greeted them like still-hopeful children about to be abandoned.
Nick went to one pattern pinned to the table with the cartoon and working drawing beneath it. He slipped his fingertips under the edge, poised to rip it off the tacks, but Brooke reached out and stopped him. “Let’s…let’s just keep them together,” she whispered. “We worked so hard…”
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