Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Liza jumps and cries out before she realizes what it was.

  Clutching her trembling hands in fists against her mouth, she acknowledges that her nerves are shattered.

  This is ludicrous. What is she doing out here, fumbling in the dark all alone? In New York, she never walks down a deserted street by herself at night. Any idiot knows better than that. A woman alone, in the dark—it’s just asking for trouble.

  She has to go back.

  Forget D.M. Yates.

  All she wants to do is be back in familiar Manhattan.

  The ferry bell clangs just then, telling her that the boat is heading back out toward the mainland.

  Wait, she wants to scream. Take me with you! Don’t leave me here alone!

  But it’s too late. She’ll never catch the boat, even if she runs all the way back to the landing.

  So she hurries on, clutching her bag so tightly her nails dig into her palms even through the gloves.

  The fog seems to grow more dense by the minute, rolling in off the water, carried by the ever-present wind.

  There are a few low buildings at the side of the road here; but they, like everything else, look deserted. Their signs—bearing cheery names like “Sun ’n Fun Surf Shop” and “Buddy’s Beachfront Bike Rentals”—seem ridiculously out of place in this somber setting.

  Gradually, Liza becomes aware of a pebble working its way down into her boot. After trying to walk several steps on it, she finally stops to get it out. She sets her bag down and balances on one foot while she removes her boot and dumps the little stone out onto the frozen concrete.

  As she laces her boot again, she wonders how far she’s come. Surely it’s been a quarter of a mile by now.

  Suddenly, the skin just above the hairline on the back of her neck begins to prickle and an unmistakable feeling steals over her.

  The feeling that she’s being watched.

  Leaving her boot half-unlaced, Liza grabs her bag and begins walking again.

  The eerie awareness mounts.

  She doesn’t know who’s peering at her through the night, or even where they’re hiding; she’s only acutely conscious of invisible eyes boring into her from somewhere nearby.

  She quickens her pace.

  Then she hears it, even over the incessant howling and the crashing sea.

  Footsteps.

  They’re coming from somewhere behind her. Not right behind her, but they’re there.

  Someone is following her.

  She doesn’t take the time to turn her head and find out who it is.

  She doesn’t care.

  Breaking into a run, she heads up the dark, sloping road. Her eyes frantically scan the brush lining the sides.

  On a low rise overlooking the water ahead, she thinks she glimpses a light.

  Please, God . . .

  There! That has to be the inn. As she rounds a bend, she sees that it is, indeed, a house. And a weathered sign by the foot of the steep drive bears the name Bramble Rose Inn.

  Liza’s heart thumps painfully, threatening to shatter her rib cage as she quickly makes her way up the winding path. Glancing up at the house, she half-expects to see someone in a window, looking out into the night.

  But there’s no one, and she tells herself to stop being ridiculous.

  He steps back from the window.

  Had she seen him?

  She’d looked up just before the evergreen branches below enveloped her, screening her from his sight. But he’d glimpsed enough of her to see which one she is.

  Liza Danning.

  She’s still startlingly pretty, with enormous seafoam-green eyes.

  Wary eyes.

  And she still doesn’t even know what lies in store for her.

  He waits, tapping a pen against his palm impatiently. The antique mantel clock ticks a steady rhythm behind him.

  Within moments, the shrill ring of the old-fashioned door buzzer shatters the silent house.

  Realizing he’d been holding his breath, he exhales now. Carefully, he puts the pen into the holder on his desk and walks out of the room toward the stairs.

  The first guest has arrived.

  The others will soon follow.

  And soon it will begin.

  Jennie is just about to ring the bell a second time when the heavy wooden door is flung open before her.

  “Well, hello! I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten lost.” The man who stands there is of medium height, with a somewhat stocky build. He has a neatly trimmed mustache that is the same auburn shade of his hair. His friendly smile is like a beacon, reaching out into the chilly night air and enveloping Jennie.

  “Hi,” she says breathlessly. “I was beginning to think I was lost. It’s really dark out there.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Cold, too. Come on in.” He steps back and motions her through a short entry hall and into the brightly lit foyer, then closes the door behind her, shutting out the incessant wind at last.

  Jennie sets her bag on the wide-planked wooden floor and breathes an audible sigh. She’s made it. What a relief.

  The foyer is cozy and pleasant, with lots of plants in wicker baskets, a few wing-backed chairs, and globed lamps on low antique tables. Beyond the tall reception desk, a narrow wooden staircase leads to a landing, then turns sharply. The cinnamon-berry scent of potpourri wafts invitingly in the air, and classical music plays softly in the background.

  Her host has walked briskly around to the back of the desk and is scanning a registry book. “Let’s see now. Ms. Danning has already checked in, so you must be . . .”

  “I’m Laura Towne.” Jennie assumes the blonde she’d followed over from the boat was Ms. Danning.

  She might have tried harder to catch up to her if the woman had been friendlier on the boat . . . and if she hadn’t been walking so fast. Jennie had thought she looked spooked. Actually, she doesn’t blame her. The place is pretty creepy in the dark, although it’ll probably be perfectly delightful tomorrow morning.

  “Ah, yes, Laura Towne,” the man behind the desk is saying.

  “That’s me.” She feels a twinge of guilt at the lie.

  “You’re our sweepstakes winner. We spoke on the phone a few weeks back, didn’t we? I have you down right here. You’re staying for three nights.”

  Jennie notices that there’s something effeminate about his movements, and his voice is slightly high-pitched.

  “That’s right.” She runs a hand through her long, dark hair, trying to tame the flyaways.

  “Well, then, you’re all set.” He looks up and smiles again. “Have you ever been to Tide Island before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, let me be the first to welcome you. I’m Jasper Hammel, and I’m here to make your stay as pleasant as possible. If you have any questions, or if there’s any way I can—”

  The doorbell cuts him off. He holds up a finger, motioning to Jennie that he’ll be right back. Then he hurries toward the entry hall.

  Jennie sees a copy of Country Living magazine in a basket on the desk and starts flipping idly through it.

  Cold air blows into the room as soon as the door opens behind her, and the blustery howl drowns out Jasper Hammel’s voice as he greets someone there.

  It isn’t until he’s closed the door again and is leading the new guest into the foyer that Jennie recognizes a voice.

  Spinning, she sees Sandy from the ferry.

  “Hey, long time no see” is the first thing she says when she sees Jennie. With a grunt, she deposits her oversized suitcase unceremoniously on the floor in front of the desk.

  “You’re staying here, too?” Jennie asks.

  She doesn’t know if she’s pleased or disappointed. It might be nice to have some pleasant company over the weekend. But on the other hand, she isn’t really in the mood for this woman’s brand of cheerful chitchat. She’s counting on some solitary time to draw and paint . . . and sort things out.

  Still, Sandy did mention that she’s meeting so
me man here. She’ll probably be busy with him.

  “I see that you two have met already?” Jasper asks, returning to stand behind the desk.

  “Uh huh. We ran into each other on the ferry,” Sandy says distractedly. “Um, listen, I’m meeting someone here—Ethan? Ethan Thoreau? I thought he’d be waiting for me down at the landing, but he wasn’t.”

  Must be her blind date, Jennie thinks, noting the breathless way she says his name. Her round face is flushed, probably from excitement as much as from the cold.

  “That’s right, you’re Mr. Thoreau’s guest this weekend,” Jasper says, smiling and nodding. “He called an hour ago. He said to tell you that he was still at the hospital—some sort of surgical emergency—but he’ll be here as soon as possible.”

  Sandy’s face falls. “But I thought we just took the last ferry in tonight.”

  “That was the last ferry, but the airport is still open, of course.”

  “He’s flying in?” Sandy asks.

  “I didn’t think the airlines served this island,” Jennie comments. She’d checked, wanting to avoid the long ferry ride if at all possible.

  “They don’t,” Jasper says. “Mr. Thoreau will be arriving on his private plane.”

  Sandy perks right up at that news. “Private plane,” she murmurs, turning to Jennie. “Figures. I mean, a rich doctor—surgeon?” she adds, glancing at Jasper Hammel for confirmation. At his nod, she goes on, “Of course a rich surgeon would have his own plane.”

  “Of course,” Jennie agrees, wondering how someone like Sandy had managed to hook up with this guy in the first place. Oh, she’s nice and friendly, and even pretty despite her chubbiness. But she doesn’t seem like the type who would appeal to a wealthy surgeon.

  For Sandy’s sake, Jennie hopes the guy didn’t suddenly draw the same conclusion and stand her up.

  Jasper Hammel clears his throat. “I’ll just get the two of you settled into your rooms now. I’m sure you’re anxious to relax and warm up.”

  A floorboard creaks above, and Jennie looks expectantly at the stairs behind the desk, waiting to hear footsteps descending.

  But there’s no other sound. It’s as if someone is poised there, listening to what’s going on below.

  Jasper, busy writing in the registry, doesn’t appear to have noticed it. But Sandy catches Jennie’s eye, knitting her brow slightly. Apparently she heard the sound, too.

  Jennie remembers the figure she’d seen at the window upstairs, at the very top of the house, as she’d approached the inn. She decides that the silhouette couldn’t have belonged to Jasper. The outline of the man in the window had been longer, narrower, than the innkeeper’s short, round frame.

  Someone else had been watching her from the window.

  So? Jennie tells herself. Big deal. Probably a bored guest.

  But is that same person now standing someplace above, eavesdropping?

  And if so . . . why?

  As soon as Jasper Hammel’s footsteps retreat down the hall, Sandy turns the latch on her door, locking it.

  Then she surveys the room.

  Raspberry-colored floral wallpaper. White-painted woodwork. Lace curtains. Rose-sprigged bedspread with flounces that reveal a matching dust ruffle. Framed pastel watercolors. Dried rosebuds in a white wicker basket on the table by the bed.

  She peers into a delicate pink-and-white china bowl on the mantel and discovers the source of the lavender scent that fills the air: potpourri.

  This room must be reserved for female guests, she decides. No way would a man be comfortable here.

  She turns and opens her suitcase, which Jasper Hammel deposited on the stand near the door. The first thing she removes is the new outfit she bought for her date with Ethan Thoreau. She bought it at Greenbury Gal, and it was outrageously expensive even with her employee discount. But it was worth it.

  Her friend Theresa had assured her that the long, navy-blue knit skirt concealed her saddlebag thighs and that the cream-colored angora sweater accentuated what Theresa kindly called her “hourglass figure.”

  Sandy would gladly sacrifice her forty-double-D boobs if she could get rid of her forty-six-inch hips as well. But nature—and a weakness for junk food—has padded her generously, and she’s resigned to the fact that she’s never going to be thin.

  Not like Laura, whom Jasper showed to a room at the other end of the hall before depositing Sandy in here. Laura has one of those cute, petite shapes that Sandy has always envied. Sandy hadn’t missed the way several men on the ferry had checked Laura out, even though she was bundled into a winter coat.

  Well, not all men like stick figures, she reminds herself. Some men like women who have some meat on their bones.

  Oh, God. Now you sound like Ma.

  Angie Cavelli, roly-poly in her own right, is always telling Sandy that there’s no reason she shouldn’t be able to find a husband. Besides, she always adds, at twenty-five, Sandy has no time to waste. After all, as Angie likes to point out, by the time she herself was twenty-five, Tony Junior was in kindergarten, Frankie was potty trained, Danny was on solids, and she was pregnant with Sandy.

  Good for you, Ma, Sandy always wants to add.

  But she doesn’t. She was taught to respect her parents. No matter what they say or how they make her feel.

  So she doesn’t say anything to her mother, and she doesn’t say anything to her father, either, when he tells her—only when her mother’s out of earshot, of course—that if Sandy would just lose some weight, she could find a husband. After all, “no man wants a fat wife.”

  She knows that her father is thinking of Joe, assuming that he broke the engagement because of her being overweight. She knows neither of her parents believe that she’s the one who called it off and that they both think the best she could ever get out of life is to become Mrs. Joseph Marconi with a houseful of kids.

  Sighing, Sandy carefully hangs her new outfit in the tiny closet, which is empty except for several wire coat hangers bearing paper sleeves that read “Sampson Bros.— 42 Years as Tide Island’s Premier Dry Cleaners.”

  As she turns away from the closet, she hears a floorboard creak overhead.

  Nothing unusual about that. The inn has three floors. She noticed the narrower staircase that leads upstairs when Jasper Hammel led her and Jennie along the hallway on the way to their rooms.

  But Sandy thinks of how the floorboard had creaked on the second floor when she and Jennie were checking in awhile ago and how she had almost felt as though someone might be lurking there, eavesdropping.

  Why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond her, but the notion that they might definitely gave her the creeps then and does again now.

  You’re just not used to big old houses, she tells herself, shaking her head. Besides, you’re afraid of your own shadow.

  If she weren’t such a baby, she would have moved out of her parents’ house years ago. But she can’t stand the thought of living alone.

  Not that she’d admit that to anyone, not even Theresa. She tells her friends that she doesn’t move out because she can’t afford to. Luckily, her parents don’t think a woman should leave home until she gets married, so they don’t charge her rent.

  Going back over to her suitcase, she removes the rest of her clothes—a few oversized sweaters, turtlenecks, and pairs of leggings—and stacks them neatly in the drawers of an antique bureau. She catches sight of herself in the mirror above it and leans closer to examine her reflection.

  You have such a pretty face. . . . How many times has she heard that?

  She knows it’s true—her eyes are big and brown and fringed with thick lashes, and her lips are full and red, and she has dimples in her cheeks when she smiles.

  Will Ethan Thoreau think she has a pretty face, too?

  She takes her quilted pink makeup bag out of her suitcase and unzips it. She opens a compact and begins meticulously applying blusher, tracing the contours of her cheekbones the way the girl at the Clinique count
er showed her.

  She wonders what time Ethan will arrive on his private plane and whether she should change into her new skirt and sweater just in case he decides to pop in at the inn without calling her first.

  She decides against it. Why waste her best clothes on a chance? She looks fine in the chocolate-colored stretch pants and matching oversized tunic she has on. Not only does the outfit camouflage her bulges pretty well, but it exactly matches the shade of her eyes. At least, that’s what Danny told her when she wore it on Christmas.

  Sandy smiles when she thinks of him. She can always count on her favorite brother to compliment her.

  She can’t seem to help feeling a little wistful ever since he married Cheryl, his college sweetheart, and moved out of the house last summer. Of course, they only live a few blocks away and Danny still goes out of his way to be nice to Sandy, but things aren’t the same between them.

  Not that Sandy resents Cheryl.

  It’s just that she wishes she had someone, too.

  Maybe things will work out with Ethan.

  Maybe he and Sandy can buy the cute little split level down the street from her parents. She’s always loved that house, and just the other day, she noticed a For Sale sign on the snowy lawn. It would be a perfect starter home, and it already has a swing set and sand box in the backyard.

  Sandy reaches for her eyeliner and smiles as she imagines the children that she will have with Ethan Thoreau.

  And when the floorboard creaks above again, she doesn’t even notice.

  Chapter 2

  Liza is starving.

  If it weren’t for that—and the irresistible savory aroma wafting up to the second floor—she wouldn’t be on her way down to the dining room for dinner. She certainly isn’t in the mood to mingle with the other guests—small talk isn’t her forte, and there’s no point in wasting an effort on people she’ll never see again, anyway.

  But she can’t ignore her rumbling stomach.

  And anyway, it’s not as though she has anything else to do tonight.

  D.M. Yates isn’t going to contact her until tomorrow. The innkeeper, Jasper Hammel, had handed her a pink telephone message slip when she checked in. All it said was that Yates had called and would be in touch again in the morning.