by Janet Dailey
"No."
"Here." He reached into his pocket and removed a ring box. "I bought this for you. You might as well have it. It's memento, a trophy"—he added sarcastically—"to show that your hunt wasn't totally unsuccessful."
The lid of the tiny box flipped open as he crushed it into her hand. The rainbow colors of a large diamond solitaire laughed mockingly at her. Andrea closed her eyes against the reflecting brilliance of the exquisitely simple and expensive ring. Weakly, she tried to hand it back to him.
"Keep it, I said!" Tell snapped.
Then his long strides were carrying him to the door. On trembling legs, she hurried after him, grabbing the door before he could close it behind him.
"Please, give me a chance to explain," she pleaded.
"Accept that it's over, Andrea. Nothing you can say is going to change that." A cold smile was carved into the bronze mask. "Maybe you'll have better luck with your next sucker."
The door was yanked free of her hold and slammed shut.
"Tell!" Her fingers closed over the knob, but she didn't attempt to open the door. Sobbing heavily, she leaned against the door, trying to wash away the intense pain with tears.
Long minutes went by before Andrea regained any degree of control. He had made it very clear that he didn't want to listen to her, but she loved him too desperately not to try again. Somehow, she had to make him understand. Scrubbing the tears from her cheeks, she forced her faltering left to carry her to the telephone. After taking deep breaths to steady her voice, she contacted the desk.
"Mr. Stafford's room, please," she requested.
"'I'm sorry, Mr. Stafford isn't in," the clerk replied.
"Do…do you know where he is?" She faltered for a second as a knife of despair was plunged into her heart.
"He stopped by the desk a few minutes ago, miss, and asked us to prepare his bill, then he went out."
"I see." She swallowed tightly. "Thank you."
Hanging up the telephone, she realized that Tell had probably guessed she would try again to explain and had deliberately not returned to his room. He probably also had guessed that she would not want to make a scene in the lobby or any other public place. That left only one alternative.
With shaking fingers, she withdrew the lodge stationery from the drawer of a small table. Quickly, she began writing the things that she hadn't been given the chance to tell him. Time was critical if she wanted to be sure he received her note before he left, but Andrea was careful not to leave anything out in her haste.
A frightening amount of time passed before the letter was completed and sealed in an envelope. Racing up the stairs to the bedroom loft, she dressed swiftly and dashed back down the steps and out the door, the precious envelope clutched tightly in her hand.
Short of the lobby, Andrea slowed her pace, dredging deep in her reserves for some measure of poise before approaching the desk. Unconsciously, she held her breath as she walked in, her eyes automatically searching for Tell. He wasn't among the people in the lobby, which meant he had either not returned or had already left the resort. With fingers crossed, she walked to the front desk.
"Has Mr. Stafford checked out yet?" The brightness of her simple question sounded unnaturally brittle.
"Not yet, miss," was the reply.
With false nonchalance, she placed the envelope on the desk counter, the face bearing Tell's name turned toward the clerk. "When he does, would you see that he gets this note?"
"Be glad to," the man nodded.
The smile on his face indicated that he guessed it was a love letter. He wasn't too far wrong, Andrea thought to herself as she turned away. It did contain her heart. It was all there, unprotected and exposed for Tells examination.
Leaving the lobby, Andrea didn't return to her room, but found a strategic spot where she could watch the people in the lobby without being seen. The anxiety of waiting was nearly unbearable: her legs shaking, her hands clasped unknowingly in prayer. When the tension had built to a screaming pitch, Tell's familiar lean figure walked through the outer doors toward the front desk.
Hardly daring to breathe, Andrea watched him check out. Fear trembled through her that the clerk would forget her note, but at the very last moment, he handed it to him. The polite smile faded from Tell's face, changing his facade into lines of uncompromising hardness, which were too severe to be handsome.
She waited; waited for the moment when he would open the envelope and read her note, waited for that instant when the light of understanding would melt the coldness of his expression. Then, she would let herself be seen.
None of that happened. Instead, he tore it in two. With freezing indifference on his face, he tore those pieces into halves again and discarded them all in a wastebasket.
Her hand automatically checked the cry of pain that bubbled to her lips. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stumbled down the hall to her room. She had handed Tell her heart and he had torn it into pieces and thrown it away. Drowning her pillow with tears, Andrea cried long and hard until only dry, heaving sobs racked her body. Finally, even those stopped.
Leaden feet carried her hollow shell down the loft steps to the telephone. Staring sightlessly into space, she waited for the front desk to answer.
"This is Andrea Grant." The identification was made in a hoarse voice. "I would like you to call the airport and make arrangements for me for a chartered flight to Medford, Oregon, this afternoon, and then have my bill drawn up."
"Certainly. We'll take care of it right away, Miss Grant."
"It's Mrs. Grant," she corrected coldly. "Mrs. John Grant."
"Yes, Mrs. Grant," the puzzled voice on the other end acknowledged.
Chapter Four
"SET THE LUGGAGE inside the door," Andrea instructed, replacing the housekey in her purse and extracting the taxi fare to hand to the driver.
"Thank you, miss."
Hesitating, Andrea let her gaze sweep over the familiar, large white structure with its mock tower on one side. Home. But home is where the heart is, she thought bitterly, and her heart wasn't here. Inhaling deeply, she reminded herself that she was the only one to blame for that. If she had been honest with Tell in the beginning, he might have understood. At least her heart wouldn't have been torn into pieces and thrown away.
The agony was to go on living and breathing…and remembering.
The sound of the taxi pulling out of the driveway into the rural countryside made her aware that she was still standing outside the door in the brisk December air. A shake of her head chased the torment from her hazel eyes. There was still yet another gauntlet to face, a loving one, but one that she had to endure without faltering just the same.
She pushed open the front door and stepped on to the figured rug that protected the hardwood floor. Large, antique hanging lamps, converted now from gas to electricity, lighted the foyer. Mrs. Davison, the housekeeper, appeared at the entrance of the hallway leading to the kitchen, hastily wiping floured hands on her apron. Her mouth opened in astonishment at the sight of Andrea, before the thin face changed into a smile.
"Andrea, we didn't expect you back until the end of the week," she announced, bustling forward. "Not that I can say that I'm not glad, you're back, because I am. Why didn't you let us know you were coming today? Frank could have met you at the airport instead of your paying a taxi to come all this way. Mr. Grant has been brooding all day. He didn't touch a speck of lunch, and I'd fixed a really nice steelhead trout, too. Here, let me take your coat."
Slipping it from her shoulders, Andrea handed it to the housekeeper. "Where is John now, Mrs. Davison?"
The older woman pursed her lips together in disapproval. "Sitting in his study staring at the fire just like he's been doing ever since that attorney, Frank Graham, left."
"I'll let him know I'm back," Andrea said quietly.
The housekeeper cocked her head to one side in a listening attitude. "I don't think you'll need to."
At almost the same moment, Andrea
heard the galloping sound. She had a half a second to brace herself before an Irish setter came careening around the corner and launched himself at her. He danced madly around her, winding around her legs and shoving his flame gold head against her hands, only to be overcome by joy and spin wildly away, whining his ecstatic happiness at her return.
"Settle down, Shawn," a male voice admonished the dog gently.
The setter dashed toward his master, circling the wheelchair to sit on the left side, a quivering mass of excitement. Wherever Shawn was, Andrea knew John would not be far. The two were inseparable. The only times the setter left his side were when she took him for an exercising walk.
"Andie." A faint smile tenderly lifted his mouth as John greeted her, his warm gray eyes examining the tautness of her answering smile and the sharp edges of partially concealed pain in her eyes.
"Hello, John." She walked quickly to his side before he could see too much, lightly clasping his hands and bending to brush his cheek with an affectionate kiss.
"Got tired of all that skiing, did you?" Both of them knew the comment was made for the housekeeper's benefit.
"Something like that," Andrea said, nodding.
"Fix us some cocoa, Mrs. Davison, and bring it into the study for us." John's orders always sounded like a request, but he expected them to be obeyed just the same.
Releasing her hands, he flicked the lever to turn his wheelchair around, the quiet motor providing the power to operate the chair without anyone's assistance. The wheelchair gave him the mobility that a logging accident had deprived him of and the independence that was so much a part of him. Andrea followed him quietly.
Flames licked greedily over partially burned logs, their yellow tongues outlined by the hearth blackened with many years of use. Tan stone blended with the richly paneled walls and the leather-bound books on the shelves. The furniture, mostly antique and all of it old, had been in the room for years adding to the comfortable atmosphere.
Despite the early evening hour, the firelight was the only source of light, flickering on the smooth walls. The dimness of the study increased its air of cocoon comfort.
Andrea walked past the large, leather wing chair and ottoman sitting to the side of the fireplace, and proceeded instead to stand on the brick area directly in front of the fire. Pretending to ward off an imaginary chill, she held out her hands to the flame.
"Well, did you break anything while you were on your holiday?" John asked lightly, rolling his wheelchair to a stop on the alpaca rug.
The offer to accept part of her pain had been made. Without turning around, Andrea pictured the man who had made it: his strong, gentle face, distinguished and handsome, wearing his fifty-plus years tightly; the broad shoulders and powerful arms, and the paralysis from the waist down that kept him confined to that wheelchair. Never had she heard him complain or express self-pity.
For more than three years she had accepted every offer of help John made, transferring her pain, her grief, her heartache on to his shoulders. The desire was intense to do it again, to pour out her heartbreak and love for Tell. But she was an adult. It was time she stopped using him as a crutch and began to accept the responsibility and the results of all the things that she said and did.
Taking a deep breath, she glanced over her shoulder, tossing her dark blond hair slightly in a deliberately careless gesture and smiling ruefully. "I came out with a few bruises, but nothing that won't heal in time," she lied.
"Are you sure, Andrea?" he asked in a doubting voice.
A large lump stuck in her throat, tears burning the back of her eyes. "I never said that the bruises didn't hurt, John," she said tightly.
Nervously, she turned away from the fire and walked to the smoke stand between the wing chair and John. Carefully, she filled and packed tobacco in his favorite pipe the way he had taught her, and carried it to him, lighting it as he drew on it slowly. Blinking to keep the tears at bay, she knelt on the floor, curling her legs on the alpaca rug and leaning against him. The aroma of the pipe tobacco blended pleasantly with the fragrant scent of burning pipe.
"It was only a holiday thing," Andrea stared into the fire. "A shipboard romance on skis," she added with wry flippancy.
"And it came to an abrupt end when I called," he sighed, "My first thought when your friend answered the phone was that he was a doctor and you'd been injured. I suppose that's why I was so hasty in claiming my relationship. Was he very angry when he found out?"
"I suppose so," she hedged. Her cheek rubbed the woolen, plaid coverlet on his legs, the same cheek that had felt the sting of Tell's hand, that hadn't inflicted nearly the pain that his harshly bitter words had carried.
"Why didn't you tell him, Andie?
"I didn't want him to get the wrong impression," she sighed this time. "You know what I mean, John—that I was a married woman looking for an affair. I thought he would be good company and fun. He was."
His large hand began to gently stroke her hair. "It's my fault, Andie. When I suggested you marry me, it was with the best of intentions. I was older. I should have known better."
"You're forgetting the vicious rumors that went around when I moved into this house after daddy died and Dale and I broke up." She grimaced in memory.
"Rather flattering they were to me, considering my circumstances," John said dryly, "but so cruelly damaging for a young girl like you. Let's not forget my mercenary relatives."
"Oh, John, it was never your money." Wistfully she turned, laying her head back against his leg and gazing up at him. "I needed your strength and your comfort and, in a way, you needed me."
"You always need the affection of the people you care about," he smiled in reassurance. "Still, I should have found some other way than marriage. There are some people who would question the truth of our motives. You've been exposed to so much pain in such a short time, I would never forgive myself if our arrangement stood in the way of your happiness."
"John, please, don't be blaming yourself." There was no way now that Andrea could ever confide in him that his worst fear had come true. "If a man really loves me, he'll understand. And if he doesn't—her voice cracked with pain "—then he isn't really the one who can make me happy, is he?"
The words sounded very wise and profound, yet Andrea couldn't truly believe them. She did love Tell and he could have made her happy, very happy.
"Andie—" A tap on the study door stopped him.
The brass knob turned and the housekeeper walked in, carrying a tray with two mugs of cocoa and a plate of sugar cookies. Their scent had the Irish setter dancing a jig behind the housekeeper. Andrea rose to her feet to take the tray. Mrs. Davison's brief appearance ended the mood of intimacy, and John didn't attempt to bring about its return.
THE MATING CALL of a bird trilled through the window, but Andrea's pounding head didn't appreciate its song. Rolling onto her side, she pulled the sheets up to cover her ears, but the bright notes couldn't be blocked out. The breeze carried the fragrant scent of pear blossoms. Through closed eyes, she could still see the light of the morning sun.
Moaning a protest, she reverted to her former position on her back, pressing a hand to her forehead behind which a dull ache pounded. Her eyelids felt weighted with lead. Tiredness yawned in every muscle.
"Why do I take those sleeping pills?" Andrea, murmured thickly.
The answer was obvious. There had been too many sleepless nights without them, and too many nights when exhausted sleep had been punctuated by torturous dreams of Tell. Almost six months had passed, and his image was as vividly sharp as her memories of the brief time they had spent together.
Looking back, Andrea knew she had never really fooled John when she had tried to convince him that first night home that she hadn't fallen in love. Perhaps she had for a short time, but her actions had given away the true state of her feelings. He seemed to respect the fact that she wanted to get through this on her own and made no attempt to encourage a confidence that she was reluctant to gi
ve.
When Dale had deserted her, the pain had eased to a dull ache within a few short weeks. This time, the hurt was as tormentingly real as it was that morning Tell had hurled his sarcastic rejection at her. Aching misery was her constant companion, hiding not very successfully in the haunted recesses of her eyes.
Raking her fingernails through her hair and lifting the dark blond strands away from her face, Andrea glanced wearily toward the gold antique clock on her night table. Blinking, she looked at it again, unable to believe that the hands could actually be saying it was eleven.
"Oh, no!" she groaned, throwing back the covers and sliding quickly out of the brass bed.
With tired haste, she stumbled to the bathroom, and splashed cold water on her sleep-drugged face. A lethargy that couldn't be washed away slowed her movements despite her attempts to hurry. Ignoring the time-consuming task of applying makeup, Andrea settled for a quick brush through her hair and a touch of lipstick, then pulled on a pair of denim jeans and a sleeveless top.
The effects of the sleeping pill were still dulling her senses as her barely coordinated reflexes directed her down the stairs. Without pausing, she turned down the corridor leading to the kitchen. Mrs. Davison was standing at the sink rinsing a head of lettuce when Andrea entered the room.
Glancing at the clock above her head, the housekeeper said dryly, "You made it up in time for me to still say good morning."
"Why did you let me sleep so late?" Andrea frowned, obeying the hand that waved her into a chair at the oak table. "I was going to help you get the rooms ready."
"Mr. Grant said for me to let you sleep as late as possible." Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman walked to the refrigerator, poured out a glass of orange juice and set it on the table in front of Andrea. A few seconds later it was followed by a cup of coffee and doughnuts. "And the rooms are all ready, so you needn't be worrying about that."
"I would still liked to have helped." The juice helped wash the cottony taste from her mouth. "I didn't want to sleep this late."