‘Now, wait a minute, Jocelyn …’
She hung up, picked up her suitcases again and walked out.
‘Have you called a cab, Wragge?’
‘No, Miss Josey, I haven’t, but…’
Without a word, she walked over to the phone, lifted it and spoke to the doorman downstairs in the lobby. Wragge watched her helplessly.
‘Goodbye, Wragge,’ she said to the old man. ‘I’ve enjoyed knowing you.
Take care of Mr Thorne.’ She shook his hand formally, lifted her suitcase and walked out.
Josey’s quiet departure was a vivid contrast to that of the man who had stormed out of the building ten minutes earlier. Thorne Macallan hadn’t waited for the doorman to call a cab or have his car brought around—that was too passive an action. He flung himself out into the traffic and hailed one down himself, then proceeded to make the driver extremely nervous by glaring angrily at him as he gave his destination.
Thorne’s odyssey had begun that morning at about six o’clock. He had checked out of his hotel room in a mad rage and paced restlessly at the airport, waiting on standby for the first available flight home. All the time, he was listening to Zoe Vinelli’s taunting voice in his ear.
Women like Zoe Vineili were nothing new to him. He had been sorry that his old friend Stephen was married to her, but even if he wasn’t, Thorne would have continued to snub her many attempts to seduce him.
The bitch had known she’d got to him this morning, however. It had been in that triumphant voice of hers, and everything she said, although she’d cooed with fake sympathy at the start.
‘Thorne? Zoe, here, darling. Are you awake enough to hear some bad news?’
He had been groggy but had naturally assumed something had happened to Stephen. His old friend was very worried about the takeover of his company, for all his assets were tied up in it. Zoe herself would be considerably poorer if he was unsuccessful in his attempts to ward off the bigger company’s bid and although it would amuse him at the present moment to see her in that situation, he didn’t want it for Stephen’s sake.
The old man was good. Look at the way he’d taken that cowardly little sneak thief, Tony Leyden, back into his business after discovering him with his hand in the till. He didn’t owe him a damned thing, either, but fortunately, he had listened when Thorne had suggested making Leyden sign a confession as a guarantee of good behaviour.
All of this was going through Thorne’s mind as he stared stonily at the back of the driver’s head. His thoughts returned to his wife—and the other man. He was going after his name, now. They just might know it at the restaurant. Failing that, he intended to tackle Zoe again. She had claimed she didn’t know him, but she had described the meeting vividly enough.
The kisses they’d exchanged, Josey’s hand on his arm as she whispered in his ear—Thorne’s mouth tightened grimly. For a moment, his mind was sidetracked long enough to wonder what Zoe Vineili was doing in the downtown area in an Italian restaurant. It wasn’t her usual scene.
The owner of Luigi’s was voluble in his fury at being left with an unpaid cheque. Thorne offered him the money but he graciously refused. No, Signor, he knew this man. He was an old customer but not a good one, understand? He was known as a notoriously bad tipper, a writer of bad cheques, a loud-mouth blustering show-off, but he, Luigi, would eventually recover his money.
Now, the girl-—ah, she was something else! He kissed his fingers.
According to the waitress, she had only ordered coffee, then not drank it.
She had been tense and nervous, even frightened, and the waitress had overheard the man threatening her. That figured—for he was totally unworthy of her. Something shady was going on, Luigi added darkly.
Thorne left the restaurant and returned to the cab, which was waiting out front with a ticking meter. By now, his violent rage had cooled and was directed at himself. He had the man’s name and he knew ‘something shady’
was indeed going on. He was cold with remorse and fear, but he had something to finish before he could follow his first impulse, which was to go home and straighten things out with Josey. His face was tense with impatience as he directed the driver to Stephen Vinelli’s place of business, where he should find Tony Leyden at this hour of the day. Thirty minutes later, he returned home. He met a distressed Wragge at the door and learned then that the bird had flown.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOSEY spent the first night in an Atlanta hotel, where she cried a lot. The next morning, she got up and gave herself a firm lecture. She must stop weeping for lost dreams. She must start living again, without Thorne. But first, she needed a retreat—a place where she could live until she could pull the shattered pieces of her life together. She needed to go home.
As the bus neared Medlar’s Mill, Josey saw that it had changed almost beyond recognition. Nothing was familiar. Seven years had put new store fronts on Main Street and new names to some of them. The pizza place where the high school gang used to hang out after school was now a car wash, and the city hall had been remodelled to look like something out of a science fiction movie.
She locked her suitcases in one of the bus station lockers, then walked towards the local real estate office. It had changed hands: there was a new name above the door. She was relieved to see that there was no-one in there she recognised, including the bright young man who took her name and specifications. She wanted a furnished place, she told him, somewhere private, even secluded. To do some writing, she added hastily, when he began to look curious. ‘Writing?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m working on a college thesis,’ she improvised hastily, off the top of her head. ‘It’s on the effect of a declining population on small towns.’
‘Oh.’ His interest waned. ‘Well, this little town is not declining. There have certainly been some changes since they opened the stove factory.
We’re booming!’ he added genially. ‘Everyone’s buying stoves to conserve fuel, you know. Now, from what you say, you’d prefer a house to an apartment?’ Josey nodded. ‘I have just the place—a small carriage house, a very pretty little place furnished with antiques.’
‘What’s the rent?’ Josey asked hastily.
When he told her, she flinched. ‘Haven’t you anything cheaper?’ she asked faintly.
He looked regretful. ‘Not at the moment, no. I might be able to talk Mr Clark into reducing the rent some. I think he’d prefer a good tenant to a higher rent, but.. .’
‘Mr Clark?’
‘Heywood Clark. The carriage house is behind his home—the big house.
You have to walk through his garden to reach it. I’ll call him if you like.’
‘I think I know him,’ Josey said slowly. A thin, young face flashed before her eyes, that of a serious boy who had been in college when she was still in junior high.
‘Oh?’ He looked up speeulatively. ‘Would you rather talk to him about it?’
‘No, you call him.’
He went into his office and had a short conversation on the phone, then came out smiling, a paper in his hand.
‘I’ve written down his address for you. Go around and talk to him. He sounded agreeable to reducing the rent for you.’
Josey took the paper slowly. ‘This is the old Smiley place, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Hey wood Clark married Ruth Smiley about five years ago, a couple of years before her parents died. That’s a great old place—one of a kind.’
Josey could walk to the old Smiley place, which was only a couple of blocks off the town square, yet very private in a big, tree-filled garden surrounded by a picket fence. At the end of the driveway was a charming little cottage painted a pale, buttercup yellow. The old house itself was a big, old-fashioned place with a cupola, assorted porches and gables, and a great deal of gingerbread trim.
Heywood Clark was waiting for her on the porch, and to her surprise, he remembered her.
‘Little Josey Stewart, isn’t it?’ he asked smilingly. ‘The prettiest li
ttle girl in town.’
‘It’s Josey Macallan now, Heywood, but I’m getting a divorce.’ She twisted the wide, gold band nervously on her finger. ‘I told a stupid lie to avoid questions,’ she added apologetically. ‘I told the real estate man I was a student.’
‘Yes, you did,’ he agreed seriously. ‘It wasn’t true?’
‘No, I just wanted to be left alone, and I didn’t want to go into a lot of explanations about my divorce. I couldn’t afford to keep this place long—just a month or two—until I can work out what I’m going to do.’
‘You may stay as long as you like,’ he said. He named a rent that was considerably less than half the original figure. ‘Can you afford that?’
‘Yes, but are you sure that you can?’ she asked awkwardly. ‘I mean—I—I wouldn’t want you to lose a good tenant on my account.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that.’
He had been leading her towards the little house, and now they stepped up on a doll-size porch, he unlocked the front door and threw it open. Josey saw dimly a small living room with an uneven brick floor covered by a braided rug. Beyond, a faint gleam of copper indicated a kitchen. Then, Heywood drew back the curtains, revealing a cosily furnished living room with a bar dividing it from the kitchen. Most of its furniture were antiques, simple rustic pine and maple which had been softened by deep, checked cushions and big squashy pillows.
There was even an old-fashioned wood stove. ,, ‘It’s chilly in here right now, but I’ll soon have it warm for you.’ He had adjusted the thermostat and now, he knelt before the stove and touched a match to the fire. ‘Go ahead and look around while I get things organised for you.’
When Josey returned from her tour of inspection, she said sincerely, ‘I like your little house, Heywood. It’s beautifully furnished.’
‘Thank you. My wife was the interior decorator.’
‘Ruth?’
He looked up uncertainly. ‘You know about Ruth?’
‘Yes. She did a great job on it,’
‘Yes, she did, didn’t she?’
It was the faint note of reserve in his voice that made Josey hesitate to say anything more about his wife, but he offered in a friendly voice to drive her to the bus station to retrieve her luggage, then stop off at the grocery store so she could buy some food. However, when they got back, after carrying in the suitcases, he handed Josey the key and left her strictly alone—for which she was thankful.
In spite of its surface neatness, Ruth had allowed the little house to get into a sad shape. The copper-bottomed pans above the stove were dull, and the furniture had a film of grey dust on it. The next mornings Josey plunged into an orgy of cleaning, polishing the brass and copper, scrubbing and waxing the brick floor, even washing the windows. She welcomed the hard work. She wanted to make herself so tired that she would have no trouble in sleeping at night.
When she rested between cleaning jobs, she played solitaire, or listened to the radio, or just sat and remembered. Those were the worst moments, when she ached to be in Thorne’s arms, no matter what he might say to her. When that happened, she would leap up and plunge into some new job, or go for a walk.
She walked for miles that weekend—in town and on country roads, keeping her head down if she met anyone. Medlar’s Mill was too far south to have snow, but the weather was cold and the wind sharp. The fields were rimed with frost early in the morning and the corn stubble rattled desolately in the wind.
She liked this little town she’d grown up in, but she didn’t think she would want to stay on after the month or two she had given herself.
She’d need a job, but she thought she’d want to return to Atlanta, where she’d be near Thorne— at least, geographically. But she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it. Right now, she was living from hour to hour—tomorrow, she would start trying to make it one day at a time.
She had been in the house for three days when she met Heywood again.
She was returning from one of her walks late in the afternoon, when his car pulled into the driveway. He got out, with a briefcase in his hand.
‘Are you making it all right?’
‘Yes, fine.’ She forced a cheerful smile.
‘How about a cup of coffee?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘All right. I’d like to meet Ruth.’
He had been brushing his feet on the doormat but at that, his head came up sharply.
‘I thought you knew. Ruth is dead.’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t!’ Josey gasped. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I … I wouldn’t have said …’
‘No, of course not. Don’t worry about it.’ He^ opened the door and led the way into the big, old-fashioned kitchen. ‘She died about a year ago. She was ill for six months before that. The little house was one of the last things she did. It gave her a great deal of pleasure—planning its furnishings.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Josey said mechanically, wretchedly conscious of her blunder and his change of mood.
However, as he got out the coffee and filled the coffee maker, he became more cheerful. He talked about his work. Josey learned thats he was a consulting engineer with an office in the house, and he did a lot of travelling. He did almost none, he told her, during his wife’s illness, but he was now back on the road again, most of the time. It kept him from thinking about Ruth too much and besides, the house was lonely.
Everywhere he went, it reminded him of Ruth, but he didn’t want to sell it because it had been her family home. And because he couldn’t bear to give up this last link to Ruth.
When he said the last, Josey knew what he meant. She would have felt the same way about Thorne. She could understand his pain: merely the thought of Thorne no longer living in the same world squeezed her heart with agony.
It had been a big decision to put the little house up for rent, because he hadn’t wanted people intruding on his sorrow, but now that it had been done, he thought he would continue to rent it, he told Josey. It helped to know it was occupied.
After a while, Josey rose to go, surprised to find it was already dark outside. They had _ talked a long time—or rather, Heywood ” had—and she thought it had been good for him. He had needed this—a general purging of the spirit.
She walked slowly back to the house, thinking about him. As she pushed open the door, which she had carelessly left unlocked, she was alerted by an instinct as old as time. A faint, subtle scent assailed her nostrils—the familiar scent of Thorne’s after-shave lotion mixed with leather and his favourite Scotch. Josey pressed the light switch.
‘Hello, Josey,’ he said calmly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WHAT are you trying to do—scare me to death? How did you get in here? Don’t you know breaking and entering is against the law?’
She was talking too much, of course, but she was thrown off-balance by the sight of the tall, lean figure in the little room that had become her haven. It was so good—so incredibly wonderful— to have him here, whatever his reason for it was. And he was smiling at her, sitting in her favourite armchair—trust Thorne to choose the most comfortable one!—legs outstretched, a glass off Scotch comfortably balanced on his chest.
When he stood up in that swift, supple movement that was particularly his own, she wanted to hug him from joy.
‘If you’ll slow down long enough to let me get in a word edgewise, I’ll explain,’ he drawled lazily, reaching for her coat. ‘The door was open and I walked in. No breaking, just entering.’ He walked to the tiny coat closet and hung her coat beside his own.
‘Looks like you’ve already made yourself at home,’ she said tartly, trying to bring herself down to earth. He was, after all, here to see about the divorce and it was dangerous for her to forget it. j ‘Why not?’ He grinned. ‘I had to wait somewhere and you seemed prepared to remain over there next door indefinitely. Shall I get you a Scotch?’
‘No. Why didn’t you turn on the light?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I thought it might s
care you and you’d run back and get help. It seemed wiser to keep our first meeting between ourselves.’
‘Oh.’ She stared at him solemnly, her eyes like two golden pools in her pale face. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I called Maud when I couldn’t remember the name of this place.
Fortunately, she had heard you mention it, and having a retentive memory was able to come up with it.’
‘How is Maud?’
‘Worried. Missing you. Anxious about you.
Her head dropped. ‘I didn’t want to worry her.”
‘I know. I only called her because I had nowhere else to turn to.’
‘How did you know I’d be here?’
‘You had to be somewhere, Josey, and when you weren’t with Maud or the Abernathys …’
‘You went to them?’ Josey was horrified.
‘I went to anyone I thought could help me find you. I got here early this morning then had to wait for that real estate place to open when the motels turned up a blank. I’ve wasted hours driving around, waiting for that damned officious little real estate man to leave his office. He wouldn’t tell me anything but when he was out to lunch, I got one of the girls to show me his rental book.’
‘I can imagine,’ Josey drawled sarcastically, but her eyes were bright. She was pleased that he had wanted to see her badly enough to go to some trouble to search for her. ‘You charmed her into it, naturally?’
His grin held a touch of complacency. ‘A combination of that and bribery.’
She said abruptly, ‘Would you like some coffee? Or—another Scotch?’
‘I’d like some food,’ he said frankly. ‘I haven’t had a bite all day. I was on the road at breakfast time and I missed lunch waiting for that real estate man to leave his office.’
‘I’m afraid I just have eggs,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I don’t keep much food in the house.’
‘Eggs are fine. I like eggs,’ he said gravely, following her into the kitchen.
She opened the refrigerator door. ‘Oh, here’s some cheese—and there’s milk, of course—and bread…’ She was chattering but she found his nearness unnerving.
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