“Sorry,” he said, taking off his snow-dusted hat with an exaggerated politeness.
At the same time he was zeroing in on the empty stool next to Glory. Reaching it, he turned and looked at her with eyes as cold as the slush outside in the gutter and said, “I brought your car to town.”
She would have stood, but he reached out and caught hold of her forearm, effectively pressing her back down.
“Thank you, Jesse,” he coached, and though he sounded as though he was teasing, his dark eyes snapped.
“Go to hell,” Glory replied in a normal tone. She wasn’t about to forget what this man had stolen from her.
Delphine had always said Jesse’s grin ought to be registered as a lethal weapon, and he obviously had no compunctions about using it. He smiled at Glory and, for just a moment, she was a teenager again, willing to share her body and soul with this man.
“There’s something on the seat of your car that you might be interested in,” he said. Then he pushed away from the counter and strolled toward the door, stopping to joke with some of his constituents as he went.
Glory waited until he’d driven away with the waiting Deputy Johnson before hurrying out to her car. She found a plastic bag lying on the seat, filled with snapshots and school photos of Liza. Glory held the package close to her heart as she sped up the outside stairs to the privacy of Delphine’s apartment.
While this unexpected gift might have surprised other people, Glory knew it was typical of Jesse. Even when he was angry with someone, he was still more inclined toward kindness than anything else.
She poured coffee in the tiny kitchenette and sat down at her mother’s table to go over the pictures, one by one, noting even the smallest changes as Liza progressed from a plump infant to a shy fourth-grader.
“Don’t worry, kid,” Glory whispered, smiling through her tears. “You’ll get past this gangly stage, I promise. And you’ll be the prettiest girl in Pearl River.”
After putting the pictures carefully back into their plastic bag, she grabbed her purse and coat and went downstairs once more. The breakfast rush was slowing down, but Delphine and her helper were still pretty busy.
“I’m driving back to Portland today, after I stop by Ilene Bainbridge’s bookstore,” Glory told her mother.
Delphine looked as though she’d drop the tray of dirty dishes she’d gathered up. “What?”
“I just want to pick up a few things I left in storage, Mama. My resumé, some job-hunting clothes. I’ll be back tonight.”
“Those roads are icy,” Delphine warned. “You be careful, and call when you arrive.”
Glory kissed her mother’s cheek. “I will. See you.”
Five minutes later, Glory’s car nosed to a stop in the hard, dry snow in front of Ilene’s Book Store. Parallel parking had never caught on in Pearl River; people still left their cars at right angles to the sidewalk, the way they’d left horses and wagons years before.
There were Christmas lights in the window of the bookstore, along with a display of crystals catching the cold winter light.
Glory pushed open the door and walked in.
The place had a friendly ambience; there was a rocking chair, complete with a gray tabby cat curled up on the cushion, and a cheerful fire burned in a small Franklin stove. The selection of books, Glory saw at a glance, was eclectic.
“Hello?” Glory called, when no one appeared to wait on her.
A plump woman dressed in a caftan of gold-and-mauve paisley came out of a back room, smiling. Her brown hair was braided and wound into a coronet at her nape, with a bright yellow feather for accent.
“Jesse’s friend, Glory,” she said with a smile.
Given the new-age flavor of the place, Glory wondered for a moment if the woman was psychic. “Just Glory,” she corrected quietly.
“Ilene Bainbridge,” the bookshop owner said, extending a bejeweled hand. “I’ve been hearing about you for years, and just lately the news has gotten even more interesting. It’s good to finally make your acquaintance.” She shooed away the tabby cat and gestured for Glory to sit down in the rocking chair. “Would you like a cup of licorice tea?”
Before Glory could respond, Ilene disappeared again. Her voice came clearly from the back room.
“Shall I add sugar?”
Glory was looking out the window, watching as fat snowflakes began tumbling from the sky. “Just a teaspoon, please.”
Ilene returned with two steaming cups. Handing one to Glory, she pulled up a plain folding chair and sat down. Her kind eyes were eager and warm. “It’s nice to sit by a fire on a day like this,” she commented.
Sipping her tea, Glory nodded. “Jesse tells me that Liza spends most of her time here with you.”
Since Ilene didn’t look at all surprised at the sudden shift in conversation, Glory assumed Jesse had told her about their relationship and her claim that Liza was her child. The other woman, who was probably in her late thirties, smiled. “Liza and I have a little apartment upstairs.”
Glory sensed that Ilene was a gentle, even-tempered woman. She was probably very good to Liza. “I take it she’s had a difficult life so far,” she said, feeling guilty. In those moments, Glory sorely regretted not standing up to Judge Bainbridge and going straight to Jesse with the news of her pregnancy. In trying to protect Dylan, she had caused her daughter a lot of pain and upheaval.
Ilene’s smile was gentle. “It’s been eventful, that’s for certain. But we love Liza, Jesse and I, and she knows it. That goes a long way toward making a child feel secure. Lately, though, she has developed a tendency to speculate almost incessantly about her birth parents.”
Glory thought of the house her mother and Harold had bought, and suddenly she wanted with all her heart to live in a place like that with Liza and Jesse. Of course she knew it was impossible—just a Christmas fantasy. She would never trust Jesse again, and he’d never trust her.
“I want Liza to be happy,” Glory said, near tears herself.
Ilene reached out and patted her hand. “Jesse told me you were planning to stick around, and I think that’s a good idea. You never know what might happen.”
Glory set her teacup aside and smiled at the tabby cat, who was curled up a few feet away on the hooked rug in front of the stove, waiting for the human intruder to get out of the rocking chair. “Thank you,” she said to Ilene, standing.
The other woman rose and took Glory’s teacup. “You’d be welcome to stop by any time,” she said. “Even if you weren’t shopping for books.”
Glory got the message. When she wanted to see Liza, she would be a welcome guest at the bookstore. That was certainly more than she could say for any reception she might get at Jesse’s place. “I’ll remember,” she replied.
She left the store and got back into her car, cranking up the heat and turning on the tape deck. It was a three-hour drive to Portland, and if she wanted to be back before nightfall, she would have to hurry.
Accordingly, five minutes later, Glory was speeding down the open road. The highway had been sanded, and although there were lots of cars in the ditch from the night before, driving conditions were good. The snow had stopped and patches of blue sky were visible in the distance, along with clouds that looked like well-used cotton balls.
She drove straight through, except for a brief stop at the drive-in window of a fast-food restaurant for lunch, and when she reached the storage place, it took a long time to locate the particular boxes she wanted. She found an expensive gold bracelet Alan had given her in the pocket of a tweed blazer.
On impulse she drove to his apartment building, meaning to leave the piece with one of his neighbors, but his car was parked in the lot, so she knocked on the door. Something inside made her want Alan to know she was all right; that she had hopes and plans, that he hadn’t destroyed her.
“Come in, it’s open!” he called out, and when Glory stepped inside, she saw that he was packing up his books.
Glory felt only a s
light ache in her heart at the sight of him. He was a good-looking man, with his dark hair and blue eyes, but she knew she didn’t love him. Maybe she never had.
“Hi,” she said, closing the door. “I thought you’d be working.” She held up the bracelet. “I just wanted to leave this.”
Alan nodded, a sad grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “The bank is sending me to work in one of its outlying branches. You can probably appreciate the irony of that.”
Glory was taken aback. If what Alan said was true, she could probably return to her old job right there in Portland. She’d been decisive when she gave notice, but not rude.
Just a few days ago, that position had meant everything to her, but now she could hardly wait to be in Pearl River again. “I’m moving back to my hometown,” she said. It seemed strange that she’d once thought she loved this man desperately. Now he seemed insipid, even a little on the wimpy side.
Alan paused in the packing of books to rest his hands on his hips. “Ah, yes—Pearl River. The heartbeat of the American financial community.”
Glory ignored his sarcasm, drew a deep breath, and took a step backward, reaching for the door knob. “Well, Alan—goodbye, and good luck in your new job.”
He stretched out a hand toward her. “Glory, stay. At least have dinner with me—we can part friends.”
“We can never be friends,” Glory responded, and then she opened the door and went out. The moist, chilly wind felt good on her face.
Alan followed her all the way to her car. “I suppose you arrived in the old hometown and found out none of the local women had managed to sink their claws into Jesse Bainbridge,” he said, his arms folded across his chest.
She swallowed. “This has nothing to do with Jesse,” she said. It wasn’t the complete truth, but none of this was any of Alan’s business, anyway. “Besides, I think I’m a small-town girl. The cutthroat ways of big-city banking are not for me.”
Alan jammed the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Damn it, Glory, I only wanted that promotion so you and I could finally get married and start a family. I knew that wouldn’t happen if you were up to your eyeballs in loan applications and appraisals—”
“You knew,” Glory corrected, “that I’d studied and slaved for that job for years. And when my back was turned, you elbowed your way in.”
“Glory, I’m sorry,” he said.
She opened the car door. “Gee,” she replied cuttingly, batting her eyelashes at him. “You’re sorry. Well, why didn’t you say so before, Alan? That just changes everything.”
With that, she got behind the wheel and slammed the door.
Alan slammed his hands down on the hood of her car in pure frustration, and although Glory had never known him to be violent before, she was angered and frightened by the action. She shoved the engine into reverse and sped away.
Reaching the edge of the city, she stopped at a busy restaurant for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. While she was waiting for her order, she went to the pay phone and dialed Delphine’s number at the diner.
“Hello, Mama,” she said, when her mother answered. “I arrived safely, and now I’m ready to leave again. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Delphine’s quicksilver sense of humor came through just at the moment when Glory needed it most. “Who is this?” she asked.
Four
Glory arrived back in Pearl River, as promised, before nightfall. She and Delphine and Harold had dinner out in nearby Fawn Creek and went Christmas shopping at the mall, another new addition since Glory had first left home.
The next morning she put on a suede suit in a pale shade of rose, accented with a cream-colored silk blouse and gold jewelry, and went down the street to the bank to pay a call on Harvey Baker. Glory hadn’t forgotten her mother’s remarking, that first day, that Mr. Baker needed an assistant, since the old one had taken a job in Seattle.
Mr. Baker was a substantial man with a full head of white hair and exceptional manners. And he’d already heard that Glory was looking for a job. He took her into his modest office, looked over the resumé she presented, and hired her on the spot.
Glory left the bank feeling almost euphoric. Now all she needed was a place of her own, so she could get out of her mother’s way. She called the town’s only motel, but it was full. Then she telephoned the real-estate agency and learned there was a one-bedroom place available in an old Victorian house down by the river.
By the time she went into the diner for a very late lunch, Glory not only had a job but a place to live. She would make arrangements for her furniture and personal belongings to be moved as soon as possible.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hasty, here?” Delphine asked, when they were alone in the diner after the lunch rush. The fry cook was outside in the alley, arguing with the man who delivered fresh produce. “Glory, maybe it would be better if you just went on with your life and tried to forget about Liza.”
“Forget her?” Glory’s spoon rattled in her coffee cup as she stirred unnecessarily. The two women were sitting at a table close to the counter. “Mama, could you have ever forgotten Dylan and me?”
“Of course not, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t just give birth to you, I raised you.” For a moment she averted her eyes, displaying great interest in the rusted metal thermometer affixed to the outside window casing. The snow was coating it, hiding its imperfections. Finally Delphine looked back at her daughter again. “Glory, Jesse’s involved with somebody. Her name’s Adara Simms and she owns the beauty shop.”
Although she wouldn’t have shown it, the reminder made Glory feel as though she’d just been slammed in the stomach with a board. She had been fostering a fantasy that included Jesse and Liza, whether she wanted to or not, neatly ignoring Adara’s existence, and she realized now what dangerous emotional ground she’d been on. “Why didn’t you tell me this the other night,” she asked moderately, “when you were so sure I had a date with Jesse?”
Delphine sighed. “That was before Mavis Springbeiger came in and told me Jesse planned to give Adara an engagement ring for Christmas.”
Glory closed her eyes tightly for a moment. Lord, but it hurt, the idea of Jesse slipping a ring onto someone else’s finger. She didn’t dare imagine the wedding itself. “I see,” she said woodenly.
Her mother reached out and closed her hand over Glory’s fingers, to still their trembling with a squeeze. “Honey, you’re young, you’re beautiful—you’re smart and educated. You don’t need Jesse, or even Liza, to make your life complete. There are other men to love you, and you can still have all the babies you want. Please, don’t limit yourself by staying here and living for the occasional glimpse of your daughter!”
Glory understood what her mother was saying, and it all made sense to her intellect. But her heart, never very amenable to logic, was balking. She sniffled. “If I didn’t know better, Mama, I’d swear you were trying to get rid of me.”
There were tears in Delphine’s eyes, even though she was smiling. “Heaven help me, Glory Parsons, if my conscience would allow it I’d beg you to stay. But I love you very much, and I want you to have the best possible life.”
The bell tinkled over the door, and long habit made Delphine stand up and smooth her crisp apron. When she saw that the visitor was Jesse, however, she didn’t offer any of her standard greetings. She tossed her daughter a meaningful look and disappeared into the kitchen.
Without being invited, Jesse dragged back Delphine’s chair and sat. The expression in his caramel eyes was guarded, and there was a stubborn set to his jaw. Glory sensed that he was full of questions, that beneath his calm exterior was an urge to grab her and shake her until she told him everything about her past.
“You sure know how to clear a room,” Glory said, because somebody had to say something and it was clear Jesse wasn’t going to extend the courtesy first.
He managed a rigid smile, and Glory noticed that there were snowflakes melting in his glossy brown hair
. Jesse had never liked hats. “Ilene told me you visited her yesterday.”
Glory drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Guilty,” she confessed, raising one hand as if to give an oath.
He sat back in his chair for a long moment, regarding Glory as though he expected her to do or say something outlandish. Then he muttered, “I’m prepared to concede that Liza is our child.”
“That’s big of you,” Glory replied smoothly, getting up from her chair and going behind the counter for a cup and a pot of coffee. She poured a cupful for Jesse, refilled her own, and returned the pot to its place before going on. “I assumed you’d come to terms with the idea, when you gave me those pictures of Liza. Thank you for that, by the way.”
Now Jesse leaned forward, ignoring the steaming coffee before him. “What I’m not willing to concede,” he went on, as though she hadn’t spoken, “is that you have any right to interfere with Liza’s life now. She’s been through enough, as it is. I don’t want her upset.”
Glory’s hands trembled as she lifted her cup to her mouth and took a sip. Delphine’s coffee was legendary, since she added a secret ingredient before brewing it, but the stuff passed over Glory’s tongue untasted. “I’ve never said I would tell Liza who I am,” she said evenly, once she’d swallowed. “I just want to spend time with her. And I will, Jesse, whether you like it or not.”
Again, Jesse’s jawline tightened. He took a packet of sugar from the container and turned it end over end on the tabletop. “You gave her up,” he said. “You handed her over to the authorities and walked away. As far as I’m concerned you made your decision then, and you can’t go back on it now.”
Glory’s instincts warned her to drop the subject for the moment. Jesse wasn’t feeling real receptive just then, and pushing would only make him more stubborn. “I hear you’re getting married.” She said the words as cheerfully as she could.
He averted his wonderful brown eyes, gazing out at the drifting snow, and for a moment he looked so desolate that Glory wanted to put her arms around him and offer him whatever comfort she could. “You hear a lot of things in small towns,” he murmured. Then he pushed back his chair and stood. “You’re not going to give ground on this, are you? You’re going to insist on hanging around.”
Glory, Glory Page 5