“I haven’t seen Harlan since our divorce,” she told Sessoms.
“Nine years?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re sure?”
“Mr. Sessoms, I assure you I’d remember if I’d seen Harlan.”
No question of that. No doubt they’d have ended up in bed together. It had been that way between them right from the beginning. A long time ago Beth had decided that if she was going to get on with her life, she would have to stay away from Harlan Rockwood. She supposed that if they had spent more time on working out their problems and less time in avoiding them, they might have understood each other better. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, and understanding didn’t necessarily lead to reconciliation.
“I’ve answered your questions,” Beth said, losing patience. “Now what’s this all about?”
Jimmy Sessoms frowned. “Mrs. Rockwood...Ms. Stiles.” He sighed again, shaking his head. “I’m afraid your husband’s missing.”
Beth let the “your husband” slide and sat forward in her chair, feeling strangely afraid. “What do you mean?”
“Five days ago—last Sunday—he was to meet his mother for brunch. He never showed up. Since then she’s made every effort to locate him, without success.”
“Did she call the police?”
“They’re not worried. Neither is anyone but Mrs. Rockwood. Apparently Harlan travels a great deal and isn’t always easy to locate. Certainly the idea of a thirty-seven-year-old man forgetting a brunch date with his mother isn’t unheard of. Mrs. Rockwood disagrees.”
Beth tried to make herself look nonchalant. “What do you think?”
The investigator shrugged. “A woman, probably.”
Naturally. Aware of an unexpected sinking feeling in her stomach, Beth nodded. She blamed the feeling on drinking iced tea too soon after her run. Harlan hadn’t remarried. For years she had told herself she’d sleep easier when she knew Harlan Rockwood had married another woman.
“That makes sense,” she said dispassionately. “So why come to me?”
Jimmy Sessoms looked amused. “I figured you for that woman.”
“Me?” She laughed. “Mr. Sessoms, Harlan and I married young. We’ve been divorced for a long time. I don’t think kindly of him, and he doesn’t think kindly of me. If you suspect he’s gone off with a woman, you’d better forget me and concentrate on someone southern, on someone who knows her china and silver patterns.”
“I don’t know...”
“Well, I do. Have you met Harlan?”
“Not yet.”
“If you’d had, you could have saved yourself a trip north.”
“Maybe.” He pushed away his iced tea as he rose. “Maybe not. But if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, what I’ve learned about Harlan Rockwood so far makes me think he rather likes a woman who sweats.”
Beth could feel her shirt sticking to her back.
“If you hear from him, give me a call.” Sessoms placed his card upon the table. “My answering service knows where to reach me. Okay?”
“Of course, but I won’t hear from him. Not after nine years.”
He shrugged. “Crazier things have happened. Good day, Mrs. Rockwood.” He grinned at her cheekily and corrected himself. “Ms. Stiles.”
After Jimmy Sessoms had left, Beth showered and put on an oversize T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She dug around in her refrigerator for her last beer. There had to be one in there somewhere. A six-pack lasted her forever. Apparently not this time. Instead she fixed herself a gin and tonic and went onto the porch.
A summer’s late afternoon in southern Vermont couldn’t be beaten. She sat on the old porch rocker and propped her bare feet upon the railing. The sagging porch would need to be replaced. There wasn’t any hurry. Appearances were other people’s concern, not hers. She had the view, the sounds of the birds, the feel of the wind on her face. What more could she possibly want?
All the same she felt strangely uncomfortable and dissatisfied.
What had happened to Harlan?
Was Jimmy Sessoms right? Had Harlan disappeared on her account?
No way. If he had, she would have known about it by now. Notwithstanding Char and her brothers’ opinions on the matter, Harlan hadn’t decided to rekindle a relationship with her after nine years. The fact that he hadn’t remarried simply proved he liked his independence as much as she liked hers.
Second question. Had Harlan disappeared on account of some other woman?
“Nah,” she muttered, taking a sip of her drink.
Harlan wasn’t one to act irrationally because of some woman. Disappearing on purpose was not his style. It was also inconsiderate, and Harlan, for all his faults, wasn’t inconsiderate. If another woman was involved, Jimmy Sessoms wouldn’t have driven a thousand miles to Vermont to track down the ex-wife of the man he had been hired to find.
In all likelihood Harlan had forgotten his brunch date with his mother and gone off on one of his trips without mentioning it to her. He was a big boy. He didn’t have to tell his mother every little thing. But even if he had forgotten, surely he would have remembered by now and called to apologize.
That left the fourth possibility.
Harlan hadn’t disappeared by choice.
Beth shivered, suddenly feeling very alone. Silly. No one was going to come after her.
Jimmy Sessoms had.
How selfish, she told herself, to worry about her own safety when Harlan...
When Harlan what?
Harlan Rockwood was a wealthy man. As the owner of the thoroughbred that had nearly won the Triple Crown, he had recently received a great deal of national exposure.
Had someone kidnapped him?
Beth raced inside and dialed the number on Jimmy Sessom’s business card. Getting his answering machine, she left a message she immediately regretted. She had sounded so panicked and breathless. Sessoms would naturally assume that she cared about what happened to Harlan Rockwood.
She pounced on the phone when it rang.
“Your hubby called?’’ Jimmy Sessoms inquired.
“No, of course not. I told you, his disappearance has nothing to do with me. Mr. Sessoms...”
“Jimmy,” he corrected her.
“Is there any evidence of foul play?”
He chuckled. “Foul play?”
Beth didn’t share his amusement. “You know.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do, and if there was, do you think Mrs. Rockwood would stand for the police not getting involved?”
Not a chance. “What’s your next step?” Beth asked.
“Ms. Stiles, if you want to hire me, you’ll have to wait your turn.”
“I’m curious. Harlan and I may not be on speaking terms, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care if he’s been kidnapped.”
“Who said anything about kidnapping?” Sessoms asked sharply.
“I didn’t mean to imply...”
“If you know something, let’s have it.”
Beth was silenced. Suddenly she wished she’d poured herself another drink instead of having left that stupid message for Sessoms. “I don’t know anything,” she said coolly.
“Well, this thing doesn’t even begin to play like a kidnapping.”
“Then what does it play like?”
There was a short pause. Then Jimmy Sessoms, his humor apparently returned, drawled, “Plays like a man trying to get his wife back.”
“Ex-wife.”
“If you say so.”
“I have the papers.” Beth stopped herself. The man was incorrigible. “Why doesn’t this thing play like a mother overreacting?”
“You have met Mrs. Rockwood, haven’t you?”
Enough said. Eleanor Rockwood wasn’t the hysterical type. “What does she think?”
“All I can say, Ms. Stiles, is that I drove up here to Vermont at her suggestion. Now if you want to know more, you call her.”
“Wait—”
But he had already hung up.
Beth knew Taylor and Eleanor Rockwood’s telephone number by heart. It was one of those things that stuck. To be sure, she and her former mother-in-law hadn’t spoken since she and Harlan had announced their plans to divorce. Eleanor hadn’t taken the news well. She had always considered her son’s marriage hasty and ill-conceived, making no secret of her belief that Beth was too young to give up her life in Vermont and settle down in Tennessee. Even four years as an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University in Nashville weren’t enough to prepare her for a life so far from home. That had been Eleanor’s opinion when she was being charitable. On a more gut level, Beth knew that Eleanor had disliked her daughter-in-law’s directness and her clipped, no-nonsense manner of talking. Most of all, she’d disliked Beth’s determination to have a career and her disinclination to follow in her mother-in-law’s footsteps.
None of this, however, was ever stated. Beth had just known it.
She’d also known that Eleanor was a traditional woman who preferred to avoid failure and even a whiff of scandal. She’d probably loathed having to tell her friends that her son and his Yankee wife were divorcing. Divorce was all right for other people, but not for the Rockwoods.
“Why?” she had asked her son in Beth’s presence. “What happened?”
“We just think it’s for the best,” Harlan had replied, refusing to air the dirty linen of their marriage in front of his mother.
Eleanor had then turned to Beth. “And what do you think?”
Beth had repeated Harlan’s words. Later she’d discovered that Eleanor blamed Harlan for not having had better control over his emotions and marrying Beth in the first place.
Now all that was ancient history, and regardless of what Eleanor Rockwood had believed, she had had nothing to do with Beth and Harlan falling in or out of love with each other.
Beth picked up the phone and dialed the Tennessee number.
Eleanor Rockwood answered.
Beth all at once felt like an idiot and hung up. Then she felt like a bigger idiot and dialed again.
“Mrs. Rockwood? Hi, it’s Elizabeth Stiles. That was me a minute ago. My cat knocked over the phone.”
“Beth,” Eleanor Rockwood said, sounding as formidable as ever. “How nice to hear from you.”
Chitchat wasn’t Beth’s style so she got right to the point. “Jimmy Sessoms was here.”
Beth heard her ex-mother-in-law inhale. Eleanor Rockwood was very, very good at repressing her emotions. She said tensely, “Then you know about Harlan.”
Deciding to play Eleanor’s game, Beth struggled to control her own confused feelings. “Yes. Jimmy Sessoms told me. I wish I could say Harlan was here with me. I mean, I don’t... you haven’t heard from him?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“May I ask you one question?”
“Of course,” the older woman replied, everything apparently under perfect control again.
“Did you have any specific reason for thinking Harlan might be with me?”
“Beth, you must understand that I would prefer not to discuss family matters.”
“Please. Nothing Harlan’s done has ever been simple. I don’t mean to sound cavalier. I’m trying to get a handle on this situation, in case I can help.”
Eleanor sighed. “Thank you, Elizabeth.” Her tone was polite and distant. “If I require your assistance, I’ll be sure to ask. I do appreciate your concern.”
“Okay. If I hear from Harlan, I’ll let you know.”
“How very kind.”
Feeling nosy and stupid for having called, especially after Mrs. Rockwood’s coolly civil goodbye, Beth fumed for ten minutes. Finally, she put on a skirt, a cotton blouse and a pair of sandals, and headed into town for supper. To console herself, she indulged in a high-calorie meal, ordering a big bowl of New England clam chowder with hot corn fritters and, for dessert, wild blueberry pie.
Where was Harlan?
You don’t care, she told herself, and promptly tried Jimmy Sessoms again when she got home. He didn’t return her call.
She then dialed Taylor and Eleanor Rockwood’s number again. This time Taylor answered. Beth had gotten along reasonably well with Marian’s father. Taylor had been too preoccupied with running the family businesses to concern himself with what kind of car his daughter-in-law drove, or whether his son was happy. Taylor Rockwood had apparently realized straight off that they’d never make a Rockwood of her, and had never been inclined to beat his head against a brick wall.
They exchanged pleasantries. Her former father-in-law was clearly surprised to hear from Beth. Trying to be more tactful than usual, she explained that she had heard from Jimmy Sessoms and was worried about Harlan. Instinct told her not to mention her earlier conversation with Eleanor. She’d only end up sounding defensive.
“Who’s Jimmy Sessoms? What’s happened to Harlan? Beth, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Isn’t Harlan missing?”
“Missing what?”
“Missing. You know, disappeared.”
“Not that I know of, no.” Taylor hesitated, and Beth wouldn’t have been startled to hear that he was wondering whether she’d gone crazy in the past nine years. “Where did you get such a notion?”
“Then where is he?”
“With you, I thought. Isn’t he?”
Beth frowned. “Mr. Rockwood, I haven’t seen Harlan since our divorce.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe he changed his mind.” Sounding as though he was talking to himself more than to Beth, he murmured, “I’m sure there’s no cause for alarm. Is Jimmy Sessoms a friend of his?”
“No.” Beth decided against squealing on Eleanor. Let her tell her husband herself that she’d hired a private investigator.
“I don’t wish to cut you short, Beth, but Eleanor and I are on our way out.”
“Mr. Rockwood, what made you think Harlan was with me?”
“Don’t you think you should take that up with him?”
“I would if I could find him,” Beth said, more snappishly than she would have liked. She always felt so out of control among the Rockwoods. But what was that snake in the grass Harlan up to?
“So you don’t know where he is?” Taylor inquired.
“No.”
“But he told me...” Beth heard Taylor clear his throat once again. It sounded as if he wasn’t going to overreact. “I understood he would be contacting you. He missed a brunch date with his mother on Sunday, and we haven’t heard from him since. I just assumed he was acting on his promise.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “What promise?”
“It’s not my place to say, but—well, obviously something’s wrong here. On Saturday evening at a dinner party, Harlan told me he had one Stubborn Yankee in his stables. Now he just needed one back...” Taylor paused, then finished, “back in his house.”
Beth bristled. She’d lay money that Harlan hadn’t said “house.”
“He’d had a few glasses of wine, you understand. He doesn’t normally. ..er...”
“Compare me to a horse?” Beth inquired acidly.
“Well, no. But you should be complimented. Stubborn Yankee is a beauty.”
“I’ll remember that, next time I look in the mirror. Did he say anything else?”
“Not really, no. Beth, you don’t think any thing’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know what to think.” That much she did know. “You sure he was coming my way?”
“I was,” Taylor Rockwood said, not sounding sure any longer. “Perhaps I should talk to my wife. Does she have your number?”
“I doubt it,” Beth said politely, and gave it to him.
After she hung up, she flopped back onto her couch. A cat crawled onto her stomach and she said, “Harlan, Harlan. Where are you?”
From the dark recesses of her house his voice drawled, “Right here, darlin’.”
Chapter Two
Beth went rock-still and listened, then sat up stra
ight on her couch and looked intently around the room.
A light over the sink in the kitchen and the floor lamp next to the couch in the great room illuminated the downstairs of the small house, but left the corners in shadows when dusk fell.
The couch bisected the large room, separating her living quarters from her sleeping area. She climbed onto her knees and looked over the back of the couch into the shadows of what had become her bedroom. A double-sized iron bed was piled high with old quilts. Standing next to the bed was Louie’s massive, marble-topped dresser with an attached mirror. Having an iron bed in the middle of the living room had rather a dampening effect on her entertaining, to be sure. Housecleaning, however, was a breeze.
The arrangement also made it tougher for apparitions to hide.
The cast-iron potbelly stove occupied the middle of the far wall, near the bathroom Beth had installed. If she was truly paranoid, she would have to inspect the bathroom and the attic before she was satisfied she hadn’t been hearing things.
Harlan’s voice. How long since she had conjured up his deep, sexy drawl? Years, probably.
Not true.
She sank back and pulled a quilt over her feet, not wishing to face the truth.
The truth was that she had conjured up his voice, his laughter, his smile—the feel of his body curved around hers as they slept—night after night since Stubborn Yankee had crossed the finish line and won the Kentucky Derby that spring.
“Can you give me a hand? I can’t get the door.”
This was madness. She wouldn’t listen.
“Beth, you’re there. I know you are.”
In the morning she would telephone a psychiatrist. It was the only thing left to do.
“Beth, I’ll break down the damned door if I have to!”
Something was kicking at her attic door; the wrought-iron latch and hinges vibrated. Beth jumped up, jarred out of her stupor.
“Harlan Rockwood, I swear I’ll...”
She tore open the door, half expecting thin air. There he was, seventy-four inches of taut muscle and Tennessean charm. One of the most eligible men in the South—according to an article Char had clipped and sent Beth during her own brief stay in Rockwood country. Smart, easygoing, tawny-haired and rich were the words used to describe Harlan. What more could a woman want?
That Stubborn Yankee Page 2