“Yes,” he said, knowing he was frowning and glad she couldn’t see his face. “I’ve seen snow before, but not often enough to be bored by it.”
“When I was growing up in Brazil I always used to dream of seeing snow,” Sarah said, coming closer to join him in the lacy shadows cast by the branches of the great tree. “The first time I saw it was when I was sent to boarding school in Ohio.”
“You were born in Brazil?”
She laughed again. “No. I was born in North Carolina, but I lived in Brazil until I was twelve. My parents were missionaries.” Something in her tone told him she didn’t want to talk about her parents, but he asked anyway. His own childhood had been so fragmented, so unsettled due to an alcoholic mother and absent father, that he was always curious how other people lived.
“Are your parents still alive?”
“Yes. They’re officially retired, but they’re doing outreach work in Arizona. Serving others through the church is what gives meaning to their life.” He didn’t have to ask what that meant. Sarah would have a hard time competing with her parents’ devotion to their life’s work, so he suspected that in her own mind she’d never quite measured up, never been quite good enough for them to love with all their heart and soul. He’d learned a lot from the shrinks they’d made him talk to in prison.
“No brothers or sisters?”
“Two brothers,” she said, leaning against the tree trunk to watch the snowflakes fall through the branches. One stuck on her long, dark lashes, and he longed to reach out and brush it away. “Both of them are older. One is a teacher in Nebraska and the other the programming manager of a religious radio station in Chicago.”
“Do you see them often?”
“They’re busy. I’m busy,” she hedged.
“But you followed Mom and Dad into the family business.”
It was her turn to frown. “Actually, I have a teaching certificate. But I met Eric one summer at a mission retreat and we fell in love. He did want to follow the path my parents had chosen as their way to serve the Lord, and I wanted to follow him. To help people. He had a true calling.” She hesitated, then looked straight at him. “I struggle,” she said simply.
“Does that mean you wish you weren’t Reverend Sarah?”
Her smile was a little crooked. “No. It just means I wish I were better at what I do.”
“You are very good at what you do.”
“Thank you for saying so.” She held out her hand to catch a snowflake on her glove and changed the subject. “I’m sorry to say this snow won’t last. But be patient. You’ll see more than you care to if you hang around Tyler long enough.”
“Will I be hanging around Tyler?” He thought of seeing the maple tree put out leaves in the spring, of Sarah standing beneath its shade, and he realized he wanted very much to be there with her.
“I told you the church board is very satisfied with your work.”
“Then I’m definitely not going to be ridden out of town on a rail?”
“Stop saying that. No one’s out to lynch you. We’re not that kind of people here.” Her eyes flashed and he smiled to himself. He liked getting a rise out of her. There was so much spirit, so much fire bottled up inside the Reverend Sarah Fleming, heat and passion to rival the sun.
He propped one hand against the tree, so close to her that the silky tendrils of her hair brushed the inside of his wrist. “Then you think it’s safe for me to stay?”
“It’s safe,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. Her gaze was steady but guarded. “Are you staying?”
“For a while.” He shouldn’t be talking to her this way. He wasn’t telling her the whole truth, couldn’t tell her the whole truth, and he didn’t like lying to her. But she was so close and so warm and she smelled so good. She was the woman who haunted his dreams every night and filled his waking hours with fantasies he wondered if she might not like to share.
“Then you’ll be here for Thanksgiving next week?”
“Thanksgiving? It is coming up, isn’t it? Are you going to Chicago or Nebraska or Arizona for the weekend?”
She shook her head, and her hair brushed like cool fire across his skin. “No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m staying here. And I’m fixing a turkey with all the trimmings even if I have to eat the whole bird myself.”
“Then I’ll stay here, too.”
“Isn’t there anyone you want to be with?”
You, he thought but knew enough not to say it out loud.
“There was only my grandmother, and she died last spring. And she wasn’t a turkey-and-stuffing-and-pumpkin-pie kind of grandmother when she was alive.” He thought of the rough-spoken, wisecracking woman who had been the only source of love in his youth and he mourned her loss, as he did every time he thought of her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips were cold and she stiffened instinctively at his touch. For a moment he thought she would continue to resist, that he had read her all wrong, that she wasn’t interested in him at all.
Then her lips warmed beneath his, flowered open as he leaned closer so that their bodies almost touched. She lifted her arms, circled his neck and erased that small distance between them. He could only guess at her softness beneath the clothes she wore, but it was enough to send a rush of heated blood through his veins. Her breath sifted out in a sigh that warmed his cheeks. God, she felt good, held against his body. Not just man-and-woman good, but right. As though their bodies were meant to fit together just this way.
He probed her open mouth with his tongue, letting the rhythm of their kiss substitute for a more intimate joining. For a moment she allowed him that liberty, kissed him back with a passion that matched his own. Then she made a small, urgent sound in the back of her throat and pushed at his shoulders. For another moment Michael resisted her efforts to separate them. He knew the way a woman’s body reacted. Sarah wanted this as much as he did. And if he persisted she would not deny him.
Reluctantly he stepped away. He didn’t want it to be like that. He wanted Sarah to come to him with open arms—and an open heart. To stay with him.
Stay with him? What did that mean? An affair? Not with Sarah. With Sarah it would mean commitment.
He took two steps backward, so quickly he almost stumbled over his own feet. “It’s getting late,” he said, his voice hoarse with the cold and with the passion that still streaked through his veins. “And it’s freezing out here. You should be inside.”
“Yes.” She didn’t sound like herself either. She lifted her fingers to her mouth. “I—”
He reached out and laid his fingers over hers. “Don’t say anything. It was just a kiss.” If that was just a kiss, he couldn’t begin to imagine what making love to her would be like.
“Just a kiss,” Sarah repeated. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again. “Just a kiss,” she said more firmly. “Good night, Michael.”
“Good night, Sarah.”
She turned to go, then looked back over her shoulder. It had stopped snowing a few minutes ago. It was still and quiet, with only the rustling of bare branches as the ancient maple settled into sleep overhead. Her face was a pale oval in the faint glow of the streetlight on the corner. “I’d like it very much if you’d share Thanksgiving dinner with me.”
“I’d like that,” he said. And maybe by then I’ll be able to tell you why I’m really here.
“Good,” she said and smiled. Her real smile, her Sarah-from-the-heart smile. “We’ll eat at two.”
CHAPTER SIX
“IT’S DARK AS Hades in here. There’s a light switch beside the workbench if you need help finding anything.”
Michael didn’t let it show that Edward Wocheck’s entrance into the small barn behind
the Ingalls house had startled him. He’d been so intent on studying the vintage Bentley, whose innards were spread out on that same workbench, that he hadn’t heard the other man approach. He turned slowly, schooling his expression into one of only ordinary interest, even though he knew Edward couldn’t see his face.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need the light. I’m only here to check the windows on the west side. Mrs. Wocheck thinks they need replacing before winter.” That was the truth. Checking out the Bentley under its thin sheet of protective plastic—ordinary, throwaway painter’s drop cloths like those he used every day—was an unexpected bonus. It had been years, almost six altogether, since he’d been this close to a classic automobile.
“They do,” Edward agreed. “But it’s four o’clock on the day before Thanksgiving. Can’t it wait until Friday? Or Monday?”
“I’ve got nothing better to do this afternoon.”
“I thought you were doing some work for Liza and Cliff today.”
Michael tensed. Edward Wocheck was an important man. Not just in Tyler, but any damn place you wanted to name. Not the kind of man who went out of his way to keep track of the hired help’s schedule, unless there was a damn good reason for doing so. It had been a week since the word had gotten out about his past. A quiet seven days without any problems. It seemed after the first flurry of phone calls and nervous speculation that the townsfolk had decided he wasn’t going to murder them in their beds. And if they hadn’t actually accepted him as one of their own, they had left him alone. That was the way he liked it. That was the way he wanted it to stay.
“I replaced some floorboards on the deck at Mrs. Forrester’s place this morning. It’s too cold to stain them, though. That’ll probably have to wait until spring. The winter will be hard on them. I explained all that, but your daughter-in-law wanted the repairs done today, regardless.”
Edward Wocheck smiled and shook his head. “And what Liza wants, Liza usually gets.”
“That’s what I figured.” Liza Baron Forrester was the youngest of Alyssa Wocheck’s offspring—maybe a year or so older than Michael was. She was slender and blond, a little flamboyant, but friendly, with a happy laugh and a ready smile. She didn’t look all that much like her brother and sister, or at least not as much as Jeff Baron and Amanda Trask resembled each other. He knew because he’d seen pictures of both of them while he’d been working at the Ingalls house.
But she did look a lot like the woman in the portrait that he’d glimpsed in her living room. Her grandmother, Margaret Ingalls, she’d told him when she saw where his eyes had strayed. The woman whose body had lain buried beneath a tree at Timberlake Lodge for forty years before being discovered.
He hadn’t said anything about the murder, of course, although he’d read about it in back copies of the Tyler Citizen at the library one rainy afternoon when he didn’t have anything else to do. He’d learned a lot about the Barons and the Ingallses from the printed accounts of what went on during that year in their lives. But there was still more he needed to know.
“I’m glad there’s someone to help her out while Cliff—that’s her husband—is settling into his new job with the Department of Natural Resources.”
“She mentioned something about that.” Michael stuck his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t wearing gloves and the barn wasn’t heated. Edward, not seeming to notice the cold, switched on the lights and began to uncover the Bentley. Michael’s hands curled into fists inside his pockets. His palms itched to feel the satiny finish of her paint. She was a beauty. In mint condition. One of the best he’d ever seen. And worth a small fortune on the open market.
“Cliff comes from an old Rhode Island family. They’ve been in the publishing business for more than a hundred years. His brother, Byron, married a Tyler woman, too—Nora Gates. Have you met her?”
“Gates Department Store?” Michael asked, just to keep the older man talking. “I’ve been in there. But I’ve never met the woman.”
Edward merely grunted in reply. His mind wasn’t on their conversation; Michael could see that. He was staring at the engine of the Bentley as if it were a snake. “This damn car,” he said under his breath. “I don’t know why in hell Nikki had it shipped over here. Devon despises the thing. And I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
“Bentleys are pretty temperamental machines,” Michael said before he could stop himself.
“You know classic cars?”
Michael felt the muscles of his neck and shoulders tighten with the tension of old, unresolved anger and betrayal. He made himself relax, forced his words to remain neutral. “Restoring them is what I’m trained to do. It’s what I figured I’d spend my life doing. They’re also the reason I went to prison.”
Edward Wocheck raised his head, the Bentley’s idiosyncrasies forgotten. “Want to tell me about it?”
“It’s in the past. Better forgotten.”
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”
This time Michael made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “That’s the way it is.”
He heard the small door located next to the barn’s big sliding doors open and someone come inside. It was late afternoon now, almost dark, and it wasn’t until she entered the circle of light around the Bentley that Michael could be certain it was Alyssa Wocheck.
“I thought you might both be out here,” she said in her pleasant voice. Her scent was pleasant, too. Wildflowers and summer meadows instead of dust and mildew and motor oil. “Edward, you aren’t still trying to get this monstrosity to run, are you?”
“It’s not a monstrosity, Alyssa. It’s one of the most beautiful cars ever built.”
“Even if you would rather be driving Liza’s Thunderbird?”
Michael had seen that car, too. An American dream machine if ever there was one, parked carelessly beneath a pine tree behind the boathouse where the Forresters lived. Alyssa came closer and peered under the Bentley’s hood. “Devon won’t thank you for trying to get it to run. He doesn’t like it any better than you do.”
“I know that.” Edward smiled at Alyssa, wiped his hands on a shop rag and rolled down his sleeves. They were standing very close together but he didn’t reach out to kiss his wife, or even hug her; yet something passed between them, a bonding, a connection, that even Michael couldn’t ignore.
“What are we going to do with it?” she asked. “Devon won’t drive it, you know. He wouldn’t be caught dead in that car in Tyler. He’s worked too hard to be accepted for himself in this town to be seen in an anachronism like that.”
“What do you think, Kenton?” Edward Wocheck asked unexpectedly. “You and my stepson are about the same age. What would you think about being seen tooling around town in an automobile like this one?”
“It’s an incredible car. But I think I know where Devon’s coming from. Fitting in someplace that means a lot to you is more important than just about anything else. Even being able to own and drive a classic like this baby.”
Alyssa smiled warmly, and Michael caught himself smiling back.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said. “I hope you stay in Tyler long enough to meet Devon. I think you’d find you have a lot in common.”
There were any number of things Michael could have said to that, like what in hell would a guy like this Devon Addison have in common with an ex-con like him, but he didn’t. He accepted the compliment at face value.
Alyssa went right on talking. “We’re expecting him Friday. He’s going to miss Thanksgiving dinner, but he’ll be here in time for the first round of leftovers. Would you care to join us for the holiday, Michael?”
He’d been surreptitiously studying Edward Wocheck’s face as he watched his wife, wondering what it took for a man to love a woman as he must love her. Alyssa’s invitation caught him by surprise, and Edward, too, from the quick, sligh
t frown that pulled his dark brows together.
“Thanks. No. I’m—I’m going to have Thanksgiving dinner with Sarah Fleming.”
“That’s nice,” Alyssa said. “Of course, you’d both be welcome here. Would you like me to call Sarah and invite her, too?”
Michael didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to eat with the Barons and the Wochecks. He didn’t belong in this house, with his feet underneath their dining room table.
“I think she’s already bought the turkey,” he said lamely. Somehow his breath seemed caught in his throat. He swallowed hard. “But I appreciate the invitation.”
“Of course. Will we see you Friday? Or are you going to take the day off to start your Christmas shopping?”
Christmas shopping? He’d never really been Christmas shopping. There had only been his grandmother to buy for, and now there was no one.
“I’ll be here,” he said. “Eight o’clock. Is that okay?”
“I’ll see that there’s a space heater here for you,” Edward said, pulling the plastic sheeting back over the Bentley’s roof. “Make it more comfortable.”
“Thanks.” Edward’s words were friendly, but he was still frowning. His look was assessing, evaluating. Michael wondered what he was thinking about. “It’ll only take me a day or so to do the windows. That should just about finish up the job.”
“Yes,” Alyssa said. “Everything’s shipshape. You do very good work.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, anxious now to get away from this kind, unsuspecting woman.
“There are some repairs I’d like made to the inside of the house.” She paused. “Are you planning to stay in Tyler much longer?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He hadn’t planned on staying this long. But then again, he hadn’t considered how hard it would be to learn what he needed to know without coming right out and asking questions of people point-blank. “I haven’t thought much about it. But maybe I will. I’ll let you know.”
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