by Lily Cahill
She wondered what he liked to eat, what kinds of sweets she could concoct to delight his palate. It would be so much fun to feed him. To see him enjoy something she had made with her own hands.
As the cupcakes baked, she whipped the frosting together, then divided it into smaller bowls and added food coloring until she had a vibrant red, a brilliant blue, and a sunny yellow in addition to the white.
These birthday cupcakes for Mrs. Goodman’s son required special decorations, and she’d had to charge the woman a bit more than normal to cover the cost. She laid out her purchases on the counter—carefully hidden in her bedroom since yesterday for fear of Butch devouring them. There were brightly colored candies and food coloring and a full package of pointy ice cream cones to make clown hats.
Again, her thoughts drifted to the idea of an apartment with Clayton, of coming home together after a day of working—in a bakery, maybe? Or a flower shop? They would cook together. It wouldn’t be like it was now, where she felt like a servant in her own home. It would be a gift, something he could cherish. And he would help. She knew it was unusual for men to help around the house, but she couldn’t imagine marrying just to become someone’s servant. She’d had enough of that already in her life. If she couldn’t marry as an equal, she wouldn’t marry at all. Clayton would be horrible at cooking, of course, having grown up the way he did. But she could teach him.
She imagined guiding his hand over a pot of soup as she decorated the clown cupcakes with frosting heads and candy faces and little dots on their ice-cream-cone hats. She tried to make each one unique, imagining the children at the party being delighted to have something that was their very own. The process relaxed her, made her feel better. Baking always did that for her. It was something her mother taught her, a way to escape.
Her date with Clayton would be fine, she decided. She would figure out how to handle herself. It wouldn’t matter what she wore. They would have a good time regardless. And maybe he’d even kiss her again.
When the cupcakes were finished, she packed them carefully into a basket and walked back into town. Mrs. Goodman lived in a newer area of Independence Falls called Riverview—a suburban development that had popped up after the war. Its modern brick ranch homes contrasted greatly with the stately Victorians on Highledge.
“They’re delightful. Just delightful. You have a real talent, Cora,” Mrs. Goodman said when Cora unveiled the bundle in her kitchen. “Kenny and his friends will love them.”
“I hope so,” Cora said.
It always felt good when someone recognized her hard work. She loved baking and wished there was a bakery in town where she could apply for a full-time job doing it.
“Here’s what I owe you,” Mrs. Goodman closed the coins in Cora’s hand. “And a little extra to say thank you.”
“Oh, I couldn’t—” Cora said.
“You charge too little, Cora. Cupcakes like these would sell for three times as much if we were in Denver.”
“But we’re not. And I really couldn’t—”
“I won’t hear another word about it,” she said.
Cora conceded. She didn’t feel right about accepting more than her quoted price. But with all her savings gone, she couldn’t afford to argue.
“Now you have yourself a nice evening,” Mrs. Goodman said. “And don’t forget to stop by next week so we can discuss what I’m going to serve when Bob’s boss visits.”
“I won’t forget. Thank you, Mrs. Goodman.”
Cora tucked the cash in her pocket and made her way back toward town. She’d have to figure out a new hiding place for the money when she got home. Perhaps she’d sew herself a money belt so she could keep it on her all the time. But for now, she would enjoy her walk. The sun had just set, casting everything in a dusty blue. Some of the shops in town were still open—the diner, the general store. Their lights glowed through the shop windows, spilling a little gold out onto the street. The town could be nice sometimes. She imagined herself strolling through the town square on Clayton’s arm, the two of them talking about their day. The idea of it suddenly made the town itself seem more bearable, even charming.
Then she spotted Clayton, and her heart sank.
He was at the drugstore, sitting at the soda fountain counter with a group of his friends—all the most popular kids that had either barely noticed she was alive in high school, or had given her hell every step she took through the long halls. And there she was too—that awful woman who had laughed at her for kissing Clayton. Violet Miller, too pretty by half.
At that very moment, Violet slipped her arm through Clayton’s and whispered something in his ear. What she said was so funny that Clayton chuckled, and Violet brought her cherry lips closer, closer, so close. Too close.
Cora turned away. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t watch him being so affectionate with someone else. And not just anyone else—her.
Cora had allowed herself to believe that Clayton was telling the truth about their kiss at the festival. But if it wasn’t a trick, then why would he practically hang off the arm of the very woman who had tormented them?
Her throat felt thick and she could feel tears threatening the corners of her eyes. Clayton wasn’t interested in her at all. Maybe their moment today at the lake had been real—it felt like it had been real—but she was fooling herself to think that it was anything more than lust. Boys like Clayton didn’t take women like her out on dates. They had their fun and then moved on to women like Violet. She was the kind of woman Clayton could take home to his parents. Not her. Not a Murphy.
Cora quickened her pace, breaking into a run. She had to leave, had to get out of town and back home. She didn’t want Clayton to see how upset he had made her.
As she ran, she forced the tears back down. She wouldn’t let herself cry. In fact, she was glad she’d seen them. At least this way she could keep her dignity. She would put a stop to their little joke before it went any further. When he showed up tomorrow night—if he showed up tomorrow night—she’d simply tell Clayton she wasn’t interested and that would be that. And she would never let him see that he had hurt her. She didn’t have much, but she had her pride.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clayton
Violet hooked her arm into Clayton’s. “If your brother doesn’t stop mooning over his fiancée, I think I’m going to lose my milkshake,” she whispered, her lips so close he could feel the puff of her breath against his ear.
Clayton chuckled. Even though they were here with the rest of the gang, Meg and Will had tucked themselves into a private booth—just so they could hold hands and stare at each other all night, from the looks of it. Clayton didn’t mind. They both looked happy.
“I say we create a diversion, then kidnap them separately just to see if they could still breathe without each other,” Violet said.
“Aw, leave them alone.” Clayton shifted so he could unhook Violet’s arm from his without offending her. Ever since the party his mother had thrown, she’d been a little too quick to touch him—putting a hand on his shoulder, crooking her elbow into his. Maybe it had been his fault. Maybe he’d been too friendly with her that night. But things had changed since then. A lot. And he wasn’t the kind of guy to run with two women at once.
“They’re in love. It’s sweet,” he said.
“Oh, please,” Violet said. “Since when did you care for displays like that? You barely let me hold your hand in public when we were dating.”
“Maybe I’ve changed,” Clayton said.
“I’ll say he has,” Frank piped in with a sly laugh from behind the counter where he worked as a soda jerk. “You should have seen him earlier today. It was a regular Broadway show.”
What was that supposed to mean? Had Frank been spying on him with Cora? What kind of guy watched another guy kiss his girl? And why was he thinking of her as his girl at all?
“Quiet, Frank,” Clayton warned. Frank was probably just trying to impress Violet. He had always had a thing for Viol
et. A lot of people had always had a thing for Violet. But still. He was walking on very thin ice. It made Clayton want to rip that stupid paper cap right off his head.
“Don’t you dare be quiet,” Violet said, swiveling on her stool to turn her attention to Frank. She seemed a little too bright and a little too chipper, the way women sometimes did when they were hiding their disappointment. “Spill. I want every detail.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Clayton said, eyeing Frank to keep his mouth shut. “I helped her get out of the water. That was it.”
“That was some way to lend a hand, pal. You should’ve seen it, Vi,” Frank said, leaning on the counter until he was eye-level with Violet. “Clay had Cora Murphy on the trail by the cliffs today, and I’m telling you, it got steamy.”
“Cora Murphy?” Violet asked, looking very much like she thought Frank was telling tall tales.
Where had that louse been hiding? He was sure he and Cora were out of view of the water, at the very least. Maybe he was just bluffing.
“You need to get your eyes checked, Frank,” Clayton said, trying to play it off.
“I know what I saw. They were like glue and paper.” Frank started kissing his hand and moaning.
Violet looked stunned, speechless.
Clayton shoved his fist in his pocket so he wouldn’t punch Frank in the face. He wasn’t sure what made him more angry: Frank spying on them, or Frank telling everyone their personal business.
“And she was half naked,” he said. “Went in the water that way.”
That was it. Trashing his reputation was one thing, but Cora’s? Clayton had had enough.
He caught Frank by the lapels of his white uniform jacket and yanked him forward until his belly was on the bar. He stared him straight in the eye. “Whatever you thought you saw, you were wrong.”
“Clayton Briggs!” Violet shouted.
“Take it easy,” Frank moaned. “I was just ribbing you a little.”
Clayton let him go. But he could see in Frank’s eyes that the two of them had finally come to an understanding. He wouldn’t be mouthing off anymore. Frank turned and began aimlessly wiping down the soda machine with a wet rag.
“Honestly, Clayton. What’s gotten into you?” Violet whispered. “I didn’t think you were that kind of man.”
“And what kind of man is that?” Clayton asked, still fuming.
“The kind to threaten your friend over a woman for one. And the kind to just be interested in getting your kicks for another.”
“My kicks?”
“It’s cruel. She probably believes you’re really interested.” Violet looked him square in the eye. “And honestly. When did you ever have to scrape the bottom of the garbage pail for your dinner?”
Clayton took a deep breath to keep himself from yelling at her. He might not have known much about Cora, but Violet knew even less. He made an effort to make the next words out of his mouth as even as possible. “Listen to me very carefully, Violet. Nothing happened. Cora is not that kind of girl. I won’t have her talked about like that. Do you understand me?”
“Won’t have her talked about like that? Listen to yourself, Clay. Your parents couldn’t possibly approve—”
“There’s nothing to approve of. I barely know her. I helped her out of the water. That’s all.”
Violet had known him a long time, and he could see she didn’t believe a word he was saying. It was his own fault. He had overreacted to Frank. His anger had betrayed him.
Clayton looked around the room—at the whole place now quiet, staring at him—and suddenly felt the air go stale.
“I have to go.”
Clayton stomped out of the drugstore. God. Why had he reacted that way? What was wrong with him?
Violet. That’s what. Her words hadn’t been totally off base. He was treading a very dangerous line with Cora—leading her on, leading himself on—and he knew it. There was no way their relationship could go anywhere. If he was a wiser man he’d put an end to the whole thing now before either of them got hurt.
“Clay! Wait up!” The voice came from Will. He was jogging down the street after him.
Clayton stopped. He was in no mood to speak to his brother, but he knew Will wouldn’t let go of this until they talked. It was better to face him now.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing. Frank doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Come on, Clay. You can’t feed me the same line you fed everybody else. I know you better than that. And I saw you after the Murphy girl left. Something happened between the two of you.”
Clayton huffed, kept walking. But Will matched his pace.
“What do you want me to say?” Clayton asked.
“The truth would be nice.”
Clayton stopped, turned to him.
“Fine. I kissed her. Is that what you want to hear?”
Will paused, studied Clayton’s face.
“Is it serious?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Jesus, Clay. Why do you always have to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Act out like this. Mom hosts one little mixer, and suddenly you have to make the most reckless possible decision just to prove you call the shots?”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about? Because you can’t possibly believe Mom or Dad would be okay with this. They didn’t even approve of Violet a few years ago. Violet. Cora is so much worse.” Will shook his head. “This is just like college.”
“It’s not.”
“Really? Dad made you pick Chicago over whatever that party school was that you wanted to go to in Los Angeles. That whole year was about making him pay and you know it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Leave it to a Yale grad to think of UCLA as a party school. Clayton had been mad, sure. But it wasn’t because he didn’t get to go. It was because they all thought the reason he wanted to go there in the first place was to mess around. It wasn’t. He just liked the program better, the sunshine too. Chicago’s gray skies had felt like a prison cell all four years. So, yes, he’d lost control that first year in Chicago. But he was only living up to their expectations.
“Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Will continued. “But things just started to get better between you two. What’s going to stop him from yanking your trust fund the moment he finds out? He’s threatened it before for less.”
“I don’t know, okay? I just know …. Dammit.” Clayton pounded a nearby wall with his fist, sank his weight against it. He didn’t need the trust fund. He could make plenty of money on his own. But the money was a symbol of his father’s approval, and that was harder to toss away. “I just know I like her.”
“You don’t even know her.”
“It’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain it.” He knew exactly how to explain it. But he didn’t think Will would be any more pleased to hear that his brother could make weird glowing balls appear out of nowhere, either.
“I just don’t get it. Is she worth your family? Your entire future?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then I think you know what you have to do.”
Clayton sighed. Will was right. He’d been foolish to think any differently.
“I’ll put a stop to it. Soon. Just give me a chance to do it the right way, okay?”
“What does that mean?”
“A few days. Please, Will. She’s not like the rest of her family. I don’t want to hurt her.”
Will met Clayton’s eye.
“Fine. I won’t tell Mom and Dad. But if they ask me, I’m not going to lie either.”
“Fair enough.”
After Will went back to the drugstore to be with Meg, Clayton took a drive. He needed to blow off some steam.
As he drove, he cursed his instincts. Why did he always have to make the wrong decision with the people in his life? Money he could handle. Money c
ouldn’t lie. Money was like a puzzle—something that was solvable, followed patterns, bent to his will. And unemotional too. But his family, his personal life? That was entirely different. The only pattern there was a map of his failures.
Now he would have to hurt the one person who might be able to help him unlock the mystery of what he had done in the garden. And after he had fought so hard just to get her to trust him enough to go out on a date. He would deserve her hatred when it came.
He found himself at the family boathouse—a small cabin on a swath of beach-front property. He got behind the wheel of his Tritone and charged through the dark waters.
He was more and more certain what he’d seen Cora do under the water today hadn’t been a trick of the light. It had been her. She stayed under so long because she didn’t need air at all—she had brought it with her somehow, like a diving helmet only without the helmet. It suddenly put his own strange incident into a new light. They were the same. The two of them could do things no other human had ever done before.
But, why? And how? What did they have in common? Better yet, what had changed in him that had suddenly made him capable of such a strange thing?
The answer came to him as soon as he asked it. The fog. That damned fog. It had done something to them both. Changed them somehow. And perhaps they weren’t the only ones. Or maybe they had just been hit hardest. Hadn’t Jan Clarkson also been on the island, near the shore where they had both been headed? Would he and Cora have suffered the same fate if they had reached the shore? The thought made him feel both lucky and unlucky all at once.
Dammit. What had happened to them? And what were they now? Some sort of circus side show? Or some anomaly straight out of a comic book? Clayton knew that he couldn’t deny it any longer. He had to know more about what he had done at his mother’s party. Especially now that he would have to end things with Cora. He had to see if he could—or would—do that bizarre thing again.
He slowed the boat and slid over the lake until he found a small inlet with a wide meadow, far away from town. The water looked too shallow for the boat near shore, so he anchored it, kicked off his shoes, and swam the short distance. The shock of the cold was just what he needed, and he met the land with a clearer head.