It Happened One Night

by Lisa Dale

  He knew he should leave it alone, for her sake. She certainly had a lot on her mind. But he was desperate to know the truth of how she felt. Even if it was only a salve for his ego, and nothing more.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  She looked at him and smiled. The breath she took was so deep her shoulders lifted and fell. He thought of running his fingers over her collarbones, their marble curves. And for once, he didn’t banish the thought from his mind.

  “I’m just thinking that I’m glad we’re here. That it helps,” she said.

  He knew he shouldn’t, but he let his gaze trail down the front of her sundress, over the gentle swell of her breasts, the firmness of her rib cage, and then the slight mound of her belly. She shifted and the white cotton of her sundress whispered against her skin.

  “I don’t understand it,” she said. “But when I’m with you, it’s like my head clears.”

  He had to look away. When he’d first started studying the sky, he naively put his eye up to a telescope and marveled for long minutes at the moon’s stark landscape. It felt like his whole eye, his whole head, had been filled up by the bigness of the moon. And when at last he pulled away from the lens he realized that he couldn’t see, that he’d gone momentarily blind in one eye because of all that huge and overwhelming light. That was how he felt now—she was more than he could stand.

  “What is it that you want?” he asked. The harshness of his voice surprised him. And it must have caught her by surprise as well. She turned her head, and because of where they sat shoulder to shoulder, swinging gently on the love seat, her lips were suddenly, excruciatingly close to his. He couldn’t help it; he turned toward her. “Lana. Tell me what you want. What you really want.”

  He saw the quickening rise and fall of her chest and felt the same intensity rising in him. He looked down, took her hand from her lap and curled it into his. And she let him. Amazingly, she let him. “Lana…” He wanted more. The desire he’d thought he’d seen in her eyes earlier was still there. He hadn’t been mistaken. He pressed her fingers hard in his, his whole body tightening in anticipation. He felt they were so close to something. To stark truth. “You can say it. It’s okay.”

  “Help,” she said. “I want help.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “I need…” She drew her hand away. “I need you to help me find Ron.”

  The man’s name splashed down on him like ice water. He stood, affronted, knowing full well that he had no reason to feel that way. How many times would he need to be rejected before he could bring himself to quit?

  He drew in a deep breath. “But why?”

  “Because he is this baby’s father. Whether I like it or not. And he needs to know.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t like any part of a plan that had to do with Ron. The guy was a jerk. He was the kind of man who would push his way to the front row at a concert, then get too drunk to enjoy the music. He didn’t deserve a woman like Lana, whose grace lay in the subtleties of her personality—the paradoxes and complexities that could not be understood by an occasional lover, but only by an intimate friend.

  She went on. “I tried to find him myself, but I can’t. I end up chasing down leads that are dead ends when I search online. I can’t find any mountain bikers named Ron in Colorado—I think that’s where he’s from. And I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone in town if they’ve seen him. I mean, a couple more weeks, and everyone’s going to know what I got myself into…”

  “You don’t have to tell him. He doesn’t need to know.”

  “No?”

  “He could go the rest of his life not knowing or caring. Whatever happens, you would be totally in control.”

  She mulled it over; he could see her worrying the corner of her bottom lip. When she stopped there was a shell-pink shine on her mouth that nearly killed him.

  “Morally, I do have to tell him. I mean, imagine if it was you.”

  “Lana, if that was my child you were carrying—” He had to stop himself. If she was having his baby, this would be a lot different. There would be no question of a wedding. No question that they would keep the child. And as for Eli, he would spend the rest of his life making absolutely sure she saw how much they belonged together—even after her doubt was gone.

  But that was an alternate universe. A fantasy. Lana might be attracted to him, but she didn’t want a relationship with him. Never had, never would. She had dictated that they would only ever be friends—attraction or not. Every time she’d introduced him to a new boyfriend she’d made that clear. And even now, when he thought he saw a spark of attraction in her eyes, she’d asked him to help her find another man.

  She sat up a little straighter, her blue eyes turned silver in the moonlight. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t you think that if Ron wanted anything to do with you, he would have been back by now?”

  She slumped back hard against her chair. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

  He sat down on the bench beside her but did not put a hand on her shoulder, did not touch her back. He wished more than ever that he could undo everything that had happened between them—everything that had come before—and start over, so that he could be the kind of man who was allowed to touch her. With his hands, with his lips. And she would be the kind of woman who wouldn’t reject him when he did.

  He tried to comfort her. “You just had bad luck.”

  “This is more than bad luck. This is Bad Decision Making 101. A whole lifetime of it.”

  Part of him didn’t disagree.

  She stood up. “And look at this.” She smoothed her sundress down over her belly, a pronounced bump at the level of his eye. “Can you see it?”

  “Yes. But I know your body better than most.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have blushed, just the faintest tinge of pink on a pale flower. “What is it about Ron that you like so much? Why him?”

  She was quiet a moment. “Do you know what he said to me once? He wanted to know how I could say I loved wildflowers, when Karin and I try so hard to control them and make them… less than wild.”

  Eli was quiet. He hadn’t thought Ron capable of such thoughts. He’d obviously been wrong. “So you have a connection with him. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t really know him.” She let the dress go. “But he deserves to know about the baby. Even if I don’t think he’ll like to see me pregnant.”

  “He’s a fool.” He watched her closely, wishing that just for once he could really know what she was thinking. He loved her, but she… she was only attracted to him and nothing more. The man she wanted was the man who didn’t know her and didn’t deserve her. The man she wanted was Ron.

  Lana seemed to sense that he was staring; he could tell from the way she didn’t turn her head toward him when she spoke. “Will you help me or not?”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “But I need to do the right thing. And I have no one to turn to but you.”

  Eli sighed. This was the last straw; he knew it. He could not go on like this. She was killing him. His heart couldn’t stand to see Ron claim the future that he wanted for his own. This was it. They were coming to the end.

  He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she asked for his help and he turned her down. But he could make himself a promise: Once she and Ron were well on their way toward happily ever after, he wasn’t going to stick around to see it. He couldn’t stand to be humiliated one more time. “Yes. I’ll help you,” he said, his voice flat.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking down at him from where she stood. Her voice was kind, as if he were the one who needed consoling. Privately, in the silence of his mind, he was already making plans.

  August

  Toadflax: A common and easily recognized wildflower, toadflax has been tagged with at least thirty folk names, including: butter-and-eggs, brideweed, larkspur, pedlar’s basket, gallwort, impudent lawyer, Jacob’s ladder, wild flax,
devil’s-flax, devil’s flower, patten and clogs, churnstaff, and more. Call it what you will, toadflax by any other name is toadflax.

  August 5

  Eli leaned back in his chair on the deck of the old steamship, waiting for Kelly to get out of work. The evening wind blew cool through his hair, and the trees beyond the deck were bending and swaying, flashing the silvery undersides of their leaves. There was a thunderstorm, somewhere. He couldn’t see it or hear it yet, but he could feel it—the slight, barely perceptible electricity in the air.

  “Whew!” Kelly dropped down into the deck chair next to him. “I thought that birthday party would never end. I mean, the kids always get rowdy, but those kids… monsters!”

  Eli didn’t smile. He looked out over the portside railing toward the old lighthouse, sitting like a tired sailor on a cluster of massive, jagged rocks. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe they were sailing on the water of the open lake. But they weren’t.

  The steamship Ticonderoga sat not in water, but on a grassy, waterless basin at the Shelburne Museum. It had been dragged there from Lake Champlain at the behest of an eccentric heiress who had collected old structures like other women collected dolls. The lighthouse beside the ship was a charming and whimsical companion to the decades-old steamer, making the hillside feel strangely like the waters of Lake Champlain.

  He didn’t turn his head until Kelly pinched the skin on his arm. “Do you want to help me clean up? Or just wait around?”

  He looked at the sky, at the ominous dark haze slipping in on the horizon. “I came here to talk.”

  She smiled. “Can we talk while I’m working?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  They walked inside, where wood paneling, low white ceilings, and green carpets spoke of a different time—talkies and jazz and handwritten letters back home. Kelly began picking up cake-coated paper plates and throwing them into a large black garbage bag. They were the only two people in the room. There was no reason to put off the inevitable for a moment longer.

  “Lana told me you went to see her,” Eli said. She moved smoothly, picking up plates and cups, pushing in chairs. He went on. “She told me everything. That you didn’t want her to lift a bag.”

  Kelly reached for a ball of wrapping paper. “I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

  “I told you no one knew about Lana’s pregnancy.”

  She stuffed the garbage bag with a forceful jab. “I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s not like I told her anything she didn’t already know.”

  “But you did.” He put his hands flat on the table and leaned toward her. “You told her that I trusted you with her secret.”

  She dropped the garbage bag on a chair. “What’s going on here?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

  “If you didn’t want me to know that she’s pregnant, you shouldn’t have told me.”

  “I told you because I thought you could keep a secret.”

  “And I did keep it. Why are you so touchy about this? Lana should expect that we’re going to tell each other things. It’s not my fault she’s uncomfortable with that.”

  Eli crossed his arms. This wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d thought Kelly would have been ashamed or at least contrite. But she wasn’t. And it was a huge turnoff. He’d thought that if he just kept trying to feel something for her, then eventually he would feel it. Now he knew that wasn’t so.

  “Eli?”

  He looked at Kelly, her brown eyes and small nose. She was waiting for him to say something, as if she knew what would come next. Maybe he could have made it work with Kelly if he hadn’t seen the flash of desire that flickered—just for a second—in Lana’s eyes. But no man could have the kind of thoughts he was having and keep up the pretense of dating someone else.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m not going to say sorry or that I wished things had turned out differently. I think this was bound to happen at some point. I’m just going to go.”

  “Eli…”

  He turned on his heel and headed to the exit. Outside, the thunder was rumbling loudly, lightning coming from all directions at once. The leaves were shaking insanely on their branches and the wind gusted hard and fast. He walked toward the foredeck, where a gangway led down to the grassy hillside that surrounded the great, beautiful ship.

  “Wait! Eli! Please, just wait!” Kelly called out behind him. She ran halfway down the gangway to grab him by the arm. The wind pushed her clothes against her skin.

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re right,” she said, raising her voice to compete with the sound of the thunder. “I’m sorry. I admit it. I wanted… I wanted Lana to know that you told me. There it is.”

  Eli ignored the first few drops of rain that flecked his glasses. “We should stop seeing each other.”

  She grabbed his wrist. “But why? I thought we were having fun! Why don’t you want to get serious with me?”

  A thousand reasons, he thought.

  “Is this because of Lana?”

  The thunder rumbled. He said nothing.

  “Do you think she wants you? I mean, really? Her best friend?”

  Eli frowned.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Kelly said, a touch of desperation in her voice. “One minute you wonder if maybe she could be attracted to you, and the next she’s off with some other man. I’m warning you, Eli. You’ll embarrass yourself if you go after her. You need someone more steady than her. Someone who isn’t going to flake out.”

  Eli kept his face blank. She was right. Lana broke hearts. She’d broken his. He couldn’t bear to go through that again.

  “Don’t break up with me just yet,” Kelly begged. “Let’s just… let’s not do anything until I come back from vacation. Things could look very different in a week.”

  The rain began to fall so hard that he had to shout to be heard. He felt it flattening his hair and soaking his clothes. He suddenly understood how little he knew her—that her reasons for wanting to keep him may or may not have had anything to do with him at all. “I’m sorry. This has already gone on too long.”

  Thunder boomed. He walked down the gangway toward the grass.

  Maybe it was the romance of the old steamship, maybe it was the excitement of the storm, but for a split second, Eli had a vision of watching himself from another angle—and it was as if the old ship wasn’t a landlocked, impractical relic of some other time, but a bustling, working vessel of ages past, just come into port on a rainy day.

  How long had he been lying to himself? It was amazing what the mind was capable of believing sometimes.

  August 6

  Karin sat in her parked minivan for a moment to collect herself and quiet her nerves.

  For the last ten minutes, she’d watched the Vermont landscape passing beyond the windows of her car. She saw its pastures full of classic Holsteins, its small houses worn down by hard winters, its sprinklings of cheerful yellow trefoil and pink crown vetch crowding in at the roadsides. Her mother had made her life here, her mother’s people had made a life here, and now Karin was forging her way, preparing to raise a family of her own. That was why she’d snuck off to the police station today—to protect what was hers.

  She opened the door of her minivan and headed inside.

  The front office was small but quiet. She told a woman with dark, gel-flattened hair that she was here to speak with Officer Gervais. The woman picked up a phone, dialed an extension, and a few moments later Andy was shaking her hand. His smile was wide and genuine.

  “Karin, what a surprise. Everything okay?”

  “I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute. Privately, if you have time.”

  Andy glanced back toward the receptionist—a look Karin couldn’t quite read—then crossed his arms and frowned. “Let’s take a walk.”

  He held the door, and Karin ad
justed her purse on her shoulder as she stepped outside. She’d known Andy for years. He was older, with a graying military-style buzz cut and a heavyset face. She’d chatted with him and his wife countless times at countless church functions. But she’d never had much interaction with him outside coffee hour, and she’d never spoken to him alone.

  They sat together on a bench in front of the station. The traffic rumbled past and a collection of cigarette butts littered the ground. They made small talk for a moment before the conversation changed.

  “So what can I do you for?” Andy asked.

  “I need advice.”

  “Well, usually the wife’s in the advice department. But as long as you don’t mind second rate, I’ll do what I can.”

  “Do you mind if we keep this between us?”

  “Does it involve a bank robbery?”

  “I didn’t rob a bank,” she said, laughing. She set her purse down at her side. She wasn’t sure how to approach the situation, how best to get what she wanted. It had taken some time to come up with this plan, and then it had taken a little bit more time to find the courage to go through with it. She picked at the cuticles of her fingernails. “My father’s come back to town.”

  He reacted: the slightest downturn at the corner of his mouth. “Sure. I remember Calvert. How could I forget? Used to terrorize the girls who worked over at Penny’s.”

  “Well, he’s back.”

  “How long’s he been here?”

  “Just a couple weeks.”

  “Hmm. He hasn’t caused any real problems yet.”

  “Yet is the key word.” Karin felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. Just a few more well-placed hints should inspire Andy to come up with the right idea. “You know where he’s staying?”

  “Should I?”

  “The Madison.”

  Andy twisted his torso toward her. He put his hand on the back of the bench, so his arm was almost around her. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t move without being rude.