Beth slowed over the speed bumps back towards the entrance. As she neared the last and biggest, she glanced without thinking towards Karim's cluster. Had his car been there when she came in? She couldn't remember, but as she slowed, she caught sight of him moving up the path, square hands gesticulating, his head inclined toward the handsome dark-haired woman walking close beside him.
Beth's toe clamped down on the gas pedal, propelling the Saab across the final bump. She fishtailed the few yards to the intersection and screeched into Route 6 a scant car-length ahead of a dented pickup truck whose blare of indignation she well deserved. She headed north, not remembering why, her damp palms making the steering wheel feel greasy. Something about strawberries...
Her eyes filmed with sudden wetness. Blurrily spying the familiar shape of a huge sycamore ahead on the right, she pulled into the wide place beneath it, stopping where cars often did to admire the herd of soft-eyed Jersey cows grazing along a meandering brook in the meadow beyond. She hardly spared them a glance. To Beth, eyes closed, head supported by the back of her seat, their plaintive moos seemed to mock her thoughts. Who-o-o do you-o-o think you-o-o are?
Not as important to Karim as she had presumed, obviously. The tears began to spill down her cheeks. She thought of the woman she had seen with him, thought of his hands on her flesh, his mouth on hers, and felt a slow rise of heat from her loins, suffusing her body, tingling her nipples. Jealousy? Desire? She didn't know; she had never felt this way before. About anyone.
Not even in adolescence, when all it took was a quirky smile and a sexy sidelong look to propel her from one life-long love into another. Puppy love, her mother pronounced it, finding her daughter huddled heartsick in her room for the fourth time in a year. You'll get over it. And until she met Ralph, she always did. He was her husband. She loved him; she admired him enough to cater uncomplainingly to his needs, but she'd never felt this...this wanting.
She rolled her head slowly from side to side as pain pulsed from the tightening cords in her neck up into her temples. She heard herself groan.
"Ma'am? Excuse me, ma'am, are you all right?"
Beth's eyelids flew open. A state trooper was peering in the window at her, his young face anxious. She pulled herself abruptly upright, trying to ignore the roiling feeling in her stomach brought on by the sudden movement.
"I'm fine, officer. I was driving home, and the afternoon sun shone right in my eyes. I could feel myself nodding, so I pulled over. I guess I dozed off." She forced a smile. "Better safe than sorry."
He nodded. "I wish more people followed your example. You're sure there's nothing—"
"Yes, but thank you for your concern."
He touched his fingers to his hat brim and waited for Beth to pull out ahead of him. She maintained a sedate pace, hoping he would pass, waving a cheery goodbye when he did, seeing him out of sight before executing a U-turn to take her back home. It wasn't until she was in the garage that she remembered the strawberries. Not that it mattered; she had a feeling she would not be dining with Karim that night.
The blinking light on the answering machine was the first thing she saw when she entered the kitchen. The third and last message was his. His voice sounded strained; his message brief to the point of terseness: Sorry to miss you I'll call back around four. At twenty after, as Beth was about to step into the swirling water of the spa, the phone rang.
"Beth, I'm so sorry. Something unexpected came up." He gave a short burst of harsh laughter. "More accurately, someone unexpectedly came down. Val is here, she's been staying with Amity for a few days; I didn't know about it until this morning. We have things to discuss that I can't—” He broke off. "I'm afraid I won't be able to meet you for dinner."
She's a brunette, a very beautiful one, my father used to say.
"You haven't decided to—" She swallowed hard. "I mean you and Val are still—”
"Getting a divorce?" Astonishment lent his voice a tenor lilt. "Of course! Why would you think otherwise?"
"That's not important, Karim." She could feel elation taking hold. The mysterious dark-haired woman was his soon-to-be ex-wife. Of course! he'd said. "The important thing is, will I be seeing you tomorrow?"
"For the River Haven dinner? Oh, yes. I made it very clear I had an engagement I would not break, so Val's heading back to Maine in the morning. That's why I can't see you tonight. What time should I pick you up tomorrow evening?"
"Five-thirty, I think. We're expected at six, but I'd like to arrive a little early, if you don't mind."
"Five-thirty it is."
"Karim? Your meeting with Georgina...how did it go?"
He laughed. "She's a pistol, that one. We don't see entirely eye to eye on some of the ideas I tossed at her, but we're working on it."
"In that case, make it quarter of six."
"Should I ask why?"
"Let's just say we're ahead of the game, for now at least." She felt wonderfully lightheaded all of a sudden, as if bubbles were floating through her veins. "And Karim? Welcome home!"
"Oh, Beth. Thank you." His voice had roughened. "Thank you for saying that."
She didn't ask him why. When he's ready, he'll tell me. She wasn't aware of having crossed the fingers of her free hand until she replaced the receiver. One of childhood's rituals, never quite forgotten. Knock on wood...a pinch of a salt over your shoulder...step on a crack, break your grandmother's back. She smiled, recalling how carefully she had skirted the frost-heaved fissures in Eastbury's few sidewalks to spare her grandmother that terrible fate.
Beth lowered herself into the spa and surrendered herself to the swirling water. She closed her eyes; her lips parted in a soft sigh as the tension in her neck ebbed away.
"I think I'm falling in love with you, Karim Donovan," she murmured. Cross my heart and hope to die.
* * * *
The Pomperaug Inn, the chief ornament of Eastbury's small, determinedly colonial commercial district, was originally a drovers' hostelry. The barn in which hay for the herds had been stored had been made into a meeting and dining place for private gatherings of up to two hundred. The original red buttermilk paint was still visible on the weathered siding, and the massive hand-adzed chestnut beams crossing the lofty space assured it a permanent place on the meeting agendas of New England's many historical societies, antique dealers and collectors. In the fall foliage season, it was solidly booked by tours from every part of the nation. Each October, the loading and unloading of gawking passengers at the inn by chartered busses, two and three at a time, caused traffic back-ups made worse by the officious attempts of Eastbury's untrained elected constables to unsnarl them.
"That's why the shedding of the last colorful leaf is a cause for local celebration," Beth told Karim as he slowed to enter the parking lot.
He laughed. "It's not quite that bad in Maine, but I wish I had a nickel for every birch log and jug of maple syrup sold each fall."
"Don't forget the apples," Beth added. "Or the wedges of cheddar cheese."
"And the genuine Indian moccasins—" "Made in Taiwan."
"O ye of little faith!" Beth chided.
Karim turned to face her, eyebrows raised, hazel eyes glinting. "Oh, yeah? Wasn't it in Connecticut that wooden ovals were whittled and palmed off as nutmegs?"
Beth raised her hands palms up in surrender and they grinned at each other.
As the car eased past the glassed-in passage between the inn proper and the barn, they could see young people in mobcaps and tricorns scurrying through, trays and baskets and urns in hand.
"It must be difficult keeping food hot," Karim said.
Beth laughed. "They have special heated trolleys, but God help anyone needing to go the other way when they're being pushed through. Dana worked there one summer. For several years after, her anxiety dreams always featured being trapped by one of those trolleys in a narrowing passageway. She swore she'd never work anywhere that had anything to do with food again."
Karim parked in the
rapidly filling lot and assisted Beth out of the car. "Did I tell you how lovely you look?"
"You did, but I won't be in the least offended if you tell me again."
He looked at her soberly. "You look lovely."
The deep rumble of his voice raised gooseflesh on her linen-sheathed arms. Unlike Housa, she hadn't bought a new dress for the occasion. She had, in fact, had this one for years. She knew the chalky coppery pink—a zinnia color, Ralph had called it—was becoming; she also knew it would seem new, seen through Karim's eyes, to both of them.
Beth gracefully fielded the greetings that met them as they entered the inn, making introductions when called for, returning nods and smiles when not. As they stood in the bar line, purchased tickets in hand, Karim surveyed the room with a practiced eye.
"Where the elite meet to eat," he whispered.
She smiled up at him. "Duffy's Tavern." He looked at her askance. "No, I didn't lie about my age—it was a favorite of my father's. He said it every time we went to the country club for dinner—under his breath, of course."
"I feel as if I'm in the judging ring at a dog show," Karim murmured, referring to the looks directed at them—most of them guarded; some openly curious.
"Something tells me I'm unlikely to make it to the finals."
"Well, Andy is already assured Best in Show in this arena," she rejoined lightly, "but maybe I can come up later with a consolation prize."
He raised his eyebrows. "Why, Mrs. Volmar!"
Beth, who had been thinking in terms of the strawberries she'd finally bought that morning, blushed.
"Your drink order, sir?"
"A martini. Very dry, onion and twist. Beth?"
She hastily scanned the array of bottles and mixers, conscious of the impatient line behind her. I'll need my wits about me tonight. "White wine, please."
"On ice, ma'am?"
"Yes.” Diluted will be even better.
Beth saw Georgina, looking stunning in bright yellow, standing near the huge fireplace at the end of the room, talking to a familiar-looking white-haired man. She waved energetically. Georgina consulted her companion, then beckoned them over.
"You looked like someone hailing a New York taxi on a rainy night, Beth. I thought these were your friends," she said, her frowning glance sweeping the thickening crowd, "so what's with the appraisals your date's getting? God, you'd think he was standing at stud."
Karim choked on his drink.
"Evening, Boss," she said blandly. You've both met Dr. Gerber, I believe."
Still unable to speak, he nodded.
"Yes," Beth said. "At the reception after the Peabody trustees' meeting." Reuben Gerber, who had approached her on that occasion with a purposeful light in his eye, was now looking at Georgina as if she were a prize he'd found in his box of cracker jacks.
In response to Reuben Gerber's query, Karim began bringing him up to date on his recent trip. The two women turned towards each other.
"Really, Georgina. At stud, indeed," Beth muttered, trying not to laugh. "Tell me, since when have you been a patient of the good doctor here?"
"Since that reception you got drunk at, but believe me, patient is not the operative word here, honeybunch."
"I was not drunk! Just a little tipsy, maybe."
"Huh!" Georgina took a swallow of her scotch and water. "He's really not such a schmuck, you know."
"Reuben Gerber?"
"No, Donovan. Has your mother met him yet?"
"No. She's coming with Andy and Housa, and they're always last minute."
"I checked out the seating. Did you know she put herself between you and Donovan? You seem rather... mature for a chaperon, wouldn't you say?"
Beth paled. "Good Lord."
"Yeah. Lotsa luck, kid. I won't be sitting at your table, by the way."
"Coward!"
"It's not that," Georgina protested. "Reuben asked me to switch place cards with someone at his table." She swept her long lashes down demurely. "He's the doctor after all." She suddenly clutched Beth's arm. "Hey, the brat is here!"
"The who?"
"Donovan's daughter. Over there, in green, arguing with that same guy I told you I saw her with in the Peabody parking lot. What a glutton for punishment."
As Beth watched. Amity's red head tossed angrily, a flame in the conservative crowd, and she started elbowing through the crowd, heedless of indignant glares, making her way toward them.
Beth reached out to Karim, but before her fingers touched his arm he stiffened like a setter on point, his eyes catching sight of his daughter over Reuben Berger's shoulder.
"Oh God," he muttered. He broke away from his companions and plunged into the crowd. Dr. Berger stared after him, perplexed. Before Beth had a chance to explain, a scattering of applause broke out at the entrance. Andy and her mother had arrived.
Beth waved, and as her family began working their way toward her, Marilyn Springer materialized at her shoulder.
"Beth! How nice you look! I always did like that dress." Score one for Marilyn. "Didn't I see your Mr. Donovan with you earlier?"
"He's still here," Beth said.
Marilyn gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. "I'm so glad, because...well, I shouldn't be telling tales out of school, but—”
Her stagy pause would have done credit to a drama student, Beth thought. "Yes?" she said, bowing to the inevitable.
"Howard and I saw him last night, at that little Italian place in Southbury? He was with this brunette. Very well preserved, Howard said, and he hardly ever notices any female over thirty. I thought you ought to know."
Look at her. Pious as a stained-glass saint.
"Oh, that was Val." Beth waited two beats. "His wife."
Marilyn's penciled brows shot up to her hairline. "His wife?"
"Soon-to-be ex." Andy arrived at her side, looking both embarrassed and pleased by his reception. "Excuse me, Marilyn, I have a family to greet."
Beth reached up to embrace her tall son. "Now you know how Prince Charles must feel." She smiled at her proud mother, elegant in white-trimmed blue silk. "And the Queen Mother."
"I'm sure no one will mistake me for Camilla," Housa said, planting a warm kiss on her mother-in-law's cheek. "Super color on you, Beth."
"Thank you, dear, but you put the rest of us in the shade." She fingered a fold of Housa's softly hip-draped cotton sheath. "Andy was right to send you shopping. What do you call this shade?"
"Aubergine. I think that's French for eggplant."
"Aubergine," Beth repeated slowly.
"Sounds a lot prettier than eggplant, doesn't it?"
"Where is your escort, Beth?" her mother demanded.
"He's over there," Beth said. "Talking to that red-haired girl. She's his daughter.
"He's very dark," her mother said.
"He's very tan," Beth amended. "College business took him to California. He's just returned."
Muriel Tomlinson's lips thinned. "He looks as if he spent all his time out there on a surf board."
Andy, eavesdropping, guffawed. "I can just see this old guy breast-stroking out, hauling his board behind him." The two women glared at him. "Hey, all I meant was.…" He looked uncertainly from his mother to his grandmother. "Well, he's not exactly a kid any more."
Housa giggled. "Don't you think that was a little tactless for a specialist in geriatrics, sweetie?"
Beth decided to rescue him. "Andy, that tall young man standing next to the Donovans, do you know who he is?"
"Why, sure. That's Nick Cuddon, Mom. Cuddon Arms?"
"So that's Nicholas Cuddon! I've spoken to him on the phone many times, of course, but he was so willing to be a major donor to River Haven it didn't seem necessary to meet him—not with all those harder nuts to crack I had to deal with. Somehow, I pictured an older man."
"He's Nicholas the third; his grandfather was the entrepreneur. Got his start with Remington, came up with an innovative design for automatic weaponry and started his own company. Made million
s." Andy smiled wryly. "All it took was four wars—five, counting the Gulf conflict. Nick is a seventies kind of guy who got tired of feeling guilty every time he spent one of those bloodstained Cuddon dollars."
"Somebody has to supply our soldiers, Andrew."
"Well, maybe so, Murry, but the point is he decided it was time Cuddon money started helping people who had no choice about dying instead forcing death on those who did."
His grandmother, who lacked an appreciation of irony, sniffed.
"Sorry, Beth," said Karim's deep voice behind them. "I had a little misunderstanding to deal with."
Beth linked her arm through his. "Mother? May I present Karim Donovan?"
Karim smiled. How can she resist him'? "How do you do, Mrs. Tomlinson?"
Beth's mother, her attention riveted by the linked arms, resisted it very well. "Mr. Donovan," she murmured.
"My daughter-in-law, Housa."
He nodded. "Mrs. Volmar."
"Please, call me Housa," she urged. "I love being married but I'm not so sure about the 'Mrs.' part."
He grinned. "Housa it is, then."
"And my son, Andrew."
As the men shook hands, Beth took fond stock of the contrast. Her rangy son, hardly out of the starting gate despite the accomplishments being celebrated that night, eager for the professional challenges awaiting him; Karim, the solid war horse, ready to do whatever his new job demanded of him but, seasoned by experience, readier than Andy for the inevitable disappointments. I hope they can like each other.
"I have great respect for your work. Dr. Volmar," Karim said. "I wish there had been a place like River Haven for my father." His wide mouth, pulled down briefly by regret, curved up in another smile. "And of course I know how much your mother enjoys her work as a counselor at your clinic."
And Be My Love Page 15