“Well, then we’ve reached the end of the story, haven’t we? The mystery is solved, the pieces put together and everybody’s satisfied.” Swallowing tears, Jayne pushed open the door and entered the hallway.
“Not by a long shot,” Chris muttered, following.
AFTER TENDING THE FIRE, Chris went back to the infirmary to sleep that night. Being stretched out on a hard bed was more restful than trying to sleep curled up in an armchair.
Besides, he had thinking to do, thinking that wouldn’t be encouraged by having Jayne just across the room. She’d taken a real blow tonight. Finding out she’d been raped, and hearing the account of their crash down the mountain, would have been enough of a shock, without discovering the lies her “grandmother” had given her as memories.
He wanted to talk about all of this with Jayne, wanted to hold her while she sorted through the lies and the truths of the last twelve years. Together they could reconstruct the past, and then leave it behind as they went ahead with the rest of their lives. Together.
As soon as he’d seen her, on her knees in the bedroom of the lavender cottage, he’d recognized the barriers she’d erected between them, like a snow fort with walls a foot thick. He’d need a battering ram to break through.
Unfortunately, he’d already done all the battering his conscience would allow. He’d been so stupidly sure of himself, busting in and planning to force Jayne Thomas to admit her true identity. All he’d thought about was what he deserved, regardless of the cost to Jayne.
So now he had the truth, and he deserved every bit of it. Juliet hadn’t died that night. She was alive and well and living in Ridgeville. And she didn’t remember him at all. How about that for a twist of fate?
With the skimpy pillow twisted under his head and the blankets twisted around his body, Chris finally fell into an uneasy sleep. In general, he rarely remembered his dreams, but on this night he revisited the accident over and over again, each time waking up as he was tossed out of the car. He came to rest in different places—against a tree, in a deep, violent river, on the rocks of the mountainside. And every time Juliet glided past him, just out of reach. Finally, as the first light of dawn outlined the treetops with silver, Chris fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Only seconds later, or so it seemed, he sat straight up in bed, awakened by the loud, angry ring of a telephone.
THE SHRILL NOISE, after days of silence and a night without sleep, didn’t make sense at first. After three rings, Jayne remembered how to answer the phone.
When she said goodbye and hung up, she turned to find seven expectant faces gathered around her.
Sarah spoke for them all. “The phone works?”
Jayne nodded. “That was Deputy Greeley. The snowplow will be here by noon, and the drive should be clear before dark.” She took a deep breath. “We can load into one of the vans and drive down to Ridgeville in time for dinner.”
The festival of rejoicing lasted through breakfast and kitchen cleanup.
“Our last day of oatmeal,” Monique crowed. “Tomorrow morning, it’s bacon and eggs with all the trimmings.”
“I’m taking a two-hour bath.” Beth closed her eyes in contemplation. “With bubbles up to my nose.”
“Not if I get to the tub first,” Selena teased.
“I’ll throw you for it.” Beth held up a hand. “One, two, three.” A fast game of Rock, Paper, Scissors left Beth the undisputed title of First Bather.
“Can we call home?” Sarah asked. “I think my parents are worried.”
“Everyone can make a ten-minute call this morning,” Jayne told them. “We’ll go in reverse alphabetical order.”
Yolanda smiled on her way to the phone. “Thanks.”
Jayne was at the kitchen table with her third cup of coffee, still timing phone calls, when Chris came in.
“We’re reunited with civilization, I gather.” His voice sounded even rougher than usual. When he sat down facing her, he looked tired. “Is there more good news?”
She told him the arrangements for the day. “You can take one of the school cars and go to your grandfather’s house. I know you must be worried about him.”
Chris acknowledged the point with a shrug. “I’ll be glad to see him.” He took a long swig of coffee. “Where will you and the girls stay?”
“Good question. I’ll call the hotel when the phone is free to see if they have enough rooms for tonight. Or to make a dinner reservation, at least.” She smiled, hoping to spark an answering grin from him. “Nobody is cooking this evening, if I can help it.”
His mouth twitched, then curved slightly. “I’m thinking about a medium-rare steak, myself. Nothing that resembles a stew.”
“Or soup.”
“Or a sandwich of any kind.” His eyes had brightened, and Jayne felt some of the life come back into her own spirit.
“I guess you’re still responsible for these hellions,” he said, nodding at Taryn on the phone with her grandfather. Holding the receiver to her ear, the girl heard Chris’s comment and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Unless all their families show up to take them away tonight.” The thought depressed her. “We’ve still got two weeks of vacation left before classes start again. Some of them might go home, but I suspect several will stay.”
Chris set his mug down with a clank. “Will there ever come a time when you aren’t in charge? When you only have to consider yourself?”
She didn’t know where his anger came from, but her temper sparked in response. “What else do I have? Where else would I go?”
At that moment, Taryn hung up the phone and turned around. “What do we do now?”
Jayne got stiffly to her feet. “I think we have some housekeeping to take care of.”
She spent the morning in the dormitory with the girls, requiring them to collect their dirty clothes in piles and clean up their rooms, even to the extent of sweeping the floor.
“We’re not going to be here,” Haley muttered, trying to use the broom with one hand. “What difference does it make if our room is neat?”
“It’ll be nicer to come back to.” Monique took the broom out of the younger girl’s hand. “Let me do this. You’re just making a mess.”
Once their rooms were neat, Jayne had them each pack a bag for three nights. “If we need to be gone longer, we’ll come back for more clothes. Or maybe,” she said, eyeing Selena’s mountain of laundry, “we’ll spend a day at the Wash-A-Rama.”
With their bags lined up in the entry hall, they returned to the kitchen in time to see the snowplow erupt onto the circular front drive. Jayne allowed the girls to go watch, with the admonition to be careful and stay out of the way.
She put on her coat and went to supervise, of course. The steps and walks Chris had cleared meant she didn’t have to wear boots or tramp through the snow. But she couldn’t say thank-you because he’d stayed out of sight all morning.
After one more soup-and-sandwich lunch, the afternoon proved to be perhaps the most difficult four hours of the whole ordeal. Seven girls wanted to be somewhere else, a somewhere that included all the conveniences modern life had to offer. Sitting by the fire had lost its charm. They didn’t want to read, play games or work puzzles. Even their beautiful Peace Tree couldn’t hold their attention.
“I want music,” Selena said. “I want to dance!” Singing to herself, she gyrated around the library in a very energetic version of salsa dancing.
Taryn stood at the window, watching the melting snow drip off nearby branches. “I’m bringing my favorite movies with me.” She listed all the latest fantasy epics. “That’ll keep me going for at least three days.”
“Hotel rooms don’t have DVDs,” Haley said in a disparaging tone. “You only get to watch what’s on their menu.”
“Well, then, I’ll go buy a DVD and hook it up.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’m sure you know how to hook up a DVD player.”
“I do,” Taryn insisted. “I’m no
t stupid, like some people.”
Beth got to her feet. “Like who?”
Jayne stepped up beside them. “Each of you, take a separate corner of this room and stay there. We’re not having this kind of argument. Not today. Not any day.”
The two disengaged and went to different parts of the library. Jayne eyed the other girls sitting around waiting. “Everyone understands the plan, I hope. A peaceful afternoon until we are ready to leave?”
The five girls nodded and returned to being bored and sleepy. Sarah, at least, had a book to read. Monique fidgeted; Yolanda snored lightly as she napped. Selena painted her fingernails, and then Haley’s.
One of the outside doors banged open, and they all jumped.
“You know it’s Mr. Hammond,” Selena said, giggling. “He’s always doing that.”
“You’re right.” Chris stood in the door to the library. In his arms he carried a huge stainless steel bowl, with another of equal size turned upside down as a top. “Quick, somebody go get bowls and spoons. I have something special here.”
He went to the library table farthest from the fireplace. Looking at the mahogany tabletop, he quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe we need a plastic cloth, too. Or plastic sacks. Something waterproof.”
Jayne lifted an eyebrow as she looked at him. “What have you done?”
“Quick,” he said. “I’m freezing to death.”
Yolanda brought bowls and spoons and Jayne laid out the plastic tablecloth they’d been using in the kitchen. With a sigh, Chris set his burden on the table.
“This, ladies, is a delicacy only available in winter, and only when it snows. Not only that, but you must have the purest, cleanest snow for this particular treat.”
Haley gazed up at him as if he were a magician. “What is it?”
Edging the tips of his fingers under the rim of the top bowl, Chris revealed his treasure with a flourish. “Snow cream!”
When they all just stared at him, he took a step back. “You don’t know what snow cream is? How sad is that? Look.”
From his coat pocket, he drew a bottle of pure maple syrup, no doubt from the main kitchen. “I hiked way up the mountain to find this snow—no footprints or paw prints or hoofprints anywhere near, just rock underneath and rocks above. Now we’ll take this pure snow and drizzle it with syrup, like so.”
He poured a thin stream of maple syrup over the snow in the bowl.
“Like a golden cobweb,” Sarah said.
He nodded. “And then…we eat.”
Jayne wondered, as she savored her own snow cream, how many times this week she had stood back and watched Chris Hammond make some kind of magic for these girls. Not with disappearing bunnies or cascading card tricks, but with his own generous spirit and cheerful good nature. A situation that might very well have aggravated them all had been enjoyable, most of the time, because he’d been there.
Her girls would miss him. The rest of their vacation simply would not be the same. Warmer, perhaps, and more comfortable. But not nearly as much fun.
And Jayne didn’t have to remember a single moment before this past week to know she would miss Chris Hammond for the rest of her life.
JAYNE DROVE the largest school van to the circular drive in front of the manor and parked by the steps. The girls carried their bags out from the entry hall for Chris to load into the luggage space.
Each girl gave him a hug after he’d taken her bag. He stopped trying to remember all the different ways they said thank-you—he was too busy keeping his tears contained.
A small sedan parked behind the van, and Jayne got out. She handed Chris the keys. “Feel free to keep this car as long as you’re in town. When you’re finished, just leave it with the sheriff’s department. They’ll get it back to the school.”
He nodded. “Do I have to fill the tank up before I turn it in?”
She gave a rueful smile. “Consider the gas your Peace Holiday gift.”
“I don’t have one for you.”
The girls were playing around in the relatively warm afternoon, checking out the melting snow, rediscovering plants and rocks and benches that had been hidden by the blizzard. Jayne looked at them all, and then shook her head. “You’ve given us a week of gifts, from the fire that kept us warm to the games you played and…” her eyes met his “…and the stories you told. None of us will forget.”
“Promise?”
“Amnesia jokes are not funny.” She frowned at him and then, suddenly, put her arms around his neck and her lips to his cheek.
“Thank you,” Jayne whispered. “You’ll never know….”
Her words trailed off, and her arms closed tightly around his neck. Then she stepped back, making no effort to hold back the tears.
“Take care. Drive carefully,” she added, with emphasis. “No more accidents.”
He held up his hand. “I swear.”
Turning away, she called to the girls. “Everybody in the van. Make sure you have your purse, bag, book, whatever you brought out here. No arguing,” she said, even as someone inside the van protested, “about who sits where. Let’s just get to town.”
With the driver’s door open, she looked at Chris again. “I’ve checked the building and locked the doors. All you have to do is drive away.” For a moment she looked down, as if she wanted to say something else.
But she simply waved, got into the van and started the engine. As they followed the circular drive, the girls rolled down the windows and put their arms out to wave goodbye, reminding Chris of a beetle with legs too short to reach the ground.
The van disappeared into the forest lining the long drive from the highway to Hawkridge Manor, the drive he’d walked a week ago with anger and determination overcoming the pain of his injuries.
Well, he wasn’t angry anymore. But there was plenty of pain left to go around. Some of that pain would simply have to fade with time. Nothing else could be done. But he had caused some of it, and he intended to make amends.
Starting with his plans for dinner tonight.
Chapter Thirteen
The romantic, candlelit meal Chris had started planning for that evening failed to materialize.
He arrived at Charlie’s cabin to find a note on the door: “Dr Appt.” The doctor’s office had sent him to the hospital. At his granddad’s weekly chemotherapy session, the doctor had detected a problem with Charlie’s heartbeat.
So instead of getting cleaned up and buying flowers, Chris spent the late afternoon and evening hours sitting by his grandfather’s bed, holding the old man’s thin, dry hand.
“What am I doing here, anyway, wearing this stupid excuse for a nightgown and hooked up to all these machines?” Charlie rolled his head fretfully on the pillow. “Why such a fuss? We all know I’m headed for the exit door, one way or the other.”
“The rest of us would like to delay that exit as long as possible. More water?” Chris picked up the pitcher to fill the glass on the bed tray, then realized Charlie hadn’t taken a sip since the last time he’d filled it.
“Hell, no, I don’t want water.” His granddad pushed the rolling tray away. “I want to know what you’re doing here with me in the first place. You look like death warmed over.”
Chris winced, and Charlie cackled. “Well, you do. When’s the last time you had a shave, boy?”
“The morning I left your house.”
“And you haven’t changed your clothes in about as long.”
“Pretty much.”
“No wonder you stink.”
“I do?” He sniffed a fold of his shirt. “I guess I do.”
“But you say you found Juliet?” Charlie shook his head. “It’s hard to believe. I mean, what else were we supposed to think? When I got there, you were lying up against a tree, dead for all I knew, with that car burning like an inferno nearby. Nobody thought she could have just walked away.”
Chris rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “We’ll probably never know exactly what happened, or how she ended up with
Elizabeth Jayne Thomas. Unless Jayne remembers.”
Charlie didn’t answer; he’d dozed off again. He’d been doing that since Chris arrived—falling asleep, then popping awake again to resume the conversation exactly where they’d left off. The nurse said the medications were to blame.
For the first time in five hours, Chris released Charlie’s hand and slumped into his chair, head back and eyes closed. He’d been looking forward to that change of clothes, the shower and shave Charlie said he needed. By now he should have been sharing a gourmet dinner with Jayne, making her smile, undoing some of the damage from the last few days. Even with seven girls watching, he’d have managed to at least hold her hand.
“But you say she doesn’t remember a thing,” Charlie continued, as if his fifteen-minute nap had never happened. “Not any of the time you two spent together, or how she ended up with this other grandmother?”
Chris lifted his head and opened his eyes. “Not a minute.”
“Maybe that’s all to the good. Some of what happened, she shouldn’t have to live with.”
“Right.” He hated to be the one who’d brought the rape back to her. And he didn’t know how to take it away again. Those scary dreams of hers were as close as she ever needed to come to remembering.
Charlie tapped his fingers on the bed. “In the meantime, you’ve got some work to do.”
“I think so.”
“Sounds to me like she’s got good reason not to trust you.”
“Yes.”
His granddad scowled at him. “So what are you doing hanging around here?”
“I came to spend time with you, Charlie.”
“Well, six hours is about as much time as we ever spent in the same room together, son. I’m getting tired of waking up and seeing you staring at me.”
“So you’re telling me to leave?”
“I’m telling you to go get some rest. And then see about wooing this woman you want. Bring her to me—I’ll set her straight.”
Grinning, Chris got to his feet. “Is that a threat?”
“You bet. Now go.” Charlie waved him out of the room. “I’ll still be around tomorrow.”
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