Ever a Song

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  The sunset was a streak of memory in the sky, but she gave it only a cursory glance, searching instead for the blue of Cade’s eyes. Even when she called his name, he didn’t acknowledge her presence, not by a word or by a look. He just kept moving, stowing the anchor and anchor lines, adjusting the jib sheets, guiding the sailboat into open water, purposely ignoring her presence.

  “Cade, I want—I have to—” Her stammered plea gained his attention, but brought no satisfaction. He simply stared hard at her, effectively killing whatever she had wanted to say.

  “Don’t, Autumn.”

  “But, Cade, I— We just—”

  “It shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have touched you! Just leave it before I—” He bit back the word and closed his heart to the stricken expression on her face. What was he saying? He already had a thousand regrets and he felt sure they would stay with him for the rest of his life.

  For a few foolish moments he’d let himself believe that Autumn came to him freely, released from past expectations and emotions. He’d even imagined that they had reached a turning point, that there would be a real basis for building a new and different relationship. And he had wanted to believe it, had wanted to believe that she would be in his arms every night from now until forever.

  I love you. Her husky voice echoed within him and his hand trembled as he gripped the helm. Why had he felt he must put an immediate and imperative distance between them? Why couldn’t he take her quiet confession at face value? Why had his illusions crumbled with her words? Because she had said them so many times before.

  Oh, Cade, I love you, she had told him on her eleventh birthday when he’d given her a necklace with a tiny genuine diamond. I love you, she had offered as comfort on the day of his father’s funeral. I love you, Cade, she had said at fifteen when he’d spent hours patching her first broken heart. Don’t forget—I love you, had been her parting words almost six years ago as she’d boarded a plane for new worlds and new horizons.

  If only she hadn’t said it now. If only she hadn’t reminded him that “I love you” could mean many different things. And it could be said to many different people.

  Cade stared in concentrated study at the twilight deepening in the water and fought the persistent doubts. But he couldn’t stop himself from wondering how often Autumn had pledged her love, and to whom. Richard Colburn? Undoubtedly she had said those words to Richard. When? In the backseat of a limousine? In a fancy restaurant? In other, more intimate surroundings?

  He drew in a long breath of self-disgust. Had he expected her to be inexperienced? Had he thought that she would come back to him as the same trusting, innocent child she’d been when she left? No, he hadn’t expected her to come back at all. But she had. She had come home with experiences and disillusionments he knew nothing of and had had no part in shaping. He wasn’t sure he knew any of the important things about her anymore. And he wasn’t at all sure what she’d meant when she’d said I love you.

  But she had touched him, kissed him, caressed him. She had responded to his lovemaking as if there never before had been, or ever could be again, any other love for her. So why did the doubts continue to grow stronger? Why did he feel that there had been no depth of commitment on her part?

  It was entirely possible that she had come to him because she needed comfort and reassurance. Autumn had sought the shelter of his arms more than once in the past when she needed someone, anyone. Was that the answer? Richard Colburn had driven back into her life today ... and left without her. Had she been disappointed that Richard hadn’t taken her with him? Was she planning to return to New York at some indefinite point in the future?

  Cade scanned the darkness beyond the boat’s lights, looking for familiar landmarks and wishing the dock were in sight. He wanted to be home, where he could put a reasonable distance between himself and Autumn. There would be no escape from the questions, he knew that. And there would be no easy answers either. But he needed time to think, to analyze what had happened and what kind of relationship, if any, he and Autumn could build now.

  Without intending to, he turned to look at her and wished immediately that he hadn’t. She sat sideways on the cockpit bench, very near to him, and yet she might have been miles away. Her arms encircled her bent legs and her forehead rested wearily on her knees. The moonlight dusted her hair with gold and his throat closed over the intense longing to touch her again. Autumn, oh, Autumn.

  When the boat reached the dock, Autumn lifted her head and automatically rose to help with the mooring lines. Cade said nothing and she didn’t linger in the stifling atmosphere. Her heart suggested a dozen things she might have said, but Autumn knew it was pointless even to say good night. He wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t listen. She had told him she loved him and he had answered with silence. She might not understand the distance he had placed between them, but she knew it could not be bridged from her side.

  We can’t get there from here. Her own words, light and laughing in memory, weighted her steps with loneliness as she walked up the path alone.

  Chapter Eight

  Autumn slept little that night. She stood at her bedroom window, alternately holding the curtain open and pulling it closed. The bed provided a place to lie when she grew tired of standing; the pillow offered a cushion for thoughts too heavy to hold upright; the scene below her window gave her something to stare at while the never-ending questions rolled wearily through her mind. It shouldn’t have happened, he had said. But it had.

  From window to bed to window, she paced, occasionally dozing fretfully in between. Morning came with a headache and a phone call.

  “Autumn? This is Cade.” He sounded as if he were a world away. Her heart plummeted to her feet, then soared to quiver in her throat. Everything she would have liked to say became tangled in memories of how very close they had been only hours before. “Autumn?” he repeated, so calmly, so coolly.

  She could hardly believe it was his voice and she could hardly believe she stood, stupidly silent, gripping the phone as if her existence would shatter if she dropped it. “Yes?” At last she managed a solid, if somewhat shaky, answer.

  “I know it’s early, but—” His easy confidence seemed to desert him at that point and he said nothing for the space of several heartbeats. “Are you all right?”

  No. She was never going to be all right again. But the tenderness, the familiar attempt to comfort that edged his voice, prevented her from saying so. “Yes,” she lied. Her voice had an underlying crispness to it, an almost brittle tone.

  Silence trembled along the phone lines and surrendered to caution. “I’m leaving for Annapolis this morning,” he said, “and I won’t return until after the sailboat show. Can you handle things at the store? It’ll be next weekend before I get back.”

  “That’s fine. Everything will be fine,” she hastened to interrupt, to stop the bittersweet ache she felt at being suddenly separated from him, but she hadn’t intended to sound indifferent. In the past that had been a sure signal to Cade. He’d never failed to pick up on the hurt that hid behind her show of unconcern.

  At least, he’d never before failed to notice. “Then I won’t worry. I know how much you love to take charge.”

  She could have killed him for using that teasing tone. Now, of all times. How could he? But still he went on. “I’ll expect to see swimsuits in the window when I get back.”

  “Don’t set your expectations too high.”

  His pause was a mere breath of quiescence. “No. I won’t do that. If you need any help—”

  She replaced the receiver with a click and Cade felt his grip on the telephone go slack. He stared at the instrument in his hand before he returned it to the cradle. It made a hollow, synthetic clatter and he frowned. Only a moment ago he’d heard the rich huskiness inherent in Autumn’s voice and yet there had been a new inflection. She might have been sleepy—had she been able to sleep? Had she dreamed of him? No, he would have recognized the sound of drowsiness. It was someth
ing different, something he’d never heard before, at least not from Autumn. Caution perhaps? Disappointment? Regret?

  It didn’t matter. Later he would wonder how she felt, what she thought, but not now. Not when he was close enough to follow that phone call with a visit. Not when he was in a mood to ask questions that he had no right to ask. Not when he would demand answers that he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

  He’d been unprepared for her to return, unprepared for the changes in her and totally, completely, unprepared for the inevitability of what had happened between them last night. Say it, his mind commanded, but he shunned the thought and walked to the window. There across the yard, beyond the hedge, just above the spiky top of the evergreen tree, was Autumn’s window. Was she there now, watching him, thinking of him as he was her?

  Admit it, came the whisper of conscience again. Cade closed his eyes and remembered the feel of her in his arms, the taste and sight and scent of her as they’d made love. Slowly he opened his eyes and absorbed the meaning of the words. Last night he had made love to Autumn. No, his lips curved gently in correction. Last night he had made love with Autumn. For the first time in his life he understood the difference.

  He hadn’t allowed himself to say it or even think it until now. The tender reality of loving her and the chafing irritation of doubting her weren’t compatible. And so he hadn’t let his thoughts dwell on either one. He’d lain on the bed, staring at the ceiling and planning—careful, complicated planning that brought no resolution or comfort. He would go to Annapolis immediately. The boat show was only a few days away and offered a logical excuse for putting Autumn safely out of his reach. There were people he needed to see at the show, things he could do, but above all he would be able to think, to decide how to cope with the change in his relationship with her. When he saw her again, he would be prepared.

  Purposefully he turned from the window and surveyed the room. The bed with all the wrinkles smoothed from sight, the suitcase that was packed and waiting, the now silent phone that could convey so much or so little. He shouldn’t have phoned her, but he couldn’t just leave without a word. That was too much like running away, and he wasn’t running. He simply had to have some time.

  Cade crossed the room and lifted the suitcase, knowing he must go, wanting instead to go to Autumn, to talk to her, share with her....

  But that was what he had to discover. It might never again be possible to be with Autumn, to really talk with her, to share with her ... to make love with her.

  He had to face his doubts, his limitations, and his alternatives. He must decide what he could dare to hope for and what he might have to settle for. Don’t set your expectations too high, he warned himself.

  With a heavy and heartfelt sigh he walked from the room and closed the door behind him.

  * * * *

  Autumn slumped into the easy comfort of Cade’s office chair and propped her feet on the corner of his desk. Beyond the closed door of the office, saws whined and hammers banged. She hadn’t realized it would take quite so much noise to redo one relatively small corner of the store. Enthusiasm among the employees had waned noticeably since the work commenced, and Autumn was becoming adept at smiling and nodding sympathetically when customers complained.

  Small wonder that Ross had made only a brief appearance to “check on the progress” before he and Lorna left for Annapolis. They had gone just for the weekend, returning on Sunday with an evening’s worth of “You should have been there,” and “You’ll never guess who we ran into,” and other interesting details about the sailboat show. Autumn had been interested, but she’d really wanted to ask if they’d seen Cade and what he was doing and if he’d, by any chance, asked about her. His name had drifted into the conversation only once, though, and then Lorna had merely commented that he’d seemed preoccupied.

  With a frown Autumn picked up a rubber band from the desktop and idly wrapped it around her finger. Obviously he must still be preoccupied, as it was now Wednesday and he hadn’t returned or even phoned. She had thought he would at least check on how things were going at the store, but if he did, the calls stopped short of reaching her.

  Marilynda had probably set his mind at rest over the weekend. She, too, had attended the boat show and returned to the office with glowing accounts of all she’d learned. But there’d been no mention of Cade, except in an offhand, impersonal way.

  Autumn couldn’t keep from wondering how a weekend with Cade could be impersonal, but then, her perspective wasn’t exactly unbiased at the moment. With a grimace of distaste for her train of thought, she flipped the rubber band across the room and turned her attention to the letter lying open on her lap. The message hadn’t changed. It still conveyed a firm, uncompromising no. The bank had denied her request for a line of credit.

  James Clayton had phoned the day before to warn her that the letter was coming and to explain why he’d had to refuse. She’d listened, although she really didn’t want to hear that the bank was being more conservative in these uncertain economic times; that at this time the bank couldn’t afford to extend credit to a new and somewhat uncertain business venture; that the bank regretted its inability to help a valued customer, but if the bank could be of any service at a later date....

  The explanations had rolled on in the same abstract vein until Autumn had finally concluded the conversation with an insincere thank you and a meaningful goodbye.

  Cade had said if the Eastport bank turned down her request, he would help her get the credit elsewhere. She began folding the corners of the letter as she decided that, at least, the subject of money would be an effective icebreaker when he returned. If that didn’t restore a measure of equanimity between them, nothing could.

  His reaction to the bank’s denial of credit and to the remodeling work already done would tell her a lot about how he planned to treat the undeniable fact that they had passed the point of friendship. A slow, sweet shiver ebbed through her as it did every time she thought of making love with him. Would she ever stop remembering? Would she be able to act as if it had never happened?

  No, and she wasn’t even going to try. She and Cade were going to talk, regardless of how he might feel about it. Just as soon as he came home.

  The letter, folded into a neat airplane, sailed across the room on the wings of her resolve and landed on the edge of the windowsill. It dipped indecisively toward the floor, righted itself, then dipped again. Autumn reached for another rubber band and placed it carefully on her fingertip.

  “Glad to see you’re keeping busy.” Cade’s voice came from the doorway and made her drop her feet from the top of his desk with a guilty start. The rubber band fell to the floor in unison with the paper plane and she swiveled the chair around to face him.

  Leaning against the doorjamb, dressed in deck shoes, weathered jeans, and a soft plaid flannel shirt partially hidden by the navy Windbreaker he wore, Cade looked so endearingly familiar that Autumn couldn’t contain her smile. It widened in greeting and with the sheer pleasure of seeing him again.

  She took another rubber band from the drawer and twirled it artfully around her finger. “It’s a dirty job,” she said with a saucy little shrug, “but someone’s got to do it.”

  His lips slanted a slow response and his eyes warmed to a summer-sky blue. “I’ve been telling you that for years, but you’ve always insisted I should do it.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind, Cade. After all, fair is fair and you do own twice as much of this place as I do.”

  “Does that mean you’re ready to relinquish the seat of authority?”

  She relaxed against the chair back. “The job, yes. The chair? No way. I’m claiming one-fourth of this office and at the moment that includes a place to sit.”

  “And all the rubber bands in my desk drawer,” he said as he moved away from the doorway—leaving the door noticeably open—to sit in one of the chairs across from her. “Remodeling is hard work, isn’t it?”

  “Did you see what’s b
een done?” Enthusiasm, kept too long to herself, bubbled to the surface and she forgot everything else except sharing it with him. “I had no idea the work would go so fast. They’re going to finish by Saturday and then I have to arrange for the staining, painting, and carpeting to be done—wait until you see the carpet. I can hardly believe it, there is actually going to be one corner of the store that has honest to goodness carpeting.”

  “Yes. I can hardly believe that myself.” A wry smile punctuated the droll comment. “I looked around before I came into the office. It’s really taking shape, Autumn. Another week and you’ll be stocking bathing suits on the shelves and vacuuming the carpet every five minutes.”

  “A little more than a week, Cade. Things don’t move quite that fast, even in New York. I’m going to have to make a couple of buying trips before we can begin to think about stocking the shelves.”

  “You’re going to New York?” The question was brusque and quick.

  Autumn hesitated, suddenly aware of her tension, suddenly aware that she wanted to kiss him. “Yes,” she said, and wondered how he could miss the significance of her deeply indrawn breath. “Next week. And after that I’m going to Dallas to look for merchandise. It’s going to take some speedy footwork to get the boutique stocked and ready for business in just a few weeks. I’ll have to settle for a limited inventory to begin with, but next year....”

  “How long are you staying?”

  With a blink of confusion she sorted through his change of subject. “In Dallas? Four days.”

  “No, how long are you staying in New York?” He appeared relaxed and at ease, but Autumn sensed that the illusion cost him considerable effort.

  “Only as long as it takes to get what I want.”