“I was in love with Errol,” she argued softly, and not caring whether she sounded defensive. “I’m still in love with him.”
Anna shook her head. “No, sweetheart. You thought you were in love.”
Rhianna wavered, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. “How can you say that when you helped me plan my wedding?”
“I’m a mother. And mothers want to see their children happy.”
“I know what love feels like, Mother.”
“If you truly were in love, then seeing Errol’s identical twin would’ve never affected you.”
“You make it sound as if I was infatuated with his looks.”
Anna gave her a long, penetrating stare. “Weren’t you?”
Rhianna’s jaw dropped. “Of course not.” Her mother’s expression spoke volumes. She didn’t believe her.
There was no doubt she’d been taken with Errol’s good looks, as were most of the girls at their high school. It wasn’t his looks as much as it was his happy-go-lucky attitude that drew her to him. He was three years her senior, and she could not believe it when he’d taken an interest in her; she’d done nothing to elicit his attention. One date became two, then halfway through her sophomore year she and Errol were acknowledged as a couple.
Errol graduated from high school and elected not to go to college. He went to work for his father in their general contracting business. The night of her senior prom he proposed marriage and she accepted. Her parents weren’t pleased when she showed them the ring Errol had given her, but reluctantly gave them their blessing.
“You’re never going to be able to move forward with your life if you don’t reconcile your past.” Anna’s soft voice broke into her musings.
“I’ve moved on, Mom.”
“Have you really?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Rhianna, do you still like your eggs scrambled?” Gary asked loudly.
“Yes.”
Wiping her hands on a damp towel, she slipped off the stool to see what Gary had prepared for her. Talking about Errol with her mother had unsettled her as much as seeing Emery again. Did Anna really believe she was so shallow that she would marry a man because of his looks?
Anna was wrong about Rhianna reconciling her past. Returning to Shepherd had proven that. Even though she continued to mourn the loss of her first lover, she had dated occasionally. She’d given one man her passion without offering him her love; falling in love a second time was not an option.
Rhianna accepted a plate from Gary filled with grits, scrambled eggs, strips of ham, and a fluffy biscuit, and walked into the dining room. The booth Emery had occupied was empty. The table had been cleaned and a place setting with an overturned coffee mug awaited the next diner. She walked over and sat down to the subtle sensual scent of a man’s cologne.
They may have looked alike, but that’s where the resemblance ended. Anna’s words came rushing back. She was right—Errol never wore cologne or aftershave. He claimed soap and water were enough.
A waitress came over with a pot of freshly brewed coffee and filled the mug. Rhianna did not recognize the woman. In fact, she did not recognize any of the dining room staff. Next year, Campy’s would celebrate its thirtieth year of offering the residents of Shepherd some of the best home-cooked food in the region.
She did not want to think of the restaurant’s future once her parents retired.
* * *
The morning and afternoon sped by for Rhianna as she observed the space her father had attempted to renovate. He planned to expand the enclosed back porch to accommodate at least twenty additional diners.
She returned her rental and rode back to the hospital with Anna for afternoon visiting hours. She met with the neurologist, listening as he outlined in laymen’s terms his course of treatment for her father. CAT scans indicated a slight swelling, which the doctor predicted would subside quickly.
Reid’s disability impacted directly on Anna and Gary, and Rhianna volunteered to assume her mother’s job of supervising the staff and assisting in food preparation for lunch and dinner.
She and Anna left the hospital, holding hands. “I’m going to drop you back home, then I have to shop for a coat,” Rhianna said, holding the passenger-side door open for Anna.
“Were you serious about staying?” Anna asked, after Rhianna had taken her seat behind the wheel.
“Yes.”
Rhianna started up the sedan, but did not shift into gear. Turning slightly, she stared into Anna’s clear brown eyes. She and her mother looked nothing alike. Both had curly hair, but Anna’s was softer, silkier.
“What about your position with the hotel?”
“I’m entitled to sixty days of family leave, but if it exceeds that, then I’ll request a transfer to a northeast location.”
Anna smiled. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but you have to know that your father and I want you living closer to us. We aren’t getting any younger. “
“Lighten up with the guilt, Mom.” She smiled at Anna. “I’ll think about it. Okay?”
“Don’t think too long,” Anna mumbled under her breath, as Rhianna backed out of the space.
“I’m going to stop at the nursery to pick up some plants and lights to decorate the restaurant,” she said, deftly changing the subject. “I’m looking forward to celebrating Christmas where I don’t have to see palm trees and Styrofoam snowmen.”
Anna reached over and switched on the radio to a station that featured holiday music. The perfectly pitched voice of Whitney Houston singing, “Do You Hear What I Hear,” came through the speakers.
The two women sang along with the familiar songs until they arrived at Campy’s. Anna got out and Rhianna reversed direction, heading for her favorite boutique in an upscale shopping center.
* * *
Emery heard the smoky feminine voice and went completely still. His head came up and he stared at the woman standing only twenty feet away.
Now that he’d heard the voice he knew the mystery woman’s identity. Rhianna Campbell may have changed her looks, but not her contralto voice. Her short hairdo, stylish tan cashmere swing coat, and imported loafers screamed big city elegance.
He wasn’t sure whether it was coincidence or serendipity that he and Rhianna were at Jansen’s Nursery at the same time. He’d ordered a plant to be sent to her father at the hospital; she had placed an order for poinsettias and wreaths to be delivered to Campy’s.
Emery had waited a long time to confront Rhianna, and now that she’d returned to Shepherd he realized his ten-year wait was over.
CHAPTER 3
After three days in Shepherd Rhianna felt restless—an emotion she hadn’t experienced in a long time. The first time it happened was after she’d relocated to Los Angeles. It took more than a year to become acclimated to one season and make new friends.
Adjusting to her position as a banquet manager was easier and rewarding. Each affair, whether business or personal, ended satisfactorily because she believed customer approval was paramount to hotel profits.
She alternated visiting hours with Anna, going in the evenings, whereas her mother sat at her husband’s bedside during the afternoon, talking quietly to him, even though he wasn’t able to hear her. Rhianna had suggested hiring a private duty nurse once he was discharged, but Anna’s vehement opposition to having another woman take care of her husband made it moot.
Once the townsfolk heard she had returned to Shepherd, Campy’s business tripled. The curious wanted to see how she looked after a ten-year absence, and many welcomed her back home with bright smiles and hugs.
She’d closed Campy’s, but hadn’t yet gone upstairs, content in sitting in the near-dark dining room and listening to one of her favorites songs on the jukebox. A tapping sound caught her attention. Sitting up straighter, she listened intently. Someone was rapping on the door.
Pushing out of the booth, she walked over to the door and peered through a pane of glass. Porch lanterns
and tiny white bulbs strung around leafless branches provided enough light for her to see the face of the man that had sent her fleeing from Shepherd as if the hounds of hell were pursuing her. Why, she wondered, had Emery Sutherland come to Campy’s after closing time?
A wave of moisture swept over her body. She’d told herself that she was ready to face him, but was she? “What do you want?” she shouted at the door.
“I need to talk to you.”
She swallowed. Why was it she remembered his face and not his voice? It was a lower register than Errol’s, a mellow, seductive baritone.
“We’re closed, Emery. Please come back tomorrow.”
There was a pause before he said, “Please, open the door, Rhia.”
Her pulse quickened. He was the only one she knew that always shortened her name. She stared at the door as if it would solve her dilemma. Should she ignore Emery and go upstairs, or open the door?
But she knew the answer before the question had formed in her mind. She had to open the door and once and for all put all of the ghosts from her past to rest.
“Wait a minute.”
She made her way across the dining room and into a smaller room where her father had set up his office. Switching on a light, she pressed several buttons on a panel, deactivating the security system.
By the time she returned to open the door for Emery she was in complete control of her emotions. If she had changed in ten years, so had he.
A short sheepskin-lined jacket failed to mask the power in his upper body. At six-two, he had bulked up considerably, although his face was leaner, high cheekbones even more pronounced. What hadn’t changed was the attractive cleft in his strong chin.
“Please come in.”
Emery walked into the restaurant. His expressionless face gave no indication of what he was feeling at that moment—a long simmering rage that refused to die out.
His gaze moved over Rhianna as he noted the obvious changes in her appearance. Despite his deep-rooted anger he admitted to himself that he liked her with short hair. What he didn’t like was seeing her so thin. She was tall, therefore the loss of weight made her look almost emaciated.
Rhianna motioned to a booth. “Would you like to sit down?”
Emery shook his head. “No. What I have to say won’t take that long.”
Crossing her arms under her breasts, she nodded. “Spit it out.”
Assuming a similar pose, Emery angled his head. “I want to thank you for screwing up my little sister’s head.”
Her back stiffened. “What!” The word exploded from her mouth.
He walked forward a step, bringing them less than a foot apart. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember promising Debbie that you’d always be there for her. That’s a helluva thing to tell an eight-year-old who’d just lost her brother and parents. You stayed in Shepherd long enough to garner everyone’s sympathy as Errol’s grieving fianceé before you took off for sunny California, leaving me with a little girl who cried herself to sleep every night because she wanted everything to be the way it was before her play sister deserted her.
“I hated you, Rhia, for giving my sister hope when there was none. She was so messed up that she was forced to go into counseling after she began running away to see if she could find you. It took four long years before she was able to acknowledge that you were never coming back to Shepherd.”
Rhianna stared, tongue-tied, unable to form a comeback to counter Emery’s virulent attack. Her heart pounded in her chest and in her ears, the roaring sound making it impossible to hear what he was saying. She stared at his mouth as if she was trying to read lips, and, through the roaring din, managed to breathe out two words.
“Get out!” Emery looked at her for several seconds, then turned on his heels and walked out of Campy’s, leaving her staring at the space where he had been.
She stood in the same spot, not moving, until she felt her calves cramping, then forced herself to put one foot in front of the other as she made her way over to the door and locked it. Moving like a robot, Rhianna reset the alarm, extinguished the lights, and walked slowly up the staircase to her third floor bedroom; she entered the room, closed the door softly, and headed for the cushioned window seat in an alcove. She sat down, pulling her knees to her chest, and tried to make sense of Emery’s verbal assault. She had promised his sisters, especially Deborah, that she would always be their big sister, but that was before the tragic accident that decreased the Sutherland household from eight to five in the blink of an eye.
And in the weeks following the funeral she could not and did not remember what she’d done or said. What she did remember were her mother’s tears when she announced that she was leaving Shepherd and moving to California.
Rhianna stared at the tiny white bulbs entwined in the trees planted around the house. She’d held the ladder while the busboy strung hundreds of feet of lights that shimmered like tiny sparkling diamonds. Christmas had always been her favorite time of the year, with the exchange of gifts, parties, pageants, songs, cards, and prayers for peace and good will toward men. That was before that tragic Christmas Eve.
She hadn’t celebrated Christmas for ten years, but since returning to Shepherd she’d promised herself that she would try to recapture the normalcy missing in her life since she had—as her mother charged—run away.
A wry smile twisted her mouth. It was apparent peace and good will were not a part of Emery Sutherland’s life. He’d harbored hate and resentment toward her for almost a decade, attacking her without warning and not giving her the opportunity to explain herself. He could believe whatever he wanted to believe, but the next time she and Emery crossed paths she knew she would be more than prepared for him.
* * *
Rhianna slept fitfully, and when she slipped out of bed hours before dawn, she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. The virulent words Emery had hurled at her had tormented her throughout the night.
She walked on bare feet to the bathroom to shower. There was no need to stay in bed when all she could do was twist and turn restlessly. She showered, patted her skin dry, then moisturized her body with a thick perfumed cream. The cold weather had attacked her sensitive skin with a vengeance.
Dressed in a pair of chocolate wale cords, a white wool turtleneck sweater, and brown low-heeled boots, she slipped her arms into an Old Navy blue pea coat before reaching for the keys to her father’s truck. Moving over to the desk where she’d sat years before doing homework and typing papers, she scribbled a note on a pad: Went for a drive. Be back soon. R.
She folded the piece of paper in half as she walked the length of the hallway and descended the staircase. Stopping at her mother’s bedroom, she slipped the note under the door.
As she passed the living room the clock on the fireplace mantel chimed the half hour. It was four-thirty, much too early to drop in on someone unannounced, but she didn’t much care. If Emery could come to Campy’s after closing hours and insult her to her face in her family-owned place of business, then she had no qualms about returning the gesture.
She left through the rear of the house. The frozen earth made crunching and crackling sounds under her booted feet as she walked toward the two-car garage. The readout on the large digital thermometer mounted on the side of the house registered eighteen degrees. The prediction of a major snowstorm was downgraded to snow showers that had left the Hudson Valley covered with several inches of white powder and turned the countryside into a Currier & Ives winter wonderland postcard.
She drove slowly, her gaze never straying from the icy roadway in front of the glare of her headlights. She didn’t realize how tense she’d been until she pulled into the driveway leading to Emery’s house. The structure was similar to many in the region: two or three stories, wraparound or enclosed porch, set on enough acreage that children could play with wild abandon. It was dark, but still she could make out changes to the large farmhouse. Shutters had been added to the many windows.
Rhianna cut o
ff the engine, pushed opened the door, and, before she could alight from the truck, saw a pair of glowing eyes staring up at her. Not much had changed. The Sutherlands had always kept dogs as pets.
“Hey there, boy,” she whispered. The dog moved closer and she recognized it as a border collie. She headed for the front porch, the dog lopping along at her heels.
Rhianna mounted the stairs, stared at the solid door painted a dark forest green, then rang the bell. The sound echoed melodiously throughout the interior.
Without warning, the door opened and her mouth went suddenly dry as she stared numbly at the wide bare chest of the tall man looming over her. A pair of jeans rode low on his slim hips. It was apparent he’d thrown them on at the last moment because he hadn’t bothered to snap the waistband.
He frowned, his eyes level under drawn brows. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you,” she said, repeating the very words he’d spoken hours before.
Emery scratched his stubbly jaw. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Rhianna refused to relent. “I beg to differ with you. Either you let me in, or you can step outside. It’s your call.”
His frown deepened. “If you don’t leave my property I’m going to call the sheriff and have you arrested for trespassing.”
A swift shadow of anger swept over her face. “No, you won’t, Emery. You’re going to listen to what it is I have to say. You owe me that much.”
“I owe you nothing,” he spat at her.
“You’re not the only one hurting,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I loved your brother. I loved everything about him, and when he died I wanted to die, too.” Her eyes filled with tears. “The day after you buried Errol and your parents I locked myself in my bedroom with my father’s gun, trying to get up enough nerve to shoot myself.” Her shoulders shook as tears overflowed and rolled down her face. “I sat up all night with the gun in my lap, laughing and crying. I laughed at all of the silly things Errol and I used to do together, then I cried because I was too much of a coward to take my own life.”
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