“I don’t want another man,” she argued.
Howe went to the heart of the matter. “The question is, do you want me? Not because we’re married, but because you really want me, as I am.”
She should have said yes. Wanted to say yes. But the truth was, she couldn’t.
“I see.” He held her a little tighter for just a heartbeat, then eased his embrace.
“Howe, I just need time,” she told him. “Is that so much to ask?”
“No. It’s not.” His brows smoothed. “I’ll explain the truth to the kids before they hear from anybody else. After what I did to you, they’ll understand.”
Elizabeth sat up short. “You can’t tell them about the hookers. Patti adores you. It would destroy her. And Charles . . .” She couldn’t stand to see the new closeness between him and his father damaged. “He must never know. Boys need to look up to their fathers.”
Howe brushed the hair back from her temple. “You’re so good. I don’t deserve you.”
She deflated. “Yes you do. I guess we deserve each other.”
He let out a dry laugh. “That suits me fine.” He sobered. “I won’t speak to the kids till I’ve tried to talk some sense into P.J. Maybe he’ll listen to reason, man to man.”
“God, how I wish he would.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Just don’t let things end up like the vestry meeting.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, his mood lightening. “I won’t.”
“Howe,” she said in a small voice, “I’m so sorry about all this.”
“It’s going to be all right,” he soothed. “I promise.” He pulled her to her feet. “Come on, honey. Let’s go home.”
Honey. She was beginning to like that. Elizabeth wiped her eyes, then clung to his side as they headed back for the car. “Maybe you and I should go to Europe,” she suggested. “Tonight. Permanently.”
Howe stopped in his tracks, peering at her. “Do you want to leave Whittington? Really?”
“I hate Whittington,” she confessed. “I always have.”
He frowned, trying to digest that little bombshell.
Elizabeth regretted adding that to the situation. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just dreading the gossip. But running away never solved anything.”
She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “Sometimes running away works just fine,” he told her. “Stepping back can make things clearer.”
He pulled out his keys and carefully removed one from the ring. “I was going to tell you about this, but so many other things were going on that I—” He stopped himself. “No. That’s not true. I was afraid to tell you, afraid you’d be angry, which you have every right to be.” He placed the key into her palm and closed her hand around it. “This is the key to a foreclosure on Lake Blue Ridge that I bought when the bank took it back.”
A cabin she’d never heard about, but Elizabeth was so accustomed to excusing things away when it came to Howe, she did it again by force of habit.
“I’m giving it to you,” he said. “I’ll have the lawyers transfer the deed tomorrow. I want you to go there and sort things out, get away from everything. I’ll take care of things here: dealing with Mama and the kids, and the fallout if P.J. goes through with his threat.” He read the resistance in her face. “P.J. can’t manipulate you if he doesn’t know where you are. You’ll be safe there, free to rest and make up your mind without any pressure from anybody, including me.” He looked at her with open desire. “Take as long as you need to decide what you want to do.”
“But if I leave, won’t people think—”
“I don’t give a damn what people think,” Howe shot back. “Lizzie, the truth is, I can’t stand being so close to you and not having you. Especially not now that I know there’s somebody else who wants you just as much as I do. I can’t treat you like a brother anymore, see you every day, have you in my bed, without being a real husband to you. I just can’t do it.”
At least he was honest about it, instead of trying to manipulate her into having sex with him.
Maybe she should go away, for both their sakes.
All her life, she’d worked so hard for respectability, first for herself, then for her children. She’d faced everything head-on and coped. But she was so weary of coping, of bearing up, no matter what.
Elizabeth tightened her grip on the key and wrapped her mind around the idea of escape, of answering to no one but herself—for the first time, ever. Of eating when she wanted, sleeping when she wanted, free of pressure. Of reading. Of resting. Maybe even finding some sanity. “All right. I’ll go home and pack.”
“Good.” Howe took her elbow and started for the car. “I’ll deposit two hundred thousand into your account. I don’t want you to have to worry about anything while you’re there. If that runs out, just call, and I’ll transfer more.” He offered her a pained smile. “I should have given you access to our money a long time ago. I’ll take care of that while you’re gone, too.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing till they reached the cars. “What will you tell the children about where I am? And your mother?” Augusta would have a fit.
“I’ll tell them, and everybody else, the truth: that I insisted you get away on your own to rest now that I’m strong enough to manage on my own.”
“They won’t believe you. Especially if P.J. spreads lies about me.”
“ ‘Frankly, my dear,’ ” Howe quoted, “ ‘I don’t give a damn.’ ”
“The kids will want to know where I am.”
“You’ll have your cell. Tell them as much or as little as you want to. It’s your decision.”
Her decision.
“Thank you for that,” she said. “And for the cabin.”
He cocked a crooked smile. “You can call me, whenever you want. We can still talk.”
The trouble was, they’d talked already. He had, anyway.
Elizabeth was looking forward to not talking to anybody, for a long, long time.
Chapter 19
When Elizabeth got home, she found Howe holed up in his study, and a note from Patti saying she’d gone shopping for her trip with Augusta. So Elizabeth was able to pack without interruption or explanation.
She tried not to think about what she was about to do, or why. She’d made her bed in a rut a quarter-of-a-century long, and the idea of climbing out was both exhilarating and terrifying. So she focused instead on selecting what to take with her. She didn’t bring much, just the few really casual clothes she had. Most of her wardrobe was too dressy for the mountains. If she needed more clothes after she got there, she could always buy them.
She could buy anything she wanted, she realized with a tug of guilty satisfaction. As of the next banking day, she—Bessie Mae Mooney, from her train wreck of a family on the wrong side of the tracks—would be a woman of means, no longer a mere appendage to Howe’s wealth and power. A woman with a lakeside cabin she’d never seen.
She still couldn’t believe Howe had so casually decided to give her a house. A fleeting shadow whispered that he might have parted with it so easily because the place was some moldy old shack that nobody wanted.
No. Howe reviewed every mortgage himself, and he’d never loan money on anything that wasn’t priced right and extremely marketable.
Beyond that, she didn’t let herself second-guess his gift, because experience had taught her, she might not like the answers.
She closed the suitcase on her clothes and realized she didn’t even know what size sheets to bring, so she called the house line from her cell.
Howe picked up on the third ring. “Hi. Don’t tell me you’ve already left.”
“No, I’m upstairs packing. I just needed to know what size sheets to bring.”
“You don’t need to bring anything for the house. It’s fully equipped.” She heard him shift in his seat. “I called the caretaker to tell him you’re coming. His wife’s cleaning and changing the sheets as we speak. She’s also putting
breakfast food in the refrigerator, so you won’t need to shop before you get there. The freezer and the pantry are already stocked.”
Sounded pretty extravagant. Maybe the bank had used the place as a perk. “There’s a caretaker?”
“More like a fixit man, really. He works for a lot of the vacation people, but he’s honest and reliable.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Please let me know before you leave,” he said. “I’d like to say good-bye. And I have a map for you. You can drive it easily in an hour and a half.”
“I’ll come by on my way out,” she told him, wishing the leaving were already behind her, maybe because she’d always been the one left behind, never the one to go. “ ’Bye.”
Elizabeth found a couple of large plastic baskets and rounded up her favorite everyday things, including her pillows and lighted magnifying makeup mirror, then loaded them into her car. A quick tour of the kitchen produced her favorite tomato knife, her battery-powered can opener that crawled around the lid all by itself, and a few of the coffee mugs she liked.
Before she knew it, she was ready to walk out on the life she’d lived for the past twenty-five years. Maybe forever.
It wasn’t easy, but she knew that it was what she needed to do.
She knocked on Howe’s study door. “Howe?”
He came out into the hallway, the map and directions in his hand. Elizabeth’s stomach tightened at the haggard look on his face. “Everything’s packed,” she told him.
Howe handed her the papers. “If anything’s not clear, just call me.” He placed his hands gently on her upper arms as she folded them into her purse. When she looked up, he asked, “May I kiss you good-bye?”
She nodded, a huge lump in her heart.
He kissed her gently at first, then his arms tightened around her, transmitting all his hunger and all his hopes into their embrace.
Maybe it was the fact that she was leaving, but Elizabeth responded without reservation, her own longing matching his till she forgot everything but what it felt like to want and be wanted.
Till Patti let out a startled, “Daddy! Please. Get a room!”
The two of them shot apart and pivoted to find their daughter and Augusta scowling at them in disapproval.
“Really, Howell,” his mother said. “Show some self-control.”
Elizabeth turned a brief look of regret and sadness his way. “I’ll call you.”
She walked up to Patti and gave her a big hug. “I love you, precious girl. Be nice to your father, and behave yourself.”
Patti wriggled free of her. “Mom! I am not a little girl anymore.”
Elizabeth walked over to Augusta and surprised her with a long hug. “I love you, too, Augusta.” She actually meant it—at least a little. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. I knew I could never measure up to what you wanted for Howe. But I’m so grateful Patti has you. Children need unqualified love from somewhere. God knows, I never got any from my family, but I’m so glad she has you.”
Augusta remained as stiff as an armful of coat hangers, at a loss for words.
Elizabeth just kept right on hugging her. “And thanks so much for taking Patti to Europe. I hope y’all have a wonderful time. Don’t let anything take that away from you, no matter what happens.”
She finally let go, to Augusta’s visible relief.
Patti frowned. “Mama, why are you acting so weird? You don’t have cancer or anything, do you?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Elizabeth hitched up her shoulder bag. “Well, I’m off.” She looked to Howe. “I’ll call to let you know I got there.”
Tears welled in his eyes, but he managed not to cry, which was progress. “Thanks.”
“Where’s she going?” Patti asked her father as Elizabeth turned and headed for the rear door at the end of the hall.
“We’ll talk about that later,” she heard Howe say as she closed the door behind her.
Elizabeth didn’t look back, and she didn’t stop or let herself think till she was on the road and miles beyond Whittington. Then she started to cry. She cried all the way through Cumming, then past the rolling hills and horse farms on Route 372. She didn’t stop till she got to steep, quaint little Ball Ground. Numb, she blew her nose on some fast-food napkins from the glove compartment, then drove the rest of the way on 515, passing the usual mountain mix of raw Appalachian gravel pits, hardscrabble businesses, strip malls, and hyperquaint tourist attractions carved from the steepening terrain at Jasper and Cherry Log.
When she reached Blue Ridge, she pulled over and checked the directions, then turned off the main drag onto the old route that took her past the middle school, then onto progressively narrower roads that led to the final turnoff at Horse Point.
Catching glimpses of Lake Blue Ridge through the trees, she followed the private lane past an assortment of smaller, older houses and huge pseudo-Rockies McMansions. The closer she got to her house, the more curious she was about what she’d find. Near the end of the point, she spotted a single driveway with a small sign numbered “6969,” matching the address on the directions. Massed white pines and rhododendrons obscured any view of the house.
“This must be the place,” she said aloud.
Lord. She hadn’t been alone for three hours, and she was already talking to herself.
She headed down the driveway for about three hundred feet, where the dense underbrush opened to reveal a beautiful, brown-shingled lakeside cottage with crisp white trim, cuddled by hydrangeas, rhododendron, and mountain laurel. The house was not too small and not too big, with a two-car garage, a big porch facing the lake, and a covered metal dock that sheltered a new-looking ski boat. Picture-perfect.
Elizabeth pulled into the open side of the garage to find a neat array of water sports equipment and yard implements hanging from the walls.
She turned off the ignition, then took out the door key. “Okay. Here we are.” Refuge.
She made a mental note to have the locks changed as soon as possible. It wouldn’t do to have somebody from the bank barge in on her.
She grabbed her purse and suitcase, then unlocked the door that led from the garage to the house. Inside the cottage, polished wood floors and a wall of sliding glass overlooking the lake defined the open floor plan. Subtle colors of nature were reflected in the plush area rugs and simple, masculine leather sofas and chairs.
To her surprise, the place wasn’t musty at all, and clean as a whistle. Elizabeth set down her suitcase, then rummaged for her cell phone and was pleasantly surprised to find she had a good signal. After pressing speed dial for home, she heard Howe answer. “Hi. Is everything okay?”
“Perfect. The place is gorgeous.”
He didn’t respond for long seconds, which surprised her. “I . . . it’s . . .” After another weighted pause, he said, “Thanks for letting me know you made it okay. Call if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. I want to talk to you, Elizabeth. About a lot of things.”
She wasn’t ready for that, not yet, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Thanks. I think I’d just like to spend some time here by myself, first.”
To see if she could do it.
“Okay.” Another pause. “I told the kids and Mama I’d sent you on a spa retreat for a month. I think they bought it. Patti was jealous, but Charles said you deserved it.”
Elizabeth didn’t know if it was a good sign or a bad one that Howe had pulled off his first big lie since the stroke. “Were you able to reach P.J.?”
“Yes.”
The fact that he didn’t elaborate spoke volumes.
“No luck, huh?”
“We’ll see.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.
So much for wanting to talk about things. Awkward silence spread between them. “I guess I’ll go now,” she said.
“Okay.”
“ ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye.” The line clicked dead, and she closed her phone.
Odd, how two people who had
lived together for so long could be reduced to such strained monosyllables. Not that Howe had talked to her about anything that mattered before the stroke, but since he’d woken up, both of them were more aware of it.
Laying her purse on the dark granite countertop, Elizabeth turned her attention back to the house, noting with approval the gas cooktop, double ovens, and French refrigerator in the well-appointed kitchen, and the flat-screen TV above the large stone fireplace.
Could they even get cable up there?
She spotted a remote control on the large ottoman and pointed it toward the TV. When she pressed the button, the gas logs burst into flame, making her laugh.
Further inspection turned up the TV remote on the mantel. This time, the screen came to life, revealing the satellite connection. She activated the channel guide, tuned to HGTV for company, then went to investigate the rest of the house.
Two identical master suites flanked the great room, both with heavenly king-sized beds that faced the lake, huge cedar closets with extra blankets and pillows, and spacious bathrooms with jetted soaking tubs and separate travertine marble steam showers with glass enclosures. The vanities were even stocked with basic necessities, and plush white cotton robes hung above matching slippers in his and hers sizes.
Elizabeth picked the suite on the right because it had a slightly better view of the lake.
That accomplished, she headed back to the kitchen, where she rummaged up a bottle of red wine and some crackers from the pantry, then helped herself to a block of fresh cheddar from the refrigerator.
Howe was right. The place was fully stocked.
Her place was fully stocked.
She poured herself a glass of wine, then rinsed a bowl of raspberries and took the food out onto the porch, where ceiling fans created just enough breeze to keep away the mosquitoes. Elizabeth settled into one of the comfortable white rockers and let the peace of the surroundings gradually silence the doubts and regrets that had chased her all the way there.
Waking Up in Dixie Page 22