It had been almost a month after the Caldwells’ accident before Penn’s awful cough had finally gone away — the hoarse aftermath of all the fuel-polluted lake water that had choked him in the minutes after the collision. By then the visible bruises had healed, as well, and his friends were beginning to try to get things back to normal. They went about it awkwardly sometimes, and the first time Kaitlyn had heard the old half-serious insults directed at Penn she’d been shocked and frightened. But that was when he’d finally started to laugh again. His laughter had seemed forced sometimes, but it was a sign he was healing, that one day he would be well. She seized on it with gratitude.
She spent all the time with him that she could, and her parents, though concerned about her single-mindedness, were understanding. When Penn abruptly decided that the house in town held too many ghosts to let him rest, and he moved up to the Caldwells’ lake house, Audrey Ross had rented a cabin and taken Kaitlyn up as well. Audrey had mothered Penn as best she could — as much as he would allow her to — and she had never known about the many nights when Kaitlyn slipped over the balcony rail and went back down the gravel path to the Caldwell cabin, where Penn waited for her under the big old mulberry tree.
Even if Audrey had known, Kaitlyn thought, there was nothing in those midnight expeditions to frighten her. They had been innocent enough, that was certain. The two of them would walk along the lakeshore until Penn was exhausted enough to sleep a little. Or they would just sit together, sometimes talking and sometimes not.
They had never discussed the accident itself. Penn veered away from the subject whenever it came too near, and Kaitlyn hadn’t pressed for the details, or for his feelings. It was best to let him forget, she thought. And he would forget in time; he was already better. With the inexperience and the optimism of her youth, she was convinced of it.
So she was terrified one night when he wasn’t waiting under the mulberry tree and she found him inside the cabin with his mother’s collection of pretty pebbles — picked up on her walks around the lake — spread out on the hearth. He was sitting as if he was made of stone, as well, and in the harshness of his grief he didn’t even hear her come in.
When finally she managed to reach him and break through that silent stillness, he had turned to her for solace, and there had been no question in her mind about the rightness of what she offered him. She loved him; someday soon she would marry him. And if in the meantime there was comfort for him in her body — in knowing how deeply he was loved — well, what could be so wrong about that? It would be cruel to turn away when he needed her so badly.
And so she’d made love with him. The experience was not exactly the culmination of her dreams and expectations — but perhaps, she told herself, it was the dreams and expectations that were at fault. And afterward, when she’d cradled him close and stroked his damp hair back from his brow and said something — lost now in the dim reaches of memory — about how much she loved him, it had been a stunning shock when he had pulled away from her as if he couldn’t bear to be touched.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “I think I’ve lost my mind.” The words would be forever engraved on her heart, along with the way he’d looked at her — as if he’d never quite seen her before.
She had tried to pull him back, to comfort him. But he’d acted as if her touch was sandpaper, and he’d started to talk almost to himself. It should not have happened, he said. It had all been a horrible mistake.
She remembered feeling a momentary consolation that even in the midst of his pain he felt so badly about taking advantage of her — of breaking the rules they had set up for themselves. She’d tried to reassure him, to remind him that he hadn’t forced her. It had been her own choice, after all.
What if there was to be a baby, he had asked, and added that he suspected she had already considered that possibility.
Not quite certain of what he meant, feeling uneasy and almost as if she were under attack, Kaitlyn had told him that she hadn’t been thinking quite that clearly. But in any case, what did it matter? They would be married soon, anyway.
Those few words, to her unutterable astonishment, had been like tinder set to dynamite. She’d hardly recognized him — the Penn she loved — in the man who’d told her coldly that only a terrible lapse in his judgment could have allowed her to manipulate him into such a position — where a pregnancy might force him into an unwanted marriage.
Manipulate — force — unwanted.
The words had rained down on her like knives, slicing her heart, her self-esteem, her love into tiny oozing fragments. And she had run from him, pounding back along the gravel paths as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.
Even the horrible accident that had swept Penn’s parents away hadn’t stripped Kaitlyn of the primary illusion of youth — the sense that the world was essentially a fair place and that good intentions would be rewarded. But that night had ripped her innocence from her and taught her cynicism instead.
She had crept back into the Ross cabin and lain awake for most of the night. In the days that followed, she hadn’t gone out of her way to avoid Penn entirely — to do so would cause too many questions — but she had steadfastly refused to look at him, to talk to him, to listen. Not, she reminded herself, that he had made much of an effort to talk to her. He had not apologized – and when she had told him that there was no further fear of pregnancy, he’d been unable to hide his relief. She’d almost hated him, then.
She told her parents only that the accident had changed Penn into a person she no longer knew. Despite her steadfast refusal to answer questions, she thought they were almost relieved to find that she was quietly getting on with her life. It was too late to change her plans to attend the university Penn had chosen, but it was a big place. There would be no difficulty in avoiding him, she assured herself.
But that, it turned out, had been an unnecessary worry, for Penn hadn’t gone back to school at all. Just weeks before the fall term was to start, he’d packed a duffel bag and left Springhill, asking his parents’ attorney to close up the cabin on the lake and to sell everything else.
Springhill had talked, of course — at length — about psychic wounds and irresponsibility and adolescent reactions and the shame it all was. And then some other minor scandal had come to light, and Penn Caldwell was all but forgotten.
Except for the occasional postcard from some exotic place and the occasional reminder in casual conversation. And except for Kaitlyn, who could never forget the harshness of what that night had told her — that he felt no love for her, or any desire for permanence or commitment. That he saw her as a hunter who wanted only to capture him, no matter what means were necessary. That the possibility of her having his child was a weapon held to his head.
She put her face down into the cushion of the couch, and a single sob, harsh and painful, escaped her, followed by a hot flow of tears that for all these years she had been too angry to shed.
He’d been right, that afternoon at the ice cream shop when he’d accused her of still being angry at him because he hadn’t wanted to marry her. She had suppressed it well — until now.
The moon was at its zenith by the time her tears stopped, and the light that had earlier cascaded through the windows had now shrunk to small uneven squares on the hardwood floor. Her legs felt stiff from the long spell of sitting in one position; her body ached as if she had unconsciously been tensing every muscle.
But there was some degree of peace in her heart. She’d finally taken out this memory and shaken it free of dust and grime and given it a close inspection. And now, with the wisdom that came inevitably with a few more years of living, she could see things differently. She could even forgive Penn for what had happened. She could understand, now, that in the stress of the moment he’d been hardly aware of what he was doing that night. They’d been caught, the two of them, in the midst of forces they couldn’t understand.
And though she knew that every word he’d said that night had been the t
ruth, she also knew that it was not truly Penn who had said those hurtful things. It had been some new person, a hard and angry one who had been forged in the pain of that searing explosion. It hadn’t been the gentle Penn she had loved — the one she could still see inside the man he’d become.
The one who, despite everything, she still loved.
There was a strange sense of serenity that came from admitting it, of facing the truth at long last.
“And just where does that get you, Kaitlyn Ross?” she asked herself wearily. “Right back to the beginning, I’d say. With nowhere left to go.”
CHAPTER 9
It took Kaitlyn most of the night to talk herself back to common sense, to convince herself that loving Penn made no real difference at all. The fact that she’d realized what had happened to her and faced up to it didn’t change the underlying truth. So her painful admission that she still loved him shouldn’t upset her world. The best thing to do would be to put it out of her mind again and go on about her business as usual.
She told herself that as she brushed her teeth. She repeated it as she ate her cold cereal. She hammered it into her conscious mind as she unpacked a half dozen boxes.
And as she went out to her car to begin carrying in her clothing, and saw him at the edge of the beach, his arm upraised in the instant before he cast a fishing line into the water, she knew that all the self-lecturing had been in vain. No matter how sensible she tried to be, it wasn’t going to work. The realization that she loved him, after all — despite everything — had changed her world forever.
He must have heard her, for he waved. Then he turned casually back to his fishing. But that was all it took to destroy her carefully constructed logic. Kaitlyn’s heart seemed to turn over, and she grabbed an armful of clothes at random from her car and hurried back inside with them, as breathless as if she had just finished a marathon.
You’re being a fool. You’re no longer a girl with stardust in your eyes. We are both different people than we were ten years ago.
And that was part of the problem, for there was something about this new Penn that touched her heart more than ever. There was something about him now — some deep reserve, some essential aloneness, some quiet space that no one could quite reach — which had been created as the wounds from his loss had healed. And that silent mystery attracted her and threatened her peace of mind as nothing else ever had.
She had loved him then, as much as she had known it was possible to love. But now — now she loved him more. When she went out to her car again he was gone from the lakeshore, and she didn’t see a trace of him for the rest of the day. The message was obvious. He could have called a greeting; he could have come up the hill to say hello or to offer her a hand. But he hadn’t. And so the most sensible response was for her to be just as casual — as neighborly — as friendly. There would be conversations over the back fence, there would be help offered and accepted — but they would essentially go their own ways, as all good neighbors did.
And that was what she wanted. She would be a fool to let herself be drawn back into that whirlpool of attraction. She knew very well there was no future in it.
But that knowledge, and the resolution to guard herself carefully, didn’t make her feel much better.
*****
On Monday afternoon, Kaitlyn stopped at Stephanie’s office to pick up the final papers on the sale of the house. Audrey had gone to stay with her sister as soon as the movers had finished work, and Kaitlyn had promised to take the check to the bank for her. Stephanie was still at the closing but her secretary said she was due back any minute and showed Kaitlyn into the private office.
Kaitlyn wasn’t nosy by nature; besides, there was never anything confidential left lying around Stephanie’s desk. There was, however, always plenty to look at: a fresh red rose in a crystal vase, new photographs of Stephanie’s husband and two children, and a wall full of certificates and licenses relating to her profession. Today there was also a coffee mug that proclaimed Selling Land Is A Dirty Business and — leaning against the wall in the corner, as if Stephanie was still thinking about a place to hang it — a framed watercolor of a house. It was a very nice piece of art, and a very nice house — a contemporary, upscale structure that looked as light and airy as a gossamer web and yet substantial enough to withstand wind or hail or blizzard.
Kaitlyn was still studying it when Stephanie breezed in and dropped into her chair with a moan. “I hate closings,” she said. “They always hit a snag. Nice house, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t seen it, have I? The real house, I mean. Nobody around here is building things like this.”
“Not yet,” Stephanie said cheerfully. She extracted Audrey’s check from her portfolio and handed it across the desk with a flourish. “But soon — if I can just get the Delaney deal put together.”
Kaitlyn took the slip of paper absentmindedly; she was still looking at the water color instead. “You don’t mean — that can’t be the house Penn is going to build?”
“Oh, no. This particular one is in Georgia. I’ve only got it as a sample of his work. But most of his designs have that same luscious feel to them, as if the houses need to be anchored to bedrock to keep them from floating away.”
“But I thought—” Kaitlyn stopped, and tried again. “You said Penn’s designs? Do you mean he drew this himself? All of it?”
Stephanie looked at her rather oddly, and when she spoke it was as if she was talking to a child. “That’s generally what architects do, Kaitlyn. He went back to school several years ago and finished his degree.”
Kaitlyn could feel the color draining out of her face.
Stephanie sighed. “Don’t expect me to believe you haven’t heard that.”
“Well, it’s true. Nobody told me,” Kaitlyn said stiffly.
“No one told you? Or you weren’t listening, because it didn’t fit with what you wanted to think of Penn?” Stephanie’s tone was softer, more understanding, than her words.
“But then why is he driving nails himself?” Kaitlyn picked up the watercolor. Her hands were almost shaking. “If he can do things like this—”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Stephanie said imperturbably. “When do you want to look at apartments, Kaitlyn? The end of the week is good for me.”
Kaitlyn drove back along the twisting roads toward Sapphire Lake with her mind only halfway on the business at hand. “And I thought the drawing I saw on the kitchen table that night must have been a stock floor plan he picked up somewhere,” she muttered. “It never occurred to me that Penn could do anything of this sort. I wonder what else he does?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Stephanie had blithely suggested, but that was easy for her to say. It was different for Kaitlyn.
“It’s different,” she admitted, “because she’s right, damn it. I’ve gone about with a chip on my shoulder where he’s concerned — expecting the worst, almost wanting the worst, because it helped to soothe my wounded pride. And now—”
Was it too late to change things? And did she even want to try to change them, or would that only make it more difficult for her in the long run?
Penn was on the beach again with his fishing gear when she got back to the lake. Today he was wearing cutoff jeans and nothing else. From a hundred yards away she could see the ripple of muscles in his shoulders as he sent the line spinning out into the water in a long, smooth cast, and she shivered a little and hurried into the house.
But she couldn’t concentrate on addressing Kathy Warren’s invitations, and after she ruined the second vellum envelope she put the project aside. There were too many questions in her mind, and her conscience was nagging at her.
She wasn’t normally the sort of person who held grudges, or who went around hurling accusations and telling others what was wrong with them. The provocation to tell Penn what she thought of him had been extreme that afternoon in the ice cream shop, or she never would have let loose her private opinions. At the least, she o
wed it to Penn to let him know that she had discovered her error — and that she was sorry.
And that’s all it needs to be, she told herself. A dignified apology.
So she fixed two glasses of iced tea and carried them down to the shore and climbed onto the big flat rock at the water’s edge. “How’s the fishing?”
“Fair.” Penn gulped the drink almost greedily. “I wish I’d brought along my spear, though.”
“Spear? As in spearfishing?”
“It takes a certain knack, but once you learn how to do it, it’s actually easier than using a line. Besides, the fish in this lake wouldn’t be expecting it.”
“Isn’t spearfishing illegal?” Kaitlyn asked doubtfully.
“That’s why they wouldn’t be expecting it.” He didn’t sound concerned.
Kaitlyn sipped her tea and said carefully, “Penn, why did you let me go on thinking you’d never finished school?”
The sunshine glimmering off the water’s surface seemed to bother him all of a sudden, for the corners of his eyes crinkled up and he frowned a little. She knew he had heard her; there was no sound on the quiet lake shore to drown out her words. But for a long moment it seemed he was going to pretend deafness.
Well, I can wait just as long as he can.
He shrugged. “Because it didn’t matter.”
Kaitlyn swallowed an ice cube. The jagged edge seemed to tear her throat, hurting all the way down — but that pain wasn’t as bad as the pain his comment had caused.
That puts you squarely in your place, she told herself. “Because it didn’t matter.” He might as well have said, What you think of me isn’t important, Kaitlyn, because you don’t matter an ounce to me....
That was nothing new. She should have expected him to say something like that.
The Best-Made Plans Page 13