Nellie paused, but only for breath. "And he did. And it turned out that little Amy knew exactly where you were, though she asked the sheriff not to tell me, only to say you were okay, because you had asked that she say nothing unless she had to. I was never so hurt in my life."
"Nellie…"
But Nellie was not through. "And then, of course, it ended up being spread all over town anyway. I think the sheriff told his wife, Leona, and Leona just couldn't resist whispering it to Marcella Crane, and, well, you know how these things are. Now everyone knows, about the card game and the wager of that truck of Brendan's, and how Sam Fletcher said he'd take a date with you instead. But then that rotten rascal wasn't satisfied with only a date, oh no, he had to sweep you away to some … wilderness area, I think everyone said and—"
Nellie went on talking, but Delilah missed what came next, because someone knocked on the front door. Delilah knew a massive feeling of relief. No matter who it was, it couldn't be worse than this.
"Nellie…"
"—and everyone over at that bar of your father's has gone—"
"Nellie."
"—insane over this. You won't believe—"
"Nellie!"
She must have finally gotten through. Nellie hitched in a breath. "Yes? What? What is it?"
"There's someone at the door. I'll have to call you back."
"But—"
"Talk to you soon."
Nellie's voice babbled on as Delilah quietly cut off the connection.
The knock came again, more insistent this time. The blinds were drawn across the big window by the door, so Delilah, standing in the middle of the living room, had no idea who it could be. It was too early for Sam to be back. And besides, the door was unlocked. She had little doubt that Sam wouldn't hesitate to walk right in.
It was probably Linda Lou, she thought grimly, come to express her outrage at Delilah's actions right to her face. Oh well, she decided, straightening her shoulders and smoothing back her hair, she had never kidded herself that this was going to be easy.
The knock came again. "I'm coming!" she called. She strode across the room and pulled open the door.
Her second brother, Patrick, stood on the other side. He looked like he'd just lost a best friend.
"Sis, I've got to talk to you."
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
Delilah peered at her brother suspiciously. A week ago, in the middle of the night, she'd opened this door to find Brendan standing where Patrick stood now. Brendan, too, had said he had to talk. And later she'd promised herself she wouldn't get involved in her brothers' problems ever again.
But Patrick really did look miserable. She asked in a wary tone, "What is this about?"
He looked around. "C'mon, sis. Have a heart. Not on the front porch. Let me in."
Delilah, still undecided, did nothing for a moment.
"Please, sis…"
"Oh, all right." She stepped back and he entered.
Then he just stood there, looking glum. Finally he wondered, "Got a beer?"
"I might, somewhere. Come on." She led the way into the kitchen, gestured at the table for him to sit, and then found a bottle of light beer in the back of the refrigerator. "Do you want a glass?"
He shook his head. "That's fine." He took the beer from her and had himself a long swallow. Then he set it down. "Thanks."
"It's okay. Now what's going on?"
He was staring at the carved figures, which still waited on the table. "Sam made those for you?" In spite of the rising inflection at the end, it was a statement requiring verification, not a question.
Delilah realized that, whatever rumors were flying around town, Patrick had heard at least a few of them. She began to suspect that this visit had something to do with Sam. The thought increased her uneasiness.
"Yes," she said cautiously of the carvings, "they're from Sam."
Patrick took another drink, then shook his head. "Hot damn. Everything changes, and that's a fact." He stretched his booted feet out in front of him and stared at the beat-up toes. Then he looked up at Delilah, his blue eyes—their mother's eyes—full of bewildered sadness. "A man can't count on anything to stay the same. Things I always would have sworn were impossible are actually happening. Things like you running off with Sam Fletcher, and Chloe dating some stranger…"
Delilah felt her uneasiness fade a little when he mentioned Chloe. Maybe this visit had nothing to do with her and Sam after all. Maybe Patrick had just decided he needed to talk about Chloe Swan and had chosen Delilah for a confidante. It didn't make a lot of sense; Patrick had never confided in her in their lives. But it was possible.
She volunteered, "Sam told me he saw Chloe at The Hole in the Wall with a man he'd never seen before."
Patrick nodded and took another drink of beer. "That was a week ago. She's been out with him twice since."
Delilah hid a knowing smile. "You're keeping an eye on her, are you?"
"Of course not. Chloe and I are … friends, everyone knows that. It's nothing more. It's never been anything more. I just, well, I just hope she knows what she's doing with that guy, that's all." Patrick began peeling the label off the beer bottle.
"You came here to talk about Chloe, then?"
"No. Not exactly. Chloe's just … on my mind, that's all. Like all the things lately that can't be counted on to stay like they were. Like my ex-wife moving to Arkansas and taking our two girls along with her."
That bit of news shocked Delilah. "She isn't."
"She is."
"But Patrick, I'm sure that has to be illegal, for her to take your children out of the state without your consent."
"So what am I going to do? Sue her from two thousand miles away? And is that going to be good for the girls, anyway? And besides," he confessed, "Marybeth said if I wasn't careful, she'd just ship those girls right back to me. And I could raise them on my own."
Delilah thought about that. Patrick's daughters were eight and ten. She couldn't in a million years see Patrick raising them alone. She decided to give no more free advice on this subject. She said, "I'm sorry, Patrick," and meant it.
"Hell," he replied. "It's all just part of what I was talking about. Nothing can be counted on anymore to stay the same."
Delilah sighed, knowing what he meant. She felt cast adrift herself, after that abortive phone conversation with Nellie. She realized more and more all the time that, with Sam in her life, things would not be as they had been. She felt sympathy with her brother; she could see he was suffering from the way things were changing, too.
"Yes," she agreed softly, "things do change."
Patrick spoke to the beer bottle. "Like my sister, going off for a week with a man she's hated since the first day she met him."
Delilah heard the disapproval in his voice and did not like it. "Did you come here to lecture me, is that it? A heck of a lot of room you've got for lecturing me, Patrick Jones. You've hardly led a blameless life."
Patrick looked up sharply. "Look. This is no lecture. I just want to know…" He paused. His face went beet red. "I mean, he forced you to go, didn't he? What choice did you have? It was either that, or Brendan and Amy lost everything."
Delilah suddenly decided she should get going on the salad. She turned to the sink, and started washing her hands.
"Delilah?" her brother demanded. "You gonna give me an answer or not?"
She squirted out the liquid soap and began furiously lathering, as if she could wash Patrick's question away with a good scrub.
"Delilah?"
She knew she should just agree with him. What he'd said was only what she'd told herself; that she'd had no choice, for Brendan's family's sake.
But in her head she kept hearing Sam's voice. If this goes any further, you'll never say you didn't have a choice…
She pinned her brother with a piercing look, "He didn't drag me off. I agreed to go. I had a choice."
"Well. Fine. But you never w
ould have gone if it hadn't been for the bind Brendan was in."
"That's true."
Patrick nodded, broke the hold of her gaze and stared at his beer bottle some more. "Are you glad you went, now it's over?"
Delilah ripped off a paper towel and dried her hands. "What are you getting at here, Patrick?"
"Well, sis, I don't rightly know how to say this…"
"I can see that."
"People are talking, about you two."
"So I've heard."
"And, over at The Hole in the Wall…"
"What?"
"Well, there have been bets placed."
Delilah's throat went dry. She tried clearing it, and when that didn't work, she stuck a glass under the tap and took a quick drink. When she felt she could speak, she said, "Bets? About me and Sam?"
Patrick looked out the window, at her liquidambar tree, with such avid concentration she would almost have thought he'd never seen a tree before. "Yeah. About you and Sam."
"Wh-What kind of bets?"
Patrick kept ogling the tree. "I put my money on you. I figured, if there was one thing that would never change in this world, it would be the way you hate Sam Fletcher."
"How many bets, Patrick?" Delilah's voice had acquired an edge. "And on what?"
Patrick glanced at her, winced, and then swiftly looked away again. "Two bets."
She waited.
He shot her another pained look, then began, "One on whether Sam would…" Patrick faltered and then forced himself to go on. "…get you in the sack, if you know what I mean."
Delilah stared out at the liquidambar tree herself for a while, until she thought she could speak without shrieking in mortified fury. Then she said in measured tones, "And the other?"
"Whether or not he's talked you into marrying him." Patrick sat up a little, probably feeling better now the bad news was out. "I put my money on you, like I said. I bet that you'd hold out. On both counts."
Delilah felt sick to her stomach. She'd known people would talk, but this was worse than her wildest nightmares. They'd actually been betting on the outcome of her wagered week with Sam.
And beyond her dismay, she was confused. The bets didn't add up, or at least not the second one. She could understand the wager on whether or not she and Sam had slept together. It was the kind of thing over which the yahoos at the bar would love to lay their money down. But the other bet, the bet on whether she'd said she'd marry him … who could have known that Sam was after marriage? She certainly hadn't, not until he'd asked her. And even then, she'd been surprised.
"I don't understand," she said carefully. "Who came up with the idea that Sam wanted to marry me?"
"Dad."
"Father?"
Patrick shot her a condescending glance. "Aw, c'mon, sis. You know how Dad hates it that you've never got yourself a man."
"So?"
"So he and Sam had a long talk about a month ago, one night after closing. He convinced Sam to go after you and get himself married to you. He's bet a thousand dollars that Sam proposed, and got you to say yes."
Delilah stared at her brother, thinking the best thing to do right now would be to tell him to leave. She was just asking for hurt to continue with this. But somehow, she couldn't stop. She demanded, "And just how is Father supposed to have convinced Sam Fletcher to go after me?"
Patrick granted her a pitying look. "You don't know, then? That bastard didn't tell you?"
"If I knew," she pointed out with great reasonableness, "would I be asking you?"
Now Patrick looked guilty. "No, no. Of course you wouldn't. Aw, sis. I'm sorry."
"You have as yet failed to answer my question, Patrick."
"Sis…"
"Answer. Now."
"Well." Patrick also appeared suddenly to have a dry throat. He coughed. Then he muttered, "It was a damn bribe, that's what."
"Father bribed Sam to marry me?" Her own voice sounded hollow, far away.
"You got it."
"With what?"
"The Mercantile."
"Father said Sam could have The Mercantile if he'd—"
"—Marry you. Right. Can you believe it? The Mercantile. My inheritance. I couldn't believe it. But when I asked our dear old Dad what the hell he was doing breaking his word to me, he winked and said 'Don't worry about that, boy, I always take care of my own. You'll get yours. You just sit tight.'" Patrick lowered his voice to a growl. "The lying old coot. I don't buy his promises for a New York minute. And that's why I'm here. Because I want you to know that I'm not putting up with this. I may have to stand by and watch Chloe wreck her life with some out-of-town stranger. I may decide it wouldn't benefit anyone to sue Marybeth about the girls. But you can be damn sure I'll sue my father if he thinks he can take back what he's promised me all my life just to buy a man for you!"
At last, Patrick fell silent. Delilah stood at the sink, gaping at him, realizing it was time to tell him that she'd heard enough. He could leave now. But her fickle voice had deserted her again.
"Sis?" Patrick was at last looking at her—staring at her, actually. "Sis, you all right?"
She managed to murmur, "I'm fine." She wasn't, of course. But no way would she admit that to Patrick.
"Aw, sis. You really do love that wild man, don't you?" The question was rhetorical and anyway, Delilah wouldn't for the life of her have answered it right then. Patrick continued, "Haven't you figured out that a guy like that is no good?" He gave a wry chuckle. "Especially after growing up with three brothers just like him?" Delilah turned away. Her brother said, "Aw, sis. I really messed up here, didn't I? You poor kid. I'm sorry…"
She didn't want that. She didn't want anybody feeling sorry for her. She drew on all her reserves and said, "Thank you for the information, Patrick. You can be sure I'll make use of it. And now you may go."
"But, sis…" Patrick had started to look sheepish. "Look. I guess I went a little far there with that remark about Dad buying you a man and I—"
"Stop it, Patrick. That's enough."
"Oh, hell."
"Would you please go?"
"But—"
She took a few steps in his direction, to let him know she meant business. "Just go, Patrick." She had her arms tightly folded under her breasts and she gestured with her chin in the direction of the door. "Now."
"Okay, okay…" He stood up and backed out of the kitchen toward the living room. "Sheesh," he said as he reached the front door. "Lately, I can't open my mouth without sticking my size ten in it…"
"Goodbye, Patrick."
At last, he opened the door and went through it, closing it soundlessly behind him.
When he was finally gone, Delilah hadn't the faintest idea what to do with herself, so she just stood there, between the counter and the kitchen table, staring into space and trying, though her heart balked at the prospect, to come to grips with the information her brother had just provided.
The thought she kept having, the really hurtful thought, was that if what Patrick claimed was true, then all the strange contradictions in Sam's behavior would finally make sense. From the abrupt and relentless way he had pursued her, to his insistence that she marry him in Reno—before they came home and she had a chance to learn that it was more than a lifetime of love he was after from her.
In fact, she could see now, love had had nothing at all to do with any of it. Sam had never said he loved her. And at last she was beginning to understand the real reason for that.
But then, with a rush of emotional pain that felt as real as a blow to the stomach, she thought of his kisses, of his tenderness, and his light eyes looking into hers, as he said, We don't need lies between us… You could really hurt me, because I'm open to you…
All that, all they'd shared, had been true, she was sure of it. Okay, perhaps her experience with loving a man had been limited. But her instincts about what was truth and what was a he couldn't be that bad.
Or could they?
For twenty years she'd
had sense enough to keep clear of Sam Fletcher. She hadn't trusted him an inch. Over the last month, she'd changed her mind about him, since he'd kept after her constantly until she finally broke down.
But which perception of him was the true one? The one she'd held for twenty years, or the one he'd forced on her in the last few weeks?
Another arrow of hurt pierced her right to the heart, doubling her over. She dropped to the chair Patrick had vacated. She had to wait, till he came back, she knew it. She had to wait and be fair and ask him if what Patrick said was true.
She reached out and picked up the exquisite wooden doe he'd left on her windowsill. She stroked its smooth flanks.
No, she decided. He couldn't have taken a bribe from her father to marry her. Sam would never, ever do something like that.
Or would he?
* * *
Chapter 14
« ^ »
Something was bothering Marty.
Sam sensed it the minute Marty joined him at the store, which had been closed to the public for the holiday. But Marty didn't say what was bothering him until forty-five minutes later, when the two of them were sitting side by side on folding chairs going over the receipts.
After several injured glances, Marty finally came out with it. "Mr. Fletcher, how come you didn't tell me you were going off with Miss Jones?"
Sam eyed his clerk uneasily. "Who says I did?"
"Come on, Mr. Fletcher. It's all anybody in town has talked about since the middle of the week."
Sam shook his head. He supposed he'd expected as much. "What are you complaining about, then? You found out soon enough."
"Well." Marty really sounded hurt. "It would have been nice to have been told by you. It would have been nice to know you trusted me."
"Look, Marty. It was between Miss Jones and me. I didn't think it was any of your concern."
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