He was still early, but not by too much. And he was still nervous about how she might have handled whatever had come up since they parted.
But he felt much better now that he had concrete ways to show her how he felt.
And he was relieved, too, that he made it past the post office and the bar without being accosted by any scandalmongering citizens. He turned onto Pine and walked briskly to the corner of Rambling Lane
, where he turned again. He was mounting Delilah's front step in no time.
The door was unlocked. He went on in. The house was warm and cozy. He realized how much he liked her house. And it smelled of savory roast chicken. Sam's stomach growled. He was suddenly starving.
He caught a glimpse of her, in the kitchen by the sink. He stood for a moment, just inside the door, thinking how good it was, to be here, where she was, in the warmth of her house, with the smells of the food she'd cooked for him fragrant on the air. He noticed that she'd pulled all the carvings he'd made for her away from the window, to the near side of the table; he could see them from where he stood now.
He smiled. It looked as if she'd sat down with them, and just looked at them for awhile. The thought touched him.
However, the chicken, most likely, was ready by now. It smelled ready. And the table wasn't set. That was something he could do while she put the finishing touches on the meal.
He moved forward, into the heart of the room and beyond, through the doorless arch to the kitchen. She was standing in front of the sink, with her back to him. She appeared to be just staring out the window.
He glanced toward the stove. The chicken, still in its roasting pan, sat on top. It looked done.
But nothing else was. Greens for the salad lay in their plastic bags on the counter. Raw broccoli and potatoes waited there, too. All of this, he perceived in an instant.
And he also knew it was all strange. Wrong. Not good.
Still, he tried not to know. He went up behind her and put his arms around her. She stiffened.
"Hey. It's only me." He nuzzled her neck.
She didn't move, didn't sigh, didn't relax in the slightest. She could have been a mannequin, one made of flesh and blood, but lifeless all the same.
"Lilah?" He took her by the shoulders, turned her, stiff but not really resisting, until she faced him. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"
She moved then, to get away from him. She went and she sat at the table, in front of the wooden menagerie.
"Lilah? Talk to me."
She picked up the raccoon, the rough willow piece he'd carved for her that first night, when he'd come here hoping and praying she might agree to go out on a date with him. She looked at it, and then she turned to him, still holding the wooden creature in her hand.
"I've been wondering, Sam." Her eyes were flat, like unpolished black stones. "I've been wondering—do you love me? Do you love me at all?"
He felt fear. Was she all right? He pleaded tenderly, "Lilah, what's wrong? Talk to me, sweetheart."
She chuckled. The chuckle was ice-cold. "Oh, come on, Sam. Just answer the question. Just answer it straight. I asked you if you loved me. It doesn't take a college education to answer that. All I want is a yes or a no."
"Yes," he said flatly, feeling irritation rise and trying to remember that they couldn't both go off the deep end or disaster would follow. "Now what the hell is going on? Has Nellie Anderson been jabbering at you? Or did Linda Lou give you a call?"
She totally ignored his question. She set the raccoon on the table.
"Lilah, talk to me…"
She shrugged. "Somehow that yes was not totally convincing." Her voice was light, hollow at the core.
"Lilah, will you please, for godsake, look at me?"
She didn't, but she did volunteer, "Patrick was here."
"And?"
"And he said the bets are flying fast and furious over at The Hole in the Wall."
"Bets about what?"
"About us. One, whether you'll get me to go to bed with you."
Sam swore softly.
"That's not all. The other's whether you'll get me to say I'll marry you."
"Lilah—"
She waved a hand over her shoulder at where he stood by the sink. She still conscientiously refused to look at him. "I thought that was strange," she continued. "That they'd bet on whether you got me to agree to get married. That's not the kind of bet men make, as a general rule. Men always think of women as the ones who want to make it legal—though I can tell you that there are a lot of women out there who'd like nothing better than to just be left alone by men."
"Lilah." Sam was really trying to hold on to his patience now. "What is this? Get to the point."
"I thought it was strange, that's all, that they'd bet you'd get me to marry you. But then Patrick explained the rest to me, and it all made perfect sense. He said that you'd discussed me with Father a month ago, and that Father had told you he'd give you The Mercantile if you'd take me for a wife." She cast him a quick look over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure he'd heard that she was on to him at last.
"Lilah."
She waved him silent again, a jerky, pained movement. "I told myself I would wait, and talk to you, and find out if it was true, before I started thinking too much about all the … contradictions in everything you've done. But then, I couldn't stop my mind from thinking, and I couldn't help but remember that day I went collecting donations for the bell tower. My father told me that day that he was tired of waiting for me to get married, that he'd found a man for me and I should expect that man to come calling soon." She laughed, a choked sound that was really more like a barely contained sob. "Of course, I thought that was so totally ridiculous, I didn't give it a second thought. But then, when I went into your store, you asked me if I'd been talking to my father. Remember?"
"Yes."
"And then, it was after that, that you started … looking at me strangely every time I saw you. And then soon enough, you showed up here to ask for a date. I asked you then if my father put you up to it. And you denied it. But you lied."
"Lilah—"
"Wait. Just wait. Let me finish. I'll be finished soon enough." She sucked in a breath, and then her words picked up speed, until they tumbled over each other, accusation following accusation, "You wanted that building, and you were willing to go after me to get it. You never said you loved me. Because you don't love me. You told me how you and I didn't need lies between us, we had something better than lies. But that was a lie, it was all, all lies. All the time, all of this, nothing but a great, big whopping lie!" She pounded the table with a tight fist. The wooden animals jumped, wobbled, and then righted themselves.
After that, she was quiet. Standing very still behind her, Sam waited, listening to her breathing as she controlled herself, made it even and slow.
The silence was never ending. At last, she couldn't stand it anymore. She twisted in the chair and looked at him—or at least aimed a frozen glare at where he was standing. But she wasn't really looking at him, she wasn't looking at him at all.
"Well?" she demanded, all injury and outrage.
"Well, what?"
"Do you have a single thing to say for yourself?"
He shrugged. "Why should I? It appears to me you've said it all."
For an instant, the real Lilah peered at him through the mask of affronted pride. She said in a small voice, "Say … it's not true…" She stopped, and the rage and belligerence took over once more. "Say something," she demanded then.
"All right." He folded his arms across his chest, mostly because he'd caught himself in the act of stroking the back of his neck. He didn't want to do that now. She'd been too caught up in her own wounded rage to notice that his ponytail was gone. And now, he wanted to get out of here without her finding out. He didn't want her to see the ridiculous grand gesture he'd made for her. Not now, when he knew at last how little she believed in him.
He had to come to grips with reality here. I
t was never going to work between them. He'd been living a fool's dream to think that a woman who'd hated him enthusiastically for two decades was ever going to become his best friend and his wife.
He'd always known he'd lose her when they returned to North Magdalene. And he had been right.
She was biting her lip in frustration at his extended silence. He took pity on her and spoke. "Why should I argue with you? You've already made up your mind about everything."
She said through clenched teeth, in a parody of reasonableness, "Did my father offer you that building if you'd marry me?"
He shrugged. "Yes." He knew he should just let her go ahead and think what she wanted, but some idiot part of him still hoped she might understand. "But—"
"But what?"
"But that isn't why I went after you."
"It isn't?"
"No, it isn't."
"Oh, really?" She looked at him, narrow-eyed, not giving him an inch.
Sam's anger kindled and grew hot. Not only had she already judged him, she wanted him to try to defend himself after the fact. Well, to hell with that.
He inquired with leashed fury, "You want to call it off, is that it?"
She said nothing, she just glared at him, her eyes brimming, her chin high and haughty.
He went on. "Well, fine. You call it off. But don't try to tell me any lies, all right? Let's have it out on the table like it really is."
"Don't call me a liar," she sneered. "Don't you dare call me a liar. We both know who tells the lies around here!" She gripped the back of the chair, as if she were restraining herself from leaping up and jumping on him the way she'd done at the river all those years and years ago.
He looked right at her as he said, slowly and softly, "I call you a liar because you are one, Lilah. And what's more, I think somewhere inside you, you know that you're lying." She gasped. He went on before she could gather herself for more denials. "Deep in your heart, you know what you're doing. And it's not the fact that you never got fancy words of love from me that bothers you now. And it's not your father promising me The Mercantile if I'll marry you, either. What's really bothering you is who you are and who I am. Or at least who you've told yourself for twenty years I am—without ever bothering to make sure."
Her face wore a stricken look. He hardened himself against it and continued, "I thought maybe, after this week, that you did see the real me now. But you don't. Or you won't. Any more than you see yourself as you really are—"
Right then, she managed to mutter, "No … that's not true…"
He overrode her weak objections without effort. "It is true. You have an … idea of yourself, of the person you've made of yourself in spite of your rowdy relatives. You came back here after college when you could have gone anywhere, started from scratch. But you had something to prove to this town, didn't you? You came home and you taught at the school and you never got near a man and you purposely made friends with the most upright, narrow-minded citizens you could find. You created yourself from scratch. A Jones who wasn't a Jones, who led a quiet, uneventful life, a dedicated teacher who went to church every Sunday and spent Saturday night watering her plants. You made yourself up. And the person you made up would never go for a man like me."
"No, I—"
"I'm not finished." He gave her a look that silenced her completely. Then he went on, "You swore you'd never fall for me. But you did fall for me. And you loved it. From that day on the mountain until you got home. But now you've probably had a few choice words with Nellie or Linda Lou. You've heard about the bets on us over at the bar. You see how it's going to be, the way people will talk about the schoolmarm hooking up with that wild Sam Fletcher. And you're embarrassed. You want to go back to who you think you are. And you want me to be the rat you always knew I was."
"No—"
"Yes." He dropped his folded arms to his sides and took the two steps that placed him right behind her chair. She remained twisted from the waist, facing him. He looked down into those dark eyes, the eyes he'd dared to dream he might look into every day for the rest of their lives. "Well, fine," he said flatly. "Tell yourself lies. Have it your way."
She looked up at him, speechless, stunned, and he saw the slow realization come over her fine, strong face. He saw the precise moment when she understood that every word he'd just uttered was true. She had lied, the worst kind of lie … she had lied to herself.
She whispered, "Oh, Sam…" She reached out for him.
He stepped back. It was too late. And not enough. He couldn't trust her now. Hell, he'd never be able to leave her alone without wondering what he'd be accused of when he got home.
She'd always doubt him. He saw that now. A whisper in her ear might sway her against him. He wouldn't spend his life convincing his woman that she could trust him.
He raised his arm, so full of hurt and rage—and thwarted longing—that he wanted to strike out.
"No, Sam!" She grabbed for him.
He shook her off—and he swiped the carved figures off the table. The wooden animals went flying, some arrested by her chair, others sailing halfway to the stove, before they clattered to the floor. Then, when the last wooden figure had landed and fallen still, they stared at each other, over a chasm of inches that might as well have been ten thousand miles.
He said, very quietly, "Goodbye."
And then he walked past her, through the living room, and out the front door.
* * *
Chapter 15
« ^
Delilah couldn't bear to watch him leave. She closed her eyes as he swept past her, and didn't open them again until she heard the closing of the door. The tears, unchecked now, ran down her cheeks and onto the hands that lay limp in her lap.
Sam was gone. And the unbearable fact, the horrible truth, was that she herself had sent him away.
At her feet, the little raccoon lay, staring brightly up. She slid off the chair and took him in her hands, setting him carefully back on the table. Then she crawled around the room, collecting each of the wooden treasures, her heart breaking anew when she saw the crack in the doe's slender foreleg, the chip in the beak of the owl.
She tried, as she assessed the damage, not to think at all, to close off her mind for awhile, until she could stop crying and look at what had happened from a more balanced frame of reference.
But her mind would not shut off. Everything, everything Sam had said to her was brutally, horribly true. Her carefully constructed image of herself had had no room in it for Sam; she had been subconsciously waiting for any excuse to send him on his way. The issue of The Mercantile had been just what she'd been waiting for.
Delilah sat in the chair again, still holding the wounded doe. Slowly, she ran a finger over the cracked leg. She could feel the sharpness of the break. A fresh onslaught of tears ensued.
And then the doorbell rang.
Delilah looked up, and swiped away the tears with the back of her hand. But then she only sobbed again.
"Oh, to heck with it," she muttered. The last time she'd answered the door, she'd had to deal with Patrick.
Who could say what would be next? She just wasn't up to it, not today. Whoever it was could just keep ringing until they tired of it. And then they could go away.
There was a silence. Then another ring.
Delilah waited to be left in peace.
But then, the door slowly swung inward. "Delilah?" It was Nellie's voice.
Oh, no! Delilah wished she could just shrink down to nothing and disappear into thin air. Nellie was the last person she wanted to see right then. She considered sliding off the chair and running out the back door.
But she didn't act quickly enough. Nellie was already peering cautiously around the edge of the door. She spotted Delilah and her little eyes widened. "Oh!" Nellie said, surprised for a moment. Then she saw the tears and the abject misery on Delilah's face. Nellie sighed and her own eyes filled with sympathetic tears, "Oh, honey. What has he done to you?" Nellie pushed the
door all the way open.
And that was when Delilah saw that Linda Lou was with her.
Delilah opened her mouth to tell them to go away, she wanted to be alone. But the two of them swept in like a pair of oversized mother hens, clucking in sympathy and ready to take charge.
They fluttered across the living room and right into the kitchen, where they swept her up and engulfed her against their bosoms and clucked in her ear not to worry, not to worry at all, nothing was that awful that it couldn't be made right.
"You just come on in the living room, honey. Yes, you sit here on the couch…"
"Better, much better. Here's a tissue—"
"That's right. You just cry…"
"You just let yourself go—"
"I'll put on some hot water, a nice cup of tea—"
"Yes, tea. Nellie will make us a nice cup of tea—"
Nellie got up then, and went back into the kitchen. Linda Lou stayed with Delilah, patting her hand, smoothing her hair and clucking all the while.
"There, there," Linda Lou said, "you've had a traumatic experience, but it's all right, you'll be fine in the end, just you wait, you'll see… I swear, that man ought to be shot, and that's the Lord's truth."
Delilah, who'd been rather enjoying all the clucking and stroking from her female friends, made herself pull away from Linda Lou. She'd already betrayed Sam in her heart. No matter if he could never trust her, she would not betray him with others ever again. "No," she managed on a sob. "You don't understand—"
"There, there. I certainly do. I understand well enough. That Sam Fletcher is crazy—"
"No, no. Oh, Linda Lou, you just don't understand."
"Of course I do. I understand. We all understand. And everyone in town admires you, Delilah, they truly do, for sacrificing yourself for your brother, for going off with that horrible man for an entire week just to—"
"Stop," Delilah said. "Just stop right there." She blew her nose and then sat up tall. "You're my dear friend, Linda Lou, and I think the world of you. But I won't have you saying things against Sam."
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