Bridal Trap

by Rena McKay

  What did it matter why he had rejected her? He had done it. The humiliation was a physical pain, a throbbing ache that engulfed her. She had offered herself to him and he had walked away.

  She couldn't stay here any longer, she thought, dazed as she somehow staggered up the stairs. It was impossible now. She must go. Mrs. Barrone was stronger now. They could tell her something. But Robyn knew she couldn't hang on any longer.

  Chapter Nine

  Robyn carefully avoided Trev the following day. She deliberately went down late in the morning so she wouldn't have to breakfast with him, then hurried over to spend the day at her shop. In the clear light of day her thought that they could tell Mrs. Barrone "something" didn't sound so simple. It was true that Mrs. Barrone seemed to be improving. But what would the shock of an abrupt split between Trev and Robyn do to her? It was the same old problem. Nothing was changed. And yet Robyn knew she couldn't go on like this much longer. She couldn't, not after the humiliation of Trev's rejection, the look of disbelieving scorn on his face.

  As it turned out, the matter was out of Robyn's hands.

  Shauna returned Thursday evening, smug over having somehow won her argument with the Internal Revenue Service. Shauna always wins, Robyn thought, listening to her vivacious account of the meeting with the IRS. Robyn excused herself and went to visit with Mrs. Barrone when Shauna launched into a flurry of gossip she had also picked up on the trip about people she and Trev knew. Robyn doubted that her presence would be missed.

  And then, sometime during the night, Mrs. Barrone quite peacefully died. Trev called an ambulance and they rushed her to the hospital again, but it was too late. The doctor said it was another, and this time far more devastating, stroke.

  Robyn was at first flooded with a terrible sense of guilt, wondering if her thoughts of leaving had somehow communicated themselves to Mrs. Barrone and caused the stroke. But then, after the first shock had worn off and she could think more calmly, she was able to discard that illogical thought. She searched her mind and was positive she had revealed nothing of her inner turmoil. Mrs. Barrone had died happy, secure in the belief that her grandson was happily wed to Robyn. But that comforting knowledge couldn't keep the tears of regret for the loss of an old and dear friend from falling from Robyn's eyes.

  Trev grimly and silently went about making the necessary arrangements. The predicted storm had not yet arrived, but the weather was cold and drizzly. Robyn was tempted to move out immediately now that the need for this marriage charade was over, but as a final gesture of respect to Mrs. Barrone she decided to stay on until after the funeral. What she did was of little importance anyway, she thought. No one seemed to notice her.

  She packed her things and quietly carried everything down to her car when no one was watching. She tried several times to contact Larry, but he was evidently off on one of his frequent trips.

  The funeral was held Monday afternoon at the same little church where Trev and Robyn had been married. That morning the overdue storm hit the coast with unleashed fury. Torrents of rain fell and wind whipped the bay into towering waves. Water streamed across the streets and electric lines flapped in the wind.

  In spite of the storm, most of the town turned out for the funeral. Trev, Robyn, Shauna and Dr. Helgeson sat together in a front pew. Tears slipped quietly from Robyn's downcast eyes as the minister and then two old friends of Mrs. Barrone's spoke. Robyn was surprised and touched that Trev had arranged for that additional little gesture; Mrs. Barrone would have liked it.

  It was painful standing so close to Trev, feeling the touch of his shoulder against hers. She reminded herself that she was free now, no longer trapped. But she knew that even after that cruel, humiliating rejection she would never be free of her love for Trev. It was a part of her now—now and forever. Her only consolation was a certain grim satisfaction in the knowledge that she had never revealed that love to him.

  An explosive blast of wind hit the little church. The floor shuddered beneath uneasy feet. Even the minister momentarily paused in his speaking. Usually Robyn felt a certain wild exhilaration in a storm, but there was no such feeling now. She felt empty, drained.

  When they returned, the big house seemed silent and desolate. Robyn wondered how she was going to get out without anyone seeing her. She wanted to avoid any sort of questions or explanations or good-byes, and most especially the look of smug victory on Shauna's lovely face.

  She went up to her room and changed from the dark dress she had worn to the funeral to the one outfit she had left unpacked, a comfortable knit pantsuit. She peered carefully out the door, retreating when she saw Trev and Shauna in the living room below. She paced the room restlessly, stared with unseeing eyes at the wildly waving treetops on the ridge above the house.

  What was she going to do now? Move back to the apartment behind the gift shop, she supposed, take up life where it was before this strange interlude. Maybe she'd even marry Larry someday, she thought vaguely. Perhaps an easygoing, friendly relationship was preferable to the agony of love.

  But suddenly Robyn knew she didn't want to go back to the apartment right now. Not yet. Trev would be around Caverna Bay for a little while yet, until he could finish things up here and put the house on the market. Trev and Shauna would be around, she thought grimly. No, she couldn't face that, looking across the bay from her little bedroom each night, seeing the lights of the big house, knowing Trev and Shauna were here together with no longer any need to be discreet.

  She would go away somewhere until they were gone, she decided. She started toward the door again. Suddenly she remembered something else. The rings. They were so familiar on her hand now that she had almost forgotten them. She found herself strangely reluctant to remove them, as if doing so were breaking some last bond between herself and Trev. But that was ridiculous, she reminded herself. There never had been any real bonds between them, only the trap that had somehow closed around them. She jerked the rings off and left them in plain sight on the dressing table. She surely wasn't about to run off with the precious diamonds Trev had bought as an "investment."

  She opened the door and carefully peeked out again.

  She saw no one in the living room below now. She listened a moment but heard no one moving around. She picked up her purse and the sack containing her dress, draping her jacket over the cosmetics case to conceal it should she accidentally run into one of the servants.

  She slipped quietly down the stairs. A figure stepped out from under the concealing balcony. Trevor! He was still wearing the dark suit he had worn to the funeral.

  His eyes flicked over her change of clothing and the jacket she carried. "Going somewhere?"

  "I—I wanted to take care of a few things over at the shop." Her voice quivered. She was not a good liar in spite of the long, involved deception played on Mrs. Barrone.

  "There are some things we have to talk about," he said.

  Robyn lifted her head. "I'm sure the prenuptial agreement your lawyer drew up takes care of everything," she replied aloofly.

  "Damn the prenuptial agreement!" he exploded. "I want to know—"

  Robyn felt suddenly dizzy. She couldn't handle all this now, the messy details of the divorce, the tying up of any loose threads of their relationship. "Please," she said faintly. "I—I just don't feel up to talking now."

  He hesitated a moment, then stepped back. "Of course. I'm sorry. I suppose it isn't the best time." He hesitated again, brow furrowing. "But couldn't these matters at the shop wait until later? The storm—"

  "I'm sure it has about blown itself out," Robyn said. She hurried on by him, relieved that he had evidently accepted her story.

  In the spacious three-car garage she tossed her cosmetics case and sack into the already crowded back seat of her car. She pressed the button controlling the electrically operated garage doors, hesitating a moment as a sheet of wind-driven rain slanted through the open doors. Her remark that the storm had about blown itself out was hardly accurate. If anythin
g, the wind and rain had increased in fury. The smaller trees and shrubs around the house tossed crazily in the shrieking wind. Above the wind she could hear the redwoods creaking and groaning as if protesting this attack of nature on a rampage. A running sheet of water covered the driveway. Robyn hesitated, wondering if it was unwise to venture out in this.

  She glanced back at the door leading to the interior part of the house. No, she decided, she wasn't going back. She would take her chances with the storm rather than stay another night under the same roof with Trev and Shauna.

  She backed the car out of the garage, feeling it shudder around her as the wind buffeted it. She inched her way down the sloping, water-sheeted driveway. Her busy windshield wipers could barely keep up with the pounding rain. Darkness had not yet fallen but the car headlights barely penetrated the grayness of clouds and rain. The distance to the iron gates seemed interminable as she crept along.

  She kept reminding herself she was free now. But somehow, instead of feeling happy or even relieved, she only felt regret. Regret that she had not gone through that wedding night with Trev. At least she would have had that to remember, a memory no one could take from her. Now she hadn't even a memory.

  Suddenly something interrupted her disjointed thoughts. A sound, a straining vibration— She braked uncertainly, trying to peer through the curtains of rain. She was deep into the corridor of redwoods, the mighty trunks looking almost unreal around her, a forest of prehistoric giants, their heads lost in the storm. Maybe she should, turn around and go back—

  An ominous rumble, a shuddering groan—and then the earth seemed to move beneath Robyn. The little car rattled and shook. The roar crashed in Robyn's ears, vibrated through her body, caught her like a terrier shaking a rat. She clutched the steering wheel, eyes wide with fear and shock. What was happening?

  The vibrations died away like retreating thunder. After that incredible earth-shattering crash, wind and rain seemed almost inconsequential. Robyn apprehensively turned around in the seat, but the rain-flooded rear window was impossible to see through. Cautiously she opened the side window and peered outside. She still couldn't see anything, but the usual scent of the redwoods was strangely intensified. Uncertainly she peered ahead again, afraid to go on without knowing the source of that tremendous crash.

  Then she saw what it was. She slipped out of the car and stood there, unconscious of the rain pouring down on her bare head. A redwood had fallen. One of those giants of the forest, its shallow roots water-soaked by the extraordinarily wet weather, had come crashing down under the force of the wind. It had fallen directly across the driveway behind her; its size seemed even more incredible now that it lay on the ground.

  Robyn fought off hysteria. She realized death had missed her by little more than inches. Only a few seconds delay and her little car would have been directly in the path of that crashing giant.

  Over the shrieking wind she heard something else—a voice? It galvanized her into action. Someone was evidently already coming from the house to investigate that terrible crash, and she must get away before they arrived.

  She put the car in gear, trying not to think that another of the giant redwoods might come thundering down at any moment. At the iron gates she realized she had been holding her breath, and she released it shakily. Here the trees were more protected from the wind and the danger was lessened.

  She glanced back apprehensively and then realized suddenly that there was no particular need to hurry away from the big house now. No one else was going to be leaving there for a while, not with the road blocked by that redwood. Trev and Shauna were trapped there until the road could be cleared. Not that that situation was apt to bother them, she thought bitterly. They might even find it enjoyable, now that there was no longer any need for them to sneak around to be together.

  At the junction of South Bay Road and the main highway, Robyn hesitated again. The most sensible thing to do would be to go directly to her little apartment behind the shop. But it was possible that when she didn't return to the big house, Trev would call her. She couldn't talk to him. She needed time to get her emotions sorted out.

  Resolutely she turned south, away from Caverna Bay. She intended to put as much distance as possible between herself and the big house where Trev and Shauna were doubtless snugly entrapped. Turning on the radio, she found that the storm was buffeting the coast all the way to San Francisco. She decided to stop early at a motel. She was also uncomfortably wet from the time she had spent standing in the rain staring at the fallen tree.

  In the morning she drove on south, still with no definite idea as to where she was heading. The storm had passed through, leaving reports of minor roads flooded, trees down, and power outages all along the coast. Leaves, broken limbs and rivulets of running water were everywhere. At San Francisco she turned inland, somehow knowing that even as much as she loved the sea she didn't want to be near it now. She knew she couldn't look at it without seeing Trev as she had seen him that first time, standing with his back to it: harsh, powerful, primitively masculine.

  She drove all the way across the state and into Arizona, finally reaching Phoenix. The weather was warm and dry, the desert landscape totally different from Caverna Bay. She stayed at a motel east of the city, swam in the pool and hiked in the nearby Superstition Mountains. They were dry and barren mountains, nothing like the tree covered slopes back home. She met a pleasant young lawyer vacationing in Arizona from his home back east. She ate her fill of spicy, authentic Mexican food.

  There was nothing at all to remind her of Trev. It was a place as different from Caverna Bay as she could hope to find. A whole new world. Exactly what she had wanted to find.

  And yet Trev was never out of her mind. Everything reminded her of him. A dark-haired man seen across a room, a car that looked like his, a laugh that for a moment sounded like his, would set her heart racing. She fought a constant battle with depression and tears. Even as she laughed or swam with the young lawyer, her thoughts always circled back to Trev. Had he filed for divorce yet? Perhaps he would go to Nevada for a hurried decree, so he would be free to marry Shauna as soon as possible.

  Robyn had left Caverna Bay to avoid seeing Trev again, and yet the thought that he might still be there was strangely tantalizing. How deeply she suddenly ached to see him. It was humiliating, she thought, as she remembered again how he had reacted to her advances that night.

  She had planned to stay away a full three weeks, thinking that would surely give Trev plenty of time to leave and erase forever any chance of seeing him again. But at the end of two weeks, she packed up and started home. She told herself it was because of finances. She had run out of money quickly because she hadn't brought much cash and she was almost afraid to consider the bills she had run up on her credit cards. But she knew that wasn't the real reason she was suddenly almost desperately eager to return to Caverna Bay.

  She arrived after dark on a midweek evening. Rain had fallen earlier but now only a few dark clouds scudded across the sky and stars glimmered between them. It seemed as if she had been gone a long, long time. She was almost surprised to see that the town was the same. Even the faded "Welcome to Caverna Bay" sign still flapped over Main Street.

  Deliberately she forced herself not to look back at the south side of the bay. Her feelings were more conflicting and confusing than ever. Afraid Trev might still be here. Afraid Shauna might be with him. Afraid he might not be here.

  The shop looked lonely and a bit forlorn as she stopped the car in the narrow driveway. She unlocked the apartment door and carried a few things inside, deciding wearily that she would leave the rest until morning. She hadn't been home more than half an hour when a knock sounded at the door. Her heart flip-flopped. Had Trev been watching from the big house window and seen her arrive?

  She hurried to the door, struggling to compose herself.

  "Larry!" she gasped, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. Hurriedly she added more welcomingly, "Come on in."<
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  "I just saw the lights and wondered—" Larry peered around uneasily. "You're alone?"

  Robyn closed the door, surprised. She had assumed word of her defection would be all over town by now. But she had evidently attached too much importance to herself, she thought wryly. Trev obviously hadn't thought her leaving important enough to mention to anyone.

  "I'm alone," she said noncommittally.

  "What the hell is going on anyway?" he demanded. "I was out of town and by the time I got back Mrs. Barrone was dead and buried. Then I heard something about some big fuss at Barrone's house the night of the funeral. Now the gates to the place are closed and padlocked."

  Yes, Robyn thought wryly, there had undoubtedly been a "big fuss" when Trev and Shauna tore themselves away from each other long enough to discover that giant redwood blocking the driveway. The thought of Trev standing at the window hopefully watching for her return now seemed pathetically ridiculous.

  "No one is living there then?" she asked dully.

  "Doesn't appear to be. I drove up there. I was worried about you."

  Robyn turned away and busied herself adjusting the thermostat to hide the tears springing to her eyes. He was gone then. There was no longer any doubt about it, no longer any hope that her wild dreams about him might somehow come true. He was gone, gone forever, and the hopeless, numbing truth hit her with the force of the falling redwood.

  Chapter Ten

  Robyn gave Larry a rather edited version of the breakup between herself and Trev, more or less trying to shrug it off as just one of those things that didn't work out. Larry diplomatically refrained from saying, "I told you so."