An Accidental Woman (52 page)

“I am. But it's such an intimate thing.”

Griffin sighed. “Let's be honest here. Most people know he exists. All you'd be doing is acknowledging a fine man. His mother's dead, so she wouldn't be hurt, and your wife knows about him. She has no problem discussing him. She's perfectly confident with the four children you had with her. He wouldn't be the focus of the book. We might be talking about one chapter out of twenty—just one chapter, but it would send a message that this is an honest book. They aren't all, you know.”

There was a grumbled, “Yes, I know.”

“He wasn't planned, but you handled it well. You made the most of it. That would be inspiring for people.”

“Do you think?”

“Definitely. People look up to you. This will only add to that.”

There was a silence on the other end, then a sigh. “Your daddy was a powerful player in the courtroom. You inherited his silver tongue.”

Griffin waited.

After what seemed an eternity, Prentiss Hayden muttered a begrudging, “Oh, do it,” and hung up the phone.

* * *

Poppy put her fingers over his mouth. “Don't ask that. Not yet.”

“I love you.”

“Shhhhh.”

“I do.”

“Now. But what about next week? Or next month?”

“What about next year? Or five years from now? Or
ten
years from now? Will I still love you then? Will you still love me then? Come on, Poppy. That's not the way it works. If people put their lives on hold while they waited to see if love lasted, they'd miss out on it completely. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. Two's fine. I can live with two.”

“I don't know if I can get pregnant.”

“No woman does. No
couple
does.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't,” he said gently. “You've done things in the last few weeks that you didn't think you'd ever do. What's to stop you from doing this?”

“I can't leave Lake Henry.”

“You can. But you don't want to, and neither do I. I'm very happy living here. I love the town, and I love your house.”

“It's too small.”

“I have money. We'll build on. There's plenty of land here. We could build to the right, the left, or the back. It's called an addition.”

“I know. I know. This has just happened so fast.”

“Good things do. Do you love me, Poppy?”

She nodded.

“Then why wait?”

“I don't know. There's still something . . .”

“Heather. But we'll know about that soon.”

“There's still something . . .”

“Forgiving yourself? I meant what I said about that, Poppy. You need to do it, but why can't we be married while you work on it? What better person to help than your husband?”

“My husband? That is just such a dream.”

“Make it come true.” He couldn't say the words, couldn't ask her again.

She laced her fingers through his, studied all ten for a minute, then looked up. “Give me a little more time? Just a little more? There's still something . . . I need to do.”

* * *

People weren't in the mood to talk.

Neither was she. She sat alternately at the console staring at the buttons and in the exercise room staring at the equipment. She did her upper-body workout, sat there a while, then returned to the phones. An
hour later, she went back into the exercise room and used the recumbent bike. When she was done, she moved to the parallel bars. Victoria sat in her lap when it was free and, when it wasn't, went into the other room. She didn't go near her usual spot under the parallel bars. Poppy wondered if that was a sign.

* * *

He certainly was. He was waiting for news about Heather, hoping that positive word would shorten his wait for Poppy.

* * *

Since her office was too small, she paced up and down the hallway, turning first at the window overlooking the street then at the one overlooking the woods. When the hallway closed in, she took both her cell phone and the cordless extension of her office line and paced outside. When she got chilled, she came back inside, where she sat until the need to pace returned.

* * *

He had Billy and Amos working, and Griffin was there for a time. The girls camped out after dinner in their corner. It was all very comfortable and cozy.

He told himself that he could do this forever. He could make syrup. He could do what had to be done. He could survive, whether Heather returned or not.

But he wanted her back, wanted her to see those neat labels on the neat rows of tins. Cassie hadn't called, which meant that California hadn't called, and the deadline approached.

* * *

Heart racing, she picked up the phone. “Yes?” she asked guardedly.

“They've agreed,” said the attorney general, sounding tired.

Cassie closed her eyes and let out a breath. Smiling, she put a hand on her chest to calm her heart.

“They've agreed to dropping the charges,” the attorney general went on, “but they want a nondisclosure agreement, and they want her back here to face the judge for the dismissal.”

“Why back there?” Cassie asked, still smiling. She knew what they planned. Of course she did, but she was holding the cards.

“They need closure,” he said in the same tired voice. “They feel that if the case disappears from the radar screen without any public explanation, it will raise questions. If there's a public hearing at which Mr. Grinelle explains that we do not have the evidence to convict, the family can follow it up with a press conference honoring the memory of their son, taking the high road, explaining that vengeance won't bring him
back and that it's time to put the case to rest. It's a face-saving thing, Ms. Byrnes. Give them this.”

Between “evidence to convict” and “press conference,” Mark had appeared at the door holding two dripping children in a single large towel. Grinning, Cassie danced to the door and gave the three of them a hug. She backed off only enough to play the tough lawyer again.

“The problem I have,” she said into the phone, holding Mark's gaze, finding as much pleasure in his excitement as in the news itself, “is that if there's a press conference, someone will inevitably ask about your not having the evidence to convict. The implication will be that my client is guilty, but that since you can't make a case, she'll go free. You're asking us to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I'm afraid, we'll need the same. I won't have my client returning to a hostile place where she'll be talked about as a killer who beat the system. I'd rather go to trial and have the whole story come out.”

Mark stuck a so-
there
fist in the air, then wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her close again. He was wonderful, she realized. She was a workaholic who too often neglected her man, and he loved her anyway.

From the other end of the line came an exasperated, “I can't control what the press does. Talk shows love this kind of thing. I may be able to keep the DiCenzas from saying anything derogatory, but I can't do anything about public opinion.”

“Yes, you can. You can settle this quietly. Heather can appear before a magistrate here in New Hampshire. The charges can be dropped, and that's that. She'll sign away the right to talk about Rob, in exchange for the DiCenzas signing away the right to talk about her. That's a fair deal.”

“The boy's dead.”

“He was a man,” she corrected, “and he abused a woman to the extent that she gave up a name, a history, and a child she wanted. But I'll tell you what. I'll be the good guy here. If the DiCenzas insist, she'll return to California. She'll even sign a nondisclosure agreement. I won't, though. If pot shots are taken at Heather by anyone, I'll answer them in kind.”

There was a short pause, then an almost admiring, “You
are
tough.”

“Yup,” Cassie said with a grin and slipped an arm around her husband's waist.

* * *

Poppy prided herself in being self-sufficient, but she had to admit that having a man dote on her was nice.

Oh, she knew what he was doing. He was showing her what he could bring to her life. And doting wasn't all; he respected her needs. He was patient and encouraging. Take sex. He didn't just make love to her while she lay back and enjoyed it. He knew her disabilities—but he also knew her abilities, and he egged her on. Where there was potential, he urged her to meet it, which meant that she was as often the aggressor as the recipient. From the start, he had made her feel like a woman. In this, he made her feel like a consummate one.

She was fine as long as he didn't start talking about marriage again.

Mercifully, he didn't—not at any time during the impromptu party at Charlie's Café the night before, not when they returned to the house and made love, not when they woke up together knowing that Heather was coming home.

“One way to look at this,” Griffin proposed as they got ready to leave
the house, “is that my tipping Randy off was actually good. Heather is free now. She isn't haunted by the fear of discovery.”

Poppy agreed with him, but only in part. “Legally, she's okay now. Emotionally? We'll have to see. She'll have to reconcile who she
was
with who she
is.”

“No problem there. Micah loves her. That won't change.”

“She pushed the past out of her mind. Now she'll have to deal with it.”

“No problem there,” Griffin repeated, holding her gaze. “Micah loves her. That won't change.”

The message was for Poppy, of course. And she loved Griffin for sending it. But there was something she still had to work out, a reconciliation of her own.

Not today, though. Today was for celebrating.

* * *

They were his life—the girls and sugarmaking. The girls gave him love, and his trees gave him their sweetness. He was a lucky man, having both. It was more than some people had.

That was what he told himself, because thinking about Heather terrified him. He spent most of the night lying awake in bed, feeling her beside him, remembering the wholeness of it, and when he wasn't doing that, he was drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep.

He hadn't told the girls about Cassie's deal. It was cowardly of him, perhaps irresponsible, but he hadn't wanted to deal with the questions about when she would be home. He didn't know when, because Cassie didn't know when. She had mentioned magistrates, paperwork, and hearings. She had mentioned a confidentiality agreement to be drawn up and signed. She had mentioned a possible return to California.

Besides, Heather coming home was one thing. Her staying there was
another. Micah wouldn't know which she would choose until the moment arrived. He didn't want to get the girls' hopes up.

Star wanted Momma back. She was frightened of being abandoned again, frightened that Heather would choose another life and another child. Missy, conversely, didn't know if she wanted Heather back at all. She was angry that Heather had left, and she had put up walls to protect herself. Micah knew how that was. He had done it himself earlier on. Missy was his daughter in that sense. And Star? Star was Heather's in so many ways that it was eerie. If Heather chose to leave, Star would be devastated.

And so Micah's thoughts churned through the night. When morning came, he gave the girls breakfast, dressed them warmly, loaded them in the tractor and took them up the hill into the sugarbush. There was no phone here, no television, no chance of unwanted guests. There was nothing foreign here. He knew every inch of this land. It was safe. It was eternal. That was what he wanted the girls to see and feel.

Stopping the tractor, he lifted them down and led them through the snow to a boulder. It was one he had gone to as a child when he wanted to be alone. Glimpses of blue tubing could be seen through the trees, but this was evergreen territory. It was quiet, untouched, peaceful land.

He lifted the girls onto the boulder one at a time. Then he climbed up between them. He didn't say anything, just sat, looked, and listened. The trees were tall here—mossy pines, deep green hemlocks, and blue firs—and the snow more sparse where their limbs sheltered the ground. A startling number of limbs lay fallen under the weight of ice, but the trees didn't look any worse for it.

“God's pruning?” Missy asked, and he nodded.

Star whispered, “Shhhhh. Listen.” The woods were alive with snowmelt, a gentle dripping that came from different directions, different sections of nature's orchestra, each with its own tempo and tone, all harmonizing. Head cocked as she continued to listen, she looked up at him. Her eyes were as large as ever, but rather than being haunted now, they held the light of excitement. “Snow songs.”

God's pruning. Nature's orchestra. Snow songs.
They were all Heather's
expressions. She put into words what Micah felt but couldn't say. Her words would live on in all of them this way, regardless of what she did herself.

He didn't say anything then, though not through any desire for silence so much as sheer inability. His throat was tight with emotions that he couldn't begin to deal with. So he swallowed them away, breathed deeply of the fertile March air, and focused on the moment.

They sat that way for a long time, the girls seemingly as content as he was. Finally climbing down from their rock, they walked through the woods for a while. Missy ran from one fallen log to the next, balancing her way down each, while Star crouched to peer into nooks and crannies for glimpses of tiny forest creatures.

Micah alternately watched them, and watched the blue tubing that was bit by bit filling with liquid as the sap started to flow. Eventually, he herded the girls back to the tractor and drove them down the hill. By the time they reached the sugarhouse, the storage tanks had filled with sap enough to boil, and the driveway was lined with trucks.

Lake Henry had come to make sugar.

* * *

Taking it all in, she felt an intense pride. This was her town; these were her people. They did this each year to celebrate the sap harvest—picked a day when the sun was out, the air was clear, and the children had no school, because, like Christmas, sugar on snow was best with kids. The settling of Heather's case only made it better.

Micah surely felt that way. He smiled more in the ten minutes he spared for lunch than he had in all of the last twenty-four days. Then he headed for the sugarhouse with dozens of people in tow. This was the fun part. A packed sugarhouse made the syrup sweeter faster.

A packed sugarhouse makes the syrup sweeter faster.

Heather had said that, Poppy realized as she whipped out the front door and down the ramp. Griffin was already at the sugarhouse, bringing wood in from the shed on the old iron flatcar. She pushed her wheels through the last of the ice that was melting on the gravel drive, and reached the back of the house in time to join the procession.

Far ahead of her, at the foot of the hill, Micah opened the sugarhouse door and turned to hold it for those behind him. In the process, he glanced toward the road.

His body went still. Only his eyes moved, following something down the drive.

Heart pounding, Poppy looked that way. It was a dark red car, late model, not from Lake Henry, rather sedate for its color. She doubted it would be Heather so soon, and it didn't look like FBI. This looked like a rental car, perhaps a reporter coming straight from the airport?

Poppy shot a look back at the sugarhouse door just as Griffin joined Micah. John was nearby as well. Media could be handled.

The red car moved slowly, making its way past the long line of larger vehicles. It pulled up just shy of the house. Even before the driver opened his door, the pounding of Poppy's heart increased.

“Oh God,” she whispered. She pushed herself forward, separating from the others just as Norman Anderson straightened. He caught her eye right away and did a little something with his own while he let out a burst of air. The look said that he wouldn't have shown up here unannounced if his headstrong fourteen-year-old daughter hadn't forced the issue.

Sure enough, Thea had left the passenger's seat and was rounding the front of the car. She wore jeans, boots, a camel hair pea coat and a matching beret that was striking against the long, shiny waves of her hair. Her hands were in her pockets. Her face spoke of both excitement and terror. When she caught sight of Poppy, she seemed relieved.

Not so Poppy. She had been proud of herself to have instantly connected with Heather's daughter. It struck her now, though, that the connection might well have been responsible for bringing Thea here at such a bad, bad time.

She wheeled quickly forward. She couldn't begin to think of what
would happen if Heather arrived just then. It was enough trying to gauge the impact that Thea alone would have on the town.

Norman met Poppy halfway. “I'm sorry,” he said in a low voice. “If I'd said no, Thea would have come here on her own. I couldn't let her do that. She wanted to meet Micah. She wanted to take a look at the town. I thought we could do it without anyone knowing who we are.” He shot a dubious look at the crowd. “I guess not.”

Thea put an arm around Poppy's shoulder and kissed her cheek. While she was there, she murmured, “Did I do an awful thing?”

They didn't know about the plea agreement,
Poppy realized with a start.

“Don't know that yet,” she said in a high singsong. “Let's see.” She was thinking that it was going to be the three of them—Norman, Thea, and her—against Lake Henry, when Griffin materialized beside her and offered a hand.

“Mr. Anderson, I'm Griffin Hughes. Welcome.”

“Thank you,” Norman said.

Poppy imagined that he was as relieved to see Griffin as she was.

* * *

The thought, of course, gave him no comfort.

Needing to hold what was his, he looked around for Missy and Star. He saw Missy first—saw the back of a dark, wavy head of hair as she headed for the house. When Maida went after her, he looked around for Star. It was a frightened minute before he saw her emerge on the far side of the crowd from him and walk slowly toward Poppy.