Carly's Gift (8 page)

“What makes you think he's going to believe me?”

“There's a way to improve the odds.” She hesitated, as if considering whether or not to go on. “Offer to pay her way through school.” Before he could reply, she held her hand up to stop him. “I know what you're going to say, but then you probably know what I'm about to say, too. In the unlikely chance that Ethan agrees to let you send money, I'll find a way to pay you back.”

He brushed her offer aside, zeroing in on what mattered the most to him. “You intend to stay with Ethan even after the kids are grown?”

“I'll stay with Ethan as long as he wants me.”

He got up and brushed the leaves from his jeans. He had to get away from her before he did something stupid, like trying to convince her to abandon her family and come to England with him. “I'll go to the plant to talk to Ethan this afternoon. Do you want me to call you afterward?”

She shook her head. “Ethan will tell me about it when he gets home.”

“Are you coming to the memorial service?”

“Considering all that's happened, I don't think that's a very good idea.”

“Then this is it?” How could he just walk away?

She brought her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Someone I loved used to tell me that, in the end, all we are is the sum of our memories. I think about that a lot.”

Profound words for an eighteen-year-old boy who had made love for the first time to the girl he'd vowed to love forever. “And do you think about where you were when I said that to you?”

“It would be a blessing to forget.”

“I'll never stop loving you.”

She turned her face away from him to stare out at the distance, unable to contain the pain of seeing him any longer. “Thank you,” she whispered when she heard him turn to walk away.

It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon when David got in his car and drove out of the parking lot at Hargrove Furniture Company. The sky had been clear and blue when he'd gone in to see Ethan; now, it was gray and overcast. Soon the rains would come to steal the crispness of autumn, then the snow, to shroud the nakedness of the forests.

He would see neither of those things happen in this place ever again. It was a classic case of not wanting something until it was taken away.

On his way out to see Ethan he'd searched for even a niggling sense of guilt that he hadn't taken Victoria into consideration before telling Carly he would go along with her plan. That in itself was bad enough, but worse was knowing he would never confide in his wife. Given a choice, it was the way she preferred things done.

At least now the deed was completed and he could leave with the knowledge that he'd been able to do something to repay Carly in small part for what she'd done for him. Too bad her sacrifice hadn't meant more to him in the end. But then how was she to have known that his success would seem hollow without her there to share it with him?

Thank God Ethan had had the good sense to regret what he'd said and done the night before, and not for David's sake, but Andrea's. Ethan obviously loved her—at least as much as he could let himself. Perhaps knowing David wouldn't be a threat anymore, perceived or actual, would help Ethan's relationship with the child he'd raised as his own. It was something to hope for.

Not until Ethan had refused his offer, had David realized how much he'd wanted to pay for Andrea's schooling. It would have been a tenuous contact with Carly, but at this point, he was willing to settle for anything. Ethan's adamant rejection of the idea had destroyed even that possibility.

David pulled up to a stoplight on the outskirts of town. While he waited for the light to change, the headache he'd been trying to ignore all day began an insistent pounding in his left temple. He glanced around for a store where he could get some aspirin and spotted Turner's Market on the opposite corner.

Walking across the front of the store, intently staring down each aisle in search of the drug section, he was startled and then irritated to hear someone calling his name. Engaging in small talk with someone from his past was about as appealing as the free sample of Polish sausage a woman had tried to press on him in the meat aisle.

“David?” a female voice repeated.

Unable to ignore or escape the woman headed toward him, David slipped on his professional smile and forced himself to look up. The smile disappeared when he saw who it was.

“Mrs. Strong,” he said, mentally shaking his head at the irony of running into Carly's mother just when he'd convinced himself he'd cut the last tie. She was a preview of what Carly would most likely be at that age—her back unbent by the hard life she'd lived, her dark brown eyes quick and filled with intelligence, and her once fiery hair turning a golden blond.

“It's Mrs. Friedlander now, but I'd really prefer you called me Barbara.”

“You married Wally Friedlander?” he asked, the surprise evident in his voice.

“I know it must seem strange,” she said. “I hated being the sheriff's wife when Frank had the job and here I am married to the man who took his place.”

“I always meant to call you to tell you how sorry I was about Frank's accident. It must have been hell for—”

“That's all in the past now,” she said, abruptly stopping him. Her voice softened when she went on. “Actually, the reason I wanted to talk to you was to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your father. He was such a good man. I can't tell you how much I missed running into him around town after he moved. But then, isn't that the way it always goes?”

“I think he missed living here, too.” As hard as it was to admit, David had reluctantly reached the conclusion that moving his father hadn't been the magnanimous gesture he'd convinced himself it was at the time. Believing his father the last thread that tied him to Baxter, it had only seemed reasonable that severing it would free him.

“Mabel said it was his heart but that you were able to spend some time with him before he went.”

“Two weeks.”

“That can be a blessing . . . or not.”

“In this case it was.” To steer the conversation in a different direction, David asked, “I'm looking for aspirin. Could you tell me where they are?”

“I'll show you.” She parked her cart and motioned for him to follow.

David marveled at how comfortable Barbara obviously felt being with him. There was none of the anger or chagrin he would have expected her to feel depending on the reason Carly had told her about the breakup.

At the end of the second aisle, Barbara stopped, took a box off the shelf, and handed it to him. “This is the brand I use.”

He nodded in thanks and made a move to leave before she could ask him something he really didn't want to answer. “I wish I had more time to visit, but I have a dozen things that need doing this afternoon.”

“Have you seen Carly?”

He could pretend he hadn't heard her and just keep going. She would understand. She'd always understood him when he didn't want to talk about things that hurt him, like when his mother had died. “Yes,” he admitted.

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

Barbara frowned. “She didn't tell me.”

“I'm not surprised. The visit didn't go all that well.”

“Ethan?”

Sensors awakened in David's mind. Barbara knew a whole lot more about what had happened back then than Carly had led him to believe. She wasn't just pumping him for information, she was afraid of the answers he might give. “I guess it all boils down to Thomas Wolfe being right, you really can't go home again.”

A sadness flickered across her eyes. “You never should have left.”

Six

David's breath created
billowy clouds of fog that blocked his vision as he tried and failed to insert his room key into its paint-encrusted lock. He cursed the streetlight on the corner that threw more shadow than illumination, bent lower and tried again. The Taj Mahal Motel was a strong dose of reality, placing him in his past as effectively as the jog he'd just taken by his old house. The motel was more than a continent apart from the Ritz; he couldn't remember the last time he'd stayed anywhere that didn't have either a health club on the premises or access to one.

Haunted by the look of sorrow in Carly's eyes, the agony in Ethan's and his own sense of loss, David had sought release in exhaustion. He'd put on the sweats he'd picked up at a local sporting goods store earlier that afternoon and taken off, determined to run until the only thing on his mind was the pain in his legs.

It was a good plan; too bad it hadn't worked. He'd stayed out an hour and a half until his lungs felt on fire from the cold air, and all he could think about was how Carly had looked when he'd told her he still loved her.

The phone rang. For a brief, irrational moment, he allowed himself to imagine it was Carly.

He made another stab at the lock; this time, the key slid in smoothly. The telephone was on its fourth jarring ring when he picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

“David? You sound out of breath. What in the world have you been doing?”

Victoria.
His knees gave out and he sank to the edge of the bed. “Jogging,” he answered, guilt washing over him at his keen disappointment. For weeks he'd been adrift on the sea of his past, first with his father and then with Carly. Still, he wasn't ready to be snatched back to the safety of shore. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand and added five hours. “Why are you calling me in the middle of the night? And why on this phone? Is something wrong?”

“Precisely what I was going to ask you,” she said, a note of reproach in her voice. “I've been trying to reach you for two days on your cell to see how you've been getting on and to give you my flight number. You did tell me you were going to pick me up yourself, didn't you?”

Actually she'd insisted he meet her plane, unwilling to trust that there were limousine services in a place as provincial-sounding as Cleveland, Ohio. “Hold on while I get something to write with.” He tossed the receiver on the bed, took a sheet of paper out of the drawer, then dug through his coat pocket for a pen.

When he reached for the phone again, the paper slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up and noticed a large brown coffee stain on the rust-colored carpet. From there his gaze swept the rest of the room. He shuddered to think how Victoria was going to react when she saw where she would be staying. Frowning, he put the receiver up to his ear. “You know, Victoria, I've been thinking that your coming here was probably not such a good idea after all. If you're worried that it might seem strange to everyone at home that you didn't come to the memorial service, you can just tell them that I was the one who insisted you stay home.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “David, don't be a bore about this. You know I would have been with you at the hospital if I could, but it's been impossible for me to get away until now.”

Her reaction startled him. He'd had no idea she'd even thought about joining him in Florida, and it had certainly never occurred to him to ask. Funerals were eminently more suited to Victoria than bedside vigils. “I only meant that it seems a little idiotic to fly all the way over here for a half-hour memorial service and then just turn around and fly back.”

“Oh, but I'm not.”

David's shoulders sagged. She'd obviously made arrangements for them to do something that would delay his return to England. Under normal circumstances he would keep his mouth shut and go along with whatever she'd planned. It was a tacit agreement of theirs. As long as he wasn't holed up with a manuscript, he'd go along with any social regime she set up for them.

This time it was different. It wasn't just that he wanted the peace of mind he found by immersing himself in his work, he needed it. “Meaning?” he asked.

“It's going to be a splendid surprise.”

He sat down on the bed again and wearily ran his hand through his hair. “You know I don't like surprises.”

Her voice lowered and softened. “I'm afraid you've a short memory at times, darling. I seem to recall one or two you didn't mind at all.”

Victoria was the ultimate male fantasy—a lady in the parlor, a whore in bed. “How wonderfully uncomplicated you are,” he said.

Several seconds passed before she answered. “I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's your typical roundabout way of telling me you've missed me as much as I've missed you.”

“Of course it is,” he said automatically, and then realized it was the truth. He did miss her. Victoria had provided the calm water after the hurricane in his life called Carly. The years, the life, he'd lived with her were predictable and utterly inconsequential—the perfect environment for a man who wanted to write bestselling novels. Carly had been right about one thing: he could not have devoted the time and energy it took for him to turn out a thousand pages of manuscript every year if he had married her. With Carly, he would not have insisted on the months of isolation where he put his own needs foremost. There would have been her career to consider . . . and the children they would surely have had together.