Dangerous Alterations (9 page)

Her
Sweet Briar.

Suddenly, the notion of a walk seemed utterly repugnant. Sugar would have to do. At least until Jeff and his girlfriend were safely back in Chicago where they belonged.

She tightened her hand on her lunch sack and spun around to face the library that had become so much more to her than simply a place of employment. In fact, the building that most people equated with books symbolized all that was good in her life at the moment.

He’ll be gone, soon.

Slowly, she lapped her way around the building—once, twice, three times before finally heading toward the stone staircase and the second home they led to, images of her upcoming weekend chasing all things Jeff from her mind. Monday night sewing circle meetings were one of the highlights of her week. Having an entire weekend of that dynamic could only be better. Especially with Margaret Louise manning the kitchen—

The wail of a police siren cut through her fantasy, making her stumble on the first step. Reaching outward, she steadied herself against the railing just in time to see a Sweet Briar police car race down the block and turn left, its blue and white lights flashing.

Pedestrians stopped in their tracks as the department’s rarely used second car went zipping by, too, its siren blaring and lights flashing in perfect copycat fashion.

“What on earth,” she mumbled only to have her words wiped from the air by a third and even louder siren—this one belonging to the ambulance she’d never seen outside the confines of a town parade.

Feeling her heart begin to pound, she retraced her steps out to the sidewalk and the ever-growing group of Sweet Briar residents hell-bent on being among the first to uncover the details that would later be whispered across every picket fence in town.

“How goes it, Victoria?”

She couldn’t help but smile. Mr. Downing was one of her most loyal patrons at the library. His gentle spirit, soft-spoken demeanor, and inquisitive nature made his twice-weekly visits something to be treasured.

“I’m doing fine. We just got a new book on World War II. It’s got some spectacular pictures I think you’ll really love.”

The elderly man nodded. “I’ll head in there in a little bit and give it a look.” He gestured toward the green. “Always cuts right through your chest when something like this happens, don’t it? Especially when it’s a young person.”

“Do you know what happened?”

Mr. Downing swung his hand to the right and pointed at a young man she recognized as a bagger from Leeson’s Market. “Mary Fran’s grandson here does. Saw it with his own two eyes, didn’t you, Douglas?”

The freckle-faced redhead nodded. “I was finishing up my lunch break in the gazebo when this dude went jogging by. Guess the heat got to him or somethin’ because he dropped to the ground like a brick … Bam!”

“Did you say
jogging
?” she stammered.

“Yeah. In the middle of the afternoon … in August, if you can believe it.” Douglas unraveled a piece of navy cloth between his hands and secured the Leeson’s Market apron around his neck. “Between that and the Cubs shirt he was wearing, I’m pretty sure he’s not from around here.”

“Cubs shirt?” she echoed as the ground began to spin under her feet. “I—I … I’ve got to go. I’ve got to make sure he’s okay.”

“Victoria?” Mr. Downing asked. “Victoria, what’s wrong?”

She took a step forward, dizziness giving way to a rush of darkness.

Her eyes flew open as the side of her head vibrated against the cool glass. Bolting upright, Tori grabbed the map from Margaret Louise’s hand and pointed at the road.

“You’re
supposed to be driving and
I’m
supposed to be navigating, remember?”

Margaret Louise’s pudgy hand returned to the steering wheel. “I didn’t have the heart to wake you, Victoria. You looked downright angelic with your head on the window and all.”

“I can sleep later.” Tori looked out the window, the interstate that had lulled her to sleep a thing of the past. “Where are we?”

“I turned off the exit ’bout twenty miles ago. Saw a sign back yonder for the cabin company but haven’t seen another since.” Margaret Louise gestured toward the map. “That’s why I was tryin’ to take a look. See if I’d gotten off track somehow.”

Tori looked down at the handwritten directions she’d clipped to the North Carolina map. “Did you take a left at the bottom of the ramp?”

“I did.”

“Did you turn right at Fill ’er Up?”

“I did.”

“Did we get to the fork in the road with the big windmill in the center?”

“Haven’t seen that yet.”

“Then we should be fine.” She settled back against her seat and took in the scenery as it whizzed past her window, the lush forest and roadside creeks bringing a much-needed smile to her lips. “Oh, Margaret Louise, you have no idea how badly I need this weekend away.”

“I reckon I can imagine, but I’d sure like you to fill me in. Leona, Rose, and me, well, we’ve been worried ’bout you, Victoria. Real worried.” Margaret Louise pulled her gaze from the narrow two-lane country road and fixed it on Tori. “I tried to call, and so did Leona. Rose, too. But you didn’t answer.”

She took a deep breath then let the air swoosh out between her lips. “I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t return any of your calls. I meant to but I—” She glanced out the window once again. “I guess I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I’m not
supposed
to be upset about what happened.”

“Who says you’re not supposed to be upset?”

“I don’t know … Magazines, talk shows … nobody … everybody.”

Margaret Louise jerked the car onto the shoulder and pulled to a stop. Popping the gearshift into park, she took the keys from the ignition and opened her door. “C’mon. Let’s go for a walk.”

Tori watched her friend as she ambled around the car. When the woman showed no sign of returning, she opened her own door. “Margaret Louise, we can talk in the car.”

“I need to stretch. I’ve been drivin’ for miles.”

“But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“That sign right there”—Margaret Louise pointed at a green metal pole sporting the back side of a sign—“says there’s a hiking trail right here and—oh, here it is.” With absolutely no acknowledgement of her age, the grandmother of seven swept her hand in the direction of a leaf-strewn path that disappeared down a hill. “C’mon, it’ll do us both good.”

“Both?” she asked as she took point.

“It’ll give you a chance to get what happened off your chest and it’ll give me a chance to burn a few calories and quiet the worry once and for all.”

She spun around to face her friend. “Is something wrong with one of the kids?”

“No. They’re all good and not a one of ’em even has a runny nose if you can believe it.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

Margaret Louise slipped her arm inside Tori’s and gave a gentle tug. “Why, you, of course.”

“Oh.” They meandered down the sun-dappled path, a year’s worth of leaves crunching beneath their feet as she traveled back in her memory to the last moment she saw Jeff. “I know I should hate Jeff for everything he did to me. He made me fall in love with him only to rip my heart from my chest in front of all of our friends and family. He turned my world upside down and made me doubt myself and my worth for far too long. Yet, with all of that, my heart still aches at his loss.”

She felt Margaret Louise’s hand on her shoulder and looked up, a blast of sunlight nearly blinding her as it reflected off a small lake in a nearby clearing. “Oh, Margaret Louise, it’s beautiful.”

“An unexpected gem, isn’t it?” The woman tugged on Tori’s arm once again, leading her to a large rock on the bank. “Now sit. And listen.”

She sat.

And she listened.

“Jeff broke your heart. Jeff made you doubt yourself. But you’re not Jeff, you’re Victoria. And your heart was broken because you gave it … fully. You doubted yourself because you have an open heart and you were unwilling to let him shoulder all the blame even though that’s where it belonged.” Margaret Louise plopped herself onto the rock beside Tori and rolled her shoulders forward and backward, a soft moan escaping her full lips as she did. “It makes perfect sense that you’d be sad over what happened. You’d given him your heart. And even though he treated you horribly, he still had it. You’re not built to turn your feelings on and off with the flip of a switch. It’s one of the things that makes you special.”

Reaching down, Tori plucked a small flat rock from the ground and threw it across the lake, the familiar plunk as it hit the water bringing a smile to her lips. “It’s not that I still had feelings for him, because I didn’t … I don’t. I know that. But I knew this man. I knew his likes and dislikes, his strengths and his weaknesses, and his goals. And now he’s dead.”

Dead.

Jeff.

“Georgina said he was thirty-two.” Margaret Louise pushed off the rock and paced back and forth. “Heck, my Jake isn’t much more ’an that.”

She stood and reached for her friend’s hand. “I know what you’re thinking, Margaret Louise, I really do. But Jeff’s death isn’t as much of a fluke as you might think. Sure, he was young—too young—but he had a history of heart problems throughout his family. Jake doesn’t have that.”

The woman’s posture noticeably relaxed. “I reckon. But still, it makes you think.”

“Don’t let it. Really.” She walked to the water’s edge and closed her eyes, the distant sound of quacking and chirping loosening the knots in her shoulders. Oh, how she needed this time with her friends—time to unwind, time to sleep, time to talk, time to laugh, and, if need be, time to cry.

“Victoria, can I ask you a question?”

She opened her eyes and studied her friend. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Did you decide not to go back to Chicago for the funeral simply because of this trip?”

She tried the question on for size. Had she? After all, she had looked at flights …

But, in the end, she gave the only answer she could give.

The truth.

“I’ve not heard any specific details about a funeral yet, but, even when I do, I won’t go. I said my good-bye to Jeff on my front porch the night before he died. I don’t need to say it again in front of people I no longer know.”

“You don’t feel any guilt?”

She stared at her friend. “Guilt? For what?”

“For turning him down? For his having a heart attack the very next day?”

Stepping back, she dropped onto a neighboring rock. “You can’t be serious. You can’t think I had anything to do with that.”

Margaret Louise waved her hands in the air. “Of course I don’t. But I know you, Victoria. I know how your mind thinks.”

She pulled her knees up to her chin and rested her cheek against them. “Okay, it went through my mind. Briefly.”

The woman’s left eyebrow rose. “Briefly?”

Busted.

“Well, how could it not? Men his age don’t just drop dead while running.” The words streamed from her mouth in rambling fashion. “I mean, he was in shape. He was a fitness trainer, for gosh sake. Was it really that hard of a stretch—even for a little while—to think the stress of our conversation the night before might have had something to do with what happened?”

Reaching over, Margaret Louise brushed a strand of hair from Tori’s face. “But you don’t still think that, do you?”

Did she?

She was trying not to …

As a second strand of hair was pushed from her face, she smiled up at her friend. “No, not really. As I said, there were heart problems in Jeff’s family. In fact, I hadn’t realized just how extensive it was until last weekend, at his great-aunt’s funeral.”

“Well, do you see? There’s nothin’ for you to feel guilty about. Nothin’ at all, Victoria.”

Margaret Louise was right.

She lifted her head and looked back at the lake. “Then it’s one down, two to go.”

“Why, Victoria, you lost me. What are you talkin’’bout now?”

“Things keeping me up at night.”

Margaret Louise folded her arms across her ample chest. “What else is troublin’ you?”

“Milo, for one. Dixie, for two.”

“No wonder you have such dark circles under your eyes. You’re worryin’ ’bout everything under the sun, aren’t you?” Margaret Louise left her rock in favor of Tori’s. “Tell me about Milo.”

“He heard everything Jeff and I said to each other Monday night.”

“That’s good, ain’t it? That’s better than avoidin’ him the way you’ve been.”

She winced at her friend’s description. “I wasn’t
avoiding
him. Not really, anyway. I just didn’t know what to tell him about Jeff being here.”

“Least you finally called and talked to him.”

If only that was the way it had happened.

But it wasn’t.

“I didn’t call him,” she finally said.

Margaret Louise shrugged. “Doesn’t matter who called, just so long as you talked.”

“That’s what Leona seems to think, too.”

“Then my twin is smarter than I give her credit for.”

“I think
sneakier
is a more fitting description, frankly.” She raked her hand across the top of the rock then let the tiny pieces of gravel and dirt sift through her fingers.

“Wait. What did my sister do?”

“She hid in the bushes next to my front porch and held her phone out so Milo could hear my conversation with Jeff.”

All nature noises stopped as Margaret Louise’s near sonic gasp echoed around them. “You’re foolin’ me, right?”

Tori shook her head. “I wish I was.”

“Why, I—I don’t know what to say. I’m simply speechless. And madder than a hornet gettin’ swat at.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t be. Really. Milo and I spoke and things are okay. He understood my reluctance to talk and he was as supportive of me as he has been from the beginning.”