New Way to Fly (12 page)

“Oh, really? And what do you know about my taste?” Amanda asked him in low furious tones. “What do you know about me at all? We exchanged a few words at a party and had dinner together once. Does that make you some kind of expert on me?”

“No,” he said quietly. “Of course it doesn't. But I was attracted to you the minute I laid eyes on you, Amanda Walker. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I also thought there was more to you than a few inches of style and glamour. Fact is, I still do. After all, how could I have been so wrong for all those years?”

“What do you mean, all those years?”

With a sudden uncomfortable shrug he drained his glass, set it down on the table and got to his feet. “Forget it,” he said abruptly. “I meant something else. Thanks for the nice evening, Amanda,” he added with formal politeness, extending his hand. “It was a real pleasure.”

Still shaken by their exchange, she took his hand briefly and was once again almost overwhelmed by the firmness of his grip, by the feel of his warm flesh against hers and the dark compelling depths of his eyes as he gazed down at her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, struggling to compose herself, to keep her voice light and casual.
“Let's just put all this behind us and consider the issue closed, all right?”

“Sure,” Brock said easily, moving toward the closet to get his jacket. “All in the past, Amanda. And I won't be bothering you again. But the invitation's still open if you feel like dropping in someday to give me advice about my house.”

Amanda stared at him, caught off guard by his words. “You're kidding,” she said with forced lightness. “You haven't exactly been bowled over by my decorating, Brock. So why on earth would you want advice from someone like me?”

“You don't understand. I don't like this place, Amanda, not one bit. But that doesn't change anything. I still happen to believe that your advice would be real valuable.”

She shifted nervously, confused by the conflicting messages his words contained. “Maybe it's best just to let it go, Brock,” she said finally. “But thanks for the vote of confidence, if that's what it is.”

He opened the door and turned to give her one more thoughtful glance, hesitating as if on the verge of saying something else. Then he was gone, striding off toward the elevator, his tall figure looking vital and larger than life in the silent polished confines of the apartment hallway.

Long after he disappeared around the corner, Amanda stood gazing blankly in the direction he'd vanished, her eyes bleak, her face distant and sad.

When she finally went back into her apartment the place looked much less satisfying than it had just a day earlier. The stark walls and furnishings seemed almost to be mocking her, chilly and silent, devoid of comfort, so lonely all at once that she was tempted to sink down on the cold leather couch and cry like a lost child.

 

M
ARY
G
IBSON STOOD
in a cramped dingy washroom behind the service station, arching her back and trying to see more of herself in the cloudy mirror. Nervously she rummaged in her handbag, put on some lipstick, frowned and smudged most of it off again, then tried once more to catch a full-length glimpse of herself.

Mary knew that she looked nice. She wore the beautifully fitted gray flannel trousers and soft sea-blue sweater that she'd bought from Amanda Walker, and they flattered her more than any clothes she'd ever owned. And her hair was trimmed and shaped, tinted a dark ash blond with sunny highlights that softened her face and deepened the golden brown of her eyes.

She wore a little makeup, too, applied with a spare skillful hand the way Amanda had shown her. It was surprising what a difference that made, just a tiny bit of color and contouring. Mary felt confident about her appearance, but not about what she was about to
do. In fact, this was one of the hardest things she'd ever done in her life.

Slowly, her face set and grim, Mary took her handbag and cast one final look at her reflection in the mirror. Then she went out, climbed into her waiting car and drove the last few miles.

She pulled up a long curving drive and through the electronic gates in the direction of a low complex built of gray cinder block. When the buildings were directly in front of her, Mary almost changed her mind. It took all her strength of will not to put her car in reverse, turn around and roar off through the gates in the direction of home, away from all the terror and misery of this place.

The drive to the prison had seemed endless. She wondered why they had to put Al in a jail clear across the state. Maybe it had something to do with security, and the fact that most people wouldn't want a prison in their neighborhood. But then most people didn't have to visit their husbands in prison.

Mary wondered if anybody from Crystal Creek had made this long drive to visit
her
husband. Did Martin Avery or Vernon Trent or J.T. McKinney ever give up their weekends, get up before dawn to drive all this way?

Did Billie Jo Dumont?

Mary shivered suddenly and gripped the wheel, almost blinded by emotion. She parked in the lot and
got out, moving with halting steps toward the marked doors at the front of the complex.

If anybody from Crystal Creek had come to visit, they'd never talked to Mary about it. Of course, she reflected, they never talked about her husband at all. The whole town maintained a kind of tactful silence about Al in her presence, as if he'd died suddenly and she needed to be protected from the pain of his memory.

That would have been so much easier to bear, Mary told herself miserably, presenting her visitor's card and submitting to a cursory search by the female admitting guard. If her husband had died, she'd have all the dignity and respect of a widow in the community. Instead, she was a sort of outcast, an embarrassment to everyone who met her.

Not that Mary didn't understand their discomfort. After all, what could you say to a woman whose husband had cheated on her openly with a girl young enough to be their daughter, then went to jail for insurance fraud? No wonder they were all embarrassed by her.

Mary lifted her chin and bit her lip to prevent herself from crying. She followed the signs to a large room with stained pale green walls, filled with little wooden tables and shabby folding chairs.

People sat at most of the tables, men in faded blue institutional pants and shirts, women of all ages. Some of the couples were holding hands, gazing at
each other while one or both of them cried silently. Others talked in earnest murmurs and a few were arguing in low tones.

Mary gave her card to an official, then seated herself at one of the empty tables and waited, balling a tissue tight in her hand and gripping it frantically.

She saw Al come through a door on the other side of the room. He stood looking around while Mary gazed at him, forgetting her own discomfort, stunned by his appearance.

Al “Bubba” Gibson had always been a substantial man, with an impressive breadth of shoulder on a heavy six-foot frame. In recent years, he'd even run a little to fat, carrying a rounded arrogant belly above his jeans like a trophy.

But all that was changed now. In the weeks since Mary had last seen her husband he appeared to have shrunk. The cheap blue cotton pants and shirt hung limply on him, making him seem stooped and old. There was a lot more gray in his thick shaggy hair, and his face had an unhealthy pallor.

Of course, this was the first time she'd ever seen Al without a tan. Even in Mary's earliest memories his skin had always had a weathered warm look, with deep laughter lines in his cheeks and little wrinkles next to those sparkling blue eyes….

Suddenly she felt a wave of pain, of loss and sorrow so shattering that it was all she could do to keep from moaning aloud and hurrying out of the room.

But it was too late. Al had seen her, and was moving awkwardly though the crowded room in her direction.

Finally he stopped by Mary's table, gazed at her for a long tense moment, then began to look around for a chair.

“Here, Al,” Mary said quickly, getting up and pulling an empty chair from an adjoining table, carrying it around to him. “Here's a chair.”

He took it, still silent, gazing at his wife in stunned astonishment. “Mary…” he began. His voice cracked and he paused, trying to smile at her. “You sure do look nice, girl. Real nice.”

The ghost of that old cheerful smile brought fresh tears to her eyes. Once again she fought to compose herself. “Thanks, Al,” she said finally. “I just got my hair done on Friday. And I bought some new clothes the other day, too.”

“Well, good for you,” he said warmly. “I'm real glad to hear it.”

Mary swallowed hard and seated herself opposite him, knowing that what he said was true. Al had always been a generous husband. He liked Mary to dress well, and frequently during their married life he'd tried to coax her to fix herself up, spend a little money on her hair and wardrobe.

Maybe I should have listened to him,
Mary thought bleakly.
Maybe if I'd taken better care of myself, he wouldn't have had to…

“I just can't get over it,” Al went on, smiling shyly across the table. “You really do look pretty, Mary. You're a sight for sore eyes.”

“Oh, Al…” This time it was Mary's turn to fall abruptly silent, not trusting her voice. “Do you see anybody else?” she asked finally. “Do folks come to visit you, Al?”

He shook his head. “Not much. It's a long drive, Mary, an' they're all busy with their own lives. Martin an' Vern drove up one day just after I came here, but Vern's married now, an' Martin's busy all the time. You know how it is for folks.”

Mary nodded. “How about J.T.?”

“He came a couple times, back earlier on, at the very beginning, but now that Cynthia's so close to her time, he don't like to leave her alone that much.”

Mary hesitated, gripping the tissue so tightly in her fist that her fingernails dug into her callused palm. But she had to ask. “And…and Billie Jo?”

Al's face twisted in pain, and his blue eyes clouded. “Mary, that's all over. It was over before this happened, even. I was just crazy for a while there, I guess,” he concluded simply. “I can't think of no other explanation.”

Mary nodded. She gazed at her husband, searching inside herself for the old bracing anger, but it seemed to be gone. All she felt was sorrow for what they'd lost, and an aching flood of pity for the pale shrunken man across from her.

“I guess you were,” she said finally. “But you're paying an awful price for it, aren't you, Al? Just awful.”

“I sure am,” he said without emotion. “I'm livin' in hell, an' I'll be here for another two years. Does that make you happy, Mary?”

She shook her head. “Not a bit,” she said truthfully. “Not one bit, Al. It makes me sad.”

Her husband lifted his haggard face and gazed at her with a flare of emotion in those tired blue eyes. “You always were a strange one, Mary,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “After what I put you through, most women would just be laughin' to see that I got what I deserved.”

“There's nothing funny about this,” Mary said. “Not for any of us.”

“It's real bad, isn't it?” he asked after another awkward silence. “The ranch an' all. There's just no money, is there?”

Mary shook her head.

“That's why I wrote an' asked you to come up, Mary,” Al said finally. “I want you to go ahead an' sell. Get Vern to fax the real estate papers up to the prison office here so I can sign the forms, okay?”

Mary stared at him, stunned. “Al…” she whispered. “Al, what are you saying? You want to sell the
ranch?
”

He shifted restlessly on the hard wooden chair. “Hell, Mary, what else can we do? You're entitled
to half of what we've got, but the only money's in the land. An' I can't hardly mortgage it while I'm in prison, can I? How am I gonna make mortgage payments from a jail cell? So you go ahead an' file for divorce, an' we'll sell the ranch so you can get your money.”

She stared at him blankly. “Divorce?”

Al returned her gaze. “Divorce, Mary,” he said gently. “You got all the grounds in the world. Just go ahead. I'm not gonna put up any fight. You can get rid of me an' have some security for yourself. God knows you deserve it, after all these years. Maybe,” he added wistfully, “after the ranch sells, you'd wanna go up an' live in Connecticut somewhere, close to Sara an' the grandkids. Wouldn't that be nice, Mary?”

Mary licked her lips, still gazing blankly at him. “But…but what about you?” she whispered finally. “After you…after you get out? I can't picture you living anywhere but right there on that ranch, Al. Why, you were born there, and so was your father.”

“An' my grandfather,” he added quietly. “But those ol' boys, they were better men than me, Mary. I guess the Gibson family had to run aground sometime, an' I sure did it up with a bang, didn't I?”