Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

“Rumors aside?”

She winced, hating to think about that bit of unpleasantness right now. “The Pembroke and Pembroke Springs are separate entities, although the Springs owns stock in the inn. But if it should go belly up, the stock would be gone, but creditors wouldn’t be able to come after any springs assets. Not,” she added pointedly, “that the inn will fail.”

Zeke laughed. “Spoken like a true Pembroke.”

She could see the humor in his eyes and once more was intrigued by his capacity for gentleness. A man in his particular profession, with his particular memories. She remembered his mouth on hers last night, the soft caresses of his hands, the way he’d made love to her, with her. Then she saw the two of them in a moonlit courtyard, with candles and music and the fragrance of camellias all around, and the image surprised her, not because it was so contrary to this hard, silent man, but because, inexplicably, it wasn’t.

“I’d like you to come with me a second,” she said, climbing unsteadily to her feet, not sure what she was doing was right. Yet knowing it was necessary.

Zeke followed her back along the narrow path out to the cliffs, where she took him around the hemlock and down the steep incline. He moved with that peculiar combination of grace and assurance. She walked out to the end of the boulder above the narrow ledge.

“I found the gold key down there,” she said, pointing. “I was rock climbing, just messing around, trying to calm my nerves about the Pembroke’s opening. The key was wedged under a protruding rock. It could have been there for twenty-five minutes or twenty-five years.”

Zeke peered down, squinting in the bright sun, but he made no comment, asked no questions.

Dani slapped at a mosquito on her bruised arm and missed. “For years after my mother disappeared, my grandfather hired a series of private investigators to follow up on any leads on her whereabouts. None ever had the slightest success. When I was about sixteen, one of them came to me. He was a burly, pragmatic guy with a strong Brooklyn accent-he seemed nice. He was just getting background from me, he said. He asked me what my favorite dream of my mother was.” She looked at Zeke. “Isn’t that strange?”

“Sometimes,” he said, “a strange question can lead to clarity in other areas. What was your answer?”

“That she was living a wonderful life on a South Seas island. That she was happy, really happy. She’d never come home because she’d somehow lost her memory on her way back after her balloon ride with Mattie. I could actually see her drinking from coconuts and walking on sandy beaches, unaware she even had a daughter.”

“It’s a nice dream,” Zeke said.

Dani felt the warm afternoon breeze. “It’s a compromise between death and abandonment. I get everything-a mother who’s alive and happy, who didn’t leave me behind on purpose.”

“What did the detective say?”

“‘Far-fetched, kid,’” she repeated, imitating his Brooklyn accent. “‘Better get used to the idea that your mother’s dead.’”

Zeke looked thoughtful, neither condemning nor endorsing that advice. “That isn’t easy, either.”

“Is your mother…”

“They’re all dead. My mother, my father, my brother.” He kicked a small, loose pebble off the boulder. “We might as well head back.”

But Dani didn’t move.

Zeke’s eyes were completely lost in the flickering shade as the wind picked up. He stood very still, very close to her. She could sense the tension in him. And the resolve. He was just as determined and stubborn as she was, only his manner was calmer.

“There’s more,” he said, not making it a question.

Dani could feel the ache of fatigue, and she had to force herself not to change her mind. Finally she said, “Zeke, your brother was here after my mother’s disappearance. Four years later.”

He was silent a moment. “You’re sure-”

“I’ve thought about it ever since I realized who he was, and yes, I’m sure. Everything was blowing up over my father’s embezzling, and Mattie grabbed me one day and headed up here.”

“What month?”

“August. I remember racing season had started.”

“How do you know it was Joe?”

“I recognized his picture in the book. Not at first-it took a while. But it was the same person.”

“Where did you see him?” Zeke asked, his tone businesslike.

“Right here on this rock. I used to love taking off in the woods on my own, and I’d come out here and sit and swing my legs over the edge. That was before I took up rock climbing. That day I found a man standing out here.”

“Joe,” Zeke said.

She nodded, feeling the wind on her back. Clouds were billowing up, and the humidity had increased, making her shirt cling.

“Did the two of you talk?”

“I think I told him who I was. I was a little nervous about meeting a stranger in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t say much that I can recall, just that he’d heard about me and was glad to have met me. That wasn’t all that unusual a comment in those days, with the publicity about my mother and grandparents and Pop getting nailed to the wall for his light fingers.”

She paused, but Zeke said nothing. She had no idea what he was thinking. A mosquito was on his dark hair. She brushed it away, feeling awkward and nervous, even cruel. He couldn’t have a favorite dream about his brother drinking from coconuts on a South Seas island. Joe Cutler was dead. The whole world knew it.

“We talked about the cliffs and the view,” she went on. “He didn’t say why he was here. That much I can remember, because I’d wondered. He left before I did. On my way back to the cottage, I saw him at the pavilion, just sitting among the weeds. I didn’t call or wave to him-I didn’t want him to see me, try to follow me home, something like that.”

“Do you know if he saw Mattie while he was here?”

Dani shook her head. “I don’t know. Not that she’d have told me if he had. Did you know he’d come back to Saratoga?”

“No.”

The humidity was bringing out the mosquitoes. They were buzzing all around now, but Zeke ignored them. Dani tried to, but she was tired and confused, and everything seemed to irritate her.

“Zeke, it’s your turn,” she finally said.

He turned away from the edge of the boulder, his back to her.

She didn’t relent. “Why would Quint Skinner be here?”

He was walking away from her, up the steep incline.

“Zeke-”

Looking back at her, he said quietly, “I don’t know.”

She watched him climb up to the hemlock but didn’t hear him as he vanished into the woods, leaving her standing alone in the wind.

Mattie sat in the window seat on the train, Nick dozing beside her. The peaceful, scenic ride along the Hudson River had always brought her comfort. Looking at her former husband, she ached for him, for he did indeed look every second of his ninety years. The physical signs of age didn’t sadden her-the thinning white hair, the protruding veins, the brown spots, the wrinkles and sags-as much as the knowledge that he wasn’t always going to be around. Likely enough, the bold, charming man who’d captivated her on the Cumberland River more than sixty years ago would die before she did.

And she wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready.

He stirred. “What’re you staring at?” he asked, sounding cranky.

“You. How long has it been since I told you I love you?”

“Decades.”

She smiled. “Well, I do, you know. I always have.”

“Fine way of showing it.” But he patted her hand. “I’m cold as a fish. Circulation stinks.” He sighed and settled into his seat, hardly moving. He seemed utterly spent after his long-and so far insufficiently explained-cross-country flight. “Don’t you wish we had the sense fifty years ago that we have now?”