Jennifer Greene: The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

All Emma wanted was to hide out and lick her wounds in private, but life just refused to cooperate. She couldn’t let down the teenagers for the afternoon mural project. The gallery still had to be opened and operated. Her telephone never stopped ringing, and although she could have turned off the darn thing, that only avoided problems rather than solved them. Unless she faced people and spoke to them, people could well believe that Reed was responsible for their engagement breakup-especially since the man had apparently disappeared from sight-and it wasn’t right having people blame him. And on top of all that, she had a dozen prewedding plans that needed immediate canceling.

So she sucked it up and did the day and tried her hardest to keep her mind off Garrett. But by late afternoon she’d had it. Maybe you could glue a cracked eggshell back together temporarily, but no way could that glue hold forever.

“Josh, you can man the place for a couple hours, can’t you? I know Jeremiah isn’t here, but I need to disappear in the workshop for a while, get some things ready for the July show.”

“Sure, Emma. You want me to tell everyone you’re gone for the day?”

Bless Josh. He never asked a personal question. He just seemed to want a job where people left him alone about being gay. In so many ways, she could count on him for discretion. It helped to be able to close the door on the shop and focus on cleaning canvases and frames and organizing display concepts.

She wasn’t concentrating well, couldn’t pretend to, didn’t try.

She just wanted to fill the day’s hours and do her damnedest to wear herself out. Barely fifteen minutes passed before there was a knock on the door, though, and it wasn’t Josh.

Mary Duvall poked her head in. “Your employee said you were busy and didn’t want to be interrupted, Emma.”

“It’s all right.” It wasn’t, but Mary was already inside now. And any other time, she’d have been glad to see her old friend.

Mary lifted a satchel of canvases to explain why she’d intruded. “You told me to bring some work if I wanted it in your show. Especially that I needed to bring it before the end of June. So I was afraid if I didn’t get around to showing you these, it might be too late for you to even consider them.”

“You’re so right. Come on in, let’s have a look.”

Mary stepped in tentatively, studying Emma’s face as if unsure if she were really welcome. Emma wanted to shake her head. The Mary Duvall she’d known in school had lots of brass attitude and spunk-of course, life and age changed everyone. But this Mary was wearing a subdued denim skirt and basic blouse, no style in sight, and seemed shyer than a wren.

Man, though, her work wasn’t remotely shy. As Emma slowly examined the portfolio, she felt distracted for the first time all day. She saw striking colors. Emotion. Vision. Paintings that offered something fresh and thoughtful and deep.

“My God. Why didn’t you give me stuff to display before?” Emma scolded her.

“You do want them then?”

“And anything else you’ve got. I’d love to give you your own show, but right now the best I can do is include you in the July program.” She didn’t say that she may well need to close the gallery after that. “After that…I don’t know, but I’ll help you find places to display whatever you have, hook you up with the best dealers. You’re wonderful.”

They chatted a bit longer. Without thinking, Emma insisted Mary attend the next Debs lunch. Mary had been to one, but Emma sensed she needed more coaxing to feel part of the Eastwick fold again. The words came out of her mouth so easily that she suddenly had to gulp.

Obviously she shouldn’t be igniting the old friendship or playing welcoming committee to Eastwick for Mary when she no longer had any idea where she was going to be or what she was going to do-and those decisions were going to slap her in the face awfully fast. Mary had no reason to know about her personal crises, but possibly her expression gave something away, because her old friend’s voice turned gentle.

“I expected this would be a bad day to visit, but that’s partly why I did, Emma. I’m sure you know that everyone’s buzzing about your sudden broken engagement. And it seems like you must be bearing the brunt of the talk alone. I don’t know if Reed holed up on his ranch or just plain disappeared for a while, but word has it that he’s completely out of sight. Unfortunately that’s made the gossipmongers cackle even more.”

When Emma didn’t respond, Mary said softly, “I don’t want to add to all that. I just thought you might need someone around who wasn’t going to ask you questions or bug you. It may have been years since I lived in Eastwick, but it’s not like I’ve forgotten how the grapevine works-Aw, hell. Don’t, Em. Don’t.”

Emma wasn’t crying. She never cried in public. She knew people thought of her as idealistic, but no one had a clue she’d grown up with an alcoholic parent or anything else that was personally difficult. She’d learned at a young age to keep vulnerability out of sight. It was just…

Nothing seemed important right now. She couldn’t care less about gossip and Eastwick. Running the gallery and canceling wedding arrangements and all the other life chores she’d done that day had seemed beyond irrelevant. She couldn’t even garner any interest in facing the major life challenges and changes she had to because of losing the trust she’d counted on for so long.

“Oh, Emma…” Mary surged toward her and tried to pull her into a hug. “I understand. It hurts. It doesn’t matter who caused the breakup. Breaking up is always horrible. Whatever happened between you and Reed…”

“It’s not Reed,” she choked out.

“Yeah, right. Like your heart’s not broken?”

God, what a mess. Her heart was broken, for damn sure. But not over Reed.

Over Garrett.

Everything else might be life-altering and awful and painful. But the one thing she couldn’t imagine getting over was how completely she’d misjudged Garrett. She’d never fallen in love before. Never felt love. Not the way she did for him.

And to have him believe she’d pursued him to get an inheritance?

How could he know her so little? How could he think so little of her?

Garrett stood on the tarmac at the private airport in Eastwick, waiting for the Lear to slide to a smooth stop and the doors to finally open.

The sky was fat with muddy clouds, the rain coming down in a steady downpour-matching Garrett’s dark mood perfectly.

Still, when the lone passenger clipped down the metal steps from the plane, Garrett hustled toward him. His sister’s husband was stocky, with blond hair and weather-ruddy skin, wearing a tropical khaki jacket and chinos that looked well slept in.

“Griff.” Garrett extended a hand first. Both were private men and too strong-minded to be close friends, but all Garrett wanted from his sister’s husband right now was to be a full-fledged ally.

Griff’s expression seemed to echo the same sentiment. “I’m glad it was you who arranged for the private plane and had me picked up. I don’t understand what’s going on. Your parents haven’t told me anything except that Caro was in the hospital.”

“Let’s get out of the rain. Then we’ll talk.”

“I haven’t slept in almost thirty hours. But I still want to hear-”

“You will.” Garrett drove, taking the south road where the highway snaked around curves, revealing views of the pewter bay. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with the steady, slooshing rain.

They passed the road to the Cartright house. After that came the secluded nest of homes that included the Baldwin mansion. In town, even this early in the day, all the store lights and streetlamps were already on because of the dark storm. A crackle of lightning promised more of the same. When they passed the Farnsworth house, Griff finally spoke up.