Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey (18 page)

I’d seen ice, I’d seen sleet, and one memorable January we’d had three inches of snow and been out of school for two and a half days. But I’d never in my life seen white stuff this deep, probably six to eight inches. I knew from what Martin had said about his childhood that it was likely this snow wouldn’t melt for weeks, but only be deepened by subsequent storms.

The sky was an oppressive leaden gray, just like yesterday. It seemed quite probable to me that—amazing though the thought was—it was going to snow again. If we’d been on a vacation in a ski lodge with lots of fireplaces and smiling servers, that would’ve been one thing. But out here in Farm Country, with the fireplace in the living room that at least also served our bedroom upstairs, we’d have to do a lot of the fetching and carrying if our electricity went out. The other rooms would be icy. I made a mental note to use the stove to prepare as many bottles of formula as I could, while I had the wherewithal.

Since I wanted to stay close enough for the monitor to work, I’d been tramping around the house in a circle. I’d noted with relief that there was a woodpile in the western side yard, the one furthest from the road, and I’d even brushed some of the snow off the wood to check that the pile was as large as it seemed.

But as I prepared to slog off and finish my circuit, I spied something I hadn’t noticed earlier.

There were other footprints in the snow, prints that had been made some time in the night, since they were half filled in. Though it was a little hard to tell the heel end from the toe end, there was no mistaking these prints for deer tracks, or the trail of any other kind of wildlife.

Feeling like Hawkeye, I visually followed the marks. The prints approached the front-facing kitchen window from the south, across the fields, and then circled the house; just like my path, but closer to the windows, so the owner of the prints could look into the rooms.

Or maybe the steps left and returned? But that was crazy. Why would Martin climb out the window to leave the house? He’d entered at the back porch door this morning. I could see his tracks, still crisp and clear, and I recognized the tread of his boots. He’d come out that back door, tromped over to an oak tree, walked even further west away from the road, rotated in a tight circle to take in the view, and made his way back to the same door.

I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat.

Someone else had been lurking around the farmhouse. I tried like hell to think of another reasonable—or even unreasonable—explanation, but I could think of none, not a single damn one.

The snow had done such a great job of cheering up Martin that I hated to deflate his balloon.

But I decided I had to tell him about the tracks. I cut short my expedition and stomped my boots on the back steps as Martin had done, leaving mine on the little rug where his had rested earlier, right inside the door. On the kitchen counter close to the dining table, Martin had left the little Corinth phone book open to the yellow pages (Car Dealerships) and I spared a moment to be deeply thankful that Regina and Craig had had phone service.

The man who answered agreed to go see if Karl and Martin had made it into town yet.

“Yes?” Martin asked crisply, after a lengthy pause. He was using his business voice.

“Martin, someone was outside during the night,” I told him.

This was what I loved about Martin. He didn’t say, “Are you sure?” or “That’s ridiculous!”

He asked, “How did you find out?”

After I described the footprints and my line of reasoning, there was another appreciable pause.

“I guess the light wasn’t good enough this morning for me to notice the tracks. You’re locked up now?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Baby asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then go upstairs, look in my suitcase, and get out the gun.”

“Okay.” Jeez, I hated guns. But I was scared enough to listen.

“It’s loaded. You remember how I showed you how to take off the safety, how to fire?”

“Yes.”

“If the footprints are blurry, there’s nothing to worry about. Whoever made them is long gone. But just in case, it would be good if you had the gun handy. Wouldn’t it make you feel better?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay, now. You call the woman who was over last night, Margaret what’s-her-name, see if she can come stay with you. I’m going to do a couple things here in town and then I’ll be right back out.”

“Okay.” What could he have to do in town? Maybe Martin had thought of something to improve the farm’s security. What we needed out here was a large ferocious barking dog, I decided.

After a few more exchanges, we hung up. I hightailed it up the stairs and rummaged through Martin’s suitcase for his automatic. I hated to even touch the thing, but stronger than that loathing was the desire to protect myself and the baby in this Ohio farmhouse.

Thirty minutes later, I was feeling much more secure. Martin’s Ruger was near at hand but not obvious, stashed in an otherwise empty drawer in the kitchen, and Margaret Granberry, who’d been glad to come over, was having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. She was also holding Hayden, who of course had woken up just as I was saying hello to Margaret.

I was ready to take him from her to give him his bottle.

“I’ll do it,” she volunteered.

Oddly enough, I almost told her no. No, to the first offer of help I’d had with this baby. I had actually opened my mouth to demur, to say that I was used to it, to protest that this was my job.

I forced myself to smile and say, “Here.”

Margaret pushed the coffee cup all the way across the table so she wouldn’t spill hot liquid on the baby by some accident, and took Hayden gently in her arms. I’d shaken the bottle and tested the formula, so I handed it to her and she began to feed him.

“Have you had children yourself?” I asked, relaxing when it was evident the baby was fine.

She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t want to give you more of our history than you want, but Luke and I have been married for ten years. The first few years, we could afford hospitalization insurance, so getting fertility testing was just out of the question. About three years ago, Luke’s mom passed away, and she left her money in a trust fund for us. But by that time . . . I’m quite a bit older than Luke, and though we went on with the fertility testing, we didn’t have much hope.

Rightly, as it turned out.”

Almost happy to have company in my predicament, since it made me feel not so inadequate, I told Margaret. “I’m not fertile, either.” When she seemed interested, I told her about my unpleasant experiences with a top gynecologist in Atlanta, and Martin’s indifference to our having our own baby. Suddenly I realized how much I was saying, and I apologized. “I don’t like to talk about my reproduction problems at home,” I said wryly. “It’s like people know I failed, and they look at you like you’re lacking something. Getting pregnant is so easy for so many women.”

Margaret shifted Hayden slightly, held up the bottle to see how much was left. Hayden protested, and she smiled and slid the nipple back in his mouth. “Luke can’t understand how women can talk about something as personal as fertility problems,” Margaret said. The cold sun lit her red hair until it almost seemed to give off warmth. “It does seem strange to think that in this day and age there are some medical problems beyond fixing.”

“I know,” I agreed fervently. “You keep thinking that this can’t be an end of it, there must be something else they can do. If they can accomplish so much in other fields, why can’t they fix you so you can have a baby?”

“Martin was married before, right? To the Cindy who runs the flower shop?”

“Martin has a grown son. You might not know if you haven’t been living in Corinth that long, but Barrett’s an actor. He’s got a recurring guest spot on one of those nighttime soap operas.

That’s why I think Martin had a kind of ‘been there, done that,’ attitude about having another baby.”

Margaret nodded. “It’s snowing again,” she observed, glancing out the curtainless window before turning her attention back to Hayden.

“I’m ready for Martin to get back. I live in the country at home, but somehow the snow makes this place feel even more isolated,” I confessed, thinking I sounded pretty whiney and should probably shut my mouth. Growing up in the same general area, maybe Margaret was accustomed to the deafening silence of the snowfall. Had it been very lonely for her out here?

“Did you see Craig and Regina much?” I asked.

“Not at first,” she answered, after a moment. “We’re so much older, and they were newlyweds. And Luke and I are both busy. But they got bored playing house after a while, and then we saw them more and more.”

“What did you think of the marriage?”

“That’s a big question.” Margaret Granberry hunched her head to her shoulder to push her flaming hair back behind her ear while she continued to feed the baby. “Were—are—you and Regina close?”

“No. I hardly know her.”

“In that case . . . I’ll tell you, I never could quite figure out why Regina and Craig got married. Their friend Rory was here all the time, and between you and me, I think there was something of a ménage a trois going on ... strange though that is to think of in Ohio farming country!” She laughed, and I tried to politely join in.

Margaret noticed my lack of enthusiasm. “I’m sorry,” she said, a smile belying her contrite words. “We tried that Missionary Bible Church last weekend, and the people there were so fire-and-brimstone, the contrast with our lovebirds out here was really sharp.”

“Martin’s parents went to that church,” I said. “At least, his stepfather made Martin and Barby go after he married their mother. They had a terrible experience there.”

“I heard about it from one of the women in my book readers’ club,” Margaret said. “His sister Barbara, Barby? She got pregnant, right? and they drove her out. I hope you don’t mind me bringing it up. It’s a famous piece of local history.”

“That was after Martin’s mother died, and Barby was just sixteen or fifteen, very young. Isn’t it just bitter, when you can’t conceive, how easily other women can?” I made myself drop that line of whine. “Martin’s stepdad got up in front of the church and denounced Barby and asked the congregation to pray for her.”

“What happened?” Margaret’s light eyes were bright with interest.

“Martin punched out his stepfather,” I admitted. “Then he joined the army.”

“What happened to his sister?”

“She was put in a home for unwed mothers, I believe.” When Martin told me the story, and it was one he hated to remember, it was because he was explaining why his family farm was in the hands of a man who hated him.

“You don’t know the rest of the story?”

“No. Martin was hazy on that part, because he had left for boot camp. I never had the nerve to ask Barby. She and I aren’t good friends. Besides which, I know that had to have been terribly painful.”

“Giving up your baby? I can’t imagine that.”

“But then, what kind of childhood would that baby have had in a household run by Joseph Flocken? Mothered by a sixteen-year-old?”

“Good points. Ones I should’ve considered, since my own husband was an adopted child. His parents were just great.”

“I’m glad for him. It must be a consolation, to know you were wanted enough to be selected over others.”

Margaret shrugged.

“Where do you think the footprints lead?” I asked, standing up to look out the side window. I hadn’t wanted to frighten Margaret, but it would have been wrong to ask her to come over because I was anxious without telling her why.

“Unless they go across the fields all the way to our farm, I think they’ll end in that little grove of trees in that hollow,” she said. She’d gotten up with Hayden propped upright on her shoulder, and she was patting him so he’d burp.

“Why?”

“Because that’s the only place big enough to hide a truck or car,” Margaret said practically.

I hadn’t thought about it, but if a prowler didn’t want to freeze his booty off, he’d have to have come in a vehicle, and that vehicle would have had to be parked somewhere unobtrusive.

My neighbor was right.

“So how did the car, if there was one, get to the grove?”

“There’s a little turnoff from the highway there, and a dirt lane runs between the fields.”

“Oh,” I said lamely. Margaret knew her local geography. “Is that your land?”

“That’s the boundary between the farms. Regina would walk from there and back to the house every day. I guess she was exercising because she was pregnant.”

“And you really didn’t suspect?”

Margaret looked embarrassed. “I never said I didn’t know, exactly. I guess I did think she was expecting. But I had no idea she was as far along as she was.” Margaret wrinkled her classic nose. “I guess now ... I should have asked her about it. But I didn’t think it was any of my business. The past three months, I didn’t see her to talk to that often. Where shall I put the baby?” Hayden had fallen asleep.

“I’ll carry him up.” Margaret eased the baby over to me, and I carefully navigated the stairs with his heavy little body clutched to my chest. My guest had helped herself to another cup of coffee by the time I came back down. She was looking out the window of the living room, and I joined her. The Granberry’s dark green Dodge pickup was parked to one side of the front door, and we stood side by side contemplating it. Margaret was about eight inches taller than I, and broad shouldered, but there was an air of feyness, of frailty, about her.