A Stranger in Wynnedower (28 page)

“She did the best she
could, and so did I.”

He tried to speak
without inflection. “But she got rid of the trunk in the attic.”

She sipped her tea
before answering. “Again, she meant well. Maybe in addition to physical danger,
she was worried that I was holding onto the past.” She paused, then added, “I
continued going up there anyway, mostly in the fall and spring when the weather
was good, just to show…well, just to show her. It was a cozy place to read.”

Jack couldn’t hold back
a short laugh. “Stubborn.”

“Takes one to know
one.” She joined him in the laugh and started to gather the plates.

“With a much younger
brother to worry about, I can see why you took on so much responsibility.”

“True, but the
responsibility was also a blessing. When we lost our parents…without Jeremy, I
don’t know what would have happened. He gave me purpose, something to live for.”

He interrupted with a
snort. “Your own life wasn’t worth living for? Working for your own dreams?”
His voice softened. “Did you ever wonder what it would have been like to be the
younger one? The kid sister instead of the responsible one with all of the
headaches?”

Jack was shut away in
his painting studio.
Rachel knelt on the
bare floor of the library with her notes and other papers spread around. She
was hunched over her crude attempt at a floor plan, and wishing for a cushion
for her knees.

May appeared in the
open doorway. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“See me?” Another
workman for an estimate? “I can’t think of any appointments scheduled for
today.
”

“What do you have
there?” May leaned over, and her apron nearly brushed the floor. “A drawing of
the rooms?”

Rachel remembered she’d
resolved to include May. “A poor attempt, I’m afraid. Perhaps we could sit down
and go over it together.”

“Hmmph.” She
straightened and put her hands on her lower back. “Your visitor’s in the
foyer.” She walked away.

So much for
thoughtfulness.

She stood, found she’d
been sitting too long, and shook her legs to get the blood flowing.

“Nice dance.”

She stopped. Everything
stopped.

“Rachel? I know you’re
angry. I hope you’re still talking to me.”

Her body and brain felt
split in half. She wanted to yell in rage and also in joy. She spoke, and the
word sounded brittle. “Jeremy.”

“Sis?” He moved
forward, his arms extended as he crossed the room. “I’m sorry I worried you. I
thought I’d be back in plenty of time before you arrived.”

His blond hair was
longish and mussed. Lean as always, he stood tall. His jeans were faded and
worn. His shirt was wrinkled.

She asked, “Are you
okay?”

“Are you asking because
you’re going to jump me and pound on me if I say I’m okay? ‘Cause you
look…well, kind of crazy just now.” He stared down at his worn jeans and grimy
sneakers and added, “Not that I blame you.”

Cajolery? They were way
past that. “Don’t think you can tease me out of being angry. Do you have any
idea how much worry and inconvenience you’ve caused me and other people? All
because…. Why? Why did you run away?”

Judging by his
red-rimmed eyes, she suspected he’d come here first, perhaps directly from the
airport. The sharpest points of her ire smoothed a bit, but the hurt remained
strong.

“Run away? I didn’t. I
told the management company I was leaving. Moving out.”

“They said you didn’t
give notice.”

“Well, I did. I’ll
straighten that out later. The more important thing is what I didn’t do—I
didn’t tell you.” He fidgeted his arms. “This place echoes like crazy and gives
me the creeps. I always feel watched in here. Can we go outside? Maybe walk
down toward the river?”

“This way.” She led him
past the library and they paused at the French doors. She unhooked the key ring
from her belt loop and, from practice, deftly chose the correct key on the big
ring and unlocked them.

Jeremy eyed her
strangely. “You seem very comfortable here.”

She preceded him into
the conservatory and out to the terrace.

“Comfortable? Not
really, but it’s hardly surprising that I know my way around the place. I’ve
been here a month. Day in, day out.”

“Did you get that job
you talked about? The one at the museum?”

She shook her head and
watched her footing as she stepped down to the grass. “No, it evaporated. I
stayed here anyway, waiting for you.”
And you all but evaporated from my
life, too. After everything I’ve done
. She stopped that thought.

“You’ve given up a lot
for me, Rachel.” He stared down the slope to the river beyond. “I’d give almost
anything not to have this conversation with you. The last thing I ever wanted
to do was disappoint you.”

“That’s why you didn’t
call? Not because you didn’t think. You knew I was coming to visit. You were
afraid to face me. Is that right?”

“Afraid? Maybe.” He
stopped and looked at her. “Not afraid of you. Afraid of
hurting
you. I
don’t want you to regret everything you’ve done for me. I don’t want you to
regret your life.”

He reached out to touch
her shoulder, and she moved away. He followed in silence until she broke it.

“So, no graduate
school?”

“No.” He stopped at the
crest of the hill and dropped down to the grass. “Sis, I walked away from
graduation knowing I didn’t want to sit in another class for a very long time,
if ever. The thought of it—but I didn’t know how to tell you. It was what you
wanted. What you’d always worked so hard for. I thought, once upon a time, I
wanted it, too. How could I—well, it would be like trashing everything you did
for me. All those years and all that money.” He leaned over and took her hand.
“I’m grateful, but I can’t live your life and mine at the same time, and I
wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

But you would for
another woman?
She banished that
thought, too. It was unworthy and unfair. She sat beside him and examined his
face.

In his clear, golden
eyes and gentle smile, she recognized the same Jeremy she’d cared for, bossed
around, worried over, and sacrificed for. Somewhere along the way, things had
changed. She put her elbows on her knees and grasped her arms.

“I want you to live
your own life, but I don’t want you to make mistakes. It’s not easy, sometimes
it’s impossible, to go back and undo regrets—to make it right.” She laid her
head on her forearms and stared down at the blades of grass.

“Rachel.” He drew in a
deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Let me put it his way: there are two
scenarios. In number one, I go on to grad school and pass the CPA exam. I get a
job and go to work every day and, hopefully, do well and get ahead. Or, in the
second scenario, I stop my formal education for a while, maybe forever, and I
propose to the woman I love. We take over the outfitting store her dad turned
over to her, and live in the Rockies with the fir trees and the aspens. In our
spare time, she pursues photography, which she’s already pretty successful
with, and I get to hang out where the sky is as vivid as a sapphire, the air is
crisp and clear, and where I can feel the earth, not pavement beneath my feet.”

Sapphire, indeed.
Bah.
Rachel kept her head down, squeezing the moisture back into her eyes,
and let the silence draw out. The grass smelled good here, too, and the
Virginia sky was a deep and forever blue. But Jeremy was in love. Without the
woman he loved, sky was just sky; earth was just dirt.

“Okay.” She lifted her
head from her arms and stared straight ahead.

“No hard feelings?”

She scooted nearer, and
he put his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against him. Maybe
peaceful, mostly spent—a simple surrender to the inevitable.

“Do I get to meet her?”
She sniffled.

He pulled her closer in
a hug. “Her name is Lia Drake. She’s smart and clever like you.”

“Flatterer. Only the
facts, please.”

“Her eyes are green,
and her hair is short and white-blonde. She likes hiking and camping.”

“You enjoy those
things? You never did before.”

“I never did them
before. You were a great sister-mom, but not a nature or sports gal.” He
laughed. “Remember when you came to my soccer game? When they wanted to
continue playing in the rain, you were outraged. Remember how you held that
newspaper over your head, yelled at the ref and got thrown from the field?”

“I embarrassed you.”

“Yes, but in
retrospect, it’s a really funny story.”

“Brute.” She punched
him in the arm. “Have you made a joke of me to your true love?”

“Not possible. There is
no one brave enough to cross you. And if that foolhardy person does exist and
tried, I would take them apart. Rachel, what about you?”

“Me? I suppose I have
to accept your choice. I did what I could. No, I don’t mean it like that. We
both did the best we could. Even Aunt Eunice.” Her tone sounded forlorn, and
she didn’t want that. “We all did our best after mom and dad died.” Rachel
stood and brushed the loose grass from her shorts. “No more of that.” She waved
her hand at a fluttery insect hovering near her ear.

“That’s not what I
meant. I’m talking about you and your life. You put your dreams off to take
care of me. Now what will you do? Please don’t go back to that inventory job.”

“Don’t change the
subject. I want to talk about you. Tell me the truth, Jeremy. When you told me
you wanted to be independent and manage your own tuition and other expenses,
you knew you weren’t going back to school. Am I right? You did that so I
wouldn’t figure out you weren’t going back, maybe not until it was too late to
do anything about it. Would you have told me the truth then?”

“I didn’t intend to
wait until now to tell you. I did want it to be face to face. I thought I’d be back
sooner. You got here early; I got here late.”

“So when do you return
to Lia?”

 “Soon. When I believe
you’re okay. Why are you hiding away here in this big old house? Not waiting
for me, I hope?”

She wrapped her arm in
his. “Well, I had that vacation time I needed to use, and this is quite a
tourist destination. Sun and fun at Wynnedower On-The-James.”

“Seriously.”

“I was waiting for you,
but after I knew you were okay, I could’ve gone home, although I did still have
hope of that museum job at the time. I got involved with the house and with
Jack.”

“Jack? Involved?”

“Wynne. The owner. Your
former employer whom you left in a lurch? He had to return to Wynnedower sooner
than planned because you left. I met him when I came looking for you.”

“You say that a bit too
casually. You forget how well I know you, Sis.”

“That so? Then you
should know I’m not a monster, and you should’ve been more up front with me.”
They walked back up to the terrace. “Speaking of monsters…well, not a
monster…but I met your friend, David Kilmer.”

“David…?”

“Yes, Kilmer.” She sat
on the brick wall. “You can’t have forgotten him. He’s memorable in his own
way. He said he was a friend of yours. Well, sort of a friend.”

Jeremy settled on the
wall next to her.

“Kilmer? You mean the
guy who came around with that crazy story about a lost love? I told him to get lost.”

“He wasn’t at least an
acquaintance? He talked as if you two were friendly.”

Jeremy snorted. “Not
likely.”

“Then I’m confused.”

“Rachel, why would he
tell you anything anyway? Is he still coming around here? Is he bothering you?”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed.

Was he protective? Of
her? She liked it. “He’s been here a few times.”

“I ran him off and
forgot about him. He’s been far from my mind for this past month.”

“Been thinking of other
things, huh?”

His smile turned sweet
again. “Well, yeah. But what about you? Sounds like some strange characters are
hanging around here. When you asked about Kilmer, at first I thought you were
asking about the other guy. Younger than Kilmer, about my age. Works at the
garage out on the main road.”

“Brendan, maybe? He’s
Mike’s younger brother. Why do you ask?”

“He was always showing
up to do odd jobs, or so he said. Didn’t seem very productive. More snooping
than anything else.”

“He works around the
house and some house-sitting, too, for Jack.”

“Jack, again. Did you
notice your voice does a funny bump when you say his name?”

“A bump?”

“Yeah, like a little
Ja-ack.” He mimicked a flirty belle. “How sweet.”

“Stop it. Between you
and Daisy, you should open a match-making service.”