An Accidental Woman (34 page)

Now he smiled and put out his hand. “I'm Griffin. And you're Camille.”

Camille Savidge was an attractive woman in her fifties, with chocolate-colored eyes, fair skin that remained dewy and smooth, and a head of gray hair that should have made her look older, but was so thick, long, and shiny with waves that it did not. She dressed simply—slacks, a blouse, a shawl—and in muted colors, but there was an elegance to her that set her apart, something in the dignified way she held herself, the measured way she spoke, the fact that she was a loner and preferred the background to center stage. In her own quiet way, as bookkeeper, accountant, and computer person, she was involved in the lives of half of Lake Henry.

That was what Charlie had told Griffin several mornings before, when Camille had whisked past them emerging from the office, heading down an aisle filled with cheeses, dips, and other appetizer-type goodies, and out the front door. Tonight was the first time Griffin and she had formally met.

“Do you have a minute?” Camille asked him.

Distant chatter came from the Back Room. Griffin had a few minutes yet. “Of course.”

“It's about Heather. I know that Cassie is donating her time, and they say that you're not charging either, but Micah is strapped. I have a kitty. If you need something, please let me know.”

Griffin wouldn't accept her offer, but he was touched. “That's very generous.”

“I've always liked Heather.”

“You already do a lot for Micah. He said you were going to work there tonight.”

“I did. We were checking the inventory—labels, bottles, jugs, and such—and trying to prioritize the bills, but he kept zoning out.”

“Oh, I've seen him do that,” Griffin confirmed, “not in the bush—he's all business out there—but when we're taking breaks for coffee or lunch. He's worried about Heather.”

“And exhausted. I don't think he sleeps.” She grew hesitant. “Does Heather have a chance of beating this?”

“I'll know more in a few days. I'm heading out tomorrow morning. There may be someone with new information.”

Camille seemed to want to ask more. After several seconds, though, she simply pressed her lips together and nodded.

Griffin, of course, was curious about Camille's involvement. “Did you know Micah's family?”

She raised both brows and smiled. “Oh yes. They were good people.”

“And his first wife?”

Camille reflected on that, then gave an eloquent one-shouldered shrug. “But Heather is a good person, too. I worked with her when she first came to town. I was happy when she and Micah got together. It was the right thing for both of them.”

Up to that point, Griffin had assumed that if Heather confided in anyone, it would be in Micah, or in Poppy or Cassie. It struck him now that he might have been wrong. “Are you close to Heather?”

Camille smiled. “We're good friends.”

“Do you know about her past?”

“She doesn't talk about that.”

“Were you surprised when all this happened?”

“Very. We didn't expect it. Micah certainly didn't. Now he feels so
much pressure. If I can lighten that any by helping you find something to help Heather, I want to do it. Will you let me know?”

Griffin nodded.

“Thank you,” she said and went off as quietly as she had come.

* * *

Flashing her an eager smile, he slipped into his chair just as the violin, viola, cello, and bass finished warming up. Then the fun began. Songs like “Yesterday,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” seemed made for strings, and this group played them well.

Poppy lost herself in the music. When they moved on to faster songs—“Here Comes the Sun,” “Eight Days a Week,” and “All You Need Is Love”—she kept time with a hand on the arm of her chair. And how not to sing along with the chorus of “Yellow Submarine”? She exchanged grins with Griffin any number of times, pleased to see him as involved as she was.

At the end of the first set, the quartet took a break, and chocolate chip cookies came around, warm, gooey, and sweet. Cassie and Mark went off to visit on the other side of the room, and the empty chairs must have been too much of a lure—that, or the townsfolk were feeling mellow, or they were just too curious to resist—because people started coming by to talk with Griffin.

Poppy wasn't surprised by the first of the questions. They reflected the ones she'd been getting on the phone. In a matter of days, Heather had gone from being wrongly accused, to being curiously silent, to being Lisa.

“Will she have to go back to California?” asked Amy Kreuger, who had gone to college in Santa Barbara before returning to run the family's poultry farm.

“Will she serve time?” asked Leila Higgins, who relied on Heather's presence at the library and wanted her back.

“Any chance she can beat it?” asked Charlie Owens' oldest son, Seth.

Then the discussion took a subtle shift, and the group around Poppy and Griffin grew, talking among themselves as much as to Poppy and Griffin. It was particularly true when Allison Quimby, head of the local realty office, got going with Anna Winslow, head of the textile mill.

“Heather's been nothing but honest and hardworking since she came here,” Anna said. “We all think that.”

“Not think it,” Allison amended. “Know it. We each have our Heather stories. She's gone out of her way to help all of us at one time or another.”

“Do you think she did that deliberately?” Anna asked. “Was she making up for what she did back in California?”

Allison waved an impatient hand. “I don't care what she did there.”

“That boy's family does.”

“But what about
now?
She's a different person. She's been living an upstanding life for fourteen years.”

“A
model
life for fourteen years,” Anna insisted. “So does a woman get credit for having reformed?”

“If you ask me,” Allison put in archly, “the crime would be wasting taxpayers' money to lock her up, when she's become a productive citizen. Is she a danger to society? I think not.”

Poppy
knew
not. Heather was everything good that they'd said—and yes, it ought to count for something. She had often wondered that about her own life, wondered whether the kind of responsible person she had been since the accident counted for something. She wanted to believe it did. She was more generous, more patient, more thoughtful. Was this a change in her basic nature, or simply a reaction to an accident? It didn't matter, she realized. The end result was the same. And for Heather, too. Poppy wondered whether the authorities in California would consider that.

She was about to ask Cassie's opinion, when the music started again. The tunes were more mellow now. “The Fool on the Hill” segued into “Eleanor Rigby,” which segued into “Hey Jude.” By popular demand, as so often happened in the Back Room, Lily was shouted up to the stage. She sang “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Yesterday.” When, despite raucous applause and Poppy's own wolf whistle, she refused to do another, the quartet launched into the more upbeat “Hello Goodbye” and
several couples began to dance in the perimeter of the room. Others followed them during “Here Comes the Sun,” with even more of the audience singing along.

Poppy sang. So did Griffin. When he caught her eye, though, she wasn't thinking about singing. She was remembering the way they had danced the night before. His look said he was game.

But she couldn't do it. Not here. Not in front of everyone. Once upon a time, she would have been front and center, leading the pack, dancing with whomever could keep up, but she couldn't do it now. She was different now. She couldn't escape that fact.

There was something else, though—something that was larger in her mind the longer Griffin held her gaze. What they had done together was private. It was sensual and arousing. She wanted to do it again. Very much. But not here.

The show ended with a prolonged version of “Let It Be,” and a particularly strong rendition it was. Before the song was halfway done, the better part of the audience was on its feet, swaying. By the time the last note had sounded, the applause was deafening.

Poppy applauded. So did Griffin. They waved to those who left first, said their own goodbyes, and went out to the Blazer. They didn't say much as Poppy drove home, and when they got there, he asked simply, “Can I come in?”

She was terrified. But she couldn't have kept him out if her life had depended on it.

He must have sensed her apprehension and known where they were headed, because by the time he came to her side to help her out, he said, “Let's go down to the lake first.”

She didn't ask how she would get there. Having danced with Griffin, she understood the mechanics. “It'll be cold,” she warned, but she figured that the cold was the point. There had been heat in that car, far beyond what the Blazer produced. He was slowing things down. She was grateful for that.

Reaching in, he tied her scarf around the collar of her jacket, then zipped his own and pulled on his earband. She pulled on gloves. He
pulled on gloves. Then he picked her up and carried her through the snow down to the lake.

It wasn't a smooth trip. The daytime sun had softened the snow, but the chill in the air now had refrozen the surface, so that with each step, his boot stayed flat for a second or two, then broke through and sank.

Poppy didn't complain. She hadn't been out on the lakeshore at night since the first snow of the season had come. “Any other season,” she said, “and I do this by myself. There's a dock and a system of ramps. I wheel myself down into the water, slip out of my chair, and swim off.”

“I bet you love doing that.”

“I love doing that.”

“I bet you're a good swimmer.”

“I'm a good swimmer.”

They reached the edge of the lake. Without shelter here, there was a light breeze. The moon peered through gnarled fingers of clouds, but, even at its dimmest, cast enough light for him to see. “Want to go out a little?”

She nodded vigorously. “You have to go down over some rocks. Here. That's it.”

He took the rocks like the pro he'd apparently become since staying on Little Bear, and once he was on the lake, the walking was easier. “I guess you'd have to be a good swimmer, growing up on a lake like this,” he remarked.

“Do you swim?”

“Sure do.”

“Where'd you learn?”

His mouth twitched. “At a club.” He looked at her as he walked. “I'd apologize for that, except it was a really nice club. Dining room, grill room, golf course, tennis courts, two swimming pools—”

“Two?”

“One for Pampers, one for Speedos.”

She grinned. “I can't picture you in a Speedo.”

He stopped walking. “I was really fast. I used to swim for the team there. Haven't done that in a while.”