Blue Willow (25 page)

His restless attention moved to the pasture beyond the shrubbery, then to the barn. Lily obsessed him. Wanting her was like walking into a dark, unfamiliar room and immediately, without rational explanation, knowing how to find the light.

Artemas stepped into the yard, dropped to his heels by a spigot, and filled his hands with frigid well water. He scrubbed his face roughly, wishing the icy sting would jolt his good sense.

To throw away the alliance he’d made with Glenda’s father meant ruin for all his hopes of building the Colebrook businesses. It meant ruin for his family’s future. Yes, his commitment to Glenda DeWitt had been conceived in necessity rather than choice, but he’d promised himself he’d never hurt her, and that vow was all that had saved his self-respect.

You could have Lily too
, a rebellious inner voice whispered.
Who would blame you for rewarding yourself
?

Bile rose in his throat. That was an option his father would have chosen without a qualm. An arrangement that would degrade Lily, even if she agreed to it, which Artemas doubted she ever would. He thought about their seven-year age difference. He hadn’t been naive at eighteen, and neither was she. She’d see his dilemma for what it was—a coldblooded choice. He’d chosen to build something for his family, and he would never sacrifice that.

Artemas slammed a fist onto his knee. He had spent the night weighing his options against reality, and reality had won.

He left the yard at a fast walk. When he reached the barn, he climbed the weathered ladder to the loft without any attempt at being quiet.
Wake up, we have a lot to do
, he’d tell her, as if she were just an accessory to his day’s schedule.

But he hoisted himself over the top rung and halted, looking at her still asleep on the loft’s golden mat of hay. She was curled up on her side, colorful quilts jumbled
over her, her bright red hair splayed across a pillow. One arm was curled around some kind of gray coat; the other was flung out on the hay, the hand unfurled and vulnerable, as if reaching toward him. Her face was poignantly relaxed. For the first time he could imagine how she must look with a carefree smile, or laughing.

The sight of her unleashed an ache of loss and longing in his chest. He glanced around the loft, trying to distract the feeling. To his left, beside a mountain of neatly stacked bales of hay, sat a large open box. He pulled it to him, hoping the rustling sounds would make her wake up. She stirred, hugged the odd coat closer to her chest, but continued sleeping.

Artemas exhaled in defeat. Without caring, he glanced down into the box. The stuffed toy bears brought a vague sense of recognition. He pulled them out one by one, piling them on the floor by his knees, and when his hand touched the box’s bottom, he felt a small bag filled with sharp edges. He lifted it out and stared in astonishment.

Through the clear plastic he saw his insignia from the military academy. The nameplate, the cadet-commander emblem, even the gold braid from the collar and cuffs. Suddenly he realized that the stuffed bears were the ones he’d given her over the years. Staring at her again, he studied the faded gray coat and knew what it was—his academy jacket.

A mouse scurried along a rafter overhead, dislodging the brittle clay remnant of an insect’s home. The crumbled bits fell on her face, and she jerked upright, disheveled and looking around wildly. Hay clung to her hair and the T-shirt she still wore from yesterday.

When she saw him, she flinched in surprise. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes unguarded as they swept over him. It was a provocative examination, taking in a new image of him in jogging shoes and old jeans with a faded football jersey tucked into them. They were all he’d brought with him in the rush to catch a flight out of New York.

Finally she noticed the items in front of him on the
floor, darted a horrified gaze at him, then bounded over. Sitting on her bare feet with her wrinkled shorts hiked high around her thighs—a view that did his simmering frustration no good—she scooped the bears into her lap and began shoving them back into the box. “Old things,” she muttered, her voice high. “I meant to get rid of ’em.”

She grimaced at the packet of insignia he still held in one hand. Artemas dropped it into the box. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sorry.” He hesitated. His life was a maze of hidden needs, small human wishes and dreams he couldn’t indulge. He wanted this time with her to be his, just his, with as little deception as possible. “I’m not sorry,” he corrected. Her astonished gaze flashed up to his somber one. “I like knowing that you kept all of it.”

“Oh, Artemas.” Her voice was soft, but more distressed than pleased. Rubbing her hands over her face, she sighed and shook her head. “I put it all away after the night you came to visit.”

“Why?”

Her chin jutted forward. He recognized that lockjawed, stubborn look. It was as familiar to him as his own. She wasn’t about to tell him, unless he pressed. When she moved as if starting to rise, he reached out and tugged gently on her hand. She stared at his hold on her for a moment, flexed her fingers around his careful grip, then settled down again, looking defeated. Artemas casually let go of her, as if it were easy, and draped his arm over one updrawn knee.

She told him what had happened to her that night, how a boy she’d trusted had mauled her, how ashamed she’d been, how she’d hidden outside the house, listening miserably as her parents and Artemas had talked, then watching him leave. Artemas studied her reddening cheeks and deceptively shuttered eyes. She might not realize it, but she radiated guilt, even now. Guilt because she thought her story would disgust him, that she’d been foolish and gullible, deserving some blame.

Humiliating memories of his own flooded back. A haze of fury misted his vision and made him light-headed. He
moved next to her without a second thought, and put both arms around her. “I’m just going to hold you,” he said. Self-restraint coiled inside him, choking off all possibility that he’d do more.

She gave a fervent little nod, as if she couldn’t bear to hope otherwise. Slowly she leaned against him, curled her legs to one side, and shut her eyes. He kept his head up, staring fixedly at the beautiful morning outside the loft door. Then he told her what had happened to him when he was fourteen.

As he described how Mrs. Schulhorn had confused and shamed him with her drunken groping, he felt Lily stiffening with shock. He glanced at her anxiously. She wrenched back from him a little, her face tilting up to his gaze, livid. Her teeth were bared. “That
bitch.
” Her voice was low and deadly serious. “I wish she were here. I wish I could beat the ever-lovin’
shit
out of her.”

Her fury on his behalf had a strange effect. It voided the ugly memory, the feeling of having been used, victimized. Because Lily really would have beat the shit out of Mrs. Schulhorn.

Before he knew why he needed to, he was laughing. Throwing back his head and laughing—with relief, with delight, with lurid disdain for people who thought they had the power to humiliate him, or Lily

“You think I’m
kidding
?” Lily asked in a low, strained voice. Glowing with pleasure, he looked down at her and shook his head. She scrutinized him. “That’s not a smile on your face,” she said. “It’s exposed fangs.”

He exhaled. It was a soft hiss of threat. His lips barely moved. “I want that boy’s throat between my hands. I want to break his neck.”

Her face lit up. “Really?”

“The last thing I’d let him do is gurgle an apology to you. So there’d be no doubt in your mind that you weren’t to blame for what happened.”

He saw his own brand of giddy relief rising in her eyes. Tentatively at first, then with a snap of certainty. “You’d
crack his neck like a wishbone?” she inquired, arching one brow expectantly.

“He’d look like an accordion.” Her absurdity captivated him. He asked slyly, “And you’d punch her until she squealed?”

“I’d give her more dents than an old Chevy.”

“I’d break all his fingers.”

“I’d stomp on her head.”

On some unspoken cue they scrambled to their knees, grasped each other by the shoulders, and swayed, pushing and pulling vigorously. “Kick his ass black and blue.” “
Twist her nipples off!
” They were shoving at each other, as joyous as wild children. “Rip his stomach open and spit in his guts!” “
Slap her till her eyes popped!
” “Jerk his arms into pretzels!” “
Pull out her eyelashes one by one!
” “I can’t think of any more!” “
Neither can I! And I’m gettin’ seasick!
”

Shouting with elation like battle-fatigued soldiers, they leaned against each other and sat down limply. The laughter trickled away, punctuated by a spontaneous new outburst here and there, as they leaned. against each other. Artemas wiped his eyes. Lily patted her stomach and took deep breaths.

The fragile mood settled and darkened, until they were both silent. A soft, heated breeze curled inside the barn. Artemas turned his face into it gratefully, glancing at Lily as he did. She looked both pensive and peaceful, which was how he felt too. “Thank you,” she said, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“Thank you.”

One sleeve of her shirt was jammed up to her shoulder. His closeness to her let him notice the thin white scar there. It made a horizontal stripe along the smooth, tanned skin dusted with freckles. A jolt of recognition made him grimace. Artemas twisted toward her a little and touched his fingertips to it. “Is this where you were shot?” he asked gruffly.

She followed his intense gaze. “War wound,” she said, and jerked the sleeve over it.

“It is where you were shot. When you pretended to be
a bear to chase someone out of the woods around the estate.”

“You remember.” She smiled sadly.

“Lily, I loved your letters.”

He had done the wrong thing, bringing that subject up. Her face became grim. “Until you stopped readin’ them.”

“That was a mistake. Maybe I thought … I’m not what you want me to be. You were writing to someone you believed in, and it wasn’t fair to you.”

“Because you have a lover.”

“Because there isn’t much innocence in my life anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just believe this—I care about you. I always have. I always will.”

She started to say something, but it seemed to catch in her throat. Her face softened, not forgiving, but resigned. “I believe you,” she said, swallowing hard. She got to her feet and went to the forgotten cardboard box. Kneeling beside it, she shoved the flaps down and wrestled them shut. Her mouth was set; her hands moved swiftly.

She pushed the box aside as if afraid he’d ask more questions about her reasons for keeping everything he’d ever sent her, then settled her hands in her lap and leveled a somber gaze at him. “The man who shot me is going to live here now.”

When he didn’t say anything, her shoulders sagged, and she looked away. Artemas fought the emotion rusting his throat. “I’ll do everything I can to prevent that,” he told her.

“You can’t stand losing, can you?”

“No. And I doubt you can either.”

“Maybe we’re two of a kind. Maybe that’s our worst problem.” She rose and hurried past him, then climbed swiftly down the ladder.

Artemas moved to the edge of the loft door and watched her walk to the house.
Two of a kind
echoed in his thoughts.

Thirteen

Lily stood beside him in the shallow parking lot in front of a line of businesses in town, looking up grimly at the large, handsome old building that was Mr. Estes’s hardware and feed store.

The vast whitewashed front porch was lined with gleaming new lawn mowers and wheelbarrows for sale. The pair of shallow steps that led up to the porch were made of gleaming marble blocks. Row after row of bedding plants—tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and much more—were stacked on big bleachers at either end of the porch.

The store’s shingled roof came to a peak above a pristine red-and-white sign that said,
ESTES FARM AND HARDWARE SUPPLIES, ESTABLISHED 1946.

The double wooden doors were shut. A large, hand-lettered sign hung on the screened doors in front of them:
CLOSED—ILLNESS
.

Lily’s shoulders sagged with disappointment. Artemas had gotten her psyched up for victory, not this. He frowned at the sign, cursed under his breath, but squeezed her arm in reassurance. They looked at the half-dozen empty parking spaces on either side of her old Jeep. “We’ll try again tomorrow,” he said.

Lily spotted Little Sis coming out of a small vacant shop up the street. Her brindled hair was done in a French braid. A brooch snugged a funky red-velvet jacket to her waist. A long print skirt billowed around her legs, and she tapped one earth-shoe-clad foot impatiently as she stopped to converse with her companion. Pudgy Mr. Ledbetter, the placid little man who’d owned the block of buildings as long as Lily could remember, shook Little Sis’s hand.

“She’s making some kind of deal,” Lily said.

“How can you tell?”

“That’s how she dresses when she’s serious.”

“My God.”

“Come on. Maybe she knows what happened to Mr. Estes.”

When they walked up, Little Sis squinted from Lily to Artemas and distractedly waved good-bye to Mr. Ledbetter, who drove off in an old yellow Cadillac. “I’m renting this shop,” she announced. “And I’m moving in with Maude and Big Sis.”

Lily explained to Artemas. “Big Sis started living with Aunt Maude this past winter. Uncle Wesley died last year, and Aunt Maude was lonely.”

“Wesley was never home anyway,” Little Sis interjected tartly. “He had a stroke and fell off his bass boat. Drowned with the bass swimming around him. I say it was poetic justice.” Little Sis tilted her head back and eyed Artemas.

“Good morning,” he said politely.

“May the Force be with you,” she shot back.

Lily intervened quickly. “What are you going to do with this shop?”

“Sell books and such. New Age. This town needs an alternative to reality There are a lot of tourists now. They’ll buy.” Little Sis waved her hands, dismissing the subject as if it were beside the point. “You came to town to see Mr. Estes?”