Harmony (47 page)

Few. None.

If she told him how she felt . . . maybe . . .

Edwina shook her head and turned her back to the heater to warm her backside. Gazing at the high ceiling, she tried to think. People in love could, if they had to, work around their differences, their financial difficulties. It happened. But was it fair to bring that sort of trouble into a marriage? And who was talking marriage?

Biting her lip, Edwina walked toward her desk, but she stopped short when the closet door opened and Tom came into the schoolroom.

“Morning, Edwina.”

A blush heated her face and neck. In the light of morning, and having gotten over the horror she'd felt at having sold those athletic supporters, she felt embarrassed by Saturday's wanton behavior.

“Tom.” His name felt soft on her lips.

Neither said anything further. They stood staring at one another, as if each had something to say but dared not say it. The crackle of the heater's fire took over the room in place of their unspoken words.

Then Tom shoved his hands into his pockets and took on an exaggerated pose of relaxation. “About the other night,” he began, and she got the strange feeling that
her world was about to fall in around her. “I don't think what happened on the counter should be repeated.”

Chills prickled Edwina's skin. “What do you mean? That we shouldn't make love anymore? Or just not on the counter?”

“I mean that this isn't working out.” His gaze was deadly serious.

Edwina's blood began to pound in her head. Her stomach churned. It was as if she'd lived this already . . . another time . . . another place. No, that wasn't fair. This was different. She'd been in control. Hadn't she? Why, then, did it hurt so badly? “If you want to see other women . . .”

“Oh, hell, Edwina, it's nothing like that. I want—”

But he couldn't say the rest because Hildegarde Plunkett and Ruth Edward came through the door.

“Good morning, Miss Edwina,” Hildegarde said.

Ruth followed suit with distinct enunciation. “Good morning, Miss Edwina.”

“Good morning, girls,” she replied, torn between her duties to her students and the unfinished conversation hanging between her and Tom.

Tom brought his voice down to a whisper. “We'll take care of this this afternoon after two.”

She nodded, then he left through the front door just as Johannah Treber came in, stomping snow from her shoes on the mat at the threshold.

The rest of the morning and the afternoon traveled as slowly as a snail through a garden. Edwina could barely concentrate on the lessons. She repeated them, she spoke, she read, but she couldn't remember doing any of it. At last, when the small clock on her desk chimed the hour twice, she dismissed the girls and then waited for Tom to return. She took up scissors and began making paper snowflakes to put up in the windows, needing to occupy her hands lest she rise from her chair, fling the door to the store open, throw herself in Tom's arms, and tell him she was mistaken in her casual attitude on this relationship. Tell him to give her one more chance.
That nothing in the world meant anything unless he could share it with her.

With her head down, she snipped and clipped little pieces and slashes in the folded paper. When the door opened, she started, looked up with a smile of relief that he had finally come . . . then froze. Froze as if she had seen a ghost, a remnant from Halloween . . . but in reality, a remnant from her past.

He stood there, as dashing and dapper as she recalled him to be, his blond hair combed over his ears and neatly styled beneath a smart, square-crowned hat, the same tidy mustache, distinctive jaw, and golden brows. His strong face was unchanged except for the faint lines at the corners of his chocolate-brown eyes. The glossy fur on his calf-length seal coat gleamed from the sunlight that streamed in through the windows. Rich leather gloves encased his lean fingers.

Edwina went speechless and still. He stepped forward, and she had the strangest urge to run—run to Tom. . . .

“Hello, Edwina.” His voice, low and silvery, sounded too honeyed to her. She was used to a resonant baritone.

Swallowing the shock that had lodged in her throat, she said, “Hello, Ludie.”

“The woman who works at the restaurant said I'd find you here.” He doffed his hat and tucked it beneath his arm.

Chaotic emotions ran rampant through Edwina. She had a dozen questions to ask him, namely what are you doing here? She'd never thought she'd see him again, have to relive the humiliation of his telling her he could no longer see her. The pain had faded, but the wound, she quickly found out, was still there. It had scarred, but it ached nonetheless, reminding her of the pain she had endured.

In the midst of the tumult of her thoughts, one unknown rose above the rest: had Ludlow come to reclaim her?

Last summer, she would have gone to his arms and taken him back. But today . . . she was different. She
didn't have the same passionate feelings for him as she'd had when she'd been in college. There
were
feelings inside her . . . but they were ones of caution and unease—tread lightly, be wary, don't trust.

“What brings you to Montana?” she ventured to say after the lapse of deadly quiet that surrounded them seemed to go on for an eternity.

“Just passing through.” Then he motioned to the ladder-back chair beside her desk. “May I?”

“Oh . . .” She flushed, then fumbled with the snowflake trimmings that sat in a pile before her. He meant to stay a while. Did she want him to? No . . . yes, in a way. She hadn't seen him in so long. There had been times she'd imagined that he came back into her life and she'd treated him as shabbily as he'd treated her. But she couldn't do it to him now. His casting her off had been his mother's idea; still, he should have been man enough to make up his own mind. “Certainly.”

He pulled the chair out and reclined his modest frame, setting his hat on her desk beside the book on matrimony. Her glance bounced briefly between the two, thinking it a queer irony.

Brown eyes, the ones she had once lost herself in, pulled at her attention and she gazed at him. He gave her an obvious perusal while smiling fondly. “You look lovely, Edwina. Never more so. It must agree with you to be home.”

Being home had nothing to do with how she looked. If there was an air of beauty about her, Tom had put it there.

“So . . . you're a teacher now.” He glanced over his padded coat shoulder out the window. “The sign says this is a finishing school. How grand. But I'd hoped you would use your accounting degree.”

“I will be when I . . .” She didn't complete the thought.
When I go to Denver.
But she didn't want to go anymore. “There aren't many—if any—careers for female accounting clerks in Harmony.”

“A shame. You were so bright.”

“I still am,” she replied, keeping her gaze locked on his. She'd never been a boastful or vain woman. But the way he said it, as if she were no longer smart enough to be whatever she desired, made her defensive.

Ludlow crossed his legs at the knees and folded his arms over his chest. “I have missed your wit, Edwina.” Then more quietly, “I have missed you.”

“I'm sure you've gotten along quite well.” Before he could reply, she went on. “How are your parents?”

The mention of that subject brought a wince. His eyes clouded; the snappiness of his waxed mustache seemed to soften. “They are the same.”

They are the same.
Meaning their opinion of her hadn't changed. Well, bully for them. For some reason, it disturbed her. She'd hoped they would have told him they had made a big mistake in judging her by the value of her bank account or her lack of social standing.

One thing became utterly clear, however, with Ludie's words. Either he had decided to be his own man and would now go against them and ask for her hand or he had come just to satisfy his curiosity, to see what he had given up and to reinforce his belief that he had done the right thing. No matter which was his reason, both unsettled her. Neither could make her change her mind about him.

She no longer loved him.

“And you, Edwina? How have you been getting on without your mother? I had heard through Abigail that she passed away.”

“I'm doing well.” She didn't want his sympathy, so she inquired, “How is Abbie? Do you see her?”

A flicker of . . . nervousness, perhaps . . . came into his eyes. “Do you remember the time we all went to the Peacherine and Haley and his Fish Tail band had just opened there? It was the first time we danced the ditty bob walk. You accidentally hit me in the chin with your foot. I had a bruise for days.”

She let his reminiscent mood go unchecked. Old memories came to her, and with them, an unconscious smile.
“It was the band's fault. They went from a four-time to a two-time beat. I was still trying to keep up with the music when they switched syncopation—new rag, or so they called it.”

“Grand times.” Ludlow laughed, warm and full of reverie. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out two cigars. “Remember these? The Midway Plaisance after you knocked down all the ten pins.”

The Carl Upmann Red brand cigars hadn't been just for the Midway. After that day, the three of them had puffed away in the dancing club, Abigail turning green and sick at first, right alongside Edwina. But Edwina had gotten used to them and did enjoy the bouquet of a good cigar. It had been a long time since she'd indulged. . . .

“Eh, Edwina? For old times' sake.” Ludie handed her one of the cigars. She took it, more automatically than with any conscious thought. A matchstick flared, and she hesitated a moment before putting the cigar to her lips to be lit.

Ludlow put the flame to his own, waved out the match, then leaned back and puffed. “I wonder whatever happened to the Fish Tails. . . .”

The blood in her veins slowed. “You don't go to the Peacherine anymore?”

His gaze locked on hers. “No, Edwina. I haven't been since the last time we three went.”

Edwina lowered her cigar, its burning end curling smoke in a spiral toward the ceiling. This wasn't right. She shouldn't be sitting here with him. How would she explain him to . . .

“Ludie, why have you come to see me?”

But Ludlow had no opportunity to speak. The door behind her creaked open. Ludlow shot to his feet—either out of some exaggerated politeness or owing to the fact that a man had appeared through what had seemed to be a closet door.

Guilt brought Edwina to attention; in a split second, she had opened her desk drawer and thrown the smoldering cigar inside. She turned her head toward Tom
and tried to pin an innocent expression on her face. But she
was
innocent . . . why did she think she needed to pretend?

“Sir, have you been in there long?” Ludlow bellowed at Tom, then said to Edwina with his cigar clamped between his teeth, “Has he been in there the whole time?”

Edwina glanced at Tom. His features were hard set. His blue eyes looked distrustful—not of her, but of Ludlow. His mouth was set grimly. The stance of his muscled physique was imposing, strong, dominant.

“I don't believe he has,” she replied at length.

Tom came farther into the room, his boot heels sounding the power coiled in his body, hard and tense. “I own the store next door. The storeroom connects the two businesses.”

Ludlow's edgy laugh went around the smoke wafting from the cigar tip. “It's a rather odd way of paying Miss Huntington a visit. Why didn't you use the front door?”

Edwina rose, not liking the tone in Ludlow's voice. He was being boorish and trying to assert his superiority—making no effort to hide his disdainful scrutiny of Tom's less-than-affluent apparel. She hadn't noticed until now how obnoxious Ludie's better-than-you-are demeanor could be. Had his stuffiness been there all along and she had merely looked the other way?

“I don't have to use the front door,” Tom shot back, his eyes glaring. He gave her a fast glance, then resumed scowling at Ludlow.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. There was no indication that Tom could know who Ludlow was. She'd never described him, never spoken about anything beyond the vague generalities of their relationship. She hadn't dreamed she'd ever have to introduce the two men to each other.

Ludlow's blond brows rose. He removed the cigar from his mouth with his left hand, then extended his kid-gloved right. “Whatever you say. You are quite obviously Mr. Wolcott, proprietor of the sporting goods store.”

Tom slowly lifted his hand toward Ludie's, once again glancing at Edwina—as if by her gaze, she could send him a private message. There was too much to be said with her eyes alone. How could she sum up everything in a look? She couldn't. She didn't even attempt to. Cowardly, she looked down, then up. Her expression was one of helplessness.

Just as the men grasped hands, Ludlow shattered the fragile tension in the room by giving his name. “Ludlow Rutledge,” he stated with that proud intonation that in Chicago caused heads to nod with recognition.

Tom's reaction was the opposite—deadly hatred filled his face; his nostrils flared. But he said nothing derogatory, and she loved him all the more for his blessed silence. If he had called Ludlow out, Ludie would know she'd told Tom about him. Ludie would have a lot of questions. Why would she have reason to tell Tom about the intimacies of her past—unless she was intimately involved with Tom in the present?

Pulling his hand away, Tom raked his fingers through his hair to comb the tension from his forehead. He did so with straining biceps and taut cords at his neck. She watched the pulse jump at the hollow of his throat.

Ludlow reached for his hat. Even he had the good sense to see that Tom Wolcott wasn't in the mood for socializing. “Miss Huntington,” he said to her, “it has been a pleasure. I'm certain our paths will cross again soon.”