Retreat (27 page)

    
“Marcy will tell them that I’m here. I’m
sure Meg and Josie will understand that you stepped out to chat with me.”

    
They headed down the trail that Josie
pointed to earlier when she talked about camping with husband number two. They
passed three campsites before they turned into one where a large navy blue tent
was pitched next to a picnic table. A small fire was burning in a metal fire
ring with two khaki camp chairs set up beside it. Clara instinctively headed
for the fireside, still chilled from the walk back from the men’s cabin.

    
“You’re camping here?” she asked Jon, still
trying to get over the fact that he was there. Then her eyes flew open wide.
“With Marcy?”

    
He laughed. “It’s not what it looks like.
I’m staying up at Slippery Falls Cabin with Bill and the rest of the guys, and
Marcy is staying with you. I just thought it might be nice to have a little
place away from them so we could talk.”

    
“So you got your own campsite?” she asked,
looking around at the perfect set up around them. “Here at Foster’s Glen? How
did you even know where we were?”

    
“Don’t act so surprised,” he said, bending
down and poking the fire with a large stick. He put another log on top of the
red hot embers. “You know I like the outdoors.”

    
“It just feels so … premeditated,” she
said.

    
He motioned toward one of the chairs. “Call
it what you want to. I needed to see you. You know I’m harmless.”

    
She thought she saw him flinch after he
said that.

    
“I wanted to thank you again for the
journal and the pen,” she said, clearing her throat as he sat down beside her.
His tanned face looked even more handsome by firelight. “I left my old one
behind in Tulsa.”

    
“I know,” Jon said. He turned in the chair
and looked deep into her eyes, taking both her hands in his. “Are you sure
you’re okay?”

    
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, although she was
immediately aware that it was way too dark to be that close to him, especially
since she’d allowed herself to warm up to the idea of talking to him in the
first place. She never expected to be face-to-face with him again so soon. She
deliberately pulled her hands away and made some big gestures with them to
prove she needed them as she said, “Other than the fact that I have to sit
through this bullshit teambuilding crap. It feels like a total waste of …”

    
“No, Clara,” Jon said, shaking his head and
grimacing. “I mean after what happened in Tulsa.”

    
She looked at him. She let out a breath and
her shoulders fell. “I told you the night you came to see me that I was angry
and disappointed that I’d wasted a year with a liar.”

    
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he
said.

    
She searched his eyes. “I’m fine, Jon,
really. I’ve started back at work with my dad and other than this retreat I
think it’s all going to work out.”

    
“What about … physically?” he asked uncomfortably.

    
She looked at him, confused. “What do you
mean?”

    
“I know what Carpenter did,” he said,
hatred flashing in his eyes.

    
She sat back in the chair and looked at
Jon, wondering what was causing him to look so pained. It had been ugly down
there but not so horrific to put that look into his eyes.

    
“He roughed me up a little bit I guess, but
I managed to get away before anything really bad happened, not that I think he
had the guts to go through with anything anyway,” she admitted. “He acted like
he was going to force himself on me, which was kind of a joke because he wasn’t
all that fond of sex to begin with and …”

    
Jon laughed. A big, hearty laugh. He shook
his head and smiled at her. “He didn’t rape you?” he asked.

    
She arched her eyebrows, shocked that Jon
had thought that. “No. He threatened to I guess, but he lost interest when the
phone rang.”

    
“The phone?”

    
“You called me. On my cell phone. Remember?
It was enough of a distraction that I was able to get away from him.”

    
“But I heard you scream.”

    
“The jerk pulled my hair to try to keep me
from getting into my car, and it hurt like hell. But I’d grabbed a kitchen
knife while he was on the phone with you and used it to fend him off,” she
said. “Why did you think he raped me?”

    
“Because he told me he did.”

    
“He did not,” she said.

    
“Yes, he did,” Jon said, running his
fingers through his hair and smiling at her. He looked so relieved she thought
he might kiss her on the spot, which made her back away a little because she
wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d have if he kissed her here by the
firelight. Or maybe because she was sure.

    
“When?” she asked.

    
“I flew back up there. I was afraid he was
holding you captive or something. When I called I’d just landed at the airport
and then when I heard you scream I went nuts and fired the plane back up.”

    
“You did?” she asked, softening toward him
again.

    
“God Clara, I didn’t know what the hell
that sick bastard was going to do to you.”

    
Her smile faltered.

    
“What is it?” he asked, taking her hands
again.

    
She grimaced. “It’s just what you called
him. A sick bastard. I never really saw that side of him. But now, now it’s
different. He found out that I moved into Grammy’s bungalow. He’s been sending
me packages.”

    
Jon stiffened. “What kind of packages?” he
asked warily.

    
“Weird stuff,” she said. “I can’t decide if
he’s threatening me or trying to drive me nuts.”

    
Jon sat back in the cloth chair as if she’d
smacked him with a two-by-four.

    
“Clara,” he said.
 
“There’s something I need to tell you and you
aren’t going to like it.”

    
He looked so serious, just like that night
at the restaurant.

    
“What is it?” she asked.

    
“Carpenter told me he planned it – all of
it, even down to the wedding.”

    
“Is that what he told you?” she asked,
irritated that David would take the credit for everything she’d done. “You’re
right. He is a bastard. He didn’t lift one finger to help plan that wedding. I
had to do everything. The invitations, the flowers, the honeymoon…

    
“No,” Jon said firmly, shaking his head. He
seemed to be getting frustrated. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It was
revenge. Against me.”

    
She raised her eyebrows. “Marrying me was
revenge against you?” she said slowly. “Maybe the old ego’s …”

    
“It’s not my damned ego,” he said gruffly.
“God do you and Marcy have telepathy or what? That’s exactly what she said.”

    
Clara laughed. “We tend to think alike.”

    
He looked at her, still serious.

    
“Freedman bought out his father’s company
eight years ago and I did the number on it. His dad couldn’t take it and ended
up killing himself.”

    
“I thought he died in a car accident,”
Clara said, puzzled. “David told me he was killed one morning on his way to
work.”

    
“He was. He ran his car into the path of a
train and waited for it to hit him.”

    
“Are you sure?”

    
“Yes. After the scene at his house Marcy
and I dug up every inch of information we could about Carpenter and his family.
He’s quite a piece of work. Anyway, he decided that I needed to pay for his
father’s death. So he went after you.”

    
“But how could he? How could he have known
that you and I were together?” Clara said, trying to wrap her mind around what
Jon was saying. “We were sneaking around, remember? And I met him in Stillwater, not in Fort Worth.”

    
“Come on, Clara. We were about the worst
kept secret ever,” Jon said. “Do you really think people didn’t know we were
together? I should have realized it then. Maybe I wouldn’t have acted like such
a jerk.”

    
She pulled her hands away and crossed her
arms. “Jerk is mild. David didn’t have anything to do with that.”

    
“Asshole then. I was an asshole. I did that
all on my own.”

    
Clara looked down at the ground at his easy
admission. She didn’t want to forgive him yet, but he was making it difficult
not to.
 

    
He continued, “I don’t know but somehow he
figured out that we were together.” He reached up and gently touched her hair.
“Your hair shimmers with gold in the firelight.”

    
She caught her breath, almost floating away
from the subject by his tenderness. She swallowed and got back on track. “But
if that’s the case then why did he wait until we were broken up? Why didn’t he
tell you about us? Why didn’t he try to flaunt our relationship to you? It
doesn’t make any sense.”

    
“He said wasn’t done with you yet.”

    
“What do you mean he wasn’t done with me
yet?” Clara asked. None of this was making any sense. “We were getting married.
That’s about as done as it gets.”

    
“He wanted to … what were his words?” Jon
thought a moment. “Right. Pick your sanity apart piece by piece. He wanted to
show me that he not only was with you, but that he controlled you, too.”

    
“Fat chance. I’d have seen right through
that game,” Clara said. “And if that’s really what he was doing he was taking a
hell of a risk. You could very easily have moved on with someone else and not
given a rip who I was with.”

    
Jon shook his head and smiled at her.
“Carpenter knew I wouldn’t be able to move on. He did his homework, I guess.
But you were proving a harder mark than he’d anticipated.”

    
“This just sounds too wild to be true,”
Clara said. “If that was really his plan then he was either insane or an idiot.
I was with him because he gave me what I needed, a chance to have someone else
to depend on for a while. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t
shown up and told me about his wife and kids. I really don’t. We might have
faded away into a quiet, dignified existence. The rest of this just sounds
far-fetched.”

    
“Believe what you want to,” Jon said,
suddenly sounding gruff. “But I’m telling you the truth. And I have a feeling those
packages he sent you are neither quiet nor dignified.”

    
Clara folded her hands and looked down at
the ground.

    
“What was in them?” he asked.

    
She didn’t want to tell him. She just
wanted to pretend she’d never received them.

    
“Clara,” he said, searching her eyes. “Tell
me what was in the packages. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything
he’s done.”

    
“The first package was my honeymoon …” she
started and then hesitated, feeling a little awkward even mentioning it to him,
“nightgown, cut up and splattered with blood.”

    
He looked at her in the firelight and
grimaced. “What else?” he asked.

    
“The second box came the next day. I didn’t
open it.”

    
He looked down at the fire. “And?”

    
“I opened the third box just before I left
for the retreat. The only thing in it was a note.”

    
“Did you read it?”

    
She nodded. “It said I forgot to open the
package he sent the day before.”

    
Jon sat back in his chair and let out a low
whistle.

    
“I don’t think he was there, but you never
know,” she said. “There was no postmark stamped on any of the packages, but
they all had a Tulsa
return address.”

    
“Did you call the police?”

    
“No. I know it sounds crazy but I just
don’t think there is that much to worry about from him. He’s too lazy to put
much more energy into this than he already has. I have a feeling he’s going to
get bored and lose interest.”