Retreat (28 page)

    
“You’re right. It does sound crazy,” Jon
said. “He attacked you at the house and now he’s sending you threatening
packages. You need to tell the cops when you get back and if you don’t do it I
will. This guy is a total whack job.”

    
Deep down she guessed she knew he was
right. The truth was she’d been trying to ignore it all, hoping it would go
away, that David would get tired of playing games and move on.

    
“Marcy and I found some dirt on Carpenter
that’s going to keep him busy for a while, so I don’t want you to worry for the
time being,” Jon said, a hard look of satisfaction crossing his face.
 
“He’s going to be tied up putting out fires down
in Tulsa for at
least the next few weeks, maybe longer.”

    
“What kind of dirt?” Clara asked.

    
“The kind that means you can’t leave town.”

    
“You had him arrested?” she asked, surprise
turning to shock. “For what?”

    
“Let’s just say the Tulsa police and World
got a tip to a little underground gambling operation going on in a certain
chain of strip clubs, and that operation has Carpenter’s fingerprints all over
it.”

    
“Excuse me?” Clara asked.

    
“He was running an illegal betting gambit,”
Jon said. “His so-called brokerage firm was actually a front for a gambling
operation at Tipsy Tops.”

    
Well, that explained the pictures. He must
have been the one who hijacked her computer, which meant he was more obsessed
than she thought. Clara knew about Tipsy Tops because they were all over Tulsa. It seemed like
every block on the grid had at least one strip club and one church, usually
located right next to each other. On more than one Sunday she saw a car leave
the church and drive right next door to the strip club. She didn’t get how the
guys could be so bold. But she hadn’t guessed that David was involved. If he
had been she would have smelled it on him, right? The cigarette smoke and the
liquor and … she didn’t want to think about what else she might smell on him.

    
“It was in the paper?” she asked.

    
“Front page of the local section, three
days in a row including the follow-up articles. He’s got a hell of a lot of
legal and political fires to put out before he can think about bothering you
anymore.”

    
“Is he in prison?” she asked, a little too
hopefully.

    
“No. They’re doing an investigation. He
can’t leave town.”

    
Clara didn’t know whether to sigh with
relief or curse with anger.

    
“I just can’t believe I fell for it,” she
said. “You’d think I was smarter than that. Or at least more observant.”

    
“You were hurt and he provided a way for
you to feel better, at least for the time being. Don’t beat yourself up over
it,” Jon said. “Trust me, I’m beating myself up enough for the both of us.”

    
Clara studied him, the firelight casting
shadows over his solemn face. “I just wish the whole mess never happened,” she
said.

    
“Me, too,” he said, staring into the fire.

    
“Rebecca’s here you know,” Clara said.

    
He looked at her.

    
“She’s here. On the retreat. She’s back at
the cabin with Josie, Meg and Marcy. She showed up at the office the other day
with a little girl in her arms.”

    
“She’s here?” he asked.

    
“She’s our newest employee.”

    
“Ouch.”

    
“Yeah.”

    
“Who does she report to?” Jon asked.

    
“Officially? Me.”
    

    
“Well then I won’t let it affect my
investment.”

    
“Very funny.”

    
“I’m not joking.”

    
“Jon, what the hell are you doing here?”
she asked. “I know damned well that you don’t need to meet the team to make
this investment.”

    
“Isn’t it obvious, Clara? I wanted to see
you, and Bill opened the door for me. He asked me to come. In fact, he
practically insisted.”

    
“I’ll get him for that.”

    
“We need to talk about what happened,” Jon
said.

    
“No, we don’t. We were both there,
remember? What’s done is done. It’s been done for a long time. We can’t go back
and I don’t think we should go back, even if we could. I’m not the same person
I was when I was in Fort Worth.”

    
“Damn it, then who the hell are you,
Clara?” Jon said, kicking a stone across the dirt. “I think that’s just a cop
out so you can pretend you don’t feel anything. So you can put that damned wall
up again. And it’s bullshit. You’re the same person you were. You tried to
pretend to be Miss Stepford-Wife down there in Tulsa but you know what? You couldn’t do it,
could you?”

    
“I was doing just fine before you showed
up,” she said, offended by his depiction of her as a Stepford Wife, even though
the truth was now that she’d been away from Tulsa for a little while his comment hit a
little too close to home. She had been getting sucked into a world that wasn’t
her own. She just wished he’d stop pointing it out.

    
“And the second I did I saw you come back,”
he pushed. “Not that façade you were putting on for the people at the gallery,
but you, Clara. With all your opinions and that unstoppable drive you have to
stand up for what’s right.”

    
Clara didn’t respond. She sat quietly for a
few moments and then stood. “We’re done here. I’m going back to the cabin now.
You’re welcome to walk with me if you want to. I assume you’re going the same
way because Slippery Falls Cabin is beyond ours. But don’t feel any
obligation.”

    
“I’m not going anywhere until I said what I
brought you out here to hear,” he said, not moving from his seat.

    
“Get on with it, then,” she replied, crossing
her arms. “I think I’ve heard about enough of how you think I sold out.”

    
“Clara,” he said as he stood and put a hand
on her elbow, then used it to pull her toward him. Her skin tingled where he
touched her. He used his other hand to gently lift her chin so he could look
into her eyes. He looked so sincere that her breath caught in anticipation.

    
“I was an idiot,” he said. “I’ve spent the
past week thinking about how much of an idiot I was. And now that I know that
the whole thing was a set-up, I’m so pissed that I can hardly think straight.
I’m not making the same mistake again. I’m not leaving and I’m not letting you
walk away. And although you may want to argue otherwise, David Carpenter is the
most unstable guy I’ve ever met and I have no intention of letting you battle
him alone.”

    
“That’s why you came?” she whispered, her
resolve melting away.

    
He didn’t answer. He leaned down and gently
kissed her. It was nothing like the forceful kiss in front of the hotel. It was
a soft, slow, gentle movement that made her relax into his embrace.

    
Still holding her, he reached down and
picked up his flashlight, clicking it on. He moved his arm until it draped
along her shoulder. He didn’t say another word as they walked back along the
trail to the cabin.

    
She was silent, too. She didn’t know what
to say. She was confused. She didn’t want to make another mistake. The problem
was she wasn’t sure which mistake would be greater, walking away or giving him
another chance.

    
When they reached the clearing in front of
her cabin, Clara gave him a weak smile.

    
“Will you be around tomorrow?” she asked.

    
“Count on it,” he said.

    
“Goodnight, Jon.”

    
He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then
turned and walked back down the path toward the campsite. She watched him go
until the light from his flashlight faded in the darkness. Then she turned to
go back to her cabin.
 

    
“Handsome,” Rebecca whistled, startling
Clara as she walked past the front porch on her way to her door at the back of
the cabin. She was sitting on one of the rockers out front in the dark.

    
“Yes, he is. I’m surprised you don’t
remember that,” Clara said dryly.

    
“I don’t remember much about my time in Texas. What’s he doing
here anyway? I thought you said you two weren’t an item.”

    
“Bill invited Jon and Marcy to meet the
team,” Clara said, trying to sound straightforward. “They’re thinking about
investing in the company. That’s the extent of it.”

    
“So why are you sneaking around with him in
the dark?”

    
“It’s nothing that you need to worry
about,” she said. “I’m heading in.”

    
“Don’t want to talk about it?” Rebecca
pushed.

    
“With you? Definitely not.”

    
“How long are you going to keep this up?”
Rebecca asked. “Bill and Josie gave me a job. You’re going to have to stop
being such a bitch to me eventually.”

    
“We’ll see.”

    
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

    
“We’ll see how long you actually stick
around,” Clara said pointedly. “I give you a week. Two, tops. If you had any
common sense at all you’d take Elizabeth
back to her father and his wife and give her some stability. I pity the poor
child with only you as a parent.”

    
Before she realized what was happening
Rebecca was down off the porch and in Clara’s face.

    
“Take it back!” she yelled.

    
“What are you? Twelve?” Clara said, backing
up. “Grow up. Start taking some responsibility for goodness sakes.”

    
“You have no idea,” Rebecca said, sneering
at her, “what responsibility even is.” She turned on her heel and marched back
up the steps. Clara shook her head and headed back to the private entrance to
her bedroom.

    
When she got there she tried to put Rebecca
out of her mind and concentrate on what Jon had said. He was worried about her,
genuinely worried. That’s why he was here. He thought she was in real danger
from David.

    
David. How could she have been so stupid?
God, she fell for his act completely. If Jon hadn’t stepped in she would have
been living that lie for who knows how long. All that time wasted. So much time
already wasted.

    
She shook her head in disgust.

    
At least David wasn’t an immediate threat
to her, since Jon had made sure he was preoccupied putting out political fires
down in Tulsa
and she was trapped in the Spritzer family feud out in the boondocks.

    
As she slipped into her pajamas she briefly
wondered what Karen had planned for them for tomorrow. She’d have to check the
agenda in the morning.

CHAPTER
14

    
Clara woke early. She didn’t hear any
movement from the rest of the cabin, so she assumed the other women were still
asleep.

    
She pulled her hair up in a high ponytail
then slipped on a pair of warm-up pants and a sweatshirt. She slowly opened the
cabin door and slipped outside unnoticed.

    
The early morning air greeted her, soft and
cool on her warm skin. She breathed in deeply and began to walk toward the
nearest trail, which began a few feet from the dirt road that passed in front
of the cabin. She walked a while, and then slowly began to jog in the quiet
wilderness.

    
Her breath and the sound of her sneakered
feet hitting the mulched trail awakened her. She ran harder, beginning to break
a sweat. The only sound was the pounding of her footsteps along the trail. She
hopped over small logs and sticks that poked from the damp, lush ground. Soon
she became winded and dropped back to a walk.

    
For a while the sound of her own breath
filled her ears as she worked herself back from the cardiovascular brink. As
she began to notice the other sounds around her, she realized she wasn’t alone.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead and began to run slowly, hoping the other
people out on the trail wouldn’t catch up to her. She preferred a comfortable
buffer zone.