Strangers When We Meet (4 page)

“Go on son, drink up. Won’t do your hangover any good just staring at it that way. It’s made to work internally, you know.”

“That’s the problem,” Blake muttered. “I’m not sure it will stay put long enough to do me any good.”

“You can suffer for a few minutes or you can suffer the rest of the day. Makes no difference to me.” Felix Dorn folded his arms across his chest.

Blake had the decided impression he was being tested by Emma’s grandfather. He took a tentative swallow of the contents of the glass. The concoction tasted surprisingly good. He’d expected bitter or sour, but it was sweet, almost syrupy, with a pungent aroma and aftertaste he couldn’t place.

“Ether.” The doctor pulled a chair away from a scarred and dented metal desk and sat down. “That’s what you’re tasting. No one uses it for much anymore, but a little goes a long way to settling your stomach. Learned the secret from a Navy medic I served with in Korea.”

“Emma didn’t mention you were in the military.”

“Chosin Reservoir,” the old man said flatly. “Seems to me you haven’t known my granddaughter long enough to get into family history that deep.”

Blake stiffened his spine. Chosin Reservoir was the scene of some of the US Marine Corps’s hardest fighting. Four years in the Marines had paid for Blake’s education. The pride of the Corps was at stake. He lifted the glass in salute. “Semper Fi,” he said, and downed the contents in one swallow.

Felix narrowed his eyes. “Desert Storm?” he asked, taking a shrewd guess at Blake’s age.

He nodded. “And Somalia.” And the World Trade Center, too, the worst of them all.

“Some bad times there. Still, nothing to compare with a real war,” Felix said with the absolute conviction of a man who knew whereof he spoke. “But it’ll do until another one comes along.”

Blake smiled. He was pretty sure the old doctor’s concoction was going to stay down. “Hooyah.”

A knock sounded on the closed door. “Grandpa?” It was Emma’s distinctive voice. How could he not have recognized it? He’d listened to it for twenty-seven solid hours after the attack on the World Trade Center. She’d been calm and collected, keeping the WTKX field reporters on track and coherent. She’d helped keep him sane, too. “Nana wants to know if you’re going to keep Mr. Weston shut up in there all morning?”

“We’ll be out in a minute, Emma Martha. Don’t want your friend vomiting all over your grandmother’s Persian carpet, now do we?”

Blake felt color rise to the level of his chin, but he held himself in check. He wasn’t about to let the old devil dog get to him. “I’m fine,” he called to Emma. “You could make a fortune bottling this stuff.”

Felix made a growling sound in the back of his throat. “I could tell you I had all the money I want or need,” he said, “but that’d be lying. Not many of God’s children have the moral fiber to say no to the temptation of the world’s riches. My guess is you make your living with other people’s money.”

“I manage an investment fund.”

Felix nodded. “You have that Wall Street look about you.”

Blake didn’t think the old man meant the observation as a compliment, but he didn’t respond. Age had its privileges, and besides, he was feeling better by the moment. He owed Emma’s grandfather his silence for that reason, if no other.

“I’m too old to start a new business. I won’t sell the secret to that elixir. That’s to go to Emma. She can do with it as she pleases. Though I have a feeling that fiancé of hers wouldn’t be averse to trying his hand at making a million or two.”

Fiancé? Emma Hart was engaged to be married? She wasn’t wearing a ring. He’d already checked. Engaged? His stomach dropped. He wondered for a moment if he was having a relapse of his hangover.

The old man didn’t seem to notice Blake was standing in the middle of his office like a stone pillar. He opened the door. “Here we are, Mother.” The tone he used to address his wife held warmth and humor, unlike the gravelly timbre he affected in dealing with Blake. He bent and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“I hope he didn’t browbeat you too badly, Mr. Weston.”

“Call me Blake, please,” he said automatically, his eyes going once more to Emma’s ringless fingers.

“You look as if you’ll survive,” Emma said.

Engaged. Taken. Off-limits. He’d better start getting that through his head.

“He’s Corps, Martha,” Felix informed his wife. “Emma should have told me that straight off.”

“I didn’t know.”

“‘Course you didn’t. Barely known the man an hour.”

Blake took that as another not so subtle warning that Emma was taken. Was she engaged to a local, or was she meeting her lover from the city for a weekend tryst like the one he’d planned with Heather? He’d have to watch his step. If she was seriously involved with another man, he was going to have to keep his distance. He’d only known her a couple of hours, and already she was making an almost indelible impression on his heart. There was more wrong with him than a hangover. He must be losing his mind. He’d just ended a two-year relationship with a woman he’d thought he would make his wife, and already he was letting his imagination project a virtual stranger into her place.

Well, maybe he wasn’t that far gone. So far he’d only imagined her in his bed. He hadn’t actually pictured Emma Martha Hart with his ring on her finger or his baby in her arms. But he was close.

There was no such thing as love at first sight. And the sooner he got that irrefutable fact through his thick skull, the better off he’d be.

* * *

E
MMA
WAS
beginning to wonder if her grandfather’s potion was as effective in curing Blake’s hangover as he’d professed it to be before they left her grandparents’ home. He’d barely said a word since they’d left the little Cape Cod house, and now they were nearly halfway to Twin Oaks. His silence was beginning to bother her. She couldn’t say exactly why, but didn’t want to delve that deeply into her feelings at this point.

“How did you come to find Cooper’s Corner?” she asked when the silence had stretched out longer than she thought was comfortable. “It’s off the beaten track.”

“I was driving through last spring, looking for a place to buy in the area. It caught my fancy.” Blake had been staring at his shoes as they walked. He raised his head and surveyed the picture-perfect New England village spread out before them. “It’s the kind of place you could put down roots in.”

“That’s what my grandparents thought when they first saw it. But, of course, they were ready to retire. Slow down. This is a long, long way from Manhattan, even if more and more people from the city are buying property around here.”

“You sound as if you know something about it.”

“My...my friend is a real estate broker here.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “my fiancé.” She turned her thoughts inward and felt the acid of resentment and anger that had so shocked her that morning stir again.

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. They were almost at the old bridge, where they’d met earlier. Emma stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and kept on going. Blake didn’t reach out to halt her as he had before. Instead, he fell into step beside her and waited until she stopped and rested her hands on the stone parapet. She chanced a glance at him from beneath her lashes. The deep furrows that had bracketed his mouth had smoothed out. His chin was strong and square and his gaze direct and totally male. Her pulse kicked up a beat or two, and she turned her head away.

“I got the impression from your grandfather that you were here to meet someone a little closer than a friend. I think he said a fiancé.”

Emma sighed. Leave it to her grandfather to make sure Blake knew she was off-limits. He was so protective of her. “Not officially...yet. Do you mind? I’d rather not talk about it.” How could she explain to this man, this stranger, that she had decided to call an end to her involvement with Daryl merely because she had seen him with another woman in a restaurant? It sounded ridiculous even to her own ears. But she couldn’t help herself.

“No one wants to talk about a love affair that’s gone bad, including me. But that didn’t stop you from asking me what happened to mine this morning.”

Her gaze flew to meet his. “You didn’t tell me what happened,” she reminded him. “Not in detail, anyway. I think I should be able to expect the same courtesy from you.”

“I found her with another man in my living room.”

“That doesn’t sound so terrible.” A more intimate setting than a neighborhood restaurant, she’d grant him that. But had her hand been resting on his arm? Had her eyes been locked to his as though they were the only two people in the room—

“She was stark naked.” Blake’s clipped words cut into her thoughts.

“Oh, heavens. I’m...I don’t know what to say.” She would have, though, if he’d called her show. She would have had an answer ready a heartbeat after he’d finished speaking. But this was different. He was standing beside her, and the pain and hurt pride were just as visible on his face as they were in his tone. She could feel the tension in him, and she ached, too. The realization, the proximity erased the distance she needed to be objective, dried up the source of her thoughts and rendered her speechless.

“There’s not much more to say, is there. It’s hard to explain a scene like that.”

“Did she try—” His brow furrowed, and she realized how silly the remark sounded. “I mean...did you give her a chance? It might have been a moment of weakness....” She let the words trail off. What moment of weakness could justify betraying the person you professed to love in such a way? “You didn’t just walk away?”

“We talked. After I threw the guy out on his ear.”

“But you didn’t believe what she told you?”

Blake laced his hands in front of him on the parapet. They were big hands, tanned, with strong wrists and lean forearms sprinkled with dark hair. His nails were clean but clipped short, as though he did a lot of physical labor. Not at all the kind of hands you’d expect to see on a Wall Street corporate shark. “She explained, all right. In her world these things happen all the time. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, and if I hadn’t come home unexpectedly, I would never have known about it. She didn’t say it wouldn’t happen again. She can’t understand why I was so upset. She thinks it’s my provincial upbringing.” He gave a rough snort of laughter. “My upbringing was anything but conventional. My parents are the last of the die-hard hippies. They live in a commune in Florida. They eat bean sprouts and tofu and wear all-natural fibers. But they’ve always been faithful to each other. And that’s what I expect from the woman I love.”

“You still love her, don’t you?”

Blake was silent for a long time. The sounds of cars going by on the main road could be heard in the distance. A tractor engine roared to life in the barn beyond the meadow that bordered the stream. At the edge of town, the church bell rang out, announcing the noon hour. Emma waited, her eyes narrowed against the sparkle of sunlight on the water. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

“That’s how I feel, too,” Emma whispered, as much to herself as to the man beside her.

“What did he do to you, Emma?” Blake asked quietly. She watched as a car drove up the winding lane to Twin Oaks. There was lettering on the side, dark green, discreet. Although it was too far away for her to read from where she was standing, she recognized it immediately. It was Daryl’s car. He was coming for her. She felt a shiver of apprehension slip across her skin. She wasn’t ready for this. She turned her head away and stared over the brown and gold hills, capped with the green of cedar and pine, that rose above the town.

“Nothing as terrible as what happened to you. I found him having dinner with a woman, and he hadn’t told me he was going to be in the city that night. Nothing more sinister than that. But there was something about the way he was looking at her...something about the way she touched the sleeve of his coat, the way her hair brushed his shoulder. She was all silver and shimmer—” She heard what she was saying and shut her mouth with a snap.

“Good grief, how maudlin I must sound.” She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “The long and short of it is, I don’t trust him now. I may be overreacting, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to announce our engagement this weekend. I need time to sort out my feelings. And that’s what I intend to tell him the minute I walk through the door of Twin Oaks.” She nodded toward the man walking up to the house.

Blake turned his head to follow her gaze. “That’s him?” he asked, a sharpness in his deep voice she hadn’t heard before.

She nodded. “That’s him.”

“Berkshire Realty.” His eyesight was much better than hers if he could read the lettering on Daryl’s car from this distance.

“Yes. He owns the business. He has a branch office here in Cooper’s Corner. It’s his home town. His parents own the diner with the wonderful cider doughnuts. His main office is in Williamstown, though. He doesn’t live here anymore—”

“What’s his name?” Blake asked, interrupting her without apology.

“Daryl,” she said, surprised by the abruptness of his tone. “Daryl Tubb. Do you know him?”

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HERE
WAS
NO
ONE
around except for Maureen and Daryl when Emma came through the front door of Twin Oaks a few minutes later. Blake had left her at the bridge, explaining he wanted to walk into the hills and clear the last vestiges of champagne fumes from his brain.

He’d denied ever meeting Daryl, and he sounded sincere, but something nagged at Emma. There had been a tightness around his mouth and in his tone that made her wonder. Hadn’t he said he’d found Cooper’s Corner while looking for property in the area? Berkshire Realty was the premier real estate firm in the county. Daryl had clients in New York and Boston. Wealthy men and their wives and girlfriends. She’d carried the familiar doubts with her to the bed and breakfast, growing angry with herself—and Daryl.

“Hi, there,” Daryl said, coming toward her. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He took a step back but still held on to her hand, regarding her warily. She hadn’t seen him since the night of the incident in the restaurant. They’d talked on the phone, but she’d avoided being alone with him. He’d been astute enough to recognize how deeply hurt she was, and kept his distance. “I didn’t expect you this early. God, I’ve missed you.”

His smile was genuine and infectious, as always. Emma couldn’t help but smile back, though her heart was troubled, and the tiny seed of conjecture that had germinated after Blake’s reaction to Daryl’s arrival continued to grow.

“I couldn’t sleep so I got up early and beat the weekend traffic out of the city. How did you know I was here?”

“Mom gave me a call. Said she could have sworn she saw you walk past the Village Green with some guy an hour or so ago.” He was still smiling, but the smile didn’t reach to his honey brown eyes. “What was that all about?”

“A mission of mercy,” Emma said, and let it go at that.

Daryl took the hint. He was trying very hard to make things right between them, Emma knew. “You should have called me on your cell phone. I would have met you here for breakfast.”

“Then I wouldn’t have been able to rescue Mr. Weston from his hangover. And, actually, I left my cell phone back in the city. I’m on vacation, remember?”

Maureen had been making notations in a large book at the front desk. She looked at Emma and Daryl. “Would you like Clint to fix you a box lunch? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“I promised Mom we’d eat at the diner with her and Dad,” Daryl informed the two women. “That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t okay, but Emma didn’t say so. She had no desire to air their problems in front of their friend. “That’s fine.”

“Your room’s ready,” Maureen said, “if you want to freshen up a bit. It’s number four. The one you like best.” She picked up an old-fashioned brass key and handed it to Emma, her face carefully neutral. If Maureen had sensed the tension between Emma and Daryl, she didn’t let on.

“We’ll see you for tea, then.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” Emma hoped her smile didn’t look as shaky as she felt.

She could feel the strain in Daryl as they walked toward his car. He pulled her into his arms and leaned against the door, holding her loosely. “I’ve missed you.” She didn’t pull away but raised her hands to his chest to keep a small distance between them.

“I’m not ready to go back to the way we were, Daryl. I’ve told you that more than once these last couple of weeks.” She gave a little push against him, and reluctantly he let her go.

“How long do I have to do penance for taking a woman to dinner without telling you about it? It was a business meeting, for God’s sake.”

When he put it that way, it made her feel small and petty, but it didn’t dispel the nagging sense of distrust that ate at her. “You lied to me, Daryl. That’s what hurts.”

“You caught me off guard. I was afraid you’d think there was more to it, that’s all.” He raked a hand through his razor-cut brown hair. “I don’t always think straight when I’m around you.” It was as close to admitting he’d lied as he’d come so far. When he reached for her again, she stepped out of his way. “I’m sorry, Emma. It won’t happen again. How much longer are you going to keep me at arm’s length?”

Emma assessed Daryl silently for a moment. He was wearing khakis and a wool sport coat over a gold-brown sweater that matched his eyes. He looked tan and fit, though his face was a little too round to be called classically handsome and his hair was thinning a bit on top. To his credit he wasn’t vain enough to wear a toupee, but then he didn’t need to. Daryl Tubb had charisma enough for two men. Everyone liked him. He liked everyone. It was one of the qualities that had drawn Emma to him in the first place.

She considered his question. It was a reasonable one, if she believed the dinner had been completely innocent. But he hadn’t convinced her. Not yet. And she was honest enough to admit she could no longer trust her feelings where Daryl was concerned. ‘’Till I get my head straight,” she replied at last.

He remained silent on the short drive into town. They parked in front of his parents’ diner, and he helped Emma out of the car and shut the door behind her. “I haven’t told Mom and Dad about this little rough patch we’re going through,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t quite know how to explain it.”

Emma sighed. Her heart felt like a weight in her chest. “I haven’t said anything to my grandparents, either. But, Daryl, please. Don’t bring up engagement plans.”

“I won’t,” he said, looking grim. “But I can’t guarantee my mom won’t launch into the subject.”

Emma was afraid of that, too. Why couldn’t she just forgive and forget? Daryl held out his hand, his brown eyes pleading, and she didn’t have the heart to deny him. She let him fold her hand in his. His fingers were warm to the touch, but that was all. There was no spark, no connection. At least the anger was gone, if only for the moment, and she was grateful for that. It would make facing Daryl’s mom and dad a little easier.

“Emma,” Lori Tubb sang out from behind the counter, where she was directing the operation of the grill. “It was you I saw on the other side of the green.”

Emma leaned across the counter for a hug. Daryl’s mother was a small woman, only a couple of inches over five feet, with a round figure from years of eating her own good cooking. “Burt,” she called out over the background noise of a dozen customers and staff, “come say hello. I told you I wasn’t seeing things. Emma’s here with Daryl.”

Burt Tubb stuck his head around the corner of the small bar nestled at the back of the building. He was round, too, and bald, with a good-natured face and a ready smile. Emma had always imagined that was how Daryl would look in thirty years. “Hello, Emma. We’ve missed you these past weeks.”

“It’s good to see you both again.” With a wave, he disappeared back into his favored domain.

The decor of Tubb’s Café was seriously retro, black and white tile floors, gray Formica tabletops, red vinyl covers on the chairs and stools that lined the long counter. And a real jukebox filled with records from the fifties in an alcove along the far wall.

Today the diner’s tables were half empty. It was the beginning of the slow season for Cooper’s Corner. The leaf peepers—the tourists who came to see the spectacular change of color in the hills surrounding the town—were mostly gone, and it would be several weeks before the ski season got into high gear. Lori took off her apron and came around the counter. She gave her youngest son a hug. “Sit. Both of you. What’ll you have? Yankee pot roast is the special today. I’ve saved two servings.”

“Sounds great, Mom. But easy on the gravy. I’ve put on a pound or two the last few weeks.”

Emma wasn’t hungry but she didn’t let on. There was a friendly rivalry springing up between the diner and Maureen and Clint’s bed and breakfast, even though Twin Oaks only served breakfast to guests and afternoon tea. It would be a real faux pas to say she’d eaten too many of Clint’s griddle cakes to do justice to Lori’s cooking. Emma stifled a small sigh. She would probably gain five pounds over the next week.

Daryl’s mother served them and then dropped into one of the empty seats at the table. “I’ve been meaning to call your grandmother and check with her on plans for this weekend,” she said, watching Emma eat with an eagle eye.

“We haven’t made any,” Emma said, swallowing a mouthful of succulent beef. She took another bite, stalling for time to find the right words, hoping against hope that Daryl would step in and rescue her. But he remained silent, concentrating on cutting a potato into bite-size pieces.

“Good. Let’s plan on dinner Sunday night. Daryl’s oldest brother, Mark—you’ve met him, haven’t you?” Emma nodded. “I thought so. Well, both he and his sister Rosalie are coming up for a few days. I thought it would be nice if we were all together for the announcement.”

Emma kicked Daryl under the table. He dropped his fork. “That’s great, Mom. But you know what monsters Mark’s kids are. And Rosalie will bring those damned poodles of hers—”

Rosalie was Daryl’s oldest sister. She was a nursing administrator in Philadelphia and had never married. She had three tiny, yapping dogs and they were the loves of her life. Emma felt another sigh welling inside her. If she married Daryl, she would have something she’d always wanted, a big extended family. Daryl had four older brothers and sisters and eight small nieces and nephews. None of them lived in Cooper’s Corner any longer, but they visited often, and most, if not all, were around for summer vacations and major holiday celebrations.

Emma loved her parents and her grandparents deeply, but she had always wanted brothers and sisters, a big family. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d fallen so hard and so fast for Daryl. He had all those things, and if she married him, she would have them, too.

“We aren’t announcing our engagement this week,” Emma heard herself say. The words had tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. Obviously they’d been trapped behind the lump in her throat for too long and they were determined to fight their way to freedom.

“Why not?” Daryl’s mother looked at her, then at Daryl, her eyes narrowed, the corners of her generous mouth pulled down in a slight frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom.” Daryl didn’t sound convincing to Emma, and not to his mother, either, it seemed. He dropped his gaze and went back to cutting up his potato. Lori folded her arms on the table and continued to stare at Daryl.

“Something’s wrong. Not two weeks ago you were telling me you’d already picked out a ring and set a date.”

They hadn’t set a date, not a specific one, anyway. They’d only talked of a summer wedding at the local church. And that was before Emma had stumbled on him with the silvery-haired woman in their favorite restaurant. And he’d never given her a ring. Had he lied about that to his mother the way he’d lied to her? What did that say about his character? On the other hand, what if he had chosen a ring? Would a man who was being unfaithful spend money on an engagement ring? And what kind of woman would accept it if he did? Those were the questions that kept popping into her mind. And until she found acceptable answers for them, she wasn’t marrying Daryl or agreeing to set a date.

“It’s because of Emma’s job,” Daryl was saying. “She’s got a lot on her mind right now.” He gave her one of his great smiles, but his brown eyes were pleading, and his fingers shook slightly when he covered her hand with his.

Lori sat up a little straighter. She wiped at a dribble of water on the tabletop with the corner of a towel she had thrown over her shoulder. “What about your job, Emma? I thought you would be trying to find work here. There are several radio stations in the area, you know.”

Emma tried not to wince. The radio stations Lori was referring to were easy listening or golden oldie stations with programmed play lists, canned news reports and on-air talent that never did more than read the weather reports and the obituaries. Daryl gave her hand a squeeze.

“Emma’s been offered a syndication deal. It’s a great chance for her, Mom. Her show will be aired all over the country. She’ll have a chance to reach a million people a night.” Daryl was exaggerating the numbers, but Emma didn’t correct him.

“So that means you’ll be staying in New York,” Lori said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

“Yes.” Emma softened the one-word answer with a smile. “It’s a great opportunity. One I’ve been working toward.” That wasn’t quite the truth. She’d thought about syndication, of course, everyone with a talk show did. Who wouldn’t want to make as much money as Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Laura? What wasn’t true was that being successful at her job was the main goal of her life. It was important, but it was a distant second to what she really wanted in her heart of hearts—a home and family of her own. A man she could love and honor...and trust.

“How can you run your business from another state?” Lori asked Daryl.

“I’ll work it out somehow, Mom. But right now it’s Emma I’m thinking of. She’s got a lot of decisions to make. A lot of negotiations these next few weeks and promotions and meetings to attend. She doesn’t have time for parties and wedding showers and that kind of stuff.”

“Well,” Lori said dubiously. “I can see where all that’s going to keep you busy. But I still don’t see why we can’t have a nice family dinner. With Martha and Felix, of course, and you can show us the ring.”

Emma felt the room closing in around her. She was being trapped by the affection she felt for Daryl’s mother and her reluctance to make a scene in public. The diner was beginning to clear out, the midday crowd drifting away to enjoy the cool, sunny afternoon or browse through the end-of-season sales in the shops, but there were still a number of people easily able to overhear their conversation. Daryl remained silent. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her, and she couldn’t blame him.

“I’m sorry, Lori,” she said. “But—”

“Emma needs some time, Mom.” Daryl broke in at last. “You know, we haven’t known each other all that long. It’s been a pretty whirlwind kind of affair. She needs to be sure.”

His voice cracked a little on the last word. Lori gave Emma a sharp look, one that clearly said, What’s going on here? But she nodded slowly. “I don’t understand this business of needing space and whatnot. But jitters I can understand. In this family we get married for the long haul. Not one divorce in three generations. I don’t want my baby to be the first.” She smiled and gave Daryl’s arm a playful slap, but beneath her teasing words there was a serious undertone, and Emma noticed that Daryl didn’t quite meet his mother’s gaze.