The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (34 page)

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

She slid her hand out from under his. The curtains weren’t drawn, and he could see onto the deck, where fog drifted in ghostly tatters. In the half darkness of the living room, her face was cool and smooth as marble.

“I loaned her my shirt,” he said. “That’s all.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I can see it on your face.”

“Then you don’t know me as well as you think.” Her eyes were dark with shadow, making them seem bruised. “Oh, Ian, don’t you see? I wouldn’t blame you if you
had
slept with her. She’s sexy. She’s smart. And let’s face it,
she’s your age.
”

“Are we back to that again?” Frustration rose in him. “What the fuck does age have to do with it?”

“Everything.”

Ian could hear waves smashing against the rocks below. He wanted to smash something, too. He took a deep breath. “She was only trying to make you jealous.”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“I didn’t think she’d go this far.”

“Come on, Ian.” She gave a weary smile. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Whatever Markie’s reasons are, it’s not why
I’m
here.”

“When I asked about her in New York, you didn’t tell me she was Mr. Aaronson’s daughter. Why?”

She had him there. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I didn’t want you to worry.” It sounded lame to his own ears, not quite the declaration of an innocent man.

But Sam just stood there, shaking her head. “It’s not just Markie, Ian. There’ll be other Markies. Dozens of them. And the older I get, the younger they’ll seem.”

She looked so sad, he longed to erase it. Brush, paint, canvas, these were his tools. The only way he knew to alter reality. How could he change this? “Sam.” His voice cracked. “Sam, I want to
marry
you.”

Something flared briefly in her eyes, then went out. Abruptly, she moved away from him and into the light that fell in a pale rectangle over the carpet. “You feel that way now,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “But you won’t in a few years.”

“Christ, Sam. What can I say to convince you?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

The room blurred, the only thing that stood out Sam’s elongated shadow stretching away from him. He brought his head to rest against the wall, and in a low, hoarse voice he hardly recognized as his own asked, “What are you telling me?”

“Oh, Ian, I just don’t see how it can work.”

“What about the baby?”

“Isn’t it a little late for you to be asking that?”

“I thought we’d agreed to wait until I got back.”

“That was weeks ago, and you’re still not back.”

“So it’s not just the age thing, is that what you’re telling me?”

She hesitated, then said softly, “I guess not.”

“You think I’ll let you down?”
Like your husband.

“I’m not accusing you of anything.” She sounded on the verge of tears. “It’s no one’s fault. It just
is.
”

“Sam, I love you. I want this baby. Maybe I didn’t at first. But once I got used to the idea…” His voice trailed off. She wasn’t buying it. He could see it on her face. “Look, I’m not Martin. I don’t want to be damned for another man’s sins.”

“What do you know about Martin?”

“I know he hurt you. I see it in your eyes.”

Something flashed in her eyes now. “Martin was
there
at least.” She drew in a breath, as if to calm herself, saying in a queer, flat voice, “We’ll work something out. You’ll still see the baby.” And in that one statement he saw his whole future mapped out: the brief visits with his child, the moments of awkwardness when he arrived to pick it up. His kid would feel exactly as
he
had growing up: forever missing his dad.

Ian’s hands clenched and unclenched, hungry for something to grab hold of, something to stop this slow hemorrhaging. “This isn’t what I want.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

“I know.”

“Did you drive all this way to tell me?”

“No.” She gave a crooked little smile that was painful to look at. “I
was
hoping it would work out. And when I saw you…” Eyes glittering, she reached up as if to touch him before her hand fell heavily to her side. “But it’s no good. It’s not just my family, or Markie. It’s you. Me. The baby.
Everything.
”

“So that’s it? You’re not even willing to take a chance?”

“I don’t have that luxury.”

She crossed the room and was reaching for her bag, still by the door where he’d left it, when his words to Markie rose to taunt him:
Trust me, you’ve never been in love.
He must have been talking about himself, too. No woman before Sam had ever made him hurt this way.

He wrested the bag from her grip, more roughly than he’d intended, and hurled it to the floor. “No,” he said in that strange, choked voice that wasn’t his. “Not tonight, not in this fog. I can’t stop you from going, but I can keep you from killing yourself.”

“I can’t stay here,” she said.

“I’m not giving you a choice.” He switched on the overhead light, and the room seemed to rush up around him. He found his way into the bedroom, hand out to keep from bumping into walls. He dragged his duffel from the closet and began blindly stuffing in clothes.

“Ian, I can’t let you do this.”

He felt her hand on his arm, and wheeled about.

Whatever she saw in his eyes made her flinch and step back, perhaps recognizing that this was the only thing he
could
do, the only thing he had any control over.

“There’s a motel a few miles up the road,” he found himself saying in an eerily calm voice. “It’s only for one night.”

She sank down on the bed looking defeated. When he’d finished his packing, such as it was, she rose with tears in her eyes to kiss his cheek. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“It doesn’t have to be, Sam. If you change your mind—”

He stopped when he saw that she was crying, a hand over her belly as if to shield it. All of a sudden he had trouble catching his breath. Unable to meet her eyes, he stared at her throat instead: long and pale, with its collarbone that made him think of a gull in flight.

He knew that when he got back tomorrow morning she’d be gone.

S
EPTEMBER IN
C
ARSON
S
PRINGS
brought the kind of weather that made poor men rich and rich men content. Long days of Indian summer with temperatures in the seventies, followed by evenings crisp as apples from the orchards above Sorrento Creek. Birds grew fat on wild grapes and gooseberries and cactus pears. Even the bees of Our Lady of the Wayside seemed to move at a more leisurely pace, drunk with sunshine, bobbing and looping amid pastures golden as the honey itself.

At the Dos Palmas Country Club, golfers sprouted like groundsel, and the thwack of balls could be heard as far east as the hot springs, where the spa run by Monica Vincenzi’s sister Liz was enjoying a flood of tourists in search of the latest seaweed wrap, volcanic mud massage, or bee-pollen facial. At Valley Inn, La Serenisa, and Horse Creek Lodge rooms were booked well into November. And downtown, at the old mission on Calle de Navidad, weekends brought the steady pealing of
campanario
bells as one newlywed couple after another dashed down the steps amid a hail of rice.

School, which weeks before had seemed as remote a prospect as old age, was all at once looming. At the Gap in Del Rey Plaza, traffic was thick and a welter of signs announcing sales on school supplies had sprouted at the Staples next door. Two days before the start of the fall semester, fifteen-year-old Joey Harbinson climbed the white oak by the courthouse, refusing to come down in protest of its slated removal. It was no small coincidence that Joey’s parents had been threatening to pack him off to military school.

Talk at the Tree House ranged from the yield of apple and grape harvests to the new gym going up at Portola High, and whether or not the fire that was being battled in Los Padres National Forest would bring an influx of wildlife like last year’s, when a rash of vandalism turned out to be the work of displaced bears. Few spoke of the murders. It made people too uneasy. Nor did they inquire too closely about the health of young Davey Ryback, on the waiting list for a kidney donor. They gossiped instead about such topics as the recent
Los Angeles Times
article extolling the virtues of Carson Springs, the old Cumberland Express refurbishment by dotcom billionaire Conrad Hirsch, and the rumored resurgence of the dreaded Mediterranean fruit fly in an orchard just north of Ventura.

Organizers of the music festival hadn’t stopped buzzing about Aubrey Roellinger leasing Isla Verde and Sam Kiley moving to the Hats. Though no one had seen much of her lately. Except for committee meetings and the usual errands around town, she’d been keeping a low profile.

That did nothing to stop tongues from wagging.

Rumor had it her lover was in Europe, painting rich ladies’ portraits and taking advantage of all the perks therein. But no one knew for sure because there hadn’t been a sighting of Ian Carpenter since July. The only man with whom Sam had been seen keeping company was her husband’s former partner, Tom Kemp. Althea Wormley had spotted them lunching at the Tree House, and Gayle Warrington reported that Tom had been in recently to inquire about an Alaskan cruise. Yet they appeared to be nothing more than friendly, which caused no end of aggravation. How much juicier a love triangle would have been!

But Sam had her share of supporters as well. Marguerite Moore had met with surprising resistance when she suggested that Sam step down as president. Reverend Grigsby’s wife, Edie, argued that if Christ could forgive, who were they to judge? And mousy little Vivienne Hicks, who rarely expressed an opinion, surprised everyone by speaking quite heatedly on the subject of a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions. Others, like Miranda McBride, from The Last Word, made a point of dropping by the new house, while elderly Rose Miller and her twin sister, Olive, presented Sam with a hand-knit baby blanket.

“I knitted this part,” said Rose, proudly showing off the half that was blue, while Olive finished the sentence, as the twins were prone to do, with “And the pink half is mine.”

Even more fiercely partisan were friends like Tom Kemp and Gerry Fitzgerald. Gerry, in particular, stalked about like a smoke jumper, stamping out sparks of gossip wherever they appeared. In Shear Delight she’d practically chased Althea Wormley into the street, blue hair still in curlers. Its proprietress, Norma Devane, had showed her support by refusing to charge Gerry for her haircut.

Meanwhile, Sam went about her business the same as always, head held high. If she heard whispers, or noticed glances aimed at her thickening waist, she paid them no mind. Whatever she might have felt, it was as closely guarded as her plans. Mainly because Sam, who’d always been so sure of her direction, her calendar mapped out months in advance, didn’t have a clue what this next phase of life would bring—except that while other women her age were planning graduations and weddings and retirement parties, she’d be changing diapers and walking the floor at two
A.M.
A prospect that six months ago would have horrified her, but which she now saw as a rich new opportunity.

The last Tuesday in September found Sam on her way to Audrey’s for supper. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to it but when Audrey had extended the olive branch Sam hadn’t had the heart to refuse. They were sisters, after all, even if it sometimes felt more like a life sentence than a bond.

On the drive east across the valley her thoughts turned, as they always did on long drives, to Ian. The memory brought a dull throb, like a broken rib that hadn’t quite healed. Winding her way up Norte Road, past sun-dappled pastures and rolling hills, she recalled the trip home from Big Sur. How she’d nearly turned back; how she’d had to pull over in Morro Bay, where a kindly waitress at a truck stop listened to her pour her heart out over endless cups of decaf coffee. By the time she’d reached home, there were no more tears left and her heart was a hot cracked stone in her chest.

It didn’t matter that she loved him and that he loved her. What was love in the face of everything that went into making a home? For the longest time she hadn’t wanted to face it, but the truth was inescapable: Ian was no more equipped to be a husband and father than Martin. It wasn’t just his age. It wasn’t just that he traveled often and light. It was everything. Things Ian couldn’t even know or anticipate. She needed a husband, a father to her child who would happily spend an afternoon assembling a tricycle or cheering himself hoarse at a Little League game. A man who would be there for her, too, content to curl up on the sofa in front of
Masterpiece Theatre
for no other reason than to keep her company, who wouldn’t ask what there was to eat when what he really wanted was for her to fix him something. Passion played a part, yes, a
large
part, but she also needed someone to love her at her worst, and…

Be there. Always.

Oh, she didn’t blame Ian. How could she when it was that spur-of-the-moment unpredictability with which she’d fallen in love? But trying to shoehorn him into her life, a life that suited her in more ways than not, would only end in them resenting each other.

Yes, she thought, breaking up had been the right thing to do. But knowing that hadn’t made it any easier. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. No more tears. She was done with all that. Time to move on. And to look ahead.
The baby
…

She’d gone from accepting this pregnancy to seeing it for what it was: a gift. A magical, marvelous gift. To have a child again at her age! With all the time in the world to watch it grow. Yes, she tired more easily these days, but in some ways she’d be better equipped than with the girls. She was wiser and more patient. She would cherish each and every moment, for she knew now what she hadn’t then: how fleeting they were. God might not have granted her every wish, but He’d given her this. And for that she was grateful.