The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (65 page)

“So nice to meet you.” One of the elderly twins extended a child-size gloved hand. Rose, or was it Olive? “I hope you’re enjoying your stay. We don’t get many visitors this time of year.”

“I … I was just leaving, actually,” Claire stammered. For an awful moment she felt as if she were going to burst into tears.

“Well, then, we won’t keep you.” her twin said pleasantly. “It was nice meeting you, dear.”

“Same here,” Claire managed to mutter.

The younger twins eyed her as if they sensed something amiss, but one piped cheerfully, “Next time you should try our cafe. It’s just down the street—the Blue Moon.” She pointed the way. “Granny makes a great burger.”

Claire watched the two sprightly old ladies head off down the sidewalk, granddaughters bringing up the rear. She could sense Gerry wanting to say something, but whatever it was she didn’t want to hear it. Right now she couldn’t even bring herself to look Gerry in the eye.

At her car, she put out her hand and in the same formally polite tone Andie had used, said, “Thank you. For everything.”

Gerry looked as if she were going to cry. “I hope you had a good time.”

A corner of Claire’s mouth hooked up. “It was an education.”

“I was wondering if—”

Claire glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run. I don’t want to miss my flight.”

Moments later she was turning right at the intersection. She drove slowly, half blinded by tears. She hadn’t gone more than a few blocks when she abruptly pulled over to the curb and with a small, choked cry dropped her head onto the wheel, which she held clutched, as tightly as if negotiating a sharp curve. She didn’t know how long she’d sat like that, struggling to regain her composure. Long enough, apparently, to draw attention.

“Hey … are you okay?”

The voice, accompanied by a rapping on her window, sent her head jerking up. A burly man in work clothes, with shaggy blond hair and a thick reddish mustache that drooped over his upper lip, was bent over, peering in at her with concerned brown eyes.

Claire, her face on fire, rolled her window down. “I’m fine … thank you.”

“You sure?” He eyed her curiously.

A hand fluttered up to her temple. “Really. I’m okay.”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but you don’t look okay.”

“I will be … in a minute.” She’d never been so embarrassed in her life.

But the man wasn’t leaving. “Would you like to come inside? It’s none of my business, but I don’t think you should be driving in that condition.”

Claire looked past him at a small red-roofed house festooned in vines. A
FOR SALE
sign tilted drunkenly on the scrap of lawn. Crisscrossing it was a banner that read

OPEN HOUSE 12–3 P.M.

“I’m—” She opened her mouth to repeat that she was fine.

He smiled and straightened. “Don’t worry. I’m harmless.”

Before she realized it, she was climbing out of the car, even while a voice in her head cried,
What do you think you’re doing? You’ll miss your flight!

The man, who was around her age and taller by at least a head and a half, stuck out a large calloused hand. “Matt Woodruff.” The tool belt slung about his hips gave the fleeting impression of a Wild West gunslinger. “Open house isn’t for another hour,” he said, nodding in the direction of the house, “but there’s no law says I can’t let you in before then.”

“Are you the owner?” she asked, rummaging in her purse for a Kleenex. She probably looked like hell, but what did it matter?

He grinned, showing a mouthful of very large, very white teeth. “Hell, no. I have enough headaches as it is. Mrs. Dalrymple asked me to give the place a once-over, make it presentable.” His grin widened. “It’s what the real-estate agents call a honeymoon cottage, which is fancy lingo for fixer-upper.”

“It looks to be in decent shape from here.”

Matt Woodruff regarded her with interest. Little sprinkles of sawdust were caught in the folds of his chambray shirt, and its sleeves were rolled up over his elbows, showing arms as thick and hard as railroad ties. A line from a Longfellow poem, memorized back in grade school, popped into her head:
Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands …

“Come on in, I’ll give you the fifty cent tour.”

“I should be going,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I have a plane to catch.”

“It won’t take long—there’s not much to see.”

Claire hesitated. She was used to men coming on to her. Was that what was happening here? No, she didn’t think so. Matt’s face was open and friendly, his eyes, the color of strong brewed tea, sparkling with nothing more than friendly interest … and perhaps sympathy.

“I guess I can spare a few minutes,” she said. There was something about this man’s sunny demeanor that was catching. Either that, or the weekend with her mother had left her completely unhinged.

Besides, what could be the harm in it?

L
AMAZE CLASSES WERE HELD
in the VFW social hall—the perfect place for it, according to Sam, who said that childbirth deserved a purple heart, especially at
her
advanced age—where at the moment Sam and Gerry sat cross-legged on their mats. There were nine women, of all ages and walks of life, forming a rough circle around the perimeter of the large utilitarian room with metal folding chairs stacked at one end, a trophy case and a table holding a coffee urn and plates of cookies at the other. The instructor, a trim, sandy-haired woman named Jane, who had to have been a baby herself when Sam was pregnant with Laura, had taken them through the various breathing exercises—all of which were a distant memory to Gerry, who was glad that that part of her life was over. Sam, on the other hand, was loving every minute. And though easily the oldest expectant mom in the class, she was as slim as ever, even at six and a half months. In her baggy sweatshirt—one of Ian’s, judging from the paint on the cuffs—she hardly seemed pregnant.

“What will we be packing in our overnight bags, ladies?” Jane, an obstetrical nurse and mother of two, patrolled the circle of mats with her hands clasped behind her back. They were taking a break from breathing exercises to review more practical matters.

“My husband!” cracked heavyset Emma Pettigrew, married to a fireman and the mother of two preschoolers, both of whom had been born when their dad was off putting out fires.

The women shared a laugh.

“My mama says to pack a horse tranquilizer,” piped one of the first-time moms—Yvonne Ramsey, a slender, light-skinned black woman with braided extensions arranged in an artful fall. Gerry recognized her as one of the managers at Rusk’s.

“Save it for your old man,” barked gravel-voiced Kit Greggins, a henna-haired woman with tattoos, six months along with her fifth. “That is, if he don’t pass out on his own first.”

“Okay, ladies.” The instructor smiled as she shook her head. “I think we’ve heard enough war stories. I’m sure most of you are anxious enough as it is.”

“Damn straight,” put in Katrina Brill, a forty-something executive who’d gotten tired of waiting for Mr. Right and taken matters into her own hands. She was accompanied by her equally capable-looking sister. “If I come out of this with stretch marks, I’m
never
going to find a husband.”

The lighthearted mood was broken by Faye Bontempi, who was acting as coach for her sixteen-year-old daughter Christina. “I have Chris’s bag all packed,” she announced grimly. “Toothbrush, nightie, lip balm, Walkman—none of that crazy music she listens to, either, something nice and soothing—oh yes, and lollipops. She’ll need them to keep her blood sugar up.”

There was no mention of a layette. Christina, a lumpish girl seated docilely alongside her mother, wouldn’t be needing one for her baby. Gerry felt a pang, wishing there was something she could say to the girl … but what?
Think twice, you might regret it.

Her thoughts turned to Claire. It had been two weeks, and all Gerry had to show for her visit was a polite note thanking her for her hospitality. She’d phoned several times, leaving messages on Claire’s answering machine. None had been returned. The only one who’d heard from her was Justin, with whom she chatted on-line.

Gerry would’ve jumped on a plane if she’d thought it would make a difference, but she suspected it would only make things worse. Claire clearly needed time to absorb all this. Gerry could only sit back and wait, and hope she would eventually come around.

In your patience possess ye your souls.
Words from Luke that would be sorely put to the test in the days to come.

“I don’t have the heart to tell them this is the easy part,” Sam muttered under her breath. “Wait till their kids are grown.”

She ought to know. Last summer, when she’d taken up with Ian, her daughters had raised a huge stink. Sam, who’d always put her family first and who would have given her life for those girls when they were little, had fortunately come around to Gerry’s way of thinking: that it was her turn now. In time, Laura and Alice had seen it that way, too.

“Don’t I know it.” Gerry groaned. “These days Andie doesn’t say anything unless it’s to bite my head off.”

“She’s a teenager.” Sam shrugged.

“I wish that were all.”

“What makes you think there’s more?”

The class was over and they were rolling up their mats. Gerry tucked hers into Sam’s voluminous straw tote that also held Sam’s cell phone, bottles of Evian, cough drops, and hand cream (Gerry had no doubt her overnight bag was already packed and sitting by her door). The other women had drifted to the refreshment table, where they stood chatting as they sipped cups of decaf and nibbled on cookies. Jane was deep in conversation with Faye Bontempi, whose expression remained grim. Faye, who was forty but looked fifty, stood with her scrawny arms folded over her chest, nodding every so often at something the instructor had said.

Gerry sighed. “It’s been worse lately—ever since Claire’s visit.”

Sam, who knew Gerry better than anyone, including her own mother, winced in commiseration. “Have you tried talking to her?”

“More than once. It’s like talking to a brick wall.”

“Then wait for her to come to you.”

“Remember when she was little?” Gerry grew wistful. “She was such a little chatterbox—you couldn’t get her to shut up. My mother used to say it was God’s little joke on me after those years in the convent.”

Sam was giving her that apple-doesn’t-fall-far-from-the-tree look. “They always say it’s the ones that are most like you that are the hardest.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Nobody could ever get you to shut up, either. Remember in high school, the debate with Kingswood? The bell went off and you kept right on talking.”

“I don’t think I even heard it,” Gerry recalled with a laugh.

“I rest my case.”

Sam looked so youthful at that moment, with her cheeks blooming and her auburn hair swinging loosely about her shoulders, Gerry was immediately transported back to their senior year, when her best friend had been breaking every heart and she’d had one foot in the convent.

Some things never change,
she thought. Sam was with the best-looking guy around, and she was still praying—these days to the Patron Saint of Divorced Moms.

Gerry felt a twinge of envy. No, not envy. She wouldn’t go so far as to call it that, for she wouldn’t have traded places with Sam for all the tea in China. But now and then wouldn’t it be nice to have someone other than her children to come home to? Someone with whom she could curl up on the couch and watch old movies. Like the way it had been with Mike when they were first married, back when they’d both been so blinded by love that neither had had the slightest clue what the other was
really
like.

She thought of Aubrey. Of the men she’d dated since her divorce, he was the only one she thought about out of bed as much as in. But lately he’d been on her mind a bit
too
much, which she found disturbing. For even if she were looking to get married again, which she most definitely was not (Mike had cured her of that), she’d be barking up the wrong tree. There was no room in Aubrey’s heart for anyone but Isabelle.

Yes, and what will it be like in years to come, growing old with the nuns on the hill, with only your little romps on the side. Maybe Sam had the right idea after all.

She glanced up to find her friend regarding her curiously, as if Sam sensed something amiss. She tucked her arm through Gerry’s. “Buy a pregnant lady a drink?”

“I could use one myself.” Gerry didn’t normally drink, but tonight she’d make an exception. “What about Sylvester’s?” It was a little on the divey side, but just down the street.

Five minutes later they were pushing their way through the saloon-style door. Sylvester’s, in one incarnation or another, had been around since the gold rush, first as a stage stop, then as a bordello, and these days as pool hall and tavern. Besides being conveniently located practically next door to the VFW building—which provided a steady trickle of old soldiers looking to relive their glories or drown their sorrows, or both—it was where you went when everything else was closed, which in Carson Springs, where they rolled up the sidewalks at nine, meant a brisk after-hours trade.

“Isn’t that Melodie Wycoff?” murmured Sam as they settled in at a table near the bar. On the jukebox Garth Brooks was wailing about a broken heart and in its faint, lurid glow everybody’s favorite waitress was slow-dancing with a man definitely not her husband.

“I see nothing, I hear nothing.” Gerry had enough problems of her own without adding Melodie’s to the list. And from the looks of it, she was too drunk to care if her husband, a cop known for his long arm and quick temper, got wind of this.

Sam ordered a root beer and Gerry a scotch, straight up.

“To saints and sinners.” Sam lifted her foaming mug.

“I’ll drink to that,” Gerry said.

“Listen, thanks for coming with me tonight. I really appreciate it.”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have had it any other way. In the unlikely event I wind up being your coach, I ought to know what I’m doing.”

Sam smiled. “Not much chance of that. I can’t go to the end of the driveway for the mail without Ian’s insisting that I take my cell phone. Yesterday I had to virtually boot him out the door. You’d think San Bernardino was a trip to the moon.”