The Harvest (6 page)

“How about some hot chocolate before I walk you back? We need to talk about tomorrow anyway.”

“Sounds good. I packed as much as I could before we went to dinner. You can help me with the rest in the morning.”

They entered Jill’s cottage, and Ryan put on the kettle. “Relax. This’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

Tess plopped into an easy chair, enjoying her view of Ryan working in the kitchen. As he filled the cups, she grinned when he added some tiny marshmallows.

“Marshmallows? You planned ahead.”

“The only way to drink hot chocolate.” Then he confessed, “Jill must have them here for Davie.”

Ryan gazed at Tess’s warm smile. Things seemed perfect. He carried the mug to her side and settled in a chair. How could a few days change his life so completely? Their gazes met, and contentment washed over him.

The dim lamplight played on her wavy dark hair, her translucent skin in the soft glow, and her electric blue eyes. She was beautiful and fragile, inside and out.

“Why are you so quiet?” She raised the mug and blew on her hot drink.

“Thinking about you. I don’t want to overwhelm you with a list of your wonderful attributes.”

A soft flush rose to her cheeks. “Try me.”

He loved the way her eyes brightened and color rose on her face. “I’ll keep you dangling. Maybe you’ll want to see me again when we get back home so you can hear the list I came up with.”

“Oh, really.”

Her leaving tomorrow had set his emotions on edge. Ryan wanted to see her again, to spend time together like they had these few days. Donna’s call
seemed a minor problem. Once he talked with her, she’d realize they had made the right decision.

A deep urge settled in his chest. An urge to be honest and tell Tess that he and Donna had only ended their engagement a few weeks earlier. Tell her that Donna had called today, but that he had no intention of getting back with her. His only dream was to get to know Tess better and someday…

As Ryan basked in his warm thoughts, a sound struck his ear. He jumped, the cocoa sloshing from the mug to his jeans.

“What was that?” Tess asked, staring toward the door.

“An animal…maybe,” he said, yet knowing full well he’d heard a car door slam.

This time a clear knock penetrated the silence. Ryan looked at Tess, then the door. No one would come to the cabin except for an emergency. He dashed toward it while Tess sat clinging to the edge of her chair.

His heart plummeted to the ground when he saw the intruder.

Donna.

P
erspiration beaded Ryan’s hairline as he stared at Donna. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” she said in the doorway as she draped her arms around his neck in greeting. Embarrassed, Ryan quickly disentangled himself from her embrace. She stepped over the threshold and came to a dead stop, her smile skewing to a glower. “But I didn’t know you had company?”

In panic, Ryan turned to Tess, seeing his worst nightmare coming to fruition. “Tess, I hadn’t any—”

Tess rose, her face frozen in shock and dismay. She grabbed her jacket from the chair.

“Please, let me explain.” He stepped toward her pleading for her to stay. But in a heartbeat, she slipped past Donna out the door.

Ryan gaped at her, a sense of foreboding thunder
ing through his body. “I have a problem here, Donna.” Ryan didn’t care anymore. He grabbed a flashlight from a nearby doorsill, brushed past her and dashed from the cottage into the black night following Tess. He took a shortcut through the woods, branches tearing his sleeves, ruts tripping his steps as he called to her. “Tess, please wait. Please. Let me explain.”

He heard the snap of twigs and the rustle of underbrush ahead of him, but in the pitch-black, she had gotten too far. When he came to the clearing, she was already inside the cabin.

Ryan tried the door, but she’d thrown on the lock and he pounded against the heavy wood. “Tess, please. Talk to me.”

He darted around the cabin, pressing his face against the windows like a Peeping Tom, but she proceeded him, snapping off the lights one step ahead of him.

“I’ll sit here all night, Tess. Let me talk to you. I can explain.” His voice knotted, choking his words. He leaned his head against the bedroom window where the last light had been extinguished. “Open the window so you can hear me, Tess. Use a little reason.”

The cabin lay in silence.

Use a little reason.
Why hadn’t he heeded his own words? He’d been stupid. Why hadn’t he told her Donna had called? That would have been simple. Surely she would have understood. Now he had done more damage than he could ever imagine.

He stared at the dark cabin, his lone light, one pitiful ray piercing the gloom. It was as pitiful as the empty hope that lit his darkened heart.

Sitting outside in the cold woods was senseless. He had to talk with Donna and send her to a motel for the night. No need explaining anything to Donna now. At this point, after what she’d seen, he figured things were clear.

He turned away from the cabin. No matter how irritated he was with Donna, he’d never wanted to hurt her. He would send her on her way, and come back to Tess’s early in the morning. Maybe she’d listen to his explanation then. A night’s sleep might help them both.

Tess listened to Ryan pounding on the door, curled on top of the bed with a quilt tossed over her head. By the time the cabin had grown silent, her tears had dried. How could she have believed him? He’d joked that all men lie. That he didn’t lie. Apparently that had been another deception.

Earlier she had fought herself not to open the door. She wanted to hear his explanation…even in front of Donna. She longed for a thread of reason. Anything to make the hurt go away and bring back the contentment she’d felt only minutes earlier. But she found no reason. Only more dishonesty.

Now in silence, she rose on tiptoe and crept through the cabin, peeking through the windows. Finally, she decided that Ryan had gone back to the cottage. Spurred by her need to get away, Tess did
her best to pack on her own and not wait until morning. She would leave tonight.

Having given Ryan her address and telephone number, Tess suspected he’d call. But she wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t listen. She had no judgment to tell truth from lies.

Tess’s head pounded as she thought about his business card. She wanted to destroy it, but some deep hope clung to her heart—a small thread of faith. Could the warm, loving feelings have been totally wrong? She thought back to her life with Al. Though she didn’t see the truth, she wasn’t ignorant. She sensed things weren’t right. In truth, she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d deluded herself. Had she done that again, wanting so badly to feel loved and desired? Her question swung from despair to hope.

In the darkness and her inexperience, Tess turned off the water, leaving the taps open just enough so the wrapped pipes wouldn’t burst. She remembered Al doing that. She prayed she had done the job correctly. She reviewed the list of tasks to close the cabin for the winter. With haste, she threw her luggage and storage boxes into the car.

Pulling the shutters closed, she secured them inside, then pulled the fuses from the box. Locking the door, she climbed into the car. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped from her chin as she dug in her jacket pocket for her keys. Along with her keys, she felt something else. She dug them out and gazed at the smooth pink heart-shaped stone Ryan had given her. Tempted to toss it out the window, she closed
her hand around the rock and slid it back into her pocket, then pulled down the rutted lane to the dark highway and headed home.

Since leaving Mackinaw City, Ryan hadn’t been the same. That night, Donna had been furious and tore away from the place as if he’d cheated on her…and perhaps he had. He should have talked with her on the telephone and made things right then. His head swirled with “what ifs.” All he knew was that love had found him that night in the woods and he wasn’t going to let a misunderstanding ruin his chances to love the way God meant him to love.

The next morning, he’d gone to Tess’s cabin and found the shutters locked, everything secured and Tess already gone. His heart felt weighted with loss and loneliness. He closed Jill’s cottage and left the northern city, his emotions as raw and aching as if someone he loved had died.

For the past two weeks, he’d dialed Tess’s phone number time after time, but the answering machine always picked up, and Tess never returned his call. No matter what he did or said to make things better, how could he right the wrong he’d done?

He imagined how hurt Tess had been, opening her heart to him, speaking of trust, and in the next hour, he had let her be hurt by Donna’s surprise visit. He could blame Donna, but he knew where the blame lay. He grimaced, thinking how similar it seemed to Tess’s husband’s dreadful surprise.

With frustration charging through him, Ryan left
the office and headed for his sister’s house. Jill could give him some needed guidance through a woman’s eyes. Gary had just gotten back to work following his appendectomy and with Davie in kindergarten, Ryan hoped Jill would be home alone. He needed to talk.

When she opened the door, her knowing gaze smacked him with the truth. “You look terrible. What’s wrong?”

Ryan mumbled about his northern romance and the horrible story of Donna’s unexpected appearance.

Jill’s eyes rolled throughout his narration, and her sputtered comments seemed less than helpful.

Finally, he fell back against the sofa cushion and closed his mouth. He’d apologized to Tess with the same comment, “Open mouth, insert foot,” and he felt as if he’d done that today with Jill.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I guess I don’t seem sympathetic, but you were an absolute fool. I don’t understand how you got yourself into this mess. You’re an honest guy. You’re a gentleman…in every sense of the word. So explain.”

“I don’t know, Jill. One thing led to another. I was the kind stranger who helped her out of a couple of problems. We talked, and it felt nice to have another person nearby. I offered to help her close up the cabin. She seemed lonely and a little pensive. I started out as Mr. Macho. You know, ‘Here he comes to save the day.’ The next thing I know, I invited her to the island. There was a gorgeous sunset. She
bought a sweatshirt and I used the clothes hanger to get into my car, and—”

“Wait a minute. I followed you until the hanger.”

Ryan recounted the twin stories of the locked keys. “Somehow, in that moment, I kissed her…and she kissed me back. In my gut, she seemed like an old friend, a fellow traveler in the world of problems and laughter. We were like two lost souls finding each other.”

“You’ve been reading too many women’s magazines.” Jill shook her head. “Why weren’t you up-front? Why not tell her your breakup was fresh, but the feelings had died long before. Why didn’t you tell her that Donna called, but you weren’t going to change your mind?”

Ryan’s heart sank. What Jill said sounded so easy. “I didn’t want to add tension to an already-edgy situation.”

“I don’t blame her for leaving when she saw Donna. Not one bit. If I’d trusted a man, let him kiss me, listened to his poetic rambling about lost souls and fellow travelers, I’d have run out on you, too, when another woman showed up.”

“I’d planned to tell her…after the fact.”

Jill rubbed her neck. “But you forgot to tell your plan to Donna. If you had, she wouldn’t have shown up.”

He grimaced. “Right. So now I need a plan of action.”

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense. But I’m wondering if you’re too late, Ryan. I
don’t know Tess well, but I understand how badly she was hurt. The summer after her husband’s death, we sat on the beach for a long time and she poured out her heart. She wondered if she could ever trust again. She asked me about Gary. Why did I trust him? Did I ever suspect that he was cheating on me? How did I make him satisfied and happy? She sounded as if she felt guilty for some reason.”

As he listened to Jill’s description, Ryan slumped deeper into the cushion, wishing he could vanish. He’d seen Tess’s vulnerability. He’d heard her remarks about commitment and promises. Why hadn’t he been open then and not taken chances?

“Sitting there with a hangdog face isn’t helping, Ryan. The poor woman was blaming herself. It sounds like after two years she finally found the courage to trust someone—and you really threw her a curve.”

“I know.”

“So do something to prove how much Tess means to you. But there are no guarantees.”

No guarantees. Jill was right. But he had to take a chance. He and Tess had been soul mates, sharing thoughts and feelings. She was meant for him—the hand of God had moved the earth. He had no doubt. Somehow he had to convince her he cared about her more than words could say.

Tess closed her front door and gazed at the wrapped floral bouquet. She carried it to the end table by the window and detached the small card. Ryan.
Tears blurred in her eyes as she looked at his signature and simple message. “Please talk with me.”

She crumpled into a nearby chair while her thoughts drifted back to Mackinaw. Images of their footprints in the sand rose in her memory, imprints washed away by the tide just like Ryan had torn away a piece of her heart. Old beliefs charged through her head.
Emotions are fleeting. Love is devious. Men are fickle and dishonest.

Tess’s thoughts shot back to her life with Al. He brought her flowers on occasion, often after one of his extralong weekends or his very, very late evenings at the office. Were these flowers like Al’s—to salve Ryan’s guilt? Or could she be totally wrong? Were they a reminder of their hours on the island and their first kiss?

She brushed unbidden tears from her lashes and grabbed the telephone. She’d told no one about the incident with Ryan, and today the memory weighed on her like a boulder.

Tess dialed her brother’s telephone number. Maybe Dan wouldn’t understand, but Helen might offer her a sympathetic ear.

After their hellos, Helen’s comment was direct. “So what happened up north? I wondered why we hadn’t heard from you lately.

Tess’s emotions bubbled to the surface. “I can’t talk about it…or I’ll cry.”

“Tell me, Tess. I’m not just your sister-in-law. I’m your friend.”

Pleased that Helen seemed so ready to listen, Tess
emptied her confusion onto the table like a puzzle and sorted the pieces. She began with their humorous meeting in the woods, the firelight, the island, the sunsets and finally, to Donna’s arrival.

“You’re kidding. The rat.” Helen spit her sentiment into the air. “He doesn’t deserve a woman like you. You’re better off without him.”

But Tess’s tears had won out and Helen’s voice softened. “He really took a slice of your heart, didn’t he? I’m sorry.”

“You’d understand if you’d been with him. He seemed so…gentle and honest. We shared our feelings and thoughts. And his eyes were—”

Helen gasped. “Tess, you didn’t—”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not that stupid. But I wanted to, Helen. For the first time since long before Al died, I yearned to be in his arms, to be loved by someone that tender and kind.”

“Tess, you’re not naive. You read people well. Could you be wrong? He might have a reasonable explanation. Did you ask? Did you let him explain?”

“I ran off that night and left. Drove away before morning, and I haven’t answered his calls.” Emotion thundered through her, and Tess pressed her hand against her aching chest. Could Helen be right? Could there be some plausible justification? No, how could there be? She saw Donna. She saw Ryan. “Now he’s sent me flowers.”

“You could be wrong, Tess.”

“I don’t think so.”

Helen’s sigh shivered through the wire. “Think about it, Tess. Do you have his phone number?”

“Yes. I have his business card. He’s in real estate, and I asked him to do an appraisal on the cabin.”

“An appraisal?” Helen said with question. “Maybe you should call him. Give him a chance to explain.”

“I was probably a fling. That’s all.”

“Remember, Ryan isn’t Al, Tess. Ask God for help. Have you forgotten about prayer?”