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Authors: Cindy Myers

BOOK: The View From Here
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She folded her arms across her chest, silent.
“Colorado really suits you.” He nodded. “You look great, Maggie. Really.”
He sounded sincere. Maybe even a little . . . wistful? No, Carter wasn't the wistful sort. “Get to the point. You didn't come all the way to Colorado to flatter me.”
“No, I came because I've been feeling guilty.”
The starkness of the confession caught her off guard. Guilty? Carter? “You should feel guilty,” she said.
He ignored this. “I feel I wasn't generous enough in our divorce settlement. I was shocked to hear you weren't able to sell the house for a profit.”
She fought the childish urge to make gagging noises. “And how do you know how much I got for the sale of the house?” she asked.
“Sales records are public,” he said. “I asked my new secretary to look it up.”
The fact that he saw nothing wrong with this snooping showed his true character hadn't changed a bit. “You had no business doing that,” she said. “You're not a part of my life anymore.”
“I wanted to do something to make your situation more equitable,” he said. “I was thinking I could make an additional cash settlement.”
Right. Mr. Cheapskate was going to waltz in here and offer her more money. “Fine. Write me a check and I'll run and cash it before you can stop payment.”
“I'll be happy to write a check. In return, you could do me a little favor.”
“I knew there was a catch.”
He looked wounded. “No catch, Maggie. I just thought that in exchange for the money, I could take the Steuben collection off your hands.”
“You want the glass?” The idea made her a little dizzy. Of all the things Carter could have demanded from her, she never would have suspected the Steuben. “You gave me that glass.”
“And since we don't have a relationship anymore, I thought you'd be happy to give it back. It doesn't really fit the lifestyle you're living now and instead of all those reminders of the past, you could have a nice sum of cash in the bank.”
“That glass was a gift. You don't just take back a gift.”
“I'm not proposing to take back the gift. I'm prepared to pay you for it. Ten thousand dollars.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The last insurance appraisal was for twenty thousand dollars.”
“Yes, but that's replacement value. Wholesale is only half that, so I thought . . .”
“Get out.” She pointed a finger toward his rental.
“All right, all right. I won't argue with you. Twenty thousand.” He pulled his checkbook from his back pocket. “Is the glass still in storage in Texas or do you have it here?”
“You are not getting that glass. Now get out before I push you off the side of this mountain.”
Her rage finally got through to him. “What's happened to you?” he asked. “You've changed, and it's not for the better.”
“I don't give a fuck what you think of me anymore.”
“Maggie! Language!” His eyebrows rose.
She laughed. “Have I offended your sensitive ears?” she asked. “The man who was fucking another woman while he was married to me?”
“There's no need to take that tone with me.” He'd reached the car now and opened the door. “I'll come back when you've had more time to consider my offer. I'm sure you'll make the right decision.”
“I don't ever want to see you again!” she shouted. She clenched her hands at her sides, shaking with fury. For the first time she understood the kind of rage that could have moved her father to violence against another person. “I won't be responsible for what happens if you come near me again.”
But she doubted he heard the last; he'd slammed the door and the rental was lurching down the road, dust billowing in the red glow of the taillights.
Maggie stood in front of her steps, swaying a little with the same sense of vertigo and incipient panic she'd felt at ten years old when her pet goldfish had died and her mother had flushed its golden body down the toilet. She'd wanted to reach into the bowl and fetch it back, even though she'd known it would be a bad idea. Having anything more to do with Carter was also a bad idea, but the reflex of years made her want to keep even an antagonistic hold on that remnant of the woman she used to be.
Chapter 20
“S
o what's the story on you and this ex-husband who's hanging around?” With the directness of an investigative reporter grilling a corrupt politician, Rick confronted Maggie two days later at her desk in the
Eureka Miner
office.
“There is no story. My mother always told me if you couldn't say something good about someone, you shouldn't say anything at all, so I'll keep my mouth shut.” She stared at her computer screen, trying hard to give the impression that she was focused on her work and had no time for interruptions.
“So why is he still in town?” Rick perched on the side of the desk. “Olivia Theriot tells me he's been in the Dirty Sally every night.”
“I don't know why he's in town. I'm not speaking to him.”
“Bob thinks he's still carrying the torch for you, but my theory is he heard about the French Mistress and thinks you've come into money.”
“Right, Rick. If I'd really come into money, would I be driving a ten-year-old Jeep and working for you?”
“Maybe you're one of those eccentric millionaires who doesn't like to flaunt her wealth. Danielle thinks he's consumed by guilt over how he treated you and wants to make amends.”
Maggie gave up her pretense of work and glared at him. “Why is everyone discussing my business behind my back?”
“Well, we all had to decide where we wanted to be in the pool.”
“The pool!?” She rose. “My personal life is not to be a source of public entertainment.”
Rick slid off the desk and retreated to the door. “We wouldn't open it up to anyone who didn't know you,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, Jameso refused to place a bet.”
Jameso. There was another man who was on her trouble list. He'd been conspicuously absent since that evening in the Dirty Sally. His avoidance of her was a wound that cut deeper than she wanted to acknowledge. She'd been a fool, thinking sleeping with her had meant anything to him. He'd got what he wanted and now he was backing off. So typical.
But that didn't mean she hadn't cried herself to sleep two nights running over his betrayal.
“Look at it this way,” Rick said. “The gossip mill turns both ways. We'll be sure to let you know if we hear any dirt on your ex.”
“The subject is closed,” Maggie said.
Rick shrugged, then sauntered into his office and closed the door. Maggie waited until she was sure he was settled, then pulled out her cell phone and did what she should have done two days ago.
“Hello?” Barb answered on the second ring, though Maggie could hardly hear her.
“You sound like you're in a wind tunnel,” she said.
“Sorry.” The sound of fumbling, then Barb returned, her voice clearer. “I'm at the salon and I was seated next to the dryers. It's better now.”
“Should I call back?”
“No, I moved into a massage room. No one will bother us here. I'm just waiting for my pedicure to set before I put on my shoes.”
Once upon a time Maggie had spent long afternoons at the salon with Barb, reading celebrity gossip magazines and pondering the fashion implications of Cherry Bomb versus Pink Party toenail polish. She felt only a twinge of nostalgia, remembering. Opportunities to show her toes here in the mountains were so few as to make toenail polish inconsequential.
“What have you been up to?” Barb asked. “How's the job going? How are Jameso and Reg and Danielle and Janelle? Does everyone miss me?”
“Everyone misses you, including me.”
“My tan is fading, so I'll definitely have to get back up there soon. Not to mention it would be divine to escape this killer heat. It's been over a hundred degrees for fifteen days in a row.”
“The high in Eureka yesterday was seventy-eight.”
“Stop being so cruel while I sit here melting.”
“Did you know Carter is in Eureka right now?”
“Carter? No! What's he doing there?”
“I was hoping you knew. I know why he
says
he's here.”
“Because he realized what an asshole he was, and he's come to beg your forgiveness and shower you with riches in an attempt to mitigate his sins.”
“That's not too far off from the line of bull he tried to feed me.”
Barb laughed. “You're kidding. He actually said that?”
“Not in so many words, though he did say he thought the divorce settlement might have been a trifle unfair and he wanted to make it up to me with a check.”
“Maybe he got religion. Or joined a twelve-step program. Aren't they supposed to try to make amends to all the people they harmed in the past?”
“I don't think Carter is particularly religious or sober.” Definitely not the latter if he'd become a regular at the Dirty Sally. “He offered to pay me if I'd do him a little favor in return.”
“What was the favor?”
“He wants the Steuben.”
“The Steuben?” Barb's voice rose in a squeal.
“Yes, all of it. For a mere ten thousand dollars, he was willing to take all those painful reminders of the past off my hands.”
“The crook. Didn't it appraise at twice that?”
“He did up the offer to the full twenty grand when I turned him down the first time.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“Barb! Why would I sell the Steuben to him?”
“You're right. It is beautiful glass. I bet it looks fabulous with all those windows in the cabin.”
Maggie groped for some believable lie. “It will look fabulous, I'm sure,” she said.
“You haven't even unpacked it, have you?”
“No.”
“Then why not sell it to Carter?”
“If I was going to sell the glass—and I'm not saying I would—but if I did, it wouldn't be to Carter. Why should I give the man anything he wants?”
“Good point. Why
does
he want the glass, anyway?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. He let drop that he and Jimmy still see each other. What does Jimmy say?”
“That Carter cheats at golf as badly as he ever did. I promise you that's the only time they see each other. You know they've been in the same foursome for years. But I haven't had him and the rich bitch to the house or anything.”
“He must have stopped by before or after a golf game when you weren't there. He said he saw my address on a letter you'd addressed to me.”
“Probably the thank-you card I sent after my visit.”
The card had featured a full frontal nude of an extremely, um,
virile
young man. Barb's idea of a thank-you. “You don't have any idea why he wants the Steuben bad enough to come all the way to Eureka to try to get it?”
“No, but I'll ask around. You say he's still there?”
“Yes, but I have no idea why. He hasn't been stupid enough to approach me again.”
“I'll get right on it and get back to you. And, honey?”
“Yes?”
“If you do decide to sell the Steuben, I can help you find a good buyer. One you don't have any emotional ties to.”
All well and good, Maggie thought. But what about her emotional ties to the damned glass? She didn't want to have to look at it every day, but there was something to be said for having it.
 
Cassie parked her car behind the giant lilac bush down the street from the offices of the
Eureka Miner
and pulled her grandfather's fishing hat down lower on her head. Her grandmother's best friend, Sue Ellen Partridge, had planted the lilac slip in 1943, emptying her dishwater on it twice a day and wrapping it in old quilts all winter to keep it alive. The bush had thrived under her care, and when the city had threatened to chop it down in 1966, the Garden Club ladies had marched in protest in front of the mayor's house. The mayor had argued the bush was a traffic hazard, but the Garden Club ladies had argued that people ought not to be driving so fast in a residential neighborhood anyway. They'd offered a compromise in the form of a hand-painted warning sign.
Hazard Ahead
, it read, with a picture of a bush looming over the sidewalk and a driver craning his head to see around it. The sign had vanished long ago, stolen by vandals, but when she was a little girl, Cassie had thought it meant the bush was liable to leap out and grab unsuspecting passersby. For years she'd insisted on crossing the street on this side of town.
A familiar red Jeep pulled to the curb in front of the office and Maggie climbed out. There wasn't a trace of the city girl in her hiking boots and jeans and summer-weight sweater, though the silk scarf she'd wound through her coppery hair had a stylish flair to it. She didn't even glance toward the lilac bush before she went into the newspaper office and shut the door behind her.
Cassie started her car and cruised past the office. If anyone saw her, they'd merely think she was out for a drive. She'd left her assistant, Gloria Sofelli, in charge of the library for the afternoon, telling her only that she had “personal business” to attend to. Not a lie. She couldn't imagine anything much more personal than her errand this afternoon.
Out of town, she picked up speed and headed up the road toward Mount Garnet. Today was Tuesday, the day the weekly issue of the
Eureka Miner
went to press. Barring breaking news—a rare event in Eureka—Rick and Maggie would work until at least six compiling the paper.
Traffic lessened the higher Cassie climbed on the mountain. She saw no one she recognized, only tourists gaping at the view, hands white-knuckled on the curves. The last half mile to Jake's place she passed no one at all. Perfect.
She pulled into the rutted drive leading up to the cabin and nosed the car alongside the house, where it was mostly hidden from the road. She wasn't worried about Maggie interrupting her, but she didn't want anyone else to take note of her car there and report back to the newspaper office.
Before she went inside, she took a moment to look around. She'd never been to Jake's place, though she'd imagined it often enough. Some people might think of it as little more than a shack, but she recognized the little touches of a true mountain man—the sturdy rock pillars, the carved railings on the porch, the elk antlers mounted over the door. The cabin was like Jake himself—rugged and handsome and strong.
She tried the door, annoyed to find it locked. Who locked their door way up here? Certainly Jake never had. Reaching up, she felt along the door lintel until she found the spare key. Did Maggie even know about this one? It was tradition in these parts to keep a spare key over the door. Such a key could save the life of a lost hiker or a traveler stranded in a blizzard. She fit the key in the lock and shoved the door open. The cabin was small but neat, and smelled of vanilla. Definitely a woman's home. The quilts on the back of the sofa and love seat probably came from Lucille's shop, as did the wavy mirror on the wall. A couple of books shared space on the table by the sofa with a teapot, one of those little computer drive thingies, and a little vase of mountain pinks.
The only things out of place in the room were four large cardboard boxes that occupied most of the space between the love seat and the kitchen counter.
Fragile
was scrawled on the side of each in bold black marker.
Cassie checked the two books on the table. Cheap paperback romances, the kind favored by Janelle and Danielle. Nothing of concern to her. She moved on to the alcove under the stairs. This was crammed with a jumble of everything from an old oil lamp to a cookbook that dated from the 1950s, plus half a dozen cardboard boxes that would be worth looking into.
She set aside her purse and opened the first box. It was full of paperwork—letters addressed to Maggie, bank statements, a copy of Jake's will. Cassie examined the sheaf of legal papers. Jake's middle name had been Charles. “Jacob Charles Murphy.” Cassie said the name out loud. A nice, dignified name.
Of course, Jacob had been anything but dignified. She set the will aside and pulled the next envelope from the carton. Really, Maggie ought to keep these things in a safe. Or a deposit box at the bank. Anything could happen to them in this cabin.
The envelope contained three photographs. Snapshots, really, the kind with white margins all the way around the picture, and the date in block letters in one margin.
September 6, 1972,
read the date on a photo of a very young Jake holding a swaddled baby. Jake held the baby slightly away from his body, the fingers of one big hand splayed to support the head. He grinned at the infant, such joy in his expression it made Cassie's throat ache. This was what Jake looked like when he was in love.
She'd wanted him to look at her that way, but of course, he never had.

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