I rode back to Cole Creek in the pickup with Ford in silence. Silence was the best I could do under the circumstances because I knew he and Noble had played a trick on me. Oh, yes, the two of them had shown up in the truck with a gas can in the back, but I wasn’t “dumb female” so much that I couldn’t see that the can was empty. They’d put it in the truck just for show, to make me feel better, because they knew they weren’t going to have to put gas in a car that had a nearly full tank.
When I got in the truck with Ford he turned on the radio—something he never did because his writer’s brain was so full he couldn’t hear much else—so I knew he wanted to distract me. Sure enough, as soon as I turned off the radio, I heard the car engine start.
I didn’t look back but I knew that an hour ago, that car had been dead. So maybe Noble had done some boy-thing under the hood and made it start. Tapped on a spark plug. Put gin in the generator.
But I knew he hadn’t. The car was dead for me, but alive for Noble. Just as Tessa had said, there were some people who “couldn’t” get more than fifty miles outside of Cole Creek.
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I did not want this to be happening.
But curiosity got the better of me. Opening my eyes, I punched buttons on my cell phone. Random numbers with a New York area code. When I got someone’s machine, I hung up. A few minutes ago the only number I could call on my phone was Ford’s. Not even emergency numbers had worked.
Ford was silent, so I knew he was letting me have some time to sort things out in my mind. But how can one figure something like that out? Had I really seen and talked—and lusted after—the devil? Or was I—I hoped—merely insane?
I could believe that Noble and Toodles were “mistaken” about not seeing Russell. Or even lying. Noble could be angry that I was “steppin’ out” on his cousin, and he’d be able to make Toodles believe whatever he wanted. But Tessa? She was the kid who told the emperor he had no clothes on.
I thought about how rude Noble and Toodles had been to Russell when they’d met him. At the time, I’d figured Noble didn’t like the idea that I was seeing another man, so that was why he was snubbing Russell. Even when Noble pretended he couldn’t hear Russell, I played along and shouted every word. I didn’t get to tell Noble what I thought of him, but at least I got to use my preferred volume.
Russell had been wonderful. He’d smiled at Noble and Toodles, and had been gracious when they didn’t answer his questions. He’d even smiled when they’d ignored his outstretched hand.
I’d been so angry at the two men that when I went outside with Russell, I’d given him a super kiss. I wanted those two to go to Ford and tell him that Jackie Maxwell didn’t “belong” to him as everyone seemed to think I did.
Besides, I was sick of Ford’s not being there. It was pretty boring around the house when he wasn’t there. During Ford’s three-day absence, Noble and Allie had spent quite a bit of time together in the rotting old house across the street, and a couple of times their laughter had drifted all the way back to me.
On Tuesday night Allie hung around so long we had to ask her to stay for dinner. Afterward, she got me alone outside and asked if Noble was impotent. When I asked her how she thought I would know that, I said it much more sharply than I’d meant to. It wasn’t that I was jealous, but damn it! I had two men in my life, but both of them were weird enough to be aliens. Gorgeous Russell came and went like some migrating bird, and Ford had gone into hibernation like the bear he resembled. Result? I was manless.
“I just wondered,” Allie said, oblivious to my bad mood. “I thought maybe Ford had said something about Noble’s ability to…you know.”
“That’s the one subject we haven’t discussed,” I said, but she missed my sarcasm. It was odd, but I’d really liked Allie until she and Noble had become an item. Now Allie seemed a bit frivolous to me. It wasn’t that she had a man paying attention to her and I didn’t. I was bigger than that. It was just that I was more observant now.
Anyway, it seemed that Allie was worried about Noble’s virility because he hadn’t made a pass at her, not even to try to kiss her. They’d been spending many hours a day together and Allie had been lusting over him—making a spectacle of herself, actually—but Noble hadn’t so much as held her hand.
I was disgusted with Allie’s giggles but, to show her I was a nice person, I helped her out. Earlier, when she’d been stretching up on one foot to pick grapes, I’d seen Noble look at her from across the barbeque grill with red-hot lust in his eyes. So, obviously, he was playing some male game if he was making Allie believe he wasn’t burning up for her.
I told Allie that at nine she should tell everyone she had to leave because she was expecting a call from her ex and didn’t want to miss it. She protested but she agreed to do it. So Tessa had another sleep-over, Noble volunteered to drive Allie home, and I called Allie at nine thirty, ready to pretend to be her ex’s secretary, but no one answered.
When I got up the next morning, Noble was already in the kitchen, smiling and whistling, and when he saw me, he kissed my cheek. Minutes later my cell phone rang and it was Allie. She wanted to reassure me that Noble was not impotent. “Not, not, not, not, not—” she said. I hung up in the middle of what had to be the twelfth “not.”
When I went back to the kitchen, I had to endure Toodles, Tessa, and Noble dancing around to some C-and-W tune on the radio. I stayed to one side and prepared a breakfast tray for Ford. I’d taken advantage of his continued, self-imposed isolation to fill him with nutritious food. I gave him cereal that was heavy on the fiber (oak sawdust would have been lighter) with soy milk, juice run through an extractor so it contained masses of pulp, and dry toast with whole seeds protruding from the dark brown surface.
So, okay, maybe I was trying to agitate him enough that he’d come out of his room and liven up the place, but I didn’t succeed. At noon I delivered a vegetarian sandwich (plus veggie chips with an artichoke dip on the side) and picked up his empty breakfast tray. Right. Empty.
I didn’t say a word when I delivered his food and sometimes I thought he never even saw me. Actually, a couple of times I was sure he didn’t know I was there. I would have made myself known, but one day he was pacing and reading something out loud, so I stayed and listened. It was about Toodles and Tessa, and it was a combination of funny and so heartwarming that I wanted to sit down and listen to every word he was writing. But I didn’t. Whatever it took to allow him to write a story like that, I was going to give it to him.
I closed the door and tiptoed away. Sometimes, between his grumpiness and having to feed him every two hours, I forgot that he was Ford Newcombe, the writer whose books had captured America’s heart.
And, if I were honest, there was ego in my feeding him and keeping things quiet so he could write. I knew he hadn’t written anything since his wife had died. So if he was writing now, maybe I’d had something to do with removing the block. Maybe plain ol’ Jackie Maxwell had done something that had enabled this man to give yet more happiness to the millions of people who’d read his beautiful books.
By the time I was to meet Russell on Wednesday, I was feeling pretty good. I was getting some good food into Ford and I was doing what he’d hired me to do: help him write.
On the other hand, I didn’t think it would hurt anything if when Ford did emerge from his den he was told that I was being courted by a divinely handsome man. So that’s why I invited Toodles and Noble to meet Russell.
But the meeting was a disaster. Well, actually, half a disaster.
Part of me had been angry at the attitude Toodles and Noble had taken with Russell, but another part had been pleased by it. Did they see Ford and me as a couple so strongly that they couldn’t bear to see another man near me? Is that why they’d been so rude?
Maybe I’d overdone it when, in front of them, I’d thrown my arms around Russell and kissed him with so much enthusiasm, but I’d really wanted to show them that I belonged to no one.
Just as I knew they would—okay, hoped they would—immediately after Russell left, Noble and Toodles ran straight up to Ford’s office. I went to the kitchen and busied myself chopping vegetables for dinner. When Ford came down, I wanted to look busy and unconcerned. I entertained myself by rehearsing acting surprised at why he was so upset just because I was seeing another man.
But the clock ticked and Ford didn’t come downstairs. In fact, the three of them stayed upstairs. What now? I thought. Do I have to haul three trays upstairs?
I got enough veggies chopped for fourteen people (Noble was cutting down by halves; next week he was going to try to go down to seven) and put them in the refrigerator. I went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. No sounds were coming from upstairs.
I fiddled with the dragon for a few minutes, watching the flame shoot out of its mouth, and wondered if anyone had shown Toodles the little creature. He’d probably really like it. Maybe I should call him. Or maybe I should go upstairs to Ford’s office and ask if they were hungry.
But in the next second pain shot through my head and I collapsed on the rug at the foot of the stairs. Suddenly, I was inside Rebecca Cutshaw’s head. I don’t know how I knew whose mind I was inside, but I knew. I saw the interior of a house that I knew was hers, and I felt her boozy, unclear thoughts.
But most of all, I felt her rage. She drank to deaden the anger inside her. I couldn’t tell exactly what she was angry about, but her rage was such that I felt as though I’d been tied to a stake and flames were eating me up.
I’ve never understood alcoholism, but in that moment I did. If I were being burned alive as Rebecca was and alcohol calmed the flames, I’d drink anything I could.
I was only in her head for seconds, which was almost more than I could bear, but I saw what she wanted to do. For some reason, the town of Cole Creek seemed to be the object of her rage, and she truly believed that the only way to get rid of the anger permanently was to burn it down. The vision inside her mind was so realistic that I knew she’d been planning it for a long time. And, worse, she didn’t care if she died in the flames. She just felt as though she must remove Cole Creek from the face of the earth. And there was something I couldn’t understand: She thought that there were people who could not get away from the flames—and people, like firemen, who could not get to the fire to put it out.
When I came to from the vision, I staggered over to the hall chair, and moments later Ford was there—as he always was when I desperately needed him.
After carrying me into the living room, he asked me to tell him about my vision. I was so upset that I hardly noticed the other people in the room. It seemed to be just Ford and me.
Somewhere in my telling, Noble got involved, then Toodles and Tessa, and they started telling me that Russell Dunne didn’t exist and that I’d been talking to a ghost. Only they didn’t say he was a ghost. They said he was a devil. No, sorry. The devil. The one who’s nearly as powerful as God. That devil.
It was all so ridiculous. I mean, if they wanted to break Russell and me up, couldn’t they have come up with something less dramatic? They could have said he was gay. Or that he had a criminal record— and wouldn’t Ford’s family be in a position to know that? But no, they had to go for the gold and tell me I was seeing the devil.
Right. Sure. Why in the world would someone so important waste his time on a secretary-slash-cook-slash-amateur photographer? What was in it for the devil? Didn’t he have his hands full with what was going on out in the world?
The whole thing was too absurd for me to take, so I left. I don’t think I meant to leave forever, but I needed some time to get away from anyone named Newcombe—and that included Tessa and her devil-hating-Cole Creek story.
On the other hand, I’m sure that in the back of my mind was my deep desire to know. For weeks now Ford and I had danced around the idea that I was involved in what had happened to that woman years ago. But we had no solid proof of my involvement. By silent agreement, Ford and I had pretty much dropped the original reason for our coming to Cole Creek. And why not? He was writing again, and heaven knew I was happy since I now had my own photography studio. So why pursue something that seemed to alienate us from the residents?
The only problem seemed to be this Russell Dunne thing. And the fifty mile limit, of course. How absurd was that?
When I grabbed the car keys, I didn’t consciously think of it, but I think I was determined to show them all that what Tessa had said was something the kid had made up. When I got into the car, I pushed the button to start counting the miles. I drove south in Ford’s fast little Bimmer, so agitated that I straightened out curves. Twice I had to make myself slow down before I met an oncoming car and caused a wreck. If I got myself killed, no doubt they’d say the devil did it.
I watched the mile counter turn forty-eight, then forty-nine. As it started to roll over to fifty, I smiled. Idiots! I thought. How could they make up a story like that? How could—?
When the counter hit fifty, the car engine stopped. No red light on the gas gauge. No warnings of any kind on the screen in that expensive little car. Just dead. And it wouldn’t start again no matter how many times I turned the key.
Coincidence, I told myself as I got out of the car. I was glad I’d had the sense to grab my cell phone along with the car keys, but the phone wouldn’t work. The ID panel said I had a signal, but when I called a number I got no sound. I couldn’t call the police or a tow service. I went through every phone number in my directory but got only silence.
Finally, I called Ford’s cell number and he answered. He and Noble got there faster than I had, which meant that they’d straightened out all the curves.
When I saw Ford I refrained from running to him and clinging. Yes, of course the fact that the car had died at exactly fifty miles was just a coincidence, but at the same time I was feeling decidedly unsafe.
Ford seemed to understand what I was feeling because he was quiet so I could think all the way back to the house. But then maybe he wanted to think, too.
When we got back, Ford pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and we sat there for a few moments in the truck cab.
Then, suddenly, Ford put a big hand on the back of my head and kissed me hard. “Whatever happens, Jackie Maxwell,” he said, “remember that I’m on your side.” With that, he got out of the truck and went into the house.
I sat in the truck and felt myself sigh—then I looked around to make sure no one had heard me. What is wrong with us women that we’re such suckers for that strong, masculine crap?
I got out of the truck, shut the door, and stood for a few moments looking up at the beautiful house. If a person were trapped—and of course I wasn’t—I could think of worse places to be than in this town in this house with this man.
As I went up the front steps I felt a great deal better than I had when I left.