Anna didn’t mention the barbecue to her mother the next morning, certainly didn’t breathe a word about the evening swim. The civic club luncheon date was her secret also, though she was well aware that news of it would be all over town by nightfall. What Matilda Montrose didn’t know about, she couldn’t forbid or work to prevent. She could rant and rave, of course. But Anna would only have to listen to it afterward, not before as well.
It felt terrible, not being able to discuss the situation with her mother in a quiet, reasonable fashion. As strong as the impulse might be, however, it was impossible. If her mother was left in the dark, she had no one to blame but herself. Which was all very rational, but didn’t keep Anna from regretting it.
The luncheon was to be held, as usual, in the private dining room of the cafeteria-style restaurant. Service would be extremely informal; members simply served themselves from the buffet line. The arrangement nicely accommodated the members who couldn’t arrive on time. Many of the group ran their own businesses, and weren’t able to get away until there was no one in need of their services. Civic affairs had to be squeezed in around making a living.
If Rip was at all nervous, he hid it well. He greeted her with a smile and a compliment for her yellow linen suit as they met outside the restaurant across the street from the courthouse. Once inside, he seemed to radiate confidence, while his manner was politely cordial without being either stiff or outgoing. He let her take the lead, since it was her territory, but followed with a noticeable presence that made heads turn and left the whispers of hurried consultation in their wake.
She assumed she’d be the only person on hand he knew. She was wrong. The president of the largest bank in town greeted him on sight with a hearty welcome and a strong handshake, which was logical when she thought of it. No doubt Rip had made a sizable deposit on his arrival, and been in and out of that establishment many times over the course of his purchase of Blest. The lawyer who’d handled the sale was also extremely pleased to see him, as was the real estate agent who had represented the long distance owner.
Rip’s popularity didn’t end there. The head of the local lumberyard craved an introduction, as did an insurance agent who had heard Mr. Peterson was going to renovate and felt sure Rip would need an interim liability policy. The woman in charge of the art festival wanted to discuss something with him also, though actually standing next to Rip flustered the elderly lady so badly that she never quite pulled herself together enough to explain what it was.
Anna sympathized. She had thought she would be able to be with him today and still keep at least a small amount of her usual sangfroid, in spite of what they had done the night before. It didn’t happen.
Every time she looked at Rip, her mind filled with visions of wet skin and raw masculinity. The sound of his voice, perversely enough, submerged her once more in that silent, mystic swim. She felt hot and cold by turns, spoke to people without consciously recognizing who they were and answered questions without knowing what she’d said bare seconds later. She ate without having the slightest idea what she was eating or how it tasted.
The problem, she thought, was her nunlike life-style of the last few years. It had been so long since she’d made love that her hormones had gone a little crazy under the influence of moonlight and close proximity to an oversupply of testosterone. She was still a little off balance from its effects, but she would recover. All that was required was self-discipline and getting as far away as possible from the source of the trouble. Which she would do as soon as the luncheon was over.
It was a relief when the remnants of the meal were cleared away and the meeting called to order. The usual business took a short while, then members were invited to introduce their guests. By that time everyone present was aware of who they had among them, and attention was riveted on what she had to say about him.
Anna kept it concise, glossing over Rip’s history, outlining his business experience in California, but concentrating on what he proposed to do with Blest and the cultural and monetary benefits Montrose would derive from it. When she finished, the applause was adequate, if not overwhelming.
Rip stood and thanked her for inviting him and the gathering for their welcome, said how happy he was to be back home, then sat down. If his hand was not quite rock steady as he lifted his water glass afterward, she was the only one who noticed.
The first person to reach them as the meeting broke up was Carrie DeBlanc, owner of the Kitchen Cupboard, a gift and gourmet food shop across from the courthouse. A tall woman, well-padded with compact muscle, she had straight silver-blond hair cut short for practicality, and warm Mediterranean blue eyes set in a mobile face that always wore a smile. Her voice was like a love-smitten bullfrog’s, her laugh contagious and her sense of humor outrageous. She was also one of the best cooks in the country.
Reaching out to Rip, she said, “I want to shake your hand, Rip Peterson. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but I have to tell you, right off, you’re high on my list of favorite people, and climbing. Hell, after seeing how drop-dead gorgeous you are, honey buns, I may put you at the top!”
“I’m honored,” he said with laughter in his eyes, “I think.”
“And so you should be, so you should be. I’ll flirt with anything in pants, I give you fair warning, but there’s not many I’d take home. But you, sir, have won my heart, my hand, my first-born grandchild—hey, I’ll throw in my new chef’s cookware if you say the word. I’m grateful, I’m awed, I’m ecstatic. Would you like me to wash your socks, iron your shirts, bear your children? I’m a bit past the last, but never let it be said that Carrie DeBlanc wasn’t game to the end, not to mention preg—”
“What did he do?” Anna demanded, smacking her hand down on Carrie’s wrist to get her attention.
“Don’t interrupt me, pet. I was just getting to the good part.”
“Careful, Carrie, Rip doesn’t know you’re kidding.”
Carrie sent him a roguish glance from the corners of her eyes. “You think maybe he’ll take me seriously, take me to the Casbah, take me madly, passionately and as often as a hero in a romance novel? And I’m supposed to be careful? Foolish girl! I live for danger.”
“You live to make men blush,” Anna informed her. “Come on, don’t keep us in suspense. Give with whatever it is that’s gained your undying gratitude and other assorted favors.”
“Only if you promise to bring this gorgeous hunk of manly magnificence to dinner at the first opportunity.”
“You’ve got it,” Anna promised. “Now, give.”
“All right. He made King Beecroft play crawfish. How I would have loved to have been there to see it! Though I can get off, easy, on the very idea.”
“Who told you that?” Anna met Rip’s quizzical look with a helpless shrug.
“Well, let me see,” Carrie said, putting a finger to her chin as she pretended to ponder. “I heard it from Beth Anne, who heard it at the bank from a cashier who had just been to the beauty shop. Now, I can’t swear to it, but I think the same woman does Sally Jo’s mother on Friday mornings. On the other hand, it could have been Sally Jo’s sister who was having a new curl, or maybe it was…”
“I get the picture,” Anna said hurriedly. “What I don’t get is why you’re so excited.”
“Honey pie, sugar baby. Let me tell you.” The other woman lowered her voice to a dull roar and looked around as if scouting for spies among the civic club’s distinguished membership. Leaning closer, she said, “King comes in the gift shop and orders a birthday gift for Patty, right? We’re not talking the Hope diamond here. Between you and me, the Beecrofts still have money problems—you know King took bankruptcy a couple of years ago. The ceramic hummingbird he ordered Patty is nice, a little different, but not much more expensive than a box of chocolate truffles—which I could have told him Patty would have enjoyed a lot more.”
“So?” Anna inquired in the vain hope of urging Carrie to the point a bit sooner.
“So, as is the nature of things, this hummingbird doesn’t come in on time. It’s back-ordered. But does Mr. It, the Ail-American, understand? Does he realize I can’t manufacture a ceramic bird out of thin air? No, indeedy. He calls up the girl who works for me and demands that she drive a hundred miles to the nearest gift shop to buy a replacement at retail. Honestly. And when she said she couldn’t do that, guess what he said? You’ll never guess. He utters those immortal words, ‘Do you know who I am?’”
“He didn’t!” Anna exclaimed.
“He did, I wouldn’t kid you. What an arrogant asshole. What a jerk, a noxious nincompoop with grandiose delusions. It is to laugh. Or spit. Do you know who I am?”
Rip frowned as he watched them choking on smothered laughter. Then he asked, “Well? Did she?”
Carrie fell abruptly silent, staring at Rip with her mouth open. Then she caught the glint in his eye, and whooped loud enough to be heard clear across town. “Lord, I love this guy,” she confided to Anna before answering him. “No, the girl actually didn’t know him. She was completely clueless, being no more than seventeen and having just moved into town. And that’s the best part of all!”
Carrie’s partisanship and ability to draw a crowd broke the ice. A number of others stepped up to take Rip’s hand and say a few words. Some remembered him and said so. Others seemed oblivious of the fact he was a prodigal son with a prison record. Several came forward out of simple decency, while a few hoped to increase their chances for future profit.
Why they approached made no difference; that they came at all was what mattered. She and Rip had stuck their toes into the water of Montrose community favor and found it not quite as chilly as it could have been. They had made progress toward easing him into some kind of place. The venture was a success.
“I’m hungry,” Rip said as they walked back toward where he had parked his car.
She gave him an incredulous look. “You just ate.”
“Enigma meat, wallpaper paste mashed potatoes, mush that might have been cabbage in another life? I couldn’t have eaten if I’d been able to unclench my teeth.”
“I know what you mean,” she said in wry agreement.
“I’ve presided over meetings of rabid stockholders that were less nerve-racking.”
“Now, how did I get the idea that you were tough?” she marveled to no one in particular.
“Because I am with everyone except you.”
The smile that curved his mouth didn’t quite reach his eyes. She wondered briefly if what he’d said was just banter, or if there was some truth, however minor, to it. She was given no chance to decide, however, for he went on at once.
“We were talking about food, weren’t we? What happened to that subject?”
“Sorry. What did you have in mind?”
“An ice-cream cone?”
With a rueful smile and the lingering effect of being around Carrie, she said, “Milk and eggs—sounds like good, wholesome food. Why not?”
To Rip, the ice cream was ambrosia. He’d always had a fondness for it, probably because it had been one of the major treats of his boyhood. He took it straight, too. Plain vanilla, the soft kind, with no chocolate or strawberries, crushed cookies or heaven forbid, bits of candy. No, just the endless glide of rich flavor on the back of his tongue and the occasional crunchy bite of cone.
They ate while sitting in a booth in the back of the Dairy Queen. It was like a homecoming, the same sticky floors and red vinyl seats split from tools carried in the back pockets of farm boys and construction workers, the same smell of grilling beef, onions, mustard and milky concoctions, the same air-conditioned chill. The place had been the teenager’s hangout when he was in high school. A lot of horseplay, flirting and courtship had gone on behind the high-backed booths. Significant moments of his life had taken place here, moments in the time he thought of as the Great Before—before the robbery, before the trial, before he had been carted off to prison in handcuffs in the back of a police van.
He knew he had missed it. He just hadn’t realized how much.
Overlaying his pleasure was his gratitude for getting through the luncheon and having everything turn out all right. He hadn’t been sure it would, by any means. But they had carried it off, he and Anna. She had stood beside him and made it work. It was a harbinger for the future, one he intended to savor.
“You bought me an ice cream once,” Anna said, a faint smile curving her lips as she concentrated on methodically devouring the cone in her hand.
“I’m surprised you remember.”
Rip, however, recalled it well. It was one of the few times they had been there alone instead of going Dutch treat with Tom, or with Tom shelling out for what they ate.
She caught an impending drip as she answered. “It was a special occasion.”
Rip almost groaned aloud as he watched the slow, sinuous movement of her pink tongue, thinking of how cool and sweet it would taste. Voice suddenly husky, he said, “I wanted to buy you a hamburger and shake, but didn’t have the money.”
“I didn’t want a hamburger and shake.”
Her level gray glance sought and held his. He thought there was a message in it, if only he could decipher it. He tried, turning over that long ago day in his mind, searching for clues.
It had been a summer day, like this. He’d met Anna and Tom and King Beecroft on the road at the edge of town, and they had all pulled over to talk. He thought Anna had been annoyed with the other two over something, for she asked where he was going. When he’d said the Dairy Queen, she simply announced she was going with him and climbed into his truck. That was the same afternoon the two of them had wound up lying in the grass at Blest.
Was she saying, just possibly, that she had gotten exactly what she wanted that day? That to be with him, to take what he had been able to give her, to lie, finally, in his arms, was enough? He’d like to think so, but wasn’t quite so egotistical. Unlike some.
As if picking up on his train of thought, she asked, “What did you think of King last night?”
“He’s the same as ever,” Rip answered with inflection.
“Unfortunately.” A wry smile flitted across her face. “I was surprised that he mentioned Tom. It’s the first time he’s spoken his name, to my knowledge, since he disappeared.”
“Too far removed from his favorite subject?”
“Himself, you mean? Maybe. But I was wondering if he could have a guilty conscience.”
“You think he might’ve had a hand in what became of Tom?”
“Or knows something he isn’t telling. Tom did run around a lot with him and his crowd that last summer, after you started working so much at the service station. It would make sense.”
Rip thought of agreeing with her, of letting someone else carry part of the load of suspicion that had burdened him so long. But he couldn’t do it. “King wasn’t one of my favorite people, but I don’t know that he was ever crooked.”
“He was strapped for cash pretty often.”
“So was I.”
“Yes, but he had expensive tastes in cars, girls and other toys. You didn’t. He was in the crowd that did drugs, too. I seem to remember he was in rehab during the trial.”
Rip hadn’t known that, but even if it was true, he couldn’t see that it made a real difference to Tom or him.
“I can’t prove it, but I always suspected King of getting Tom hooked. What do you think?”
He remained silent. He’d been fairly certain of it back then, still was, but the final choice had been Tom’s.
“You aren’t going to say, are you? Just as you never said a word to explain or protect yourself during the trial. Why, Rip? What are you hiding?”
“Do I have to be hiding something?”
“You don’t have to be, but what else is there? Talk to me. Tell me what you did, who you saw, exactly what took place.”
“You know all that, you were there in court when it came out.”
“I know what was said, which was precious little. Sometimes my brain goes round and round with it until I feel sick. First, I think maybe you took the money for Tom but he wouldn’t accept it. Then I think maybe King took it, but Tom found out and asked you for help putting it back. Or I wonder if it was Tom and King together, but something went wrong. The two of them ran, in their different ways, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Sometimes I picture Tom living on the streets somewhere, a shuffling, worn-out drug addict too ashamed to come home. Or I wonder if maybe he quarreled with King, was killed somehow, and now has turned to dust and bones in a shallow grave somewhere.”
“And sometimes,” he said softly, “you put my name in all the places you just gave King, and wonder if I’m guilty as sin.”
She rubbed between her eyes with two fingers, as if she was getting a headache. “I tried that, but it doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t you have concocted ah alibi if you were going to rob the place where you worked? You’re too intelligent not to have planned better than that. And why wouldn’t you have arranged somewhere to go and a safe place to leave the money until it could be used? Then there was another thing. The station was robbed around eleven in the evening, but you weren’t arrested until after 2:00 a.m. Surely you didn’t drive around in your truck all that time. So what happened in between? What?”
He searched her face, seeing the frustration mirrored there and, beneath it, the doubt. “What are you doing, Anna?” he asked softly.
“Looking for answers, what else?”
“Right. That’s the reason you’re here with me, isn’t it? Not faith or trust, nor even what’s best for Blest, though it’s important to you. It’s about Tom and where he is now. You think I can somehow lead you to him.”
“I only want answers,” she cried. “The not-knowing is like an open cesspool poisoning the air. I have to discover the truth before the ugliness of it can be covered over and the space reclaimed. I need that, my mother needs that, so we can stop wondering, wishing, hoping, and finally move on. Let it go, you said, but we can’t. We’re not holding it. It’s holding us.”
For a single instant, Rip felt the twisted jealousy of Cain, as if Tom were really the brother he used to pretend when they were kids, the beloved Abel who could do no wrong and was treasured by all. Then the feeling faded, melting away as if it had never been.
There was no blood bond. What’s more, Cain had at least been due the same affection as his brother, whether he received it or not, while he himself had no such claim.
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” he said evenly. “What happened is no lurid mystery, nor even particularly interesting. It’s just a sordid episode of a kind that’s happened a thousand times before and will happen a thousand times again. I paid the price for it. It’s over and done. If you can’t accept that, I’m sorry, but there it is. If I could take you to where Tom is, I would do it in a minute. If I could produce him for you, I would. I can’t do either one. End of story.”
“Not in my book, it isn’t.” Anna’s face had not a glimmer of a smile for the neat riposte. They stared at each other across the table for endless seconds.
Abruptly, she glanced down at her watch. “I should be going. I’ve been away from work long enough.”
Before he could form a protest, she slid from her seat and turned toward the door. He rose to follow her. He saw her pause at the trash receptacle just outside the door to discard what was left of her cone. It felt like a rejection, not only of the treat, but of him.
Catching up with her in a few steps, he reached for her arm and pulled her to a halt. Ignoring the scandalized look from an older woman with crimped white curls covered by a purple hat to match her jogging suit, he said, “Don’t forget we have a date to find a bed tomorrow.”
“I offered to help you find your antique bed, and I’ll do just that,” Anna returned with emphasis as she spun to face him. “When I start something, I see it through to the end.”
“I’m depending on it, since I have your word.”
“So you do. But if you expect me to abide by it, then I think I have the right to look for the same from you.”
“Fine, though it sounds to me like an amendment to our agreement. Shall we seal it the way we did last time?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
The chill in her voice did nothing to cool his irritation. “What about expedient, if not necessary? There’s no telling what you might learn with the proper incentive. And if a mere kiss has so much influence, just think of the possibilities next time we get naked together.”
A flush bloomed across her cheekbones. “That will happen,” she said in incensed precision, “when the ice cream melting all over your shoes freezes again.”
She pulled her arm from his grasp, turned sharply, then walked away. Rip stared after her a long moment, watching the proud tilt of her head, the determined set of her shoulders and the length of her strides that took her away from him.
Then he cursed in soft virulence and dumped his dripping cone in the receptacle. He thumped his fist down on top of the red plastic lid.
Ice cream was off his list. For good.