It was a bit odd to be inside an area that was fully enclosed by a tall stone wall. Across the entranceway, she could see Pete’s Tower. It seemed to be empty, but he was sneaky enough to be hiding and watching.
When she remembered that he’d let her know he’d almost caught them so many years ago, she again started to blush. But she stopped herself. Yesterday had been such an extraordinary day! Sliding bare bottomed across the tree branch, scraping her skin on the stone wall, running through a forest naked. Who did those things at her age?
People who’d missed out in their youth, she thought. From the moment she’d walked into Trumbull Appliances so many years ago, it was as though her life had not been her own. Taking care of Alan’s son and trying to figure out how to revamp an old appliance store had taken all her time. And she’d had to look after Alan. He was one of those men who never remembered where he’d put things, who forgot where he was supposed to be when. Olivia had become a human calendar.
And Kevin was just like his father. He had to be checked for homework, reminded of what was due when. She’d tried leaving it up to him, but Kevin’s tears at not being allowed to go on a field trip because he’d forgotten to get the permission slip signed had broken her. In frustration, Olivia had given a huge discount on a major appliance to Kevin’s teacher in exchange for being told directly about her stepson’s assignments. The next year she did the same thing. She’d heard that at the end of each school term the teachers drew papers out of a bowl. All but one was blank and it had Kevin’s name on it. The winner got her stepson, a quiet, rather lazy little boy, and the appliance of their choice from the store.
Olivia never tried to find out if that was true or not.
She walked on the dew-damp grass, trying to stay out of sight of the tower in case Young Pete was up there.
What she’d overheard Kevin say yesterday had hurt more than she wanted to admit.
Parents often made jokes about how ungrateful children were, but Kevin’s statement that Olivia had always “loved money,” had even married for it, hurt deeply. And it was very unfair!
It had been Alan who’d come up with the idea of opening more appliance stores. Olivia had said that they couldn’t compete with the big national franchises. And besides, how could she work more than she did?
But Alan said he would run the new stores. He’d reminded her that it was his family who had started Trumbull Appliances. “It’s in my blood,” he said.
And of course Alan was backed up by his mother. She believed her only child could do anything.
Olivia had done the work to start the first of the new stores, telling herself that Alan would soon be helping. But just after the store opened, Alan said he’d hurt his back while unloading a truck full of Wolf ranges. He said that as soon as he got well, he’d go back to work. He never got well enough to help with the stores. But his mother did. Together, she and Olivia ran the business.
Six months after the grand opening of the first new store, Alan bought a place in the mountains that he said was for him and Olivia. But she only went there once.
She shook her head to clear it. Why had she put up with it all? she wondered. Why hadn’t she...? But the truth was that these questions only came from hindsight. She didn’t like what it said about her, but she’d had no idea that Alan and Kevin were so very unhappy.
While it was true that she and Alan had never had much of a sex life, she hadn’t minded. She’d never felt that raw passion for him that she’d had with Kit, so she didn’t hunger for it.
Maybe she had been too harsh with Kevin. She was always trying to teach him to...to... What? Be less like his father? To not always depend on others to get him out of messes?
Olivia couldn’t help giving a snort at that thought. Like his father, Kevin landed on his feet. He’d married Hildy, a woman who made all their decisions. When the two of them were nearly bankrupt, Olivia had bailed them out. Thanks to her, they’d not lost so much as a teacup. Today, they still had their huge house, two cars and a pickup, their twice-yearly vacations, the country club membership, et cetera.
She knew that now they were again racking up bills, but she had no more money. Did they think that next time they got in debt that Kit would save them? She dreaded when that showdown came. The anger on both sides would—
Olivia broke off her ugly thoughts because Elise was sitting on an old bench behind Camden Hall and smiling at her. She looked so young and so fragilely beautiful that Olivia stopped frowning and smiled back. “Hungover?” she asked as she sat down beside her.
“No, I’m not. I think Ray’s story of his friend’s death sobered me up. And also, what he said about his wife was too much for me.”
“Poor Kathy,” Olivia said.
“Exactly. She sounds like a great wife. She takes care of him, helps with his work, but there’s no sex between them. He ‘can’t’ do it.”
“Not with Kathy anyway, but for Rita he’s damaged the big oak desk.” Olivia sighed. “How I remember those days.”
“And how I wish I had them to remember.”
“So who’s the Adonis of the Delphiniums?” Olivia asked.
“What do you mean?” Elise’s fair skin blushed almost purple.
“You’re going to keep this from me? After what we’ve shared?”
“Okay, so maybe there is a guy who...I’ve spent some time with. Kent knows Carmen because her older brother takes care of our big shared gardens.” When Olivia looked puzzled, she explained. “My parents and Kent’s live next door to each other, and he and I have a house in the back.”
“That sounds dreadful!”
“You have no idea. I have no privacy. Anyway, Carmen does the bookkeeping and runs errands, whatever, for her brother’s landscaping service. They do the gardens for a lot of our neighborhood.”
“And that’s the brother who you, uh...?”
“Heavens no! Diego has three kids. It’s the younger brother, Alejandro, who I got to know. He’s...well, he’s rather nice looking.”
Olivia looked at her. Elise’s face had faded to a lovely shade of pink. “Drop-dead gorgeous, is he?”
Elise gave a great sigh. “Black hair and dark eyes. Skin like honey and a body... Not that I’ve looked, mind you.”
“I see. What binoculars do you use?”
“The kind made for watching eagles from a mile away. I could identify any three square inches of his bare upper body. I could pick out his jeans-clad lower half by centimeters.”
“And was your interest returned?”
“Let’s just say that I spent a lot of last summer in a rather small red bikini.”
Olivia raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me like that! I’ve never broken my marriage vows. Alejandro and I are friends. He helped me with my Spanish, and we planted a garden together.” As she spoke, she didn’t look at Olivia. “Anyway, it’s his sister, Carmen, who is the love of my husband’s life. It’s hard to imagine now, after all I’ve learned, but a few weeks ago, I asked Kent to bawl her out on my behalf.”
Olivia looked at her in question.
“Carmen pushed a huge flowerpot off a low wall and it almost landed on my foot. If the thing had hit me, it would have broken bones. When I told Kent about it, he said it was my imagination and that Carmen certainly hadn’t done it on purpose.” Elise’s voice was rising in anger.
“Unwed mothers can be vicious to their lovers’ wives. There should be laws.”
A bit of a laugh escaped Elise. “I’m going to have to deal with all this soon and I want you with me.”
Olivia took her arm. “Of course. I’ll be there and I’ll bring a garden truck full of my husband’s lawyer relatives.”
“That sounds perfect. Mind if Alejandro drives?”
“With or without his shirt on?”
“Interesting question since I’ve rarely se
en him in a shirt. When we went to the nurseries together and that last night...” Her head came up. “I don’t think he owns many shirts.”
“You could buy some for him.”
“That would be like putting a cover over the statue of David. Repainting the Sistine Chapel. Covering—”
Laughing, Olivia said, “I get it.”
They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying their camaraderie.
“You came to see if your stepson and his wife are still here, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Their air of merriment was gone.
“They are,” Elise said. “I couldn’t sleep so I came out before daylight and I peeked. They’re inside the house. I should call the sheriff.” But they both knew she wouldn’t. Olivia would be exposed and probably, so would Elise. It was too much to risk.
There was something in her tone that made Olivia take her hand and squeeze it. “What woke you?” she asked softly.
“I thought I heard a car door slam. I tried to go back to sleep but I envisioned men in white coats surrounding the place. The longer I lay there, the more vivid my images became.” She shrugged. “I gave up.”
“Last night my husband said he’d have someone look into what’s going on. And he’ll find out if Jeanne is in trouble.”
“Is she in hiding?”
“I don’t know. I wish...”
“That all this hadn’t happened?” Elise said. “Me too. I lie awake and wonder why I didn’t see it coming. I was always so in love with Kent. He’s so tall and handsome and I was the scrawny kid who lived next door. When I was about twelve, he was playing football with his friends, and as always, I was hiding in the bushes and watching. The ball hit me in the chest so hard I nearly passed out, but when Kent asked me if I was okay, I said I was fine. My whole chest turned black and blue, but that was okay because Kent had actually looked at me.”
“And you thought things would change after you married him.”
“I did. I believed that I’d become the center of his attention. We got married, just as our parents wanted us to, but I was still the kid hiding in the bushes.” She sighed. “Your kitchen is nice.”
Olivia looked at her.
“I saw it when I looked in the window. My mother chose my kitchen. It has black cabinets.”
“I prefer white,” Olivia said.
“Me too.”
“Did you see anything else in the house? Hear anything? But I think it’s too early for Hildy to be up.”
“Actually, I spied because I heard loud voices from inside. They were having a heated discussion about the papers on the table. It was checkbooks and bills, that sort of thing.”
Olivia groaned. “Oh no. They are having money problems. I was afraid of that. I told Hildy I’d take over balancing the checkbook, but she said no. That made me suspicious. She never stepped away from someone else doing her work.”
“I think they plan to stay in your house until you get back.”
“I’m sure they do. Hildy called me as soon as Kit and I got back to the US, and I stupidly told her he had to go to DC so I’d be returning alone. I even told them when I’d be arriving. But then Jeanne called Kit and I returned a day earlier.”
“So they know you’ll be here alone without your husband?”
Olivia nodded. “They’re probably practicing the tears they’re going shed. Kevin used them on me as a kid. I’ve told them a dozen times that I have no more money.”
“But your husband does.”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “But I don’t want to start off our married life with an ugly scene with my relatives. If the two of them would just stop spending so much there wouldn’t be any problems. An interior designer doesn’t need to be hired to put up the blasted Christmas tree! And a fourth fur coat isn’t really necessary. If—” She broke off at the unmistakable sound of a car door closing.
A look of such fear came onto Elise’s pretty face that Olivia’s heart seemed to lurch. “It could be someone else.”
“This early in the morning?”
“We’ll climb Pete’s Tower and see who it is. And if Young Pete is already there we’ll throw him over the side.”
The two of them took off running, going on the far side of Camden Hall to reach the tower that stood guard by the front gate.
Elise bounded up the stairs like a young colt, while Olivia followed.
At the top, Elise looked down the stairs. “You are never going to believe this!”
“What is it?” Olivia stepped onto the open platform. They could clearly see the cute little summerhouse. In front of it was a black town car, the kind that came with a driver. Ray was standing by the back door talking to a woman. Even from this distance they could see that she was very pretty, with lots of red-blonde hair, and she was round and curvy. Not at all fashionably thin.
At the back of the car, the driver was putting Ray’s big leather suitcase in the trunk and taking out a couple of bags that had an elegant brown on brown design.
“I’ll bet that’s Kathy,” Olivia said.
“If those are her cases, why’s the driver taking them out of the car?”
“Maybe she’s going to drive his car back to New York.”
“Then why doesn’t she drive him to the airport?” Elise asked.
Olivia shrugged and they watched Ray set his wife’s suitcases inside the house.
“She’s staying.” There was anger in Olivia’s voice. “He’s leaving that poor woman with us. How are we going to look at her without pity? She’s going to know something is up. We can’t hold in this huge secret.”
Elise narrowed her eyes. “He wants us to tell her. That SOB thinks he’s won us over, and now he’s giving us the job of telling her that her cheating husband wants to dump her.”
“There’s a gate on the other side of the pool. We can head him off on the street.” Olivia was the first one down the stairs and she almost outran Elise’s young legs.
The side gate was hidden by azalea bushes, but Olivia knew where it was. When the swimming pool had been put in years before, an exit had been cut into the wall.
Both women had to pull on the old door to get it open and when they heard the crunch of the car on the gravel drive, they became frantic. They burst through just as Ray’s car rounded the corner.
Elise leaped into the road in front of the vehicle, making the driver slam on the brakes.
The driver threw open the door. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I almost hit you!”
When Olivia tapped on the back window, Ray lowered the glass.
“Olivia.” His voice happy. “I left you a note. I have to go to Australia. If I don’t, Bert will and we’ll lose the account. Listen, it was great meeting you two. You’ll have to come to dinner someday, but right now I have a plane to catch.”
Elise had come around the side and she shot her hand through the window to grab him by his necktie. Ray seemed quite amused by her action. “You left your wife with us!”
“I did. Kathy wanted to stay and I didn’t think you’d mind. You’ll be three ladies together and you can do lots of complaining about us men.”
Elise yanked on his tie. “You expect us to tell her, don’t you?”
“No.” His face was serious as he removed Elise’s hand. “I don’t want you to say anything. Just let her have a good time. Make her laugh. Take her out shopping.” He looked at Olivia. “Does this town have any stores? I know, take her to Richmond and you two can buy yourselves some things. My treat. Now I really do have to go.” He nodded to the driver.
“We can’t—” Elise began, but Ray was putting up the window and she jerked her arm back.
He waved to them, then he was gone.
As they went back through the gate, Elise looked at Olivia. “If I call my father, he’ll send men in white coats to get me. I’d alm
ost rather do that than face Ray’s wife. What about you?”
“I could go listen to Kevin and Hildy cry poverty. Hey! I could write them a check. It would be days before they were told it was insufficient funds.”
“That might make them so angry that they’d have you jailed.”
“I know the sheriff. He’d protect me. I have to consider that. What’s your decision?”
“Well... I could use some new clothes. I only have what Jeanne and I bought.”
“I bet we could run up a whopper of a bill on Ray’s card.”
“But is it worth it? Kathy’s unhappiness versus Armani.” Elise’s hands were like a balance scale.
They sat back down on the bench.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” Olivia said.
“You’re an actress so you can pretend, but everything I feel shows on my face. Truthfully, I don’t think we should leave these grounds. Someone will see you and tell that you’re here. And for all I know, my so-called family has put me on CNN. Catch the crazy woman. I’ll be turned in for a reward.”
Olivia looked around the place with its high walls. What had seemed like a sanctuary suddenly felt like a prison. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to be nice to Ray’s poor wife. This may be her last time of peace before her life falls apart. Think how you felt when you heard about Kent and Carmen.”
“Murderous.” Olivia gave her a sharp look. “But not to myself.”
“I know. Okay. Deep breath. Calm nerves. Let’s smile and be as nice as we can be, but let’s not even hint that anything is wrong. That poor, poor woman.”
“Agreed,” Elise said and they started back to the summerhouse.
Chapter Six
Kathy had never felt so excluded in her life. All morning she’d done her best to befriend the women Ray had told her were truly wonderful. “They’re very funny,” Ray said. “And we talked for hours. I told them some very private things. Those women got more out of me than Dr. Hightower ever did.”
Kathy hadn’t commented on that because he’d kept his visits to Jeanne Hightower so secret that she’d come to resent the woman. What was he talking to her about? Kathy had her hopes, but she wouldn’t be sure until he told her.