The Passions of Chelsea Kane Page 11

  The satisfaction faded, though, when his expression grew pained. She tried to find deceit in it but couldn’t. He looked to be telling the truth. “For the longest time, I didn’t see Hailey at all. Then things began to drag between you and me. The relationship wasn’t going anywhere. So you went to Norwich Notch—not that I’m blaming you or the town,” he added in the way of a man knowing he was treading on thin ice. “You went there because you knew there was something wrong here. For the same reason—because I knew there was something wrong here—I was drawn to Hailey again.”

  “You said she was too offbeat for you.”

  “She is.” He paused for just a minute. She saw the ghost of a sheepish smile and wanted to scream. “But that’s exciting.”

  He had also said he was out of breath when he was with Hailey, to which Chelsea had said something about passion. She didn’t remind him of it now. She had seen proof enough down the hall.

  Passion had been lacking in his relationship with her. He had found it with Hailey. By rights she couldn’t fault him for that.

  “I wanted to tell you sooner, Chels, but there never seemed an appropriate time. I was feeling pressure from my parents to marry you, pressure from Kevin to marry you, even pressure from me to marry you. I tried to tell you about Hailey when you came back from Norwich Notch last month, but then you started to kiss me, and I thought, Maybe it’ll work and everything will be all right.”

  So she had come on to him while his mind had been on Hailey. “Why didn’t you stop me?” she cried, feeling the fool.

  “Because I wanted it, too,” he cried right back. “I don’t find you unattractive, Chelsea. I didn’t have any trouble making love to you. But you didn’t love it, and for me the satisfaction was only physical. There wasn’t any wonder or”—he waved a hand—“intense emotional fulfillment or excitement. Was there for you?” he asked in a tone that said he knew the answer but wanted her to admit it herself.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “Well, it’s there when I’m with Hailey, and if it hurts you when I say that, I’m sorry, but it’s time we were honest. We’re wrong for each other. You don’t want marriage and children the way I do, and come the day when you decide you do, you’ll find someone better for you than me. You turn heads everywhere you go. All you’ll have to do is let word out that you’re in the market for a husband and you’ll be swamped with offers. In the meantime, you can chase after your roots like you feel you have to. I’m marrying Hailey.”

  The words were like an afterthought, half-buried by what had come before. Still she heard them clear as day. She should have been shocked or hurt or angry. Oddly, she felt relieved.

  “I haven’t told my parents yet,” he went on, “but now that you know about it, I will. They won’t be pleased. Hailey isn’t you, and they had their hearts set on you. But she’s going to have my baby, so they have no choice.”

  Chelsea’s stomach tipped. She pressed a hand to it and took a steadying breath. “She’s pregnant?”

  “Just barely,” he said with pride. “It’s too early to see a doctor, but she did a home test. If we get married this weekend, no one will know the difference.”

  Chelsea took another breath, since the first didn’t seem to help. “What if she isn’t really pregnant? What if it’s a trap?”

  His pride became indignation. “It’s no trap. She loves me. She wouldn’t do that. How can you even suggest it, Chelsea?”

  She felt a sudden flare of red hot anger. “I can suggest whatever I want, given the circumstances. Think of how I feel. You hopped from my bed to hers. Or did you go from hers to mine, then back?” The thought of that sickened her. She prayed it wasn’t so. On top of the rest, it would be too much.

  He stood straighter. “I wasn’t with Hailey once while you and I were together. It was only after I knew that it was a bust between us that I was with her.”

  Grateful for that, at least, Chelsea let out a breath. Most of her strength seemed to go with it. Weak-kneed, she leaned against the wall by the door.

  “Are you okay?” Carl asked with the old, warm, reassuring concern, but it was a placebo and simply not what Chelsea needed. She was feeling unhinged, much as she had after Abby’s death, only now she didn’t have any backup. Kevin had sold the house and was going off into retirement God knew where, and Carl was marrying Hailey. “Chelsea?”

  She nodded.

  “I worry about you,” he said.

  She managed a feeble smile.

  “We’re still friends, aren’t we?” he asked.

  She nodded again.

  “And business partners,” he added. “I’ll always be here for you, Chels. And as far as the parents go, I’ll take full blame for what’s happened between you and me. My parents love you. They always will.”

  Chelsea felt a hollowness so sudden and intense that she wrapped her arms more tightly around her. “I’m, uh, going home,” she said. Rolling away from the wall, she opened the door and headed for the elevator.

  “I’ll see you in the morning?” Carl called nervously.

  She nodded and waved, but she didn’t look back. Her insides were alternatively yawing and turning. She was bone-tired and overwhelmed. She wanted to go home to bed.

  SHE SLEPT STRAIGHT THROUGH UNTIL TEN THE NEXT MORN-ing. After sitting quietly in the kitchen drinking her customary two cups of coffee, which she proceeded to throw up, she showered, dressed, and headed for Bob Mahoney’s office. By noon she had signed the papers making her a partner in the Plum Granite Company. By one she was in her office at Harper, Kane, Koo, making phone calls and organizing papers and thoughts. By five she was back home with two stuffed briefcases, three overstuffed portfolios, and a handful of bank drafts, and by six the next morning she was in her car, driving north toward Norwich Notch.

  Seven

  Donna Farr stood at the front of the general store, but her attention wasn’t on the straw hats she’d set out to display. With Matthew having stepped out, she was free to look through the window toward the foot of the green, where Chelsea Kane had climbed from a shiny green Jaguar minutes before.

  There was no mistaking her. Nearly three months had passed since Donna had seen her last, the day had been dark and rainy, but her face had registered in Donna’s mind, a bright spot that hadn’t faded with time. There was something special about her. Donna had sensed it then; even now, from a distance, she sensed it. This time Chelsea wore a yellow sundress, shaped in the short, fashionable A line that she was tall and slender enough to wear well. Its color complimented her hair, which looked more red than brown in the sun and draped her shoulders in waves.

  Yes, she was beautiful, but beautiful people had come through the Notch before, and in point of fact the Notch had beautiful people of its own. But Chelsea had more. She had a sophistication that the others lacked. She had self-confidence. She had class.

  She also had money. Donna might have guessed that in March simply from the cut of her clothes, but when she had returned in May with her lawyer and an offer to buy the granite company, the extent of it became clear. According to Oliver, she had offered absurd sums of money. But he wasn’t selling. The granite company was his heart and soul. It meant everything to him. Donna, who was the third of his four daughters and the one who had stayed closest to the fold, could vouch for that. Among her most vivid childhood memories were family trips to the quarry on Sundays afternoons, when the stonecutters were off and her father could climb along the ledges undisturbed. She remembered the way he would lecture them on what had been done that week, the way he would instruct them in the use of the equipment, the way he would yell if she or one of her sisters grew impatient and asked to leave. He regarded the quarry with a reverence most people reserved for church, and like a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, he demanded obedience.

  He usually got it. Of his girls, only the youngest, Jeannie, had escaped, run off in the late sixties with a folk guitarist name Rick. They subsequently married, bought a house in Tenafly
, New Jersey, and had two children. No matter that Rick had become a successful dentist; Oliver Plum would never forgive Jeannie for leaving.

  Donna’s sister Janet, five years Donna’s senior, was married to Hickory Pullman, a lawyer serving in the state legislature as his father had done before him. Susan, three years younger than Janet, was married to Trevor Ball, whose family had been accountants to the Jamieson banks for years. Donna herself was married to Matthew Farr.

  Of the three matches, Oliver had been most pleased with hers. It joined two great families, he said, and by Norwich Notch standards the Farrs were great indeed. The town’s postmaster was always a Farr; the oldest living Farr male was inevitably the town meeting moderator; the Farr women ran the church bazaars. And then there was the store, which the Farrs had owned and operated since its founding in 1808. No one who was, or hoped to be, anything in the Notch would dream of buying his necessities elsewhere.

  The Farrs were a daunting group. As a Plum, Donna was their equal, but only in theory. She was imperfect in a way that no Farr or Plum had ever been. If Matthew Farr hadn’t already been well past the age of marrying, she doubted he’d have given her a second look. He was dashingly handsome, the most eligible bachelor in Norwich Notch. But he was thirty-five at the time, and his parents wanted him wed. Donna, who was then twenty-eight and approaching spinsterhood, had been ripe for the taking.

  Donna was proud to be a Farr. She told herself that several times each day. With her Plum blood and her Farr ties, she was an integral part of the Notch, and there was security in that, she reminded herself more and more often, it seemed. Tradition was important in life. So was order. The Notch wouldn’t be the same without them.

  That was why, totally aside from his love for it, Oliver would never have sold Plum Granite. The company was an institution in Norwich Notch, and the company was nothing without the Plums. It would be unthinkable for it to fall into flatlander hands.

  As it was, the townsfolk were upset that flatlander money was being pumped into it. Oliver had told as few people as possible about the arrangement; still, word had spread—as it always did in the Notch—and it wasn’t kind.

  Chelsea Kane was an outsider. She was an unknown quantity. She was a woman. She wasn’t to be trusted.

  Looking at her now as she stood so regally at the edge of the green, Donna doubted she would ever fit in. She was too unusual, the kind who stood out in a crowd, which was the last thing Norwich Notch women wanted to do. They wanted to please their parents, complement their husbands, and nurture their children. They wanted to maintain the social structure of the town as it had been maintained for two centuries. They wanted to blend in neatly, graciously, and functionally.

  Donna jumped when a hand slid into hers. Her head spun around, eyes lighting when they met Nolan McCoy’s, but she allowed herself only a moment’s pleasure before glancing around to make sure no one else was in the room. When her eyes returned to his they were questioning.

  “Just checking things out,” he said, moving his lips in the generous way that made them easy to read.

  Nolan was the chief of police, one of two full-time law officers in Norwich Notch. He had been hired eight years before, after his predecessor had driven drunk off the road and plunged thirty feet into the ravine. Nolan knew everyone in the Notch. He was respected and liked. Still, he was an outsider, which was how the Notch worked. Eight years was nothing when it came to acceptance. Donna knew people who had lived in town twice that long and were still held at arm’s length. People had to earn their place in the town’s ranks.

  That had never bothered Donna until Nolan had come. Something about him had touched her from the first. She guessed it was his aloneness. He had parents in New Mexico, a brother in Montana, and an ex-wife and two daughters in Kansas. He claimed that the daughters were the only ones he missed, but Donna thought differently. She knew enough about aloneness to recognize it in others, which was why she tried to invite him to the house whenever possible. It was tricky. Matthew was as much a stickler for tradition as his father, and tradition meant the very same guest list for Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s Day dinner year after year. Nolan’s name wasn’t on that list. Nor was it ever likely to be. In Matthew’s eyes he was little more than an employee of the town.

  But Nolan was a dedicated employee, which was another of the things Donna liked about him. He took his work seriously. He spent long hours at it. He was determined to preserve peace in Norwich Notch.

  He also had the warmest pair of eyes Donna had ever seen in her life. Not that he was handsome by conventional standards. His hair was prematurely gray, his neck thick, his features unrefined. But when he looked at her, he really looked at her. He wasn’t seeing Oliver Plum’s daughter or Matthew Farr’s wife or Joshie Farr’s mother. He was seeing her. When he looked at her, she felt lovely.

  Not once in fourteen years of marriage had Matthew made her feel that way.

  “Everything okay?” Nolan asked, moving his fingers against hers.

  She smiled. She knew that he held her hand so that she couldn’t sign. He preferred it when she talked. She, on the other hand, hated to talk, but she did like the feel of his hand. Remaining silent, she lifted a shoulder against his arm in a half shrug, shot a glance at the green, then looked back at his mouth.

  “Chelsea Kane,” he confirmed. “She pulled up at the inn late last night. Your dad figured she’d be in and out of town, but not so soon. The ink’s barely dry on the papers she signed. He says she can stay as long as her checkbook’s with her.”

  Donna arched a brow.

  Nolan nodded. “He’s in no position to make her leave, but don’t try telling him that. He’s real ornery this morning.”

  Donna could guess why. The last thing in the world he wanted was a partner.

  “Shelby served her breakfast,” Nolan went on. “Said she didn’t eat much, and that she looked a little peaked.”

  “Long trip,” Donna mouthed.

  “Out loud,” he coaxed with a gentle hand squeeze, but she shook her head, and he didn’t push. “She may be staying a while. She booked her room for a week, with the option to stay longer.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know, but your dad’ll be mad.”

  Looking back toward the green, Donna felt an instinctive sympathy for Chelsea Kane. It was sad to be wanted for one’s money—or one’s name or position in the community. Matthew had married her for name and position, and an empty marriage it was. She wondered if it bothered him as much as it bothered her.

  She wondered if Chelsea Kane had ever been married. Oliver claimed she hadn’t, but then Oliver also claimed that she was an impossible person to deal with, which was the opposite of Donna’s impression. Chelsea had been kind to her that day in March. Donna appreciated kindness.

  As she watched, Judd Streeter’s retriever came from behind the law office, caught sight of Chelsea, and loped forward. He stopped in front of her, wagging his tail. She patted him, scratched him behind the ears in a way that brought his muzzle up, stroked him under the chin. Beneath her gentle touch the dog looked suddenly noble, which was very much the impression Chelsea conveyed, Donna mused. With her auburn hair, her fair skin, and her willowy figure, she was a striking woman.

  Again Donna felt sympathy for her. She wondered what Chelsea really knew of the Notch. If she thought she had power simply because she’d bought into the granite company, she had a new think coming. No one bought into Norwich Notch. No one became someone unless the town fathers condoned it, and Oliver was as much a town father as ever. He was still a selectman and a prominent member of the planning board and the budget committee. Chelsea Kane would have one tough fight on her hands if she tried to cross him.

  For a single reckless instant Donna wished she would. Then the instant passed, and she pushed the blasphemous thought from mind. At the same time she felt the vibration of a chuckle in Nolan’s chest.

  He hitched his chin toward the green. “Would you get
a look at Buck, wagging his tail and preening? I swear the beast is more outgoing than Judd.”

  Donna had always liked Judd Streeter. They’d been close in age growing up. He had always treated her well. Then he’d gone off to college and had stayed in the city to work. By the time he returned, he was dark and aloof. He might be the best foreman Oliver had ever had, but Nolan was right. He wasn’t anywhere near as outgoing as his dog.

  Nolan touched her cheek. She looked up to see him say, “I gotta go. See you later.” He touched her mouth, and for a minute she could barely breathe. Then, with a final squeeze and the caress of his thumb, he dropped her hand and headed off down the aisles to disappear into the back room. She felt the slam of the door, and though she couldn’t hear the rev of the cruiser’s engine, she had watched him enough times—opening the door, folding his large frame behind the wheel, closing the door, putting his foot to the gas—to imagine his progress. When her mind’s eye saw him pull the cruiser out of the back lot and onto the street, she felt deflated.

  She consoled herself with the thought that he’d be back. He stopped in whenever he could. It wasn’t often that they were alone, though, and those were the times she liked best. She liked being near him. When he stood by her shoulder the way he’d just done, she felt sheltered—which was a perfectly ridiculous thing to be thinking, she knew. Norwich Notch was as sheltering as towns got. It took care of its own, and Donna was very definitely one of its own. If anyone was kept from harm’s way, it was she.

  Kept from harm’s way. Oh, yes.

  With a sigh she turned back to Chelsea.

  AT A WINDOW ABOVE THE LAW OFFICE, OVERLOOKING THE green, two men stood beneath a neat arc spelling ZEE’S BARBER SHOP in reverse. Both men were portly. One was white-haired, one gray-haired. Both wore short-sleeved shirts buttoned to the throat, dark trousers held up by suspenders, tie shoes, and stoic expressions.

  An outsider might have taken those expressions to signal a lack of emotional involvement. Judd Streeter knew better. These men weren’t happy with the turn of events. He could see it in the starched way they stood, in their pursed lips, in the flatter-than-normal intonation of their voices. They were annoyed because they hadn’t had a say in what had happened. Oliver Plum had gone ahead and taken on a partner without consulting them, which wasn’t the way things were supposed to work. No matter that Plum Granite was Oliver’s company, its fate directly affected the town, and all decisions directly affecting the town were customarily made by its three selectmen. Farr didn’t act without conferring with Jamieson and Plum, Plum didn’t act without conferring with Jamieson and Farr, and so on. At least, that was how it usually went, but not this time.