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Elise’s gaze whipped away. She wasn’t accustomed to examining men so closely. Particularly men whose masculinity vibrated forcefully in the air around them.
“You are, aren’t you?” he asked.
Elise had to search for his meaning. Finally she connected it to his earlier assurance to the crowd. She nodded tightly. “Oh, yes. I’m fine.” Yet her hands twisted in her lap and her body was as taut as an overstrung bow. He continued to watch her. Unable to stand it any longer, she at last demanded, “What is it? Why are we still sitting here? I thought you said you were going to take me home.”
She knew she sounded the exact stereotype of a spinster librarian who found herself in close confines with an attractive, eligible male. Instinctively, her gaze shot to his left hand. He wore no ring, but that didn’t signify anything. Any number of married men didn’t wear rings anymore.
He smiled and she twitched uncomfortably in her seat. Had he seen her quick glance at his hand? Elise wanted to leap out of the car, but her legs felt like twin weights. They didn’t want to move.
“Well, I was,” he explained drolly, “but I don’t know where ‘home’ is. Would you like to direct me?”
Elise bit her bottom lip. “Go down this street to the right. Turn left, then left again after the fourth stop sign.”
“It’s all right, you know,” he said calmly, not having moved.
“What is?” she asked. She didn’t want to look at him anymore or talk to him. She just wanted to go home, go upstairs and stretch out in her bed. Maybe she had pushed herself a bit too far.
“To laugh when everything seems darkest. Sometimes it’s the only thing a person can do to protect his sanity.” He shifted the car into reverse and backed into the street.
There was a great difference between riding in a Mercedes and riding in her Escort. Bumps in the road were barely noticeable. Trees and grass and houses seemed to glide by in a haze of comfort. He took the first turn smoothly, effortlessly. But instead of relaxing, Elise grew more tense. Ultimately she burst out, “I shouldn’t be doing this! I’m needed at the library. And my car! What am I going to do about my car? I’ll need it later.”
“Can’t someone at the library drop it off for you?” he asked.
“I can’t ask anyone to do that! No, this is silly. Take me back, please.”
He glanced at her. “They won’t be happy to see you return so soon. They were ready to call an ambulance.”
“But you know I wasn’t that bad!”
“I do, yes. But they don’t. If you go back now, they’ll worry. They’ll watch you, dissect your every move. Is that what you want?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “Tell you what. Why don’t you take off a couple of hours. Get some rest. Satisfy everyone. Then I’ll take you back to the library myself.”
“I still don’t think...”
“It won’t fall down without you, you know. Contrary to popular belief, the building looks fairly sturdy. And even if you were there and it did fall down, would you be able to hold it up all by yourself?”
“You’re making fun of me!” she accused.
He glanced away from the street. “Not really.”
The Mercedes slid to a halt at the final stop sign before making the next left. Elise wanted to continue to argue, but held her tongue as she reluctantly admitted that what he said was true. Everyone would watch her, waiting to see if she might weaken again. And she would hate that, even if it was done in the name of caring. Also, there was the concept of living to fight another day. Maybe, just this once, she should take a little time to gather her strength so that she could deal with all the difficulties that were to follow...which included her meetings with this architect! It was apparent that she was going to need every bit of energy she could muster.
* * *
“TURN RIGHT at the next corner,” Elise said, continuing her instructions.
Her voice held a musical quality even as she perched stiffly on the seat next to him. Robert did as she requested, steering the car onto a street of houses that looked to have been built sometime between the two great wars. None contained any unique architectural features; they were purely utilitarian, built for growing families. Wide yards, aged trees, sidewalks that could use some repair. Upkeep on most houses was ongoing. A few needed work.
“It’s the first house on the left,” she said.
Robert turned into the narrow driveway. He cut the engine and turned slightly toward her. He still wasn’t completely sure she was as all right as she claimed. She was so thin...fragile looking. He could easily encompass her wrist between his middle finger and thumb with room to spare! Her short hair, lightly curling, changed from blond to silver depending upon the angle and degree of light. Her naturally pale skin held the lightest trace of a summer tan. Carved, delicate features, a long, graceful neck, a narrow waist.... He could only guess at her age, but he’d estimate late forties, early fifties. Her face had a quality that youth didn’t know...of numerous challenges won and lost and, as well, a haunting shadow of pain deeply held.
“Thank you for bringing me home,” she murmured, remaining stiff and formal in her manner even as she reached for the door handle.
“I’ll see you inside,” he offered.
“That’s not necessary.” She threw him a look from pale blue eyes that exactly matched the suit she wore. The look bade him not to press. But it also showed him her uncertainty. She didn’t know what to do with him! Twice they’d arranged to meet to discuss the new library and twice some outside event had gotten in the way. She couldn’t ask him into the house to work because she knew he wouldn’t agree to do so. Also, she was irritated with him because he had advised her to rest...something she obviously didn’t do a great deal. But she couldn’t just dismiss him. She needed him. So there she was, in a quandary. He tried to ease the situation for her. She’d already been through enough.
“I have friends who live on Lake Geneva. They’ve told me to stop by any time I’m in the area. Why don’t I go visit them for a couple of hours, then I’ll swing back by here and take you to the library. We can talk after that. It shouldn’t take long today. Just a few preliminaries.”
He’d wanted to do a lot more than that. He’d wanted to dig right in and feel out where she stood on a number of necessary changes. He already had a few proposals in mind. But looking into that pale face and seeing the edge of tiredness she couldn’t disguise made him willing to wait.
“Why just a few preliminaries?” she questioned, latching on to the key word. “I’d rather get on with this, wouldn’t you? Progress as far as we can.”
“Well, because...”
“I’m perfectly all right!” she insisted. “I simply forgot to eat lunch, that’s all. Then when Joe said what he did...I had a perfect right to be upset! Joe knew it. That’s why he didn’t want to tell me.”
“Do you faint every time you get upset?”
“I didn’t faint!”
“You came close to it.”
“But I didn’t actually faint!” Her denial was low and surprisingly fierce. She took a breath. “You’ve said you think we can make this new library work. I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Fairmont. I’m willing to put in whatever amount of time it takes. You should be, too.”
“That’s what an architect does, Miss—”
“Good. Now, you go visit your friends. I think that’s an excellent idea. Then come back and we’ll get started on the plans.”
Robert continued to look at her, a smile pulling at his lips. She might appear to be fragile, but he could see that she was a force to be reckoned with when she spoke on behalf of the library. It might have been her child, a living, breathing entity she would give her all to protect. Attack it and you attacked her.
“Whatever you say,” he murmured dryly.
Her cheeks took on a rosy hue and she quickly let herself out of the car. He watched as she walked, her back straight, to the tiny porch that fronted the house, then she disappeared inside.
Robert’s gaze stayed on the door for a moment before moving away. Her house was one of the more neatly kept homes on the block. The white paint was fresh, the shrubs trimmed and numerous flowers bloomed in their beds. The look was pleasing to the eye.
He restarted the car. If he was going to stop in on Harry and June, he needed to find a telephone. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy a simple ride in the country if they weren’t at home. But he felt he should give them ample warning. He backed out of the drive, and after another glance at the unprepossessing house Elise lived in, accelerated down the street.
* * *
ROBERT TURNED AWAY from the pay phone at the service station. His friends were at home and had begged him to visit. It was months since they’d heard from him, they’d complained. And they were right. During term, there was always so much to do in the design studio, working with his students, challenging them to grow and to see beyond what was expected. Students of architecture, particularly during the last weeks of a semester, were some of the most overworked scholars on campus. Some practically lived in the studio in order to meet their deadlines. Accordingly, their teachers devoted long hours to the subject as well—a fact that Robert wouldn’t change. He loved working with his students, conveying knowledge and receiving in turn intellectual stimulation.
Yet between his work at the university and his work with the firm, little time was left to keep up social obligations. Friends sometimes became lost in the shuffle. Which was one of the reasons why he had never married. He didn’t feel his life-style would be fair to a wife. He had heeded perhaps a little too well the advice of an admired professor—that an architect should never encumber himself prematurely with outside obligations. Translated, that meant a wife, children and a mortgage. Not if the architect intended to travel extensively or to immerse himself in all the work involved in starting his own practice. It was advice he himself had given students over the years, advice that he still believed. Only sometimes did he wonder if he might have carried it a little too far.
Robert shrugged the thought away. He paid for the gasoline that had been pumped into his car and set off along the highway that would take him to Lake Geneva. But instead of looking forward to the enjoyment he would soon experience upon seeing his old friends, he found his thoughts returning to the Tyler library. Not the new one. The old one.
Robert had loved old buildings all his life, particularly old homes. To him, they were the key to another age—an age that in many ways was much more graceful than the present. As a child, he had lived in just such a house, creating fantasy worlds from basement to attic. He had always dreamed of owning one himself, but as the years passed, his dream faded. Still, he loved to look at such structures and to poke around in them when given the chance.
His business in Tyler afforded just such an opportunity. The old library, though decried by its users, was interesting to him. His guess was that it had been built at or near the turn of the century, and judging from the exterior and interior style, influenced by the revolution in architecture that had taken place around that time. It was the period when fellow Wisconsinite Frank Lloyd Wright had begun to evolve the personal style that so greatly influenced twentieth-century architecture.
Robert’s two short investigations of the building had whetted his appetite to see more. Both times he’d been distracted by other things: the water damage to the books, his second appointment with the librarian. He wanted more time to look around. And he saw no reason why, as he worked closely with Elise Ferguson, he couldn’t take it.
* * *
THE DOORBELL RANG and Elise went to answer it. Butterflies were aflight in her stomach. The fluttering increased when she saw that Robert Fairmont stood on the porch. She’d known all along it would be him, but reality seemed more potent than her thoughts.
“Hello,” she said, striving to keep her voice circumspect.
“Hello,” he returned, a smile both in his eyes and on his lips.
She stepped back, wordlessly inviting him inside. He moved past her into the formal front room. She saw his gaze quickly take in his surroundings—the heavy furniture and curtains, the ornate rug. Repeatedly over the years since their parents’ death Elise had wanted to redecorate, but Bea had stayed her hand. Bea didn’t welcome change. She wanted everything to remain as it was, no matter how out-of-date or ungainly.
Elise cleared her throat. “You, uh, saw your friends?”
“Yes. You look...rested.”
Elise shifted uneasily. She wanted to tell him about the numerous telephone calls she’d received from people who wanted to know how she felt. They’d come from patrons who had been at the library, from the library staff, from people who hadn’t been there but who had heard the news through Tyler’s lightning-quick grapevine. In fact, she’d spent more time on the phone reassuring everyone than she had doing anything else. But she couldn’t make herself tell him. Having him inside her home completely unnerved her. Turned her into the equivalent of a tongue-tied sixteen-year-old.
“Elise! Elise!” Bea’s irritated repetition of her name came just before she wheeled into the room. When she saw Robert Fairmont, she came to an abrupt stop. “Who are you?” she demanded, looking him up and down. She didn’t seem particularly pleased with what she saw.
Elise hurried into speech. “Bea, this is Robert Fairmont, the architect who’s going to help us with the library. I’ve told you about him, remember?” She hated to think what her sister might say. With Bea, you never knew. “Professor Fairmont...my sister, Bea.”
Robert Fairmont moved closer to Bea and held out his hand. “Call me Robert,” he offered.
Bea looked at his hand as if it contained poison. “Yes,” she said tartly. “I know who you are.”
Robert let his hand fall slowly back to his side.
An awkward moment passed before Bea turned her attention to Elise. “Elise, I want you to take that darned telephone off the hook! It’s rung every few minutes all afternoon. I can’t rest, I can’t think. If it rings again, it’s going to drive me mad!”
To emphasize her point, the telephone rang that very moment. Bea groaned while Elise dashed to answer it. Only a part of Elise’s attention was devoted to the caller, however, as she continued to listen to the conversation that took place between her sister and Robert Fairmont.
“Elise gave everyone a fright today,” she heard him say. “People are concerned about her.”
“I don’t see why,” Bea replied grumpily. “She’s as strong as an ox.”
“It seems she’s been under a lot of strain recently.”
Bea cocked her head to one side. “Are you trying to tell me you know my sister better than I do? You may be a fine-and-fancy architect in the town you come from, but I guarantee that you don’t know a thing about...”
Elise hurriedly broke off with the caller, saying, “I’m perfectly fine, really. In fact, I’m going back to the library this afternoon. Listen, Annabelle, I really do have to go. Do you mind if I...?” She murmured a couple of polite yeses and hung up. Then she moved quickly back across the room. “That was Annabelle,” she said to Bea, hoping to break the tension that existed between her sister and Robert Fairmont. She knew all the signals for when Bea didn’t like someone, and those flags were flying at full mast. “Our postmistress,” she explained to Robert. “She just wanted to see how I was.” The words she had been unable to find earlier now rushed out of her in a whirl. “She heard it from someone who came into the post office. They’d heard it from someone who heard it from someone else who had been in the library. It’s truly amazing. I think I’ve had a call from almost everyone in town!”
Robert’s gaze traveled from Bea to her. Elise couldn’t tell what he thought. Then a smile slowly lightened his features. “You’re a very lucky woman,” he said, “to have so many people care about you.”
Elise surrendered to the charm of his smile, but Bea seemed totally immune. She harrumphed crossly, “They’re all a bunch of silly people who don’t have anything better to do with their time.”
Elise was embarrassed by Bea’s hateful demeanor. The inhabitants of Tyler knew her; they were accustomed to her sharp tongue. But Robert Fairmont was a guest in their town, in their home. He wouldn’t understand. “Maybe we should go back to the library,” she suggested. “I truly would like to show everyone that I’m—”
“It was my understanding that you were home for the day!” Bea snapped, interrupting her.
“No, Bea,” Elise explained. “I told you I was going back.”
“Because of him?” Bea glanced spitefully at the professor.
“No, because I have to. I have work to do, Bea. You know that.”
“But you almost fainted. What if you do it again?”
Elise knew that Bea wasn’t voicing concern for her wellbeing. In her own way her sister loved her, but it wasn’t in Bea to think of another person first. Particularly not Elise.
“Then I’ll sit down and wait for it to be over!” Elise returned shortly. She took a bracing breath. “I’ll be home no later than six-thirty. I promise.”
She reached for her purse, glad of her forethought in setting it near the door. Then she turned to Robert. “Are you ready?” she asked with brittle control.
Robert nodded, but before moving away, he addressed Bea. “It was nice to meet you. Maybe next time it will be under better circumstances.” He was making an excuse for her ill humor.
Bea snapped. “I don’t see any reason why there should be a next time.”
Pain filled Elise’s heart as she wondered what Bea’s life, not to mention her own, would have been like if Bea hadn’t fallen on the icy steps. Blindly, she walked toward the door. Robert was just behind her and, sensing her need, he reached out to lightly touch her back, guiding her toward the exit.
Gratitude instantly took the place of pain, and not even Bea’s acerbic reminder, “Six-thirty, Elise!” could steal away the warmth that temporarily surrounded her being.
* * *
BEA SAT ALONE in the house, grumbling to herself. She was always alone, or so it seemed. She should be used to it. But it didn’t make the hours pass any faster. In Elise’s opinion, as long as she had her television and her books, her magazines and her dolls, she would be all right. Then Elise could go out into the world with a free conscience and not have to think about her. Leave her all alone except for the marmalade cat...who at present wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Buttercup!” Bea called, snapping her fingers near the floor. “Come to Bea, Buttercup!” she called again, but it did no good. The silly cat was sleeping somewhere, probably somewhere that she shouldn’t.
Bea straightened, drawing her hand back into her lap. She sighed and looked at the closed front door. Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that man. Not one little bit. She knew danger when she saw it, and he was definitely danger! Elise practically quivered every time he looked at her. She might not be completely aware of it herself, but Bea was.
Her mind went back to another man, years before, who had come calling on Elise. Elise had been twenty...no, nineteen. How many years ago was that? Thirty-four. My God, Bea thought dully. That meant she’d been in this chair for... Bea let her chin drop. Forty-two years!
A moment later she lifted her hands to examine them. The fingers were still long and narrow, tapering to delicate oval nails at the tips. But the skin had lost a great deal of its elasticity and age spots had begun to appear.
Her lips tightened. She was growing old. And what did she have to show for it? Nothing.
With a strength of purpose that would have surprised Elise had she been there, Bea pushed her chair over to the hall mirror, where she arranged herself in the best possible light. What she saw reflected was a drab-looking woman shrunk into an invalid’s chair. Dried-up; prune-faced. She tried to smile, but the muscles protested and her effort came off as more of a leer. She moved impatiently away.
No, she didn’t like that man, that fancy architecture professor. She didn’t like the way he looked at her, or the way he looked at Elise...which were two entirely different matters. Bea would have to be vigilant if she didn’t want to be left alone. Would have to watch Elise for any threatening signs.
Buttercup sidled up to the chair and, purring, rubbed her yellow side along the rubber rim of the right wheel.
“Ah! So there you are!” Bea exclaimed. She reached down to scoop the cat onto her lap. Buttercup responded by arching her back. “Yes,” Bea said a few moments later, still absently stroking a silky neck. “I must be extremely watchful.”
* * *
THE MERCEDES DIDN’T SEEM nearly as alien as it had on her previous ride. Still, Elise could not relax. She glanced at Robert Fairmont as he competently negotiated the Tyler streets. He didn’t look in the least disturbed, but she was. Bea’s rudeness had been unforgivable. She tried to apologize.
