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Sara caught a glimpse of a thin stream of blood trickling down the side of a hard, handsome face before the man helped hoist the boy back onto the raft into the waiting arms of the couple Sara believed were his parents.
The current was already taking the rafts downriver from the scene of the rescue. The man swam at an angle to shore, his strokes sure and strong. Sara watched until he reached land and stepped onto the bank, his clothes hanging wetly on his tall, muscular body. He, too, appeared to be okay.
Who was he? she wondered as her raft drifted farther and farther away. But she already knew.
He was a hero.
H E WAS a coward.
Otherwise he’d hang up the hotel phone, change into something besides the faded jeans and T-shirt he wore and drive to the Indigo Springs restaurant where Johnny and his fiancée were holding their rehearsal dinner.
“Yeah?” It was Johnny’s voice, barely audible above the buzz of conversation and clinking of silverware.
“Johnny, it’s Michael.”
“Mikey Mike,” Johnny exclaimed, the ridiculous nickname making Michael smile. Only Johnny could get away with calling him that. “Where are you? We’re almost through with appetizers.”
Michael swallowed. “I’m not coming.”
“What? Hold on a minute.” The background noise gradually lessened, and Michael pictured Johnny walking away from the table to find a quieter spot. “What aren’t you coming to? The rehearsal dinner or the wedding?”
“The dinner.”
“So you’re in town?” Johnny asked, his relief evident.
“I will be,” Michael said, deliberately vague. There was no point in telling Johnny that, in another cowardly move, he’d checked into a cookie-cutter hotel near the interstate that was a full twenty miles from Indigo Springs. Especially since he’d led Johnny to believe he’d be staying with his great-aunt.
“Want to tell me why you’re not coming to dinner?”
Michael didn’t, but Johnny deserved an answer. Without Johnny’s friendship, life in Indigo Springs would have been even less bearable. Even after Chrissy’s death, Johnny had stuck by him, making the two-hour drive to visit him in Johnstown every few months. They hadn’t seen each other since Michael had gone to the West African country of Niger two years ago, but the bond they’d formed as teenagers never weakened. Johnny was more like a brother than a friend.
“I’ve got a nasty bump on my head.” Michael gingerly touched the spot where his forehead had come in contact with the edge of a rock. The hot shower he’d taken had washed away the river water and the blood but not the bruise. “I wouldn’t be good company, especially in a crowd.”
“What happened?” Johnny asked sharply. “Were you in an accident?”
“A minor one.” Guilt gnawed at Michael. His head ached, but not enough to keep him from anything he really wanted to do. “It’ll be fine by morning.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Michael said, then cleared the emotion from his throat. It had been a long time since anyone had been concerned about him. “You’d better get back to your guests.”
“And you better show tomorrow, buddy. I let you weasel out of being my best man, but I want you at my wedding, damn it. I’m only getting married once.”
“I’ll be there,” Michael promised.
After disconnecting the call, Michael ignored the nearly overwhelming temptation to turn on the television and switch on the Phillies. He’d gotten accustomed to the lack of electricity in the adobe hut where he’d lived in Niger, but enjoyed few things more than a beer and a baseball game.
Not giving himself time for second guessing, he rode the elevator to the hotel lobby, walked past the bored-looking clerk and headed for the black PT Cruiser he’d parked in the hotel lot. It was the last car he would have chosen but the only one the busy rental agency at the airport had available.
Thirty minutes later, he pulled the PT Cruiser to the crowded curb across from his great aunt’s house and set the brake to keep the car from rolling down the hill. Somebody on the street had company, but he doubted it was his quiet, reserved aunt.
His aunt’s charming Victorian house was much as Michael remembered it, with flowers hanging from baskets on her wraparound porch and planted in beds in the front yard. But as he trudged up the sidewalk, he noticed that the lawn needed mowing and the porch could use a coat of paint. Aunt Felicia’s husband—Michael never had been able to think of the man as his uncle—would normally have taken care of those chores, but he’d been dead for three months.
If Murray were still alive, Michael wouldn’t be here.
And then only a screen door separated Michael from the house where he hadn’t been able to find refuge. The doorbell didn’t sound when he pressed the button so he rapped on the frame and waited. He heard voices and laughter. It seemed he’d misjudged Aunt Felicia, but it was too late to turn back.
“Just a minute.” He recognized the gentle, slightly melodic voice of his great-aunt.
He held his ground, wiping his damp palms on the legs of jeans too warm for the balmy summer night. He smelled molasses and brown sugar and guessed she’d baked a shoo-fly cake, her specialty, for her guests. Time seemed to stretch before she came into view. Considerably grayer and smaller than he remembered, she moved slowly toward the door, then stopped as though she’d slammed into a barrier.
“Michael?” Her voice trembled. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Aunt Felicia.”
Her hand fluttered to her forehead to the exact spot where he knew his injury was, and he guessed he was black-and-blue. “Your head…”
“It’s nothing.” He shrugged to underscore his words.
He waited for her to invite him inside, but she just stood there staring at him. His throat felt so thick he wasn’t sure he could speak. He hadn’t seen her since his eighteenth birthday, the day Murray had kicked him out. That had been nine years ago.
He squinted. The years had taken their toll. Through the screen of the door, she looked every one of her seventy-plus years.
“I thought you were in Africa,” his aunt finally said, her voice no steadier than before.
He swallowed. “I only just got back to the States. I thought you should know I’m in town for Johnny’s wedding.”
He owed Aunt Felicia that much. She’d taken him in during that dark time after his mother had overdosed. Even though his aunt hadn’t been able to stand up to her husband in the end, he still remembered her trying to explain.
“If it was just me, you could stay,” she’d told him, tears trickling down her papery cheeks. “But I’m worn out from arguing with him about you.”
Michael had claimed to understand but hadn’t. Not back then. Back then he’d wanted somebody to want him. That’s probably why he hadn’t protested too long or too hard when Chrissy insisted she was leaving Indigo Springs with him.
Nine years, he thought again. Chrissy had been dead for eight of them.
His aunt didn’t say anything now, her mouth working but no words emerging.
He cleared his throat. “Johnny told me about Murray. I’m sorry.” It was the truth. Michael didn’t wish anybody dead. Not even Murray.
“Felicia. It’s your turn.” A woman’s voice floated from the direction of the living room.
“Bridge night,” his aunt explained.
“Who’s at the door anyway?” A different, louder voice. One that sounded familiar.
“No one,” his aunt replied quickly, the answer stabbing through him like a jagged spear. She blinked a few times, shifted from foot to foot, her hand fluttering to her throat. Her eyes seemed to plead with him. “You understand I can’t invite you in.”
“I understand.” He gave the same answer he had years ago, but this time it was the truth. Aunt Felicia’s friends would be Indigo Springs long-timers. She had good reason to be ashamed of him. “I just wanted to be the one to tell you I was in town.”
Once he showed up at the wedding, the buzzing would start. It wouldn’t take long for word to reach Aunt Felicia.
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“A hotel outside of town.”
“Felicia!” A different voice this time. “We’re waiting.”
His aunt’s face twisted with an emotion he couldn’t identify.
“You’d better go,” he told her and backed away from the door, chiding himself for expecting too much. He descended the creaky porch stairs and was almost to the sidewalk when her voice stopped him, so soft he almost didn’t hear it.
“Michael.”
He turned around, trying not to hope. “Yeah?”
“When are you leaving town?”
“Sunday morning,” he said.
“Could you stop by before you go?”
He started nodding before she finished the question, a flame of optimism leaping inside him. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I’ve got some of your things in the basement,” she said softly. “Nothing valuable, but you might want them back.”
Somehow he managed to tell her good-night before making his lonely way back to his rental car. He wished like hell he hadn’t promised Johnny he’d come to the wedding.
Some people really couldn’t go home again.
It seemed he was one of them.
CHAPTER TWO
“I NEVER saw anybody cry so much at a wedding!”
Sara tried not to wince as she regarded the short, middle-aged woman in front of her in the receiving line at the VFW hall, which was decorated in soft pastels to reflect the varying colors of the bridesmaid’s dresses.
So much for creating a first impression of toughness, a quality most people sought in a lawyer.
Sara couldn’t even console herself with the fiction that few of the wedding guests had noticed her tears. Three women had offered her tissues. This woman—she’d introduced herself as Marie Dombrowski—hadn’t been sitting anywhere near her.
“Weddings do that to me,” Sara said as they passed through an arch of silk flowers interspersed with white netting and approached the receiving line. “I can’t seem to help myself.”
Marie patted Sara on the arm, sympathy practically oozing from her. “Don’t worry, dear. Someday it’ll be your turn.”
“You’ve got it wrong. That’s not why—” Sara began.
“Being a romantic is nothing to be ashamed of,” Marie interrupted. “But of course you know that. Only a romantic would wear an adorable dress like that.”
Sara smoothed a hand down the skirt of the paisley-print, triple-flounced sleeveless dress she wore with matching pink-and-red-satin sandals. She’d bought the dress on a whim while shopping for a new work wardrobe that wasn’t so stuffy. The look was ultra-feminine, a drastic change of pace from the structured suits she used to wear no matter the occasion.
“Thank you,” Sara said, “but nobody’s ever called me a romantic before. Especially not the men I’ve dated.”
“Then none of them must’ve been right for you,” Marie declared. She herself was wearing a pink knee-length dress with tiny appliquéd hearts on the bodice.
“I wasn’t right for them, either. Lawyers don’t generally make good girlfriends.”
“Now I know who you are!” Marie exclaimed, looking delighted with herself. “You bought that empty storefront on Main Street. Aren’t you an old friend of the bride’s from high school?”
“That’s right. But how did you know that?”
“Oh, honey. Indigo Springs may be turning into a tourist town, but among the locals nothing’s a mystery. Isn’t that right, Frank?” She nudged the stout, silent man at her elbow she’d introduced as her husband. He startled as though he’d been awakened from a nap even though they were among the last guests to arrive and the decibel level in the hall grew louder by the second.
“Oh, yes.” His smile included both Sara and his wife. “Whatever you say, dear.”
“In this case,” Sara said, “I’m hoping the story about me crying at the wedding doesn’t get around.”
“Are you kidding?” Marie exclaimed. “That’s the only thing people would be talking about if it wasn’t for Michael Donahue.”
Marie and her husband reached the front of the receiving line before Sara could ask who Michael Donahue was. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard the name. While she’d waited outside the church for the newly married couple to emerge, two elderly men had been discussing him.
“You’re sure it was Donahue?” one of the men had asked in a loud voice.
“’Course I am. Came in late and sat in the last pew. Slipped out before the ceremony ended, too.”
The loud man had whistled. “Wonder what Quincy Coleman will do when he finds out he’s back.”
Who was Michael Donahue? And who, for that matter, was Quincy Coleman?
Sara put her curiosity on hold as she approached the parents of the bride, who were first in the receiving line and whom Sara had met once before. But the question was still tapping at the back of her mind as she reintroduced herself to Penelope’s mother and father and greeted the groom’s parents.
Penelope could surely enlighten her about Michael Donahue, but it became apparent now wasn’t the time to question her when the bride squealed.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” Penelope threw her arms around Sara, crinkling the bodice of her white gown against Sara’s chest and enveloping her in the scent of perfume. Penelope drew back and asked, “Is it true you cried through the ceremony?”
Sara laughed. “True. But it was your fault for looking so happy.”
“I am happy.” With her light-brown hair in an updo and eye makeup playing up her huge dark eyes, Penelope looked lovely. She beamed at her new husband, formally attired in a gray pin-striped tuxedo. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”
“And don’t you forget it.” Johnny Pollock winked at his bride. He was neither tall nor short, his features neither ugly nor handsome, his hair color neither blond nor brown. He was average in every way—until he smiled, transforming him into something special. “Nice to see you again, Sara.”
Sara had barely returned Johnny’s greeting when Penelope captured both of Sara’s hands in hers. “I never thought you’d leave that big law firm, but I’m so glad you did. I hope you love it here as much as I do.”
Love was the reason Penelope had relocated to Indigo Springs. Weeks after she’d made a sales call to Johnny’s construction company peddling industrial piping, he’d asked her to marry him. She’d dumped the job and gained a husband.
“I’m already starting to,” Sara said.
“Now go circulate.” Penelope beckoned her close and whispered in her ear. “I’m trying to figure out who the eligible men are, but forget about Johnny’s best man. Chase is hot, but his girlfriend and her little boy are living with him and they have a baby on the way.”
