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Marsh stared at the scar, remembering things he’d just as soon have forgotten. He breathed deeply, ordered his fists to relax, reminded himself that he was a grown man now. He’d gotten beyond all this old garbage. He didn’t have to play Blake Bravo’s sick cat-and-mouse games anymore.
Blake dropped his hand, so that the hair hid the scar again. But he wouldn’t shut up. “Let nature do it for you,” he suggested in that papery whisper of his. “It’s not going to be that long.”
Marsh dragged in one more long, slow breath. The deep breaths were working, to a degree. His heart rate had slowed, his hands had relaxed.
He said in an even tone, “Dad. It’s been an experience, getting in touch again.”
Blake winked at him. “That it has, my boy—and do you think you’re leaving town now?”
It would have given Marsh great satisfaction to answer, I don’t think I’m leaving. I am leaving.
But he wasn’t going anywhere—except to find himself a decent hotel. Evidently, Marsh still possessed some shred of filial emotion. He would stay, for a few days. He would be there if the end did come.
“No,” he said. “I’ll stay in town for a day or two.”
“That’s right, you will. They cut me open, cracked my chest bone like a pecan shell—did I tell you?”
“You did.”
“Three days ago, that was. Quintuple bypass. And a little plastic valve. I can hear that valve, whooshing open, swinging shut, when it’s quiet, when I’m alone…. All that cutting they did, all those fancy repairs. They won’t be enough. I’ll be dead. And soon.”
Marsh just shook his head, even as a soft voice inside him whispered that his father was right.
“Shake your head all you want,” Blake said. “You’ll see if I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Your doctor said otherwise.”
“Doctors.” Blake let out another gutter expletive. “What the hell do they know?” The question was purely rhetorical. Without waiting for an answer, Blake switched to the next item on his personal agenda. “And now, for your other surprise…”
Marsh simply did not want to hear it. “I think you should rest now.”
“Rest. Hah. Fat lot of good rest’ll do me.”
Marsh turned for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To find a place to stay.”
“You can stay at the house.”
An image of the dreary shack hidden among the oaks and hickories down a dirt road out east of town flashed through Marsh’s mind. “No, thanks.”
“No great love for the old homestead, huh?”
“I’ll see you later, Dad.”
“Wait.”
Marsh shouldn’t have, but he paused, his hand poised on the doorknob.
“You’ll need my keys. Even having a heart attack, I had the sense to lock up what was mine.” The whispery voice had pride in it now. “I called the ambulance and locked up and went out to wait on the front step. By the time they got there, I was curled up on the ground. But I locked up what was mine, you can count on that.” He tipped his head in the direction of a tall cabinet near the door to the bathroom. “Keys’re in my pants. In there—and you remember the rules. I know you do. You won’t go nosin’ around in my things till I’m gone for good, will you?”
“I said I’m not staying at the house.”
“Take the damn keys, anyway. I’m never going to be using them again.”
Marsh turned the steel doorknob.
“I’m not finished,” his father said.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me later.”
His father went on as if Marsh hadn’t spoken. “That girl,” he whispered. “That pretty redhead. The doctor’s daughter…”
Marsh stood absolutely still, his face a mask. Whatever the mention of Tory did to him, he wouldn’t give Blake Bravo the satisfaction of seeing it.
Blake was grinning again. “You call her. You remember the number, don’t you? It hasn’t changed.”
Marsh pulled open the door. “I’ll be back to check on you. Tonight, probably.”
“Call her,” his father commanded again. “You’ll see. You’re going to love it, the redhead’s surprise.”
Marsh gave his father no chance to say more. He stepped out into the hall, drawing the door shut in his wake.
Five minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his rental car. He left the hospital parking lot and drove south until he came to Gray. Then he turned west. Without even having to think about it, he worked his way over to Main at the point where Main became a two-way street.
Norman, Oklahoma. His hometown. It all looked…bigger. More prosperous. The streets were more crowded than he remembered. But in a basic sense, it was the same. He still recalled which way to turn to get where he wanted to go—which was toward the interstate, where he knew he’d find a large hotel.
He passed the high school, noted that they were putting a new front on it. The wooden statue still stood at Main and Wylie. Somebody’s ancestor, a Union soldier in the War Between the States, carved from a tree trunk by a chainsaw artist, if Marsh remembered right.
A couple of blocks past the statue was the first street he might have turned on, if…
Marsh did not turn onto that street. Nor did he turn at the one after it, or the one after that, though any one of those three would have taken him quickly to the handsome brick house where his high school sweetheart—the girl he’d sworn to love forever, the girl who’d sworn the same to him—had lived.
His father’s raspy whisper echoed in his brain.
Call her. You’ll see. You’re going to love it, the redhead’s surprise….
Marsh told himself he was ignoring that whisper. There was no surprise. His father was just doing what his father always did: trying to stir up trouble wherever he sensed an opportunity.
Marsh told himself a few other things: that he would not call her. That he had set her free of him years ago, that she probably would only slam the door in his face if he showed up out of nowhere right now. That he’d come back to his hometown because his father was dying and for no other reason.
That bygones needed to remain bygones.
Sleeping dogs should be left to lie.
Water under the bridge must just keep flowing on its way.
That she was probably married with children by now. Married, a mother—and happy. With a good life that didn’t include the bad boy she’d loved in her foolish youth. That she deserved the best and he sincerely hoped she had found it.
Still…
He had loved her with his whole heart and soul—desperately. Completely. There had been no one else in the past ten years who even came close to taking her place.
Marsh blinked.
Damn. He’d already crossed the interstate and driven right past Sooner Mall. He was well beyond the area where he could look for a place to stay. Swearing under his breath, he swung into the left lane, executed a U-turn and told himself to pay attention to the task at hand.
He found a hotel a few minutes later. It wasn’t until after he’d checked in and called his office in Chicago to see how things were going there that thoughts of Tory crept into his mind again.
He ordered those thoughts away. The hotel had a small gym. He went down there and worked out for an hour. Then he spent some time sweating in the sauna. And after that, he cleaned up.
By then it was a little after six. And he was thinking of Tory again. What, he wondered, was her life like now?
Had the old man been telling the truth? Did she still live in that big brick house on that wide tree-lined street in Westwood Estates, with her parents?
Bygones and sleeping dogs, he thought.
Let her alone. She would not want to see you….
Still, he got the phone book out of his sitting-room desk drawer and turned to physicians in the yellow pages. He found no listing for a Dr. Seth Winningham. He flipped to the white pages. No Seth or Audra Winningham there, either. It could have been, of course, that they had merely decided to go unlisted.
But then he saw it: V. J. Winningham. V for Victoria. J for Justine. Same address, same phone number. Just as the old man had said. The doctor and his wife had probably retired, moved down to Florida or out to Arizona and left the house to their only child.
And her last name was still Winningham. She hadn’t married—or at least, it appeared that way. But then, you could never tell for certain by a name. Some women kept their maiden names even after they’d said, “I do.”
Marsh sat for a long time with the open phone book in his lap, staring at the number he remembered so well and coming to grips with the inevitable.
He wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from giving that number a try.
Chapter Two
“Tory?”
That was all the voice on the other end of the line said. Just her name. Cautiously. On a rising inflection.
Just her name.
And the sound sent Tory Winningham’s world spinning into chaos.
She would know that voice anywhere. Even after ten years.
Her stomach churning, she cast a frantic glance at the table a foot away.
“Tory?” His voice in her ear again, more insistent now. “Hello? Tory?”
Kim was watching. And she picked up on her mother’s distress. The pixie face scrunched into an apprehensive frown. “Mama. Who’s that? What’s the matter?”
Tory spoke into the phone. “Just a minute, please.” She wrapped her hand around the receiver, so the man on the other end couldn’t hear. Then she summoned every ounce of will and self-control she possessed and mustered a reassuring smile. “It is just an old friend of mine, honey. No one you know. Eat.”
For a split second that felt like infinity, Kim stared at Tory, still frowning. Then her expression relaxed. She shrugged and picked up her fork again.
Turning her back to her daughter, Tory spoke to her caller. “Yes.” Her windpipe clamped shut. She had to swallow to make it open, to get air. At last she managed to fill her lungs. “This is Tory.”
“It’s Marsh,” he said. Then he added his last name, “Bravo,” as if she might have—or even could have—forgotten.
Stay calm, girl, she thought. Don’t let your voice go giving you away. “Yes. Yes, I know.”
After a taut, agonizing moment, he spoke again. “This is pretty crazy, I realize. After all this time…” His deep voice was hesitant, hopeful.
“Yes.” She kept thinking, Breathe. Relax. Speak calmly. Her throat felt so terribly dry. “Crazy,” she said. “That’s the right word for it.”
“You’re not…” He paused. She could hear him, doing what she kept doing. Breathing. Slowly. Deliberately. With such painful care. Finally he spoke again. “I don’t know how to ask, except to just say it. Are you married?”
Why? she longed to demand. What do you care? It is too late now, Marsh Bravo. You made your choice ten years ago.
“Tory?”
“No,” she said, very softly. “No, I am not…” She let her voice trail off rather than say that dangerous word: married.
Another silence. Behind her, Kim had just taken a gulp of milk. Tory knew this because she heard the clink of her glass as she set it back on the table.
“Is it…a bad time?” he asked, his tone suddenly hushed.
She didn’t like the hesitancy of his question or the lowered tone. What did it all mean? Did he…? Was it possible that he knew?
“Tory, are you still there?”
She sent a swift glance over her shoulder at her daughter, who, thank the good Lord, was concentrating on her tuna casserole. “As a matter of fact,” she said into the phone, “I am eating dinner now.”
Yet another silence, but this time a brief one. Then he said, “Look. I know I’ve got no damn right to ask you. I know I told you to forget all about me. But I…Tory, I’d really like to see you. Can you meet me somewhere? For a drink, maybe?”
He does know, she thought. He must know. That’s why he’s called. He probably talked to his father and that awful old man has finally told him.
Tory closed her eyes—and saw Blake Bravo’s face. Grinning at her, that ugly, mean grin of his. She shook her head to banish the image—and found herself wondering why, if Marsh knew, he didn’t just say so.
“Listen,” she said, “is there a number where I can call you back a little later tonight?”
“You mean you can’t talk now.” It was a statement, and a grim one.
“Yes, that is what I mean.”
“Let me give you my cell phone number.”
Those words caused faint hope to rise. Maybe he wasn’t even in town yet. Maybe he was miles away, in another state. Maybe it was all just talk, and he would never come at all. Maybe—
But then he spoke again. He mentioned the name of a certain hotel, and an address less than two miles from her house. Her dread returned full force, making her heart thud loudly and bringing a faint taste of copper to her mouth. He said something about his father. About a heart attack.
