скачать книгу бесплатно
The cat gave her a look that said he’d had enough bothersome conversation. He settled his chin on his paws, closed his yellow eyes and went to sleep.
Mary Elizabeth shrugged and turned on the radio, trying to find a classical station. When she had, she settled back.
But a few minutes later her mind had wandered again, away from the music to the countless school concerts Charles had sat through when she was a girl. He’d attended her plays and art exhibits, as well. But he’d usually grumbled beforehand, looked impatient during and been irritable after. At times she’d thought she was merely being overly sensitive, but now she knew better. Now a lot of Charles’s behavior made sense. So did his words. You’ve always been a burden, Mary Elizabeth. A burden. More than she’d ever suspected, apparently.
It must have been terribly difficult raising a child who was the taunting proof of his wife’s infidelity, a child he clearly didn’t want and had hoped Eliza would give up for adoption. And how maddening it must have been when that child, given every advantage, had continually failed to live up to the Drummond name.
Or maybe she had, she thought, but in his pain and resentment Charles had simply refused to acknowledge it.
Mary Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the wheel. She wished she’d seen things in that light when she was younger. Instead, she’d spent her youth trying to win his approval and love, trying, always trying, but growing increasingly certain that in some mysterious way she was inferior and deserved to be treated differently from her brother and sister.
Damn! It shouldn’t have been that way. Her mother should have told her about her illegitimacy instead of keeping it a secret. It would have explained so much. Besides, it was her very identity her mother had withheld. And what if there was some unpleasant surprise lurking in her gene pool such as heart disease or diabetes? It was only right a person be told such a thing, or at least be given the opportunity to find out. The likelihood of that happening now was slim. Mrs. Pidgin had told her that after her biological father left the area, her mother had never heard from him again. No one knew where he was or if he was even still alive.
Mary Elizabeth came to with a start, realizing she’d done it again. She’d fallen into thinking about Charles and her illegitimacy when her mind ought to be on the road. With a determined effort she put them from her thoughts, reached for the radio and turned up the volume.
She stopped at a roadside rest area south of Boston shortly after noon to feed Monet, who thought he was human and insisted on three meals a day. Although anxiety had destroyed Mary Elizabeth’s appetite, she knew that for the baby’s sake she ought to eat, as well.
While she was putting together a lobster salad sandwich, she realized her stomach was knotted with a curious new tension. Her hands trembled with a nervousness she couldn’t quite define.
She was opening a cupboard to look for her copper tea kettle when the thought abruptly hit her: survival. That’s what this nervousness was about—preparing her first solitary meal, in the first home that could truly be called her own. It didn’t matter that she’d prepared innumerable meals before. This one cut through time and all common sense to feelings that were obscure and primitive. The need to survive. The fear that she wouldn’t, just as Charles had predicted.
Conscious of her every move, she found the kettle, set it on the propane stove and turned the knob. Ridiculously, her heart leapt when a flame appeared.
She considered going out to a picnic table with her food, but an eighteen-wheeler was parked nearby, and while the driver was probably just having his lunch, too, she felt it was wiser to stay inside.
She sat instead at the small kitchen table and cranked open the window to catch the fresh September breeze. Gazing outside at her unfamiliar surroundings, her stomach suddenly clenched again. She was alone now, truly disconnected from everything she knew, and she felt alone, felt disconnected.
But there was simply no way she could have stayed in Deerfield. Feeling alone and disconnected wasn’t nearly as bad as having to deal with Charles. Or with Roger, she thought. In a town as small as Deerfield, Roger would have found out about her pregnancy sooner or later.
Mary Elizabeth picked up her sandwich and took a small, tasteless bite. Charles was right; Roger was a decent person, and although he and Mary Elizabeth didn’t love each other, he’d want to marry her. He’d think it was the right thing to do.
It wasn’t. She’d never been more certain about anything in her life. It wasn’t her own happiness she was considering, although she’d always assumed she’d marry a man she was in love with. It was the child’s welfare that concerned her. Roger would feel trapped in a situation he hadn’t planned and didn’t need or want.
Of course she wouldn’t have to marry him, despite her father’s considerable influence on both her and Roger. But even single, Roger was sure to resent the child. Maybe not at first. At first he might ask for visitation rights, maybe even insist on paying child support, but eventually he would feel he’d been dealt an unfair hand, especially when he met a woman he wanted to marry. He’d resent having to explain this embarrassment from the past, this bastard. He’d resent having to justify the drain on his time and his wallet. The child would become an issue between them. His wife might even be jealous and ask him to stop seeing the child altogether.
No, Mary Elizabeth didn’t want any baby she brought into the world to grow up like that, resented and unwanted by its father—the way she’d been raised.
She regretted not being able to tell Roger she was pregnant. Fathers had their rights, and what she was doing to him was morally wrong and probably legally wrong, as well. But whatever guilt she felt was dwarfed by her conviction she was doing the right thing for the baby. And in the end, would it really matter whether Roger knew or not? She planned to give the baby up for adoption, anyway.
Taking a sip of tea, she let her gaze wander the motor home, crammed full of her possessions. She’d brought along most of the necessities to start a new life, but she’d also brought some frills. The Steuben goblets she’d inherited from her grandmother, her Crabtree & Evelyn clothing sachets, nearly twenty years of needlework, even her Salem rocker. She knew personal, homey touches had little to do with survival, but she needed them, anyway. Her soul needed them.
Mary Elizabeth smiled softly, her sense of well-being returning. She might be alone now, detached from home and everyone she knew, but ultimately she’d be okay. She had this RV to comfort her and shelter her from all the wide-open unknowns beyond.
And she had a tiny life growing inside her, she thought, placing her hand on her stomach. As always, that realization intensified her resolve. She would reach Florida, she would make a new life for herself. And she would provide a happy future for the baby. There would be no more talk of abortion, no more pressure to marry a man she didn’t love, no more fear that that man would begrudge and mistreat his own child. The legacy of resentment stopped here.
She finished her lunch, washed her dishes and, with fresh determination and optimism, got back on the road.
Mary Elizabeth’s spirits remained buoyed through most of the afternoon, down the Massachusetts interstate, into Rhode Island and on through Connecticut. She played the radio, listened to a book on tape, and when she got tired of that, simply drifted along with her thoughts.
She pulled into another rest area just before New Rochelle. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the opposite side of the highway, commuters leaving New York for their homes in the suburbs. And while this side of the highway was relatively free-flowing, she knew she’d hit similarly clogged arteries once she reached the city and the lanes outbound south.
Instead, she parked the RV and passed the hectic rush hour over a leisurely dinner of quiche, salad and crisp bottled water with a twist of lemon. For dessert she had tea and a slice of Mrs. Pidgin’s spice cake.
Feeling replete, she took to the road again at dusk. With any luck she’d reach the recommended campground in New Jersey around seven-thirty. She smiled, struck by a childlike sense of anticipation.
Everything was going well. The tires were humming, she was humming, the cat had even awakened to keep her company again.
And then she reached the Bronx.
There, highway signs and exit ramps became so confusing that before she knew it she’d gotten off I-95 and entered a labyrinth of streets that seemed to have no way out. It was, by far, the most frightening terrain she’d ever seen, except on “NYPD Blue.” She drove in circles, went down blind alleys and sped past loitering, leather-clad gangs. Occasionally she thought of her St. Christopher riding solemnly along on the dash, but mostly her prayers just went up to anybody who’d listen. She wanted to find her way out, but more than that, she was terrified of breaking down. All along the dark, potholed streets, cars lay stripped of everything but their shells. She didn’t want to think about what had happened to their owners.
Eventually, and for no reason she could discern, she did find the highway again. But by then she was so weak from having adrenaline rushing through her system, she didn’t even care that she was heading in the wrong direction, back toward Connecticut. And when, a few miles later, she realized she wasn’t even on I-95, that didn’t matter, either. She was on a major highway, she was going somewhere, and that somewhere wasn’t New York City.
She took the first exit she came to that displayed the symbol for lodging. It was nearly nine o’clock.
She braked at the end of the exit ramp, peering first to her right, then to her left, wondering which direction to take on the dark two-lane road. Wondering, too, why there weren’t any signs. The billboard on the highway had promised a luxury motel three miles east off the exit, but which way was east? She was so tired she didn’t know up from down anymore.
She slumped over the wheel, dropping her forehead to her knuckles. She didn’t need this. For the last half hour, the only thing keeping her going was the thought of bringing this cumbersome vehicle to a stop and crawling into bed.
Ah, well, she sighed, sitting up. It was only three miles. If she chose the wrong direction, how long could it take to turn around and backtrack? She flexed her shoulders, did a quick eenie-meenie, and went left.
The road was dark and narrow and arched with trees. She passed a cottage set back from the road, a small restaurant and several acres of corn field. After that there was nothing but woods.
She glanced at her odometer several times, and when she was satisfied she’d covered more than the requisite distance without finding the motel—or any other signs of civilization, for that matter—she decided to turn around.
Almost too tired to see anymore, she swung the camper across the road, her headlights cutting a white tunnel into the trees. She shifted and carefully backed up, red brake lights casting an eerie glow over the roadside brush at the rear.
Given the length of her vehicle and the narrowness of the road, however, Mary Elizabeth was forced to go through the maneuver again, cutting across and backing up. Still, the turn wasn’t complete, and she wished she’d waited until she’d come upon a driveway or crossroad.
This time would do it, though, she was certain. Forward. Back. Back a bit more...
Without any warning, the rear end of the motor home dropped with a thud. Mary Elizabeth’s teeth banged together, while somewhere in the nether regions boxes tumbled. “Oh, God!” she whispered as the engine stalled.
With fingers that quivered, she turned the ignition key and pressed her foot to the gas pedal. But even as she was doing so she knew she was wasting her time. The back tires spun futilely, kicking up dirt and pebbles that hit nearby tree trunks like buckshot. The RV didn’t budge. Panic flooded her as she gripped the wheel. Her blood pounded. What was she to do now?
After turning off the engine, she found a flashlight and slipped outside to investigate. Just as she’d suspected, she’d backed the RV right into a roadside ditch. She clutched the top of her head as if it might blow off. How could she be so stupid?
Okay, don’t panic. This isn’t a problem, she assured herself. You’ve got AAA, and they come to the rescue anywhere, any time. Right? Right. All you have to do is find a phone.
She peered up the road one way and down the other. All black. Just cricket chirps and bullfrog noises mixed with the thick, woodsy smell of humus. This was definitely not her idea of New York. Or was she back in Connecticut? Well, it wasn’t her idea of Connecticut, either.
She climbed into the motor home again, brushed her hair, put on lipstick, found her purse, stepped outside, locked the door and, with a shuddery sigh, pocketed the keys.
The solution was easy, she told herself. She’d simply walk back the way she’d come and phone for a tow truck from the restaurant she’d passed just off the exit.
But when she stared down the dark empty road and remembered she’d be on it for more than three miles, her heart grew faint. She reminded herself that every journey, no matter how daunting, begins with a single step. She pulled in a breath and set off.
When she finally reached the restaurant, her legs were ready to give out. But what was worse, now that she’d gotten a good look, she realized it wasn’t the sort of establishment she’d ever walked into before. It wasn’t the sort she ever wanted to walk into, either.
It was low and dark and seedy-looking. The gravel lot surrounding it teemed with pickup trucks and motorcycles glinting lurid neon color from the beer signs flashing in its windows. Over the door a string of multicolored Christmas lights outlined a peeling sign left over from happier or more hopeful days. Starlight Lounge it read. The I was dotted with a star.
Mary Elizabeth looked across the road to the lone cottage huddled beneath a dense grove of pines, pines that made an almost human sighing, and her mind filled with visions straight out of a Stephen King novel.
She glanced from the cottage to the restaurant and back to the cottage again, feeling truly caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. She decided on the restaurant. At least it was a public building.
As soon as she opened the door she was hit with a wall of country music and cigarette smoke. The next moment she realized she’d made a serious mistake.
CHAPTER TWO
PETE GOT A BAD FEELING the moment she opened the door.
He was sitting along the far leg of the U-shaped bar, near the back exit where he could keep an eye on his bike and still watch the room. He was trying to mind his own business, catch a little of the American League play-off, finish his beer and ribs, and be on his way. He still needed to check into that motel he’d seen up the road. His body ached and his eyelids felt like sandpaper despite the protective glasses he’d worn while riding.
Still, it had been a good day. No, make that a great day. He’d traveled some of the prettiest country he’d ever seen, the weather warm and dry and sweet. But even better was the riding itself, the sense of freedom that came from the open road, a motorcycle, and no agenda to meet. Time seemed to peel away from his thirty-six years as he’d ranged the wooded hills out of New Hampshire and down the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. By early evening, when he’d reached Connecticut, he’d felt eighteen again. Had the urge to buy a pack of Lucky Strikes and try out a few lines from Rebel Without a Cause.
Stifling a grin, Pete picked up his thick glass beer mug and took a cool sip.
Over the rim of the mug, his glance returned to the young woman at the door, poised on the threshold, surveying the clientele. His good humor dissolved. Damn! What was she doing here? He lowered the mug and gave serious thought to slipping out the back door.
It wasn’t such a bad place, really. A working-class bar, unapologetically masculine. The patrons seemed to be mostly regulars, guys from the nearby town, here to kick back with a cold brew, watch the game on the big-screen TV and gripe about their jobs to somebody other than “the wife.” Pete felt comfortable enough here; at least he didn’t feel threatened. And the ribs were good, just as the guy at the gas station up the road had said.
But Pete wasn’t about to stick around, either. He’d picked up a sense of the place early on and knew that, with just a touch of the wrong ingredient, it could become trouble.
He was pretty sure the wrong ingredient was standing at the door now.
She didn’t belong here. She was as polished as the chrome on a classic old Bentley. With her smooth-as-water natural blond hair and her peaches-and-cream complexion glowing only with health, she might as well have dropped in from Venus. The few other women in the joint looked thoroughly shellacked and frizzled.
Pete doubted any of them would’ve bought the outfit she was wearing, either. The neatly buttoned, maize-colored jacket and matching knee-skimming shorts, worn with tights and loafers, made her look like a model posing for a back-to-college spread in one of those wholesome fashion magazines his sisters used to read when they were teenagers.
His gaze returned to the young woman’s hair, those soft gleaming waves that fell from a side part to just below her collarbone. It was a timeless look, as in style now as it had been in the forties or would be again in the next century.
He focused on her face, a collection of refined features arranged with perfect balance in a perfectly oval setting. She had a small, straight nose and delicately sculpted cheekbones. Her neck was long and thoroughbred, and her eyebrows arched with just the right amount of hauteur. He couldn’t rightly judge her mouth—at the moment her lips were pressed too tight—but he thought it would be appropriately aristocratic. Yes, he decided, hers was unquestionably a face born of well-tended genes.
Pete watched her with more fascination than he usually allowed her type. She was on the prowl for something. A walk on the wild side? That was usually the case when a princess like her walked into a dive like this.
But Pete didn’t think so. Even from clear across the smoke-filled room, he could see how scared she was. When her large, worried eyes fixed on the phone on the back wall over behind his right shoulder, he put two and two together and came up with car trouble. Probably out of gas, or maybe a flat tire.
Damn! Where was her God-given common sense? There was a service station just a mile up the road. Better yet, why hadn’t she ever learned to change her own tires the way his sisters had?
His gaze swept over her fragile features and regal posture. But of course she wasn’t the type to change tires. Probably never pumped her own gas, either.
Or, he thought on an unexpected wave of sympathy, maybe she didn’t have any older brothers to teach her how. For a moment a picture flashed through his mind of his own sisters caught in a similar situation.
Pete shook his head fractionally. No, she was just a princess. Didn’t pump gas. Didn’t change tires. Thought she could sashay into any ol’ place and not suffer the consequences. No one would dare give her trouble.
From under his lowered lashes, Pete scanned the room and winced. Someone was thinking of daring.
He’d noticed the guy earlier, a muscle-bound, muscle-shirted big-mouth with a taste for Scotch, sitting on the other side of the bar. Pete swore under his breath, glanced over his shoulder at the exit again and began to wipe his hands.
* * *
MARY ELIZABETH SERIOUSLY considered retreat, just backing out the door and fleeing up the road to her RV.
But that would mean walking three miles in the dark again, this time with a stitch in her side. And worse, now there was the added risk she might be followed. A few of the men were giving her some decidedly unsettling looks.
In addition, retreat would solve nothing. Even if she did arrive at her motor home safely, it would still be stuck in a ditch. Besides, on the far side of the dimly lit room, beyond the pool table and drifting veils of smoke, hung the solution to her problem—a public telephone. All she needed was the courage to get there.
She pulled in a long breath, gripped the strap of her shoulder bag, and with eyes trained on the floor, made her way through the nearly all-male clientele. It seemed a gauntlet, but eventually she reached her destination.
With her back to the room, she set her purse on the ledge under the phone and took out her wallet. While conversations rose to their natural volume again, she flipped through her credit cards and various forms of identification, searching for the AAA phone number she knew was in there.
It eluded her. A fine tremor of fear shivered over her skin. She started her search again, aware of a sweat breaking out on her neck. Driver’s license, social security card, Visa, American Express...
Suddenly, the room dimmed to the degree where she couldn’t see the contents of her wallet at all. She turned and, with a jolt, realized it wasn’t the room that had dimmed, but only her particular corner of it. An immense pair of shoulders was blocking the light.
“Hi, how ya doin’?” For someone so big, the man who’d spoken had a remarkably high voice.
Mary Elizabeth could barely catch her breath, so acute was her alarm. “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?” Her eyes flicked upward to a square red face made even blockier by a flat-topped buzz cut. There seemed to be no demarcation between his head and shoulders except a pale border where the hair had recently been trimmed.
“I never seen you in here before.” The man inched closer, causing her to back up.
He wasn’t really bad-looking. He didn’t wear a leather vest or have sinister tattoos like those bikers playing pool, yet she still found him threatening. Something in his depthless, slitty eyes...and he smelled of hard liquor.
“Excuse me, I just need to make a phone call.” She attempted to turn and resume searching her wallet.
“And I just come over to help,” he said. “This isn’t the sort of place a pretty little lady like yourself ought to be wandering into alone.”
Mary Elizabeth eyed him guardedly, trying to decide if his offer of help was sincere, wondering if she had perhaps misjudged him. “I...uh...it’s car trouble.” Finally, she found the card. “RV trouble, actually. Nothing mechanical. I just need a tow.”
He leaned his beefy shoulder against the wall, hemming her in. The odor of liquor and smoke, combined with too-sweet after-shave, nearly made her gag. “Well, how about that.” He chuckled. “You’re lookin’ at the answer to your prayers, darlin’. I just happen to have a tow rig on the back of my truck.”
She stood in horrified numbness as he lifted one hand and ran his moist fingertips down her cheek. “Excuse me,” she said, shaking him off and stepping aside. In the process, however, the AAA card slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor between them. Swallowing, she bent to retrieve it, but just as she was reaching, his big sneakered foot landed squarely on top.
Heart hammering, she looked up the towering length of him.
With a dry chuckle, he removed his foot, but not until he’d made it clear he was playing a game of cat and mouse, a game he obviously enjoyed and wasn’t about to give up.
She retrieved the card and glanced around the room. A few men were watching them, but they didn’t seem inclined to interfere. The rest were oblivious, playing pool or pinball or watching a baseball game on TV. Mary Elizabeth glanced toward the bar for help, but as luck would have it, the bartender was female.
“How about a drink?” her unwanted companion asked, wrapping his sausagelike fingers around her upper arm. “Let me buy you a drink, huh? I’m in the mood for another myself.”
“Thanks, but I’m not thirsty. All I want is to be left alone so I can call for a tow, then I’ll be on my way. So if you’ll excuse me...”
“Hell, we can have you towed in no time. I told you that already. Come on, relax.” He gave her arm a little shake. “Take a load off.”
Mary Elizabeth tried to stay calm, at least on the surface, but inside she was growing frantic. No way was she going to get in a truck with this gorilla and drive off down a dark, isolated road.
“Excuse me. I...I have to go to the ladies’ room.”
