It hadn’t been a far-fetched hope. She’d expected Gram to be as pleased with the match as everyone else.
But…
“Are you sure he’s the one?” Clara had asked.
“Yes, I am. But you aren’t. Why not?” When Gram hadn’t been forthcoming with answer, Elizabeth had provided possible concerns herself. “Is it because he’s ten years older than I am?”
“I didn’t even realize he was.”
“Or because he’s thinking about going into politics?”
“More than thinking,” Gram had replied. “It sounds like his run for the Senate is a sure thing.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Not at all. And with his beautiful, brilliant wife at his side, he’s certain to win.”
“That’s not why he’s marrying me.” Elizabeth’s statement had been emphatic, and so stern it had blocked the question that begged to be asked. You think it is? She’d sensed the question, of course. Rolled right over it. “Ours may not be the love you and Granddad had. What love is? But we’re extremely compatible. I’ve done some dating, you know. I have my own previous relationships to compare this one to. That’s what I have to compare it to, Gram. My relationships, not yours and Granddad’s.”
“And it’s good?”
“Very good.”
“You love him?”
“Of course I do! And Matthew loves me.”
“Do you sing for him?”
Elizabeth couldn’t carry a tune. She knew it. Anyone who’d ever heard her knew it. It had been years—decades—since she’d inflicted her tonelessness on the world. Not since the carefree summers she’d spent in Sarah’s Orchard as a girl. “You know I can’t sing.”
“You always sang for Granddad and me.”
“Yes, but…” You’re my grandparents. You love me unconditionally. “Matthew doesn’t need to hear me sing.”
Before the phone call had ended, Gram had made an effort to soften her position. But it had been damning with faint praise. She didn’t dislike Matthew. She didn’t believe him to be a serial killer in disguise. She just didn’t think he was the man for her only granddaughter. And she’d said, so quietly Elizabeth almost hadn’t heard it, that Charles wouldn’t think so, either.
Maybe that was what Gram’s reaction to Matthew was really about. Granddad. The man Gram had loved for sixty-five years had died last November. It wasn’t in Gram’s nature to give up on life, and she hadn’t. And she had the support of her family, her town and, perhaps most importantly, of Winifred and Helen. Both had known and loved Clara—and Charles—for more than sixty of those sixty-five years.
It had been their men, their soldiers, who’d brought them together. Sam had needed witnesses for his wedding, and friends for his friendless bride. They’d become close friends, all six of them. Over time, Helen and Winifred had lost their beloved husbands. Now Gram had lost hers. Elizabeth had no doubt that Gram’s friends were reaching out to her as Gram and Granddad had reached out to them when Sam and Richard had died.
But Gram had to miss Granddad, deeply and desperately, every day.
That was how Elizabeth felt about losing Granddad, too.
Elizabeth wished Gram could be happy about her wedding, wished it’d given her something hopeful to look forward to.
It worried Elizabeth more than she’d been willing to admit—until this very moment—that it hadn’t.
This very moment coincided with her arrival at Matthew’s.
The silver Accord parked in his driveway was unexpected. And familiar. Its vanity plate confirmed its owner to be Matthew’s executive assistant, Janine—the same Janine who’d been Matthew’s date at the New Year’s Eve gala at the Carlton Club where Matthew and Elizabeth had met.
Elizabeth had been home for the holidays, accompanying her parents to the social events of the season. Matthew had called her the following day, and by the time Elizabeth returned to L.A., she and Matthew were making plans for a future.
It was during a weekend visit in March that Elizabeth had seen Janine’s Accord. She’d arrived at Matthew’s just as Janine, who’d dropped off some financial statements Matthew needed to review, was leaving. She’d also learned from her mother that there’d been a “dreadful” few months when Matthew’s parents had lived in “perpetual fear” that Matthew might marry Janine. Like Elizabeth, Matthew was an only child—and sole heir to a substantial fortune.
Matthew had told Elizabeth that rumors of his possible engagement to Janine were greatly exaggerated. She’d been a lover. That was all. He’d said it dismissively, as if the assistant who drove the Accord wasn’t “wife material.” When Elizabeth called him on what sounded like elitism, he’d apologized right away.
Elizabeth hadn’t known Janine would be traveling with Matthew to New York. They must have rendezvoused early Tuesday at his home, where his Jaguar was parked in the garage, and shared a limo to SFO.
Must have, she reiterated silently as she parked the car.
So why hadn’t she grabbed an invitation before heading toward the mail slot in his door? And why was she veering away from that door toward the master-bedroom side of Matthew’s house?
Matthew never pulled the bedroom blinds. The neighbors’ windows faced the other way, and it would take a slender voyeur indeed to traverse the narrow path. And a tall one to peer inside.
Elizabeth was slender, and tall. In the seconds before she witnessed the scene within, she knew what she’d see. And, in those seconds, the prosecutor known for her ability to distill seemingly random details into a coherent story distilled what she was about to witness into a single word.
Lies.
Elizabeth had never cast herself in such a drama. It would have been an idle exercise—and the attorney who hadn’t spent a carefree summer since age eighteen was rarely idle. Besides, she’d met enough criminals and their victims to know that imagined reactions to hypothetical situations didn’t necessarily forecast what would happen when the situation was real.
At the moment, the reality was excruciating. A glimpse through the window was all she needed.
And her reaction to the betrayal?
She felt detached.
And purposeful.
She returned to her car, opened the trunk and extracted one of the just-minted invitations—already of historical interest.
She toyed with writing “canceled” across the gold engraving. Or, and this was more appealing, drawing a circle with a slash through it.
That had a certain eloquence, succinct yet clear.
Less, however, was more.
After emptying an envelope of its invitation, she dropped her engagement ring inside and sealed the flap.
Very haiku, she thought as she slipped the envelope through the slot in the door.
Then, numbly but decisively, she began the seven-and-a half-hour drive to her grandmother’s home.
Two
Sarah’s Orchard
Friday, July 7, 8:00 p.m.
Nick paused at the foot of the steep driveway he knew so well. It was a reverent pause; it was also a chance to assert mind over matter.
His legs hurt, an acute pain on top of the smoldering discomfort that was always there. He’d been pushing hard the past three weeks, determined to complete the Tolliver Farm remodel today—so he could get going on the summer’s project for Clara in the morning.
His legs weren’t happy. But he was. And the Tollivers were.
He’d almost driven the mile from his home to Clara’s. A concession to the throbbing in his legs. But the walk was good for his soul. Especially this final climb.
He’d made it countless times since his return to Sarah’s Orchard. As he made the ascent now, he recalled the evening, three Aprils earlier, when he’d first knocked on the MacKenzies’ teal-colored door.
He’d been in Sarah’s Orchard for six weeks by then, his decision to come back an easy one to make. Sarah’s Orchard was the only place he’d ever lived where he’d choose to live again.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the other towns he’d lived in with his mother and Dennis, and Marianne’s next boyfriend, and the next and the next—until, when he was seventeen, they’d gone their separate ways. Marianne had been ready to move. Again. He’d wanted to finish school. He’d never searched for her. Nor, he supposed, had she looked for him.
The towns had been pleasant. The memories weren’t.
Nick hoped to live a quiet life for the rest of his life, and a useful one. As a soldier, he’d volunteered for impossible missions—and proved them possible, after all.
The military had been a good place for Nick until a spray of bullets fractured his legs and shattered his pelvis. He would’ve continued to serve if he could. But his recovery, though surprising to the doctors, was incomplete. His strength wasn’t what it had been, nor was he as agile as he needed to be.
The military didn’t compel Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Lawton to leave. Quite the contrary. Any number of high-level noncombat positions were his for the taking.
But Nick couldn’t send soldiers into battle unless he was with them, leading them in—and leading them out.
He knew that emotional guidance was especially important for those unaccustomed to battle. No matter how well trained they were, how prepared they believed themselves to be, the first death, the first killing, was a shock.
No preparation was adequate for the sights and sounds of friends dying. Or enemies dying—young men who, in another world, might have been friends. Men who, like them, dreamed of playing with their children, caring for their elderly parents, making love to their brides.
Emotions were kept at bay during the fighting itself. Adrenaline and training saw the soldiers through. But until the aftermath, no soldier knew how he’d respond to what he’d experienced. Some were able to articulate their feelings. Nick listened to what they needed to say.
Others, like Nick himself had been, held everything inside. Nick was there for them, too, listening to their silence and speaking words that might have been of comfort had someone spoken them to him.
Nick had left the military, honorably and with fanfare he hadn’t wanted. What lay ahead, after months of rehab, was a mission as challenging as any he’d ever known…and in which he was likely to fail.
Finding contentment, finding peace, might very well be impossible. Even in the only town he’d ever wanted to live in.
He’d chalked it up to morbid curiosity when he’d driven by the house on Center Street. He remembered it as dilapidated and menacing—where the danger to a seven-year-old boy was far greater than freezing to death on a winter night. The real peril had been to his heart and soul.
The house, with its For Rent sign, had remained an eyesore, a blemish in a neighborhood of charming homes. But it looked sad, not menacing, in need of care. The current owners, who lived in Medford, were waiting for the Sarah’s Orchard housing market to appreciate enough that even their run-down property would sell. Their new tenant was welcome to make improvements, if he liked, at his own expense, assuming the structure wasn’t devalued as a result.