Always on My Mind (27 page)

She could give Layla security. A family.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t love Monte. He was a good enough man. The man she probably deserved. And he wanted a future with her. That was more than . . . anyone else . . . offered.

Icy rain pinged against the window, glazing the trees. She had called in sick today, fatigue making her ill. Now she rubbed her
arm as she went to her bedroom, changed into her pajamas, and climbed into bed.

The sun barely dented the weepy palette of the day. She pulled up her covers, her head thick, stuffy, her body achy.

She picked up Aggie’s diary, thumbed to the next entry. Yawning, she found her place.

J
ULY
25

I can admit now that the feeling I had for Jean-Philippe couldn’t have been love. Nor could the sweet excitement of dancing with Duncan be more than infatuation. Because love feels like the sun on your face after a cold winter, smells like lilacs and wild roses, sounds like the lilting song of the bluebird in my soul. It’s Thor bringing me oranges, or recently, fresh-cut strawberries, and curling up against him as we trace the stars that canopy the magnificent lake. It is his eyes finding mine as I tell him my dreams, our fingers laced as we tread along the rocky shoreline.

It is the way he kisses me, his hands cupping my face gently as if I might break, his own desire for me tightly coiled even as he trembles. He is so strong, and yet I feel only freedom when he lifts me over the waves to his sailboat or lends me his arm as we stroll down the paths around the hotel. He even drove me into Deep Haven, a tiny fishing village settled upon the marshy bay of the grand lake, and introduced me to his father, a local fisherman. They fed me trout caviar and smoked whitefish.

Thor said to me, as we floated in the big lake, that richness is a state of mind, that money can’t buy safety or even happiness. I know he is hinting at marriage, waiting for me to believe his words, “to live large,” as he puts it.

He doesn’t have to. I see my life with him. A life so different from what I expected, but right nonetheless, because I never felt more myself, the person free from the trappings of Father’s commands and even Duncan’s designs.

Thor hasn’t asked, but I see it in his eyes. Perhaps he is simply waiting for me to be free. Thus, I penned the truth to Duncan in a letter and am posting it today. If he never returns, it would be for the best.

Raina yawned again, the gray sky seeping into her bones, the wind on the pane moaning.

A
UGUST
7

Duncan is here. He showed up last night, late, burst into my room, and threw my mother’s wedding dress at my feet. He informed me that I’d made him a promise.

Apparently he means for me to keep it.

Raina closed her eyes for a moment, fatigue a blanket pressing her into slumber. The moaning seemed to flow over her, soak through her.

Then, thudding.

“Augusta, hurry up; everyone is waiting.” Not Augusta.
Raina.
She tried to say that, but the words clogged in her throat.

She couldn’t breathe, her ribs constricted, and she touched her stomach, discovering it encased in a hard bodice, her dress
 
—no, a gown, silk that flowed through her fingers like ice. White.

She found her image in the bureau mirror.

A long veil draped down her back, her hair pinned up to show her thin neck.

“Augusta, now. We must take pictures before the magistrate gets here.” The door handle rattled.

She looked around and identified a dressing room. Wood paneling lined the walls, the scent of summer folding in on the breeze from the window, bracketed in lace eyelet curtains. A steamer trunk sat propped open on the floor next to an empty dress stand.

Just a dream. Yes. But somehow Aggie’s words imprinted in Raina’s mind and now she’d dreamed herself into Aggie’s story. Or perhaps her own nightmares
 
—she didn’t know. Just heard the racing of her heartbeat as she ventured into the next room and found a suitcase open on the bed. Inside, an envelope lay tucked on top. She eased it out, opened it. Bonds. Made out to Clara Augusta Franklin.

“Augusta!”

She tucked the bonds back in the suitcase.

The door swung open.

It seemed she recognized the man in the frame
 
—solidly built, slicked-back dark-blond hair, handlebar mustache over thin lips, angry black eyes. He wore a gray pin-striped suit, an ascot at his neck, and carried a bowler.

She stood frozen, her mind blank, as he stormed over, hooked his hand around her arm. “Don’t give me any trouble, now.”

She struggled for words as he dragged her into the hallway, then righted her and held out his arm. “You’ll feel better once this
is over.” He’d lowered his voice, but she found no comfort in his tone.

She took the stairs down to the foyer and recognized it at once by the bright tapestry of colors adorning the walls
 
—the green-lined draperies, the zigzag orange-and-crimson pattern on the ceiling, the eyes of the totem birds watching as her escort directed her toward a photographer. He stood with his camera and pointed to a chair. “Mr. Rothe, take a seat; Miss Franklin, behind him.”

Duncan Rothe. The name came to her lips and might have tripped out because he glanced at her, trouble creasing his brow.

She stood behind him, solemn, and he took her hand, placed it on his shoulder.

The bulb flashed, the smoke acrid in the air.

“Now by my roadster.” Duncan put his hand on her arm, one foot propped on the running board as he positioned her in front of him.

She shivered in the piney breeze.

“I need
 
—” Her brain seemed snarled as if she couldn’t break free of the cotton webbing her thoughts. “I need
 
—”

“Inside, my love,” Duncan said, his hand gripping her elbow. “A moment of rest before the ceremony.” He directed her back upstairs, yet his smile faded as he pushed her inside her room.

She heard the turn of the lock.

I need . . . Thor.

The thought pulsed, clear, rich, beyond the moaning, into the free.

Yes, she needed Thor, and the more she said his name, the more he materialized in her mind. Thor, with his ruddy outdoorsy aura, blue eyes, the way he made her feel free and whole.

Unafraid.

“Thor!” She heard her voice, a rumble, deep inside. “Thor!”

She beat on the door. Her body shook, her voice hoarse, her eyes burning.
Thor!

Then voices outside. She ran to the window, looked out. Spied Duncan glad-handing a man in a suit.

No.
She held on to the window frame, crumpling to the ground in her silk. Buried her head in her arms, breathing hard.

A buzzing trickled into the room, wound around her beating heart like a bee or a wasp. She looked up, searching
 
—

The door banged open, slamming against the bureau, and she jerked, her gaze caught on the man in the frame.

Dark hair, long around his ears. Blue eyes
 
—the kind that could take her apart and rebuild her in a glance. Dressed in boots, leather breeches, a white cotton shirt open at the neck. Tanned where his shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his thick, sinewed arms, and an expression on his face that swept all thought but one from her mind.

Casper.

No, that wasn’t right. She frowned. “Thor?”

“Run, Aggie.” He gripped her arms, pulled her to her feet, and laced her hand in his. Then he pressed a hard kiss to her forehead. “My car is out back. It’s time to go.”

She gathered her skirt, but it seemed endless, the swaths and layers tangling around her knees. His hand loosened on hers, and his voice echoed, growing distant in her ears. “C’mon, Aggie! Run!”

The buzzing again.

She fell, fought to free herself from the dress, clawing at it, tangling herself, her breathing tight, short, gasping
 
—

“Oh!” Raina opened her eyes, still struggling as the afternoon pressed shadowy ghouls into her room. The sheets noosed her legs, her waist. Her heart pounded with the fading dream.

So terribly real, she could still smell the lilac on the breeze.

Her cell phone vibrated on the stand by her bed. She slapped at it, knocked it on the floor, then rolled over, groping for it under the bed.

It had stopped buzzing by the time she curled her grip around it. Voice mail had already caught the message.

She flopped back on the pillow, breathing hard, waiting.

Casper had no place in her dream. No right to her unconscious musings.

Aggie’s diary lay on the pillow next to her. She picked it up, read the last lines of the entry.

Duncan says we are to marry in the morning. He has locked me in my room. I have no hope of getting a message to Thor.

And yet I wonder if perhaps Duncan is right. He has told me that the north woods are no place for a debutante. More, that Thor has simply been dallying with my affections.

And he has reminded me that, after Paris, perhaps Thor wouldn’t want me anyway.

My stubborn heart refuses to believe it, and yet as the night grows long, I wonder if I am trading safety for a summer love that holds no true promise.

I will marry Duncan in the morning.

Raina closed the diary. Untangled herself from her bedsheets and got up. She dialed her voice mail as she went to the bathroom and drew a bath, sitting on the side of it, stirring her hand in the clear, warm water.

When the message started, the voice slogged through her.

“Raina, it’s Dori. Just a reminder that the court date to finalize the adoption is Monday. It’s imperative that you sign the final relinquishment papers. Your local court administrator has them and you can sign them there. We’ll take care of everything else. Call me if you have any questions.”

Questions.

She had too many questions
 
—the kind of questions Dori couldn’t begin to answer.

Like, would it really get easier as time went on? Because two months later, the peace she’d hoped to find had only turned into a haunting wail.

And would Layla really be better off? Especially now that Raina could give her a family?

Monday, she could finish it. Sign her baby over and walk away. Try to forget. To heal.

Or . . . she could say yes to the only man who offered her a future.

“I have an announcement.”

Casper looked up as Darek propped his fork on his plate and sighed.

Everyone at the Sunday dinner table, with the exception of Tiger, stopped talking. Ingrid set the mashed potatoes down beside her plate as John handed Casper his plate of roast beef.

Out of the corner of his eye, Casper saw Ivy’s mouth tighten into a grim line.

Amelia glanced at Casper, an eyebrow raised. True to her
promise, she hadn’t mentioned a word of his secret to their parents
 
—or at least, neither Ingrid nor John had tracked him down for details.

To get Amelia’s mind off her broken heart, Casper had dragged her to the Wild Harbor, putting her to work helping fussy women try on Keens. Ned roped her onto the staff in a blur that still had Amelia trying to unravel how she’d ended up wearing a Wild Harbor uniform.

Yet being gainfully employed seemed to buoy her spirits. And it helped keep Casper’s grim thoughts from traveling to his own tragedy
 
—namely Raina and her gut-wrenching choices.

“What is it, Son?” John said now to Darek.

Darek took another breath as if bracing himself. “I’m going to Arizona for a couple weeks to work for the Jude County Hotshots.”

Silence, this time so thick Casper could slice it with the blunt edge of his butter knife. He glanced at Ivy, who set her fork down, her mashed potatoes, gravy, roast beef, and green beans growing cold. She sighed, offering no comment.

Next to her, Tiger gnawed on his dinner roll as if ignoring his father’s news.

Darek glanced at his father, then at Casper. “I’m hoping Casper can fill in for me while I’m gone.”

“Casper has a job,” John said, his tone soft.

Casper frowned, not sure why the words prickled him.

“Tiger, how about I fix you that plate in the den
 
—I think we have one of your Scooby-Doo shows taped,” Ingrid said. Mom must have figured out how to work the DVR. She scooped up Tiger’s plate, grabbed his milk.

He slid off the chair and followed her. “Does it have Scrappy-Doo too?”

“Darek, what on earth are you thinking? Ivy’s about to pop
 
—”

Darek held up his hand to Amelia’s words, glanced at Tiger, still exiting, then cut his voice low. He reached across the table to take Ivy’s hand as he spoke. She closed her grip around his. Gave him a sad smile.

“It’s just for a couple weeks
 
—and it’s good pay for once,” Darek was saying. “Jed needs me, and we need the money. Someone has to pay that propane bill, and with no more business on the books until May . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Casper couldn’t identify the knot forming in his chest. Or the way it tightened when his father said, “Darek, your place is here, running the resort, like we talked about. You can’t just dump it into Casper’s lap.”