Authors: Nora Roberts
S
he’d chosen to lose herself in Charleston, and for nearly four years had managed it. The city had been like a lovely and generous woman to her, more than willing to press her against its soft bosom and soothe the nerves that had shattered on the unforgiving streets of New York City.
In Charleston the voices were slower, and in their warm, fluid stream she could blend. She could hide, as she’d once believed she could hide in the thick, rushing crowds of the North.
Money wasn’t a problem. She knew how to live frugally, and was willing to work. She guarded her savings like a hawk, and when that nest egg began to grow, allowed herself to dream of owning her own business, working for herself and living the quiet and settled life that always eluded her.
She kept to herself. Real friendships meant real connections. She hadn’t been willing, or strong enough, to open herself to that again. People asked questions. They wanted to know things about you, or pretended they did.
Tory had no answers to give, and nothing to tell.
She found the little house—old, run-down, perfect—and had bargained fiercely to buy it.
People often underestimated Victoria Bodeen. They saw a young woman, small and slight of build. They saw the soft skin and delicate features, a serious mouth, and clear gray
eyes they often mistook for guileless. A small nose, just a little crooked, added a touch of sweetness to a face framed by quiet brown hair. They saw fragility, heard it in the gentle southern flow of her voice. And never saw the steel inside. Steel forged by countless strikes with a Sam Browne belt.
What she wanted she worked for, fought for, with all the focus and determination of a frontline soldier taking a beach. She’d wanted the old house with its overgrown yard and peeling paint, and she’d wheeled and dealed, badgered and pushed, until it was hers. Apartments brought back memories of New York, and the disaster that had ended her life there. There would be no more apartments for Tory.
She’d nurtured that investment as well, using her own time and labor and skill to rehabilitate the house, one room at a time. It had taken her three full years and now the sale of it, added to her savings, was going to make her dream come true.
All she had to do was go back to Progress.
At her kitchen table, Tory read over the rental agreement for the storefront on Market Street a third time. She wondered if Mr. Harlowe at the realtor’s office remembered her.
She’d been barely ten when they’d moved away from Progress to Raleigh so her parents could find steady work. Better work, her father had claimed, than scratching out a living on a played-out plot of land leased from the almighty Lavelles.
Of course they’d been just as poor in Raleigh as they’d been in Progress. They’d just been more crowded.
Didn’t matter, Tory reminded herself. She wasn’t going back poor. She wasn’t the scared and skinny girl she’d been, but a businesswoman starting a new enterprise in her hometown.
Then why
, her therapist would ask,
are your hands trembling?
Anticipation, Tory decided. Excitement. And nerves. All right, there were nerves. Nerves were human. She was entitled to them. She was normal. She was whatever she wanted to be.
“Damn it.”
Teeth gritted, she snatched up the pen and signed the agreement.
It was only for a year. One year. If it didn’t work out, she could move on. She’d moved on before. It seemed she was always moving on.
But before she moved on this time, there was a great deal to be done. The lease agreement was only one thin layer of a mountain of paperwork. Most—the licenses and permits for the shop she intended to open—were signed and sealed. She considered the state of South Carolina little better than a mugger, but she’d paid the fees. Next up was the settlement on the house, and dealing with the lawyers, who she’d decided gave muggers a bad name.
But by end of day, she’d have the check in her hand, and be on her way.
The packing was nearly finished. Not that much to it, she thought now, as she’d sold nearly everything she’d acquired since her move to Charleston. Traveling light simplified things, and she’d learned early never, never to become attached to anything that could be taken from her.
Rising, she washed out her cup, dried it, then wrapped it in newspaper to store in the small box of kitchen utensils she thought most practical to take with her. From the window over the sink, she looked out at her tiny backyard.
The little patio was scrubbed and swept. She would leave the clay pots of verbena and white petunias for the new owners. She hoped they would tend the garden, but if they plowed it under, well, it was theirs to do as they liked.
She’d left her mark here. They might paint and paper, carpet and tile, but what she had done would have come first. It would always be under the rest.
You couldn’t erase the past, or kill it, or wish it out of existence. Nor could you will away the present or change what was coming. We were all trapped in that cycle of time, just circling around the core of yesterdays. Sometimes those yesterdays were strong enough, willful enough, to suck you back no matter how hard you struggled.
And how much more depressing could she be? Tory thought with a sigh.
She sealed the box, hefted it to take out to her car, and walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
Three hours later, the check from the sale of her house was deposited. She shook hands with the new owners, listened politely to their giddy enthusiasm over buying their first home, and eased her way outside.
The house, and the people who would now live in it, were no longer part of her world.
“Tory, hold on a minute.”
Tory turned, one hand on the car door and her mind already on the road. But she waited until her lawyer crossed the bank parking lot.
Meandered
was more the word, Tory corrected. Abigail Lawrence didn’t hurry anything, especially herself. Which probably explained why she always looked as though she’d just stepped graciously from the pages of
Vogue.
For today’s settlement, she’d chosen a pale blue suit, pearls that had likely been handed down from her great-grandmother, and thinly spiked heels that made Tory’s toes cramp just looking at them.
“Whew.” Abigail waved a hand in front of her face as if she’d just run two miles rather than strolled ten yards. “All this heat and it’s barely April.” She glanced past Tory to the station wagon, scanned the boxes. “So that’s it?”
“Seems to be. Thank you, Abigail, for handling everything.”
“You handled most of it. Don’t know when I’ve had a client who understood what I was talking about half the time, much less one who could give me lessons.”
She took a peek into the back of the station wagon, vaguely surprised that one woman’s life took up so little room. “I didn’t think you were serious about heading straight out this afternoon. I should’ve known.” She shifted her gaze back to Tory’s face. “You’re a serious woman, Victoria.”
“No reason to stay.”
Abigail opened her mouth, then shook her head. “I was
going to say I envy you. Packing it up, taking what fits in the back of your car, and going off to a new place, a new life, a new start. But the fact is, I don’t. Not one little bit. God almighty, the energy it takes, and the guts. Then again, you’re young enough to have plenty of both.”
“Maybe a new start, but it’s back to my beginnings. I still have family in Progress, such as it is.”
“You ask me, it takes more guts to go back to the beginning than just about anyplace else. I hope you’re happy, Tory.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Fine’s one thing.” To Tory’s surprise, Abigail took her hand, then leaned over and brushed her cheek in a light kiss. “Happy’s another. Be happy.”
“I intend to.” Tory drew back. There was something in the hand-to-hand connection, something in the concern in Abigail’s eyes. “You knew,” Tory murmured.
“Of course I did.” Abigail gave Tory’s fingers a light squeeze before releasing them. “News from New York winds its way down here, and some of us even pay attention to it now and again. You changed your hair, your name, but I recognized you. I’m good with faces.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Ask me?”
“You hired me to see to your business, not to pry into it. The way I figured it is if you’d wanted people to know you were the Victoria Mooney who made news out of New York City a few years back, you’d have said so.”
“Thank you for that.”
The formality, and the caution, had Abigail grinning. “For heaven’s sake, honey, do you think I’m going to ask you if my son’s ever going to get married, or where the hell I lost my mama’s diamond engagement ring? All I’m saying is I know you’ve been through some rough times, and I hope you find better. Now, if you have any problems up there in Progress, you just give a holler.”
Simple kindness never failed to fluster her. Tory fumbled with the door handle. “Thank you. Really. I’d better get started. I have several stops to make.” But she held out her hand once more. “I appreciate everything.”
“Drive safe.”
Tory slid inside, hesitated, then opened the window as she started the engine. “In the middle file cabinet drawer of your home office, between the D’s and E’s.”
“What’s that?”
“Your mother’s ring. It’s a little too big for you, and it slipped off, fell in the files. You should have it sized.” Tory reversed quickly, swung the car around while Abigail blinked after her.
She headed west out of Charleston, then dipped south to begin her planned circle of the state before landing in Progress. The list of artists and craftsmen she intended to visit was neatly typed and in her new briefcase. Directions for each were included, and it meant taking a number of back roads. Time-consuming, but necessary.
She’d already made arrangements with several southern artists to display and sell their work in the shop she would open on Market Street, but she needed more. Starting small didn’t mean not starting well.
Start-up costs, buying stock, finding an acceptable place to live were going to take nearly every penny she’d saved. She intended to make it worthwhile, and she intended to make more.
In a week, if everything went as planned, she would begin setting up shop. By the end of May, she would open the doors. Then they would see.
As for the rest, she would deal with what came when it came. When the time was right, she would drive down the long, shady lane to Beaux Reves and face the Lavelles.
She would face Hope.
At the end of a week, Tory was exhausted, several hundred dollars poorer thanks to a cracked radiator, and ready to call an end to her travels. The replacement radiator meant she had to postpone her arrival in Florence until the following morning, and make do for a night with the dubious comfort of a motel off Route 9 outside of Chester.
The room stank of stale smoke, and its amenities included a sliver of soap and pay movies designed to stimulate
the sexual appetites of the rent-by-the-hour clientele that kept the establishment out of bankruptcy. There were stains on the carpet, the origin of which she decided it best not to contemplate.
She’d paid cash for one night because she didn’t like the idea of handing over her credit card to a sly-eyed clerk who smelled like the gin he cleverly disguised in a coffee mug.
The room was as unappealing as the idea of climbing back behind the wheel for another hour, but it was there. Tory carried the single flimsy chair to the door and hooked its spindly top under the knob. She decided it was every bit as security-proof as the thin and rusted chain. Still, using both gave her the illusion of safety.
It was a mistake, she knew, to allow herself to become so fatigued. Resistance went down. But everything had conspired against her. The potter she’d seen in Greenville had been temperamental and difficult to pin down. If he hadn’t also been brilliant, Tory would have walked out of his studio after twenty minutes instead of spending two hours praising, placating, and persuading.
The car had taken another four hours, between getting towed, negotiating for a reconditioned radiator at the junkyard, browbeating the mechanic to do the repair on the spot.
Add to that, she admitted it was her own stupidity that had landed her in the By the Way Inn. If she’d simply booked a room back in Greenville, or stopped at one of the perfectly respectable motor lodges on the interstate, she wouldn’t be stumbling with exhaustion around a smelly room.
Only one night, she reminded herself, as she eyed the dingy green cover on the bed. For pocket change, it offered the questionable delights of Magic Fingers.
She decided to pass.
Just a few hours’ sleep, then she’d be on her way to Florence, where her grandmother would have the guest room—clean sheets, a hot bath—ready. She just had to get through the night.
Without even taking off her shoes, she lay down on the spread and closed her eyes.
Bodies in motion, slicked with sweat.
Baby, yeah, baby. Give it to me. Harder!
A woman weeping, pain rolling through her hot as lava.
Oh God, God, what am I going to do? Where can I go? Any place but back. Please don’t let him find me.
Scattered thoughts and fumbling hands, all panicked excitement and raging guilt.
What if I get pregnant? My mother will kill me. Is it going to hurt? Does he really love me?
Images, thoughts, voices washed over her in waves of shapes and sounds.
Leave me alone, she demanded. Just leave me alone. With her eyes still shut, Tory imagined a wall, thick and high and white. She built it brick by brick until it stood between her and all the memories left hanging in the room like smoke. Behind the wall was all cool, clear blue. Water to float in, to sink in. And finally, to sleep in.
And high above that pale blue pool the sun was white and warm. She could hear birdsong, and the lap of water as she trailed her hands through it. Her body was weightless here, her mind quiet. At the edges of the pool she could see the grand live oaks and their lacing of moss, and a willow bowing like a courtier to dip its fronds in the glassy surface.