Falling for Rain (20 page)

At least she could be sure Rain wouldn’t get it. She wondered how she would have felt if she’d found this out about Rain in a year or two.
To have lived happily ever after until she found out his little secret.
No wonder last night he was so adamant that they not dwell on the past.

She felt like a fool. Some tough businesswoman she’d turned out to be. Jonathon was right to be so contemptuous of her. She’d come here to sell the farm, and she’d been romanced into giving it away in less than a week!

Walking up to the house, she prayed that Rain wouldn’t come back before she was gone. She couldn’t bear to see him now. She went to her room, put on one of the suits she had brought with her, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. The clothes didn’t look right on her anymore; their confidence clashed with the hurt in her eyes. It was like she was playing dress-up with someone else’s clothes.

She packed her suitcase with the few things she had brought with her from Toronto. Next, she went to her parent’s room and pulled the picture of herself and her mother out of the drawer where she had stashed it only a few days before. There was also a picture of her father and mother cutting the cake at their wedding. Her mother’s smile was as radiant as the June day she’d been married on.  She took that one too.

Finally, she picked up the one her father had taken the night of her graduation. She looked at Rain’s bravely smiling face and her own hostile one. What had he been thinking when that picture had been taken? She threw it back in the drawer. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if he felt guilty or sorry or sad about his role in her mother’s death. He was responsible, and that was all that mattered. 

She took the photos back to her room and placed them in her suitcase. She was just about to close it when she saw the one-eyed teddy bear sitting propped against the pillow. She picked it up and hugged it. “There are monsters even you can’t keep away, Teddy,” she said sadly, tucking him in among her clothes. With one last look around the tiny room with its yellowed wallpaper of faded roses, she went out to her car.

* * *

Not surprisingly, given all that had transpired, Emily was late for her appointment with the lawyer. Martin Wright had already heard about the fire – news, especially bad news, travelled fast in the village – and assumed it to be the reason for her lateness.

He was shocked by the change in her appearance. She was wearing her city clothes again but no makeup. Her hair was combed but not styled and its soft unruliness contrasted with her severe suit. But it was her eyes that alarmed him the most. Shock, fear, anger, all three – Martin wasn’t sure what he saw there. He assumed it was the trauma of the fire that had left her looking this way, but when he mentioned the event, she gave him a puzzled looked as though she didn’t know what he was talking about.
If it isn’t the fire that’s upsetting her
, he thought,
then what is it?

They sat down on either side of his desk, and he showed her the papers he had prepared.

“I’ll just go over these with you,” he said, “just to make sure I’ve understood your wishes properly.”

“Does this give Rain everything, Martin?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “Are you ready to sign?”

“Not on your life.” Emily picked up the papers, and, as Martin stared at her dumbfounded, she shredded them over the wastepaper basket. “I’m not giving my parents' farm to the man who killed my mother.”

“What are you talking about?” Martin said.

“Did you know that Rain went to the police and admitted his involvement in my mother’s death.”“Yes, but-”

“No buts. That’s all I need to know.”

“For heaven’s sake, Emily, let’s be reasonable....”

“Reasonable?” she shouted.

Martin put out a hand and touched her arm as if to calm her, but she shrugged it off. “It was a long time ago. He was sorry....”

“That’s not good enough,” she said, getting up from her chair. “Tell Mr. Storm that I’m going for the whole farm. I’ll bring up his role in my mother’s death if I have to. It was a pretty small item in the paper. The world may have forgotten or not noticed at the time, but I’m sure it’d be interested now that he’s about to become a celebrity.”

“I won’t represent you.”

“Heaven forbid. I know where your loyalties lie. Tell Rain,” she said, slipping unconsciously into the familiar nickname, “that I’ll take the farm in exchange for my silence. All he has to do is agree to give me his half and he has my word that the world will never learn of his role in my mother’s death from me. If, on the other hand, he insists on pursuing the terms of the will, I will do everything in my power to stop him. If nothing else, I’ll make it very embarrassing and very expensive for him.” Briefcase in hand, she went to the office door. “I’ll have my Toronto lawyer call you tomorrow. You can tell him Rain’s decision then.”

She opened the door, about to leave, when she stopped, turned, and looked the lawyer in the eye. “When you told me that Rain was like a son to my parents, did you know about this?” she asked quietly.

Martin nodded. He could see by the look in her eyes it was pointless to argue.

“You
are
a bastard,” she said as she left, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Rain pulled the truck into Maple Tree Farm, his heart sinking when he saw that Emily’s car was no longer parked in front of the house.
She can’t have left
, he thought,
not after last night
. He parked the truck, and, with barely a glance at the wet, blackened ruins of the
barn,
ran into the house. He went through the rooms. This morning when he’d come to find her some clothes, her suitcase had been sitting on the dresser of her old room. Now it was gone.

Panic rising, he ran to the cabin. Of course she wasn’t there. Her things were gone, her car was gone. Unless someone had come and stolen them, she had left and taken her things with her. The phone rang, and his heart soared as he leapt for the phone. “Emily?” he asked breathlessly into the receiver.

There was a moment of silence at the other end. “Afraid not, Ray.
Martin Wright here.”

“Is she there with you?” Rain asked.

“She just left,” Martin said. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Just then, Rain caught sight of the article sitting on the fax machine. He grabbed it. “Damn. It’s that blasted newspaper article. Somebody faxed it to her!”

“That’s what I was calling about. Ray, did you not tell her?”

“How could I? I thought at first she knew. How could she hate me for so long when she didn’t know?” He threw the fax back onto the machine and paced back and forth in front of the desk with the receiver pressed to his ear. “But she didn’t know, and she hated me anyway. She had no grounds to believe the tractor was unsafe. She just needed someone to blame, so she blamed me and her father. She spent years cultivating an image of me as a stupid farmhand whose negligence led to her mother’s death.” He kicked the chair out of his way and sent it crashing into the side of the desk. “And she was absolutely right.”

“Ray, enough,” Martin said firmly. “It was an accident.”

“It was a needless accident, and it's called criminal negligence. In layman’s terms,
it’s
murder,” Rain rebuffed. “I knew the tractor was dangerous. Henry told me there was a problem that needed fixing but I, thinking I knew more, ignored him and didn’t do anything. And nothing can change that.  But when I found out she didn’t know I’d been charged, I thought I could break it to her gently.  Convince her it was an accident, make her fall in love with me again, and then very carefully tell her the rest. And it was working. She stopped thinking of me as a stupid farmhand, and last night...,” he paused, remembering how happy he’d been. “Damn it Martin, I’ve been thinking all morning that maybe today I would tell her. If she knew how guilty I’ve felt all these years....” He snatched the incriminating paper off the desk again and shook it. “Who the hell could have done this?”

“Ever heard of a Jonathon Pilling-Smith?”

Rain thought to the day before and the man in Emily’s kitchen. He’d had a bad feeling about him. “I think so.”

“That’s my bet. But you’ve got a real mess on your hands. Either you sign the farm over to her, or she’s going to open up this whole can of worms. She seems to think that now you’re a writer, it might be of interest to the public, not to mention a way of overturning her father’s
will
.”

“I don’t give a damn what the public thinks of me. She’s the only person whose opinion matters. And I’ve blown it.” He swore again. “I’m just going to have to call her and try to talk to her.”

“I don’t think it’ll do any good, Ray. She was pretty angry. She says her lawyer is going to call tomorrow for your answer. And Ray, I wouldn’t beat
yourself
up over this too much. She probably would’ve reacted the same way if you’d told her yourself. She’s pretty determined not to let this go.”

Rain sighed. “It is hopeless, isn’t it, Martin? But when I saw her the other day, I just knew I had to try. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I would do anything for her. But I can’t go back in time and fix that tractor. God knows I would if I could.”

“Well, you’re right. You can’t go back in time. I hate to be blunt, Ray, but I think it’s time you start thinking about yourself here. What am I going to tell her lawyer?”

“I don’t know, Martin. Tell him whatever you like. I really don’t care anymore.” Rain slammed down the phone.

Almost immediately it rang again. Rain grabbed it, his hopes instantly soaring, only to have them dashed once more. “Mr. Storm?” asked a strange voice.

“Yes,” he said cautiously.

“It’s the
Village Examiner.
”

Oh god
, he thought,
it’s happening already
.
They’re reopening the story. Emily must have gone to talk to them. This can’t be happening.

“What do you want?” he asked defensively.

“I’m calling about a subscription drive we’re having this month. Could I interest you in a subscription?”

Rain smashed down the receiver without a word.

* * *

After the quiet isolation of Maple Tree Farm, Toronto seemed overwhelming to Emily’s senses. The noise, the traffic, the lights, the skyscrapers – it was all too much. She turned on the radio to catch the traffic report, only to find she’d just missed it. “Well folks, the traffic may be snarled, the sky may be grey, and it’s getting dark pretty early these days, but at least for the moment it’s not raining. To celebrate, here’s Otis Redding singing Johnny Nash’s
I Can See Clearly Now the Rain Is Gone
.” Emily listened to the first few bars before switching off the radio. She took the Don Valley Parkway to the city centre, where the rush hour traffic was at a near standstill. Nerves strained, she drove through the financial district, where glass-walled office towers, still blazing with light, formed a well-illuminated corridor. Stopped in a traffic jam at a red light, she looked up to where her own office was located, twenty-one floors above the street.

A teenage boy with spiked purple hair jumped in front of her car and brandished a large squeegee at her windshield. She lowered the window and handed him a dollar coin. He nodded his purple spikes at her and ran to the car behind her.

Finally the traffic started to move, and before long she was pulling into the parking lot of her condo building. The lot was packed. Emily looked up to where Graham Richards’ floor was ablaze in lights, wondering if the musician was having one of his famous parties. His fetes were extravagant affairs well attended by Toronto celebrities, musicians, actors, writers, and gossip columnists. It was one of the places to be seen around town; Emily had made some pretty important connections there herself.
Strange how unimportant it all seemed now.

She let herself into the building with a key and walked to the bank of elevators in the centre of the lobby.  Her heels clicked on the hard, shiny marble floor, echoing through the large, empty room. With another key, she entered her elevator, travelled up to her floor, and stepped out into her apartment.

It felt cold and dark and very, very lonely. She switched on a light and flicked the switch that operated the motor that drew back the curtains. The city lights glittered on all sides of her. It was always a dramatic moment, and for a second Emily forgot her misery, admiring the brilliance of the city at night. But then when she thought how much she’d like to share this view with Rain, she was depressed all over again.