"But for Laura to marry someone like that. A con man!"
"Oh, I think he did his best con job on her. I don't believe she ever saw through him. That's what made it such a shock to all of us. None of us ever saw it coming."
"How could you not know?"
"Georgia, all you ever really see of anyone else is
that which they want you to see. He played the role of a totally devoted husband, totally committed man of the cloth to perfection."
"How was he caught?"
"One of his congregation saw him in a casino in Las Vegas. He was supposed to be attending a retreat in the desert." A look of disgust crossed Matt's face. "He was retreating, all right. Straight to the blackjack table. A drink in one hand and a showgirl in the other."
"Oh, poor Laura! She must have been devastated!"
"Totally. She could not believe it. Did not believe it, even when the congregation formed an audit committee and started going through the church's books and found a tangled mess but no money. Laura stood by him until the evidence was so overwhelming that even Gary didn't bother to deny it. And as humiliating as it must have been for her— living in the town she'd grown up in, married to a man who'd fleeced half the community, hell, half of Maryland!—I really think the worst part for her was the deception. Finding out that her life with him had been nothing more than a sham. That the man she loved really did not exist. That she was married to a total stranger."
"But she's still married to him, isn't she? She said something one time about bei
ng separated, not divorced…
"
"Well, that's another problem. It seems that the longer Gary stays in prison, the more he's starting to believe his own press."
"I don't understand." Georgia asked as she filled
the teakettle with tap water and placed it on the stove.
"He always maintained that he was a devoted man of God. One that had sinned and sought redemption, but still a man of God. His little speech before he was sentenced was carried on a lot of the news programs, and to give the devil his due, Gary was quite convincing. He is a compelling speaker, Georgia. Mesmerizing. He had been tempted, he confessed, he had succumbed to temptation, but he had seen the light and was stronger in his faith because of it. He's become a bit of a celebrity there in prison. He 'ministers' to the prison population now, leads them in prayers and teaches them how to redeem their souls, so he claims. I understand he has a totally devoted flock there at the Gray Bar Hotel where he is presently incarcerated. And he really does seem to believe that he is a true and anointed man of God. He's become frighteningly devout."
"That's an odd choice of words," she frowned. " 'Frighteningly' and 'devout' shouldn't go together."
"No, they shouldn't, but in his case, it fits." Matt recalled the conversation with Delia and the information she had shared. "I've heard that his ministry has spread from prison to prison throughout the country. Something about the thought of an entire network of hardened felons devoted to Reverend Gary scares me.
"
"Have you seen him?" She turned the knob for the first burner, then leaned sideways to make sure that the gas flame appeared.
"I saw him last year when he came up for parole.
While they say he is a model prisoner, the parole board did not feel that his sentence should be cut short. He took money from a lot of hard-working people, and a good number of them wrote letters to the hearing board asking that he not be paroled."
"Did Laura go with you? To the hearing?"
"No. You know, for all of her reluctance to divorce him, she seems almost frightened to even see him. I went to the hearing because I felt that a member of the family should be there and I did not want Laura to go when she clearly did not want to. She really has not been able to put this whole thing behind her, I'm assuming that it's because of Ally, but I'm still not certain that
that's
the whole story. In any event, I went to the parole hearing, over Laura's protests. She hadn't wanted me to go either. Afterward, I was glad that she stayed home."
"Why's that?"
"Gary seemed
…
different."
"Different how?"
"I couldn't put my finger on it. It bothered me a lot at the time. The way he was looking at everyone, as if everyone in that room was totally
…
insignificant.
As if he was amused somehow by it all."
"I wouldn't think that having my chances for parole being shot down would be terribly amusing."
"Oh, well, I'm sure he hadn't expected that. And of course, the denial of parole wasn't announced then and there. But there was certainly something about him that had changed."
"Why doesn't Laura just divorce him and get it over with?"
"I don't have a clue. She started proceedings a few years ago, then dropped them. She wouldn't discuss it, other than to say that she thought it was for the best."
"I've noticed that Laura is very good at avoiding topics she wants to avoid."
"Well, I can't figure it out. She's a beautiful woman, she's got her own business, a wonderful child, she should be getting on with her life. I can't for the life of me understand why she would want to stay tied to the likes of him."
"Do you think she still loves him?"
"No. Not a chance."
"Maybe it has
something to do with Ally…
"
"I used to think that, but it doesn't feel right. Ally has never even seen the man. She was bo
rn
six months after he was sentenced. He's never laid eyes on her."
"Poor Laura." Georgia sighed as she measured loose tea into the silver ball and dropped it into one of the cups. "She deserves so much better than that."
"I couldn
'
t agree with you more. You know, last year I tried to fix her up with a vet I know from Ocean City and you know what she said? She said she couldn't date. That she was still married and couldn't go out with anyone."
"But at the same time she doesn't see him and has no contact with him and never talks about him."
"Right."
"I see what you mean about people only letting us see what they want us to see. Laura's never given me
so much as a hint." Georgia chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. "I never in a million years would have guessed at any of this,"
The kettle began to whistle and she turned off the burner, then poured hot water over the tea ball, recalling Laura's reaction to the reading of her tea leaves. A lover. A secret to be revealed. Well, that much came true. Her secret had been revealed to Georgia.
"I wish I could get her to talk to me about this. Maybe together, we can find a way to help Laura move forward. Maybe she just has a fear of starting over." Georgia said softly. "And really, all things considered, starting over isn't so very bad. Change can be very good."
"You're doing well here?" he asked although the answer was evident. Georgia glowed of good health and contentment.
"Very well. I am very happy here. Every day is totally new and there's always something to do."
"Plowing. Pig farming…
"
"Don't laugh. It's been fun, though it's definitely a very different lifestyle for me. It's making it easier for me to see what direction I might want to follow." She went to the refrigerator and returned with a bowl of raspberries which she sat between them on the table. "Help yourself," she said as she popped one into her mouth.
"And that direction is?"
"I really love dancing, Matt. It's been my life. But for the past year or two, 1 really haven't been very happy. Not the way I have been since I've been here.
I've had the best time teaching, and I think I'm good at it. I've had calls this week from several of the moms who were here for Ally's birthday
…"
"Wanting to sign their daughters up for lessons?"
"And wanting to take lessons themselves. Word has spread very quickly. There's no other ballet school in the area to compete with, so I already have enough adults—via word of mouth—for one class, and enough children to do two beginner classes each week. And I haven't even done any advertising!" Her eyes were glowing as the words tumbled out. "Oh, I know it's only temporary, only for a few months, I've told everyone that. But they want to come anyway."
"And from here?" He asked tentatively.
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. Right now, I'm enjoying farm life and dancing."
"That's such an odd combination."
"But it's perfect for me." She added a little more hot water to each of the teacups. "You know, you never did tell me what brought you down here today."
"Oh." He couldn't bring himself to tell her t
hat he'd come to measure the barn
for his clinic. That that exact spot where she set up her little row of chairs would be a wall that separated one of several examining rooms from the operating room. "Just wanted to check on a few things. Pick up some mail."
"I'm glad you did. I'm glad you're here."
"So am I." He glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. He had surgery scheduled first thing tomorrow—removing tumors from the shoulder of a cocker
spaniel—and he still had to drive back to Shawsburg. "It's later than I thought. I need to be getting back home."
He stood and held the back of her chair as she rose.
"Where do you suppose Artie is?" she asked.
"Probably sitting at the bottom of the steps, waiting for his dinner."
"I could give him a few carrots."
"Nah, he can wait."
Matt opened the back door and stepped out. The evening air was crisp and fresh and laced with the scent of tulip and iris. The moment brought back memories of other spring evenings, and for just a moment, he thought he could almost see Hope at the window, looking out.
It was only an illusion, of course, but a comforting one.
"Well, thanks for dinner," Matt said.
Georgia had followed him outside, and stood on the top step. With Matt on the bottom step, they were almost the same height.
"It was very much my pleasure. I hope you'll come back."
He hadn't planned on it, but before he'd given it so much as a passing thought, he found his mouth moving down to meet hers. Her lips were soft and sweet and were like no lips he'd ever kissed before.
"I didn't mean to do that." He heard a voice say. It took a few seconds for him to recognize the voice as his own. "I'm sorry," he added.
"Matthew," she whispered, her hands still on his shirt collar drawing his face slowly back to hers,
"
don't ever apologize to a woman for kissing her. She might think you didn't like it."
Without apology, he bent and kissed her again. And again. And for a long time it seemed that there was nothing else under the moon that night but Georgia, and lips that tasted like raspberries and invited him to feast, arms that wound around his neck like soft, fragrant vines and that sweet body that was soft in all the right places.
There had been, he thought as he drove down the dark road back to
Shawsburg some time later, noth
ing sorry about it.
seventeen
"
S
ee you on Saturday
,"
he'd turned and called back to her across the hush of the late spring night. "Early afternoon. We'll see what we can do about getting that water hooked up."
Georgia watched from the top step until the tail-lights of Matt's truck disappeared as he turned on to the road at the end of the lane.
See you on Saturday.
She settled Spam onto the porch for the night and locked the back door behind her, then went back into the kitchen and absently began to rinse the dinner dishes. It wasn't until she dropped the second fork that she acknowledged the fact that her hands were shaking. Raising her fingers to her lips, she traced the path of his kisses, still feeling the pressure of his mouth on hers.
She tried to remember if she'd ever been struck dumb by a kiss before and thought perhaps that this had been a first.
Grinning, she turned the water back on and rinsed
the saucers of the small splashes of tea that had nm down the side of the cup. She reached for the cups and was just about to run them under the swift stream of water when she stopped, set the cups down on the counter, and went off to get Hope's book.
Let's see, she thought, I had the cup with the tiny chip on the handle.
She looked inside at the small amount of liquid left.
J
ust right,
she smiled. Swishing it around, she turned the cup around three times—counterclockwise, of course—and tilted it into the light so that she could see the tea leaves left within.
Hmmm. I'd call that a cat's head, there by the handle. And down there a little farther, that sort of looks like a hat. And down at the bottom, some sort of bird with wide wings. A hawk, maybe
…
Georgia leaned over the counter and paged through Hope's book, looking for notes that might correspond with the images that she saw.
"Well, the cat is an easy one. Domestic comfort, and I certainly have that." She murmured aloud.
Hat. Let's see.
She skimmed the precise handwriting and neatly drawn figures. There was a hat that looked almost exactly like the one in Georgia's cup. A new project or challenge. Well, that was certainly on the money.
And the last, the bird…
danger. A predator.
Georgia frowned and looked at the tea leaves again, trying to see something else in the configuration at the bottom of the cup. It still looked like a broad winged bird.
She set the cup down and looked into Matt's cup. Could she read his tea leaves if he wasn't there to go
through the ritual of turning the cup around? She turned it this way and that to see if there was any discernible image in the leaves.
There was.
A key shape near the handle. An egg nearby.
Georgia flipped through Hope's book. The key meant that there would be important decisions to be made about the future. Perhaps a new path to be taken.
The egg—beneficial changes, new projects, success.
All good things.
She turned the water back on to rinse the cups, and saw the image at the bottom of Matt's that she had missed.
A broad-winged bird.
Thinking she had picked up her own cup, she lifted the other cup and looked inside. The same image rested in almost exactly the same place in both cups. A shiver ran up her spine and she rinsed both cups out quickly.
It would be silly to take this too seriously,
she told herself as she turned out the kitchen lights.
After all, it's only spots of organic matter in the bottom of a teacup. And I don
'
t even know if Hope really knew what she was doing. For all 1 know, she could have made it all up as she went along.
Still, the feeling of unrest stayed with her as she changed for bed, slipping the soft jersey dress onto the hanger and sliding the oversized T-shirt over her head. And still as she turned on the small lamp that sat on the bedside table and turned off the overhead
light. It didn't start to fade until she was five or six pages into the novel she was reading—a historical romance recommended by the cashier at Tanner's, where you really
could
buy just about everything— and wasn't completely forgotten until her head began to nod and her eyes began to close and she heard the promise of that soft, sexy voice
—See you on Saturday
—as she drifted off to sleep and to dreams where strong arms held her and sweet kisses set her heart pounding out of control.
T
here was a delivery truck parked in Matt's usual spot under the tree on Saturday afternoon, and he slowed down to inspect it as he crept past it in the pickup. The back doors of the white truck stood open, as did the door to the ba
rn
. Matt hopped out of the truck behind Artie and followed the dog to investigate.
"
Hello?" Matt called into the barn
.
"Matt?" Georgia leaned over the second floor railing. "Oh, Matt, come
see
!
"
She was all but dancing up and down with delight when he reached the top step.
"Look, they finally came!" She grabbed his hand with one of her own, the other pointing to several long cardboard boxes from which two young delivery men were removing a long wooden pole that they placed on the floor next to several other equally long, round poles.
"What are they?" Matt frowned, allowing her to lead him across the floor.
"They're barres. For my dancing classes. And of
course, for me, too. They're only temporaries, of course. They fit on these metal stands so they can be moved around, and I can ta
ke them with me when I go to…
to wherever I eventually go." She lifted one end of the long smooth pole. "But they'll be wonderful! My students won't have to use those silly folding chairs anymore. Not that they were much good as far as a barre was concerned, but they did help the little ones to balance."
"Here, I'll do that." Matt grabbed the opposite end of the barre. "Now what?"
"We set it right on here," she directed him to follow her to one of the heavy metal stands, "and we just put it right in here." She placed her end of the barre on the stand and appeared to be searching the floor for something. "Ah, there it is
…
and we just put
these long screws through…
there."
"Isn't it wonderful?" She sighed.
Matt took the screwdriver from her hand and proceeded to affix the barre to the stands at the designated intervals.
The last of the barres having been brought up to the second floor, Georgia pulled a crumpled bill from the pocket of her short jeans overalls and offered it to the delivery men in thanks for their assistance. She walked them part of the way down the steps, then, after they had gone, came back upstairs and asked Matt again, "Isn't it wonderful?"
He laughed and agreed that it was just that.
"Now, all I need are some portable mirrors to put along this wall and that, and I'll have the makings of a real ballet school."
"Why do you need mirrors?" Matt asked, catching
h
er by her tiny waist as she danced past, pulling her close within the circle of his arms.
"So that you can check your position," she told him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You can't correct something if you can't see that you're doing it improperly."
"Is it that important, to see every move, to make every movement perfect?" He lowered his face to hers, and without apology this time, kissed her mouth, drawing in her sweetness, letting the feel of her flow through him.
She stood on her tiptoes, and still his arms had to lift her slightly to return his kiss, the heat of which sped through her veins like live current. For a long minute she understood what the poets meant when they spoke of a fire in the blood, because hers was certainly starting to boil. His hands had lifted her to him, holding her body closely to his, her body crushed against him. For a long time she seemed to drift in the fog that had surrounded her, blocking out everything but Matt and the eagerness of his seeking tongue, his firm body that had come alive so suddenly to stir feelings in her that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. Georgia found herself responding on instinct, with seemingly no input from her brain, and it was only when he began to set her feet back on the floor that her senses began to return. Slowly. And not completely.
"Ah
…
"
his teeth nipped at her bottom lip before he released her and said, "you were saying, about how importa
nt the right movements are…
"
"Oh. Right. Yes. Position and movement." She felt her face flush scarlet and her legs wobble as she
stepped back from him, and she hoped it didn't show. She cleared her throat. "For a classical dancer, yes, correct position is critical. And it is very important for the little ones to see where their feet should be, where their arms should be. It's the only way they'll learn."
"How are your classes going?" He needed to distance himself from her before he did something that could embarrass them both, she had filled him so totally and so suddenly that it had taken him completely off guard and left him shaken inside.
He looked for a distraction.
She had been anxious to move all the barres into place, so he folded up one of the no longer necessary chairs and leaned it against the wall, then folded another one.
"They are truly wonderful, and I'm loving it. Teaching ballet is such a happy thing to do." Georgia took a deep breath and ordered her respiration to return to normal. "You missed Ally and Laura this morning, by the way. I told them you would be here this afternoon, but they couldn't stay. Ally had a birthday party to go to."
"How many little friends did she bring this morning?" Matt asked, and Georgia laughed.
"Eight. Last week there were ten, but two of them were twins who were going out of town this weekend." She folded up the last of the chairs and started to arrange the barres in a straight line. "I could probably do three classes of children each week and at least one class of adults. Someone stops me to ask about classes every time I go into Tanner's and the phone rings at least once a day. Ally's birthday party
sparked a lot of interest here in O'Hearn as well as in Bishop's Cove."
"You're kidding?"
"Nope. I wasn't kidding when I said there was no competition. The cl
osest ballet school is in Salis
bury."
"Well, then, since you're enjoying it, and the demand is there, why don't you schedule a few more classes and hang out a shingle?"
And why don't I shut up, since the shingle that goes up is supposed to read Pumpkin Hill Veterinary Clinic. Matthew T. Bishop, DVM.
"I really haven't felt that I could do that—charge people to teach them when the arrangements are so makeshift. But now with the new barres, if I can find a few mirrors, I think I can schedule some paying classes." She scuffed one toe along the worn wooden boards. "Of course, the floor is in bad shape in spots, but they rent sanders in Tanner's, so I'm thinking of renting one and seeing if I can smooth it out a little, maybe put one of those non-slip finishes on it."
They finished dragging the last of the barres into place and Georgia stepped back to admire the scene, her eyes shining. She went to one and placed her right hand upon it, straightened her back, and made what looked to Matt like a deep knee bend.
"You really are pleased, aren't you?" He smi
l
ed, her joy was so infectious.
"Yes, I really am. Oh, I know it's only temporary," her own smile dimmed slightly, "but for now, it will be wonderful, I can hardly wait until tomorrow morning when I can try out my new barres."
"Why not now?"
"Because now we have to look for water." She ran her hand along the length of the barre till she reached the end, then took his arm and pulled him gently toward the steps. "Though maybe I will sneak back in later with some new music I've been dying to dance to."
She turned off the light and they went down the steps side by side.
"Do you dance every day?" he asked.
"Every day. Every morning." At the bottom of the steps, she held the door open for him and closed it behind her after they passed through, hand in hand. "You know, dancers all over the world follow the same basic routine. Classes every morning, rehearsals in the afternoon. I spent years of my life at the barre from ten in the morning till one or two in the afternoon. I still do. Only now, I choreograph my own dances. I can dance every role I ever dreamed of."
"You don't miss the other dancers? Isn't it hard, doing it all on your own?"
"Well, in some respects. I mean, you can't very well do a
pas de deux
with one person." She grinned. "But I love the freedom of having the music to myself. At least, for now, I do. That might wear a bit thin after too long a time, but for now, I welcome the solitude. I guess I needed time off more than I suspected."
They had reached the old chicken house—the one Matt had started painting a few weeks earlier—and stood staring at the front, where the old mesh fencing had contained the many chickens that had once lived at Pumpkin Hill.