Til Death Do Us Part (48 page)

Perry rushed forward, crying out his wife's name. She turned, looked at him and smiled. “I love you,” she said, and jumped off the balcony.

Perry grabbed for Oralie, his fingers brushing her silk blouse as he reached for her. But she was too far away.
He gripped the banister. Helpless to stop her descent, he watched his wife fall to the ground. Daphne dropped to her knees and wept. Marla screamed, then fainted dead away. Beatrice ran onto the balcony; she held out her hand to Perry, but didn't touch him. Roarke draped his arm around Cleo's trembling shoulders. Off in the distance an ambulance siren wailed.

D
R
. I
VERSON HAD
assured Roarke and Cleo that their baby apparently hadn't suffered any damage from Cleo's accident. Cleo had cried tears of joy, and Roarke had held her in his arms, grateful that the baby was safe. He wished he could share Cleo's joy. He couldn't. And she seemed to understand. Although they continued making love, Cleo never again told him that she loved him, never again asked him to remain in River Bend permanently.

He did stay for Oralie Sutton's funeral. The family kept it a private affair, which everyone agreed was best, considering the circumstances. In the days following Oralie's suicidal jump from the balcony, Daphne clung to her father instead of Hugh. Perry turned to Beatrice for solace and support. And ever reliable and dependable, Cleo made all the arrangements, sparing no expense. Trey Sutton was released on bond in time for the somber event, and after his preliminary hearing, he and Marla stayed with her parents while awaiting his trial.

Roarke had remained at Cleo's side, still her bodyguard, still her husband, until all the loose ends were tied up. He had fulfilled his obligations to her, above and beyond those required in their legalized agreement.

She was two and a half months pregnant, but still as slender as a reed. She hadn't been bothered much with morning sickness and she glowed with good health and
vitality. He didn't dare let himself imagine how she would shine with maternal beauty as her pregnancy progressed.

Roarke placed the last item in his suitcase, then snapped the lid shut. He glanced at Cleo, who sat at the writing desk at the foot of the bed. She ripped out the check from her checkbook, pushed back her chair and stood.

She held the check out to him. “This should buy you that farm you want, and take care of all Hope's needs as long as she lives.”

“Thanks.” He took the check without even glancing at it. He folded it in two, pulled out his wallet and slipped the check inside.

“I won't go down with you,” Cleo said. “I'd rather we said our goodbyes here.”

“That's fine with me.” He reached out and took her hands.

She didn't move in closer; he didn't bring her toward him. They kept a foot of space between them.

“Take care of yourself,” she said.

“Yeah, I will. You take care of yourself, too. And the baby.”

“We'll be just fine.”

“I'm sure you will. You're a strong woman, honey. A survivor.” He released her hands, turned around, lifted his suitcase off the bed and walked toward the door. “Simon?”

He paused, his hand on the doorknob, and looked back over his shoulder.

“Do you want me to let you know when our baby is born?”

He opened the door and stepped into the hall. “No. I don't want to know.”

He closed the door behind him. Cleo slumped onto the bed, curled into a ball and cried. She had hoped and
prayed something—anything—would change his mind and he would stay with her. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed not to beg him to stay. But if he didn't love her, if he could never risk loving another woman and child, then nothing she said or did would have kept him at her side for a lifetime.

Cleo laid her hand over her tummy. “We'll be all right without him, my sweet baby. But I'm afraid your father's never going to be all right without us.”

 

I
N THE FIRST
week after he left Cleo, Roarke set up a fund that would take care of Hope's bills, now and in the future. He made a trip to Florida to see her, but she didn't recognize him. She seldom did. He took her a box of her favorite candy mints and she smiled that childlike smile that always reminded him of Laurie's.

The second week, he visited with his old buddies at Dundee Private Security in Atlanta and haunted a few nightspots with Gabriel Hawk and Morgan Kane. He got rip-roaring drunk and suffered a hell of a hangover.

The next night, he picked up a bosomy, petite redhead in a bar and took her back to his apartment. Before he got her halfway undressed, he called her “Cleo Belle.” He apologized, gave the lady cab fare and sent her packing.

The third week he hired a real estate agent and started searching for a small farm, anywhere in the South. He told himself that time would take care of everything. That given enough time, he'd forget the way Cleo laughed. The way she walked and talked. The way she clung to him, calling out his name when he pleasured her. The way she made him feel when they were together. The fact that she was carrying his child.

Beatrice called him to tell him that Trey had been sen
tenced to ten years, a split sentence—five years in prison, five on probation. Cleo had testified in his defense.

“Cleo's well,” Beatrice said. “She's gained three pounds. But I worry that she's working too hard. She practically lives at the plant since you left.”

The fourth week, his agent showed him pictures of six different properties. One in particular caught his eye. It was a forty-acre spread in Franklin County, about twenty-five miles outside River Bend, in a rural community called Laurie Falls. His heart skipped a beat when he read the name. Laurie Falls.

The fifth week, he bought the farm at Laurie Falls, packed his meager belongings and drove straight through to Alabama.

The sixth week, he picked up the newly installed telephone in his den and called his wife.

 

“I
DON'T SEE
why you have to move out.” Beatrice followed Cleo as she buzzed around the kitchen, preparing herself a sandwich for lunch. “What with Trey in prison and Daphne off in Europe, and Marla back home with her parents, if you leave, whatever will Perry and I do but rattle around all alone in this big house?”

“I'd think you two would enjoy having the house to yourselves and the chance to be alone.” Cleo took an enormous bite out of her sandwich. In the past couple of weeks, her appetite had surged out of control. She went to bed hungry and woke up hungry. She wondered sometimes if she was eating for more than two, but Dr. Tanner assured her that she wasn't having twins.

“But buying a house and moving out on your own when you're four months pregnant seems a bit foolhardy to me.”

“If Daphne can break her engagement to Hugh and move to Europe in search of a new life, then why can't
I simply move across town and start over again? I want to give my baby and me a fresh start, away from all the memories this house holds. Good memories, and bad.”

“I think you should go to Atlanta and tell Simon Roarke that he's damn well going to live up to his responsibilities as your husband and the father of your baby.” Beatrice opened the refrigerator door, removed a bottled fruit drink and unscrewed the lid.

“I've been telling her to do just that for weeks now,” Pearl said. “But she's too stubborn, too filled with McNamara pride, to go after her man. She reminds me of you sometimes, Bea.”

“Are you implying something, Pearl?” Beatrice asked. “I wish you'd just say what you have to say and stop beating around the bush.”

“All right.” Pearl pointed a meaty finger at Cleo. “Go to Atlanta and get Mr. Roarke. Do whatever you have to do, but convince him that you're not letting him go. I don't think it would take much convincing. After all, he's been gone six weeks and he hasn't done a thing about getting a divorce, has he?”

“Pearl is absolutely right!” Beatrice took a sip of her drink.

“And you—” Pearl pointed at Beatrice “—you stop twiddling your thumbs while Perry Sutton plays the grieving widower. You've waited nearly thirty-five years for that man. Why wait any longer?”

Beatrice gasped. “My heavens, Pearl. Oralie hasn't been gone two months yet.”

“What difference does it make how long she's been gone? Dead is dead. She ain't going to be no deader two years from now.”

“Oh, hush up. You say the most outrageous things and still call yourself a good Christian woman.”

The ringing telephone interrupted any reply Pearl might have made. She wiped her hands on her apron and lifted the receiver from the wall phone.

“McNamara and Sutton residence,” Pearl said.

“Hello, Pearl, my love, how are you?” Roarke asked.

“I'm fine. And you?”

“Fine,” he said. “Finer than I've ever been in my life.”

“Well, I'm glad to hear it. It's about time you were coming to your senses. Did you want to speak to someone other than me?”

“Is Cleo there?”

“She might be.”

Cleo and Beatrice stared at Pearl. Cleo mouthed the question “Who is it?”

“Before I let her talk to you, I want to know exactly what you're going to say,” Pearl told Roarke.

“I'm going to tell her that I'm not giving her a divorce. Not now. Not ever.”

“Hold on just a minute.” Pearl held out the telephone toward Cleo. “It's for you. Some man who says he's your husband.”

“Simon?” Cleo almost strangled on a piece of bread that had lodged in her throat. She grabbed Beatrice's drink out of her hand and took a hefty swallow.

Walking across the kitchen, she stared at the telephone in Pearl's hand as if it were a live snake. She hesitated when Pearl tried to give her the phone.

“This is the call you've been waiting on, girl. Take it.”

Cleo grasped the telephone. “Hello.”

“Cleo, I want you to drive out to Laurie Falls today and meet me,” Roarke said. “I'll give you the directions. Will you come?”

“Laurie Falls? Over in Franklin County? What are you doing there?”

“I'm living on my farm,” he said. “It's not big. Just forty acres, and the house needs some work. But I like the place. I want you to see it.”

“You're going to live in Laurie Falls? But—but that's only twenty miles or so from here.”

“Yeah, I know. That'll make it convenient for you to visit Aunt Beatrice and Pearl whenever you want, and it won't be too long a drive back and forth to work.”

Cleo wondered if she was dreaming, if any minute now her alarm clock would ring and she'd wake alone in her bed. She held the phone with white-knuckled fierceness.

“Are you all right, Cleo Belle?” Pearl asked.

“Is that Simon on the phone?” Beatrice glanced from an unresponsive Cleo to Pearl.

“Cleo, honey, did you hear me? Will you come out to the farm today? We need to talk,” Roarke said.

“Yes, you're right. We need to talk.” Cleo sucked in her breath. “Give me the directions to your farm.”

 

A
N HOUR LATER
, Cleo drove her Jaguar up in front of a two-story frame house badly in need of paint. Simon Roarke stood on the wide, wooden porch. He looked wonderful in his faded, worn jeans and cotton shirt. When he walked toward the driveway, the first thing she noticed was that he wasn't wearing a gun. By the time she opened the car door, Roarke was there to meet her.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

“I don't understand.” She closed the door and walked away from the car and toward the house. “Why did you buy a farm so close to River Bend, so close to me and…and my baby?”

“Our baby.”

She snapped her head around and stared at him. “What did you say?”

“I said
our
baby. That is, if you're willing to stay married to an idiot like me and allow me to help you raise our child.” He looked at her with a mixture of hope and pleading in his eyes.

“You've changed your mind? Six weeks away from me and you suddenly change your mind? What happened? Did you get an attack of conscience and decide that you should be a part of your child's life after all?”

“I want to be a part of your life, Cleo.” He held out his hand to her. “I want us to stay married and build a life together. Here. On this farm.”

She didn't take his hand, didn't even look at it. “Why, Simon? Six weeks ago, you couldn't wait to get away from me and this—” she laid a protective hand over her stomach “—child. What changed your mind?”

“You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

“Why should I? You certainly didn't make things easy for me when you left me.”

“Will it help if I get down on my knees and beg?” He bent down on both knees and folded his hands together in front of him. “Marry me, Cleo. Marry me for real this time.”

Her lips twitched with an almost smile. “It seemed pretty real to me the first time,” she said. “Besides, we're still married, as far as I know. Unless you got a divorce and forgot to tell me.”

Roarke grabbed her hands. “All right, if the first time was good enough for you, it's good enough for me.” Still holding her hands, he rose to his feet. “So when can you move in? Today, I hope.”

“I can't just move in here with you.” Cleo tugged on her hands, but Roarke held tight. “I have no idea what's happened to you. Why you—”

He silenced her with a kiss. She struggled to get away
from him. The harder she fought his embrace, the harder he kissed her. When he finally let her come up for air, he looked into her moss-green eyes and smiled.

“I love you, Cleo. That's what happened to me these past six weeks. I found out that I love you and that without you, I don't have a life.”

“Oh, Simon.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “You love me? You really love me?”

“With all my heart and soul.” He lifted her into his arms and walked toward the house. “Can you ever forgive me for being such a jerk? I couldn't let go of the past, of all my old hurts. I was afraid to love you, afraid to reach out and grab the happiness you offered. But with every passing week we were apart, I realized that I was more afraid to go on living without you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, honey, I'm sure,” he said. “When the real estate agent gave me pictures of this house, in Laurie Falls, so close to River Bend, I knew we were meant to be together here. You. Me. And our baby.”