Authors: Janet Dailey
The effects of the sleeping pill were still dulling her senses as her barely coordinated reflexes directed her down the stairs. Without pausing, she turned down the corridor leading to the kitchen. Mrs. Davison was standing at the sink rinsing a head of lettuce when Andrea entered the room.
Glancing at the clock above her head, the housekeeper said dryly, "You made it up in time for me to still say good morning."
"Why did you let me sleep so late?" Andrea frowned, obeying the hand that waved her into a chair at the oak table. "I was going to help you get the rooms ready."
"Mr. Grant said for me to let you sleep as late as possible." Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman walked to the refrigerator, poured out a glass of orange juice and set it on the table in front of Andrea. A few seconds later it was followed by a cup of coffee and doughnuts. "And the rooms are all ready, so you needn't be worrying about that."
"I would still liked to have helped." The juice helped wash the cottony taste from her mouth. "I didn't want to sleep this late."
"It seems to me you should be blaming those sleeping pills for that." Mrs. Davison sniffed her disapproval. "A girl your age shouldn't be taking them."
Andrea wrapped her hands around the coffee cup. "The doctor prescribed them for me."
"Those pills may help you sleep, but they don't cure the cause of your not sleeping," the housekeeper observed caustically. "It seems to me the doctor should have recognized it."
"I…" Andrea started to protest, then closed her mouth. There was no point in debating the issue. "What time are Mrs. Collins and her daughter supposed to arrive?"
"This afternoon some time. Mr. Grant told me to plan to have dinner for them, but not lunch. He isn't sure if her husband's coming or not, but I have a room ready just in case. You've met Mrs. Collins before, haven't you?"
"Yes, a year ago. No, two years ago it was," Andrea corrected tiredly. "She seemed very nice."
"Oh, there's no doubt, she's a real lady," Mrs. Davison assured her. "She used to spend a couple of weeks here every summer, her and her husband, but that was when her daughter was wearing braces. Once they came off, her visits were less frequent and shorter. Mr. Grant is her daughter's godfather, but I imagine he told you that."
"Yes."
"The last time I saw her, she was such a pretty little thing, so happy and full of life, and kind like her mother," the housekeeper sighed, shaking the water from the lettuce and placing it on the drainboard. "It's hard to believe that little Nancy is twenty years old and engaged. Oh, it'll be good to see her again."
"Yes," Andrea agreed automatically. She hadn't met the girl before, but she remembered Mrs. Collins showing pictures of her daughter.
"It'll be good to have visitors staying in the house again." The iron-gray head gave an aggressively affirmative nod. "These past months since Christmas, this place has seemed like a mausoleum."
The pallor in Andrea's cheeks intensified. Her cloud of depression had seemed to darken everyone's spirits. She had already guessed that John's invitation to Mrs. Collins had been issued in the hopes of channeling Andrea's attention away from her misery and heartache, and providing a distraction to ease the pain. His thoughtfulness touched her, but Andrea doubted that his plan would have any lasting success.
Finishing one of the doughnuts, she pushed the saucer with the other aside and drained the last of the coffee from her cup. She fixed a bright smile on her face, one that her jangled nerves couldn't endorse, and turned to the housekeeper.
"Can I help you with lunch?" she inquired.
"The casserole is in the oven and everything else is done except this salad," Mrs. Davison replied. "You could cut some flowers from the garden. It'd be nice to have a few spring bouquets scattered about the house."
It was not the kind of task that Andrea had in mind. This was one of those times when she didn't particularly want to be alone with her thoughts, although there were times when she had to be alone. But she had offered to help, and Mrs. Davison had made a suggestion. There was little else she could do but agree.
With an acquiescing nod, Andrea left the house by the rear door, stopping at the small utility shed to collect the garden shears, a small oblong wicker basket and a pair of cotton gloves. Ignoring the dull throb of her head, she vowed to concentrate on her task.
Through the irises, the late tulips, the daisies and the roses, she succeeded. The route of her snipping had taken her to the white board fence separating the house grounds from the orchard. The pear trees were heavy with blossoms, their scent faintly perfuming the May air.
May and December. Once, the coupling of those two months would have reminded her of the snide comments made about her marriage to John. Now, she could only consider that the heartbreak she had felt in December was just as agonizing in May.
Leaning on the board fence, she stared at the beautiful white blossoms, a symbol of spring and the rebirth of life. It seemed as if she had only lived those few short days with Tell. Her life before and after was a vacuum.
"It isn't fair," she whispered in self-pity. Surely she had been punished enough.
The haunted, dispirited look filled her eyes, eyes that were too tired to cry—but the tears were shed within. Wrapped in the torment of lost love, Andrea didn't hear the footsteps approaching as she stared sightlessly at the flower-laden trees.
"If it was any other time of year, I would swear you were out here planning to steal some pears," a low voice teased.
Andrea pushed herself away from the fence with a start. Using a gloved hand to brash a dark gold strand of hair from her face, she concealed her broken look, allowing herself the precious seconds she needed to put on her mask of composure.
"Good morning, Adam," she greeted the sandy-haired man evenly.
"Andrea," he smiled naturally, a winning smile that added to his all-American look. His gaze turned to the trees. "I don't know which part of the season I like best. When the trees are white with blossoms, or the first green pears are loading the branches, or in the fall when gold globes weight the branches."
"It depends which feeling is uppermost in your mind at a particular time," she answered lightly.
"What do you mean?" He slid her a curious glance.
"If you're feeling particularly aesthetic, then the blossom time is the best. The green pear urge is hard to ignore when you're hungry, and you can't ignore the fall greed when you start counting the profits hanging on the trees."
Adam Fitzgerald threw back his head and laughed, "I should have known you would make some remark like that!"
Recently, twisted by the pain that dogged her every footstep, her tongue had become bitterly cynical. "You work too hard sometimes, Adam. At harvest time Carolyn hardly ever sees you. She couldn't…you're always here. And when you aren't here, you're at some logging camp."
"There's a lot of work to be done. John's given me a lot of responsibility. Carolyn understands that," he replied patiently.
"She's much more understanding than I would be," Andrea told him, then sighed ruefully. "I should be saying how grateful I am for the way you take care of everything for John. I know how much he relies on you. Instead, I'm condemning you for doing too much."
"Well—" Adam shrugged "—Carolyn and I will be married next month. In a few years, she'll probably be glad that I'm not around so much."
"Oh, no," Andrea disagreed fervently—a protest that came from her own conviction that if she were married to Tell, she would miss him every minute he was away from her for the rest of her life, regardless of the reason for his absence.
"As long as I'm not gone for very long," he qualified with a mocking smile. "You never did tell me what you were daydreaming about while you were staring at the trees."
"Actually—" Andrea stalled, absently glancing at the basket and the velvet softness of the budding pink rose that touched her hand "—I was thinking that these roses would look nice with a spray of blossoms, and I was wondering if I dared cut one and escape with my life."
"It looks to me as if you already have plenty of flowers in that basket," was his typically male response.
"Mrs. Collins and her daughter are arriving this afternoon. Mrs. Davison thought it would be a good idea to have flowers scattered through the house, and it's a big house."
"I suppose we could spare one small twig of potential pears," Adams surrendered good-naturedly. "Come on, I'll give you a hand."
Holding the flower basket and the shears in one hand, he helped her climb over the fence with the other, then gave them back to her and vaulted over himself. Now that she was committed to adding pear blossoms to her flowers, Andrea decided to pick just the perfect fanning spray to use as a backdrop for the roses.
With Adam following indulgently behind her, she followed the path between the white yard fence and the rows of trees, searching the limbs for the right branch. Several yards farther, she spotted the one she wanted.
"Do you see that small branch where the blossoms fan out, Adam?" She pointed toward it. "Can you reach it?"
"I think so." Taking the shears from her, he stretched his long arms, clasping the branch and snipping it from the tree. "There you are."
"Thank you." She took the spray from him and placed it in the basket with the rest of the flowers.
"Now that I've assured myself that you aren't going to vandalize the orchard, do you suppose we could go to the house?" Adam grinned. "I came to go over the timber leases with John and, I hope, to persuade Mrs. Davidson or someone to invite me to lunch."
"I think that can be arranged," Andrea replied lightly.
Their route along the fence had taken them toward the front of the house. As they turned to cross the fence, they were level with the entrance. This time, Adam agilely vaulted the rails ahead of her, turning as she stepped on to the first board. She reached out to hand him the basket of flowers so her hands could be free to climb the fence. Instead of taking the basket, Adam's hands closed around her waist and lifted her right over the fence.
At the same instant, she realized that a car had stopped in the driveway and doors were being opened and closed. As she made her laughing gasp of protest, Andrea glanced toward the driveway. She stared at the man stepping from the car, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the buttons partially unbuttoned to reveal the tanned column of his throat.
It couldn't be! Her mind was playing tricks on her. But the image remained and the man was stating back at her, cold, angry shock in his expression.
It was Tell.
Her gaze swung to the two women climbing out of the opposite side of the car. Andrea wondered what he was doing with Mrs. Collins and her daughter. Was he the fiancé that John had mentioned? Oh, God, she couldn't bear that!
Then she watched his gaze flicker from her face to the man who had swung her to the ground. Not even that morning when he had condemned her so bitterly had she seen his handsome face look as forbidding and coldly arrogant as it did when his black gaze slashed back at her; his nostrils flaring in contempt and disgust.
Andrea knew what Tell was thinking at the moment. He was concluding that she and Adam…Her stomach turned with a sickening rush as what little color she possessed receded from her face.
"Good lord, Andrea! What's wrong?" Adam demanded earnestly, his hands clutching her shoulders.
"It's…" She almost said it was Tell, but at that moment Adam had shook her gently, snapping her head from Tell's pinning gaze. "It's Mrs. Collins. They've arrived."
He glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Collins and her daughter were walking to the front door, neither of them having noticed Andrea and Adam. Tell was following them. Then Adam returned his attention to her.
"There's no reason to be so upset because they're early," he reproved with a gentle smile. "You know Mrs. Davison is a genius in the kitchen. With a wave of her magic wand, she'll make the food stretch from three to six."
"Yes, of course," Andrea agreed shakily. He had released her shoulder and she ran a trembling, perspiring palm down the side of her denim jeans.
"There's another reason, isn't there?" He tilted his sandy head to the side.
"What?" She clutched the basket handle tighter, wondering how much he had read into her stunned reaction. Adam was not only a hardworking overseer, but he was intelligent, too.
"It's your clothes, isn't it?" He tucked her hand under his arm arid turned her toward the house. "You wanted to be wearing something a little more chic than blue jeans when the redoubtable Mrs. Collins arrived, didn't you? Well, don't worry about that. You would be eye-catching in sackcloth, but don't tell Carolyn I told you that," he teased lightly. "I don't want a jealous fiancée on my hands a month before our wedding!"
"She knows better than that. I'm hardly the femme fatale that I'm painted," Andrea replied bitterly, remembering the conclusion that had been in Tell's eyes when he had seen her with Adam.
"Hey, Andrea, this is Adam," he said, frowning. "When have I ever pointed a finger at your marriage? I know the circumstances surrounding it and what led John to propose this type of arrangement. I'm not condemning you for it. I never have."