P.J. took out his cell phone and waggled it in threat. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth headed outside as fast as she could without attracting attention, groping for her own cell phone in her purse. Heart pounding, she reached the awning outside and hit speed-dial for her house.
Howe answered. “Hey there.”
“Oh, thank God,” she breathed out. “Howe, I need to talk to you.”
He read the panic in her voice. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Yet. But I have to tell you this in person.” She picked a place halfway between Whittington and Buckhead. “I’m on my way home, now. Can you meet me at that little place where we used to eat in Crabapple?”
“Sure. Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound okay.”
“I’m fine. Please, Howe. This is really important. Just grab your car keys and come. And don’t answer the phone, no matter who it is. Just come.”
“I’m on my way.” She heard his cell phone ring in the background.
“Don’t answer that,” she pleaded.
“I won’t.” The ringing stopped. “I’ve turned it off,” he said. “Be careful, Elizabeth. Drive safely.”
“I will.”
She didn’t. She broke every speed limit between there and Crabapple, but didn’t get caught—maybe because everybody else was doing the same thing.
Even so, Howe was waiting outside the little diner, which had gone out of business, when she drove up.
He got out of his car and came over to open her door. “There’s a nice little park over there.”
“Good idea.” It was a lot more private than a restaurant.
He took her cold hand in his warm one to help her out.
Elizabeth had been rehearsing what she’d say all the way from Buckhead, but when she stood beside him, words failed her.
He didn’t press. Just strolled toward a small gazebo with benches. “That looks like a nice spot.”
Elizabeth nodded, a huge lump in her throat and a stone in her heart. Caught in a cycle of guilt and recrimination, she couldn’t stop thinking she should have realized things could get messy when she first felt attracted to P.J. She should have realized what could happen.
How could she have been so weak?
When they reached the little gazebo, Howe sat facing her. “Okay. Let’s have it. What’s this important thing you have to tell me in person?”
She wrapped her arms across her chest, closing her eyes in shame. “I’ve been seeing someone.” Oh, hell. She’d made it sound as bad as P.J.’s version. “I mean, just seeing someone. Not
seeing someone
.”
She hated the hurt-child look in Howe’s eyes, hated the fact that she’d put it there. The last thing in the world she wanted was to make anybody feel the way his unfaithfulness had made her feel, even Howe.
He bent forward as if she’d struck him from behind, bracing his arms on his thighs, hands fisted. “I . . .” He straightened, tears running down his cheeks. “I can’t blame you. God knows, I gave you reason to turn elsewhere.”
“It was stupid, but I was so lonely, and he made me feel important, desirable, for the first time in so long. But nothing
happened, Howe,” she said with passion. “I wouldn’t let it. No matter what, I wouldn’t let it.”
He looked to the trees beyond them. “It didn’t have to.”
“Howe, you must believe me. Nothing happened.”
“I believe you,” he said, but there was no relief in his tortured expression.
“I tried to break it off today,” she went on, “but he got angry. Threatened to lie and tell you we’d had an affair, so he could break us up.”
“Sounds like a real sonofabitch.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “For some reason, he’s obsessed with having me.”
“I can’t say I blame him,” Howe admitted. “Who is he?”
“P.J. Atkinson.” The fact that it was somebody they both knew seemed to strike him another blow. “We ran into each other a few times when I was shopping at Phipps, and we had lunch. All very casual. We just talked. Caught up on old times. Strictly on the up-and-up.”
“But then,” he prodded.
“Then you had your stroke. And the coma.” She faced him. “It’s not an excuse. I knew he cared about me more than I cared about him. But he made me feel like a woman again. He cared what I thought, how I felt.” She hadn’t meant for it to be an indictment of Howe’s neglect, but it came out that way.
“Do you love him?” Howe asked, the question harsh.
“Not now.” She saw his pained reaction at the implication that she once had, and felt compelled to explain. “I was attracted
to him at first. And flattered. Maybe I thought I loved him in the beginning, but not now, not after seeing what he’s capable of. I can’t stand him, now.”
“They say hate is the other side of love,” Howe said, his voice tight.
“Not in this case. I’d be happy never to see him again.”
“Maybe that’s just because of the scandal he might cause,” Howe said. Despite his own past sins, he was still a man, a man whose wife had been attracted to somebody else. He lapsed into troubled silence.
“I tried to discourage him,” Elizabeth explained, “but the more I did, the more persistent he became. When he called me at supper yesterday, I knew I had to put a stop to it.”
She reached the breaking point at last, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “Now he’ll tell everybody we had an affair, which is a lie, and the whole thing will be an awful scandal, humiliating our children.”
After all her years of silent sacrifice, she was the one, not Howe, who had destroyed their respectability.
Elizabeth covered her face with her hands and wept. “How could I have been so stupid? Now I’ve ruined everything. I’ll never be able to face everybody.”
Howe got up to sit beside her. “You haven’t ruined everything.” He drew her close, his hand stroking her hair as she sobbed mascara all over his golf shirt. “You were human. You were lonely.” He exhaled heavily, as if to purge himself of pain. “I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite if I didn’t forgive you, even if you’d slept
with him.” He rocked her gently, his voice filled with longing when he told her, “I love you, Elizabeth, but our marriage can’t be based on duty or concern about what people think. Still, I’m human, too. I can’t share you with another man.”
“I don’t want another man,” she argued.
Howe went to the heart of the matter. “The question is, do you want me? Not because we’re married, but because you really want me, as I am.”
She should have said yes. Wanted to say yes. But the truth was, she couldn’t.
“I see.” He held her a little tighter for just a heartbeat, then eased his embrace.
“Howe, I just need time,” she told him. “Is that so much to ask?”
“No. It’s not.” His brows smoothed. “I’ll explain the truth to the kids before they hear from anybody else. After what I did to you, they’ll understand.”
Elizabeth sat up short. “You can’t tell them about the hookers. Patti adores you. It would destroy her. And Charles . . .” She couldn’t stand to see the new closeness between him and his father damaged. “He must never know. Boys need to look up to their fathers.”
Howe brushed the hair back from her temple. “You’re so good. I don’t deserve you.”
She deflated. “Yes you do. I guess we deserve each other.”
He let out a dry laugh. “That suits me fine.” He sobered. “I won’t speak to the kids till I’ve tried to talk some sense into P.J. Maybe he’ll listen to reason, man to man.”
“God, how I wish he would.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Just don’t let things end up like the vestry meeting.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, his mood lightening. “I won’t.”
“Howe,” she said in a small voice, “I’m so sorry about all this.”
“It’s going to be all right,” he soothed. “I promise.” He pulled her to her feet. “Come on, honey. Let’s go home.”
Honey. She was beginning to like that. Elizabeth wiped her eyes, then clung to his side as they headed back for the car. “Maybe you and I should go to Europe,” she suggested. “Tonight. Permanently.”
Howe stopped in his tracks, peering at her. “Do you want to leave Whittington? Really?”
“I hate Whittington,” she confessed. “I always have.”
He frowned, trying to digest that little bombshell.
Elizabeth regretted adding that to the situation. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just dreading the gossip. But running away never solved anything.”
She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “Sometimes running away works just fine,” he told her. “Stepping back can make things clearer.”
He pulled out his keys and carefully removed one from the ring. “I was going to tell you about this, but so many other things were going on that I—” He stopped himself. “No. That’s not true. I was afraid to tell you, afraid you’d be angry, which you have every right to be.” He placed the key into her palm and closed her hand around it. “This is the key to a foreclosure on Lake Blue Ridge that I bought when the bank took it back.”
A cabin she’d never heard about, but Elizabeth was so accustomed to excusing things away when it came to Howe, she did it again by force of habit.
“I’m giving it to you,” he said. “I’ll have the lawyers transfer the deed tomorrow. I want you to go there and sort things out, get away from everything. I’ll take care of things here: dealing with Mama and the kids, and the fallout if P.J. goes through with his threat.” He read the resistance in her face. “P.J. can’t manipulate you if he doesn’t know where you are. You’ll be safe there, free to rest and make up your mind without any pressure from anybody, including me.” He looked at her with open desire. “Take as long as you need to decide what you want to do.”
“But if I leave, won’t people think—”
“I don’t give a damn what people think,” Howe shot back. “Lizzie, the truth is, I can’t stand being so close to you and not having you. Especially not now that I know there’s somebody else who wants you just as much as I do. I can’t treat you like a brother anymore, see you every day, have you in my bed, without being a real husband to you. I just can’t do it.”
At least he was honest about it, instead of trying to manipulate her into having sex with him.
Maybe she should go away, for both their sakes.
All her life, she’d worked so hard for respectability, first for herself, then for her children. She’d faced everything head-on and coped. But she was so weary of coping, of bearing up, no matter what.
Elizabeth tightened her grip on the key and wrapped her mind around the idea of escape, of answering to no one but herself—for
the first time, ever. Of eating when she wanted, sleeping when she wanted, free of pressure. Of reading. Of resting. Maybe even finding some sanity. “All right. I’ll go home and pack.”
“Good.” Howe took her elbow and started for the car. “I’ll deposit two hundred thousand into your account. I don’t want you to have to worry about anything while you’re there. If that runs out, just call, and I’ll transfer more.” He offered her a pained smile. “I should have given you access to our money a long time ago. I’ll take care of that while you’re gone, too.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing till they reached the cars. “What will you tell the children about where I am? And your mother?” Augusta would have a fit.
“I’ll tell them, and everybody else, the truth: that I insisted you get away on your own to rest now that I’m strong enough to manage on my own.”
“They won’t believe you. Especially if P.J. spreads lies about me.”
“ ‘Frankly, my dear,’ ” Howe quoted, “ ‘I don’t give a damn.’ ”
“The kids will want to know where I am.”
“You’ll have your cell. Tell them as much or as little as you want to. It’s your decision.”
Her decision.
“Thank you for that,” she said. “And for the cabin.”
He cocked a crooked smile. “You can call me, whenever you want. We can still talk.”
The trouble was, they’d talked already. He had, anyway.
Elizabeth was looking forward to not talking to anybody, for a long, long time.
When Elizabeth got home, she found Howe holed up in his study, and a note from Patti saying she’d gone shopping for her trip with Augusta. So Elizabeth was able to pack without interruption or explanation.
She tried not to think about what she was about to do, or why. She’d made her bed in a rut a quarter-of-a-century long, and the idea of climbing out was both exhilarating and terrifying. So she focused instead on selecting what to take with her. She didn’t bring much, just the few really casual clothes she had. Most of her wardrobe was too dressy for the mountains. If she needed more clothes after she got there, she could always buy them.
She could buy anything she wanted, she realized with a tug of guilty satisfaction. As of the next banking day, she—Bessie Mae Mooney, from her train wreck of a family on the wrong side of the tracks—would be a woman of means, no longer a mere appendage to Howe’s wealth and power. A woman with a lakeside cabin she’d never seen.
She still couldn’t believe Howe had so casually decided to give her a house. A fleeting shadow whispered that he might have parted with it so easily because the place was some moldy old shack that nobody wanted.