Eternally Yours (16 page)

My dear cousin,

The news of your pitiful state deeply pains me. To answer your question, yes, you must indeed approach the man responsible. Knowing him myself, however, I’m afraid that you’re unlikely to fare well. He may have the appearance of a caring and sensible man, but there are stories about him that never reach the ears of a young woman like you. If, as I believe, he has only wicked intentions toward you, know that you may come to me in your time of need. An unmarried female in the family way is truly at the mercy of others, but here, where you are unknown, we can tell the neighbors that you are a widow.

“Oh no, Mark, she was pregnant.” Lara paused, distracted by a wisp of cold air--the ghost of Mariah? She glanced around, but the feeling faded. “Maybe she died in childbirth. No wonder she can’t find eternal rest.”

He shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense that she would be haunting you. What do you have to do with the abuse she suffered in life?”

“I don’t know, but what does it matter?” A wave of dejection lapped over her. “Imagine how she must have felt after reading this.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Judging by what we know from the letter you found in the secret room, she continued to hope that ‘G’ would return to her. Apparently she waited for him until she saw him out driving with the other woman.”

“And we know what that did to her.” She pictured the scene in her mind: A pregnant Mariah standing at the front window downstairs, excited to recognize a certain carriage approaching. Maybe the poor woman had even run out onto the front porch to greet her lover. Then, as the carriage drew closer, she would have spotted that bimbo next to him...

Lara felt a stab of pain. In her imagination Miss Sullivan had short-cropped red hair and a willowy figure. She looked a lot like Karen.

She refolded the letter. “I think I’ve had enough of this for one day. I’m starting to get depressed.”

“You shouldn’t let this stuff get to you.” Mark sat back on

the floor, cross-legged. “Remember, it happened a century ago. These people are all dead and buried.”

“Yeah, but I’m not,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She gathered up the correspondence she had skimmed so far and put the pile back into the chest. While Mark pried open one last crate, she began sorting the rest into stacks according to who had sent them.

“Here are some more letters,” he said, “though none of the ones on top are addressed to Mariah Sulley.” He looked at his watch. “I guess you have a point about quitting. We’ve been up here for over two hours.”

Despite her gloominess about the day’s findings, she decided to take a shot at inviting him over again--very casually. She meant to encourage him without pushing him. If she got him to spend enough time with her, he had to loosen up eventually. “If you want to, we can get together again tomorrow and pick up where we left off today.”

“I don’t know,” he said without meeting her gaze. “I have quite a bit of work to do.”

His lack of interest didn’t help her mood. She got up and smoothed down her shorts. “Well, I’m done for now. I’ll meet you downstairs whenever you’re ready.”

* * * *

Mark watched her disappear down the staircase. He knew he’d built up a wall between them again. All day he’d wanted to ask her about her plans for the art studio, but he dreaded starting another argument. Instead he’d clammed up and alienated her, erasing all the progress they’d made the day before. The only thing he’d done was create a state of limbo between them, while he wondered whether or not she was capable of seeing reason.

Frustrated, he refastened the lids on the crates and trunks they had opened. For a few minutes he lingered in the attic, not knowing what to do to alleviate the tension between Lara and him. Finally, he gave up and made a slow descent through the house to the first floor.

He found her in the kitchen.

Looking up from a sink full of dishes, she asked, “Would you like another cup of coffee?”

Noting that she didn’t smile when she issued the invitation, he shook his head. “I think I’d better get going. Got to stick to that writing schedule.”

“Right.”

“Maybe we can go through more of the letters another time, once we’ve had time to digest what we found today.”

She nodded, again not smiling.

They said good-bye without ceremony, then she turned back to the dishes. He walked out to the front door on his own. With each time he came over, he observed, she showed less reluctance to see him go.

As he stepped out onto the porch, a car pulled into the driveway. A woman got out of the door facing him: the passenger side. From the driver’s side, a man emerged. Both had brown hair and fit bodies and looked about Mark’s age.

The couple came up the walk and reached the porch steps at the same time he did, so he stood back, waiting for them to pass. When the woman looked up, noticing him for the first time, he realized that he knew her from somewhere.

“Mark Vereker, right?” She gave him a wide smile. “You and I went to school together. I’m Diane Golden.”

“Oh, right.” His memory flooded back. She’d been a few pounds heavier in high school, he thought; otherwise, he would have known her immediately. He remembered she’d been a friendly, funny girl. “Of course, Diane...from Ms. Hendricks’ ninth-grade English class.”

“Exactly.” She motioned toward the man beside her. “This is my husband, Jerry Lyons.”

The two men shook hands and exchanged greetings.

“Lara and I are good friends,” Diane went on. “We work together at the high school. She mentioned she had met you.”

“Really?”

She gave him a small smile, almost a sly one, and nodded. “Yeah, I noticed your book on her table the other day, so she explained how she happened to have it.”

“Di and I are on our way down to Cape Hatteras on vacation,” her husband cut in, giving her a pointed look.

“We sure are--in just a minute.” She laughed and looked back at Mark. “This morning I remembered I’d lent Lara my raincoat, and I may need it during the week. Hurricane season is starting.”

“The forecast is perfectly clear,” her husband said, shaking his head. “But this gives you one last chance to try to talk Lara into coming along.”

“That, too,” she admitted.

“Well, don’t spend too much time doing it. I want to get out on the road as soon as possible. We should have left early this morning.”

“Then I’d better get inside. If you’ll excuse me, Mark.” She slipped past him. As she opened the door and let herself in, she added, “Nice seeing you again.”

“You, too.”

“So,” her husband said, before Mark could make his own excuses and get away, “I hear you’re helping Lara with her house. You’re with the historical society?”

“Yeah, I was. I mean, I am, but today I came by more as a friend.”

Diane’s husband looked at him more closely, but if he didn’t take the comment at face value, he pretended he had. “Have you two come up with any new ideas for her studio?”

The question surprised him. He wondered why the man would expect them to. “We didn’t get a chance to talk about it.”

“That’s funny. Whenever I’ve been around her for the last six months, the studio is about all she’s talked about. I guess she’s holding off work on it since you made her think twice about knocking out that wall.”

“What?” The remark practically knocked him over. Chatting with this guy suddenly seemed a lot more interesting. “I had no idea she’d changed her mind.”

“She didn’t tell you?” He hesitated. “I hope I wasn’t supposed to keep my mouth shut, but I can’t imagine why I would be. I know she’s having a hard time coming up with an alternative plan. Maybe she hasn’t said anything to you because she doesn’t know what she’s going to do yet.”

“Probably.” Mark was too excited to carry on a decent conversation. This news changed everything. Lara really had listened to what he had to say. She’d understood his feelings and taken them to heart. “I’ll have to try to come up with some suggestions.”

The thought, he knew, was a bit premature. She wouldn’t want advice from him after the pompous way he’d presented his ideas in the past. In fact, their clashes of opinion might be the reason she hadn’t told him she’d changed her mind. Getting her to open up to him again would probably take some work. Now he really wished he hadn’t been so remote today.

“You may have all week to do it,” Jerry Lyons said. “If Di gets her way, Lara will be coming to Cape Hatteras with us.”

“Oh.” His bubble deflated somewhat. Now that he knew he had gotten through to Lara, he didn’t want to wait a week to see her again, especially after he’d made such a mess out of today. He frowned. “She isn’t likely to go at the last minute like this, is she?”

The man smiled slightly, probably amused by the wistful note in his tone. “Lara can be pretty spontaneous. And Di says that lately she’s been uncomfortable alone in the house. If you ask me, a week with nothing to do but lie on the beach would be the perfect thing to relax her.”

Remembering how scared she’d been the night of the storm, Mark could imagine her accepting the invitation. He pictured her on a beach in North Carolina, looking great in a bikini. It was a sight he’d like to see...and so would other men. What if she met someone she liked down there? By the time she got back home, he might have lost his only chance with her.

“It’s been nice meeting you.” Jerry held out his hand.

He tried to think of a way to keep the conversation going or an excuse to go back into the house and prevent Lara from leaving on vacation. Nothing came to him, so he gave in and shook the man’s hand. “You, too.”

Jerry strode into the house as if he owned the place.

Envious, Mark walked slowly out to his car. He dawdled beside the door, fiddling with his keys, hoping to see the couple come back out and leave without Lara.

He killed another five minutes pretending to look for something in the trunk. The longer the others stayed inside, the more it looked like she had decided to go and was getting ready. No one came out, and he felt more and more foolish with each passing minute.

Finally he got behind the wheel and started up the engine. He took his time pulling out into the street, continually glancing back toward the porch.

When he drove away and the house passed out of sight, the situation felt hopeless. Lara had more than one reason to go with her friends. If her fear of ghosts didn’t drive her out of the house, his behavior today might well have convinced her she needed a break from
him
.

All the way home he stewed to himself. If he’d known earlier this morning that she had second thoughts about the wall, he wasn’t sure he would have brought up the topic, but he certainly would have had a different outlook. Instead of confirming her view of him as sulky, he might have shown her a more easy-going side of his personality. He might even have experienced the carefree day he’d dreamed of before Paula Nesbitt’s reminders had soured his expectations.

Damn Karen and her interfering friends!
And damn himself for paying the least bit of attention to what they had to say.

To think that now he might not have contact with Lara for another week frustrated him, and not knowing for sure was even worse. By the time he reached his apartment building, he knew he had to come up with some reason to call her as soon as possible. He needed to know whether she was leaving town or not.

An idea finally came to him, based on her interest in his ancestor. He felt sure that with a little effort he could dig up some juicy family story about Geoff.

Starting the engine again, he pulled back out of the parking lot. He would pick up his copy of Geoffrey Vereker’s biography at his parents’ house and pump them for information. His father usually had some good family stories. As soon as he got back, he would give Lara a call.

The only problem with the plan lay there, he acknowledged with a frown. If she wasn’t home when he called, he didn’t know what he would do.

Too bad he didn’t have a good reason to show up in Cape Hatteras.

Chapter 11

Diane leaned out of the kitchen into the main hall, peering toward the front of the house.

“Here comes Jerry now,” she said over her shoulder to Lara. She turned back around and slumped against the door jamb. “Damn. He doesn’t have Mark with him.”

Lara pursed her lips. Looking away from her friend, she picked up a plate to dry. “I told you that Mark was acting standoffish again today. I knew he wouldn’t come back in. Jerry may be a personable guy, but he can’t work miracles.”

“Hello, ladies,” the man in question greeted them as he stepped around his wife. He looked at her and then to Lara. “So, what’s your final decision, kiddo? Are you coming with us?”

“Sorry, but I can’t.” She forced a smile. After the morning she’d had, she was tempted to grab a bag and run away, but she didn’t think the company of two happy couples would bring her much consolation. She would only be reminded twenty-four hours a day of her own failures in love. “I appreciate the offer, but I really have too much to do around here.”

“Are you sure?” He gave her a worried look. “Di tells me that lately you’ve been uneasy here on your own. She says you’ve even been dreaming up ideas about having a ghost. A houseful of friends might be just the thing for you.”

But not a houseful of couples
, she thought. “I’ll be okay. I need to work out this ghost thing for myself.”

Di nudged closer to her husband, gazing up at him with a shrewd smile. “Now let’s get to the really important point, honey. You were out on the porch with Mark Vereker for ten minutes. What were you two talking about?”

“Not much.” He glanced at Lara then looked away from both women, clearly uncomfortable with the role of go-between. “Mostly his work with the historical board.”

“Never mind,” Lara said. She finished drying her plate and stowed it in a cabinet above the sink. “We aren’t in high school anymore. I wasn’t expecting you to try to find out whether or not the guy likes me.”

 “
I
was,” her friend objected. “Did he say anything at all about her?”