Winter Affair (3 page)

“Of course not,” Elaine answered mildly. “But she sees the return addresses on the envelopes he receives. He’s been writing to the FAA division in the state capitol.”

Leda felt a flash of sympathy for Reardon. He was the new grist in the Yardley rumor mill. To the gossip mongers in town he was a fascinating blackguard with a dark past, and the closest they’d ever get to the villains they saw in the movies.

“Maybe I should tell him to find a new apartment,” Leda suggested.

Elaine stared up at her. “Surely you wouldn’t speak to him,” she said. The sarcasm of Leda’s comment was lost on her.

“Somebody should inform him that his landlady’s a spy,” Leda said in clarification.

“Sara is not a spy. She can’t help but notice what goes on right under her nose. She wouldn’t have rented to him at all, you know, but she needs the money. Rafe’s arthritis has been acting up something terrible. He’s got this pain in his lower back and they had to take him to a specialist…”

“I think Sara would be better off minding her own business,” Leda interrupted, to forestall a lengthy catalog of Rafe’s symptoms. “And so would you.”

Elaine rose and glared at her. “You sound like you feel sorry for him,” she said accusingly. “The man practically killed your father.”

“Nobody killed my father,” Leda said, pulling the dress back over her head. “He died of a heart attack.”

“After Reardon caused the accident that brought it on,” Elaine said, shaking out the dress and replacing it on its hanger. “I trust you haven’t forgotten that.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Leda said wearily, tiring of the subject. “Where is that sundress for the picnic scenes?”

Elaine went to get it, throwing Leda a dirty look over her shoulder.

Leda shook her head. If this was a sample of the kind of reception Reardon was getting, he had to be having a jolly time.

* * * *

During the following week many of Leda’s neighbors stopped her to express their outrage at the return of the local pariah, Kyle Reardon. Since Leda had only recently moved back to town herself, they greeted her warmly, expressing delight that she was among them again. Then they took the opportunity to shake their heads and wonder aloud what Reardon was thinking of, to come back to a place where he wasn’t welcome. Leda often diverted the subject to her relocation, explaining that since she had taken the job at the playhouse, she’d subletted the apartment she shared with another actress in New York. It made economic sense to live in the duplex and commute to the city when she had to, rather than run back and forth for her performances in New Hope. Her father’s friends nodded politely and quickly skipped back to the more interesting topic, the felon in their midst. The endless inquiries exhausted Leda, and she soon learned to cut the conversations short.

In all the talk she never heard one word in Reardon’s defense.

And on a couple of occasions she had firsthand experience of the treatment Reardon was receiving from the good citizens of Yardley. One afternoon she was in the pharmacy on South Main Street, standing unobserved behind a high counter, when Reardon walked in and asked for a bottle of iodine and a packet of gauze. He was wearing the same jacket he had worn in the graveyard, and there was a large, angry looking cut next to his left eye. The result of an altercation? Leda wondered. She watched as the druggist, an old golfing buddy of her father’s, treated Reardon with such glacial politeness that the effect was more offensive than the grossest insult would have been. Another time she saw him walking, erect and alone, through a chattering crowd gathering on the walk outside the movie theater. The show had just ended, and she paused on her way to her car from the convenience store across the street to observe the scene. The throng parted as if by magic to let him pass through. The people stared at him in rigid silence until he was almost out of earshot, and then someone made a comment Leda couldn’t hear. Reardon heard it, though; she saw him break stride and then recover, his broad shoulders squaring as if in anticipation of a blow. None came, however, and he walked on, never glancing back. The onlookers snickered nastily behind him, reacting to what had been said.

Leda’s expression was thoughtful as she stowed her package in the back seat of her car and started for home. She couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for Reardon’s stoic endurance. He took all the abuse directed at him, subtle or overt, with quiet dignity, as if he expected it and had made up his mind to tolerate it.

The image of him striding purposefully through that hostile assembly, eyes straight ahead, the lights of the theater marquee glinting on his dark hair, haunted her until she wished she could forget it.

* * * *

About ten days after her accidental meeting with Reardon in the cemetery, Leda received a call from the businessman who had purchased the hangar and airstrip formerly used by her father’s company. Matthew Phelps was a newcomer to the area, and when he had inquired about buying the property through Leda’s lawyer, she was surprised. It had been listed for years with no show of interest. Airstrips were not exactly in big demand. But he’d offered a fair price, just enough for Leda to satisfy the mortgage against it. The new owner ran a charter company, making supply runs and transporting groups of vacationers to sunny islands. Phelps asked if she would come out to the hangar office and pick up some personal items of her father’s that had been overlooked and were still there, ledgers and notebooks and even some clothes. Leda was tempted to tell him to pack the stuff up and give it to charity. She had no wish to relive painful experiences by sorting through belongings she hadn’t even known existed. But her innate good manners won out and she told Phelps she would be out that evening , steeling herself for a visit to her father’s former milieu, where she would surely hear the echo of happier times. When his wife died, Carter Bradshaw had focused all his energies on his only child, and Leda had spent a lot of time with him at his office. She’d done her homework on his desk and watched television on a small portable set in his anteroom while he took care of business. Once she went away to school she missed the smell of exhaust and engine grease, the heat and bustle of the lab where the technicians tested parts and fuels and lubricants. It would be difficult to go back there now and see it all in the hands of someone else.

The night was cold, threatening more snow, as Leda drove past the long, low industrial buildings that flanked the airfield. The slate gray structure of the hangar loomed before her as she parked her car and walked through the huge doors toward the office just inside.

The noise of engines was constant, and deafening. Phelps kept a crew working all night, as her father had done, and the men in overalls scurried about, fueling a helicopter and a Piper Cub from a truck nearby. Frigid air rushed in through the open wall, and Leda hurried across the cement floor, intent on reaching the warmth of the business enclosure. She glanced around for Phelps, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Bending over the fuselage of the Piper Cub, absorbed in overhauling the engine, was a very filthy Kyle Reardon.

Chapter 2

“Miss Bradshaw?”

Leda started out of her reverie, turning to face the man who addressed her. “Yes?”

He was a middle-aged, freckled redhead with an open, engaging manner. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Jim Kendall, the plant manager here. Matt Phelps asked me to meet you. He’s tied up at the moment, but he should be with you shortly. Would you like to sit in the office and wait?”

Leda nodded, glancing once more at Reardon. He worked on, oblivious of her presence. She shook Kendall’s hand and followed him past the opaque glass partition that separated the administration area from the hangar.

“I understand your father used to own this place,” Kendall said conversationally as she sat down next to a green metal filing cabinet.

“Yes, Mr. Phelps purchased it from the estate.”

Kendall helped himself to coffee from a pot on a warmer near the door. Leda shook her head when he asked her if she wanted any, and he added powdered creamer to his drink as he talked.

“Your father was a real popular guy around here,” Kendall said. “I ran into some trouble with a few of the workers when I hired that Reardon fella, the one who got into the scrape with that test. He had a rough couple of days when he started, but he’s settling in now. I believe in giving a guy a second chance, and he’s a crack mechanic. It’s quite a comedown for him too, working as a grease monkey, but he’s taking it like a soldier.”

Leda eyed Kendall nervously, wondering why he was telling her all this.

“I saw you watching him when I came up to you,” Kendall explained, reading her expression. “I thought I’d better clear it up in case there were any hard feelings.”

“Mr. Reardon has paid his debt to society. Isn’t that the phrase?” Leda replied stiffly. “You have the right to employ anybody you please.”

Kendall’s brow furrowed. He obviously wasn’t sure what to make of her comment. He looked up at the clock on the wall and tossed his empty cup into the trash.

“Miss Bradshaw, I have to go. Would you mind if I left you alone for a little while? I’m sure Matt will be out directly.”

“Go ahead,” Leda said, relieved that the man was leaving. She was afraid she was in for further discussion of Reardon if he stayed. After Kendall was gone, she sat waiting for about ten minutes, and then, bored with the inactivity, got up to have a look around. Phelps was obviously delayed, and she might as well amuse herself until he showed up.

She couldn’t quite admit that she wanted another look at Reardon.

Once back out on the floor, Leda searched for him, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. He wasn’t difficult to find. Though attired like the others in nondescript overalls, he stood a head taller than most of the men, and his vivid coloring drew her eye. The Piper Cub was gone, and he was now working on a much larger Beechcraft. The prospective passengers stood nearby, apparently a charter group en route to a Caribbean vacation. They had started the holiday early with some liquid cheer. Several of the men were already loudly, thoroughly drunk.

It wasn’t long before Leda realized that she had walked into the middle of a tense situation. The expression on Reardon’s face was set, his mouth hard, and tendons stood out in his powerful arms as he tightened a bolt on the metal frame of the plane.

“You musta gotten pretty lonely up there,” one of the travelers called, nudging the man next to him. “I hear some funny stuff goes on in the lockup when a man gets lonely enough.”

The group cracked up laughing, as if this were the most hilarious bon mot that had ever been uttered. Reardon went on working, pretending to be oblivious, but his posture indicated that he was aware of every syllable.

“What’s it like to be a jailbird?” the first man’s companion added. “What do you miss, the decor, the company, the food?”

Reardon looked up, and his eyes were murderous. Leda shrank back against the wall, trying to be invisible, hoping that she could get back behind the partition before she was noticed. These drunken bullies had heard Reardon’s story from somewhere and were having some malicious fun by taunting him about his past. She began to move silently sideways, edging back toward the office.

But it was too late. The first loudmouth caught sight of her and pointed, caroling, “Boy, you been locked up so long, you wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like that if you got near one.”

Reardon’s head turned in the direction of the pointing finger, and his silvery eyes met Leda’s alarmed gaze. They widened as he recognized her, and Leda’s heart sank. There would be no avoiding a confrontation now; this giggling bunch of over stimulated sots would find the opportunity too good to miss.

Reardon continued to look at her, his attention shifting from his antagonists to the object of their commentary. Leda held her breath, dreading what might happen next. He carefully put aside the wrench he’d been holding , never taking his eyes from hers.

“Out of practice, aren’t ya?” a third member of the audience chimed in, adding his wit to that previously displayed. “Ya wouldn’t know where to begin with her, would ya?”

A deep flush was creeping up the back of Reardon’s neck. He was being pushed to the edge. Those engaging in the catcalling didn’t know who Leda was, or the history between Reardon and her father. But she did, and she could see that Reardon was approaching the boiling point. A little muscle in his clenched jaw was jumping wildly. He might have been able to endure the jeering, he had done it before, but his embarrassment and humiliation in front of Leda were too much. She watched as his fingers curled and relaxed, saw the checked, coiled spring power of his legs as he struggled to master his feelings. For the first time she got a sense of the temper and the stubborn will that had precipitated his original trouble. Monica was right. Prison hadn’t changed him. He had merely learned some controls on his behavior, controls that were about to snap with the report of a pistol shot.

Leda swallowed, wondering what to do. She had to take action. If she didn’t step in to defuse this ticking bomb, the revelers would get a lot more than they had bargained for. If they weren’t so far gone in booze they would be able to see that for themselves, Leda thought, her heart going out to Reardon. This personal attack on him was so unfair. She could guess from her own observation how hard he had tried to put the pieces of his shattered life back together and erase the stigma of his past. But to be subjected to this, in front of a witness about whom he was bound to be sensitive, was too much. Leda had simulated rage often enough in her profession to recognize an incipient outburst of the real thing. Reardon was about to take the place apart.