It crossed her mind that she should be the one to get out, but where could she go? If she moved into her parents’ spare bedroom, she’d again have to hear her mother’s speech that she could “do better” than Greg Anders. Worse, she’d have to see her father looking at her with sad eyes.
Sara had lived in Edilean all her life and she had lots of friends, not to mention relatives, so she could go to one of them, but that would cause too many questions. They’d want to know where Greg went and when he was going to return. Would he be back in time for the wedding? they’d ask. That Sara had no answers for these questions would lead to the one she most hated: Was Sara absolutely sure she wanted to marry him?
No, where she was, in Tess’s apartment, so near her own place, was where she was going to stay. If she needed a change of clothes or sewing supplies, she could easily get them. She just had to hold her breath against the pesticide fumes when she went into her apartment, but she could do it.
When she was dressed, Sara tiptoed out of the bedroom and made a quick trip to the bathroom, noting that it was spotlessly clean. No whiskers in the sink, no soap scum on the shower door. It was so exactly the way she’d left it that for a moment she thought maybe she’d dreamed that a man had come up through the floor.
As she left the bathroom, she glanced at the closed door to the other bedroom. She’d not heard a sound from him. On the kitchen table was a note. Picking it up, she read it.
“Dear Miss Shaw,” it said in what she thought was a very formal manner. His handwriting was even and readable.
Again, I am very sorry about last night. It wasn’t my intention to disturb anyone. I’m going into Williamsburg this morning to go to a gym, then I must run some errands. I’ll have lunch at the Williamsburg Inn at one, so if you’d like to take a break from your work and join me, perhaps I can make up somewhat for last night. I should be home at about five and I’ll cook dinner tonight. Maybe we can take turns? If there’s anything I can pick up for you while I’m in town or if you’d just like to talk, please call me.
He put his cell number with its 954 area code at the bottom.
Sara tossed the note back on to the table. “Of all the audacious, presumptuous …!” she said aloud. Have lunch with him? Surely he must know that she was about to be married. Last night when Tess told him who she was, he’d known several things about Sara, so he probably even knew the time and place of the wedding. And what did he mean by “if you’d just like to talk”? Did he think she had no friends? And “take turns” cooking? How long was he planning to stay?
Angry, she glanced about the kitchen and saw that he’d kept his word and cleared away everything from their little tea party of the night before. When she opened the refrigerator, what few items she had inside were neatly arranged.
“Not my kind of man,” she said aloud.
In silence, she ate a bowl of cereal, put her dirty items in the dishwasher, then went to the bedroom to start her day’s work. But when she looked in the closet at the three boxes of clothes and the dozen or more garments on hangers, she wanted to close the door and leave.
This was all Greg’s fault, she thought. A hundred percent of it was caused by him. Why did he have to run off like that? Why couldn’t he have told her where he was going and what he had to do that was so important? Why couldn’t he have written her a note like the one Tess’s brother had left? “My darling Sara,” it would say, “I’m very sorry but I had to leave to go—” That’s where she always drew a blank. Before two nights ago, she would have said that she knew nearly everything there was to know about the man she planned to marry. The two of them had spent many hours together as he told her about his life before they’d met. She’d heard in detail about the two women who’d treated him so badly that it was a wonder he could ever care for any woman again. But he said that Sara’s love had made him forget everything that had happened before.
So if she knew so much about him, who had called and made him go running? Who besides Sara was important enough to make him drop everything and leave like that?
When her cell phone rang, she leaped on it so fast she must have looked like a football player diving for the ball. “Hello?” she asked in a breathless voice.
“Sara, dear, are you all right?”
It was Luke’s mother, her cousin by marriage, but since the woman was the age of her mother, in Southern tradition, Sara had always called her “aunt.” “I’m fine, Aunt Helen. I just, uh, tripped on the way to the phone. I’m sorry about the costumes for the fair this year, but I have so many things to do for the shop that I couldn’t get to them.”
“That’s all right, dear. My sister is working on them with me. I was just wo
ndering if there’s anything I can do to help with your guest.”
“My guest?”
“Yes. Tess’s brother, Mike. Such a polite, helpful man, isn’t he? When he told me he was staying in Tess’s apartment and I remembered that Luke’d had to fumigate yours, I thought how very kind it was of you to let him stay.”
Sara glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “Aunt Helen, it’s only nine-thirty in the morning. How did you find out all this so fast?”
“The battery on my car gave out again—I’m going to skin my husband if he doesn’t get me a new one today—and Mike gave me a lift into town, so I had a chance to ask him a few questions. He is such a pleasant young man and I enjoyed his company so very much.”
Sara pulled the phone away from her ear to glare at it. How unsubtle could a person be? she wondered. Her aunt Helen was one of the women who disliked Greg very much. “Yes, he is a nice man, isn’t he?” Sara said sweetly. “Why don’t you and Uncle James invite him to stay at your house? I’m sure he’d love your cooking.”
Helen didn’t hesitate. Just as pleasantly, she replied, “I do wish I could, but you know how James needs his privacy. I hope to see you in church on Sunday, and why don’t you bring Mike? With Tess away, the poor man is all alone.”
“Maybe he can go with Luke,” Sara shot back. “I may go out with Greg on Sunday.”
“Oh? Is he back?”
Sara wasn’t going to answer that because if she did, she’d have to deal with more questions about where Greg went and when he’d return. “Uh oh, the pan I have on the stove is boiling over. I have to go.”
“You must be starting dinner for Mike. How considerate of you. He—”
“Bye,” Sara said and clicked off. “Of all the—” No, she thought, she was not going to let herself get upset about this. Tonight she’d calmly tell Tess’s brother that he had to leave and that would be the end of it. In fact, maybe it was good that her aunt Helen had found out about Mike. Maybe the town residents could shuffle him back and forth.