Letters from Peaceful Lane (New Americana 3)

Allison’s eyes roamed over the shelves of books and CDs, the photo albums, the school yearbooks—finally coming to rest where they always did, on the eight-by-ten leather-framed photograph that sat on top of the bookcase.

Brianna, she suspected, had left the photo out as a gesture, to remind her new stepmother that this was, and always would be, her family. The three figures in the informal portrait were standing on a dock with a boat behind them and a huge, black Newfoundland dog at their feet. A younger Burke, ruggedly handsome in jeans and a faded polo, stood with one arm around his carrot-topped twelve-year-old daughter and the other arm around his wife.

Kate.

In recent months, Allison had begun to identify with the heroine of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca—the young second wife, overshadowed by her glamorous predecessor. But Katherine O’Malley Caldwell was no Rebecca. Her photographic image showed a short, almost dumpy-looking woman whose baggy blue CHIEFS sweatshirt hung over a waist that had already begun to thicken with early middle age. Her wind-tossed cinnamon hair was touched with gray at the temples, her skin spattered with freckles and etched with laugh lines. Her generous, unpainted mouth had been caught in an impish grin.

N

ow there was a woman who knew how to throw a party!

Head still pounding, Allison turned away from the photo, switched off the lamp, and wandered down the hall toward the master bedroom. When she’d married Burke—the ceremony a romantic dream in the hilltop chapel at Big Cedar—her friends had told her she was fortunate to be getting a widower. No ex-wife to deal with. Wasn’t she lucky? But there were times, like tonight, when she wished she could call Kate on the phone and invite her to a long, chatty, insightful lunch. Maybe it would help her understand why Burke had shut her out of his life.

The silent phone mocked her from the nightstand as she struggled to unzip the back of her dress—a job she’d planned for Burke. Her skimpy new black lace teddy, along with the black satin sheets on the bed, were to be part of his birthday gift. She’d imagined letting him unwrap her like a present, then pulling him down onto the pillows for a night of slow, sensuous loving.

Not tonight, dear, I have a headache . . . After wiping off her makeup, Allison let the dress collapse around her ankles, stepped out of her shoes, unpinned her hair, and slipped between the watery layers of satin. Burke might not be home until tomorrow—there was a room above the agency office for when he had to stay in town. But, damn it, the least he could do was call and give her a chance to make things right—if they could ever be right again.

She slept fitfully, distracted by the rain outside, the slithering sheets on the bed, and her own warring emotions. What should she do when Burke came home? Confront him and demand an explanation? Apologize and melt in his arms? Play innocent and hope he’d decide to be honest with her? There was no good resolution to this kind of betrayal.

At eleven fifteen, with her nerves in tatters, she reached for the phone, punched in the first six digits of his cell number, hesitated, then changed her mind and hung up. Trying to talk with Burke at a bad time would only make things worse. Wait for his call; that would be the smart thing to do. Sooner or later it would come. He almost always phoned her when he was going to be late.

But then, they’d never parted the way they’d parted tonight.

It was almost midnight, and Allison was beginning to drift, when the ringing phone shattered the silence. Her eyes shot open. She groped wildly, catching the receiver as the phone went crashing off the nightstand.

“Burke?”

“No, Allison, it’s Garrett.” His voice was calm. Too calm. Allison went clammy with fear.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” she croaked into the phone.

“The ambulance just took Burke to the hospital. I’m on the road now. I’ll be by to pick you up in about twenty minutes.”

She fought the creeping numbness of denial. “What—happened?”

“He rolled the Porsche on the way to town,” Garrett said. “After I left your place I went to the American Heartland. Nobody there had seen him. When he wasn’t at the agency, and his cell didn’t answer, I got worried and called the highway patrol. The troopers finally found him down the slope from the road, pinned under his car.”

“Oh, God, is he—?”

“He’s alive. But he was still unconscious when the paramedics arrived. We’ll know more when we get to the hospital.”

Allison battled waves of nausea. “I’m coming now,” she said.

“Now, Allison, you’re in no condition to—”

She disconnected the call.

CHAPTER 2

Allison walked into the hospital room at Cox Medical Center, her eyes bloodshot, her hair falling in strings around her face. She had flung on the first things that came out of the closet—her jogging shoes, a pair of jeans, and one of Burke’s old gray sweatshirts. Her headache lingered like a dusty cobweb in her brain, but she’d forgotten it in the rush to reach her husband’s side.

Refusing to wait for Garrett, she’d driven the mountain highway herself, screeching around the hairpin curves in the white Lexus Burke had given her. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Burke. He was so strong, so vital. Surely she would arrive at the hospital to find him sitting up in bed, joking about the brief scare. They would collect his belongings and she would drive him home. Everything would be all right.

But it wasn’t all right. The truth struck Allison as soon as she caught sight of her husband through a maze of plastic tubes and blinking monitors in the ICU. There could be no going back. Burke’s life, and hers, would never be the same.

The polite young Indian doctor had tried to prepare her. Burke was semiconscious now, but he’d suffered a concussion and some spinal injuries, which would need surgery. It was too soon to know whether the damage would be permanent.

Allison walked toward the bed, feeling the liquid resistance of the air as if she were moving through water. Burke lay between blinding white sheets, the neck of the faded green hospital gown falling loose around his throat. An IV needle connected to a saline drip was taped to the back of his left hand. Above his head, monitors blinked and hummed like a committee of cold-eyed robots.