Secret Whispers (Heavenstone 2)

He shrugged. “A good test of that is just what you said. When you’re in love with someone, you suddenly see everything through her eyes or his. It’s as if you share your bodies, your minds, and your very souls.”

“That’s quite poetic for a business major,” I kidded.

He laughed. “You’re too clever. No, those aren’t my words. I read them but never forgot them in the hope that someday I’d have good reason to use them.”

“And now you have?”

“Wouldn’t have said them otherwise,” he replied, sipping his coffee and focusing his eyes on me. “Am I going too fast?”

“Only if it has an end,” I said.

He smiled, rose, and leaned over to kiss me. “Then I’m going too slowly,” he whispered.

I did wish I could freeze us forever in the rest of the day. Everything we did, although I had done it before, now seemed special. We went rowing on our lake, and later Mrs. Dobson prepared a picnic lunch for us and we spread a blanket at one of the high spots of the Heaven-stone property, enabling us to look out at the forest and rolling hills to the west. We talked for hours, as if we had to reveal as much to each other as possible in the quickest possible time. Exhausted by our own enthusiasm, we once again fell asleep in each other’s arms and then walked back to the house slowly, holding hands and moving like two people in a wonderful dream, dreading awakening.

As if we knew we were candles burning at both ends, we agreed to some time alone after which we would get ready to meet my father and Lucille for cocktails and dinner. It wasn’t until I looked at the framed picture of me and my mother that Lucille had given me that I thought at all about Cassie. I was too content, too happy, to permit a single dark thought even to show its shadowed face. But I did think of questions to ask her.

Oh, why didn’t you let me have a romance like this, enjoy a promise like this, Cassie? Why didn’t you love me enough to want happiness for me, too? What had I done to you? How twisted and painful your soul must be, trapped in that iron coffin of envy. You were in it even before you died.

Before she could respond, I rushed to shower and wash my hair and then fill my thoughts only with ways to make myself even more attractive for Ethan. There would be no image in my mirror besides my own, and my ears would shut themselves to any words that did not come from my own lips.

Refreshed and dressed, Ethan and I went down to meet my father and Lucille, who seemed as happy and buoyed by their relationship as Ethan and I were by ours. The music, laughter, and clinking of cocktail glasses gave me the feeling Daddy and Lucille were as young as Ethan and I. We were like two couples double-dating. I couldn’t remember Daddy as carefree and silly, and Lucille couldn’t have been any nicer to Ethan. Daddy and Lucille had heard some feedback on the way the store’s employees had reacted to Ethan and me. I suspected some of it had come from Uncle Perry. It amused them that we had been seen as the prince and princess of Heaven-stone. For me, the only sour note was the joy Lucille seemed to take in how much our employees trembled.

“Your father and I think you two should visit every store in the chain,” she added. They both laughed. I saw that Ethan enjoyed it, too, but for me, it was as if a wonderful orchestra playing a symphony had hit a sour note.

“Fear isn’t the same as respect,” I said. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t something I would say. It was Cassie. She had found an opening through which to poke her head.

Everyone stopped laughing.

“How did you manage to bring up so sensitive and humble a daughter, Teddy?” Lucille asked, her face masked in a cold smile.

Daddy just looked at me. I knew he wanted to say something nice about me, but he was caught between pleasing me and offending Lucille.

“Daddy never looked down on his employees,” I said, “but maybe it was also the influence of my mother.”

If I had set off a bomb in the room, it wouldn’t have had more of an effect. Lucille turned away and looked at her watch.

“We should think about leaving for the restaurant.”

“Absolutely,” Daddy said, eager to move on.

Ethan looked from one to the other, resembling a man on a tightrope, afraid to lean in any direction.

“Should we all go in my car?” Daddy asked.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Lucille replied for everyone.

When we got into Daddy’s car, she seized the moment again, this time turning the conversation to Ethan, using her questions like searchlights on his past. After a while, I thought it was more like a job interview. It continued even at the restaurant. And then, on the way home, she asked him when he intended to leave.

“I’d like to stay longer, but I think I’d better get back tomorrow to see how things are with my father.”

“As you should,” Lucille said.

I was quiet because he hadn’t said this to me, and I couldn’t help resenting that he had replied to her without first discussing it with me.

“Well,” Lucille continued after the long pause, “of course, it’s really Semantha’s decision and not ours, but Teddy and I would like to invite you back for our wedding.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said. He turned to me, and I looked away, tears now coming into my eyes. That had been going to be my surprise tonight after we had gotten home.