At First Sight

He watched for her car, his jaw tight.

He really didn't care what her excuse was. There was no excuse for something like this. All she'd had to do was tell him that she wanted to talk to Rodney, that she was worried about him, and he would have been okay with that. Not thrilled, mind you, but okay. So why all the secrecy?

This wasn't the way things should be. This wasn't the way she was supposed to treat him... or anyone she cared about, for that matter. And what if actions like these continued after they were married? Did he really want to spend his days wondering if she was really where she said she'd be?

No, no way. Not a chance. That wasn't what marriage was supposed to be, and he hadn't moved down here, hadn't given up everything, to be deceived. She either loved him or she didn't; it was as simple as that. And blowing off dinner with him so she could spend time with Rodney made it seem pretty obvious how she felt.

He didn't care if they were friends, and he honestly didn't care whether she thought she was just being supportive, either. All she'd had to do was tell the truth. That's what this was about.

As angry as he was, he had to admit he was hurt as well. He'd come down here to share a life with Lexie, he'd moved here because of her. Not because of the baby, not because he had dreams of settling into a life with white-picket fences, not because he'd harbored a secret belief in the romanticism of the South. He'd come here because he wanted her to be his wife.

And now she was lying to him. Not once, but twice, and as he felt his stomach tighten, he was uncertain whether to punch the wall in anger or simply cry into his hands.

He was still sitting on her steps when she arrived an hour later. As she got out of the car, she seemed surprised to see him but then walked toward him as if nothing were amiss.

"Hey," she said, flipping her purse over her shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

Jeremy rose from his seat on his steps. "Just waiting," he said. Glancing at his watch, he noted it was a few minutes before nine. Late, but not too late....

Though he made no move toward her--and she seemed to notice this--she leaned in to kiss him anyway. If she noticed his relative nonresponse, she gave no sign.

"It's good to see you," she said.

He looked at her; despite his anger (or his fear, if he was still being honest), she looked beautiful. The idea of someone else taking her in his arms was devastating.

Sensing his roiling emotions, she tugged at his sleeve. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he answered.

"You seem upset."

It was the perfect opportunity to say what was on his mind, but he found himself hedging. "Just tired," he said. "How was Doris?"

Lexie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Worried. Rachel still hasn't called or checked in."

"And she still thinks something might have happened to her?"

"I'm not sure. You know how Doris is. Once she gets something in her head, it tends to stick, and there's never a logical explanation for it. I get the feeling that she thinks Rachel is... okay, for lack of a better word, but that the reason she left..." She shook her head again. "Actually, I don't know what Doris is thinking. She just has the feeling that Rachel shouldn't have left, and she's really upset."

Jeremy nodded, even if he didn't quite understand. "If she's okay, then it'll all work out, right?"

Lexie shrugged. "I don't know. I've given up trying to figure out the way Doris's mind works. All I know is that she's usually right. I've learned it time and time again."

Jeremy watched her, sensing she was telling the truth... about her time with Doris. She'd volunteered nothing about where she'd been afterward.

He stood straighter. "I take it that you spent the whole evening with Doris, huh?"

"Pretty much," she answered.

"Pretty much?"

Jeremy sensed that she was trying to gauge how much he knew.

"Yeah," she finally said.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Lexie didn't answer.

"I swung by Doris's this evening," he challenged, "but you weren't there."

"You went to Doris's?"

"Here too," he added.

Taking a small step backward, she crossed her arms. "Were you checking up on me?"

"Call it what you want," Jeremy said, trying to stay calm. "But either way, you haven't told me the truth."

"What are you talking about?"

"Where were you tonight? After you left Doris's?"

"I came here," she said.

"And before that?" Jeremy asked, hoping she would volunteer the information, praying she would be honest, feeling the pit in his stomach grow.

"You were checking on me, weren't you."

Perhaps it was the righteousness in her tone that caused his temper to flare. "This isn't about me!" Jeremy snapped. "Just answer the question!"

"Why are you yelling?" she asked. "I told you where I was."

"No, you didn't!" Jeremy shouted. "You told me where you were before you went somewhere else. You went someplace else after you left Doris's, didn't you?"

"Why are you yelling at me?" Lexie demanded, her own voice rising. "What's gotten into you?"

"You went to Rodney's!" Jeremy shouted.

"What?"

"You heard me!" he said. "You went to Rodney's! I saw you there!"

Lexie took another step backward. "You followed me?"

"No," he snapped, "I didn't follow you. I went to Doris's, then here, and then went looking for you. And guess what I found?"

She paused, as if trying to decide how best to respond. "It's not what you think," she protested, her voice softer than he'd expected.

"And what do I think?" Jeremy demanded. "That my fiancee shouldn't be at another man's house? That maybe she should have told me where she was going? That if she trusted me, she would have said something? That if she cared about me, she wouldn't have broken our dinner date to spend time with another man?"

"This isn't about you!" she said. "And I didn't break our date. I asked if we could do it tomorrow and you said it would be fine!"

Jeremy inched closer. "This isn't just about the dinner, Lexie. This is about the fact that you went to another man's house tonight."

Lexie stood her ground. "And what? Do you think I slept with Rodney? Do you think we spent the last hour making out on the couch? We talked, Jeremy! That's all we did. Just talked! Doris was getting tired, and before I went home, I wanted to know if Rodney could tell me what was going on. So I stopped by, and all we did was talk about Rachel."

"You should have told me."

"I would have! And you wouldn't have even had to ask. I would have told you where I went. I don't keep secrets from you."

His eyebrows lifted. "Oh no? What about that day at the boardwalk?"

"What day at the boardwalk?"

"Last month when I saw you holding Rodney's hand."

She stared at him as if she had never seen him before. "How long have you been spying on me?"

"I haven't been spying! But I did see you holding his hand."

She continued to stare at him. "Who are you?" she finally asked.

"Your fiance," Jeremy said, his voice continuing to rise, "and I think I deserve an explanation. First, I find you two holding hands, then I find out that you're breaking our dates to spend time with him--"

"Shut up!" she shouted. "Just be quiet and listen."

"I'm trying to listen!" he shouted back. "But you're not telling me the truth! You've been lying to me!"

"No, I haven't!"

"No? Then why not tell me about your little hand-holding adventure!"

"I'm trying to tell you that you're making this into something it isn't--"

"Oh, really?" he snarled, cutting her off. "And what if you had caught me holding hands with an ex-girlfriend and found out that I was sneaking away to spend time with her?"

"I wasn't sneaking away!" Lexie said, throwing up her hands. "I told you... I stayed with Doris almost all night, but I

still wasn't sure what was going on. I was worried about Rachel, so I stopped by Rodney's to find out if he knew anything."

"After holding his hand, of course."

Lexie's eyes flashed, but as she spoke he could hear her voice beginning to break. "No," she said, "I didn't. We sat on the porch out back and talked. How many times do I have to tell you this?"

"Maybe enough to admit that you were lying!"

"I wasn't lying!"

He stared at her, his voice taking on a hard edge. "You lied, and you know it." He pointed an accusing finger at her. "That's bad enough, but that isn't the only thing that hurts. What hurts worse is that you keep trying to deny it."

With that, he stepped off the porch and strode to his car, not bothering to look behind him.

Jeremy sped blindly through town, not knowing what to do. He knew he didn't want to go back to Greenleaf, nor could he imagine heading to the Lookilu Tavern, the only bar still open in town. Though he'd stopped in once or twice, he had no desire to spend the rest of the evening seated at the bar, simply because he knew the ruckus it would cause. If he'd learned one thing about small towns, it was that news traveled fast, especially bad news, and he had no desire to have anyone else in town start speculating about him and Lexie. Instead, he simply drove through town, making a big circuit, without any destination in mind. Boone Creek was not New York City--there was no place to go if one wanted to vanish into a crowd. There were no crowds.

Sometimes he hated this town.

Lexie could talk all she wanted about the beautiful scenery and townsfolk she viewed almost as family, but he supposed he should have expected that. As an only child and an orphan to boot, she'd never been part of a large family as Jeremy had been, and he sometimes felt like telling her that she had no idea what she was talking about. Granted, most of the people he'd met in town were gracious and friendly, but he was beginning to wonder whether that wasn't just an attempt to keep up appearances. Behind the facade, there were secrets and machinations, just like everywhere else, but folks here tried to hide it. Like Doris, for instance. While he was asking questions, Doris and Lexie were passing hidden signals, all with the intention of keeping him in the dark. Or Mayor Gherkin. Instead of simply helping Jeremy get the permits, he'd had his own agenda. There was, Jeremy thought, something to be said about New Yorkers. When they were angry, they let you know, and they didn't try to sugarcoat it, especially when it concerned family. People just said what was on their minds.

He wished Lexie had behaved more like that. Driving around, he couldn't decide whether his anger was growing or dissipating; he didn't know whether to head back to her house and try to get things sorted out or try to figure it out on his own. He suspected she was hiding something, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was. Despite his anger and the evidence, he couldn't bring himself to believe that she had a secret affair going on with Rodney. Unless he'd been completely hoodwinked by Lexie, which he doubted, the idea was ridiculous. But something was going on between them, something that Lexie felt uncomfortable talking about. And then, of course, there was the e-mail....

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. After circuiting the town for the third time, he headed into the country. He drove in silence for a few minutes, then turned again, and a few minutes later pulled to a stop in front of Cedar Creek Cemetery--home to the mysterious lights and the place that had brought him to Boone Creek.

This was where he'd first seen Lexie. After arriving in town, he'd come here to take a few photographs before beginning to research the article he'd intended to write, and he could still recall how she'd appeared suddenly, catching him off guard. He could still visualize the way she'd moved and how the breeze rippled through her hair. It was also in this cemetery that she'd told him about the nightmares she'd had as a child.

Getting out of the car, Jeremy was struck by how different the place was without fog. On the night he'd first seen the mysterious lights, the mist-shrouded cemetery had seemed unearthly, as if lost in time. Tonight, under a clear April sky and a glowing moon, he could make out the shapes of individual headstones and was even able to retrace the route he'd once taken while trying to capture the lights on film.

He moved past the wrought-iron gates and heard the soft crunch of gravel underfoot. He hadn't been here since returning to Boone Creek, and as he made his way past the broken tombstones, his thoughts turned again to Lexie.

Had she told him the truth? Partially. Would she really have told him where she'd gone? Maybe. And did he have a right to be angry? Yes, he thought again, he did.

He didn't like arguing with her, though. And he hadn't liked the way she'd looked at him when she realized that he'd been following her. Nor, he admitted, did he like that aspect of himself, either. Truth be told, he wished he had never seen Lexie and Rodney together in the first place. All it had done was make him suspicious, and he reminded himself again that there was no reason to be suspicious. Yes, she'd gone to see Rodney, but Rachel was missing, and Rodney was without doubt the one she should have talked to.

But the e-mail...

He didn't want to think about that, either.

In the silence, it seemed that the cemetery was beginning to grow brighter. It wasn't possible, of course--the ghostly lights appeared only on foggy nights--but when he blinked, he realized he wasn't seeing things. The cemetery was growing brighter. As he frowned in confusion, he heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the headlights of a car rounding a curve. He wondered who would be driving out this way and was surprised when he noticed the car slowing, then pulling to a stop right behind his car.

Despite the darkness, he recognized the car as Mayor Gherkin's, and a moment later he watched the shadowy figure emerge.

"Jeremy Marsh?" the mayor called out. "You out there?"

Jeremy cleared his throat, surprised for the second time. He debated whether or not to answer before realizing that his car gave him away. "Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I'm over here."

"Where? I can't see you."

"Over here," Jeremy called. "Near the big tree."

The mayor started toward him. As he approached, Jeremy could hear him going on.

"I'll say, you do come to the strangest places, Jeremy. It was all I could do to find you. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though, knowing your history with this place and all. But still, I can think of a dozen better places to go if a man wants to be alone. I guess a man feels the urge to go back to the scene of the crime, don't he?"

By the time he finished, he was standing before Jeremy. Even in the dark Jeremy could make out what he was wearing: red polyester pants, a purple Izod shirt, and a yellow sport jacket. He looked something like an Easter egg.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Mayor?"

"Well, I came to talk to you, of course."

"Is this about the astronaut? I left a message at your office--"

"No, no, of course not. I got your message, so don't you worry about that none. I had no doubt you'd come through, being that you're a celebrity and all. What happened was that I was working in my office, just finishing up some paperwork at my store downtown, and I happened to see your car passing by. I waved, but I suppose you didn't see me, and I said to myself, I wonder where Jeremy Marsh could be going in such a hurry."

Jeremy held up his hands to stop him. "Mr. Mayor, I'm really not in the mood--"

The mayor went on as if he hadn't heard him. "But I didn't think anything of it, of course. Not at first, anyway. But wouldn't you know it, you drove by a second time and then a third, and I started wondering if maybe you needed someone to talk to. So I asked myself, Where would Jeremy Marsh go, and..." The mayor paused for dramatic effect, then slapped his leg for emphasis as he went on. "Like a bolt of lightning, it hit me. Why, he'd go to the cemetery!"

Jeremy simply stared at him. "Why did you think I would go to the cemetery?"

The mayor smiled in satisfaction, but instead of answering directly, he

pointed to the magnificent magnolia tree in the center of the cemetery.

"You see that tree, Jeremy?"

Jeremy followed his gaze. With gnarled roots and sprawling limbs, the tree had to be well over a hundred years old.

"Did I ever tell you the story about that tree?"

"No, but--"

"That tree was planted by Coleman Tolles, one of the town's most prominent citizens, back before the War of Northern Aggression. He operated the feed store and the general grocers, and he had himself the prettiest wife for miles around. Her name was Patricia, and though the only painting of her was destroyed in the library fire, my daddy used to swear that he'd sometimes go to the library just to take a gander at her."

Jeremy shook his head impatiently. "Mr. Mayor--"

"Let me finish now. I think this might just shed some light on your little problem."

"What problem?"

"Why, the problem you're having with Miss Lexie. If I were you, I don't suppose I'd be too thrilled to find out she's been spending time with another man."

Jeremy blinked in shock, speechless.

"But as I was telling you, this Patricia was one beautiful lady, and before she married Coleman, he had courted her for years. Pretty much everyone in the county was courting her--and she loved the attention--but old Coleman won her heart in the end, and their wedding was the biggest the county had ever seen. They could have lived happily ever after, I suppose, but it was not to be. Coleman was the jealous type, you see, and Patricia wasn't the type to be rude to those other young men who'd been courting her. Coleman just couldn't take it."

The mayor shook his head. "They ended up having a terrible argument, and the stress was just too much for Patricia to bear. She took ill and spent two weeks in bed before the good Lord called her home. Coleman was brokenhearted, and after she was buried in the cemetery, he planted this tree in her honor. And here it grows, this living version of our very own Taj Mahal."

Jeremy stared at the mayor. "Is that a true story?" he asked at last.

The mayor raised his right hand as if taking an oath. "May I be struck down if it isn't."

Jeremy wasn't sure how to respond; nor did he have any idea how the mayor knew the source of his troubles.

The mayor shoved his hands in his pockets. "But as you can see, it's quite appropriate considering your own circumstances. Like a flame draws a moth, this here tree must have drawn you to the cemetery."