She Loves Me Not (4 page)

She turns away, knowing that if she continues to critique her reflection, she'll lose her nerve.

The tub faucet is dripping again. Ben tried to fix it last week, and whatever he did worked for a while. But now, when Christine bends to turn it off, no matter how tightly she twists the knob, there's a steady
plop, plop, plop
of water into the drain.

Her first thought is that she'll have to call the super.

Then she remembers that there
is
no super. Ah, the joy of being homeowners.

She'll just tell Ben they're going to have to spring for a plumber. The next-door neighbors must have a good one—and lousy pipes. She frequently spots a panel truck—
Hitchcock and Sons, Plumbing and Heating Contractors
—parked over there.

Christine leaves behind the dripping tub and thoughts of plumbers, hangs the bath mat over the shower curtain bar, turns off the light, and makes her way back across the hall to their bedroom.

The house is chilly. She contemplates running downstairs to adjust the thermostat, but knows what Ben will say about that. Oil is expensive. Sixty-two degrees is as high as he'll allow the temperature to go during the day; sixty at night.

She left her husband reading the latest issue of
Kiplinger's.
Now he's curled up on his side of the bed, snoring already, the magazine still clutched in his hands.

Disappointment steals over her.

She turns off the bedside lamp and slips between the cold sheets on her side.

“Ben?” she whispers, poking him. “Ben?”

He mumbles incoherently, his back to her.

Shivering, she stretches out beside his warm body, wrapping her arms around him, kissing his shoulder. “Ben?”

He grunts, rolls over. “Why did you turn off the light?”

“You were sleeping.”

“I'm reading.” He turns the lamp back on.

“You're not reading anymore.” She kisses his neck.

He closes his eyes again, wearily as opposed to passionately.

“Ben. Warm me up, will you? It's freezing in here.”

“Turn up the heat.”

I'm trying,
she thinks grimly, pushing the comforter and sheets back to expose her supposedly provocative self. Her teeth are practically chattering, and Ben's eyes are still closed.

“Ben . . .” She kisses his neck again. “Look at me. Please?”

He opens his eyes. If he's enraptured by the sight of her in her nightie, he's doing a hell of a job keeping his burning desire under wraps.

“No wonder you're cold,” he says. “Go put on something with sleeves.”

“Or I could take this off and not put anything on,” she says, feeling slightly ridiculous. She isn't good at seduction. She never has been. Dammit, why won't Ben take the lead? She trails kisses along his collarbone.

He squirms. “Come on, Christine, cut it out. It's tax season. I need to get some sleep.”

“You just said you were reading.”

“Well, now I'm sleeping. I took cold medicine an hour ago and it knocked me out.”

“Why? You're not sick.”

“I think I'm coming down with the flu. Everyone at work's been getting it.”

Terrific. Ben is prone to frequent moaning when he's ill. When they were newlyweds, she relished the chance to play Florence Nightingale, but that got old very quickly. Especially after she got seriously sick herself, and Ben's bedside manner left something to be desired.

“This is my fertile time, Ben,” she points out. “How am I supposed to get pregnant if you have no interest in me whatsoever?”

“I didn't say I had no interest in you whatsoever, Christine, I just said I'm not in the mood tonight.”

“You're never in the mood.”

“I'm coming down with the flu, and I'm wiped out after a fifteen-hour day. You try riding the train round trip for hours every morning and night and see how you feel.”

“I'm not the one who wanted to move out here, Ben. You are.” She rolls away from him and sits up, pulling the blankets to her chest, partly because she's shivering, partly because she's suddenly self-conscious about the plummeting neckline. “You know I would have been perfectly content to stay in the city.”

“You were miserable in the city for the entire last year we were there. I thought a change of scenery would help.”

“I went through hell last year, and it had nothing to do with where we lived. If you want to help me, you know that a baby would— Where are you going?”

He's out of bed, throwing a sweatshirt over his pajamas and heading for the door.

“Out for a walk.”

“I thought you were so goddamned tired.”

His reply is lost in the door's staccato slam.

She's left alone to cry into her pillow, shivering from the chill.

L
ong past one
A.M
., lamplight still spills from the first-floor windows at 48 Shorewood Lane.

He wonders whether Rose has fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television again, like she did last night. Or maybe she's awake, folding laundry, as she was when he peeked through the window late one night last week.

His boots make a squeaky, crunching sound in the snow as he crosses the small patch of side yard, boldly leaving footprints.

At first, he was so careful not to disturb anything, never to leave a sign that he's been lurking.

Yes, at first, he was content simply to win her trust by day, and watch her by night.

Not anymore.

By now, she must have received his first gift.

By now, she's puzzled . . . perhaps even wary.

He smiles, imagining what she'll think in the morning when she notices footprints around the house, so close to the spot where her husband died.

Will she think it's Sam's ghost, coming back to haunt her?

But ghosts don't leave footprints. Only human intruders do that.

Will she be frightened?

Will she realize how vulnerable she is, alone in the house with two small children?

In her perpetually distracted state, she may not notice the footprints at all. It will take something more conspicuous than the footprints, or the red paper heart, to get her attention.

All in due time . . .

He slips into the shadows alongside the house. Overgrown forsythia boughs and a wooden lattice laced with a tangle of bare wisteria vines screen him from the street, should anyone come by.

It isn't likely. At this time of night, all is quiet on Shorewood Lane in Laurel Bay. So different from the city—and in more ways than that.

In Manhattan, people pay little heed to newcomers. One can come and go without arousing undue attention.

Out here, it takes time to become integrated into the community, to become one of the locals. Time, and patience.

He's painstakingly laid the groundwork in Laurel Bay, same as before.

And now, at last, he's made his first move.

The rest will follow.

Standing on the tips of his toes, he is able to peer through the ground-level window into the house. Through a veil of ivory lace, he plainly sees her sitting on the couch, writing something.

When he first saw the sheer panels covering her windows, he was torn between amusement and anger.

Doesn't she realize how flimsy the curtains are? Doesn't she know that anyone can see her inside?

Perhaps that's what she wants.

Perhaps she knows he's here, watching her.

Perhaps she's merely pretending not to be aware of his presence, inwardly taunting him, daring him to reveal himself.

But he won't. Not yet. Not until it's time. And when it is, she'll be sorry. She'll beg for mercy, just like before.

And he'll laugh.

Just like before.

Just before he kills her . . .

Again.

Chapter Two

“W
ell, look at you!” Bill Michaels greets Rose from behind the register as she dashes through the door into Bayview Books the next morning at ten.

“Good morning, Bill.” She's already shrugging out of her camel-colored coat, shivering in the twenty-degree windchill. After flipping the
CLOSED
sign in the window to
OPEN
, she strides toward the back room, with Bill falling into step beside her.

“You
look
like a rose today, Ms. Rose.” His aquamarine eyes twinkle at her from behind trendy wire-rimmed glasses. “You should wear that color more often.”

Sam used to say that, too. He always urged her to wear pastels instead of her usual monochromatic wardrobe: black, brown, gray, navy. In fact, he's the one who bought her this soft raspberry-colored cashmere sweater the last Christmas they had together. It was an extravagant gift, but as he pointed out, it wasn't just Christmas time. It was the one-year anniversary of her new lease on life.

Before now, she wore it only once, the week he gave it to her. She felt conspicuous in it even then, and it lay forgotten on her closet shelf for more than a year. It was just as well. Her somber-toned wardrobe suited a grief-stricken widow.

But this morning, as she tied pink ribbons into Jenna's hair and buttoned Leo's red cardigan, they asked her if she was going to wear something special for Valentine's Day, too.

So here she is, in the sweater that brings back memories of that cozy Christmas morning with Sam.

“Is Luke here yet?” she asks Bill, hanging her purse and coat on a hook in the stockroom.

“He was, but he went across the street to get coffee.”

Good. That'll take awhile, especially if he lingers at Milligan's Cafe to chit-chat with the cluster of morning regulars.

Rose isn't in the mood to deal with her new boss just yet—not that he's technically
new
at this point. It's been a few months already since he bought the business from Netta Bradley. Sweet, elderly,
easygoing
Netta Bradley, who choose to run a bookstore because she had an affinity for literature and small-town folks. She'd no doubt have continued to manage Bayview Books until her dying day if she hadn't fallen from a stockroom ladder and broken both hips, which led to a series of surgeries and her reluctant retirement.

Enter Luke Pfleuger, a former Madison Avenue executive. According to Netta, after being laid off from a large Manhattan advertising agency, Luke successfully sued his employer for age discrimination. He used his settlement to purchase the bookstore and a seaside cottage in East Hampton.

Unlike Netta, Luke is a stickler for punctuality. Rose is supposed to be here fifteen minutes before the store opens.

This morning, she had to cram a day's worth of errands into the hour after she deposited the kids, along with dozens of cupcakes and valentines, at school and day care. Then it was on to the bank, the dry cleaner's, the post office, and the library with a stack of overdue books that racked up eleven dollars' worth of fines. At the pharmacy, she dropped off several orange plastic prescription bottles for expensive monthly refills. Even with insurance, her medication costs more than she can afford. But she has no choice. It keeps her alive.

“You have nasty dark circles under your eyes,” Bill notes, peering closely at her face. “Late night again?”

“Don't ask. I think I made it to bed by two
A.M
., and then Leo was up from three to four.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “He's just been restless lately. Maybe it's nightmares. He used to sleep like a rock. I should probably take him to the doctor and see what they say about it. I should probably do a lot of things, but—” She breaks off to cover an enormous yawn with her hand.

“Don't be hard on yourself, Rose. You're juggling a lot, raising two kids on your own.”

Yes, and he doesn't even know the whole story. There are some things she just isn't comfortable sharing with anyone—not even Bill, with whom she's forged a close friendship in the eight months they've been working together at the bookstore.

Aside from Leslie, her coworker has become her closest confidant these days. She had other friends before her illness, before Sam's death. There were mommies from Jenna's play group, women she'd met at Lamaze while pregnant with Leo, couples with whom she and Sam socialized occasionally.

They hovered around her worriedly for a few months when she was so sick, but Sam and his family took such good care of her she didn't need to lean on anyone else. Most of her old friends came around again to offer support when she was newly widowed, but by then, Rose was used to keeping her distance.

It's much simpler that way.

Now the only people she speaks to on a regular basis are Leslie and Bill.

Scott Hitchcock, too. But he was Sam's friend, never hers. He comes around to play with the kids and see if she has any leaky faucets that need checking. Sometimes they have coffee and chat, bound by shared grief and their separate memories of the man they both loved.

She knows Hitch misses Sam desperately. Leslie and his parents do, too. Hell, everybody does. Sometimes it seems that not a day goes by in Laurel Bay when she doesn't run into somebody who wants to reminisce about her husband.

But their lives have all gone on without him, while for Rose and the children, nothing will ever be the same.

Yes, their lives have resumed a comforting rhythm of daily rituals. But even on her brightest days, Rose is never quite able to shed the sensation that doom lurks like a serpent in the shadows, waiting to strike again when she least expects it.

L
eslie flips through the CDs in the Rock section, wishing she knew what her fiancé does and doesn't have. She knows Peter likes Dave Matthews, and the Barenaked Ladies. But does he already own all of their CDs?

She has no idea—and she knows what her brother would say about that.

Oh, shut up, Sam. The fact that I have no idea what's in Peter's CD collection has nothing to do with whether I know him well enough to marry him,
she silently retorts.

Leslie met Peter Lenhard when he took her yoga class back in October. He said his doctor recommended it for his chronic back pain. He made it through only one class, asked Leslie out on a date afterward, and they were engaged by Christmas. Unofficially, of course. They've gone ring-shopping a few times, and Peter says he's saving to buy her one.

They spend most of their time at her place. Peter rents a basement apartment in a private home in Mastic, and says that his elderly landlord warned him against having female guests on the premises, especially overnight ones. In Leslie's opinion, that was out of line, but Peter insists that the rent is so cheap he's willing to put up with Mrs. Callahan's restrictions.

You'd like him, Sam,
she tells her big brother now, as she flips through another stack of CDs.
He's a carpenter, like you were. And he takes care of me, like you did.

Giving up on the music store, Leslie wanders back out into the mall. It's quiet at this hour on a weekday morning, the cavernous corridors populated by the occasional stroller-pushing young mother and a smattering of senior citizens walking in groups.

Mom and Dad would fit right in with them, Leslie thinks, eyeing a passing cluster of silver-haired mall-walkers wearing jogging suits. Her parents are making a conscious effort to stay fit—or so they say. Leslie suspects that Dad hasn't really given up red meat, that her mother's water aerobic class is weekly rather than daily, and that neither of them has shed a pound, let alone fifteen each. If Sam were around, he'd get a kick out of their parents' exaggerated fitness claims.

Oh, Sam.

Leslie misses him desperately, even after thirteen months. There are some things only a sibling understands.

Now she's an only child. There's no longer somebody with whom she can exchange an amused or knowing glance at family gatherings—not that there have been many of those since the funeral.

Mom and Dad couldn't bring themselves to return to Long Island this past summer as they usually do. They said it would be too painful to be in Laurel Bay without Sam. Now they're even talking about selling the house.

Grief does funny things to people. You'd think Mom and Dad would want to be here as much as possible, to help their widowed daughter-in-law and fatherless grandchildren. That duty, however, now rests squarely on Leslie's slim shoulders. Not that she's complaining. She adores her niece and nephew, and Rose is the sister she never had.

Okay, so maybe she never really
longed
for a sister. Life was pretty cushy, growing up in Sam's sheltering shadow. They were an unlikely team, the four years between them bridged by a shared interest in sports and an irreverent sense of humor. Sam looked out for her from the day she was born. Mom liked to tell stories about Sam forcing her to walk several yards behind as he pushed his baby sister's stroller along Center Street, so that everyone would think he was “Wes-wee's Daddy.”

Now there's a gaping cavity in her life where her protective big brother used to be. Unaccustomed to this hollow vulnerability, Leslie knows it must be far more difficult for Rose, having survived a life-threatening illness and surgery only to find herself abandoned with two young children.

An only child, Rose lost her mother while she was still in college, shortly before she met Sam. Leslie met her sister-in-law's father only once, at their wedding. He was there with his second wife and Rose's three teenaged half sisters, all of them sun-kissed California blondes.

Leslie can recall just one occasion when Sam and Rose brought the kids to visit their maternal grandfather on the West Coast. And he's never returned to Long Island. Not even when Rose was so sick . . . or when Sam died.

Leslie can't help feeling that Rose needs somebody to look out for her. Somebody other than a shell-shocked sister-in-law who, in the wake of Sam's death, has been left feeling that the world is a perilous place.

Only lately, when she's with Peter, has Leslie felt remotely safeguarded. Her fiancé is quieter and more low-key than Sam, but carpentry isn't all the two men have in common. When Peter is around, Leslie is certain nothing bad can happen to her. And when he isn't with her, she finds herself increasingly fearful that something might happen to him.

More fallout from Sam's accident, she supposes. Life has seemed precarious ever since her stalwart big brother proved tragically mortal.

Realizing she's stopped walking and is staring into the window of a store filled with clothing suited for teenyboppers half her age, Leslie snaps out of it and checks her watch. Okay, she has exactly an hour and fifteen minutes before she has to meet one of her clients for a training session at the gym. She'd better get busy finding something for Peter.

She continues along the corridor, vetoing the bookstore—Peter doesn't read—as well as Brooks Brothers, the jeweler, the pet store . . .

Leslie finds herself backtracking a few steps, drawn to a little black puppy in the window. He's just sitting there with a big red bow around his neck, watching her with a wistful expression that clearly says
Please take me with you.

Leslie's apartment building has a strict no pets policy, and she's certain Peter's rigid landlady wouldn't welcome a puppy.

“Sorry, fella,” she tells the little puppy, pressing her hand against the glass. “I'd buy you if I could.”

He looks even more forlorn.

Leslie forces herself to keep walking—then stops short.

She can't buy the puppy for herself or Peter.

But she's just been struck by an idea so brilliant she can't believe she never thought of it before.

Smiling, she makes a beeline back to the pet store.

W
orking quickly, Rose and Bill unpack several new cartons of books and load them onto carts, with only two interruptions to ring up sales. At this time of year the shop is quiet, drawing familiar local bookworms and an occasional browsing stranger who's just passing through.

“Something tells me this is going to be another long, slow day.” Bill stacks several copies of Emeril Legasse's latest cookbook on the bottom shelf of the cart, then says, as Rose starts to lift a heavy stack of hardcovers. “Here, wait, I'll get that.”

“Thanks, Bill.” She wonders, as she often does, whether Netta told Bill about her surgery, or if he's simply the gallant type. He always seems to be hurrying to lift unwieldy boxes for her, as though he's concerned she might strain herself. Someday maybe she'll tell him about the illness that nearly ended her life—and the miraculous operation that saved it.

Maybe.

“A long, slow day is perfectly fine with me.” She yawns. “I'm too tired to deal with people.”

“Yeah, but time flies when we're busy. Remember what it was like when we first started working here?”

She nods. “We were lucky if we had time for a lunch break.”

“Right, and if we did have time, it took forever to get waited on at the cafe, even for takeout.”

While the town's year-round population is growing steadily, it's the hectic summer months that keep the small independent bookstore afloat. Laurel Bay lies squarely on the well-traveled route between New York City and the Hamptons. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, its streets are choked with traffic; its sidewalks invaded by upscale tourist types.

Sam resented the seasonal flood of strangers. He complained about the long lines at the drive-through ATM, about the litter, about the BMW convertibles arrogantly taking up two spaces in the supermarket parking lot.

Having grown up in a bustling Brooklyn neighborhood, Rose tends to take the summer commotion in stride. Sam's rants amused her, particularly since his carpentry business depended on a healthy local economy.