The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (102 page)

Someone was jogging behind me. I didn’t turn to look. The crispy crackle of the dead leaves pleased my ears, so I ran faster, faster, letting the wind take my loose hair just as I let the beauty of the day take my grief, remorse, shame and guilt and make them transparent shadows that didn’t hold up beneath the sun.

“Cathy, hold up!” called a man’s strong voice. “You run too fast!”

It was Bart Winslow, of course. As it had to be sooner or later. Fate couldn’t always outwit me, and my mother couldn’t always win. I threw a glance over my shoulder, smiling to see him panting as he ran in his stylish jogging costume of maple-sugar tan, trimmed with bands of orange and yellow knit at the cuffs, neck and waistband. Two vertical lines of yellow and orange ran down the sides of the loose pants. Just what a local runner should wear when on the prowl.

“Hello, Mr. Winslow,” I called back as I speeded up. “A man who can’t catch a woman
is no man at all!”

He took the challenge and put more speed into his long
legs and I really had to put out to keep ahead! I flew, my long hair bannering behind. Squirrels on the ground scrounging around for nuts had to scamper to get out of my way. I laughed with the power I felt, then threw out my arms and pirouetted, feeling I was on stage playing out the best role of my life. Then from nowhere a knobby tree root caught beneath the toe of my dirty sneaker and down I fell, flat on my face. Luckily, the dead leaves cushioned me.

In a flash I was up and running again, but my fall had given Bart the chance to draw nearer. Panting, gasping, clearly indicating he didn’t have nearly the stamina I had, despite the advantage of his longer legs, he cried out again, “Stop running, Cathy! Have mercy! This is killing me! There are other ways I can prove my manhood!”

I had no mercy! It was catch me if you can, or else I’d never be taken. I shouted this back to him and ran on, rejoicing in my powerful dancer’s legs, my supple, long muscles and all that ballet training had done to make me feel a blue streak of light.

No sooner did this self-conceit flash through my mind than my stupid knee suddenly gave way and down I went again, on my face in the dead leaves. And this time I was hurt, really hurt. Had I broken a bone? Sprained an ankle, torn a ligament—again?

In a few moments Bart was beside me, down on his knees, rolling me over so he could see my face before he asked with a great deal of concern, “Are you hurt? You look so pale—what’s paining?”

I wanted to say of course I was all right, for dancers knew how to fall, except when they didn’t know they were going to fall—and why was my knee aching so badly? I stared down at it, feeling betrayed by a knee that was always the one to foul me up and hurt me in more than one way. “It was my stupid knee. If I bump my elbow on the shower door, my right knee hurts. When I have a headache, my knee hurts along with it to keep it company. Once I had a tooth filled, and the dentist
was careless enough to let the drill slip and cut my gum, and my right knee shot right out and kicked him in the stomach.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious—don’t you have anything peculiar about your physical makeup?”

“Nothing I’m going to speak of.” He smiled and the devil made his dark eyes sparkle, then he assisted me to my feet and felt my knee as if he knew what he was doing. “Seems a good, functional knee to me.”

“How would you know?”

“My knees are functionally good, so I know one when I feel one—but if I could see the knee I could tell more.”

“Go home and look at your wife’s functional knee.”

“Why are you being so hateful to me?” He narrowed his eyes. “Here I was, delighted to see you again, and you act so antagonistic.”

“Pain always makes me antagonistic—are you any different?”

“I’m sweet and humble when I’m suffering, which isn’t often. You get more attention that way—and remember you threw down the challenge, not me.”

“You didn’t have to accept it. You could have gone along your merry way and let me go along mine.”

“Now we’re arguing,” he said, disappointed. “You want to fight when I want to be friendly. Be nice to me. Say you’re glad to see me. Tell me how much better looking I’ve grown since you saw me last, and how exciting you find me. Even if I don’t run like the wind I have my own bag of tricks.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“My wife is still in that beauty spa and I’ve been all by my lonesome for long, long months, bored to death by living with an old lady who can’t talk and can’t walk, but manages to scowl every time she sees me. One evening I was just sitting before the fire, wishing someone around here would commit murder so I’d have an interesting case for a change. It’s damn frustrating to be an attorney and be surrounded by nothing but happy, normal
people with no suppressed emotions to erupt suddenly.”

“Congratulations, Bart! Before you stands someone full of aggressive resentment and mean, hateful spite seeking revenge that will erupt—you can count on that!”

He thought I was joking, playing a cat and mouse, man and woman game, and willingly he rose to that challenge too, not at all suspicious of my real purpose. He looked me over good, stripping off my sapphire jogging suit with the sensual eyes of a man starving for what I could give. “Why did you come to live up here near me?”

I laughed. “Arrogant, aren’t you? I came to take over a dance school.”

“Sure you did. . . . There’s New York and your home town, wherever that is, and you come here—to enjoy the winter sports as well?” His eyes insinuated the kind of indoor winter sport he had in mind, if I didn’t.

“Yes, I do like all kinds of sports, inside and outside,” I said innocently.

Confidently he chuckled, assuming as all conceited men do that already he’d scored a point in the only intimate game a man really wanted to play with women.

“That old lady who can’t talk, does she get around at all?” I asked.

“A little. She’s my wife’s mother. She speaks but her words come out jumbled and unintelligible to anyone but my wife.”

“You leave her there all alone—is that safe?”

“She’s not alone. There’s a private duty nurse there with her all the time, and a staff of servants.” He frowned as if he didn’t like my questions, but I persisted. “Why stay there at all then, why not go and have fun while the cat’s away?”

“You do have a shrewish way about you. Though I’ve never cared much for my mother-in-law, as she is now I feel sorry for her. And human nature being what it is, I don’t trust servants to take proper care of her without a family member in the house to keep check on what’s done to keep her comfortable.
She’s helpless and can’t rise from a chair without assistance, or get out of bed unless she’s lifted out. So, until my wife is home again, I’m in charge to see that Mrs. Malcolm Foxworth is not abused or neglected or stolen from.”

An overwhelming curiosity came over me then. I wanted to know her first name, for I’d never heard it. “Do you call her Mrs. Foxworth?”

He hadn’t understood my interest in an old lady, and tried to turn the conversation elsewhere, but I persisted. “Olivia, that’s what I call her!” he said shortly. “When I was first married, I tried not to speak to her at all, to try to forget she existed. Now I use her first name; I think it pleases her, but I can’t be sure. Her face is of stone, fixed in one expression—icy.”

I could picture her, unmoving but for her flintstone eyes of gray. He’d told me enough. Now I could make my plans—just as soon as I found out one more small thing. “Your wife, when is she due back?”

“Why should you know?”

“I too get lonely, Bart. I have only my small son after Emma, his babysitter, goes home. So . . . I thought maybe some evening you might like to have dinner with us. . . .”

“I’ll come tonight,” he said immediately, his dark eyes aglow.

“Our schedule revolves around my son. We eat at five-thirty in the summer, but now that the days are shorter five is dinner time.”

“Great. Feed him at five and put him to bed. I’ll be there at seven-thirty for cocktails. After dinner we can get to know each other better.” He met my considering look with grave intensity, as a proper attorney should. Then, because of that look we held too long, simultaneously we both broke into laughter.

“And incidentally, Mr. Winslow, if you cut through the woods back of your place, you can reach mine and no one will see you unless, of course, you make a big show of yourself.”

He put his palm up and nodded, as if we were both conspiring. “Discretion is the password, Miss Dahl.”

E
xactly at seven-thirty the door chimes sounded, punched by an impatient finger, forcing me to hurry lest he waken Jory who hadn’t liked being put to bed at such an early hour.

If I had taken pains to look my best, so had Bart. He strode in as if he already owned the place and me. He left behind a drift of shaving lotion with a piney forest scent, and every hair on his head was carefully in place, making me wonder if he had a thinning spot—which I’d find out for myself sooner or later. I took his coat and hung it in the hall closet, then sashayed over to the bar where I busied myself as he sat down before the log fire I had burning (nothing had been overlooked; I even had soft music playing). By this time I knew enough about men and the ways of pleasing them best. There wasn’t a man alive who wasn’t charmed by a lovely woman bustling about, eager to wait on him, pamper and wine and dine him. “Name your weakness, Bart.”

“Scotch.”

“On the rocks?”

“Neat.”

He watched my every movement, which was deliberately graceful and deft. Then, turning my back I mixed a fruity drink for myself, lacing it lightly with vodka. And with my two little stemmed goblets on a silver tray, I seductively ambled his way, leaning to give him an enticing view of my braless bosom. I sat across from him and swung one leg over the other to allow the long slit of my rose-colored dress to open and expose one leg from silver sandal midway to the hip. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Sorry about the glasses,” I said smoothly, well pleased with his expression, “I don’t have room in this cottage to unpack everything I own. Most of my crystal is in storage and I have here only wine glasses and water goblets.”

“Scotch is scotch no matter how it’s served. And what in the world is that thing you’re sipping?” By this time he’d shifted his gaze to the low V of my gown.

“Well, you take orange juice freshly squeezed, a dab of lemon juice too, a dash of vodka, bit of coconut oil, and drop in a cherry to dive after. I call it A Maiden’s Delight.”

After a few minutes of conversation, we drifted to the dining table, not so far from the fireplace, to eat by candlelight. Every so often he’d drop his fork, or spoon, or I would, and both of us would go for it, then laugh to see who was fastest. I was, every time. He was much too distracted to spot a missing fork or spoon when a neckline opened up so obligingly.

“This is delicious chicken,” he said after demolishing five hours of hard labor in about ten minutes. “Usually I don’t like chicken—where’d you learn to prepare this dish?”

I told him the truth. “A Russian dancer taught me, she was on tour over here, and we liked each other. She and her husband stayed with Julian and me, and we’d cook together whenever we weren’t dancing or shopping or touring. It took four chickens to feed four people. Now you know the nasty truth about dancers; when it comes to eating we are not in the least dainty. That is, after a performance. Before we go on we have to eat very lightly.”

He smiled and leaned across the small drop-leaf table.
Candlelight was in his eyes, sparkling them devilishly. “Cathy, tell me honestly why you came to live in this hick town and why you’ve got your heart set on me for a lover.”

“You flatter yourself,” I said in my most aloof manner, thinking I was very successful in appearing cool on the outside while inside I was a web of conflicting emotions. It was almost as if I had stage fright and was in the wings waiting to go on. And this was the most important performance of my life.

Then almost magically I felt I
was
on stage. I didn’t have to think of how to act or what to say to charm him and make him forever mine. The script had been written a long time ago when I was fifteen and locked away upstairs.
Yes, Momma, it’s first act time.
Expertly written by someone who knew him well from all the answers to her many questions. How could I fail?

After dinner I challenged Bart to a game of chess, and he accepted. I hurried to bring out the chessboard as soon as the table was cleared and the dishes were stacked in the sink. We began to set up the two armies of medieval warriors. “Exactly what I came for,” he said, darting me a hard look, “to play chess! I showered, shaved and put on my best suit—so I could play chess!” Then he smiled, devastatingly winsome. “If I win—what reward?”

“A second game.”

“When I win the second game—what reward?”

“If you win two games, then comes the playoff. And don’t sit there and grin at me so smugly. I was taught this game by a master.” Chris, of course.

“
After I
win the playoff—what reward?” he insisted. “You can go home and fall asleep very satisfied with yourself.”