Threading the Needle (17 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: Threading the Needle
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“We should take the day off and celebrate,” he said. “Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?”
“I don't know.”
“No? Well, in that case, I've got an idea.”
He turned the car around and drove north, to a little inn just over the New York state line, where the rooms had low, rough-beamed ceilings, tiny, mullioned windows, fireplaces, and wide white beds with fine-loomed sheets that felt like silk on my bare back, the room where I learned that, unlike boys, men cannot be put off by teases and temptations and promises of everything but.
Woolley had rescued me, plucked me up from the side of the road, defended me, carried me far away to a beautiful place. His voice was sweet in my ear and his hands were soft on my body. There was no hesitancy, no uncertainty in his touch. He knew what he was doing and he knew what he wanted—everything.
By the time he slipped off my skirt, picked me up in his arms, carried me across the room, and laid me down on that wide white bed, that's what I wanted as well.
Everything.
I loved him, the way only a very young girl who has never loved before can. I believe he loved me, too, a little, but not enough. Not enough to give Abigail up for me.
Woolley didn't love anybody the way he loved Abigail. He was obsessed with her—the way only a man who is used to getting everything he wants can be when presented with the one thing he can't have.
I loved Woolley and he loved me, but not enough. Woolley loved Abigail and she loved him not at all. And Sterling? Sterling loved no one, not ever.
Life is so ridiculous. And so very, very lonely.
 
For four years, until Abigail told him that either I had to go or she would, Woolley took care of me and helped me forget my loneliness. And just like that, it was over. He put me on the train to New York with a check in my wallet, a kiss on my cheek, and a job offer from Sterling Baron that we both knew would involve very little typing.
“You'll be happier with someone nearer your own age. And Sterling is utterly infatuated with you.”
“He barely knows me,” I argued. “He only saw me that one time in New York.”
“And spent the rest of the night staring at you from across the room, like a cat watching a canary. He couldn't take his eyes off you all night. When I called, it didn't take him two seconds to say you could come work for him.”
“We haven't exchanged ten words.”
Woolley blinked, clearly confounded by my observation. “What difference does that make? Listen to me, Madelyn. In a few years Sterling Baron will be one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. A man like that needs a woman who'll do him credit. Play your cards right and you'll be that woman.”
“But I don't love Sterling Baron! I don't even know him. I love you, Woolley. I want
you
. How can you pass me off as if I were an outgrown sweater? I love you.”
Woolley's laughing eyes became hard. He didn't return my endearment or try to defend himself. That wasn't his style. Woolley never lied to me. Sometimes I wished he would.
“Madelyn, you can get on that train, go to New York, be nice to Sterling, and live in the style you've become accustomed to, or try to make a go of it somewhere else on your own. Accept my help or don't; it's up to you. But what you
can't
do is stay here. We've had a good time, but I'm not going to lose Abigail over a good time.”
“Abigail doesn't love you,” I spat.
“We don't get to pick who we love, Madelyn. Nor who loves us. Sterling Baron might not be your idea of Prince Charming, but he's rich and he's going to be even richer. And he wants you. You're a lucky girl,” he said with a thin smile. “So, no more tears. Say good-bye and get on the train. In a year or two, you'll be set for life. Well set. And you'll be glad you listened to me. No matter what they taught you in school, money can buy happiness, Madelyn. It can even heal a broken heart.”
I was wrong. Woolley lied to me after all.
 
I lifted my head from the cradle of my arms and wiped away the tears with the back of my hand before going to the sink to splash cold water on my face. That's when I remembered that I'd left the bag with the quilts in the coffee shop. Damn!
Well, I hoped whoever found them put them to good use, because I wasn't going back to retrieve them, not today. I wasn't going anywhere today. Tomorrow was a different story. Ghosts or no ghosts, come the dawn, I had to get up, go out, and go on.
To paraphrase an old love, I had a choice: I could go to the left or I could go to the right, but what I couldn't do was stand still.
24
Tessa
November
 
I
shouldn't have told him
.
I just should have lied.
We've always had a joint checking account. Lee used to leave the job of balancing it to me. Now he calls the automated teller line every night to see which checks have cleared. And he questions me on every purchase.
“Madelyn Baron? You spent sixty-seven dollars on fabric to make a quilt for Madelyn
Baron?
”
“When I knew her, she was Madelyn Beecher. And she was my friend.”
He choked out a laugh that was really an accusation. “First of all, no, she wasn't. You stopped speaking to her when you were twelve years old.”
“And that was a mistake.”
“And second, I don't care if she's your long-lost twin! We're broke, Tessa! Do you get that? I'm going to have to let the health insurance lapse so we can pay the mortgage this month!”
This announcement pulled me up short. I didn't know. He hadn't told me. That made me angrier, but in a different way. Why hadn't he told me?
Leave it
.
One argument at a time.
“I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry? Do you have
any
appreciation for the kind of trouble we're in here? We're one heart attack away from bankruptcy!”
“Which you're going to give yourself if you don't stop shouting at me!”
I'm not a screamer. I never have been. Neither is Lee. What's happening to us?
“Lee, I'm sorry. What else do you want me to say? It's done.”
“I want you to start acting like an adult!”
“How about if you start treating me like one? You're not my father, Lee. Quit treating me like a kid who's overspent her allowance. I'm working my behind off, trying to make a go of the shop—”
“And I'm not, I suppose? I'm just sitting at home playing gentleman farmer?”
“Do you really want to do this? Do you just
have
to fight?”
I laid my hand flat over my eyes, breathing deeply for a moment, listening to the drum of my own heart, willing it to slow before lowering my hand and looking at my husband.
“That's not what I meant and you know it,” I said in a deliberately even tone. “We're both working, doing everything we know how to do to get through this. And we will. It'll get better. We've just had a run of bad luck, that's all.”
Lee's face colored red and his eyes turned black, hard and bitter as coal. “Bad luck. Is that what you call this?” he shouted. “Bad luck? Bad luck is something that happens that can't be helped. This could have been helped. It didn't have to be like this, Tessa. And I don't just mean for us!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about the bubbles and the bankruptcies, the foreclosures and the bank failures, the layoffs and the bailouts, and the fact that every day, just when you think it can't get any worse, you wake up and find out that it is! I'm talking about the Madoffs and the Barons and all the people like them. The ones who started all this, the ones who don't make anything, or do anything, or add anything to this world but somehow think that their fair share of the pie is one hundred percent!
“So you'll have to excuse me if I go a little crazy when I see that you're spending your time and our money to make presents for your old friend Madelyn Baron. But I think she's already taken enough from us, Tessa! And I can't figure out how to pay the insurance!”
He slammed his hand so hard against the table a pen jumped and dropped onto the floor. His anger still unspent, he took aim at it with his big boot and kicked it so hard that it sailed through the air to the other side of the room and bounced off the wall.
“I know it's not fair, Lee. Not to anybody. But you can't take this out on Madelyn. She was just married to him, that's all. You can't hold her responsible for the decisions he made. It's not her fault that we're struggling.”
He let out a noise that would have been a laugh except there wasn't a drop of humor in it.
“Oh, I know that. Believe me, I get it. It's my fault. I should have seen this coming. I should have known better! That's what you're thinking. Why not say it?”
“Stop it. Nobody is blaming you for anything.”
He wouldn't look at me. I moved toward him, tried to touch him, but he jerked his shoulder back quickly, as if trying to dodge a blow.
“Why not?” he asked as he strode toward the back door. “I sure as hell blame myself.”
 
I don't know what time Lee came to bed. I considered following him out to the barn but then thought better of it, figuring he needed some time alone.
The next day, Sunday, I woke up while it was still dark. I rolled over on my side to see Lee sitting on the side of the bed, getting dressed. His shoulder muscles flexed and rolled under his bare skin and he reached down to pick up his discarded jeans from the floor.
I stretched out my arm and ran my hand down Lee's back, fingers bumping sleepily along the ridge of his spine.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He stood up and started to put on the flannel shirt he'd left hanging on the bedpost the night before.
“What time is it?”
“Almost five.”
“You want breakfast?”
“Later. I'm going to make coffee.” He turned around, looked me in the eye, letting his gaze linger. An acknowledgment. An apology. “Can I bring you a cup?”
I smiled sleepily, relishing the normalcy of a new morning. He sounded like himself again. “That would be nice.”
I grabbed Lee's abandoned pillow, added it to mine, and wedged both under my head and shoulders to prop myself up. I blinked a couple of times, easing myself into wakefulness. “I'm going to church later. Do you want to come?”
“Can't. I've got to feed the animals.”
“I know,” I said through a yawn, “but that won't take more than an hour. I can mix up some pancakes while you're in the barn. We could have breakfast together and drive into town for the ten o'clock service.”
He tucked his shirt into his jeans. “Why? So you can pray we win the lottery?”
I pushed myself higher up on the pillows. “That's not why I go.”
“Well, that'd be why I was going. And somehow,” he said, bending over to lace up his work boots, “I think God would see right through that. I never asked God for help when things were going good for me. Don't you think it'd be hypocritical asking him for help now that things aren't?”
“But I don't go to church just to pray for things,” I said. “When I'm there I feel better, like everything is going to work out somehow.”
Lee frowned. “Well, of course it is. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to keep us afloat. I've never let you down before, have I?”
“That's not what I meant, honey. I was just—”
“We're going to be fine,” he interrupted. “You'll see. If God wants to help, good. Let him. But I'm not going to sit around waiting for him to do it. I got us into this mess. I'll get us out. ‘Fear God and take your own part.' That's in the Bible somewhere, isn't it?”
I pushed back the covers and perched myself on the edge of the bed. “I think that was one of the presidents, a Roosevelt. Teddy or Franklin. I'm not sure which.”
“Well. My dad always said it, and it always worked for him.”
Lee cleared his throat and sat down next to me on the bed. “Tessa? Listen. About last night. I'm sorry. I just . . .”
I leaned to the left, bumping his shoulder with mine. “It's okay. You're just tired and stressed. We both are. It's fine. You know what else is fine?” I asked, running my hand slowly down his muscled thigh and letting a slow smile spread across my face.
Lee raised his eyebrows, questioning. I leaned toward him, kissed him long and slow on the mouth. He wrapped his arms around me, returning the favor. My palm moved up his back, stroking the ridges of his shoulder blades, then down his side along his rib cage and lower, feeling that familiar thrill I had missed so much. Lee groaned and pushed me gently backward onto the bed, moving with me, shifting his body to cover mine.
A rooster crowed.
Lee made a groan of an entirely different sort and lifted himself up, resting his weight on his elbows. “Darren's awake. Which means the hens are up too.”
“Let 'em wait,” I said, trying to pull him back down.
“If I don't get out there, Darren will just get the girls all worked up over nothing.”
“Better them than me. Come on. Stay here. Ten minutes. Five.”
Lee grinned as he got to his feet and tucked in his shirttail. “Can't. Besides, you deserve more than five minutes, way more.”
“How about five minutes now and more minutes later?”
He laughed. “I'm flattered by your optimism.” He kissed me on top of the head. “Tonight. I promise.”
I sighed petulantly. “Fine. But do you know how long it's been? I'll tell you how long. You know the guy who runs the produce section of the market? The one with the paunch and the bald spot? He was starting to look good to me.”
Lee grinned. “Tonight. It'll be worth the wait, I promise.”
“I'm holding you to that.” I sat up and reached for my bathrobe. “Do you want pancakes or scrambled eggs for breakfast?”
“Both. Need to keep up my strength to keep up with you.” He gave me another quick peck and walked away, pausing at the bedroom door. “Hey. If you think about it, when you're in church today, say a prayer for me, will you?”
I smiled and cinched the belt on my robe.
You can count on it.

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