Page 39 of Robin and Marian
Robin sighed and leaned against a conveyer belt. “Little John is very thorough. No one is breaking in… or in our case, out.”
Marian came to sit next to him. There had to be a place to hide, at least. The loft? She saw the pallets where John stored his equipment up in the rafters. It was just a short climb, and might get them out of the way of a search party. “Let’s hide up there.”
He judged the cramped space with his eyes and cracked a smile. “How big do you think I am?”
“C’mon.” She grabbed his hand, liking the feel of the rough calluses against her palms. He must like touching her, too, because he let her lead him without complaint. Soon they were sitting comfortably in the little makeshift alcove above made up of storage and pallets. “See?” she said. “It’s not so bad.” Facing a dirty window, they had a good view of the street below. Most of the businesses were boarded up, and the roads were empty except the trash blowing around.
A loud engine growled below them as John’s big Chevy truck pulled into the gravel driveway. Multicolored streamers escaped from the bed of the truck under a canvas tarp.
“I think I found the Maypole,” she said.
Little John’s friends pulled from the cab. Robin lurched forward to knock on the window to get their attention. They might as well have been behind a wall of cement for all the good it did them. The men disappeared inside John’s homey little cabin, where they’d find him entertaining the sheriff.
Robin groaned and shoved back into their hiding spot. “What is Guy doing to this town?” he grumbled. “Look at Main Street. It’s dying. I had dreams for this place.”
She let that sink in. After what Robin had done, how could he pretend to care? And yet, he was furious. She studied his drawn brows and lowered chin. The Thinker had been sculpted after such a despondent model. He picked up a discarded coin on the pallet and chucked it two stories to the floor of the sawmill. It felt like what he’d done to his life.
“I don’t get you,” she said in the impending silence. “Why did you cheat this town, then?”
His eyes flicked to hers, and then looking back down, his jaw tightened. “I thought I could save everyone. Maybe I could make the numbers catch up if I worked hard enough.”
And then he just got in over his head? “But…” if he cared so much, then why drag others into it? “You let Alan convince Aunt Elinor to buy stock after they dropped, after you warned her not to sell her place for a steal to Jana Prinz—that affected your bottom line. Why would you protect her and then swindle her later?”
His lips twisted.
That must mean he didn’t want to talk about it, but Marian wasn’t going to let him off that easily. If he insisted on pulling her into his life, she deserved to have answers. “A big chunk of that money from investors was never recovered—a pretty big amount actually.”
Robin’s eyes got hard, but once again he had nothing to say for himself. Marian would have been angry, except there were so many holes, and she found herself examining them like she would when writing an investigative piece. “You don’t have that money now,” she realized aloud. “No, you have nothing to your name besides that ridiculous Porsche Richard bought you. And you hired the auditors who caught the embezzlement—you gave them the information that would incriminate you.”
He cleared his throat. “Marian.”
She rushed on. “If you cared so much about money, then why did you dump Jana Prinz before she could make her deal with you?” He shook his head at her, but there was no stopping her once the questions came rushing into her mind like a dense cloud of arrows. She gasped as she worked out the truth. “You didn’t even do it, did you?”
His stricken eyes revealed everything. She gasped as the cruelty hit her—everything that had happened, everything that he’d gone through. At no point had anyone considered that he’d been innocent. “You didn’t do it!” she whispered.
“Marian, please.”
“Why’d you do time for something you didn’t do? Your family can’t even look at you!”
“It was my choice!” he cried.
So it was true! And he’d just admitted it. His lips firmed, and regret flashed across his face as if he’d take the words back if he could. “Who did it?” she asked. But she knew the moment her mouth formed the question, or he’d never have put himself through this. “You’re covering for Scarlett.”
“I served my time and there’s no reason for anyone else to get involved.”
It was true. Tears pricked her eyes at the sacrifice. This was like when they were kids—he’d always protected Scarlett. It was why he had won her heart as a child, but this had real consequences. “But your reputation? You’ll never be able to go into business again! Your family’s gone against you! Even Scarlett wouldn’t see you in prison. Why’d she do that?”
“I don’t know. She feels guilty.” He turned from her with a forced laugh as if trying to cover up the pain of what he’d gone through. Resting his head in his hand, he tilted his head at her. “You ever go to anyone with that, I’ll deny it all.”
“And if I can prove it?”
“Marian, don’t...” He dropped his hand and took hers, begging her. “Don’t make it all for nothing. Scarlett couldn’t handle it in prison. You can’t tell anyone, not Guy, not your aunt or anyone in this town, and especially not theNew England chronicle. Guy owns half of their stock. I don’t trust them and no...”
She kissed him, stopping his words, the enormity of what he’d done taking away any question of whether this was right or wrong. Marian wasn’t thinking anymore—she was trying to reach through the years of suffering to get to this man who’d been hiding from her.
He’d jerked back as her lips touched his. It had been her turn to take him by surprise, but it didn’t take him long to catch up, and she felt the essence of him behind his lips as he returned her kiss. She’d been so confused, but now everything in her told her that the man she wanted was here with her. She’d fought her feelings for him, and for what? He’d never been that outlaw. There was no reason that they couldn’t be together. She pulled away from him, her hand not leaving his neck. “I would never go to the paper,” she said.
Her breath hitched at the relief she saw sag through his shoulders—and it struck her that the desperate look of hope that he fixed on her stemmed from more than her promise not to betray him; he’d found someone to confide in through his sea of loneliness, and like a drowning man, he reached out for her, hungry for her touch, for someone—anyone—to know who he was. His arms went around her and he just held her.
