Page 19 of Dangerous December
With a sigh, Beth glanced at her watch as she headed for her own car.
As a brush-off, it had been tactfully delivered. Twice, in fact.
And in truth, she’d buried her pride to offer help, but greater proximity between them was not for the best.
Still, she felt a twinge of disappointment. It was only human nature to want to be helpful, even to a stranger.
Especially if that person was injured or hurting in some way. And though he didn’t mention it, that shoulder had to give him considerable pain. But...so be it.
The bookstore was open from one to five on Sundays during tourist season, though it would close in an hour, and Janet could handle that.
Maura was probably pacing Beth’s upstairs apartment, eager to go out together so they could visit some of her old haunts with whatever daylight was left. Keeping busy would be infinitely better than staying at home, where Mom might start back on the topic of Devlin Sloane once again.
As Beth climbed behind the wheel of her car, she closed her eyes for a moment.God, these next monthsaren’t going to be easy. Please help Dev and me get along, so we can do our best to help those people. And if You would, please soften my mother’s heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I handled that meetingsowell,Dev growled to himself as he drove through town the next morning. He’d thrown common courtesy out the window, with someone who’d only wanted to help.
Your ex-wife,a small inner voice reminded him.The one you treated so badly a year ago.
He cruised slowly past the bookstore. He debated about stopping to apologize...then remembered that Beth’s mother was probably inside, her claws bared.
Why the woman bore such a serious grudge after all this time wasn’t hard to fathom, but she certainly didn’t try to hide her feelings. Where was her Christian sense of forgiveness? His parents had certainly held that concept dear, at least on the surface.
Then again, maybe it was just as well that Beth had her guardian mama around.
He didn’t have any plans to stay in Agate Creek. Even if he did, he had no business thinking about her, and surely he was the last man on earth she’d ever want to spend time with, anyhow.
He’d seen the stark pain and shock in her eyes when he walked out on their marriage. Her frustration when he’d refused to listen to her attempts at salvaging their relationship.
War had changed him in more ways than she could ever know, with her genteel life of books and friends and pleasant customers.
And whether she believed it or not, he’d done her a favor by leaving her behind.
Dev pitched another shovelful of debris into a refuse barrel. Renewed pain lanced through his shoulder, forcing him to lean on the shovel and take long, slow breaths.
The town he’d been born in now felt as foreign as some distant planet, where the inhabitants expected security and happiness, where their day-to-day lives centered on inconsequential issues, and where they fully expected to be alive and whole twenty-four hours from now.
That false sense of safety was as incomprehensible to him as the culture of streaming television services and interactive games that had swept this quiet part of the world during his absence.
But hewouldsucceed in meeting the stipulations of the will. Murdock would be out of luck.
And then...well, Beth would own her building and be safe from greedy developers like Stan. The rest of the buildings could be sold to people who wouldpreservethe historical flavor of the area. End of story.
Yesterday, Dev had headed straight to the Walker Building after the meeting with Beth, just to lose himself in the mindless, backbreaking process of clearing out the interior, and today he’d come back for the same reason. It wouldn’t hurt to start cleaning it out at any rate, so he could leave town faster when his six-month sentence was up.
An excellent plan...except this morning, it had taken two ibuprofen and a couple strong cups of coffee to get himself moving.
Still, hard physical labor was better than dwelling on the past...and every street corner, every gracious old mansion and quaint storefront of Agate Creek seemed to trigger memories he’d tried to forget.
That first date at the ice-cream parlor with Beth, the spring of his senior year in high school, when he’d just turned eighteenand she’d been a shy, sweet junior—prettiest girl in the entire school.
The old mom-and-pop-run theater, now boarded up, where he’d first held her hand and eventually found the courage to ease his arm around her slender shoulders.
The endless walks they’d taken along the quiet streets of this small, historic town, with canopies of elm and oak overhead and the fragrance of flower beds drifting from manicured yards...streets that now reminded him of the hopes and dreams he and Beth had once shared.
Dreams of a perfect life, a perfect home, and two or three perfect children.
