Читать книгу A Sister Would Know - C.J. Carmichael - Страница 12

“YOU KNOW RAMSEY was in the middle of renovating our basement, don’t you?” Denise asked.

She’d stopped crying at last. Now she was sitting in Grant’s living room, holding the cup of tea he’d made her out of desperation. He hadn’t known where else to take her. She hadn’t wanted to go home, couldn’t face a restaurant. So he’d brought her here.

Grant was prepared for a lot of emergencies. He’d led many a search-and-rescue operation, could provide basic first aid better than many doctors and had even survived a couple of unexpected encounters with grizzly bears.

But what to do with a crying woman? That wasn’t one of his fortes.

Now he sat on the very edge of his reclining chair and thought about the question Denise asked. Of course he’d known Ramsey was finishing the basement of the house he shared with Denise and their two children, Colin and Chrissy. He’d helped Ramsey haul in a load of drywall two weekends ago.

“What am I going to do, Grant? I’ve got a half-finished basement I can’t afford to hire someone to complete, mortgage payments due every month and two children who adored their father and can’t understand why he was out skiing with a woman when he told us he was going to be working on a special assignment.”

The pain in Denise’s eyes was too naked to look at. Grant cleared his throat and glanced instead at the cup in his hand. He thought about the issues she’d raised, and picked the easiest to deal with.

“Don’t worry about money. There’ll be insurance.” Ramsey was the type to have arranged provisions for his family. Which only made his death that much more of a puzzle. What was he doing out on that mountain with Helen Fremont? Had the man totally lost his mind?

To Grant, it was incomprehensible. Especially considering the flak Ramsey had always given him about getting a wife, having some kids. Apparently, family life wasn’t as idyllic as Ramsey had made it out to be.

“I can’t believe he took her there, to the Asulkan Hut.” Denise’s mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s where we went the day he asked me to marry him. It was his special place, our special place. Whenever he had an important decision…”

She choked back a sob, took a stabilizing breath. “Did you know, Grant? That he was seeing that woman?”

He was relieved that he could honestly shake his head no. “I didn’t have a clue.”

No one had been more surprised than him to find out Helen Fremont had accompanied Ramsey to that mountain retreat. The two of them had obviously spent Saturday night together. And the ramifications were now tearing Denise apart.

Grant, too, felt betrayed. Ramsay had lied to him, as well as to Denise, concealing a relationship that went against every principle the young doctor had presumably believed in.

“Who’s going to take Colin to his hockey games now?” Denise asked, more tears pooling in her eyes. “My car needs an oil change—Ramsey was supposed to do that last weekend….”

Grant’s impulse was to tell her he would do all these chores. He’d finish the basement; he’d drive Colin to his games; he’d service the cars and do whatever else had to be done. After all, he’d been Ramsey’s closest friend. Ramsey would expect him to help his family. And Grant would be happy to do so.

But something told him Denise was looking for more than a handyman to help pick up the pieces. She needed emotional support, a confidant. He wasn’t so sure he could fit that role. Watching her cry now was so hard. He just didn’t know what to say.

“Is your tea sweet enough? Can I get you anything to eat?” In the freezer he had some miniature pizzas he could heat in the microwave.

“The tea is fine. I’m not hungry.” Denise leaned closer toward him, setting her cup down on the plank table between them.

“You’ve been such a good friend, Grant. I really appreciate having your shoulder to cry on. I can’t talk to the kids, obviously, and my parents are too old for me to burden with my heartache. I told them Ramsey was skiing with someone from work. Fortunately, they haven’t heard any of the gossip that must be circulating around town.”

While Grant had cautioned the initial rescue party to keep details of the situation private, he had to agree that there would be talk anyway. It was unavoidable in a town the size of Revelstoke.

“Seeing her sister this afternoon at the center—for a moment I thought it was Helen. That she’d somehow survived.”

“I know. I had the same reaction when she came into the office yesterday.” The resemblance was uncanny. And yet, already he’d stopped seeing Helen when he looked at Amalie. There was a difference, in the way she carried herself, the way she spoke….

Much as he’d been predisposed to dislike the woman, it was impossible. She had a certain dignity that made him feel guilty whenever he said something particularly harsh about her sister. Still, she claimed she wanted the truth about Helen, so he wasn’t about to sugarcoat the facts.

“You’ve told her it’s too dangerous to recover the b-bodies?”

“I have.”

“Then she’ll be leaving soon?”

The look in Denise’s eyes was almost pleading. Grant wished he could reassure her. “I can’t say. My impression is she plans to stay until we can go in there.”

“But that could be weeks, even months!”

Grant shrugged. He realized that. But what could he do?

Denise’s gaze slid off to the side, her mouth set in a bitter line.

“I’m sorry for all you’re going through, Denise. You and the kids meant the world to Ramsey. I know you did. Helen…” Grant cast his eyes about the room, searching for words that never came easily in the best of circumstances.

“She was nothing, compared with you and the kids,” he said finally. “Ramsey would have straightened out. I’m sure he would’ve.”

“For me right now, that’s the hardest part. Not knowing if Ramsey really did love me. How am I supposed to mourn a man who was cheating on me, Grant? Can you tell me that?”

He shook his head. No, he couldn’t tell her that.

Denise was crying again, behind cover of her hands. Feeling awkward, Grant moved closer and stroked her shoulder. Before he knew it, her face was tucked against his chest, her arms were clutching him desperately. The sobs came out so harshly now he was afraid she might get sick.

“Shh, shh…” God, he felt so helpless.

“You would never do something like that to a woman, would you, Grant?”

Denise’s breath was hot and moist against his ear, and Grant felt a sweat of his own break out on his brow.

“I could change your oil for you, Denise. I have time right now, if you like.”

She stilled in his arms. After about a minute, she lifted her head and examined his face.

He felt too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “And why don’t I come round and case out your basement. There’s probably not as much work left as you think.”

Denise brushed the hair at the side of his head with her hand. “You’re a very good-looking man, Grant. I’ve always thought that about you.”

“Thanks. So are you. A beautiful woman, I mean.” It seemed like the right thing to say, although Grant had never viewed Denise in that way and really had no opinion on the matter. She was the wife of a good friend. That had been enough.

“Why don’t I get you home now, before your parents start to worry.” Then he remembered her vehicle was still at the information center. “I’ll get one of the guys to help me bring your Jeep back after I change the oil.”

Somehow, he’d eased them both into a standing position. Now he bent to retrieve the cups from the table and carried them to the dishwasher. When he came back, she had her coat on and was picking up her purse.

That was good. He started to whistle, then stopped when his lips were too stiff to cooperate. Swallowing quickly, he pulled his truck keys out of his coat pocket and then opened the door for her. On the way out, she managed a weak smile.

He felt an instant tug of sympathy. For all she had lost, for all she had left to face. And his anger toward Helen Fremont flared higher. They would have all been so much better off if she’d never moved to town.

And he’d never met her sister, Amalie. From the moment he’d found out she intended to come to Rogers Pass, Grant had expected Amalie to be a thorn in his side. Pressuring him to mount a recovery mission before the mountain had stabilized; reminding him, by her very presence, of the woman who’d caused all this trouble in the first place.

Instead, he found himself sympathizing for her position. And undeniably attracted. Reactions he couldn’t justify to himself, let alone Denise. He knew his loyalties had to lie with the people of this town. Yet he also knew that before too long, he would find another excuse to see her again.

“I DO FEEL BAD for Denise,” Amalie said. She dropped her spoon in the mug of hot chocolate and looked cautiously at Grant, who was sitting in the opposite kitchen chair.

He’d dropped in late, after Davin was already in bed. Ostensibly here to apologize for Denise Carter’s behavior at the information center yesterday, he’d done nothing but justify it.

“I know you don’t agree,” Amalie continued, “but it isn’t fair for everyone to place all the blame on Helena. After all—” she lifted her spoon to emphasize the point “—he was the married one.”

Grant didn’t appear convinced. “He was such a steady guy. A real family man. He wouldn’t have strayed unless he was sorely tempted.”

“Davin was devastated. Denise said some pretty ugly things.” That was the part she just couldn’t forgive. She understood the other woman’s anger. But in front of a child…

“There may be other ugly scenes to come. You know, you could always leave and he wouldn’t have to face them.”

Amalie was reminded of what Grant had said to her the other night in the hallway. How Helena’s affair with Ramsey had been one of the reasons he hadn’t liked her.

“Are you warning me off?”

“Not exactly,” he said. Then changed his mind. “Hell, yes. I’m warning you off. As I tried to explain on the phone, there’s nothing you can do here. Your sister’s dead and that’s not going to change…whether we pull out the bodies tomorrow, next week or after spring thaw!”

“Spring thaw?” Amalie thought of her financial situation and shuddered. “Could it really take that long?”

“It might.” He slanted her an appraising look. “Are you prepared to wait it out? And what about Davin? Besides missing school, he’s going to have to face what the townspeople will say about your sister. And I’m warning you, a lot of it won’t be pretty.”

Amalie refused to listen. Grant was biased against Helena. Absentmindedly, she stirred the cocoa again, melancholy slowing her motions. She and her sister hadn’t been close in years, but it was so hard to think that she was gone now. Forever.

“Well, I can see I won’t change your mind.” Grant sounded disappointed.

“That’s what you really came here for, isn’t it?” Not to apologize but to ask her to leave. And she’d thought he’d been worried about her and Davin. Which had been foolish of her. His allegiance would remain with the people from this town. People like Denise Carter.

“Your leaving would help smooth things over.”

For Denise, it would. And maybe, in the short term, for her and Davin, too. But in the long run, the questions would surely drive them crazy. They’d never know how Helena had ended up in Rogers Pass, why she appeared to have been hooked on drugs and alcohol, how she’d come to the point where she’d been having an affair with a married man. There had to be explanations for these things; people didn’t just change for no reason.

“I owe it to Davin to find out the truth about his mother. About her life, as well as her death.”

“Why? He seems more interested in my work than in what happened to Helen. He didn’t even know her, right?”

Amalie bristled under the implied criticism. “They corresponded. Occasionally,” she had to confess.

“Corresponded?” Grant’s eyebrows rose in dark, arched lines. “Did she ever visit him?”

No, she never had. Not once in eleven years. It wasn’t something Amalie herself understood, but then, they’d never gone searching for Helena, either.

“Grant, she was his mother and my sister. We can’t just shrug and return to Toronto as if she never mattered.”

He understood. She saw the flash of sympathy in his eyes in the second before he turned away from her. In that instant she realized he wasn’t cold and unfeeling but a man torn by conflicting loyalties. Which made it easier for her to disregard his next statement.

“It isn’t going to be pleasant for you. You’re not going to like some of the things you find out.”

Amalie didn’t see how the situation could get much worse. “We’ll deal with that if it happens.”

Grant’s gaze was suddenly personal. “You’re very determined. Stubborn.”

There was grudging respect behind his assessment. And even a gleam of admiration in his eyes. She was unexpectedly driven to explain herself.

“I feel that I owe Helena. I’ve always had it easy. She’s the one who was dealt all the tough breaks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Growing up with my parents…they’re good people, but they were rigid in their expectations.” Partly due to their religion and partly because they’d never lost the fear that this new, free country might somehow corrupt their daughters.

“Oh?”

“Nothing Helena ever did could please my mother. While I—” she shrugged disparagingly “—I could seem to do no wrong. It wasn’t fair and it only got worse when Helena announced she was pregnant.”

“With Davin?”

She nodded. “My parents were furious. To them, pregnancy outside of marriage was a woman’s ultimate disgrace. Unforgivable. Besides being ostracized, Helena also had to cope with severe medical problems. Believe me, she suffered terribly.”

“She deserted her son once he was born.”

His stark judgment proved he didn’t understand. Amalie wasn’t surprised. He couldn’t realize that when their mother had told Helena she wasn’t capable of raising a child on her own, Helena had believed her.

Grant rubbed his face. He looked beat. Amalie remembered him telling Davin his day started at 4:30 in the morning. It was close to ten at night now. “It’s late. You must be exhausted.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, but the physical evidence was to the contrary. As he fought back another yawn, she took their empty mugs to the sink.

He watched for a moment, then eventually he rose, too, looming large in Helena’s tiny kitchen. She dropped the dishrag, aware of his broad shoulders, barrel chest and powerful arms. Solid muscle, all of him. No wonder Denise had fallen against him for support. He was definitely up for it.

“You’re right. I’d better go.” His voice rasped in the quiet of the apartment.

Amalie turned, caught his gaze, and was surprised at what she saw in his eyes. Something tender she hadn’t noticed before. And intense. Almost as if…

But no, he couldn’t be attracted to her. True, they’d exchanged a few unsettling looks this evening. But they hadn’t meant anything….

“Amalie?” He took a step forward, not breaking eye contact.

She had to fight not to hold out her hands to him. When his gaze dropped to her mouth, she guessed he was wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

She turned away, knowing she was being foolish, that she had to be imagining his interest in her. He didn’t even like her—well, maybe he’d softened a little since their first meeting, but that hardly constituted—

“Are you serious about delving into your sister’s life?”

The question startled her, but her answer came quickly. “Yes, I am.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday. I could take you to the bar where she used to work. You could talk to some of the people there.”

“Helena worked in a bar?”

“Yeah. The Rock Slide Saloon.”

The name made her smile. “Yes, I’d like to go check it out.”

He moved a few inches closer. Maybe she hadn’t imagined that spark between them. For a moment it seemed he truly would kiss her. This time she resolved she wasn’t going to back away at the last minute.

But he surprised her by speaking, instead.

“I still think you should return to Toronto.”

The warning was mitigated by a new warmth in his smile.

“And I say I’m staying.”

“Then it’s a date? Tomorrow at the Rock Slide Saloon?”

“Yes.” A date with Grant Thorlow. She never would’ve guessed the evening would end like this.

DAVIN LISTENED TO THE SOUND of the door closing, then the scrape of metal as his aunt turned the dead bolt.

He rolled over in his sleeping bag, careful to stay on the foam pad underneath him.

So Grant was gone. Too bad he’d come so late. Davin had gotten up once for a drink of water, hoping his aunt would invite him to stay and visit, but they’d both been quiet until he went back to his room.

What had they talked about? He hadn’t heard their words, only the murmur of their voices.

But it was probably Helena. Everyone seemed to want to talk about her around here. And no one had much good to say.

Aunt Amalie kept telling him it was because folks didn’t know her. But Davin was beginning to think maybe everyone here did know Helena. It was his aunt who was wrong.

Helena had been a bad person. That’s what Grant thought. And so did the woman who’d been crying at the information center yesterday.

Davin agreed. Leaving your kid to be raised by your sister wasn’t normal. He’d figured that much out in kindergarten.

Sometimes he wished Aunt Amalie had never told him about Helena. He wished she’d just pretended he was hers, and they could be like a regular family and he could call her Mom, which was what she was, after all.

More than Helena, that was for sure. A mother wasn’t someone who wrote a letter or sent a present sometimes, only when she felt like it. And always something the wrong size or a toy he wasn’t interested in.

Some nights he made up stories to get himself to sleep. He imagined his aunt coming into his room and explaining that it was all a mistake. She really was his mother, and that woman who wrote the letters and stuff was his aunt.

Only it wasn’t that way.

Helena was his mother and now she was dead, and he didn’t even care.

Davin stared up at the ceiling, remembering his aunt calling him to their kitchen in Toronto to tell him about the avalanche, to explain that they had to drive to Rogers Pass.

At first he’d been excited. They were going on a trip, and he was going to miss school. It had seemed like an adventure, setting out to find where his mother had lived and what she’d been like.