“So, thank you again for the offer, Theo. It was—” she paused “—very kind of you. Very…caring. And don’t worry, I can get over the ‘he doesn’t love me’ part.”
“Martha—”
“No. Don’t say anything else. And don’t tell me it’ll be all right. I know that. Just as I know that what I feel is my problem. But I can’t do this any longer, Theo. I can’t have you here living with me.”
She stood up then and walked past him into the baby’s room. She threw his gear in a bag, then zipped it up, carried it back and handed it to him. Then she marched over and opened the door. “Please. Just go.”
Seconds passed and he didn’t move, just looked at her. Dark eyes stony and unreadable. Eyes she would remember for the rest of her life.
And then he nodded slowly. He took the bag silently and he left.
Do you love me?
A single simple question—or so it must have seemed to Martha—and he couldn’t say a word.
Love? What the hell was that?
Painful need and desperate desire? Adolescent longings? Foolish passion? All the things he’d felt for Jill. He’d said the word to her. “I love you,” he’d told her over and over. For all the good it had done him.
He hadn’t said those words to anyone since Jill. Couldn’t say them now. Didn’t trust them. Or love. Or himself.
And if Martha needed to hear them, damn it, she didn’t need him!
So he left. With quiet controlled dignity, he took the bag she’d thrust at him. She’d made her wishes clear. So be it.
He didn’t even look at her as he walked past her out the door.
He went down the steps and out the door into the twilight. He tossed his bag into the back of the car, climbed in the front seat.
There between the seats was the manila envelope. He crumpled it in his fist and flung it in the back. It didn’t matter now. The only thing that mattered was to be gone.
He’d rented the car in Bozeman because that had been the quickest way to get here when he’d finally been able to come. He wouldn’t drive back tonight. He’d leave it at the Butte airport, buy a ticket to somewhere—who the hell cared where?—and get the hell out.
She was right. He knew that. She would be fine without him. She had friends here—plenty of students, parents, fellow artists, sculptors, blue-haired quilters, probation officers and devoted policemen who would do anything for her. She had family who would come running if she needed them. She didn’t need him.
By the time Theo got to the airport his throat hurt so much he couldn’t swallow. Just as well he was leaving this godforsaken place. Probably he was getting sick from their freezing awful weather.
The airport was down on the flat. He had seen it when he was going to pick up some lumber and some hardware to work on the scaffolding. Now he drove into the parking lot, found the rental office and turned in the car.
“Is there a problem with it, sir?” the startled woman behind the desk wanted to know.
“Not with the car,” Theo said through his teeth. The woman pushed paperwork at him to sign. He signed it. Then he went to buy a ticket. He didn’t care where he went, which was just as well, because the only place he could go was Seattle.
“Round trip or one way?” the agent asked him with a smile.
He didn’t return it. “One way,” he said tersely.
Her smile faltered. “Of course.” She keyed in the information and printed his ticket. “Check your bag?”
“No. I travel light.”
He always had, ever since he’d left home at eighteen after a bitter fight with his father. Socrates Savas had told him where he was going to school and what he was going to study. And Theo had grabbed a bag, thrown what he could into it and had headed west, determined to be his own man not his father’s puppet.
He’d done the same after his divorce from Jill. They’d met and married in Sydney, Australia. When the marriage ended, he’d wanted out. That was when he’d sailed alone around the world, proving to himself that he was fine on his own, needing nothing and no one.
He’d left Martha the same way on Santorini.
It was no different this time. He would survive.
The agent handed him his ticket and boarding pass. “Right down there and through security to the departure lounge. The plane will be boarding in half an hour.”
He nodded, stuck the ticket in his shirt pocket, grabbed his bag and headed for security. It was a small airport, staffed with friendly security people who would have chatted with him as they examined his belongings, but Theo wasn’t feeling very chatty. He grunted answers to questions, dropped his change back into his pockets and stuffed his feet back into his shoes.
“Come back and visit us again,” someone said pleasantly.
Theo didn’t answer that at all. He just walked away, straight into the departure lounge—and saw Martha’s mural.
He’d never seen it before, but he instantly recognized it as hers. It had Martha’s characteristic enthusiasm, her joie de vivre, her eye for detail, her love of people and places. It was all Martha. Every bit.
There was a story in it, as there was in all Martha’s murals. It was, he could see, a paean to travel, to the joys of seeing the world’s most beautiful sights. There were bright lively vignettes of people on the Eiffel Tower, of them walking the Great Wall of China, of climbers going up the Alps, of riverboat barges traveling through what looked like the Amazon jungle. As he turned around the room and looked above the windows, now nearly dark in winter’s early evening, he saw renditions of Sugar Loaf, Big Ben and the Tower Bridge segue one into the other. He found Machu Picchu, the Sydney Opera House, a stern-looking Easter Island statue and beyond that the Golden Gate bridge, and then an island with steep brown cliffs capped with whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches.
Theo stopped turning and just stood staring, seeing, recognizing. The other pieces were full of exciting destinations and eager vacationing people. They were warm and clearly done with enthusiasm, but while they carried Martha’s joy, they were stylized.
But this painting of Santorini—because it was Santorini; he could even pick out particular buildings like Costas’s shop and the grocery and the ferry office—held Martha’s soul.
He found himself following the line of houses up the hill looking for his house—or her house, whoever it belonged to now—and yes, there it was, perfectly captured, right down to the red flowers growing up the wall.
Right down to the woman who stood looking out the window—a young slim woman with wild dark hair that wouldn’t be tamed—a woman holding a baby in her arms.
“Martha.” Her name was on his lips before he even knew it. Because he knew her. All the other people in all the pictures looked happy, joyful, delighted.
But not Martha.
She was looking out from the window with an expression of longing on her face. “I couldn’t believe it when you left me,” she had said back in her apartment. “I had such hopes. I waited. And I waited. I kept thinking you’d come back.”
He had come back.
He’d returned to Santorini. For her. He knew that now. But he’d never told her so.
He shut his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them again and followed the painted Martha’s gaze to a sailboat out at sea. His sailboat.
And there he was in it. Alone.
All the other people in the various places were in groups, in families—laughing, hiking, climbing, eating, doing things together. Even Martha and the baby stood in a sun-drenched, inviting house.
Watching him sail away alone.
The pain was almost staggering. And with it came the realization that, however many times he walked away, he didn’t want to be alone. He’d been alone too long. It hurt too damn much.
Her words echoed in his mind. “Do you love me, Theo?”
He knew the answer now. But could he find the courage—and the words—to tell her so?
If there was something to be said for the clea
nsing effect of spilling your guts and driving the man you loved out of your life forever, Martha hadn’t yet discovered it.
She’d stood there and let him walk past her—hell, let him? She’d basically shoved him out the door. And she’d kept her cool until he was gone. She’d even had the sublimely stupid notion that when she’d told him, the worst was over.
Ha.
The worst simply began when she heard his footsteps go steadily down the stairs, heard the door open and shut with quiet finality—and then there was the faint sound of the car door shutting, the engine purring to life and moving away.
Gone.
She’d rolled the dice, played her cards, risked it all on love. And Theo had stood there like a statue, never responding at all, until she had thrown him out of her life.
“Oh, well done,” she said to herself now, and heard her voice crack so badly that she was afraid she would start crying. She couldn’t. Not now. She had art projects to grade. She had lessons to plan. She had breathing exercises to practice. But mostly she couldn’t because she knew if she started, she would never stop.
She tried to work. She tried to fold laundry. She took Ted for a walk. But Ted liked walking with Theo better. Theo moved more quickly when Ted wanted to go quickly and he was content to stand around and let Ted have his fill of interesting smells. Martha waddled these days, and she was cautious on ice.
It was not a successful walk.
“It’s as good as you’re going to get,” she told Ted. “He’s gone. Get used to it.” The advice was as much for herself as for her dog. Ted went over and lay down on his pillow and looked depressed because it was Theo he could always cadge treats out of. Martha was a harder case.
Now she fixed herself a bowl of soup because she had to eat for the baby even if she didn’t feel like it herself. And while she was fixing the meal, she got Ted a treat just like Theo always did, and the dog looked immediately more interested and hopeful.
“You can be bought,” she chastised him severely, still blinking back tears as she stirred her soup.
Ted didn’t see anything wrong with that. He looked hopefully at the treat jar again. Theo had always been good for at least two.
“No more,” Martha said.
At least she couldn’t be bought. She had standards. She was stout-hearted and stubborn and determined to go through life alone.
Lucky her.
“Damn it!” She carried her soup to the table and swiped away the tears while Ted studied her with equal parts curiosity and dismay.
“Go away,” Martha told him. “Go back to sleep.”
But Ted didn’t let meals go unaccompanied. He was ever vigilant for crumbs. And mindful that someone—not Martha—occasionally fed him from the table.
He had almost persuaded her to give him a cracker when the phone rang.
“Ms.Antonides?” a man’s voice said when she answered. “This is Officer Mallon. Remember me? From the police department?”
Of course she remembered him. She’d even talked with him last night at the play. He’d thought the mural was fantastic. And now?
Oh, dear God, what now? Surely Dustin and Jeremy could keep their noses clean for more than twenty-four hours.
“I wonder if you would mind coming down to the police station?” Officer Mallon said.
“I’ll be right there!”
She gave Ted the rest of her soup and her crackers. She tugged on her boots and pulled on her jacket, gloves and hat. She was going to kill them, she thought as she hurried down the stairs and let herself out into the cold.
At least, though, they distracted her from Theo.
The police station was a five-block walk. She got there as quickly as she could. She’d never been in the station itself before. Her first meeting with Officer Mallon and the boys’ probation officer had taken place in an office.
Now she gave her name to the officer on duty who nodded and picked up a phone and rang someone to announce her arrival.
“You can sit down there, if you want,” he said to her, indicating a bench near the door.
But Martha was too keyed-up to sit down. She prowled and paced and felt like throwing up. And then she heard a door open and spun around to see Officer Mallon. He gave her a weary smile.
“Good of you to come.”
“Of course I came. I’m glad you called me. I’m sorry, though, too. I can’t believe they’ve done it again. I thought we were on the right track,” she babbled as he held the door to the holding areas open and motioned her to follow him.
He turned back. “With Dustin and Jeremy, you mean? I think we are on the right track.”
“But then—?”
“This isn’t about them.” He pushed open an inner door which opened onto a small holding room and looked at the man slumped on the cement bench opposite. “It’s about him.”
Martha stared. “Theo?”
He looked up at her, but he didn’t smile. He looked defiant, deadly serious and decidedly pale.
“What happened? What are you—?”
“He defaced private property,” Officer Mallon informed her.
Martha gaped at the man still scowling at her truculently from the bench. Getting no satisfaction from him at all, she turned to the officer. “Defaced what? How?”
“The usual,” Officer Mallon said. “Spray paint. Here. You can see.” He opened the door again and led her out. It banged shut behind them and the policeman led her down the hall into another room with windows. “Hard to see at night from in here. But if you go outside or keep the light out with your hands—” he demonstrated and Martha did likewise, pressing her face against the glass and blocking out the light “—you can see it very well.”
She could indeed. In letters about six feet high all across the building on the other side of the street from the station she read the very unskilled graffiti proclaiming, “THEO LOVES MARTHA.”
“He said you might be willing to bail him out,” Officer Mallon told her.
Martha couldn’t stop looking at it, even when it got harder to see because her tears were blurring it. But finally she pulled herself away and nodded, sniffing and swiping the tears from her face.
“I might,” she agreed.
He was afraid the door wouldn’t open again. He was afraid it was too little, too late. He was afraid he’d lost.
And then she was there. Not speaking. But smiling. Blinking back tears.
“Don’t cry,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to make you cry.”
“I want to cry,” she told him fiercely and threw her arms around him so that their child was wedged between them, so that he could hold her and kiss her and bury his face in her hair and feel his knees nearly give out from under him, he needed her so badly.
“Cry when we get home, then,” he urged her. “I want out of here.”
“I should leave you in overnight,” Martha told him, laughing and crying at the same time. “I thought it was Dustin or Jeremy. I was ready to kill them. Now I can just kill you.”
“No,” Theo said. “You won’t.” He was sure of it. He put an arm around her as Officer Mallon opened the door.
“You can go. We’re checking with the owner. If he agrees, you can just repaint the wall. Probation. That sort of thing.”
“Absolutely,” Theo promised.
“I don’t know,” Martha said. “I might want it to stay there. Just so I can look at it from time to time.”
Theo winced.
“Or maybe you could learn to tell me?” she suggested.
Theo brushed a kiss across her lips. “Maybe I could.”
In fact he did.
Later that night he said the words. Dragged them out. They didn’t come easily, even when he knew they were reciprocated.
“It’s hard. I got spooked,” he told her. And then he explained about Jill. “I was a kid. Nineteen when I met her. She was twenty-seven. And in love with someone else. He was a sailor, too, and he didn’t want to be tied down. He took off on a
solo voyage, and a month later they found his boat.”
“Oh God,” Martha whispered. She was lying next to him, holding him close, just listening, learning things about him that she’d never guessed, beginning to understand a Theo he’d never before shared.
“I was stupid enough to think I could take his place. And she was lonely enough to believe it might work. Neither of us knew. It probably was doomed from the start, but then he came back—and found her married to me.”
“He didn’t die?”
“No. His boat had been wrecked, but he’d survived, made landfall. But no one knew. He was another six months getting back to Sydney, ready to settle down with the woman he’d left behind. And she still loved him, too.” He folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling, and Martha saw the vulnerability in his face, the young man who’d loved and lost.
“And you let her go?”
His shoulders moved in a sort of a shrug. “What else could I do?”
Nothing. He’d done what was best for them. But of course it had hurt.
“I didn’t want any entanglements after that. I didn’t have any—until you. You got under my skin. Made me want things I hadn’t wanted since Jill. More than Jill,” he said fiercely. “Scared the hell out of me. That’s why I left.”
Martha raised up on one elbow and looked at him. “That’s why you left?”
“Didn’t want to get involved,” he admitted. “But I did come back.”
“What? When?”
“A few days before you were supposed to leave. I thought I’d—surprise you. See you. I don’t know. It might not have worked. I couldn’t have said the words then, either.”
“You said them tonight.”
“Yeah, me and all your other inarticulate, inept guys who can’t communicate any other way.”
“It was a heck of a start.” Martha leaned over and kissed him, and he gathered her into his arms and held her against his heart.
“Will you marry me now?” he asked her.
The Santorini Bride Page 18
