Snowbound Weekend & Gambler's Love

by Amii Lorin

  Moving jerkily with self-impatience, Vichy paid for her coffee and hurried through the darkening afternoon to the now-too-familiar small car. Before sliding behind the wheel, she paused to study the lowering cloud cover. Before too long those enveloping clouds were going to split wide open and drench the landscape. Yet another sigh whispered through her pale lips. The prospect of driving through a downpour was disheartening. Why couldn't the weather have held for a few more days?

  Why ask why? Vichy chided herself with a brief flash of humor. Why is a duck? The tiny smile that was just beginning to touch her lips at that nonsensical thought fled with the first cold drop of rain that struck her cheek. Glancing back at the motel complex, Vichy fought a short-lived, go-stay battle with herself. She hated to drive in the rain. The temptation to wait out the weather almost undermined her determination to drive until dusk each day. Squaring her shoulders, she slid behind the wheel and slammed the door closed beside her. Telling herself to get on with it, she turned the key to the ignition.

  Two hours later, shoulder muscles tight from gripping the steering wheel, eyes achy from straining to see through the deluge of water pouring out of the sky, Vichy drove off the road with an overwhelming feeling of relief and into the parking lot of a new-looking motel. After checking in, she dropped into the molded plastic chair in the single room and allowed herself the luxury of groaning aloud. She was wet, and she was cold, and still she sat numbly until the sound of the rain slashing against the room's one window drew her attention. By the watch on her wrist it was not yet dusk, but the window she gazed at revealed nothing but darkness beyond its panes. With a shiver, Vichy stood up and walked to the side of the window to pull the cord that drew the flower-patterned drapes together.

  Turning her back on the sound of the drops beating on the pane, she removed her sweater, then stepped out of her slacks, shivering again as the sodden material brushed her ankles. Leaving her clothes in a pile next to her wet shoes, she went into the bathroom for a hot shower. After shampooing her rain-bedraggled hair, she stood under the hot spray until she'd stopped shivering completely. Thankfully there were two towels, and before giving herself a brisk rubdown with one, she twined the other around her head turban-style. When she was dry, she considered wrapping the damp towel saronglike around her body, but, then, remembering she'd drawn the drapes, she shrugged and walked nude into the small room. Opening the one valise she'd brought into the motel with her, she removed fresh underwear, a cableknit sweater in a soft pink shade, and a pair of maroon corduroy slacks. As she turned away from the suitcase, Vichy caught her reflection in the wide mirror above the desklike dresser.

  Poised like a statue, she studied her reflection impersonally. The five-foot-seven-inch image was not bad, if a little too slender at one hundred and eleven pounds. Although the towel on her head concealed all but a lock of her hair, her matching brows proclaimed the rich dark brown color of her hair. Blue eyes gazed back at her out of an oval-shaped, pale face. Unselfconsciously, Vichy registered the fact that her face was more than just pretty. She was, she admitted, a knockout in the looks department. A twisted smile distorted her soft lips. But all her looks had ever brought her was heartache and advances from the opposite sex, both of which she could easily live without.

  One man had even told her she was bewitching. The twist of her lips grew grim and with an impatient shake, she turned away from her mirrored image. Fool that she had been! She'd married that particular man. Even though it had now been almost six years since she'd seen or heard from her former husband, just thinking of him brought a bad taste to her mouth. The memory of that brief, turbulent marriage increased Vichy's feeling of defeat. It seemed she was a loser all the way around.

  With a shudder, she forced the feeling away and concentrated on the more immediate need of getting dressed for dinner. She slipped her arms through the straps of the full-cupped, lacy bra and fastened the hooks, then adjusted the garment over her high, well-endowed breasts. After struggling into sheer panty hose, she stepped into her slacks and then into low wedged slingback slip-ons. She removed the towel and pulled the sweater over her head before digging through her suitcase for her blow dryer. Round brush in hand, she dried her hair while brushing the shoulder-length mass into soft waves. A light application of foundation, a quick wisk with the blusher brush, and a faint coating of coral lip gloss, and she was ready to leave the room.

  Vichy didn't notice the man's bold stare until she glanced up at the waitress to give her her order. He was sitting with a lovely young woman several tables away from where Vichy sat, yet, even though the woman was speaking to him, his eyes roamed insolently over her body. When his eyes returned to her face, Vichy deliberately glanced away dismissively.

  Vichy did not look in his direction again during her stay in the dining room, but his visage remained in her mind. He was so very much like Brad in appearance that without knowing anything about him, she felt sorry for the young woman with him. That man's face was too handsome, almost beautiful, the lower lip too sensuous, the eyes too slumberous. Even though she did not glance in his direction again, Vichy could feel his eyes on her. Irritated with his boorishness and humiliated for his companion, she hurried through her meal, leaving the room without a backward glance.

  Back in her room, she draped her damp slacks over the plastic chair, placed her wet shoes near the air vent, and prepared for bed. It was still early, but the tension of driving through the wind-driven rain had left her tired enough, she felt sure, to sleep.

  She was wrong. Seeing the man who so resembled Brad had stirred a hornets' nest of memories that crowded in on her attempt to rest.

  How excited she'd been about that engagement in Vegas. To be sure, it had been in one of the smaller rooms in one of the smaller hotels, but that hadn't mattered to her. The important thing had been that she was actually there in Las Vegas!

  Brad had been in the audience the second night of her engagement. How very impressionable she'd been at twenty-two! And how very gullible. Brad, being ninety percent charm and one hundred percent opportunist, had taken full advantage of her gullibility.

  Vichy could still hear the sugar-coated endearments that had rolled so naturally off his lying tongue. Lord! She shuddered in the darkness, thinking that she had actually believed every word he'd uttered. How she must have amused him! And how she paid for her belief and trust.

  Within two weeks after that hurried ceremony she had been painfully aware that the only reason Brad had legalized their union was his awareness of the fact that there would be no union without the legality. Very simply, she had been a challenge to him.

  Vichy, at twenty-nine, still felt pain for the dreamy-eyed innocent she had been at twenty-two.

  "Damn it all!"

  Vichy grumbled irritably as she thrust her arm under the pillow and rolled onto her side. She hadn't thought about Brad or their short, disastrous marriage in years! And now, because of an insulting stare from a man who had a striking resemblance to him, she was once again examining one of her failures—the first of many, it seemed.

  Sighing defeatedly, Vichy closed her eyes. How did that song go? she wondered, something about never falling in love with a gambling man? She was the living proof of that. She had lavished her first, eager love on that particular-gambling man. For almost six months she had existed in a euphoric bubble of bliss. She had trusted him explicitly with her tender, young emotions. Finding him with another woman six months after their marriage had just about destroyed her. It had destroyed her trust in men, particularly gamblers.

  Now, six years later, the pain she'd felt at that time had long ago subsided. All that remained was a residue of sadness for the trusting young fool she'd been.

  A clear case of arrested mentality. A wry smile touched the lips that still possessed a young, vulnerable softness. At twenty-two, and an entertainer in the bargain, she really had been very immature. At the time, she'd been on the supper-club circuit for over a year and, apparently, had learned v
ery little of the cold realities of life. She had been ripe for harvesting by an expert picker. Comes from being raised in a protected environment, she now excused the dumb bunny she'd been.

  The thought of her early environment chased away the bad memories. She was going back to it, soon to stay for good. Not in triumph as she'd vowed she would when she left with such high, warm hopes, but with utter failure dragging at her fashionably high heels. The realization that she'd be welcomed with tears of joy and open arms by her elderly parents and younger sister allowed her to drift into a much-needed sleep. In triumph or defeat, Vichy knew she would be welcomed home joyously. It was her family's way.

  Vichy awoke early, and after a quick juice-and-coffee breakfast was back on the road again, thankfully without a glimpse of the cold-eyed young man of the evening before.

  Thoughts of the reception awaiting her at her destination kept Vichy's spirits bolstered during the long hours of driving over the following two days. As she crossed the state line into Pennsylvania, she drew a deep breath, telling herself whimsically that she could actually smell a difference in the air of her home state.

  Fatigue weighed on her shoulders and her arms felt like lead when, finally, she turned off the macadam road onto the rutted lane that led to her parents' small frame farmhouse, located midway between Lancaster and Ephrata.

  Misty-eyed, Vichy gazed at the home of her youth. Sparkling white paint was set off by the dark green trim on the window frames and shutters, a clear indication that her ever-busy father had very recently been at work with a paintbrush.

  The yard surrounding the house, her mother's domain, had a pruned, ready-for-winter look, although the chrysanthemums banked against the house still blazed forth in all their rust and gold glory.

  Off to the left, its paint every bit as fresh as that on the house, the barn, used now for storage and housing the family's two cars, stood square and solid-looking. Emotion closing her throat, Vichy blinked rapidly as she killed the Pinto's engine and tugged on the hand brake.

  Silly, she chided herself, anyone would think you had been away a dozen years or so when, in fact, it has been less than a year since your last visit. But, she mentally argued in defense of her tears, brushing at them with trembling fingertips, that was a visit, this is a homecoming.

  At the fringes of the lawn to the right of the house, Vichy's searching eyes softened as they came to a halt on the gnarled old apple tree. The sight of a tire, suspended from the tall tree's lowest limb by a sturdy rope, brought a rush of memories clamoring into her mind. A replica of that tire, the first of a long line, had been hung from that branch years before her coming into the world.

  That first tire had been affixed for the amusement of the first of the Sweigart brood, Vichy's elder sister, Mattilda— so named for her paternal grandmother.

  A tiny smile trembled its way onto Vichy's lips. How Mattie hated her given name! And how she and their brother Josh—named Joshua after their paternal grandfather—had tormented her about it. Yet, her smile deepened; to this day only she and Josh held that exclusive right, except their parents, of course, to the use of her given name.

  "Vichy!"

  Her younger sister's excited cry scattered the warm memories, and Vichy's eyes shifted to the small figure hurrying across the building's wide front porch.

  The runt, as the baby of the four Sweigart offspring had been affectionately dubbed, was the only one of them to inherit their mother's small stature. One inch shy of five feet, she was also the only one of them not named in honor of a demised grandparent, Vichy being named Victoria after her maternal grandmother.

  Stepping out of the car, Vichy chuckled softly in remembrance of her baby sister's christening. To her father's wondering shake of his iron gray head, Vichy's mother had named her youngest Bette, after a much-admired movie star!

  All remembrance went flying as Bette launched herself into Vichy's arms, chattering thirty to the dozen.

  "How did you get here? Well, that's obvious you came in your car, but how come? I mean, it's terrific that you're here, but how come you're here? You look super, but—"

  "Whoa, slow down," Vichy cried around a mouthful of laughter. "I'll answer all your questions one at a time, but first, where are the folks?" Keeping a hold on Bette's arms, Vichy leaned back to look questioningly into her sister's heartwrenchingly pretty face.

  "Is it Friday?" Bette queried pertly.

  "It was when I left the motel this morning," Vichy laughed.

  "Well, then, where else would they be?" Bette chided on a return laugh. "They're at the Green Dragon."

  "Where else, indeed," Vichy grinned, giving Bette a quick hug. How wonderfully normal and unchanged everything was, even down to Johanna and Luke Sweigart's weekly visit to the large market and auction held on Fridays on the other side of Ephrata.

  "They're gonna flip when they get home," Bette broke excitedly into her musing. "Why didn't you let us know you were coming?"

  "And miss out on seeing you bounce around like a Mexican jumping bean?" Vichy teased. "How about bouncing your way to the back and helping me unload my stuff?"

  Having sold the few pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac she'd accumulated over the last ten years, everything Vichy now possessed was jammed into the hatchback. Never slow on the uptake, Bette ran a sharp-eyed glance over the four suitcases and equal number of small cartons, then lifted her speculative gaze to Vichy.

  "You're not going back to California?" she asked on a warmingly hopeful note.

  "No," Vichy shook her head. "Except for two short running engagements in Atlantic City over the holidays, I'm home to stay."

  The magnitude of Vichy's flat statement was not lost on her twenty-one-year-old sister. Bette knew how badly Vichy had wanted to make a success in the entertainment field, how very hard she'd worked toward her goal.

  "You're really quitting?" she asked softly, obviously astonished.

  "I'm really quitting," Vichy concurred firmly.

  "But—" Bette began in protest.

  "We'll talk it out later." Vichy cut in quietly. "But right now I think we'd better unload the car before it gets dark."

  Bette talked nonstop while they carried the suitcases and cartons from the car to the bedroom that Vichy had occupied from her fifth year. Up until then she had shared the room with Mattie, who, on reaching her thirteenth year, declared dramatically that she needed privacy. As Josh, then eight, had squatter's rights on the only other bedroom on the second floor, that left the attic. Their father had spent that entire winter measuring, sawing, and hammering in the attic. When, in early March, he was finished, that one large attic had been converted into two small bedrooms and a good-sized storage closet.

  On the completion of their father's remodeling, Josh had declared it "neat," and had promptly removed himself and his belongings to the floor above. Josh's bedroom on the second floor had remained empty until Bette made her debut eight years later.

  It was fully dark by the time Vichy and Bette had unpacked the valises and lugged them and the cartons up to the storage closet.

  "I don't know about you, Vich, but I'm starved," Bette declared as they clattered down the stairs.

  "I could do with a cup of coffee," Vichy sighed. "But first I want a hot shower."

  "Mom set a container of vegetable soup out to thaw for supper before she left," Bette said, heading for the backstairs that led directly into the large old-fashioned kitchen. "I'll warm the soup and make a pot of coffee while you have your shower."

  "Thanks, hon," Vichy smiled tiredly. "I won't be long."

  "Take your time," Bette called from halfway down the stairs. "I wasn't going anywhere."

  Sliding her fingers into her long dark brown hair, Vichy walked into her bedroom and came to an abrupt stop on catching her own reflection in the mirror above the dresser. She was not particularly thrilled with the appearance of the young woman who stared back at her. That woman had a world-weary, defeated look about her.

  Her hand s
topped in midair, and Vichy's eyes made a minute inspection of her own image. At this moment she looked tired, and every one of her twenty-nine years—plus a few. There were dark smudges in the pale skin under her dulled blue eyes, and her cheeks and lips were totally devoid of color.

  Dropping her hand suddenly, she turned away impatiently from that sorry-looking female with a muttered, "That's entertainment?"

  The shower went a long way in dispersing the weariness, and a light application of makeup restored at least a semblance of color to her face.

  Nose twitching, Vichy followed the mingled aromas of coffee, vegetable soup, and baking powder biscuits to the warm, homey kitchen, somewhat surprised at the sudden sharp edge to her appetite.

  Bette was bending over in front of the stove, removing a cakepan of golden-brown biscuits from the oven when Vichy entered the room.

  "Showing off your culinary skills?" she teased as Bette straightened and turned to face her. "Or do they come from a box?"

  "Bite your tongue," Bette admonished indignantly around a wide grin. "I made these from scratch, as every home economics major should."

  "They smell heavenly," Vichy admitted. "So does the soup. Did you create that as well?"

  "No," Bette shook her head. "Mom takes the honors for that." After gingerly plucking the hot biscuits out of the cakepan and dropping them into a napkin-lined bread basket, she glanced up, her grin widening. "Mom can still cook circles around me. Except"—she temporized— "where it comes to the Cordon Bleu stuff. There I shine." She grinned exaggeratedly. "Not that anyone's impressed with that. As you know, Dad still prefers things like Mother's vegetable soup and pot pies to any of the fancy concoctions I whip up."

  Two places were laid on the long, Formica-topped table. A soft smile curved Vichy's lips as she seated herself at her place; for it was her place, and had been for as long as she could remember. With her first spoonful of the aromatic soup, she felt she was really, finally home. In Vichy's opinion, no one in the world made vegetable soup quite as good as her mother.