Dangerous Attraction

by Melinda Cross

  How do people live without love? she wondered, and then she smiled bitterly, remembering that she had done it for years.

  And you can do it again, her mind insisted.

  She took a deep breath and nodded silently, in affirmation of the strength that had always been there. She would write the damn screenplay; she would win the damn awards, too. At one point she’d told Marcus that that was all she wanted out of this trip, and ironically, as it turned out, that was about all she was going to get. So what if she gave Marcus back his life in the process? She wasn’t doing it for him. She was doing it for Victor, who had trusted her judgement completely; and, more than that, she was doing it for herself.

  A short time later the little car began its descent down the hill into the village by the river. There was the hospital, on the other side of that quaint covered bridge, and surely the sheriff’s office was somewhere in this town. There wasn’t another for miles.

  Sure enough, at the bottom of the hill there was one of those discreet, rustic directional signs that was all Vermont would permit on its highways. ‘Sheriff’s Office, one block’, it read, with an arrow pointing left.

  She hadn’t noticed the sign last night when Marcus had driven her here, but then again she hadn’t noticed much of anything beyond the luxurious interior of the Rolls-Royce.

  It was a miracle that she’d managed to retrace their route at all, as oblivious as she’d been to landmarks. She’d been too engrossed in Marcus’s story about Johnny, too entranced with the beauty of the world around them, too damn content just to be next to the man who had probably at that moment been silently celebrating his great victory.

  He’d known by then, of course, that Victor had already stopped production; and he’d also known it was at her request. In retrospect, she’d been a fool to tell him that, to present herself so plainly as the key to getting what he wanted. She might as well have said it out loud: Be nice to Rebecca if you want the movie stopped. And oh, had he ever been nice to her!

  She shuddered, humiliated now by the memories of the morning, the love she imagined she’d seen in those beautiful gray eyes, the hideous pretense of his passion. No matter what Victor said, Charity Lauder had nothing on Marcus Flint when it came to delivering a performance.

  She pulled the car into a small lot next to a squat, brick building, parked next to a patrol car, then just sat there for a moment with the engine still running, her sense of purpose dissolving around her.

  She couldn’t do this. Even if she managed to corner Deputy Thomas, what would she ask him? Her thoughts and emotions were still too badly tangled together to conduct an objective interview. Her first instinct simply to run away had been right after all. She could send for the few things she’d left at Sugar Ridge, and Victor had said they already had what they needed to start the new screenplay. So what if the deputy could give them another scene for the movie? So what, damn it, if he could even prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Charity Lauder was a liar and Marcus Flint was a saint? Dammit, she’d done enough; she’d been hurt enough; she deserved to go home…

  She jumped at the sharp rap of knuckles on her window, jerked her head and saw a segment of broad, brown-clothed chest with a star glinting on the breast pocket. Beneath it ‘Deputy E. Thomas’ was engraved on a small brass pin.

  Fate, she thought with a resigned sigh, moving to roll down her window. In my life, fate is always on someone else’s side, and sometimes it just takes too much effort to fight it.

  ‘Deputy Thomas.’ She poked her head out of the window and looked up at a very tall man with a broadbrimmed hat. ‘You’re just the man I came to see.’

  In spite of an open, affable face that looked as if it might have been prone to smiling, Deputy Thomas turned out to be just as sullen and hostile as he’d sounded on the phone—until he learned that Rebecca had been staying with Marcus.

  ‘At Sugar Ridge? Marc let you stay at the house?’ He frowned down at her, clearly puzzled.

  ‘Marc? Sounds as if you know him personally.’

  ‘Everybody around here knows Marcus,’ he said, suddenly angry again. ‘And the man we know is nothing like the man in that book, and if you think you’ll find a soul in this county who’ll help you spread those lies…’

  ‘Deputy,’ she said quietly, patiently, ‘Marcus asked me here to listen to his side of the story before I wrote the screenplay. I believe what he told me.’ Her own words, spoken with such gentle conviction, surprised her. She hadn’t realized it before that moment; hadn’t even considered in the midst of her own misery whether or not she still believed in Marcus’s innocence.

  But you do, she told herself grimly. Maybe he did use you, but maybe it was only because he was desperate, because it was his only chance to save the part of his dream he had left. Granted, it was a despicable thing to do, but you’ve seen it before—how desperation can force normally good men into despicable acts. It happens. Maybe there isn’t a man alive above such things. Besides, you saw Marcus’s face when he talked about Johnny; you heard the pain in his voice. He loved the man. No matter what he did to you, he could never have betrayed Johnny.

  ‘You believe Marcus?’ Deputy Thomas was beaming down at her, the once tightly closed face as open and welcoming as a church door on Sunday morning. ‘Well, that’s different. Let me get in there where it’s warm and you can ask me anything you want.’

  She learned many things from Deputy Thomas in the time they sat together in her little car. Enough to fill several pages of the notebook she kept in her purse. Her hand faltered only once during that frantic scribbling.

  ‘Yep,’ the deputy was saying. ‘Seems like Marcus had more heartache in one year than any man deserves. First Johnny getting killed, then that Lauder woman writing that God-awful pack of lies, and then his mother dying just a few weeks after that…’

  ‘His mother died last year?’ Rebecca asked in a small voice, remembering the wonderful cashmere coat, the beautiful car, the things Marcus had said so casually that she’d ‘left behind’ on her last visit.

  ‘That she did,’ Deputy Thomas sighed. ‘Seems like Marcus lost everything he ever cared about, all at once. And they’re saying that Lauder woman’s going to take away his place on top of everything else…’

  ‘Maybe not, Deputy Thomas,’ Rebecca interjected quietly, closing her notebook and tucking it back into her purse. ‘I think we can stop her from doing that, at least.’ She turned to look at him, and years later Deputy Thomas would think he had never seen eyes so softly blue, so unconditionally kind. ‘Tell me again where you picked up Charity Lauder that day, so I can find it for myself.’

  ‘Hell, I’ll do better than that, if you think it will help. I’ll take you there. I’m off duty anyway, and it’s not far out of my way home.’

  She followed close behind the deputy’s patrol car, back the way she’d come, remembering that the last time she’d followed a patrol car down a highway it was on the way to the cemetery to bury her father. In a way, today’s journey seemed a lot like that long-ago, mournful funeral procession.

  The late morning sun had done its work well, and only in the densest shade and the deepest valleys did Rebecca see patches of white still defying the steadily rising temperatures. Moisture had darkened the fiery oranges and reds and yellows of Vermont’s gaudy autumn landscape, but to Rebecca’s California eyes the scenery was still heartbreakingly beautiful. Maybe because I know it’s the last day I’ll see it, she thought.

  A mile past the turn-off to Sugar Ridge, the patrol car pulled on to a well-maintained side-road that rose and fell like a rollercoaster through woods so dense, they seemed impenetrable. The snowmelt had turned the dirt surface to mud in places, and more than once Rebecca felt herself tense as the narrow tires of the little car spun and skidded before finding purchase again.

  At last the woods hugging the road thinned, then abruptly opened at the intersection of another road, and it was here that the patrol car pulled to the side and Deputy Thomas got out
and walked back to her window.

  ‘This is the spot,’ he told her as she got out of the car to stand next to him. ‘She was standing right here at the intersection, bold as you please, looking down the road, when I topped that rise there on my regular patrol. I remember thinking she looked like a woman waiting for a bus.’

  Rebecca looked down deserted roads that seemed to go nowhere, listening to a silence so profound, you could have believed the world was empty. ‘My God. There’s nothing for miles. She’s lucky anyone ever happened by.’

  The deputy chuckled soft1y. ‘Might look that way to someone from the city, used to all those busy highways, but the truth is these roads are pretty well traveled. We patrol them two, maybe three times a day. Once she finally found a road, rescue was a sure thing.’

  Rebecca eyed the dense woods with the fearful respect of the city-bred. ‘I’m no fan of Charity Lauder,’ she murmured grimly, ‘but I can understand getting lost in there.’

  Deputy Thomas nodded, following her gaze. ‘It happens. Especially in winter, when every tree looks the same. Still, fate sure plays some peculiar tricks, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, if she’d just walked straight north, she would have run into Marc’s place. If she’d walked straight south, she would have hit this road. Seems she went every direction but.’

  Rebecca turned her head to look up at him and went very still. ‘Are you telling me that the plane went down between here and Sugar Ridge?’

  He nodded grimly, looked down at the toe of his boot digging a hole in the mud. ‘We thought they must have gotten a lot further before they crashed,’ he mumbled. ‘If we’d just looked closer to home, we would have found them right away. As it was, the search parties were always looking miles away. Marcus just sort of stumbled on to the plane when he least expected it, right on his own property…’ He paused and shook his head, his brow tightened in sympathy.

  Rebecca was staring due north through the woods with such a fixed expression that one might have thought she could see right through them. ‘Show me where it crashed,’ she whispered, and the deputy looked at her with surprise, and then disapproval.

  ‘There’s nothing to see there any more. They hauled the plane out piece by piece right after they found her, and…’

  ‘I don’t want to see the plane! I want to see where it went down! Please.’

  He frowned even harder, then eyed her up and down. ‘You’re not exactly dressed for a hike…’

  She reached into her car and grabbed her denim jacket off the seat, then put it on. Her eyes were glinting as she looked up at him, her expression resolute. ‘If you won’t take me there, at least point me in the right direction.’

  Deputy Thomas sighed at the peculiarities of city women, then shook his head in mild exasperation. ‘Oh, what the hell? The last thing we need is another city woman lost in the woods up here. Come on.’

  Rebecca trotted after him as he stomped angrily across the road and up into the deep woods.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘THERE it is,’ Rebecca told Deputy Thomas, pointing at the shed where she and Marcus had worked together cutting and stacking wood.

  He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It had been an arduous hike from where he’d shown her the broken trees and scraped earth of the plane’s crash landing, and they were both breathing hard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said doubtfully. ‘We had enough trouble getting here in decent weather. With a foot of snow on the ground, it would have been a hell of a walk, especially for a woman like that.’

  Rebecca’s eyes were narrowed and her mouth was grim. ‘She was here,’ she hissed. ‘I know she was. This was where she spent those two weeks, safe inside that shed with plenty of wood and plenty of food.’

  The deputy pursed his lips and sighed. ‘Do you realize how close we are to Marc’s house?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said quietly.

  ‘So what you’re saying is that she stayed lost on purpose. Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?’

  She nodded soberly. ‘That’s probably why it never occurred to Marcus. But it wasn’t so crazy from Charity’s perspective. What did she have to lose? One minute she was Johnny Rivard’s ex-fiancée with no money and no prospects, and the next minute she was the survivor of a terrible plane crash, sitting on a multimillion-dollar book and movie deal—the answer to all her problems. All she had to do was manage to stay lost long enough to make the story really interesting. and maintain her grief-stricken bride-to-be image, of course. Only Marcus knew the truth about that, and all it took was one little lie to discredit him.’

  Deputy Thomas shook his head, sadly incredulous. ‘It’ll be a sad thing if you’re right. A sad thing to think there are people so evil in this world that they’d hurt other people on purpose.’

  Rebecca smiled a little at the simple, homespun goodness of this man, wishing there were more like him. She looked down at the wet, matted leaves at her feet, thinking of all the evil deeds that had blackened her life and left her embittered—dark gifts from her father, her stepmother, her stepsisters, and then, of course, Marcus. ‘Maybe they aren’t really evil,’ she offered quietly. ‘Just desperate.’

  The deputy gave her a dismal, half-hearted smile, then nodded. ‘You ready to head back?’

  Rebecca gazed thoughtfully past the shed, up into the woods that led to the hill overlooking Marcus’s valley. The idea of seeing Marcus again didn’t hurt so much any more. The pain of his betrayal, and her father’s, for that matter, had receded from her heart, leaving her at peace. ‘I think I’ll walk down to the house,’ she told the deputy. ‘I have some things to pick up there before I head for the airport. Marcus will give me a ride back to my car.’

  Deputy Thomas smiled at her. ‘You sure you won’t get lost, now?’

  She smiled back at him. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘All right, then. You need anything else from me, you just give me a call. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting to see your name on the credits at the local theater. It really is going to be a hell of a movie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Everybody says that,’ Rebecca replied sadly. She watched as the deputy tipped the brim of his hat, then turned and disappeared into the forest.

  A few moments later Rebecca stopped at the top of the hill that overlooked Marcus’s valley, easing down to sit on the same log she’d sat on during her first hike up here.

  She smiled, remembering that day, gazing down again at the busy little river, the grace of the nearly bare willow trees on its banks, and beyond the grassy field the cluster of buildings that surrounded that elegant, lonely house.

  Fragments of dried leaves stuck to the sodden threads of her cashmere dress, and her leather boots were stained dark with mud and moisture. Looking down to pluck absently at the leaves, she recalled finding the golden half-heart Johnny had given Charity in better times, wondered where she’d put it, and then remembered. She dug in the pocket of the denin jacket and pulled out the shiny thing, turning it over and over in her palm, wondering what she would do with it now. Returning it to Charity seemed like an insult to Johnny’s memory, in the circumstances.

  She sighed and got up slowly, her legs complaining from the long walk up and down the densely wooded hills, and stared down at the distant house as she tucked the charm back in her pocket. Suddenly she went still, staring at the house as she felt the charm in her pocket, but really seeing that snippet of information that had been dancing so tantalizingly out of reach.

  The charm! Her thoughts blazed in her head with an explosion of light.

  When she’d first found it, she’d assumed Charity had dropped it on some lovers’ walk through the woods. But the more she’d learned about Charity, the less likely it had seemed that she would have walked anywhere with Johnny, let alone all the way up here with the breath of winter blowing down her neck, and the contradiction had festered in her subconscious.

  But Ch
arity had been here, she thought fiercely, within sight of rescue any time she wanted it. Now all that remained to be done was for someone to trick her into admitting it.

  Victor would find a way to do that, she told herself. It was time, at last, to shrug off the responsibility that lay so heavily on her small shoulders now; it was time to take the story home to Victor.

  As she started down the hill into the little valley, she noticed a second car behind the Rolls in front of the house. Its shape was indistinct at first, but by the time she’d made it to the log spanning the little river she’d identified it as a stretch limousine, and her brow furrowed.

  No one in this remote corner of Vermont would travel in a limo—it had to be someone from out of town, someone who’d hired the car at the airport.

  Victor, she thought suddenly, her heart catching in a rush of relief so great that she almost burst into tears. It wouldn’t be so hard seeing Marcus again, packing and leaving this place forever, as long as someone who loved her was close at hand. And Victor did love her, and so did Victor’s wife, she realized suddenly—and maybe a lot of other people would, too, now that she was ready to let them.

  Marcus did that for you, she thought. No matter what else he did, he also taught you to open your heart. Remember that.

  A forlorn smile played at the corners of her mouth as she hurried across the bridge and through the snowpatched field toward the house. All she could think of was rushing into Victor’s arms, feeling the blessed comfort of his presence and hearing the affection in his soft, gruff voice. He’d faint dead away, of course. In all the years they’d known each other, a tentative handshake was all the physical contact she had allowed.

  She was almost to the driveway when she thought of something and glanced at her watch. So much had happened since she’d talked to Victor on the phone this morning that it seemed that days had passed, but it was only early afternoon. Not enough time for Victor to get to the airport, fly to Burlington, and then drive out to Sugar Ridge, not even if he’d left the moment they’d hung up. Then who? she wondered, miserably disappointed.