by Susan Tracy
"I wondered when you'd get around to that," he said, displaying no surprise at her statement.
"I didn't get in touch with you before because I was away and I didn't want the Judge to have to handle it for me. I guess I wanted to spare him any more notoriety."
Jason made a rude remark, and Leigh turned on him furiously. "Is it so inconceivable that I wanted to protect my grandfather from further hurt over my mistake?" she hissed.
Calmly sipping his drink, Jason gave her a hard look. "Don't hand me noble motives, Leigh," he said. "You've never thought of anyone but yourself in your whole life. The Judge certainly had to endure a considerable amount of unpleasantness when you walked out after the wedding. Who did you think would have to face all the guests you left behind? Or didn't you care?"
With a smooth motion he stood up and reached over to pull Leigh to her feet. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to the light, his touch burning her skin.
"Such a lovely, unawakened face," he said thoughtfully. Then his dark eyes bored into hers and Leigh knew that he was very angry indeed. "But we both know that you'd have to be far from innocent to get where you've gotten in the modeling business."
The insulting words completely shattered Leigh's mask of composure.
"You despicable—" Her hand shot up toward Jason's face, but his was quicker, and her wrist was caught in a grip of steel.
"You'd better be glad I stopped you, lady, because I certainly would have hit you back," he ground out.
Leigh twisted her wrist from his grasp. She wanted to hurt him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Struggling to bring her runaway emotions under control, she went to lean against her grandfather's desk, running her hand absently along its smooth surface. After a moment she turned to face Jason and said, "I should think that you would want to end this farce of a marriage as much as I do. In fact, I'm surprised that you haven't contacted me about it." She tilted her head to look up at him. "I was sure that you would want a wife and family to help run that farm of yours." A short pause. "Or can't you find anybody willing to take you on, Jason?" she asked sweetly.
He smiled—not a nice smile. "Being unavailable for matrimony has its—ah—advantages. It helps my lady friends to know the score."
Leigh gasped at his effrontery. She moved restlessly around the room, at last coming to stand by her chair. "We aren't getting anywhere," she said quietly. "I don't want to swap insults with you, Jason. I just want to get this settled. Will you apply for the annulment or shall I?"
"You're a cool customer, aren't you, Leigh? You think you can waltz back here after five years and say 'jump, pretty please' and expect me to ask 'how high?' Ah, yes," he sneered, "by all means, let's tie up the loose ends—sell the house, shed a husband. It's a pity that you didn't bother to get to know me and what I wanted in a wife before you married me." His eyes, more black now than brown, scorched her face as the harsh words exploded from his mouth. "The joke was well and truly on me," he spat out, his fury bursting forth unrestrained. "I thought that you were just young, a little spoiled. In time, I felt, you would grow up and be able to handle a commitment, a real give-and-take relationship. But not you. You preferred make-believe, moonlight and roses. You had caught an eligible bachelor and you expected him to give you a glamorous social life, not responsibilities. Hard reality hit, didn't it, when I told you we'd have to postpone our honeymoon? Was it a shock to find out that I valued the farm so highly, Leigh?" His voice was biting and cruel. "The selfish little butterfly couldn't take it and ran away. I badly misjudged you, Leigh. I didn't learn until too late that there is no substance under that beautiful exterior. I believe superficial is the fitting description."
She felt bruised by his assault. She hadn't realized what construction he would put on her flight. How foolish not to know that Clare would never admit to being the spur that drove Leigh away. Well, Jason had a nerve to censure her. He had married her under false pretenses, hadn't he? He was equally at fault but she was not going to stand here and trade excuses with him. It was much too late for that.
With as much aplomb as she could muster, Leigh answered, "I don't care what you think of me, Jason."
His return was quiet and deadly. "Don't expect me to make it easy for you, my dear. I'm not a forgiving man."
"I never thought you were," she said.
Leigh's breathing was constricted. Moving to the French windows, she opened one and stood pulling large gulps of fresh air into her lungs. She knew she couldn't take much more.
"All right, Jason," she conceded, standing by the window with her head down. "You have reason for being bitter just as I had reason for running away. But it's over, let it go." She sighed and lifted a hand as if in supplication. "I wanted to end the marriage officially while I was here in Raleigh. Can't you understand? I won't be coming back."
When he made no response, she said resignedly. "All right, have your revenge by refusing the annulment. I won't bother you about it anymore."
Her head flew up as Jason countered softly, "I didn't say I wouldn't agree to an annulment. I said I wouldn't make it easy for you."
Some of the fight was returning to Leigh. "What are you talking about?" she asked suspiciously.
It was Jason's turn to prowl the room. After a long silence, he motioned to the wing chairs and told Leigh to sit down.
"I have a proposition to put to you," he added, a look of speculation on his dark face. "I want a few months of your time."
Leigh had hunched herself in the chair, but at Jason's words she jerked upright like a puppet on a string. She examined his face for signs of derision but encountered only hard brown eyes staring into her gray ones. He was serious. Immediately Leigh raised her guard higher. Somehow she knew that she wasn't going to like what was coming.
"Would you please explain?" she asked.
Jason settled back in his chair and looked her over. "It's not what you're thinking. I don't have any designs on your—ah—virtue. You lost your attraction for me five years ago. At the very least I have to like something about the woman I take to my bed."
For the first time in years, Leigh blushed.
Ignoring her discomfiture, Jason continued, "I'd like to make a business arrangement with you, a quid pro quo You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, figuratively speaking, of course." After a slight hesitation he asked, "Do you remember my brother Bob and his wife Clare?"
As he spoke those names, Leigh stiffened. She gripped her hands together so hard that the nails were piercing her flesh and stared speechlessly back at Jason.
"They're in Brazil," he said. "Bob was supervising the construction of a building last week when a part of it collapsed and he was trapped by a steel girder. By the time he was extricated his leg was badly mangled. He's in traction in a Rio hospital and can't be moved for at least two months, maybe more."
"I'm sorry, Jason. I hope that Bob will be all right, but I can't see what his accident has to do with me," Leigh returned uncertainly.
"You would if you'd let me finish," Jason shot back. "Bob and Clare have a three-year-old daughter, Jody. She and Clare were here, in North Carolina, when the accident happened. They had been with Bob, but since he was working night and day to bring the project in on time, Clare and Jody returned ahead of him. He was due for leave soon. Anyway, when we were notified about Bob's injury, Clare naturally flew to Rio, leaving Jody with me." The brown eyes narrowed. "Do you begin to understand my problem?"
Leigh had a horrible idea that she did. In a halting voice she asked, "Who's taking care of Jody?"
"My cousin, but she's also my housekeeper and can't watch Jody and take care of her own job at the same time. Aside from running the house, just now she has extra work because of spring planting. She's been managing so far, but she can't possibly keep it up for two months."
"And you have me in mind for baby-sitter?"
"Yes. Will you do it?"
Leigh's nerves were beginning to shriek. Spend two month
s near Jason—impossible! And the thought of taking care of Clare's child was repugnant. Maybe Clare had done her a favor by revealing why Jason had married her, but Leigh felt only distaste when she thought of the woman. She forced herself to speak slowly and clearly. "Jason, I'm sorry for your plight, but if you think I could be a substitute mother, you're out of your mind."
"Why?"
Trying to remain calm, Leigh enumerated, "First, there's my career. I have commitments. I only came to Raleigh for a few days. I have to get back to New York. A model doesn't just take off for several months at a time. I worked hard to get where I am, Jason. A few months away and I could be forgotten."
"Who could forget you, Leigh?" Jason asked dryly.
She ignored him. "Also, I know absolutely nothing about children. I've never been around them. They scare me silly. I honestly wouldn't know what to do for Jody," she pleaded.
"It can't be so hard," he replied. "New mothers take care of their infants every day. You're a smart girl, Leigh, you'll learn."
She tried again. "I'm sorry, Jason, but I just can't take this on. You'll have to find someone else."
"Will I?" he questioned. "Did I forget to mention that if you do this small favor for me, I'll initiate proceedings for an annulment immediately?" He smiled unpleasantly and Leigh felt very apprehensive suddenly.
"However, if you turn me down, I might be forced to sue for divorce, charging you with desertion and anything else I can think up. I don't think that you will find me an easy opponent. I assure you that I can make life quite unpleasant for you. I have spoken to Mr. Judkins, and he is quite willing to take on the case. Don't forget, my dear, that we are not as lenient about those things here as are your sophisticated city friends."
Leigh was stunned. "You wouldn't be so petty!"
"Try me and see," he taunted. And then, almost as if speaking to himself, he added, "I don't know which prospect intrigues me more, the joy of engaging in a first-class court fight with you or that of seeing the cool, society beauty struggling with a three-year-old."
Leigh believed him. He was ruthless enough to try anything. She was all too well aware of Mr. Judkins's reputation. His divorce cases had been smeared all over the gossip columns when she was growing up in Raleigh. The intimate details had been there for all to read about and snicker over. Her face flamed. Who knows what crazy statements Jason would make about her? She had felt the full force of his anger before and she knew that, even with the experience and sophistication that she had learned over those years working in the city, she still did not want to take Jason on in public. It was not only that she was afraid of this bitter, angry man, but more important, she was too proud. She could feel her old wound throbbing beneath the scar. She did not want to open it again for all to see it gaping.
"You win," she said, pressing her lips tightly together to control their trembling. "You must want to punish me very much."
Jason stood, his eyes full of bitterness. "You don't know how much."
As she walked him to the door, he told her that he would pick her up on Friday morning to go to the farm. "Be ready," he warned before he left.
Leigh slammed the door hard behind him and stood pounding the flat of her hand impotently against the wood, railing against his invincibility. She had always known that Jason would make a dangerous and implacable enemy, and he was her enemy now. What was worse, she had just delivered herself into his hands. He intended to make her pay in full for walking out on him. Well, she had a score to settle too. He had won this round, but maybe, just maybe, she wasn't beaten yet.
Leigh tilted her chin and marched into the kitchen to break the disastrous news to Flora.
Silence reigned in the car. Jason, concentrating on the road, seemed preoccupied, and Leigh was busy fighting back the apprehension that welled up in her at the thought of the next two months. She had tried looking out the window, but the repetition of trees and billboards couldn't hold her interest, centered as it was on the driver of the car. Her awareness of him was almost a tangible thing, and she hated it. With a sigh, she lay her head against the back of the seat, relieved at least that Jason drove such a luxurious car. Leigh was tired. She hadn't been sleeping well and the last two days had been frantic— packing, convincing her agent that she needed a few months off, closing the house. Putting Flora on the bus to Wilmington had been the worst; it was like saying good-bye to the last remnants of her girlhood.
Leigh started out of her half-doze when she felt the car turning off the expressway.
"Just another twenty minutes or so," Jason said, slanting her a sardonic glance. "I'm sure you can't wait to get there."
Without answering she rolled down her window and peered out. The car was passing through a small, rather stark town, its one main street lined with shops. Leigh hadn't visited this part of North Carolina before, but she could guess that this town existed solely to supply the needs of the surrounding farmers. From studying North Carolina history at school she knew that the central part of the state, the Piedmont, was primarily rural. An anachronism, she thought, picturing in her mind the urban sprawl so familiar in New York. Here was preserved something of the country as it must have been in the nineteenth century, when most of the United States was rural and industrialization was in its infancy. Maybe she would enjoy this forced exile, Leigh decided, because she would definitely be getting back to nature.
As the town was left behind, houses became farther and farther apart, most of them bordered by outbuildings and wide fields plowed ready for planting. Leigh liked the barns particularly, many weathered and dilapidated, but some covered in bright patchwork squares of a metallic material that glinted in the weak April sunshine.
"Jason, what do they grow here?" she asked, deciding that she needed some information if she was to be here for a while.
"Tobacco, mostly," he told her. "It's the most lucrative crop, but the government keeps a tight control over how much can be grown by giving the farmers allotments. Still, the profits from a summer crop of tobacco are enough to get many farmers through the winter."
He took one hand from the wheel and gestured toward the passing fields. "Lots of other things grow well too because of the rich soil. Let's see—corn, beans, peas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, all kinds of vegetables and fruits."
"Is that what you grow?"
Jason turned to look at her, a cynical expression on his face. "Why the sudden interest? You never bothered to ask before. You never even so much as visited the farm," he accused.
Leigh's mouth went dry. "You know that there wasn't really time, everything happened in such a whirlwind with us. I was in school, you were coming to see me weekends. We were trying to get to know each other."
"We didn't do a very good job, did we," Jason commented.
Leigh sighed and shifted uneasily in her seat. After a few minutes she tried again. "Well, what do you grow? I really am interested."
"All the things every other farmer around here grows. Tobacco and vegetables in the summer, peanuts and fruits in the autumn," Jason recited.
A puzzled expression on her face, Leigh asked, "What do you do in the winter if your crops are finished in the autumn?"
"I have a few sidelines," Jason explained. "Farming doesn't take up much of my time, Leigh. A good manager and tenant farmers free me to pursue other interests." He paused, then said softly, "It's difficult to make much money in farming these days, so I diversified. I had to be able to afford someone like you, honey."
Determined to keep things as harmonious as possible, Leigh ignored the jibe and waited for him to continue.
"Harrellsville, about ten miles away from the farm, is where most of my other ventures are located. I have a cannery where products from my farm and neighboring farms are preserved, and a long-distance trucking operation which distributes the canned goods."
Leigh was mildly shocked. She hadn't realized that Jason's undertakings were quite so extensive.
Suddenly he braked and turned into a narrow road
lined with oak trees. Meadows and fields, geometrically bounded by rail fencing, stretched as far as the eye could see.
"Is this yours?" asked Leigh.
Jason nodded and pointed out the window. "This land has been in my family for generations, long before the Civil War. We almost lost it once." He quirked an eyebrow at Leigh as if to question her attention. At her nod he went on with the tale.
"My grandfather and his four brothers were each willed one hundred acres of land when their father died, thus breaking up the original five hundred acre holding. The property was further fragmented when three of the brothers sold their portions to move into town. Times were hard and farming was a tough way to make a living. The fourth brother died and his property was divided among various heirs, so eventually my grandfather was the only one left, and his dream was to restore the property to its original size. He was a determined man."
Jason gazed far into the distance as if seeing into the past.
"When the Depression came in 1929, the price of land fell drastically. My grandfather had a little money saved; he didn't trust hanks so he kept his savings in a strongbox in the house and thus didn't lose it when the banks failed. Little by little he bought back the land, a whole farm or an acre or two at a time. It must have been a laborious process. He used to brag that at one time, when things were at their bleakest, he paid only fifteen cents an acre. He eventually recovered the entire property."
As Leigh watched Jason's rugged face, she knew that he had inherited his grandfather's stubbornness and determination along with the five hundred acres.
Jason slowed the car. "We're here," he announced.
The fields had given way to a wide sloping lawn, emerald green and smooth. Crowning a small rise of land in the center of that carpet of green stood the most interesting house that Leigh had ever seen. It wasn't the most beautiful because of its irregularities. She uttered a soft sigh. This would have been her home if things had worked out differently. Sensing that Jason was waiting for a comment, she told him, "It's lovely. Quite, quite lovely."
