“No!” Daphne cried. “No. She just wanted me to talk to you. She didn’t want Cleo to throw us out of the house. Please, try to understand. She didn’t…she wouldn’t…”
“Simon?” Cleo fought off Beatrice’s attempts to keep her seated on the patio floor. Grabbing a chair for support, Cleo rose to her feet.
“Stay here. Wait for the ambulance,” he told her. “Let me handle this.”
“Do as he asks,” Beatrice pleaded.
Cleo sat down in the chair. “You think Aunt Oralie—”
“Hush, sweetheart.” Beatrice patted Cleo and hugged her head against her stomach the way a mother would in comforting a child. “Oralie has always been jealous of you, but I never dreamed that she…it isn’t in her to murder. I thought she’d gotten over her…but she hasn’t. Why didn’t I realize that she’s been pretending all these years?”
“What are you talking about?” Cleo lifted her head and stared up at Beatrice.
“Oh, my dear, dear girl, it’s all my fault.” Tears streamed down Beatrice’s face. “When your father was killed and your mother deserted you, Daddy and I brought you home to live with us. You were such a tiny little thing. None of us had ever seen you. You were born after James went to Vietnam and Arabelle wasn’t on good terms with us.”
“Please, Aunt Beatrice, what does all this have to do with Aunt Oralie?”
“Oralie has always been terribly jealous of me, of my relationship with Perry.” Beatrice hung her head, avoiding any eye contact. “After I brought you home and made such a fuss over you, and when Oralie saw how Daddy doted on you, she got the ridiculous idea in her head that you were my child, and not really James’s little girl.”
“What?” Cleo turned around too quickly. Pain shot through her head. She suddenly felt very dizzy.
“You’ve always resembled me a great deal, Cleo.” Beatrice smiled sadly. “We both take after Daddy’s mother. She was a petite, green-eyed redhead.”
“Oralie assumed that Perry was Cleo’s father,” Roarke said.
“Yes,” Beatrice replied. “For quite some time nothing we said or did could convince her otherwise. She tormented us with her accusations. But finally, she said that she would accept Cleo into the family and forgive Perry, as long as he stayed away from Cleo and never paid any attention to her.”
“That’s why Uncle Perry—”
“He didn’t dare be more than civil to you.” Beatrice wept openly, gasping with sobbing breaths. Calming herself, she looked directly at Roarke. “Please, Simon, go on and do what must be done. There’s no telling what Oralie will do now that we’ve found her out.”
Roarke shrugged off his wet jacket and tossed it on the table. “Stay put,” he told Cleo.
Roarke found Perry Sutton standing in the middle of his and Oralie’s sitting room, his arms outstretched to his wife. Oralie had opened the double doors leading outside onto her balcony. She stood facing Perry, her back to the balcony. Daphne sat rigidly on the edge of the bed in her parents’ bedroom. Her eyes were dazed, her face deathly pale. Roarke halted a few feet behind Perry. But Perry didn’t turn around. With his arms open wide, he kept saying, “Come to me, Oralie,” over and over again.
Oralie pointed a finger at Roarke and laughed hysterically. “If she hadn’t married him, it would all be over now. She’d be dead and my children would be safe. It would all be ours, not hers. Not Bea’s.”
“Oralie, honey, everything will be all right if you just come on back in here with me.” Perry took a tentative step toward her.
She backed all the way onto the balcony until her hips rested against the wooden banister. “Don’t! I’m not going to let you trick me. Not any of you.”
“No one’s trying to trick you,” Perry said. “I just want you to come back in here and let’s talk this over. We can make everything all right. Cleo’s fine. You didn’t hurt her.”
“I wish I’d killed her. I tried!”
“Hush, honey, you’re only upsetting yourself.” Perry stood perfectly still.
Roarke placed his hand on Perry’s shoulder. “Has she threatened to jump?” Roarke whispered.
Perry nodded affirmatively.
“What’s he saying to you?” Oralie screamed. “Don’t you believe anything he says. He’s Cleo’s husband. He’ll take her side. But you mustn’t take her side. You have to be on my side. Mine and my children’s.”
“I am on your side.”
“No, you’re on Cleo’s side, too. Because she’s Beatrice’s child. Yours and Beatrice’s. You lied to me. All of you. Uncle George. Beatrice. You. But I knew better. I couldn’t allow you to love Beatrice’s child more than my children. That’s why I tried to drown Cleo when she was a little girl. If only I had succeeded then, everything would have been all right.”
Marla Sutton gasped loudly. She halted in the doorway of Perry and Oralie’s suite. Cleo and Aunt Beatrice stood directly behind her.
“Yes, Oralie, I know,” Perry said. “Remember? You promised me then that you’d never try to harm Cleo again.”
“Yes, I promised.”
“You broke your promise, didn’t you?”
“It was easy, you know.” Oralie put her hands behind her back and grasped the banister. She tossed back her head and laughed. “I almost got caught getting those spiders out of the science lab at Covenant. I did run into Professor Martindale, but he didn’t remember who I was. Wasn’t that fortunate? And the poison was so simple. I just got it out of a smelly old sack in your greenhouse. I remembered that one day when I went down to the greenhouse, you said you needed to get rid of some of those old insecticides and a sack of rat poison. But you never did. Wasn’t that lucky for me?”
Cleo gripped Beatrice’s hand. “Did you know that Aunt Oralie tried to kill me years ago? Did Uncle Perry tell you?”
“No, I had no idea,” Beatrice said. “We all assumed that your nearly drowning when you were a child was nothing more than an accident. We were always having to scold you children for playing around the pool unsupervised.”
“The little buzzers under the saddle were the most fun.” Oralie’s voice boomed with a maniacal strength. “I found those in a sack in Trey’s dresser. They’d been left over from some party that he’d given a few years ago, before he and Marla married. I had so hoped that when Sweet Justice bucked her off, Cleo would break her neck.”
Marla gasped a second time. Cleo tightened her grasp on Beatrice’s hand.
Oralie lifted one of her legs and swung it over the banister.
“Don’t, Oralie,” Perry pleaded. “We can fix things. We can make things right again.”
“I tried to make things right and I failed,” she said. “I can’t let y’all call that silly Phil Bacon to come and get me. He’d put me in jail, just like he did Trey. I’m not going to jail. They’d take away all my jewelry.” She fiddled with the rings on her fingers. “And I couldn’t wear my nice clothes.” She stroked her silk blouse. “And they wouldn’t let Pearl bring me breakfast in bed when I’m having one of my bad days.”
“You won’t have to go to jail.” Perry turned around and looked at Cleo and Beatrice. “Please, tell her that she won’t have to go to jail. Please.”
Cleo closed her eyes momentarily. A part of her didn’t care if Oralie jumped to her death. Another part of her wanted desperately to save her aunt.
“Aunt Oralie, please come back inside.” Releasing Beatrice’s hand, Cleo walked over and stood beside Roarke. “No one is going to take you off to jail.”
“You’re lying!” Oralie laughed again, the hysteria accelerating, the laughter growing louder and louder.
“Mother.” Daphne rose from the bed and walked into the sitting room. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t. I love you. I—”
“I’m sorry, my darling girl. So sorry.” Oralie lifted her other leg over the railing and sat on the narrow banister, her feet dangling over the side.
Perry rushed forward, crying out his wife’s name. She turned, looke
d at him and smiled. “I love you,” she said, and jumped off the balcony.
Perry grabbed for Oralie, his fingers brushing her silk blouse as he reached for her. But she was too far away. He gripped the banister. Helpless to stop her descent, he watched his wife fall to the ground. Daphne dropped to her knees and wept. Marla screamed, then fainted dead away. Beatrice ran onto the balcony; she held out her hand to Perry, but didn’t touch him. Roarke draped his arm around Cleo’s trembling shoulders. Off in the distance an ambulance siren wailed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DR. IVERSON HAD assured Roarke and Cleo that their baby apparently hadn’t suffered any damage from Cleo’s accident. Cleo had cried tears of joy, and Roarke had held her in his arms, grateful that the baby was safe. He wished he could share Cleo’s joy. He couldn’t. And she seemed to understand. Although they continued making love, Cleo never again told him that she loved him, never again asked him to remain in River Bend permanently.
He did stay for Oralie Sutton’s funeral. The family kept it a private affair, which everyone agreed was best, considering the circumstances. In the days following Oralie’s suicidal jump from the balcony, Daphne clung to her father instead of Hugh. Perry turned to Beatrice for solace and support. And ever reliable and dependable, Cleo made all the arrangements, sparing no expense. Trey Sutton was released on bond in time for the somber event, and after his preliminary hearing, he and Marla stayed with her parents while awaiting his trial.
Roarke had remained at Cleo’s side, still her bodyguard, still her husband, until all the loose ends were tied up. He had fulfilled his obligations to her, above and beyond those required in their legalized agreement.
She was two and a half months pregnant, but still as slender as a reed. She hadn’t been bothered much with morning sickness and she glowed with good health and vitality. He didn’t dare let himself imagine how she would shine with maternal beauty as her pregnancy progressed.
Roarke placed the last item in his suitcase, then snapped the lid shut. He glanced at Cleo, who sat at the writing desk at the foot of the bed. She ripped out the check from her checkbook, pushed back her chair and stood.
She held the check out to him. “This should buy you that farm you want, and take care of all Hope’s needs as long as she lives.”
“Thanks.” He took the check without even glancing at it. He folded it in two, pulled out his wallet and slipped the check inside.
“I won’t go down with you,” Cleo said. “I’d rather we said our goodbyes here.”
“That’s fine with me.” He reached out and took her hands.
She didn’t move in closer; he didn’t bring her toward him. They kept a foot of space between them.
“Take care of yourself,” she said.
“Yeah, I will. You take care of yourself, too. And the baby.”
“We’ll be just fine.”
“I’m sure you will. You’re a strong woman, honey. A survivor.” He released her hands, turned around, lifted his suitcase off the bed and walked toward the door. “Simon?”
He paused, his hand on the doorknob, and looked back over his shoulder.
“Do you want me to let you know when our baby is born?”
He opened the door and stepped into the hall. “No. I don’t want to know.”
He closed the door behind him. Cleo slumped onto the bed, curled into a ball and cried. She had hoped and prayed something—anything—would change his mind and he would stay with her. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed not to beg him to stay. But if he didn’t love her, if he could never risk loving another woman and child, then nothing she said or did would have kept him at her side for a lifetime.
Cleo laid her hand over her tummy. “We’ll be all right without him, my sweet baby. But I’m afraid your father’s never going to be all right without us.”
IN THE FIRST week after he left Cleo, Roarke set up a fund that would take care of Hope’s bills, now and in the future. He made a trip to Florida to see her, but she didn’t recognize him. She seldom did. He took her a box of her favorite candy mints and she smiled that childlike smile that always reminded him of Laurie’s.
The second week, he visited with his old buddies at Dundee Private Security in Atlanta and haunted a few nightspots with Gabriel Hawk and Morgan Kane. He got rip-roaring drunk and suffered a hell of a hangover.
The next night, he picked up a bosomy, petite redhead in a bar and took her back to his apartment. Before he got her halfway undressed, he called her “Cleo Belle.” He apologized, gave the lady cab fare and sent her packing.
The third week he hired a real estate agent and started searching for a small farm, anywhere in the South. He told himself that time would take care of everything. That given enough time, he’d forget the way Cleo laughed. The way she walked and talked. The way she clung to him, calling out his name when he pleasured her. The way she made him feel when they were together. The fact that she was carrying his child.
Beatrice called him to tell him that Trey had been sentenced to ten years, a split sentence—five years in prison, five on probation. Cleo had testified in his defense.
“Cleo’s well,” Beatrice said. “She’s gained three pounds. But I worry that she’s working too hard. She practically lives at the plant since you left.”
The fourth week, his agent showed him pictures of six different properties. One in particular caught his eye. It was a forty-acre spread in Franklin County, about twenty-five miles outside River Bend, in a rural community called Laurie Falls. His heart skipped a beat when he read the name. Laurie Falls.
The fifth week, he bought the farm at Laurie Falls, packed his meager belongings and drove straight through to Alabama.
The sixth week, he picked up the newly installed telephone in his den and called his wife.
“I DON’T SEE why you have to move out.” Beatrice followed Cleo as she buzzed around the kitchen, preparing herself a sandwich for lunch. “What with Trey in prison and Daphne off in Europe, and Marla back home with her parents, if you leave, whatever will Perry and I do but rattle around all alone in this big house?”
“I’d think you two would enjoy having the house to yourselves and the chance to be alone.” Cleo took an enormous bite out of her sandwich. In the past couple of weeks, her appetite had surged out of control. She went to bed hungry and woke up hungry. She wondered sometimes if she was eating for more than two, but Dr. Tanner assured her that she wasn’t having twins.
“But buying a house and moving out on your own when you’re four months pregnant seems a bit foolhardy to me.”
“If Daphne can break her engagement to Hugh and move to Europe in search of a new life, then why can’t I simply move across town and start over again? I want to give my baby and me a fresh start, away from all the memories this house holds. Good memories, and bad.”
“I think you should go to Atlanta and tell Simon Roarke that he’s damn well going to live up to his responsibilities as your husband and the father of your baby.” Beatrice opened the refrigerator door, removed a bottled fruit drink and unscrewed the lid.
“I’ve been telling her to do just that for weeks now,” Pearl said. “But she’s too stubborn, too filled with McNamara pride, to go after her man. She reminds me of you sometimes, Bea.”
“Are you implying something, Pearl?” Beatrice asked. “I wish you’d just say what you have to say and stop beating around the bush.”
“All right.” Pearl pointed a meaty finger at Cleo. “Go to Atlanta and get Mr. Roarke. Do whatever you have to do, but convince him that you’re not letting him go. I don’t think it would take much convincing. After all, he’s been gone six weeks and he hasn’t done a thing about getting a divorce, has he?”
“Pearl is absolutely right!” Beatrice took a sip of her drink.
“And you—” Pearl pointed at Beatrice “—you stop twiddling your thumbs while Perry Sutton plays the grieving widower. You’ve waited nearly thirty-five years for that man. Why wait any lon
ger?”
Beatrice gasped. “My heavens, Pearl. Oralie hasn’t been gone two months yet.”
“What difference does it make how long she’s been gone? Dead is dead. She ain’t going to be no deader two years from now.”
“Oh, hush up. You say the most outrageous things and still call yourself a good Christian woman.”
The ringing telephone interrupted any reply Pearl might have made. She wiped her hands on her apron and lifted the receiver from the wall phone.
“McNamara and Sutton residence,” Pearl said.
“Hello, Pearl, my love, how are you?” Roarke asked.
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Fine,” he said. “Finer than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. It’s about time you were coming to your senses. Did you want to speak to someone other than me?”
“Is Cleo there?”
“She might be.”
Cleo and Beatrice stared at Pearl. Cleo mouthed the question “Who is it?”
“Before I let her talk to you, I want to know exactly what you’re going to say,” Pearl told Roarke.
“I’m going to tell her that I’m not giving her a divorce. Not now. Not ever.”
“Hold on just a minute.” Pearl held out the telephone toward Cleo. “It’s for you. Some man who says he’s your husband.”
“Simon?” Cleo almost strangled on a piece of bread that had lodged in her throat. She grabbed Beatrice’s drink out of her hand and took a hefty swallow.
Walking across the kitchen, she stared at the telephone in Pearl’s hand as if it were a live snake. She hesitated when Pearl tried to give her the phone.
“This is the call you’ve been waiting on, girl. Take it.”
Cleo grasped the telephone. “Hello.”
“Cleo, I want you to drive out to Laurie Falls today and meet me,” Roarke said. “I’ll give you the directions. Will you come?”
Til Death Do Us Part Page 49
