Poison Heart (22 page)

He was on top of her, but he had let go of her shoulders and brought his hands up to his face. He was bleeding. She tried to scramble away from him, but he caught the belt of her pants, and she couldn’t get away.

Just when she was ready to punch him again, she heard a scream. The next thing she knew, a woman had her arms around Mark’s neck and was pulling him away from her. The woman was Margaret.

“Stop it,” Margaret screamed. “Stop.”

Mark quit fighting and put his face in his hands, sitting on the sidewalk.

Margaret stood over him, her hands on her hips, and yelled, “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to ruin everything? You should be so ashamed, Mark. We’re going to get our farm back from Patty Jo if you will just pull yourself together.”

Claire dusted off her clothes and stood up. When she saw Margaret, she knew something had changed for the better, though she wasn’t sure what it was. Margaret was yelling as though she had a new life. Her head was held high, and she was finally fighting for what was hers.

CHAPTER 27

Claire and Rich swayed around the dance floor in the old barn on Ruth and Jake’s farm. It had been a perfect wedding: a crisp, bright, early November day, a large gathering of close friends, the woman pastor from Fort St. Antoine’s Moravian Church doing the honors of uniting Ella and Edwin in holy matrimony. Meg’s new goat had gaily pranced down the aisle by her side, both of them wearing crowns of flowers, although Poppy the goat had ended up eating hers during the ceremony.

Margaret and Mark danced close to them, and the two women smiled at each other. Margaret had told Claire the other day that Mark had gone to his first AA meeting in Wabasha. With the new evidence of Walter’s letter, the court had decided that Patty Jo had used undue influence to force Walter to change his will in her favor.

Since the court had reversed its decision and given the farm to Margaret, she seemed so much happier. Claire realized she had never really known who Margaret was, having met her under such dire conditions. Also, Margaret had told Claire her hot flashes were finally subsiding.

Claire was glad that Patty Jo Tilde—she even hated that the woman still carried the name of the man she had probably murdered—was out of the county for good. In a plea agreement she had been given twenty years for the murder of Florence Tilde, with possible parole after ten.

Someone started clinking a glass, and the whole room exploded with the sound of forks tapping wineglasses. Edwin and Ella stopped where they were on the dance floor and kissed. Cheers erupted. They looked so happy together. Ella had worn a lovely taupe silk dress, her hair in short white curls all over her head. Edwin had rented a tux. He looked like an English butler.

Stuart, Lucas, and Rich had all rented tuxedos. But Rich had insisted on wearing his cowboy boots. Claire had found a lovely rich claret silk dress at the thrift shop in Red Wing.

The wedding presents were in a pile by the cake. Claire could hardly wait for them to be opened. Rich and she had picked out a cream-colored hand-sewn quilt from the Amish Country store in Stockholm. She knew Ella would love it.

Claire looked around for Meg. Her daughter was dressed in a flowered dress that made her look like the teenager she would soon become. Claire was surprised to see her dance by with Ted. It looked like her daughter had her first boyfriend.

Even Beatrice seemed happy. She was sitting with two older women friends and had been talking away all evening. She was looking a little tired now, and Claire knew they’d have to get her back to the nursing home soon, but she seemed to have enjoyed herself. In another week or two, she was going home to her own apartment.

“Time to cut the cake,” Ruth called out when the music ended.

Stuart had made a three-tiered cake and decorated it with lovely sculpted roses. Almost a shame to cut into it, but there was Ella brandishing a knife and ready to cut the first piece. Edwin circled her waist with his arm and then joined hands with her.

The cherry pie that Daniel Reiner had delivered yesterday was sitting next to the cake. He had left it with Rich, telling him that he owed Claire big-time and this was his way of thanking her. She could tell the pie had come from Le Pain Perdu, but it was the thought that counted. Maybe the guy had a chance of fitting into this community after all.

Claire felt Rich wrap her in his arms and kiss her on the neck as Ella and Edwin cut the cake.

“Are we going to have to wait that long?” Rich asked her, whispering in her ear.

“Till we’re eighty? Maybe not.”

O
THER
B
OOKS BY
M
ARY
L
OGUE

Novels

Red Lake of the Heart

Still Explosion

Claire Watkins Mysteries

Blood Country

Dark Coulee

Glare Ice

Bone Harvest

Poetry

Discriminating Evidence

Settling

Poison Heart
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Mary Logue

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher upon request.

Ballantine Books website address:
www.ballantinebooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-48457-4

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