Endless Fear (25 page)

Out of nowhere, a thought struck her. “Do you think Lily’s drunken condition contributed to her fall?”

Spencer dropped the dustpan and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Damn it, April! Why can’t you let that subject alone? No one wants to be reminded of Lily’s accident.”

No one? Or just him? The anger swimming in his eyes was mingled with a more disturbing emotion. Fear. The realization rocked her to her toes. Did he somehow know what had taken place immediately after he’d left Lily on the landing; that she must have rushed up the stairs and accused her mother of trying to steal him? She could almost remember the argument; hear the words inside her head. Was that what he wanted to keep from her?

She had to know. As she started to ask, Spencer caught her mouth with his own in a rough, bruising kiss. The trash bag slipped from her grasp. April levered her palms flat against his chest and shoved, but her body ignored all brain signals to the contrary and arched against him. The heat spiraling through her melted sensibility and doubt from her mind. She felt Spencer kick the vinyl sack out of the way, felt him drag her tightly to him, and felt the pressure of his kiss soften as his tongue invaded her willing mouth.

Need rose hard and fast inside Spencer at April’s eager response. He slipped his hands inside her sweatshirt and up, across the silken expanse of her back, around the slender span of her waist to the flat of her midriff and higher. A groan spilled from him as his fingers pushed aside her bra and felt her nipples grow taut beneath his touch. God, how he’d ached for this moment. No woman had ever been able to make up for the loss of April.

Lifting her clothing, he gazed at the wonder his fingers had experienced. Her breasts were full with upturned, bronze-hued tips. He cupped one breast in his palm and stared at it lovingly, then tasted it. She was even sweeter than his dreams.

Want throbbed in his gut. He searched her face. Was this what she wanted, too? The smoldering glaze in her lush aqua eyes said yes. Would it be so wrong? Just once? To hold the memory of her forever in his heart? Yes, it would be if she was as innocent as he suspected. “Have you ever—“

As if she knew exactly what he was asking, April interrupted, “No. I always hoped you’d be the one.”

Her answer was everything and nothing Spencer wanted to hear. He was the last man on earth who deserved what she was offering. If April ever remembered what had happened between himself and her mother on the landing, there was no doubt in his mind that she would hate him forever.

No, he couldn’t add to her pain, wouldn’t make her live with the shame of giving her innocence to the man responsible for her mother’s death and her own years in a sanitarium. Wearing his guilt like a suit of armor, he stepped away from April as though her very touch burned his skin. Reaching for the dustpan and vinyl trash bag, he murmured, “Cover yourself up.”

Disconcerted and smarting with humiliation, April swung away from him. Her thoughts were in as much disarray as her clothing. Adjusting her bra and her sweatshirt, she stared at a nick in the earthen wall and forced herself to take several calming breaths. Damn him! He’d made her feel as worthless as one of the chips of glass she could hear him depositing in the vinyl bag.

Well, this was the last time he’d ever use her feelings for him to distract her from a purpose. She rounded on him, her knuckles curled against her hips, and demanded, “Tell me, Spencer, what is it you’re so afraid I’ll find out?”

Chapter Fourteen

Spencer opened his mouth then shut it. Feeling like a complete heel, he yanked the vinyl drawstring closed and hoisted the full trash bag as easily as he would a pouch of marbles. He was a man whose honesty bordered on bluntness, but on this subject, with this woman, he could no more find the words than look her in the eye. “April, there’s nothing to find out,” he lied.

The tips of his ears glowed as tellingly as the dying ember of hope in her heart. The truth had been there all along, waiting for her to see, but she’d refused to face it. Now, she had no choice. The only reason he was attracted to her, desired her, must be her resemblance to Lily. Always Lily.

Her anger dispersed in a blur of self-pitying tears. Second best. Nothing more than a surrogate, a substitute. The awful thing was, a part of her would willingly accept this man who owned her heart and soul on those terms, on any terms. But admitting she was a virgin had spoiled any such possibility. A liaison with a naive, inexperienced lover could never simulate the memories he had of her adept mother.

Never before had April rued her decision to stay chaste until marriage, but in light of Spencer’s rejection, it suddenly seemed foolish beyond belief.

Making to leave, he glanced over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

“
In a second.” She managed to choke out the words from her tear-blocked throat.

Spencer set the bag on the floor with a sigh. “April, I’m not leaving you down here alone.”

She didn’t want to be left down here alone. What she wanted to do was rush past him and up to her room before he witnessed her complete collapse. But he filled the doorway and she couldn’t get through without touching him. Feeling her self-control slip another notch, she stubbornly snatched a new plastic sack from the pack and snapped it open. She had to get rid of him before she further humiliated herself.

“
I don’t need a nursemaid, Spence.” Gingerly, she bent and swept glass shards into the dustpan, keeping her back toward him as the tears slid from her brimming eyes. “My therapist says I have to learn to face the things that scare me the most. I won’t stay here any longer than it takes to fill this trash bag.”

“
Dammed stubborn…” The rest of his diatribe was lost to her in the clatter of glass as he hefted his own trash bag. Listening to him leave, she felt her world crash around her ankles in as many broken pieces as the shattered bottles of Bordeaux and Chablis.

Minutes ticked by as April stood there, silently crying, allowing enough time to pass to assure herself that she wouldn’t run into Spencer on the way to her room. At length, the dreadful stillness had her wiping her wet cheeks and eyeing the room uneasily. She was certain she was alone, but the fact did little to quell the goose bumps lifting along her arms and legs.

Moving faster than necessary, she stumbled through the basement room into the cellar, charged to the stairs with the speed and tunnel vision of a race horse wearing blinders, and barely managed to skid to a stop centimeters from being stabbed by the two-by-eight planks Karl was carrying through the larder.

“
Whoa!” The boards hit the floor with a muted clatter. Karl caught her by the upper arms to steady her. “Hey, pretty lady, where you headed in such a hurry?”

“
Nowhere special,” she muttered. Afraid he’d realize she’d been crying and would pry into the reason for it, April purposely kept her head averted.

But that didn’t stop Karl. He took hold of her chin with one beefy hand and tilted her face toward his. She meant to pull away, but the look of compassion he gave her stymied the intention. He wiped the damp area beneath her eyes with the pads of his thumbs with a gentleness she wouldn’t have expected from a man his size. “You get scared—being down here all alone? No, you don’t need to explain. Not after what you’ve been through.”

Without knowing exactly why, April allowed Karl to pull her against his muscular body and pressed her cheek to his shirtfront. He smelled different than Spencer. Sawdust and sweat infiltrated her nostrils, but the musky scents were not unpleasant, and the undemanding strength of his embrace felt as comforting as any offered a younger sister by an older brother.

Listening to his heartbeat accelerate against her ear, she noted another dissimilarity to Spencer. There was no stirring in her blood at Karl’s touch, no yearning to expand the hug to anything more intimate, she discovered, as his hands slid across her back caressingly. In fact, April felt nothing more for him than friendship.

His touch grew bolder, and she realized he was misreading the situation. She wedged a space between him, then stepped from his grasp. “Thanks for the shoulder, but I’m fine now.”

“
Anytime, honey. Anytime.”

April brushed past Karl and hastened up the remaining stairs almost as fast and as carelessly as before. As she rounded the curve in the staircase, she nearly knocked Helga off her feet. A startled gasp flew from her mouth. She slammed to a stop.

Helga reared back. There was a fiery blush on her rotund cheeks.

Touching her sleeve, April said, “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“
I’ll live,” Helga grunted. Shrugging off April’s hand, she continued her descent to the larder, muttering as she went. “Cripes, everybody’s in a hurry today—a cook ain’t safe going to her own root cellar.”

Moving at a diminished pace, April proceeded to her bedroom, mulling over both encounters with the Winston family. The furious color in the housekeeper’s face hinted at more than a near collision. Had Helga actually needed something from the larder, or had she been eavesdropping on Karl and her?

She entered her bedroom, frowning. Karl had definitely wanted some encouragement from her. The irony sapped the calming effect she usually derived from her peach-hued room. She moved to the dresser and withdrew fresh undergarments. Why was it that she couldn’t care for the one man she knew didn’t give a hoot if she looked like her dead mother?

A quick shower and fresh wool slacks and sweater did little to lift her spirits or clear her mind. Her nerves felt as though they’d been run across a cheese grater.. Spying her turtle earrings, she decided to walk to her favorite rock was just the thing she needed. She grabbed her parka, attached the earrings, and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

There, Helga was bent over a bread board, chopping onions with a wicked looking butcher knife. July sat at the table eating cookies and milk.

Cynthia stood three feet from the child, sizing up an arrangement of flowers perched on the table’s center. She glanced at April, taking in her outdoor apparel. “Where you off to, sugah?”

“
For a walk. Probably to Turtle Rock.”

Expecting an objection, she was surprised when Cynthia said, “Well, the weather seems to be cooperatin’ for once.”

“
Can I go, too?” July scrambled off the chair, but her mother intercepted her.

“
Not so fast, missy. You’ve got a date with a bubble bath. Or did you forget?”

“
No,” July sighed resignedly.

April bit back a smile. “I’ll take you next time. Okay?”

“
Okay.”

With that, April left the house and set out toward Haro Strait at a fast clip. Pungent sea air climbed the cliffs to meet her. She welcomed its bracing entrance into her lungs and its bite on her cheeks.

Turtle Rock.
She sighed. The limbering walk to her special place was just what her confused brain needed. And it was the last chance she’d have for much privacy. Vanessa’s family would be arriving for dinner and staying until after the engagement party.

As she made for the trail along the cliff, she heard the loud bangs of a busy hammer coming from the direction of the ferry dock.

* * * *

“
If y’all hit that nail head any harder, Spence, you’re liable to break that railin’ clean in two.”

At the sound of his mother’s voice, Spencer jerked. Remaining squatted, he glanced over his shoulder and let the hammer drop between his bent knees to the ferry deck. “What brings you down here?”

Cynthia moved closer as Spencer sank from his haunches to his rear and gazed up at her. “I wanted to see how the work was comin’. It looks like you’re ‘bout finished.”

He surveyed his efforts. The new lumber he’d used to shore up the unsteady railings was unpainted, ugly even, but it was serviceable. Karl could take care of the weather coating after the engagement party. For now it would keep all passengers safe.

His mother squatted and lifted a lock of hair from his forehead, as though he were a young boy. “The way you were attackin’ that nail, a person would have thought it was an enemy. You upset about somethin’?”

“
Nothing I can’t handle.” He avoided her gaze and cast his eyes at the waves hitting the ferry hull. The gold cross felt heavy in his pocket. He should give it to her. Ask, no, demand, an explanation, instead of torturing himself with speculation. She deserved better. But he was too afraid to do the right thing. His whole world seemed to be spinning out of control.

“
I’m not tryin’ to pry,” she said. “You just look so sad and—confused.”

Her concern went straight to his heart. He hated himself more than ever for suspecting his mother could have had any reason to harm April. For the briefest moment, he considered handing her the gold cross, pouring out his troubles to her. But he couldn’t figure out where to start. His mother would be deeply wounded by his disloyal thoughts. As to the other, hell, she didn’t know what had transpired on the basement landing right before Lily’s death. How could he tell her what he couldn’t confess to the woman he loved?