Premeditated Marriage

He could feel Helen’s gaze on them, watching eagle-eyed, and Trudi must have felt it, too. She huriedly cleared up his dishes, everything but his coffee, and disappeared back into the kitchen again.

He stared after her for a moment, then plucked the bill and napkin from under the edge of the saucer. Along with the six dollars and fifty cents he owed for dinner, she’d written on his napkin: “I get off at ten.”

He glanced at his watch. That would give him time to get ready for her. He pulled out his pen and wrote, Murphy’s, No. 5 on the napkin, then dropped a ten on top of the bill. With luck Trudi had something good to offer him.

As he left the café, Helen called after him, “See ya, Gus.” He could feel her watching as he walked past the front window of the café. He wondered how long it would take her to call Charlie Larkin and tell her he’d been asking personal questions about her. The thought pleased him, since he’d only just begun.

I’m coming for you, Charlie.

Chapter Four

Charlie pushed through the kitchen door of the old farmhouse she shared with her mother and aunt, a huge box of produce in her arms.

“Let me guess. Wayne Dreyer’s old Chevy broke down again.” Aunt Selma shook her freshly-permed, gray head as she walked over to the table to peer inside the box Charlie set down. Her aunt looked small and frail next to the huge box, older somehow.

“I’ve got another one in the van,” Charlie said and went back out to get it through the falling snow, thick as cotton ticking, the old farmhouse and the surrounding trees a blur of white.

Her aunt was giving her that look when she came back in.

“Winter squash, apples and pumpkins,” Charlie said, sliding the second huge box onto the table next to the first.

“I can see that,” Selma said. “There’s enough squash alone to last three winters. And pumpkins—Land-sakes, what will we do with all of them? You’d better hope that boy’s car doesn’t break down again until berry season.”

“He got the idea that we eat a lot of pumpkin pie,” she said, shrugging out of her coat. This time last year the water pump had gone on Wayne’s Chevy and she’d taken pumpkins as payment, going on about her Aunt Selma’s need for fresh pumpkin for her pies.

Her aunt shook her head. “You remind me of your father.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said, going to hang her coat on the hook by the back door.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Charlie turned to smile at her.

Her aunt’s gaze softened. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.”

Selma waved that off. “I know you, girl,” she said, frowning. “Something’s happened.”

Some people in town said Selma had The Gift, that she could practically look into your head and see things that no one else could—including the future.

There had been times when Charlie wasn’t so sure they weren’t right. But mostly she believed her aunt just paid more attention to the little things, things other people maybe didn’t take the time to notice. Not that it wasn’t damn eerie on occasion. And a real pain if you preferred to keep your problems to yourself.

The phone rang. Charlie tried to hide her relief as she gave her aunt a shrug and picked up the receiver from the wall phone.

“That guy whose car broke down—Gus—he just left,” Helen whispered. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“Really?” she said and smiled at her aunt, knowing there was more.

“He was asking a lot of questions.”

“About what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

“About that man who drowned in the lake and about you.”

Charlie let out a little laugh and turned away from her aunt. “Well, you know what they say about curiosity.”

“That’s not the worst part,” Helen said. “Trudi warmed right up to him. You know how she is.”

Everyone knew how Trudi Murphy was. The stranger probably would know soon enough.

“I think you should try to find out something about him,” Helen said. “I don’t like the looks of him.” She didn’t like the looks of most men. Blame it on four bad marriages and a weakness for losers. “What’s he wanting to know about you for anyway?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s nothing.” She wished that were true.

“I hope you’re right,” Helen said. “Once his car is fixed, maybe he’ll leave. Maybelle said he only paid for one night.”

“That’s good.” But she had a feeling it didn’t mean a thing. “Thanks for letting me know.” She hung up and turned, feeling her aunt’s intent gaze.

“Charlotte—” Selma began.

“What in the world?” her mother said from the doorway. Vera’s eyes widened with wonder, as if the boxes on the table were brightly wrapped presents instead of vegetables from the gourd family and the fruit that destroyed Eden.

Her mother was smaller than Selma and lacked her sister’s strength. Vera had always been the fragile one, her pale skin almost translucent, her hair now downy feather white.

Aunt Selma gave Charlie a warning look, one she knew only too well. Don’t upset your mother. The words should have been stitched on their living-room pillows.

“I’ve been wanting to make some pumpkin pies,” Selma said.

Vera Larkin smiled dreamily. Her cardigan sweater had fallen off one shoulder. “I do love pumpkin pie. With ice cream.” She frowned. “Or is it whipped cream?”

“Either sounds good,” Selma told her as she pulled her sister’s sweater around her thin shoulders.

Charlie noticed that her mother’s slippers were on the wrong feet as she watched the two leave the room. She closed her eyes, the pain too intense. It broke her heart to see her mother like this and growing worse each day.

If it wasn’t for Aunt Selma… It was hard to believe that Selma was almost seventy, the older of the sisters. She’d never married. When Charlie was a child, she’d found a yellowed wedding dress in the attic. Her mother had told her a romantic story about Selma falling wildly in love with a soldier. They were to be married, but just days before he was coming home, his plane was shot down. Devastated, Selma had sworn never to love another man.

Of course, there were people in Utopia who swore the story was as phony as Trudi Murphy’s bust. But then how did Charlie explain the wedding dress still in the attic? If Selma’s “sight” was to be believed, maybe Selma had known long ago that Vera was going to need her and that’s why she’d never married. Maybe Selma had called off the wedding after another one of Vera’s miscarriages had laid her up. It would be like Selma.

Vera had never been strong, according to Selma. She’d married Burt at eighteen full of hope, but quickly became weakened both physically and spiritually by miscarriages and disappointments, until finally Charlie was born. Vera was almost forty by then.

Just twenty-one years later, she lost Burt to a heart attack. It had been a blow that had left her mother crippled emotionally and brought Charlie racing back from college to take over the garage. That had been four years ago. Aunt Selma had been there, though, each time Vera needed her. It wasn’t surprising that Selma had been the one to notice Vera’s Alzheimer’s first.

“Are you warm enough?” Selma was asking Vera in the living room. “It’s snowing out. Maybe I should throw more logs on the fire. Would you like that?” Selma glanced over her shoulder as she helped Vera into a wingback chair in front of the fireplace, her look clear: We will talk later.

Charlie had no doubt of that. Selma and Vera had already eaten dinner. Charlie could smell the chicken and dumplings Selma had saved her. There was a warm apple pie, too.

Charlie had tried to get Selma to slow down.