Premeditated Marriage

“Cooking and caring for my sister is what I’ve always done,” Selma had snapped. “Let me enjoy myself and don’t get in my way.” She’d softened the words with a smile. “You know how much I love doing this.”

Charlie had nodded and stayed out of her way, helping out as much as she could behind the scenes.

While Charlie ate, Vera chattered away about things that had happened forty years ago. Selma was too quiet, as if she could read Charlie’s thoughts, which kept returning to the stranger in town.

After dinner and dishes, Charlie got her coat from the peg and went out on the porch, hoping the cold night air would clear her head. It wasn’t long before she heard the soft creak of slipper steps on the floorboards behind her.

“Well?” Selma’s voice sounded hoarse with worry.

She didn’t turn around. “It’s nothing.” She tried to sound unconcerned.

“Then why do you seem…scared?”

Scared? Is that what this was? This quaking inside her. This high-frequency jitter, like being connected to a high-voltage battery all the time. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she started throwing off sparks. At first it had been a low buzz. Almost a nervous energy. Anxiety. Worry. But now she vibrated with what had to be more than fear. She hugged herself as if that would still her terror. At least long enough to reassure her aunt.

“There’s something I need to ask you.” Selma seemed to hesitate. “Does this have anything to do with that young man they pulled from the lake?”

Charlie turned slowly to look at her aunt. Selma stood in a pool of light from the kitchen window wearing a thick wool sweater over her polyester pantsuit. Charlie remembered her mother secretly knitting the sweater several years ago. A Christmas present in Selma’s favorite colors, browns, golds and reds.

Even from here Charlie could see the mistakes in the pattern. The signs had been there that long ago, only Charlie hadn’t recognized them. But then, it was so hard to admit that someone you loved was losing her mind.

“Yes,” Charlie said. It had everything to do with Josh Whitaker.

Selma reached for the porch railing and closed her eyes, her bare hand pale and bony, veins blue against the white skin, frail.

Charlie started to reach for her, afraid her aunt was going to collapse. But she drew back her hand at the last minute as Selma’s eyes snapped open.

Before she saw the tears, Charlie was going to tell her aunt everything. The weight of holding something like this inside just seemed too much to bear alone any longer. But the tears stopped her. Selma had always been strong, but this was too much of a burden for anyone, especially someone you loved.

“I’m just upset because the death reminds me of when Quinn was killed,” Charlie said quickly.

The relief in Selma’s expression was worth the half lie Charlie had had to tell.

“You still think about Quinn Simonson?” her aunt asked, sounding surprised but stronger. “That was so long ago and I didn’t think your relationship with him was that serious.”

Charlie shook her head. “No, but he was my first boyfriend.”

“The Simonsons aren’t giving you a hard time again, are they?” Selma demanded fiercely, reminding Charlie of a bantam rooster. “Those people. They just want to blame someone for their golden boy’s death and you’re an easy target.”

Golden boy only fit Quinn because of his blond good looks and because Phil and Norma Simonson had put him on a pedestal above even their oldest son, Forest. To them, Quinn could do no wrong. Unfortunately, Charlie knew better.

“It’s not the Simonsons,” Charlie said. “This latest accident at the lake just brings back all the awful memories from before.” Not that the Simonsons had let her forget for a moment over the past seven years what they believed she’d done—killed their son.

“I’m so sorry this had to happen now,” Selma said. “You have enough to concern yourself with.”

“I’m fine.” She hugged Selma, tears springing to her eyes at the frailty she felt in her aunt’s wiry-thin frame.

“Oh, Charlie.” Her aunt brushed a dry kiss across her cheek. “You have taken on so much with your mother and me.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “You and Mom have always taken care of me and now you have Mom to take care of as well.”

Her aunt pulled her sweater around herself, her expression unconvinced. How much did she know? Or did she just suspect the truth?

“It’s cold out here,” Charlie said. “You should get back in before Mom misses you.” She knew that, more than the cold, would get her aunt back inside, keep her aunt from asking any more questions.

With obvious reluctance, Selma scuffled back into the house without another word.

Charlie turned to look out at the snow, filled with relief—and regret. The snow had begun to stick and pile up. The way a lot of things in life tended to pile up. When Josh’s body was pulled from the lake, she’d felt paralyzed with fear. She hadn’t known he was in town. Still didn’t understand what could have brought him up here considering that she hadn’t seen or spoken to him in four years.

She shook her head, the horror of his murder almost more than she could bear. She closed her eyes. She had just let things happen and now she’d have to pay the price. But she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She had to protect her family, no matter what it took.

From somewhere out in the snowy darkness came a low growl. Charlie moved down the porch toward the sound, trying to see the dog through the falling snow. Spark Plug, the name her father had given the puppy just before his death, growled again, this time the growl lower, more serious.

Something was out there. Someone. Charlie felt the soft hair on her neck stand up. Moving silently, she retraced her footsteps and opened the back door. The shotgun was high up on the top shelf, out of her mother’s reach—even with a chair. Charlie pulled it down and dug out two buckshot shells from the kitchen drawer. She loaded the gun and stepped back out onto the porch.

By now, snow blanketed the yard and fell in a wall of white. She stood in the dark under the porch roof, staring out into the snowfall. Who was it she had to fear? Augustus T. Riley. What was he anyway? A cop? A private investigator hired by Josh’s family? Did it matter?

Spark Plug growled again, only this time farther away, then began to bark. Past the barking, Charlie heard an engine turn deep in the pines somewhere on the county road. It sounded like a pickup with a bad muffler, one of a half dozen around town.

Spark Plug quit barking and after a few minutes wandered out of the snowstorm. He was a true mutt, shortlegged, with a spotted white, brown and black short-haired coat and big floppy ears. When he saw her, he wagged his stubby tail and climbed up the steps to the porch.

Charlie put the shotgun aside to brush snow from the dog’s back. She waited until the sound of the truck died away, then she took him inside where Aunt Selma pretended to scold him softly for not coming home sooner for dinner.

“Spark Plug barking at another coyote?” Selma asked as Charlie returned the shotgun to the top shelf and the shells to the kitchen drawer.

“Sure seems that way.” Charlie took her time cutting three pieces of apple pie, thinking about the truck she’d heard leaving and Spark Plug’s worried growl.

Then she took the plates of pie into the living room where her mother was surprised all over again to see her.

Chapter Five

Augustus heard the tap at his door just after ten. He’d give Trudi one thing, she hadn’t wasted any time.

He took one quick glance around the cabin to make sure he hadn’t left anything important lying around—like his notebook. The cabin was straight out of an old Western. Knotty-pine walls, horse-motif bedspread, antler lamp and lonesome-cowboy painting on the wall. Hee-haw!

No one back in L.A. would believe a town like this still existed. He hardly believed it himself.

She knocked again, this time more insistent. Anxious, wasn’t she? He doubted it was his charm. Some people took a malicious delight in dishing dirt about other people. As ugly as that trait was, it sure made his job a lot easier.

He swung the door open.

She stood on the tiny porch in an unbuttoned long camel-colored wool coat over a short, low-cut dress and black boots. She bit nervously at her lower lip as she shot periodic glances behind her.

“Hey,” he said, a little surprised by the way she was dressed. Even more so by the suspicious way she was acting. Did she think she’d been followed? Or was she just afraid someone would see her coming here? Why was that? “Jealous boyfriend?”

She swung around, obviously startled, and quickly smiled. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I mean not a steady one. I like my freedom,” she said all coy.

He wished there was another way to get what he needed from her. Obviously she had something different in mind than he did. He leaned against the doorjamb, not wanting to ask her in but knowing that if he didn’t he might never know what she was dying to tell him. But at what price?