Part 25 (1/2)

”Just a minute.”

The door closed. I lingered on the porch, motionless in the utter blackness, until it swung open.

”All right,” she told me.

She stepped back, watched me come into the room, her gaze following me as I strode to the small fireplace, then turned to face her.

She was wearing a long, dark robe, her feet barely visible below its hem. Her hair, long and in disarray, s.h.i.+mmered in the firelight, filaments of gold.

”I can't stop thinking about you,” I said. ”On the beach. The way we ...” I felt everything within me grow fierce and bold, as if suddenly enamored by a single, stirring truth. ”I can't let you go, Dora.”

She shook her head gently. ”Cal, please, there's something you don't know.”

I saw her script in the ledger books. ”It doesn't matter, Dora.” I swept forward, drew her into my arms, felt her body grow taut. ”I don't care what you've done. Nothing matters to me but you.”

She eased herself out of my embrace. ”I can't, Cal.”

”Why not?”

She seemed unable to answer, so I provided an answer of my own.

”I know you don't want to hurt Billy,” I said.

She looked at me regretfully. ”I already have.”

”You can't help who you fall in love with.”

She said nothing, and so I made the only demand that mattered to me. ”Tell me you love me.”

She touched my face. ”I do.”

”Then?”

She drew her hand away. ”I can't, Cal.”

”You can do whatever you want.”

”No,” Dora said.

”I won't let him stand in the way.”

Her eyes flared, and I saw a terrible resolve rise in her. She walked to the fireplace and stood beside it, rigid now, suddenly more stone than flesh. ”You'd better go, Cal.”

”I won't give you up. I'll do anything, but I won't give you up.”

”You don't care who you hurt?”

”No.”

I moved toward her again, but she stepped aside and quickly opened the door.

”Please go,” she said.

”I'll do anything,” I repeated as I stepped outside. ”Remember that.”

”Good-bye, Cal,” she said in a tone that sounded so final, I whirled around, determined to appeal it.

But the door was already closed.

Chapter Twenty-four.

And you never saw Dora again?

It was Hap Ferguson's voice, sounding urgently in my mind as I drove the final miles toward Tom Shay's cabin. He'd called me in the day following my brother's funeral. Later, as we'd talked in his office, he'd sometimes scribbled notes into the same small pad in which he'd once written Dora's name.

And you never saw Dora again?

No, never again.

And during that last meeting, Miss March didn't say anything about leaving Port Alma?

No.

You only talked about business? Yes.

The fact that she might need to take over for William?

That's all we talked about.

Where did you go after you left her house?

I walked home.

I heard my footsteps in the autumn leaves, moving along the walkway, headed home.

Straight home?

Yes.

Straight home until I noticed the light burning in my mother's room.

So you didn't see William at all that night?

No.

The door to Emma's room was closed, as I saw when I stepped into the shadowy foyer, but Billy had left the door of our mother's room ajar. I could see them in the light, my mother in her bed, Billy in a chair beside it. He was hunched forward, his hair wild and unruly, his face buried in his hands. My mother watched him silently, her expression so grave that I knew he'd told her everything, poured out all his love for Dora, what he knew of her and didn't know, his brightest hope, his darkest dread, then sunk his face in his hands, and waited for The Great Example to point the way.