Loveknot. Marisa Carroll

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СКАЧАТЬ I would have seen you somewhere around the building in that amount of time. My name’s Robert Grover. I spend most of my time in Florida these days but I still call Chicago home. Thought I’d come up here and try my hand at bagging a few pheasants and some pan fish before the lake ices over.” He transferred the fishing pole to his left hand, holding out the right one for Alyssa to shake. “And your name is?” he asked, waiting expectantly.

      “Alyssa Baron.”

      “Baron? That name rings a bell.”

      “My husband’s family has lived in Tyler for many years,” Alyssa said, unable to be rude enough to walk away from the man but reluctant to continue talking to him.

      “No, that’s not it.” He was still smiling. “It’s something else. It’ll come to me in a moment.” He snapped the fingers of his free hand. “Now I’ve got it. It’s the trial. I read your name in the Tyler Citizen. You’re…” He stopped abruptly and a red flush, almost the same color as the down vest he was wearing, crept up over the collar of his khaki shirt. “You’re Judson Ingalls’s daughter. Sorry,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I have a bad habit of doing that. Running off at the mouth.”

      “Don’t apologize,” Alyssa said, taking a step past him.

      He shifted position slightly, unintentionally blocking her way. “I read about the trial in the Chicago papers, too.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “Maybe that’s partly what made me come up here when my doctor told me to take it easy for a few days.”

      “Maybe it was. If you’ll excuse me.” Alyssa smiled a polite dismissal.

      “Or maybe it’s because I wanted to see what Timberlake looked like all spruced up. I remember being here in its heyday.”

      “You knew my parents?” Alyssa asked, intrigued despite her reluctance to keep talking to the man.

      “Never met your father,” Robert Grover admitted. “I knew your mother, Margaret, though. Lovely woman.”

      “You were her friend?”

      He shook his head. “Just an acquaintance. We had mutual friends. I came here once or twice for parties. Your mother certainly knew how to entertain.”

      “Yes, so I’ve been told.”

      “I suppose you have,” he said more to himself, it seemed, than to Alyssa. “Margaret Ingalls was a very beautiful woman. She had charm and sex appeal, what they call charisma today. I was twenty-three years old. Looking back, I realize she couldn’t have been more than five years older, but to me she seemed a real woman of the world. She could certainly turn a man’s head.”

      “I remember very little of her,” Alyssa heard herself say. Perhaps this garrulous, harmless old man was someone she could talk to. He had known her mother, but he was a complete stranger, an outsider without an ax to grind. Could she use him as a conduit to the past? He wasn’t involved. Surely he couldn’t share Tyler’s prejudice against her mother.

      “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, frowning. “She was a remarkable woman.”

      “I—I’d like to know—”

      “Mother? Is that you?” Liza called from somewhere down the path.

      Alyssa left her thought, and her request for more information about Margaret, unspoken. “Yes, Liza. I was just coming down for a short visit.”

      “I can’t believe you’re AWOL from the plant in the middle of the day.” Liza was laughing and a little breathless as she came into view. “You’re turning into a real company man.”

      “It’s been nice meeting you.” Alyssa smiled at Robert Grover before turning away to greet Liza, though he made no move to leave. “Hello, Liza,” she said. “Hello, Margaret Alyssa.” Her granddaughter was riding in a denim carrier, snuggled warmly against her mother’s chest, a soft, woolly blanket covering all but her face.

      “Hi, Mom. We’re just on our way in to Tyler to do some shopping at Gates.” Liza abruptly stopped speaking when she saw the man standing at Alyssa’s side. “Hello,” she said, studying him with a bright, assessing gaze.

      “Liza, this is Robert Grover. He’s a guest at Timberlake and got confused about which path to take back. Mr. Grover, this is my daughter, Liza Forrester, and my granddaughter, Margaret Alyssa.”

      “How do you do, young lady?” Robert Grover said to Liza with another big smile that revealed his expensive bridgework. “That’s a fine baby you’ve got there.” He nodded approvingly at Margaret Alyssa, but made no attempt to touch her.

      “We think so,” Liza said, giving the top of her daughter’s head a quick kiss.

      “I won’t keep you if you have errands to run in town.” Alyssa hoped her disappointment didn’t show. She’d seen so little of her granddaughter during the weeks of Judson’s trial, and missed her terribly. Little ones changed so quickly. She was afraid she might miss something new and remarkable in Margaret Alyssa’s development if she stayed away too long.

      “It’s nothing important. I’d much rather go back to the boathouse and have a cup of tea with you,” Liza said, apparently reading her thoughts.

      “That would be nice.” One of Margaret Alyssa’s little hands wiggled out from under her blanket. Alyssa reached out a finger and let the pink baby fingers curl around it.

      “Well, I’d best be moving on or it’ll get dark on me before I get back to the lodge,” Robert Grover announced. “It’s been nice meeting you, Liza.”

      “You, too,” Liza replied in her usual breezy style.

      “Thanks for the directions, Mrs. Baron,” he said with a courtly nod. “I’d like to buy you a drink or a cup of tea someday if you have time, to show my appreciation.”

      “That won’t be necessary,” Alyssa began automatically.

      “We could talk about old times,” he said.

      “I—I’d like that.”

      “Good.” He didn’t elaborate on the invitation, however. Alyssa felt a quick stab of disappointment. “Until we meet again.” He shifted the fishing pole back to his other hand and started up the path.

      “What a funny old man,” Liza said in her clear, carrying voice.

      “Shh.” Alyssa glanced over her shoulder. “He’ll hear you.”

      “He looks a little like Santa Claus.” Liza sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “No, not Santa,” she amended. “More like Alfred Hitchcock with a little more hair.”

      “He knew my mother,” Alyssa said as they started toward the boathouse, just visible through the trees.

      “He did?” Liza kept walking. “That’s interesting. I wonder why Amanda or that damned Ethan Trask never tracked him down. And I wonder if he might know anything that would help Granddad get out of the blue funk he’s been in since the trial ended.”

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