Coming Home to Greenleigh

Chapter 24

There were no lights on in the house. Shawn walked up the sloping path, his pace slowing as he craned his neck, searching for any sign of life. A single lamp was lit in one of the bay windows in the front room, but he knew that Elisabeth would have left the lamp on if she had gone out, so that wasn't proof of anything. The other windows were dark, and the porch light was on.

He stomped up the porch steps. There was a new film of light snow coating the walkway, and more snow was predicted for the evening. Not much, apparently, only an inch or two, but this was considerable for pre-Thanksgiving weather. And it was cold, bitter cold. The mercury would be dipping down to zero that evening. Bad night for a date, except that one could do fun things when it got cold. Especially in front of a fireplace. He smiled, then shook himself. Yeah, right.

He was a day early because he couldn't stand to wait. Beth had agreed to see him tomorrow, but after Christine's visit this morning, he couldn't keep away. He needed to see her.

Shawn went up to the door and jabbed at the doorbell. He waited. He tried again. Usually he could hear the echoes of the bell reverberate in the front hall, but it was silent. Broken, he thought. Damned old house. Falling apart like crazy. He lifted the knocker on the door and banged.

No answer.

Shivering, he stood, shoulders hunched, hands thrust deep into his pockets. He knew he'd messed up on those flowers but he'd been operating on instinct. It had been a silly, sentimental thing to do, perhaps, but he had been daydreaming in his office about one occasion when he had surprised her in the carriage house with an armload of yellow roses from his mother's garden. She had been so touchingly pleased. And he remembered a particularly nice kiss that had followed.

He'd sent the flowers and thought he'd take her out for a relaxing dinner. Maybe an evening at an old haunt would crack through that terrified haze that she operated in and force her to evaluate her situation more calmly. Gentle, non-threatening conversation only--he promised himself he wouldn't force the issue. He'd failed before by trying to force her to do what he thought was best. He wouldn't make that mistake now. This time he would let her come to her own conclusions, but he'd make sure that she got constant exposure to all the good reasons for remaining in Greenleigh and giving them another chance. However, he seemed to have miscalculated on just how anxious she was to avoid him.

He shuffled back down the walk, noting the fine little flurries beginning to float down from the sky. It was just too cold be out and about. Where on earth had Beth gone? Was it possible that she had a business appointment? Shawn doubted it. But he wondered where she could possibly be on such a bitterly cold evening. With Gunnar?

He realized that his curiosity stopped right there, with Gunnar. He didn't want to know.

Shawn scrounged around for his keys, fumbling with gloved fingers at the icy lock. Once he got the door open, he didn't waste a second. He yanked the door closed behind him, started up the car, and set the heater to full blast. An icy stream of cold hit him full in the face until he aimed the vent away, coughing. It would take at least couple of minutes before the engine would warm up enough to send any heat into the body of the car. Shawn contemplated his direction. He couldn't think of what to do with himself. Go back to work? He nixed that idea immediately. He couldn't work. He'd found it hard to get through the past several days in the office, ever since Beth's declaration that she was going to leave Greenleigh. He didn't think he had the mental stamina to force himself back to the office for an evening of management headaches.

Perhaps he should just go home. But he knew his dad was at the senior center, and Shawn didn't want to be alone tonight in that big, rambling farmhouse. Somehow the idea of wandering about downstairs, television blaring, trying to force down one of Martha's saltless, fatless meals was just not very palatable.