She Loves Me Not Read online

  “Hey, Rose. Hey, lion-boy.”

  Leo giggles. “My name isn’t wion-boy.”

  “You sure about that? Because I seem to remember you roaring pretty loudly when you were a baby.”

  Rose has to smile at that. Home on leave from the army, Hitch once slept on their couch on a memorable weekend when Leo was a colicky newborn. Sam got a big kick out of his bachelor pal’s aversion to the screaming baby. He kept insisting that Hitch hold him, plunking the red-faced, screaming Leo into his arms and cooing, “Here, go to Uncle Hitch. He’ll sing you a lullaby.”

  “Don’t let him fool you, Hitch,” Rose says now. “He still knows how to roar pretty loudly.”

  “I’ll bet. Where’s her highness this morning?”

  “Watching cartoons. Jenna! Come say hi to Uncle Hitch.”

  “Hi, Uncle Hitch! I’ll be right there,” comes the bellowed response.

  “She’ll be right here,” Rose echoes dryly. “She has to get her cartoon fix on weekends because I don’t let her turn on the TV on school mornings.”

  Hitch smiles. “No problem. I’m not in any hurry this morning. I’ve spent the last three hours under an old lady’s sink. I need a nice long break.”

  Hitch moved back to the island a few years ago to take over his family’s plumbing business. Though he learned the trade right out of high school, he left after a few years to join the military. His father optimistically continued to call the business Hitchcock and Son.

  “Mark my words—he’ll be back someday,” Sam always said. “You can take the boy out of Long Island but you can’t take the Long Island out of the boy.”

  Rose doubted that. She couldn’t imagine a man like Hitch finding a reason to settle down alone in a such small town after living all over the world. But Sam was right.

  She’ll never forget the day Hitch called from somewhere in Saudi Arabia to say he was coming home for good. Sam’s “Whoo-hoo” was so ear-shattering it set the neighborhood dogs barking.

  “You want coffee, Hitch?” Rose offers, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Only if it’s made.”

  “I’ve been through one pot already, and I was just about to make another.”

  “Uh-oh. Rough night?” He looks more closely at her, making her wish she has on makeup to hide the dark circles that must underscore her eyes. Not that she needs to look good for Hitch. He’s as no-frills a guy as Sam was, and Rose certainly isn’t trying to impress him. Nor does she want to discuss her sleepless night, or the reason behind it—which has nothing to do with Leo. Her son has slept soundly through yet another night, thanks to the sound machine.

  Even the shrill ring of the telephone at three A.M. didn’t wake Leo. Nor did it wake Jenna.

  Only Rose, who had finally drifted off to sleep less than an hour earlier, was disturbed by the unexpected call. She woke with her heart pounding, certain that something was terribly wrong.

  After all, it was a wee-hour phone call to her dorm room that informed her of her mother’s death years ago.

  She pushes the grim memory from her mind and busies herself measuring coffee grounds into a clean filter.

  “Guess what, Uncle Hitch? We’re going swedding!” Leo announces.

  “On the grass?”

  “No, in the snow. Mommy said it’s going to snow.”

  “Really, Mommy?” Hitch looks at her. “Do you have one of those snow-making machines stashed in the shed?”

  “I wish. Leo, I said last night that the weatherman predicted snow, but this morning he changed the forecast. Now it’s just going to be yucky and rainy. So we won’t be able to go sledding after all.”

  Leo opens his mouth to protest, but Hitch cuts him off. “Maybe you can come with me today, Leo.”

  “I can? Mommy, Uncle Hitch said—”

  “I heard him. Aren’t you working?” Rose asks.

  Hitch shrugs. “Nah. I’m done for the day.” He swings Leo up into his arms and says, “I can take you to the movies and then we’ll go get pizza.”

  “Can we go to the dye-no for choco-wat chip pancakes?”

  Her back to them as she fills the coffee pot with cold water, Rose smiles.

  “Whatever you want, Leo. Is that okay, Rose?”

  Before she can reply, the puppy starts barking in the living room, the front door opens and a familiar voice calls, “Anyone home?”

  “In here. That’s Leslie,” Rose tells Hitch.

  “I figured.” He looks uncomfortable.

  A moment later, Leslie breezes into the kitchen. “Who’s parked in the driveway? Peter needs to get the lumber out of the truck and he’s going to—” She stops short, seeing her brother’s old friend, whom she used to date. “Hey, Hitch. How’s it going?”

  “I’ve been pretty good,” Hitch says. “How’re you, Leslie?”

  “Fine. What happened to your panel truck? Don’t tell me you gave up on Hitchcock and Son already?”

  “Nah, I just don’t like to bring the truck out on days when the roads might ice over. The tires are almost bald, and I don’t have a death wish . . .” He trails off into awkward silence.

  Rose is certain that all of them—at least, everyone but Leo—are thinking about Sam.

  He didn’t have a death wish, either. He was simply worried about the ice coating the wires, not wanting them to lose power in the night with two small children in the house.

  Rose barely stirred when he leaned over her in bed and said he was going out to knock off the ice. She murmured “Be careful” and went back to sleep.

  Realizing that the silence in the kitchen has stretched beyond a moment, Rose—perhaps because she’s grown accustomed to such rough conversational spots—gets past it first. “So what are you driving instead, Hitch?”

  “My father’s car. He can’t see to drive anyway these days.”

  Leslie reaches down to give her nephew a hug. “Hey, I thought we’d go out and do something today, Leo. That way Mommy can have some time to herself for a change. What do you say?”

  “I say I’m going to eat pancakes with Uncle Hitch.”

  “Oh. That’s great,” Leslie says brightly. She looks at Rose as Leo scampers into the next room. “Can I take Jenna?”

  “Be my guest.” Rose knows she should feel giddy at the prospect of an entire afternoon to herself, but she isn’t necessarily looking forward to being alone in the house. Not after last night.

  The phone call was probably just a wrong number, she tells herself.

  And the chocolates on her car seat were obviously intended as a gift.

  A gift that might very well have been placed there by Leo, though he denied it when she asked—or perhaps by whoever sent her that heart on Valentine’s Day.

  She threw the chocolates in the Dumpster behind the bookstore when she got to work and tried to put the incident out of her mind. Bill asked her a few times if anything was wrong, though. She was tempted to tell him, but it seemed silly to be bothered by something so innocuous.

  At least, it seemed innocuous in the broad light of day, in a public place. Lying in bed in a darkened house at midnight, she couldn’t help being frightened at the thought of an anonymous somebody sneaking around, perhaps even following her to leave those chocolates on the seat.

  “Hitch, would you mind moving your car out of the driveway so that Peter can unload some stuff?” Leslie is asking.

  “Sure.” He jangles his keys. “Who’s Peter?”

  “My fiancé.”

  “That’s great, Leslie. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” She smiles awkwardly.

  “Be right back,” Hitch says.

  As soon as he’s gone, Leslie turns to Rose. “I didn’t know he was going to be here.”

  “He stops by sometimes. He likes to see the kids.”

  “Are you sure it’s not you he’s coming to see?”

  “What?”

  Leslie shrugs. “Maybe he has a crush on you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He just p
ops in to check on us because he was Sam’s friend.”

  “Really? He didn’t come around very often when Sam was alive.”

  “Leslie, he was in the military until a few years ago, remember? He was living halfway across the world. He couldn’t exactly drop by for coffee.”

  “Well, all I’m saying is that if he’s doing that now, he might be coming to see you. But take it from me. If you do start dating him, don’t trust him.”

  “Leslie! Shhh! And anyway . . . I’m not going to date him.” Rose hesitates, then asks, “But why wouldn’t I trust him if I did?”

  “Because he cheats. We went out for a while, years ago. You knew that, right? Anyway, it turned out he was seeing someone else behind my back.”

  Yes. Denise. Rose knows all about her. According to Sam, she was the love of Hitch’s life. They got engaged on his twenty-first birthday, and she broke it off a few weeks later. That was when he abruptly joined the army and left Laurel Bay.

  “You can’t blame him for something that happened when you were kids, Leslie.” Even as she says it, Rose wonders why she’s defending Hitch. After all, for as close as he was to Sam, and for as often as he pops in, it’s not as though she knows him very well.

  “I was sixteen. Didn’t you have your heart broken when you were sixteen, Ro? It’s not the kind of thing you get over easily. And anyway—I’m not still angry at him. I’m just saying you shouldn’t trust him.”

  Rose shrugs. She takes milk from the refrigerator and refills the sugar bowl from the canister. Hitch likes his coffee light and sweet.

  Okay, so maybe she does know more about him than she even realized. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside, there’s a part of her wishing that what Leslie said is true. That Hitch is coming here more to see her than the kids.

  Now she can’t help wondering whether Hitch could be the one who left the chocolates and sent her the unsigned Valentine.

  Maybe she should be hoping that’s the case. After all, having Sam’s old friend as a secret admirer might be a little awkward, but it certainly isn’t threatening.

  What about the phone call last night?

  It didn’t seem like a routine wrong number.

  Nobody spoke.

  But whoever it was seemed to listen for a few moments before hanging up.

  Hitch would never call her in the middle of the night. He’d know how that would frighten her, and that it might wake the kids.

  Rose frowns, troubled once again.

  And now Hitch is taking Leo, and Leslie is taking Jenna, and she’s facing a day alone in the house.

  Or is she?

  “Leslie,” she says suddenly, remembering. “Is Peter planning to stay here to work on the bookshelves today?”

  Her sister-in-law nods. “He was. Why? Is that a problem?”

  “No, not at all.”

  Of course it isn’t. She’ll feel safe with Peter around.

  Not that you shouldn’t feel safe anyway.

  “Are you okay, Rose?” Leslie asks.

  “I’m fine. It’s just . . .” She finds herself spilling the whole story. About the heart, the chocolates—which she’s still fairly certain were placed on the car seat by Leo—and the telephone hang-up.

  “It sounds like you’ve got a secret admirer.” Leslie grins. “And I’d be willing to bet that it’s—”

  “Who has a secret admirer?”

  Startled, Rose turns to see both Hitch and Peter standing in the kitchen doorway. She was so caught up in unburdening herself on Leslie that she didn’t even hear them come in the front door.

  Leslie answers her fiancé’s question. “Rose has a secret admirer.” She shoots a meaningful glance at Hitch as she adds, “And it’s scaring her.”

  “What’s scaring her?” Hitch promptly appears concerned. “What’s going on, Rose?”

  Before she can answer, Leslie tells him, “He’s been leaving her presents, and calling and hanging up.”

  “Maybe he thinks that’s romantic.”

  “Oh, come on, Peter, there’s nothing romantic about a coward.”

  “A coward?” Her fiancé frowns. “I don’t think that’s—”

  “If a grown man is interested in somebody, he should speak right up and say so. Beating around the bush is just . . . well, it’s so junior high.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Les,” Peter says dryly. “Listen, Rose, Hitch is going to help me unload the truck.”

  “That would be great. I guess you introduced yourselves, then.”

  Hitch nods, accepting the steaming cup of coffee Rose hands him. “We thought we’d stack the lumber around back and cover it with a tarp to keep it dry.”

  “That’s fine,” Rose murmurs, hoping Hitch didn’t pick up on Leslie’s implication that he’s her secret admirer.

  Maybe it isn’t that far-fetched a theory. He is shy, and he might not feel comfortable having feelings for his best friend’s widow. Maybe this is his way of approaching her, bizarre as it seems.

  “Mommy! “Jenna hollers from the living room. “Leo’s outside in his pajamas!”

  “What?” Rose hurries into the next room, just in time to see her son guiltily scurry back up the front steps.

  She opens the door and pulls him back into the house. “Leo, what are you doing? You know you’re not allowed to—”

  “I just wanted to check and see if it was snowing yet.”

  “Leo, I told you, it’s not going to snow today.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you ever go outside on your own again, do you understand? Somebody could drive by and see a little boy out there and . . .”

  She trails off, not wanting to scare him.

  “And kidnap you,” Jenna supplies, her eyes still on the television. “Right, Mommy?”

  Rose sighs. “Just don’t ever go outside without asking first. Either of you. Got it? Leo?”

  He nods.

  “Jenna?”

  “What?” She’s not even listening, focused on Scooby and Shaggy chasing a headless ghost through an old mansion.

  Rose exhales through puffed cheeks. It’s so damned hard, doing this alone.

  She leaves both children, duly warned, in front of the TV and retreats to the kitchen, where her three guests are discussing the bookshelves.

  “Hey, Rose, mind if I grab some of that coffee?” Peter breaks off to ask.

  “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry. Of course. I didn’t even offer you any.”

  “That’s okay. I’m family. I can help myself.” He takes a mug from the cupboard.

  Family.

  Funny. She doesn’t think of him that way.

  But Leslie is Sam’s sister. Peter is going to be the kids’ uncle—and yes, Rose’s brother-in-law—in a matter of months.

  Rose watches him settle himself at the table across from Hitch, who’s spooning sugar into his coffee. How wrong it seems, suddenly, to have these two men here, in her kitchen, where Sam hasn’t been in over a year.

  It would be different if he were here with them, sitting at the table in his Saturday flannel shirt, drinking coffee and joining the conversation about lumber or whatever it is they’re discussing. But if Sam were here, perhaps Peter and Hitch wouldn’t be. Maybe Leslie wouldn’t be rushing into marriage to a man she’s only known a few months.

  And maybe Leslie’s right about Hitch—maybe he wouldn’t be popping in so often. Maybe he’s here because he’s interested in her. Hitch is a great guy, but . . .

  But what?

  Face the facts, Rose. Sam is gone.

  You’re not just alone; you’re lonely.

  “Will I be in your way if I stick around to work on the shelves this afternoon, Rose?”

  “Not at all,” she tells Peter, pushing aside her unsettling thoughts. “In fact, I may go out and get groceries while you’re—”

  “Groceries?” Leslie wrinkles her nose. “That doesn’t sound like much fun. Why don’t you indulge yourself for a change, Rose? Go get a manicure or something? Or come with me and Jenna to the m
all?”

  “Or you can come along with us to the movies if you want,” Hitch speaks up.

  “Are you kidding? If you guys had kids you’d know that grocery shopping without two of them underfoot is self-indulgent.”

  “In that case, knock yourself out.” Leslie takes a glass from the cupboard and runs cold water at the sink. “But I can’t promise you that Jenna and I won’t be stopping for manicures during our self-indulgent afternoon.”

  “Oh, Leslie, I don’t know. The last time you—”

  “This time I swear I’ll let her get pastel polish only,” Leslie promises, joining the men at the table with her glass of water.

  Peter raises an eyebrow. “Pastel polish? As opposed to . . . ?”

  “Black.”

  “It wasn’t black, Rose,” Leslie protests. “More a silvery gray.”

  “It was black.”

  They laugh about it; the conversation meanders amiably.

  But Rose is merely going through the motions. Because when she glances toward the window at the gray sky, wondering if it might snow after all, she suddenly remembers something.

  The footprints in the snow.

  The footprints she was convinced belonged to the meter reader.

  Now she isn’t so sure.

  Saturday nights are the most difficult, David Brookman concludes, staring moodily into his second glass of single malt scotch.

  It was on a Saturday night that he met Angela, a Saturday night that he married her, and a Saturday night that he saw her with him.

  He lifts his glass to his lips to sip the amber liquid but swallows too much: a gulp that burns his throat all the way down. He barely notices, focused on a recollection of the anguished moment when his suspicions were confirmed and he saw her coming out of a dive on St. Mark’s Place with another man.

  Yes, St. Mark’s Place, of all places, and she looked every bit the Village bohemian, wearing jeans and sandals, her newly shorn, highlighted hair falling into her eyes as she laughed at something her companion was saying. David’s veins were a simmering cauldron as he watched the other man reach out to brush her hair back at her temples. The casual intimacy of the gesture assured him that this was no first-time dalliance.