Page 80 of Summer Weddings
“The evening would’ve been better if I hadn’t…you know.”
“Stop worrying about a little coffee.”
“Don’t forget the sugar.” He grinned as if he’d begun to find the entire episode amusing.
“Despite a few, uh, mishaps, I really did enjoy dinner,” she told him.
John kicked at the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “I don’t suppose you’d go out with me again.”
Bethany wasn’t sure how to respond. She liked John, but just as a friend, and she didn’t want to mislead him into thinking something more could develop between them. She’d made that mistake once before.
“You don’t need to feel guilty if you don’t want to,” he said, his eyes avoiding hers. He cleared his throat. “I can understand why someone hand-delivered by the angels wouldn’t want to be seen with someone like me.” He glanced shyly at her.
Tempted to roll her eyes at that remark, Bethany managed a smile. “How about if we have dinner again next Friday night?” she asked.
John’s head shot up. “You mean it?”
Bethany nodded. “This time it’ll be my treat.”
His smile faded and he folded his arms across his chest. “You want to buymedinner?”
“Yes. Friends do that, you know.” A car could be heard in the distance, driving slowly down the street.
“Friends?” The car was coming closer.
“Yes.” She leaned forward and very gently pressed her lips to his cheek. As she backed away, she saw that the car had stopped.
Silhouetted against the moonlight sat Mitch Harris. He’d just witnessed her kissing John Henderson.
Chapter4
October 1995
The first snowfall of the year came in the third week of September. Thick flurries drifted down throughout the day, covering the ground and obscuring familiar outlines. Mitch thought he should’ve been accustomed to winter’s debut by now, but he wasn’t. However beautiful, however serene, this soft-looking white blanket was only a foretaste of the bitter cold to follow.
He looked at his watch. In a few minutes he’d walk over to the school to meet Chrissie. He’d gotten into the habit of picking up his daughter on Friday afternoons.
Not because she needed him or had asked him to come. No, he wryly suspected that going to the school was rooted in some masochistic need to see Bethany.
He rationalized that he was giving Chrissie this extra attention because he worked longer hours on Friday evenings, when Diane Hestead, a high school student, stayed with her. That was the only night of the week Ben served alcohol. Before the women had arrived, a few of the pilots and maybe a trapper or two wandered into the Hard Luck Café. But with the news of women coming to town,Ben’s place had begun to fill up, not only with pilots but pipeline workers and other men.
For the past three Friday nights, John Henderson and Bethany had dined at the café. They came and left before eight, when Ben opened the bar.
From the gossip circulating around town, Mitch learned they’d become something of an item, although both insisted they were “only friends.”
Mitch knew otherwise. On Bethany’s first date with John, he’d happened upon them kissing. Friends indeed! Even now, his gut tightened at the memory.
For the thousandth time he reminded himself that he’d been the one to encourage her to see John. He couldn’t very well reveal his discontent with that situation when she’d done nothing more than follow his advice.
He’d tried to convince himself that discovering John and Bethany together—kissing—had been sheer coincidence. But it hadn’t been.
As the public safety officer, Mitch routinely checked the streets on Friday nights. He’d seen them leave Ben’s place on foot that first evening and had discreetly followed them. On subsequent Fridays he’d continued his spy tactics, always making sure he was out of sight. He wasn’t particularly proud of himself, but he found it impossible to resist the compulsion.
Except for their first date, when he’d seen them kissing outside her house, she’d invited John in. The pilot never stayed more than a few minutes, but of course Mitch knew what the two of them were doing.
He kept telling himself he should be pleased she was dating John; Henderson was a decent sort. But Mitchwasn’tpleased. At night he lay awake staring at the four shrinking walls of his bedroom. Still, he knew it wasn’t the walls that locked him in, that kept him from building a relationship with Bethany.
It was his guilt, his own doubts and fears, that came between him and Bethany. This was Lori’s legacy to him. She’d died and in that moment made certain he’d never be free of her memory.
