Girl Trouble

Any stray thoughts Cade might have entertained that perhaps she and Ray had divorced in the last ten years—didn’t one out of three marriages end in divorce? —were squashed. Not that it made much difference. The turmoil of emotion lodged somewhere between his stomach and his heart had very little to do with Ray and everything to do with Lori. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. Ray or no Ray. Married or not. Which was scarcely the way to behave with a woman who’d just accused him, more or less accurately, of hating her.

Nor did he have the slightest idea what to say next. Because nothing had gone the way he’d rehearsed it.

She solved his dilemma for him. “I have to get home,” she said coldly. “Goodbye, Cade.”

His voice seemed to be trapped in his throat. He watched her leave, the graceful swing of her hips in her snug-fitting shorts, the proud carriage of her head. Not until the door swung shut behind her did Cade, finally, work out exactly what it was he was feeling. It wasn’t hatred. It wasn’t anger. Nothing so simple. It was pain. Outright, all-encompassing pain. Lori Cartwright wanted no more to do with him now than had Lorraine Campbell all those years ago.

Pain? Because a woman he despised was rejecting him? He was losing his mind.

More to the point, what was he going to do about it?

Cade was no nearer an answer to this question by the time he got back to the garage, had shrugged into his overalls and addressed himself to the intricate workings of a custom-built Mercedes. Sam had been checking the idling speed on a Volkswagen Passat that one of the apprentices was working on; he wandered over to Cade and said offhandedly, “Good lunch?”

Cade chose a different wrench and made an indeterminate sound that could have meant anything.

“What did you have?”

“What?”

“To eat,” Sam said patiently.

“Nothing. I forgot. To eat, I mean. I went to the gym.”

“You okay, boy?”

No, thought Cade. I’m not okay. I’ve got a lump in the pit of my stomach as big as the battery in this car and all I can think about is a woman with kingfisher-blue eyes and a body to die for. A body I lust after. Me, who’s managed to keep my sexuality very much under control for years. “I’m fine,” he said. “You want to go over those accounts after we close?”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Sam said mildly. “Just tell me to butt out.”

Finally Cade looked up. “Sam, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s woman troubles, okay?”

“Didn’t take you long...what is it, less than three months since you moved here? Not that I’m surprised. You always did attract the women.”

All except for one. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Cade said through gritted teeth.

“Nothing new about that—you never were much of a one for talk.” Sam grinned at him. “We’ll go for a bite to eat once we close and we’ll do the accounts after that. No point starving yourself for the sake of true love. The manual for the Mercedes is in the office if you need it.” Smiling benignly, Sam sauntered off.

True love. Huh, thought Cade. What he felt for Lori was nothing to do with love. Lust, definitely. Frustration beyond anything he’d ever experienced. A rage that frightened him with its force. But not love. No, sir.

Thoroughly exasperated with himself for parading his emotions so blatantly that Sam had picked up there was something wrong. Cade went to get the manual. He’d figured out one thing today. His neat little theory that once he’d seen Lorraine he’d be able to get on with his life had been shot down in flames at high noon. Instead of exorcising her—had he actually used that word to himself? How naive could you get?—he’d only gotten in deeper.

But he’d never in his life been involved with a married. woman and he wasn’t going to start now. Not that Lorraine wanted anything to do with him. So his high-minded principles weren’t worth a heck of a lot.

Some days. Cade decided morosely, scanning the crowded shelf of manuals, you just plain shouldn’t get out of bed.

CHAPTER THREE

THAT evening Cade phoned his mother. Nina MacInnis was a schoolteacher who’d managed for years to instill a love of learning into adolescents more interested in the opposite sex than in modern literature. Although her husband Dan, Cade’s father, had been an accomplished dancer and a man of great charm, he’d also been an alcoholic who several times a year would drink himself into insensibility. This Nina had suffered in silence, a silence that would ring with things unsaid and had made the young Cade long for shouting matches and thrown plates; they’d have been easier to deal with.

Two years ago she’d arranged for early retirement and had taken up with the school principal, a widower who never touched alcohol, who had an endearing sense of humor and who loved to travel. Cade, on his first visit a couple of months ago, had been delighted by the change in his mother and had liked the principal enormously. So the first thing he said when Nina picked up the phone was, “I thought you and Wilbur might have left for Outer Mongolia.”

“He’s in the living room watching the hockey game and having a cup of tea,” said Nina primly. “But we’re thinking of flying to Hawaii before Christmas.”

“Go for it, Mum. And say hello to him for me.” Cade went on to chat about other things, describing the new deck that had been built on the front of his house in French Bay, and asking her advice on colors for the bathroom. Then he said, rather mendaciously, “I saw someone the other day who reminded me of Ray Cartwright Do you know if he and Lorraine live in Halifax?”

“I don’t think so. Shortly after they got married they moved to Toronto. As far as I know, that’s where they still are.” Nina sniffed. “He wasn’t someone you’d want to invite for tea. And I’d always hoped you’d forgotten her.”

I wish I had.

For a horrible moment Cade thought he’d spoken the words out loud. He said, even more mendaciously, “I have, of course... If I put dark green tiles on the kitchen floor, what shade of paint should I go for?”

Nina gave this her serious consideration and the subject of Lorraine was dropped. After accepting an invitation to Sunday dinner, Cade put down the receiver and took out the phone book. There were two L. Cartwrights listed, no Ray Cartwright, and the only R. Cartwright lived in an area of town Ray wouldn’t be seen dead in.

What was he playing about at? Even if he dialed both L. Cartwrights and one of them was Lori, she wouldn’t speak to him. She’d made that all too clear today.

He remembered the look of appeal she’d given him, the huskiness in her voice when she’d pleaded with him to leave her alone. He’d sneered at her, accused her of manipulation. But what if he’d been wrong? What if her appeal had been genuine? Was Ray the reason she was so frightened? And what were the scars she’d referred to?

She hadn’t made that up. He’d swear to it.

Did Ray mistreat her?

Lori was five-foot-eight, fit and agile. But she’d be no match for Ray, who’d always been a heavy man, only a couple of inches shorter than Cade’s six-feet-two. To think of Ray grabbing at Lori, forcing himself on her, made Cade feel sick. He closed his eyes, a murderous rage almost choking him. I’ll kill the bastard if that’s what’s going on. Kill him and ask questions afterward.

Right, Cade, he thought savagely. That’d realty simplify Lori’s life. If she’s afraid of Ray, the best thing you can do is keep your distance. Just as she requested. Don’t talk to her. Don’t go near the gym at the times of her classes. Stay away from her kids. And quit mooning over the phone book as if you’re a lovesick teenager. You turned thirty-four last month and it’s time you let go of the past.

Alone is the way you’ve operated for years. Stick with it.

He jammed the book back in the drawer and slammed it shut. That’s exactly what he’d do. Let go of her. Stay away from her. Forget about her. Maybe even date other women. That way he might get lucky and get laid.

Miguel, the mechanic at the garage who specialized in Hondas, had a sister who loved movies. Cade liked movies, too. He’d ask Miguel’s sister to go with him when The English Patient opened next week. That’s what he’d do.

It would beat sitting around his apartment worrying about Lori Cartwright and proving the old adage that you always wanted what you couldn’t have. He was going to prove that adage wrong. Even if he had to date twenty different women until he found one who was interested in him but not the slightest bit interested in wedding rings.

He picked up his book, the novel that had won the Booker Prize last year, and determinedly began to read.

There was nothing wrong with Cade’s self-imposed advice to stay away from Lori. It was an admirable stance and should have solved all his problems. Except that twice in the next week he saw her, each time by accident. And each time stirred him up in ways that made his advice meaningless.

His apartment was in the north end of Halifax, only four or five blocks from the garage. The north end wasn’t the fashionable part of the city; but Cade liked his apartment, which took up the whole second floor of an older house, had a fireplace and hardwood floors and spacious rooms with interesting nooks and crannies. And he enjoyed the walk to work each morning, finding that by now he was chatting with the old fellow who owned the corner store, and saying hello to people he passed every day on the street. It gave him a feeling of belonging; he hoped he’d find the same thing true of French Bay when he moved out there.

He liked feeling that he belonged. Nine years of wandering the globe had been long enough.

Three days after the aerobics class, Cade was striding down the street at eight twenty-five in the morning. He was in a self-congratulatory mood. Last night was the first night he hadn’t dreamed about Lori, one of the highly erotic dreams that had haunted his sleep ever since he’d bumped into her at the gym. The cure was working. The past was assuming its proper place. Today he’d ask Miguel about his sister.

He glanced down a side street to check on the progress of the chrysanthemums that for the last few days had been a glorious tangle of scarlet, yellow and bronze in the garden beyond a secondhand clothing store run by a well-known charity.

A woman in a blue jacket was crossing the sidewalk to enter the store. Cade nearly tripped over the curb.

It was Lori Cartwright. She opened the door and disappeared inside.