Past, Present And A Future

Gil looked at Clare a few more seconds, trying to decipher the expression in her eyes, but he couldn’t. At least she’d made the right choice. They had to finish what they’d begun.

Once inside, he helped her off with her coat. He froze when he brushed against her neck, mesmerized by the memory of the first time he’d touched it. He wanted desperately to stroke her skin and press his lips against her hair.

“Something wrong?”

Clare’s words brought him back to life. He whisked her coat off her shoulders and took it to the hall closet. Her footsteps echoed behind him.

“Didn’t we try to do this the other day?” she quipped as she came into the room.

He realized what she meant when he saw her nod toward the writing supplies on the table. “Maybe we’ll have better luck the second time around.”

Dear Reader,

Most of us, at one time or another, have attended a high school or college reunion and have learned that seeing old friends can sometimes be hurtful as well as exhilarating. Going back isn’t always easy to do. In fact, it can be downright risky—as Clare Morgan discovers in Past, Present and a Future.

Returning to Twin Falls, Connecticut, for the first time in seventeen years is much more than a trip down memory lane for Clare. What started out as a visit to attend the christening of her best friend’s new baby becomes a confrontation with Clare’s worst memories of her senior year in high school. Betrayal. Distrust. Murder.

And a key player in her memories—Clare’s former boyfriend, her first love, Gil Harper—has returned for the christening, as well.

Going back offers Clare an opportunity to put things right—to lay to rest for once and for all the painful memories of her seventeenth summer. Only then, Clare realizes, can a future with Gil Harper be possible.

Enjoy!

Janice Carter

Past, Present and a Future

Janice Carter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Susan Hess, valued friend, great sister-in-law and terrific brainstormer.

Not to mention the best aunt in the world.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

GOOD NEWS and bad news. Funny how the two often came together. Clare read the e-mail a second time. Her best friend since elementary school was the proud mother of a baby girl named Emma. Clare felt a rush of emotion that was a mix of joy and envy.

The bad news was that Laura wanted her to be the child’s godmother, which meant going back home to Twin Falls, Connecticut. And home—somewhere she hadn’t visited in the last seventeen years—was the last place on earth Clare Morgan wanted to set foot.

She quickly sent a return congratulatory message, expressing delight at the request but avoiding a definite reply by saying she’d telephone on the weekend. That would give her two days to come up with a plausible excuse to politely decline. She was flattered that Laura had thought of her, but she couldn’t see herself in the role of a godmother.

Such as? Clare leaned back in her chair. There was no way she could refuse. Laura Kingsway, nee Dundas, had been her best friend since they’d started school together at Mountview Elementary in Miss Goodfellow’s kindergarten class. Their friendship had weathered upheavals such as the divorce of Clare’s parents when she was nine, along with boyfriend troubles during their high school years. Though their separation due to college and careers had altered the nature of their relationship to one of phone and e-mail—in fact, the last time Clare had seen Laura was at her marriage to Dave Kingsway two years ago—they were still close.

Twin Falls. Clare had difficulty uttering her hometown’s name even in her head. She still couldn’t believe that Laura and Dave had chosen to move back there. But then, Laura hadn’t been affected by the whole sordid mess seventeen years ago in quite the same way that Clare had.

Clare shut down the computer. She was having lunch with her editor to discuss changes to her upcoming book tour to promote her second novel. It was an important meeting and one that Clare had been anticipating for several days. The book had—to Clare’s astonishment—recently made the New York Times bestseller list a mere three weeks after its launch. She just hoped today’s news wouldn’t diminish her enjoyment of the celebratory luncheon.

“SALUT!” Alix Bennett clinked her champagne flute delicately against Clare’s.

Clare took her first taste of Cristal, savoring its crisp fruitiness and thinking she could get used to the trappings of success.

“So when can we expect the next proposal?” Alix asked.

“Maybe a couple of weeks?”

Alix nodded. “Try to get it in as soon as possible. It’d be nice to be able to mention it during some of your appearances.”

“You haven’t even offered me a contract yet.”

“After the success of Growing up in Paradise I’m sure that won’t be a problem. Not after what you’ve already told me about this new one.”

“Tina really likes it,” Clare said, referring to her agent.

“Too bad she couldn’t make it for lunch today.”

“She’s unbelievably busy but promised to make the next one.”

“You mean the signing celebration for the new one?” Alix smiled.

Giddiness swept through Clare. She still had difficulty believing that all this heady success was indeed happening to her. “Assuming you buy it,” she repeated.

“Given the initial sales of Growing up in Paradise, it’s a done deal. But don’t quote me on that,” Alix said with a mischievous grin. She paused while the waiter set down their appetizers. After he left, she asked, “So, what’s new in your life these days? Aside from the dizziness of fame?”

Clare smiled. Her editor loved to tease and had a penchant for hyperbole—certainly a plus when it came to pitching a book to the honchos who made the final decisions. “My best friend just had a baby girl. She wants me to be godmother.”

“Ahh, that’s nice. And a compliment.”

“Yes. Laura and I haven’t seen each other for a couple of years. Her family lived just down the street from mine in Twin Falls. We met in kindergarten.”

“Wow! Not many people can lay claim to that kind of long friendship.”

“She married a guy from Twin Falls, too. Dave. They dated briefly in high school, then split up and got back together again in college.”

“No kidding? When I think of the guys I dated in high school, no way would I want to end up with any one of them.”

Thinking of just such a guy, Clare averted her gaze from Alix to the table. She waited for the usual uneasiness that accompanied thoughts of Gil Harper to surface but when nothing happened, she raised her head with an almost audible sigh of relief.

“You okay? Thought I’d lost you there for a sec.”

“Must be the champagne,” Clare said. “I’m not used to drinking at lunch.”

“Hey, you’d better get used to it. I see lots of celebrations ahead in your future.”

“Book sales will be good enough for me, believe me. All of this,” she gestured toward the plush interior of the Plaza, “is wonderful but not really my thing.”

“Not really mine either, frankly.” Alix put a chunk of artichoke into her mouth. “So we should enjoy while the boss is paying.”

Clare followed suit, though her appetite had waned at the unbidden memory of Gil Harper. She tried to concentrate on Alix’s patter of conversation, but her mind kept going back to the man responsible for her self-imposed exile from Twin Falls. Giving up, Clare pushed her half-eaten salad aside.

“I just had a brilliant idea,” Alix piped up as the waiter began to remove their plates.

“What?”

“The book tour’s supposed to start in a couple of weeks, right?”

Clare nodded.

“And you said this friend who wants you to be godmother still lives in your hometown?”

Another nod, accompanied by a rising dread.

“So how about an appearance right in Twin Falls? I mean, the symbolism’s perfect. A coming-of-age book based on your life in Twin Falls—”

“Loosely based,” Clare emphasized.

Alix shrugged. “Whatever. But I bet you’re not fooling anyone back home with name changes and a bit of reconstruction.”

Clare fiddled with the cutlery in front of her. “Perhaps not, but I didn’t intend to market the book as a memoir. It’s a novel. Fiction,” she added, reinforcing her argument.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s the whole human interest angle I like. Small town girl—okay, woman—makes it big writing a novel based loosely on her life in said small town. Having a book signing and interviews with local media from say, the town’s quaint bookstore—”

“There is no bookstore in Twin Falls. At least, there wasn’t one seventeen years ago.”

“Hey, things change. If no bookstore, they’ve got to have a public library. Right?”

“I’m not—” Clare hesitated. She and Alix had a friendly relationship, but they were not friends and definitely not confidantes. How could she adequately explain her reluctance to go along with such an unthinkable scheme without spilling her guts about the event that had wreaked havoc with so many lives so long ago?

“What?”

“Hmm?”

“You started to say something. Sorry, you know me. I get carried away.”

“It’s just that, I’m not sure if I’m going to take Laura up on her offer of being godmother. It’s…it’s a big commitment.” The excuse, lame to her own ears, left Alix’s mouth slightly agape.

“Seriously? But isn’t she one of your best friends?”

The arrival of the waiter with their main courses gave Clare a few seconds to put together an explanation that would save her from appearing too coldhearted. When he left, she said, “I guess I’m anxious about confronting some people. You know—people who might be offended by certain parts of the book.”

“But as you said, it’s fiction, right?”

Clare didn’t know which bothered her more: Alix’s annoying habit of using the word right constantly or her pushiness. But she did know she wanted the lunch to end as pleasantly—and as quickly—as possible. “I’ll give it some thought,” she demurred and fixed her attention on her pasta.

After a slight pause, Alix picked up her own fork. “I have to pass it through marketing anyway, but think about it.”

TWO WEEKS LATER, Clare’s fears were realized. Driving out of New York City in her rental car, she couldn’t help but wonder what quirk of fate had plunked her on this inextricable path to her past.

First there had been the tense phone call with Laura, who saw through Clare’s reservations about being godmother immediately. “Don’t pretend you’re too far away to take on the responsibilities of being a godmother to Emma when you and I both know what this is all about,” she’d said.

And when Clare had protested otherwise, Laura merely suggested it was time Clare put the past behind her. “All the clichés apply, Clare baby. Face up to it and get over it. Everyone here’s talking about your book. It’s only for a few days and it’d be so great to see you again.”

Guilt had won out in the end. Laura and Dave were her only remaining friends from Twin Falls and she knew she couldn’t afford to lose them. The christening and the start of the book tour had synchronized with minor adjustments and Clare had had no credible reason—short of feigning insanity or some terminal illness—not to go.

And yet once out on the highway, she actually began to enjoy the drive. It was a perfect autumn day in mid-October—a brilliant blue sky teamed with a harvest-gold sun and there was just the slightest crispness in the air. As she headed northeast toward Connecticut, the scenery turned postcard perfect with splashes of color set against dark green pines on the distant hills.

Clare had left early, hoping to arrive in Twin Falls shortly before dinner. Emma’s christening was set for Sunday morning, so she’d have tonight to visit with Laura and Dave before the book signing Saturday afternoon in—to Clare’s surprise—the town’s bookstore, Novel Idea. The rest of Sunday she was free to do as she pleased. The next signing wasn’t until Monday in Hartford, a mere one-hour drive away.

There had been some disagreement about where she would stay. Laura finally agreed that the local hotel was acceptable given that Clare’s publisher was footing the bill.

“Probably for the best,” Laura had said with an emphatic sigh. “One of us might as well get some sleep.”

“How’s she doing?”

Another sigh. “Emma’s doing great. Dave and I are the ones slogging around in a zombielike state.”

Clare had made the expected sounds of sympathy, then remembered to ask, “Who’s the godfather?”

There’d been the slightest pause before Laura mumbled something about Dave not having yet made a decision.

“Dave?”

“We thought it was only fair if I picked the godmother, he should get to choose the godfather. But you know Dave.”

“Still having trouble making up his mind?”

“Tell me about it.”

They’d laughed together and for a few moments Clare was transported to the old days when she and Laura had shared confidences as well as laughter. When she’d hung up, she realized that due to the isolation induced from finishing her book, it had been a long time since she’d had a giggle with anyone.

Clare popped in a Tori Amos CD and let her mind slip into auto-drive. She’d spent the past two weeks in an increasingly heightened state of anxiety about the visit to Twin Falls. Once the decision to go had finally been made, she had tried to ease her jitters by reminding herself that Gil Harper had left town long before she had and she wasn’t likely to bump into him at the local convenience store.

The music kept her free of the past until the first familiar landmarks of Twin Falls appeared—the white bulbous shape of the town’s water tower looming over trees and rooftops, the spire of the Catholic church and on the opposite side of the river that bisected the town, the bell tower of the Methodist. Clare eased up on the accelerator.

She could either enter town from the first highway exit or take the winding road that afforded a panoramic view and led directly into the town center. Impulsively, she chose that route, and turned right onto the smaller, two-lane paved road. She stopped at the crest of the hill, pulling over onto the shoulder to survey the town.

Twin Falls lay in the valley below, spanning both sides of the river. From Clare’s vantage point, it looked much the same as it had when she’d last seen it.

Tempted to make a quick U-turn and hightail it back to New York, Clare forced herself to focus on the reason for her return—to see her old friend, Laura, and to meet Laura’s first child. Returning to Twin Falls wasn’t really going back, she reminded herself, but moving forward, to the next generation. Although, she wished the christening could have been held somewhere else. She shifted into Drive and angled back onto the road, pumping the brake as the Jetta made the downhill curve to the stop sign below.

But now the stop was a three-way, accommodating a road leading to what appeared to be new houses. Good grief. Twin Falls has a subdivision. Clare didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled. The Jetta continued its descent to the two-lane bridge and Clare instinctively turned her head to the right to see the falls that had given the town its name.

The twin watercourses were too narrow and sparse to be famous beyond the scope of the county. Still, their twenty-foot parallel tumble over a granite rock cliff was impressive enough to be an occasional draw for local daredevils or careless youngsters, resulting in a handful of tragic accidents over the years. Clare noticed that a sturdier and higher metal railing had replaced the original wooden one. She also noticed the new traffic lights a few yards past the end of the bridge and slowed to a stop as the amber light turned red.

Clare was surprised at the line of traffic waiting on the other side and wished she’d taken a better look at the Welcome To Twin Falls sign at the top of the hill. The town’s population had obviously risen from three thousand.

Navigating Main Street was as slow as it had always been, though, no longer due to the country gawkers, as Clare’s father had labeled them. Now traffic crawled because there were more cars.

Clare felt she’d joined the gawker’s club herself, with her head turning from side to side. She had expected some changes in Twin Falls, but expansion hadn’t been one of them. At least two chain stores had opened branches on Main Street—small ones, granted, but the name brands must have set aflutter the hearts of the town’s teenage population. Clare and her friends had had to beg for shopping expeditions to Hartford.

At the end of Main Street, she made a left into the older, residential area where Laura and Dave lived. When Clare was a teenager, she had often walked these streets, wondering what treasures or secrets the grand three-story Victorian homes contained. Set far back on manicured lawns, their elegant verandas and etched-glass front doors had symbolized an era and social class far beyond Clare and her circle of friends.

The neighborhood, known as Riverside Park, had housed the descendants of the town founders, the original settlers who had parlayed their pioneering skills into commercial ventures that became the backbone of the town’s economy. After the Second World War, the population of Riverside Park had swelled as sons and daughters returned with their young families for a simpler way of life.

Clare’s and Laura’s parents were among those who had purchased a postwar bungalow on the outskirts of the town near the highway leading to larger urban areas where many found work. Clare realized that the tract of homes where she grew up—the first subdivision in Twin Falls—must have been met with the same concern by the residents of Riverside Park as she had just felt driving by the new homes on the other side of the bridge.

It was funny, Clare thought, that although she’d spent so many years of her adolescence fantasizing about what went on behind those etched-glass doors, it was Laura—who had always vowed to leave Twin Falls—who eventually moved into one of the stately homes. But Clare could hardly complain. Those same fantasies had inspired her to write the novels that were earning her a living.

As she drove along the street memories flooded her mind. There was the house once owned by the town’s doctor and somewhere in the same block—she couldn’t recall the number—was the former mayor’s home. Judging from the sight of extra meter boxes attached to the sides of some of the homes, there had been a shift from single dwellings to apartments.

The size of the homes diminished slightly as she neared the end of Riverside Drive. Clare slowed down, looking for Elmwood Drive, the side street where Laura and Dave lived. She hung a right and scanned the front doors for number fifty-four. It was midway along the street, and there was a free parking space right in front. Clare eased into it, turned off the engine and sat for a minute, studying the house.

It was a two-story fieldstone with a small veranda—more modest than the grander homes closer to the center of town, but impressive all the same. Its wood trim had been painted a dove gray that complemented the stone of the exterior. A latticed trellis, painted the same color, was attached to one of the veranda’s fieldstone pillars and a thick climbing rose, now boasting clusters of rosehips, spread up and across it. Small clumps of evergreen shrubs filled the gap between veranda and lawn in front of the house.

Clare stared at the glow of lamplight in the front bay window. She inhaled deeply, grabbed hold of the car door and pushed it open. No turning back now.

The front door of the house had been flung open by the time Clare had walked up to the sidewalk and Laura was bounding down the veranda steps. She scarcely had a chance to look at her friend before she was enveloped in a bear hug. Then they stood back and smiled at one another.

“You look fabulous,” Clare said. “I would never believe you’ve just had a baby. Have you got highlights in your hair?”

“Yes. Like it?” Laura executed a dainty pivot. Her honey-blond hair was cut in a shoulder-length bob that swirled around her.

“I do! You look great!”

“You have to say that because you’re my friend, but thanks anyway.” Laura’s cheeks dimpled. “Thank goodness for makeup and that stuff that covers up dark circles under the eyes. But look at you! That flaming red hair will never need highlights. You’ve cut it since I last saw you. I like it.”

“I cut it a while ago, but I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“True. Come on, Dave’s opening a bottle of wine. I may even get a chance to gobble down dinner before Emma’s next feeding.”

“How’s the nursing going?”

“Better. It’s weird, isn’t it? That something so natural should be so damn hard at first?”

Clare smiled. No doubt her friend was tackling motherhood with the same zeal that she’d shown on the cheerleading squad. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” was all she said as she walked arm in arm with her up the steps.

Dave greeted them in a small entrance hall. “Congratulations,” he said, hugging Clare. “At last we know someone famous.”

Clare felt the color rise into her face. “Yeah, right,” she quipped and they all laughed. As teenagers, Laura and Clare had made a bet to see who would become rich and famous enough to move away from Twin Falls. Little did we know, Clare thought, that moving away required neither fame nor money.

“I like the goatee,” she said, smiling at Dave.

“Laura hates it, but thanks.” He shot his wife a told-you-so look that had a tinge of reproof in it.

Clare glanced at Laura’s red face. There was an awkward moment that Laura broke by asking, “Do you want to refresh or something?”

“No, I’m fine. I stopped a few miles outside of town for a break.” Clare followed Laura into a large living room. “This is lovely,” she said. “You’ve done a wonderful job, Laura.”

“Sit here, it’s the most comfy chair.” She gestured to a plump chintz-covered armchair next to a sofa where she herself perched.

“Are things okay between you and Dave?” Clare asked as soon as they sat down.

Laura gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t be alarmed by the sniping you just witnessed. It’s the usual husband-and-wife tension after the first child.”

“I would’ve thought a baby would bring you closer.”

“She has, but there are other things. Dave isn’t happy with his work and we’ve taken a real pay cut since I decided to stay at home with Emma for a while.”

“Are you getting any help from your folks?”

“They’re living on a fixed income now so…”

“How are they, anyway?”

“Good. They sold their house last year and moved into a new condo on the edge of town.”

“Condos? God, I can’t believe how much this place has changed.”

“Believe it. Did you notice the subdivision as you came in?”

“Yes! And is it my imagination, or are there twice as many cars on the road?”

“Twin Falls is becoming one of those satellite communities you read about. People working in Hartford want to live in a rural environment.” She laughed. “Can you believe it? Twin Falls as a rural environment? Remember how we used to make fun of the farm kids who were bused into school?”