Golden Vows by Karen Toller Whittenburg Read Free Book Online Page A

Bay. A place of quietly lapping water and tall evergreens. A good place for thinking ... for healing.
    “I’d like to rent the cottage, Martha, but only on condition that I pay the same rent as anyone else. No favors, all right?”
    “Humph! Favors?” Martha said with a quicksilver flash of humor. “I don’t believe in that sort of thing. You’ll pay the same—no, I take that back. You’ll pay more. That seems only fair. Don’t you think so, Dane?”
    He stood staring out the window, as if he hadn’t heard ... or didn’t care.
    “Dane?” Martha repeated her attempt to gain his attention.
    Slowly he turned, his expression a study of indifference. “I’m sure you’ll be fair with Amanda. And I’m equally sure she’ll be happy, wonderfully happy, living in the cottage. Alone.”
    Drawn by the intensity in his voice, Amanda searched his face for a clue to his feelings. He was behaving so strangely today. With a sigh, she lowered her gaze. What did she expect? Of course he wasn’t himself. This was as awkward and uncomfortable for him as for her. The tension in the room was so heavy, it could have been bottled and sold by weight.
    Happy. Alone. His words lay somberly in her mind. It had been some time since she’d experienced either state. But she needed to be alone and she would learn to be happy again. Maybe not right away, not tomorrow. But soon. Soon.
    * * * *
    At the end of the month Amanda moved into her new home. Martha’s cottage was a two-story frame house with a back deck that faced the bay. Dane pronounced the exterior structurally sound and left the condition of the interior to Amanda. Surprisingly she didn’t find the torn wallpaper and pallid walls dismaying but saw, instead, a challenge. Her training in interior design and her innate love of color kept creating visions of redecorated rooms complete with new draperies and furnishings.
    With each box she carried into the house, Amanda found herself stopping to weigh the merits of one color against another or the effect a particular fabric might produce. More than once Dane had to prod her from the imaginary redecorating to the more pressing activity of moving in.
    He had been insistent upon helping her “get settled” and Amanda hadn’t been able to fault his cautious friendliness, although she’d tried. He was making the move easy, taking care of details that might trouble her. And, perversely, she wanted him to be less helpful, less concerned. His careful attitude told her that he still felt a certain amount of responsibility for her well-being. At times Amanda wished he would dispense with the pretense, and at other times she wished his outward concern was real.
    But she knew that all pretense between them would soon be at an end. She had already made the appointment to see an attorney next week. When she’d told Dane, he’d simply nodded, seemingly anxious to get her settled and begin anew—without her. It was understandable, of course. She felt the same way, didn’t she?
    And she thought it was perfectly natural to feel a sadness, a sense of disappointment and loss at a time like this.
    Tactfully, Dane had left her to pack whatever she wanted to take from their home. He offered no suggestions and no protests when he saw the two small boxes that hid her most treasured mementos. She was glad he couldn’t see inside the boxes to the sentiment they sheltered.
    Somehow she didn’t want him to know what she had chosen to keep. The scrapbook of pictures, the rose now dried and faded but still scented with remembrance, a charm bracelet, a book of poetry, a conch shell endlessly whispering of happier days, the pudgy stuffed bear Dane had given her when she was so discouraged about ever conceiving a child, the tiny shoes meant for her son, but never worn. So many little things that reminded her, would always remind her. She wanted nothing else.
    Still there were things that couldn’t be left behind and, reluctantly, Amanda packed these too.