Graves' Retreat by Ed Gorman Read Free Book Online Page A

big sign that said, F. A. SIMMONS REAL ESTATE BROKER.
        He went up to the carriage and peered in.
        “Hello,” Susan Edmonds said. “Would you like to go for a ride?”
        “Sure.”
        As always when he saw her, he felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and fear-glad to see her, afraid that he would someday lose her.
        He climbed aboard.
        There had been no rain recently. The streets were dusty but very smooth. She handed him the reins and they set off. He’d been on such rides before and knew where to go. The edge of town.
        He got glimpses of Susan in the moonlight. She wore a white summer dress, lacy and with a high collar, and brooch at her throat. The brooch, he knew, had belonged to her maternal grandmother, her favorite.
        “Mrs. Smythe said there was a scene at your house tonight.”
        “Yes,” she said. “Yes, there was.” She sounded worn.
        “I’m sorry.”
        “So am I.”
        She started to cry.
        “Is it-your father again?”
        “Yes.”
        He didn’t know what else to say. He repeated, “I’m sorry.”
        The horse moved smartly as the carriage rounded a bend filled with moonlight on dewy grass and pine trees. The smell was rich and deep and sweet, so much so that you wanted to get out and hold the pine in your hand and inhale it even deeper.
        “He’s so mean to Byron.”
        “I know.”
        “You do?”
        “I’ve seen him at the bank,” Les said. “He makes Byron jump.”
        “Byron doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.”
        “Byron’s a good man.”
        She looked at him. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
        “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
        “Some people would see Byron as their rival. I mean-our relationship and all-”
        “Whatever our relationship, Susan, it doesn’t alter the fact that Byron’s a good man. He is.”
        “I think Daddy takes special delight in bullying Byron.”
        “Why?”
        “Oh, because Byron’s family is old money. His people came here at the time when the original setders did from the East and the South. They had money before they got here, really, many of them. Daddy can’t forget he’s from the farm or that he wouldn’t own a bank at all if there hadn’t been that bank collapse back in ’57 and he got it when it went into receivership. That’s the funny thing. The wealthy people here have accepted Daddy and been very nice to him-it’s Daddy who can’t accept them-or himself.”
        “So he takes it out on Byron.”
        “Yes.”
        They reached a point where they always stopped and strolled along the river.
        He sensed that tonight was not a good time to take her hand. That she was too troubled for romance.
        They walked. On the air floated silver particles of fluffy dandelions and fireflies and pieces of dust motes in moonbeams. To their right the Cedar ran peacefully along and on the opposite shore a stand of white birches were like sentries in the night.
        They came to a pavilion used for picnicking. He put his hands round her tiny waist and helped her up to sit on the edge of the cross beam so she could look down at the river.
        “There’s something I need to say.”
        Something in the way she said it made him pay special attention.
        He was so afraid of her impending words that he could scarcely breathe.
        “All right,” he said, barely able to talk.
        Ever since he had held her note in his hands he had sensed she was going to say something terrible. Something-final.
        “I’ve spent the past week thinking about us, Les.”
        “Me, too.”
        “I thought back to how we met. At that bam dance last spring. And how ever since we kept running into each other and how-without anything ever really happening-we seemed truly drawn to each